legions of frost and snow, — logs crackling brightly laugh at him and festive wine cups glow. Her awful Majesty the Plague now comes at us with nothing vague about her aims and appetite; with a grave-digger's spade she knocks at windows day and night. Where should we look for aid? Just as we deal with Winter's pest against this one it will be best to stay in lighted rooms and drink and drown our minds, and jest. Come, let us dance upon the brink to glorify Queen Pest! There's bliss in battle and there's bliss on the dark edge of an abyss and in the fury of the main amid foam-crested death; in the Arabian hurricane and in the Plague's light breath. All, all such mortal dangers fill a mortal's heart with a deep thrill of wordless rapture that bespeaks maybe, immortal life, — and happy is the man who seeks and tastes them in his strife. And so, Dark Queen, we praise thy reign! Thou callest us, but we remain unruffled by the chill of death, clinking our cups, carefree, drinking rose-lipped maiden's breath full of the Plague, maybe! An old Clergyman enters. The Clergyman What godless feast is this, you godless madmen? Your revelry and ribald songs insult the silent gloom spread everywhere by death! Among the mourners and their moans, among pale faces, I was praying in the churchyard whither the thunder of your hateful orgies came troubling drowsy graves and rocking the very earth above the buried dead. Had not the prayers of women and old men blessed the dark pit of death's community I might have thought that busy fiends to-night were worrying a sinner's shrieking spirit and dragging it with laughter to their den. Several Voices A masterly description of inferno! Be gone, old priest! Go back the way you came! The Clergyman Now I beseech you by the holy wounds of One Who bled upon the Cross to save us, — break up your monstrous banquet, if you hope to meet in heaven the dear souls of all those you lost on earth. Go to your homes! The Chairman Our homes are dismal places. Youth is fond of gladness. The Clergyman Can it be you — you, Walsingham? the same man who but three weeks ago stood on his knees and wept as he embraced his mother's corpse, and writhed, and rocked, and howled over her grave? Or do you think she does not grieve right now — grieve bitterly, even in God's abode — as she looks down at her disheveled son maddened by wine and lust, and hears his voice a voice that roars the wildest songs between the purest prayer and the profoundest sigh? Arise and follow me! The Chairman Why do you come to trouble thus my soul? Here am I held by my despair, by memories that kill me, by the full knowledge of my evil ways,
