man, you love the bright creature yonder with the gentle blue eyes and the steel pens behind her ears, I see it in your soft glances; you wish to marry her, but you are poor. Here, hold out your hand,-here is the beefcontract; go, take her and be happy! Heaven bless you, my children!

This is all that I know about the great beef-contract, that has created so much talk in the community. The clerk to whom I bequeathed it died. I know nothing further about the contract or any one connected with it. I only know that if a man lives long enough, he can trace a thing through the Circumlocution Office of Washington, and find out, after much labor and trouble and delay, that which he could have found out on the first day if the business of the Circumlocution Office were as ingeniously systematized as it would be if it were a great private mercantile institution.

THE VALENTINE.-MARY D. BRINE.

Eh! give you a lift? Why, surely, jump in, sir, along o' me. (Whoa! Dobbin, you critter!) Wal, yes, sir, the walkin' is rough, I see.

You're a stranger in these parts, I take it. Goin' to stop a spell? S'pose you'll put up to the tavern? Oh, yes, they will feed you well.

What's the news of the village?

hey me thar,

Wal, stranger, I'll own ye

I aint no hand fur a gossip; don't hear any news, I declar'. An' my old woman, she tells me a man aint only half wise Ef he don't keep his ears wide open, and larn how to use

his eyes.

Wal, yes, when I was a youngster, I used to be peart an' spry, An' there ain't a contenteder couple now than my wife an' I; But we had a sorrer that come to us more'n ten year ago, An' it sorter shadowed our lives, like a hurt long healin', you know.

Five years would a been long enough, sir, to leave a putty deep scar,

But to double that time seems a'most like pushin' a trouble too far;

An' he was our only child, sir, the boy that ran off to sea, An' though he had been a wild un, we loved him, his moth

er an' me.

He was just a lad,—but eighteen, sir, the month that he ran

away,

An' it's hard to say, but there's come not a line from him since that day.

Whether he's drownded, or killed, only God an' the angels may know,

But his mother an' me are a-waitin' some message to tell us

So.

It's lonely enough for us both, but I've done my best, sir, to

cheer

An' comfort my dear old woman through each long waitin'

year;

An' to-day, while down to the village, a thought came inter my head,

For to-morrer is Valentine's Day, sir, an' so to myself I said:

"I'll play that Betsey an' me was 'way back to our courtin' time,

An' I'll buy her a valentine,-somethin' nice, with picter an' rhyme!"

An' so I've got it all safe, sir, the purtiest one I could find, An' my old woman'll know that I have her allers in mind. Go home with me, did you say, sir? Wal, I don't know as

I mind,

Tho' wife wont be dressed for comp'ny, an' our food aint the hotel kind;

But if you'll jest take pot-luck, sir, why wife an' me'll be glad,

For the sake of your two blue eyes, like them that our own boy had.

What's that you say? Will I let you give Betsey a valentine

too?

Why, surely, I wont gainsay it, but Betsey aint nothin' to

you.

An' it's kind of you, stranger-but see, sir, here is my gate(hold on!

Why, whar is the feller goin'? This beats creation, I swan!) Say, wife, old woman, come out here! (Why, surely that's Betsey's scream!)

Whoa, Dobbin, you pesky critter!-law, I must be hevin' a dream,

Else why is my woman kissin' the face o' that stranger so, An'- -oh! praise God for his goodness, I've brought her our son, I know!

Appendix.

NOTE

The following pages contain the Supplements to the four Numbers of" 100 Choice Selections" embraced in this volume, which, for greater convenience in arranging, are here grouped together instead of appear. ing at the end of the Numbers to which they respectively belong.

SUPPLEMENT TO

One Hundred Choice Selections, No. 1

CONTAINING

SENTIMENTS For Public Occasions;

WITTICISMS For Home Enjoyment;

LIFE THOUGHTS For Private Reflection;

FUNNY SAYINGS For Social Pastime, &c.

Our humiliations work out our most elevated joys. The way that a drop of rain comes to sing in the leaf that rustles in the top of the tree all summer long, is by going down to the roots first, and from thence ascending to the bough.

Beecher.

Love reckons hours for months, and days for years;
And every little absence is an age.

Dryden.

The gods in bounty work up storms about us,
That give mankind occasion to exert

Their hidden strength, and throw out into practice
Virtues which shun the day.

Addison.

Men

Can counsel, and give comfort to that grief

Which they themselves not feel; but tasting it,
Their counsel turns to passion, which before
Would give preceptial medicine to rage,
Fetter strong madness in a silken thread,
Charm acbe with air, and agony with words.

Shakspeare.

Mishaps are mastered by advice discreet,
And counsel mitigates the greatest smart. Spenser.
In this wild world the fondest and the best
Are the most tried, most troubled, and distressed.

Crabbe.

A cunning man overreaches no one half so much as him

self.

Beecher.