_First Day_.
He was young, and she--enchanting!
She had eyes of tender grey,
Fringed with long and lovely lashes,
As he passed they seemed to say,
With a look that was quite killing,
"Won't you buy a pretty flower?
Come, invest--well, just a shilling,
For the fairest in my bower!"
Though that bower was full of blossoms,
Yet the fairest of them all
Was the pretty grey-eyed maiden
Standing 'mong them, slim and tall,
With her dainty arms uplifted
O'er her figure as she stood
Just inside the trellised doorway
Fashioned out of rustic wood;
And she pouted as he passed her,
And that pout did so beguile,
That he thought it more bewitching
Than another's sweetest smile.
Fair as tiny dew-dipped rosebuds
Were the little rounded lips;
And the youth ransacked his pockets
In a rhapsody of grips.
Then he went and told her plainly
That he'd not a farthing left,
But would gladly pledge his "Albert";
So with fingers quick and deft,
She unloosed his golden watch-chain--
Coiled it round her own white arm,
Said she'd keep it till the morrow
As a _souvenir_--a charm.
_Second Day_.
Full of hope, and faith, and fondness,
He went forth at early morn,
And paced up and down the entrance,
Like a man that was forlorn.
Thus for hour on hour he waited,
Till they opened the bazaar;
Then she came with kindly greeting;
"Ah, well, so then, there you are!
Come, now, go in for a raffle--
Buy a ticket--half-a-crown."
Ah, those eyes! who _could_ refuse them?--
And he put the money down.
Then, enthralled, he stood and watched her--
Sought each movement of that face,
With its wealth of witching beauty,
And its glory and its grace.
When the raffling was over,
Thus she spake in tones of pain:
"You are really most unlucky--
My--my _husband's_ won _your chain_!"