There are three sorts of friends. The first is like a torch we meet in a dark street, the second is like a candle in a lantern that we overtake, and the third is like a link that offers itself to the stumbling passenger. The met torch is the sweet-lipped friend, which lends us a flash of compliment for the time, but quickly leaves us to our former darkness. The overtaken lantern is the true friend, which, though it promises but a faint light, yet it goes along with us as far as it can to our journey's end. The offered link is the mercenary friend, which, though it be ready enough to do us service, that service hath a servile relation to our bounty.
SPELLING REFORM.
With tragic air the love-lorn heir
Once chased the chaste Louise;
She quickly guessed her guest was there
To please her with his pleas.
Now at her side he kneeling sighed,
His sighs of woful size;
"Oh, hear me here, for lo, most low
I rise before your eyes.
"This soul is sole thine own, Louise—
'Twill never wean, I ween.
The love that I for aye shall feel,
Though mean may be its mein."
"You know I cannot tell you no,"
The maid made answer true;
"I love you aught as sure I ought —
To you 'tis due I do!"
"Since you are won, oh, fairest one.
The marriage rite is right—
The chapel aisle I'll lead you up
This night," exclaimed the knight.
