This reminds us of Quin, who, being asked if he had ever seen so bad a winter, replied:  “Yes, just such an one last summer.”  If people could be satisfied about the weather, this sort of summer ought to have pleased the Irishman who, as he warmed his hands at a fire remarked:  “What a pity it is that we can’t have the cold weather in the summer.”

SERENADE.

    “Come out! the moon is white, and on the river
      The white mist lies;
    The twilight deepens, and the stars grow brighter
      In the pure, perfect skies;
    The dewy woods with silent voices call you;
      Come out, heart of my heart, light of my eyes!

    “Come out, for where you are not, beauty is not;
      Come out, my Dear! 
    See how the fairies will adorn the meadows
      The moment you draw near;
    And the world wear that robe and crown of glory
      It never wears except when you are here.”

    In vain!—­a little light among the jasmine
      Her lattice gleams,
    Her white hand at the closing of it lingers
      A moment—­so it seems—­
    To drop an unseen rose down to her lover: 
      White rose—­whose scent will sanctify his dreams!

E. NESBIT

A PHILANTHROPIST.

BY ANGUS GREY.

I.

“And when I had your own bottle finished, Doctor, an ould man that was passing by to the fair of Kinvarra told me that there was nothin’ in the world so good for a stiff arm as goose’s grease or crane’s lard, rendered, rubbed in, and, says he, in a few days your arm will be as limber as limber.  So I went to the keeper at Inchguile, and he shot a crane for me; but there wasn’t so much lard in it as I thought there’d be, because it was just after rearing a chitch.”

“Well, we must try and get you a better one next time,” said the Doctor, nodding farewell to his loquacious patient, one of those non-paying ones who look on a “dispensary ticket” as conveying an unlimited right of discourse on the one hand and attention on the other.  But the Doctor was just now in a position of vantage, being seated on his car, on which he slowly jogged out of sight, leaving the victim of rheumatism who had stopped him still experimentally rubbing the joints of his arm.

It was the first of June by the calendar, but the outward signs of the season were but slightly visible in that grey West Country, where stones lay as the chief crop in the fields and innumerable walls took the place of hedges, and a drizzling mist from the Atlantic hid all distant outlines.

The Doctor had been all day face to face with such cheerless surroundings, and was on his way homewards.  But presently he stopped at the entrance of a little “boreen,” where a wrinkled, red-skirted dame was standing sentry, leaning on a stout blackthorn stick.  “Is it me you’re looking out for, Mrs. Capel?” he asked.  “I hope Mary is no worse to-day.”