der General Lee. He is a very brave soldier, so I've been told. Mr. Harcourt, not General Lee.

I don't know how it came about, but he asked me if I would marry him, nor do I know how I answered; I was monstrous put out. When he left me, however, he said he should expect an answer tomorrow. Tomorrow is Saturday, and he starts south Monday. Oh dear, what shall I do?

April 25th.

Oh, it seems so long since Friday night. I found out Saturday morning that Uncle and Madame sail for England Wednesday and expect me to go with them.

I knew I never could be content with them in a strange country, so I sent Black Mose to the Tavern where Captain Harcourt stops.

I have no relatives to care for me, and I don't think I shall ever be sorry if I marry Mr. Harcourt.

It all seems like a dream.

I am going to put this little journal into the pocket of my old dress at the bottom of my trunk. Madame may understand and forgive.

The watchman has just cried 12 o'clock. I must go to the old summer house. I wonder if I am doing very wrong?

S. M. A., 'OI.

AN OLD FASHIONED COUNTRY DANCE.

Turn your eyes away from the gay dazzling pictures which the words 'hall' and 'dance' bring to my mind and rest them, for sweet variety's sake, in the rather small, dim, bare room where the boys and girls of a little village, once the Fayetteville of Eugene Field, bring the ever happy hearts and light feet of the expectant dancer. Even when the stove has been removed for the occasion the space is very small. At the centre of the front is a tiny stage with rudely painted scenery, where the musicians sit. On a level with this the girls may find a dressing-room, containing no hooks, a settee, one chair, and a mirror, dusty, cracked, and hopelessly out of reach. But they use each other for mirrors, if need there be, and march sedately out to take their places stiffly on the seats fixed close against walls around three sides of the room. They are so high, these seats, that only a tall girl can comfortably settle her feet on the floor. Straight-backed and narrow they urge the occupant to be off to the dance.

Only a few sit in the darksome gallery above, for there is no brilliant spectacle here to attract the eye. No light and delicate dresses are spread daintily out on the opposite seats; no sombre dress-suits keep watch from the seats at the back. Here and there a bright waist stands out in relief of color from the rest, but for the most part should you go to the white meeting-house on a Sunday you would find the same gowns, the same suits.

With reason you were bidden to think of no dazzling picture. Electricity, and even gas, might as well not be. All the light for the dancers comes from two groups of oil lamps suspended from the ceiling. The chimneys are clean, else one could not recognize his dearest friend across the hall. Up in the gallery twilight reigns, and the stage has a lamp of its own.

Some faces are still glowing from the long sleigh-ride hither, and the boys are just coming in from caring for their horses, when

the floor manager ceases to scatter his wax, the fiddler looks to his bow, and the prompter shouts, "Take partner for a quadrille."

Then begins the maze of whirling and turning, of bowing and balancing, of crossing and re-crossing, which to the uninitiated must seem the maddest confusion. It is curious, though, to see how quickly such a one will recognize a movement gone astray. Its rhythm, its completeness, casts a spell over the dancer, and holds the spectator in a gaze, tinged with longing, perhaps, but intent upon the intricate moves which he cannot understand, but whose perfection he must perforce feel. To the dancer the music gives its own commands, and he moves in dreamy obedience. There is an unreality in it, a feeling that it must continue forever, a joy of harmonious motion which makes one alone with himself and the music as he weaves in and out among friends and strangers as in a dream. Then comes the inevitable, inflexible, "Around the hall," and he goes again to dangle his impatient feet off those unhappy seats. Who willingly does penance in the intervals of a dance? What grudging spirit, what bleak heart conceived those mockeries of resting places?

So with mingling of contra-dances and "line-ups," with here and there a waltz or two-step, when nearly all turn spectators, the evening flies away, and the village clock strikes twelve. As you watch the couples trooping past, now at last, you think, it is time for the lights to go out and leave the desolate place to its memories. But some people are staying, and if you follow the others they will lead you gaily across the "green" to the county house parlor, and then to the dining-room. It is, indeed, an old-fashioned supper. From oysters to ice-cream no one hastens, but no minutes are wasted, and before the clock has had time to strike again they have formed for another quadrille in the hall.

So one dance succeeds another, but before many hours have slipped away the fun seems to pall between times, though never in the midst of a dance, and some thoughts wander off to the end. And then comes the last one, at once the soberest, and the gayest and happiest of them all. It seems as if it could never, as

if it must never, end. A delicious dread of this pervades its every change. The fiddle and the organ grow weary at last, reluctantly the sets break up, and still feeling the whirl of those last turns, the girls go for their shawls, and the boys of the next little village for their teams.

It is good to be out in the fresh, cold air once more. The peace of that swift ride in the white, starry world to the music of the bells is just the fitting ending to the tumult of the joy of the hours before.

B. A. D., '02.

"What's the use of College Athletics?" is a question sometimes hurled at us. And we answer-what? Perhaps we say that they furnish an exercise of the heart and will, of the body and brain. Perhaps we say they are good for College Spirit. In any case, we say that they are worth while.

"What's the use of College Debating?" is a question which is going to be asked us soon. And we are going to answerwhat? It is a curious fact that, while foot-ball and base-ball and track athletics have excited almost as much interest as could be expected, it has been impossible to firmly establish a Debating Club in Tufts, or even to arouse a respectable amount of interest in debating. Yet nearly every reason which can be urged in support of College Athletics may be applied to College Debating. It furnishes an exercise of the heart and will and brain;-perchance of the body, too. It is good for College Spirit. A foot-ball game is interesting because it is a struggle of strength and skill and training. A debate is no less a struggle,-—a struggle in which strength and cunning of intellect are joined with training.

What is all this about? Simply this. Why not put our hands and our hearts to a thing so much worth while as College Debating? Why not let the man-of-brains side of our College be as fully represented in the world as the man-of-muscle side? There is, in fact, a movement to place debating on a firm basis in Tufts College. It is not an enterprise for which students alone are responsible. It originated on the faculty side of the fence, and therefore has an added significance. The plan is this: to establish a Debating Club composed of men who are willing to put