:--

"Lady recommends her Companion-Hosekeeper."--_Morning Paper._

She was not going to risk her own Christmas stocking.

* * * * *

"It is no easy thing to replace an artist of the quality of Miss
Lily Elsie, who, in spite of the warmth of her reception at His
Majesty's Theatre, recently took so severe a chill that the
doctor would not hear of her playing again for some
time."--_Daily Mail._

The figurative has no chance with the actual.

* * * * *

AT THE SOURCE.

"Oh," said Francesca, coming into the library, "I see you're busy with
your papers. Don't let me disturb you."

"If," I said, "it depended on me I wouldn't. I'd take you at your word
and have you out of the room in two-twos. But you wouldn't like that,
now, would you?"

"I'm afraid I should have to enter a protest. That's right, isn't it?
Protests _are_ things that have to be entered, aren't they?"

"Yes," I said, "they're like candidates for examinations, or rooms, only
some rooms oughtn't to be entered, but are."

"Jocose?" said Francesca.

"No," I said; "I was thinking of Blue Beard. I daresay you remember
about him. He was a very uxorious man, you know, and most domestic.
Something of a traveller, and when"--

"We won't worry about Blue Beard," she said. "I think I know the
outlines of his family history."

"Well then," I said, "why can't you leave me alone? You see I'm busy and
yet you insist on staying here and interrupting me. Do you call that
being a helpmeet?"

"Well," she said, "I call it joining myself unto you, and that's what we
were told to do to one another in the marriage service."

"You're wrong," I said. "I was told to do that unto you, but you were
told to submit yourself unto me and to reverence me."

"It's all the same," she said. "All I'm doing is to help you to obey the
Prayer-Book."

"Anyhow," I said, "you've sat down and you mean to stay here. Is that
what it comes to?"

"It is," she said. "You're in tremendous guessing form to-day."

"All I know," I said gloomily, "is that if my return for Income Tax
contains many mistakes it'll be your fault, not mine; and I shall take
care so to inform the CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER. I shall put down in
the Exemptions and Abatements, 'Interrupted by wife. Abatement claimed,
L100.' The CHANCELLOR will understand. He's a married man himself."

"So you're doing your Income Tax," she sa