"Pray don't distress yourself," soothed the stranger. "I am no relation at all to Mr. Esselmont's agent."

The Widow Winton brightened up a little at this. "I am thankful for that," said she. "And now, if you will help me with the grapes, we can get them all gathered before the agent comes this way on his afternoon walk. Can you climb?"

"I should rather think I could," promptly answered the gentleman.

The widow clapped her plump little hands in delight, as the huge bunches rained down into her apron. "There," cried she, "that's enough."

"Are you quite sure?"

"Oh, quite," said the widow-" for jelly, and marmalade, and to send a lot to town to buy my new bonnet strings."

The stranger sprang lightly to the ground, from the boughs of a stately beech tree.

"Then it's all right," said he. "And we have outgeneraled Mr. Esselmont and his cross old agent, after all."

"Haven't we?" said the Widow Winton, with her black eyes all dancing with mischief. "And now, if you'll come home with me, I'll give you a cup of real French chocolate, and a slice of sponge cake."

"I shall be very happy to carry your basket for you,” said the stranger, courteously.

"There he is now," said the widow, recoiling a little, as they neared the tiny cottage, with its drooping leaves and pillared veranda.

"Who?" said the gentleman.

"The agent," said the Widow Winton.

"He can't hurt us," said the stranger. And he walked boldly into the very presence of Mr. Sandy Macpherson, with the basket of plundered grapes on his arm, while the widow followed, much marveling at his valor. But, instead of bursting out into invective, the agent sprang to his feet, and began bowing and scraping most obse quiously.

"Really, sir-really, Mr. Esselmont," said he, “this is a pleasure that I didn't expect."

"Mr. Esselmont!" cried out the widow.

"I beg a thousand pardons for not disclosing my identity before," said the handsome incognito. "But you've no idea how I've enjoyed this masquerade. Will you allow me to introduce myself formally at last?" The Widow Winton turned crimson and pale.

"But I've been stealing your grapes," said she.

'Every fruit and flower on the Esselmont estate is at your service," said the young heir, with a bow and a smile.

But when he went away, Miss Charity took her younger sister formally to task.

"Fanny," said she, "aren't you ashamed?"

"Not a bit," said Fanny valiantly.

"Stealing fruit like a schoolboy, and romping like a child," remonstrated Charity.

"If Mr. Esselmont don't mind it," said the widow, "why should I? And we are going to the haunted springs to-morrow, and I shall show him the rocky glen. Oh, I can tell you, Charity, it's great fun."

But, as time crept on, Miss Charity Hall grew more uneasy still.

"Fanny," said she, "you must leave off flirting with Guy Esselmont."

"Why?" said the widow.

"Because you are poor and he is rich; and people are beginning to talk."

"Let them talk; we are going to be married next month, and then we can set the whole world at defiance; and, Charity" hiding her face on her elder sister's shoulder.

"Well?"

"He says he fell in love with me that day he caught me stealing his grapes."

"Humph!" said Miss Charity. "Well, he has stolen your heart, so I do not see but that you are quits."

THE GOOD OLD WAY.

John Mann had a wife who was kind and true,-
A wife who loved him well;

She cared for the house and their only child;
But if I the truth must tell,

She fretted and pined because John was poor,
and his business was slow to pay;

But he only said, when she talked of change.
"We'll stick to the good old way!"

She saw her neighbors were growing rich
And dwelling in houses grand;
That she was living in poverty,

With wealth upon every hand;

And she urged her husband to speculate,
To risk his earnings at play;

But he only said, “My dearest wife,
We'll stick to the good old way."

For he knew that the money that's quickly got
Is the money that's quickly lost;

And the money that stays is the money earned
At honest endeavor's cost.

So he plodded along in his honest style,

And he bettered himself each day,

And he only said to his fretful wife,
"We'll stick to the good old way."

And at last there came a terrible crash,
When beggary, want, and shame

Came down on the homes of their wealthy friends,
While John's remained the same;

For he had no debts and he gave no trust,

"My motto is this," he'd say,

"It's a charm against panics of every kind,-
"Tis stick to the good old way?"

And his wife looked round on the little house

That was every nail their own,

And she asked forgiveness of honest John

For the peevish mistrust she had shown;

But he only said, as her tearful face
Upon his shoulder lay,

"The good old way is the best way, wife;
We'll stick to the good old way."

THE RUMSELLER'S SONG.-REV. C. W. DENISON.

The rumiseller sat in his den alone,
Singing his thoughts in an undertone.
Shrouded in silence, his work was done,

Since the rise and set of the daily sun.

He had squared his books; he had counted his gains;
Then he startled the night with his spirit-strains;
And he sang, as he hoarded his wages of sin:
"I gather them in! I gather them in!
Gather! gather! gather!

I gather them in!

“The old, with their thin and frosty hair,
The young, with ringlets dark and fair,
The smiling bridegroom and the bride,
The brother and sister, side by side,
Captive and bound in the toils I spread,
On to their doom my victims tread,—
Stranger and neighbor, alien, kin,

I gather them in! I gather them in!
Gather! gather! gather!

I gather them in!

"The statesman, the orator, learned and proud,
The tramp, in the rags of the dirty crowd,
The toiler on land, the child of the sea,

By thousands and thousands come trooping to mel
In the golden ray of the morning light,

In the darkness, and stillness, and dead of night,
From the desert waste, from the city's din,

I gather them in! I gather them in!

Gather! gather! gather!

I gather them in!

"Through all ages of time, through all regions of space,

I trade in the blood of the human race!

My license to kill is all free from a flaw,

For the votes of good Christians enacted the law!

The ballots of party I hold in my hand,

And the leaders are hacks to obey my command!"

So the rumseller sang o'er his wages of sin:

"I gather them in! I gather them in!

Gather! gather! gather!

I gather them in!"

LITERARY ATTRACTIONS OF THE BIBLE. DR. HAMILTON.

God made the present earth as the Home of Man; but had He meant it as a mere lodging, a world less beautiful would have served the purpose. There was no need for the carpet of verdure, or the ceiling of blue; no need for the mountains, and cataracts, and forests; no need for the rainbow, no need for the flowers. A big, round island, half of it arable, and half of it pasture, with a clump of trees in one corner, and a magazine of fuel in another, might have held and fed ten millions of people; and a hundred islands, all made in the same pattern, big and round, might have held and fed the population of the globe.

But man is something more than the animal which wants lodging and food. He has a spiritual nature, full of keen perceptions and deep sympathies. He has an eye for the sublime and the beautiful, and his kind Creator has provided man's abode with affluent materials for these nobler tastes. He has built Mont Blanc, and molten the lake in which its image sleeps. He has intoned Niagara's thunder, and has breathed the zephyr which sweeps its spray. He has shagged the steep with its cedars, and besprent the meadow with its king-cups and daisies. He has made it a world of fragrance and music,a world of brightness and symmetry, a world where the grand and the graceful, the awful and lovely, rejoice together. In fashioning the Home of Man, the Creator had an eye to something more than convenience, and built, not a barrack, but a palace,-not a Union-workhouse, but an Alhambra; something which should not only be very comfortable, but very splendid and very fair; something which should inspire the soul of its inhabitant, and even draw forth the "very good" of complacent Deity.

God also made the Bible as the guide and oracle of