experienced mother finds out that her little ones are really safer than she used to think they were, and can be trusted sometimes to competent guardians-like me.

"Well," said she, at last, "baby's a dood yitty ting (warn't oo, baby ?), and if I put him to sleep before I go, perhaps he won't wake up until we get back. I'll try you, for once.'

So my small cousin was nicely arrayed in some mysterious but clean white garments, the details of whose arrangement I did not see, as donated with (as they say about gifts to infant colleges; ergo, why not to infants, though the phrase be insufferable ?) a bounteous repast of— from-by-in short, the maternal fount (I thank you, Mr. Micawber!), and soothed with gentle oscillation and oft-repeated chanting of that wondrous, ancient rhyme or magic song which commences with an allusion to our country's flag, to wit,

"By-lo baby bunting;"

felt “no end” of benignity, universal friendship,
and pure delight, in having attained to the hon-
or of so lovely an office of superintendence.
"Yah!"

Thus remarked my darling Sammy, suddenly waking up and writhing about, and digging in a helpless, wavering manner at his eyes with his fists. At that very moment it occurred to me that really I had never had one minute's intercourse with him, and that possibly he might be an exception to the rule which I had laid down that all children liked me—in fact, he was.

I mentioned that some fiend had, doubtless, inspired me with my benevolence. As nearly as I can calculate, it was now that the said fiend did, in my opinion, leave me, and enter into that baby. As the above-mentioned sug-. gestion about Sammy's exceptional disposition toward me arose in my mind, an expression of confusion appeared upon my face-I remember and thus was the young immortal prosperously it accurately. This Sammy perceived as I dismissed within the peaceful realms of Dream- arose, and, with what I fancied an unexceptionland. Then my Aunt Fanny adorned herself able demonstration of parental rapture, apwith speed, and forthwith the old, lean, over-proached the cradle of my chubby and innocent worked farm-horse shambled off down the sun- companion angel. shiny summer road toward the church, two miles and more away. As she stepped over the threshold she looked back for an instant, and some shadows flitted indistinctly across her face. Was it a presentiment ?

64

I

Human prosperity is a deceitful thing. passed half an hour in profound quiet, reading by the open window, in the sweet summer air, in the leafy solitude of the remote farm, in a stillness so complete that the buzzing of a fly across the pane, or the motion or fall of one leaf from the tall trees in the darkly-shaded door-yard, was a noticeable event. I had been perusing a sermon from that stately work, Theology Explained and Defended, in a Series of Sermons, by TIMOTHY DWIGHT, S.T.D., LL.D." The grave, elaborate fancifulness of the old President's descriptions, their formal and sonorous periodicity of phrase, not without the recognizable decent sermonic idioms, bore an efficient analogy to the solemnity of the day; and I lingered long in pleasant imaginings over "thirdly" of the Remarks, Sermon XXII., ON MAN.

"They were companions of angels," saith the great New England Doctor, speaking of Adam and Eve in Paradise, "and shared their conversation, their friendship, and their joys. Alike were they free from pain, sickness, sorrow, and death; safe from fear and hatred, injustice and cruelty; and superior to meanness, sloth, intemperance, and pollution. They were also immortal; were destined to dwell in a perpetual Eden; were surrounded always by beauty, life, and fragrance; and were employed only in knowing, loving, and enjoying."

It was a pretty thought, that. I was in a sort of paradise, with a little angel for my companion; and as I gazed upon the sleeping child, I

"Ah, oo pooty yitty ting! Did he want to tum and see his tuzen? So he should!”

I appeal to every mother's heart; is not that a first-class blandishment? I can't print the affecting drawl that I put into it, the recitative style and portamente di voce with which I garnished it secundum artem. But as far as types will show it, I contend that the very mother of Moses, if you like, couldn't have turned out a more superior article of verbal endearment.

The baby listened with some complacency to my dulcet tones; and encouraged by my success, I thought it proper to communicate to him the peculiar circumstances which rendered me his guardian for the time. Thus, therefore, to him, I:

"Ha, pooty! Was oo muzzer au gone oo church? Es ee was! An lef oo wiz oo tuzen Freddy (my baptismal name is Frederic) all ee mornin? Ha-a-a-a, ketcher, ketcher, ketcher, ketcher, ketcher! Ha-a-a-a prrrrrrrrr! Jiggle, jiggle, jiggle !"

Not being quite satisfied with the expression of Master Sammy's minute features during the first half of this address, I began somewhat to doubt my ability to communicate with him in language half baby and half English, and therefore I repeated my statement as above, in pure baby, as near as I can judge, pointing at him in a free and jovial manner during the words "Ha, ketcher," etc.; making a kind of swoop at him with outspread fingers during the remark, "Ha, prrr," etc.; and smiling very sweetly indeed at the word "jiggle."

As I said, in despite of the profound theory and masterly execution of this manœuvre, I did not perform it without a secret and embarrassing apprehension. The evil spirit in the child-for no mere human baby could have failed to respond to such affectionate approaches

Da, see um! Urk, urk, u-r-r-r-k, a-chackle, chackle, chackle. Ducky go quack, quack! (Shriek continued; nurse tries other class of impressions, and jumps him vigorously up and down, accompanied with a noise similar to the following.) Ha ti deedle deedle deedle dum dum dum tiddy I, tiddy I, widdlety widdlety widdlety widdlety quee quee quee quee, poor ittle fella, ha ha ha!"

"Full well I laughed, with counterfeited glee," hoping that a genial sympathy might create a smile upon the "open countenance" of Sammy. Vain hope! All my jumbling only served to modify that surprising and steady yell by intro

-perceived this hidden misery of mine, and cock-a-doodle-doo and all ee old biddy hens? took instant advantage thereof; namely, by returning, not demonstrations of reciprocal affection, but what I may truly call demon-strations of anger, unmingled except with fear and aversion. While I spoke and stuck out my paws at him (for I will admit that my gestures may have been susceptible of that interpretation), Master Sammy preserved an ominous silence, a grave and attentive expression, and entire quiet-only opening his eyes and likewise his mouth. But no sooner had I ended, and made as though I would actually lift him from the cradle, than he looked hastily about after his mother. She not being forthcoming, a species of fearful contortion passed over his visage-ducing a kind of pulsation or measured emphahis mouth opened to an extent unparalleled in sis into it. My words might as well have been my experience, occupying a space that left no uttered to a drunken Sixth Warder in a row at room for the rest of his face, which was, there- the polls; and my hollow merriment, although fore, shriveled or heaped up together in a lit-its merits as an imitation did in fact make the tle pile of wrinkles in the region of the bridge baby stop a moment, catch breath, and look up of the nose-no eyes whatever being visible, at me, did no more. His face curled up again, and only two little pink holes indicating the and out came the yell. "smellatory organ," as Mrs. Baggles hath it- I had observed, upon lifting Sammy from the and from this preternatural orifice he discharged cradle, that he seemed to stiffen himself in a such a shriek as really hit me on the forehead somewhat writhen attitude, as if to resist my and knocked me straight up again into a fright- | purpose. He now began to squirm and wrigened perpendicular. It didn't stop either-it gle in a rather alarming manner, so that I fancontinued. I had no idea there was so much cied he might be about to indulge in the pleasnoise in any thing. This was evidently a dia- ing diversion of a fit. All at once I reflected bolic energy. A child would have had to that he must be hungry; and that very possibly breathe, but this phenomenon didn't. Its whole both screeching and squirming might be rebeing resolved itself into shriek. The mere fat ferred to that cause. I accordingly placed the human baby of a moment before was transmuted little one, still indefatigably howling in a maninto a sorcerer's thing-a kind of live Teraph; ner that would have exhausted a Mohawk wara mere Institution for the Promotion of Awful chief in three minutes, in his cradle, raked some Noises. live coals out from the buried kitchen fire, warmed some (cow's) milk in an old tin cup, watered it and sugared it according to the regulations in such case made and provided, put it in the "suck-bottle”—as I believe it is called

I think I stood, astounded and incapable of action, for a minute. And really, now that I am retrospecting the thing, in what a fix was I! Well-meaning, but absurdly ignorant young bachelor that I was, how was I calculated, ei- took a small precautionary pull at the prepather by nature or art, for assuaging the dire ration myself, found it a perfect nectar for lukealarms of an unweaned child-much more for warmness, washiness, and sweetness, and prodealing with such an instance of precocious de-ceeded to invite Master Sammy to partake, so moniac possession as this? Conjuro te would not tell on a baby, nor By-lo baby bunting on an imp.

All that, however, I had no leisure to consider; and Quintus Curtius did not show more nerve and hardihood in riding into that crack in the ground of the Roman Forum than I did in stoutly bending me to the task of quieting Sammy. I may safely say, that in the wild and fearful struggle which followed, all the resources of an active mind, a vigorous and healthy body (masculine), and an excellent disposition, were nobly devoted to the work, and if I failed, it was in an attempt beyond the powers of any mere man.

I picked Sammy up, in the first place, and carried him to the window, jumbling him up and down as I went, and aiming to divert his mind by action and by speech.

"Poor itty fella! Was ee tired seepin in his tadle? Did ee want to tu and see old VOL. XV.-No. 87.—▲▲

to speak, of the festive bowl.

Lying yelling on his back, with eyes close shut and mouth wide open, he heeded not the approach of the seductive viand. I half lifted him up, but he wouldn't look. I jerked some drops into his mouth, as they "job" peppered vinegar or tomato catsup through a quill in the cruet-cork at eating-houses; but he appeared not to perceive it. I cautiously inserted the bottle into his mouth, until the tip of the sucking thing, whatever they call it, fairly poked open his epiglottis. He only gagged, writhed, and yelled on. Evidently he was not hungry; I put away the bottle.

The business grew dreadful; Sammy began to turn purple, and I to feel blue; but still he continued that wonderful and ear-torturing cry. I looked about me in forlorn and hopeless perplexity. There was a rattle-one of these coral things with half a dozen minute pewter sleighbells on it-and a penny whistle; I shook the

former and blew the latter, in an industrious | great bed of live coals in the old-fashioned but rather imbecile way, near Sammy's phiz. kitchen fire-place. Not altogether free from I might as well have used the same means to uneasiness as to what I might be left to do, I scare a lioness robbed of her whelps, or a New put Sammy into his cradle, and shut the kitchYork city alderman nosing out a job. I lifted en door. Then I walked up and down the room the infant, who stiffened himself again at my a while, casting looks full of sneers, fury, and touch almost into a stony arc, and shivered as contempt at the unterrified and still shrieking a dying fish will sometimes do in the captor's child. Then I stationed myself at the foot of hand, and with a feeble effort to preserve further the cradle, and delivered a long and savage inthe benignity and universal friendship which vective at Sammy, as Cicero used to at his enI had flourished so largely, and which I felt emies-when they were out of the way-shakmomentarily growing thinner and thinner, I ing my fist at him, stringing reproachful episang to the child the inevitable "By-lo baby thets together by the score, and attributing to bunting," and then "Now I lay me," also the the little wretch an early and mature degradaaffecting ballad of The Three Little Kittens, tion of character that would have satisfied the and as my stock of strictly juvenile literature toughest of the old New England Predestinagave out at this point, I proceeded with "Rise rian Calvinists. my soul," and one or two other hymns. These efforts were all in vain; I felt as sheepish as if I had been caught trying to sing a tornado to sleep; and my voice died away as I tried once more to raise the square-built strains of old Amsterdam, like those of "the monk, her son, and her daughter, the nun," around the coffin of the wicked old woman of Berkeley, "in a quaver of consternation."

But I quickly grew ashamed of this. Dignified indifference, I remembered, would suit me better. Besides, I recollected having heard that letting babies alone would stop their crying when every thing else failed. I think it would-when they had yelled themselves to death. So I erected a sort of little fortification in the middle of the floor, of pillows and blankets, ensconced Sammy within it, stuck his rattle in his hand, took my "Dwight's Theology," and sat down again by the window to read. The first passage upon which my eye fell was within a page of that which I had been reading when these horrors began; and, like it, it seemed to bear an indistinct but decided relation to my case. It was this:

"To escape from our present melancholy, stormy, bloody world, to such a state, would be to quit, for a palace of splendor and delight, the gloom of a vault, hung round with midnight, and peopled with corpses; a bedlam, where the eye of frenzy flashed, the tongue vibrated with malice, and chains clanked, in dreadful concert, to rage and blasphemy; a dungeon, haunted with crimes, teeming with curses, filled with fiends in the human shape, and opening its doors only to the gibbet and the grave."

It was at this point that my long-tried patience utterly failed; and with a sudden revulsion of wrath, I felt myself, mentally speaking, slung round into a position of absolute opposition to this terrific child; of positive anger and spite, not entirely unmingled with fear. I perfectly recollect that precisely as I was feeling myself carried away by this impulse, Sammy, who lay in a stiffish attitude, with his head well back over one arm, opened his eyes a moment. As I am a living man, the pestilent infant WINKED HIS LEFT EYE AT ME! Never tell me there wasn't a devil in that baby! Well; it occurred to me in this new frame of mind, that possibly I might intimidate the child, or simply out-yell and overwhelm it by sheer superiority of vociferation. So I held him up by both arms on my knee, looked right down his little, ugly, red throat, and gave him "A wet sheet and a flowing sea," in a style that would have electrified the whole British navy. It didn't discourage him at all. I tried the Pirate's Glee, containing some fearful chromatic whining, which I made the most of; but to no end. Then I degenerated, I am afraid, into mere mindless, ignoble spitefulness; and opening my mouth again I spent from ten to fifteen minutes in a series of the most hideous, complicated, and disgusting yells that probably it ever entered into the heart of man to con- I had no perception of the duration of time. ceive, until my throat felt as if I had had a peck | For what I know, Sammy squalled there a week. of teazles poked into my lungs and then pulled Once, with a grim smile, I started up, and empout again. Great Cæsar's ghost! what a baby! tied about half the milk out of the bottle, that He never flinched, nor "bated a jot of heart or I might permit it to be supposed he had fed to hope;" he yelled away as peacefully as if no- that extent. I had also mind enough left to thing had happened. shape a scheme of equivocation wherewith to elude the necessity of confessing the facts of the morning to my respected aunt. Otherwise, the period which supervened is a miserable blank in my recollection-nothing more, except a yell.

But as for me, this finished me. I fancied that, under these frightful discouragements, my intellect was beginning slightly to waver. King Herod came into my mind. I thought of the

"Aha, my boy!" I involuntarily exclaimed to Sammy. "Fiends in human shape, eh? How'll you like that place?" And I shook my fist at him. He paid no regard either to my remark or my fist.

I read on; but perplexed, wearied, and excited as I was, and with that wild alarm ever sounding in my ears, the forms upon the printed page made no impression upon my sensorium, and I turned over leaf after leaf in utter ignorance of what I read.

irregular that morning. I let her think so. I didn't care to press the subject much.

It was at some time in the distant future-as No lie there. I did give him quite a lotregards my reading of that ominous delineation quite a small lot. But I have always labored of the abodes of the wicked-that the sudden under the impression that my Aunt Fanny susnoise of stamping feet, rattling wheels, and min-pected that the proceedings had been a little gled voices smote upon my ear, and awakened me from a kind of awful stupor. Before I had composed my countenance my Aunt Fanny entered the room, glanced at her vociferous progeny, and bent a keen and suspicious look upon me. I fairly cowered before her-an abject thing—as miserable as if I had been taken in the act of stealing sheep from my best friend. I know my face was flushed; I know I had a hang-dog look; and I felt, to use a certain figurative expression, "like a boiled owl."

"Well, Fred," said she, in her sharp, decisive, incisive voice, "how did you get along?" “Well,” I said, feebly, "pretty well, on the whole. He cried some latterly. But, on the whole, I think he enjoyed himself."

I've speculated often upon the causes of that failure of mine, for it was a failure. I did ev ery thing right; why- But I invariably fall back upon my theory of demoniacal possession. No other solution is possible.

I've formed some few conclusions upon this subject.

I don't think children like me much.

I think that the Fall of Man consisted in the becoming liable to be born, and to struggle up to maturity through the horrors of infancy. In the paradisiacal state we should all have merely come into existence, at eighteen for women and twenty for men, together with a good common

Did I lie? I don't care much if I did. But school education. I think he did enjoy himself.

As the people came trooping in, Sammy was apparently diverted by the noise, and "ceased firing." That is, his devil went out of him, because there was no further chance to torment me. He was very soon in the enjoyment of his stated means of support, and seemed to appreciate them fully.

"Rather hungry," said my Aunt Fanny, when he had been dining strenuously for about half an hour, and looking queerly at me.

"I'm sure," I answered, "I gave him quite a lot of milk. It's half gone, at least."

I often ask, with Dr. Franklin, "What's the use of a baby?" He gave no answer; I do. A baby is providentially provided as an "awful example" for the warning of maids and bachelors, as terrific consequences universally follow great follies. It is the delirium tremens of matrimony. If you don't want to have it, let the causes alone.

Mother Ann Lee is your only true prophet. I intend to join the Shakers. I have already secured a broad-brimmed hat, and a coat of butternut brown. I can naturally sing through my nose and shake my paws about.

THREE PICTURES.

AFTER THE MANNER OF FEROGIO.

THREE girls, half-draped, stood by the sedgy bank,
Where, mocking with low laugh the noonday sun,
A cool stream flowed. Their robes of whitest linen,
Swept round their limbs, in large, uncertain folds,
Scarce knowing which, of all the varied charms,
From the bold day to vail; but 'wildered clung,
Betraying all the more what they would hide.
One dark-eyed maid, in whose voluptuous form
A passionate strength was glossed with gentle curves,
Leaned on a rock, and drooped her languid hand
Into the waves that rippled in blue rings,

As round a floating lily. Her deep eyes,
Moist with the dews of maiden longings, gazed
Down the still stream, peopling, mayhap, its depths
With gorgeous dreams, and visionary shapes
Of sensual beauty. Her half-parted lips,
Scarlet and wet as some red Orient fruit
To its core cleft, seemed oping to the sun-
Rich fruit of Love that burst in ripest hour!
Tossed in the wind, her black and chainless curls
Waved, like a pirate's flag, from her proud head
Defiance to the world! Stooping she stood;

With limbs half-quivering in convulsive grace,
Head drooping forward, with an unborn kiss
Fluttering upon her lips, and long, white arms
That, from sheer wantonness, twined round each other!
The hot wind, gusty with its mad desire,

Snatched at her robe; the while she did not strive
To gain it back, but stood, with heaving breast,
Proud in the knowledge of her beauty. She
Seemed a born Queen of Love. Her glowing form
Was but her soul in flesh; a reckless maid,
Whose very life was love, but whom much love
Could kill, or unrequited love might make
A murderess!

A blonde the second was.

Her simple robe drooped heavily around

The form that shone beneath. She leaned against

A rough-hewn wall, until her flexile shape

Seemed with its own weight bending. Sweet blue eyes,

O'erhung with carved white eaves of heavy lids,

As hangs the snow-ledge o'er calm Alpine lakes.
From head to foot the eye was led along

In curves of beauty rich and rythmical.
Unfilleted her head, and down her neck
Streamed the rich river of her golden hair
That on her shoulders broke, and, foaming, fell
Into her bosom's valley. One pink hand,
Like to some brooch from pale cornelian carved,
Clasped her thin robe o'er her rebellious bust,
That would be free. The other listless hung,
Curled like a sleeping blossom, while her feet,
White as the daisies that they crushed, were seen
Budding beneath her robe, as if too timid
To show themselves full-blown by day. A flush
Faint as the earliest dawn was on her cheek.
Along the rugged wall she leaned against,

The rambling eglantine came clambering, and pressed
Its starry blooms close to her face, and brushed
The vermeil down with countless honeyed kisses.
Above her head, between her and the sun

A maple spread its golden canopy;

And at her feet a throng of purple flowers,

That, night and day, gave all their looks to Heaven,
Now turned on her their young adoring eyes.
What charm was in the maid! An atmosphere
Of pleasure seemed around her, and a glow
Soft as the summer's breathed about her limbs,
Warming the air, as if young Love were near
Waving his ardent pinions! Soft and frail,
And with a beautiful humility,

She, drooping, seemed to ask from out those eyes,
Deep with unfathomable tenderness,
Something to love and cling to.

She was one

Who craved, and not demanded to be loved.
With such a woman clinging to one's heart
Sorrow were sweet; 'twould be such great delight
To watch her calm assumption of one's griefs,
As if they were her birth-right. None like her