out either dropping some of the implements or a remark well calculated to engross the attention of the party holding the lamp. The awful strain on the arms, the wonderful vacillating humors of the screws, the incomprehensible imbecility of the screw-driver, the obstinacy of the roller, and the astonishing perverseness of your wife, who will persist in moving the lamp at the wrong time, make putting up a modern curtain fixture the most subtle of domestic grievances.

And when the curtain is finally up, and secured so it won't fall on your head when you touch the string, and you take hold to draw it up, the experience as it waltzes off to one side, and tries to stand on its drunken head, and failing in that, settles right where it is, and obstinately refuses to budge either way, has never been truly analyzed. Weeks after, when you are leaning back in your chair engrossed in memories of the dead past, that curtain will suddenly come thundering down upon you, causing you to spring out into the air and lifting your very hair almost free from the scalp.

TOO ZEALOUS BY HALF.

In a quaint German town, rich in legend and ruin,
There dwelt in a very hermitical way

An eccentric old fellow named Johnson Bethuen,
Whose only companion (so people all say)

Was a frolicsome, innocent, infantile bruin.

"Twixt master and beast there existed a feeling
Intense as the love between parent and child,
Which sentiment fond neither thought of concealing,
And many an hour this strange duo beguiled,

With many an act their affection revealing.

One morning the villagers missed from their number
This quiet old hermit, and bruin mischievous;
But thinking, perhaps, they protracted their slumber,
(Not dreaming could happen an accident grievous,)
Their mind with misgiving they did not encumber.

But as night grew apace, and no sight of the hermit,
The people remarked: "There's no doubt that he's dead!"
And one of their number, 'thout waiting for permit,
Burst open the door; and if fear there existed,
The scene they beheld was enough to confirm it.
There, prone on the bare floor, the hermit lay dying.
The blood spurted forth from a wound in his forehead;
And bruin, dejected, close by him was lying,

A-gnashing his teeth, and a-growling quite horrid,
And brushing his tears off, as though he'd been crying.
It seems that the master, o'ercome by a potion,

Lay down to sleep off the effects of his dram,
And bruin conceived the commendable notion
Of shooting the flies from the slumbering man—
By keeping his paws in continual motion.
But one little blue-bottle son of his mother,
Returning too oft, so excited his ire,

That bruin no longer his feelings could smother,
And burning all up. with zealotical fire,

He waited the coming again of the other.

The fly approached slowly, then fast, and then faster,
And settled at last on the slumberer's jaw,
But bruin was ready-ne'er dreaming disaster;
With all of its weight fell his ponderous paw;
The fly was a "goner"--but so was the master!
The moral of which is respectfully shown:-
In service of patron, of neighbor or friend,
Be not over zealous, and candidly own

That judgment is useful, whatever the end,
And zeal is a fool when it "goes it alone."

GOOD BYE, OLD HOUSE.-MILLIE C. POMEROY.
Good bye, old house! the hurry and the bustle
Smothered till now all thought of leaving you;
But the last load has gone, and I've a moment,
All by myself, to say a last adieu.

Good bye, old house! I shall not soon forget you,
The witness of so much eventful time-
And walls have ears they say, I beg you cherish
Each secret that you may have heard of mine.

Strange faces will come in and gaze upon you,
Irreverent and careless of each spot
That held in sacred keeping household treasures,
Ah, well, you need not mind,-it matters not.
They'll wonder why that nail was driven yonder
In reach of Freddy's hand, at Christmas time,
That he might hang, himself, his little stocking.
That notch marked Willie's height when he was nine
These marks that I have not the heart to trouble,
Johnny put there before he went away,

Wishing, meanwhile, that he might make them double;
They meant the days he had at home to stay.
Dear child! it was that corner held his coffin
When trouble, toil and pain for him were done;
And in that corner, too, I have knelt daily,
Striving to find the way that he has won.
"Twas in that corner Margaret was married,
And that white spot upon the smoky wall

Is where her picture hung, those three nails yonder
Were driven to hold her sack, and scarf, and shawl.
And so, old house, you have for every blemish
A strange, peculiar story of your own;

As our poor bodies do when we have left them,
And powerless alike to make it known.

Good bye, good bye, old house! the night is falling,
They'll think I've wandered from the path, I guess.
One more walk through the rooms, ah! how they echo!
How strange and lonely is their emptiness!

HIS LAST COURT.

Old Judge Grepson, a justice of the peace, was never known to smile. He came to Arkansas years ago, and year after year, by the will of the voters, he held his place as magistrate. The lawyers who practiced in his court never joked with him, because every one soon learned that the old man never engaged in levity. Every morning, no matter how bad the weather might be, the old man took his place behind the bar which,

with his own hands, he had made, and every evening, just at a certain time, he closed his books and went home. No one ever engaged him in private conversation, because he would talk to no one. No one ever went to his home, a little cottage among the trees in the city's outskirts, because he had never shown a disposition to make welcome the visits of those who even lived in the immediate vicinity. His office was not given him through the influence of "electioneering," because he never asked any man for his vote. He was first elected because, having been once summoned in a case of arbitration, he exhibited the executive side of such a legal mind that the people nominated and elected him. He soon gained the name of the "hard justice," and every lawyer in Arkansas referred to his decision. His rulings were never reversed by the higher courts. He showed no sentiment in decision. He stood upon the platform of a law which he made a study, and no one disputed him. One day, a woman, charged with misdemeanor was arraigned before him. "The old man seems more than ever unsteady," remarked a lawyer as the magistrate took his seat. "I don't see how a man so old can stand the vexation of a court much longer."

"I am not well to-day," said the Judge, turning to the lawyers, "and any cases that you may have you will please dispatch them to the best, and let me add, quickest of your ability."

Every one saw that the old man was unusually feeble, and no one thought of a scheme to prolong a discussion, for all the lawyers had learned to reverence nim.

"Is this the woman?" asked the Judge. "Who is defending her?"

"I have no defense, your Honor," the woman replied. "In fact, I do not think I need any, for I am here to confess my guilt. No man can defend me," and she looked at the magistrate with a curious gaze. "I have been arrested on a charge of disturbing the peace, and I

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am willing to submit my case. I am dying of consump tion, Judge, and I know that any ruling made by the law can have but little effect on me;" and she coughed a hollow, hacking cough, and drew around her an old black shawl that she wore. The expression on the face of the magistrate remained unchanged, but his eyelids dropped and he did not raise them when the woman continued: "As I say, no man can defend me. I am too near that awful separation of soul and body. Years ago I was a child of brightest promise. I lived with my parents in Kentucky. Wayward and light-hearted, I was admired by all the gay society known in the neighborhood. A man came and professed his love for me. I don't say this, Judge, to excite your sympathy. I have many and many a time been drawn before courts, but I never before spoke of my past life."

She coughed again and caught a flow of blood on a handkerchief which she pressed to her lips. "I speak of it now because I know that this is the last court on earth before which I will be arraigned. I was fifteen years old when I fell in love with the man. My father said he was bad, but I loved him. He came again and again, and when my father said that he should come no more I ran away and married him. My father said I should never come home again. I had always been his pride and had loved him dearly, but he said that I must never again come to his home, my home, the home of my youth and happiness. How I longed to see him. How I yearned to put my head on his breast. My husband became addicted to drink. He abused me. I wrote to my father, asking him to let me come home, but the answer that came was 'I don't know you!' My husband died-yes, cursed God and died! Homeless and wretched, and with my little boy, I went out into the world. My child died, and I bowed down and wept over a pauper's grave. I wrote to my father again, but he answered: 'I know not those who disobey my com