ALL FOR SHOW.

Little Antoinette, a lonely little girl, was glad to find any companions. “Mamma kisses me on the promenade,” she told them, in her artless way. “She never kisses me at home.”

Thackeray: The Newcomes.

THE KISS FULIGINOUS.

The Italian poet Francesco Gianni is the author of a remarkable sonnet, in which the avenging kiss of the demons for the kiss of treason is given with great power, following a no less powerful portraiture of Satan:

“Poi fra le braccia si reco quel tristo,

E con la bocca fumigante e neva

Gli rese il bacio che avea dato al Cristo.”

[Then the malefactor threw himself into his arms, and with mouth black and smoking—the kiss fuliginous—he gave back the kiss that he had given to Christ.]