th kisses,--
I know, now, she expected it, for once I heard her sigh--
To-day I'd like t' kick myself for these neglected blisses,
The lips I might have tasted if I'd had the nerve t' try.

I never kissed Rebecca, she was sober as a Quaker,
I never kissed Alvira, though I took her home one night,
That city cousin of the Smiths, a Miss Myrtilla Baker,
Though scores of opportunities slipped by me, left an' right.
It makes me hate myself to-day when I on Fancy's ferry
Have crossed the current of the years to olden days gone by,
T' think of all the lips I've missed, ripe-red as topmost cherry,
The lips I might have tasted if I'd had the nerve t' try.

[Footnote 6: Lippincott's Magazine.]

THE WEDDIN'

BY JENNIE BETTS HARTSWICK

Well, it's over, it's _all_ over--bein' the last to leave I know
_that_--and I declare, I'm that full of all the things we had to eat
that John and me won't want any supper for a good hour yet, so I just
ran in to tell you about it while it's on top of my mind.

It's an everlastin' shame you had to miss it! One thing, though, you'll
get a trayful of the good things sent in to you, I shouldn't wonder. I
know there's loads left, for I happened to slip out to the kitchen for a
drink of water--I was that _dry_ after all those salty nuts, and I
didn't want to trouble 'em--and I saw just _heaps_ of things standin'
round.

Most likely you'll get a good, large plate of cake, not just a pinchin'
little mite of a piece in a box. The boxes is real pretty, though, and
they did look real palatial all stacked up on a table by the front door
with a strange colored man, in white gloves like a pall-bearer, to hand
'em to you.

How did I get two of 'em? Why, it just happened that way. You see, when
I was leavin' I missed my sun-shade and I laid my box down on the
hatrack-stand while I went upstairs to look for it. I went through all
the rooms, and just when I'd about given it up, why, there it was, right
in my hand all the time! Wasn't it foolish? And when I came downstairs I
found I'd clean forgot where I'd laid that box of cake. I hunted
_everywhere_, and then I just had to tell the man how 'twas, so he
handed me another one, and I was just walkin' out the front door when,
would you believe it! if there wasn't the _other_ one, just as innocent,
on the hatrack-stand where I had laid it. So now I have three of 'em,
countin' John's.

I just ca