all left to a smooth-faced fellow that nobody never heard on, that got somehow or other into the old lady's good books and she had it writ down. It was all because Jem one day kicked her favourite dog, that used to fly at everybody's legs—now the dog's gone to live with a baker, and Jem's in prison for debt.

Mar. And Harry Bacon, what's become of him?

Joe. Gone to sea, because Mary Brown took up with a tailor what opened a shop from London. And you recollect Tom Hammer, the blacksmith?

Mar. Yes.

Joe. Well, if he ain't gone and bought all Merryweather's pigs, I'm a Dutchman! And Merryweather's gone to America, and the eldest daughter's married Sam Holloway, the cutler, and folks say it ain't a good match, because he was a widow with three children, and she might have had Master Pollard the schoolmaster, and he's gone and turned serious and won't let the boys play at no games, and so they're all going away to a new man that'll let them do just what they like; and Will Twig has been found out stealing chickens, and he's in prison; and Johnny Trotter, the postman, has opened a grocer's shop; and they've pulled down the old parsonage and are building a new 'un; and the doctor's got a large lamp over his door, with big blue and red bull's eyes; and there's a new beadle, and all the parish children have got the hooping-cough, and Mrs. Jenkins' cow's dead, and—that's all !

Mar. Oh, Joe! I can shut my eyes and see everything and everybody you've been talking about, oh, so plain! and to see you again does seem so like old times.

Joe. And didn't we have games? when you used to climb up the cherry-tree, and call out to me, “Joe, come and help me, or I shall tumble down and break something!" '

Mar. Yes! and Joe, when my father used to take you and I to market, and we used to sit at the bottom of the cart and eat apples. Joe. And when sometimes I used to try to give you a kiss, what knocks on my nose you used to give!

Mar. Ah! didn't I?

Joe. And when I got savage, how I used to kick you wi' my hobnail shoes! Oh, how friendly we was-wasn't we?

Mar. And how we did sing!

Joe. And dance!

Mar. And were so happy!

Joe. Oh, Margery!

Mar. Oh, Joe!

[Margery and Joe shake hands and embrace.

SIR WILLIAM re-enters.

He stands at the back regarding them for

a moment in silent astonishment, then comes forward.

Sir W. Margery! are you out of your senses!

Mar. [to Joe] Don't go away--it's only my husband.

Sir W. [to Margery] Will you be happier if I leave you to follow the dictates of your own heart and feelings, without the direction of masters or of books?

Mar. Yes! yes, I will try my hardest to be as you would wish me, if you but let me try in my own way; and I am sure, in time, you will not be ashamed of me. When you want me to learn, teach me yourself—a loving word and gentle patience, and all from you, will make us both happy, and me I hope sincere.

(183.) THE DEATH OF MINNEHAHA.

[Minnehaha, the heroine of Longfellow's famous poem of Hiawatha, is the daughter of the arrow-maker Dacotah, and the wife of Hiawatha. She was called Minne haha ("laughing-water") from the waterfall of that name. Gitché Manito is the Great Spirit and Master of Life, the idea to the Indian of the Almighty. Pauguk is a cunning mischief-maker, who, taking to flight because Hiawatha has threatened to slay him, becomes eventually transformed into an eagle.]

O the long and dreary Winter! O the cold and cruel Winter! Ever thicker, thicker, thicker froze the ice on lake and river, ever deeper deeper, deeper fell the snow o'er all the landscape. Hardly from his buried wigwam could the hunter force a passage; vainly walked he through the forest; sought for bird or beast, and found none; in the ghastly, gleaming forest fell, and could not rise from weakness, perished there from cold and hunger.

O the famine and the fever! O the wasting of the famine! O the blasting of the fever! O the wailing of the children! O the anguish of the women! All the earth was sick and famished; hungry was the air around them, hungry was the sky above them, and the hungry stars in heaven, like the eyes of wolves, glared at them!

Into Hiawatha's wigwam came two guests; and silent, gloomy, sat without a word of welcome in the seat of Laughing Water; Famine one, the other Fever; and the lovely Minnehaha shuddered as they looked upon her, lay down on her bed in silence; lay there trembling, freezing, burning, at the looks they cast upon her, at the fearful words they uttered.

Forth into the empty forest rushed the maddened Hiawatha; "Gitché Manito, the Mighty!" cried he with his face uplifted, in

that bitter hour of anguish, “Give your children food, O Father! give us food, or we must perish! give me food for Minnehaha, for my dying Minnehaha !”– -Through the far resounding forest rang

that cry of desolation; but there came no other answer than the echo of his crying, "Minnehaha! Minnehaha!"

In the wigwam with Nokomis, with those gloomy guests, that watched her, with the Famine and the Fever, she was lying, the beloved, she-the dying Minnehaha. "Hark!" she said, "I hear a rushing, hear a roaring and a rushing; hear the Falls of Minnehaha calling to me from a distance!" "No, my child !” said old Nokomis, "'tis the night-wind in the pine-trees!" "Look!" she said; "I see my father standing lonely at his doorway, beckoning to me from his wigwam, in the land of the Dacotahs!" "No, my child!" said old Nokomis, "'tis the smoke, that waves and beckons!" "Ah!" she said, "the eyes of Pauguk glare upon me in the darkness; I can feel his icy fingers clasping mine amid the darkness! Hiawatha! Hiawatha!"——And the desolate Hiawatha, far away amid the forest, miles away among the mountains, heard that sudden cry of anguish, heard the voice of Minnehaha calling to him in the darkness, "Hiawatha! Hiawatha!"

Over snow-fields waste and pathless, under snow-encumbered branches, homeward hurried Hiawatha, empty-handed, heavyhearted; heard Nokomis moaning, wailing:-"Wahonomin! Wahonomin! would that I had perished for you! would that I were dead as you are! Wahonomin! Wahonomin!"

And he rushed into the wigwam: saw the old Nokomis slowly rocking to and fro, and moaning; saw his lovely Minnehaha lying dead and cold before him; and his bursting heart within him uttered such a cry of anguish, that the very stars in heaven shook and trembled with his anguish.

Then he sat down, still and speechless, on the bed of Minnehaha, at the feet of Laughing Water; at those willing feet, that never more would lightly run to meet him, never more would lightly follow. Seven long days and nights he sat there, speechless, motionless, unconscious of the daylight or the darkness.

Then they buried Minnehaha in the forest deep and darksome, underneath the moaning hemlocks; wrapped her in her robes of ermine, covered her with snow, like ermine. On her grave a fire was lighted, for her soul upon its journey to the Islands of the Blessed.

From his doorway Hiawatha watched it burning in the forest, that it might not be extinguished, might not leave her in the darkness.

"Farewell!" said he, "Minnehaha! Farewell, O my Laughing Water! All my heart is buried with you, all my thoughts go onward with you! Come not back again to labour, come not back again to suffer, where the Famine and the Fever wear the heart and waste the body. Soon my task will be completed, soon your footsteps I shall follow to the Islands of the Blessed, to the kingdom of Ponemah, to the Land of the Hereafter!"

(184.) THE MURDER OF MONTAGUE TIGG. (ADAPTED.)

Charles Dickens, novelist, born 1812, died 1870. Of his numerous novels Pickwick is the funniest, Barnaby Rudge the most instructive, Martin Chuzzlewit the most dramatic, and David Copperfield the best. Dean Stanley said of him: "He was the friend of mankind; the friend of youth; the friend of the poor; the enemy of every form of meanness and oppression. He occupied a greater space than any other writer in the minds of Englishmen during thirty years. We were roused by him to a consciousness of the misery of others and to a pathetic interest in human life. No author was ever more beloved or mourned."

[Mr. Montague Tigg, a director of a bubble Life Insurance Co., has discovered, through the agency of Nadgett, that Jonas Chuzzlewit, his co-director, has secretly poisoned his (Chuzzlewit's) father.]

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"My dear Chuzzlewit!" cried Montague Tigg as Jonas entered: 'you rise with the lark. Though you go to bed with the nightingale, you rise with the lark."

"Ecod!" said Jonas, with an air of languor and ill-humour, as he took a chair, “I should be very glad not to get up with the lark, if I could help it. But I am a light sleeper; and it's better to be up, than lying awake, counting the dismal old church-clocks, in bed."

"A light sleeper!” cried his friend. "Now, what is a light sleeper? I often hear the expression, but upon my life I have not the least conception what a light sleeper is."

"Hallo!" said Jonas, "who's that? Oh, old what's-his-name: looking as if he wanted to skulk up the chimney. He's not wanted here, I suppose. He may go, mayn't he?"

This remark of Mr. Jonas was in allusion to Mr. Nadgett, the man employed by Mr. Montague Tigg at a pound a week to make inquiries. Mr. Nadgett was then standing with his back to Jonas, apparently unconscious of the presence of anybody, and absorbed in drying his pocket handkerchief.

"Oh, let him stay, let him stay!" said Tigg. "He's a mere piece of furniture. He has been making his report, and is waiting for further orders. He has been told not to lose sight of certain friends

of ours, or to think that he has done with them by any means. understands his business."

He

"He need,” replied Jonas; "for of all the precious old dummies in appearance that ever I saw, he's about the worst. He's afraid of me, I think."

"It's my belief," said Tigg, "that you are POISON to him. Nadgett ! give me that towel!"

He had as little occasion for a towel as Jonas had for a start. But Nadgett brought it quickly; and, having lingered for a moment, fell back upon his old post by the fire.

They were silent for a little time. Then Jonas spoke:

"Now we've done with child's talk, I want to have a word with you before we meet up yonder to-day. I am not satisfied with the state of affairs."

"Not satisfied!" cried Tigg. "The money comes in well."

"The money comes in well enough," retorted Jonas: " but it don't come out well enough. It can't be got at easily enough. I haven't sufficient power; it is all in your hands. If you should take it into your honourable head to go abroad with the bank, I don't see much to prevent you. Well! That won't do. I've had some very good dinners here, but they'd come too dear on such terms: and therefore, that won't do."

"I am unfortunate to find you in this humour," said Tigg, with a remarkable kind of smile: "for I was going to propose to you—for your own advantage; solely for your own advantage-that you should venture a little more with us."

"Was you?" said Jonas, with a short laugh.

"Yes.

And to suggest," pursued Montague, "that surely you have friends whom we should be delighted to receive."

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'Exactly," said Jonas; " as my friends, of course.

You'll be very

much delighted when you get 'em, I have no doubt. And it'll be all to my advantage, won't it?"

"It will be very much to your advantage," answered Montague, looking steadily upon him.

“And you can tell me how,” said Jonas, "can't you?”

"SHALL I tell you how?" returned the other.

“I think you had better," said Jonas. "Strange things have been done in the Assurance way before now, by strange sorts of men, and I mean to take care of myself."

"Chuzzlewit!" replied Montague, leaning forward, with his arms upon his knees, and looking full into his face. "Strange things have been done, and are done every day; not only in our way, but