It guides, directs his every act, I mean (Too late! (Opening his locket.) Look, Helen, that's the heather! Here come both Aunts together.) HELEN. What heather, Sir? (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 And then the pets! One half forgets 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,"- And won't we read in "Traveller's Rest"! None else seem half so "jolly!" One misses your dear kindly store One misses, too, your kind bon-mot;- Has more of gall than honey! How tired one grows of "calls and balls"! I'm longing, quite, for "Notes on Knox"; For holding Notes and Queries !) A change of place would suit my case. As "Lady-help," then, let it be; 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 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! Balls, beaux, and Bolton-row, adieu! "PREMIERS AMOURS" Old Loves and old dreams, Requiescant in pace,' How strange now it seems,— Maude, Alice, and Gracie! 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,- 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 :- She had hung them each over a chair |