res to deplore
Were, really, well worth my relating.

Said one little mother: "You really don't know
What a burden my life is with Bella!
Her stravagant habits I hope she'll outgrow.
She buys her kid gloves by the dozen, you know,
Sits for _cartes de visites_ every fortnight or so,
And don't do a thing that I tell her!"

Those stylish young ladies (the dollies, you know)
Had complexions soft, pearly and waxen,
With arms, neck and forehead, as white as the snow,
Golden hair sweeping down to the waist and below,
Eyes blue as the sky, cheeks with youth's ruddy glow,--
Of a beauty pure Grecian and Saxon.

"Indeed!" said the other, "that's sad to be sure;
But, ah," with a sigh, "no one guesses
The cares and anxieties mothers endure.
For though Dora appears so sedate and demure,
She spends all the money that I can secure
On her cloaks and her bonnets and dresses."

Then followed such prattle of fashion and style
I smiled as I listened and wondered,
And I thought, had I tried to repeat it erewhile,
How these fair little Israelites, without guile,
Would mock at my lack of their knowledge, and smile
At the way I had stumbled and blundered.

And I thought, too, when each youthful mother had conned
Her startling and touching narration,
Of the dolls of which I in my childhood was fond,
How with Dora and Arabelle they'd correspond,
And how far dolls and children to-day are beyond
Those we had in the last generation!

A TALE OF MANY TAILS.

BY KATHARINE B. FOOT.

Carry stood in the door-way with her dolly on one arm and her kitten
hanging over the other. Kitty didn't look comfortable, but she bore up
bravely, only once in a while giving a plaintive mew. Carry gazed into
the bright white sunshine.

"It's melting hot," she said. "I guess, grandma, I'll take my doll and
Friskarina out to the wash-house and have a party."

"Well," said grandma, looking over her spectacles, "I've no objection;
only there's a black cloud coming up, and you may get caught out there
in a thunder storm."

"If I do, can Jake come for me with an umbrella, and can I take off my
shoes and stockings and come home barefoot?"

"Yes; I don't believe it would hurt you."

"Then I'll go;" and Carry picked up a box with a little tea-set in it,
and started off, saying: "Do you believe it'll rain cats and dogs and
pitchforks, grandma? That's what Jake says."