IN THE ROYAL ACADEMY

It guides, directs his every act,
And word, and thought-In short-in fact-

I mean

(Too late!

(Opening his locket.)

Look, Helen, that's the heather! Here come both Aunts together.)

What heather, Sir?

HELEN.

(After a pause.)

And why

..."too late?"

-Aunt Dora, how you've made us wait!

Don't you agree that it's a pity

Portraits are hung by the Committee?

THE LAST DESPATCH

HURRAH! the Season's past at last;
At length we've "done" our pleasure.

Dear "Pater," if you only knew

How much I've longed for home and you,Our own green lawn and leisure!

And then the pets!

One half forgets

The dear dumb friends-in Babel.

I hope my special fish is fed;—

I long to see poor Nigra's head

Pushed at me from the stable !

I long to see the cob and "Reb,"-
Old Bevis and the Collie ;

And won't we read in "Traveller's Rest"!
Home readings after all are best ;-
None else seem half so "jolly!"

One misses your dear kindly store
Of fancies quaint and funny;

One misses, too, your kind bon-mot;-
The Mayfair wit I mostly know
Has more of gall than honey!

THE LAST DESPATCH

How tired one grows of "calls and balls"!
This "toujours perdrix" wearies;

I'm longing, quite, for "Notes on Knox";
(Apropos, I've the loveliest box

For holding Notes and Queries!)

A change of place would suit my case.
You'll take me?-on probation?
As "Lady-help," then, let it be;
I feel (as Lavender shall see),
That Jams are my vocation!

How's Lavender?

My love to her.

Does Briggs still flirt with Flowers?— Has Hawthorn stubbed the common clear?— You'll let me give some picnics, Dear,

And ask the Vanes and Towers?

I met Belle Vane.

"HE'S" still in Spain !

Sir John won't let them marry.

Aunt drove the boys to Brompton Rink;
And Charley,-changing Charley,-think,
Is now au mieux with Carry!

And No.

You know what "No" I mean-
There's no one yet at present:

The Benedick I have in view

Must be a something wholly new,

One's father's far too pleasant.

So hey, I say, for home and you!
Good-bye to Piccadilly;

Balls, beaux, and Bolton-row, adieu!
Expect me, Dear, at half-past two;

Till then, your Own Fond-MILLY.

WHEN I called at the "Hollies " to-day,

In the room with the cedar-wood presses,

Aunt Deb. was just folding away

What she calls her "memorial dresses."

She'd the frock that she wore at fifteen,-
Short-waisted, of course-my abhorrence;
She'd "the loveliest "-something in " een

That she wears in her portrait by Lawrence;

She'd the "jelick" she used—" as a Greek,” (!) She'd the habit she got her bad fall in;

She had e'en the blue moiré antique

That she opened Squire Grasshopper's ball in :—

New and old they were all of them there :-
Sleek velvet and bombazine stately,-

She had hung them each over a chair
To the "paniers" she's taken to lately