"Are women fools?" Not fools, but fondlings many; "Can women fond be faithful unto any?"

When snow-white swans do turn to colour sable,
Then women fond will be both firm and stable.

"Are women saints?" No saints, nor yet no devils; "Are women good?" Not good, but needful evils. So Angel-like, that devils I do not doubt them,

So needful evils that few can live without them.

"Are women proud?" Ay! passing proud, an praise them. "Are women kind?" Ay! wondrous kind, an please them. Or so imperious, no man can endure them,

Or so kind-hearted, any may procure them.

Francis Davison.

THE PLAIDIE

UPON ane stormy Sunday,
Coming adoon the lane,

Were a score of bonnie lassies-
And the sweetest I maintain

Was Caddie,

That I took unneath my plaidie,
To shield her from the rain.

She said that the daisies blushed
For the kiss that I had ta'en;
I wadna hae thought the lassie
Wad sae of a kiss complain:
"Now, laddie!

I winna stay under your plaidie,
If I gang hame in the rain!"

But, on an after Sunday,

When cloud there was not ane,

This selfsame winsome lassie

(We chanced to meet in the lane),

Said, "Laddie,

Why dinna ye wear your plaidie?

Wha kens but it may rain?"

Charles Sibley.

Lord Guy

FEMININE ARITHMETIC

LAURA

ON me he shall ne'er put a ring,

So, mamma, 'tis in vain to take trouble-
For I was but eighteen in spring
While his age exactly is double.

MAMMA

He's but in his thirty-sixth year,

Tall, handsome, good-natured and witty,
And should you refuse him, my dear,
May you die an old maid without pity!

191

LAURA

His figure, I grant you, will pass,

And at present he's young enough plenty; But when I am sixty, alas!

Will not he be a hundred and twenty?

Charles Graham Halpine.

LORD GUY

WHEN Swallows Northward flew

Forth from his home did fare
Guy, Lord of Lanturlaire
And Lanturlu.

Swore he to cross the brine,
Pausing not, night nor day,
That he might Paynims slay
In Palestine.

Half a league on his way
Met he a shepherdess
Beaming with loveliness-

Fair as Young Day.

Gazed he in eyes of blue-
Saw love in hiding there
Guy, Lord of Lanturlaire
And Lanturlu.

"Let the foul Paynim wait!"
Plead Love," and stay with me.
Cruel and cold the sea-

Here's brighter fate."

When swallows Southward flew
Back to his home did fare
Guy, Lord of Lanturlaire
And Lanturlu.

Led he his charger gay

Bearing a shepherdess
Beaming with happiness-
Fair as Young Day.

White lambs, be-ribboned blue-
Tends now with anxious care,

Guy, Lord of Lanturlaire

And Lanturlu.

George F. Warren.

SARY "FIXES UP" THINGS

Oн, yes, we've be'n fixin' up some sence we sold that piece o' groun'

Fer a place to put a golf-lynx to them crazy dudes from

town.

(Anyway, they laughed like crazy when I had it specified, Ef they put a golf-lynx on it, thet they'd haf to keep him tied.)

But they paid the price all reg'lar, an' then Sary says

to me,

"Now we're goin' to fix the parlor up, an' settin'-room," says she.

Sary "Fixes Up" Things

193

Fer she 'lowed she'd been a-scrimpin' an' a-scrapin' all

her life,

An' she meant fer once to have things good as Cousin Ed'ard's wife.

Well, we went down to the city, an' she bought the blamedest mess;

An' them clerks there must 'a' took her fer a' Astoroid,

I guess;

Fer they showed her fancy bureaus which they said was shiffoneers,

An' some more they said was dressers, an' some curtains called porteers.

An' she looked at that there furnicher, an' felt them curtains' heft;

Then she sailed in like a cyclone an' she bought 'em right an' left;

An' she picked a Bress'ls carpet thet was flowered like Cousin Ed's,

But she drawed the line com-pletely when we got to foldin'-beds.

Course, she said, 't 'u'd make the parlor lots more roomier, she s'posed;

But she 'lowed she'd have a bedstid thet was shore to stay un-closed;

An' she stopped right there an' told us sev'ral tales of folks she'd read

Bein' overtook in slumber by the "fatal foldin'-bed." "Not ef it wuz set in di'mon's! Nary foldin'-bed fer me! I ain't goin' to start fer glory in a rabbit-trap!" says she. "When the time comes I'll be ready an' a-waitin'; but ez yet,

I shan't go to sleep a-thinkin' that I've got the triggers set."

Well, sir, shore as yo' 're a-livin', after all thet Sary said, 'Fore we started home that evenin' she hed bought a foldin'-bed;

An' she's put it in the parlor, where it adds a heap o' style; An' we're sleepin' in the settin'-room at present fer a

while.

Sary still maintains it's han'some, "an' them city folks

'll see

That we're posted on the fashions when they visit us," says she;

But it plagues her some to tell her, ef it ain't no other

use,

We can set it fer the golf-lynx ef he ever sh'u'd get loose. Albert Bigelow Paine.

THE CONSTANT CANNIBAL MAIDEN

FAR, oh, far is the Mango island,
Far, oh, far is the tropical sea-
Palms a-slant and the hills a-smile, and
A cannibal maiden a-waiting for me.

I've been deceived by a damsel Spanish,
And Indian maidens both red and brown,
A black-eyed Turk and a blue-eyed Danish,
And a Puritan lassie of Salem town.

For the Puritan Prue she sets in the offing,
A-castin' 'er eyes at a tall marine,
And the Spanish minx is the wust at scoffing
Of all of the wimming I ever seen.

But the cannibal maid is a simple creetur,
With a habit of gazin' over the sea,
A-hopin' in vain for the day I'll meet 'er,

And constant and faithful a-yearnin' for me.

Me Turkish sweetheart she played me double-
Eloped with the Sultan Harum In-Deed,
And the Danish damsel she made me trouble

When she ups and married an oblong Swede.