DOLLY VARDEN.

Westport Times, Volume VII, Issue 1045, 11 February 1873, Page 4

DOLLY VARDEN.

BY 3EET HA.RTE. Dear Dolly ! who does not recall The thrilling page that pictured all Those charms that hold our sense in thrall Just as the artist caught her— As down that English lane she tripped, In flowered chintz, hat sideways tipped, Trim bodiced, bright-eyed, roguish lipped— The locksmith's pretty daughter! Sweet fragment of the Master's art, O simple faith! O rustic heart! O maid that that hath no counterpart In life's dry, dog-eared pages ! Where shall we find thy like ? Ah stay ! Methinks I saw her yesterday In chintz that flowered, as one might say, Perennial for ages. Her father's modest cot was stone, Five stories high. In style and tone Composite, and I frankly own, Within its walls revealing Some certain novel, strange ideas ; A Gothic door with Roman piers, And floors removed some thousand years From their Fompeian ceiling. The small saloon where she received • Was Louis Quatorze, and relieved By Chinese cabinets, conceived Grotesquely by the heathen; The sofas were a classic sight— The Roman Bench (sedilia height) ; The chairs were French, in gold and white, And old Elizabethan. And she the goddess of that shriDe, Two ringed fingers placed in mine— The stones were many carats fine, And of the purest water— Then dropped a curtsey, far enough To fairly fill her cretonne puff And show the petticoat's rich stuff That her fond parent bought her. Her speech was simple as her dress— Not French the more, but English less, She loved, yet sometimes, I confess, ■I scarce could comprehend her. Her manners were quite far from shy; There was a quiet in her eye Appalling to the Hugh who'd try With rudeness to offend her. " But whence," I cried, " this masquerade ? Some figure for to-night's charade— A Watteau's shepherdess or maid?" She smiled and begged my pardon; " Why surely you must know the name— That woman who was Shakspeare's flame Or Byron's—well, it is all the same; Why Lord ! I'm Dolly Varden !

Pathetic History,—l once knew an industrious boy whose parents were poor but honest. Ho began life without a penny; he had a wart on his nose and a sore on his back, but nothing dauntecf him ; he worked with a determination and a will, backed by perseverance and energy, and nobly fought his way along, surmounting every obstacle. Mark the result. Last week I met him for the first time in ten years, and that boy who began life ten short years ago without a penny, hasn't got a darned penny yet! American Paper. Sincerity Defined.—Sincerity ia to speak as we think, to do as we intend and. profess, to perform and make good what we promise, and really to be what we would seem and appear to be.