," as she said,
"Should the owner of more than a million pounds
Be going the rounds
On the very same grounds
As those low people, she couldn't tell who,
They might keep a shop, for all she knew."

She had a pair of the articles made,
Of solid gold, gorgeously overlaid
With every color of precious stone
Which ever flashed in the Indian zone.
She privately practised many a day
Before she ventured from home at all;
She had lost her girlish skill, and they say
That she suffered many a fearful fall;
But pride is stubborn, and she was bound
On her golden stilts to go around,
Three feet, at least, from the plebeian ground.
'Twas an exquisite day,
In the month of May,
That the stilts came out for a promenade;
Their first _entree_
Was made on the shilling side of Broadway;
The carmen whistled, the boys went mad,
The omnibus-drivers their horses stopped.
The chestnut-roaster his chestnuts dropped,
The popper of corn no longer popped;
The daintiest dandies deigned to stare,
And even the heads of women fair
Were turned by the vision meeting them there.
The stilts they sparkled and flashed and shone
Like the tremulous lights of the frigid zone,
Crimson and yellow and sapphire and green,
Bright as the rainbows in summer seen;
While the lady she strode along between
With a majesty too supremely serene
For anything _but_ an American queen.
A lady with jewels superb as those,
And wearing such very expensive clothes,
Might certainly do whatever she chose!
And thus, in despite of the jeering noise,
And the frantic delight of the little boys,
The stilts were a very decided success.
The _creme de la creme_ paid profoundest attention,
The merchants' clerks bowed in such wild excess,
When she entered their shops, that they strained their spines,
And afterward went into rapid declines.
The papers, next day, gave her flattering mention;
"The wife of our highly-esteemed fellow-citizen,
A Mackerel, of Codfish Square, in this city,
Scorning French fashions, herself has hit on one
So very piquant and stylish and pretty,
We trust our fair friends will consider it treason
_Not_ to walk upon stilts, by the close of the season."

Mrs. Mackerel, now, was never seen
Out of her cha