The Memphis police gobbled a darkey serenely

In a tavern here, says a country paper, a man named Drum is the barkeeper. His friends call him the "spirit-stirring drum."

Susan B. Anthony challenges the world to a talking match on the woman's rights question, mile heats, best three in five, to corsets.

A good deal of abuse is showered upon the dollar, but it will never get lonesome for the want of friends-buzzard or no buzzard.

The Oil City Derrick says that very few girls can spank a pepper-box as it should be spanked, and yet they want to get married and raise families.

wwwww

The doctor and a nervous man
Will never have two creeds;

For the former needs his patients,

And the latter patience needs.

A bridge at Denver, Cal., sports this notice: "No vehicle drawn by more than one animal is allowed to cross this bridge in opposite directions at the same time."

Brown tried to quarrel with his mother-in-law the other evening. He married the eldest of seven girls. Said she, "Brown, my boy, I'm not going to ruin my reputation by quarrelling with you. Wait till all the girls are married. At present, as a mother-in-law, I'm only an amateur."

of which was adorned with a roasting pig. The Ethiop declared that "it war jis' a follerin' him, and he hadn't the faintest idee whar it come from."

Sands of Gold.

To Adam, Paradise was home. To the good among his descendants home is paradise.

True wisdom is to know what is best worth knowing, and to do what is best worth doing.

He that will not look before him, will have to look behind him-with regret.

When our desires are fulfilled to the very letter, we always find some mistake which renders them anything but what we expected.

The great source of pleasure is variety. We love to expect; and when expectation is disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.

It is a great blunder, in the pursuit of happiness, not to know when we have got it; that is, not to be content with a reasonable and possible measure of it.

If you would relish your food, labor for it; if you would enjoy the raiment, pay for it before you wear it; if you would sleep soundly, take a clear conscience to bed with you.

The best thing to give your enemy is forgiveness; to your opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to a child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity.

CROWN PLAITER

Exclusive state and county agenies granted.

Plaiting from one to four yards per minute, according to size of plait.

Manufactured by the AMERICAN MACHINE CO. 1916-24 North Fourth Street, Philadelphia, Pa. Also manufacturers of Wringing and Fluting Macoines, Mrs. Potts' Cold Handle Sad Irions, and other speciast ites.

She married for money and got it, you bet! He married for love, and has got it to get! She don't care for that,

She's fair and she's fat,

While he is as slim as a base-ball bat.
She weighs a hundred and ninety,

He weighs a hundred and ten,
She's queen of the best society,
And he the dullest of men;

She enters the parlors grandly,

Her page walks on in advance,

Her husband walks meekly behind her,
Obeying her every glance.

Once he concluded his wife he'd desert,
He mounted his steed and began to cut dirt-
Like lightning he went,

As if he were bent

On catching a telegram already sent;
But his steed got very unruly,

And pitched him over a stile;
He was placed in an old wheelbarrow,
By a man of the Emerald Isle,
And carried back home quite senseless,
For his wife to punish and scold-
He'll never run off again, never,

If he lives to be ninety years old!

In the province of Nassau, Prussia, the common nettle has been treated like hemp, and is found to yield fibre quite as durable and as fine as silk. Factories have consequently been started for its manufacture.

He committed an error one day, and his spouse
Refused to allow him to dine in the house,
And he picked up a quail.

And a bottle of ale,

And went to the garden to cat or to fail; But a poodle ran off with his dinner,

He upset his bottle of beer,

A toad scared him out of his senses,
A potato-bug crawled in his ear,
Ten thousand ants and their families
Besieged him on every side,
He quickly vacated the garden,

And plunged in the cellar to hide.

ANSWER TO LAST MONTH'S REBUS.

Some to kill cankers in the pale musk-rose buds.

Vol. VII.

No. 7.

"He will come back," she said. "He is not so mad as to leave me for a few hasty words. He knows Barbara Brethwaite, her strong will, hot temper, proud spirit, but full heart, ay, and full purse," she said the last word with a little sneer -he knows it all too well. He will come back."

And yet as the form faded out of sight among the oaks and beeches she turned into the house with a heavy sigh that did not speak of assurance.

He reached out his hand to her. She would not take it.

"Give me your answer," she exclaimed; "yes or no."

"Barbara," he said, "have mercy. Speak gently to me once. You ask from me my boy, who is, what my wife never was, the light of my life, and yet I would not treat her unkindly; and that is what you ask me to do. Oh, Barbara, I know your heart; it is warm and true. Speak gently to me once; call me Elwood as you used. You know your power over me. You know there has never been a day for twenty years when I would not have bartered everything but honor for your love. I am dying now. Once, only once, be gentle with me."

It seemed as if her curse had had power, for nothing but trouble and misfortune followed Elwood Walton all his life. His business never prospered, his wife was an invalid, his children died one by one, till when at last his own death drew near there was 1.ft to him only one child-a boy of ten, named, after himself, Elwood. The mother was a helpless invalid, of weak character and infirm purpose. There was no money to be left for either mother or child, and when, two days before he died, Barbara Brethwaite appeared at his bedside, and offered to adopt the boy and make him the heir of her large property, the dying man had scarcely the right to refuse the offer.

"I will consult his mother," he said; for the interview had been, at Barbara's request, a strictly private one.

"You will do nothing of the sort," Barbara replied, tartly. "Do you think I would receive the boy at her hand? No; if you cannot in this moment give me your hand upon the bargain, you will never see my face again."

"But I do not know if I have the right, Barbara."

"You have the undoubted legal right to do it," she said. 66 My lawyer waits below in my carriage. If you say the word, I will send for him, the papers will be signed on the instant-they are drawn already. The boy will remain with you until after the funeral," she said it firmly and without a tremor, "and then he will come to me. As for that worthless, white-faced thing yonder, she shall have no hand, no word in the matter. It is between you and me."

Life had brought many hard moments to Elwood Walton, but none harder than this. He had little respect for his wife, it was true, but he had yet left some traces of self-respect; and, below all, he had never ceased to feel some lingering tenderness for the strange woman who sat beside his bed. He was weak by nature, and she was strong; he craved love and tenderness, and he knew, better than any one else in the world, that she could give them both, in full and overflowing measure. She was rigid and stern to all the world, but he knew that she could love both passionately and truly.

"Elwood," she said, "I love you to-day, as I never loved you in the dew of my youth. I will be kind to your boy. He shall take your place in my heart-till we meet in Heaven. Give him to me; say this moment that he is mine."

Her arms were around his neck, his head upon her breast.

"He is yours," he said. "Heaven forgive me if I have sinned against his mother."

She rose and swept swiftly out of the room, locking the door as she went, and passing the pale and weeping mother, so soon to be a widow, with a gesture of contempt. In three minutes she returned with her lawyer, and unlocking the door, entered the sick man's room. In a half-hour it was all concluded, and she returned to her home, carrying in her hand the document which made her the owner of Elwood Walton's child. The mother's rights were blotted out forever.

From that hour Elwood Walton was never again conscious. In two days he died. He had a handsome funeral, provided by Barbara Brethwaite. When it was over she took her boy-her boy now, and drove him home in her sombre carriage, behind her stately stepping bays.

The mother? Well, the least said of the mother the better. She had loved her husband, she had loved her boy, in her feeble, inert fashion, surely, yet in such a fashion as Heaven had given her to love. Her husband had been torn from her by death; her child by a foe yet more ruthless. She was left with literally not a dollar in her purse, and debts incurred through illness hanging over her. She struggled with her fate for a season-wished to die, tried to die, but was thwarted; and so at last accepted, with the resignation of despair, the only fate that was left for her-lingering out a few years. She was only one of a thousand, nay, one of many thousands.

From the day of his father's funeral, her boy had never known one word concerning her. He was only ten years old, and neither strong of will nor demonstrative in affection. Yet he had a tender heart and some solid virtues, only at that age they were in the nascent state. So he succumbed to Miss

Barbara's determination, and took life from her hands with few questions, working, if he must work, in the night; in the daytime studying, in the curious fashion of observing children, the strange being who presided over his young life, and striving to accommodate himself to her peculiarities.

He was a child of keen perceptions, and it was not long till he had found out that, arbitrary and forbidding as was her exterior, at heart she loved him as he had never been conscious of being loved before. She seldom consulted either his tastes or his wishes indeed, but in her own impulsive fashion she lavished upon him, not caresses indeed, but more substantial benefits. He was a slender child, and cared little for outdoor sports, yet a pony was provided for him, and ride he must, will he nill he. He was not fond of study, but tutors came, and he was put through a most solid and substantial course of education. He doted on flowers, and would have been glad to have had a greenhouse and to have spent half his time in it; but this Miss Barbara voted an effeminate employment, and so banished all green and growing things from her domains. And yet, in spite of all these contrarieties, the two got on not ill together.

Miss Barbara would not trust her favorite at school, so his education was pursued wholly at home. Sometimes the constant restraint of her presence and her will was irksome to him, but because he was not strong of purpose, and as he grew older and knew how from his early experience to appreciate the unstinted blessings of his outer life, he schooled himself to obey his patron's will as few young men would have done. Besides, he had no vicious tendencies, and until he was twenty he scarcely realized to what an extent his nature was tyrannized over.

But the training which a youth may endure is not fitted for even the most inert specimen of manhood. Miss Barbara had an idea that a protege so reared as Walton had been could not fail, through gratitude and habit, to become the companion and solace of her old age. It was not for that that she had intended him. She had not designed that he should adopt any business or profession. She had money enough; there was no need of that. Neither had she intended to introduce him into general society. Her own society-a small circle of ancient people who were as much astray from the world of to-day as she was-these must content him.

At twenty, as I have said, Elwood had scarcely rebelled against these arbitrary restrictions. But the longest dawning deepens into day at length, the latest spring bursts into summer by-and-bye. Easy, inefficient, and somewhat self-indulgent by nature, the charms of woman were sure to present to a nature like Elwood Walton's the strongest temptation.

Miss Barbara herself was too astute not to be aware of this fact, and she had provided for it by singling out of the narrow circle of her acquaintances, a young lady whom she designed that Elwood should marry.

Ellen St. John was a penniless orphan of good family. She was of amiable temper, good manners, and was in her way a beauty. She was sure to bow meekly to the rule of her husband, and the

husband, of course, being Elwood Walton, would in turn bow meekly to Miss Barbara's rule. What more could be desired?

So Elwood was adroitly set at the work of courtship, and for some months all things seemed to progress smoothly.

Miss St. John was, as I have said, penniless, but she resided with her uncle, Henry Ware, who was her guardian, and had two or three well grown boys, jolly, companionable young men, who treated Ellen like a sister, and upon whose abounding spirits and somewhat exuberant ways her gentle, courteous manner were calculated to produce an excellent effect. Both her uncle and aunt, therefore, felt that her presence and influence quite compensated for the expense she was to them, and made her most cordially welcome in their family.

For two years before the time of which we are speaking, Ellen had been away from home at school. While there she had formed an intimacy with one of the young ladies much older than herself, and of a very different character. It was indeed difficult to say what was the bond of union between Ellen St. John and Constance Cavaire. Ellen had indeed a fair exterior and gentle, ladylike manners, but Miss Cavaire was a beauty of the regal and dominant order. She was tall and queenly of stature, with regular features and fathomless black eyes that seemed to look straight through one, and carriage of an empress. At least, it was in some such fashion as this that Elwood Walton's musings ran, after his first interview with her. For on this particular summer fate had sent her down to Kenwood to visit Ellen, and of course among the first of her acquaintances was the lover of her friend.

If the truth must be told about Constance Cavaire's impressions of Mr. Walton, they were simply too faint to be transcribed. She had not at first understood the position which he held, since as he had not yet declared himself, Ellen had been discreet enough to refrain from all mention of him in her letters.

Miss Cavaire was a lady who had her eyes well open to the world, and, though Elwood Walton was in himself, to her experienced gaze, a most insignificant person, when she learned, as she was not long in doing, that he was heir prospective to a fortune estimated in figures which even to her ears sounded respectable, she began to pay him more attention. Miss Cavaire had a due and proper respect for money, but she was also coldly critical in the matter of men. Her first tangible ideas concerning Walton were, it must be confessed, somewhat against him.

"A raw youth," was her mental estimate," with some native excellences, but wonderfully deficient in training. What sort of a life can he have led heretofore, I wonder?"

Speculating thus, she chanced to make the acquaintance of Miss Brethwaite, and instantly the whole mystery was laid bare to her view. She had learned, by this time, the prospective relations between Mr. Walton and her friend.

"It's a shame," she said, "to marry my pretty Ellen to a crude and ill-trained boy like this. I see the old lady's plan. She has one poor orphan of gentle, amiable disposition, to her stock. This mar