-dead within its patrician limits. s A Broken Fan. A broken fan, a fragile, odorous thing Of fretted sandal-wood, with fiecks of steel, And eider-down, and feathers from the wing, Maybe, of some bright bird, that once did feel The perfect bliss of being, as it flew From flower to flower, and rivalled them in hue. I gave it’her just two short years ago ; We stood half hidden midst a wealth of flowers, And listéned to the sweet melodious flow Of “Amorettentanze.” Hour of hours! Ah ! tellme not that ignorance is bliss, When so much knowledge can be in a kiss ! And yet, the memory reigns not in my mind, As tenderly I touch the toy ; It would, perhaps, were I of hero kind. But still, I must confess, my thoughts deploy To when I broke her fan, this very week, And found how forcibly my wife could speak. CASTLE GARDE. By tHe AvrHor or ‘‘for Love's Sake Onty,” ‘“‘Arrer Axi,” ‘MARRIED IN Back,” &c. CHAPTER IV. (Conrinvep.) IN CHURCH. My meditations are interrupted by the uprising of the congregation, and I present- ly find myself in the church porch shaking hands with Sibyl Aylmer. We all> walk down the churchyard path together. I catch a glimpse of a big ugly grey kind of sarcophagus, standing in the midst of four ragged yew-trees, one at each corner, and can distinguish the Carew crest over the square iron door at the side. I also see the great oblong slab that covers the names of the Martin family, and wonder why the brewer of ale had not likewise bought out the dreamless tenants of the family vault, that he might in due course lay his own Fortu- nately I do not say so, as the very gentle- manly-looking young man walking with Jack and Miss Fetherstone, just before us, is no other than young Tomkins himself, I rather think Lady Mary has her eye upon him for her daughter Blanche, not yet em- ancipated from the school-room. We pack them all into the Carrick car- riage—all the ladies, 1 mean—and Jack and I take our way homewards, promising to spend the next day at Carrick. Jack is very silent, and I am just as well pleased he should be silent, since he is. anything but agreeable when he speaks. We spend the rest of the day loitering about the place or reading the few books we can lay hands on. But, when the slant- ing sunshine reaches our seat under the laurels, I get up and stretch myself, and think I had better take a ramble and a smoke if I do not want to fall asleep. Unconsciously, yet perhaps instinctively, I find myself rambling in the direction of the old garden door. The shrubbery here is shady and green, great fragrant bay-trees and shining hollies and Jaurels making an impenetrable hedge on either hand. There is a sharp turn in the path near the old gar- den wall, and as I come round it I see a wo- man standing close to the door, stooping, with her eye to the keyhole, I have never tried to see through that keyhole myself, though my curiosity has “been feminine enough to prompt me to doit. Teould put my head in at the door when I found it open, but it seemed to me that to spy through’a keyhole isa different: thing. But this woman does not scruple to satisfy her curiosity in this way. She never hears me till I am close upon her, then she straightens herself and turns round. f am not surprised to find our ‘‘ American tour- ist.” I was almost sure of it at the first glance.” She does not look in the smallest degree discemposed. She passes on down the walk, looking from side to side with the same in- terest she had shown before. She is care- fully dressed, as when I last met her, and carries her slim umbrella in her hand. She does not address me, and I am too much disgusted with her palpable iprying to give her more than a very supercilious look as we pass each other. But the unpleasant im- pression she gave me when I found her with her eye, to the keyhole remains with me for along time. I tell Jack about it, put he does not seem to think much of the incident. He had heard from old Dalton the coachman that a “‘lady” was lodging up at his brother’s house, but nobody seemed to know what she was doing in the neigh- bourhood. Jack’s own opinion is that she cannot be much of a ‘‘lady ” to be satisfied with the accommodation at Pat Dalton’s. ‘© You may remember the house,” he says, laughing, “‘up a bit of a ‘boreen’ just outside our gates—a dirty whitewashed farm-house, swarming with children and igs.” aa? What can she want down here?” I won- der. ; **She may be a relative of the Daltons, come home from America rich, and giving herself airs in consequence,” Jack suggests carelessly. “Hardly so low as that,” I object, musing- ly. I am wondering why the woman al- ways gives me that uncomfortable sensation of having met her before. Have I eyer met her ; and, if I have, when and where? ‘*T have! Iexclaim suddenly. ‘‘ Don’t you remember, Jack? Why, what dufters we have been! Don’t you remember the lady who crossed from Holyhead in the Con- naught on the morning we did—the lady in the waterproof, who asked us so many questions, and stared so hard at you ?” ‘¢¥ do, now you remind me of her,” Jack says, with a shrug, ‘‘I wonder we never thought of her before. Of course it must be the same person.” “ But we are as far from knowing what she is up te as cver,” I remark discontent- edly, ‘‘I think myself she is a bailiff in disguise, or a detective, or something un- comfortable of that kind. She’s not pok- ing round for any good, Im sure of that.” ‘* Women are seldom up to any good,” Jack answers, yawning and stretching him- self. ‘‘ What o'clock is it, Charlie? I’m getting ravenous.” _ * ‘Just six.” ‘¢ We've to dine at six,” Jack announces, picking up his book and pipe and tobacco- pouch. Watching him, I see some fresh letters carved on the back of the old bench. Jack has been amusing himself after the fashion of all engaged people; but I did not think Jack would make such a fool of himself, It startles me a little to see, on sticking my glass into my eye—for I am very short- sighted—how great a fool he is making of himself: for the initials he has ¢arved so carefully are not ‘‘A. F.” but ‘*S. A.” I say nothing to him about it. - Remem- bering his hatred of coercion or interference of any kind, I shrewdly suspect that my wisest course of action will be to leb him alone. J only hope Sibyl Aylmer will do the same. JI think she is a fint—no girl with such eyes could help keing a flirt—but I do not think she would be dishonourable enough to carry on a flirtation with the man who is engaged to her friend. Jack Carew is handsome enough to turn any girl's head; but I fancy—I may be wrong, but I «do fancy it—that little Miss Aylmer used some management to walk down the churchyard path with meto-day. Jam an ugly fellow, but then she would think it only fair to leave Jack to Audrey Fetherstone. OHAPTER V. AN INDIFFERENT LOVER. Jack and I r de over to Oarrick next day. The lawn-tennis club meet here every Mon- day, and we find half the county assembled, to Jack’s intense disgust. The luncheon is a grand affair; and, as Miss Aylmer falls to my lot, I do not find it dull. Jack makes himself agreeable to his lady-love, if it can be called making oneself agreeable to stand beside her all the time looking remarkably out of temper. I wonder how he can behave so like a fool. Miss Fetherstone locks like a picture in her quaint green velvet dress, with her hair rolled high at the back of her head, and fall- ing in loose rings en her forehead, and a lace ruffle round her throat. But Jack can look at nobody but the dark-haired girl in primrose, who, to do her justice, is not look- ing at him. Miss Fetherstone does not seem very happy, and I do not much wonder at it. She must be very dull if she does not see the cold carelessness of Carew’s manner, and the traitor eyes that bave broken their fealty already. Audrey Fetherstone is not the girl I take her for if she is satisfied with wooing like this ! We play lawn-tennis, of course, though we do not, as yet, belong to the club. We walk about the garden, between the rows of standard roses; we loiter by the fish-ponds and in the maze, and have tea under the mulberry-trees on the terrace, and enjoy ourselves thoroughly. I have remarked how lovely Miss Fetherstone looks, and a great many fellows seem to think so besides myself. But Jack will not look at her. He stands sentinel close to her, and addresses her occasionally, and she answers him, turning her great dark eyes upon him grave- ly—but thatis all. A great many people nod and smile and look at each other, and say what a handsome couple they will make. «* After to-day nobody need look at Au- drey Fetherstone !’ Miss Aylmer laughs, making up a quaint little bouquet of rose- mary and lavender. ‘Is Mr. Carew a jeal- ous person 2?” ? “1 don’t know—that is, I suppose he could be if he cared very much,” I answer, confused by the knowledge that Jack’s eyes are upon me with a very jealous light in them too. But he can’t expect to have everything ! ** Don’t you admire Audrey, Mr. Ruther- ford ?” “She is awfully pretty.” “7 think she is perfectly lovely. And I think your friend ought to consider himself a lucky fellow.” I think so too. But I wonderif Miss Ayl- mer thinks her friend equally lucky in get- ting Jack. We remain to dinner at Carrick. The evening is more sultry than the day has been, and after dinner we all turn out on the baleony—all but old Pomeroy and one or two others who prefer bright sparkling wine to bright sparkling eyes. Jack is among the latter to-night. The harvest moon is rising behind Car- raghbawn, sending a melancholy track of glory across the lake; the blackbirds and thrushes are still singing in the dusky copses and clumps of trees about the lawn. I find myself walking slowly up and down between the geranium borders, throwing a long shadow on the smooth turf, with Blanche Pomeroy at my side. Blanche is an amus- ing and extremely plain-spoken person of sixteen, and I think she is favouring us with her company to-night for the express purpose of teasing that poor yeung Tom- kins, who is trying to make himself agree- able—under difficulties—to Mrs Phair. I I do not know how the others have ar- ranged themselves; it is too dark to dis- tinguish the different couples passing and repassing up and down the terrace and the garden walks. Sometimes I recognize a voice, Sibyl Aylmer’s gay laugh, and once I am almost certain she passes with Jack, because I know she wears 2 light-coloured dress. : By-and-by some heavy rain-drops begin to fall, and we all crowd into the drawing- room through the open windows. We have been in the room some time before I miss Jack. In a glance I take in the fact that Miss Aylmer is not present either. Miss Fetherstone is standing near the piano with that conceited Beaumuris of the ‘Sleepy Queen’s ;’ and I wonder if she too knows which of the company are missing. To judge from her face, she either does not know or does not care. Will Pomeroy is singing—he has a good voice—and I listen to him absently, yet I think the words of “The Stirrup-Cup ” will always remind me of this night—of Miss Fetherstone in her dark velvet.dress, with a bunch of foam- white clematis over her heart, the crowd of lamplit faces round the piano, the open windows, and the moonlit picture of the woods and the lake. My eyes are on the terrace outside, though I am leaning against the wall at the other end of the room. Will is just singing — “In death he’ll remember that she who had filled His last stirrup-cup was his true maiden ever! In death. ... he’llremember.... thatshe. .- who had filled His last . . . stirrup-cup .. . was his true maid- en ever !?’ when Jack and. Miss Aylmer come in at the window, his hair wet with the rain, and her handkerchief over her head. Nobody notices thoir entrance but my- self, except perhaps one other person. Miss Aylmer looks mischievous, Jack as if he had been making a fool of himself. I am very angry with him. He is behaving with ex- tremely bad taste, to call it by no worsename, ally poor, equall}-- I cannot help thinking Miss Aylmer just as much to blame though I must do her the justice to say that she gives him no yerbal encouragement, So far as I can hear, her answers to him are a succession of snubs. He seems to hke snubbing, however, for, though he glances in Miss Fetherstone’s direction on entering the room, he makes no attempt to supplant Beaumaris. As for her, she takes no notice of him whatever. We sleep to-nightat Carrick. Mz. Pome- roy. declares the rain too heavy to think of letting us ride home through it, and reminds us that part ef the yoad near Carrick is so overhung with trees that we could not see an inch before our noses. Jack is unwilling to remain at first, but when they all get round us he gives in. We sit up smoking with the others till past twelve o’clock, and then I say good night to Jack at the door of his room. He does not ask me in; I sup- pose he guesses I have a lecture in store for him. ButIam not going to let him off quite so easily. “Youre making an awful fool of your- self, Carew,” I say, hanging my extinguish- er carefully on its hook in the candlestick inmy hand. ‘You'll rue it when it’s too late, and sol tell you.” “You're jealous !” Jack exclaims gcorn- fully. ¢ «Jealous 1 echo, dropping the ex- tinguisher noisily upon the floor. ‘* You'll rouse the house if you make such a row! Yes, jealous, my dear fellow! Didn’t Isee you carrying on all day, though you pretended you didn’t admire her? J don’t like double-dealing !” “‘ Neither dot. Do you call it double- dealing to flirt with one girl while you're engaged to another ?” Jack mutters something ; fortunately it is inaudible. *‘T shouldn't have believed it of you, Jack Carew. I never saw a fellow go changed. What has come over you? Are you drunk or mad ? “Tet them take the blame who have ‘forced me into the false position of marry- ing a girl ] have never wooed, or won,” Jack says coolly. ‘She chooses to accept me on those terms, and she must take the consequences. I hate the whole business— have always hated the very thought of it— but I will carry it out to the letter. Mean- while I shall please myself.” “If Miss Petherstone is the girl I take her for, you won't.” «Tf she had an ounce of pluck, she’d whistle me down the wind—and Td like her the better for it. But she hasn’t. She has no more feeling than a lump of ice.” I think differently. I think there is a vast amount of self-snppression in Miss Fetherstone’s indifferent manner and cold, bright, passionate eyes ; but I am not going to argue the point with Carew now. “‘Y think you are losing the substance for the shadow ; but ] know you won’s be per- suaded, so I may as well wish you good night. Still remember J warned you, what- ever comes of it.” “<My only hope is that she will throw me over,” Jsck says doggedly. ‘‘¥ can’t do it, but she could, and she’s welcome to say she jilted me, if it will give her the smallest satisfaction.” I wonder how Audrey Fetherstone holds him to his promise. He is not such a won- derful catch after all—only a tall, broad- shouldered young man, light-haired and grey-eyed, with a long pedigree and a short purse. Blonde-ywhiskered Beaumaris is equ- proud, apdsa.greatedeal handsomer, witht the further advantage of being very much im love. And report gives Miss Fetherstome the refusal of many men far more eligible than either ; but I suppose what Jack said is true, that she likes him, has looked upon herself as engaged to him for the last five years, and perhaps thinks him as naturally cold and undemonstrative as she appears to be herself. I do not think her cold, but I know she is very proud. Lady Mary Pomeroy calls her one of the proudest girlsin Ireland, I think she can- not be so very proud if she takes Jack on his own terms. _ * * * * * Jack, mindful perhaps of my midnight warning, does not devote himself so con- spicuously to Sibyl Aylmer the next morn- ing. That lady, either caring for no half- measures or for some other reason, turns her attention tome. I suppose Jack ment- ally accuses me of double-dealing again, After luncheon we go out in the Dream, and Jack occupies himself with such thorough zest in sailing the little cutter that I cannot believe he is very far “gone” in any quar- ter. I fancy perversity, more than any other feeling, prompted him to last night’s folly, and I simeerely hope we shall not have a repetition of it this evening, We return to Carrick to luncheon. Some morning visitors are present, and both Miss Fetherstone amd Miss Aylmer are too much engaged with them to look at any of us, We leave theno to their own feminine de- vices for the rest of the day, and enjoy our- selves striding with dogs and guns through the heather on Knockmony.. The Pomeroys are jolly fellows, and Brett Carleton is of great value, though he is at present in very low spirits. However, his low spirits are even more fun to us than his high ones, and we quiz him mnmercifully. The fool of a fellow has lost his heart to Sibyl Aylmer’s beaux yeux; but Brett Carleton falls out of love as quickly as he falls into it, and there is not much danger that this attack will prove more fatal than preceding ones. He will not believe this, however, and goes about with a most comically doleful coun- tenance this evening, I remember Miss Fetherstone’s appear- ance at dinner, in a low black-velvet dress, with a black-velvet ribbon round her throat and a big ivory locket. The expression of her face puzzles me. It is more animated— less grave, yet also less serene. Her great dark eyes have @ steady light in them, and there is a determined curve about her sweet childish lips. Jack takes her in to dinner, of course ; but though he addresses her once or twice, and Tsee him glance sideways at her rather curiously, she treats him with a certain still disdain, which I cannot help thinking he deserves. He does not look very comfortable, but sits sullenly pulling his moustache, and—I hope—feeling that he has met his match, metaphorically as well as in reality. : We leave the dining-room with the ladies. Jack, still looking ill at ease, takes up his position in a distant window near Audrey Fetherstone, I begin to think the lady is playing her cards admirably well; but I must confess that I am too much occupied in contemplation of a certain little lady with pink asters in her hair to pay much attention to any thing or any one else to- night, : At nine o’clock our horses are brought round. The whole party come with us to the hall door; or, if one or two of the party are missing, I do not miss them, since the pink asters are there, glimmering in the starlight. We ride slowly down the dark drive, I for one too wrapt up in the recol- lection of a very tender good night to care to enter into conversation, cven with my friend. But, as we pass through the gates, Jack turns in his saddle and says carelessly— ““T wonder how long it will be before I en- ter these gates again ?” “Why, what's up?’ I ask, with a vague misgiving. ““Tt’s all up,” he answers with the same carelessness, which J rather think covers some deeper feeling. ‘‘ Audrey Fetherstone has sent me about my business.” “* More power to her !” I exclaim heartily. *“You seem quite delighted,” Jack mut- ters discontentedly. ““And, if I am, isn’t it for your sake? Now you are a free man; now you can do your own wooing; now you are not in dan- ger of being led as a calf to the slaughter. Do you mean to tell me that you are not glad?” ““Of course I’m glad,” Carew answers sulkily ; but it’s not altogether delightful to be shunted off like this.” «*Give me again my hollow tree, a crust of bread and liberty,’” I quote, but Jack anathematises me into silence during the remainder of our ride. CHAPTER VI, A SCRAMBLE PIC-NIC. At Castle Garde Jack says nothing about the breaking off of his engagement. I sup- pose he thinks the consequences of the dis- closure will not be pleasant, and so puts off the evil day. Neither does he say anything further to me on the subject. But I cannot see that hig spirits seem any the better for his sudden accession to freedom. He fa- vours me with no more confidences. The Pomeroys and Brett Carleton come over to fish and shoot very often, and have luncheon at Castle Garde sometimes ; but the doctor never asks them to stay to din- ner. This annoys Jack ; still for some rea- son I think he is almost as well pleased that his friends are not invited. He often hints at things being done in the house that he sets his face against, and that are a dis- grace to them all; but I cannot see the drift of his remarks, and do not like to en- quire more particularily. Two or three times, on going up and down stairs, I meet the man in seedy black whom I saw dragging the Bath-chair in the garden. He is a tal! thin man, with the air of a re- tired soldier, with sleek dark hair and mut- ton-chop whiskers, and an expression of countenance [I do not like. He always makes room for me obsequiously, flattening himself against the wall to let me pass, though there is plenty of room. I wonder in what capacity he is employed at Castle Garde. He looks like a butler, but I have certainly never seen him attend at table. He looks still more like an undertaker or a bailiff, or some disagreeable person of that kind. He has a low, cunning, yet primly decorous face, and I regard him with an in- stinctive repugnance which I dare say is inquite patent to™him, though "he never ap- pears to raise his red eyelids, and certainly never meets my eyes. I do not think he can have anything to do with the horses— he does not look ‘‘in that line ;” but he may be a trainer, or something of that kind, for aught I know. But then again it puzzles me when I recollect his performance with the Bath-chair. I hear no more disturbances upstairs, nor do the mysterious dinners go out of the room now. After the third day of my arrival I noticed a cessation of that performance. But every day Jane Carew appears with a more and more worried countenance, and a more and more nervous and excitable man- ner; and every day the doctor's face ex- pands with more jovial smiles, and his con- versation bristles more and more with racy anecdotes of his own life asa ship’s doctor, or before that as a medical student in Dub- lin. I do not think that his antecedents wete altogether irreproachable ; but, since he has settled down into the respectable representative of a very wild race, he can afford to be aboveboard about those boyish escapades. The Carews of Castle Garde have been a wild lot from time immemorial. That John Carew murdered in America ten or eleven years ago had been one of the greatest scamps in Ireland ; his father, old Godfrey Carew, had been obliged to expat- riate him because of his various misdemean- ours, fond and proud as he was of his eldest son, ‘The news of his miserable end had given the old man his death-blow. So much the present Jack Carew tells me, and he seems to know no more. We hunt almost every day now. Some- times the meets are at Carrick, sometimes at Dunboken, or Fort, or Moarne, Sir Robert Fetherstone’s place, five miles away. Jack does not go to the meets at Carrick. Both Miss Fetherstone and Miss Aylmer are good horsewomen ; but neither of them hunts. nor have I seen them at any of the meets lately. But of course I see them at Car- rick ; for I am man enough to go there, though I know Jack cannot. I think Au- drey Fetherstone looks a shade paler than she did when 1 first saw her; but beyond this I see no change inher. In fact, Cap- tain Beaumaris monopolizes her so much that I cannot find out whether she ever thinks of Jack er not, or if there was any truth in his belief that she cared about him. [fo BE CONTINUED. | —— rr 7 LARGE bodies of troops are to be assem- bled during the present summer at the prin- cipal military stations in Russia, to be exer- cised in manceuvres on a large scale. Alto- gether, thirty-one camps are to be formed, the aggregate of the forces collected in them amounting to439 battalions of infantry, 216 squadrons of cavalry, and 886 guns, Among the infantry are 42 of the newly or- ganized reserve battalions, DINNER speeches in Denmark begin as soon as the soup is disposed of, and alternate with the courses, or delay, or displace them. The advantage of this plan lies in the com- paratively unperturbed digestion of the earlier speakers, and also in the comparative brevity of their manifestoes, the hearers be- ing impatient for the next dishes. STRAY SHOT. CRUELTY to animals—pounding dogs, Some sticks require a little lemon aid. A PEN may be driven, but the pencil does best when it is lead. Tux eloping young lady of the period ig the lily of the valet. : CoLoRAnDO is a young State, but sheis un- rivalled for her big bugs. Brass passes for gold in Africa; and by the way, it does here, too. WHIRLED without end: The waters of Niagara into Lake Ontario. Tue belle of the Sultan’s harem is named Dhin-Ur, Evidently a dinner-bell. THE mosquito, like the rest of the nabobs, will soon make his hum by the sea. In selecting a barber, remember that a fulness under the eyes denotes language. NECESSITY may be the mother of inven- tion, but laziness is certainly the father of it. A Goat always begins a sentence with ‘“‘But—” And scemetimes stops one with it. ‘‘THERE’S a woman at the bottom of i os the man said when his wife fell in the well. “STAGE struck,” remarked a toad, when Heo wheels of a loaded omnibus ran over his ead. ; THE tramps of the country very justly com- plain because there are no sleeping cars on freight trains, HAVE you ever thought how kind it is of the average murderer to forgive everybody before he is swung off, ‘© Ou,” she said, ‘“‘I think soda water is soda-licious.” He took the hint and soda dime on the harvest-field of love. THE sweet girl graduates are now going into the world to fight the battle of life. The battle axe of those who get married will be the rolling-pin. A Troy factory turns out about three million dozens of men’s collars in a year, not one of which will stand up to its work properly through a hot summer day. A crrizeNn of Fleming, Ky., fired at a rat, struck a keg of powder, blew his house to pieces, and had to jump into the river to Heee from burning up. ‘The rat remains un- urt. ‘*Sxre the hard words, honey dear,” said an Irish schoolmistress to one of her pu- pils; ‘‘they’re only the names of some for- eign countries, and yees niver will be in thim.” —~ An old gentleman, who had been intoler- ably annoyed by the hideous noises made by a drove of donkeys, mildly asked : ‘‘Do not those creatures ever die of softening of the brayin’.” SryeRAL Vassar school girls were found fencing in the gymnasium with broomsticks. _ A professor told them that such an accom- plishment would not help them to secure husbands. Ar a funeral in Portland, Maine, the singing was so unsatisfactory that a promi- nent mourner arose, with wrath in his face and indignation in his voice, and remarked : “‘T am the corpse’s brother, and I object to any such singing as that.” The choristers thereupon became silent. SEA bathing may have its'charms for the _spindle-legged men and flat-footed women, but what can exceed the satisfaction of crawling across ten acres of sweet-scented clover to steal a peck of yellow harvest ap-. ples, and eat them in the shade of a barn filled with new-mown hay, A SOLDIER went into a shep in Brighton to purchase some trifling article, and observ- ing some red herring on the counter, asked what they were. To which the shopkeeper replied, ‘‘Soldiers, my friend!” ‘‘ Are they so?” rejoined the son of Mars. ‘‘ Then Lll take them as deserters,” and walked off with his prisoners, to the great amusement of the by-standers, and the chagrin of the witty tradesman, ‘Hato, Robinson! I haven’t seen you since you had your glass eye putin. How does it work?” ‘‘Toa charm,” said Robin- son. ‘*Can you see with it?” queried the friend. ‘‘ Well, you see that town clock ; it’s twenty-two minutes past seven, isn’t it?’ ‘*I declare! it’s wonderful, isn’t it? Why, it must be as good as the eye you were born with!” and the friend passed on per- fectly dazed with the scientific discoveries of the oculists. The fact that Robinson’s other eye was not glass didn’t once occur to him. A cirRGymAN, talking to some young- sters on the coming vacation, and diverging into the necessity of kindness to animals, in- cidentally remarked: ‘‘ Boys are often cruel to frogs and toads, I remember when a boy of wickedly filling up a toad with fire-crack- ers, and then lighting the slow match.” He was horrified to see this remark received with the liveliest emotions of interest and delight, and utterly prostrated as he passed out at hearing one urchin say to another : ‘By Jingo, that’s anew note, Won’t we have fun blowing up the bull paddies down in the medder 1” A YouNG man recently bought tickets for the performance of the Christy minstrels in London, and said that he hoped there would be no improper jokes, as the Smiths of Smithyille were coming. He was assured that the entertainment was entirely harm- lese, and departed with much dignity and several tickets, In the evening, whenever an ‘‘end man ” was approaching the point of his story, the other minstrels rose and said impressively: ‘‘ Hush! the Smiths of Smithville are here.” Presently the Smith family betrayed themselves by leaving the theatre amid uproarious merriment. A DRUNKEN man was swaying unsteadily in a Virginia City street, according to the Chronicle, when a dog with a tin pan tied to its tail ran between his legs. The collision was so forcible that the man was upset, and the dog ran on minus a piece of its tail, The man got up bewildered, rubbed the bruised end of his spinal column, picked up the dog’s tail, and thus soliloquized : ‘* This is (hic) unfortunate! Never before knowed or suspected I had such a thing as a tail un- til I go an’ fall down an’ break it off! Might made a (hic) fortune. ’zibitin’ myself as man with tail. There’d bin millions in it—millions (hic) in it! Sis my luck, Whenever I get a good thing it’s always gone before (hic) find it out.”