"We should not have called this cricket in my day," said he, "and yet it knocks down the wickets gloriously, too." Letty, on her part, had watched the game with unmingled interest and admiration. "He knew how much I liked to see a good cricketer," thought she; yet still, when that identical good cricketer approached, she was seized with such a fit of shyness-call it modesty—that she left her seat and joined a group of young women at some distance.

in, and all eyes were fixed on the Sussex | achieved. bowler. The ball was placed in his hands, and instantly the wicket was down and the striker out-no other than Tom Taylor, the boast of his parish and the best batsman in the county. "Accident! mere accident!" of course cried East Woodhay; but another and another followed. Few could stand against the fatal bowling, and none could get notches. A panic seized the whole side, and then, as losers will, they began to exclaim against the system, called it a toss, a throw, a trickanything but bowling, anything but cricket-mained standing by her father, inquiring with affectionate interest after his health and talking over the game and the bowling. length he said,

railed at it as destroying the grace of the attitude and the balance of the game, protested at being considered beaten by such jugglery, and finally appealed to the umpires as to the fairness of the play. The umpires, men of conscience and old cricketers, hummed and hawed and see-sawed, quoted contended precedents and jostling authorities, looked grave and wise, whilst even their little sticks of of fice seemed vibrating in puzzled importance. Never were judges more sorely perplexed. At last they did as the sages of the bench often do in such cases-reserved the point of law and desired them to "play out the play." Accordingly, the match was resumed, only twenty-seven notches being gained by the East Woodhayians in their first innings, and they entirely from the balls of the old Hazelby bowler, James White.

During the quarter of an hour's pause which the laws allow, the victorious man of Sussex went up to John Dale, who had watched him with a strange mixture of feeling, delighted to hear the stumps rattle and to see opponent after opponent throw down his bat and walk off, and yet much annoyed at the new method by which the object was

Paul looked earnestly after her, but re

At

"I hope that I have not driven away Miss Letitia ?"

"Call her Letty, Mr. Holton," interrupted the old man-" "plain Letty. We are poor folks now, and have no right to any other title than our own proper names—old John Dale and his daughter Letty. A good daughter she has been to me," continued the fond father; "for when debts and losses took all we had-for we paid to the uttermost farthing, Mr. Paul Holton: we owe no man a shilling-when all my earnings and savings were gone and the house over our head-the house I was born in, the house she was born in: I loved it the better for that—taken away from us, then she gave up the few hundreds she was entitled to in right of her blessed mother to purchase an annuity for the old man whose trust in a villain had brought her to want."

ton.

"God bless her!" interrupted Paul Hol

"Ay, and God will bless her," returned the old man, solemnly-" God will bless the

"Blessings on her dear generous heart!" again ejaculated Paul. "And I was away and knew nothing of this!"

dutiful child who despoiled herself of all to he missed a leg-ball of Ned Smith's, was all support her old father!" but caught out by Sam Newton, and East Woodhay triumphed and Hazelby sat quaking, when a sudden glimpse of Letty watching him with manifest anxiety recalled her champion's wandering thoughts. Gathering himself up, he stood before the wicket another man, knocked the ball hither and thither, to the turnpike, the coppice, the pond, got three, four, five at a hit, baffled the slow bowler James Smith and the fast bowler Tom Taylor, got fifty-five notches off his own bat, stood out all the rest of his side, and so handled the adverse party when they went in that the match was won at a single innings with six-and-thirty runs to spare.

"I knew nothing of it myself until the deed was completed," rejoined John Dale. "She was just of age, and the annuity was purchased and the money paid before she told me; and a cruel kindness it was to strip herself for my sake. It almost broke my heart when I heard the story. But even that was nothing," continued the good tanner, warming with his subject, "compared with her conduct since.. If you could but see how she keeps the house and how she waits upon me, her handiness, her cheerfulness and all her pretty ways and contrivances to make me forget old times and old places! Poor thing! she must miss her neat parlor and the flower-garden she was so fond of as much as I do my tan-yard and the great hall, but she never seems to think of them, and never has spoken a hasty word since our misfortunes, for all you know, poor thing! she used to be a little quick-tempered."

"And I knew nothing of this!" repeated Paul Holton as, two or three of their best wickets being down, the Hazelby players summoned him to go in. "I knew nothing of all this!"

Again all eyes were fixed on the Sussex cricketer, and at first he seemed likely to verify the predictions and confirm the hopes of the most malicious of his adversaries by batting as badly as he had bowled well. He had not caught sight of the ball, his hits were weak, his defence insecure and his mates began to tremble and his opponents to crow. Every hit seem likely to be the last;

Whilst his mates were discussing their victory, Paul Holton again approached the father and daughter, and this time she did not run away.

'Letty, dear Letty," said he, "three years ago I lost the cricket-match, and you were angry and I was a fool. This match is won; and if you could but know how deeply I have repented, how earnestly I have longed for this day! The world has gone well with me, Letty, for these three long years. I have wanted nothing but the treasure which I myself threw away; and now, if you would but let your father be my father, and my home | your home! If you would but forgive me!"

Letty's answer is not upon record, but it is certain that Paul Holton walked home from the cricket-ground that evening with old John Dale hanging on one arm and John Dale's pretty daughter on the other, and that a month after the bells of Hazelby church were ringing merrily in honor of one of the fairest and luckiest matches that ever cricketer lost and won.

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.

THIS

ROBERT BROWNING.

HIS author has been designated "one of
England's greatest of modern poets.

"His poetry, however, is too obscure to please

exposed by Dr. Thomas Brown, Dugald Stewart, Paley, Good and others.

S. AUSTIN ALLIBONE.

HANNAH FLAGG GOULD.

the general reader." He was born at Camber- HANNAH FLAGG GOULD was born

well, A. D. 1812, and educated at the Uni

were collected in a volume. In 1835 and in

in Lancaster, Vermont, but while yet a child her father removed to Newburyport, versity of London. He married the emi-Massachusetts. She early wrote for several nent poetess Elizabeth Barrett in the year periodicals, and in 1832 her poetical pieces 1846. After their marriage they resided in Italy until her death, A. D. 1861, when he returned to his native country. His poems are numerous, and are held in high esteem by many critics. The celebrated actor Macready took the part of the hero in his trag edy entitled Stafford, which was produced in

A. D. 1837.

ERASMUS DARWIN.

ERASMUS DARWIN, M.D. (born 1731; RASMUS DARWIN, M.D. (born 1731; died 1802), was a native of Elton, near Newark, Nottinghamshire. He studied both at St. John's College, Cambridge, and at Edinburgh, and, having chosen his profession of medicine, practised first at Northampton and subsequently at Lichfield, where he acquired a profitable practice. Being left a widower, he was married in 1781 to Mrs. Colonel Pole, by whose influence he was induced to retire to Derby, where he died suddenly in 1802. Dr. Darwin enjoyed considerable utation as a botanist, philosopher and poet. Darwin's powers of description and of dramatic effect were undoubtedly great. The absence of judgment and taste is equally clear; hence the decline of his early fame. His fallacies, especially his theory which refers instinct to sensation, have been amply

rep

1841 a second and third volume appeared,
entitled simply Poems, and in 1846 she col-
lected a volume of her prose compositions,
entitled Gathered Leaves. Of her poetry a
writer in the Christian Examiner remarks
that it is impossible to find fault. It is so
sweet and unpretending, so pure in purpose
and so gentle in expression that criticism is
disarmed of all severity and engaged to say
nothing of it but good. It is poetry for a
sober, quiet,
heart. It is poetry for a united family
kindly-affectioned Christian
circle in their hours of peace and leisure.
into such it will find, and has found, its way.
For such companionship it was made, and

[Died at Newburyport, September 5, 1865.]

CHARLES D. CLEVELAND.

HENRY HART MILMAN.

THIS poet and historian was the son of

Sir Francis Milman, physician to George III., and was born at London, February 10, 1791. He was chosen in A. D. 1821 professor of poetry at Oxford, but is perhaps best known as the editor of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, having appended pious notes to that important work. He died in September, 1868.

THE WIDOW MYSIE.

AN IDYL OF LOVE AND WHISKEY.

Tom Love, a man "prepared for friend or foe,
Whiskered, well-featured, tight from top to toe."

H, Widow Mysie, smiling, soft | Oh, years roll on, and fair things fade and and sweet!

Oh, Mysie, buxom as a sheaf Twelve sowings since and I was twenty-nine;
With ploughman's coat on back, and plough

I wrought at Bungo on my father's land,

Foul fall the traitor-face that And all the neighbor-lassies, stale or fair,

Tried hard to net my father's son and heir.

Oh, Mysie Love, a second time My heart was lightsome, cares I had but few,
a bride,
I climbed the mountains, drank the mountain
dew,

Back to the nameless place where they were But sharply watched the maids who wished

So might the game have daundered on till Her feet fell patter, cheep, like little mice;