TO A MODEL YOUNG LADY.

[It is reported that it is a common custom in Paris, amongst ladies of position, to pay for their dresses by wearing them in public, and letting it be known from whom they obtained them.]

  My dear, I like your pretty dress,
    It suits your figure to a T.
  I’m free to own that I confess,
    It’s just the kind of dress for me. 
  Yet will you kindly tell me, dear,
    Not merely was the costume made for
  Yourself alone—­but is it clear
    And certain that your dress is paid for?

  Mistake me not.  I do not dread
    That you’ll think fit to run away
  And leave the bill unpaid.  Instead,
    I fear that you will never pay,
  Because no bill will ever come;
    And since when you decide to toddle
  Abroad, you’ll go amidst a hum
  Of praise for Madame’s lovely Model

  Oh! promise me that when I read
    My paper (as I often do),
  I shall not with remorseless speed
    See endless pars in praise of you,
  Or rather of the dress you wore,
    For though, maybe, no harm or hurt is meant,
  Remember, dearest, I implore,
    I won’t be fond of an advertisement!

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

“Days with Sir Roger de Coverley!” exclaimed the Baron, on seeing the charming little book brought out at this season by Messrs. MACMILLAN.  “Delightful!  Immortal!  Ever fresh!  Welcome, with or without illustration; some of Mr. THOMSON’s would not be missed.”

There is a breezy, frank, boyish air about the “Reminiscences” of our great Baritone, CHARLES SANTLEY, which is as a tonic—­a tonic sol-fa—­to the reader a-weary of the many Reminiscences of these latter days.  SANTLEY, who seems to have made his way by stolid pluck, and without very much luck, may be considered as the musical Mark Tapley, ready to look always on the sunny side.  With a few rare exceptions, he appears to have taken life very easily.

Muchly doth the Baron like Mr. HALL CAINE’s story of Captain Davy’s Honeymoon, only, short as it is, with greater effect it might have been shorter.

The Baron, being in a reading humour, tried The Veiled Hand, by FREDERICK WICKS, a name awkward for anyone unable to manage his “r’s.”  What Fwedewickwicks’ idea of A Veiled Hand is, the Baron has tried to ascertain, but without avail.  Why not a Gloved Hand?  Hands do not wear veils, any more than our old friends, the Hollow Hearts, wear masks.  Hands take “vails,” but “that is another story.”  However, The Veiled Hand induced sleep, so the Baron extinguished both candles and Wicks at the same time, and slumbered.

I have also had time to read An Exquisite Fool, published by OSGOOD.  MCILVAINE & CO., and written by Nobody, Nobody’s name being mentioned as being the author.  It begins well, but it is an old, old tale—­BLANCHE AMORY and the Chevalier, and so forth—­and as Sir Charles Coldstream observed, when he looked down the crater of Mount Vesuvius, “There’s nothing in it.”