heart her heart was voluble,
Paining with eloquence her balmy side;
As though a tongueless nightingale should swell
Her throat in vain, and die, heart-stifled in her dell.

A casement high and triple-arched there was,
All garlanded with carven imageries
Of fruits and flowers and bunches of knot-grass,
And diamonded with panes of quaint device,
Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes
As are the tiger-moth's deep-damasked wings;
And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries,
And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings,
A shielded scutcheon blushed with blood of queens and kings.

Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,
And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast
As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon;
Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together pressed,
And on her silver cross soft amethyst,
And on her hair a glory, like a saint:
She seemed a splendid angel, newly dressed,
Save wings, for heaven: Porphyro grew faint:
She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.

CHARLES DICKENS.

BOB SAWYER'S BACHELOR PARTY.

[From _Pickwick Papers_.]

After supper another jug of punch was put on the table, together with a
paper of cigars and a couple of bottles of spirits. Then there was an
awful pause; and this awful pause was occasioned by a very common
occurrence in this sort of places, but a very embarrassing one,
notwithstanding.

The fact is that the girl was washing the glasses. The establishment
boasted four; we do not record this circumstance as at all derogatory to
Mrs. Raddle, for there was never a lodging-house yet that was not short
of glasses. The landlady's glasses were little thin blown-glass
tumblers, and those which had been borrowed from the public-house were
great, dropsical, bloated articles, each supported on a huge gouty leg.
This would have been in itself sufficient to have possessed the company
with the real state of affairs; but the young woman of all work had
prevented the possibility of any misconception arising in the mind of
any gentleman upon the subject, by forcibly dragging every man's glass
away long before he had finished his beer, and audibly stating, despite
the winks and interruptions of Mr. Bob Sawyer, that it was to be
conveyed down-stairs and washed forthwith....

The sight of the tumblers restored Bob Sawyer to a degree of equanimity
which he had not possessed since his interview with his landlady. His
face brightened