Then there follows a list of the things she has bought,
    Though I’m puzzled indeed as to what it may mean. 
  She is painfully pat in her jargon of satin,
    Alpaca, nun’s veiling, tulle, silk, grenadine,
  And she asks me to say if I honestly think
  She should die in pearl-grey, golden-brown, or shrimp-pink?

  So here I am left in this pitiful plight. 
    With nothing but dresses, what am I to do? 
  For I haven’t a notion what kind of emotion
    Is suited to coral or proper for blue;
  And if, when she faints, but they think she is dead,
  Old-gold or sea-green would be better than red.

  Will crushed strawberry do for an afternoon call? 
    For the evening would salmon or olive be right? 
  May a charming young fellow embrace her in yellow? 
    Must she sorrow in black?  Must I wed her in white? 
  Till, dazed and bewildered, my eyesight grows dim,
  And my head, throbbing wildly, commences to swim.

  ’Twere folly and madness to try any more,
    I know what I’ll do—­in a letter to-day
  I will just tell her plainly how utterly vainly
    I’ve striven and struggled to finish her play;
  And then—­happy thought!—­I will mildly suggest
  That she’ll find for her purpose BUCHANAN the best.

  I shall now write a play without dresses at all,
    A plan, which I’m sure will be perfectly new. 
  Yet opposed to convention, why merely the mention
    Of a thing so immodest will startle a few;
  And, although it’s a pity, I shrewdly suspect
  The Lord Chamberlain might deem it right to object.

  Better still! from the French I will boldly convey
    What will be (in two senses) the talk of the town. 
  You insist on a moral?  Well, pray do not quarrel
    With the one that I now for your guidance lay down,
  That of excellent maxims this isn’t the worst—­
  Let the play, not the dresses, be settled the first!

* * * * *

SOMETHING IN A NAME.—­What a happily appropriate name for the Chief Magistrate of so fashionable a watering-place as Brighton is Mr. SOPER!  Whether he is soft SOPER, or Hard SOPER, or Scented SOPER, it matters not; it is only a pity that after his year of office, if the Brightonian Bathers can spare him, he should not be transferred to Windsor.  Old Windsor SOPER—­what a splendid title for the Mayor of the Royal town!  No doubt he will show himself active and energetic during his Mayoralty, and that at Brighton henceforth a totally opposite meaning from the ordinary one will be given to the description of a speech as “a SOPER-ific.”  At east, it is ’oped so, for the sake of SOPER.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  EXPERIENTIA DOCET.

“AND ARE YOU GOING TO GIVE ME SOMETHING FOR MY BIRTHDAY, AUNTY MAUD?”

“OF COURSE, DARLING.”