go ar making such ungrateful speeches. When you know that the other day, when you said you would like a little bit of fish, I went out myself, miles and miles, and ordered it to surprise you."

"And it was very kind of you, my own darling; and I felt it so much that I wouldn't on any account have mentioned that you bought a salmon, which was too much for two; or that it cost one pound six, which was more than we can afford."

"You enjoyed it very much," sobbed Dora. "And you said I was a Mouse."

"And I'll say so again, my love, a thousand times!" I said it a thousand times and more, and went on say ing it until Mary Anne's cousin deserted into our coalhole, and was brought out, to our great amazement, by a picket of his companions in arms, who took him away handcuffed in a procession that covered our front garden with disgrace.

Everybody, we had anything to do with, seemed to cheat us. Our appearance in a shop was a signal for the damaged goods to be brought out immediately. If we bought a lobster, it was full of water. All our meat turned out tough, and there was hardly any crust to our loaves.

As to the washerwoman pawning the clothes, and coming in a state of penitent intoxication to apologize, I suppose that might have happened several times to anybody. Also the chimney on fire, the parish engine, and perjury on the part of the beadle. But I apprehend we were personally unfortunate in our page, whose principa' function was to quarrel with the cook. We wanted to get rid of him, but he was very much attached to us, and wouldn't go, until ne day he stole Dora's watch, then he

went.

"I am very sorry for all this, Doady," said Dora. "Will you call me a name I want you to call me?" "What is it, my dear?"

"It's a stupid name,-Child-wife. When you are go ing to be angry with me, say to yourself, 'It's only my Child-wife.' When I am very disappointing, say, 'I knew a long time ago, that she would make but a Child-wife.' When you miss what you would like me to be, and what

I should like to be, and what I think I never can be, say, 'Still my foolish Child-wife loves me.', For indeed I do."

I invoke the innocent figure that I dearly loved to come out of the mists and shadows of the past, and to turn its gentle head towards me once again, and to bear witness that it was made happy by what I answered.

IN SCHOOL DAYS.-J. G. WHITTIER.

STILL Sits the school-house by the road,
A ragged beggar sunning,
Around it still the sumachs grow,
And blackberry vines are running.

Within, the master's desk is seen,
Deep scarred by raps official;
The warping floor, the battered seats,
The jack-knife's carved initial;

The charcoal frescoes on its wall;
Its door's worn sill, betraying
The feet that creeping slow to school,
Went storming out to playing.

Long years ago, a winter sun
Shone over it at setting,
Lit up its western window-panes,
And low eaves's icy fretting.

It touched the tangled golden curls,
And brown eyes, full of grieving,
Of one who still her steps delayed
When all the school were leaving.

For near her stood the little boy,
Her childish favor singled,

His cap pulled low upon a face

Where pride and shame were mingled.

Pushing with restless feet the snow

To right and left, he lingered;

As restlessly her tiny hands

The blue-checked apron fingered,

He saw her lift her eyes; he felt
The soft hands' light caressing,
And heard the tremble of her voice,
As if a fault confessing

"I'm sorry that I spelt the word:
I hate to go above you,

Because"-the brown eyes lower fell-
"Because, you see, I love you!"

Still memory to a gray-haired man
That sweet child-face is showing.
Dear girl! the grasses on her grave
Have forty years been growing.

He lives to learn in life's hard school,
How few who pass above him
Lament their triumph and his loss,
Like her because they love him.

From "Our Young Folks."

THE DYING ALCHEMIST.-N. P. WILLIS.

THE night-wind with a desolate moan swept by,
And the old shutters of the turret swung
Creaking upon their hinges; and the moon,
As the torn edges of the clouds flew past,
Struggled aslant the stained and broken panes
So dimly, that the watchful eye of death
Scarcely was conscious when it went aud came.
The fire beneath his crucible was low,
Yet still it burned; and ever, as his thoughts
Grew insupportable, he raised himself
Upon his wasted arm, and stirred the coals
With difficult energy; and when the rod
Fell from his nerveless fingers, and his eye
Felt faint within its socket, he shrunk back
Upon his pallet, and, with unclosed lips,
Muttered a curse on death!

The silent room,

From its dim corners, mockingly gave back
His rattling breath; the humming in the fire
Had the distinctness of a knell; and when
Duly the antique horologe beat one,

He drew a phial from beneath his head,

And drank. And instantly his lips compressed,
And, with a shudder in his skeleton frame,
Ile rose with supernatural strength, and sat
Upright, and communed with himself:

"I did not think to die

Till I had finished what I had to do;
thought to pierce th' eternal secret through
With this my mortal eye;

I felt, -Oh, God! it seemeth even now-
This cannot be the death-dew on my brow;

"And yet it is,-I feel,

Of this dull sickness at my heart, afraid;
And in my eyes the death-sparks flash and fade,
And something seems to steal

Over my bosom like a frozen hand,-
Binding its pulses with an icy band.

"And this is death! But why
Feel I this wild recoil? It cannot be
Th' immortal spirit shuddereth to be free:
Would it not leap to fly,

Like a chained eaglet at its parent's call?
I fear. I fear,-that this poor life is all!

"Yet thus to pass away!

To live but for a hope that mocks at last,-
To agonize, to strive, to watch, to fast,
To waste the light of day,

Night's better beauty, feeling, fancy, thought,
All that we have and are,-for this,-for naught!

"Grant me another year,
God of my spirit !-but a day,—to win
Something to satisfy this thirst within!
I would know something here!

Break for me but one seal that is unbroken!
Speak for me but one word that is unspoken !

"Vain,-vain,-my brain is turning
With a swift dizziness, and my heart grows sick,
And these hot temple-throbs come fast and thick,
And I am freezing,-burning,-
Dying! Oh, God! if I might only live!
My phial- -Ha! it thrills me,-I revive.

"Aye,-were not man to die,

He were too mighty for this narrow sphere! Had he but time to brood on knowledge here,Could he but train his eye,

Might he but wait the mystic word and hour. —
Only his Maker would transcend his power!

"Earth has no mineral strange,—

Th' illimitable air no hidden wings,-
Water no quality in covert springs,
And fire no power to change,

Seasons no mystery, and stars no spell,
Which the unwasting soul might not compel.

"Oh, but for time to track

The upper stars into the pathless sky. -
To see th' invisible spirits, eye to eye,
To hurl the lightning back,-

To tread unhurt the sea's dim-lighted halls,-
To chase day's chariot to the horizon-walls,-

"And more, much more,-for now
The life-sealed fountains of my nature move, —
To nurse and purify this human love,-
To clear the God-like brow

Of weakness and mistrust, and bow it down,
Worthy and beautiful, to the much-loved one,-

"This were indeed to feel

The soul-thirst slaken at the living stream,-
To live,-Oh, God! that life is but a dream!
And death-Aha' Freel.-

Dim,-dim.-I faint, darkness comes o'er my eye-
Cover me! save me!--God of heaven! I die P

'Twas morning, and the old man lay alone.
No friend had closed his eyelids, and his lips,
Open and ashy pale, th' expression wore
Of his death-struggle. His long, silvery hair
Lay on his hollow temples, thin and wild,
His frame was wasted, and his features wan
And haggard as with want, and in his palm
His nails were driven deep, as if the throe
Of the last agony had wrung him sore.

The storm was raging still. The shutter swung,
Creaking as harshly in the fitful wind,
And all without went on,-as aye it will,
Sunshine or tempest, reckless that a heart
Is breaking, or has broken, in its change.

The fire beneath the crucible was out;
The vessels of his mystic art lay round,
Useless and cold as the ambitious hand
That fashioned them, and the small rod,