When hearts are trumps | Page 5

Jack, when you parted?
Was that

pallor of death on your cheek?
You interest me. Tell me about it;
And let your old chum, sir, console.

Hard hit in the heart. I don't doubt it;
You were made for that sort
of a rôle.
Did you bend on your knee, like an actor,
Hardly knowing just where
to begin?
Was dear mamma's consent the main factor?
What a fool
the poor girl must have been!
Who was she? What!--I?--You were jealous?
O, Jack, who'd have
thought such a thing?
You've been certainly not over-zealous.
But
kiss me--and where is the ring?
The Last Dance.
AN INCIDENT IN A WINDOW SEAT.
He: Well, how many conquests? I fancy a score
By the flush on your
cheeks and your shoulders.
She: A bore!
He: Oh, nonsense; a debutante just out of school
Who can rule with a
smile what a king could not rule,
From young Harry, her prince, to
myself, her poor fool! Come, tell me, did Harry propose?
She: What a goose
You would think me to tell you, and then of what
use
Could it be?
He: Well, it might give me hope, where before
There was
none,--quite a boon from the lips you adore
When you 're hungry for
love.
_She (coquetting)_: Or who knows but it might--
He: Yes, it might blot from life every semblance of light As the clouds

blot the moon on a storm-troubled night.
But tell me.
She: He did.
He: And your answer was?
She: No.
He: You mean it, or are you coquetting yet?
She: Oh!
I just told him I cared for another--he smiled.
It was
merely to him so much pleasure beguiled
From a girl. Charge it up
profit?--loss?--tell me which? He thinks I am pretty, they say, but, not
rich.
He would love me, perhaps, for a season or two,
So I told him
that I loved another.
He: And who?
_She (archly)_: Really, must I tell you?
He: No--your finger--yes, this!
A solitaire--done! and now quickly!
_She (feigning reluctance)_: One!
_He (ecstatically)_: Kiss.
Why he asked for a Vacation.
"Dear Jack:
It's delightfully gay here,--
Old Paris seemed never so fine,--
And
mamma says we're going to stay here,
And papa--well, papa sips his
wine
And says nothing. You know him of old, dear.
He's only too
happy to rest,--
After making three millions in gold, dear.
He's
played out, it must be confessed,--
And I--I'm to wed an old Baron

Three weeks from to-day, in great style
(He's as homely and gaunt as
old Charon,
And they say that his past has been vile);
And I've

promised to cut you hereafter,--
Small chance, though, we ever shall
meet,--
So let's turn our old love into laughter,
And face the thing
through. Shall we, sweet?
Can you give me up, Jack, to this _roué_,

Just because we may always be poor?
There's still enough time,
dear, et tu es
Un brave,--you will come, I am sure.
Put your trunk
on the swiftest Cunarder,
And don't give me up, Jack, for--well,

There are things in this world that are harder
Than poverty. Come to
me!
NELL."
The Editor's Valentine.
The editor sat in his old arm-chair
(Half his work undone he was well
aware),
While the flickering light in the dingy room
Made the usual
newspaper office gloom.
Before him news from the North and South,
A long account of a
foreign drouth,
A lot of changes in local ads,
The report of a fight
between drunken cads,
And odds and ends and smoke and talk,--
A reporter drawing
cartoons in chalk
On the dirty wall, while others laughed,
And one
wretch whistled, and all of them chaffed.
But the editor leaned far back in his chair;
He ran his hands through
his iron-gray hair,
And stole ten minutes from work to write
A
valentine to his wife that night.
He thought of metre, he thought of rhyme.
'Twas a race between
weary brains and time.
He tried to write as he used to when
His
heart was as young as his untried pen.
He started a sonnet, but gave it up.
A rondeau failed for a rhyme to
"cup."
And the old clock ticked his time away,
For the editor's mind
would go astray.

He thought of the days when they were young,
And all but love to the
winds was flung,
He thought of the way she used to wear
Her
wayward tresses of golden hair.
He thought of the way she used to blush.
He thought of the way he
used to gush.
And a smile and a tear went creeping down
The face
that so long had known a frown.
And this is what the editor wrote:
No poem--merely a little note,

Simple and manly, but tender, too;
Three little words--they were, "I
love you."
Acting.
Ah, my arms hold you fast! How can they be so bold
When my hands
offer nothing of silver or gold?
Can it be that I see a new light in your eye?
Can it be that I heard then
a womanly sigh?
Ah, I feel such delight, and such joy, such surprise,
That I hardly dare
lift my own sight to your eyes
Ah, my arms hold you