she exclaims with the worried slave-woman, "I wonder what God brought us into the world for."

Happy Millicent, we say amidst our tears and smiles, as Frederick, listening to what in very truth was a woman's answer, "impresses a lover's kiss on the pure face."

There are other characters as faithfully drawn as the heroine's, but she is our favorite, and so we have suffered our pen to tell you of her mostly. There are other graphic scenes, too, where the horrors of civil war are depicted with truthful earnestness. Nor has the writer exaggerated them, as might, perhaps, have been expected, and would, indeed, have been pardonable in one who could not help leaning somewhat to New England associations. We speak advisedly, for among our most intimate friends was a lady whose sister resided in Kentucky through all the war, and the letters of that Union wife and mother are one long record of atrocities that curdle your blood, and insults that make you long for a sword and musket. "I am weaving," she writes, at one time, "and as fast as I get enough for one leg to a pair of pants, or one breadth to a skirt, I have to cut it out of the loom and hide it in the woods. Sometimes our house is searched every day in the week, and I never go to bed without expecting to be roused up by some midnight marauders." At another time she says, 66 The bed was taken away, dragged away from under my dying child, and three of us sat down on the floor in a row and making a mattress of our knees, held her so till the breath passed out of her." "We buried her one rainy night, without a minister to speak a word of comfort or say a prayer. We had coaxed a man to dig the grave, but we carried her to it ourselves, and while I stood by the other woman filled it up. I couldn't, O, I couldn't, Louisa, shovel the sods on to my own darling."

Brother against brother, child against parent, slave against master, so it went. And in this volume of Miss Remick's, the second novel she has given us, we have a story which, if not true in all its details, is yet in its spirit a faithful record of the times, and so forcibly written, too, that the interest never flags. The only regret we experience is, that there is no more of the story, and that our own imagination must picture the domestic life of the

MEMORIALS TO THE BRAVE DEPARTED. A new way of erecting memorials to dead soldiers has been devised which seems to meet with approbation from many. Instead of a useless block of marble in spots seldom visited, it is proposed to erect buildings, in which people may congregate for some purpose, and where the names of the dead will be seen inscribed, bringing them and their deeds constantly to remembrance. The town of Gloucester, in this State, has inaugurated a movement to this effect. They propose to erect a building at a cost of $20,000, embracing a Town Hall and other apartments which may be let for public uses, and the proceeds devoted to the relief of the widows and orphans of the soldiers, whose names will be inscribed upon the walls. The city of Chelsea proposes to erect a building for a Public Library which shall be devoted to the same laudable purpose of keeping alive the memory of the glorious dead.

MOTHER'S WORK. WE copy the following Our Massachusetts from the Home Journal. ladies are somewhat distinguished in this line. NEW VOCATION FOR LADIES. In every society, particularly of a city like New York, there is a distinct class known as the women of talent. These are misses, or widows, or ladies married inadequately — all needing additional support; each of these gifted ones, however, is 'likely to have a friend in a lady of fashion large house and is willing to lend it to her talsome wealthy and kindly person who has a very ented sister for the convenience of a "family reading." The readings are easily acquired, of course, from Shakspeare or Corneille or other standards, and then, with the "rent free" and nothing to do but dispose of the tickets for a matinee or a soiree, (at a very high price,) the talented woman for once has her audience.

Our newest arrival from England is a lady line, by readings before the Queen. She has who has distinguished herself very much in this that wonderful advantage of English accentuation, besides being a very handsome person to begin with. This is Mrs. Posser, and she has given one of her readings at the house of Mr. Phelps in Seventh street; besides which we understand she is open to "offers" from the various theatrical managers.

EDITOR'S DRAWER.

A PUZZLED ENGLISHMAN.-Hon. Thomas Corwin, lately United States Minister to Mexico, while in New York not long ago was introduced to one of the party of heavy-pursed Englishmen, then travelling in our country, as an "Ohioan." The British gentleman was at first a little puzzled to guess Mr. Corwin's nationality, but after gazing upon his sunburned face, he warmly seized the honorable gentleman's hand and kindly inquired whether gentleman's hand and kindly inquired whether his tribe were at peace with the whites.

A POWERFUL APPEAL.- A few years ago, in Ohio, there lived on a small stream called “Duck Creek" a local preacher of the Methodist Church, by the name of Jacob Smith. His educational advantages had been somewhat slender; so that often in his preaching he "murdered the king's English" by wholesale. On one occasion he was preaching in his own neighborhood, in "Smith's Meeting-house," during which some of the young Smiths indulged in bad behavior. He paused, drew himself up to his full height, and pointing his long, hard finger at them, exclaimed, "What! will you cut up here in Smith's old meetinghouse, when there lies your grandmother (pointing through the window to the graveyard,) what is the offspring of us all ?"

In the good old times before railroads in Arkansas, when the lawyers had to travel afoot or on horseback, Fred Trapnall, who, besides being a most excellent lawyer was a capital good fellow, was in company with three others on his way to Chicot Court. The road was chiefly through the river bottoms; the waters were extremely low, and groceries accordingly scarce. Fred had a singularly sweet tooth, and his coffee almost universally had to be sweetened over again. On this occasion, at dinner, he sent his cup back to the presiding mistress of the cabin, with- "If you please, madam, I like my coffee very sweet, and I'll thank you for a little more sugar." He was helped, but returned it with a similar request, even to the third time of asking; when the lady, "her eyes a fine frenzy rolling," seized the delinquent sugar-dish, and stepping rapidly to Fred plumped it down before him on the table, and said, "There! take it all!"

HIS WIFE'S SISTER.- A German, in Texas, who didn't want to be forced into the rebel army, donned homespun gown and sun-bonnet, and toiled for two years as his wife's sister, come to stay with her, from a distance, during her husband's absence in the Confederate army. Another German lay for eighteen months in the cellar of his own house, even his neighbors supposing him in the rebel army.

Near the town of D —, in the Blue-glass region of Kentucky, lives the family of a gentleman who represented Missouri in the late rebel Senate. George and Charley are the pets of the household; the former, a goldenhaired, bright-eyed scamp, full of mischief, and always cunning enough to attempt to shield himself by some device; the latter his opposite in disposition — amiable, yielding, and easily tyrannized over. George is always ready to take advantage of this weakness. Shortly after the father's return from Dixie he interfered with George's overbearing conduct toward his brother Charley, and reproved him severely. George was very young when his father left, and since his return had not become reconciled to a calm submission to parental authority, and when reproved by his father on the occasion mentioned, he boldly said: "You let me alone; I don't know what you come here for, anyhow, always making a fuss. If you don't quit I'll tell Gen. Fry, and he'll hang you for a webel !"

The New Bedford Standard says: “A lady, the daughter of a person of great wealth, and having herself "great expectations," went to a washerwoman and inquired how much she charged a dozen for washing skirts. “One dollar a dozen," was the reply. "That is a good deal," says the lady. "I want you to wash the lower half of three skirts for me."

One Sunday, lately, in the middle of Ireland, while service was going on in the Catholic Church, three ladies entered the building to take refuge from a sudden storm. The priest, not knowing the ladies personally, whispered to the sacristan,——

"Three chairs for the Protestant ladies." The sacristan immediately stepped up to the congregation, and bade them give three cheers for the Protestant ladies, which they did in good style. The confusion and vexation of the poor priest may be imagined, not described.

Judge Fine, of Ogdensburg, St. Lawrence County, is well-known as an able lawyer, an excellent Judge, and an accomplished gentleman, and withal a fine scholar and interesting public speaker. In the exciting Presidential canvass of 1840 the Judge and two or three of his lawyer friends were out stumping it, when there fell in with them one of the numerous political bores of the country, who had far more zeal than knowledge, and who insisted on going the rounds of the Judge's appointments with the party. Everywhere the fellow made himself noisily conspicuous, to the infinite annoyance of the Judge and his party, and to the great disgust of the more intelligent among the audiences. After endurance had ceased to be a virtue, the Judge determined to get rid of him. The party had stopped at the village of De Kalb for refreshments; and when the wine was being passed, Bore, who had seated himself next to the Judge, demanded that each of the party should in turn tell a story or sing a song,- beginning with the Judge. The Judge remarked that he never sang, but he would tell a story. Then, addressing himself particularly to Bore, he proceeded: It was in the good old times, such as Esop tells of, when all the animals as well as man had the gift of speech, that a fox in his rambles came to a deserted church, which he determined to explore in quest of game or information. In wandering over the building he came at length to the belfry, when, seeing the bell, his curiosity was greatly excited, and he resolved to find out what it was. So he climbed up on the timbers till he could reach the bell, and finding it would swing, he continued to move it till the clapper struck the side, when the noise caused him to start back in alarm, but finding himself unhurt he approached it again and swung it till it rung repeatedly, when at last he withdrew in great disgust, and, shaking his paw at it exclaimed,- (and here the Judge rose, keeping his eye on Bore,) · "You long-tongued, hollow-headed, noisy fool,

At Atlanta, Georgia, an elderly colored woman of the true Southern type thus addressed me: "Can you tell me, Sah, whar the Freedman's Bureau Co. is?" I answered in the affirmative, and as I was going to the same place told her to accompany me. On our arrival she inquired of the officer in charge "if this was the Freedman's Bureau Co. ?" He said "Yes," and asked, "What can I do for you?" She said: "Well, I want a bureau: none of your common pine ones. I want a mahogany bureau, with a looking-glass." She could not be persuaded but that this was the legitimate business of the office-to furnish bureaus to Freedmen but was finally satisfied by an assurance that from the first lot received a mahogany bureau with a lookingglass would be reserved for her.

Baron Rothschild once complained to Lord Brougham of the hardship of not being allowed to take his seat in Parliament. "You know," said he, "I was the choice of the people." To which the Ex-Chancellor with his usual causticity, replied, "So was Barabbas."

A correspondent in Havana writes that if he wished to describe the island of Cuba in a single line, he should call it

"The land of the flea and the home of the slave."

time very quietly by her aunt, when suddenly Our little Stella had been sitting for some looking up from her work, she remarked, Aunty, if all the folks in the world should think out aloud what a racket there would be!"

66

A few years ago, I filled up a bond and warrant for a neighbor, and told him to go before an Alderman and sign it. It so happened he called on my friend, the Dutch Alderman. When he returned the paper I found the Alderman's name affixed to the right hand seal

making himself responsible, of course, for the amount of the bond, and my neighbor's name to the left of the paper as a witness. My neighbor called on him with a new paper, but the Alderman became very indignant, refusing for a long while to have the paper properly executed, declaring that he knew what the law was.

EDITOR WITH THE CHILDREN.

HOW WILLIE WATSON WAS SAVED FROM A FIRE. The smashing in of windows, and breaking down of doors, seemed as if but child's play to these heroic men; and with a dauntless courage that seemed almost more than human, they sprang up the burning staircases, and across the crackling floors, to seize the panicstricken tenants, or drag them, already half suffocated, from a repose that might soon prove

fatal.

A loud warning shout from those outside told of some fearful danger, and speedily every one had fled from the devoted building, smoke-begrimed, scorched, and bruised, but yet in life. Nor had they quitted it one second too soon. Scarce had the last one been received by the sympathizing crowd, ere the three lower stairs fell in with a tremendous crash, and with renewed vigor the flames darted upwards, threatening, in a very short space of time, to ingulf the remaining portion in the smoking ruins.

A hasty council was held, to see if all the lives had been saved, or if some unfortunate beings were yet in the devoted house.

All are saved! No, not all! A woman's voice calls out "Mrs. Watson? Is Mrs. Watson here?"

"Mrs. Watson, who is she?" interrogated a by-stander.

"A poor widow who earns her living by going out to wash, and nurse the sick.”

"Mrs. Watson was to pass the night with a lady who is very ill," said another; "she told me so yesterday. But where is Willie, her little boy?"

"Would she not take him along with her?” inquired a member of the fire-brigade.

"Impossible!" ejaculated a third female; "she would not take him into a sick-room. Poor darling! he must be in the ruins still."

All eyes were once more directed towards the burning mass, and some could scarce credit their senses, on beholding at an open window on the upper story, the delicate form of a child, apparently not more than four or five years of age, habited in a white night-dress, his little hands clasped as if in the attitude of supplication, but otherwise calm and self-possessed, as if fully prepared to meet the doom which seemed to await him.

At this moment a woman, poorly, but decently clad, forced her way through the crowd.

"My boy! my Willie! is he saved?" she gasped. No answer was required. Her eyes turned upon the little figure in that upper story, and with a wild despairing shriek she sprang forward to rescue her child, or share his fate.

But strong arms were outstretched to seize and bear the struggling, half frantic mother from the fearful scene.

The fire-escape was brought close to the fire, and several brave men mounted the ladders, to make one last attempt for the rescue of the

child.

Alas! their efforts were in vain; the ladders were too short!

"A bed! is there a feather bed to be had? cried a loud, strong voice.

"Yes, yes, here is one;" and immediately some volunteered their services in hoisting this chance of escape.

It was a difficult and tedious enterprise, and meanwhile the fire was making fearful progress. The forked tongues of flame played around the window where the child yet stood, calm, selfpossessed as ever. Five minutes more and the little cotton night-dress would have proved his fiery shroud; but the bed was now arranged.

"Come now, my brave little fellow," shouted one of the men, "throw yourself down on this. Don't be afraid of falling; we'll catch you.”

At once the child obeyed. One moment his light form hovered in the darkened air, — one moment of terrible suspense to the onlookers below, then one long, loud, universal "Huzza" burst from every lip,- he was saved!

Well, my brave little hero,” asked a strong, rough man, as he hugged the boy to his bosom, "weren't you afraid in the midst of that fire?" “O, yes, I was, for a long time," said the boy; "but I remembered the story mother has often told me of God saving the Hebrew children out of the fire which the wicked king put them into. And I prayed to God to save me too, and then I was no more afraid. I believed He would save me, and you see He has."

That night the poor widow might have been seen creeping softly into a little room in a neighbor's house, and kneeling in prayer at the bedside of her darling boy as he lay fast asleep. There, with tears filling her eyes, she poured out her heart in grateful thanks to God for His goodness to her that day;-to Him who is a Husband to the widow, and a "Father to the fatherless."

Bertha and Her Books.

BY SILVIA.

CHAPTER I.

LEARNING TO READ.

It was a rainy afternoon. Bertha Sears and her sister Effie stood by the window watching for the return of the carriage in which their father had gone to meet their cousin Laura, whom they expected to arrive in the cars. "Mother," said Bertha, "isn't it almost time for the train?”

"I think you will hear it soon," was the reply. "Oh dear, I wish it didn't rain so fast! Do you suppose she will come to-night?" said the impatient little girl, a few moments after.

“I think very likely she will," said Mrs. Sears. "She would have started before it began to rain, if she were coming."

Bertha now went on talking to Effie. "What do you suppose I like cousin Laura so much for?"

"Candy?" suggested Effie, looking as though she thought gibralters and gum-drops were the only things worth a thank you.

"No," said Bertha, "stories. Such nice ones she used to tell, ever so long ago, when you were so little you couldn't talk nor walk. She used to stay with us ever so long then, before she went to school. She made me a cornstalk chair and a willow whistle once."

"Can she dress dollies?" asked Effie.

for it was true, that, although she was nearly six years old, she knew no more, even of the letters of our alphabet, than you do of the Chinese. Her father thought she was now old enough to commence her studies; and, for the present, cousin Laura was to be her teacher. Pictured copies of Mother Goose, The House that Jack Built, Little Red Riding Hood, and a small album being her only books, she brought these along, to ask in which she should take her first reading lesson.

"I think we can find something better than either of those," was the reply of cousin Laura. "Haven't you a slate and pencil?

Bertha brought these also, and for a week or two she had no other than a slate book. From this she began to learn reading, drawing, and writing. For a little while, she knew the letters only by the sounds for which they stand; so she never made such funny mistakes as some children do, calling d-o-g, man, or as Eshe did one day when she said she knew how to spell. "Let me hear you," said her father. “A-h-r-b, thunder!" exclaimed the confident little miss, looking around with surprise at the laugh which followed.

Cousin Laura had such a charming way of telling stories, and bestowing praise for good lessons, that, to Bertha, her study hours were the happiest hours of the day. After studying in this way for a few weeks, she had a new reading book, in which she went on famously. Before many months she was able to read "Lucy among the Mountains" almost as well as cousin Laura herself. The summer after her seventh birthday she commenced going to the village school.

CHAPTER II.

SABBATH LESSONS.

Bertha was eight years old last May. In the summer she and Effie went to school. Now it is winter. The water in the ponds is deep and frozen, and the path over the hills and through the woods, their nearest way to the village, is hidden by the snow. Again, they are studying at home and reciting to cousin Laura. They are especially interested, this season, in their Sabbath lessons, which they learn from a new pictorial question book. Effie likes best to repeat the little verses at the end of each lesson. To-day they have learned about the Golden Rule, and Bertha has read the sixth chapter of