gible; to her they were the alphabet of the heart, familiar as household words. What Then the future: "What will become of me? shall I do now?" She did not say so, but she felt it. The prospect of the old wife is clouded; the home circle is broken, never to be reunited; the visions of the hearth-stone are scattered forever. Up to that hour there was a home to which the heart always turned with fondness. That magic is now sundered, the key-stone of that sacred arch has fallen, and home is nowhere this side of heaven! Shall she gather up the scattered fragments of the broken arch, make them her temple and her shrine, sit down in her chill solitude beside its expiring fires, and die? What shall she do now? They gently crowded her away from the dead, and the undertaker came forward, with the coffin-lid in his hand. It is all right and proper, of course, it must be done; but to the heart-mourner it brings a kind of shudder, a thrill of agony. The undertaker stood for a moment, with a decent propriety, not wishing to manifest rude haste, but evidently desirous of being as expeditious as possible. Just as he was about to close the coffin, the old wife turned back, and stooping down, imprinted one long, last kiss upon the cold lips of her dead husband, then staggered to her scat, buried her face in her hands, and the closing coffin hid him from her sight forever! and That kiss! fond token of affection, and of sorrow, memory, and farewell! I have seen many kiss their dead, many such seals of love upon clay-cold lips, but never did I see one so purely sad, so simply heart-touching and hopeless as that. Or, if it had hope, it was that which looks beyond coffins, and charnel houses, and damp, dark tombs, to the joys of the home above. You would kiss the cold cheek of infancy; there is poetry; it is beauty hushed; there is romance there, for the faded flower is still beautiful. In childhood the heart yields to the stroke of sorrow, but recoils again with elastic faith, buoyant with hope; but here was no beauty, no poetry, no romance. The heart of the old wife was like the weary swimmer, whose strength has often raised him above the stormy waves, but now, exhausted, sinks amid the surges. The temple of her earthly hopes had fallen, and what was there left for her but to sit down in despondency, among its lonely ruins, and weep and die! or, in the spirit of a better hope, await the dawning of another day, when a Hand divine shall gather its sacred dust, and rebuild for immortality its broken walls! A LAY OF REAL LIFE.-THOMAS HOOD. Who ruined me ere I was born, Sold every acre, grass or corn, My Grandfather. Who said my mother was no nurse, My Grandmother. Who let me starve to buy her gin, My Mother. Who said my mother was a Turk, And took me home and made me work, But managed half my meals to shirk? My Aunt. Who" of all earthly things" would boast, "He hated others' brats the most," Who got in scrapes, an endless score, Till many a bitter bang I bore? My Cousin. Who took me home when mother died, Again with father to reside, Black shoes, clean knives, run far and wide? My Stepmother. Who marred my stealthy urchin joys, My Sister. Who used to share in what was mine, 'Cause I was eight and he was nine? My Brother. Who stroked my head, and said, “Good lad," But at the stall the coin was bad? My Godfather. Who, gratis, shared my social glass, Through all this weary world; in brief, Myself. MRS. BROWN AND MRS. GREEN.-G. L. BANKS. A very fair Christian is good Mrs. Brown, Not molesting her friend who lives over the way; That her words and her conduct do always agree. A very warm Christian is good Mrs. Green, And 't has oft been remarked, with good reason, no doubt, For this little maxim she shrewdly commends- Mrs. Green, now and then, for an hour, sits in state "That precept and practice should ever be friends!" In the street where resides our good friend Mrs. Brown The reticule's sure to be had in request; For this little maxim she shrewdly commends "Good precept and practice should ever be friends!" Mrs. Green has a sympathy deep and refined, To enlighten the natives of rude Zanzibar, "That precept and practice should ever be friends!" Mrs. Brown is a stranger to parties and sects,. There are few Mrs. Browns-not a few Mrs. Greens, There are thousands who'll preach, lend their names, and give rules, But how few are provided with small reticules! CLEOPATRA'S BARGE.-SHAKSPEARE. The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver; The water, which they beat, to follow faster, As amorous of their strokes. For her own person, The fancy out-work nature; on either side her, Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides, So many mermaids, tended her 'i the eyes, ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.-GEN. LYTLE, I am dying, Egypt, dying, Though my scarred and veteran legions |