For the Commonplace-book.—Here, dear girls, is a picture from Mrs. Browning for your busy pens to copy:
She was not so pretty as women I know,
And yet all your best, made of sunshine and snow.
Drop to shade, melt to naught, in the long-trodden ways.
While she's still remembered on warm and cold days— My Kate.
Her air had a meaning, her movements a grace,
You turned from the fairest to gaze on her face;
And when you had once seen her forehead and mouth,
You saw as distinctly her soul and her truth— My Kate.
Such a blue inner light from her eyelids outbroke
You looked at her silence and fancied she spoke;
When she did, so peculiar yet soft was her tone.
Though the loudest spoke also, you heard her alone— My Kate.
I doubt if she said to you much that could act
As a thought or suggestion; she did not attract
In the sense of the brilliant or wise; I infer
'Twas her thinking of others made you think of her— My Kate.
A Boy.—We will shortly publish an article giving you the information you desire.
Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania.
I wrote to Young People once before, but not finding my letter in print, I thought I would try again, hoping you will publish it. I am going to tell you something real funny. One morning at breakfast, while eating her mutton-chop, one of my friends said to her father, "Papa, this meat tastes sheepy." The next morning they had beef-steak, and her father said, "Do you think the meat tastes sheepy this morning?" But her little sister, about eight or nine years of age, said, "No; it tastes bully." Of course every one at the table laughed. But she did not mean it for a slang expression; she meant that it tasted sort of "beefy."
Bertha C.