a failure, for the woman gave him dead away in a minute.

'You are!" she shouted, "then listen to me; look at me; what am I?”

The foolish youngest man looked at her timidly and ventured to say, in a feeble voice, that she looked to be about forty-sev-"

"Am I not a woman?" she said.

The youngest young man weakly tried to correct his former error, and said she seemed more like a girl

But again she broke in on him with a scornful hiss: "Gir-r-r-l!" she said; "I am a woman! a woman with all the heaven-born aspirations, the fathomless feelings, the aggressive courage and the indomitable will of a woman. What can you see on my face?"

The position of the youngest man on the staff was pitiable, but none of the old heads appeared to observe it. At least, they didn't offer to help him out. So he looked at her face for a second, and said, timidly: "Freckl-"

"Nursling!" she shrieked; "had you the soulful eyes of a free man you could see shining on my brow the rising light of a brighter day."

"Could I?" asked the youngest man, timidly.

"Yes, you could I!" the woman said in tones of unmeasurable scorn. "Now hear me, have you a—but I cannot bring myself to use that hateful expression in the style of masculine possession; are you anybody's

husband?"

The youngest man blushed bitterly, and said that he wasn't as yet, but he had some hopes

"And you expect your—that is, you expect the woman whose husband you will be to support you?"

The youngest man blushed more keenly than before, and tremblingly admitted that he had some expectations -that-that-the only daughter of his proposed fatherin-law, if he might put it in that way—

"Yah!" snarled the woman; "now let me tell you, the day of woman's emancipation is at hand. From this time we are free, fer-ree! You must look for other slaves to bend and cringe before your majesties, and wait upon you like slaves. You will feel the change in your affairs since we have burst our chains, and how will you live without the aid of women? Who makes now?" she added, fiercely.

your shirts

The youngest man miserably said that a tailor on Jefferson street made his.

"Hm," said the woman, somewhat disconcerted. "Well, who washes 'em, then?" she added, triumphantly.

"A Chinaman, just west of Fifth street," the youngest man said, with a hopeful light in his eyes.

The woman glared at him and groaned under her breath, but she came at him again with:

"Proud worm, who cooks your victuals?"

The youngest man said truly that he didn't know the name of the cook at his restaurant, but he was a man about forty years old, and round as a barrel, with whiskers like the stuffing of a sofa.

The woman looked as though she was going to strike him.

"Well," she said, as one who was leading a forlorn hope, "who makes up your bed and takes care of your room?"

The youngest man replied with an air of truth and frankness that he roomed with a railroad conductor, and an ex-Pullman sleeping-car porter took care of their

room.

She paused when she reached the door, and turned upon him with the face of a drowning man who is only five feet away from a life buoy.

"Miserable dependent," she cried, "who sews on your buttons?"

The youngest man on the staff rose to his feet with a proud, happy look on his face.

"Haven't a sewed button on a single clothes," he cried, triumphantly; "patents, every one of 'em, fastened on like copper rivets, and nothing but studs and collarbuttons on my shirts. Haven't had a button sewed on for three years. Patent buttons last for years after the garments have gone to decay."

And the woman fled down the winding passage and the labyrinthine stairs with a hollow groan, while the other members of the staff, breaking through their heroic reserve, clustered around the youngest man and congrat ulated him upon the emancipation of his sex.

--Burlington Hawkeye.

TROUBLE BORROWERS.

There's many a trouble

Would break like a bubble,

And into the waters of Lethe depart,

Did we not rehearse it,

And tenderly nurse it,

And give it a permanent place in the heart.

There's many a sorrow

Would vanish to-morrow,

Were we but willing to furnish the wings;
So sadly intruding

And quietly brooding,

It hatches out all sorts of horrible things.

How welcome the seeming

Of looks that are beaming,

Whether one's wealthy or whether one's poor!
Eyes bright as a berry,

Cheeks red as a cherry,

The groan and the curse and the heartache can cure.

Resolve to be merry,

All worry to ferry

Across the famed waters that bid us forget;

And no longer fearful,

But happy and cheerful,

We feel life has much that's worth living for yet.

A BOY HERO.

O'er "The Devil's Gulch," a chasm wild,
Sprung a mighty bridge; a roaring tide
Rushed headlong through the depths below.
From a watch-tower high, a shining glow
The watchman, nightly, made to shed
Its warning signals of green or red,
As the mighty engine thundered down,
At morn and eve, from a far-off town.
A great storm rages o'er steep and fell,
And "The Devil's Gulch" is a roaring hell
Of waters, foaming wild and white,
While darkness deepens into night.
Carl Springel takes his poor old crutch
(The watchman's son, he's lame, and Dutch),
And goes forth, hobbling through the night.
Though his steps are heavy, his heart is light,
For he carries to his father dear

His evening meal and helpful cheer.
What cares he for the wind and rain?
First, love and duty, then home again.

Now he rounds the curve of the mountain track-
What is that he hears?--a deafening crack!

Then a rumbling crash through the blinding storm,—
The bridge! oh, the bridge! the bridge is gone!

"Oh, father! father!" hear him cry,
But his voice is lost in the howling sky;
And the train-the train is speeding down,
With its living load from the distant town!
Though bitter grief his heart doth rack,
He sees the hand-car on the track,
He sees the lantern's blood-red gleam,
He hears the engine's whistle scream!
He climbs on the car! the crank he turns,
First slow, then faster; his heart it burns
With anguish, sorrow, hopes and fears;
He tugs and strains! and now he hears
The train come thundering through the night,
And now he sees the head-light bright.
He knows he's numbered with the dead!
But waves the lantern above his head.

He shouts: "The bridge! the bridge is down!
The bridge is down! the bridge is—"

Drowned in the awful din of train and storm.
The engine strikes! and his mangled form
Is dashed a hundred feet aside-

But the train stops short of the roaring tide.

In Germany the tale is told,

On a tombstone white, in words of gold:
"Carl Springel's grave,
Aged fourteen.

The crippled hero and martyr gave
His life two hundred lives to save."

DEATH OF THE FIRST-BORN.—J. G. HOLLAND.

This beautiful extract, from "Arthur Bonnicastle," will be read with deep and tender interest by many whose experience it truthfully portrays.

I stand in a darkened room before a little casket that holds the silent form of my first-born. My arm is around the wife and mother, who weeps over the lost treasure and cannot, till tears have had their way, be comforted. I had not thought that my child could die—that my child could die. I knew that other children had died, but I felt safe. We laid the little fellow close by his grandfather at last; we strew his grave with flowers, and then return to our saddened home with hearts united in sorrow as they had never been united in joy, and with sympathies forever opened toward all who are called to a kindred grief.

I wonder where he is to-day, in what mature angelhood he stands, how he will look when I meet him, how he will make himself known to me, who have been his teacher! He was like me: will his grandfather know him? I never can cease thinking of him as cared for and led by the same hand to which my own youthful fingers clung, and as hearing from the fond lips of my own father, the story of his father's eventful life. I feel how wonderful to me has been the ministry of my children— how much more I have learned from them than they have ever learned from me--how by holding my own strong life in sweet subordination to their helplessness,