retty are some of these
little figures, that they have become objects of unlawful desire
to certain soulless curiosity-mongers, who have rewarded an open
and confiding hospitality with base attempts at spoliation; and
now a person is employed to live in the cottage just beyond us,
and do little else than take care of these unique possessions.

"No, you need not start. The woman is probably there at her
post, and surveying our operations from time to time. But we
have behaved like decent people. We are taking away nothing but
a remembrance of a singularly interesting hour, and an admiring
impression of the originality, the ingenuity, the industry, and
the independence of one of our own sex.

"Is it not so, my friend? And now, by the length of those cedar
shadows, it is time for us to rise up and be gone. Else the
moonlight will have met and parted with the sunset ere we reach
home."

There was nothing to be said; the tale had been told, and with
one last, lingering glance, one parting smile, half amused, half
touched, I rose, and together we walked home in somewhat pensive
mood. Was it not our last day in Fairyland?--_Kate J. Hill_.

* * * * *

_WINE AND KISSES._

TRANSLATED FROM THE PERSIAN OF MIRTSA SCHAFFY.

The lover may be shy--
His bashfulness goes by
When first he kisses.

The bibber, though so staid,
Gets bravely unafraid
When wine his bliss is.

Yet he who, in his youth,
No wine nor kiss hath tasted.
Will some day think, in truth,
That half his joys were wasted.

--_Joel Benton_.

* * * * *

I have heard it asked why we speak of the dead with unqualified
praise: of the living, always with certain reservations. It may
be answered, because we have nothing to fear from the former,
while the latter may stand in our way: so impure is our boasted
solicitude for the memory of the dead. If it were the sacred and
earnest feeling we pretend, it would strengthen and animate our
intercourse with the living.--_Goethe_.

_THE QUEEN'S CLOSET._

Did anybody ever see a fairy in the city? Was a glimpse ever
caught of Fairyland there? I say _No_. But I was in the country
this summer where a great number of mushrooms grew, and one day
when I was walking in a grassy lane I met a little, old
queen, who was fanning herself with the leaf of the
poor-man's-weather-glass; she had taken