"But of course all that," said Professor Trevenor to a squirrel that undulated up to his feet, "happened some time ago; and I suppose we have to remember that Nature turns, even though she does not change. For one thing, we are not so abrupt about killing people nowadays."

The squirrel went away.

"Doubtless your course is the proper one," said Professor Trevenor, and strolled up to the Museum to browse among classical antiques.

C

THE SEA

ALAN D. MICKLE

HIN upon hand I lie upon the sleek, green, velvet-like robe of the headland. And far below me the green

sea breaks upon the rocks or creeps in lazy enjoyment up the white, sandy shore. And I think of the sea-the sea awakened by the storm, raging, roaring, leaping, dancing in a Bacchanalian riot of immense pleasure. And the sea sleeping, heaving and rolling easily, beneath perfume-laden tropic breezes and cloudless tropic skies. Sleeping with strange, shadow-like monsters moving silently, swiftly, in its depths like thoughts in the mind of a profound man.

W

PARALLEL STREET

OSCAR GRAEVE

HEN Nellie Saunders lay dying on her white bed in the room over the saloon, she made Mike promise he'd sell out and get away, far away, from Parallel Street. "I want the kid to have a chanst, Mike," she urged huskily, in that soft Irish voice of hers which was already faint and quavering.

And Mike, his big red hands clutched together in agony, promised and promised again.

But it was very hard to break away from Parallel Street; the saloon cleared him a thousand dollars every year which he invested in Long Island real estate on the instalment plan; and, besides, little Clara was so little that no harm could come to her, not even from Parallel Street. Mike debated the matter with himself and decided that he could not afford to sell out his business for a year or two anyway. He was not a young man. It wasn't as if he could turn to something new with a light heart and without misgivings. So he got old Mrs. Whip to come in and keep house for him and look after the kid. He gave her strict orders not to let Clara go down into the saloon, especially not to let her go near the back room where the women and the girls went with their men. And he saw to it that the door that led to the back stairs was kept locked. Not that there was much danger. For all day long the back room stood empty and waiting; it was only late at night, long after little Clara was curled up in bed, asleep, that the women, the hollow-eyed, carmine-cheeked women, came.

Mike considered, a little later, sending Clara to a boarding-school, but he could not bring himself to the act of giving her up; now that Nellie was gone the child's soft hands pattering over his rough face, her lisping questions, her hundred little endearments woven into his life, had come to mean too much to him.

For a time he also thought of doing away with the back room. But, after all, nothing wrong went on there. Just drink

ing. If the sodden couples travelled elsewhere afterward, that was none of his business. If they didn't come to his saloon for their booze they'd continue down the street to Flynn's or Jacobson's and he might as well get the money as these other fellows. He needed it. He put it to good use. All the time that Long Island real estate was growing in extent and value, and some day there would be enough so that he and Clara and old Mrs. Whip could say good-bye to Parallel Street and move to a white painted cottage in the country with a porch where a man could smoke his pipe of evenings, and a cabbage and potato patch in the rear where he could dig and plant, sweat in the sun and harvest.

Meanwhile Clara was growing. She was a little, fat white grub, rolling around the floor, crawling around, probing into things, curious, poking her head under beds, bureaus, tables, tasting scraps of paper, pins, anything she picked up, nestling in big Mike's arms, pulling at his moustache, as he snatched a minute from the bar to say good-night to her. She was a thin, reedy child with long, thin, black legs, with her light, fluffy hair hanging in a thick braid down her back, bringing her school books to the puzzled, stammering Mike for explanations, slipping her flower of a hand into his. Finally, she was a tall, slender girl, a creature so sweet, so wonderful, so clever that he gazed at her in awe and asked himself how it came that he had so incomparable a daughter as this . . . and yet, she was like Nellie; as he looked at her he thought of his promise to his dead wife. But then he laughed tenderly and thought of the folly of sweet Nellie.

Sunday mornings Mike walked to St. Mary's with Clara. St. Mary's was five blocks east of Parallel Street and every block was a triumphal procession for Mike as he strode along beside his daughter.

"Nobody thinks I'm your pa," he said to her. "They think I'm some bum you was sorry for an' picked up."

"Ah, go on, pa," said Clara, laughing and joking. "You're a fine-looking man and you know it and you just want me to tell it to you."

Then Mike laughed, too, and threw out his chest just as he

had done in the days when he walked beside Nellie, proud and puffed up with the winning of her. The next morning he took himself down to the Emporium and bought a grey suit with a long-tailed coat such as Alderman Quinn wore and also a silk hat with the shiniest lustre you ever saw.

But he did not tell Clara about this splendid raiment until the following Sunday at church-going time. Clara cried out when she saw him and spun him around and kissed him with: "You do look grand, pa."

St. Mary's Church stood in a very respectable neighborhood of three-story brick houses, each with its patch of grass in front; and although, when the wind was right, you could hear the noise and traffic of Parallel Street, it was a very quiet region by comparison. On their way home from church one bright windy Sunday, Clara turned to Mike and said, "Pa, I wish we could live over here."

She had never spoken like this before and Mike gazed at her in surprise: "Why, what's the matter, darlin'?"

"Oh, I don't know. I hate Parallel Street! I want to get away from it!"

Then Mike told her about the white cottage in the country and Clara shone as radiant as a rose when the sunlight falls upon it. All the way home they talked about the white cottage, about furnishing it and about the garden that was to be an inseparable and indispensable part of it.

After that, Clara asked almost every day, "When are we going to leave Parallel Street, pa?" But he always answered, Now, just in a little time, darlin'."

66

After a while Clara did not ask him any more.

All these years the stream of pollution, of vice, of good and bad intermingled, flowed up and down Parallel Street and much of it poured in and out of the back room of Mike Saunders' saloon. Little Clara with her finger on her lips stood on the threshold of life and looked and questioned. Every year Mike said: "Well, next year she'll be away from it. There ain't no danger yet." And every year the money that was drawn from grimy pockets and slapped down on wet tables in payment for

beer or whisky or gin brought that little white cottage nearer— but not near enough.

Quite suddenly, much to Mike's amazement, Clara seemed to have a "fellow." "The fresh kid!—she's only seventeen,” said Mike to himself; but he was not altogether displeased and he was content to let Clara have the youth call on her in the parlor upstairs evenings, even to escort her to the moving picture show and, once or twice, to the real theatre, until he discovered that the young man was the nephew of Ignatius Flynn who kept the saloon down the street.

"Now, look here, Clara," he said to his daughter, when he learned this: "I ain't got any kick against your having a nice young feller come an' see you. But I don't want you keeping company with nobody in the liquor business-see? We're goin' to get out of it soon and stay out."

Jack Flynn's a nice

Clara was unexpectedly obstinate. young fellow and I don't think you ought to act like this, pa. He's always been polite and refined and you don't see too much of that on Parallel Street. I could tell you of many a real swell gentleman who isn't."

But Mike waved his hand and rolled his big head from side to side. "I don't want to argue with you. If Jack wants to get in some other business, he can call on you; if he don't, he can't." Clara's eyes filled, she sobbed. "I can't have any pleasure. I never have anything other girls have."

Why, Clara, I've give you everything you asked for ever since you was a little kid

"Oh, I want more than clothes and jewelry!" cried the girl. "I'm young. I want to have some fun. When I'm lying in bed I can hear them talking and laughing in the back room down below. Sometimes I feel as if I'd like to run down and say: 'I'm younger than any of you and I don't need paint to make me pretty. Why can't I have a good time, too?""

When Mike recovered his breath, he shouted, "Cut that talk out! Don't you dare"

But Clara, her arm thrown over her eyes, rushed out of the room. He heard her door slam, the bolt shoot across. He