descended to breakfast without any further adventure,
except that another pupil, Mademoiselle Rosalie, a frolicsome blonde,
handed Ethel on the sly a piece of poetry in English, which she
pretended she could not read herself but which might perhaps interest
"la belle Anglaise."

Ethel put the printed slip away in her bosom, and afterwards read at
her leisure as follows, a very comical parody:

PITY THE SORROWS

(Parody on Pratt's "Pity the Sorrows of a Poor Old Man," Annual
Register 1770, page 222)

Pity the sorrows of a fat young wife,
Whose youth and vigour make her pine the more!
Whose bounding pulse with hot desire is rife,
O give relief, and heaven shall bless your store!

These rosy cheeks, my bursting youth bespeak,
These beaming eyes proclaim my ardent quim,
But O! my husband is so cold and weak,
I might be dead, and buried too, for him!

My widow'd sister Mary pines like me,
But while he liv'd, her husband was a man!
My married sister Lucy smiles to see,
How oft I'm baffled since my hopes began!

I will not, cannot tell, for very shame,
All that is wanting to the married state,
To be a wife in nothing but the name,
Is a most wretched, miserable fate!

Though chaste in heart, and willing to be chaste,
What virtue can withstand the waltz's whirl?
Tom, Jack, or Harry's arm about my waist,
Belly to belly throbbing, boy with girl!

To sup on partridges and to drink champagne,
Stirs my hot blood to fever's ardent glow,
And then the waltzing round and round again,
Drives me quite mad! O what, what can I do?

I'd willingly be wise and chaste, God knows!
But O, it drives me wild with amorous pain,
To feel the embracing arms of waltzing beaux,
To meet the piercing glance of charming men!

O, tell me, have I err'd? Impart the truth!
My inmost heart is open to conviction,
Deeper, O deeper still, dear vigorous youth,
O, give me every inch of thine erection!

Pity the sorrows of a fat young wife,
All, all my sins are lying at your door,
Bestow on me the biggest joys in life,
Oh, give relief, and heav'n shall bless your store!

Our school-girl was more perplexed than ever by this effusion: what was
that something always required by blooming young wives or widows so
mysteriously hinted at in the lines as she read them over and over
again to herself?

At the close of their morning studies Madame Cul addressed her pupils
and stated tha