brothers, punch with care, punch in the presence of the passenjare.' And the most distressing thing was that my delivery dropped into the undulating rhythm of those pulsing rhymes, and I could actually catch absentminded people nodding time to the swing of it with their stupid heads. And, Mark, you may believe it or not, but before I got through, the entire assemblage were placidly bobbing their heads in solemn unison, mourners, undertaker, and all. The moment I had finished, I fled to the anteroom in a state bordering on frenzy. Of course it would be my luck to find a sorrowing and aged maiden aunt of the deceased there, who had arrived from Springfield too late to get into the church. She began to sob, and said:

"Oh, oh, he is gone, he is gone, and I did n't see him before he died!'

"Yes!' I said, 'he is gone, he is gone, he is gone — oh, will this suffering never cease?'

"You loved him, then! Oh, you too loved him!' "Loved him! Loved who?'

cer

"Why, my poor George! my poor nephew!' "Oh-him! Yes-oh, yes, yes! Certainly tainly. Punch — punch Oh, this misery will kill me!' "Bless you! bless you, sir, for these sweet words! I, too, suffer in this dear loss. Were you present during his last moments?'

"Yes! I- whose last moments?' "His. The dear departed's.'

"Yes! Oh, yes yes yes! I suppose so, I think so, I don't know! Oh, certainly I was there I was there!'

“Oh, what a privilege! what a precious privilege!

And his last words What did he say?' "He saidhead! He said

oh, tell me, tell me his last words!

he said

-

oh, my head, my head, my

he said he never said anything but Punch, punch, punch in the presence of the passenjare! Oh, leave me, madam! In the name of all that is generous, leave me to my madness, my misery, my despair! - a buff trip slip for a six-cent fare, a pink trip slip for a three-cent fare- endurance can no further go! PUNCH in the presence of the passenjare!""

My friend's hopeless eyes rested upon mine a pregnant minute, and then he said impressively:

"Mark, you do not say anything. You do not offer me any hope. But, ah me, it is just as well — it is just as well. You could not do me any good. The time has long gone by when words could comfort me. Something tells me that my tongue is doomed to wag forever to the jigger of that remorseless jingle. There there it is coming on me again: a blue trip slip for an eight-cent fare, a buff trip slip for a

Thus murmuring faint and fainter, my friend sank into a peaceful trance and forgot his sufferings in a blessed respite.

How did I finally save him from the asylum? I took him to a neighboring university and made him discharge the burden of his persecuting rhymes into the eager ears of the poor, unthinking students. How is it with them, now? The result is too sad to tell.

Why did I write this article? It was for a worthy, even a noble, purpose. It was to warn you, reader, if you should come across those merciless rhymes, to avoid them avoid them as you would a pestilence!

PÈRE ANTOINE'S DATE-PALM

A LEGEND OF NEW ORLEANS

BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH

NEAR the levée, and not far from the old French Cathedral, in New Orleans, stands a fine date-palm, some thirty feet high, growing out in the open air as sturdily as if its roots were sucking sap from their native earth. Sir Charles Lyell, in his "Second Visit to the United States," mentions this exotic:

"The tree is seventy or eighty years old; for Père Antoine, a Roman Catholic priest, who died about twenty years ago, told Mr. Bringier that he planted it himself, when he was young. In his will he provided that they who succeeded to this lot of ground should forfeit it, if they cut down the palm.'

Wishing to learn something of Père Antoine's history, Sir Charles Lyell made inquiries among the ancient Creole inhabitants of the faubourg. That the old priest, in his last days, became very much emaciated, that he walked about the streets like a mummy, that he gradually dried up, and finally blew away, was the meagre result of the tourist's investigations.

This is all that is generally known of Père Antoine. Miss Badeau's story clothes these bare facts.

When Père Antoine was a very young man, he had a friend whom he loved as he loved his eyes. Émile Jardin returned his passion, and the two, on account of their

friendship, became the marvel of the city where they dwelt. One was never seen without the other; for they studied, walked, ate, and slept together.

Antoine and Emile were preparing to enter the Church; indeed, they had taken the preliminary steps, when a circumstance occurred which changed the color of their lives.

A foreign lady, from some far-off island in the Pacific, had a few months before moved into their neighborhood. The lady died suddenly, leaving a girl of sixteen or seventeen entirely friendless and unprovided for. The young men had been kind to the woman during her illness, and at her death, melting with pity at the forlorn situation of Anglice, the daughter, swore between themselves to love and watch over her as if she were their sister.

Now Anglice had a wild, strange beauty that made other women seem tame beside her; and in the course of time the young men found themselves regarding their ward not so much like brothers as at first. They struggled with their destiny manfully, for the holy orders which they were about to assume precluded the idea of love.

But every day taught them to be more fond of her. So they drifted on. The weak like to temporize.

One night Émile Jardin and Anglice were not to be found. They had flown - but whither, nobody knew, and nobody, save Antoine, cared.

It was a heavy blow to Antoine

for he had half

made up his mind to run away with her himself.

A strip of paper slipped from a volume on Antoine's desk, and fluttered to his feet.

"Do not be angry," said the bit of paper, piteously; "forgive us, for we love."

Three years went by. Antoine had entered the Church, and was already looked upon as a rising man; but his face was pale and his heart leaden, for there was no sweetness in life for him.

Four years had elapsed, when a letter, covered with outlandish stamps, was brought to the young priest a letter from Anglice. She was dying; would he forgive her? Emile, the year previous, had fallen a victim to the fever that raged on the island; and their child, little Anglice, was likely to follow him. In pitiful terms she begged Antoine to take charge of the child until she was old enough to enter a convent. The epistle was finished by another hand, informing Antoine of Madame Jardin's death; it also told him that Anglice had been placed on a vessel shortly to leave the island for some Western port.

The letter was hardly read and wept over, when little Anglice arrived. On beholding her, Antoine uttered a cry of joy and surprise - she was so like the woman he had worshiped.

As a man's tears are more pathetic than a woman's, so is his love more intense not more enduring, or half so subtile, but more intense.

The passion that had been crowded down in his heart broke out and lavished its richness on this child, who was to him, not only the Anglice of years ago, but his friend Emile Jardin also.

Anglice possessed the wild, strange beauty of her mother the bending, willowy form, the rich tint of