the tears ran out of my eyes to see a young scoundrel, scarcely breeched, kissing an unwilling favorite. How sturdily he sticks up to her, one hand around her neck, and the other, perhaps, fast hold of her chin; while she, with face averted, and a frown upon her tiny brow, is all the while pushing him desperately away. But the young rascal knows that he is the strongest, and with him might makes right. With eagerness in every line of his face, he slips his arm around her waist, and, after sundry repulses, wins the kiss at last. And then what a mighty gentleman he thinks he is! In just such a scene has my old friend Lawrence taken me off, in that picture, of The Proffered Kiss, in my library, egad! It is a great grief to me that so few understand how to kiss gracefully. Kissing is an accomplishment, I may be allowed to remark, that should form a part of every gentleman’s education. A man that is too bashful to kiss a lady when all is agreeable, as Mrs. Malaprop would say, is a poor good-for-nought, a lost sinner, without hope of mercy! He will never have the courage to pop the question—mark my words—and will remain a bachelor to his dying day, unless some lady kindly takes him in hand and asks him to have her, as my friend Mrs. Desperate did. The women have a sly way of doing these things, even if, like a spinster I once knew, they have to ask a man flatly whether his intentions are serious or not; and they are very apt to do this as soon as the kissing becomes a business on your part. But to return to the _modus operandi_ of a kiss. Delicacy in this intellectual amusement is the chief thing. Don’t—by the bones of Johannes Secundus!—don’t bungle the matter by a five minutes torture, like a cat playing with a mouse. Kiss a girl deliberately, sir—sensible all the time of the great duty you are performing—but remember also that a kiss, to be enjoyed in its full flavor, should be taken fresh, like champaigne just from the flask. Ah! then you get it in all its airy and _spirituelle_ raciness. If you wish a sentimental kiss—and after all they are perhaps the spicier—steal your arm around her waist, take her hand softly in your own, and then, tenderly drawing her towards you, kiss her as you might imagine a zephyr to do it! I never exactly timed the manœuvre with a stop-watch, but I’ve no doubt the affair might be managed very handsomely in ten seconds. The exact point where a lady should be kissed may be determined by the intersection of two imaginary lines, one drawn perpendicularly down the centre of the face, and the other passing at right angles through the line of the mouth. Two such old codgers as you and I may talk of these things without indiscretion; and, it is but doing our duty by the world, to give others the benefits of our experience. Some of these days, when I get leisure, I shall write a book called “Kissing Made Easy.” The title—don’t you think?—will make it sell.