How she looked when she vanished away.
Some declare that she carried sail
On a flying fish with a lambent tail;
And some are sure she went out of the room
Riding her stilts like a witch a broom,
While a phosphorent odor followed her track:
Be this as it may, she never came back.
Since then, her friends of the gold-fish fry
Are in a state of unpleasant suspense,
Afraid, that unless they unselfishly try
To make better use of their dollars and sense
To chasten their pride, and their manners mend,
They may meet a similar shocking end.
—_Cosmopolitan Art Journal._
JUST SO.
BY METTA VICTORIA VICTOR.
A youth and maid, one winter night,
Were sitting in the corner;
His name, we’re told, was Joshua White,
And hers was Patience Warner.
Not much the pretty maiden said,
Beside the young man sitting;
Her cheeks were flushed a rosy red,
Her eyes bent on her knitting.
Nor could he guess what thoughts of him
Were to her bosom flocking,
As her fair fingers, swift and slim,
Flew round and round the stocking.
While, as for Joshua, bashful youth,
His words grew few and fewer;
Though all the time, to tell the truth,
His chair edged nearer to her.
Meantime her ball of yarn gave out,
She knit so fast and steady;
And he must give his aid, no doubt,
To get another ready.
He held the skein; of course the thread
Got tangled, snarled and twisted;
“Have Patience!” cried the artless maid,
To him who her assisted.
Good chance was this for tongue-tied churl
To shorten all palaver;
“Have Patience!” cried he, “dearest girl!
And may I really have her?”
The deed was done; no more, that night,
Clicked needles in the corner:—
And she is Mrs. Joshua White
That once was Patience Warner.
THE INVENTOR’S WIFE.
BY E.T. CORBETT.
It’s easy to talk of the patience of Job. Humph! Job had nothin’
to try him;
Ef he’d been married to ‘Bijah Brown, folks wouldn’t have dared
come nigh him.
Trials, indeed! Now I’ll tell you what—ef you want to be sick
of your life,
Jest come and change places with me a spell, for I’m an
inventor’s wife.
And sech inventions! I’m never sure when I take up my coffee-pot,
That ‘Bijah hain’t been “improvin’” it, and it mayn’t go off
