s
pocket.

"Fred is so quick," said his admiring wife.

"Well, and what are the others?" the mother asked. "There's Mr. Brown
and Mrs. Venning. Why shouldn't Mr. Brown have the whisky one? I'm
sure he'd laugh. But you couldn't send Mrs. Venning the old maid."

"We got this for Mr. Brown," said the boy. "The nurse bringing the
father twins and calling them two 'pink forms.'"

"That's dashed good," said Mr. Gates, "don't you think?"

"Very smart," said the father. "That's all right. And what about Mrs.
Venning?"

"Well," said the girl, "we thought she'd like this one--a man and a
woman kissing in a tunnel, and he says the tunnel cost ten thousand
pounds to make, and she says it's worth it, every penny."

"Very good," said the father; "I like that. Get me another of those
and I'll send it to a friend of mine in the City. And I'll go to the
shop myself and help you to choose the local views for your Uncle and
Aunt Tilly. It's a case where care is necessary."

* * * * *

THREE DAUGHTERS OF FRANCE.

_Chateau ----, France_.

_To_ M. PUNCH.

CHER MONSIEUR,--Shall I write to you of the toil, the fatigues which
my sisters and I must endure at the hands of our country's Allies,
without kindling in your breast that flame of chivalry which is the
common glory of our two races? _C'est incroyable_.

Let us then to my complaint.

We lived for many years, my two sisters and I, in the service of our
dear master, who owned a beautiful chateau in the North of France.

Our duties were simple--to entertain the guests of M. le Vicomte after
dinner on those evenings upon which he gathered his friends around
him.

For the rest we lived in the ease which his kind generosity knew how
to provide. We loved our own particular boudoir, with its books, its
pictures, its comfortable fauteuils and its soft green cushions.

Oh, Monsieur, it makes me to weep when I think of my beautiful
sisters--the one with her laughing rosy cheeks, the other pale as
ivory, save for one little black spot, which no man surely could
call a blemish.

Those were happy days. Often we kissed, my sisters and I, for very
joy.

Then it came--this terrible War. M. le Vicomte was called away in the
cause of _la belle France_; but we would not desert our home. One day,
we said, it shall be as of old.

And as the months went by it was whispered that the English would make
of our chateau a house of rest for their officers who