Blonde!
And alas, alas for her dreamings fond!
There soon was an end to all her doubt,
For Jack-in-the-box really _did_ jump out!--
Out with a crash, and out with a spring,
Half black and half scarlet, a horrible thing;
Out with a yell and out with a shout,
His great goggle-eyes glaring wildly about.
"Alas! alas!" cried Belinda Blonde;
"Is this the end of my dreamings fond?
Is this my love, and is this my dear,
This hideous, glowering monster here?
Alas! alas!" cried Belinda fair.
She wrung her hands and she tore her hair,
Till at length, as the dolls who were witnesses say,
She fell on the ground and she fainted away.

MORAL.

Now all you dolls, both little and big,
With china crown and with curling wig,
Before you give way to affection fond,
Remember the fate of Belinda Blonde;
And unless you wish to get terrible knocks,
Don't set your heart on a Jack-in-the-box.

THE LONDON DUST-MAN

BY ALEXANDER WAINWRIGHT.

There he goes! A dusky gloom hangs over the roofs of great London City;
a similar gloom fills my room and seems to have touched all the furniture
with smoky age, and as I look down from the window into the gloomy street,
I see him coming along slowly, and crying in a voice like a plea for help
in affliction: "Dust-oh!--dust-oh!--dust-oh!--dust-oh!"

Not one of the many citizens who are passing notices him, or finds
anything strange in that plaintive cry. The people who live in the city
see him day after day, and remember how, in their childhood, they had
terrifying notions of his weakness for kidnapping and other mysterious
wickednesses. They know better now, and hurry past him with scarcely a
glance; but to the American visitor he is something of a curiosity.

[Illustration: "DUST-OH!"]

When the London fog is gray we cannot see him very far off, for he,
too, is gray from head to foot with ash-dust, and as he approaches us
he comes out of the mist like a phantom, though in reality he is a
substantial, square-built, deep-chested fellow, shod with enormous
Bluecher shoes (the soles of which are bright with nails), and clad in a
loose blouse and trousers, that are tied up about the knees. The blouse
is open at the chest, and is lifted to the waist by his big, brown
hands, which are tucked in his trouser pockets, and his head is covered
by the kind of hat that sailors call a sou'wester. His only ornament is
a pair of ear-rings; and with his hea