LITTLE MISS BRAG. Little Miss Brag has much to say To the rich little lady from over the way; And the rich little lady puts out a lip As she looks ut her own white, dainty alip | And wishes that 2 ¢ could wear a gown As pretty as gingham of faded brown ! For little Miss Brag she lays much stress On the privileges of a gingham dress-- “* Aha, Oho !V The rich little lady from over the way Has beautiful dolls in vast array: Yet she envies the raggedy home-made | doll i She hears our little Miss Brag extol. For the raggedy doll can fear no hurt From wet, or heat, or tumble, or dirt ! Her nose is inked, and her mouth is, too, And one eye's black and the other's blue— | * Aha, Oho ! The rich little lady goes out to ride With footmen standing up outside, Yet wishes that sometimes, after dark Her father would trundle Aer in the park: That, sometimes, her mother would sing the things i Little Miss Brag says her mother sings When through the attic window streams The moonlight full of golden dreams— *“* Aha, Oho! Yes, little Miss Brag has much to say To the rich little lady from over the way; And yet who knows but from her heart Often the bitter sighs upstart Uprise to lose their burn and sting In the grace of the tongue that loves to sing Praise of the treasures all its own ! So I've come to love that treble tone—- “+ Ahn, Oho!” ~—| Eugene Field, in Chicago Record. “ “You have no right to accept an- other man’s attentions,’ he said. “You are engaged to me.’ “Of course this was false, and 1 told my aunt what 1 had really said She only cried, wd told me that I had no feeling for her poor boy, who loved me so well, ‘1 might have believed that he lov- ed me, and felt myself guilty, but that a little later, coming down stairs to find my gloves, which I had drop: ped, and stepping softly, for | thought the whole house was asleep, I saw beside the grate. ‘“ ‘I don’t care an rap for the girl was saying. ‘I know admire more, but and it would slip | i many a one | her money, I hate work, And it seemed such a | ““ You shall have the child,’ said! the mother. ‘I can keep that jacka- | napes away. Fine clothes and city all. Besides, how do you know the | man means anything. * ‘By his looks,’ said Tom, ‘1 kept Why, { up stairs without my | my heart was very light. | ‘1 went gloves, but and the words I had heard | made me happy. *“To cut a long story short, lest I was not long before I was Lorrimer. My nunt had permitted his visits, and told me | I knew that the money I contributed to the hold was valuable, and agreed to stay. Tom I seldom saw nowadays; when house- ‘I had known all along that my be- BY MARY KYLE “When I was a girl,” said the old lady—she was a very, very old lady, eighty-five or more, they said, ‘things were not as they are now, and the post office, here in America, was not managed as it is to-day. Getting a letter was a serious thing, and send- ing one more so. I've reason to know that. **I lived in the country with my aunt and uncle—not my real uncle, for he was my aunt's band, and she only riage—but 1 had was glad to have home beside, a cousin by cou name was Thomas, about all I knew of hin he came in and went taking any notice of me. used to about him finding fault with his idleness, I heard him say : ‘ *The boy has a man in him, Cy him and spoil you'll regret it.’ “Then aunt wished her son out of three. ‘Not hard,” he answered; Tom ought to be taught that he will have to have nothing to If I should die before you t to b to support he nothing.’ “Tom, by this time, was a young fellow of nineteen, and I was fifteen. Three years later he had no more idea of settling to any business than he had had before, and I had come into a fortune. It was not a large one, but it was enough to make me comfortable for life, and I was glad to stop washing dishes and doing the ironing, and ask my aunt to make me a boarder, since I could pay her well. ‘*She was pleased, and that day I left my little garret-room under the eaves, and had a large room on the second floor given me. *‘Besides paying my board, I hired a servant for the housework, and my aunt thought that very generous. Hitherto 1 had worn her made-over gowns. Now I tree, the dressmaker, and had plesty of dresses made, giving Aunt Cynthia a rich black silk and a broche shawl. She made a great fuss over them. and I was not surprised that my cousin Tom should begin to be very pleasant to me, for the first time in my life. “I thought it was because he saw I had kind feelings and was grateful for what had been done for me when 1 was a little orphan. It was a new thing to be made so much of as I was now, and I enjoyed it. Even when Cousin Tom began to make love to me I never guessed that it was be- cause I had money, as I know it was now. “Will Belle?’ swer was: ‘Tom, I feel as if I did not love you the right way, we are too much like brother and sister.’ “But he teased me and teased me, DALLAS, bef: me talk d nee aske i to be hard on the see to himself—we him. sos} ougn and ieave he $1 Bhi YOU fakes to you marry me, me again at the end of the year. just as I do now.’ some one she loved, yielded to this pressure, but that something shortly happened to turn the whole current of my life. It can be told ina few words. I met Ar. thur Lorrimer at the house of a friend. He devoted himself to me that even- ing, and he saw me home, and I un- derstood from what he said that he was in love with me. Cousin Tom was furious that I had accepted other escort. We had an scene that very night. Tom was very rough and brutal. before our came, when and those davs few months he t part, and gone | was very sad lenely. As I told you, in the malls were very were no steam cars. For a long time 1 alarmed, but at last a terror words fell upon me, and | it was very hard to he Wis slow ~— there nothing but to re or What : . however, was this: “A paper in which was il a notice of t Lorrimer to Turne hand relive tidings of ill- ness death. came to me, 16 Lverliegh in an unknown read—'As Mr. Lorrimer’'s closest ‘Mapu’ —it charged with a message ] that he is married quarreled have it love will A. APPLETON not faint, I did not weep, but 1 fel when I received this letter the shock in every nerve, . had brougl t the i ns I sat gazing int » on the arm. . ) mail from th ‘ou want my m ll your mu you and show hat I am not pining fe remember, I do not love yo than do me; and | give you even a kiss,’ ‘ ‘Oh, Belle, 1 do love you! 1 said | what I did out of pique!’ cried Tom, ‘and I am sorry you heard me. We! shall be a very happy couple yet.’ ** ‘Never!’ 1 said. “I'll write to this fellow.’ said] Tom. ‘Pretend we have not heard the news, and tell him you've found | out you like me the best, and want | to be off with me.’ i “*Yes,” I said, ‘you may do that, I| hate you both; but tell any lie you | like.” And he ran away. ‘*Siiting in the room where I stood | was a looking-glass which reflected a i portion of the kitchen. As | hap- | pened to turn my eyes that way, I saw my aunt standing near the open fire reading a letter. As she read, | she seemed to watch and listen. “In those days we used both black | ink and red for correspondence, and Arthur had a fancy for red. This | letter was written in that color. The writing, too, looked at that distance | like his, and the secrecy of Aunt! Cynthia's manner awakened my sus- | picions, 1 took a step forward, and she flung it into the fire, and I saw her run out at the garden door. The t} " ILAIe] you “The paper had not blazed up at once, for it had fluttered behind the back log. I eaught up the tongs and It was scorch- read it; and running to my room, bolted myself in and examined the “It was a letter from Arthur, and from I learned that he had written reply, had grown so anxious that he had resolved to come back again. “I am greatly irritated to-day,’ he ‘Bome rascal has thought it a good joke to publish a false marriage with an unknown, probably imagina- ry lady. It is unlikely that you will ever see a Baltimore paper, but I can- not help troubling abou! that. too. However, we shall meet in a fow days, The stage should arrive at ~~ next Thursday.’ “1 saw it all—my cousin had play- ed a deep trick, The advertisement was his work, and he had forged the letter, but I was master at last. “As for my aunt, the cruel crea ture had destroyed the letters for which slie knew I was longing—she would willingly have broken my heart in order that her son might have my money, ‘1 believe from what she had not been able to finish the letter, and wax not aware how soon Arthur would arrive, for this day was Thursday, I remember, and night was coming on. “I went down to tea nothing had happened, took my hand and my aunt advanced and kissed cheek. ** ‘Here are true hearts,’ said she, ‘and we will compensate you for what false ones have made you suffer.’ ‘Marry me to-morrow, my darl- ing,’ said Tom, ‘and I can write to that man, not that we are engaged, I saw that ns though My cousin it, my Kissed ‘* ‘A good idea,’’ said I; and just then 1 heard the rumbling of wheels. A vehicle stopped Before the house, and rapped heavily with the knocker upon the outer door. “It is he!’ I cried, and mo- ment more I was clasped in Arthur's armas. “Ask Rome one in a me no questions,” 1 cried, ble people who would erime in order to win wealth is mine,’ “That very night old Parson Part- ridge married us, and I left the town with my husband. At my prayer he forbore to punish Tom, and we never seen any of those people and have lived happily years amongst my husband's kinsfolk here in Baltimore.” Paper. stop at no what little 3 iave since, r fy - yr ~| Family Story THE SEA OTTER. His Fur the Costliest in the World-« Shot from Derricks. at the present the Sea Otter ia lionairess, and world. arers of this in the hat the price a hungry family ArS——gyar to tO r stop WeaArer was porn & 3 out in the | waters of in fie Pacific, nd literally '‘rocked i the cradle « the d ow he was brought up on the hes when paws as he slept ; yO aA Wwe $ CVer saw was Li f Alaska sow and then ‘eo shores O or Washir the ocean was very the hunters wer crawl out * DIeRKers But then ture wh The Marten family PRE Seq | £5 5 _iter 108 For this 7, like a misfit o« F upon it in many much wider and longer than the ani- The coat of the full-grown = color is shimmering. lustrous black. the Sea Otter by the Russians, its fur has been eagerly sought by them cash prices of skins have always been so high that there is not, Mr. Charles H. naturalist of the Fish Commission, series of specimens. Townsend, the States the best skins had reached $400 each, and their value has been since creasing. On the northwest coast of Otters are still found along a thirty- bor, half-way to Cape Flattery), they are shot by hunters from tall “‘der- ricks'’ from thirty to forty fect high, erected in the surf half-way between high tide and Jow tide, and the hunter who kills four Otters in year considers his work successful. Owing to the persistent hunting that has been going on ever ginee Alaska came into our possession, the Sea Otter is rapidly following the buffalo to the State of Extermina- tion. The favorite food of the Sea Otter is not fish, as one might suppose from the habits of the common Otter, but clama, crabs, mussels, and sea-urching. Its molar teeth are of necessity very strong, for the grind. ing up of this rough fare, and the muscles of the jaws are proportion- ately powerful. —{8t, Nicholas. The Doctor's Revenge. A man in Dexter, Me., who thought it a fine thing to stop a doctor who was hurrying by, to ask him some trivial question, didn’t see half so much fun in it when his door bell rang violently at 2 a. m. the next morning, and when, after hurrying on his clothes and hastening down, he found the physician prepared to answer the query, and any more he might have to propound.—{ Lewiston (Me. ) Journal, The British Mint coins twenty-five tous of penules every year. tr NOTES AND COMMENTS. Tue wonderful proportions to whicl newspaper advertising has grown eloquent tribute to the value printers’ ink as a medium for com- municating with the publie. A MucH bigger wheel than the great Ferris Wheel, which revolved in the Midway and is to be set up in New York, is building at Earl's Court, London. will carry 2,000 people in fifty cars. Three restaurants will be built platforms at varying heights on the supporting towers, and a big ball- room will crown the towers, at the axle, THE latest thing out 18 a pulseo- meter, by which the life insurance examiners can tell to a fraction the exact condition of an applicant's heart beat. An electric pen traces on prepared paper the ongoings, haltings and precise peregrinations of the blood, showing with the fidelity of science the strength or weakness of the telltale pulse. It’s a wonder, T and yet as simple as A, B, C. THE marriage rate in England and Wales during the last quarter of last year was lower than in any previous like period. There were 121 818 mar- riages, which was in the annual pro- portion of 16.3 persons per 1,000 of The mean rate for the corresponding quarter in the precetl- ng ten years was 17.8, It is § noted that the average of the last ten popuiation, ! nlso . years is far below that of any preced- ing decennium. MeCarmoxrt, a wellknown vachtsman Hexny English yacht in E is having a steam It by the Fairfield Company and which, it will ’ fastest vessel of her Cillxs the is said nhsol fastest but vessels in pedo Chl iT: 1.506 tons burde: utely ne of the rs will be driven imum speed nty Knots per 1b will « cUalmor yonmand For many years stron been made to the ment by antiquari other interested in tl ntinned Pe pie Over a 1s he ¢ of the tion of {sovernment nliqu 3 ities in at ji old w Ghizeh, at CHOICES beer but a Minis. be guillotined. where the onment for life. n has been pe hroughout. Denn. ¥ Was Since t hie onment made the No one of the World's Fair or In- dustrial Expositions of this year is the capital of or American Antwerp, any country, European The favored places are Lyons, Milan and Ban Francisco. Antwerp, the second city of Belgium, has a population of 240. - the second city of Italy, has a popu- nd San Francisco, the eighth of American cities in size, has a population of aver 800,000, All Francisco, are inland cities. All of them are exceedingly attractive, and of them which are in possess very great historie interest, while that one of them which is in our own country is the pride of the Pacific Coast. Ix an editorial on the recent de- struction of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, Engineering News strikes from the and strikes hard at the Europe buildings are constructed. Attention is especially directed to the rapidity with which the flames spread over the great auditorium through the ing of the walls and ceiling. ‘It seems well-nigh incomprehensible,” gays this conservative journal, ‘that a building designed to hold a great liberately made such a tinder box by those entrusted with its design and construction. The than plaster is the only reason that has thus far been made public for the use of this material.” In this, as in most other instances, cheapness was far from being economical, but in spite of the lesson taught at such tremendous cost, similar errors, the Washington Star thinks, will con- tinue to be made so long as mankind is '‘ penny wise and pound foolish," Tue Canadian Government. in eon- junction with the Australian Colonies, % now organizing to run a Subirine cable from Vancouver, B. to Honolulu, thence # to Auckland, New Zealand. This line, by rather a circuitous route, will Pacific, It may not be genoraily | known that ever since the dethrone- | Islands, and would to the Dominion, if it could be done the jealousy of the United States, At the same time the Government of New Zealand is making overtures to England, America and Germany for | the privilege of exercising a protec- torate over the Navigator Islands, | which have come to be known as Samoa. The foundations of empire are being laid in Polynesia, and be- fore another generation goes past, important colonies, or it may be in- dependent governments, will be | established in lands like Fiji, which were recently in the control of sav- age cannibals, THe chemists all over the world are striving hard to produce precious stones, but up to this moment with only partial success. The false dia- monds produced are an actual fail- ure, for they lack entirely the spark! which reveals in an instant the qual- ity of the t brilliant. Several firms in Paris are rod manufacture and to though all the value of their wares is the gold with they mounted. The sa firms manufac- ture emeralds and rubies with only partial success, the second with a clearness of color that sometimes alm HOIVE rue enga in their seem prosper in which Hre } 4 the first an The imitation tive It their falsit are no dull color of mp rlections proof of case wi in making preci- natural beaut i that hi $ } ten cents gme fine work the whole $40 or Yaitue thin van fornia has It is to be ru interior of Cal parallel t is to cost $10 000 (0x) t to be Yer 10 "XDeCts 20 reg aud raised, and the steamers y 80 far as Brinkerville, 220 » the const the not far ure The main canal 175 m Tulare Lake. g from It will i to Bakersfield, aud thers 8 (OT hit OT tt ing ont It will voesse! plies——a Immense nd thereby w another great value from Tne surplus water in be distr Dit he CO : elevation rive facilities for water p or Motors operated by water would fur- the ; . Suisun Bay “ great did £4 i towns the for all canal will quin Valley, of the the river being utilized most way. Tulare, in be River will be included tion. The water will obtained the natural drainage. is an important factor, and we is now lost. The from one be saved that flows down canal will locks. water, for the canal will be at least fifty feet wide in its general por- tion.” in the A Gruesome Companion. QUEER TREES, Remarkable Forest Growths In Vars ious Parts of the World. Most remarkable are some of the features of different kinds of trees, and eccentric vegetation is confined to no country, but can be met with all the world over, says the Philadel- In Madagascar is to be found a tree ealled the traveler's tree, yicld- ing a copious supply of fresh water from its leaves. As it will thrive in any arid country where planted, ita A double row of these the Ba- hara would not be a bad speculation for some consolidated African cara- van company to go into. It would open up a new line for tourists and would doubtless prove popular and profitable, In Venezuela there is the cow tree, which grows otherwise barren Its leaves are leathery and the vi ACTORHE on trunk a peculiar greyish milk oozes out, which is tolerably thick and of an agreeable balmy smell. The na- tives gather round these trees at sun- rise and bring bowls with them to re- i the milk, for toward midday heat of the sun turns the milk sour ght of these cow trees g { puzzled 1 1 celve the The si the innocent travel the plugged up all over with The bpatives i gum. The butter tree waa first discovered 1 travelers in From the kern is produced a nice h," Livingstone Not exactly a recom butter er, who cannot account for trunk being gs and Ai80 USE bung short sticks. ti © mix fis 1 the center 1 »i os ERYH one mig menaation think. est of the Ca- nd is so dry let is to be found but there of tree hich are narrow and throughout the sud the i no : PII oreen green also a constant cl in droy 3 “ keeps the constantly natives of the sup- nust of the The the in Man 8s arm. und only in ay, and om morning et no flowers . but soon after As the sun ing the pe- covered rises orn agair tals close o Stranger still, flowers blossom at night all the year round, and give out a most fra- grant odor. There is another funny tree in Ja- maica, known as the life tree, on ac- count of its leaves growing even after severed from the plant. Only by fire can you entirely destroy it. en Freezing a Soap Bubble. A frozen soap bubble, broken in two and floating like an iridescent of liquid air, was one of the most marvelous sights shown by Professor London. on the The investi. with some legal proceedings just set on foot at Cordele, Ga. A Nebraska man has appeared there and asked to! have a receiver appointed to take charge of the property of the late Dr George W. Marvin, whom the stran- gor alleges to have been his father, The estate amounts to some $250,000, A few years ago Dr. Marvin came to the place from Nebraska with his second wife, and invested a good deal | of money. About a year ago he was | elected mayor of the town, but a short time afterward he died. His | gent for an embalmer and had it em- Then she had it mounted on a chair, with electrical machinery, so | would arise to meet her, and then sit again. The work cost her Afterward she spent prised the community by marrying the cashier of the Cordele bank. — {New Orleans Picayune. HUMILIATING CIRCUMSTANCES, Algy~Deah boy, have my twousahs begun to bag at the knee? Cholly=-=No; they re all right. “1s my eye-glawss on stwaight?" “Yes.' “I don’t look like a blawsted guy, do 1?" “Not at all, old chapple.”’ “Then I eawn't unde’stand it! A # stweet beggar stwuck me foh a dime developing many wonderful bits of be turned to valuable practical ac- count before long. A pretty experi- ment, which most delighted the audi- ence, was quite simple. The profes sor poured a few spoonfuls of liquid zir into a glass vessel. The intense cold caused by the evaporation pro- duced 8 miniature snowstorm in the atmosphere above the liguid. The operator lowered a soap bubble on the end of a rod into the freezing The bubble became darker, the movements of the rain. bow-colored film grew slower. It contracted somewhat in size and a moment later froze. A slight move- two pieces, which floated for an hour, gradually accumulating a tiny snow- drift within, precipitated from the freezing air above.~~{Chicago Her- ald. Queer Old Laws. Thus, the laws of King Ethelbert of England, A. D., 561-6186, provided that for slaying a freeman 50s, should be paid to his kindred and 50s. to the King; for cutting off a foot, H0s. was paid to the sufferer by the offender; for causing the loss of a great toe, 10s. ; forstriking off an ear, 12x. ; for putting a man’s eye out, the assail- ant to pay H0s. ; for cutting off a thumb, 20s.; and for each nail of which one man deprived another, the aggressor had to pay 1s. It must, of course, be remembered that the value of a shilling in those considerably more that it is now.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers