Forty years old, madam, that I agree,

The roses washed out of my cheeks by the tears;
And counting my barren and desolate years

By the bright little heads dropping over your knee,
You look on my sorrow with scorn, it appears.

Well, smile, if you can, as you hold up in sight
Your matronly honors, for all men to see;

But I cannot discern, madam, what there can be
To move your proud mirth, in the wildness of night
Falling round me; no hearth for my coming alight,-
No rosy-red cheeks at the windows for me.

My love is my shame,-in your love you are crowned,—
But as we are women, our natures are one;

And think

By need of its nature, the dew and the sun
Belong to the poorest, pale flower o' the ground.
you that He who created the heart
Has struck it all helpless and hopeless apart
From these lesser works? Nay, I hold He has bound
Our rights with our needs in so sacred a knot,
We cannot undo them with any mere lie;
Nay, more, my proud lady, the love you have got
May belong to another as dreary as I!

You have all the world's recognition,-your bond,—
But have you that better right, lying beyond-
Agreement with conscience?-that sanction whereby
You can live in the face of the cruelest scorns?
Ay, set your bare bosom against the sharp thorns
Of jealousy, hatred,—against all the harms
Bad fortune can gather,-and say, With these arms
About me, I stand here to live and to die!
I take you to keep for my patron and saint,
And you shall be bound by that sweetest constraint

Of a liberty wide as the love that you give;

And so to the glory of God we will live,

Through health and through sickness, dear lover and friend, Through light and through darkness,-through all, to the

end!

Let it go! Let what go? Make me answer, I pray.

You were

My love for young Archibald Mill,-is that all?
I loved him with all my young heart, as you say,-
Nay, what is more, madam, I love him to-day,-
My cheeks thin and wan, and my hair gray on gray!
And so I am bold to come back to the town,
In hope that at last I may lay my bones down,
And have the green grasses blow over my face,
Among the old hills where my love had its birth!
If love were a trifle, the morning to grace,

speaking just now of some terrible fall,

And fade when the night came, why, what were it worth?

He is married! and I am come hither too late?
Your vision misleads you,-so pray you, untie
That knot from your sweet brow,-I come here to die,
And not to make moan for the chances of fate!

I know that all love that is true is divine,

And when this low incident, time, shall have sped,
I know the desire of my soul shall be mine,—
That, weary, or wounded, or dying, or dead,
The end is secure, so I bear the estate-
Despised of the world's favored women-and wait.

JOHN SMITH'S WILL.-B. P. SHILLABER.

Now, Mr. Smith, who had taken his leave,
Was a prudentish sort of a man;
He always said to prevent, not retrieve,
Was far the properest plan;

So, to hinder heart-burning and jealous hate,
And contending heirs make still,

Before he surrendered himself to fate

He prudently framed a will.

But he kept it shut from mortal look,
Nor could any define its tone;

To the favored to-be 'twas a close-sealed book,
As well as the destined-to-none.

So hope ran strong and hope ran high

In every degree of kin;

For virtues of Smith was breathed many a sigh,
But smiles were reserved for his tin.

Nor wife nor child

On Smith had e'er smiled,

To inherit the money for which he had toiled;
And he'd no nearer kin than uncles or cousins-
But these he had in numberless dozens.

Now cold was his clay,

And appointed the day

When his will was to open in legal way;

And the summons was put in the "Post," and all
Of the "next of kin" were invited to call,

To see what share to their lot would fall;
And every heir

Had assembled there

From sea and land, and from everywhere:
There was Smith from the plain,

And Smith from the still,

And Smith from the main,
And Smith from the mill,
And Smith from the mountain,
And Smith from the mart,
And Smith from the fountain,
And Smith from the cart;

From the furthest off to the very near,
The Smiths all came the will to hear.

And they soberly sat
In neighborly chat,

Talking all about this and that,
While the clock by the door

Was watched more and more

As the minute-hand neared the hour of four,-
The hour set when the opening seal

Their joy or their chagrin would reveal.
"Watch a pot and 'twill never boil,"
Hasten time-'tis an up-hill toil;
Watch a clock for the hour to go-

'Tis the weariest work a man can know;
And thus as they watched their patience waned,
Though not a voice of the mass complained,

For they thought it wouldn't be prudent to show
That they were aught anxious their doom to know.

Four struck at last, and, in eager array,
They gathered around an old man gray,
Who straightway out from its iron nook
Mr. Smith's very "last will" then took,
Nicely with black tape strongly tied,
With a huge black seal on either side.
The click of the shears, as the threads did part,
Went with a thrill to each waiting heart,

And then with anxious ear they hung

Upon every word from that old man's tongue.

His "soundness of mind"

And his creed were defined,

And then came the names to whom he was kind:

A cane to this,

And a box to that;

To one his dog,
Another his cat;
To this his buckles,

To that his hat;

Till, through the long list of legacies run,

The name of the heir was lighted upon :
When, in tones like the tones of a bell,
These were the words from his will that fell-

"And further, I, John,

Have fixed upon,

To fill my place upon earth when I'm gone,
John Smith the tenth, to be my heir,

My house to maintain and my honors to bear."

Now, here was a stew

To know what to do,

Or who the fortune had fallen to;

They couldn't tell, were they to be shot,
For fifteen Johns were then on the spot;

And which was the tenth with the prefix "John”
They were sadly at a loss to fix upon.

Then they argued the matter early and late,
But doubting grew with the growing debate.

And lawsuits gathered, and fees flew free,
And juries tried it and couldn't agree,
And fortunes were spent, till hope was gone,
In finding who was the favored John!
But they found instead that it wouldn't pay.
And so in court they allowed it to lay,
In the dust and rust of years piled away.

A century is it since Mr. Smith died,
And his family name is scattered wide,
And towns have arisen upon his broad land,
Prosperity beaming on every hand;

A factory hums o'er his old hearth-stone,

But John Smith the tenth one was never known,
And John Smith's will will in chancery be
Till time is lost in eternity's sea.

A LONDON BEE STORY.-QUIZ.

I had an improved back yard. I went through a seed store and bought a sample of everything that would grow in this climate. The result was a perfect tangle of flowers and things, from an overgrown sunflower to a forget-menot. Mrs. Bricktop is very proud of our garden, and while gushing over it the other morning, a happy thought worked its way under her back hair: "What a delightful thing it would be to have a hive of bees, and raise our own honey, as well as everything else!" I have always thought that woman inspired ever since she convinced me that I couldn't

do better than to marry her. This was an original, bold idea; a happy thought. I promised her a hive of bees, and went to business with a lighter heart, and firmer belief in the genuineness of home comforts and amusements.

I bought a hive of honey-bees and brought it home with me that very night. It was one of those patent hydrostatic, back-action hives, in which the bees have peculiar accommodations and all the modern improvements. It was a nice little hive, none of your old-fashioned barn-size affairs. It even had windows in it, so that the bees could look out and see what was going on, and enjoy themselves. Both myself and Mrs. B. were delighted; and before dark I arranged a stand for the hive in the garden, and opened the bay-windows so that the bees could take an early start and get to business by sunrise next morning. Mrs. B. called me honey several times during the evening; and such sweet dreams as we had!

We intended to be up early next morning to see how our little birds took to our flowers; but a good half-hour before we probably should have done so we were awakened by the unearthly yells of a cat. Mrs. B. leaped from her downy couch, exclaiming, "What can be the matter with our yellow Billy?" The yells of anguish convinced us that something more than ordinary was the matter with him, and so we hurried into our toilets. We rushed out into our back yard, and, oh, what a sight met our astonished gaze! The sight consisted of a yellow cat that appeared to be doing its best to make a pin-wheel of itself. He was rolling over and over in the grass, bounding up and down, anon darting through the bushes and foliage, standing on his head, and then trying to drive his tail into the ground, and all the while keeping up the most confounded yowling that was ever heard.

"The cat is mad," said Mrs. B., affrighted. "Why shouldn't he be? the bees are stinging him," said I, comprehending the trouble. Mrs. B. flew to the rescue of her cat, and the cat flew at her. So did the bees. One of them drove his drill into her nose, another vaccinated her on the chin, while another began to lay out his work near her eye. Then she howled, and began to act almost as bad as the cat. It was quite an animated scene. She cried murder, and the