ity.

There are few of you who are not old enough to remember fashions of
dress, which at one time you and every one else considered very stylish
and becoming, and which now would make a perfect fright of any one who
would be bold enough to wear them.

Indeed, were a fine lady to make her appearance in the streets of one of
our large cities dressed in the hoops and wide skirts in which she was
so fashionable and attractive a few years ago, the street boys would
hoot her, and she might walk about all day without meeting a single
person who would think that there was anything whatever to be said in
favor of such a costume.

Of course, some fashions are uglier and more absurd than others, and it
is not strange that we wonder how sensible people could have endured
them; but if these very styles were to become fashionable again, most of
us would adopt them.

If, in a few years, it should become the fashion for ladies to dress
their hair like that of the good wife of Jean Van Eyck, I feel quite
certain that nearly all the fashionable ladies you know would go about
looking very much like cats. This may seem a libelous assertion; but if
you will keep a watch on the fashions, I think you will find I am
correct, provided the Van Eyck style comes up.

TOMMY'S DREAM; OR, THE GEOGRAPHY DEMON.

BY LAURA E. RICHARDS.

I HATE my geography lesson!
It's nothing but nonsense and names;
To bother me so every morning,
It's really the greatest of shames.

The brooks, they flow into the rivers,
And the rivers flow into the sea;
I hope, for my part, they enjoy it,
But what does it matter to me?

Of late, even more I've disliked it,
And more disagreeable it seems,
Ever since the sad evening last winter,
When I had that most frightful of dreams.

I thought that a great horrid monster
Stood suddenly there in my room--
A frightful Geography Demon,
Enveloped in darkness and gloom;

His body and head like a mountain,
A volcano on top for a hat;
His arms and his legs were like rivers,
With a brook round his neck for cravat.

He laid on my poor trembling shoulder
His fingers, cold, clammy and long;
And fixing his red eyes upon me,
He roared forth this horrible song:

"Come! come! rise and come
Away to the banks of the Muskingum!
It flows o'er the plains of Timbuctoo,
With the peak of