and Lovigny, confused and troubled, confessed, contrary to his previous declarations, that he had learned nothing from him.

"How then has the plot come to your knowledge?" demanded the keeper of the seals. "I was hunting," he answered, "and heard some men whom I did not know tell to several lords of the court, what I told to the Cardinal." Chalais smiled scornfully, and, turning to the keeper, said,

'Now, sir, I am ready to die;" and added, in a lower tone, "Ah! traitor Cardinal, you have placed me where I am.”

The hour fixed upon for the execution drew near,but, lo! they sought in vain for either of the executioners. Since the dawn of day they had not been seen. For a moment hope whispered in their hearts, but it was only its dying moan they heard, for there was no escape. A soldier, under sentence of death, was promised pardon if he would act as executioner of Chalais, and, inexperienced as he was, he accepted the place. At ten o'clock all was ready, and the clerk announced to the prisoner that he had but a few moments to live. It was hard that one so young, wealthy, and popular, descended from one of the noblest families of France, should die by so poor an intrigue, an innocent victim of such treason, and for a moment the young man gave way to deep despair. He seemed forsaken by all the world; the queen had cruelly deserted him, and Madame de Chevrense, after having done all for him in her power, had left Nantes that she might avoid seeing her lover die.

And at this moment his mother came to him. She had done every thing that the eloquence of words or of gold could effect, and now came to sustain him in his last hour. Chalais threw himself into his mother's arms and wept convulsively; but soon gathering manly courage from her maternal strength, he raised his head and said, "I am ready."

Out of the prison, to the square, up the steps of the scaffold, she walked by his side, and the priest with the crucifix followed. Pictures represent the noble mother ascending the rude steps, with one arm thrown protectingly around the neck of her son, while the left hand points to the heaven of which she is speaking to him. The soldier with the sword was more pale and trembling than the convict. A vast multitude pressed around the scaffold, eager to see the face of the condemned man; and who shall say that the heart of many an armed warrior did not ache with pity as the widow, whose ancestors had been patriots good and true, stood by her child so bravely. If they

Trembling, he raised the sword and struck. Chalais groaned and raised his head; he was only wounded in his shoulder, for the inexperienced executioner had struck too low. All covered with blood, they saw him talk to the soldier, while the agonized mother again embraced him. Then he replaced his head-another blow and again he was only wounded.

With an oath the soldier flung away the sword. "It is too light," he said; "if you do not give me a better weapon I shall never finish my task."

The sufferer crept upon his knees, and laid his head, gashed and bleeding, on his mother's breast. O, the untold agony of her heart as she laid back the gory locks from the brow of her child! They gave the executioner a cooper's dowel-ax, but they did not know that the trembling arm of the horrified soldier, and not the light weapon, was the occasion of such torture.

Again Chalais took his place. The spectators of this awful scene counted thirty-two blows, and at the twentieth the convict still cried, "Jesus! Maria! Jesus! Maria!"

At last, when all was ended, Madame de Chalais rose, and, extending her hands toward the blue heavens, exclaimed,

"My God, I thank thee! I thought I was to be only the mother of a convict, and I am the mother of a martyr!"

She demanded the mutilated body of her son, and they granted it to her. Alone and griefstricken, she went to her home a childless widow.

How beautiful and how varied are the forms of prayer and thanksgiving in the book of Psalms! They appear as the outpourings of a grateful heart before God for the glories of his creation-for succor in the hour of danger-for deliverance from affliction-for national privileges-and for anticipated salvation. There is an earnestness in many of them that lays hold upon our strongest sympathies; for-without speaking of their inspired and prophetic character-they may be truly said to spring from feelings which are natural to every man who is not utterly debased, and in the exercise of which generous tempers ever take delight.—Sedgwick.

LAMENTATION.

BY JEAN INGELOW.

I READ upon that book,

Which down the golden gulf doth let us look
On the sweet days of pastoral majesty;
I read upon that book

How, when the Shepherd Prince did flee-
Red Esau's twin-he desolate took
The stone for a pillow: then he fell on sleep.
And lo! there was a ladder. Lo! there hung
A ladder from the star-place, and it clung
To the earth: it tied her so to heaven; and O!
There fluttered wings;

Then were ascending and descending things
That stepped to him where he lay low;
Then up the ladder would a-drifting go-
This feathered brood of heaven-and show
Small as white flakes in Winter that are blown
Together, underneath the great white throne.

When I had shut the book, I said,
"Now, as for me, my dreams upon my bed
Are not like Jacob's dream;

Yet I have got it in my life; yes, I,
And many more: it doth not us beseem,
Therefore, to sigh.

Is there not hung a ladder in our sky?
Yea; and, moreover, all the way up on high
Is thickly peopled with the prayers of men.

We have no dream! What then?
Like winged wayfarers the hight they scale
By Him that offers them they shall prevail-
The prayers of men.

But where is found a prayer for me;
How should I pray?

My heart is sick, and full of strife.

I heard one whisper with departing breath,
'Suffer us not, for any pains of death,
To fall from Thee.'

But, O, the pains of life! the pains of life!

There is no comfort now, and naught to win,
But yet I will begin.

IV.

"Show me the path. I had forgotten Thee

When I was happy and free, Walking down here in the gladsome light o' the sun; But now I come and mourn; O set my feet In the road to thy blest seat,

And for the rest, O God, Thy will be done."

AUTUMN LEAVES.

BY MARY A. P. HUMPHREY.

WHAT do the leaves say

In blue Autumn weatherBrown leaves and gold leaves Down flitting together? The heart of the forest

For Summer lies bleeding; Softly the scarlet leaves

Whisper their pleading:

"Cover the graves of the rose and the lilyCover them warm, for the north wind is chilly."

Pine-scented breezes

Go mimicking angerWhirl down a world-full, Then faint in soft languor; Crimson-veined, amber-hued, Vailing each corner, What do the leaves say

In Indian Summer?

"Brown lie the fields, for the harvest is gathered;

Bare hang the nests, for the young birds are feathered."

Wind-led battalions,

They march through the grasses;
Bearded crusaders,

They whisper low masses.
Listen, O, faint heart!

To Nature be juster!

Hear what the leaves say,

Who love her and trust her!

"Harvests shall ripen in Summers yet brighter; Song-birds fly northward and lilies bloom whiter."

Never a leaf falls,

Its short mission ended-
But with its fading

Some promise is blended;
The root whose life-juices

Sleep warm in earth's bosom,
Holds hope of new spring-time,
New bud and new blossom.

And the soul whose worn garment of duty is riven,
Shall choose it a robe from the vestry of Heaven.

E'EN times are in perpetual flux, and run,
Like rivers from their fountains, rolling on,
For time, no more than streams, is at a stay;
The flying hour is ever on her way:
And as the fountains still supply their store,
The wave behind impels the wave before;
Thus in successive course the minutes run,
And urge their predecessor minutes on.

"0

riers are worth their weight in gold. A gentleman refused a thousand-dollar span of horses

YOU dear little Flossy," said Miss Adelia, picking up her sky terrier, "nobody has given you a crumb to eat this day, nor brushed out your pretty curls. You are always neglected when Adelia is away. But you shall not be any more, pretty pet. She will take you with her the next time she makes a visit. O, run away, Freddy, do n't plague me with your lesson. I must go down and broil a mutton chop for Flossy; the little dear is almost starved." So she pushed away her little brother, and made Flossy a snug bed on the sofa-cushion, patting him softly as she left him, and then went down to the kitchen to burn her fingers, and disarrange Bridget's tidy apartment, in the preparation of a breakfast fit for her "treasure." Miss Adelia would have considered herself most unjustly treated if she had been obliged to take half the trouble for the accommodation of any one else in the family, but for her Flossy she could do any thing. Just in proportion as her attachment for this senseless creature increased, her regard for every thing else appeared to diminish. She grew cross and fretful when asked to perform the simplest service for any one. But she could spend hours over her dog, bathing him, curling his hair in little rings, and sprinkling him with fragrant perfume. The pet endured it as well as he could, but would have been a far happier dog if he had been permitted to pick his bones in the court-yard, and go to sleep in the sun.

"O, mother, I can't take that tiresome baby, he is so cross. I never could endure a baby just big enough to tear every thing to atoms. Besides, I want to curl up poor Flossy; he looks as shaggy as a street dog."

"I wish he was a street dog with all my heart," said mother. "It was a very unlucky thing for us all when your cousin made you the present of that dog. It takes up altogether too much of your time, and is making you very selfish, my child. Your father and I have decided that, unless you make a decided change in the matter, Flossy must be disposed of."

"Send away poor Flossy, O, mother," and Adelia burst into tears as she spoke. "Don't you know, mother, he is worth his weight in silver. Cousin Charley said some of these ter

"I think the old Quaker's remark on a parallel case would hold good then, that two fools met that time, one to make such an offer, and the other to refuse it. Pets are very well in their place, but when they take up so much time and attention they become a positive injury. It is always a pleasant sight to me to go into old Margaret's little cottage, and see her great tortoise-shell cat purring away so contentedly on the hearth-rug, for I know how much company she is for the lonely woman. But poor Miss Hobsen exposes herself to a great deal of ridicule by her attachment to her poll parrot. You know how much time she spends over him, trying to teach him new words, talking with him, and petting him like a spoiled child. It makes her seem very silly to other people who have far more important pursuits in life than tending a bird. I understand that she has bequeathed him a thousand dollars in her will, and a hundred dollars a year to a person who is to take care of him after her death. So it will be for the woman's interest to prolong his life as long as possible. The poor old lady is very ill now, but screeching polly is seldom out of her room; she seems unhappy if he is out of her sight. Now, if Miss Hobsen had only taken into her home and heart some poor motherless child years ago, what a blessing it might be to her now! Instead of being dependent for every comfort on hirelings, she might have a child's loving attentions in her old age.

"God never intended us to lavish so much time and attention upon a mere animal. He wishes us to be kind to even the humblest of his creatures, but he has given every one a higher work to do than curling and perfuming a dog. I have observed with anxiety and pain how this attachment is growing upon you, and how it is injuring your mind and heart; and now, Adelia, you must give up devoting so much time to it, or I shall give Flossy away to any one who will take him. It would be better, indeed, to have him killed, than to have him the means of making my daughter selfish and ridiculous. You may think of this seriously, Adelia, and to-morrow morning you may tell me your decision. If you think you can keep him, and not have him interfere with one other duty, you may do so. Another thing I shall insist on. There are to be no more meals cooked expressly for him. It took Bridget a half hour to clean up after your breakfast-making this morning, and that must not occur

again. He can eat scraps from the table like any other dog, or he can not stay with us." “O, mother," said Adelia, "I can not think what Henrietta Bradshaw will say to that. She always cooks something nice for her King Charles, and feeds him on a china plate."

"Is it to imitate Henrietta you have been led into all this folly, my dear?" asked mother, smiling. "I thought it was pure affection for your pet. But here comes aunt Sophia, perhaps she can help us solve the knotty question of what shall be done with Flossy.

Aunt Sophia listened to an account of the matter, and at length proposed to take Flossy to board. Not that she was particularly fond of pets, but she was anxious that so fine a girl as her niece might make, should not be spoiled for a little terrier dog no bigger than your fist. As school commenced the next week, Adelia at length consented to the arrangement. It would be a good excuse to offer to Miss Henrietta, and it would sound well, too, to say that she had sent him into the country to board for awhile.

Floss seemed to enjoy country air, and romped and frolicked with the kittens just as any plebeian puppy might have done, but one day he fell into a fit. It did not last long, however, yet aunt Sophia thought it of enough importance to mention when she came into town one day with her butter.

'O, auntie, do get the doctor for him if it ever happens again. He lives just next door to you, so it would not be a bit of trouble. Henrietta often has Dr. Allen look at her King Charles when he does not seem as well as usual. Once he gave him some medicine in a little vial, which Henrietta had the hardest work to get him to take. I suppose it was very bitter, for Charley did make such a face, and cry, and rub his nose. Dr. Allen, and Henrietta's sister Laura, sat on the sofa laughing till they cried, and poor Hetty cried, too, for the poor dog's sufferings."

"By all means get Dr. King to attend Floss if he needs it," said father, who began to see a glimmering hope of some day getting clear of "the plague." "I will write a line to him I think."

Adelia almost thought her father was jesting, but he did send a line by aunt Sophia. It might not have added to her happiness if she had seen its contents, however.

Perhaps the doctor had attended ladies' lapdogs before. At least he made no hesitation in pouring a little crystallized powder down his throat, which soon relieved him of all the ills of life.

Aunt Sophia sent in a line to say that poor Flossy was dead, and the children had buried him at the foot of the apple-tree. There were a good many tears shed that evening by one member of the family, and Adelia thought her father quite hard-hearted to turn to his newspaper with so much interest, right after she had told him of her affliction. She wished to run over at once to her friend Henrietta for consolation, and mother permitted her to go for half an hour. She found that young lady deeply immersed in dress-fitting anxieties, her dressmakers happening not to please her, so she had no eyes or ears for her friend's sorrows. She listened with the greatest indifference to her account of poor Flossy's untimely end, and only offered the consoling remark—

"It was only what you might have expected, sending him away from home, and trusting him to the care of another. I never permit any one else to have the charge of my little darling," and she stopped in the midst of her employment to give him a caress.

Adelia speedily drew her visit to a close, and when she returned was ready to accompany her mother on a walk. She began to realize the truth which her mother had sought to impress upon her, that mere fashionable friendships were very unsubstantial affairs. They were worth but little at times when we felt we needed them most.

But where was mother taking her? This was a portion of the town she had never visited before. She almost shrank back with dismay from the narrow alley they entered, where they were obliged to pick their way very carefully through the rubbish which littered the sidewalk. But mother knew the way, and stopped at last before a crumbling doorway, which Adelia almost feared to enter. The broken stairway seemed more dangerous still, but mother took her little daughter by the hand, and she felt that she was safe where mother was.

A

Knocking softly at a door, it was speedily opened, and the two entered an apartment which, with all its poverty, was a pleasant contrast to all without. The bare walls were whitewashed, and the floor was clean, and so was the little pallet in the corner where lay a form as white as the little dress it wore. bowed and heart-broken mother went back to her station at the foot of the little bed as soon as her guests were seated. No word could she utter, but she folded back the white covering from the little waxen form, and then her sobs and moans broke forth afresh. Adelia's ready tears flowed forth in sympathy, and mother's eyes were dim even while she gently strove to

lift the poor mother's thoughts up to that blessed land "beyond, beyond the river" where Jesus gathers all the tender lambs into his

bosom.

I know, ma'am, it's a blessed change for her, the beautiful rose-bud; but, O, the weary nights and days for me that's to come. She'll never nestle up to her poor mother's bosom in the dark night again, when the noises in the house and the street frighten her. Poor lamb! I was forced to leave her the day she was taken sick to take home some work to a lady. She kept me waiting in the hall for an hour before I could see her, and then, ma'am, she would give me no money. 'She had n't it by her,' she said, and I must call again.' O, ma'am, it made the blood run cold in me to hear her say that. She, with her wealth and plenty, did n't know what a death-stroke it was to me, with my darling sick, and me not a penny to buy her a sup of milk, or a thing to refresh her. I came back to the room, though I was blind and dizzy with famine, but I could have found my child, I believe, if I had been blindfolded. | I carried her up and down the room, and rocked her in my arms till she fell asleep, and then I stole out with my shawl on my arm to the pawnbroker's shop. It was the last thing I had that was worth their looking at, and it brought me enough to buy some things for her and a stale loaf for myself. There's some of it left there still. It seems as if I could never taste food again. But I must make haste with my work, or I shall not get the money to pay for my baby's burial, and I can't bear to see her rattled off over the stones in a pine coffin like a poor beggar child."

She reached out her hand, and took up a paper which contained her work, a beautiful piece of braiding on a jacket of violet merino.

"

Why, that is just like Henrietta Bradshaw's. new dress," said Adelia. "She has it made with a jacket just like that, and it was to be braided in just such a pattern. We selected it from a magazine."

"It is for that same young lady, Miss, and I only hope I may please her-though she might have let me wait, when my baby lay dead in the house," she said, almost bitterly.

"O, Henrietta will not ask you to do it now," ," said Adelia earnestly. "She could not do such a thing. I am sure she would pay you beforehand, and allow you to finish it afterward."

"If she will pay me when it is done, Miss, I shall be thankful; but it was of her I begged the money that was due me, so I could buy food for my dying child, but it was refused me."

It seemed incredible to the warm-hearted Adelia that any one could be so hard-hearted; but she did not reflect how rapidly she was drifting in the same direction. After mother had given the woman a sum sufficient for her present necessity, and left the contents of the little basket she carried, she took Adelia's hand and walked away toward their own pleasant home again. O, how different the world seemed when they were out once more in the broad sunny street, away from that dismal alley! Yet Adelia's thoughts went constantly back to the poor woman alone with her great sorrow. There was no escape for her into the bright sunshine of life again.

"O, mother, I do not know how she can bear it," she said at last.

This is one of the real sorrows of life, my child. There is nothing like meeting such a grief as this face to face, to cure us of a great many fanciful sorrows."

You will never see me cry for Flossy again, mother. It may do very well for a plaything, but I see it was nothing to love and mourn for when there are such sorrows as this in the world."

Mother's heart rose up in a prayer of thanksgiving, to find that the lesson she had sought to teach had been learned; and she also prayed that it might be lasting.

"

"But can Henrietta know the truth of the case, mother, and yet insist on having her work done at once?"

"I suppose she does not realize the poor mother's grief as you do, Adelia. But when the heart is so given up to the frivolities of fashion, and the love of what should be only an occasional diversion, it grows hard very fast. Can you not realize that, my dear?"

Adelia blushed and held down her head, for she remembered how pettish she had grown of late, when the baby or little Fred required her attention. She thought, with a shiver, what it would be to see these little meddlesome fingers, that often tried her so, lying cold and waxen white like those of the little one she had just left. In her heart she felt that she could never be so impatient with them again.

The lesson which she learned in that dreary alley was one of life-long service to her. From that hour she took a more intelligent interest in the sorrows and sufferings of the poor and needy, and even learned to deny herself that she might relieve these wants. She had, it is true, a succession of pets, and was seldom without one. Mother was glad to see these marks of a tender and loving spirit toward the little creatures God had given to be with us, but she