This ethereal figure in its kimono of palest amber brocade, embroidered with cuckoos and sword-grass, the slender neck rising from folds of lavender gauze interwoven with golden threads-is in reality Genoski, the great female personator, whose face has the delicate contour of the aristocratic Japanese woman. As she gazes at her reflection in the polished metal an expression of deep despondency overspreads her face. She rises and with matchless grace begins to unwind her costly obi. When the last undulating fold falls at her feet she lifts her darklyfringed lids and gazes at the audience with eyes in whose soft depths unutterable anguish is betrayed. A burst of enthusiasm shows the appreciation of the spectators at this wonderful facial exhibition. "Yah! yah!" they cry, whilst many a paper handkerchief absorbs the tears of sympathy which a daughter's heroic selfsacrifice calls forth, for, as we divine, this renowned beauty of the Yoshiwara is the old beggar's daughter, and his murderer in the adjoining chamber is prepared to take possession of his other helpless victim. Notwithstanding Genoski's wonderful acting, we are half inclined to flee precipitately at this juncture. But our apprehensions are groundless. As the lovely "Little Dragon" (her professional sobriquet*) lifts her rounded arms to remove the trinkets which lie glittering in the heavy meshes of her hair, she starts violently. A butterfly is poised upon the mirror's edge, and now it flutters round the room. 66 Naruhodo! Watakushi mo osoremas!" ("Oh, wonder, I greatly fear"), she murmurs, falling upon her knees. She is overcome with dread, for her religion has taught her that a disem

*The beauties of the Yoshiwara have titles bestowed upon them.

bodied spirit temporarily occupies the form of this frail diaphonous insect. Though this belief is born of superstition, we can accept the fancy allegorically; and does not our venerable Boston sage, in the "Autocrat," call the butterfly "the image of the beatified spirit rising from the dust"? As the trembling and terrified girl watches the butterfly flit away into the shadowy distance, a trap-door opens and there appears a ghastly head encircled with blood. Speechless with dread, she recognizes her father's face. It turns and gazes upon the slumbering murderer. A long, slender hand steals out of the gloom and points first to the sleeping man and then to the bloody circlet, when face and hand vanish. The expression of that awful face and the significant gesture of the waving hand have revealed to the daughter a secret she had long suspected. She kneels for some moments with clasped hands, a look of deadly determination stealing over her features; then, rising, glides across the threshold of the inner apartment. As "Little Dragon" stealthily draws from the villain's girdle his long, keen katana, we think of Bernhardt's livid oval face when, as Theodora, she pierces Marcellus to the heart with the dagger taken from her hair. There is the same expression of mingled horror and resolution as she nerves herself for the attack.

The great blade flashes as she lifts it on high, then through and through the silken coverlet it pierces, stabbing the body of her enforced and detested para

mour.

"It was ghastly, blood-curdling!" we cry, as we are whirled away in our double jinrikisha to the Shinbaski station.

"But Genoski's face!" Reader, you must one day see it for yourself.

BE

Susie H. Brewer.

fashion out of it a warrior who, stretching forth his brawny, earth-strong arms, would free them forever from the oppressor's yoke. Thus would the Aztec empire unfurl again her banners to the world.

From this tradition came the story told by Panduro of his grandfather Panduro el Grande, on a night when the wind moaned with pain under the excessive burden of the rain, and the mangoes growing in the huerta flung wild branches upon the roof, loosening the tiles from the bamboo framework and shivering them against the ground, and the tallow dip

straight as the glance of an eagle, and whose soul was crowned with courage as the mountains are topped with cedarsa fitting husband for Maria la Hermosa, of purest Aztec strain.

A strange child was Panduro el Grande, with listening eyes and silent tongue, a dreamer, who told, when questioned, of unknown folk whispering messages

through the leaves of the fresnos.

"He is a weakling," declared Panduro, "with his heart in the place of his muscle, and the tendons of his legs slack like the strings of an unused harp. He can neither

shoot nor run, and will only sit and dimple clay."

"I tell He has a Prithee be

"Leave him be!" cried Maria. thee thou knowest him not. work to do, I feel it so. patient yet a little while."

"Cierto! Thou shamest thy sire's blood with thy tolerance. Doth it swell the bladder of thy pride to watch him? He passes his days with his hands in the mud and his nights with his head in the sky, counting the stars as a crone counts her beads. Espiritu Santo! he is a woman-child, a doe that should be belled and lead to browse. I can scarce lift my eyes for shame of him.”

But the boy Panduro grew into a youth, tall and straight as a young ash, lithe of movement, with sinuous groins and long slender arms and pliant hands, standing apart from the village gatherings in lone wastes of sand, peopling his world with silent things-brutes and birds that sprung from his touch like toads from raindrops, and sometimes the head of gnome peeping from a hollow in the soil.

"He has gone earth-mad," 't was whispered, "and is possessed of a strange cunning in his hands. "T is said that he has made a Christ upon the cross like that in the cathedral. Dost think he would also dare Our Lady of Guadalupe and not be punished for his sin?"

But Panduro went on modeling dreams in clay, and the people of San Pedro grew to fear him for the things he did and to reverence him for the things he said not, for he would neither ask nor answer questions. Yet his father scoffed: ""T is plain to see that he has neither fists for striking nor muscle to resist a blow. His is a woman's soul. He does caress the very clay. Silence! I warn thee that I will hear no more of him!"

It was past the feast of Easter when Panduro called in ringing tones to Maria: "Here, woman! Here, I say! Dost doze like a lazy burro in the shade of the cacti, that thou payest no heed to thy master's voice? Come hither and listen to the news that I have brought thee. 'Tis thy woman's wit that has chanced to light upon a God's-truth as a gadding bee doth scent a honey-flower. The boy Panduro does a mighty work. The padre himself

has half confessed as much." And then Panduro with flashing eyes and hurried speech told of how in the market-places and about the fountains of Guadalajara, in the villages of Mejicalcingo and San Luis Potosi, and throughout the State of Jalisco there was repeated a wonderful story of Panduro, son of Panduro and Maria; of how old Pancho had dreamed it, and Juan had seen it in a vision granted him by the Blessed Virgin, and all of Aztec blood did talk of it-the coming of an Aztec Emperor to marshal his forces under the great green banner of the Montezumas, that the hated race of Spain should be expelled and the glory of Mexico restored forever.

"But of Panduro, the chiquito Panduro?" cried Maria. "I hear naught of his name."

"And it is of him that I will speak when thou wilt consent to stop thy nagging and canst persuade thy tongue to give thine ears a hearing. This say they of Panduro muchacho-that being pure of deed and pure of soul, knowing no passion, (the girl Beatriz may as well cast pebbles into the arroyo as glances into the eves of Panduro, the prophecy has writ it so,) he is chosen by the saints for the fulfillment of the Word; that from out the juggle of his hands shall spring a mighty warrior—”

"Did I not tell thee so," said Maria, "in years gone by, when thou wert as blind as the beggar Pepe and would believe nothing that thou couldst not see?"

"I bid thee bite thy string of words in twain' if thou wouldst hear what I have got to tell thee. Well, he has done it. He has made the man, he-my son Panduro has fashioned with his fingers out of common clay and mud an Emperor for the Aztec race 't is talked about in all the villages-who only waits upon Our Lady of Guadalupe to bestow upon him. life. And it is this that is the secret. See that thou guard it as thou wouldst a new-born babe. There are those who have seen him, the Conquerer-draw near and listen!-down in the circle of the sands whence the barranca presses its parted lips to the sky. How looks he? Burro! He looks not at all, but stands shrouded from the fingers of his mighty

outstretched hand to the tips of his great sandals in a clinging robe kept continually moist by dews from heaven, and none dare raise the cloth to look upon his face. His birthday has not come as yet. He waits upon Our Lady. But the Indians upon the mesas have armed themselves and listen for his call."

"And the chiquito Panduro-what says he?"

"He? Stupid that thou art, 't is a wonder that thy two black braids are not changed into a pair of wagging ears to make an agreement between the inside

serape the embers upon which frizzled tortillas for their midday meal. ""T will be a week in two days since he has flung his body in rest upon the ground of his father's house or has wet his palate with a drink of brandy. I can not drive away the fear that he has fallen prey to some wild beast, or has tripped from the side of the barranca and lies alone with none to hear his cry."

"Thou wert ever a bird of ill-omen, filling the air with croakings," said Panduro. "I tell thee for the thousandth time that he but hides away to pray. The

of thy noggin and the out! He says not a word. He does the thing, not talks of it. But the day will come, as surely as the sun shall rise again, and it is not far, when I will stand guard upon the Emperor (he can not well forget that 't was my boy who gave him form), and thou 'lt wear beads of gold and pearls. Why weepest thou, woman? Canst not cease the tune of thy complaints to listen to the joy-bells ringing in thy heart?"

"Hast seen the boy?" inquired Maria of Panduro, as he squatted beside her in the street, fanning with a corner of his

time draws near when Our Lady must redeem her word. Does not the prophecy declare that being pure of deed and pure of soul, knowing no passion,'-I have said the words at each day's dawn with an Ave. But here is Miguel come from Guadalajara. He shall tell thee what say the people in the market-place. Down in the city they talk of naught else. Thou 'lt see. Hey, Miguel! cargador! Can'st halt thy trotting for a jug of pulque? "T will tether thy legs and start thy speech a-going. Jesu Cristo! man, thou bearest a pretty load upon thy back. It is not every cargador who can gallop as thou

under a cask of such a weight. By the love of my mother, thou dost pour sweat as the Rio San Juan de Dios pours water! There now, 't is loosed and off. Canst raise thy head to swallow this? And what is the news, amigo Miguel, in the city?" "The news," said Miguel, easing the thongs of his sandals," the news means one thing in Guadalajara. 'Tis said that from the palace to the slaughter-pens men's tongues but waggle on a single theme."

"Did I not tell thee so, woman?" in

so prepare to fly. I have seen her I myself-yesterday at noon."

"Corral thy tale on thy subject-ground, Miguel," commanded Panduro. "It is not of thy squinting at a wench that I would hear. Tell of the news-the news at Guadalajara. Thou wouldst grow boozy with resting in the shade of an aguave if thy brain is turned with such a draught as I have given thee."

"Thou need'st not pitch thy words at me like stones at a dog," retorted Miguel. "It is the news that I will tell thee, if thou wilt grant me space in which to take a breath. Dios de mi alma! All they say