76 SELECT POETRY

Now what will that make ? fifty chickens, I said—
Fifty times three-and-sixpence—I’ll ask brother
Ned.

“O! but stop—three-and-sixpence a pair I must
sell ’em;

Well, a pair is a couple—now then let us tell ‘em;

A couple in fifty will go—(my poor brain !)

Why just a score times, and five pair will remain.

“Twenty-five pair of fowls—now how tiresome it is
That I can’t reckon up such money as this !

Well there’s no use in trying, so let's give a guess—
I'll say twenty pounds, and it can’t be no less.

“Twenty pounds, I am certain, will buy me a cow,

Thirty geese and two turkeys—eight pigs anda
SOW;

Now if these turn out well, at the end of the year,

T shall fill both my pockets with guineas, ‘tis
clear.”

Forgetting her burden, when this she had said,

The maid superciliously! tossed up her head ,

When, alas! for her prospects —her milk-pail
descended,

And so all her schemes for the future were
ended.

This moral, I think, may be safely attached,—
 Reckon not on your chickens before they are
hatched.”

Jeffreys Taylor.

! Superciliously—consequentially, contemptuoualy.