ENVOY

You thought that Grace would marry Brown,
As in most ballades that you see,

But she did not. For her no clown-
But wealth and-looks and pedigree.

Charles Battell Loomis.

TO VIOLET

(With a Bunch of Namesakes)

THERE

HERE is a maid-I am afraid
To give her name to you—

Who makes great pets of violets-
I wish I were one, too.

Once in her youth, this all is truth,
She took some up to smell;—
In some strange way the records say,
Into her eyes they fell-

And there they stayed-they never fade—
She looks at me-sometimes,-
And then-Oh, then I seize my pen
And fall to writing rhymes.

But, sad mischance! My consonants
Desert-four vowels, too;

A, E, O, I, take wings, that's why

My rhymes are filled with U.

Robert Cameron Rogers.

WHE

HER BONNET

HEN meeting-bells began to toll,
And pious folk began to pass,
She deftly tied her bonnet on,

The little, sober meeting lass,

All in her neat, white-curtained room, before her tiny looking-glass.

So nicely, round her lady-cheeks,
She smoothed her hands of glossy hair,

And innocently wondered if

Her bonnet did not make her fairThen sternly chid her foolish heart for harboring such fancies there.

So square she tied the satin strings,
And set the bows beneath her chin;

Then smiled to see how sweet she looked;
Then thought her vanity a sin,

And she must put such thoughts away before the sermon should begin.

But, sitting 'neath the preached Word,

Demurely in her father's pew,

She thought about her bonnet still,

Yes, all the parson's sermon through,

About its pretty bows and buds which better than the text she knew.

Yet sitting there with peaceful face,
The reflex of her simple soul,

She looked to be a very saint-
And maybe was one, on the whole—

Only that her pretty bonnet kept away the aureole.

Mary E. Wilkins.

A SONG

WILL not say my true love's eyes
Outshine the noblest star;

But in their depth of lustre lies
My peace, my truce, my war.

I will not say upon her neck
Is white to shame the snow;
For if her bosom hath a speck
I would not have it go.

My love is as a woman sweet,

And as a woman white;

Who's more than this is more than meet

For me and my delight.

Norman R. Gale.

E

LES PAPILLOTTES

ULALIA sat before the glass

While Betty smoothed her hair. The mirror told her how she was Attractive, young and fair;

Curtius was telling her the same

In rosy note, where he confessed his flame.

She read with a satiric eye
Of passion, hope and pain;

Then, careless tossed the poor note by;
Then, took it up again,

And systematically tore,

And folded each strip carefully in four,

And handed in fine scorn each bit

Of rapture to the maid,
Who wot how to dispose of it.

The beauty, disarrayed,

Now crept in bed, blew out the light

Her locks in pink curl-papers for the night.

She slept; and with each gentle breath
The paper in her hair

Soft rustled, and, the story saith,
Repeated to the air

Whate'er stood on it fervent thing—

As if the lover's self were whispering.

And through her dream she heard it say,
The twist o'er her left ear,-

"I vow that I must love alway

The dearest of the dear."

And o'er her forehead spoke a twist,

"That stolen glove I've kissed and over-kissed."

Said on, "Thou are the loveliest;
Thy beauty I adore.”
Another, smaller than the rest,

Sighed, "Love, love," o'er and o'er.

And one said, "Pity my sad plight!"
So Curtius' passion pleaded all the night.

Eulalia waking in the morn,
Large-eyed, sat up in bed,

While vows the tend'rest that be sworn
Still whispered in her head;—

A dreamy bliss her soul possessed,-
She rang for Betty; and before she dressed,

Upon a subtly perfumed sheet,

As Curtius' own, blush-pink,

She penned with crow-quill small and neat,
And perfumed crow-black ink,

In flowing hand right tidily,

The proper, simple message, "Come at three."

Gertrude Hall.