Page 40

THE WISCONSIN MAGAZINE
the perfect gentleman though ?  Wasn't
it just grand of him to give up his seat
the minute he saw that a lady was stand-
ing?" Then the wavy-haired one went on
discussing Mr. Smith in soft undertones
all the rest of the way, until they reached
their station.
  If Mary saw underneath the sham of the
perfect gentleman and found there the
cheapness of his ready chivalry, she did
not enlighten his admirers. But, perhaps
the image which she treasured in her heart,
even on that sultry morning in the early
Indian summer, of the man whom some-
time she would know as being worthy,
manly, and kindly chivalrous, was some-
one very different from the one who stood
just ahead of her in the aisle, Mr. John
Smith, gentleman.
          LONELINESS
        By Ruth M Boyle, '16
I wandered restlessly o'er yellow hill
And shadowed coulee, where the sunburnt range,
Brown, barren, treeless, lonely mile on mile,
Its solitary length in stillness stretched
To meet the faintly outlined mountain edge.
Here, ragged gray-green sage-brush crowded thick,
Like herds of sheep close huddling for the night;
There, clumps of buckbrush broke the tawny stretch
Or willows marked the pathway of a creek.
Sudden, I came upon a crazy cliff
That sank abruptly to a dim ravine below;
And half-way down-lo!*close embracing great
Protecting rocks, a scrubby fir tree grew.
A waif it was-a ragged cast-away,
But crippled, dusty, helpless tho it seemed,
Its spicy breath tree-thronged the barrenness
The forest soul-its hush and quiet faith-
It brot, and made the waste-land home to me.
So, love, if out of all this alien crowd-
This wilderness of unresponsive souls-
Your face should flash an instant's thotless smile,
'Twould seem the whole strange throng to humanize,
'Twould make each walled-in city soul my kin.
40