We were riding home together, When I told her of my love; It was gentle summer weather, And the moon looked down above With a very bashful brightness, Just as though it wished to say “If I could, for sheer politeness, I would look the other way;” And the little pony trotted On with such a leisure gait, I believe that he had plotted To be lazy, kind and late; So I told her how my breast hid— Like a bee within the hive— Love, and hopefully suggested She might drive. In her hands the ribbons fluttered, And the pony seemed to know There was something tender uttered, And he took it very slow; Then I leaned a trifle nearer To the maiden at my side, And I told my pretty hearer How delightful ’twere to ride On and on with her forever If she would but be my wife— How ’twould be my one endeavor To make happy all her life; And the brief reply that met me In my memory remains Like a thorn—“If you will let me Hold the reins.” I said, Discreetly, “No.” And so We didn’t wed. BROOKLYN’S STATUE OF BEECHER. _By R. H. Titherington._ “Let the sound of those he wrought for, And the feet of those he fought for, Echo round his bourne forevermore.” Tennyson’s lines on the Duke of Wellington may well be applied to the monument that Brooklyn has set up to commemorate her greatest citizen and the foremost of all American preachers. The recently unveiled statue of Beecher could hardly be better placed than at the junction of two main arteries of traffic, and facing the City Hall. It stands at the heart of Brooklyn, as in another sense Beecher stood, during his life, at the heart of Brooklyn and of the nation. Its location is in keeping with the character of the statue, and with those sides of the great man’s nature which it especially typifies. It should, perhaps, have been set so as to face away from the City Hall, rather than toward it. It is certainly somewhat unfortunate that that which meets the eye of most of those who see it should be the back of the statue, draped in the folds of a heavy cloak. [Illustration: THE STATUE IN FRONT OF THE BROOKLYN CITY HALL.]