FEB. 40 
MOOBE’S BUBAL NEW-YORKER 
ladies’ fort-dotio. 
A KIS3 AT THE DOOR. 
We wore atamllnr in the doorway. 
My little wife and I. 
The goldort sun upon her 
Foil down mo silently; 
A small white hand upon my arm. 
What could I a sis for more 
Than the kindly glance of loving eyes, 
As she kissed me at the door? 
I know she loves With nil her heart 
The one who stands bosldo; 
And the yours have been so joyous 
Since It rat l culled her bride. 
We've hud so much of happiness 
Since we met in years before; 
But tbo happiest time of nil was 
When ahu kissed me at the door. 
Who cares for wealth of land or gold. 
For fame or matchless power? 
It door not «ivo t.lie happiness 
Of just one little hour 
With one who loves me. as her life— 
She nays she loves me more- 
And I thought she did this morning. 
When she kissed me at the door. 
At times It seems as all tilts world. 
With all its wealth of gold. 
Is very small and poor indeed 
Compared with what 1 hold; 
When the clouds hung grim and dark, 
I only think the more 
Of one who waits tho coming step. 
To kiss me at thy door. 
If sho lives till ago shall scatter 
Its frost upon her head, 
I know she’ll love me just tho same 
Ab the morning we wore wed ; 
But il the angels call her, 
And she goes to heaven before, 
I shall know her when I meet her. 
For she’ll kiss me at the door. 
WASHINGTON LETTERS.-I. 
IIV MARY A. K. WAGER. 
THE FAMOUS PEOPLE AND SCHOOLS OF BALTIMORE. 
Washington* is very much like a hand¬ 
some, fascinating villain repelling one’s 
judgment, hut holding captive the senses. 
No city in America is so villifled and yot so 
much visited. As for myself, I like it. Its 
hills and valleys; its oozy, unpretentious 
houses; tts broad streets; its courteous, 
pleasant, hospitable people} Its wire-pull¬ 
ing, tricky hut smooth and suave politicians 
—I like them all. As 1 never get behind the 
scones, 1 know nothing of its infamy or dis¬ 
honesty, and for all social and enjoyable 
purposes, sinners give their best along with 
the saints, and it is hardly worth while to 
be too critical so long as you are not a mem¬ 
ber of the social or civil reform committees. 
As I write, It is early morning, and the sun 
has transfigured the city. Its golden film 
lies on the hills and the house tops, while 
the dome of the Capitol glitters like a great 
jewel uplifted from tho reach of covetous¬ 
ness. It was this glory, this fresh radiance, 
that bewildered mo into culling this a 
“Washington Letter," when I meant to de¬ 
vote every word of It to Baltimore, in 
which city I tarried for a week on my way 
hither. And Baltimore it shall be. It is a 
false heart that ignores tho beauty of the 
past in tho dazzling splendor of t he present. 
Aside from t wo women in Baltimore whom 
I loved, it were ditllcult to define what at¬ 
tractions the city had for me. But ever 
since the war the name has had a wicked 
but resonant charm. Our boys in blue were 
butchered in her streets, but through all 
and over all, there were hearts that boat 
high and bravely and loyally. And may we 
never grow so old or so ungrateful as not to 
pray in our hearts, “ God bless them." 
I stood, on one of the sunniest days, on 
Federal Hill, where the soldiers were so long 
encamped. The city, with its spires, lay 
outspread before us. Away in tho d istance, 
over the Bay, floated the Hag from Fort Mc- 
Hcury. Washington's Monument rose fair 
and white from Mount Vernon. From no 
other point did the city present so attrac¬ 
tive a picture. Encompassed in ono view, 
Baltimore U stately almost, to magnificence; 
but taken hnnuepat-hically, she is common¬ 
place, sleepy, and lazily good-natured. 
Dead or alive, there are scarcely a dozen 
famous people in the city. Poor, misguided 
Poe, whose “Bells" have been rung and 
chimed and tolled on the lips of so many am¬ 
bitious schoolboys and girls, lies ill one cor¬ 
ner of a little churchyard, with nothing to 
mark the spot. Tho sunshine and storm of 
twenty years have smoothed the ground 
above him to a perfect level with tho sod 
about. Ills poor, old and unfortunate sister, 
Rosa, remembers the spot, and points it out 
to such as care to see it. J. Wilkes Booth 
lies buried ill Greenmount, the fashionable 
cemetery of the city, and bears the perpetu¬ 
ating memory of a monument. 
Among the people l cured to see, and did 
see, was Mrs. Almira LINCOLN Phelps, 
who, with her sister, the late Emma Wil¬ 
lard, has educated so many girls- Sho is ( 
quite venerable now, is stout in figure, has 
dark eyes, a fair complexion, and soft, white 
ourla at each side of her face. She converses 
with vivacity, dresses handsomely in black, 
lias an elegant home and the society; of chil¬ 
dren. Of late she has directed her energies 
against the Woman Suffrage movement, feel¬ 
ing that tiie present woman movement em¬ 
bodies the destruction of society and the 
ruin of the world. Of course such a lugubri¬ 
ous view of the matter Is quite amusing to 
those who look upon it as the salvation of 
the world, or at least, a decided bettering of 
it, and i could scarcely restrain a smile at 
her apparently solemn convictions. “Per¬ 
haps you do not believe us I do?" she asked. 
“No, l think I do not. I am of the opinion 
that It will require a great deal more than 
suffrage to make women anything else than 
women. So long as T do not sec my way clear 
in the matter, 1 am content to stand on the 
‘top of file fence,’ and watch flic contest." 
She expressed much sympathy wit h the new 
avenues of work opening up for women, and 
hearty co-operation with vavlous efforts for 
making women self supporting. 
Not far from Mrs. T’tielps' house, a friend 
pointed out another pleasant place, bought 
and paid for by teaching, and the property 
of a lady who has also a school In Paris. I 
have come to tho conclusion that whatever 
money a. woman can come into possession 
of, slio can do no better with it than to 
bury' it in reul estate. It is sure to have a 
resurrect ion some day, and often a glorious 
one. Moreover, it gives a woman a sense 
of importance. And t/p?’o/iosto this matter 
of teaching, a United States Consul, writing 
me from .Japan, says:—“There is a great 
chance for some enterprising woman to go 
to Yeddo and start a girls’ school. Sho 
could make money. Tho teachers in the 
Imperial Schools receive from M,000 to 
,000, with house.” And it seems entirely 
feasible, now that. Japanese princes and 
princesses are coming here to be educated. 
While in Baltimore, 1 spent a day or two 
in the High Schools for “Females," which 
is a very antique word for girls. The semi¬ 
annual examinations wtTft in progress,which 
led to t he discussion Of some educational 
technicalities. Everybody agreed that boys 
and girls should be educated together; that 
girls excelled as linguists ; boys as math¬ 
ematicians, although the very finest in the 
schools hud been girls, Baltimore school 
girls are very pretty, exceedingly well dress¬ 
ed, with the exception of wearing tlielr 
gowns too tight at, the waist, and of per¬ 
petuating the barbaric custom of banging 
rings in the ears. The teachers are women, 
and, in keeping with the customs of past 
ages, have to submit to the decorous felicity 
of having an antiquated schoolmaster ut l lie 
head of their respective schools. The cus¬ 
tom is too venerable to be laughed at, lmt 
quite old enough to be laid away from sight. 
The Baltimoreans are greatly given to lec¬ 
ture-going, and the lecture committees are 
ahead of any I know of in point of superla- 
tiveness. If any ambitious orator wants to 
be advertised into fame in one breath, he 
should go to Baltimore. 1 went one night 
to hear an Englishman, an ex-M. P., who 
was advertised as being the “Greatest Liv¬ 
ing Lecturer." To have the privilege of 
sitting in the august, presence of so much 
greatness, by paying the paltry sum of fifty 
cents, was one thing. To attempt to com¬ 
prehend the feeling that must, animate the 
heart and brain of the “Greatest Living 
Lecturer” was another. The lecturer was 
escorted on the stand by the lion. Rever- 
dy Johnson (who has less facial beauty than 
any other man 1 saw in Baltimore), and 
proved to be a very good-looking, well 
dressed Englishman, who t alked faster than 
any woman 1 ever heard, and kept it up 
continuously for an hour and a-half, with¬ 
out even so much as stopping to take breath, 
or allowing anybody else to do so. In point 
of oontinuosity and rapidity, ho was well 
advertised the “greatest." But he spoke 
very entertainingly, and his name was Pau- 
SON8. 
But tho charm of Baltimore lies in her 
social relations. Her people do not seem to 
b© driven by the relentless vigor of ambi¬ 
tion and business. The people next door arc 
one's neighbors, and one cannot walk block 
after block, as in New York, and meet with 
no familiar face nor cheerful salutation. 
Very little of sectional feeling, embittered 
by the war, remains, and, Yankee as I am, 
1 nowhere received kinder, heartier wel¬ 
come than at tho table and around tho fire¬ 
side of “rebel#,” upon whose walls hung 
! portraits of Gen. Lee and “Stonewall" 
Jackson. 
Ratling foi| the fmuig. 
THE TWO MULES. 
FROM THE FRENCH OF I.A FONTAINE. 
Once on a summer’s day. 
Two mules were jogging on their way. 
Hide t>y side. 
One in his basket carried treasure; 
The other wheat, in tlowlng measure— 
Each for his master. 
Said number one to number two, 
*“ What kind of stuff is loaded on you. 
In that old bag? 
“ As for me, I carry gold; 
My baskot’s full as It can hold 
Of shining dollars.” 
Said number t wo to number one, 
“ My master a great mill doth run— 
lie makes lino Hour. 
“ I carry all his grain to mill. 
And for iny pay, have quite my HU 
Of outs aiKl hay." 
" My humble friend, my heart doth bleed 
To llnd you only carry feed 
For millers’ stones. 
“ You should curry loads like mine, 
For lords and princes, rich and tine,” 
Said number one. 
Hut mules, like tuen, know not the morrow, 
And cannot guess the. Joy nr sorrow 
Its hours may bring,” 
Some robbers then lurked ’siflo the road 
To steal from number ono bis load 
Of shining dollars. 
They seized upon poor number ono, 
Aiul when he tried away to run. 
And save his dollurs. 
They beat him hard, with heavy sticks, 
And left him In a sorry tlx, 
Without hls shining dollars. 
Ah ! then he mourned to number two, 
” With all my heart I wish, like you, 
My master made tine Hour. 
** ’Tis true, you serve n humble muster. 
But you escape the dire disaster 
That falls upon me.” 
All ye who curry any treasure. 
Gold, wit or brains, in any measure, 
Expect the robbers. 
For you they surely lie In wait, 
lie brave, my friend; don’t share the fate 
Of number one. 
There are sixty-seven female editors and 
reviewers in Paris. 
HOW KITTY FOUND A HOME. 
Vot*R blind, weo kittens came one day to 
a home whose master was a miser. Is there 
any little body who doesn’t know what a 
miser is? I’ll toil you what kind of a man 
(Ins was, and then you’ll know what a miser 
is. He loved money a great deal too much. 
He loved if better than he did his poor, pa¬ 
tient. hard-working wife, for though she 
grew more deaf every year, ho wouldn’t 
spare money to pay a doctor to cure her, 
nor yet buy her an ear-trumpet, though she 
had often wished for one. He loved it bet¬ 
ter than he did his children, for he lot Ids 
little girls go ragged and barefooted, far 
into the cold weather, before he could make 
up his mind to spare money to buy them 
shoes and stockings, and as for school books 
or children’s papers, they scarcely dared 
think, much less ask for such things. 
And lie. loved money better than comfort 
or decency, for he wouldn’t fix up the riok- 
etly old house they called home, though 1 he 
wind whistled through the cracks, and the 
rain came through tho roof, and the win¬ 
dows wore stuffed with hero an old hat, and 
there a bundle of rags where the lights had 
been broken out. Yet be hud plenty of 
money in an old, iron-bound chest that he 
kept, fast-locked, under his bed. Of coarse, 
if he hived money so well as tills, he loved 
it too well to use the smallest fraction of a 
dollar for the bread and milk that tho kit- 
tous would soon want, so he decided at once 
that they must be put out of tho way. 
No matter what ho did with them:—I 
hate to think of that,—but when the chil¬ 
dren, coming in from picking strawberries 
to sell, ran puttering out, with their bare, 
brown feet, to take a look at ( heir new pets, 
there was only a single Oil© left in the nest. 
Well, all the love they would have be¬ 
stowed on the four, these children lavished 
on the one remaining kitten. They named 
her Beauty, and in truth it grew into a 
beauty. It had the prett iest blue eyes that 
ever kitten looked out of, ami a nice gray 
coat, and a pair of white stockings, and an¬ 
other pair of gray ones, and its face was 
white, and its cars dark gray. 
By the time the snow llow and the chil¬ 
dren got their winter shoes, it was nearly 
as big as its mother, but It was as playful as 
ever. But the bigger It grew the ofteuer 
Mr. Miser was heard to say, “ We must get 
rid of that kitten. We can’t afford to keep 
two cats.” 
One day he was going to mill. He got tho 
bags of corn into his sleigh, and old “ Wreck 
o’ Bones" harnessed, and then lie called 
out, “Where’s that kitten? Find it, Min- 
ny, Susan, Jane, —some on ye! I want to 
take it along!” 
“ What are you going to do with her? 
You won’t kill her, Father?’’ pool* Minny 
ventured to say, as she stood before him 
with tho kitten snuggled up in her arms. 
“1 won’t kill it. Give it here. I’m a 
goiu’ to give it away to somebody ns hain’t 
got no cat, or’t can afford to keep two." 
Minny hugged it close for a minute, and 
then gave it up to her father, who took it 
with no gentle grasp, stepped into his sleigh 
and drove tiff, leaving a group of tearful, 
indignant children gazing after him. 
“ l guess this is far enough from home so 
the critter won’t find her way back," said 
he, when he had got almost to the mill. 
And then he dropped (lie kitty out of the 
sleigh upon the cold snow. 
Poor Beauty looked wildly about her for 
a minute, and thou she. scampered as fast as 
her feet would carry her for the fence, the 
underbrush, a log, the woods, any place 
where she could hide from this great, wide, 
strange, white world* In t he edge of the 
woods, near the mill, lived little Lottie 
Dean, with her grandmother. Lottie was 
a dear, loving little gil l, ller mother had 
died when she could just begin to toddle 
about the floor, and her grandmother had 
taken care of her ever since sho could re¬ 
member. Now the grandmother was get¬ 
ting old, and Lottie was beginning to pay 
her for all her love and care for her. Bhe 
washed the dishes, swept t he room, made 
the beds mid milked the cows, and did a 
great many other things that a willing child 
of eleven years old can do. 
Wlille poor Minny, and Susan, und Jane 
sat toasting their feet at t he lire, and won¬ 
dering who had got their poor Beauty, Lot¬ 
tie Dean, standing at the table washing 
up the tea tilings, heard a faint mew at tho 
door. Bln- hastened to open it, but she saw 
nothing, for Kitty was so much afraid that 
she drew back into the dark as soon ns the 
door opened. Lottie waited a minute aiul 
then shut the door. Presently the kitten 
mewed again, for hunger and cold worn 
making her bolder. LOTTIE opened the 
door very softly this time, and caught sight 
of Beauty’s white face and shining eyes. 
Bho hid behind the door, leaving it half way 
open. Boon Beauty crept shyly in. Then 
Lottie abut tho dioor very quickly. When 
lit© kitten found herself a prisoner she was 
a good deal frightened at tirst, but by nine 
o’clock she was sitt ing in Lottie’s lap pur¬ 
ring her very loudest. It was a very good 
home that Kitty found, and she stayed in it 
along while, even till sin- was eleven years 
old. Then, the old grandmother having 
gone home to God, a thrifty young farmer 
came and took Lottie away to a new home, 
and Kitty went with her, and there sho is 
to this very day. Joy Allison. 
o he 
ILLUSTRATED REBUS. No. 6. 
T' 
ftdwtm 
82Y" Answer in two weeks. 
-«♦«- 
HIDDEN CITIES.-No. 2. 
1. If you start for the West on that boat it will 
sink with you before you go half way. 
2. That is Sophia coming 
:i. Can a dove run on that, house ? 
Frank Copper. 
J3T Answer in two weeks. 
Variations of Hie 20 Letter*. Will soino of 
your readers give a shorter method than that 
usually given, to solve the quo. lion;- “Of how 
man y variations do the 20 letters of the alphabet 
admit? "—A. B. Van Curve. 
PUZZLER ANSWERS. -Jan. 27. 
ILLUSTRATED rebus No. 4.-Never cross a stream 
before you get to it. 
Miscellaneous Enigma No. 2.—One of the Prov¬ 
erbs of Solomon. 
Problem no. 3.—4-9- 
Hidden Bums No. 1.—1. Owl ; 2 , Wren; 3, Eagle: 
t, Finch; h, Pewee; «. Condor*, 7, Chewtnk; 8, Peli¬ 
can; 9, Red start; 10. King Usher. 
