So dumb the carpet should be wrought,
No sounds of footsteps might be caught,
Much less sly Nan's, whose sweet surprise
Should be to creep, with laughing eyes,
On fearful tip-toe up behind,

With little hands to make me blind!

Should picture me a desert vast,
A toiling caravan o'ercast,

And foundered 'mid the burning sand.
And on the wall toward the east
I would have an endless feast,
A landscape of that rare old Cuyp,
Of breathing full, and sunwarmth ripe;
And when the great orb downward rolled,
Along the wall the squares of gold
Athwart its face should slowly melt,
Whilst nature art, art nature felt.

Not all alone I'd keep apart This room from her who shared

my

heart,

And as affection ever masks

The sacredness of pure love tasks,
My own dear girl should often find
Excuses perfect to her mind;

"Her fuchsia, lacking water, drooped;"
Or, "The long curtains were unlooped."

And on such small pretexts as these,
She should be my fondest tease;
Disturbing me from deepest books
By constant hindrance of sweet looks.

One window should be trellissed deep
With jasmine stems, and you should peep
An arm's depth through the sheltering green;
And there should struggle up between
A rose-tree, and its blooms above,
Heavy as woman's heart with love,
Should, when the fitful winds bode rain,
Throb gently 'gainst the casement pane.
The lattice I'd have open wide

(The hindering stems just pushed aside)
Upon the cool deep grass of June,

'Thwart which there should be swathes beat down,

Such as we trench with feet all white
From dusty roads with pure delight,
Just issuing from a city hived,
With pure delight, and heart revived
That we have lived once more to feel
God's breath about the country steal.
And when an idle fit came on,
I'd ope the window, and the song
Of birds in high up branches clear
Let in upon my charméd ear.

And as I lay at length, the breeze,
From base to spire, the poplar-trees
Should ever stir with slumbrous song,
Whilst quivered all their leafy throng.
And, like a fall of summer snow,
The apple-blooms should softly flow,
"Till
every nook within the room

Was filled with drifts of fresh perfume.

Then musing, half awake, I'd lie,

And, as I gazed, a bird should fly

Swiftly across the window pane,

And then a full shrill note should strain
Right in my ear, and as I mused,

Both sight and sound should grow confused;
But still, within my inmost brain,

That bird's song should bring back again
With one sad touch of sense refined,
Some old forgotten state of mind.

PALACE LIGHTS, CLUB CARDS, AND BANK PENS. BY ONE WHO CAN'T MAKE THEM OUT.

A CAPITAL article might be written on "Things one can't make out." How many enigmas stare one in the face every day in the ordinary routine matters of life? Among other things that I can't make out, is her Majesty's dreadful extravagance in the matter of wax-candles. Not a chandler's can one pass in London without seeing piles of spermaceties ticketed "Palace Candles ;" their wicks just singed to give them a second-handish look. One naturally asks, what can be the meaning of this? Is Prince Albert practising Herr Dobler's trick of blowing out a couple of hundred lights at a time with a percussion-cap; or has the Master of the Household the perquisite of the grease-pot? The number of ships her Majesty has at sea, doubtless justifies a pretty liberal illumination at the palace; but how comes it, that so many of them find their way to Mr. Sperm's and others in the chandlery line?

Another thing that I can't make out is, where all the Club Cards come from? Order as many hundred dozen as you like, and the supply never appears to get lower. It is insinuated that they are the rejected packs of club gamblers, never having

been used but once for fear of fraud; but all the hells in London, if they were to try for it, could not supply as many as you could obtain in the next street. The cardmakers, I suspect, must have a workshop for their manufacture in some concealed den, where the artizans, dressed as gentlemen of fashion, play furiously away for enormous imaginary stakes, until they sit up to their knees in rejected packs, which are then taken away a having undergone the due ordeal previous to sale. I have heard people of imaginative turns of mind, sometimes when they have been gently gliding out the deals, with one of these packs, paint a picture of the estate that has been lost, perhaps, by its very pips, and of the ruined man rushing from the hell with frenzy to Waterloo-bridge, and a great deal more of the like fancy-work, that the maker would have smiled to have heard.

Bank Pens, again, are called upon to explain themselves. Where do they come from in such quantities? Are we to believe, as the stationers would have us, that they are the discarded quills of Threadneedle or Lombard Street? It certainly gives us a vast idea of the profuseness of Bank stationery. Merciful clerks, no doubt, like not to exhaust the willing pen, by "carrying forward" such heavy sums from page to page, and so have many relays for the work. Be that as it may, Bank Pens always seem to have been oppressed with too much calculating, for they manage to split right up in the head by themselves, after the slightest exertion. Inspecting a bundle of them that now lies before me, I find that they are all dipped into the ink exactly the same depth, so that the clerk who last used them must, in some momentary frenzy, have gone to work with the whole quarter of a hundred.

These three things are a puzzle to me as great as the Chinese nest of balls. I have turned them over and over in my mind without even hitting upon their rationale, and so I shall go on perplexed, I fear, to my grave.

ASSOCIATIONS OF A SHELL.

CAN I forget that calm long evening
When last we walked together by the sea?
Can I forget? Ah, no! Each image clear
Remains of that glad season in my soul,
As did our footsteps then upon the sand.
It was the flooding of the great spring tide,
And she would have me to the headland stroll,
To watch the white spray showering o'er the rock.
It was a glorious sight, as we passed on,
The sweeping bay with golden sands lay rimmed,
On which the proud imperious sea advanced,
With heavy murmurs each translucent scroll.
Now can I picture, as 'twere yesterday,

How fair she stood, as through her summer dress
Faintly the breeze her slender figure sketched.
Her curls (almost too heavy for the wind)
Beneath her chin she held with one white hand,
Laughing so merrily with half-closed eyes
When the gusts thickened. Then as I said
(What I had said a thousand happy times),
"Dear Letty," whilst her willing hand clasped mine,
A clear-necked wave impetuous on the strand,
Urged with a singing sound its thin smooth flood,
Glassy the sand on its retreating shone,
And there, neglected by the tide's reclaim,
A curious shell upon its spines stood poised.
I was the servant of her eager eyes,
And ere the foam-bells from the sea-gift died,
The prize was hers. 'Twas the last evening,
Ere she sailed from us in that fatal boat,
How long that time ago. All the old haunts—
The shallow pools, for the fine sea-weed famed-