Life — April 7, 1904 — page 19: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Her Easter Problem. LL the penitential season, During Lent, When one, with or without reason, Must repent, A girl, with face so sweetly serious With accustomed air imperious Softened by a force mysterious, Came and went. And they looked and wondered at her Day by day, Watched what good deeds she would scatter On her way ; For,” they said, ‘1a look so holy Must express a spirit lowly, And its presence, sure though slowly, Must betray. In vain they watched to see this maiden Help distress ; No poor heart with sorrow laden Did she bless, No good deeds her path attended, To no church her way she wended, Till they asked why this pretended Saintliness. And at last for explanation They applied, Ready with quick condemnation If denied ; But she thought not of denying ; Smiling, said she found it trying Always insher Easter buying To decide. Said she knew they'd think it funny Not to know Ifow she should lay out her money, Puzzling so Over such a trifling matter, Whether to buy gown or hat: her Mind from former swung to latter To and fro, Should she wear last season’s bonnet, With a rose, Or a new aigrette upon it, With new clothes? Or her last year's gown remodel, And her pretty little noddle Crown with fashion’s latest foddle ? These her woes. Many were the fruitless guesses All Lent through ; And at Easter, hats and dresses Allso new Eagerly they scan and survey. So well had she planned her outlay, Which one she resolved to get, they Never knew, Minnie Lee Moore, Her Self-Denial. W JHEN Lent began, said Molly, “There's not a bit of doubt ‘That very man I'm quite as well without, And now since self-denial Is the fashionable craze, IN practice it in earnest For the coming Forty Days. + TM forego expensive bonbons. (They're unwholesome, anyway.) I'll purchase fewer flowers, T'll omit the matinée. Tl countermand the order For that reckless ‘ tailor-made." (I'm not quite sure that after all * Tis a becoming shade.) “I'l buy no more new novels, (U've already such a lot,) But improve my mind by reading Our old set of Walter Scott. And of each unspent dollar T'll keep a strict account, And to some worthy purpose T'll devote the whole amount.” So Mollie through the weeks of Lent Did worldly wiles combat, And with denial’s net results he bought her Easter hat. Jennie Betts Hartswick, An Easter Hat. HAT Medora is a beauty Any sober swain will swear; You should see the troop on duty When she goes to take the ai For her gowns there is no adjec Tive quite fitting or quite * pat"; And there's millinery magic In Medora's Easter hat. Sy res Some comparisons are folly, And some metaphors are dire ; Dare I call her hat a “trolley " Since it's overhead—and wire ? Often bows draw beaux together, And forsooth, the slim and fat Both are held in tightest tether By Medora’s Faster hat ! Feathers—they may make a bonnet, Just as clothes may make a man, Or as rhymes may make a sonnet Worked upon the proper plan; And some feathers of the finest Give éclat (pronounce ¢e/it /) To a work of art divinest,— To Medora’s Easter hat There are loops, and there are lace: ‘There are pins, mayhap,—beware ! Flowers there are—(ye vernal Gr Do they drive you to despair ?) It is all a witching wonder, But the greatest marvel’s that Captivating face seen under Dear Medora's Easter hat nett Stephens A Modern Anecdote. R. WHITELAW REID stood in the hall of his humble cottage in Madison Avenue. “Is Mr. Reid at home to a friend of his youth who is sad dollars," we asked, assuming the man- ner of an entire stranger. “Mr. Reid is out of town,” he re- sponded with the pompous politeness of a well-bred butler, ind will not re- turn for several weeks." Realizing that we must adopt more modern methods, we passed out to the gate-post, on which we attempted to rub some of the moss off our back. y in need of four comicbooks.com