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That she'd come by the early local, being anxious about

the lad,

And had seen him there on the metals, and the sight nigh drove her mad

She had seen him just as the engine of the Limited closed my view,

And she leapt on the line and saved him just as the mail dashed through.

She was back in the train in a second, and both were safe and sound;

The moment they stopped at the station she ran here, and I was found

With my eyes like a madman's glaring, and my face a ghastly white:

I heard the boy, and I fainted, and I hadn't my wits that night.

Who told me to do my duty? What voice was that on the wind?

Was it fancy that brought it to me? or were there God's lips behind?

If I hadn't a'done my duty-had I ventured to disobey— My bonny boy and his mother might have died by my hand that day.

SCHNEIDER'S TOMATOES.-CHAS. F. ADAMS.

Schneider is very fond of tomatoes. Schneider has a friend in the country who raises "garden sass and sich." Schneider had an invitation to visit his friend last summer, and regale himself on his favorite vegetable. His friend Pieiffer being busy negotiating with a city produce dealer, on his arrival, Schneider thought he would take a stroll in the garden, and see some of his favorites in their pristine beauty. We will let him tell the rest of his story in his own language.

"Vell, I valks shust a liddle vhile roundt, when I sees some off dose dermarters vot vas so red und nice as I nefer dit see any more, und I dinks I vill put mineself outside about a gouple-a-tozen, shust to geef me a liddle abbedite vor dinner. So I bulls off von ov der reddest

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und pest looking of dose dermarters, und dakes a pooty goot pite out ov dot, und vos chewing it oup pooty quick, ven-by chiminy!-I dort I had a peese ov red-hot coals in mine mout, or vas chewing oup dwo or dree bapers ov needles; und I velt so pad, already, dot mine eyes vas vool ov dears, und I mate vor an 'olt oken bucket' vot I seen hanging in der vell, as I vas gooming along.

"Shust den mine vriend Pfeiffer game oup und ask me vot mate me veel so padt, und if any ov mine vamily vas dead. I dold him dot I vas der only von ov der vamily dot vas pooty sick; und den I ask him vot kind ov dermarters dose vas vot I had shust peen bicking; und, mine cracious, how dot landsman laughft, und said dot dose vas red beppers dot he vas raising vor bepper-sauce. You pet my life I vas mat. I radder you gif me feefty tollars as to eat some more ov dose bepper-sauce dermarters."

A LEGEND.

I read a legend of a monk who painted,
In an old convent cell in days bygone,
Pictures of martys and of virgins sainted,

And the sweet Christ-face with the crown of thorn.
Poor daubs! not fit to be a chapel's treasure!
Full many a taunting word upon them fell,
But the good abbot let him, for his pleasure,
Adorn with them his solitary cell.

One night the poor monk mused: "Could I but render Honor to Christ as other painters do,

Were but my skill as great as is the tender

Love that inspires me when his cross I view!

"But no-'tis vain I toil and strive in sorrow; What man so scorns still less can he admire, My life's work is all valueless-to-morrow

I'll cast my ill-wrought pictures on the fire." He raised his eyes, within his cell-Oh wonder! There stood a visitor, thorn-crowned was he, And a sweet voice the silence rent asunder

"I scorn no work that's done for love of me."

And round the walls the paintings shone resplendent
With lights and colors to this world unknown,

A perfect beauty, and a hue transcendent,
That never yet on mortal canvas shone.

There is a meaning in the strange old story

Let none dare judge his brother's worth or meed;

The pure intent gives to the act its glory,

The noblest purpose makes the grandest deed.

THE HEART'S CHARITY.-ELIZA COOK.

A rich man walked abroad one day,
And a poor man walked the self-same way,
When a pale and starving face came by,
With a pallid lip and a hopeless eye;
And that starving face presumed to stand
And ask for bread from the rich man's hand!
But the rich man sullenly looked askance,
With a gathering frown and a doubtful glance:
"I have nothing," said he, "to give to you,
Nor any such rogue of a canting crew;"
And he fastened his pocket, and on he went,

With his soul untouched and his conscience content.

Now this great owner of golden store Had built a church not long before;

As noble a fane as man could raise,

And the world had given him thanks and praise,

And all who beheld it lavished fame

On his Christian gift and godly name.

The poor man passed, and the white lips dared To ask of him if a mite could be spared; He stood for a moment, but not to pause On the truth of the tale, or the parish laws;

He was seeking to give-though it was but small. For a penny, a single penny was all,

But he gave it with a kindly word,

While the warmest pulse in his heart was stirred. "Twas a tiny seed his charity shed,

But the white lips got a taste of bread,

And the beggar's blessing hallowed the crust
That came like a spring in the desert dust.

The rich man and the poor man died,
As all of us must; and they both were tried
At the sacred judgment-seat above,

For their thoughts of evil and deeds of love.
The balance of justice there was true,
And fairly bestowed what fairly was due;
And the two fresh comers at heaven's gate
Stood waiting to learn their eternal fate.

The recording angel told of things
That fitted them both with kindred wings;
But as they stood in the crystal light,

The plumes of the rich man grew less bright.
The angels knew by that shadowy sign

That the poor man's work had been most divine,
And they brought the unerring scales to see
Where the rich man's falling off could be.

Full many deeds did the angels weigh,
But the balance kept an even sway,
And at last the church endowment laid

With its thousands promised and thousands paid,
With the thanks of prelates by its side,

In the stately words of pious pride;

And it weighed so much that the angels stood

To see how the poor man could balance such good.

A cherub came and took his place

By the empty scale, with a radiant grace,
And he dropped the penny that had fed
White starving hips with a crust of bread;

The church endowment went up with the beam,
And the whisper of the great Supreme,

As he beckoned the poor man to his throne,
Was heard in this immortal tone;

"Blessed are they who from great gain
Give thousands with a reasoning brain,
But holier still shall be his part

Who gives one coin with a pitying heart!”

MR. PIPER'S MITTENS.-EDWARD F. TURNER. It was cold that New Year's Day. The people in the streets looked as they only can look when Jack Frost, Esq., is at work. All the noses which were not red were

blue, saving a select few (mostly Romans and Grecians), which were purple. Teeth held long conversations without any sort of reference to the wishes of their owners. Fingers and toes were either aching acutely, or else indulging in all known varieties of pins and needles, or else perfectly devoid of any feeling whatever. Breath issued out of mouths in clouds of steam until one might have fancied that all the boilers and steam-engines in London had assumed a human shape and gone out for a holiday.

Marvelous garments and head-coverings were brought into requisition; astounding fur caps-stupendous coatsgloves that nobody could possibly have shaken hands in--comforters that appeared to wind round and round and round, and to have no perceptible beginning or end. The thermometer was falling fast, and so were the footpassengers, for the pavement was covered with a coagulated mixture of frozen mud and snow as hard as iron and slippery as glass.

Verily it was cold, and no one was more thoroughly persuaded of the fact than was Mr. Piper, as he walked and ran, and slipped and stumbled along on his way to the city as best he might. There was no appearance of poverty about Mr. Piper, but his throat was fully exposed to the biting wind, and his hands were innocent of all covering except a pair of thin kid gloves, through divers rents in which his half-frozen fingers protruded visibly and most unwillingly. And there was generally about him an indescribable air of neglect, a want of being, as it were, finished off, which would have caused any person of discernment to say in a moment, "That man has no one to look after him at home."

Nor had he; for he was a widower, and his only child, a daughter, was for all practical purposes dead to him. She had married secretly, and very imprudently, a young gentleman with light-blue eyes and little fluffy whiskers, and whose means were even smaller than his whiskers.

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