The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-08-17
AN 1DYL OF GREEN WAYS.

The gentle ardor of a midsummer
 sun had hardly dried the early dew be-
 fore the feet of the lad who followed
 the windings of the beaten path. He walked slowly, with head bent and eyes fixed unseeingly on the wayside poppies whose scarlet silken blooms he l slashed off as he went with quick
 blows of a slender switch. He was per-
 haps 19, a graceful stripling, with re- bellious gold hair that kept blowing low over his forehead, and smooth
 cheeks where the red showed clear un-
 der his tan. His eyes, when he raised
 them to gaze listlessly ahead, showed | deep blue like sapphires but their clear calmness was clouded as the mirror-like surface of a little lake is | filmed by a momentary breeze.
 The path he followed wound round
 the foot of a wooded knoll, and then
 just ahead of him left the open and
 struck off through nHsspl-aeshdmf
 struck off through sun-splashed
 grove of beeches, at whose verge,
 bough- shaded and grass-set, there was
 fountain, broad, shallow stone bowl
 held on the bent shoulders of three
 marble fauns. When the boy reached
 this he stopped and drank deep of the cool water; then he sank down on the grass and finding it comfortable, threw himself on his back in the still shade, his hands locked under his head and his eyes shut. There was long si- lence, only the shrilling of August in- sects pulsed in the air Then he sighed.
 "Oh, I grow so yearly waiting and waiting, and never knowing! All day long I go about whispering her name and talking to her And she-she laughs. Always she laughs"
 A murmurous breath moved in the boughs above him, and the bubbles in the fountain brokew ith an elfin tinkle.
 There is no girl in all the world so sweet-or so preverse. She will not say she hates me, nor yet that she loves me. And I, my mouth shapes a kiss each time I see her, my heart beats so cannot breathe Oh, sweetheart; sweetheart!"
 For a moment he lay still then suddenly pulled his hands from under his head and sat up. Somewhere in the air, fainting and swelling with the | ftful wind was the sound of clear whistle blowing a little Hitting tune that ran aimlessly on with many leaps | and breaks like the play of water oyer | stones. The boy leaned on one hand | and with parted lips stared wide-eyed | down the path where it came round | the edge of the knoll. The whistle | grew louder, and of a sudden, girl l came into sight, slim and eate, mov- ing with a step marvelously light and 1 free. She followed the path toward | the fountain her eyes on bunch of | poppies in her hand, and apparently | unaware of her lover. Then, when she was within a few steps of him, with a pretty start she halted and gave back the gaze that met hers. You have eaned at a wells rim and looked far, lar down at the water with the shift ng sunlits in the depths; such dark wells were her eyes, with the gleam of un in them She had cloud of lark hair and her red mouth trembled with tenderness and laughter.
 For a little she gave her eyes to hose that looked up yearningly; then she leaned aginst the foun- ain, and dabbling her slender fingers n the water she dimpled at the moody l ace before her.
 "Alack-a day, what languishing is l ere! The worlds a dreary place. in- eed, and empty of joys. Why not ind your brows with cypress and for wear smiles forever?"
 She threw back her head and aughed, bubbling, tinkling rapture f inarticulate delight; but the boy nly looked down and pulled up hand uls of the fresh grass. You are cruel to me-" she said, in a