part of Inez to hammer into my head; and I could sit by your hearth and con it over."

66

Yes; and suffer the broth to spoil for want of skimming!"

Perhaps you fancy that I think of giving you this trouble for nothing?" remonstrated Isoline. "But pray understand that there will be a crown of bonne main for you, if you make a good bargain."

"A crown indeed! I used to make as much when I was a boxopener by every fainting-fit, and nothing furnished for the money but a few civil words and a glass of spring water! Whereas, if I trudge out this wretched morning in the mud, there will be, in the first place, twenty centimes to the decrotteur for cleaning my shoes, besides the probability of catching cold."

"Make your fee a five frane piece, then, and get you gone, or I will go myself!" cried the indignant Isoline, enforcing her threat by an oath more intelligible to her ears and those of the ouvreuse, than it would have been to the pure-minded Claire de Courson. Whereupon Madame Dosne, by no means wishing to lose the job, attempted to soothe her, by exclaiming, with a chuckling laugh, "Come come, ma belle enfant! not so hasty with your old friend! I'll just on with my cloak. Fold up your shawl neatly in paper; or stay, best pass a hot iron over it, to take out the creases and make it look like new; and if I don't bring you back fifty crowns within an hour, my name's not Agrippina Dosne!"

"You must bring me back a hundred, or nothing," said Isoline, firmly. 'If I can't get that much for it on pledge, I'll take it at once to our manager's wife, who has often offered to purchase it of me for thirty Napoleons."

"I'll do my best, I can but do my best!" cried the hag, shuffling on her fusty old merino cloak.

"Remember! three hundred francs or nothing!" cried Isoline, as her ambassadress quitted the room. And, on finding herself alone, she drew forth once more from the pocket of her foulard apron, the copy of her luckless part of Inez de Castro; and, sitting down beside the fire, with the skimming ladle across her knee, and her eyes occasionally directed towards the earthen jar, in which simmered a piece of lean beef, tied up with packthread, amid an odoriferous mixture of leeks, celery, carrots, turnips, and burnt onions, she began to recite aloud with becoming emphasis, " O toi! objet de tant de vœux! Toi! dont la tendresse embaume encore le cœur anéanti de la plus malheureuse des femmes! Toi!" The floating scum upon the simmering stew-pot here claimed the assistance of the écumoire!) Reçois encore, reçois encore, reçois-. "Now what on earth will become of me!" exclaimed poor Isoline, interrupting herself. "The more I strive to drive this tiresome stuff into my brains the more my thoughts wander to that unhappy daughter and mother on the third floor! If it was poetry, I could learn it in five minutes; mais la prose, c'est embêtante

comme tout !"

COUNT CASKO'WHISKY AND HIS THREE HOUSES.

A TEMPERANCE BALLAD.

THERE is a demon in the land,
A demon fierce and frisky,
Who steals the souls of mortal men,
His name is Casko'whisky.

Lo! mounted on a fiery steed,

He rides through town and village,
And calls the workman from his shop,
The farmer from his tillage.

Clutched in his lanky red right hand
He holds a mighty bicker,*
Whose polished sides run daily o'er,
With floods of burning liquor.

Around him press the clamorous crowds,
To taste his liquor greedy;

But chiefly come the poor and sad-
The suffering and the needy.

All those oppressed by grief and debts
The dissolute-the lazy,

Draggle-tail'd sluts, and shirtless men,

And young girls lewd and crazy.

"Give! give!" they cry, " give, give us drink!

Give us your burning liquor,

We'll empty fast as you can fill

Your fine capacious bicker.

"Give! give us drink to drown our care,
And make us light and frisky,

Give! give! and we will bless thy name

Thou good Count Casko'whisky!"

And when the demon hears them cry,
Right merrily he laugheth,

And holds his bicker out to all,

And each poor idiot quaffeth.

The first drop warms their shivering skins,

And drives away their sadness,

The second lights their sunken eyes
And fills their souls with gladness.

The authorities are against me in the use of this word. Dr. Johnson has it beaker, a cup with a beak or spout. In the north of England and the south of Scotland bicker means a bowl, without any reference to the beak. I incline to the belief that Johnson is altogether wrong, and that the true derivation of the word is from the Teutonic becker, a drinking cup. However, my rhyme requires it to be bicker,—so bicker let it be, as far as the present ballad is concerned. No rhymer can give a more satisfactory answer than the exigencies of his rhyme.

THE MEETING.

AFTER THE MANNER OF LUDWIG UHLAND.

ONCE I lay beside a fountain,

Lull'd me with its gentle song,

And my thoughts o'er dale and mountain,
With the clouds were borne along.

There I saw old castles flinging

Shadowy gleams on moveless seas;

Saw gigantic forests swinging

To and fro without a breeze;

And in dusky alleys straying

Many a giant shape of power; Troops of nymphs in sunshine playing, Singing, dancing, hour on hour.

I, too, trode these plains Elysian,

Heard their clear-toned notes of mirth;

But a brighter, fairer vision,

Called me back again to earth.

From the forest shade advancing,
See, there comes a lovely May,

The dew-like gems before her glancing
As she brushes it away.

Straight I rose, and ran to meet her,
Seized her hand; the heavenly blue
Of her bright eyes smiled brighter, sweeter,
As she asked me "Who are you?"

To this question came another

What its aim I still must doubt-
And she asked me "How's your mother?
Does she know that you are out?"

"No! my mother does not know it,

Beauteous, heaven-descended Muse!" "Then off get you, my handsome poet,

And say I sent you with the news.'

E. N.