Chrysander's Quest.

THE young knight Chrysander sat pensively in the tapestry chamber at Poplinium, surrounded by six beautiful maidens. A cloud was on his brow, a trouble in his heart; for he found no meaning in the many, many words which flowed musically from those rosy lips. And he departed in pain; but came again upon the morrow, with a lofty purpose and a bold resolve.

"Sweet ladies," he said, "deign to impart your secret lore to a humble scholar. Naught is known to me of all these mysteries whereof ye discourse, neither do I understand the words of your speech. Teach me, therefore, I pray you, that I too may speak this strangely beautiful language."

Then they taught him until the sun sank in the west, and until the twilight faded; and yet was he but little wiser than before. And again he departed in pain; and through the weary hours of the night he pondered upon all that he had heard.

On the morrow he betook him once more to the maidens, and cried, "O damsels, your toil is but in vain! The mystic language is yet sealed to me, and its subtleties baffle my best wit. So soon as I have learned fitly to discriminate between a box-pleated gore and a double-biased panier puff, behold, even then I straightway forget the true difference between slashing and shirring, nor am I able, for all my striving, to tell what it is to run up frilled tatting with a

of blue.

She had never had a lover,

But she'd dreamed of one alway,
And would find him by the Boy's-Love
Hidden in her shoe to-day;

For it is a test worth trying, all the wise old grandams say.

Should she meet the tanner's boy,

Should she meet the miller's son,

She was so in love with loving,

She would love them either one,

points. Woe is me! I cannot learn this lore!"

But the fair maidens cheered Chrysander, bidding him take heart and give due diligence to his task, and all should be well.

Even so it came to pass. The heedful knight waxed wiser and yet more wise, until he became like unto the maidens, thinking even as they thought, and speaking as they spake. In good time he forsook his rude oaths," By Bacchus!" and "Holy Saint Jingo!" and "Great Cæsar's ghost!" and learned to say "By Bombazine!" and "Rip up my bastings!" and to vow by holy Honiton and sacred Sarcenet. And as the

So, she met a rosy stripling,

And they passed without a word;

But her heart would beat so loudly,

She was almost sure he heard,

where it is wont to slake its thirst, so did the knight Chrysander daily revisit the refreshing fountains of occult knowledge.

At length he bethought him in what manner he might requite those damsels, his teachers, who had

a bird.

Innocently sideways glancing,

From her little gingham hood,

Through her soul she felt the fragrance
Of that sprig of southernwood,

And she thought the lad so pretty, and believed him wise and good.

Then she lay awake, a-thinking

Of the lad, the whole night through;
But he soundly slept till daybreak,
Just as he was used to do,

And never dreamed he'd met a damsel with some
Boy's-Love in her shoe.

Mary E. Wilkins.

And he made for them many pleasant lays and ditties. Likewise, he took counsel with his heart, and framed the Seven Goodly Proverbs, that are known by every maid, not only in Poplinium, but also throughout all the land of Polonaisia. And these are the Seven Goodly Proverbs:

I. A basted bias gathers no pleats.

2. Never look a pinked tuck in the seams.

3. One shirr in the mull is worth three in the scrim.

4. A basque is known by the stitches it keeps.

5. You may lead a woman to the machine, but you cannot make her hem.

6. Better is a slashed gore with bangles, than a gusset of tulle and honiton therewith.

7. Frilled tatting fulls deep.