Mary Ann has just scrubbed the floor, and that stuff gringes in awfully."

I hadn't the remotest idea of what the stuff could be that gringes in awfully, but I didn't like to show ignorance before Mary Ann, and so I confidently responded,

Certainly not."

"And be very careful about your clothes, Mr. Perkins; now won't you?" This appeal was delivered with so much confidence mingled with doubt, that I hardly knew whether to treat it as a compliment, or a suspicion, and concluded it was best to split the difference, and preserve silence.

"We are all ready now, Mr. Perkins. Mary Ann, you come here and steady the pipe while Mr. Perkins gets on the chair and takes it down."

Upon this I mounted a chair and grasped the pipe, but I must not neglect to mention that as I grasped the pipe, Mrs. Perkins grasped my legs.

"Goodness gracious, Cyrus Davidson Perkins! don't you know better than to stand on one of the best chairs in the house, and break right through the canes?"

I had to admit that I didn't know any better, but cheerfully got down and mounted another chair. This time I caught the pipe by its neck, and gave it a gentle pull from the chimney. It didn't move a bit, which encouraged me to believe I could bring a little more muscle into play, and under this impression I gave an extra twist. It came this time, and so much more readily than I had reason to expect, that I stepped down to the floor with it, passing over the top of the stove, and rubbing off an inch or so of skin from Mary Ann's nose.

'Oh, Moses!" screamed that lady.

"What have you done? Oh, what have you done?" cried Mrs. Perkins.

Singularly enough, I didn't say anything, but got upon my feet as quick as I could, and rubbed my head, and looked all around but where Mrs. Perkins and her weeping aid were standing.

"It's just like a man. You have made ten times more work than you have helped. Mary Ann, get the floor cloth. And there's a great spot on that floor we can never get off.

I

I'd like to make a fool of myself, I know I should. I knew when you stuck your ungainly carcass on that chair, you would kill somebody. Does it hurt you, Mary Ann? wouldn't rub it too hard; we'll have to take it up dry and soap it over. You awkward fool, didn't you know what you were doing? Now take the pipe out doors, and don't look any more like a smoked idiot than you can help."

The manner in which this last was uttered left no room to doubt that I was the person referred to, and I picked up the pipe, and sorrowfully propelled it out doors; although I am compelled to admit that six links of pipe varied by two elbows at opposite angles, is not the most desirable thing in the world to escort out doors.

When I came back, Mrs. Perkins had dressed the wound on Mary Ann's face with a strip of brown paper, and told me I might help to carry the stove into the shed, if I was sure of being quite sober.

Upon this invitation I took hold of the range with the two ladies, and by loosening half a dozen joints in my spine, I was finally successful in getting the thing out of the room. But the pleasure of the occasion was irretrievably lost. Mrs. Perkins was ominously silent. Mary Ann's air was one of reproach which, combined with the brown paper, gave her an appearance of unearthly uncertainty.

At dinner that day I ate some cold cabbage and a couple of soda crackers, carefully picking off the flakes of soap that adhered thereto. This morning I ate my breakfast on the stoop, and got my dinner through the milk-room window, eating it from the sill. It consisted of the last slice from yesterday's loaf, and two decrepit herrings.

What we are to have for supper, and whether it will be necessary to go home after it, are questions that depress me this P. M.

ALL'S WELL.

The day is ended. Ere I sink to sleep,
My weary spirit seeks repose in thine!
Father, forgive my trespasses, and keep
This little life of mine!

With loving-kindness curtain thou my bed,
And cool in rest my burning pilgrim feet;
Thy pardon be the pillow for my head:
So shall my sleep be sweet.

At peace with all the world, dear Lord, and thee,
No fears my soul's unwavering faith can shake!
All's well, whichever side the grave for me
The morning light may break.

THE BURIAL OF THE DANE.-H. H. BROWNELL.

Blue gulf all around us,

Blue sky overhead;
Muster all on the quarter,
We must bury the dead!

It is but a Danish sailor,

Rugged of front and form,—
A common son of the forecastle,
Grizzled with sun and storm.

His name and the strand he hailed from
We know; and there's nothing more!
But perhaps his mother is waiting

On the lonely Island of Fohr.

Still, as he lay there dying,
Reason drifting awreck,

""Tis my watch," he would mutter,
"I must go upon deck!"

Ay, on deck-by the foremast!-
But watch and look-out are done;

The Union-Jack laid o'er him,
How quiet he lies in the sun!

Slow the ponderous engine,
Stay the hurrying shaft!
Let the roll of the ocean
Cradle our giant craft;
Gather around the grating,
Carry your messmate aft!

YY*

Stand in order, and listen

To the holiest pages of prayer;
Let every foot be quiet,

Every head be bare:

The soft trade-wind is lifting
A hundred locks of hair.

Our captain reads the service,
(A little spray on his cheeks,)
The grand old words of burial,
And the trust a true heart seeks,―
"We therefore commit his body

To the deep,"--and, as he speaks,

Launched from the weather railing,
Swift as the eye can mark,
The ghastly, shotted hammock,
Plunges, away from the shark,
Down, a thousand fathoms,-
Down into the dark.

A thousand summers and winters
The stormy gulf shall roll
High o'er his canvas coffin:

But silence to doubt and dole!
There's a quiet harbor somewhere
For the poor a-weary soul.

Free the fettered engine,
Speed the tireless shaft!
Loose to'gallant and topsail,
The breeze is fair abaft!

Blue are all around us,

Blue sky bright overhead:

Every man to his duty!

We have buried the dead.

IMMORTALITY.-MASSILLON.

If we wholly perish with the body, what an imposture is this whole system of laws, manners, and usages, on which human society is founded! If we wholly perish with the body, these maxims of charity, patience, justice, honor, grat

Itude, and friendship, which sages have taught and good men have practised, what are they but empty words, possessing no real and binding efficacy? Why should we heed them, if in this life only we have hope? Speak not of duty. What can we owe to the dead, to the living, to ourselves, if all are, or will be, nothing? Who shall dictate our duty, if not our own pleasures,—if not our own passions? Speak not of morality. It is a mere chimera, a bugbear of human invention, if retribution terminate with the grave.

If we must wholly perish, what to us are the sweet ties of kindred? What the tender names of parent, child, sister, brother, husband, wife, or friend? The characters of a drama are not more illusive. We have no ancestors, no descendants; since succession cannot be predicated of nothingness. Would we honor the illustrious dead? How absurd to honor that which has no existence! Would we take thought for posterity? How frivolous to concern ourselves for those whose end, like our own, must soon be annihilation! Have we made a promise? How can it bind nothing to nothing? Perjury is but a jest. The last injunctions of the dying,what sanctity have they, more than the last sound of a chord that is snapped, of an instrument that is broken?

To sum up all: If we must wholly perish, then is obedience to the laws but an insensate servitude; rulers and magistrates are but the phantoms which popular imbecility has raised up; justice is an unwarrantable infringement upon the liberty of men, an imposition, a usurpation; the law of marriage is a vain scruple; modesty, a prejudice; honor and probity, such stuff as dreams are made of; and incests, murders, parricides, the most heartless cruelties and the blackest crimes, are but the legitimate sports of man's irresponsible nature; while the harsh epithets attached to them are merely such as the policy of legislators has invented, and imposed on the credulity of the people.

Here is the issue to which the vaunted philosophy of unbelievers must inevitably lead. Here is that social felicity, that sway of reason, that emancipation from error, of which they eternally prate, as the fruit of their doctrines. Accept their maxims, and the whole world falls back into a frightful chaos; and all the relations of life are confounded; and