the wind, he bounds down the channel, and the situation of the ill-fated boy is told upon his father's hearthstone.

Minutes of almost eternal length roll on, and there are hundreds standing in that rocky channel, and hundreds on the bridge above, all holding their breath, and awaiting the fearful catastrophe. The poor boy hears the hum of new and numerous voices both above and below. He can distinguish the tones of his father, who is shouting, with all the energy of despair, "William! William! don't look down! Your mother, and Henry, and Harriet, are all here, praying for you! Don't look down! Keep your eye towards the top!"

The boy didn't look down. His eye is fixed like a flint towards heaven, and his young heart on Him who reigns there. He grasps again his knife. He cuts another niche, and another foot is added to the hundreds that remove him from the reach of human help from below! How carefully he uses his wasting blade! How anxiously he selects the softest places in that vast pier! How he avoids every flinty grain! How he economizes his physical powers, resting a moment at each gain he cuts! How every motion is watched from below! There stand his father, mother, brother, and sister, on the very spot where, if he falls, he will not fall alone.

He

The sun is half way down the west. The lad has made fifty additional niches in that mighty wall, and now finds himself directly under the middle of that vast arch of rocks, earth, and trees. must cut his way in a new direction, to get from under this overhanging mountain. The inspiration of hope is dying in his bosom; its vital heat is fed by the increasing shouts of hundreds, perched upon cliffs and trees, and others who stand with ropes in their hands on the bridge above, or with ladders below.

Fifty more gains must be cut before the longest rope can reach him. His wasting blade strikes again into the limestone. The boy is emerging painfully, foot by foot, from under that lofty arch. Spliced ropes are ready in the hands of those who are leaning over

the outer edge of the bridge. Two minutes more and all must be The blade is worn to the last half inch.

over.

The boy's head His last hope is

reels; his eyes are starting from their sockets. dying in his heart; his life must hang on the next gain he cuts. That niche is the last.

At the last faint gash he makes, his knife-his faithful knifefalls from his little nerveless hand, and ringing along the precipice, falls at his mother's feet. An involuntary groan of despair runs like a death-knell through the channel below, and all is still as the grave. At the height of nearly three hundred feet, the devoted boy lifts his hopeless heart, and closes his eyes to commend his soul to God.

'Tis but a moment-there! one foot swings off-he is reelingtrembling-toppling over into eternity! Hark! a shout falls on his ear from above. The man who is lying with half his length over the bridge has caught a glimpse of the boy's head and shoulders. Quick as thought the noosed rope is within reach of the sinking youth. No one breathes. With a faint convulsive effort, the swooning boy drops his arms into the noose. Darkness comes over him, and with the words God-Mother-the tightening rope lifts him out of his last shallow niche. Not a lip moves while he is dangling over that fearful abyss; but when a sturdy Virginian reaches down and draws up the lad, and holds him up in his arms before the tearful, breathless multitude, such shouting-such leaping and weeping for joy-never greeted the ear of a human being so recovered from the yawning gulf of eternity.

The Personality and Uses of a Laugh.

I would be willing to choose my friend by the quality of his laugh, and abide the issue. A glad, gushing outflow, a clear, ringing, mellow note of the soul, as surely indicates a genial and genuine nature as the rainbow in the dew-drop heralds the morning sun, or the frail flower in the wilderness betrays the zephyr-tossed seed of the parterre.

A laugh is one of God's truths. It tolerates no disguises. Falsehood may train its voice to flow in softest cadences, its lips. to wreathe into smiles of surpassing sweetness, its face

-To put on
That look we trust in-

but its laugh will betray the mockery. Who has not started and shuddered at the hollow "he-he-he!" of some velvet-voiced Mephistopheles, whose sinuous fascinations, without this note of warning, this premonitory rattle, might have bound the soul with a strong spell!

Leave nature alone. If she is noble, her broadest expression will soon tone itself down to fine accordance with life's earnestness; if she is base, no silken interweavings can keep out of sight her ugly head of discord. If we put a laugh into straight-jacket and leading-strings, it becomes an abortion; if we attempt to refine it, we destroy its pure, mellifluent ring; if we suppress a laugh, it struggles and dies on the heart, and the place where it lies is apti ever after to be weak and vulnerable. No, laugh truly, as you would speak truly, and both the inner and the outer man will rejoice. A full, spontaneous outburst opens all the delicate valves of being, and glides a subtle oil through all its complicated

mechanism.

Laugh heartily, if you would keep the dew of your youth. There is no need to lay our girlhood and boyhood so doggedly down upon the altar of sacrifice as we toil up life's mountain. Dear, innocent children, lifting their dewy eyes and fair foreheads

to the benedictions of angels, prattling and gamboling because it is a great joy to live, should flit like sunbeams among the sternfaced and stalwart. Young men and maidens should walk with strong, elastic tread, and cheerful voices among the weak and uncertain. White hairs should be no more the insignia of age, but the crown of ripe and perennial youth.

Laugh for your beauty. The joyous carry a fountain of light in their eyes, and round into rosy dimples where the echoes of gladness play at "hide-and-go-seek." Your "lean and hungry Cassius" is never betrayed into a laugh, and his smile is more cadaverous than his despair.

Laugh if you would live. He only exists who drags his days after him like a massive chain, asking sympathy with uplifted eyebrows and weak utterance as the beggar asks alms. Better die, for your own sake and the world's sake, than to pervert the uses and graces and dignities of life.

Make your own sunshine and your own music, keep your heart open to the smile of the good Father, and brave all things.

"Care to our coffin adds a nail, no doubt,
And every laugh so merry draws one out."

Omens.

Poict. I hope we shall have another good day to-morrow, for the clouds are red in the west.

Phys. I have no doubt of it, for the red has a tint of purple.
Hal. Do you know why this tint portends fine weather?

Phys. The air when dry, I believe, refracts more red, or heatmaking rays; and as dry air is not perfectly transparent, they are again reflected in the horizon. I have observed generally a coppery or yellow sunset to foretell rain; but, as an indication of wet weather approaching, nothing is more certain than a halo round the moon, which is produced by the precipitated water; and the larger the circle, the nearer the clouds, and, consequently, the more ready to fall.

Hal. I have often observed that the old proverb is correct: "A rainbow in the morning is the shepherd's warning. A rainbow at night is the shepherd's delight." Can you explain this

omen?

Phys. A rainbow can only occur when the clouds containing or depositing the rain are opposite to the sun,-and in the evening the rainbow is in the east, and in the morning in the west; and as our heavy rains in this climate are usually brought by the westerly wind, a rainbow in the west indicates that the bad weather is on the road, by the wind, to us; whereas the rainbow in the east proves that the rain in these clouds is passing from us.

Poict. I have often observed that when the swallows fly high, fine weather is to be expected or continued; but when they fly low, and close to the ground, rain is almost surely approaching. Can you account for this?

Hal. Swallows follow the flies and gnats, and flies and gnats usually delight in warm strata of air; and as warm air is lighter, and usually moister than cold air, when the warm strata of air are higher, there is less chance of moisture being thrown down from them by the mixture with cold air; but when the warm and moist air is close to the surface, it is almost certain that, as the cold air flows down into it, a deposition of water will take place.

Poict. I have often seen sea-gulls assemble on the land, and have almost always observed that very stormy and rainy weather was approaching. I conclude that these animals, sensible of a current of air approaching from the ocean, retire to the land to shelter themselves from the storm.

Orn. No such thing. The storm is their element; and the little petrel enjoys the heaviest gale, because, living on the smaller sea insect, he is sure to find his food in the spray of a heavy wave, and you may see him flitting above the edge of the highest surge. I believe that the reason of this migration of sea-gulls and other sea-birds to the land, is their security of finding food; and they may be observed, at this time, feeding greedily on the earthworms and larvæ, driven out of the ground by severe floods; and