ими

"A star with lengthy train is called a Comet."
We have one here, the brightest since Mahomet;
A comet of the nineteenth century luminous,
'Tis not a woman-no, nor yet a womaness-
But a brilliant, dangerous orb, quite fascinating,
With lesser lights about it congregating,
And satellites each night revolve around it,
But we're not one-not very much-confound it!
Avaunt! Go hence! Give us no spiteful thrust,
Don't try, my dear, to "bu'st this ancient crust;"
If that's your game put up your fins; why, dumb it,
We're forty-five, and you can't come it, Comet!

"When one celestial orb gets absent-minded,
And stands right in another's light, so blinded
That it cares not what it does, that is eclipse."
Do you see this Venus here with pouting lips?
She had the beaux all on the string last autumn,
And fancied none could beat the way she caught 'em;
Another orb is shining bright this season,
Her satellites have steeped themselves in treason;
She's now eclipsed-the new one's in her light,
That hateful, bold-faced, simpering, scrawny fright!
And being eclipsed, she's rather cross and crabbed,
As mad as Sirius-snariing, snapping, rabid.

FRANCE

ITALY

SPAIN

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thin

"A star with lesser stars around, 's a planet."
This star has got a cheek as hard as granite;
He stars it through the country once a season,
And money is his only "rhyme or reason,"
But this shrewd planet knows just how to plan it,
He planned his plans when planets first began it;
He buys bonquets and hires his friends with liquor,
To hurl them on when he begins to "fiicker."
Such would-be stars are falling stars quite often,
And shooting-stars when hearts refuse to soften;
You sometimes see them shooting up an alley,
Pursued by showers of eggs of doubtful "valley."

ANSWER TO LAST MONTH'S ILLUSTRATED REBUS: Few people are wise enough to prefer the blame that is useful to them, to the praise which betrays them.

Vol. VII.

tual wealth, and he had somewhat misty views upon most subjects. And he evidently regarded these "bands" that his wife spoke of as two long lines attached to the matrimonial halter, in which Harry and his wife were to be driven in future in wedded harness.

He replied, that "it wouldn't do no good to meddle with the bands, for they were determined to be jined together, and if they wasn't then they would be at some future time."

So the banns were not forbidden, and Harry Willard and Nelly Parker were united till death parted them. As Harry whispered to Nelly, as they passed out of the church:

Which words, spoken so lover-like and enthusiastically, so incensed the old lady that she left the room so rapidly that every ribbon on her cap floated back like flags in a high gale.

But the old lady had a heart; such open-mouthed, impulsive people usually have. And when she saw Harry, her only boy and the idol of her heart, dressed in his best, ready to go to his bridal, she retired into the cheese-room, the farthest in the house, and sat down upon the old cheese-press unused for years, and moistened it with tears, out of sight of all, as she thought.

Nelly's blue eyes were swimming in tears as she raised them to her lover-husband's face, and I think he translated aright the grieved, wistful look that shadowed their sweet love-light: for he whispered again:

"Remember what the Bible says, my darling, a man shall forsake father and mother for his wife; and that you are now my wife, to love and to protect for everinore."

Harry's handsome face looked so very noble and manly as he said this that little Nelly forgot the great sorrow of her life in her perfect love and admiration of her husband.

And she was not so much to blame for her admiration, for Henry Wiliard was a very noble young fellow.

He was rich, but it didn't hurt him, for, having won the love of sweet Nelly Parker, he did not choose to desert her and break her heart and his own because his parents objected to her poverty. No other fault could be brought against her. She was an orphan, entirely friendless, save for Harry. For the invalid widowed mother, whom Nelly had supported with her needle, had died two months before her marriage-died with a look of perfect content upon her worn features as Harry took Nelly's hand in his and vowed "to love and protect his sweet wife always."

All this occurred in the village of Clayton, where Harry had to spend the winter with an uncle. And when his parents, especially his mother, raised their stormy opposition, Harry, as we see, was not inclined to break his vow to the dead and the living to appease his parents' prejudices.

At the stormy interview that occurred 'when Harry told his mother his firm determination to marry Nelly his mother said, "that not one penny of their property should he ever have; it should all go to found an hospital or church."

He bent over and kissed the faded cheek very tenderly; and then, noting her tears and softened mood, he ventured to say:

"Mother, if you would only see Nelly you would be sure to love her. She would be such a daughter to you."

"Love her? Never!" And the old lady's indignant emotions dried her tears. "I never will call her daughter, and she shall never enter iny house."

"Never, mother!" added Harry, sternly. "Never till you feel differently toward her, till you look upon her as your daughter, welcome her as one; then she will come."

"She shall never come. She has stolen my boy's heart, ruined his prospects in life; for Esther stood ready to marry you, I know, and put her property with ours, and you would be the richest man in the county. I had set my heart on it. And now this girl, a fortune-hunter, no doubt, has stepped between you and prosperity and happiness. I never will call her daughter, or step my foot into her house."

"Very well, mother. But if you ever change your mind, if you ever come to her, if you or father want a daughter's care and affection, she will be ready."

"She shall never lift her finger for father or me never! And you will never see either of us inside of your house-never."

So Harry Willard and his young bride set out on their married life over a somewhat tempestuous sea. But for all that they were very happy. Harry was a clerk in a bank, with a good salary, and Nelly made their little cottage-home the very coziest and brightest spot upon earth. It was a pleasant sight to see her flitting round the supper-table like a household fairy, in blue muslin and dainty white apron, with marvellous lace ruffles upon it, intent upon seeing whether Hannalı, their one se:

"Such a shame!" said his mother. you might have had Esther Price."

"And then

And then, when the delicately tinted china, and crystal, and dainty viands of her own cooking were

"She is only our third cousin, and is worth fifty thousand; and it ought to be kept in the family." "She is fifty years old."

portico and stand with her pretty blue eyes shaded with her hand to see if Harry was coming; for Harry's road lay directly toward the setting sun, and its splendor dazzled her as she looked out for

SEE ENGRAVING.

And then when the handsome, manly form a peared, stepping lightly-as who would not, to be

welcomed to such a home?-then to see her flit down the lilac and rose-bordered walk to the pretty rustic gate for her lover-husband's kiss, why, it was all as good as a picture.

And so two years rolled away, and then came an evening, it was a most lovely and cloudless June evening, and Harry, coming home at nightfall, stepped, I think, if possible, more lightly than ever. For, though Nelly did not run down to the gate to meet him, he saw her looking out of the vine-garlanded window eagerly, and welcoming as ever, and, held up in her arms, its golden head a-shining, and its blue shoulder-knots fluttering, was the sweetest of baby faces, a miniature Nelly in beauty. And, well, for cleverness and amiability, it far transcended every other child that had as yet appeared upon tnis planet. Other babies had their good points, doubtless, but this child was altogether perfect.

Its name was Susie; for tender-hearted Nelly had realized, by the mysterious knowledge of motherhood, more than ever what it would be to have such a son as Harry, and lose him from any cause, so, as a silent peace-offering for having stolen her boy, she would insist upon calling the baby after its grandmother.

Blessed was this cottage above others after this little angel visitant came to tarry with them.

But one shadow dimmed the blue sky of their content, and this was a constant sorrow to both Harry and Nelly, although they did not often speak of it, yet it was in both their hearts-the alienation of his father and mother. Never had Nelly met either of them. Harry visited them occasionally. Nelly would make him go. He, resenting their treatment of her, would not have gone nearly so often had it not been for her persuasive eloquence.

"They are old, Harry, and have no one but you." "But they have no need to be so unjust to you, my pet."

"If they are unjust, we must not be cruel; two wrongs never made a right yet," pleaded tenderhearted Nelly.

And after baby came she had another, a stronger argument.

"What if our precious child should grow up and become estranged from us? Harry, you must go and see your father and mother to-morrow."

This was said upon that June night when Harry saw the little face held up to the window to welcome him.

Harry could not possibly have refused any request that that most perfect baby's mamma could ask him; but to his regret he was obliged to tell her that he was to be sent on business for the bank; he must start in the morning, and should be gone two days.

Nelly was too sensible a little woman to make any objections to her husband's leaving her on business, although it was the first time he had left her so long since their marriage. And Nelly was not strong now; the little face on her bosom had stolen a good deal of pink bloom.

She made no objections to her husband's going; but she told him she should miss him very much, and should count the hours till he returned; and then she asked the wonderful baby "if she should

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not, and if she didn't think two wirele days a terribly long time for papa to be gone?"

And the wonderful child, feeling, doubtless, an opportune twinge of colic, drew up its baby brows in a melancholy frown, and looked pathetically uncomfortable.

And Nelly said, triumphantly:

"It knew, so it did, that its own papa was going away for two whole days!"

Harry set out early the next morning, leaving two soft cheeks wet with tears where his kisses had been, Nelly's and Baby Susie's.

Let it not be understood that a three-months old baby shed tears over its father's departure. No, Nelly's tears were on her own cheeks, and the baby cheeks pressed so closely to them were wet with them.

Nelly said to herself "she was foolish; but, as she said, she was not strong, and two days seemed a long time for her husband to be away from her."

Upon this very same fair June morning Harry's father and mother-and she had been awake nearly all the previons night, counting the perils and anxieties of the journey-set out for Clayton. The old gentleman had an idea of getting a little property which had been long in litigation, but which now seemed to be in a fair way of speedy settlement, in consequence of the energetic action of the keen lawyer he had engaged to conduct the case after others had been tried without satisfactory result.

Now this lawyer happened to reside in Clayton, and Harry's father wished to consult him personally, and a cordingly set out to do so.

Old Mrs. Willard did not often leave home, and she wearied and harassed her husband with fearful prophecies and forebodings. Three times during the first few miles did she make the old gentleman, who was very lame, dismount from the high scat and examine the harness. Then she heard the linch-pin break and the axletree crack; and the: the springs broke down, one by one in her vivid imagination. And at last, when half way down a steep hill, the old lady declared "the bottom was breaking down," and told him to get out quick and

see.

The old gentleman rose in his dignity, and declared "that he wouldn't get out again till they got to Clayton, to suit anybody."

Poor old gentleman, how little did he know what fate had in store for him, although perhaps he was not far wrong, he did not get out "to suit any body."

The village of Clayton lies in a most sheltered little valley, with high hills standing like sentinels, in fadeless green livery about it, and it was in descending one of these hills, about a quarter of a mile from the village, that Mrs. Willard exclaimed again:

"Father, do be careful! I declare if you haven't run over every stone between here and home, and gone down every rut. Why can't you be careful? And I do believe one of the axletrees is broken."

"No, it hasn't," said her husband, calmly. "They are all right; you are always imagining things."

"Well, do just get out and look," said his wife, lifting her black lace veil and peering down the side of the carriage. "You know Jim never can