Set your foot right on there, sir;

The mornin's kinder cold

Sorter rough on a feller

When his coat's a gettin' old.

Well, yes-call it coat, sir,

Though 'taint much more'n a tear; Can't get myself another

Aint got the stamps to spare.

Make as much as most on 'em?
That's so; but then, yer see,
They've only got one to do for;
There's two on us, Jack and me.

Him? Why-that little feller,
With a double-up sorter back,
Sittin' there on the gratin'

Sunnin' hisself-that's Jack.

Used to be round sellin' papers,
The cars there was his lay,
But he got shoved off the platform,
Under the wheels, one day;

Yes, the conductor did it-
Gave him a reg'lar throw-
He didn't care if he killed him;
Some on 'em is just so.

He's never been all right since, sir,

Sorter quiet and queer

Him and me go together,

He's what they call cashier.

Trouble? I guess not much, sir.
Sometimes when biz gets slack,
I don't know how I'd stand it
If 'twasn't for little Jack.

Why, boss, you ought to hear him,
He says we needn't care
How rough luck is down here, sir,
If some day we git up there.

All done now-how's that, sir?
Shine like a pair of lamps.
Mornin'!-give it to Jack, sir,
He looks after the stamps.

WILLY'S GRAVE.-EDWIN WAUGH.

The frosty wind was wailing wild across the wintry wold; The cloudless vault of heaven was bright with studs of gleaming gold;

The weary cotter's heavy lids had closed with closing day,
And on his silent hearth a tinge of dying fire-light lay.

The ancient hamlet seemed asleep beneath the starry sky;
A little river, sheathed in ice, came gliding gently by;
The grey church, in the graveyard, where the "rude fore-
fathers lay,"

Stood, like a mother, waiting till her children came from play.

No footstep trod the tiny town; the drowsy street was still, Save where the wandering night-wind sang its requiem wild and shrill,

The stainless snow lay thick upon those quaint old cottage

eaves,

And wreaths of fairy frost-work hung where grew last summer's leaves.

Each village home was dark and still, and closed was every door;

For gentle sleep had twined her arms around both rich and

poor,

Save in one little cot, where, by a candle's flickering ray,

A childless mother sighing sat, and combed her locks of

gray.

Her husband and her children all were in the last cold bed, Where, one by one, she'd laid them down, and left them with the dead;

Then toiling on towards her rest--a lonely pilgrim, she-
For God and poverty were now her only company.

Upon the shady window-sill a well-worn Bible lay;
Against the wall a coat had hung for many a weary day:
And on the scanty table-top, with crumbs of supper strewn,
There stood, beside a porringer, two little empty shoon.

The fire was waning in the grate; the spinning-wheel at rest;

The cricket's song rang londly in that lonely woman's nest, As, with her napkin thin and worn, and wet with many a tear,

She wiped the little pair of shoon her darling used to wear. Her widowed heart had often leaped to hear his prattle small; He was the last that she had left-the dearest of them all;

KKK

And as she rocked her to and fro, while tears came dropping down,

She sighed and cried, "Oh, Willy, love! these little empty shoon!"

With gentle hand she laid them by, she laid them by with

care,

For Willy he was in his grave, and all her thoughts were there;

She paused before she dropped the sneck that closed her fambless fold,

It grieved her heart to bar the door and leave him in the cold.

A threadbare cloak she wrapped around her limbs so thin and chill,

She left her lonely cot behind whilst all the world was still; And through the solitary night she took her silent way, With weeping eyes, towards the spot where little Willy lay. The pale, cold moon had climbed aloft into the welkin blue, A snow-clad tree across the grave its leafless shadow threw; And as that mournful mother sat, upon a mound there by, The bitter wind of winter sighed to hear her wailing cry!

"My little Willy's cowd an' still! He's not a cheep for me; Th' last leaf has dropt, th' last tiny leaf, that cheered this withered tree.

Oh, my poor heart! my comfort's gone; aw'm lonely under th' sky!

He'll never clip my neck again, an' tell me not to cry!

"Nipt,-nipt i'th' bud, an' laid i'th' dust, my little Willy's dead,

And a' that made me cling to life lies in his frosty bed.He's gone! He's gone! My poor bare neest! What's a' this

world to me?

My darlin' lad! aw'm lonely neaw! when mun aw come to thee?

"He's crept into his last dark nook, an' left me pinin' here; An' never moor his two blue e'en for me mun twinkle clear. He'll never lisp his prayers again at his poor mommy's knee;

Oh, Willy! oh, aw'm lonely neaw, when mun aw come to thee?"

The snow-clad yew-tree stirred with pain, to hear that plain

tive cry;

The old church listened, and the spire kept pointing to the

sky;

With kindlier touch the bitter wind played in her locks of gray, And the queenly moon upon her head shone with a softened ray.

She rose to leave that lonely bed-her heart was grieving

sore,

One step she took, and then her tears fell faster than before; She turned and gave another look,-one lingering look she

gave,

Then, sighing, left him lying in his little wintry grave.

MR. CAUDLE AND HIS SECOND WIFE.

DOUGLAS JERROLD.

When Harry Prettyman saw the very superb funeral of Mrs. Caudle,-Prettyman attended as mourner, and was particularly jolly in the coach,-he observed that the disconsolate widower showed, that, above all men, he knew how to make the best of a bad bargain. The remark, as the dear deceased would have said, was unmanly, brutal, but quite like that Prettyman. The same scoffer, when Caudle declared "he should never cease to weep," replied, "he was very sorry to hear it; for it must raise the price of onions." It was not enough to help to break the heart of a wife; no, the savage must joke over its precious pieces.

The funeral, we repeat, was remarkably handsome: in Prettyman's words, nothing could be more satisfactory. Caudle spoke of a monument. Whereupon Prettyman suggested "Death gathering a nettle." Caudle-the act did equal honor to his brain and his bosom-rejected it.

Mr. Caudle, attended by many of his friends, returned to his widowed home in tolerable spirits. Prettyman said, jocosely poking his two fingers in Caudle's ribs, that in a week he'd look quite a tulip." Caudle merely replied, he could hardly hope it.

Prettyman's mirth, however, communicated itself to the company; and in a very little time the meeting took the air

of a very pleasant party. Somehow, Miss Prettyman presided at the tea-table. There was in her manner a charming mixture of grace, dignity and confidence,-a beautiful black swan. Prettyman, by the way, whispered to a friend, that there was just this difference between Mrs. Caudle and his sister," Mrs. Caudle was a great goose, whereas Sarah was a little duck." We will not swear that Caudle did not overhear the words; for, as he resignedly stirred his tea, he looked at the lady at the head of the table, smiled and sighed.

It was odd; but women are so apt! Miss Prettyman seemed as familiar with Caudle's silver tea-pot as with her own silver thimble. With a smile upon her face-like the butter on the muffins-she handed Caudle his tea-cup. Caudle would, now and then, abstractedly cast his eyes above the mantle-piece. There was Mrs. Caudle's portrait. Whereupon Miss Prettyman would say, "You must take comfort, Mr. Caudle, indeed you must." At length Mr. Caudle replied, "I will, Miss Prettyman."

What then passed through Caudle's brain we know not; but this we know: in a twelvemonth and a week from that day, Sarah Prettyman was Caudle's second wife,-Mrs. Caudle number two. Poor thing!

Mr. Caudle begins to "show off the fiend that's in him."

"It is rather extraordinary, Mrs. Caudle, that we have now been married four weeks,--I don't exactly see what you have to sigh about,-and yet you can't make me a proper cup of tea. However, I don't know how I should expect it. There never was but one woman who could make tea to my taste, and she is now in heaven. Now, Mrs. Caudle, let me hear no crying. I'm not one of the people to be melted by the tears of a woman; for you can all cry-all of you-at a minute's notice. The water's always laid on, and down it comes if a man only holds up his finger.

"You didn't think I could be so brutal? That's it. Let a man only speak, and he's brutal. It's a woman's first duty to make a decent cup of tea. What do you think I married you for? It's all very well with your tambour-work and