THE JUSTICE'S COURT.

BY THE EDITOR.

SQUIRE SMITH has evidently a very tangled bit of jurisprudence to unravel. With his pipe lit and his legs up, he is taking it easy as far as his body is concerned, but his troubled forehead and fixed look show that his mind is very hard at work upon the merits of the case. The Squire is a captain of the militia, as his sword hanging up by the mantel-piece shows. He holds court in his own farmhouse kitchen, and he has a neighbor who is very free with his advice, and who, with his old torn hat over his eyes, sits close behind the Squire, and listens with him to the argument. The wife of the plaintiff sits in the bedroom adjoining, nursing her child and looking in very anxiously. Two lawyers, who have had their say, are still disputing a point, though the Squire has insisted on hearing the clients themselves. The younger of the two, and the most honest-looking, has found the pas sage of law which he relies upon, and is showing it very pleadingly, while his opponent, who gives him a side look

full of malice, pulls the Squire's sleeve to get away his attention. Well, it is not improbable, that justice will be truly administered, for Truth, though they build palaces to contain her, lodges oftenest in places more humble.

THE LADY IN THE WHITE DRESS,

WHOM I HELPED INTO THE OMNIBUS.

BY N. P. WILLIS.

I KNOW her not! Her hand has been in mine,
And the warm pressure of her taper arm
Has thrill'd upon my fingers, and the hem
Of her white dress has lain upon my feet,
Till my hushed pulse, by the caressing folds,
Was kindled to a fever! I, to her,
Am but the undistinguishable leaf

Blown by upon the breeze-yet I have sat,
And in the blue depths of her stainless eyes,
(Close as a lover in his hour of bliss,
And steadfastly as look the twin stars down.
Into unfathomable wells,) have gazed!
And I have felt from out its gate of pearl
Her warm breath on my cheek, and while she sat
Dreaming away the moments, I have tried

To count the long dark lashes in the fringe

122

THE LADY IN THE WHITE DRESS.

Of her bewildering eyes! The kerchief sweet
That enviably visits her red lip

Has slumbered, while she held it, on my knee,-
And her small foot has crept between my own-
And yet, she knows me not!

Now, thanks to heaven

For blessings chainless in the rich man's keeping-
Wealth that the miser cannot hide away!

Buy, if they will, the invaluable flower

They cannot store its fragrance from the breeze!
Wear, if they will, the costliest gem of Ind-

It

pours its light on every passing eye!

And he who on this beauty sets his name-
Who dreams, perhaps, that for his use alone
Such loveliness was first of angels born-
Tell him, oh whisperer, at his dreaming ear,
That I too, in her beauty, sun my eye,
And, unrebuked, may worship her in song-
Tell him that heaven, along our darkling way,
Hath set bright lamps with loveliness alight—
And all
may in their guiding beams rejoice;
But he—as 'twere a watcher by a lamp-
Guards but this bright one's shining.

THE DAILY GOVERNESS.

BY CHARLES DICKENS.

THE lark went up to heaven, seeming to beat his breast against the ancient sky; yet, tiny speck as he was, scarcely discernible to the keenest vision, his song was audible to Lucy Hinchliff in her mother's little garden. Lucy was a daily governess, and was in the act of plucking a rose to adorn her bosom, before she set out to enter upon the day's routine. She cast her eyes around the modest garden-it was a very modest, very little garden-looked up at the lark once more, received the last note of its song into her soul, smiled at the gray-headed mother in the pinched widow's cap, who was standing at the window, waved her adieus, and closed the small gate after her.

There was not in all the suburb in which we lived a better girl, a prettier girl, a more loving, more dutiful daughter than Lucy Hinchliff. She first attracted our attention when we went with satchel on our back, willingly enough, to school. She was younger by two years than ourselves—a little, timid thing, as we remember her. She had a father at that time, but we could see that the old gentleman was poor; and once we were prompted to offer her some of our victuals which we bore in our bag (for we