"You think me so?" the Porpoise said.
"I do!" the sage replied.
"You have the purest classic head
I ever have espied.
Your eyes are truly lovely,
And your mouth is full of grace,
And nothing nobler can one see
Than is your noble face."

"The Land-sage ceased; the Porpoise smoled
And winked his eyes of blue.
"You've won, professor. You have told
Me something truly new.
I never heard my beauty praised
In all my life before."
And then his good right fin he raised
And towed the sage ashore."

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

MISS APPOLINA'S CHOICE.

BY AGNES LITTLETON.

Part I.

Outside, the house was simply one of a long row of brownstone houses
which line many of the New York streets, but the room in which Millicent
Reid was sitting this fine spring afternoon had an individuality of its
own.

"The girls" were Millicent and Joanna Reid.

Millicent was nearly seventeen, and with her cousin Peggy, who lived
across the street, studied with a governess and various masters, but
Joanna, or Joan, as she was frequently called, went to school. At this
very moment she burst into the room, carrying a pile of school books,
which she flung on the table with a resounding crash.

"It is to be on the 30th of April, and we are all asked to send just as
much as we can, and Mrs. Pearson said anything would do," said Joanna,
as she pulled off her gloves.

"Oh, don't, Joan!" exclaimed Millicent, who had a pencil in her hand,
and had hastily thrust a morocco-bound book under the sofa pillow when
her sister entered. "You do startle me so. What is to be on the 30th of
April?"

"The fair, of course. Now don't pretend you don't know anything about
it, when the Pearsons have talked of nothing else for weeks."

"I have had other things to think of," returned Millicent, with dignity.
"For one thing, I am wondering which of us three Cousin Appolina will
take with her to England. If she only would choose me! And then--oh,
there are other things!" And she nibbled the end of her pencil.

Millicent was Joanna's only sister, and she had beautiful golden hair,
large blue eyes, and poetic tendencies. Joan was very sure that the
morocco-bound book, of which she had caught a glimpse more than once
when it was thrust away just as it had been this afternoon, contained
poems--actual poems.

Joan gazed at her sister, as she lay back among the big cushions, with
pride and admiration not unmixed