And of possessions worldly had but one--
But one--the which, the reader must be told,
Was a fair daughter seventeen years old.

She was a lovely little girl, and one
To charm the wits of both the high and _the_ low;
And Te-pott's ancient heart was lost and won
In less time than 'twould take my pen to tell how:
So, as he was quite an experienced son-
In-law, and, too, a very wily fellow,
To make Hy-son his friend was no hard matter, I
Ween, with that specific for parents--flattery.

But, when they two had settled all between
Themselves, and Te-pott thought that he had caught her,
He found how premature his hopes had been
Without the approbation of the daughter--
Who talk'd with voice so loud and wit so keen,
That he thought all his Mrs. T's had taught her;
And, finding he was in the way there rather,
He left her to be lectured by her father.

"Pray, what were women made for" (so she said,
Though Heaven forbid I join such tender saying),
"If they to be accounted are as dead,
And strangled if they ever are caught straying?
Tis well to give us diamonds for the head,
And silken gauds for festival arraying;
But where of dress or diamonds is the use
If we mayn't go and show them? that's the deuce!"

The father answer'd, much as fathers do
In cases of like nature here in Britain,
Where fathers seldom let fortunes slip through
Their fingers, when they think that they can get one;
He said a many things extremely true--
Proving that girls are fine things to be quit on,
And that, could she accommodate her views to it,
She would find marriage very nice when used to it.

Now, 'tis no task to talk a woman into
Love, or a dance, or into dressing fine--
No task, I've heard, to talk her into sin too;
But, somehow, reason don't seem in her line.
And so Miss Hy-son, spite of kith and kin too,
Persisting such a husband to decline--
The eager mandarin issued a warrant,
And got her apprehended by her parent.

Thus the poor girl was caught, for there was no
Appeal against so wealthy lover's fiat:
She must e'en be a wife of his, and so
She yielded him her hand demure and quiet;
For ladies seldom cry unless they know
There's somebody convenient to cry _at_--
And; though it is consoling, on reflection
Such fierce emotions ruin the complexion.

* * * * *

F