You thought "I would make him come round when we met!"
You thought "there were slights I could never forget!"
Oh, you did! let me tell you, my dear, to your face,
That your thinking these things doesn't alter the case!
You" can tell what I said?" I don't wish you to tell!
You know what a temper I have, very well;
That I'm sometimes unjust to my friends who are best;
But you've turned against Archie the same as the rest!

"Why hasn't he written? what kept him so still?"—
His silence was sorely against his own will;
He has faults, that I own; but he wouldn't deceive;
He was ill or was busy,-was both, I believe!

"Did he flirt with that lady?" I s'pose I should say,
Why, yes,-when she threw herself right in the way;
He was led off, was foolish, but that is the worst,-
And she was to blame for it all, from the first.

And he's so glad to come back again, and to find
A woman once more with a heart and a mind;

For though others may please and amuse for an hour,
I hold all his future-his life-in my power!

And now, if things don't go persistently wrong,
Our destinies cannot be parted for long;

For he said he would give me his fortune and name,-
Not those words, but he told me what meant just the same.

So what could I do, after all, at the last,

But just ask him to pardon my doubts in the past;

For though he had been wrong, I should still, all the same,
Rather take it myself than let him bear the blame.

And, poor fellow! he felt so bad, I could not bear
To drive him by cruelty quite to despair;
And so, to confess the whole truth, when I found
He was willing to do so himself, I came round!

THE MULE AND THE BEES.-LOCK Melone.

I was visiting a gentleman who lived in the vicinity of Los Angeles. The morning was beautiful. The plash of little cascades about the grounds, the buzz of bees, and the gentie moving of the foliage of the pepper-trees in the scarce

ly-perceptible ocean-breeze, made up a picture which I thought was complete. It was not. A mule wandered on the scene. The scene, I thought, could have got along without him. He took a different view.

Of course inules were not allowed on the grounds. That is what he knew. That was his reason for being there.

I recognized him. Had met him. His lower lip hung down. He looked disgusted. It seemed he didn't like being a mule.

A day or two before, while I was trying to pick up a little child who had got too near this mule's heels, he kicked me two or three times before I could tell from which way I was hit. I might have avoided some of the kicking, but in my confusion I began to kick at the mule. I didn't kick with him long. He outnumbered me.

He browsed along on the choice shrubbery. I forgot the beauty of the morning. Remembered a black-and-blue spot on my leg. It looked like the print of a mule's hoof. There was another on my right hip. Where my suspenders crossed were two more, as I have been informed. They were side by side-twin blue spots—and seemed to be about the same

age.

I thought of revenge. I didn't want to kick with him any more. No. But thought, if I had him tied down good and fast, so he could not move his heels, how like sweet incense it would be to first saw his ears and tail smooth off, then put out his eyes with a red-hot poker, then skin him alive, then run him through a threshing-machine.

While I was thus thinking and getting madder and madder the mule, which had wandered up close to a large beehive, got stung. His eyes lighted up, as if that was just what he was looking for. He turned on the bee-hive and took aim. He fired. In ten seconds the only piece of bee-hive I could see was about the size a man feels when he has told a joke that falls on the company like a piece of sad news. This piece was in the air. It was being kicked at.

The bees swarmed. They swarmed a good deal. They lit on that mule earnestly. After he had kicked the last bit of bee-hive so high that he could not reach it any more he stopped for an instant. He seemed trying to ascertain

whether the ten thousand bees which were stinging him meant it. They did.

The mule turned loose. I never saw anything to equal it. He was enveloped in a dense fog of earnestness and bees, and filled with enthusiasm and stings. The more he kicked the higher he arose from the ground. I may have been mistaken, for I was somewhat excited and very much delighted, but that mule seemed to rise as high as the tops of the pepper-trees. The pepper-trees were twenty feet high. He would open and shut himself like a frog swimming. Sometimes, when he was in mid-air, he would look like he was flying and I would think for a moment he was about to become an angel. Only for a moment. There are probably no mule angels.

When he had got up to the tops of the pepper-trees I was called to breakfast. I told them I didn't want any breakfast. The mule continued to be busy.

When a mule kicks himself clear of the earth, his heels seldom reach higher than his back; that is, a mule's forelegs can reach forward and his hind-legs backward until the mule becomes straightened out into a line of mule parallel with the earth and fifteen or twenty feet therefrom. This mule's hind-legs, however, were not only raised into a line with his back, but they would come over until the bottom of the hoofs almost touched his ears.

The mule proceeded as if he desired to hurry through.

I had no idea how many bees a hive would hold until I saw that bee-hive emptied on that mule. They covered him so completely that I could not see any of him but the glare of his eyes. I could see from the expression of his eyes that he didn't like the way things were going.

The mule still went on in an absorbed kind of a way. Not only was every bee of the disturbed hive on duty, but I think the news had been conveyed to neighboring hives that war had been declared. I could see bees flitting to and fro. The mule was covered so deep with bees that he looked like an exaggerated mule. The hum of the bees and their moving on each other combined in a seething hiss.

A sweet calm and gentle peacefulness pervaded me. When he had kicked for an hour he began to fall short of the tops of the pepper-trees. He was settling down closer

to the earth. Numbers were telling on him. He looked distressed. He had always been used to kicking against something, but found now he was striking the air. It was very exhausting.

He finally got so he did not rise clear of the ground, but continued to kick with both feet for half an hour; next with first one foot and then the other for another half an hour; then with his right foot only every few minutes, the intervals growing longer and longer, until he finally was still. His head drooped, his lip hung lower and lower. The bees stung on. He looked as if he thought that a mean, sneaking advantage had been taken of him.

I retired from the scene. Early next morning I returned. The sun came slowly up from behind the eastern hills. The light foliage of the pepper-trees trembled with his morning caress. His golden kiss fell upon the opening roses. A bee could be seen flying hither, another thither. The mule lay near the scene of yesterday's struggle. Peace had come to him. He was dead. Too much kicking against nothing. -Californian.

FUNERAL CUSTOM IN EGYPT.

It is said that in Egypt funeral processions bearing the corpse to the cemetery pause before the doors of the friends of the deceased, to bid them a last farewell, and before those of his enemies, to effect a reconciliation before they are parted forever.

Giv'st thou no parting kiss?
Friend! is it come to this?
Oh, friend, farewell!"

Uplift your load again,

Take up the mourning strain!
Pour the deep wail!

Lo! the expected one
To his place passeth on--
Grave! bid him hail.

Here dwells his mortal foe;
Lay the departed low,
Even at his gate.-

Will the dead speak again?
Uttering proud boasts and vain
Last words of hate?

Lo! the cold lips unclose.

List! list! what sounds are those,
Plaintive and low?

"O thou, mine enemy!
Come forth and look on me
Ere hence I go.

"Curse not thy foeman now.
Mark, on this pallid brow
Whose seal is set!
Pard'ning I pass away.
Then-wage not war with clay-
Pardon-forget."

A TRAMP AND A VAGABOND.

What house do you say?-the Ship at Stock?
Why, there, I must ha' bin blind

Not to know it agin; but 'tis years ago
Since I left these parts behind.
Here, master, bring us a pint out here,
If these good gents don't mind.

Look warmish, do I? And so would you,
If you'd only ha' come my track,
A-tramping it here from Grays to-day,
With this horgan on yer back;
And I'm not so young as I used to be
When these gray hairs was black.