He is dying sadly and alone; No friends are near him now; There are none to wipe the chilly drops From off his aged brow. What scenes of sorrow and of joy Have passed beneath his eye! He has listened to the sound of mirth, He has borne to the grave the mighty ones, And thousands, on distant battle-fields, He has seen the child of sorrow pale, Who only prayed to die, A third, from an anonymous and perhaps unpractised writer, has some stanzas which would not do discredit to one more familiar with the pen. They read thus: Farewell, I bid you farewell, Old Year, With your many sad scenes, and your hours of cheer! And it grieveth me much, as. you turn your back, To think of the blood that lies in your track. Farewell, Old Year,-farewell! It seems And the youth, with hopes all fresh and bright, Since the time thou camest first into birth. Prostrate before him lie. Farewell, Old Year! I shall never forget met; And many a time I shall think of thee And the friends now dead that were dear to me. Farewell, Old Year! Another has come The new heir seems not to be welcomed with the song and the harp, if we may judge by our Drawer, not one tribute to his advent having made its appearance. Perhaps our correspondents prefer to try him before they celebrate him, a good way in many cases, though we should be glad of some verses to his honor wherewith to enrich our Table. In lieu of what we have not, may our readers content themselves with the old Saxon benediction, with which we heartily greet them, "God bless you, and a happy New Year!" WE are most glad, as our readers will be also, to enrich our Table to-day with articles from our associate, Mrs. Soule, whom ill-health has compelled to silence during many long months. The sketches which follow, she assures me, are transcriptions of literal facts. She thus relates a charming little episode of the war : I was calling upon the wife of the provostmarshal the other day, when suddenly there bounded into the room a boy about seven or eight years old, dressed up in the American uniform. the barracks to see the dress-parade; and he always wants to wear that suit then." 669 "I want to wear it all the time," said he, sidling up slyly toward me, ''cause my soldierman gave it to me." I was just about to ask who his soldier-man was, when his father's voice in the hall summoned him away. But his mother afterward told me, and I treasured up the little story as one of the curious phases of human character which this war has developed. It seems that little Johnny is one of those precocious children that need frequent respites from the school-bench to keep up the balance between the body and brain, and also one of those singularly good children who can touch pitch and not be defiled. In one of those vacations last summer, he was allowed to go daily to the office with his father, and he soon became quite a pet with the soldiers who were gathered there. One morning, one of them, while on guard, remarked to another that he wished he had some note-paper. "I'll go and buy you some," said Johnny. "But you don't know what I want, my little man. "Give me some money, and I'll show you if ing for him while I stay here. I want to feel, I don't!" The soldier gave him some, and in a trice the little fellow was gone and back again. "See if I didn't know what to get!" said he, unsnapping the string. "Here's commercial note-paper for business-letters, and here's some giltedged, rose-colored, satin-faced note-paper for your love-letters, - just what I get for Essie when she writes to a beau, and the other is just what father uses for his letters; and there's your change ;" and he counted it out. The soldier seemed highly amused, and when relieved from duty, and allowed to go for his dinner, he took the little fellow down to the best restaurant in the city and bought him a choice meal,-"all the delicacies of the season," as Johnny pompously said, when narrating the incident to his mother. And afterward, he took him to a shoe-store and bought him the handsomest pair of boots to be found, paying seven dollars for them, and making him also a present of three gold dollars. Tickled nearly to death with his new boots,as what boy wouldn't be?-and richer than Astor with his bright coins, Johnny was yet a little fearful he hadn't done just right in accepting such presents from a comparative stranger, and loitered on the way home, tea being over when he came in. His mother took him when I lie dying on the field of battle, or in the hospital, that one pair of eyes will weep when they hear that I am dead." Of course, there was no resisting that appeal; and Johnny came and went with the soldier after that as he chose. The same day he was counting out his bounty money and the boy watching him. "That isn't right," said he, as the soldier summed it up, he had purposely counted wrong. "Well, you count it then!" He did so, silently, and then, looking up, said, "Eight hundred and seventy-six dollars and fifty-five cents." It was correct; and when Johnny modestly observed, "I wouldn't have told you you counted wrong, only I was afraid some one would cheat you if you didn't know just how much you had; and you're too good to be cheated,” something upon the soldier's face washed off" the dust of duty. 66 Every day Johnny ate his dinner with his new friend, and every day their attachment seemed to strenghthen. On the last day of his stay, he took the child down to the best tailor in the city and ordered a suit of uniform of the finest blue cloth, and paid eighteen dollars for it, and then took him to a jeweller's, and bade him tell him which was the prettiest of several gold watches and chains. Johnny told him, whereupon he whispered a few words to the salesman, and led the child to another part of the city. On their return to the store, some time after, Johnny noticed the man handed the soldier a small parcel, but thought nothing of it at the time. That evening they parted. The company were to take a night train to New York. Mr. Psaid he thought he would never be able to tear the child away; and not until the soldier spoke up sternly to him, and said, "Only babies cry; my little boy must be a soldier!" did he cease his sobbing and say good-by. “There is a present for you to look at, Johnny, when you get home. Keep it always in memory of me;” and he slipped a parcel into his hand. But not that night did Johnny look at it. All the way home he cried, "I want my soldierman!" and when at home, he kept up the wail till nature comforted him with sleep. The next morning he tore off the tissue-paper, and there, in an elegant case, was the identical gold watch and chain Johnny had selected, with his name engraved upon both. What a yearning the human heart has to be loved in life and remembered after death! C. A. S. THE following, in another vein, is both amusing and suggestive, and we hope will do good. She writes, A funny affair occurred at our dinner-table the other day, by which the fact that money is a circulating medium was very happily illustrated, and also the other fact that a very little money will pay a great many debts if-it is only kept circulating. Our host had just finished serving the guests, when one of the girls came into the dining-room and handed him a letter, saying, as she did so, that "the gintleman wished Mr. H— to read it immaijaitely.” | With the usual apology, he tore off the envelope. "Well, well," said he, as he unfolded the sheet and carefully smoothed out a bankbill," all the honest men are not dead yet. Here is a debt which I gave up three years ago as one of the uncollectable actually paid up, — principal and compound interest. Well, I am ten dollars richer than I expected to be this morning." **Then I think you can afford to pay your debts," said his wife, roguishly. "Yes. Didn't you borrow ten dollars of me the last time you went to New York? You know" "Never mind telling it all, wife; I'll pay up." And he gallantly passed over the bill. She looked at it a moment as if in a study, then spoke up, saying, “I owe Carrie, Nell, and Mrs. B— each ten dollars. Now I can't pay them all with this, and the question is, which needs it most. Who'll speak first?” "Oh, don't put it that way," said I. "Neither of us would like to own we needed ten dollars. Let age decide." I was a little wicked in that last sentence, for I knew it would, as folks say, out our widow, who is striving, by all the forgeries of teeth, hair-dye, powder, rouge, waterfall-nets, mice, and rats, to deceive some gentleman into thinking she is on the sunny side of forty. "Well, age it shall be. Here, Mrs. Bdon't say I owe you anything after this." The widow took it, looked at it a moment, and then handed it over to a lawyer who sat next her, saying, "That will make us even; wont it, Mr. P-?" "Exactly, madam, exactly; though really a dinner-table is a queer place to score out old accounts." Then passing it over to Mrs. Phe said, blandly, "And now we are even, wife. Didn't I tell you I'd pay you before night?" "Yes; but you wouldn't, if I hadn't been here present when you received this; you'd have put me off with some excuse. There's nothing a man hates to do so badly as give his wife her honest dues ;" and the black eyes snapped archly at him. "And now, Mrs. H-, I can pay you my subscription to the Industrial School. I was really ashamed to show my face here today without the money ;" and she passed it over. "Thank you," said the hostess. "I paid it in myself, when I was making my returns. And now, Carrie, as you are next in order, as age goes, I'll pay you." 'Thank you, ma'am," I said, demurely, and passed it at once over to the lawyer. "That balances our account; does it not?" "Well, really, this is growing funny," said he. "Wife, do I owe you anything more?" "I should think you did; I wonder who paid the bread-bill yesterday. Somebody hadn't the "My debts! I settled all them the last day money, and somebody had." of December." “That's insinuating I was the hadn't. Well, well, I feel rich to-day, and I'll pay over." And he passed it again to her. In a second, she had tossed it into Nell's lap, saying, "That settles our dressmaking account." "Thank you! And that"- tucking it under the host's plate,-"settles our account." Seeing he looked a little bewildered, she added, "You lent it to Hal; but I'm his security." "Very good security, too," he said, with a profound bow. "Here, Mrs. H—, I'll make you a New Year's present!" and he passed it over. "And I'll use it to pay you, Nell ;" and it again found its way to the little dressmaker's lap. "Now I'm out of debt." "And so am I;" and she flirted it over to me. "I told you yesterday I'd pay you in a week, with the mental reservation, if I got paid myself." "And I'm out of debt, too, Mr. H—;" and again the bill found its way into the host's hands. "Well, well," said an old gentleman, who had been watching the whole affair with a curious look, "I'd like to know what all this means." "It means," said Mr. H-, who had been making a quick calculation, "that this single ten-dollar bill has paid fourteen debts and made one present, the whole amounting to one hundred and fifty dollars." And a sound is dying Life's cords all untying. Summer suns were warm, but thou And died, -our sweet, our own! Dark the shadows cross the floor, Our home where all is cold, Like ever-falling mould, When the shade upon the walls, O'er thy pictures, thee recalls, Marg 'ret! have not the courage to do it openly. It is a cowardly method of venting one's spite, and we do not believe any of our readers were ever guilty of it. Before another Editor's Table shall have met the eyes of our readers, the day will have been celebrated, and we present, what may be new to many of them, the tradition connected with the day. It is thus stated by a contemporary :The observance of St. Valentine's Day among Christian nations is probably a relic of an ancient Roman custom. The Lupercalia, Roman feasts in honor of Pan and Juno, were held on this day, and among the ceremonies was a game wherein young persons of opposite sexes jocularly chose each other for the year by lot. St. Valentine, who has, probably very much against his will, lent his name to the day among Christian nations, was a presbyter of Rome who was beheaded under the Emperor Claudius. Birds are supposed to choose their partners about this time of the year, and hence, it is commonly supposed, originated the custom of young people also choosing partners for the year, or, as it is now observed, of sending anonymously amatory or flattering effusions to the objects of their preference. In parts of England, there is at this day a superstition that the first unmarried person of the male sex met by a young girl on St. Valentine's morning, on walking out, is the destined husband of the fair maid. In Scotland, on St. Valentine's morning, the lover surprises his mistress and blindfolds her with his hands, saying, Guess, and guess truly, lady mine, now? Love for such love hath no need of his eyes; Surely, thy soul and thy brow understand HERE are some funny lines, that are worth reading for their quaint, impudent humor. Many things thou askest, jackknife-bearing stranger, Much-conjecturing mortal, pork-and-treaclewaster! Pretermit thy whittling, wheel thine ear-flap toward me, Thou shalt hear them answered. "NOTHING's altogether ill." How beautifully this thought is suggested in the following little stanza by one of England's poets : 66 LONG-AGO. BY R. M. MILNES. On that deep-retiring shore Frequent pearls of beauty lie, Where the passion-waves of yore Fiercely beat and mounted high. Sorrows that are sorrows still Lose the bitter taste of woe; Nothing's altogether ill In the griefs of long-ago! WOMAN'S THIRTY POINTS. WE are accustomed to say of a woman that she is beautiful, if she have but a tithe of thirty points." A good complexion, good features, and a pleasant, intelligent expression generally satisfies almost any woman in this land, where beauty has so many enemies in climate and habits. But an old Spanish writer is exorbitant in his requirements, and pronounces no woman to be of a perfect and absolute beauty who has not at least thirty claims. These are, Three things white, the skin, the teeth, the hands. Three black,-the eyes, eyebrows, and eyelashes. Three red, the lips, the cheeks, the nails. Three long, - the body, the hair, the hands. Three short, the teeth, the ears, the feet. Three broad, the chest, the brow, the space between the eyebrows. - Three narrow, the mouth, the waist, the in- In our offerings for the children, the first will be a charming morceau for the elders as well as the little ones. Nothing could be sweeter than these lines on BELLE AT THE STUDY. WHO comes knocking at the door? "Let me in," says Belle. |