She hesitated, thinking: “I can’t tell him of my dream; it was not such a thing as a wife would want to repeat to her husband. Perhaps I ought to tell him, though. No, it will not be best; he would be displeased. I would better let him think that his surmise is correct than to make him sad or jealous. Besides, I am not responsible for what happens in my sleep. If the dream had included a thought or recognition of Harry, I should think that I was harboring improper feelings. But it was only a dream.” “Yes, Harry, I was dreaming of our old lover days.” When her husband started for his office he gave Parilee his accustomed farewell kiss. To him it was the same as usual, but to her it seemed slightly insipid; the dream kiss was still upon her lips. “It is because we have been married so long; I have grown used to him,” she reasoned when left alone. “I love Harry, and always shall.” Then she sat down by the window, looked far away into space, and went over the dream again. “I wonder where Tom is now,” she questioned in her thought. “Probably married by this time.” A disagreeable feeling went to her heart. “He loved me before I met Harry. What changes time brings.” And she mused on. OLGA ARNOLD. THE NEW CIRCE. No islet-kingdom has this fair-haired one, Of drugs no knowledge, philtres brews not she, Yet many self-sure men has she undone By her own ways of pleasant sorcery. She whirls in no mad dances dervishly, Nor with incantatory crooning charms Her hapless slaves, who yet would not be free While with a conq’ring smile she soothes, disarms, Born of some slight neglect, their fears, doubts and alarms. She has no wand nor needs one. Her demesne Is ev’ry drawing-room. A slender chair Be-carved and gilt, her throne that any queen Might wish to sit upon. About her there They crowd, the subjects of this guileless fair, Fain for the services she may commend; Content forever the sweet bonds to wear,-- That even Egypt’s moly cannot rend,-- If she, though loving not, to love them will pretend. EDWARD W. BARNARD. BUBBLE AND SQUEAK. The great books teach us to smile at life. The old proverb that there is nothing new under the sun gives much latitude to dullards and plagiarists, who are altogether destitute of the fascination of a mood or manner. Egoism is the last virtue of modern literature. It is not so much what a man says, but what he looks, with women. It is the fantasy of wickedness that flashes from eye to eye among dumb clods that keeps poetry perennially in the world. If the sun shone only upon the righteous, he would not need to get up so early in the morning. I have my livelihood to earn, and consequently I am an optimist. There is something intellectually lacking in all converts to brand new dogmas and creeds. A deep sense of wickedness is but a phase of immaturity of mind.