"Yes," he whispered, "I can see it—I can see it, sister Nell; Oh, the children look so happy, and they're all so strong and

well;

I can see them there with Jesus-He is playing with them, too! Let us run away and join them, if there's room for me and you."

She was eight, this little maiden, and her life had all been spent In the garret and the alley, where they starved to pay the rent ; Where a drunken father's curses, and a drunken mother's blows, Drove her forth into the gutter from the day's dawn to its close.

But she knew enough, this outcast, just to tell the sinking boy, "You must die before you're able all these blessings to enjoy. You must die," she whispered, "Billy, and I am not even ill; But I'll come to you, dear brother-yes, I promise that I will."

"Yes, I know it," answered Billy. "Ah, but, sister, I don't mind,

Gentle Jesus will not beat me; He's not cruel or unkind.

But I can't help thinking, Nelly, I should like to take away Something, sister, that you gave me, I might look at every day.

"In the summer, you remember, how the mission took us out To a great green lovely meadow, where we played and ran about, And the van that took us halted by a sweet, bright patch of land, Where the fine red blossoms grew, dear, half as big as mother's hand.

"Nell, I asked the good, kind teacher what they called such flowers as those,

And he told me, I remember, that the pretty name was rose.
I have never seen them since, dear-how I wish that I had one!
Just to keep and think of you, Nell, when I'm up beyond the

sun.

Not a word said little Nelly; but at night when Billy slept,
On she flung her scanty garments, and then down the stairs she

crept,

Through the silent streets of London she ran nimbly as a fawn, Running on and running ever till the night had changed to

dawn.

When the foggy sun had risen, and the mist had cleared away, All around her, wrapped in snowdrift, there the open country lay. She was tired, her limbs were frozen, and the roads had cut her feet,

But there came no flowery gardens her poor, tearful eyes to greet.

She had traced the road by asking—she had learnt the way to go; She had found the famous meadow-it was wrapped in cruel

snow;

Not a buttercup or daisy, not a single verdant blade

Showed its head above its prison. Then she knelt her down and prayed.

With her eyes upcast to Heaven, down she sank upon the ground,

And she prayed to God to tell her where the roses might be

found.

Then the cold blast numbed her senses, and her sight grew strangely dim;

And a sudden awful tremor seemed to seize her every limb.

Oh, a rose !" she moaned, "good Jesus-just a rose to take to Bill!"

And as she prayed a chariot came thundering down the hill; And a lady sat there, toying with a red rose, rare and sweet; As she passed she flung it from her, and it fell at Nelly's feet.

Just a word her lord had spoken caused her ladyship to fret,
And the rose had been his present, so she flung it in a pet;
But the poor, half-blinded Nelly, thought it fallen from the
skies,

And she murmured, "Thank you, Jesus!" as she clasped the dainty prize.

Lo, that night from out the alley did a child's soul pass away,
From dirt, and sin, and misery to where God's children play.
Lo, that night a wild, fierce snowstorm burst in fury o'er the
land,

And at morn they found Nell frozen, with the red rose in her hand.

Billy's dead, and gone to glory-so is Billy's sister Nell;
I'm bold to say this happened in the land where angels dwell :--
That the children met in Heaven, after all their earthly woes,
And that Nelly kissed her brother, and said, "Billy, here's your
rose."

FATHER PHIL'S SUBSCRIPTION LIST. BY SAMUEL LOVER.

Father Phil was a parish priest, of free-and-easy speech, but greatly beloved by his simple flock. It was in a half-thatched and ruinous chapel, by the lone hill-side, that Father Phil was one Sunday celebrating mass. The worthy Father intended delivering an address to his flock from the altar, urging them to the necessity of bestirring themselves in the repairs of the chapel, which was in a very dilapidated condition, and at one end let in the rain through its worn-out thatch. A subscription was necessary, and to raise this among a very impoverished people was no easy matter. The weather happened to be unfavourable, which was most favourable for Father Phil's purpose, for the rain dropped its arguments through the roof upon the kneeling people below in the most convincing manner ; and as they endeavoured to get out of the wet, they pressed round the altar as much as they could, for which they were reproved very smartly by his reverence in the very midst of the mass, and these interruptions occurred sometimes in the most serious places, producing a ludicrous effect, of which the worthy Father was quite unconscious in his great anxiety to make the people repair the chapel.

A big woman was elbowing her way towards the rails of the altar, and Father Phil, casting a side-long glance at her, sent her to the right-about, while he interrupted his appeal to heaven to address her thus::

66 Agnus Dei-you'd better jump over the rails of the althar, I think. Go along out o' that, there's plenty o' room in the chapel below there."

Then he would turn to the altar, and proceed with the service, till, turning again to the congregation, he perceived some fresh offender.

"Orate, Fratres!—will you mind what I say to you, and go, along out of that? there's room below there. Thrue for you, Mrs Finn-it's a shame for him to be thramplin' on you. Go along, Darby Casy, down there, and kneel in the rain; it's a pity you haven't a dacent woman's cloak under you, indeed!Orate, Fratres !"

Then would the service proceed again; and while he prayed in silence at the altar, the shuffling of feet edging out of the rain would disturb him, and, casting a backward glance, he would say―

"I hear you there-can't you be quiet, and not be disturbin the mass, you haythens ?"

Again he proceeded in silence, till the crying of a child interrupted him. He looked round quickly.

"You'd better kill the child, I think, thramplin' on him. Lavery. Go out o' that-your conduct is scandalous-Dominus vobiscum !”

Again he turned to pray; and after some time he made an interval in the service to address his congregation on the subject of the repairs, and produced a paper containing the names of subscribers to that pious work who had already contributed, by way of example to those who had not.

"Here it is," said Father Phil, "here it is, and no denying it -down in black and white; but if they who give are down in black, how much blacker are those who have not given at all? -but I hope they will be ashamed of themselves when I howld those up to honour who have contributed to the uphowlding of the house of God. And isn't it ashamed of yourselves you ought to be to leave His house in such a condition-and doesn't it rain a'most every Sunday, as if He wished to remind you of your duty? Aren't you wet to the skin a'most every Sunday? Oh, God is good to you! to put you in mind of your duty, giving you such bitther cowlds that you are coughing and sneezin' every Sunday to that degree that you can't hear the blessed mass for a comfort and a benefit to you! and so you'll go on sneezin' until you put a good thatch on the place, and prevent the appearance of the evidence from heaven against you every Sunday, which is condemning you before your faces, and

behind your backs, too, for don't I see this minit a strame o' wather that might turn a mill running down Micky Mackavoy's back, between the collar of his coat and his shirt?"

Here a laugh ensued at the expense of Micky Mackavoy, who certainly was under a very heavy drip from the imperfect roof.

"And is it laughing you are, you haythens?" said Father Phil, reproving the merriment which he himself had purposely created, that he might reprove it. "Laughing is it you areat your backslidings and insensibility to the honour of Godlaughing, because when you come here to be saved you are lost intirely with the wet; and how, I ask you, are my words of comfort to enter your hearts when the rain is pouring down your backs at the same time? Sure I have no chance of turning your hearts while you are undher rain that might turn a mill; but once put a good roof on the house, and I will inundate you with piety! Maybe it's Father Dominick you would like to have coming among you, who would grind your hearts to powdher with his heavy words." (Here a low murmur of dissent ran through the throng.) "Ha, ha! so you wouldn't like it, I see. Very well, very well-take care, then; for if I find you insensible to my moderate reproofs, you hard-hearted haythens—you malefacthors and cruel persecuthors, that won't put your hands in your pockets, because your mild and quiet poor fool of a pasthor has no tongue in his head-I say your mild, quiet, poor fool of a pasthor (for I know my own faults, partly, God forgive me !), and I can't spake to you as you deserve, you hardliving vagabones, that are as insensible to your duties as you are to the weather. I wish it was sugar or salt you were made of, and then the rain might melt you, if I couldn't; but no- -them naked rafthers grin in your face to no purpose-you chate the house of God; but take care, maybe you won't chate the Devil so aisy." (Here there was a sensation.) "Ha ha! that makes you open your ears, does it? More shame for you; you ought to despise that dirty enemy of man, and depend on something betther; but I see I must call you to a sense of your situation with the bottomless pit undher you, and no roof over you. Oh, dear! dear! dear!-I'm ashamed of you-troth, if I had time and sthraw enough, I'd rather thatch the place myself than lose my time talking to you; sure the place is more like a stable than a chapel. Oh, think of that!-the house of God to be