HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Wingham Times, 1888-06-15, Page 6r
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THREAD OF LIFE
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SUNSflINB AND $EEADE.
caarriza VLee.Wnrole 142:1Y1
Hugh found the eley among the eendhille
amply delightful. the had euild with truth
be loved all innocent pleasures, for hie was
On of thou; sunny, Menyesided, aesthetic na-
ture", in *pito of lin underlying tinge of pawl-
nalent and sadness thnt tlsrow tbenvelveewith
ardenr into every alinple country delight,
and huh deep enjoyment intreee and flowers
and waves einsidmenely, in the scent of new.
mown hay and the song of birds, and in ;lei
;341 intercourse with beautiful women. War.
reit Relf had readily enough fallen in with
Hugh's Ow for their day's outing; for et a
heat glance be had been greatly taken with
Hugit's pretty cumin, the dark -eyed Girton
gni. His popeassien of .the Mutt 2'ortle gave
him for the moment a title to respect, for a
yaoht'e a yacht, however tiny. So he took
•theta all up together in the yawl to the foot
of the ;auditing t and while Mrs. Mersey
and the girls were unpacking the hampers
and getting lamb reedy on the white slopes
Of t4e drifted dunee, he eat down by the
shore and *etched a little bit of the river
foreground that exactly suited hie own pecu-
liar style—en islet of mud, rising low from
the bed of the eluggieh streain, crowned
with purple sea -aster and white flowered
scurvy -grass, and backed by a slimy bed of
tidal ooze, that shone with glancing rays of
gold and crimson in the broad flood of tbe
reflected auulight.
Eleinioraseverileppy, too, in her way;
ler had she not Hugh all the time by her
side, and was she not wearing the ardent
verses she had received from him by poet
thatverymorning, inside her dreg% pressed
•close against her heart, and rising and fall-
ing with every pilse and flutter of her
bosom! To him, the bandit:weft:man, they
were a mere matter of ocean and potion,
and lotion and devotion, strung together on
*
viender thread, of pretty conceit; but to
her, in the innocent ecstasy of a first great
love, they meant more than words could
emesibIy utter. ,
She could not thank hitn for them; her
pride and delight went too deep for that ;
and even were tt otherwise, she had no op-
portunity. But once, while they stood to-
gether by the denuding sea, with Winifred
by their side, looking erttically at the pic-
ture Warren Relfhad eketehed in hasty
outline, and begun to color, she found an
' heea81011 to let the poet know, by a graceful
allusion, she bad received his little tribute
of verse in safety: As the painter with a
few dainty strokes filled. in the floating
iridescent tints upon the sunlit ooze, she
Murmured aloud, as iE quoting from some
well-knob/is poem,:
Red strands that -faintly se* and spot
The tawny flood the 'wilco enfold;
A web ot Tyrian purple. ebot
Through clotli,or gold.
• Hugh looked up at her appreciatively
wit• evenate of recognition. They were his
o veeses, out of the Ballade of the Char
he • ad wtitten, and posted to her the night
ore. " Mere faint Swinburnian ecimea,
thing' worth,"„ he murmured low in a de -
p • ting aside; but he was none the less
Elettefer at e delicate attention, for all
AI
that. "And ow clever of her, too," he
thought to hi elf with a faint thrill, "to
have pieced them in so deftly with the sub-
ject of the picture.! After all, she's a very
intelligent girl, Elate! A man might go
farther and fare worse—if it were not for
that negative quantity in doits and stivers."
Warren Relt looked up also with a quick
• glance at the dark•eyed girl. "You're
right,-Eilies,Onalloner,'. he said, stealing a
loverne side -look at the iridescent peacock
• hues upon the gleaming mud. " It shines
like opal: -No precious stone on earth could
be lovelier than thet. Few people have the
eye to see beautyin a flat of tidal mud like
the ono I'm painting; but cloth of gold
and Tyrian purple are the only words one
could possible, find to express in fit language
the glow and glory of its exquisite coloring.
If only I could put it on canvas now,as
you've put it in words, even the Hanging
Committee of the Academy, I believe—hard-
hearted monsters—would tear:testy be stony
enough to dream of rejecting it."
Elsie smiled. How every man reads
things his own way, by the light of hie own
personal interests 1 lifitvit had seen she was
trying to thank him unobtrusively, for his
copy of verses; Warren Relf had only found
in her apt quotation a passing criticism on
his own little water -color.
Aft,erlunch. the two seniors, the Squire
anti, Mrs, Meyeey, manifested the • due
duct . desire of middle . age for a quiet
digestion in the shade of the sandinlls ;
and the four younger folks, nothing
loth to be free, wandered off in pairs at their
•own sweet will along the bank of the river.
Hngh toelt Elsie for hie companion at first,
while 'Warren Reif bad to put,himself off
..,-Jor the time being 'with the blue-eyed Wini-
fred. Now, Rehr hated blue eyes. "But
we must arrange it like a set of Ltaicers,"
Ilughoried with a languid wave of his grace-
ful lusncr; "at the end of the figure, set to
corners and change partners." Elsie might
have felt half jesslone for a moment at thie
equitable suggestion, if Hugh hadn't added
to her in a lower tone and with his sweet-
est wale: "1 mustn't monopolise you all
the afternoon, you know, Elsie; Relf must
have'hist inningis too; I can tee by hie face
hes just dying totalk to you."
,. ra rather, a great deal, talk with you,
Hugh," Etat; murmured gently, looking
down at the sands with an apparently mid -
den geologic:el interest in their minute 00m.
ration.
si
Ing Ulna chalk downs, but Matted togeth•
er under foot with a tussocky network of
Beluga( and eoldanella oonvolvulue. In the
tiny combos, and valleys in between
where tali reed -like .grasses made sort
of petty imitation Jungle, you could alt
down unobserved under the lee of some
mimio range of mountains, and take your
ease in an enchanted gardep, Jibs sultans
and sultanas of the Arabian Nights+, with-
out rtek of intrusion. The see tumbled in
gently on one side upon the long white
beach the river ran on the other mat with-
in the belt of blown eandhille ; and wedged
between the two, in a long line, the barrier
ridge of miniature welds stretched away for
miles and miles in long peropective towards
• the southern horizon. It was e lottueesting
place to lie and dream and make love in for
ever, As. Hugh sat there idly with Elsie
by his side under the lee of the dunes, he
wondered the Squire could ever have had
the bad taste to obj -iot to the generous east
wind which had overwhelmed his miserable
utilitarian salt -marsh pastures with, this
quaint little fairyland of tiny knolls and
Lilliputian valleys. For hie own part,
Hugh was duly grateful to that unconscious
atmospheric landscape gardener for his ad-
mirable additions to tke Oa Suffolk scenery;
he wanted nothing better or sweeter in life
than to lie here for ever stretched at his
ease in the sun, and talk of poetry and love
with Eleie.
At the end of an hour, however, he roused
himself !nudity. Life, says the philosopher,
is not all beer and skittles; nor is •it all
poetry and dalliance either. "Stern duty
sways our lives against our will," says the
Echoes from Callimachus. It's all very well,
at odd moments, to sport with Amaryllis in
the shade, or with the tangles of Nemeses
hair—for a reasonable period. But if
Amaryllis has no money of her own, or if
Nam is a penniless governess in a country -
house, the wise man must sacrifice sentiment
at last to solid advantages; he must quit
Amaryllis in search of Phyllis, or reject
Necera in favour of Vera, that opulent
virgin, who has lands and houses, mesauages,
and tenements, stocks and shares, and is a
ward in Chancery. Face to face with snob
a sad necessity, Hugh now found himself.
He was really grieved that the oircumetate
ces of the Oen compelled him to tear him-
self unwillingly away from Elsie, he was BQ
thoroughly enjoying himself in his own pet
way; but duty, duty -.-duty before every-
thing 1 The slave of fluty .jumped up with
a stark
" My dear ohild," he exclaimed, glancing
hastily at his watch, " Relf will really never
forgive me. I'm sure it'e time for us to set
to corners and change partners. Not, of
course, that I want to do it myself. For
two people. who are not engaged, I think
we've had a very snug little time of it here
together, Elsie. But a bargain's a bargain,
and Relf must be inwardly grinding his
teeth at me.—Let's go and meet them."
Elsie rose more slowly and wistful*.
" never so happyanywhere, Hugh,' she
said, with, a lingering cadence " as when
you're with me.' 9
with yearning and lonega and ether
pleasant internal feelingeossuch elle
upon in Mile Virginia Oisbriene "one, t s
deinsive future. When they're turn ly
friend', or brothei and sietera, they can
enjoy their friendship or their fraternity in
the present telme, without forever gam •
ahead with wistful eyes towards e diet
and ever receding horizen."
"And yet we are not engaged," Hugh
went on in a meditative murmur—" we're
not engaged. "We're only cousins 1 For
memo:moms, our cousinly solicitude for one
another's -welfare is truly touching. If all
families were only as united as ours, now !
interpreters of prophecy would not ave far
to seek for the date of the millennium.
Well, well, instruotress of youth, we must
look out for these other young people ; and
if I were yon, experience would suggest to
me the desirability of not coming upon them
from behincltoo unexpectedly or abruptly.
A fellow -feeling makes us wondrous kind.
Ralf is young, and the pretty pupil is by no
means unatreotive."
"I'd trust Winifred as implicitly"—
Elsie began, and broke off suddenly.
"An you'd trust youreelf,b Hugh put in,
with a little quiet irony, completing her sen-
tence. "Ncedoubt, no doubt; I can readily
believe it. But even you and I—who are
ataider and older, and merely cousins—
wouldn't have cared to be disturbed too
abruptly just now,'you know, when we were
pulling soldanellaas to pieces in concert in
the hollow down yonder. I shall climb to
the top of the big sandhill there, and from
hatepecular mutat —as Satan remarks inPar-
adise Regained—Ishell spy from afar where
Relf has Wandered off to with the hnmacu-
late Winnifrod.—Ah, there they,ere, over
yonder by the beach, looking for pebbles or
soniething—I suppose amber. Let's go over
to them, Elsie, and change partners. Com -
noon politeness compels one, of course, to
pay some attention to one's host'a daughter."
As they strolled away again, with a
change of ;partnere back towards the
spot where Mrs. deysey was somewhat
anxiously awaiting them, Hugh and
Winifred turned their talk casually on
Elsie's manifold charms and excellences.
"She's a sweet, isn't she ?" Winifred cried
to her new acquaintance in enthusiastic
appreciation. "Did you ever in your life
meet anybody like her 2"
" Ilut why need it recede ?" Winifred task
ed innocently,
" Why need it recede 1 Ah, there
you pose me. Well, it needn't, of
course, among the rich and the mighty.
If people are wells, and amply pro*
vide4 for bytheir godfathers end. god-
mothers at their baptism, or otherwise, they
can marry et ouce ; but the poor and the
strugglimr—that's Elsie and me,. you know,
Ulm Meysey—,the poor and the struggling
get engaged foolishly, and hope and hope
for a humble cottage—the poetical cottage,
all draped with roses and wild honeysuckle,
and the weltatired woodbine.—and boil and
moil and labor exceedingly, and find the
cottage receding, receding recediog still,
away off in the dietanee, while they plough
their way through the hopeless years, Just
as the horizon recedes forever before you
when you steer straight out for it in a boat
at see. The moral us—poor folk should not
indulge in the luxury of hearts,and should
themselvesi
wrap up severely n their own
intereas, till they're wholly and utterly eel -
fish."
"And are you eelfieh, I wonder, Mr. Mes-
singer?"
"I try, to be, of course, from a sense of duty;
though I'm afraid 1 make a very poor hand at
it. I was born with a heart, and do what I
will, I can't quite stifle thatirrepressiblenat-
ural organ.—But I take it all out, I believe,
in the end, in writing verses."
"Yon 'sent Elate some versee this mom
ieg," Winifred broke out in an artless way,
as if she were merely stating a cernmon fact
of every -day experience.
Hugh had some difficulty in suppreesing
a start, and in recovering his composure so
as to answer unconcernedly: " Oh, she
showed them to you, then, did she? (How
thoughtless of him to have posted those
poor rhymes to Elsie, when he might hare
known beforehand she would confide them
at once to Bliss fileysey's sympachetio
ear 1)
" No, she didn't show them tome," Wini-
fred replied, in the same careless, easy way
as before. "1 saw them drop out •of the
envelope, that's. all; and Elsie put them
away as soon as she saw they were verses;
but I was sure they wore yours, becomes 1
know your handwriting—Elsie's shown me
bits of your letter's sometimes."
"I often send copies of my little pieces to
Elsie before I print them," • Hngh went on
casually, in his most candid manner. " It
may be vain of me, but I like her „to see
them. She's a splendid critics, Elsie; wo-
men often are: she -sometimes suggests to
me most valuable alterations and moil&
cations in some of my verses.
" Tell me these ones, Winifred asked
abruptly, with a littleblush.
It was a trying moment. What was Hugh
to do! The verses he had actually sent to
Elsie were all emotion and devotion, and
hearts and darts, and fairest and thou wear -
est, and °harms and arm* amorous and
clamorous chimed together like old friends
in one stanza,its usual cheerful punctuality
in the next. To recite them to Winifred as
they stood would be to retire at once from
his half- projedted Beige of the pretty little
heiress's heart and hand. For that
decisive step Hugh was not at present
entirely prepared. He mustn't allow him-
self to be beaten by such a scholar's
mate as this. He cleared his throat,
and began boldly on another piece, ringing
out his lines with sonorous lilt—a set of
silly, garrulous, childish verses he hail writ.
ten long since, but never publishen, about
some merry sea -elves in an enchanted sub-
marine fairy country:
A tiny fay
At toe bottom lay
Of anomie bay
Unruffled,
On whose crystal floor
The distant roar
From the surf -bound shore
Was muffled.
Lily 1 Lily I �b, that &Km:120'10ft, un'
fortunate, compromising Lily 1 had Met
her down in Warwiekeitire two actions
Awe, at 44 country-houee where they Were
both !staying, and had fallen head over eara
in love with her—then Now, he only
wished with all his heart and soul ale and
her bye were at the bottom, of the see in a
body together. 1 or of course elm was pen.
plleis..If not, by this time she would no
doubt have been Mre, Maseleger.
Hugh Messinger was a capitol actor; but
even he could hardly have ventured to pre-
tend, with a grave face, that those Lily
verses had ever been addressed to Elsie
°Wiener, Everything depended upon his
• presence of mind and e bold reeolve. He
hesitated for a moment at the " emerald
green and sepphire'e sheen," and seemed as
though he couldn't o ilt the next line. After.
a minute or two's pretended searching be
recovered it feebly, and then ho stumbled
again over the end of the stanza.
" It's no use," he cried at last, as if angry
• with himself. "I should only murder them
if I were to go on now. I've forgotten the
rest, The words °soap° me, And they're
really not worth your seriously listening to."
"1 line them," Winifred said in ber sim-
ple way. "They're 80 easy to understand:
ea melodious and meaningless. I love verse
than you don't have to punto over. I can't
bear Browning for that—he's so impossible
to make anything sensible out of. But I
adore silly little tillage like these, that go in
at one ear and out of the other, and really
sound as if they meant something. -1 shall
ask Elsie to tell me the end of thetn."
Here was indeed a dilemma 1 Supposes
;she did, and suppose Elsie showed her the
real verses 1 At all hazarde, he must ante: -
slate himself somehow from this impossible
situation. "
"1 wish yon wouldn't," he said gently, in
his softest and moat persuasive voice.
'Elsie mightn't like you to knowsent
her my vereee—though there's, nothing in it
—girls are so sensitive sometimes about
these mattera—But I'll tell you what I'll
do, if you'll kindly allow me ; write you
out the end of them when I get home to the
inn, end bring them written out in full, a
nice clear copy, the next titne 1 have the
pleasure of seeing you." ("I can alter the
nd somehow,") he thought to himself with
a sudden inspiration, "and dress them up
innocently one way or another with fresh
rhymes, so as to have no special applicabilt
fry of any sorb to anybody or anything any-
where in particular.")
"Thank you," Winifred replied, with
evident pleasure. "I should like that ever
so much better. It'll be so nice to have a
poet's verses written out for one's self in hie
own handwriting."
" You do me too much honor," Hugh
answered with his mock little bow. . " I
don't pretend to be a poet at ; I'm only a
versifier."
They joined the old folks in time by the
yawl. The Squire was anxious to ram
to his garden now—he foresaw ram in the
sky to westward.
Hugh glanced hastily at hie watch with a
sigh. must be going baok too," he cried.
Hs nearly five now • we can't be ne at
the village till six. now;
goes out at nine,
they say, and I have a book to review be-
fore post -time. It must positively reach
town not later than toanorrew morning.
And what's wore% I haven't yet so much as.
begun to dip into it."
•But you can never read it and review it
too in three hours I" Winifred exolaimed.
eghitseti
,pectisely
so." Hugh answered, in his
jaunty way, with a stifled yawn; "and
therefore I propose to omit the reading as
a very unnecessary and wasteful preliminary
It often prejudices one against a book to
know what's in it. You approach a work
you haven't react with a mind unbiased by
preconceived impressions. Besides, this is
only a three -volume novel; they're all alike;
it doesn't matter: You can say the plat is
.crude and ill -constructed,': the dialogue
°feeble, the desoriptions vile, the eituations
borrowed, and the characters all mere con-
ventional poppets. The same review will
do equally well for the whole stupid
lot of them. I usually follow Sycl.
arty Smith's method in that matter: I
out a few pages at random, here and there,
and then smell the paper -knife." '
"But is that just ?" Elsie asked quietly,
a slight shade coming over her earnest face.
"My dear Mies Challoner," Warren Relf
put in hastily, " have you known Messinger
so many gems without finding out that he's
alwayss great deal better than he himself
pretends to be? I know him well enough to
feel quite confident he'll read every word of
that novel through to -night, if he site up
till four o'cloek in the morning to dolt ; and
he'll let the London people havepheir review
in time, if •he tele.graphs up every- blessed
word of it byspeinal wire to -morrow morn,
ing. Hie wickedness is always only his
brag; his goodness he bides carefully under
hie own extremely capaciona bushel."
Hugh laughed. "As you knownte so much
better than I know myself, my dear boy," he
replied easily, "there's nothingmore to be
said about it. ' I'm glad to receive so good a
character from a eonnoissour in human na-
ture. I really never knew before what an
amiable and estimable member of society
bid himself under my rugged and unprepos-
sessing exterior," And as he said it, he
drew himself up, and darting a laugh from
the corder of those sad black eyes, looked at
the moment the handsomest and moat utter-
ly killing man in the county of Suffolk,
When Elsie and Winifred went up to
their own rooms that evening, the younger
girl alippiug into Elsie's bedroom for a me -
'mint, took her friend's handle tenderly in
her own, and looking tang and eagerly into
the otner'si eyes'said at last in a quick tone
of unexpected discovery "Elsie, hens aw-
fully nice looking and wfilly clever, this
Oxford cousin of yours. I like him
Melte:lb; ought baok her eyes from infinity
with a sudden start. "I'm glad you do,
dear," she said, looking down at her kindly.
"I wanted you to like him. I should be
dreadfully disappointed, itt faot, if yore
didn't. I'm exceedingly fond of Hugh,
Wintaiir"
'Wed paused for a second significant.
V ; then elle mired point blank ;
are Von engaged to him?"
"Engaged to him 1 My darling, what
evcp Made you dream of each a thing ?—
Engaged to Hugh 1—engaged to Hugh Mac.
singer I—Why, Whittle, you know he's my
own ouslit."
"But you don't answeemy question
ly," Winifred padded With girlish detemn.
"re you engaged to him or are
you not?"
Blele, Mindful of Hugh's frequent dealer.
Miens, sassinened boldly (and not quite ult.
truthfully) : "NO, rm not, Winifred."
"I'm proud to hear it.; eo Would I," Hugh
Wavered pliantly. "But we mustn't be
selfish, I hate selfishness. I'll sacrifice
myself by -outlay on the altar of fraternity
to give Relf si teen in due season. Mean
-
settle, Mae, let's be happy together While
We can, Momenta like these don't isome to
one Ofteu in the oeurse of a Motion,.
They're as rare as rubies and as all good
thhige. When they do dotiiey t prize thein
far too muck to think of wetting thous in
pent altereattota"
*trolled *bent among the undulet-
leg dunes for an hour or more, talking in
that vague emotional way. that young men
said mans naturally fall into when they
walk together by the shore of the Vest deep,
and fedi very nnroh pleased with the other's
sooleby, es tusttilly blippens under similar
Meows. The donee were hutted a
fareffinting M, is if made for
eetlih bwowy hillocks Of
d, &U Wlifte said flnn, and roll.
loy
the
—" No, never." Hugh answered with can-
did .praise. Candour was always Hugh's
;Tema' cue. "She's a dear, good girl, and
1 like her immensely. I'm proud of her too.
The only inheritance I ever received from
my family is my cousinship to Elsie; and I
duly prize it as my sole heirloom from fifty
generations of penniless; Massingers."
" Then you're very fond of her, Mr. Mae -
singer r
" Yee, very fond of her. When a man's
only got one relative in the world, he natur-
ally values that unique postussaion far more
than those Who have a couple of dozen or so
of all sexes and ages, assorted. Some peo-
ple suffer from too much family; my mid.
fortune is that, being a naturally affection.
ate man, I suffer from too little. It's the
old Me of the one ewe lamb; Elide is to me
my brothers and my sisters, and my tensing
and my aunts, all rolled into one, like the
supers at the theatre."
" And are you and she ea----" Winifred be-
gan timidly. Alt Attie are naturally inqusi.
tive on that Important question.
Hugh broke her oft with a quiok little
laugh, "Oh, dear no, nothing of the sort,"
he answered hastily, ut his jaunty way.
" We're not engaged, if that's What you
mean, Mies Milroy ; nor at all kikely to be.
Our Affection, though profound, is of the
brotherly and sisterly order only. it's
!duels utter se, of Minnie. When people are
engaged, they're always looking forward
The harem! of Whitelltrend stroked her
friend'e hair with a sigh of relief. That
sign wee blind. 014 though she was, she
might clearly have seen with a woman's in -
'Moot that Etele's flushed cheek and down.
mat eyes belied to the utmost her spoken
word. But eh° did not see it, All preoo,
cupien 111 she was with her own thoughte
and ber own wishes!, ,she never observed et
all those mute witnesses to Etele's love for
ho handsome cousin. She was satisfied in
her heart with Hugh's and Elide's; double
verbal deniel. She said so herself with a
thrill in her own soul, ae a girl will do
in the first full flash of her earlieet p isslon
"Then I may love. him if I, like 1 I may
make hIni love mo I Ib won't be wrong to
Elsie for me to love him 1"
(TO BE CONTINUED. )
PERSONALS.
••••011
Browning, the poet, who is 76 and looks
only 40, says that Lennon has always been
his favorite dwelling place,
Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson is several
years older than her husband. She has a
daughter by a former husband who is now a
a succeesful artist in San Francisco.
Edith Martineau, the niece of. Harriet
Martineau, has been elected a member of the
Royal Soolety of Water Colorists, Her
pictures show pronounced genius as well as
hard work.
Mies Linda Gilbert who has donee° much
toward prison reform, stays that during her
fifteen years' experience as a philanthrop-
ist she has found employment for 6,000 die -
'Merged prisoners.
• Mr. bTaneen, a. well know Norwegian
athlete, is about to make the attempt of crone
ing the vast snow fields of Greenland on
snu* shoes. A. wealthy Danish merchant
has supplied money'fof 'the unique enter-
prise.
The Rev. Carrie J. Bartlett, who used to
be a Minneapolis newspaper woman, has
been 'for nearly two years the pastor of a
Unitarian Church at SknIXFal.hl, Minn., and
under her ministration the congregation has
steadily increased.
The Czar recently ordered that all Russian
orders and medals should rank above foreign
decorations. Kaiser Frederiok has respondcd
by directing that the Russian of St. George
and the Austrian order of Maria Theresa ar
to be worn before any Prussian civil order
Gen. Boulanger goes to the barber once a
week, pave the artist 10 francs, and gives
5 francs to the assistant. He never speaks,
and the barber, knowing his preference, does
not presume to open a conversation. The
shop tenon the Louvre.
A Toronto man, rummagingin ajunk.shop,
Invested two dollarsbutt week in an old,
dirty, and battered portrait of Robert
Burns, to discover on cleaning it that it was
a painting from life by Scotland's famous
artist Raeburn.. It is now valued at $10,000,
and is to be sent to Scotland.
The Journal des Dtbates, commenting
upon. Mr. Smith's complaint in the English
Parliament "sawn the immense sale of
Zola's works in England, says that there
are plenty of good French books sent to
England from France, but if the English
prefer the bad.ones, more is the pity.
With his fairy wife
Repassed his life
Undimmed by trite
Or quarrel;
And the livelong day
They would merrily play
Through a labyrinth gay
With coral.
They loved to dwell
In a pearly shell,
And to deck their cell
With amber;
Or amid the caves
That the ripplet laves
And the beryl paves
• To clamber.
He went on so, with hie jigging versioles,
line after line, as they waked along the
firm white sand together, through several
foolish eing-song stanzas; till at last, when
he was more than half way through the
meaningless 'little piece, a sudden thought
pulled him up abruptly. He had chosen, as
he thought, the most innocent and non-com-
rnitting bit of utter trash in all his private
poetical repertory; but new, as he repeated
ib over to Winifred with eisey intonation,
swinging his stick to keep time as he went,
he recollectedall at once thtst the last rhyme
flew off at a tangent to a very personal con.
elusion—and What was worse, were addres-
sed, too, not to Elsie, but very obviously to
another lady! The end was somewhat after
this wise:
On a darting thrimp
Out (paint little imp
'With ',sidle Of gimp
Would gambol ;
Or throw: the back.
Of a sea -horse black,
As a gentleman's hack
He'd amble.
1
Of emerald green
And tappbire'a sheen
He mace bit queen
A titer ;
And the merry two
Their edible lite through
Were As happy as yell,
And 1 are.
And then Came. the seriously compromia.
ing bit :
a
But 11 you say
You think this lay
Of the tiny fay
Toillti,
Let it Faye the praite
Ify eyelmttays
To your own sweet gaze,
My/My.
ref a roan he WM,
And he tofloand sighs
• TO be very wise
And witty
Ind *deer little dame
Ilis enough of 10310
ri dos vine the twee
01 pretty.
Some of the doctors of the States are not
trying overmuch to keep up with the pro-
gress of the age. Dr. L. W. Fox of Phila-
delphia, some time ago perforined the deli- • fr
°ate operation in ;surgery of transpleaatingthe
cornea of a rabbits eye to a human eye, and
the American Medical Men's Association
invited him to prepare a paper on the sub-
ject to be road at their convention held hut
week in Circlet:WM. He accept, and went
West to the convention with a carefully
prepared history of his work. But when
Da Fox offered in the convention the paper
he had been inyited to write, the other doc-
tors voted that "professional etiquette,'
prohibited its going into the minutes. The
reason given for this remarkable snub was
that it had been found that Dr. Fox had
been guilty of submitting to an interview by
a newspaper reporter on the subjoin: of his
wonderful operation._
A Washington Sensation.
A lady well known in society created a
sensation at a reception in Washington a
few weeks ago by appearing in an armour ot
jewel. A two-hundred.and-forty-thousand-
dollar necklace encircled her throat. She
wore a pair of ear rings said not to be
equalled in America. Her bodice was a per-
fect mass of jewels. Her gems glittered in
the gaslight like raindrops in the sun. The ..,
design cli, many of them was unique. One
splendid spray represented a cluster pf wild
reeds, five 'petals of eaoh rose being five
diamonds of similar size and shape. Another
was a spray of fuchsias, formed of hundreds
of emelt and large diamonds, about a dozen
huge stars, and almost as many crescents.
She also wore an open fan covered with dia-
monds in her hair. Each *Me of the fan
showed fifteen raisectplaite, and the whole
were studded with diamonds, beautifully
matched in colour and size. The gems in
the raised plaite were larger than those
which enriched the depressed ones and
stones upon the oomh ranged in size, from
one to five cargo eaoh.
..Velt044 r
$40,000 Lost.
"IPA fortythousand dollars by„a periodi-
cal attack of nervous sick headache," said
s Chios& capitalist to a correspondent%
pointing across the street to a handsome
corner lot. " That lot was sold for ten
thousand dollars at publics auction five years
ago, and I intended to buy it, but was too
sick with heedaohe to tsttead the sale, and it
is,now worth fifty thousand dollars." It he
had known of Dr. Pierce's Purgative Pellets
they would have removed the cause of his
headaches—biliousness—and he would have
made the money. Dr. Pierce's Pleasant •
Purgative Pellets cure sick headache, bilious
headache, dizziness, :onstipetion, tindiges-
tion, and bilious attacks t15 cents 44 'vial, by
druggists.
Snail mantels of embroidered cashmere
ot sheer white muslin, will be fashionable
this summer.
000 Iteward.
The former proprietor of Dr. Sage's Ca -
Meth Remedy, for yeas made a standing,
publics offer in all American nowepipere of
$500 reword for a case of catarrh that he
could not cure. The present proprietors
have renewed tide offer. All the drug -
glad sell this Remedy, together With the
" Datulhe," and all other appliances advised
to be used in commotion with it. No catatrh
patient is longer able to sty "t cannot be
mita" You get $500 in oats ef Mitre.