lowed her, went past the Ice Queen growling, and snarling, and showing their murderous fangs; and even snapping at the fish which Februa, who was just as surly as themselves, brought in her frozen bosom; or else having a sly bite at the sheep which Lenet was unmercifully flogging with her stinging whip of east winds. These three were all bound together by a chain of icicles, and they bore up the train of the Lady Guilerra.

Psycholene laughed outright as the old maids sailed and blustered past.

But who have we next? Ha! our pretty maiden with the milkwhite steer-she who was such a dear, bewitching creature made up half of smiles, half of tears, which flashed and fell in such rapid succession that we had hardly kissed away the one ere the other came with its bewilderments to fascinate the soul-and Hoity-toity, pretty milk-maid! but you are in a terrible taking! is it her? Your auburn hair is all dishevelled, and your fair brow is black with thunder, and your graceful, flower-gemmed dress is dirty, and faded, and torn into ragged shreds. Aperine, my life, what ails thee? What! not a word? not a smile? not even one of the old baby tears? Alas! alas! the milk-maid neither smiles nor weeps, but flusters on all in a rage and fury. Thou art even worse than thy shrewish sister Lenet, who drives about her poor lambs in her passion till they are all lost and bewildered. Thou art nought like our own pretty Aperine that we used to love so well-our owu pretty Aperine that we used to gaze on and bless, when lying under the budding alder-trees by the edge of the blue waters! Get thee 'gone, wench! we would see thee as thou wert, or never look on thee more.

And Maia, our gentle mother of the Two. Her hair, once garlanded with young buds, is now dripping with wet; her robe, once green as the verdant foliage, is now brown as the leafless tree; her blue eyes are dark and scowling, her children are weeping, she is scolding. Maia our gentle mother has become a termagant, and pinches and nips like frosty-faced old Janua.

Psycholene was in ecstasies. "Laipsas is safe," she thought. The Meadow-maid is a trifle better; she brings us her crabs with a pretty fair grace. We will not utterly condemn her, for she has a small portion of her old self still left. The female zodiacal, Van Amburgh, is cross; the Spotless Virgin, passionate; flowers and fruits cincture and load the frail and week; snow and tempest accompany the young and beautiful. The Months are finely travestied, and Psycholene is in the seventh heaven.

Who comes here? Why--no-it cannot be ! yes, faith, it is! Sir Phoebus Apollo, captain of the Sky's Own, the Ice Queen's mortal foe! Why was he not in the Hotel d' Eté? and what was he doing here?

The queen rose, trembling with indignation.

"How dare you, sir !" she cried, her lips quivering. "Permit me, madam," replied the captain, gracefully kneeling and kissing her cold hand [he burnt it as if his lips had been the lighted ends of real Havannahs]; "your husband Laipsas, the King of Foul Weather, has taken my place in the south, so I will take his in the north; he has robbed me of the sky, and I will rob him of his wife."

Psycholene, never very rich in patience, and who could any night have gambled it all away at long whist and penny points, here lost the little that she had; and, turning to her lords in waiting, commanded them to place the insolent intruder under immediate arrest. The Months cried, the Hours pleaded, the Moments sobbed; Psycholene was inexorable.

"At least till Laipsas' return," she said with dignity; and Captain Phoebus was marched off. As he went he threw a wink at the Months. The Meadow-maid returned it, and the Spotless Virgin pinched her for interest. The captain smiled, and, putting his hand to his heart, hummed, "How happy could I be with either." At which the Virgin hung down her head and blushedor pretended; and the Weighing-woman whispered to the Scorpion-charmer, "What a duck of a man."

ICICLE THIRD AND LAST.

Showing how Laipsas became sick of the Intemperate Temperates; and, cutting the Line, returned to the Pole, where he released the captain.

You would all like to know what mighty fascination that could be, which had induced Laipsas to forsake his wife and polar home so long, for the reward of incessant abuse, and pretty plain hints to "pack up his valise, and book himself by the next train," from his unwilling hosts in the temperate zone. It was a mighty fascination ! He had-must the truth be told? must the weakness of nature be laid bare before the cold gaze of a heartless world? must the anatomical knife of truth dissect the nerves and sinews of feeling? Must it be so? well, then, Laipsas had fallen in love -with the Polka! There he was, in the fashion. Madame Michau was his divinity, and Jullien his physician; at the shrine of the one he worshipped with a devotion and enthusiasm worthy of a Turning Dervish; the draughts of the other he accepted, and felt considerably lighter after them. Thus, so long as the Polka set men and women crazy, so long did Laipsas remain, and so long did Sir Phoebus languish in obscurity. But the world forgot the absence of the captain of the Sky's Own, as they would have forgotten the absence of any other captain of meaner rank, in the

glories of their nightly festivals; and they heeded not the chilly presence of Laipsas, in the genial glow of superhuman exercise. Though, before, they had always hooted at this King of Bad Weather like very electioneering mobs, pelting him with all the ancient eggs of abuse and brick-bats of defiance which they could find; yet now, though the ten fingers of the sun, hand in glove with Murphy, were pointing at him and crying "shame!" on his tardiness, the world Polkaed on, and forgave him. For who will not forgive the most impertinent, scrutinizing intrusion, if flattery, though ever so contemptibly fashioned, sits on the intruder's shoulder? And Laipsas did flatter-we will give every one their their due-he did flatter.

The sages of old spent life and wealth in looking for the philosopher's stone. More fools they! Why, every man has one in his waistcoat pocket. It is a piece of glass that looks like diamond, but it is'nt; and on it is marked " Humbug and Flattery." And this piece of glass carries a man through the streets of life swifter than Jack's seven-leagued boots, grants him his desires fully as Fortunatus' cap, and fills his purse with gold as unerringly as Peter Schlemhil's purse, with this difference only-Peter lost his shadow; the man with the sham diamond often gets one for life. The Mr. Caudles of matrimony can tell the uses of such a shadow.

Well, the Polka at last was being worn out. Daughters found that it made no matches, and papas found that it did but make long bills. Rich old uncles who had the gout looked grave about it, and spinster aunts, with sharp noses, whispered one little word -what?" Improper."

The Polka, poor thing! was in a fair way to faint. They called for fresh air; they thought that a little exercise on the lawn would revive her, and they opened the doors; when, whew! such a blast of wind and torrent of rain flew in their faces, that they were fain to shut them again. They sent for Dr. Printemps, the world's great physician and the captain's great friend; but Laipsas the Storm-king stood thundering at the doors, and would allow no one to come near the place but himself. This was carrying the joke a little too far. They very rudely swore at the monarch, and sent him incontinently to evadio TOTOV his own place. The king took huff and obeyed, and the Polka opened her eyes.

Laipsas came to the crystal palace. All was sombre and silent. He called the maids of honour; they came in draggled and slipshod. The Moments had chains round their little limbs, and the Months wore one uniform dismal mask. It was clear there was something wrong. He hurried to the throne-room, where Psycholene was sitting. All looked watery and thawing. The queen herself was thinner and more transparent than ever, and uncom

fortably hot. Bewildered, the king inquired the meaning of this

magic.

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The captain!" gasped the Ice Queen.

"The captain!" shrieked the Atomic Elves.

"The captain!" sobbed the Hours.

And "The captain!" lisped the Months.

The captain of the Sky's Own, away from men, in the crystal palace, actually burning him, Laipsas, out of house and home! And he was not insured!

The king tore his beard, and hurried off to the watch-house. There he beheld the cause of all this confusion and consternation quietly stretched at full length on the floor, smoking cigars and drinking porter. His face, always spotty, more spotty than ever. "Are you going to murder us all ?" roared the king.

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Gently, gently!" said the captain; "I thought that as you had taken my post in the sky, I might as well take yours in the palace. And knowing that change was wanted, I have amused myself by melting your plate and your wife at the same time. Call at your father's brother Edward for the one, and place the other under the care of Von Priessnitz; for if any man can, he will make hot blood cold. Good bye, old fellow! Next season don't leave your wife quite so long, but be off rather earlier from the world."

So the captain departed, but he took the two pretty Monthsthe Weighing-woman and the Scorpion-charmer with him, as he mounted his coach and four.

Psycholene gradually refrigerated to her usual state of iciness, without the water-doctor's aid. Laipsas put his crystal palace in order, vowing never to leave it again beyond his appointed time. And then, to commemorate his own quitting the Intemperate Temperates, and the Sun's return to men, he ordered to be acted before him a play written by an old-fashioned, silly, rococco, goosecap, one Mr. Shakspere, called,

"All's Well that Ends Well."

LEAVES OF LIFE.

BY MRS. CHARLES TINSLEY.

No. II.

ALEXANDER.

A desert was around him, not the waste
Of trackless solitudes that speak alone
Of God from their untrodden fastnesses,
But the stern silence of a city bowed

To its primeval chaos. Columns sunk
Midway in the worn earth; pillar, and arch,
And dome colossal, in one shapeless mass
Of wild confusion scatter'd; whence arose
A voice more eloquent than life e'er gave,
To chant of human glory. In old time
That city haply rear'd its palac'd head,
The queen of prostrate nations; there had been
The laurell'd warrior, the soul-lifted sage,
The spells of beauty, and the state of power,
The fire of genius kindling for all time,
The pomp and pride of ages. Of all these,
Save in the record of the printless dust,

Where was the boast and glory? Fame had pass'd
Those walls as if in mockery, and Time,
That borroweth lustre from the things of old,

Hath kept no trace of these. The conqueror stood
Alone amid that wilderness of life;

And as his eye survey'd the mouldering type
Of this most mortal immortality,

The pale brow darken'd, and deep-seated scorn
Played round the chisell'd lip, where words of fire
Died in unutterable eloquence,

The quenchless thirsting of a spirit bound
In the dull, dying dreams of earthly time,

Whose refuse mock'd its daring. O'er him came
A vision of dark ages, sweeping on

With force resistless round the things that were,
And leaving blank oblivion where the life

Of his proud deeds had linger'd. Other names

Were breathed to kindle emulative fire

In souls of kindred glory. On it pour'd,
On, on through rolling centuries, that tide
Of human frailty, in its heedless sweep

O'erwhelming empires rear'd by the heart's blood
Of the earth's best and mightiest. Dark and deep,
Unfathom'd and unfathomable now,

The waves seem'd closing round him; on his ear
Brake the hoarse swell of the eternal sea,
Whereon, like to a bubble, he had pass'd,
Leaving no track on its heaved waters. Up,
With sudden impulse, from that dream of pain
The conqueror started, and in other climes
Cast the dark bondage of its spell away;
But there were stated moments when it came
Fresh on his spirit like a blighting cloud,
Turning all life to blackness.