His mission? Well, there is but one, And if it is a mission he knows it, nay, To be a happy idler, to lounge and sun, And dreaming, pass his long-drawn days away. So dreams he on, his happy life to pass Content, without ambitions painful sighs, Until the sands run down into the glass; He smiles--content--unmoved and dies. And yet, with all the pity that you feel For this poor mothling of that flame, the world; Are you the better for your desperate deal, When you, like him, into infinitude are hurled? LOVE AND THE BUTTERFLY. I heard a merry voice one day And glancing at my side, Fair Love, all breathless, flushed with play, A butterfly did ride. "Whither away, oh sportive boy?" I asked, he tossed his head; Laughing aloud for purest joy, And past me swiftly sped. Next day I heard a plaintive cry And Love crept in my arms; Weeping he held the butterfly, Devoid of all its charms. Sweet words of comfort, whispered I Into his dainty ears, But Love still hugged the butterfly, And bathed its wounds with tears. THE BEE-MAN. We were glancing over the mental photograph album, and commenting on the great lack of dissimilarity in tastes. Nearly every one preferred spring to any other season, with a very few exceptions in favor of autumn. The women loved Mrs. Browning and Longfellow; the men showed decided preferences after Emerson and Macauley. Conceit stuck out when the majority wanted to be themselves and none other, and only two did not want to live in the 19th century. But in one place, in answer to the question, "Whom would you rather be, if not yourself?" the answer was, "A baby!" "Why would you rather be a baby than any other personage?" queried someone glancing at the writer, who blushed as she replied. "Because then I might be able to live a better life, I might have better opportunities and better chances for improving them, and it would bring me nearer the 20th century." "About eight or nine years ago," said the first speaker, "I remember reading a story in a magazine for young folks. It was merely a fairy story, and perhaps was not intended to point a moral, but only to amuse the little ones. It was something on this order:--" Once upon a time, there lived in an out of the way spot an ancient decrepit Bee-man. How old he was no one knew; whence he came, no one could tell: to the memory of the oldest inhabitant he had always lived in his dirty hut, surrounded by myriads of hives, attended always by a swarm of bees. He was good to the bits of children, and always ready with a sweet morsel of honeycomb for them. All his ambitions, sympathies and hopes were centered in his hives; until one day a fairy crept into his hut and whispered: "You have not always been a common bee-man. Once you were something else." "Tell me what I was," he asked eagerly.