Beneath the beak I see the nose,
The poetry beneath the prose,
The figure 'neath the adipose.
And so I sadly turn away:
How can I love a clod of clay,
Doomed to grow earthlier day by day?
Vain, vain the hope from Fate to flee,
What special Providence for me?
I know that what hath been will be.
The Present and the Future.
Lillie and Silverdale looked at each other.
"Well, but," said Lillie at last, "according to this he refused you, not you him. Our rules——"
"You mistake me," interrupted Winifred Woodpecker. "When the first fit of anguish was over, I saw my Frank was right, and I have refused all the offers I have had since—five in all. It would not be fair to a lover to chain him to a beauty so transient. In ten or twenty years from now I shall go the way of all flesh. Under such circumstances is not marriage a contract entered into under false pretences? There is no chance of the law of this country allowing a time-limit to be placed in the contract; celibacy is the only honest policy for a woman."
Involuntarily Lillie's hand seized the candidate's and gripped it sympathetically. She divined a sister soul.