All I have? Yes, she is, and God help me!
I'd three little darlints beside,

As purty as iver ye see, sir,

But wan by wan dhrooped like, and died.
What was it that tuk them, ye're asking?
Why, poverty, sure, and no doubt;
They perished for food and fresh air, sir,
Like flowers dried up in a drought.

'Twas dreadful to lose them? Ah, was it !

It seemed like my heart-strings would break?
But there's days when wid want and wid sorrow,
I'm thankful they're gone, for their sake.
Their father? well, sir, saints forgive me!
It's a foul tongue that lowers its own:
But what wid the strikes and the liquor
I'd better be strugglin' alono.

Do I want to kape this wan? The darlint!
The last and dearest of all!

Shure you're niver a father yourself, sir,
Or you wouldn't be askin' at all.

What is that? Milk and food for the baby!
A docther and medicine free!

You're huntin' out all the sick children,
An' poor, toilin' mothers, like me!

God bless you and thim that have sent you!
A new life you've given me, so.
Shure, sir, won't you look in the cradle

At the colleen you've saved, 'fore you go?

O, mother o' mercies! have pity!

O, darlint, why couldn't you wait!

Dead! dead! an' the help in the dure way!
Too late! O, my baby! Too late!

MARK TWAIN ON JUVENILE PUGILISTS.

S. C. CLEMENS.

"YES, I've had a good many fights in my time," saia old John Parky, tenderly manipulating his dismantled nose, "and it's kind of queer, too, for when I was a boy, the old man was always telling me better. He was a good man and hated fighting. When I would come home with

my nose bleeding or with my face scratched up, he used to call me out in the woodshed, and in a sorrowful and discouraged way say, 'So, Johnny, you've had another fight, hey? How many times have I got to tell ye how disgraceful and wicked it is for boys to fight? It was only yesterday that I talked to you an hour about the sin of fighting, and here you've been at it again. Who was it with this time? With Tommy Kelly, hey? Don't you know any better than to fight a boy that weighs twenty pounds more than you do, besides being two years older? Ain't you got a spark of sense about ye? I can see plainly that you are determined to break your poor father's heart by your reckless conduct. What ails your finger? Tommy bit it? Drat the little fool! Didn't ye know enough to keep your finger out of his mouth? Was trying to jerk his cheek off, hey? Won't you never learn to quit foolin' 'round a boy's mouth with yer fingers? You're bound to disgrace us all by such wretched behavior. You're determined never to be nobody. Did you ever hear of Isaac Watts-that wrote, "Let dogs delight to bark and bite"-sticking his fingers in a boy's mouth to get 'em bit, like a fool? I'm clean discouraged with ye. Why didn't ye go for his nose, the way Jonathan Edwards, and George Washington, and Daniel Webster used to do, when they was boys? Couldn't 'cause he had ye down? That's a purty story to tell me. It does beat all that you can't learn how Socrates and William Penn used to gouge when they was under, after the hours and hours I've spent in telling you about those great men! It seems to me sometimes as if I should have to give you up in despair. It's an awful trial to me to have a boy that don't pay any attention to good example, nor to what I say. What! You pulled out three or four handfuls of his hair? II'm! Did he squirm any? Now, if you'd a give him one or two in the eye-but as I've told ye, many a time, fighting is poor business. Won't you for your father's sake-won't you promise to try and remember that? I'm! Johnny, how did it-ahem-which licked?

'You licked him? Sho! Really? Well, now, I hadn't any idea you could lick that Tommy Kelly! I don't believe John Bunyan, at ten years old, could have done it. Johnny, my boy, you can't think how I hate to have

you fighting every day or two. I wouldn't have had him lick you for five, no, not for ten dollars! Now; sonny, go right in and wash up, and tell your mother to put a rag on your finger. And, Johnny, don't let me hear of your fighting again!'

"I never see anybody so down on fighting as the old man was, but somehow he never could break me from it."

ARE THE CHILDREN AT HOME?

EACH day when the glow of sunset
Fades in the western sky,

And the wee ones, tired of playing,
Go tripping lightly by,

I steal away from my husband,
Asleep in his easy-chair,

And watch from the open doorway
Their faces fresh and fair.

Alone in the dear old homestead
That once was full of life,
Ringing with girlish laughter,
Echoing boyish strife,

We two are waiting together;
And oft, as the shadows come,
With tremulous voice he calls me,

"It is night! are the children home?

"Yes, love!" I answer him gently,
"They're all home long ago;"
And I sing, in my quivering treble,
A song so soft and low,
Till the old man drops to slumber,
With his head upon his hand,
And I tell to myself the number
At Home in a better land.

Home, where never a sorrow
Shall dim their eyes with tears!
Where the smile of God is on them
Through all the summer years!
I know -Yet my arms are empty
That fondly folded seven,
And the mother heart within me
Is almost starved for heaven.

NUMBER SIX.

Sometimes, in the dusk of evening,
I only shut my eyes,

And the children are all about me,
A vision from the skies;
The babes whose dimpled fingers
Lost the way to my breast,
And the beautiful ones, the angels,
Passed to the world of the blest.

With never a cloud upon them,
I see their radiant brows;
My boys that I gave to freedom-
The red sword sealed their vows!
In a tangled Southern forest,

Twin brothers, bold and brave.
They fell; and the flag they died for,
Thank God! floats over their grave.

A breath, and the vision is lifted
Away on wings of light,
And again we two are together,
All alone in the night,

They tell me his mind is failing,
But I smile at idle fears;
He is only back with the children,
In the dear and peaceful years.

And, still, as the summer sunset
Fades away in the west,

And the wee ones, tired of playing,
Go trooping home to rest,

My husband calls from his corner,

"Say, love! have the children come ?"

And I answer, with eyes uplifted,

"Yes, dear! they are all at home !"

Atlantic entity.

FITZ JAMES AND RODERICK DHU.-SIR WALTER SCOTE

THE chief in silence strode before,

And reached that torrent's sounding shore.

And here his course the chieftain stayed,
Threw down his target and his plaid,

And to the lowland warrior said;
"Bold Saxon! to his promise just,
Vich Alpine has discharged his trust.

This murderous chief, this ruthless man,
This head of a rebellious clan,

Hath led thee safe through watch and ward,
Far past Clan-Alpine's outmost guard.
Now, man to man, and steel to steel,
A chieftain's vengeance thou shalt feel.
See, here all vantageless I stand,
Armed, like thyself, with single brand;
For this is Coilantogle ford,

And thou must keep thee with thy sword."

The Saxon paused: "I ne'er delayed,
When foeman bade me draw my blade;
Nay, more, brave chief, I vowed thy death:
Yet sure thy fair and generous faith,
And my deep debt for life preserved,
A better meed have well deserved:
Can nought but blood our feud atone?

Are there no means?" "No, Stranger, none!
And hear—to fire thy flagging zeal-
The Saxon cause rests on thy steel;
For thus spoke Fate by prophet bred
Between the living and the dead;

Who spills the foremost foeman's life,

Ilis party conquers in the strife.""

"Then, by my word," the Saxon said, "The riddle is already read:

Seek youder brake, beneath the cliff,

There lies Red Murdock, stark and stiff;
Thus fate hath solved her prophecy,
Then yield to Fate, and not to me.

Dark lightning flashed from Roderick's eye-
"Soars thy presumption then so high,
Because a wretched kern ye slew,
Homage to name to Roderick Dhu?
He yields not, he, to man nor Fate!
Thou add'st but fuel to my hate:
My clansman's blood demands revenge.-
Not yet prepared? By heaven, I change
My thought, and hold thy valor light
As that of some vain carpet-knight,
Who ill deserved my courteous care,
And whose best boast is but to wear
A braid of his fair lady's hair."

"I thank thee, Roderick, for the word! It nerves my heart, it steels my sword; For I have sworn this braid to stain