The brothers heard, and thought it was no sin
To stay away; besides, his absence long

Had quenched the love not ever over-strong.
What did the faithless friend? He knelt in tears,
Looked back in anguish o'er the vanished years,
Saw once again their happy boyhood's time,
Their manhood's friendship, his repented crime.
"Oh, my wronged Erfurth, now in death so cold,
I've your forgiveness, care I for your gold?"
And, at the funeral, striving to atone,
The single mourner there, he walked alone.

The letter opened at the Mayor's will,
Was found to hold the miser's codicil,

Wherein he gave his hoarded gold and lands
To him that disobeyed the will's commands,

Should such there be,-whose heart knew love or pity,―
Or, failing, all went to his native city.

And so the friend who stole his bride away;
Who turned to night his joyous morn of day,
Humbly repentant, when his victim died,
Received his pardon and his wealth beside.

TOTAL ANNIHILATION.-MARY D. BRINE.

Oh, he was a Bowery bootblack bold,
And his years they numbered nine;
Rough and unpolished was he, albeit
He constantly aimed to shine.

As proud as a king on his box he sat,
Munching an apple red,

While the boys of his set looked wistfully on,
And "Give us a bite!" they said.

But the bootblack smiled a lordly smile;
"No free bites here!" he cried.

Then the boys they sadly walked away,

Save one who stood at his side.

“Bill, give us the core," he whispered low. That bootblack smiled once more,

And a mischievous dimple grew in his cheek"There ain't goin' to be no core!"

LITTLE TOM.-C. B. LEWIS.

His step was unsteady and his hands trembled, and there was that unmeaning look in his eyes which comes when rum has benumbed the brain.

Not thus for once, but it was the same day after day, and we who had known him for years and years-who knew his tender heart and his many noble traits-grew sad and sought to pull him away from the gulf toward which his footsteps tended. He listened and promised. He knew that degradation and disgrace were before him, and he made a gallant struggle to walk in better paths.

We were made glad then. The human heart never beats so proudly as when it has sympathized with and encouraged another heart to do right. We did not taunt him with his failings, and thereby inflict scars which kind words would be long effacing; we did not let him know that we feared temptation would overrule his desire to do right, but we trusted him.

The tempter waited for him at every turn, clothed in pleasant garb and wearing winning smiles. The tempter flattered him, praised him, ridiculed his good resolutions, and we were not there to plead our cause. He came back to us one night with that vacant stare and halting step, and we wondered if there was anything which could strengthen his manhood and arm him to resist those enemies who believed themselves true friends, while they bound him with chains which held him down.

He promised again and again,—promised, meaning to be true, but coming back to us with that terrible, hopeless look which strong drink paints on the face of him marked for a grave over which no eye grows dim, and on which no tear of love or sorrow ever falls. At last we gave him up, and we looked upon him as a once stalwart pine whose roots had been loosened by a mighty flood, and which now swayed and trembled, ready to fall, yet having something to prevent the crash for a little

time. We had clung to him while there was hope,-we waited and watched and kept our hearts open when hope had fled away, and men wondered that his grave was not waiting for him.

Little Tom! Strange that we should have forgotten him! And yet we had not, for we knew that many times and oft his childish words had cut the father's heart and thrilled his soul more than any words of ours,—more than the prayers and tears of a fond wife or a gray-haired mother. When he had forgotten us who had labored with him like brothers, when the memories of home and childhood no longer had a lodging place in his heart, when manhood had been left groveling in the dust, then one mightier than man came to help us. Our tears fell, and yet we knew not whether to grieve or rejoice. He sat at his table, the dim gas-light casting strange shadows over his bowed head. We had seen him thus so often that we could only pity. Unnerved, unstrung,floating out into the great wide ocean wherein wretched souls are being tossed and driven about with not one ray of hope to break the awful gloom,-no wonder that his pencil was idle and his light dim.

A step on the stairs. It had a sound so unfamiliar What we raised our heads and looked at each other in a startled way and waited. Step! step! it came nearer, and we rose up as a figure stood in the door, a figure with face so white and look so wild that we could not speak. She saw the form at the table, and she bent over it and almost shrieked:

"Come home! Little Tom is dying!"

The words roused him. He looked from her to us, and back, in a bewildered way, and she wailed:

"Little Tom's been dying all day! He wants you to hold him once more!"

The words drove his weakness away in a moment, and the bewildered look was replaced by one of such fear and remorse and anxiety as no human face may ever wear

again. We went with them, for Little Tom's rosy face and happy voice had won him a place in our hearts. Seeming not to feel the earth he trod upon, nor to know whether it was broad day or solemn midnight, the father hastened on, and he was there before us.

"Little Tom! speak to me-it's father!" he wailed as he clasped the dying boy in his arms, while the mother knelt by the empty crib and prayed God that her desolate hearthstone should not be further overshadowed. "Father!" whispered the child as he unclosed his eyes and put death away for a brief space.

"Tom! oh! my Tom!" sobbed the father.

"I wanted you to hold me!" whispered Tom—“I wanted you to kiss me!"

"Leave my boy-leave me one thing to love!" prayed the mother.

"I cannot let him go-he must not die!" sobbed the father.

"Kiss Little Tom!" whispered the child-"hold me tight-I cannot see, father!"

Then all was still. The silent messenger had come and gone. With his icy finger he had touched the little heart, and beside the form of their dead boy the stricken parents knelt and wept.

We grieved with them. The heart knows no grief like that grief which swells it when death stills a little voice and folds little white hands over a heart which never had an evil thought. We grieved then, but as the days went by and the weeks made months, we rejoiced. Our friend grew strong and noble and manly again. The cup of bitter degradation was dashed to earth, and he was strong as a lion to do right and resist temptation.

So he stands to-day, and though we know that grief has dimmed his sunshine, and that his heart will pain. and swell as he remembers the little grave whose mantle of grass is nourished by a mother's tears, we thank God that Little Tom is with the angels.

WHAT ADAM MISSED.

Adam never knew what 'twas to be a boy
To wheedle pennies from a doting sire,
With which to barter for some pleasing toy,
Or calm the rising of a strong desire

To suck an orange. Nor did he

E'er cast the shuttlecock to battledoor;

Nor were his trousers ever out at knee,

From playing marbles on the kitchen floor.

He never skated o'er the frozen rill,

When winter's covering o'er the earth was spread; Nor ever glided down the slippery hill,

With pretty girls upon his trusty sled.

He never swung upon his father's gate,
Or slept in sunshine on the cellar door,
Nor roasted chestnuts at the kitchen grate,
Nor spun his humming top upon the floor.

He ne'er amused himself with rows of bricks,
So set, if one fall, all come down;
Nor gazed delighted at the funny tricks
Of harlequin or traveling circus clown.

By gradual growth he never reached the age
When cruel Cupid first invokes his art,
And stamps love's glowing lesson, page by page,
Upon the tablets of a youngling's heart.

He never wandered forth on moonlight nights,
With her he loved above all earthly things;
Nor tried to mount old Pindar's rocky heights,
Because he fancied love had lent him wings.

He never tripped it 'er the ball-room floor,
Where love and music intertwine their charms,
Nor wandered listless by the sandy shore,
Debarred the pleasures of his lady's arms.

For Adam,-so at least it has been said
By many an ancient and a modern sage,-
Before a moment of his life had fled,
Was fully thirty years of age!