Page 499 - The model orator, or, Young folks' speaker : containing the choicest recitations and readings from the best authors for schools, public entertainments, social gatherings, Sunday schools, etc. : including recitals in prose and verse ...

F ox (with contempt).

W lm t! let you out, now that I ’ve got you in?
W hy, my little dears, that would be a sin!
If you had been to your mother true,
You'd have shunned the trap 1 laid for you.

But now you arc here, please don't blame me,
It's all your own fault, as you can see.
Young geese are silly, and the fox is sly,
Did you think of that when I passed you by?
And you listened to me when I spoke to you,
Is that what your mother advised you to do?
Oh, no ! my dears, you may cackle and squeal,
But you’re here to make me a luscious meal,
Good sense is but folly when it comes too late!

And a goose must expect but a goose's fate !
So, to-night you may sup on regret and tears,
To-morrow (smacks his lips)— -good-night, pleasant dreams, my pretty

dears 1
(Aside?)
I might have said more, but what's tile use,

O f talking good sense to a silly, young goose;
Young geese will be silfy, and the fox is sly,
Remember that, kind friends, good-bye ! good-bye !

A nna M. F oku,

THE PORTRAIT,

[ScbhE : A prettily-furnished, sitting-ioom in ft country house, An artist seated
before an tasol, O^l wliidi is a blank canvas, slowly insets colors on h:s palette.
A. girl stands at the further end of tlse room, becomingly gowtitd, posing for
portrait s looking at him over her shoulder, ]

Hrc (aside despairingly).
I cannot paint a single line of her dear head 1
Th ree days— and still this tell-tale blank I My wits arc fled!