THAT TEXAN CATTLE MAN.

WE rode the tawny Texan hills,

"T would make a poem true and grand; All time should note it near and far; And thy fair, virgin Texan land

Should stand out like a Winter star, America should heed. And then

The doubtful French beyond the sea'T would make them truer, nobler men To know how this may be."

A bearded cattle man and I;
Below us laughed the blossomed rills,
Above the dappled clouds blew by.
We talked. The topic? Guess. Why, sir,"
Three-fourths of man's whole time he keeps
To talk, to think, to be of HER;

The other fourth he sleeps.

To learn what he might know of love,
I laughed all constancy to scorn.
"Behold yon happy, changeful dove!
Behold this day, all storm at morn,
Yet now 't is changed to cloud and sun.
Yea, all things change-the heart, the
head,

Behold on earth there is not one

That changeth not," I said.

He drew a glass as if to scan

The plain for steers; raised it and sighed.
He craned his neck, this cattle man,

Then drove the cork home and replied:
"For twenty years (forgive these tears)-
For twenty years no word of strife-
I have not known for twenty years
One folly from my wife."

I looked that Texan in the face

That dark-browed, bearded cattle man,
He pulled his beard, then dropped in place
A broad right hand, all scarred and tan,
And toyed with something shining there
From out his holster, keen and small.
I was convinced.
I did not care

To argue it at all.

But rest I could not.

Know I must
The story of my Texan guide;
His dauntless love, enduring trust;
His blessed, immortal bride.

I wondered, marvelled, marvelled much.
Was she of Texan growth? Was she
Of Saxon blood, that boasted such
Eternal constancy?

I could not rest until I knew-
"Now twenty years, my man," said I,
"Is a long time." He turned and drew

A pistol forth, also a sigh.
"'T is twenty years or more," said he,
"Nay, nay, my honest man, I vow
may be:

I do not doubt that this

But tell, oh! tell me how.

It's twenty years or more," urged he,
"Nay, that I know, good guide of mine;
But lead me where this wife may be,

And I a pilgrim at a shrine.
And kneeling, as a pilgrim true ".
He, scowling, shouted in my ear;
"I cannot show my wife to you;
She's dead this twenty year."

JOAQUIN MILLER, b. 1836.

A LOVE CONFIDENCE.

(FACT.)

SOME years ago, at one of Dr. Y's soirées, at Paris, I met an Irish gentleman, whose name was not O'Sullivan, but whom, for the sake of concealment, I shall so designate. I had never seen him before, nor were we upon that occasion introduced to each other; but this ceremony he soon rendered needless, by introducing himself. With a smile peculiarly Irish and modest, and with a tinge of the brogue just sufficient to give the world assurance of a "Pat," he thus addressed me:

"I beg ten thousand pardons, sir: if I am not greatly mistaken your name is Fidkins." (I take the same privilege of concealment, under an assumed name, as I have given to my new friend.)

"Fidkins is my name."

"I beg ten thousand pardons, sir, but if I am not greatly mistaken you have lately published a novel called 'The Scheming Lover.'' (My novel, like my friend and myself, travels incog.)

I have, sir."

Why, then, sir, upon my honor and conscience, that is a mighty pretty thing to be able to say."

He smiled, bowed and withdrew, and I, as in duty bound, was much amused at the oddity of the proceeding. Later in the evening, at Mr. O'Sullivan's especial request, Dr. Y- "favored" him with a

formal introduction to me.

On the following morning, at an hour

much earlier than is usual for paying visits "Why, yes, and it is. If I propose to of ceremony, my servant brought Mr. her, people will say it is for the sake of O'Sullivan's card with Mr. O'Sullivan's the dirty lucre, when if you could read most earnest request that I would grant him a quarter of an hour's interview. The rule being granted, as a lawyer would say, the gentleman entered; and after exhausting no inconsiderable portion of the time stipulated for in preparatory "hems" and "has," he thus began:

"I beg ten thousand pardons, sir-sir -I am the most unfortunate of existing creatures, and I come to beg your kind assistance. I have the misfortune, sir, to be most miserably in

"Pardon me, sir, but that is the very thing! you are the person of all others to assist me. As I said, sir, I am most awfully in love, but unluckily, sir, I-I am bashful." "And so, sir, you come to borrow a little of my superfluous impudence? I am flattered by the compliment."

"Don't misunderstand me, sir, pray don't. No, sir; the case is this: your book is full of love-schemes (and, upon my honor and conscience, very clever they are!) but it so happens there is not one among them that suits my particular case." As I consider a character always worth humoring, I resolved to humor this.

"Well, Mr. O'Sullivan, have the kindness to state your case, and if I can serve you I will."

'Why, then, sir, in the first place, the lady is a widow-she's thirty-five or thereabouts: no great disparity between us, as I am thirty-two."

"Is the lady handsome?"

"Why-that's a mere matter of taste, but-why, yes, in my eyes she-I think she is handsome. But now for the difficulty: she has eight hundred a year of her own." "A difficulty, perhaps, but, surely, no objection, Mr. O'Sullivan?"

my heart, Mr. Fidkins, you'd see that besides, have not I exactly eight hundred a year of my own-in Ireland?-setting aside for the last three years the rents won't come in-so as for her money you see- -! But to make an end, sir, I'm cruelly in love with her, and if she won't marry me, I'll die."

"But it seems you have not yet proposed to the lady. Now it strikes me that, as a preliminary step, you should do so: at least you should sound her affections; for should they be engaged in another quarter

"Don't talk of that, sir; the very thought of that drives me mad. But I'll follow your advice; I'll see her to-day, and should she refuse me, let nobody think I'll live any longer."

On the day following he came to me again; the upshot of his interview with the lady had been a flat rejection. Upon many subsequent occasions he repeated his addresses, invariably with a similar result; and, upon each occasion, I received the honor of his confidence, together with the alarming assurance that at length his heart was broken, and that, for him, the sun had risen for the last time.

It was in vain that I remonstrated with him upon the folly of indulging a hopeless passion, and that I endeavored to persuade him to try, by a change of scene, to forget the cruel fair one; to quit Paris and go to Rome, or Nova Scotia; or to carry out a stock of pigs, paupers, and poultry, and colonize some newly discovered land. His parting phrase still was, ""T is all of no use; she won't marry me; I'm the most miserable of earth's creatures, and now I'll die."

Business suddenly calling me to England, I neither saw nor heard of, and had almost forgotten, "the most miserable of earth's creatures," when, one day, about two years and a half afterwards, as I was walking along Pall Mall, I met him. He came up to me, and shaking me violently by both hands, exclaimed—“ My dear sir, my dear friend-at last I see you again! This is the happiest moment I have enjoyed for many a day! You remember that unhappy attachment of mine? I was the most miserable man alive then, I'm mil

lions of times more miserable now!"

MR. TITMOUSE DYES HIS HAIR. [Samuel Warren, D. C. L., 1807–77; b. Racre Den

bighshire, Scotland, son of Samuel, LL.D., studied medicine at Edinburgh, taking the prize on comparative jurisprudence. In 1828 he began the study of law at the Inner Temple, London; practiced as special pleader, 1831-37; in the latter years was called to the bar. He contributed to Blackwood's Magazine, 1830–31 “Passages from the Diary of a late Physician" afterwards translated into the French. He was conservative in politics, a strong supporter of Lord Derby, and published "Ten Thousand a Year" in Blackwood's, 1839. He was chosen M. P. for Leeds, of which city he was likewise Recorder. From his "Ten Thousand a Year" we select

the following ludicrous incident.]

Titmouse, for the remainder of the day, felt, as may be imagined but little at his ease; for-to say nothing of his insuperable repugnance to the discharge of any of his former duties; his uneasiness under the oppressive civilities of Mr. Tagrag, and the evident disgust towards him entertained by his companions-many most important considerations arising out of recent and coming events, were momentarily forcing themselves upon his attention. The first of these was his hair, for Heaven seemed to have suddenly given him the long-coveted means of changing its detested hue; and the next was-an eyeglass, without which he had long felt his appearance and appointments to be painfully incomplete. Early in the afternoon, therefore, on the readily admitted plea of important business, he obtained the permission of the obsequious Tagrag to depart for the day, and instantly directed his steps to the well-known shop of a fashionable perfumer and peruquier, in Bond street-well-known to those at least who were in the habit of glancing at the enticing advertisements in the newspapers. Having watched through the window till the coast was clear (for he felt a natural delicacy in asking for a hair dye before people who could in an instant perceive his urgent occasion for it,) he entered the shop, where a well-dressed gentleman was sitting behind the counter, reading. He was handsome and his elaborately curled hair was of a heavenly black (so at least Titmouse considered it) that was worth a thousand of printed advertisements of the celebrated fluid which formed the chief commodity there vended.

Titmouse, with a little hesitation, asked this gentleman what was the price of their article "for turning light hair black," and was answered, "only seven and sixpence for the smaller-sized bottle." One was in a twinkling placed upon the counter, where it lay like a miniature mummy swathed, as it were, in manifold advertisements. "You'll find the fullest directions within, and testimonials from the highest nobility to the wonderful efficacy of the 'CYANOCHAITAN-THROPOPOION."1

"Sure it will do, sir!" inquired Titmouse anxiously.

Is my hair dark enough to your taste, sir?" said the gentleman, with a calm and bland manner, "because I owe it entirely to this invaluable specific."

Do you indeed, sir!" inquired Titmouse: adding with a sigh, "but between ourselves, look at mine!" and lifting his hat for a moment, he exhibited a great crop of bushy carrotty hair.

"Whew! rather ugly that, sir!" exclaimed the gentleman, looking very serious. "What a curse it is to be born with such a hair: isn't it?"

"I should think so, sir," answered Titmouse mournfully: "and do you really think, sir, that this, what's-its-name turned yours of that beautiful black?”

"Think? 'Pon my honor, sir, certain; no mistake, I assure you! I was fretting myself into my grave about the color of my hair! Why, sir, there was a nobleman here (I don't like to mention names), the other day, with a head that seemed as if it had been dipped into water, and then powdered with brick dust; but I assure you, the Cyanochaitanthropopoion was too much for it; it turned black in a very short time. You should have seen his lordship's ecstacy"-the speaker saw that Titmouse would swallow anything; so he went on with a confidential air-" and in a month's time he had married a beautiful woman, whom he had loved from a child, but who would never marry a man with such a head of hair.”

1 This fearful-looking word, I wish to inform my lady readers, is a monstrous amalgamation of three or four

Greek words-denoting a fluid "that can render the

human hair black," Whenever a barber or perfumer determines on trying to puff off some villainous imposition of this sort, strange to say, he goes to some starving scholar and gives him half-a-crown to coin a word like the above, that shall be equally unintelligible and unpronounceable, and therefore attractive and popular.

"How long does it take to do all this, | black hair, whom he fancied he had seen sir?" interrupted Titmouse eagerly, with a beating heart.

before, and suddenly discovered that he was only looking at himself in a glass! "Sometimes two, sometimes three days. This woke him. Up he jumped, and in a In four days' time I'll answer for it, your trice was standing before his little glass. most intimate friend would not know you. Horrid! he almost dropped down dead! My wife did not know me for a long his hair was perfectly green-there could while, and wouldn't let me salute her- be no mistake about it. He stood staring ha, ha!" Here another customer en- in the glass in speechless horror, his eyes tered; and Titmouse, laying down the and mouth distended to the utmost, for five-pound note he had squeezed out of several minutes. Then he threw himself Tagrag, put the wonder-working phial on the bed, and felt fainting. Up he into his pocket, and, on receiving his presently jumped again, rubbed his hair change, departed, bursting with eagerness desperately and wildly about—again lookto try the effects of Cyanochaitanthropo- ing into the glass; there it was, rougher poion. Within half an hour's time he than before; but eyebrows, whiskers and might have been seen driving a hard bar- head, all were, if anything, of a more gain with a pawnbroker for a massive- vivid and brilliant green. Despair came looking eye-glass, which, as it hung sus- over him. What had all his trouble been pended in the window, he had for months to this? and what was to become of him? cast a longing eye upon: and he eventu- He got into bed again, and burst into a ally purchased it (his eye-sight, I need perspiration. Two or three times he got hardly say, was perfect) for only fifteen in and out of bed to look at himself again shillings. After taking a hearty dinner on each occasion deriving only more in a little dusky eating house in Rupert terrible confirmation than before of the Street, frequented by fashionable-looking disaster that had befallen him. After foreigners, with splendid heads of curling lying still for some minutes he got out of hair and mustachios, he hastened home. bed, and kneeling down, tried to pray; Having lit his candle, and locked his but it was in vain-and he rose half door, with tremulous fingers he opened choked. It was plain he must have his the papers enveloping the little phial; head shaved, and wear a wig-that was and glancing over their contents, got so making an old man of him at once. Getinflamed with the numberless instances ting more and more disturbed in his of its efficacy, detailed in brief and glow- mind, he dressed himself, half determined ing terms the "Duke of, the Coun-on starting off to Bond Street, and breaktess of, the Earl of, &c., &c., &c., &c. -the lovely Miss, the celebrated Sir Little Bull's-eye (who was so gratified that he allowed his name to be used)all of whom, from having hair of the reddest possible description were now possessed of ebon hued locks"-that the cork was soon extracted from the bottle. Having turned up his coat-cuffs, he commenced the application of the Cyanochaitanthropopoion, rubbing into his hair, eyebrows, and whiskers, with all the energy he was capable of, for upwards of half an hour. Then he read over every syllable on the papers in which the phial had been wrapped; and about eleven o'clock, having given sundry curious glances at the glass, got into bed full of exciting hopes and delightful anxieties concerning the success of the great experiment he was trying. He could not sleep for several hours. He dreamed a rapturous dream: that he bowed to a gentleman with coal

ing every pane of glass in the shop window of the cruel impostor who had sold him the liquid that had so frightfully disfigured him. As he stood thus irresolute, he heard the step of Mrs. Squallop approaching his door, and recollected that he had ordered her to bring up his teakettle about that time. Having no time to take his clothes off, he thought the best thing he could do would be to pop into bed again, draw his nightcap down to his ears and eyebrows, pretend to be asleep, and, turning his back towards the door, have a chance of escaping the observation of his landlady. No sooner thought of than done. Into bed he jumped, and drew the clothes over him-not aware, however, that in his hurry he had left his legs, with boots and trousers on, exposed to view-an unusual spectacle to his landlady, who had, in fact, scarcely ever known him in bed at so late an hour before. He lay as a still as mouse. Mrs. Squal