Her fingers grow numb and her head seems to swim;
Her strength is fast failing-she staggers! she reels!
She falls- -Ah! the danger is over at last,
Her feet touch the earth, and the long bridge is passed!

In an instant new life seems to come to her form;
She springs to her feet and forgets her despair.
On, on to Moingona! She faces the storm,

She reaches the station-the keeper is there.

"Save the lightning-express! No-hang out the red light! There's death on the bridge at the river to night!"

Out flashes the signal-light, rosy and red;

Then sounds the loud roar of the swift coming train,
The hissing of steam, and there, brightly ahead,
The gleam of a headlight illumines the rain.

"Down brakes!" shrieks the whistle, defiant and shrill;
She heeds the red signal-she slackens, she's still!

Ah! noble Kate Shelly, your mission is done;

Your deed that dark night will not fade from our gaze;

An endless renown you have worthily won:

Let the nation be just, and accord you its praise.
Let your name, let your fame, and your courage declare
What a woman can do, and a woman can dare!

-Harper's Young People.

MY DAUGHTER LOUISE.-HOMER GREENE.

In the light of the moon, by the side of the water,
My seat on the sand and her seat on my knees,
We watch the bright billows, do I and my daughter,
My sweet little daughter Louise.

We wonder what city the pathway of glory,

That broadens away to the limitless west,
Leads up to;-she minds her of some pretty story
And says: "To the city that mortals love best."
Then I say: "It must lead to the far away city,
The beautiful City of Rest."

In the light of the moon, by the side of the water,
Stand two in the shadow of whispering trees,
And one loves my daughter, my beautiful daughter,
My womanly daughter Louise.

She steps to the boat with a touch of his fingers,
And out on the diamonded pathway they move;

The shallop is lost in the distance, it lingers,

It waits, but I know that its coming will prove
That it went to the walls of the wonderful city,
The magical City of Love.

In the light of the moon, by the side of the water,
I wait for her coming from over the seas;

I wait but to welcome the dust of my daughter,
To weep for my daughter Louise.

The path, as of old, reaching out in its splendor,
Gleams bright, like a way that an angel has trod;
I kiss the cold burden its billows surrender,

Sweet clay to lie under the pitiful sod:

But she rests, at the end of the path, in the city
Whose "builder and maker is God."

-Our Continent.

WHERE ARE WICKED FOLKS BURIED.

"Tell me, gray-haired sexton,” I said,

"Where in this field are wicked folks laid?

I have wandered the quiet old churchyard through,
And studied the epitaphs, old and new;

But on monument, obelisk, pillar or stone

I read of no evil that men have done."

The old sexton stood by a grave newly made,

With a hand on his chin, and a hand on his spade;
I knew by the gleam of his eloquent eye
His heart was instructing his lips to reply.

"Who is to judge when the soul takes its flight?
Who is to judge 'twixt the wrong and the right?
Which of us mortals shall dare to say,

That our neighbor was wicked who died to-day?

“In our journey through life, the farther we speed
The better we learn that humanity's need

Is Charity's spirit, that prompts us to find
Rather virtue than vice in the lives of our kind.

"Therefore, good deeds we record on these stones;
The evil men do, let it lie with their bones.
I have labored as sexton this many a year,
But I never have buried a bad man here."

MRS. BROWN'S HUSBANDS.

Mr. Mills, the minister, was a stranger in the town, and when he was called upon to visit and console Mrs. Brown, who had just lost her husband, he went around to see Deacon Wilt, so that he could post himself about the situation.

"I understand you to say," said Mr. Mills, "that Mrs. Brown has been married three times or was it four?"

"I say," replied the deacon, "that she was Mr. Brown's third wife, while he was her fifth husband. But she was the fourth wife of her second husband, and the second wife of her first, so that she___”

"Let me see," said the parson, "the second wife of the first, and the-well, then, three and five are eight, and four are twelve, and two are fourteen-if I get the hang of the thing, Mrs. Brown has been married fourteen times, and Mr. Brown was her"

"No, you don't understand. Brown was only her fifth husband."

"Oh, her fifth. But you said she was the fourth wife of her second husband, and she had three more, so that— four and three are seven-she must have had seven husbands, and where are the other two?"

"Why, don't you see? Her second husband was married three times before he met her. She had been married once

"How could she be married only once when he was her second husband!"

"Only once before she met him, and when she married him she was his fourth wife, so that he had had four wives, and she had only—"

"Is this Brown you are speaking of?"

"No, no! Brown was her fifth. He had been married twice before."

66

'Her second husband had?”

"I mean Brown, of course. Let me explain. Mrs

Brown, say, married John, Thomas, Jacob, William, and Henry. And Thomas married Lulu, Mary, and Hannah—” "Before he married Mrs. Brown or after?"

"Before. Well then, Brown married Emma and Matilda, and John married Agnes. Agnes died and John married Mrs. Brown. Then John died and Lulu, Mary, and Hannah died, and then Thomas married Mrs.Brɔwn. Then Thomas died, Jacob's wife died, and Jacob married Mrs. Brown. Then Jacob died and William's wife died, and William annexed Mrs. Brown. When William died, Emma and Matilda died, and then Brown married Mrs. Brown. Everybody came to Mrs. Brown's, you see!" "I sec," said Mr. Mills. "I think I grasp the facts. I'll go right around to see her."

Mrs. Brown was at home. And after alluding to the weather and one or two other topics, Mr. Mills said:

"I am deeply grieved, Mrs. Brown, to hear of your bereavement. It must be very, very terrible, even for a person who is so used to it."

"So used to it! What do you mean, sir?"

"Why, I merely meant to suggest that experience cannot reconcile us to those afflictions. But there is this consolation dear madam, time dulls the edge of our bitterest grief. You wept for John as if you could not be comforted; but you see—”

sir.'

"John! I do not understand you,
"You wept for John, but Thomas came.

When Thomas was taken you thought yourself utterly inconsolable; but there was Jacob-he brought new joy. When Jacob was wafted to a better land your heart was nearly broken, but William healed the wounds; and when William drifted off into the unknown, Henry assuaged your grief. Perhaps there are other Henrys, Williams, and Thomases. to whom this blessed duty will fall again. Perhaps—” "You are talking very strangely, sir," said Mrs. Brown. "Oh, no; I merely say that now John and Thomas and Jacob and William and Henry have been called away to

join Hannah and Agnes and Matilda and Emma and Lulu and Mary and the rest, there is some hope that— that—why, Mrs. Brown, what on earth is the matter?"

Mrs. Brown flew out of the room without replying, and Mr. Mills, filled with amazement, went around to ask Deacon Wilt to explain the mystery.

"I was merely telling her," he said, "that Brown had followed John and Thomas and Matilda and the others into a better world, when she—”

"Good gracious!" shrieked the deacon; "you didn't allude to her dead husbands and their wives by those names, did you?"

"Oh, horrors, man! Why, those were only imaginary names, that I used by way of illustration. Brown's first name was Alcibiades. No wonder she was mad."

Mr. Mills groaned and went home in dismay. And now Mrs. Brown has left his church and gone over to the Episcopalians. She is to be married soon, they say.

WHAT IT IS TO DIE.

To die is not the work of one brief hour,-
A pang, a start, a fluttering of the soul,

A struggle, and a yielding of the ghost

By the poor vanquished frame. That is the close,
The ending of the strife,-death's final triumph.

We do begin to die when the keen ray

Of the quick eye grows dim, and its full orb

Flattens and shrinks; when through the auburn braid
Runneth a streak of white, and its soft web

Grows harsh; the cheek that to the touch and eye
Was rose-like loses kindred with the flower

In tint and texture, and the lithe limb tires

In its accustomed haunts,-'tis then-'tis then
We do begin to die! Thenceforth the soul
Sits like the princely tenant of a hall

That hastes to ruin; thenceforth noiselessly
The spoiler's hand is busy at his work
And ceaseth not.