My pleasure in her joy is bitter sweet. Your very goodness sometimes hurts my heart, Because, for her, life’s drama seems complete Without the mother’s oft-repeated part. Be patient with me! She was mine so long Who now is yours. One must indeed be strong, To meet the loss without the least regret. And so, forgive me, if my eyes are wet. AN OLD FAN. (TO KITTY. HER REVERIE.) It is soiled and quite passe, Broken too, and out of fashion, But it stirs my heart some way, As I hold it here to-day, With a dead year’s grace and passion. Oh, my pretty fan! Precious dream and thrilling strain, Rise up from that vanished season; Back to heart and nerve and brain Sweeps the joy as keen as pain, Joy that asks no cause or reason. Oh, my dainty fan! Hopes that perished in a night Gaze at me like spectral faces; Grim despair and lost delight, Sorrow long since gone from sight-- All are hiding in these laces. Oh, my broken fan! Let us lay the thing away-- I am sadder now and older; Fled the ball-room and the play-- You have had your foolish day, And the night and life are colder. Exit--little fan! NO CLASSES! No classes here! Why, that is idle talk. The village beau sneers at the country boor; The importuning mendicants who walk Our cities’ streets despise the parish poor. The daily toiler at some noisy loom Holds back her garments from the kitchen aid. Meanwhile the latter leans upon her broom, Unconscious of the bow the laundress made. The grocer’s daughter eyes the farmer’s lass With haughty glances; and the lawyer’s wife Would pay no visits to the trading class, If policy were not her creed in life. The merchant’s son nods coldly at the clerk; The proud possessor of a pedigree Ignores the youth whose father rose by work; The title-seeking maiden scorns all three. The aristocracy of blood looks down Upon the “nouveau riche;” and in disdain, The lovers of the intellectual frown On both, and worship at the shrine of brain. “No classes here,” the clergyman has said; “We are one family.” Yet see his rage And horror when his favorite son would wed Some pure and pretty player on the stage. It is the vain but natural human way Of vaunting our weak selves, our pride, our worth! Not till the long-delayed millennial day Shall we behold “no classes” on God’s earth. A GRAY MOOD.