WHEN the little one sits on your knee, and lays upon your

shoulder a little head with golden ringlets, you do not mind very much though your own hair (what is left of it) is getting shot with gray.

A

Boyd.

PERSON is always startled when he hears himself seriously called old for the first time.

O. W. Holmes.

IT NEVER COMES AGAIN.

HERE are gains for all our losses,

TH

There are balms for all our pain;
But when youth, the dream departs,
It takes something from our hearts,
And it never comes again.

We are stronger, we are better,
Under manhood's sterner reign;
Still we feel that something sweet
Followed you with flying feet,
And will never come again.

Something beautiful is vanished,
And we sigh for it in vain;
We behold it everywhere,
On the earth and in the air,
But it never comes again!

R. H. Stoddard.

THE memory of youth is—a sigh!

Old Proverb.

FROM "HALL OF FANTASY.”

NEVERTHELESS I confide the whole matter to Provi

dence, and shall endeavor so to live, that the world may come to an end at any moment, without leaving me at a loss to find foothold somewhere else.

Hawthorne.

THE GRANDMOTHER'S APOLOGY.

AND Willy, my eldest born, is gone, you say, little Annie?

Ruddy and white, and strong on his legs, he looks like a

man.

And Willy's wife has written: she never was overwise,
Never the wife for Willy: he wouldn't take my advice.

For, Annie, you see, her father was not the man to save,
Hadn't a head to manage, and drank himself into his grave.
Pretty enough, very pretty! but I was against it for one.
Eh! but he wouldn't hear me—and Willy you say is gone.

Willy, my beauty, my eldest boy, the flower of the flock,
Never a man could fling him for Willy stood like a rock.
"Here's a leg for a babe of a week!" says doctor; and he
would be bound,

There was not his like that year in twenty parishes round.

Strong of his hands, and strong on his legs, but still of his tongue!

I ought to have gone before him: I wonder he went so young.
I cannot cry for him, Annie: I have not long to stay;
Perhaps I shall see him the sooner, for he lived far away.

Why do

you cold;

look at me,

Annie? you think I am hard and

But all my children have gone before me, I am so old:
I cannot weep for Willy, nor can I weep for the rest;
Only at your age, Annie, I could have wept with the best.

For I remember a quarrel I had with your father, my dear,
All for a slanderous story, that cost me many a tear.

I mean your grandfather, Annie: it cost me a world of woe, Seventy years ago, my darling, seventy years ago.

For Jenny, my cousin, had come to the place, and I knew right well

That Jenny had tripp'd in her time: I knew, but I would not

tell.

And she to be coming and slandering me, the base little liar! But the tongue is a fire as you know, my dear, the tongue is a

fire.

And the parson made it his text that week, and he said like

wise,

That a lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies, That a lie which is all a lie may be met and fought with out

right,

But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight.

And Willy had not been down to the farm for a week and a day;

And all things look'd half-dead, though it was the middle of

May.

Jenny, to slander me, who knew what Jenny had been!

But soiling another, Annie, will never make one's self clean.

And I cried myself well-nigh blind, and all of an evening late I climb'd to the top of the garth, and stood by the road at the

gate.

The moon like a rick on fire was rising over the dale, And whit, whit, whit, in the bush beside me chirrup'd the nightingale.

All of a sudden he stopp'd; there pass'd by the gate of the

farm,

Willy he didn't see me―and Jenny hung on his arm.

Out into the road I started, and spoke I scarce knew how; Ah, there's no fool like the old one-it makes me angry now.

Willy stood up like a man, and look'd the thing that he meant;
Jenny, the viper, made me a mocking courtesy and went.
And I said, "Let us part: in a hundred years it'll all be the

same,

You cannot love me at all, if you love not my good name."

And he turn'd, and I saw his eyes all wet, in the sweet moon

shine:

"Sweet-heart, I love you so well that your good name is mine. And what do I care for Jane, let her speak of you well or ill; But marry me out of hand: we two shall be happy still."

Marry you, Willy!" said I, "but I needs must speak my mind,

I fear

you

will listen to tales, be jealous and hard and unkind." But he turn'd and clasp'd me in his arms, and answer'd, “No,

love, no;"

Seventy years ago, my darling, seventy years ago.

So Willy and I were wedded: I wore a lilac gown;

And the ringers rang with a will, and he gave the ringers a

crown.

But the first that ever I bare was dead before he was born,
Shadow and shine is life, little Annie, flower and thorn.

N*

That was the first time, too, that ever I thought of death.
There lay the sweet little body that never had drawn a breath.
I had not wept, little Annie, not since I had been a wife;
But I wept like a child that day, for the baby had fought for

his life.

His dear little face was troubled, as if with anger or pain: I look'd at the still little body-his trouble had all been in vain.

For Willy I cannot weep, I shall see him another morn: But I wept like a child for the child that was dead before he was born.

But he cheer'd me, my good man, for he seldom said me nay: Kind, like a man, was he; like a man, too, would have his way. Never jealous-not he: we had many a happy year;

And he died, and I could not weep—my own time seem'd so

near.

But I wish'd it had been God's will that I, too, then could have died:

I began to be tired a little, and fain had slept at his side;
And that was ten years back, or more, if I don't forget:
But as to the children, Annie, they're all about me yet.

Pattering over the boards, my Annie who left me at two, Pattering she goes, my own little Annie, an Annie like you: Pattering over the boards, she comes and goes at her will, While Harry is in the five-acre and Charlie plowing the hill.

And Harry and Charlie, I hear them too-they sing to their

team:

Often they come to the door in a pleasant kind of dream. They come and sit by my chair, they hover about my bedI am not always certain if they be alive or dead.