Wliat the Soy Said.

Otago Witness, Volume 11, Issue 2280, 11 November 1897, Page 61

Wliat the Soy Said.

I want to be a hero great, the biggest of the kit ; I doii't care what kind at all, as long as I am it.

Perhaps upon the vasty deep, when all with fear are dumb, to go and stop the leaking ship by -F- atickicg in my thumb.

Perhaps opon the city streets some child upon the track I'd save by seizing on the tram, and holding of it back.

Perhaps in some big bloody war ss general I'd go, and with my strong right hand knock off tbe heads of all the foe.

That's what I'll be when I grow up, a hero big and stout, and in parades go stalking by, and hear the people shout.

A Pretty Courtship Story.

Here is a pretty^ story of how Mr Henry M. Stanley wooed and won Misa Dorothy Tennant.

, Miss Tehnant, it is well known, was "the original of Sir John Millais's famous picture " \es or No ? " It seems that Mr Stanley had asked the question, and the reply was " No."

The great explorer went to Africa again, and after several years returned to find himself the most-talked-of man of the day. The thought of Miss Tennant was still. uppermost in his mind, and he resolved that bis first visit should be to her borne. In his impatience for tbe

morrow, he turned over the cards and notes with which the table was strewn, and, selecting one haphazard, decided to while away the time by attending a certain reception.

The first person he met there was Miss Tenuant; they greeted each other formally, but later in the evening Stanley retired to a small ante-room, to find that Miss Tennant had likewise sought solitude. A somewhat embarrassing silecce ensued, broken at last by the lady snjing, with the manner of one "making conversaticn":

"Do you find London much changed, Mr Stanley ? "

" No ; I haven't found London changed, and I've not changed either," returned the explorer with his usual intrepidity. " Have you ? "

" Yes, I'va changed," answered Miss Tennant softly.

A few days later Millais received a note from his former sitter, beginning :

"My dear Sir John, — The momentous question has been at Ust decided. It is a joyful and triumphant ' Yes ! ' "