gible; to her they were the alphabet of the heart, familiar as household words.

What

Then the future: "What will become of me? shall I do now?" She did not say so, but she felt it. The prospect of the old wife is clouded; the home circle is broken, never to be reunited; the visions of the hearth-stone are scattered forever. Up to that hour there was a home to which the heart always turned with fondness. That magic is now sundered, the key-stone of that sacred arch has fallen, and home is nowhere this side of heaven! Shall she gather up the scattered fragments of the broken arch, make them her temple and her shrine, sit down in her chill solitude beside its expiring fires, and die? What shall she do now?

They gently crowded her away from the dead, and the undertaker came forward, with the coffin-lid in his hand. It is all right and proper, of course, it must be done; but to the heart-mourner it brings a kind of shudder, a thrill of agony. The undertaker stood for a moment, with a decent propriety, not wishing to manifest rude haste, but evidently desirous of being as expeditious as possible. Just as he was about to close the coffin, the old wife turned back, and stooping down, imprinted one long, last kiss upon the cold lips of her dead husband, then staggered to her scat, buried her face in her hands, and the closing coffin hid him from her sight forever!

and

That kiss! fond token of affection, and of sorrow, memory, and farewell! I have seen many kiss their dead, many such seals of love upon clay-cold lips, but never did I see one so purely sad, so simply heart-touching and hopeless as that. Or, if it had hope, it was that which looks beyond coffins, and charnel houses, and damp, dark tombs, to the joys of the home above. You would kiss the cold cheek of infancy; there is poetry; it is beauty hushed; there is romance there, for the faded flower is still beautiful. In childhood the heart yields to the stroke of sorrow, but recoils again with elastic faith, buoyant with hope; but here was no beauty, no poetry, no romance.

The heart of the old wife was like the weary swimmer, whose strength has often raised him above the stormy waves, but now, exhausted, sinks amid the surges.

The

temple of her earthly hopes had fallen, and what was there left for her but to sit down in despondency, among its lonely ruins, and weep and die! or, in the spirit of a better hope, await the dawning of another day, when a Hand divine shall gather its sacred dust, and rebuild for immortality its broken walls!

A LAY OF REAL LIFE.-THOMAS HOOD.

Who ruined me ere I was born,

Sold every acre, grass or corn,
And left the next heir all forlorn?

My Grandfather.

Who said my mother was no nurse,
And physicked me, and made me worse,
Till infancy became a curse?

My Grandmother.

Who let me starve to buy her gin,
Till all my bones came through my skin,
Then called me "ugly little sin?"

My Mother.

Who said my mother was a Turk,

And took me home and made me work,

But managed half my meals to shirk?

My Aunt.

Who" of all earthly things" would boast,

"He hated others' brats the most,"
And therefore made me feel my post?
My Uncle.

Who got in scrapes, an endless score,
And always laid them at my door,

Till many a bitter bang I bore?

My Cousin.

Who took me home when mother died,

Again with father to reside,

Black shoes, clean knives, run far and wide?

My Stepmother.

Who marred my stealthy urchin joys,
And when I played, cried, "What a noise?"
(Girls always hector over boys.)

My Sister.

Who used to share in what was mine,
Or took it all did he incline,

'Cause I was eight and he was nine?

My Brother.

Who stroked my head, and said, “Good lad,"
And gave me sixpence, "all he had;"

But at the stall the coin was bad?

My Godfather.

Who, gratis, shared my social glass,
But when misfortune came to pass,
Referred me to the pump? Alas!
My Friend.

Through all this weary world; in brief,
Who ever sympathized with grief,
Or shared my joy, my sole relief?

Myself.

MRS. BROWN AND MRS. GREEN.-G. L. BANKS.

A very fair Christian is good Mrs. Brown,
And wise, too, as any in any wise town;
She worships her God without any display,

Not molesting her friend who lives over the way;
And whatever occurs it is easy to see

That her words and her conduct do always agree.
For this little maxim she shrewdly commends-
"Good precept and practice should ever be friends!"

A very warm Christian is good Mrs. Green,
In her satins, and velvets, and rich armazine;
She is always at church when the service begins,
And prays quite aloud for the poor and their sins;
Then her speech is so fair, and her manner so bland,
They'd proselytise the most heathenish land;
And this one opinion she stoutly defends-
"That precept and practice should ever be friends!"
Mrs. Brown has a reticule, useful though small,
Which oft in the week she takes under her shawl,
Calling first on this person, and then on the other,
As if she were either a sister or mother;

And 't has oft been remarked, with good reason, no doubt,
That the reticule's lighter for having been out;

For this little maxim she shrewdly commends-
"Good precept and practice should ever be friends!"

Mrs. Green, now and then, for an hour, sits in state
With some more lady friends-rich, of course-to debate
How the poor shall be clothed, what taught, and what rules
It were best to enforce in the Charity Schools;
All of which having over and over been turned,
And nothing decided, the meeting's adjourned;
And this one opinion each lady defends-

"That precept and practice should ever be friends!"

In the street where resides our good friend Mrs. Brown
Is a school, though not known to a tithe of the town,
Which that lady supports from her own private purse;
(And 'tis thought by her neighbors she might do much worse:)
And if scholars, or parents, are ill or distressed,

The reticule's sure to be had in request;

For this little maxim she shrewdly commends

"Good precept and practice should ever be friends!"

Mrs. Green has a sympathy deep and refined,
It is not to parish or country confined;
If a party of ladies propose a bazaar

To enlighten the natives of rude Zanzibar,
She is truly delighted to sanction their aim,
By giving wise counsel, and lending her name;
For this one opinion she stoutly defends-

"That precept and practice should ever be friends!"

Mrs. Brown is a stranger to parties and sects,.
The good of all classes she loves and respects;
Thinking little enough of profession or creed,
If the heart and the hand go not with it indeed;
While her prayers, and her purse, and her reticule, too,
For all sorts of Christians a kindness will do;
And this little maxim she shrewdly commends-
"Good precept and practice should ever be friends!"

There are few Mrs. Browns-not a few Mrs. Greens,
In their satins, and velvets, and rich armazines.

There are thousands who'll preach, lend their names, and give rules,

But how few are provided with small reticules!
With the world, Mrs. Green, as a saint, will go down—
We will stake our existence on good Mrs. Brown,
Who in word, and in deed, the trite maxim commends-
"Good precept and practice should ever be friends!"

CLEOPATRA'S BARGE.-SHAKSPEARE.

The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Burned on the water; the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that

The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver;
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made

The water, which they beat, to follow faster,

As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggared all description; she did lie
In her pavilion, (cloth of gold and tissue,)
O'erpicturing that Venus, where we see

The fancy out-work nature; on either side her,
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-colored fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid, did.

Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,

So many mermaids, tended her 'i the eyes,
And made their bends adornings; at the helm
A seeming mermaid steers; the silken tackle
Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands,
That yarely frame the office. From the barge
A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast
Her people out upon her; and Antony,
Enthroned in the market-place, did sit alone,
Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy,
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra, too,
And made a gap in nature.

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.-GEN. LYTLE,

I am dying, Egypt, dying,
Ebbs the crimson life-tide fast,
And the dark Plutonian shadows
Gather on the evening blast;
Let thine arms, O Queen, enfold me!
Hush thy sobs and bow thine ear;
Listen to the great heart-secrets,
Thou, and thou alone, must hear.

Though my scarred and veteran legions
Bear their eagles high no more,
And my wrecked and scattered galleys
Strew dark Actium's fatal shore;