"It has a pleasant sound," she said, "A household queen, a guiding spirit! But I am only a simple child, So my mother says in her daily chiding.— "Well, first, dear Bessie, a smiling face Is dearer far than the rarest beauty; And my mother, fretful, lame and old, You will see to her flannels, drops and tea, "You will read me at evening the daily news, The tedious winter nights beguiling; And never forget that the sweetest face Is the cheerful face that is always smiling. In short, you'll arrange in a general way For a sort of sublunary heaven ; For home, dear Bessie, say what we may, Is the highest sphere to a woman given." The lark sang out to the bending sky, The bobolink piped in the rushes, And out of the tossing clover blooms Came the clear, sweet song of the meadow thrushes. And Bessie, listening, paused awhile, Then said, with a sly glance at her neighbor "But John-do you mean-that is to say, What shall I get for all this labor?” "What will you get? "John gasped, and sighed :"So young and yet so mercenary; So artless, and yet so worldly wiseAnd this is the girl I thought to marry." But Bessie laughed, "I'm a simple child, So my mother says, with much vain sighing; But it seems to me, of all hard tasks, A guardian angel's is most trying. "To be nurse, companion, and servant girl, To do all this for one's board and clothes; "Suppose you choose, John, some other man, Who shall rule your coming and your going; Who shall choose your home, prescribe your work, Your pay, and the time of its bestowing; Who shall own the very clothes you wear, And your children, if any the good Lord gives, For a third of what he may possibly earn, When he dies, and nothing at all if he lives! "Just think of it, John!" But John looked down And groaned with a sigh of deep regret: "To seem so simple, and be so deep Great Cæsar! To marry for what she can get! And Bessie gayly went her way The clovers toss in the summer wind, MORAL. Young man, be advised, when you've chosen your bride, Don't be too explicit until the knot's tied, You are safer by far-no matter how richTo talk only of "angels" and "altars" and "sich." Young woman! I'll tell you, on sober reflection, There are things that won't bear too close inspection; And the most fitting dress for a young bride to wear, Is the robe of "illusion," preserved with great care! FASHIONABLE SCHOOL GIRL. A few months ago the daughter of a Rockland man, who had grown comfortably well-off in the small grocery line, was sent away to a "female college," and last week she arrived home for the holiday vacation. The old man was in attendance at the depot when the train arrived, with the old horse and delivery wagon, to convey his daughter and her trunk to the house. When the train had stopped, a bewitching array of dry goods and a wide-brimmed hat dashed from the car, and flung itself into the elderly party's arms. "Why, you superlatively Pa! glad to see you.” I'm ever so utterly The old man was somewhat unnerved by the greeting, but he recognized the sealskin cloak in his grip as the identical piece of property he had paid for with the bay mare, and he sort of gathered it up in his arms, and planted a kiss where it would do the most good, with a report that sounded above the noise of the depot. In a brief space of time the trunk and its attendant baggage were loaded into the wagon, which was soon bumping over the hobbles towards home. "Pa, dear," surveying the team with a critical eye, "do you consider this quite excessively beyond ?" "Hey? quite excessively beyond what? Beyond Warren? I consider it somewhat about ten miles beyond Warren, if that's what you mean. "Oh, no, pa; you don't understand me; I mean this wagon and horse. Do you think they are soulful? do you think they could be studied apart in the light of a symphony, or even a simple poem, and appear as intensely utter to one on returning home as one could express?" The old man twisted uneasily in his seat and muttered something about he believed it used to be used for an express before he bought it to deliver pork in; but the conversation appeared to be traveling in a lonesome direction, and the severe jolting over the frozen ground prevented further remarks. "Oh, there is that lovely and consummate Ma!” and presently she was lost in the embrace of a motherly woman in spectacles. "Well, Maria," said the old man at the supper table, "an' how'd you like your school?" "Well there, Papa, now you're shou-I mean I consider it far too beyond. It is unquenchably ineffable. The girls are so sumptuously stunning-I mean grand-so exquisite-so intense! And then the parties, the balls, the rides-oh, the past weeks have been one sublime harmony." "I s'pose so-I s'pose so," nervously assented the old man as he reached for his third cup, half full"but how about your books-readin', writin', grammar, rule o' three-how about them ?" It is "Pa! don't. The rule of three! Grammar! French and music and painting and the divine art that have made my school life the boss—I mean that have rendered it one unbroken flow of rhythmic blissincomparably and exquisitely all but!" The grocery man and his wife looked helplessly at each other across the table. After a lonesome pause the old lady said: "How do you like the biscuits, Maria?" "They are too utter for anything, and this plum preserve is simply a poem itself?" The old man rose abruptly from the table, and went out of the room, rubbing his head in a dazed and benumbed manner, and the mass convention was dissolved. That night he and his wife sat alone by the stove until a late hour, and at the breakfast table the next morning, he rapped smartly on the plate with the handle of his knife, and remarked :— "Maria! me an' your mother have been talkin the thing over, an' we've come to the conclusion that this boardin' school business is too utterly all but too much nonsense. Me an' her consider that we haven't lived sixty consummate years for the purpose of raisin' a curiosity, an' there's goin to be a stop put to this |