Dance to the pibroch! saved! we are saved! is it you? is it you?

Saved by the valor of Havelock, saved by the blessing of Heaven!

"Hold it for fifteen days!" we have held it for eighty-seven! And ever aloft on the palace roof the old banner of England blew.

THE BABY'S KISS.-G. R. EMERSON.

AN INCIDENT OF THE CIVIL WAR

Rough and ready the troopers ride,
Pistol in holster and sword by side;

They have ridden long, they have ridden hard,
They are travel-stained and battle-scarred:

The hard ground shakes with their martial tramp,
And coarse is the laugh of the men of the camp.

They reach a spot where a mother stands
With a baby, shaking its little hands,
Laughing aloud at the gallant sight

Of the mounted soldiers fresh from the fight.
The captain laughs out,-" I will give you this,
A bright piece of gold, your baby to kiss."

"My darling's kisses cannot be sold,
But gladly he'll kiss a soldier bold."
He lifts up the babe with a manly grace,
And covers with kisses its smiling face,
Its rosy cheeks, and its dimpled charms;
And it crows with delight in the soldier's arms.

"Not all for the captain," the troopers call;
"The baby, we know, has a kiss for all."
To each soldier's breast the baby is pressed

By the strong, rough men, and kissed and caressed;
And louder it laughs, and the lady's face
Wears a mother's smile at the fond embrace.

"Just such a kiss," cries one warrior grim,
"When I left my boy, I gave to him."
"And just such a kiss, on the parting day,
I gave to my girl as asleep she lay."

Such were the words of these soldiers brave,

And their eyes were moist when the kiss they gave.

A MARINER'S DESCRIPTION OF A PIANO.

A sea-captain, who was asked by his wife to look at some pianos while he was in the city, with a view of buying her one, wrote home to her: "I saw one that I thought would suit you, black walnut hull, strong bulk-heads, strengthened fore and aft with iron frame, ceiled with whitewood and maple. Rigging, steel wire-double on the rat lines, and whipped wire on the lower stays, and heavier cordage. Belaying pins of steel and well driven home. Length of taffrail over all, six feet two inches. Breadth of beam thirty-eight inches; depth of hold fourteen inches. This light draft makes the craft equally serviceable in high seas or low flats. It has two martingales, one for the light airs and zephyr winds, and one for strong gusts and sudden squalls. Both are worked with foot rests, near the kelson, handy for the quartermaster, and out o' sight of the passengers. The running gear from the hand-rail to the cordage is made of whitewood and holly; works free and clear; strong enough for the requirements of a musical tornado, and gentle enough. for the requiem of a departing class. Hatches, black walnut; can be battened down proof against ten-year-old boys and commercial drummers, or can be clewed up, on occasion, and sheeted home for a first-class instrumental cyclone. I sailed the craft a little, and thought she had a list to starboard. Anyhow, I liked the starboard side better than the port, but the ship-keeper told me the owners had other craft of like tonnage awaiting sale or charter, which were on just even keel."

TRUST.-FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE.

Better trust all and be deceived,

And weep that trust and that deceiving,
Than doubt one heart, that if believed

Had blessed one's life with true believing

Oh, in this mocking world too fast

The doubting fiend o'ertakes our youth;
Better be cheated to the last

Than lose the blessed hope of truth.

THE PAWNBROKER'S SHOP.

"Tis Saturday night, and the chill rain and sleet
Is swept by the wind down the long dreary street;
The lamps in the windows flicker and blink,

As the wild gale whistles through cranny and chink;
But round yon door huddles a shivering crowd

Of wretches, by pain and by penury bowed;

And oaths are muttered, and curses drop

From their lips as they stand by the pawnbroker's shop.

Visages, hardened and scarred by sin;

Faces, bloated and pimpled with gin;

Crime, with its plunder, by poverty's side;

Beauty in ruins, and broken-down pride.

Modesty's cheek crimsoned deeply with shame,
Youth's active form, age's fast-falling frame,

Have come forth from street, lane, alley-and stop,
Heart-sick, weary, and worn, at the pawnbroker's shop.
With the rain and the biting wind chilled to the bone,
Oh! how they gaze on the splendor, and groan!
Around them, above them, wherever they gaze,
There are jewels to dazzle and gold to amaze;
Velvets, that tricked out some beautiful form;
Furs, that had shielded from winter and storm;
Crowded with "pledges" from bottom to top

Are the chests and the shelves of the pawnbroker's shop.

There's a tear in the eye of yon beautiful girl

As she parts with a trinket of ruby and pearl;

Once as red were her lips, and as pure was her brow;
But there came a destroyer, and what is she now?
Lured by liquor, she bartered the gem of her fame,"
And abandoned by virtue, forsaken by shame,
With no heart to pity, no kind hand to prop,
She finds her last friend in the pawnbroker's shop.

The spendthrift, for gold that to-morrow will fly;
The naked, to eke out a meagre supply;

The houseless, to rake up sufficient to keep

His head from the stones through the season of sleep;
The robber, his booty to turn into gold;

The shrinking, the timid, the bashful, the bold;
The penniless drunkard, to get "one more drop,"
All seek a resource in the pawnbroker's shop.

'Tis a record of ruin,-a temple whose stones
Are cemented with blood, and whose music is groans;
Its pilgrims are children of want and despair;
Alike grief and guilt to its portals repair.

Oh! we need not seek fiction for records of woe;
Such are written too plainly wherever we go;
And sad lessons of life may be learned as we stop
'Neath the three golden balls of a pawnbroker's shop.

THE FIREMAN'S PRAYER.-RUSSELL H. CONWELL.

It was in the gray of the early inorning, in the season of Lent. Broad street, from Fort Hill to State street, was crowded with hastening worshipers, attendants on early mass. Maidens, matrons, boys, and men jostled and hurried on toward the churches: some with countenances sincerely sad, others with apparent attempts to appear in accord with the sombre season; while many thoughtless and careless ones joked and chatted, laughed and scuffled along in the hurrying multitude. Suddenly a passer-by noticed tiny wreaths and puffs of smoke starting from the shingles of the roof upon a large warehouse. The great structure stood upon the corner, silent, bolted, and tenantless; and all the windows, save a small round light in the upper story, were closely and securely covered with heavy shutters. Scarcely had the smoke been seen by one, when others of the crowd looked up in the same direction, and detected the unusual occurrence. Then others joined them, and still others followed, until a swelling multitude gazed upward to the roof over which the smoke soon hung like a fog; while from eaves and shutter of the upper story little jets of black smoke burst suddenly out into the clear morning air. Then came a flash, like the lightning's glare, through the frame of the little gable window, and then another, brighter, ghastlier, and more prolonged. "Fire!" "Fire!" screamed the throng, as, moved by a single impulse, they pointed with excited gestures toward the window. Quicker than the time it takes to tell, the cry reached the corner, and was flashed on messenger wires to tower and steeple, engine and hosehouse, over the then half-sleeping city. Great bells with pon

derous tongues repeated the cry with logy strokes, little bells with sharp and spiteful clicks recited the news; while halfconscious firemen, watching through the long night, leaped upon engines and hose-carriages, and rattled into the street.

Soon the roof of the burning warehouse was drenched with floods of water, poured upon it from the hose of many engines; while the surging multitude in Broad street had grown to thousands of excited spectators. The engines puffed and hooted, the Engineers shouted, the hook-andladder boys clambered upon roof and cornice, shattered the shutters, and burst in the doors, making way for the rescuers of merchandise, and for the surging nozzles of available hose-pipes. But the wooden structure was a seething furnace throughout all its upper portion; while the water and ventilation seemed only to increase its power and fury.

"Come down! Come down! Off that roof! Come out of that building!" shouted an excited man in the crowd, struggling with all his power in the meshes of the solid mass of men, women, and children in the street. "Come down! For God's sake, come down! The rear store is filled with barrels of powder!"

"Powder! Powder!" screamed the engineer through his trumpet. "Powder" shouted the hosemen. "Powder!" called the brave boys on roof and cornice. "Powder!" answered the trumpet of the chief. "Powder!" "Powder!" "Powder!" echoed the men in the burning pile; and from ladder, casement, window, roof, and cornice, leaped terrified firemen with pale faces and terror-stricken limbs.

"Push back the crowd!" shouted the engineer. "Run for your lives! Run! Run! Run!" roared the trumpets.

But, alas! the crowd was dense, and spread so far through cross streets and alleys, that away on the outskirts, through the shouts of men, the whistling of the engines, and the roar of the heaven-piercing flames, the orders could not be heard. The frantic beings in front, understanding their danger, pressed wildly back. The firemen pushed their engines and their carriages against the breasts of the crowd; but the throng moved not. So densely packed was street and square, and so various and deafening the noises, that the army of excited spectators in the rear still pressed for