One curious circumstance happened lately, which I mention without drawing an absolute inference.—­Being at the studio of a sculptor with whom I am acquainted, the other day, I saw a remarkable cast of a left arm.  On my asking where the model came from, he said it was taken direct from the arm of a deformed person, who had employed one of the Italian moulders to make the cast.  It was a curious case, it should seem, of one beautiful limb upon a frame otherwise singularly imperfect.—­I have repeatedly noticed this little gentleman’s use of his left arm.  Can he have furnished the model I saw at the sculptor’s?

——­So we are to have a new boarder to-morrow.  I hope there will be something pretty and pleasant about her.  A woman with a creamy voice, and finished in alto rilievo, would be a variety in the boarding-house,—­a little more marrow and a little less sinew than our landlady and her daughter and the bombazine-clad female, all of whom are of the turkey-drumstick style of organization.  I don’t mean that these are our only female companions; but the rest being conversational non-combatants, mostly still, sad feeders, who take in their food as locomotives take in wood and water, and then wither away from the table like blossoms that never come to fruit, I have not yet referred to them as individuals.

I wonder what kind of a young person we shall see in that empty chair to-morrow!

——­I read this song to the boarders after breakfast the other morning.  It was written for our fellows;—­you know who they are, of course.

THE BOYS.

  Has there any old fellow got mixed with the boys? 
  If there has, take him out, without making a noise! 
  Hang the Almanac’s cheat and the Catalogue’s spite! 
  Old Time is a liar!  We’re twenty to-night!

  We’re twenty!  We’re twenty!  Who says we are more? 
  He’s tipsy,—­young jackanapes!—­show him the door!—­
  “Gray temples at twenty?”—­Yes! white, if we please;
  Where the snow-flakes fall thickest there’s nothing can freeze!

  Was it snowing I spoke of?  Excuse the mistake! 
  Look close,—­you will see not a sign of a flake;
  We want some new garlands for those we have shed,—­
  And these are white roses in place of the red!

  We’ve a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told,
  Of talking (in public) as if we were old;—­
  That boy we call “Doctor,” and this we call “Judge";—­
  It’s a neat little fiction,—­of course it’s all fudge.

  That fellow’s the “Speaker,”—­the one on the right;
  “Mr. Mayor,” my young one, how are you to-night? 
  That’s our “Member of Congress,” we say when we chaff;
  There’s the “Reverend”—­What’s his name?—­don’t make me laugh!

  That boy with the grave mathematical look
  Made believe he had written a wonderful book,
  And the ROYAL ACADEMY thought it was true!
  So they chose him right in; a good joke it was, too!