I try to stay my tears, and to reply, "Oh, Dora, love, as fit as I to be a husband!"

"I don't know," with the old shake of her curls. "Perhaps! But, if I had been more fit to be married, I might have made you more so, too. Besides you are very clever,

and I never was."

"We have been very happy, my sweet Dora."

"I was very happy, very. But as years went on, my dear boy would have wearied of his child-wife. She would have been less and less a companion for him. He would have been more and more sensible of what was wanting in his home. She wouldn't have improved. It is better as it is." "Oh, Dora, dearest, dearest, do not speak to me so. Every word seems a reproach!"

Oh, my

"No, not a syllable!" she answers, kissing me. dear, you never deserved it, and I loved you far too well, to say a reproachful word to you, in earnest-it was all the merit I had, except being pretty-or you thought me so. Is it lonely down stairs, Doady?"

"Very! Very!"

"Don't cry! Is my chair there?"

"In its old place."

"Oh, how my poor boy cries! Hush, hush!

Now, make

When you go

and while

me one promise. I want to speak to Agnes. down stairs, tell Agnes so, and send her up to me; I speak to her, let no one come-not even aunt. I want to speak to Agnes by herself. I want to speak to Agnes quite alone."

I promise that she shall, immediately; but I cannot leave her, for my grief.

"I said that it was better as it is!" she whispers as she holds me in her arms. "Oh, Doady, after more years, you never could have loved your child-wife better than you do; and after more years, she would so have tried and disappointed you, that you might not have been able to love her half so well! I know I was too young and foolish. It is much better as it is!"

Agnes is down stairs, when I go into the parlor; and I give her the message. She disappears, leaving me alone with Jip. His Chinese house is by the fire; and he lies within it, on

his bed of flannel, querulously trying to sleep. The bright moon is high and clear. As I look out on the night, my tears fall fast, and my undisciplined heart is chastened heavily-heavily.

I sit down by the fire, thinking with a blind remorse of all those secret feelings I have nourished since my marriage. I think of every little trifle between me and Dora, and feel the truth, that trifles make the sum of life. Ever rising from the sea of my remembrance, is the image of the dear child as I knew her first, graced by my young love, and by her own, with every fascination wherein such love is rich. Would it, indeed, have been better if we had loved each other as a boy and girl, and forgotten it? Undisciplined heart, reply!

How the time wears, I know not; until I am recalled by my child-wife's old companion. More restless than he was he crawls out of his house, and looks at me, and wanders to the door, and whines to go up stairs.

"Not to-night, Jip! Not to-night!”

He comes very slowly back to me, licks my hand, and lifts his dim eyes to my face.

Oh, Jip! It may be never again!"

He lies down at my feet, stretches himself out as if to sleep, and with a plaintive cry, is dead.

"O Agnes! Look, look here!"

That face, so full of pity and of grief, that rain of tears, that awful mute appeal to me, that solemn hand upraised towards Heaven!

"Agnes?"-It is over. Darkness comes before my eyes; and for a time all things are blotted out of my remembrance.

A CONSTANT READER.-PARMENAS MIX.

The overworked scribe of the Mudville Gazette
Sat wondering,-moneyless wight,-

If his office would ever be cleared of its debt,
With the times so deplorably tight,-

When the tread of old leather was heard on the stair
And a stranger stepped into the room,

Who asked with the "don't let me bother you" air,
Which the bore is so apt to assume-

How are ye?" The editor rose with a smile
And pleasantly yielded his chair-
Placed the visitor's sadly unbeautiful tile
(Which exhibited symptoms of wear)
On the top of the desk, alongside of his own
(A shocking old plug, by the way),

And then asked in a rather obsequious tone, "Can we do anything for you to-day?"

"No--I jest called to see ye "-the visitor said;
"I'm a friend to the newspaper man

Here he ran a red handkerchief over his head,
And accepted the editor's fan-

"I hev read all the pieces you've writ for your sheet,
And they're straight to the p’int, I confess—
That 'ar slap you gin Keyser was sartinly neat--
You're an ornyment, sir, to the press!"

"I am glad you are pleased," said the writer, “ indeed ; But you praise me too highly, by far

Just select an exchange that you're anxious to read,
And while reading it, try this cigar.

By the way, I've a melon laid up for a treat

I've been keeping it nestled in ice,

It's a beauty, sir, fit for an angel to eat

Now, perhaps, you will relish a slice?"

Then the stranger rolled up half a dozen or more

Of the choicest exchanges of all—

Helped himself to the fruit, threw the rinds on the floor, Or flung them at flies on the wall.

He assured his new friend that his "pieces were wrote
In a manner uncommonly able,”

As he wiped his red hands on the editor's coat
That hung at the side of the table.

"By the way, I've neglected to ask you your name,"
Said the scribe as the stranger arose:

"That's a fact," he replied, “I'm Abimalech Bame,
You have heerd o' that name, I suppose?

I'm a-livin' out here on the Fiddletown Creek
Where I own a good house and a lot;

The Gazette gets around to me wunst every week-
I'm the constantest reader you've got!"

"Abimalech Bame," mused the editor, "B-a-m-e--”
(Here his guest begged a chew of his 'twist')
"I am
am sorry to say your mellifluous name

Doesn't happen to honor my list!"

"Spose not;" was the answer-" no reason it should, For ye see I jine lots with Bill Prim—

He's a reg'lar subscriber and pays ye in wood,
And I borry your paper o' him!

-Scribner's Monthly.

OUR SWEET UNEXPRESSED.-W. F. Fox.

Like pearls that lie hid 'neath the ocean's broad breast,
Where its waters unceasingly roll,

Are our beautiful thoughts-our sweet unexpressed,
That are lost in the depth of the soul.

Oh! weak is the effort of language or pen
To e'er utter the mind's purest thought:
Impotent is every word chosen then

To portray the bright images caught.

Each voice of the soul, and each thrill of the heart,
Are but drops from the fountain within:
Though the drops, as they fall, may richness impart,
There is richness we never may win.

When love would the depth of her passion reveal,
And would all her sweet treasures declare,

Oh! how little we say of all that we feel,

For our words seem as empty as air.

When fancy would spread her soft wing to the air,
And our moments would fill with delight,

Oh, how little we prove of all that seems there!
All a dream, like the dream of a night.

When a landscape we'd sketch—some dearly loved spot,
Where the fondest of memories dwell-
Though the hand may be skilled, it satisfies not:
There is something the hand cannot tell.

When music invites the soft flow of the soul,
And her songs would inspiringly sing,

Though sweet be her notes in the currents that roll,
Yet her sweetest she never may bring.

As jewels incased in a casket of gold,

Where the richest of treasures we hide,

So our purest of thoughts lie deep and untold,
Like the gems that are under the tide.

THE MYSTIC VEIL.

This world I deem but a beautiful dream
Of shadows which are not what they seem;
Where visions rise giving dim surmise

Of the things that shall meet our waking eyes.

Hardly they shine thro' the outer shrine,
As, beneath the veil of that flesh divine,
Beamed forth the light which were else too bright
For the feebleness of a sinner's sight.

I gaze aloof on the tissued roof,

Where time and space are the warp and woof
Which the King of kings as a curtain flings
O'er the dazzling face of eternal things.

A tapestried tent, to shade us meant,

From the ever radiant firmament,

So the blaze of the skies comes soft to the eyes
Thro' the veil of mystical imageries.

But could I see as in truth they be

The glories of heaven which encompass me,
I should lightly hold the fleeting fold
Of that marvellous curtain of blue and gold.

Soon the whole like a parchéd scroll,
Shall before my amazed sight uproll,
And without a screen, at one burst be seen.
The Presence wherein I've ever been.

Oh! who shall bear the blinding glare
Of the Majesty that shall meet us there?
What eyes may gaze on the upvened blaze

Of the light-girdled throne of Ancient of days

THE THREE WARN NGS.-MRS THRALE.

The tree of deepest root

Least willing still to qui

found
the ground:

"Twas therefore said by ncient sages,

That love of life increased with years

So much, that in our latter stages,

When pains grow sharp, and sickness rages,

The greatest love of life appears.

This great affection to believe,
Which all confess, but few perceive,-
If old assertions can't prevail,—
Be pleased to hear a modern tale.