break her neck and the child's, too; for the pavement is all one glare of ice. She had all she could do to get along. I am so glad she's got her mother to send her to. She wont have to worry about her at all."

'No, indeed; for Mrs. Pruym is one of the best of women. But oh the trouble she's seen. Only think, she has had two beautiful boys drowned, and last May, while she was out of town somewhere, her husband went down to his office in the evenig, it's right at the end of the garden, and the next morning one of the girls found him dead in the path. He had, they supposed, made a misstep going off the office stoop, and falling, hit his right temple on the flag-stones that bordered the flower-beds. There was no one in the house but the hired girls that night, and they supposed of course he was in bed as the front door was locked when they went up-stairs. And then her eldest son, Major Pruym, was killed in the battle of Petersburg last fall. We had rumors here of the battle and that his regiment was engaged. She was nearly crazy, and to pass away the time until the bulletins should come in, she went down to a union prayer-meeting on State Street. As she was coming home she heard the newsboys crying the second edition of the 'Argus,' and she stopped and bought one. few steps further she met an old friend hurrying down to buy a paper. I've just got one,' she said, and it don't seem as though I could wait to get home before I read it, I'm so worried,' and after a momentary hesitation she unfolded the damp sheet in the street. The very first thing that caught her eyes was her own son's name among the killed. I never saw such a sight as she was when they brought her home. You wouldn't have believed there was a drop of blood in her body, her face and hauds were so white. And I never shall forget the Sunday when they brought the body home, never. I don't believe there was a dry eye in the neighborhood. Oh, it's dreadful what some people have to suffer in this world; and then this cruel war-hanging's too good for them that brought it on."

A

were not thrown open, and the curtains were drawn in the front chamber. I watched the sleigh Friday. It went there twice, and the parlor blinds remained closed and the curtains were down in the front chamber. I said to my sister, "That child must be worse."

She sent Lizzie right over. She came back with tearful eyes. "Both the children had the fever; the baby was a little better, but Bessie pretty sick."

I watched the doctor's sleigh Saturday. It came twice and the parlor blinds continued closed, and half the blinds of each window in the chamber, while the curtains were closely drawn. Sunday, New Year's day, I watched the house. The sleigh came three times and the blinds were all closed.

"They

Monday morning I looked over. must either be better or worse," I said to my sister; "for the blinds are thrown open in the front chamber and both windows raised and pillows on the sills." Alas! even as I spoke, a man came to the front door and fastened on the bell the white ribbons and black crape that told to the passers-by in the city that a child is dead. We sent Lizzie over at once. She came back sobbing as though her heart would break. 'Oh, it's little Bessie, - she died at half-past five this morning." Then calming herself she said, with touching pathos, "She was a New Year's gift to God."

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From the German of Voss. Fairer than any in

Palace grand. Truer than any in

All the land;

She, the fairy,

She, my dearie,

Just now threw me a kiss with her hand.

There she airy a

way doth trip.

Nor a neater compliment did a lovely girl ever receive than was paid to one in the flowermarket one day by an Irish woman. The young lady was bending her head over a rosetree which a purchaser was about to buy, when the market-woman, looking kindly at the fresh face of the charming girl, said to her gently, — "I axes your pardon, miss, but if it's pleasing to you, I'd thank you to keep your cheek away from that rose; ye'll put the lady out of conceit with the color of the flowers."

That was very neatly done, better than the Duchess of Devonshire's, who was accosted in the street by a sailor, as she leaned out of her carriage to see what was obstructing the way: "Please, madam, and let me light my pipe by your eyes!" The duchess used to say that, after the sailor's compliment, all others were insipid.

R. MONCKTON MILNES, a member of the British Parliament and a poet, is the author of the following lines on

SMALL THINGS.

A sense of an earnest will

To help the lowly living, And a terrible heart-thrill,

If you have no power of giving;

An arm of aid to the weak,

A friendly hand to the friendless, Kind words, so short to speak,

But whose echo is endless; The world is wide; these things are small; They may be nothing; but they may be all.

WE close with the usual offerings to the children.

READING THE BIBLE.

"Oh, grandpa, dear, the livelong day
We've been in the dark green woods at play;
The bee and humming-bird went by.
And bright were the wings of the butterfly; ̈
We watched the tiny waterfall
Dashing along 'neath the trees so tall,
Then it leaped in wreaths as white as snow,
And sung o'er the little stones below.
We sat on the moss so soft and brown,
And grieved were we when the sun went down."

"Sweet child, our world is bright and fair,
For 'tis God's spirit breathing there;
And in the woods and forest dim,

Ever, my child, remember him."

The flow'rets of the morning,

The greenwood path adorning,

May be scattered ere the noontide, by the wild winds' sudden call;

Or plucked because they're beautiful,
By rudest hands undutiful;

Or trampled under foot by the cattle of the stall;

And the smiling little children, the bonny little children,

That sport like happy moths in the sunny summer sheen,

May perish ere the daytime,
Of their sweet expected May-time,

And sleep beneath the daisies, and the long grass growing green;

Or a worse, worse fate may light on them,
And cast more fatal blight on them;

The bonny little maiden may be wooed and cast away,

And the bonny boy prove ruthless,
Or cowardly, or truthless,

Or a gold-adoring hypocrite, before his head be gray.

But oh, ye fairy blossoms! whatever be the future,

I would not, if I might, peer through its awful glass.

Bloom, flow'rets of the wild wood!
Rejoice, oh, happy childhood!

I look at you and love you and bless you as
I pass.

By Mrs. Caroline A. Soule.

HE careless little witch!" exclaimed Frank Selden, as spied his sister's diamond ring on the bureau slab. "Why don't she think to drop it into her jewelcase, when she takes it off? What a row there'd be now, if, by any chance, it should happen to roll off into the register. The whole house'd be in an uproar. I can fancy it all: father stalking about, from one room to another, and lecturing on the carelessness of the rising generation; mother storming about like a tornado; Belle on a sofa in hysterics, and the servants whisking brooms and brushes into every nook and corner, or wearing their knees and eyes out crawling over the carpets after it. By George! But wouldn't it be fun?"

While thus talking to himself, the young man was deliberately cutting off several tiny strips of court-plaster from a sheet, and replacing the scissors and envelope in the workstand drawer. He had overslept, and being about to start on a journey, was, of course somewhat flurried when he found how late it was, and, in the hurry of making his toilet, had gashed his chin in several places, with his razor. Finding no plaster on his own dressing-table, he had run down to his

sister's room, and committed one of the petty thefts with which Belle

ways charging him.

66

was al

I'll teach her a lesson she'll remember as long as she lives," said he, gathbring up the strips he had

and he hastily picked up the costly ring and hurrying up-stairs, unlocked his bureau and concealed it in his own jewel-case.

As he finished dressing, he muttered, "You'll never catch me being such a fool as giving a diamond ring to the girl I engage myself to. A fiddlestick on anything too good to wear while she washes her hands. No, no! Mine shall be an old-fashioned, heavy, plain gold one, with our initials on the inside, and maybe two hearts or two hands. What a fool though, to be thinking of a ring, when I have yet to see the girl I'd give the second thought to! Well, then, I believe you are all ready, Frank Selden;" and he bowed patronizingly to his figure in the mirror. "A very good-looking fellow, too, this morning; and now for breakfast, lecture from father, and storm from mother thrown in." And he went down to the dining-room.

"You'll miss the train, Frank, I'm afraid," said his father, looking up from his toast. Will you never learn to be prompt ?" and his face took a serious look."

No, sir."

"All right, then. Now don't, mother, - don't say a word. Come, let me off this time, and I'll be ever so good when I come back. Only think, now, at Uncle John's I'll have to eat breakfast by candle-light, two hours before any of you are out of your nests. Belle, how are you, after the party? Ah! I see; in the dumps because the new dress wasn't done. Never mind; it'll be fresh for Al's sister's." And having managed to swallow a cup of coffee between his rapid talk, he pushed back his chair and went into the hall and begun wrapping up.

"That's it," as the door-bell gave a sharp twang. "Take good care of yourselves, all, now. Have that batch of mince-pies all baked against I get back, mother, and don't hide the key of the pantry either. Send me lots of papers, father. You be a Christian, Belle, and write to me. Give lots of love to Al, if he gets back before I do. Goodby." And, with hasty kisses, he ran down the stoop, and, in another minute was being driven to the station.

Mr. Selden left also shortly after for his counting-house. Mrs. Selden busied herself in wiping the shelves of the chinacloset and counting the napkins which had just been sent up, and giving orders to the cook and waiter. Belle dawdled around in her usual fashion after a party, dipping into the morning paper, thrumming on the windows, running over snatches from the last opera, on the piano, executing literally a few trills, a la prima donna style, reading a few pages in the last magazine, and surveying herself in the spacious mirrors.

As she stood before one of them twining a ringlet about her finger, she suddenly exclaimed, "My diamond ring, what a careless thing I am!" and darted into the hall, and up-stairs. Another minute, and her bell rung furiously.

66

"I do wish she'd have a little mercy on the wire," said her mother. Only last week she broke it short off in one of her pets."

"Yes, my ring, my diamond ring! Don't stand gaping there, as if you'd lost your wits. Tell me quick what you've done with it, quick, or I'll have a fit! "I haven't seen it, miss."

"You have; you must have seen it. I left it on the bureau when I went down to breakfast. You couldn't have helped seeing it when you cleared up. I'd rather have lost everything else. Where is it?"

"There wasn't a sign of a ring there, Miss Belle, when I came up here this morning, not a sign."

"Mary, if you don't tell me, this minute, where that ring is, I call a police officer in.”

"An' it's a thafe ye'd be makin' me, is it, thin, me that has lived in the family for five blessed years, an' niver been 'cused afore of staling! And she began to wring her hands and cry.

Mother,

Belle ran to the balusters. mother, please come up here, do; quick as you can."

"What is the matter, child? What fuss is up now? I never can get through the morning without some uproar."

Mary has stolen my diamond ring. At least, it's gone, and she must know where it is; for there's been no one else up here."

For

"Your diamond ring, Belle. mercy's sake! Why, where did you leave it?"

"Why, on the bureau, there. I always take it off when I wash; and this morning I was in such a hurry, for I was late, and I dread father's lectures so, that I forgot to put it on, and never thought of it till now."

"You'd lose your head if it was loose a minute. The idea of leaving a ring like that off your finger unless it was locked up! Mary, have you seen it?"

"No, ma'am, not a bit of it. Shure if I had, wouldn't I say so? What'd a