WIT AND HUMOR We picked up a good anecdote, the other day, of an old Methodist preacher, who rode a circuit a few years ago. While going to one of his appointments, he met an old acquaintance, who was one of the magistrates of the country. He asked the minister, why he didn't do as the Saviour did-ride an ass, "Because," said the divine, "the people Boarding-schools fit young ladies for keeping have taken them all to make magistrates of." boarders after they marry and have a husband to support. They tell a bride in Philadelphia by her new watch-chain, and the bridegroom by the shawl on his arm. We were looking for the latest report upon gentlemen's fashions lately; a New York house says "there is not much change in gentlemen's pants this month!" Very likely. "Sir, do you mean to say that I speak falsely?" said a person to a French gentleman. "No, sare, I say not dat; but, sare, I say you walk round about the truth very much." On hearing a clergyman remark "the world was full of change," Mrs. Partington said she could hardly bring her mind to believe it, so little found its way into her pocket. "Jones, if burglars should get into your house, what would you do?" "I'd do whatever they required of me. I've never had my own way in that house yet, and it's too late to begin now-yes, alas! too late!" A Newark husband, who when he courted his wife, was constantly sighing for the "Sweet byand-by," doesn't think so much of it now that it is attained. He complains that it has been buy and buy until he is about disgusted. "Doctor," said a gentleman to a physician, "my daughter had a fit this morning, and afterwards remained half an hour without knowledge or understanding." "Ob," replied the doctor, "never mind that; many people continue so all their lives." A little three-year-old wanting something of his mother when she was busy with the baby, she said, "Go away; I can't bother with you now." "What did you have so many children for, if you can't take care of 'em?" was the unexpected retort. "Do you know Mr. Ross?" asked one friend of another, referring to an old gentleman who was famous for his fondness of the extract of hops. "Yes, sir, I know him very well." "What kind of a man is he?" "Why, in the morning when he gets up he's a beer barrel, and in the evening when he goes to bed he is a barrel of beer." A coach passing along Fifth Avenue, New York, had nearly run over a servant girl, when the coachman called out, "Take care, Sally!" The girl, without attempting to escape the danger, looked up to the coachman with an air of offended pride, and said, "It isn't Sally, or any such low, vulgar, and common stuff-it's Amelia Ann." An anxious mother in Maine thus writes to her son in California: "MY DEAR SON :-Come home. A rolling stone never gathers no moss. Your affectionate mother." To which Young America, with equal laconism replies: "MY DEAR MOTHER:-Come here. A setting hen never gets fat. Your affectionate son." 66 EFFECTS.-A suitor for the hand of a young lady had been repeatedly warned that she was of a violent and ungovernable temper, but insisted in attributing the information to envy or mistake. At length," said the lover, relating his mishap to a friend, "I got into an argument with my dear Maria about a mere trifle, when she so far forgot herself, in a moment of passion, as to throw a cup of tea in my face." "And what was the effect?" inquired his auditor Oh, that completely opened my eyes!" SANDS OF GOLD. Silence never betrayed any one. Let another's shipwreck be your seamark A day of idleness tires more than a week of work. Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent. In things of the mind we look for no compulsion but that of light and reason. He who can take advice, is sometimes superior to him who can give it. They that do nothing, are in the readiest way to do that which is worse than nothing. To keep your own secrets is wisdom; but to ex pect others to keep them for you is folly. You may glean knowledge by reading, but you must separate the chaff from the wheat by thinking, There is no condition so low but may have hopes; nor any so high, that it is out of the reach of fears. As daylight can be seen through the smallest holes, so do the most trifling things show a person's character. There is nothing like a fixed, steady aim, with an honorable purpose. It dignifies your nature and insures you success. There is no man, let him be as wise as he may, who knows what circumstances are calculated to make him really happy. A bright and beautiful bird is Hope; it comes to us amid the darkness and the storm, and sings the sweetest song; when our spirits are saddest, and the lone soul is weary, and longs to pass away, it warbles its sunniest notes and lightens again the tender fibres of our hearts that grief has been tearing away. LIBRA YORK THE BROTHERS. ESTER CARLYNE'S kitchen wore upon this last evening but one of the old year that air of expectancy and suspense of which our English kitchens are capable. At the moment that the tall clock struck six it was empty, but the supper-table laid for five, the white and laden shelves seen through the open door of the pantry, and the savory odors within the stove oven, gave token of some approaching and festive event. The clock had scarce ceased striking when the outer door opened to admit the master of the house, and with him the nipping air and flying snowflakes of the winter night. "Bitter cold," he said, divesting himself of coat, hat and mittens. "That it is," replied his wife, emerging from the milk-room, and steadying in one hand a pan of new-laid eggs, while she quickly closed the door behind her with the other. Is the sitting-room getting warm, Janie?" she inquired of a blithe, fair-faced girl who had just then appeared. "I have been looking at the fire," the girl rejoined; "I thought it needed seeing to." She ignored the fact that she had stolen away warily to give one keen, long look from the sittingroom window down the straight white road, and then one still longer look into the mirror above the mantel, which she had duly polished and wreathed with holly in the pauses of the day's more serious occupations. "I hope the boys will not be late," quoth John Carlyne, settling himself to thaw before the fire. "Those pullets beat all," remarked his wife depositing the pan of eggs; "laying all through this cold weather." "Don't forget that eggs are worth twopence each in the shop," suggested John Carlyne, thrusting his feet into what he was pleased to call his slips. "Pooh!" rejoined his wife, with good-humored contempt; "we can afford the boys a good meal once a year," and she whisked the eggs she had broken with liberal energy. The good man subsided. This hint was only a part of the well-meant "chaff" in which he was wont to indulge with his "wimmin folks." Pres: ently, as he thawed, his eyes fell upon Janie sliding around with the somewhat guilty consciousness of having nothing to do. 66 'Well, Jane, it appears to me you're smartened up considerably to-night. Isn't that so?" "Why, uncle, this is nothing but my old brown delaine. "I've been ironing it over." "Oh, yes, I see," he replied, with a sly twinkle. "It is all right, Jane. I hope we shall keep it all in the family—that's what I hope." "Now, pa, you'er too bad," remonstrated the elder woman. ""Tisn't fair, Janie. By-the-by, did you let down the curtains in the sitting-room? Better do it; it'll keep out the cold." Janie slipped out, glad of an excuse to hide her blushes. "It is too soon to begin to joke Janic, pa," said Mrs. Carlyne. "If Will does fancy her, he's never yet said a word to make her think so. And it isn't fair. It will set her against him." "Janie doesn't care for Will Carlyne, ma. Can't you see that?" said the old farmer, sententiously. "If she has got a notion for either of the boys, it is Gabriel." "Wait and see," was the brief rejoinder. "But Gabriel would never think of Janie," she said, with almost a whimper in her pathetic tone. "A girl we took out of the workhouse! He never would, with his college learning and his city notions and high ways. Why, it would be dreadful for Janie to care for Gabriel." Mrs. Carlyne was actually pale at the idea. "Let it work, ma-let it work. Young folks will be young folks. I believe now I hear the sound of horses feet." "Bless me! why, supper won't be done this half-hour." And, this thought dispelling all other, the mother bustled about her work. Janie, meanwhile, in the privacy of the sittingroom, was giving after her own fashion one little moment to the thrill and rapture of conscious power and conscious passion. The windows were rapidly crusting over with frost-work; it was useless, therefore to gaze without for the expected guests. She drew the curtains, stretched her hands a moment towards the fire, turned up the lamp, and again approached the glass. She was a beautiful girl, of a type altogether out of place on this bleak northern farm; dark, brilliant eyes, blue brown or black in different lights and moods, and fair hair shining and rippling in luxuriant braids. It was easy enough to see that she was a waif and a stray in her present condition, and that if the workhouse indeed had given her into the Carlynes' keeping some mystery or strategy was involved. Some dim sense of what this mystery might be shone in the girl's eyes as she gazed at that moment in the glass-some hint of an inheritance far, far different from her present possessions-some gleam from distant regions of romance and ambition whose nature was yet unknown. The petty vanity and trivial confusion went out of her face. Deep and tender and wistful, her eyes seemed to invoke futurity; the red lips parted, her bosom heaved. Suddenly she started. The sound of wheels came crisp and musical through the frost air. The dim vision, the half-caught memory faded. She was Janie again, Mrs. Carlyne's Janie, without other name or place in the wide world. And the boys were coming and supper ready, and for an instant it seemed coarse and disgusting when Mr. Carlyne was holding out the lantern from the back door, and Will was saying, "Don't come out in the cold, father-I'll get it," as he sprang from the carriage; and Gabriel was asking quietly, rather lazily as usual, if all were well; and then the door closed, and they drove on to the oarn, and Mr. Carlyne rubbed his hands and said, "I'm glad they're here. Such a stinging night!" and the mother said, "Yes, indeed!" as she dished up the chicken, and Janie went back to the kitchen to await the entrance of the guests. The elder of the "boys" entered first. He was And he turned himself tenderly, like a roasting Dr. Carlyne-not Gabriel-to the world in which apple, before the blaze and glow. he lived, and one wondered almost that he should The good wife paused, with her eggs-whisk in be "Gabriel" to his mother. He was past thirty, mid-air. "How you talk, John!" she said, protestingly. tall, dark, perhaps handsome. A cold, superior, ambitious man-that was the character that be "I don't see that Janie changes much. It isn't is it? When you are a rich man you won't like to necessary," the young man said, blushing. reflect that the mother of your children was picked up out of the workhouse." "Come to supper," the mother interposed. "It is over a year since you were home, Gabriel," she went on, as they seated themselves around the table. "Will gave us a fortnight at midsummer." | "Yes, in time for the haymaking," said Will. "There was more than haymaking going on, if I remember right," from the father; "picnicing and boating-eh, Janie :" "Oh, yes, we were quite gay," she answered. "Not what Gabriel would call gay, but gay for us." "Do you suppose my ideas of gaiety are peculiar to myself?" Gabriel inquired, looking into Janie's face fully, for the first time, and avoiding, as he was apt to, the use of her name. She looked back. It moved her, evidently, even to meet his eye; more to have him address her thus directly. "You are accustomed to very different things," she said; "different people and different pleasures." "For all that," he rejoined, "I am not always gay," and he smiled a smile which warmed the chilly dignity of his face. Will Carlyne and his mother sat late over the fire that night. All Mrs. Carlyne's real comfort came through Will. He gossipped with her like a girl. First about Gabriel. Gabriel was doing well. He had a well-furnished house in a fashionable neighborhood, and not unfrequently carriages were seen standing before the door. He drove a stylish turnout himself, and his overcoat was, as his mother saw, trimmed with sealskin. He was in society, too, and went among rich and distinguished people. Whether he was in love or engaged Will could not tell. Often they did not meet once a week. Gabriel lived in the centre of the city, and Will in the suburbs. His place was in the great mill, busy from seven to six, too tired often to dress and go out. But how did he spend his evenings? Oh, he read and played chess or went to a lecture. And he liked his boardinghouse. It was comfortable enough. Besides, it was cheap. Will supposed he lived for a quarter what it cost Gabriel. "I never knew you were close, Will." I'm not, mother, but I'm saving up. I'm going to be a rien man, one day." "That isn't everything, dear, to be a rich man." "No, but it will be the road to what I want." But what is it you want so very much :" He hesitated a minute. | Will Carlyne winced. "What ails you, mother? You never talked so about Janie before. It seems to me that you are hard." "I don't mean to be. I only want you to be cautious." She rose and bade him good-night. He did not mean to kiss her coldly, but he did, and she felt it. The girl was more to him than his mother. Perhaps it is hardly fair to Dr. Carlyne to say that he feared his few days' visit to his old home was going to bore him. He had nothing in common with the farm, the stock, the choice apples and the local news. He was rather disgusted to hear, at breakfast, that a party was to be invited for the following evening, in honor of his coming home. The invitations must be given out to-day. One of you must drive Janie, and the other take Robert and the cart and go to gather evergreens. I suppose you will have to draw lots," said the mother. "I could never undertake Robert and the evergreens, mother, so the drawing of lots would be superfluous," said Dr. Carlyne, looking very handsome and somewhat oriental in his dressing-gown, and preparing to ensconce himself with his paperknife and review by the sitting-room fire. Will saw his mother's face cloud. She was going to do her share of work to entertain them. It seemed hard that she could not have their co-operation. Will wanted, too, to make amends for last night. "I will go to the woods, mother. I want no better fun. I presume Gabriel will not object to drive Janie." Janie, with pencil and paper, was making a list of widely-scattered families who were to be bidden. She stole a look at Dr. Carlyne, and met his eyes fixed upon her, not admiringly, not with pleasure, but with a fascinating glance. If I did I could scarcely be expected to say so," he rejoined, coldly. "At what time do we start?" Janie sprang up rather petulantly. "Pray let us give up the party," she said. "Every one seems to think it a bore." "I don't think it a bore," said Will; "I think it "There's no need of my being ashamed of it, will be splendid. And if Gabriel prefers his book mother. I want Janie." for entertainment, I can drive you this morning, The mother was silent, with a little bitterness in and get the evergreens this afternoon." her heart. "Janie ought not to expect to be the wife of a rich man," she said, at last. Strangely enough, the brilliant color went out of Janie's face at this proposal. It returned when Dr. Carlyne replied, in his insolent fashion: |