When last I saw the shape I wooed
    In coils of adipose embedded,
  Fondling its eldest offspring’s brood
    (The image of the Thing you wedded),
  I placed my hand upon the seat
    Of those affections you had riven
  And gathered from its steady beat
    That your offence had been forgiven.

  And now, to my surprise and pain,
    Long past the stage of convalescence,
  The wound has broken out again
    With symptoms of pronounced putrescence;
  And, from the spot where once was laid
    Your likeness treasured in a locket,
  The trouble threatens to invade
    A tenderer place—­my trouser pocket.

  For Austen (such is rumour’s tale),
    Faced with a rude financial deadlock,
  Is bent on mulcting every male
    Who shirks the privilege of wedlock;
  With such a hurt Time cannot deal,
    And Lethe here affords no tonic;
  Nothing but Death can hope to heal
    What looks as if it must be chronic.

  And yet a solace soothes my brow,
    Making my air a shade less gloomy:—­
  Six shillings in the pound is now
    The figure out of which they do me;
  But, were we man and wife to-day
    (So close the Treasury loves to link ’em),
  A grievous super-tax they’d lay
    On our coagulated income.

  I dare not even try to guess
    What is the charge for being single;
  It may be more, it may be less
    Than if we twain had chanced to mingle;
  But though with thrice as heavy a fist
    They fall on bachelors to bleed ’em
  Yet, when I think of what I’ve missed,
    I’ll gladly pay the cost of Freedom.

  O.S.

* * * * *

Tea-cup Twaddle.

By Theodosia.

(With acknowledgments to the kind of paper that wallows in this kind of thing.)

Fringe and tassels, tassels and fringe!  That is the burden of what I have to say to you this time; for indeed and indeed this is to be a fringe-and-tassel season, and you must cover yourself all over with fringe and the rest of yourself with tassels, or else “to a nunnery go.”

A propos, I popped into the dressing-room of the ever-delightful Miss Frillie Farrington at the Incandescent the other evening and had the joy of seeing her put on that sweet ickle f’ock she wears for the Jazz supper scene in Oh My! All the materials used are three yards of embroidered chiffon, six yards of tinsel fringe and six dozen tinsel tassels; and anything so completely swish and so immensely tra-la-la you simply never!

The Armistice Smile is quickly giving way to the Peace Face.  For the Peace Face the eyes should look calmly straight before one, and the lips should be gently closed, but not set in a hard line.  Everybody who is anybody is busy practising the Peace Face, as it is sure to be wanted some day.