Melody The Story of a Child

e toes of the little street children, who creep about, sheltering their eyes with their hands, and keeping in the shade when it is possib

ns, waving in all degrees of energy. Here and there is seen an umbrella, but these are not frequent, for it seems to the American a strange and womanish thing to carry an umbrella except for rain; it also requires attention, and takes a man's mind off his business. Each man of all the hurrying thousands is shut up in himself, carrying his little world, which is all the world there is, about with him,

reets of the great city. An old man, tall and slender, with snowy hair falling in a single curl over his forehead; with brown eyes which glance birdlike here and there, seeing everything, taking in eve

ets that may lurk within. Now and then a house seems to take his fancy, for he stops, and still looking up at the windows, plays a tune. It is generally the same tune,-a simple, homely old air, which the street-boys can readily

ich is in his mind night and day, day and night) and scans the faces around him, with sad, eager eyes. Then, stopping short in his playing, he taps sharply on his f

women, with bold eyes, with loose hair and disordered looks. So he sits and plays, a quaint, old-world figure, among the laughing, dancing, foolish crowd. Old De Arthenay, from the Androscoggin,-what would his ancestor, the gallant Marquis who came over with Baron Castine to America, what would the whole line of ancestors, from the crusaders down, say to see their descendant in such a place as this? He has always held his head high, though he has earned his bread by fiddling, varied by shoemaking in the winter-time. He has always kept good company, he would tell you, and would rather go hungry any day than earn a dinner among people who do not regard the decencies of life. Even in this place, people come to feel the quality of the old man, somehow, and no one speaks rudely to him; and voices are even lowered as they pass him, sitting grave and erect on his stool, his magic bow flying, his foot keeping time to the music. All the old tunes he plays, "Money Musk," and "Portland Fancy," and "Lady of the Lake." Now he quavers into the "Chorus Jig;" but no one here knows enough to dance that, so he comes back to the simpler airs again. And as he plays, the whole tawdry, glaring scene drops away from the old man's eyes, and instead of vulgar gaslight he sees the soft glow of the afternoon sun on the country road, and the graceful elms bending in an arch overhead, as if to watch the child Melody as she dances. The slende

k tomorrow! There's One has her in charge, and

henay! God speed and

e

, undaunted, wandering by tower and town, singing his song of love and hope and undying loyalty under every window, till