om his size and voice I
should say he was full-grown."

"I can vouch for his voice. Will you show him to me?" He had never seen
a lion boarding in a back parlor, and rather fancied the novelty. He
told the consul afterward that he had never seen a finer specimen of
the Bengal lion. To his mistress he was obedient and meek as a lamb.
She could do anything she liked with him; she passed her hand lovingly
over his great head, caressing his tawny locks, while the lion looked
at her with soft and tender eyes, and stuck out his enormous tongue to
lick her hand.

The Dane stayed on, like the good man he was. He had not the heart to
deprive the little woman of the few dollars he paid for his room, which
would go toward buying food for her pet. He himself became very fond of
"Leo," and would surreptitiously spend all his spare money at the
butcher's, who must have wondered, when he sent the quarters of beef,
how such a small family could consume so much--and the Dane would pass
hours feeding the lion with tidbits held on the end of his umbrella.

We were told afterward that the police discovered that the noises
coming from the house were not the usual Boston east winds, and, having
found out from what they proceeded, suggested that the Zoological
Gardens should buy the animal, for which they paid an enormous price.
So the sailor did pay his debt, after all!

CAMBRIDGE, _March, 1880_.

Dear L.,--I love to write to you; my thoughts run away with me, my pen
flies like a bird over the paper. You need not remind me of the fact
that my handwriting is execrable. I know it, therefore don't waft it
across America. Spare me this mortification. Tear the letters up after
reading them, or _before_, if you like. When I see the stacks of
never-looked-through letters being dragged from one place to the other,
tied up in their old faded ribbons, I feel that I do not wish mine to
have the same fate.

I read the other day H.'s lively letters full of dash, written in her
happy girlhood, and think of her as she is now, the tired mother of six
children, without a sparkle of humor left in her, and nothing more
spicy in her epistles than a lengthy account of the coal bill or the
children's measles. All the life taken out of her for ever! Just deadly
dull!

I feel in the above pathetic mood whenever I look out of my window and
see the veteran Washington elm facing wind and weather, bravely waiting
the end. With what care they bolster up its w