'I will try you, _bon camarade_.' 'Your hand upon it, Harry.' She gave it; I kissed the gold hair that waved against my lips. Fanny rushed impetuously upon us, with half-opened eyes, and stifled us with caresses. 'Such a proposal,' said she musingly, after she had returned to her wools and beads, '14 deg. above zero!' 'And the Polyphemus, Fanny?' 'Is for Nap,' and Fanny blushed and laughed. She was wondering if that great event, an 'engagement,' always came about in so prosaic a way. But looking at Bertha, I caught the bright, long, gravely humorous gleam from her dark eyes, and walked upon it all the way down to Exchange Place. Adieu, little Beatrice; my story hath at last an ending. Keep the little hands and little heart warm for somebody brave by and by. Go shining about and dancing, and smiling, Hummingbird; may sweetest flowers always bloom around you; may you dwell in a fragrant rose garden of your own, _mignonne_! Adieu. ETHEL. FITZ FASHION'S WIFE. Take the diamonds from my forehead--their chill weight but frets my brow! How they glitter! radiant, faultless--but they give no pleasure now. Once they might have saved a Poet, o'er whose bed the violet waves: Now their lustre chills my spirit, like the light from new-made graves. Quick! unbind the braided tresses of my coroneted hair! Let it fall in single ringlets such as I was wont to wear. Take that wreath of dewy violets, twine it round their golden flow; Let the perfumed purple blossoms fall upon my brow of snow! Simple flowers, ye gently lead me back into the sunny years, Ere I wore proud chains of diamonds, forged of bitter, frozen tears! Bring the silver mirror to me! I am changed since those bright days, When I lived with my sweet mother, and a Poet sang my praise. My blue eyes are larger, dimmer; thicker lashes veil their light; Upon my cheek the crimson rose fast is fading to the white. I am taller, statelier, slighter, than I was in days of yore:-- If his eyes in heaven behold me, does he praise me as before? Proudly swells the silken rustle--all around is wealth and state,-- Dearer far the early roses twining round the wicker gate, Where my mother came at evening with the saint-like forehead pale, And the Poet sat beside her, conning o'er his rhythmed tale. As he read the linked lines over, she would sanction, disapprove: Soft and musical the pages, but he never sang of love. I had lived through sixteen summers, he was only twenty-one, And we three still sat together at the hour of setting sun. Lowly was the forest cottage, but the sweetbrier wreathed it well; 'Mid its violets and roses, bees and robins loved to dwell. Wilder forms of larch and hemlock climbed the mountain at its side; Fairy-like a rill came leaping where the quivering harebells sighed. Glittering, bounding, singing, dancing, ferns and mosses loved its track; Lower in it dipped the willows, as to kiss the cloudland's rack.