A Housekeeper's Tragedy.

NE day as I wandered, I heard a complaining.

She glared at the mud on her doorsteps ('t was raining)
And this was her wail as she wielded the broom:

"O, life is a toil, and love is a trouble,

And beauty will fade, and riches will flee;
And pleasures they dwindle and prices they double,
And nothing is what I could wish it to be.

"There's too much of worriment goes to a bonnet ;
There's too much of ironing goes to a shirt;
There's nothing that pays for the time you waste on it;
There's nothing that lasts but trouble and dirt.
"In March it is mud; it's slush in December;
The midsummer breezes are loaded with dust;
In fall, the leaves litter; in muggy September
The wall-paper rots, and the candlesticks rust.

"There are worms in the cherries, and slugs in the

roses,

And ants in the sugar, and mice in the pies;

The rubbish of spiders no mortal supposes,

And ravaging roaches and damaging flies.
"It's sweeping at six, and dusting at seven;
It's victuals at eight, and dishes at nine;
It's potting and panning from ten to eleven;

We scarce break our fast ere we plan how to dine. "With grease and with grime, from corner to center, Forever at war, and forever alert,

No rest for a day, lest the enemy enter

I spend my whole life in a struggle with dirt.
"Last night, in my dreams, I was stationed forever
On a bare little isle in the midst of the sea;
My one chance of life was a ceaseless endeavor
To sweep off the waves ere they swept over me.
"Alas, 'twas no dream! Again I behold it!
I yield; I am helpless my fate to avert !"
She rolled down her sleeves, her apron she folded,
Then laid down and died, and was buried in dirt.
-Anonymous

THE

Mr. Meek's Baby.

HE voice of nature cries aloud in behalf of Augustus George, my infant son. It is for him that I wish to utter a few plaintive household words. I am not at all angry; I am mild-but miserable.

I wish to know why when my child, Augustus George, was expected in our circle, a provision of pins was made, as if the little stranger were a criminal who was to be put to the torture immediately on his arrival, instead of a holy babe? I wish to know why haste was made to stick those pins all over his innocent form, in every direction? I wish to know why light and air are excluded from Augustus George, like poison? Why, I ask, is my unoffending infant so hedged into a basket bedstead, with dimity and calico, with miniature sheets and blankets, that I can only hear him snuffle (and no wonder) deep down under the pink hood of a little bathing machine, and can never peruse even so much of his lineaments as his nose. Was I expected to be the father of a French roll, that the brushes of all nations were laid in, to rasp Augustus George? Am I to be told that his sensitive skin was ever intended by nature to have rashes brought out upon it, by the premature and incessant use of those formidable little instruments ?

Is my son a nutmeg, that he is to be grated on the stiff edges of sharp frills? Am I the parent of a muslin boy, that his yielding surface is to be crimped and small plaited? Or is my child composed of paper or of linen, that impressions of the finer getting-up art, prac

ticed by the laundress, are to be printed off all over his soft arms and legs, as I constantly observe them? The starch enters his soul; who can wonder that he cries? Was Augustus George intended to have limbs, or to be born a torso? I presume that limbs were the intention, as they are the usual practice. Then, why are my poor child's limbs fettered and tied up? Am I to be told that there is any analogy between Augustus George Meek and Jack Shepherd? Analyze castor oil at any institution of chemistry that may be agreed upon, and inform me what resemblance in taste it bears to that natural provision which it is at once the pride and duty of Maria Jane to administer to Augustus George? Yet, I charge Mrs. Prodgit (aided and abetted by Mrs. Bigby) with systematically forcing castor oil on my innocent son, from the first hour of his birth. When that medicine, in its efficient action, causes internal disturbance to Augustus George, I charge Mrs. Prodgit (aided and abetted by Mrs. Bigby) with insanely and inconsistently administering opium to allay the storm she has raised? What is the meaning of this?

If the days of Egyptian mummies are past, how dare Mrs. Prodgit require for the use of my son an amount of flannel and linen that would carpet my humble roof? Do I wonder that she requires it? No! This morning, within an hour, I beheld this agonizing sight. I beheld my son-Augustus George-in Mrs. Prodgit's hands, and on Mrs. Prodgit's knee, being dressed. He was at the moment, comparatively speaking, in a state of nature, having nothing on but an extremely short shirt, remarkably disproportionate to the length of his usual outer garments. Trailing from Mrs. Prodgit's lap, on the floor, was a long narrow roller or bandage-I should say of several yards in extent. In this I saw Mrs. Prodgit tightly roll the body of my unoffending infant, turning him over and over, now presenting his unconscious face upward, now the back of his bald head, until the unnatural feat was accomplished, and the bandage secured by a pin, which I have every reason to believe entered the body of my only child. In this tourniquet he passes the present phase of his existCan I know it and smile?

ence.

I fear I have been betrayed into expressing myself warmly, but I feel deeply. Not for myself; for Augustus George. I dare not interfere. Will any one? Will any publication? Any doctor? Any parent? Anybody? I do not complain that Mrs. Prodgit (aided and abetted by Mrs. Bigby) entirely alienates Maria Jane's affections from me, and interposes an impassable barrier between us. I do not complain of being made of no account. I don't want to be of any account. But Augustus George is a production of nature (I cannot think otherwise), and I claim that he should be treated with some remote reference to nature. In my opinion Mrs. Prodgit is from first to last, a convention and a superstition.

-Charles Dickens.

OF

Love and Lace Work.

F course I love him. (One, two, three,
And slip the fourth.) Dear fellow, yes,
He fairly worshiped me. (Now look:
This time you take two stitches less.)
Quite tall, well built; his eyes were gray-
(You pull that thread the other way

Two loops.) A dimple in his chin,
The sweetest hair. (My dear, observe)
He was a poet. (This begins

The second row, and makes a curve.)
I'm sure you'd like to read the rhymes
He wrote me. ('Round the edge three times).