“Aurelia Maria," which may possibly be a fictitious name. But no matter, the poor girl is almost heart-broken by the misfortunes she has undergone, and so confused by the conflicting counsels of misguided friends and insidious enemies, that she does not know what course to pursue in order to extricate herself from the web of difficulties in which she seems almost hopelessly involved. In this dilemma she turns to me for help, and supplicates for my guidance and instruction with a moving eloquence that would touch the heart of a statue. Hear her sad story:

She says that when she was sixteen years old she met and loved, with all the devotion of a passionate nature, a young man from New Jersey, named Williamson Breckinridge Caruthers, who was some six years her senior. They were engaged, with the free consent of their friends and relatives, and for a time it seemed as if their career was destined to be characterized by an immunity from sorrow beyond the usual lot of humanity. But at last the tide of fortune turned; young Caruthers became infected with small-pox of the most virulent type, and when he recovered from his illness, his face was pitted like a waffle-mold, and his comeliness gone forever. Aurelia thought to break off the engagement at first, but pity for her unfortunate lover caused her to postpone the marriage-day for a season, and give him another trial.

The very day before the wedding was to have taken place, Breckinridge, while absorbed in watching the flight of a balloon, walked into a well and fractured one of his legs, and it had to be taken off above the knee. Again Aurelia was moved to break the engagement, but again love triumphed, and she set the day forward and gave him another chance to reform.

And again misfortune overtook the unhappy youth. He lost one arm by the premature discharge of a Fourth-ofJuly cannon, and within three months he got the other pulled out by a carding machine. Aurelia's heart was almost crushed by these latter calamities. She could not but be deeply grieved to see her lover passing from her by piecemeal, feeling, as she did, that he could not last forever under this disastrous process of reduction, yet knowing

of no way to stop its dreadful career; and in her tearful despair she almost regretted, like brokers who hold on and lose, that she had not taken him at first, before he had suffered such an alarming depreciation. Still her brave soul bore her up, and she resolved to bear with her friend's unnatural disposition yet a little longer.

Again the wedding day approached, and again disappointment overshadowed it; Caruthers fell ill with the erysipelas, and lost the use of one of his eyes entirely. The friends and relatives of the bride, considering that she had already put up with more than could reasonably be expected of her, now came forward and insisted that the match should be broken off; but after wavering awhile, Aurelia, with a generous spirit that did her credit, said she had reflected calmly upon the matter, and could not discover that Breckinridge was to blame.

So she extended the time once more, and he broke his other leg.

It was a sad day for the poor girl when she saw the surgeons reverently bearing away the sack whose uses she had learnt by previous experience, and her heart told her the bitter truth that some more of her lover was gone. She felt that the field of her affections was growing more and more circumscribed every day, but once more she frowned down her relatives and renewed her betrothal.

Shortly before the time set for the nuptials another disaster occurred. There was but one man scalped by the Owens River Indians last year. That man was Williamson Breckinridge Caruthers, of New Jersey. He was hurrying home with happiness in his heart, when he lost his hair forever, and in that hour of bitterness he almost cursed the mistaken mercy that had spared his head.

At last Aurelia is in a serious perplexity as to what she ought to do. She still loves her Breckinridge, she writes, with true womanly feeling-she still loves what is left of him-but her parents are bitterly opposed to the match, because he has no property and is disabled from working, and she has not sufficient means to support both comfortably. "Now what should she do?" she asks with painful and anxious solicitude.

It is a delicate question; it is one which involves the life-long happiness of a woman, and that of nearly twothirds of a man, and I feel that it would be assuming too great a responsibility to do more than make a mere suggestion in the case. How would it do to build to him? If Aurelia can afford the expense, let her furnish her mutilated lover with wooden arms and wooden legs, and a glass eye and a wig, and give him another show; give him ninety days, without grace, and if he does not break his neck in the meantime, marry him and take the chances. It does not seem to me that there is much risk, any way, Aurelia, because if he sticks to his infernal propensity for damaging himself every time he sees a good opportunity, his next experiment is bound to finish him, and then you are all right, you know, married or single. If married, the wooden 'egs and such other valuables as he may possess revert to The widow, and you see you sustain no actual loss save the cherished fragment of a noble but most unfortunate husband, who honestly strove to do right, but whose extraordinary instincts were against him. Try it, Maria! I have Thought the matter over carefully and well, and it is the only chance I see for you. It would have been a happy tonceit on the part of Caruthers if he had started with his neck and broken that first; but since he has seen fit to choose a different policy, and string himself out as long as possible, I do not think we ought to upbraid him for it if he has enjoyed it. We must do the best we can under the circumstances, and try not to feel exasperated at him.

THE CHRISTMAS TREE.-MARGARET E. SANGSTER.

Our darling little Florence, our blessing and our pride, With dimpled cheeks, and golden hair, and brown eyes open wide,

To look at every pretty thing, came flying in to me:

"O please," she pleaded earnestly, "I want a Christmas tree."

"Who put that in your head, my dear? There's one at Sunday-school,

And you will see its laden boughs with lovely presents full."

"Yes," said the child, "but I would like one of my very own. And I will ask my company to come; myself alone.

"I had a dream last night; I seemed out in the woods to be, And growing up right in the snow I saw a splendid tree; Two little angels hovered near, and while I watched they spread

Their fairy wings, and seemed to make a curtain o'er my head.

"The tree was shining like the stars, with tapers burning bright,

And happy faces seemed to glow around it in the night; The little angels talked and talked; they said: "This is the tree

That we've been keeping beautiful for Florence dear to sec. "We'll lift it clear, we'll bear it far, we'll take it to her door,

The prettiest, greenest Christmas tree, we'll set it on her floor,

And if she asks the guests she ought we'll linger there and sing,

Our voices blending in with theirs, as cheerily they ring.'”

"A lovely dream, indeed," I said; but whom will you invite? We'll find a tree quite easily, and star its boughs with light; But baby is not old enough to have her playmates come, And yours are all engaged, my love, each in her own bright home."

"I thought I'd go to Bridget's house, and ask her little Kate,

And that bare-footed boy who sells us matches at the gate, And we will dress them up with shoes and stockings to

begin,

And give them presents; I will put all my own money in.

"You only ought to see the doll poor Kate thinks so superb, Its dingy face is just as brown as some old bunch of herb, And all the sawdust's pouring out its broken arm, and yet She loves it, and considers it a beauty and a pet.

"Poor Johnny has no mother. His feet are bare and blue, And his eyes have such a hungry look when he dares to look at you,

I think it would be sweet to give a bit of Christmas joy
And happiness-don't you to such a little lonely boy?"

Well, children have their way with me, and Florence has

a way

That is so free from selfishness, so gentle and so gay,

We love to please her; that's the truth. We helped her all we could,

And half a dozen little guests around the tree there stood.

Its branches hung with golden fruit, dolls and dishes and drums,

Elephants, horses, and woolly dogs, and boxes of sugarplums;

A trumpet was given to Johnny that terribly frightened the cat,

And the top of his Christmas was crowned when we gave him a soldier hat.

Our baby was charmed with a rattle, and for Florence's dainty self

Was a music-box that played sweet tunes from its niche on a rosewood shelf;

And Katie brooded over her doll in a sort of motherly rapture,

Holding it close, lest a ruthless hand its form from her grasp should capture;

And Bridget's jolly, half-moon face beamed over the happy

Scene

The tree was a tree to be glad about, and Florence felt like a queen.

For somehow, not only for Christmas, but all the long year through,

The joy that you give to others is the joy that comes back

to you;

And the more you spend in blessing the poor, the lonely, and sad,

The more to your heart's possessing, returns to make you glad.

ENJOYMENT OF THE PRESENT.-R. C. TRENCH.

We live not in our moments or our years-
The present we fling from us as the rind
Of some sweet future, which we after find
Bitter to taste, or bind that in with fears,
And water it beforehand with our tears-
Vain tears for that which never may arrive;
Meanwhile the joy whereby we ought to live
Neglected or unheeded disappears.

Wiser it were to welcome and make ours

Whate'er of googd, though small, the present brings-
Kind greetings, sunshine, song of birds, and flowers,

With a child's pure delight in little things;

And of the griefs unborn to rest secure,

Knowing that mercy ever will endure.