without your advice."

"I shall repudiate it," I said, "as having been obtained by fraud."

"Right-o," she said; "we leave for Sandy Bay on July 28th."

R. C. L.

* * * * *

A SECOND-HAND SERENADE.

(_The modern youth, we are told, is content to hymn his Lady in the
amorous diction of other bards._)

It is not mine, Aminta, to commend you
According to your merits. Miles above
My puny lyre were this; I therefore send you,
For reference, "The Classic Gems of Love."

Would I approve your tresses? See p. 7,
L. 2, for what I frankly think of them;
Your lips? p. 8; your dimples, p. 11;
Your teeth and ears and ankles? _ibidem._

Your kisses? _vide_ JONSON, B., "To Celia;"
See "Annie Laurie" for the way I greet
Your neck and voice and eyes (the song has really a
Trustworthy picture also of your feet).

But nay! It ill behoves the ardent lover
To turn your gaze to any single spot,
In every line, from cover unto cover,
My passion finds an echo. Read the lot.

* * * * *

"SIR BAT-EARS."

Sir Bat-ears was a dog of birth
And bred in Aberdeen,
But he favoured not his noble kin
And so his lot is mean,
And Sir Bat-ears sits by the almshouses
On the stones with grass between.

Under the ancient archway
His pleasure is to wait
Between the two stone pineapples
That flank the weathered gate;

And old, old alms-persons go by,
All rusty, bent and black,
"Good day, good day, Sir Bat-ears!"
They say and stroke his back.

And old, old alms-persons go by,
Shaking and well-nigh dead,
"Good night, good night, Sir Bat-ears!"
They say and pat his head.

So courted and considered
He sits out hour by hour,
Benignant in the sunshine
And prudent in the shower.

(Nay, stoutly can he stand a storm
And stiffly breast the rain,
That rising when the cloud is gone
He leaves a circle of dry stone
Whereon to sit again.)

A dozen little door-steps
Under the arch are seen,
A dozen aged alms-persons
To keep them bright and clean;

Two wrinkled hands to scour each step
With a square of yellow stone--
But print-marks of Sir Bat-ears' paws
Bespeckle every one.

And little eats an alms-person,
B