_Letter from Henry Lawrence to George Manning._

DEAR GEORGE: I'm off for Europe to-morrow. I behaved _like a man_ and
broke the whole thing off. She behaved like a man too, told me how
much she loved me, and then accepted the position. I feel like a girl
who has jilted a fellow, and it's a very poor way to feel. Never flirt
with a strong-minded woman. I believe she cared for me, and I think
very likely when I'm fifty I shall think I was a fool not to have
braved it out and married her. I'm sure if I don't think it then,
I shall when I reach the next world; but then, like the girl in
Browning's poem, "she will pass, nor turn her face."

I feel very blue, and I think I'd better ask Alice to marry me. Yours,
H.L.

MARSHALL NEIL.




THE KING OF BAVARIA.


Of all the prominent personages who, through their official position
or individual power, or both combined, occupy at present the eye
of the public, probably not one is more unjustly criticised or
more generally misunderstood than Ludwig II., king of Bavaria. As
a reigning monarch, young, handsome, secluded in his habits and
unmarried, he is of course exposed to all the inquisitive observation
and exaggerated gossip which the feminine curiosity and masculine envy