kiss the pretty girl at your side, all unnoticed except by her. Or to sit beside a charmer on a sofa, before a cozy fire on a bitter winter night, and fill up the pauses of the conversation, you know, by drawing her to you and kissing her. But more than all,—when you have won a blushing confession of love from her you have long and tremblingly worshipped with all a boy’s devotion,—is the rapture of the kiss which you press holily to her brow, while her warm heart flutters against your side, and every pulse in your body thrills with an ecstasy that has no rival in after life. Ah! sir, that kiss is The Kiss. It is worth all the rest. Next to being born a Turk I should choose to have been born an Englishman in the days of Harry the Eighth. Do you remember how Erasmus tells us, in one of his letters, that all the pretty women in London ran up to him and kissed him whenever they met? That’s what I call being in clover. I don’t wonder people long for the good old times, for, if all their fashions were like this, commend me to the days of the bluff monarch, when “thus paused on the time, With jolly ways in those brave old days, When the world was in its prime.” Did you ever attend a children’s party, and see the little dears play Copenhagen? The boys seem to have an instinctive knack at kissing their partners, who always show the same modest repugnance—for modesty is inborn in every woman—aye! and flings a glory about her like the halo around a Madonna’s head. The very instant one of the young scapegraces gets into the ring, he looks slyly all around it, and there be sure is one little face that blushes scarlet, and one little heart that beats faster, for well the owner knows that she is in peril. How fast her hands slide to and fro along the rope, and directly the imprisoned youngster makes a dash at her hand, and, missing it, turns away amid the uproarious laughter and clapping of hands of the rest, and essays perchance a feint to tap some other little hand, all the while, however, keeping one corner of his eye fixed on the blushing damsel who has foiled him. And lo! all at once—like an eagle shooting from the skies—he darts upon it. And now begins the struggle. What a shouting—and merry laughing—what cries of encouragement from the lookers on—what a diving under the rope, and over the rope, and among the chairs, mingled with whoopings from the boys, ensues, until the victim has escaped, or else been caught by her pursuer. Sometimes she submits quietly to the forfeit, but at other times she will fight like a young tiger. Then, indeed, comes “the tug of war.” If she covers her face in her hands, and is a sturdy little piece beside, young Master Harry will have to give up the game, and be the laughing stock of the boys, or else set all chivalry at defiance and tear away those pretty hands by force. Many a time, you old curmudgeon, have I laughed until