In middle age she loses her brilliant complexion. Yet, for reasons best known to herself, her colour continues to be bright, though her spirits and her temper seem to suffer in the effort to keep it so. As old age advances, she is as likely as not to become a gorgon of immaculate propriety, and will be heard lamenting over the laxity of manners which permits girls to do what was never dreamt of when she was a girl herself. * * * * * THE PINT OF IT. How curious that our youngest boy, aged fifteen months, should have already become partially paralysed, and be afflicted, besides, with anæmia, rickets, and growing inability to digest the smallest particle of food! If it were not that we procure our milk from the "Hygienic Unskimmed Lacteal Fluid and Food for Babes Company, Limited," I should begin to believe that there might be something wrong with the beverage which forms the staple of his infantile dietary. The Company professes to sell milk "pure from the cow." From the quality of this morning's supply, I should be inclined to fancy that that cow is suffering from an advanced stage of atrophy. As our eldest child, aged two-and-a-half, is still totally unable to walk, and its legs have become mere shrivelled sticks, I really must call in an Analyst to test our milk. Heavens! The Analyst reports that more than half the cream has been "separated"--which seems to mean removed--and that its place has been supplied by "65 per cent. of impure water." Under these circumstances, I hardly think that the fine of five shillings, and half-a-crown costs, which the Magistrate has inflicted on the Company, quite meets the justice of the case, or will be sufficient to stop such adulteration in the future. * * * * * Buffalo Bill and Leo Pope. Went BUFFALO BILL to see the Pope pass by. Then were the Cow-boys cowed by the POPE'S eye, With which, like many an English-speaking glutton, They'd often met, and fastened on, in mutton. The difference vast at once they did espy, Betwixt a sheep's eye and a Leo's eye. Says Shiney WILLIAM to himself, "I'm blest!" And so he was, and so were all the rest. * * * * * FROM A NAUTICAL INQUIRER.--"Please, Sir, what's the uniform of an Admiral of the 'Bouillon Fleet'? I see this Fleet advertised, but have been unable to obtain any information about it at the Admiralty, where I have called repeatedly to make inquiries." [Consult "The First Lord!" The first lord you meet will do.--ED.] * * * * * "GRENADIERS TO THE FRONT!" I must confess, my dear Editor, I was greatly gratified at your gracefully recognising my twenty years' service, spent in the defence of my QUEEN and my country (in the Militia), by asking me to be present at the initial performance of the Guards Burlesque Company of _Fra Diavolo_ in the Theatre Royal, Recreation Room, Chelsea Barracks, S.W.