Calmly and nobly up, and said 'twas well

And she would die.

*

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*

*

*

The sun had well-nigh set.

The fire was on the altar; and the priest

Of the High God was there. A pallid man

Was stretching out his trembling hands to heaven,
As if he would have prayed, but had no words-
And she who was to die, the calmest one

In Israel at that hour, stood up alone,
And waited for the sun to set.

Her face

Was pale, but very beautiful-her lip

Had a more delicate outline, and the tint
Was deeper; but her countenance was like
The majesty of angels.

The sun set

And she was dead--but not by violence.

A CHRISTMAS CHANT-ALFRED DOMMET.

It was the calm and silent night!

Seven hundred years and fifty-three
Had Rome been growing up to might,
And now was queen of land and sea.
No sound was heard of clashing wars,---
Peace brooded o'er the hushed domain
Apollo, Pallas, Jove, and Mars,

Held undisturbed their ancient reign,—
In the solemn midnight,
Centuries ago!

'Twas in the calm and silent night!
The senator of haughty Rome
Impatient, urged his chariot's flight
From lordly revel rolling home;
Triumphal arches, gleaming, swell

His breast with thoughts of boundless sway;

What recked the Roman what befell

A paltry province far away,—
In the solemn midnight,
Centuries ago?

Within that province far away

Went plodding home a weary boor;

A streak of light before him lay,

Fallen through a half-shut stable-door,
Across his path. He passed, for naught
Told what was going on within:

How keen the stars, his only thought,-
The air, how calm, and cold, and thin,
In the solemn midnight,
Centuries ago!

Oh, strange indifference! low and high
Drowsed over common joys and cares;
The earth was still, but knew not why;
The world was listening-unawares.
How calm a moment may precede

One that shall thrill the world forever
To that still moment none would heed,
Man's doom was linked no more to sever,➡
In the solemn midnight,
Centuries ago!

It is the calm and silent night!

A thousand bells ring out, and throw Their joyous peals abroad, and smite

The darkness, charmed and holy now! The night that erst no name had worn, To it a happy name is given;

For in that stable lay, new-born,

The peaceful Prince of earth and heaven,
In the solemn midnight,
Centuries ago!

GOOD AND BETTER.

A father sat by the chimney-post
On a winter's day, enjoying a roast;
By his side a maiden young and fair,
A girl with a wealth of golden hair;
And she teases the father stern and cold,
With a question of duty trite and old,—
"Say, father, what shall a maiden do
When a man of merit comes to woo?
And, father, what of this pain in my breast?
Married or single,--which is the best?"

Then the sire of the maiden young and fair,
The girl with the wealth of golden hair,
He answers as ever do fathers cold,
To the question of duty trite and old,
"She who weddeth keeps God's letter:
She who weds not doeth better."
Then meekly answered the maiden fair,
The girl with the wealth of golden hair,
"I'll keep the sense of the holy letter,
Content to do WELL without doing BETTER."

PUTTING DOWN THE WINDOW.

During the summer season a man may expect to be suddenly called at any moment in the night to get up and pull down the windows. On the advent of a thunder shower it is rarely that a man wakes first. If he should, he keeps quiet, so as not to disturb his wife, and avails himself of the first lull to go to sleep again. How differently a woman acts -oh, so differently! Just as soon as she wakes up and hears that it is raining, she seems to lose all judgment at once. She plants both of her feet in her husband's back, at the same time catching him by the hair and shaking his head, and hysterically screams:

"Get up! get up, quick! It's a-pouring right down in torrents, and all the windows are up!"

He cannot wake up under such circumstances with an immediately clear conception of the case; in fact, it frequently happens that he is way out on the floor before his eyes are fairly open, having but one idea really at work, and that is as to what he is doing out of bed. The first thing to do is to strike a light, and while he is moving around for the matches, and swearing that some one has broken into the house and moved them from where he laid them on going to bed (which is always plausible enough), she hurls after him the following tonics:

"Do hurry! Mercy, how that rain is coming right into those windows! We won't have a carpet left if you don't move faster. What on earth are you doing all this time? Can't find the matches? Mercy sake? you ain't going to stumble round here looking for matches, are you, when the water is drowning us out? Go without a light. What a man you are; I might have better got up in the first place. Well, (despairingly) let things go to ruin if you are a mind to. I've said all I'm going to, an' I don't care if the whole house goes to smash. You always would have your own way, an' I s'pose you always will, and now you can do as you please; but don't you dare to open your mouth to me about it when the ruin 's done. I've talked an' talked till I'm tired to death, and I shan't talk any more. We never could keep anything decent, and we never can; an' so that's the end of it. (A

very brief pause.) John Henry, are you, or are you not going to shut down those windows?"

Just then he finds the matches, and breaks the discourse by striking a light. He was bound to have that help before he moved out of the room. He has got the lamp lighted now. No sooner does its glare fill the room than he immediately blows it out again, for obvious reasons. He had forgotten the windows were open and- It almost causes

him to shiver when he thinks of his narrow escape.

He moves out into the other room with celerity now. He knows pretty well the direction to go, and when a flash of lightning comes it shows him on the verge of climbing over a stool or across the centre-table. If there is a rocking-chair in the house he will strike it. A rocking-chair is much surer in its aim than a streak of lightning. It never misses, and it never hits a man but in one spot, and that is just at the base of his shin. We have fallen against more than eight hundred rockers of all patterns and prices, and always receive the first blow in the one place. We have been with dying people, and have heard them affirm in the solemn hush of that last hour, that a rocking-chair always hits a man on the shin first.

And when a man gets up in the dead of night to shut down the windows, he never misses the rocking-chair. It is the rear end of one of the rockers which catches him. It is a dreadful agony. But he rarely cries out. He knows his audience too well. A woman never falls over a rockingchair, and she will never understand why a man does. But she can tell whether he has by the way he puts down the windows when he finally reaches them. A rocking-chair window (if we may be allowed the term) can be heard three times as far as any other.

THE BRICKLAYERS.-G. H. BARNES,

"Ho! to the top of the towering wall!"
'Tis the master-mason's rallying call:
"To the scaffolding, boys, now merrily climb;
'Tis seven o'clock by the town-bell's chime.
Bring to your work good muscle and brawn,
And a keen, quick eye where the line is drawn:

Out with your saw-tempered blades of steel,
Smoother than glass from point to heel;
Now, steady and clear, from turret and port,
Ring out your challenge, 'Mort', Oh, mort'!
"Clink! clink! trowel and brick!

Music with labor and art combine;
Brick upon brick, lay them up quick;
But lay to the line, boys, lay to the line!"

Cheery as crickets all the day long,
Lightening labor with laugh and song;
Busy as bees upon angle and pier,
Piling the red blocks tier upon tier;
Climbing and climbing still nearer the sun,
Prouder than kings of the work they have done,
Upward and upward the bricklayers go,

Till men are but children and pigmies below;
While the master's order falls ringing and short,
To the staggering carrier, "Mort', Oh, mort'!
"Clink! clink! trowel and brick!

Music with labor and art combine;
Brick upon brick, lay them up quick;

But lay to the line, boys, lay to the line!"

Who are the peers of the best in the land,—
Worthy 'neath arches of honor to stand?
They of the brick-reddened, mortar-stained palms,
With shoulders of giants and sinewy arms,
Builders of cities, and builders of homes,
Propping the sky up with spires and domes;
Writing thereon with their trowel and lime'
Legends of toil for the eyes of time,
So that the ages may read, as they run,
All that their magical might has done.
So clink! clink! trowel and brick!

Work by the master's word and sign,—
"Brick upon brick, lay them up quick;
But lay to the line, boys, lay to the line!"

MINE KATRINE.-CHAS. F. ADAMS.

You vouldn't dink mine frau,
If you shust look at her now,
Vhere der wrinkles on her prow
Long haf been;

Vas der fraulein blump und fair,
Mit der vafy flaxen hair,

Who did vonce mine heart enshnare;
Mine Katrine.