agreeable people. That is something, I can tell you, for you might be asked to lead out old Mrs. Peony. My fancy slips in between you and Aurelia, sit you never so closely together. It not only hears what she says, but it perceives what she thinks and feels. It lies like a bee in her flowery thoughts, sucking all their honey. If there are unhandsome or unfeeling guests at table, it will not see them. It knows only the good and fair. As I stroll in the fading light and observe the stately houses, my fancy believes the host equal to his house, and the courtesy of his wife more agreeable than her conservatory.

It will not believe that the pictures on the wall and the statues in the corners shame the guests. It will not allow that they are less than noble. It hears them speak gently of error, and warmly of worth. It knows that they commend heroism and devotion, and reprobate insincerity. My fancy is convinced that the guests are not only feasted upon the choicest fruits of every land and season, but are refreshed by a consciousness of greater loveliness and grace in human character.

Is

Now you, who actually go to the dinner, may not entirely agree with the view my fancy takes of that entertainment. it not, therefore, rather your loss? Or, to put it in another way, ought I to envy you the discovery that the guests are shamed by the statues and pictures-yes, and by the spoons and forks also, if they should chance neither to be so genuine nor so useful as those instruments? And, worse than this, when your fancy wishes to enjoy the picture which mine forms of that feast, it cannot do so, because you have foolishly interpolated the fact between the dinner and your fancy.

Of course, by this time it is late twilight, and the spectacle I enjoyed is almost over. But not quite, for as I return slowly along the streets, the windows are open, and only a thin haze of lace or muslin separates me from the Paradise within.

I see the graceful cluster of girls hovering over the piano, and the quiet groups of the elders in easy chairs, around little tables. I cannot hear what is said, nor plainly see the faces. But some hoyden evening wind, more daring than I, abruptly parts the cloud to look in, and out comes a gush of light, music and fragrance, so that I shrink away into the dark, that I may not seem, even by chance, to have invaded that privacy.

Suddenly there is singing. It is Aurelia, who does not cope with the Italian prima donna, nor sing indifferently to-night, what was sung superbly last evening at the opera. She has a strange, low, sweet voice, as if she only sang in the twilight. It is the ballad of "Allan Percy" that she sings. There is no dainty applause of kid gloves, when it is ended, but silence follows the singing, like a tear.

Then you, my young friend, ascend into the drawing-room, and, after a little graceful gossip, retire; or you wait, possibly, to hand Aurelia into her carriage, and to arrange a waltz for tomorrow evening. She smiles, you bow, and it is over. But it is not yet over with me. My fancy still follows her, and, like a prophetic dream, rehearses her destiny. For, as the carriage rolls away into the darkness and I return homeward, how can my fancy help rolling away also, into the dim future, watching her go down the years?—Prue and I.

Charles Godfrey Leland
Hans Breitmann's Party

HANS BREITMANN gife a barty:
Dey had biano-blayin':

I felled in lofe mit a 'Merican frau,
Her name was Madilda Yane,
She hat haar as prown as a pretzel,
Her eyes vas himmel-plue,

Und ven dey looket indo mine,
Dey shplit mine heart in two.

Hans Breitmann gife a barty:

I vent dere, you'll be pound. I valtzet mit Madilda Yane

Und vent shpinnen round und round. De pootiest Fräulein in de house, She veyed 'pout dwo hoondred pound, Und efery dime she gife a shoomp She make de vindows sound.

Hans Breitmann gife a barty:

I dells you it cost him dear.
Dey rolled in more ash sefen kecks
Of foost rate Lager Beer,

Und venefer dey knocks de shpicket in

De Deutschers gifes a cheer.

I dinks dat so vine a barty

Nefer coom to a het dis year.

Hans Breitmann gife a barty:

Dere all vas Souse und Brouse;
Ven de sooper comed in, de gompany
Did make demselfs to house.
Dey ate das Brot und Gensy broost,
De Bratwurst und Braten fine,

Und vash der Abendessen down

Mit four parrels of Neckarwein.

Hans Breitmann gife a barty:
We all got troonk ash pigs.
I poot mine mout to a parrel of beer,
Und emptied it oop mit a schwigs.
Und denn I gissed Madilda Yane
Und she shlog me on the kop,
Und de gompany fited mit dable-lecks
Dill de coonshthable made oos shtop.

Hans Breitmann gife a barty-
Where ish dat barty now!
Where ish de lofely golden cloud

Dat float on the mountain's prow? Where ish de himmelstrahlende SternDe shtar of de shpirit's light?

All goned afay mit de Lager Beer—
Afay in de Ewigkeit!

Ballad

DER noble Ritter Hugo

Von Schwillensaufenstein

Rode out mit shpeer and helmet,

Und he coom to de panks of de Rhine.

Und oop dere rose a meer maid,

Vot hadn't got nodings on,

Und she say, "Oh, Ritter Hugo,

Vhere you goes mit yourself alone?"

Und he says, "I rides in de creenwood
Mit helmet und mit shpeer,

Till I cooms into em Gasthaus,
Und dere I trinks some beer."

Und den outshpoke de maiden
Vot hadn't got nodings on:
"I ton't dink mooch of beoplesh
Dat goes mit demselfs alone.

"You'd petter coom down in de wasser, Vere dere's heaps of dings to see, Und have a shplendid tinner

Und drafel along mit me.

"Dere you sees de fisch a-schwimmin,

Und you catches dem efery one"

So sang dis wasser maiden

Vot hadn't got nodings on.