A Pin.

OH, I know a certain woman who is reckoned with the good,
But she fills me with more terror than a raging lion would.
The little chills run up and down my spine whene'er we meet,
Though she seems a gentle creature and she's very trim and neat.

And she has a thousand virtues and not one acknowledged sin,
But she is the sort of person you could liken to a pin.

And she pricks you, and she sticks you, in a way that can't be said-
When you seek for what has hurt you, why, you cannot find the head.

But she fills you with discomfort and exasperating pain

If anybody asks you why, you really can't explain.

A pin is such a tiny thing,- of that there is no doubt,—

Yet when it's sticking in your flesh, you're wretched till it's out!

She is wonderfully observing when she meets a pretty girl
She is always sure to tell her if her "bang" is out of curl.
And she is so sympathetic: to her friend, who's much admired,
She is often heard remarking, "Dear, you look so worn and tired!"

And she is a careful critic; for on yesterday she eyed

The new dress I was airing with a woman's natural pride,

And she said, "Oh, how becoming!" and then softly added, "It

Is really a misfortune that the basque is such a fit."

Then she said," If you had heard me yestereve, I'm sure, my friend,
You would say I am a champion who knows how to defend."
And she left me with the feeling - most unpleasant, I aver-
That the whole world would despise me if it had not been for her.

Whenever I encounter her, in such a nameless way
She gives me the impression I am at my worst that day,
And the hat that was imported (and that cost me half a sonnet)
With just one glance from her round eyes becomes a Bowery bonnet.

She is always bright and smiling, sharp and shining for a thrust —
Use does not seem to blunt her point, nor does she gather rust
Oh! I wish some hapless specimen of mankind would begin
To tidy up the world for me, by picking up this pin.

A Slip.

A BROOKLET and a pretty maid o'er mossy stones went tripping,
And then the pretty maiden said, "I'm awful 'fraid of slipping.'
The saucy brooklet laughed aloud, as it ran o'er a bowlder,

Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

And whispered, “She'd have surely slipped if he'd been here to hold her."

In the Old Days.

"The opinion which men entertain of antiquity is a very idle thing, and almost incongruous to the word; for the old age and length of days of the world should in reality be accounted antiquity, and ought to be attributed to our own times, not to the youth of the world which it enjoyed among the ancients; for that age, though with respect to us it be ancient and greater, yet with regard to the world it was new and less."- Bacon.

IN the old days, when you and I were young,
Before the story was told, and the song was sung,
You spoke, it seems to me now, in another tongue.

In the old days, before we were grown so wise,
When gladness meant the same to us as surprise,
You looked at me with other, with truer eyes.

In the old days, when life was martial and grand,
Before we had learned to reckon and understand,
You clasped my hand with another, a warmer hand.

In the old days? Ah, what is this I have sung?
Were they old days, when grief spoke an unknown
tongue ?

These are the old days-those, the lost, were the

young.

Battledoor.

W. A. Ketcham.

MERRY-HEARTED maidens four,
Laughing, play at battledoor;
And my heart, the shuttlecock,
To and fro they nimbly knock.

Maggie, Fannie, Hattie, Kate-
How their bright eyes scintillate,
As the poor, bewildered thing
Back and forth they gayly fling!

Ha! 'tis lodged in Fannie's hair;
Scarce a moment nestles there,
When away it bounding flies,
Lighting plump in Hattie's eyes.

Now in Katie's kerchief hides;
Then, abashed and blushing, glides,
(Battledoor is full of slips!)
Bouncing straight to Maggie's lips.

Merry-hearted maidens four,
Playing thus at battledoor,

Cease, oh! cease, my heart to knock,
Poor, bewildered shuttlecock!

Margaret Vandegrift.

THE DE VINNE PRESS, PRINTERS, NEW YORK.

C. S. P.

MIDSUMMER HOLIDAY NUMBER.

THE CENTURY MAGAZINE.

VOL. XXXIV.

AUGUST, 1887.

No. 4.

JERSEY

THE stillness of the Patriarch's studio had been broken by a loud knock announcing Brushes and the Scribe. The Patriarch had just returned from a sketching-tour in Holland. At the present moment the blue smoke from three corn-cob pipes filled the cozy interior, and drifted up in uneven lines to the skylight.

"Very charming, my dear fellow," said Brushes, critically examining the Patriarch's color-sketch of some Dutch luggers reflected in the canal, with the spires of Dordrecht in the distance; "but why tramp the earth in search of the picturesque when Berkshire, the Long Island Coast, and Jersey are right at your door? Some good art begins at home." The Patriarch leaned back in his chair, looked sidewise at his Academy picture of San Giorgio, nearly completed, incredulously closed one eye, and blew a cloud of Lone Jack through the window.

man. This done, you think you have reached all the luxury of the century, and yet here within a mile of us, in fact at the foot of this very street, are half a dozen floating comforts, each one of which contains more actual luxury to the square yard than a fleet of Cunarders- I mean an ordinary canal-boat."

Up to this time the Scribe, the proprietor of the third pipe, had kept silent.

"What sort of a canal-boat, Brushes? An excursion-yacht with silk cushions, red and white striped awnings, and a tea-kettle in the stern with a tin whistle?"

"No, your imaginative quill," replied Brushes; "a plain white-painted, three-hatched, and poop-cabined canal-boat with two mules ahead and a rudder behind; a skipper to steer, his wife to help cook, and a deck-hand forward to 'snub her in the locks and take a line to the tow-path. See here," he continued, springing from the lounge, seizing a Brushes took possession of the greater part piece of charcoal, and reversing a canvas; of a divan covered with skins, and continued: "here's your regulation canal-boat," and he "Furthermore, see how you travel. Crowded sketched in the outline of Noah's ark without into a stuffy state-room or packed into a Pull- the traditional house. "Over this flat deck I * An expression used by canal-boatmen, meaning to check the impetus of boats on entering a lock. Copyright, 1887, by THE CENTURY Co. All rights reserved.