The _St. Louis Magazine_, edited by Alexander N. de Menil, now in its fifteenth year, is brilliantly illustrated, purely Western in make-up, replete with stories, poems, timely reading and humor. Samples copy and a set of gold-colored picture cards sent for ten cents. Address T. J. GILMORE, 213 North Eighth Street, St. Louis. THE PANSY and _St. Louis Magazine_ sent one year for $1.75. =SPECIAL COMBINATION OFFER.= The =WIDE AWAKE= one year, and the =Detroit Weekly Free Press= until Dec. 31, 1886, will be mailed on receipt of $3.60 for the two. =The Weekly Free Press alone is $1.00 a Year.= The _Detroit Free Press_ is one of the best, most interesting and purest family papers published. It should be in thousands of homes where it is not now taken. No family will regret having subscribed for this choicest of papers for their household. =BABYLAND AND WEEKLY FREE PRESS, One Year, $1.25.= =WIDE AWAKE, BABYLAND AND FREE PRESS, One Year, $4.00.= A combination that will afford instructive and entertaining reading to a whole household for a year. Address D. LOTHROP & CO., Boston. _Volume 13, Number 14._ Copyright, 1886, by D. LOTHROP & CO. _Feb. 6, 1886._ THE PANSY. [Illustration: MAY VINTON WAITING FOR HER PONY PHAETON.] HELD BACK. SHE made a pretty picture standing there on the veranda waiting for the carriage to come around. It was the last time she would ever stand there looking so fresh and fair in the morning light. This is a sad story, yet it has its bright side, so I hope you will not turn away from it without gathering up some of the sweetness that is shed as a perfume from May Vinton's daily life. May was an only, a much-petted, and some people said, a spoiled child. However, this last was a mistake. What might have been, had not her Heavenly Father interfered, we cannot tell. A friend of Mr. Vinton who was spending a few days with the family was interested in the management of a theatre, and this gentleman had been studying this fair young daughter of his host and had discovered what others among her friends already knew, that she was a girl of unusual talent, and he fancied that if she were educated for the stage she would, as he expressed it, "create a sensation." He had proposed to Mr. Vinton to take May home with him and educate her for his favorite profession. He had pictured to the young girl the pleasures of such a life, dwelling upon the sweetness of the world's praises which she was sure to win. It would have been no wonder if May's head had been turned by all the flattery and promises of a brilliant future. Mr. Vinton had given his consent to the proposal of his friend, but May hesitated.