"You _won't_ tell your brother that I've been here?" said the Flowerpot. "I'm so absurdly afraid that he can't help blaming me for causing some of his trouble." "Can't I tell him, even if it would serve to amuse him in his desolation?" asked the sister, persuasively. "I want to see him smile again, just as he does some days when a hand-organ-man's monkey climbs up to our windows from the street." "Well, you _may_ tell him, then, you absurd thing!" returned FLORA, blushing; and, with another embrace, they parted, and the deeply momentous interview was over. (_To be Continued._) [Footnote 3: Author of "The Grave."] * * * * * [Illustration: ROMANCE AND REALITY. IN THE LIBRARY. _Jones, (reading.)_ "THE GLASS OF FASHION AND THE MOULD OF FORM, THE OBSERVED OF ALL OBSERVERS." _Jenkins, (with enthusiasm.)_ "PERFECT DESCRIPTION OF MY WIFE!" IN THE GARDEN. THIS IS MRS. JENKINS, IN HER MORNING TOILETTE.] * * * * * OFFICE SEEKING.[4] BY ICHABOD BOGGS, THE NEW AMERICAN POET. PREFATORY NOTE.--The reader is requested to judge the following production mildly, as it is the first effort of a youthful genius (16 years old in looks and feeling, 42 by the family bible and census.) The author has felt that America should have a new kind of verse of its own, and he thinks he here offers one which has never been used by any other mortal poet. It is called the duodekameter. Perhaps it may be proper to add that the following is _poetry_. I. You see everybody in our town was running around, getting fat jobs and positions, and picking up a million dollars or so, So I felt it incumbent on me To shake myself up, and see if there wasn't a good butter firkin, well filled, loafing around idle, in which could conveniently locate my centre of gravity, and so I said to myself, I'll go To Washington and see, Says ICHABOD BOGGS, says I. II. Now, don't you see, you might just as well ask for a big position at first, and then take what you can get, At least that has been my rule so far, For, as I says to myself, if you can only get a very high position, with a sort of nabob's salary, and lots of perquisites running in annually, you needn't do anything, you bet, But puff at your cigar, Says ICHABOD BOGGS, says I. III. So I put on my best clothes, and a sort of a big blue necktie, and shortly thereafter showed myself to Mr. GRANT, And said that there had been quite enough Of this giving away big offices to people who hadn't big reputations, and that he had other fish to fry, and that, as he wouldn't give the Custom House to my son, I'd take it myself, and then I stopped, and he looked, "I shan't," But all he said was--puff, Says General GRANT, says he. IV.