MEDDLESOME MATTY.

One ugly trick has often spoiled The sweetest and the best; Matilda, though a pleasant child, One ugly trick possessed, Which, like a cloud before the skies Hid all her better qualities. Sometimes she’d lift the tea-pot lid, To peep at what was in it; Or tilt the kettle, if you did But turn your back a minute. In vain you told her not to touch, Her trick of meddling grew so much. Her grandmamma went out one day, And by mistake she laid Her spectacles, and snuff-box gay Too near the little maid; “Ah! well,” thought she, “I’ll try them on, As soon as grandmamma is gone.” Forthwith she placed upon her nose The glasses large and wide; And looking round, as I suppose, The snuff-box, too, she spied: “Oh! what a pretty box is that; I’ll open it,” said little Matt. “I know that grandmamma would say, ‘Don’t meddle with it, dear;’ But, then, she’s far enough away, And no one else is near: Besides, what can there be amiss In opening such a box as this?” So thumb and finger went to work To move the stubborn lid, And presently a mighty jerk The mighty mischief did; For all at once, ah! woeful case, The snuff came puffing in her face. Poor eyes and nose, and mouth beside, A dismal sight presented; In vain, as bitterly she cried, Her folly she repented. In vain she ran about for ease; She could do nothing now but sneeze. She dashed the spectacles away, To wipe her tingling eyes, And as in twenty bits they lay, Her grandmamma she spies. “Hey-day! and what’s the matter now?” Says grandmamma, with lifted brow. Matilda, smarting with the pain, And tingling still, and sore, Made many a promise to refrain, From meddling any more. And ’tis a fact, as I have heard, She ever since has kept her word.