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PATIENTLY AT HER SPINNING, IN A HALO OF HAPPY LIGHT."

"O Dorris! how can you bear it, to drone at your spinning here?

Why, girl! it's the heart of summer, the goldenest time of the year!

5. "Put out of your hand the distaff, this wearisome whirl relax;

There are things that are gayer, Dorris, than sit

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Come with us away to the forest; when it rains is the time to ply

Such tiresome tasks and to-day is the rarest of all July!"

6. With a face that was softly saddened, sweet Dorris looked up and said,

As she raveled a bit of tangle, and twisted again her thread:

"Nay, nay, I must do my spinning! it wouldn't be kind or right

That the loom should be kept a-waiting; my hanks must be done to-night.

7. "Aye, surely, the day is lovely! and it goes to my very heart

To look at its drifting beauty, nor share in its joy

my part.

I

may not go forth to meet it, but the summer is kind, you see,

And I think, as I sit at my spinning — I think it will come to me!"

8. So the frolicsome maidens left her, with something of mild surprise

That Dorris should choose a duty, with pleasure before her eyes;

Not dreaming that when her mother her "dozens" should count upstairs,

And kiss her, and say, “My darling!" her day would be glad as theirs.

9. So she minded her wheel, and blithely she sang as she twirled it round,

And cunningly from her fingers the delicate fiber wound;

And on through the sunny hours, that neither were sad nor long,

She toiled in her sweet obedience, and lightened her toil with song.

MARGARET J. PRESTON.

Diligence is the mother of good luck.

- FRANKLIN.

LXXV. A RILL FROM THE TOWN PUMP

1. Noon by the north clock! noon by the east! High noon, too, by these hot sunbeams which fall, scarcely aslope, upon my head and almost make the water bubble and smoke in the trough under my nose. Truly we public characters have a rough time of it! and among all the public characters chosen at the March meeting, where is he that sustains, for a single year, the burden of such manifold duties as are imposed in perpetuity upon the Town Pump?

2. The title of "town treasurer" is rightfully mine, as guardian of the best treasure that the town has. I am at the head of the fire department, and one of the physicians of the board of health.

3. As a keeper of the peace, all water drinkers will confess me equal to the constable. I perform some of the duties of the town clerk, by promulgating public notices when they are pasted on my front. To speak within bounds, I am the chief person of the municipality, and exhibit, moreover, an admirable pattern to my brother officers, by the cool, steady, upright, downright, and impartial discharge of my business, and the constancy with which I stand to my post.

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