"Now, honestly, just between you and me," the colonel said, confidentially, "was there ever a better and braver and quainter and handsomer boy in the world?

Her tiny sister, behind the bier, is even quainter.

A quainter figure I never saw!

[Sidenote: Marshall and Snelgrove] It was quainter even than the frumps' dinner that Godmamma gave.

A quainter way of making war it would be hard to imagine.

The old-fashioned brass knocker on the low arched door, ornamented with carved garlands of fruit and flowers, twinkled like a star; the two stone steps descending to the door were as white as if they had been covered with fair linen, and all the angles, and corners, and carvings, and mouldings, and quaint little panes of glass, and quainter little windows, were as pure as any snow that ever fell upon the hills.

No, for this quaint alliance a quainter Cupid waited,the chubby little fellow with a big head and a little arrow, who waits on youth and loveliness, was not wanted here.

Chester itself, most antique of English towns, can hardly show quainter architectural shapes than many of the buildings that border this street.

The four inner fronts, with their high, steep roofs and sharp gables, look into it from antique windows, and through open corridors and galleries along the sides; and there seems to be a richer display of architectural devices and ornaments, quainter carvings in oak, and more fantastic shapes of the timber framework, than on the side towards the street.

In the early morning hours, In a mood 'twixt wrath and mirth, I exclaimed: "Alas, Ye Powers, These ideas are fainter, quainter Than anything on earth!"

The crown used for the purpose was taken off the head of a statue of The Virgin in St. Mary's Abbey, anda quainter piece of ceremonial stillthe youthful monarch was, after the ceremony, hoisted upon the shoulders of the tallest man in Ireland, "Great Darcy of Flatten," and, in this position, promenaded through the streets of Dublin so as to be seen by the people, after which he was taken back in triumph to the castle.

Inside, with the fireplaces burning huge logs and flashing intermittently over the scene, the jack-o'-lanterns grinning cheerfully from every corner, the flags and bunting contributing colour, and the masses of evergreen and clumps of corn-shocks adding nooks and corners for shadows to dance in, there certainly could have been no quainter or prettier background for a party.

It is scarcely part of our subject to allude to the same kind of influence which has spoiled the quaint bizarre effect of native design and workmanship in silver, in jewellery, in carpets, embroideries, and in pottery, which was so manifest in the contributions sent to South Kensington at the Colonial Exhibition, 1886.

The Louis Quinze cabinets were inlaid, not only with natural woods, but with veneers stained in different tints; and landscapes, interiors, baskets of flowers, birds, trophies, emblems of all kinds, and quaint fanciful conceits are pressed into the service of marqueterie decoration.

QUARLES, FRANCIS, religious poet, born in Essex, of good family; a member of Christ's College, Cambridge, and Lincoln's Inn; held divers offices at the Court, in the city, and the Church; was a bigoted Royalist and Churchman, a voluminous author, both in prose and verse, but is now remembered for his "Divine Emblems," and perhaps his "Enchiridion"; he wrote in his quaint way not a few good things (1592-1644).

RATISBON or REGENSBURG (38), one of the oldest and most interesting of German towns in Bavaria, on the Danube, 82 m. NE. of Münich; has a quaint and mediæval appearance, with Gothic buildings and winding streets; associated with many stirring historical events; till 1806 the seat of the imperial diet; does an active trade in salt and corn, and manufactures porcelain, brass, steel, and other wares.

They often went to hear the Norwegian singers who, so the advertisements said, had walked all the way from their northern home in their quaint national costume, and they scarcely missed a Wednesday at the Trocadero, where there were contests of massed bands.

Here and there, however, a queer edifice meets your eye, endowed with the individuality that belongs only to the domestic architecture of times gone by; the house seems to have grown out of some odd quality in its inhabitant, as a sea-shell is moulded from within by the character of its inmate; and having been built in a strange fashion, generations ago, it has ever since been growing stranger and quainter, as old humorists are apt to do.

" She spoke to me always in English of quaint wording and quainter accent.

" A kind correspondent sends me an illustration of this quaint matter-of-fact view of a question as affecting the sentiments or the feelings.

You can scarcely imagine an old lady, however quaint, now making use of some of the expressions recorded in the text, or saying, for the purpose of breaking up a party of which she was tired, from holding bad cards, "We'll stop now, bairns; I'm no enterteened;" or urging more haste in going to church on the plea, "Come awa, or I'll be ower late for the 'wicked man'"her mode of expressing the commencement of the service.

Besides Scottish replies and expressions which are most characteristicand in fact unique for dry humour, for quaint and exquisite witI have often referred to a consideration of dialect and proverbs.

There can be no doubt there is a force and beauty in our Scottish phraseology, as well as a quaint humour, considered merely as phraseology, peculiar to itself.

A quaint little thin volume, such as delights the eyes of true bibliomaniacs, unpaged, and published at Edinburgh 1641although on the title-page the proverbs are said to have been collected at Mr. Fergusson's death, 1598.

A quaint proverb of this class I have been told of as coming from the reminiscences of an old lady of quality, to recommend a courteous manner to every one: It's aye gude to be ceevil, as the auld wife said when she beckit to the deevil.