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squeaks and come to its assistance. A man can't handle many mice at once to advantage.

Maria was white as a sheet when she came into the kitchen, and asked what she should do-as though I could hold the mouse and plan a campaign at the same time. I told her to think of something, and she thought she would throw things at the intruder; but as there was no earthly chance for her to hit the mouse, while every shot took effect on me, I told her to stop, after she had tried two flatirons and the coal scuttle. She paused for breath; but I kept bobbing around. Somehow I felt no inclination to sit down anywhere. "Oh, Joshua," she cried, "I wish you had not killed the cat." Now, I submit that the wish was born of the weakness of woman's intellect. How on earth did she suppose a cat could get where that mouse was?-rather have the mouse there alone, anyway, than to have a cat prowling around after it. I reminded Maria of the fact that she was a fool. Then she got the tea-kettle and wanted to scald the mouse. I objected to that process, except as a last resort. Then she got some cheese to coax the mouse down, but I did not dare to let go for fear it would run up. Matters were getting desperate. I told her to think of something else, and I kept jumping. Just as I was ready to faint with exhaustion, I tripped over an iron, lost my hold, and the mouse fell to the floor very dead. I had no idea a mouse could be squeezed to death so easy.

That was not the end of trouble, for before I had recovered my breath a fireman broke in one of the front windows, and a whole company followed him through, and they dragged hose around, and mussed things all over the house, and then the foreman wanted to thrash me because the house was not on fire, and I had hardly got him pacified before a policeman came in and arrested me. Some one had run down and told him I was drunk and was killing Maria. It was all Maria and I could do, by combining our eloquence, to prevent him from marching me off in disgrace, but we finally got matters quieted and the house clear.

Now, when mice run out of the cupboard I go out doors, and let Maria "shoo" them back again. I can kill a mouse, but the fun don't pay for the trouble.

THE BROOK.--ALFRED TENNYSON.

I come from haunts of coot and hern;
I make a sudden sally,

And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.

By thirsty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.

Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.

With many a curve my banks I fret,
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set
With willow-weed and mallow.

I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go
But I go on forever.

I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling;

And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel,

With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel;

And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river;

For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots,

I slide by hazel covers;

I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows:
I make the netted sunbeams dance
Against my sandy shallows.

I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;
I loiter round my cresses;

And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

MORE CRUEL THAN WAR.

A Southern prisoner of war at Camp Chase in Ohio, after pining of sickness in the hospital there for some time, and confiding to his friend and fellow captive, Colonel W. S. Hawkins, of Tennessee, that he was heavy of heart because his affianced bride in Nashville did not write to him, died just before the arrival of a letter in which the lady curtly broke the engagement. Colonel Hawkins had been requested by his dying comrade to open any epistle which should come for him thereafter, and, upon reading the letter in question, penned the following versified answer:

Your letter, lady, came too late,

For heaven had claimed its own;

Ah, sudden change-from prison bars
Unto the great white throne!

And yet I think he would have stayed,
To live for his disdain,

Could he have read the careless words
Which you have sent in vain.

So full of patience did he wait,
Through many a weary hour,
That o'er his simple soldier faith
Not even death had power;
And you-did others whisper low
Their homage in your ear,

As though amongst their shallow throng
His spirit had a peer?

I would that you were by me now,
To draw the sheet aside,

And see how pure the look he wore
The moment when he died.

The sorrow that you gave to him
Had left its weary trace,

As 'twere the shadow of the cross
Upon his pallid face.

"Her love," he said, "could change for me The winter's cold to spring;"

Ah, trust in fickle maiden's love,

Thou art a bitter thing!

For when these valleys, bright in May,

Once more with blossoms wave,

The northern violets shall blow
Above his humble grave.

Your dole of scanty words had been
But one more pang to bear,
For him who kissed unto the last
Your tress of golden hair;

I did not put it where he said,
For when the angels coine,

I would not have them find the sign
Of falsehood in his tomb.

I've read your letter, and I know
The wiles that you had wrought
To win that noble heart of his,

And gained it-cruel thought!
What lavish wealth men sometimes give
For what is worthless all;

What manly bosoms beat for truth

In folly's falsest thrall!

You shall not pity him, for now

His sorrow has an end;

Yet would that you could stand with me Beside my fallen friend;

And I forgive you for his sake,

As he-if it be given

May e'en be pleading grace for you
Before the court of heaven.

To-night the cold winds whistle by,
As I my vigil keep

Within the prison dead-house, where
Few mourners come to weep.
A rude plank coffin holds his form;
Yet death exalts his face,

And I would rather see him thus

Than clasped in your embrace.

To-night your home may shine with light,

And ring with merry song,

And you be smiling, as your soul

Had done no deadly wrong;

Your hand so fair that none would think

It penned these words of pain;

Your skin so white-would God, your heart
Were half as free from stain!

I'd rather be my comrade dead
Than you in life supreme;

For your's the sinner's waking dread,
And his the martyr's dream.
Whom serve we in this life, we serve
In that which is to come;

He chose his way; you your's; let God
Pronounce the fitting doom.

THE COUNTRY'S GREATEST EVIL.

A short speech by Vice-President Henry Wilson, delivered at the National Temperance Convention, in Chicago, June, 1875.

Forty years of experience and observation have taught me that the greatest evil of our country, next, at any rate, to the one that has gone down in fire and blood to rise no more, is the evil of intemperance. Every day's experience, every hour of reflection, teaches me that it is the duty of patriotism, the duty of humanity, the duty of Christianity, to live Christian lives, and to exert temperance influence among the people.

There was a time, when I was younger than I am now, when I hoped to live long enough to see the cause which my heart loves and my judgment approves stronger than it is to-day. I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that the present is a rather dark and troubled night for that cause, and it is because it so seems to me that I believe it to be the duty of every honest, conscientious, self-sacrificing man of our country to speak and to work for the cause in every legitimate and proper way. And my reliance for the advancement of the cause of temperance is the same reliance which I have for the spread of the Gospel of our Divine Lord and Master.

The heart, the conscience and the reason must be appealed to continually; and Christian men and women must remember that the heart of Christianity is temperance. If it costs a sacrifice, give it. What is sacrifice to doing good and

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