the house with a boot in his hand. But she recovered her wits, and he recovered his.

He said to me," "You wouldn't think I had a wife and child?" "Well, I shouldn't." "I have, and-God bless her little heart-my little Mary is as pretty a little thing as ever stepped," said the "brute." I asked, "Where do they live?" "They live two miles away from here." When did you see them last?" "About two years ago." Then he told me his story. I said, "You must go back to your home again."

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I mustn't go back-I wont-my wife is better without me than with me! I will not go back any more; I have knocked her, and kicked her, and abused her; do you suppose I will go back again?" I went to the house with him; I knocked at the door and his wife opened it. "Is this Mrs. Richardson?" Yes, sir." "Well, that is Mr. Richardson. And Mr. Richardson, that is Mrs. Richardson. Now come into the house." They went in. The wife sat on one side of the room and the "brute" on the other. I waited to see who would speak first; and it was the woman. But before she spoke she fidgeted a good deal.

She pulled her apron till she got hold of the hem, and then she pulled it down again. Then she folded it up closely, and jerked it out through her fingers an inch at a time, and then she spread it all down again; and then she looked all about the room and said, "Well, William?" And the "brute" said, "Well, Mary?" He had a large handkerchief round his neck, and she said, "You had better take the handkerchief off, William; you'll need it when you go out." He began to fumble about it.

The knot was large enough; he could have untied it if he liked; but he said, "Will you untie it, Mary?" and she worked away at it; but her fingers were clumsy, and she couldn't get it off; their eyes met, and the lovelight was not all quenched; she opened her arms gently and he fell into them. If you had seen those white arms clasped about his neck, and he sobbing on her breast, and the child looking in wonder first at one and then at the other, you would have said, "It is not a brute; it is a man, with a great, big, warm heart in his breast."

BACHELOR'S HALL.

Bachelor's hall! What a quare lookin' place it is!
Save me from such all the days o' my life!
Sure, but I think what a burnin' disgrace it is,
Niver at all to be gettin' a wife!

Pots, dishes, an' pans, an' such grasy commodities,
Ashes and praty-skins, kiver the floor;

The cupboard's a storehouse of comical oddities,—
Things that had niver been neighbors before.
See the ould bachelor, gloomy an' sad enough,
Placin' his tay-kettle over the fire;

Soon it tips over-Saint Patrick! he's mad enough,
If he were prisent, to fight with the squire!

He looks for the platter; Grimalkin is scourin' it;
Sure, at a baste like that, swearin's no sin;
His dish-cloth is missing; the pigs are devourin' it—
Thunder and turf! what a pickle he's in!

When his meal's over, the table's left sittin' so;
Dishes, take care o' yourselves if ye can;

Niver a drop o' hot water will visit ye,
Och, let him alone for a baste of a man!

Now, like a pig in a mortar-bed wallowin',
See the ould bachelor kneadin' his dough;

Troth, if his bread he could ate without swallowin',
How it would help his digestion, you know!

Late in the aiv'nin', he goes to bed shiverin';
Niver a bit is the bed made at all;

He crapes like a terrapin under the kiverin';
Bad luck to the picture of Bachelor's Hall!

NEARER HOME.-PHEBe Cary.

This beautiful poem, which has comforted so many Christian hearts, will be prized, not only for its own sake, but as a fitting memorial to the gifted writer, who has since gone to her "Father's House," to join her sister in their home beyond "the crystal sea.'' It was written in 1842, and is in accordance with the author's latest revision. September, 1871.

One sweetly solemn thought

Comes to me o'er and o'er;
I'm nearer my home to-day
Than I ever have been before;

Nearer my Father's house,

Where the many mansions be;
Nearer the great white throne,
Nearer the crystal sea;

Nearer the bound of life,

Where we lay our burdens down;
Nearer leaving the cross,

Nearer gaining the crown!

But the waves of that silent sea
Roll dark before my sight,
That brightly the other side
Break on a shore of light.
Oh, if my mortal feet

Have almost gained the brink;
If it be I am nearer home
Even to-day than I think;

Father, perfect my trust;

Let my spirit feel in death,
That her feet are firmly set

On the Rock of a living faith!

PICTURES OF MEMORY.-ALICE CARY.

Among the beautiful pictures
That hang on memory's wall,

Is one of a dim old forest,
That seemeth best of all.
Not for its gnarled oaks olden,

Dark with the mistletoe;

Not for the violets golden

That sprinkle the vale below;

Not for the milk-white lilies

That lean from the fragrant hedge,
Coquetting all day with the sunbeams,
And stealing their golden edge;
Not for the vines on the upland

Where the bright red berries rest,
Nor the pinks, nor the pale, sweet cowslip
It seemeth to me the best.

I once had a little brother

With eyes that were dark and deep

In the lap of that dim old forest,
He lieth in peace asleep.

Light as the down of the thistle,

Free as the winds that blow,

We roved there, the beautiful summers,
The summers of long ago;

But his feet on the hills grew weary,

And one of the autumn eves

I made for my little brother
A bed of the yellow leaves.
Sweetly his pale arms folded
My neck in a meek embrace,
As the light of immortal beauty
Silently covered his face;
And when the arrows of sunset
Lodged in the tree-tops bright,
He fell, in his saint-like beauty,
Asleep by the gates of light.
Therefore, of all the pictures
That hang on memory's wall,
The one of the dim old forest
Seemeth the best of all.

THE SINGER.*-J. G. WHITTIER.
Years since (but names to me before,)
Two sisters sought at eve my door;
Two song-birds wandering from their nest,
A gray old farm-house in the West.

Timid and young, the elder had
Even then a voice too sweetly sad;
The crown of pain that all must wear,
Too early pressed her midnight hair.
Yet ere the summer eve grew long
Her modest lips grew sweet with song;
A memory haunted all her words,
Of clover fields and singing birds.
Her dark, dilating eyes expressed
The broad horizons of the West;

Her speech dropped prairie flowers; the gold

Of harvest wheat about her rolled.

*The singer referred to, in this poem, was "Alice Cary," who died Feb. 12, 1871; and the other, her sister who died July 31, 1871.

Fore-doomed to song she seemed to me;
I queried not with destiny;

I knew the trial and the need,

Yet, all the more, I said, God speed!

What could I other than I did?
Could I a singing bird forbid?
Deny the wind-stirred leaf? Rebuke
The music of the forest brook?

She went with morning from my door,
But left me richer than before;
Thenceforth I knew her voice of cheer,
The welcome of her partial ear.

Years passed; through all the land her name
A pleasant household word became;
All felt behind the singer stood
A sweet and gracious womanhood.

Her life was earnest work, not play;
Her tired feet climbed a weary way;
And even through her lightest strain
We heard an undertone of pain.

Unseen of her, her fair fame grew,
The good she did she rarely knew;
Unguessed of her in life the love
That rained its tears her grave above.

When last I saw her, full of peace,
She waited for her great release;

And that old friend so sage and bland,
Our later Franklin, held her hand.

For all that patriot bosoms stirs

Had moved that woman's heart of hers,
And men who toiled in storm and sun
Found her their meet companion.

Our converse, from her suffering bed
To healthful themes of life she led ;
The out-door world of bud and bloom
And light and sweetness filled her room.

Yet evermore an underthought
Of loss to come within us wrought,
And all the while we felt the strain

Of the strong will that conquered pain.