JOHN GODFREY SAXE

THE COQUETTE-A PORTRAIT
"YOU'RE clever at drawing, I own,"
Said my beautiful cousin Lisette,
As we sat by the window alone,

"

'But say, can you paint a Coquette?"

"She's painted already," quoth I;

"Nay, nay!" said the laughing Lisette "Now none of your joking-but try And paint me a thorough Coquette."

"Well, Cousin," at once I began, In the ear of the eager Lisette,

"I'll paint you as well as I can,

That worderful thing, a Coquette.

"She wears a most beautiful face"

("Of course," said the pretty Lisette), "And isn't deficient in grace,

Or else she were not a Coquette.

"And then she is daintily made"

(A smile from the dainty Lisette)

"By people expert in the trade

Of forming a proper Coquette.

"She's the winningest ways with the beaux” ("Go on!" said the winning Lisette),

"But there isn't a man of them knows
The mind of the fickle Coquette!

"She knows how to weep and to sigh"
(A sigh from the tender Lisette),
"But her weeping is all in my eye
Not that of the cunning Coquette!

"In short, she 's a creature of art"
("O hush!" said the frowning Lisette),
"With merely the ghost of a heart-
Enough for a thorough Coquette.

"And yet I could easily prove"
("Now don't!" said the angry Lisette).
"The lady is always in love-

In love with herself-the Coquette!

"There—do not be angry-you know,
My dear little cousin Lisette,
You told me a moment ago,

To paint you-a thorough Coquette!''

Henry Ward Beecher, in his famous speech at Manchester, England, in which he talked for an hour against a howling mob of Rebel sympathizers before he gained their attention, was interrupted by a man in the audience who shouted: "Why didn't you whip the Confederates in sixty days, as you said you would?" "Because," replied Beecher, "we found we had Americans to fight instead of Englishmen."

SAMUEL L. CLEMENS ("Mark Twain")

COLONEL MULBERRY SELLERS

COLONEL MULBERRY SELLERS was in his "library," which was his "drawing-room," and was also his "picture gallery," and likewise his "workshop." Sometimes he called it by one of these names, sometimes by another, according to occasion and circumstance. He was con

structing what seemed to be some kind of a frail mechanical toy, and was apparently very much interested in his work. He was a white-headed man now, but otherwise he was as young, alert, buoyant, visionary and enterprising as ever. His loving old wife sat near by, contentedly knitting and thinking, with a cat asleep in her lap. The room was large, light and had a comfortable look-in fact, a homelike look-though the furniture was of a humble sort and not overabundant, and the knick-knacks and things that go to adorn a living-room not plenty and not costly. But there were natural flowers, and there was an abstract and unclassifiable something about the place which betrayed the presence in the house of somebody with a happy taste and an effective touch.

Even the deadly chromos on the walls were somehow without offense; in fact they seemed

to belong there and to add an attraction to the room-a fascination, anyway; for whoever got his eye on one of them was like to gaze and suffer till he died-you have seen that kind of pictures. Some of these terrors were landscapes, some libeled the sea, some were ostensible portraits, all were crimes. All the portraits were recognizable as dead Americans of distinction, and yet, through labeling, added by a daring hand, they were all doing duty here as "Earls of Rossmore." The newest one had left the works as Andrew Jackson, but was doing its best now as "Simon Lathers Lord Rossmore, Present Earl." On one wall was a cheap old railroad map of Warwickshire. This had been newly labeled, "The Rossmore Estates." On the opposite wall was another map, and this was the most imposing decoration of the establishment, and the first to catch a stranger's attention, because of its great size. It had once borne simply the title SIBERIA, but now the word "FUTURE" had been written in front of that word. There were other additions, in red ink-many cities, with great populations set down, scattered over the vast country at points where neither cities nor populations exist to-day. One of these cities, with population placed at 1,500,000, bore the name "Libertyorloffskoizalinski," and there was a stil more populous one, centrally located and marked "Capitol," which bore the name "Freedomslovnaivenovich."

The mansion--the Colonel's usual name for

the house-was a rickety old two-story frame of considerable size, which had been painted, some time or other, but had nearly forgotten it. It was away out in the ragged edge of Washington, and had once been somebody's country place. It had a neglected yard around it, with a paling fence that needed straightening up in places, and a gate that would stay shut. By the door-post were several modest tin signs. "Col. Mulberry Sellers, Attorney-at-Law and Claim Agent," was the principal one. One learned

from the others that the Colonel was a Materializer, a Hypnotizer, a Mind-cure dabbler, and so on. For he was a man who could always find things to do.

A white-headed Negro man, with spectacles and damaged white-cotton gloves, appeared in the presence, made a stately obeisance, and announced:

"Marse Washington Hawkins, suh." "Great Scott!

him in."

Show him in, Dan'l; show

The Colonel and his wife were on their feet in a moment, and the next moment were joyfully wringing the hands of a stoutish, discouragedlooking man, whose general aspect suggested that he was fifty years old, but whose hair swore to a hundred.

"Well, well, well, Washington, my boy, it is good to look at you again. Sit down, sit down, and make yourself at home. There now-why, you look perfectly natural; ageing a little, just a