"Yes? "interwoggatively.

"If I was a wobbin, Lotty,-and-and you were a wobbin -" I exclaimed,-with a voice full of emothun.

"Well, my Lord?”

"Wouldn't it be-jolly to have thpeckled eggs evewy morning for bweakfast?"

That wasn't quite what I was going to say; but just then there was another rustling behind the summer-house, and in wushed that bwute, Wagsby.

What's the wow, Dundreary?" said he, grinning in a dweadfully idiotic sort of way. "Come, old fellah” (I—I hate a man who calls me old fellah,-it's so beathly familiar). And then he said he had come on purpose to fetch us back, (confound him!) as they had just awanged to start on one of those cold-meat excursions,-no, that's not the word, I know, but it has something to do with cold meat,-picpickles, is it?-no, pick wick? pic-I have it-they wanted us to go picklicking,-I mean picknicking with them.

Here was a dithappointment. Just as I thought to have a nice little flirtathun with Lotty,—to be interwupted in this manner! Was ever anything so pwovoking? And all for a picnic,- -a thort of early dinner without chairs or tables, and a lot of flies in the muthtard! I was in such a wage! Of course I didn't get another chance to say all I wanted. I had lost my opportunity, and, I fear, made an ath of mythelf.

A DEATH-BED.-JAMES ALDRICH.

Her suffering ended with the day;
Yet lived she at its close,

And breathed the long, long night away
In statue-like repose.

But when the sun, in all his state,
Illumed the eastern skies,

She passed through glory's morning-gate,
And walked in Paradise.

THE RELIEF OF LUCKNOW.*-ROBERT LOWELL,

Oh, that last day in Lucknow fort!

We knew that it was the last,

That the enemy's lines crept surely on,
And the end was coming fast.

To yield to that foe was worse than death,
And the men and we all worked on;
It was one day more of smoke and roar,
And then it would all be done.

There was one of us, a corporal's wife,
A fair, young, gentle thing,

Wasted with fever in the siege,

And her mind was wandering.

She lay on the ground, in her Scottish plaid,
And I took her head on my knee:

"When my father comes hame frae the pleugh," she said, "Oh! then please waken me."

She slept like a child on her father's floor

In the flecking of woodbine-shade,

When the house-dog sprawls by the open door,
And the mother's wheel is staid.

It was smoke and roar and powder-stench,
And hopeless waiting for death;

And the soldier's wife, like a full-tired child,
Seemed scarce to draw her breath.

I sank to sleep; and I had my dream
Of an English village-lane,

And wall and garden ;---but one wild scream
Brought me back to the roar again.

There Jessie Brown stood listening
Till a sudden gladness broke

All over her face, and she caught my hand
And drew me near, as she spoke :-

*In the summer of 1857 the British garrison in Lucknow were reduced to per Dous straits. They were besieged by the native rebels in a largely out..umbering force. Cruel, vindictive, and remorseless, these mutineers, could they enter the city, would put all the men, women, and children to a fearful death. They had advanced their batteries and mines so far that in less than an hour the city must fall, unless relief should be at hard. And relief was at hand, though no one was aware of it. Havelock with 2500 men was approaching, but amid the din and smoke of the cannonade nothing could be heard or seen.

On came Havelock and his men; they hewed a passage through the rebel masses up to the very walls of Lucknow, and snatched their countrymeu from the horrors of their impending fate.

"The Hielanders! Oh! dinna ye hear

The slogan far awa?

The McGregor's? Oh! I ken it weel;
It's the grandest o' them a'!

"God bless the bonny Hielanders!

We're saved! we're saved!" she cried;

And fell on her knees; and thanks to God
Flowed forth like a full flood-tide.

Along the battery-line her cry

Had fallen among the men,

And they started back ;—they were there to die;
But was life so near them, then?

They listened for life; the rattling fire
Far off, and the far-off roar,

Were all; and the colonel shook his head,
And they turned to their guns once more.

But Jessie said, "The slogan's done;
But winna ye hear it noo,

The Campbells are comin'! It's nae a dream;
Our succors hae broken through!”

We heard the roar and the rattle afar,
But the pipes we could not hear;

So the men plied their work of hopeless war,
And knew that the end was near.

It was not long ere it made its way,-
A shrilling, teaseless sound:

It was no noise from the strife afar,
Or the sappers under ground.

It was the pipes of the Highlanders!

And now they played Auld Lang Syne;

It came to our men like the voice of God,
And they shouted along the line.

And they wept and shook one another's hands,
And the women sobbed in a crowd;

And every one knelt down where he stood,
And we all thanked God aloud.

That happy time, when we welcomed them,
Our men put Jessie first;

And the general gave her his hand, and cheers
Like a storm from the soldiers burst.

And the pipers' ribbons and tartans streamed,
Marching round and round our line;

And our joyful cheers were broken with tears
As the pipers played Auld Lang Syne.

THE EXECUTION OF MONTROSE.-W. E. AYTOUN.

James Graham, Marquis of Montrose, was executed in Edinburgh, May 21, 1650, for an attempt to overthrow the power of the commonwealth, and restore Charles II. The balla 1 is a narrative of the event, supposed to be related by an aged Highlander, who had followed Montrose throughout his campaigns, to his grandson, Evan Cameron.

Come hither, Evan Cameron! Come, stand beside my knee:
I hear the river roaring down towards the wintry sea;
There's shouting on the mountain-side, there's war within
the blast,

Old faces look upon me, old forms go trooping past;
I hear the pibroch wailing amidst the din of fight,
And my dim spirit wakes again upon the verge of night.

"Twas I that led the Highland host through wild Locha

ber's snows,

What time the plaided clans came down to battle with Mon

trose.

I've told thee how the Southrons fell beneath the broad claymore,

And how we smote the Campbell clan by Inverlochy's shore. I've told thee how we swept Dundee, and tamed the Lind

say's pride;

But never have I told thee yet how the Great Marquis died.

A traitor sold him to his foes;-Oh, deed of deathless shame! I charge thee, boy, if e'er thou meet with one of Assynt's name,

Be it upon the mountain's side, or yet within the glen, Stand he in martial gear alone, or backed by arméd men,Face him as thou wouldst face the man who wronged thy

sire's renown;

Remember of what blood thou art, and strike the caitiff down.

They brought him to the Watergate, hard bound with hempen span,

As though they held a lion there, and not an unarmed man. They set him high upon a cart-the hangman rode belowThey drew his hands behind his back, and bared his noble brow:

Then, as a hound is slipped from leash, they cheered-the common throng,—

And blew the note with yell and shout, and bade him pass along.

But when he came, though pale and wan, he looked so great

and high,

So noble was his manly front, so calm his steadfast eye,—

The rabble rout forbore to shout, and each man held hit breath,

For well they knew the hero's soul was face to face with death.

And then a mournful shudder through all the people crept, And some that came to scoff at him, now turned aside and wept.

Had I been there with sword in hand, and fifty Camerons by, That day through high Dunedin's streets had pealed the slogan cry.

Not all their troops of trampling horse, nor might of mailéd

men

Not all the rebels in the south had born us backwards then! Once more his foot on Highland heath had trod as free as air,

Or I, and all who bore my name, been laid around him there.

It might not be. They placed him next within the solemn hall,

Where once the Scottish kings were throned amidst their nobles all.

But there was dust of vulgar feet on that polluted floor,

And perjured traitors filled the place where good men sat before.

With savage glee came Warristoun to read the murderous doom,

And then uprose the great Montrose in the middle of the

room:

"Now by my faith as belted knight, and by the name I bear, And by the bright Saint Andrew's cross that waves above us there,

Yea, by a greater, mightier oath, and oh, that such should be! By that dark stream of royal blood that lies 'twixt you and me,

I have not sought in battle-field a wreath of such renown, Nor hoped I, on my dying day, to win a martyr's crown!

"There is a chamber far away where sleep the good and brave, But a better place ye've named for me than by my father's

grave.

For truth and right, 'gainst treason's might, this hand hath always striven,

And ye raise it up for a witness still in the eye of earth and heaven.

Then nail my head on yonder tower,-give every town a

limb,

And God who made shall gather them: I go from you to Him."