on 'em, and see that they didn't run away with it. Bimeby in they came agin, and then they said somebody was guilty of something, who had just said he was innocent, and didn't know nothing about it no more than the little baby that had never subsistence. I come away soon afterwards; but I couldn't help thinking how trying it must be to sit there all day, shut out from the blessed air!” Perhaps you're going out to dine,— You'll hear about the cannon-ball He tells you of his starving wife, A bachelor to bed. You're sitting on your window-seat, As if a broken fife should strive And nearer, nearer still, the tide Of music seems to come; There's something like a human voice, And something like a drum; You sit in speechless agony, Until your ear is numb. Poor "Home, sweet home" should seem to be A very dismal place; Your "Auld Acquaintance" all at once Is altered in the face; Their discords sting through Burns and Moore, Like hedgehogs dressed in lace. But, if you are a portly man, To turn them out of town; And, if you are a slender man, Go very quietly and drop A button in the hat! Oliver Wendell Holmes. MISS CRUMP'S SONG. MISS CRUMP was inexorable. She declared that she was entirely out of practice. "She scarcely ever touched the piano;" "Mamma was always scolding her for giving so much of her time to French and Italian, and neglecting her music and painting; but she told mamma the other day that it really was so irksome to her to quit Racine and Dante, and go to thrumming upon the piano, that, but for the obligations of filial obedience, she did not think she should ever touch it again." Here Mrs. Crump was kind enough, by the merest accident in the world, to interpose, and to relieve the company from farther anxiety. "Augusta, my dear," said she, "go and play a tune or two; the company will excuse your hoarseness." Miss Crump rose immediately at her mother's bidding, and moved to the piano, accompanied by a large group of smiling faces. "Poor child," said Mrs. Crump, as she went forward, "she is frightened to death. I wish Augusta could overcome her diffidence." Miss Crump was educated in Philadelphia; she had been taught to sing by Madame Piggisqueaki, who was a pupil of Ma'm'selle Crokifroggietta, who had sung with Madame. Catalani; and she had taken lessons on the piano from Seignor Buzzifussi, who had played with Paganini. She seated herself at the piano, rocked to the right, then to the left, leaned forward, then backward, and began. She placed her right hand about midway the keys, and her left about two octaves below it. She now puts off to the right in a brisk canter up the treble notes, and the left after it. The left then led the way back, and the right pursued it in |