fforts are amiss,
Would fain portray thee. Soft you, now!
O fair Ophelia. Nymph in thine orisons
Be all her sins remembered.
Why let the stricken deer go weep,
The untrained amateur play?
All those that watch must surely weep.
So wise men stay away.

(_Flickering blue lights and curtain_.)

The Abused Gallant.

Two lovely maidens (woe is me!)
Play tennis with my heart;
And each is wondrous fair to see,
And each is wondrous smart.

In learning, money, beauty, birth,
None can surpass them--none.
But each receives my "court" with mirth,
And tells the other one.

My "court"! The term is fitly used--
A tennis court, you see.
And I know well I am abused,
By the "racket" they give me.

Maud strikes my heart a brutal blow,
And Mabel cries out, "Fault!"
And back and forth I undergo
A feminine assault.

Maud asks my age. Alas! I hear
Sweet Mabel say, "The goose
Is very nearly forty, dear."
Maud answers, "Oh, 'the deuce'!"

And so my poor heart with their wit
Is volleyed oft and oft,
Till Mabel cries, while holding it,
"This heart is far too soft."

And firing it into the net,
She says, with girlish vim,
"Although he isn't in our 'set,'
We're making 'game' of him."

And making game they are, I swear
By all the saints above,
With all the terms of tennis there
Save but the sweetest, "love."

After the Ball.

A last word in the vestibule,
A touch of taper fingers,
A scent of roses, sweet and cool,
When she has gone still lingers.

He pauses at the carriage door
To sigh a bit and ponder
He thinks the matter o'er and o'er,
And all his senses wander.

With mantle thrown aside in haste,
Her heart a bit uncertain,
And neither time nor love to waste,
She watches through the curtain.

And she has played him well, he knows
Nor has he dared to stop her.
She wonders when he will propose;
He wonders how he'll drop her.

Vanity Fair.

Oh, whence, oh, where
Is Vanity Fair?
I want to be seen with the somebodies there.
I've money and beauty and college-bred brains;
Though my 'scutcheon's not spotless, who'll mind a few stains?
To caper I wish in the chorus of style,
And wed a