the very cut of a decent plan, to have bed and supper so handy to each other, that a person when they'd have the one need never ask for the other." However, bed or no bed, money or no money, Dick Fitzgerald determined to marry the Merrow, and the Merrow had given her consent. Away they went, therefore, across the strand, from Gollerus to Ballinrunnig, where Father Fitzgibbon happened to be that morning. "There are two words to this bargain, Dick Fitzgerald," said his reverence, looking mighty glum. "And is it a fishy woman you'd marry? -the Lord preserve us!-Send the scaly creature home to her own people, that's my advice to you, wherever she came from." Dick had the cohuleen driuth in his hand, and was about to give it back to the Merrow, who looked covetously at it, but he thought for a moment, and then, says he "Please your reverence, she's a king's daughter." "If she was the daughter of fifty kings," said Father Fitzgibbon, "I tell you, you can't marry her, she being a fish." "Please your reverence," said Dick again, in an undertone, "she's as mild and beautiful as the moon. "If she was as mild and as beautiful as the sun, moon, and the stars, all put together, I tell you, Dick Fitzgerald," said the priest, stamping his right foot, "you can't marry her, she being a fish!" "But she has all the gold that's down in the sea only for the asking, and I'm a made man if I marry her: and," said Dick, looking up slily, "I can make it worth any one's while to do the job." "Oh! that alters the case entirely," replied the priest; "why, there's some reason now in what you say: why didn't you tell me this before?-marry her by all means, if she was ten times a fish. Money, you know, is not to be refused in these bad times, and I may as well have the hansel of it as another, that maybe would not take half the pains in counselling you that I have done." So Father Fitzgibbon married Dick Fitzgerald to the Merrow, and like any loving couple, they returned to Gollerus, well pleased with each other. Everything prospered with Dick-he was at the sunny side of the world; the Merrow made the best of wives, and they lived together in the greatest contentment. It was wonderful to see, considering where she had been brought up, how she would busy herself about the house, and how well she nursed the children; for at the end of three years, there were as many young Fitzgerald -two boys and a girl. In short, Dick was a happy man, and so he might have continued to the end of his days, if he had only the sense to take proper care of what he had got; many another man, however, beside Dick, has not had wit enough to do that. One day when Dick was obliged to go to Tralee, he left the wife, minding the children at home after him, and thinking she had plenty to do without disturbing his fishing-tackle. Dick was no sooner gone than Mrs. Fitzgerald set about cleaning up the house, and chancing to pull down a fishing-net, what should she find behind it in a hole in the wall, but her own cohuleen driuth. She took it out and looked at it, and then she thought of her father the king, and her mother the queen, and her brothers and sisters, and she felt a longing to go back to them. She sat down on a little stool, and thought over the happy days she had spent under the sea; then she looked at her children, and thought on the love and affection of poor Dick, and how it would break his heart to lose her. "But," says she," he won't lose me entirely, for I'll come back to him again, and who can blame me for going to see my father and my mother after being so long away from them?" She got up and went towards the door, but came back again to look once more at the child that was sleeping in the cradle. She kissed it gently, and as she kissed it, a tear trembled for an instant in her eye, and then fell on its rosy cheek. She wiped away the tear, and turning to the eldest little girl, told her to take good care of her brothers, and to be a good child herself, until she came back. The Merrow then went down to the strand. The sea was lying calm and smooth, just heaving and glittering in the sun, and she thought she heard a faint sweet singing, inviting her to come down. All her old ideas and feelings came flooding over her mind, Dick and her children were at the instant forgotten, and placing the cohuleen driuth on her head, she plunged in. Dick came home in the evening, and missing his wife, he asked Kathleen, his little girl, what had become of her mother, but she could not tell him. He then inquired of the neighbours, and he learned that she was seen going towards the strand with a strange-looking thing like a cocked hat in her hand. He returned to his cabin to search for the cohuleen driuth. It was gone, and the truth now flashed upon him. Year after year did Dick Fitzgerald wait expecting the return of his wife, but he never saw her more. Dick never married again, always thinking that the Merrow would sooner or later return to him, and nothing could ever persuade him but that her father the king kept her below by main force; "for," said Dick, "she surely would not of herself give up her husband and her children." While she was with him, she was so good a wife in every respect, that to this day she is spoken of in the tradition of the country, as the pattern for one, under the name of THE LADY OF GOLLERUS. THE MIDNIGHT WIND. Mournfully! O, mournfully It speaks a tale of other years— This midnight wind doth moan; Mournfully! O, mournfully On the heart's bloom-ay! well may tears THE HEIRESS. How much of human hostility depends on that circumstance-distance! If the most bitter enemies were to come into contact, how much their ideas of each other would be chastened and corrected! They would mutually amend their erroneous impressions; see much to admire, and much to imitate in each other; and half the animosity that sheds its baneful influence on society would fade away and be forgotten. It was one day when I was about seven years old, after an unusual bustle in the family mansion, and my being arrayed in a black frock, much to my inconvenience, in the hot month of August, that I was told my asthmatic old uncle had gone off like a lamb, and that I was heiress of ten thousand per annum. This information, given with an air of infinite importance, made no very great impression upon me at the time, and in spite of the circumstance being regularly dwelt on, by my French governess, at Camden House, after every heinous misdemeanour, I had thought little or nothing on the subject till at the age of eighteen I was called on to bid adieu to Levizac and pirouttes, and hear uncle's will read by my guardian. It furnished me, indeed, with ample materials for thinking. Dr. Marrowfat's face, neither human nor divine-I see it before me, while I am writing-appeared positively frightful as he recited its monstrous contents. It appeared that my father and uncle, though brothers, had wrangled and jangled through life; and that the only subject on which they ever agreed, was supporting the dignity of the Vavasour family. That in a moment of unprecedented unison they had determined, that, as the title fell to my cousin Edgar, and the estates to me, to keep both united in the family, we should marry. And it seemed,. whichever party violated these precious con-ditions, was actually dependent on the other for bread and butter. When I first heard of this arrangement I blessed myself, and Sir Edgar cursed himself. A passionate, overbearing, dissolute young man, thought I, for a husband-for the husband of an orphanof a girl who has not a nearer relation than himself in the world-who has no father to advise her, no mother to support her:-a professed rake too-who will merely view me as an incumbrance on his estate, who will think no love, no confidence, no respect due to me; who will insult my feelings, deride my senti73 me, and Heaven only knows what answer I ments, and wither with unkindness the best me. To this hour I remember my heart beating audibly as I descended to the dining-room, where I was to see, for the first time, the future arbiter of my fate; and I shall never forget my surprise when a pale, gentlemanly, and rather reserved young man, in apparent ill health, was introduced to me for the noisy, dissolute, distracting, and distracted baronet! Preciously have I been hoaxed, thought I, as, after a long and rather interesting conversation with Sir Edgar, I, with the other ladies, left the room. Days rolled on in succession. Chance continually brought us together, and prudence began to whisper, "You had better return home." Still I lingered-till one evening, towards the close of a long tête-a-tête conversation, on my saying that I never considered money and happiness as synonymous terms, and thought it very possible to live on five hundred a year, he replied, "One admission more could you live on it with me? You are doubtless acquainted," he continued, with increasing emotion, "with my unhappy situation, but not perhaps aware, that, revolting from a union with Miss Vavasour, I have resolved on taking orders, and accepting a living from a friend. If foregoing more brilliant prospects you would condescend to share my retirement.' His manner, the moment, the lovely scene which surrounded us, all combined against "Yes, from her cradle. But you colour. Do you know her?" "Intimately. friend!" She's my most particular "I sincerely beg your pardon. What an unlucky dog I am! I hope you're not offended?" "Offended! offended! offended! oh no-not offended. Hump-backed! good heavens! Not the least offended. Hump-backed! of all things in the world!" and I involuntarily gave a glance at the glass. "I had no conception," he resumed, as soon as he could collect himself, "that there was any acquaintance." "The most intimate," I replied; "and I can assure you that you have been represented to her as the most dissolute, passionate, awkward, ill-disposed young man breathing." "The deuce!" See your "Don't swear, but hear me. cousin. You will find yourself mistaken. With her answer you shall have mine." And with a ludicrous attempt to smile, when I was monstrously inclined to cry, I contrived to make my escape. I heard something very like "Curse Miss Vavasour!" on the way to my own apartment. We did not meet again; for the next morning, in no very enviable frame of mind, I returned home. A few weeks afterwards Sir Edgar came of age. The bells were ringing blythely in the breeze-the tenants were carousing on the lawn-when he drove up to the door. My cue was taken. With a large pair of green spectacles on my nose-in a darkened room— I prepared for this tremendous interview. After hems and hahs innumerable, and with confusion the most distressing to himself, and the most amusing to me, he gave me to understand he could not fulfil the engagement made for him, and regretted it had ever been contemplated. "No-no," said I, in a voice that made him start, taking off my green spectacles with a profound courtesy, "no! no! it is preposterous to suppose that Sir Edgar Vavasour would ever connect himself with an ill-bred, awkward, hump-backed girl." Exclamations and explanations, laughter and railleries, intermixed with more serious feelings, followed; but the result of all was-that -that-that we were married. -From The Blank-Book of a Small Colleger. WHILE TAKIN' A WIFT O' MY PIPE. While takin' a wift o' my pipe tother neet, He'd sicken afore His frolic were o'er, An' feel he'd bin born for a foo'. Poor crayter, he's o' discontentment an' deawt, He's just like a chylt at goes cryin' abeawt, One minute he's trouble't, next minute he's fain, It's hard to tell whether he's laughin' through pain, He stumbles, an' grumbles, He struggles, an' juggles, He capers a bit,-an' he's gone. It's wise to be humble i' prosperous ways, He's weel off 'at's rich, iv he nobbut can feel Some comfort shall olez be sure. We'n nobbut a lifetime a-piece here below, Lung or short, rough or fine, little matter for that, When th' order comes to us There'll surely be new uns to don. 1 From Lancashire Songs. THE SCHOOLMASTER. [Alexander Wilson, born in Paisley, 6th July, 1766; died in Philadelphia, 23d August, 1813. A poet and the founder of American ornithology. For several years he worked at the loom as a weaver in his native town, and afterwards travelled through the country as a peddler. He published his first volume of poems in 1790, and two years later issued, anonymously, his humorous ballad of Watty and Meg, which, much to the author's delight, was attributed to Burns. He emigrated to America in 1794; and found occupation as a schoolmaster. Upon settling at Kingsessing, he began to prepare for his great work on American ornithology; he explored the country, generally alone, and personally collected all his specimens. He lived to complete the eighth volume of the work; the ninth was produced under the care of his friend and occasional companion in his explorations, George Ord. Wilson's poetical talent has been almost forgotten, whilst his fame as an ornithologist remains undiminished.] Of all professions that this world has known, From clowns and cobblers upwards to the throne; From the grave architect of Greece and Rome, Down to the framer of a farthing broom, The worst for care and undeserved abuse, The first in real dignity and use (If skill'd to teach and diligent to rule), Is the learn'd master of a little school. Not he who guides his legs, or skills the clown To square his fist, and knock his fellow down: Not he who shows the still more barbarous art To parry thrusts and pierce th' unguarded heart; But that good man, who, faithful to his charge, Still toils the opening reason to enlarge; And leads the growing mind, through every stage, From humble A, B, C, to God's own page; From black, rough pothooks, horrid to the sight, To fairest lines that float o'er purest white; From numeration, through an opening way, Till dark annuities seem clear as day; Pours o'er the mind a flood of mental light, Expands its wings, and gives it powers for flight, Till earth's remotest bound, and heaven's bright train He trace, weigh, measure, picture, and explain. If such his toils, sure honour and regard And wealth and fame will be his dear reward. Sure every tongue will utter forth his praise, And blessings gild the evening of his days! Yes!-bless'd indeed, by cold ungrateful scorn, With study pale, by daily crosses worn, Despised by those who to his labours owe All that they read, and almost all they know; Condemn'd, each tedious day, such cares to bear As well might drive e'en Patience to despair; The partial parent's taunt-the idler dullThe block head's dark impenetrable skullThe endless round of A, B, C's whole train Repeated o'er ten thousand times in vain. Placed on a point, the object of each sneer, His faults enlarge, his merits disappear: If mild-"Our lazy master loves his ease, THE TURNIP. BY THE BROTHERS GRIMM. There were two brothers who were both soldiers; the one was rich, the other poor. The poor man thought he would try to better himself; so, pulling off his red coat, he became a gardener, and dug his ground well, and sowed turnips. When the seed came up, there was one plant bigger than all the rest; and it kept getting larger and larger, and seemed as if it would never cease growing; so that it might have been called the prince of turnips, for there never was such a one seen before, and never will again. At last it was so big that it filled a cart, and two oxen could hardly draw it; and the gardener knew not what in the world to do with it, nor whether it would be a blessing or a curse to him. One day he said to himself, "What shall I do with it? if I sell it, it will bring no more than another; and for eating the little turnips are better than this; the best thing perhaps is to carry it and give it to the king as a mark of respect.' Then he yoked his oxen, and drew the turnip to the court, and gave it to the king. "What a wonderful thing!" said the king; "I have seen many strange things, but such a monster as this I never saw. Where did you get the seed? or is it only your good luck? If so, you are a true child of fortune." "Ah, no!" answered the gardener, "I am no child of fortune; I am a poor soldier, who never could get enough to live upon; so I laid aside my red coat, and set to work, tilling the ground. I have a brother, who is rich, and your majesty knows him well, and all the world knows him; but because I am poor, everybody forgets me." The king then took pity on him, and said, "You shall be poor no longer. I will give you so much that you shall be even richer than your brother." Then he gave him gold and lands and flocks, and made him so rich that his brother's fortune could not at all be compared with his. When the brother heard of all this, and how a turnip had made the gardener so rich, he envied him sorely, and bethought himself how he could contrive to get the same good fortune for himself. However, he determined to manage more cleverly than his brother, and got together a rich present of gold and fine horses for the king; and thought he must have a much larger gift in return: for if his brother had received so much for only a turnip, what must his present be worth? The king took the gift very graciously, and said he knew not what to give in return more valuable and wonderful than the great turnip; so the soldier was forced to put it into a cart, and drag it home with him. When he reached home he knew not upon whom to vent his rage and spite; and at length wicked thoughts came into his head, and he resolved to kill his brother. So he hired some villains to murder him; and having shown them where to lie in ambush, he went to his brother and said, "Dear brother, I have found a hidden treasure; let us go and dig it up, and share it between us." The other had no suspicions of his roguery; so they went out together, and as they were travelling along the murderers rushed out upon him, bound him, and were going to hang him on a tree. But whilst they were getting all ready, they heard the trampling of a horse at a distance, which so frightened them that they pushed their prisoner neck and shoulders together into a sack, and swung him up by a cord to the tree, where they left him dangling, and ran away. Meantime he worked and worked away, till he made a hole large enough to put out his head. When the horseman came up he proved to be a student, a merry fellow, who was journeying along on his nag, and singing as he went. As soon as the man in the sack saw him passing under the tree, he cried out, "Good morning! good morning to thee, my friend!" The student looked about everywhere, and seeing no one, and not knowing where the voice came from, cried out, "Who calls me?" Then the man in the tree answered, "Lift up thine eyes, for behold here I sit in the sack of wisdom; here have I, in a short time, learned great and wondrous things. Compared to this seat all the learning of the schools is as empty |