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fangs clacked together with a sharp, vicious snap like the report of a pocket Derringer.

I dismounted, threw the bridle-reins over my arm, and encouraged the dogs with my voice.

The wolf, inspired to desperation by the sight of another enemy, made a furious lunge, flung both dogs off, and then, reckless of odds, rushed open-mouthed at me.

As he passed Nip, that gallant dog sprang forward, legged him by his near hock, and, with a clever twist, threw him on his back.

As he fell, Tug rushed in and pinned him by the throat, receiving as he did so a bite from the wolf, who snapped him through one of his ears, fortunately only getting hold of the tip of it, for he took the piece right out.

Again all three rolled over and over in the snow, by that time stained and flecked with blood; the wolf bleeding freely at the neck and Tug at the ear.

Soon the savage monster shook himself free once more of his assailants. Again the three sprang to their feet for another round. But by this time the combatants seemed quite blown, and after regarding each other for a second or two, wolf and dogs lay down panting, with their tongues out, watching each other.

I could easily have shot the wolf, and, in fact, did draw my revolver with a half idea of doing so, but put it back, thinking it would be a great pity to spoil so pretty a fight; and, besides, I was curious to see if the dogs would prove able to kill so large a wolf without assistance, for his neck was covered with such a mane of hair, and the thick skin upon it was so loose, that it seemed an impossibility for them to choke him.

I determined to remain a passive spectator, unless my interference became requisite to save a dog from being killed or badly injured; so, feeling hungry for a smoke, I filled my pipe and struck a match to light it by.

It was like an electric spark to a battery. The scrape of the match seemed to simultaneously arouse the resting combatants, and wolf and dogs sprang from their position of repose.

But instead of again closing with their adversary, both Nip and Tug commenced dodging round him, making feints as if going to rush in, and then jumping back just out of his vicious snap.

The wolf, on his part, kept making short rushes, first at one and then at the other of the dogs; but each time he sprang at either of them the other would get a bite at one of his hind legs or his loins, and jerk him half round.

At first I thought the dogs were sagaciously trying to hamstring him; but it soon appeared they were only intent upon worrying and tiring him out.

TRUNKS AND TRUNK-PACKING.

THERE is something romantic in the past history of a trunk. Who can look without emotion on those battered veterans, who bear on their scarred sides the tokens of victory by land and sea? Here we behold the magic names, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Basle, Geneva, Visp, Milan, Bellagis, Como, Florence, Venice, Rome. Ah, what memories!

Do you remember, dear old trunk, that lovely night at Como, when I consulted you as to whether you and I had a white dress or no, and from your mysterious chest-notes came a mournful No? Do you remember our agony at Florence, when one of us was asked out to dinner, and when we jointly recollected that the detested four-foot black trunk held all the fine clothes, and that it had been left at Paris? No petite vitesse, no grande vitesse, would bring us the ark of our safety, that black giant. And then, bending over your leathern sides, how you whispered that a little Venetian lace, which you were guarding so carefully, if sewed on to a certain purple silk, would do?

Yes, and it did do, good trunk!

A lady and her trunk have many confidences. What a dreadful dream would that be which should make the lady's shade rise out of her trunk, whilst her concealed and fictitious charms gradually ascended, like the smoke of a pipe, finally to clothe the spectre, as they sometimes clothe the reality!

Imagine the flaxen wig leaving its box, the rouge and powder borne on the fingers of attendant imps, the false plumpness arranging itself by invisible hands, the skirts, the waists, the laces, the artificial flowers-all hovering in the air, and then, with the fatality of dreams, going back into the trunk, which shuts and locks with a Bramah lock, while a fiend flies away with the key.

Who has not lost a key? Who has not lost a trunk? Who has not lost a strap?

One of the most mysterious and most dreadful accidents happened to a young lady at a watering-place a few years ago. She had packed her trunk and had left her traveling-dress on the bed. Hearing a sound of music, she threw a shawl over her shoulders, and ran into a friend's room to see a procession go by. When she returnedhorror! all was gone. Traveling-dress, containing money and gloves in the pocket, had been put into the trunk by some officious chambermaid, and the trunk locked up and sent off !

Here was a situation! She was to travel a thousand miles before she would catch that trunk. Her little satchel contained no dress, no money! Let us drop the vail over this picture.

By-and-by both dogs got opposite the wolf's head, one on each side of it; they gave a bound or two backward and forward, and then, apparently with one accord, rushed in upon him and got the same hold they first had. The poor wolf could no longer shake them off. He was too weak. The tactics that Nip and Tug had been practice. ticing upon him had told upon his strength. He was very groggy on his pins, and the dogs shook him to and fro as though he was drunk.

Soon the blood began to ooze from his nostrils, his eyes turned a dull, greenish-white, bis tongue a grayish-purple, hia legs gave away under him, and he fell-dead!

This plan of putting one's money in one's pocket is less bad than putting it in one's trunk. Most women pack away their money in their trunks-a most pernicious pracKeep your money about your person. The trunk of to-day is a very nice little bureau. It has bonnet compartment, drawers for jewelry, which lock or fasten, a long box for sunshades, a compartment for fans, a portfolio for paper and letters, a secret hiding-place for love-letters and photographs, a charming little chamber for laces and newly-fluted pocket-handkerchiefs and jabots,

The dogs let go their hold of the wolf, and lay down and a lower dock for a dress or two. panting and licking their hurts.

They had killed their formidable adversary within twenty minutes of running into him.

The skin was a splendid one. Before and since then I have seen several hundred gray mountain-wolf skins, but never such a large one as that was.

But for a long journey, or a watering-place, a lady must have one or two of those long, large Saratoga trunks, which are the delight of a woman and the rage and despair of a man.

For alone in these small houses, called trunks, can the great shadow of a fashionable woman-her flounced,

ruffled, puffed, fur-belowed dress, her pièce de résistance— be folded out straight, and all women know what a necessity that is. And, ladies, dear, fold them always right side out, else your trimmings will be unutterably smashed. Remember this inviolable rule.

Lay muslin petticoats, or long vails of coarse muslin between them, as light as gossamer, as clean as dandelion down, and scatter everywhere your little satchels of violet powder. Then shall you flutter down on to the hotel piazza, like the sweet goddess that you are, when the hour of unpacking comes.

As for short dresses, fatigue dresses, they go in any where; but there are muslins, grenadines, silks, satins, gaze de Chambery, Foulard and Momie cloth, which must be packed with sentiment, also with muslin interludes.

A French maid, who knows her business, will pack a lilac grenadine, trimmed with blonde and ribbon, with pearl embroidery and with long fluffy bows, so that no suspicion of a tumble will afflict the eye of the gazer. But, alas! how seldom do you see a good French maid! The lady herself has to take a hand at it very often. Lay your dress on a bed and study its conformation. Put the two sleeves together, then straighten out the skirt, and fold it over upon itself. Lay a gentle white hand in upon the folds of the front breadth, so that no obscure fold shall make a wrinkle. When you have it folded to your mind, lay it in the trunk as carefully as a loving mother lays her baby in its crib to sleep. Shawls should be wrapped in linen and laid in amongst the heavy things. Never pack a small heavy cloak with your light Summer dresses. Bands going from one side of the trunk to the other are very necessary to keep dresses in place.

Trays are universal in French trunks, and very good, but heavy to lift. Many ladies have developed heart disease in lifting heavy trays from their trunks. However, they are indispensable for the French dresses, and carry them beautifully; besides, they are most important, as places to keep them in at a watering-place.

It is amusing to see the great difference between the size of the trunk and the size of the room. Many a lady has to stand upon her trunk to dress at a watering-place, like one vision of the trunk spectre. Her trunks more than fill her room. Some must stand out on the landing, one under the bed; one must be converted into a settee. Many ladies now carry a padded cretonne cover, which is laid over one of the trunks, and that cover makes the trunk available as a seat. One lady of literary proclivities made a desk of one trunk, a seat of another.

A spiteful husband-husbands are always bad about trunks-asked his wife to have gas and water put into her largest Saratoga trunk, and to allow him to use it for "Winter quarters." She, like a true woman as she was, indignantly refused.

They talk of cruelty to the porters! As for cruelty to porters, why, one sole-leather trunk, with books in it, such as horrid, thoughtless men are always carrying around, is twice as heavy as a splendid four by thirty-six Saratoga box, which is called "cruelty to porters." Pooh !

Then, a well-dressed woman is always a charitable one, and she slips a half-dollar note into the red hand which has borne her future happiness up three flights of hotel stairs.

A good packer has one solid and well-divided trunk for under-linen, bags of shoes, cloaks and wraps, and the bonnet-boxes, etc., and two or three more, as the case may be, for dresses and light things.

These large trunks demand an extra strap. Most reasonable women can get along with two trunks, if they are large, convenient and well packed.

Jewelry should be put in little boxes, with india-rubber straps about them, and then in a locked box which does not move about much.

If a pair of earrings or a chain gets out, it is irretriev ably injured by the attrition caused by the ceaseless motion of cars. We have introduced a new element of destruction to trunks and to jewels in the employment of steam. It churns everything with its ceaseless manipulation.

Pins should never be put into the wrappers of dresses or shawls; they work out, get crooked, and act like fishhooks in the tearing of innocent goods. They are as cruel to dresses as they are to babies. If a dress must be inclosed, let it be baisted into its wrapper.

Bonnets are difficult things to pack, and a Gainsborough hat and feathers takes a small trunk all to itself. Most of our successful packers, therefore, have one large trunk which is filled with bonnet-boxes securely fastened. These modern trunks with compartments will, however, carry three or four bonnets and hats, if laid one within the other, and with white barège vails between artificial flowers should be always put away in boxes by themselves.

Fans should be wrapped in tissue-paper and put in boxes fastened with india-rubber bands. There are no such endless necessity as fans. A lady must have a dozen of them of different styles and varieties. White lace and black lack, white satin and black satin, cheap and expensive fans, showy and plain fans-a fan is a woman's sceptre.

Shoes and boots, satin slippers, satin boots and goloshes must all be packed separately. Most women with pretty feet have boot-trees, on which their leather boots are sent to be blacked.

The satin boot must be carefully packed in tissue-paper, and particularly if the paste buckles, worn so much now, are sewn on, for they attack and abraid the satin if not well protected.

Many people like to carry a few books about with them. These heavy articles must be laid in the bottom of the trunk with the heavy clothing. Books destroy dresses if they go sailing about amongst them. They are seditious.

Every lady, before setting out for the Summer, should have the floor of her trunk well looked to, as the careless handling of our modern railway porters knocks a trunk all to pieces. The straps and the lock should also be regarded carefully. The half day's visit of the locksmith is the best of all preparatory trunk-packing.

Everybody should have a settled habit as to one's keys, a separate pocket where they are always kept. The losing of a set of keys causes untold annoyance.

The modern trunks, made of sole-leather without an inside box, are very light and very agreeable. They are better for foreign travel, when so much depends upon the weight. Here we pay differently for our baggage, and the trunks are treated with less care. We have here the delightful security of checks, so a lady can realize all the completeness of the wishing ring of the "Arabian Nights." She has but to wish her trunk to meet her in far San Antonio, Texas, and by rubbing a brass check in New York and putting it in her pocket-lo! the trunk stands before her.

This immense convenience never fails to astonish the English, who always get out at way stations, and look for their "boxes," as they call their trunks, and who pile them up on the top of cabs most inconveniently. It is strange, when they so far surpass us in the comfort, frequency of trains and safety of railway travel, that they are so far behind us in the management of baggage, or luggage, as they call it.

Trunks have a great deal of mystery about them. They have double inside linings, and breastpins, chains and rings get lost in them. One diamond breastpin, found in an old trunk which Mrs. Vanderbilt had given to the dustman, has passed into history. What a romance could be written of the lost letter which got hidden in the folds of a trunk lining-or the will, perhaps?

member the unhappy poet who bought a trunk, which was lined with his own epic? What a satire upon genius, upon travel, upon human appreciation, that must have been to that unhappy man?

Trunks have their reticence. Sometimes they refuse to be unlocked. What deadly commotion, what ghostly disturbance may be going on within of which we mortals Nay, trunks have their literature. Who does not re- know nothing! The letters of the rival lovers may have

[graphic]

PAST sloping meadows sweet with new-mown hay,
Past sedgy nooks the wild swan loves to know,
A broad stream gently glides, with placid flow,
Resistless, halting not by night or day.

And with it wand'ring reeds and grasses stray,

Torn from their homes, borne heedless to and fro;
And with it, too, the laden hay-boats go,

Drifting, yet guided on their destined way.
O Life! on your broad stream we all must speed;

By meadow or by wood we cannot rest!
Yet this we know: unlike the drifting weed,

'Tis ours to steer the course that we deem best,
And leave a track that gleams, beyond our will,
To guide posterity for good or ill

[graphic]

CINDERELLA.-"I CAST ONE TERRIFIED GLANCE FROM HIS HANDSOME FACE TO THE PEOPLE ABOUT ME.". SEE NEXT PAGE. Vol. XIV., No. 2-11.

gotten at it; the gifts of the two may be clashing. The husband's bracelet and the lover's locket may be at swords' points.

Or, less tragic, the gloves may be jealous of the shoes, the fans may be wrapping the parasols over the head, the bonnets may be putting up a lip at the hats, and the collars may be sneering at the chemisettes. The feelings of the heart which has been under these inanimate objects may have entered in; who knows? We cannot tell how much of ourselves our clothes absorb.

We know that if we are hysterical our little dogs become hysterical. We know that if we are shabby and careless, that the best cut dress becomes shabby and shapeless. We know if we are trim, precise and neat, that all our clothes are trim, precise and neat.

A person's cloak, shawl, dress, gloves, bonnet look so like them, that even when temporarily borrowed by a friend, the friend looks like-not herself, but like the owner of the cloak.

Therefore, may not our passions and our emotions go into our gowns ?

And how careful should we be not only of what we put into that trunk, but also of what we have previously put into our clothes.

That limbo of lost trunks! Where are they all? Dickens has given us "Somebody's Luggage." Would that the genius of the future would restore all the valuable keepsakes, the letters, portraits, the locks of hair, the valued treasures that have been lost in trunks, and the hours of torture when the trunk does not arrive. Who shall recompense us for that misery of suspense? If it should be lost!

CINDERELLA ; OR,

THE PINK SATIN SLIPPER OF MISTRESS SUSAN DAVENNE.

BY MARGARET F. AYMAR.'

USIE, what are you thinking of, dear child ?"

My cousin Elizabeth propounds the question as she slowly revolves before the cheval-glass, robed in the most gorgeous of Martha Washington costumes, whilst Miss Lee pins and unpins the folds of the flowered satin train, and trails the yellow lace now to this side, now that, to suit Elizabeth's somewhat exacting taste.

“Oh, she's thinking of her books, of course, the precious little student!" exclaims my cousin Dora, as she administers a thick dash of powder to her black braids. "There! Lil, powder is awfully becoming to me, isn't it?" Ah, I wonder if his lordship likes dark women or fair ones!" "According to the infallible adage, he should like fair ones. They say he is dark, you know. Think of a live lord !"

"Dear me ! One would suppose he was a duke, at the least!" I cry, scornfully, from my corner. Perhaps the scorn is instinctive, perhaps partially born of the bitter knowledge that my eyes will never rest upon the "live lord's" countenance, for I am portionless, dependent on Uncle Ralph, and, moreover, only seventeen.

"Hear the child !" laughs imperious Elizabeth, catching her breath, as Miss Lee draws the flowered bodice more tightly about her slender waist.

"I dare say you would like to get a glimpse at the duke's son, mademoiselle, for all your contempt? Perhaps you will some day when I am her ladyship!" Dora

laughs lightly, but beneath her mirth there is the quick glance of resolve.

"I dare say I should," I answer, meekly enough. "I would give anything to go to this great ball-or any ball, for the matter of that. I wonder how it seems !"

"Quite a bore, Sue, after the first few times, I assure you, even with the nobility as an inducement." Elizabeth sighs, as she is released from the laced bodice and slips out of the court-train.

"Nonsense! nothing of the kind. Just wait, Sue, until I am married; I'll bring you out in England, and marry you off in no time."

"Thanks!"

I glance up from my position (no very magnificent one), on the rug before the glowing fire, to my cousin's face, dark and haughty with splendid flashing eyes and the high Davenne nose. Elizabeth is like her, only two or three years older; and I-not much of a Davenne, and very unlike my well-favored relatives.

The face that stares so persistently back at me from over Cousin Elizabeth's shoulder in the long mirror is haughty enough, heaven knows; but instead of dark hair, in soft smooth plaits, there is a wild tanglo of blonde locks twisted in a most untidy coil on top of my head. Instead of the handsome Davenne nose a most babyish little one, straight and quite characterless, and in lieu of my cousin's flashing black eyes, two round, soft blue ones with dark lashes, resting on colorless cheeks.

Presently they all three, ladies and seamstress, leave the room deserted; I can lean there at my ease and inspect Sue Davenne to my heart's content, with no one to disturb me. I am not much given to tears, but that morning I weep very bitter ones over myself-over my entire exclusion from the life that I crave, from the life whose brimming goblet is held close to my very lips, but whose rosy liquid I am never permitted to taste.

A hot rebellion rises in my heart—a wild, unconquerable, mad desire to drink just one draught of this thing my cousins call pleasure.

Like a flash of lightning across a dark midnight comes the resolve into my brain that I will go to this ball, come what may. I think of the old guest in the old story. I think of the possibility of Elizabeth or Dora's recognizing me. I realize the enormity of my social crime in going clandestinely alone to an entertainment to which I have not even been invited; but there must have been a few drops of my Revolutionary great-grandfather's determined blood in my young veins, after all, for I decide to go, no matter what follows the fault.

A dress? That afternoon, while Elizabeth is receiving visitors and Dora gone in search of gloves that shall reach above her elbows, I betake myself to the garret ; for Uncle Ralph's house has a garret, a real old-fashioned garret, with plenty of cobwebs and dust, and spiders and mice and moths, with cunning little oriel windows, stained with the rainy tear-drops of a thousand storms. Out of one of them Great-grandfather Davenne waved the Stars and Stripes in the very teeth of Cornwallis's men when they marched through Baltimore a hundred years ago.

Plenty of old chests and old firearms, headless drums and hiltless swords, plumes dropping to bits between the sharp teeth of grieving moths, banners riddled long ago, with the tarnished golden fringe hanging helplessly from their edges; old clocks that stopped ticking who knows when, and military coats and jackets in faded blues and reds, the pockets stuffed with letters yellow as saffron; and yet how sweet a savor they once carried from "her to him !"

I scramble about for a while, starting at my own shadow

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