LADIES’ EXPRESS.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 318, 23 October 1875, Page 2

LADIES’ EXPRESS.

The Editor will be glad to give insertion to any local contributions from his lady friends that may be considered interesting in the family circle, or to the sex generally.']

MYDARLIEG.

Sweet birds that by my window sing, Or sail abound on careless wing, Beseech ye, lend your carolling, AVhile I salute my darling. She’s far from me, away, away, Across the hills, beyond the bay, But still my heart goes night aud day To meet aud greet my darling. Brown wren from out whose swelling throat Unstinted joys of music float, Come lend to me thy own sweet note, To warble to my darling. Sweet dove, whose tender, love-lorn coo Melts pensively the orchard through: Grant me thy gentle voice to w 00, And I shall win my darling. Lark, ever leal to dawn of day, Pause ere thou wingst thy skyward way— Pause, and bestow one quiv’ring lay, One anthem for iny darling, i Ah, mocker, rich as leafy June, Thou’lt grant, 1 know, one little boon, One strain of thy most matchless tune, ' To solace my own darling. Oh 1 voiceless swallow, crown of spring, Lend ms awhile thy swift, curved wing : Straight as au arrow thou shalt bring This greeting to my darling.

A London correspondent of the Melbourne Argus says:—lt is seldom that I touch upon personal scandal, but there is such a good story going about concerning that popular favorite, the Princess Mary of Cambridge (now of Teek) that I cannot forbear telling it you. Lady 11. was engaged to dine with her dear friend Mrs. P., when the little plan was put an end to by a command from the palace for the same day, so she wrote as follows : —“Dear Jane, —Our engagement must be off. Fat Mary has asked us to dine at the Palace. It wont be half such fun, and we shall not get half as good a dinner but needs must, &c. Yours ever.” Mrs. P., however, did not get this letter from her friend, bi«.another, in which Lady H. thanked her for the distinguished honor that had been conferred in asking her (Lady H.) to dinner, and expressing her great pleasure in accepting her Invitatioiir to the palace. Mrs. P. at once knew what had happened, namely, that she had.

got the letter intended for the Princess, and vice versa. She dressed in haste (the note had come by the morning’s post) and hurried oft to her friend’s. “My dear, a frightful thing has happened. You put your letters in the wrong envelopes. I trust you wrote nothing disrespectful of the Princess in the note that should hare gone to me.” “ Alas ! but I did, cried Lady if ~ thinking of “ Fat Mary,” “ not half such fun,” and the rest of it. “ Come it is yet early,” cried the other cheerfully, “ let us drive to the palace, and try to stop the letter.” The two ladies drove thither at pretty considerable speed, and Lady H., who was well known there, inquired whether the Princess had had her letters. “ They are gone up,” was the reply; but she might not have read them. There was still a hope. A message was sent to the lady’s maid begging that the note in Lady H.’s handwriting, and with a crest upon its envelope, might be brought down again, as it had been sent by mistake. Here the two ladies waited in expectation and discomfort. Presently there appeared a gentlcman-in-waiting, more solemn even than such gentlemen usually are. “ The Princess bids me tell you, Lady H., that she has read your 1 letter ; that she will expect you and Lord H. to dinner as agreed upon, but that she will neither forget nor forgive the terms in which you have spoken of her.” I suspect that Lady H. found even less '• fun ” in it than she expected.