BEFORE AND AFTER.

Evening Post, Volume LXIII, Issue 87, 12 April 1902, Page 2 (Supplement)

BEFORE AND AFTER.

The woman he married was not In the least what his fancy depicted. But he was content with his lot, And didn't aeein badly afflicted. Ho thought of connubial life In a way that was purely ideal^ But later discovered his wife Was most unmistakably real. She lost all her fondness for walks, Where the moonlight its soft shadow scatters, And ail those imagined sweet talks Were entirely on practical matters. No acorn had she now for base pelf, She ate three square meals without trouble, And wanted a. chair to herself, Declining with him to sit double. In fancy he sat as she played AiTd sung soft and low in the twilight ; Instead she now pulled down the shade And turned up the gas to a high light. The poets together they planned To read, while the marriage was pending, Now seldom or never were scanned ; He smoked and she sat at her mending. Fond visions I How swiftly they fade Into gray from their tints bright and rosy I And poems of life we see made Into something undoubtedly prosy. But none of this made the man soreIndeed, he'd no cause for dejection, For ske made all. the dresses she' wore; And cooked pork and bsans to perfection. ■—Chicago News.