Was trailing in the gutter!

"What senseless style is this?" I thought;
"What new sartorial passion?
And who on earth stands sponsor for
The idiotic fashion?"

I've asked a dozen maids or more,
A tailor and his cutter,
But no one knows why skirts are made
To drag along the gutter.

Alas for woman, fashion's slave;
She does not seem to mind it.
Her silk or satin sweeps the street
And leaves no filth behind it.

For all the dirt the breezes blow
And all the germs that flutter
May find a refuge in the gowns
That swish along the gutter.

What lovely woman wills to do
She does without a reason.
To interfere is waste of time,
To criticise is treason.

Man's only province is to work
To earn his bread and butter--
And buy her all the skirts she wants
To trail along the gutter.

TO THE GIRL IN KHAKI.

"MODERN SOCIETY."

I put the question shyly,
Lest you inform me dryly
That women's ways are far beyond my ken;
But was not khaki chosen
For coats and breeks and hosen
To render men invisible to men?

Why, then, dear maid, do you
Forsake your gayest hue
And dress in viewless khaki spick and span?
You charming little miss,
It never can be this:
To render you invisible to man!

Not that at all? What then?
You do _not_ fear the men:
Perchance you only wish to hide your heart,
And so, you fickle flirt,
You don a khaki skirt
To foil the deadly aim of Cupid's dart.

THE TENDER HEART.

BY HELEN GRAY CONE.

She gazed upon the burnished brace
Of partridges he showed with pride;
Angelic grief was in her face;
"How _could_ you do it, dear?" she sighed,
"The poor, pathetic, moveless wings!
The songs all hushed--oh, cruel shame!"
Said he, "The partridge never sings."
Said she, "The sin is quite the same.

"You men are savage through and through.
A boy is always bringing in
Some string of bird's eggs, white or blue,
Or butterf