It may help you to forgive her: 'Love your enemies and those

Who despitefully may use you; love them whether friends or foes!'

Then she glided from his vision, left him prostrate on the ground

Conning o'er and o'er that lesson with a grace to him new found.

Sunlight filtering through green branches as they windwave dance and dip,

Finds a prayer his mother taught him, trembling on his crime-stained lip.

Hist! a step, an angry mutter, and the owner of the place, Gentle Flossie's haughty father, and the tramp stood face to face!

“Thieving rascal! you've my daughter's 'kerchief bound upon your brow;

Off with it, and cast it down here. Come! be quick about it now."

As the man did not obey him, Flossie's father lashed his cheek

With a riding-whip he carried; struck him hard and cut him deep.

Quick the tramp bore down upon him, felled him, o'er him where he lay

Raised a knife to seek his life-blood. Then there came a thought to stay

All his angry, murderous impulse, caused the knife to shuddering fall:

"He's her father; love your en'mies; 'tis our God reigns over all."

At midnight, lambent, lurid flames, light up the sky with fiercest beams,

· Wild cries, “ Fire! fire!" ring through the air, and red like blood each flame now seems;

They faster grow, they higher throw weird, direful arms which ever lean

About the gray stone mansion old. Now roars the wind to aid the scene;

The flames yet higher, wilder play. A shudder runs through all around

Distinctly as in light of day, at topmost window from the ground

Sweet Flossie stands, her golden hair enhaloed now by firelit air.

Loud rang the father's cry: "O God! my child! my child!

Will no one dare

For her sweet sake the flaming stair?" Look! one steps forth with muffled face,

Leaps through the flames with fleetest feet, on trembling ladder runs a race

With life and death-the window gains. Deep silence falls on all around,

Till bursts aloud a sobbing wail. The ladder falls with crashing sound

A flaming, treacherous mass. O God! she was so young

and he so brave!

Look once again. See! see! on highest roof he stands-the fiery wave

Fierce rolling round-his arms enclasp the child-God help him yet to save!

"For life or for eternal sleep,"

He cries, then makes a vaulting leap,
A tree branch catches, with sure aim,
And by the act proclaims his name;
The air was rent, the cheers rang loud,
A rough voice cried from out the crowd,
"Huzza, my boys, well we know him,
None dares that leap but Flying Jim!”
A jail-bird-outlaw-thief, indeed,
Yet o'er them all takes kingly lead.
"Do now your worst," his gasping cry,
"Do all your worst, I'm doomed to die;
I've breathed the flames, 'twill not be long,"
Then hushed all murmurs through the throng.
With reverent hands they bore him where
The summer evening's cooling air
Came softly sighing through the trees;
The child's proud father on his knees
Forgiveness sought of God and Jim,
Which dying lips accorded him.
A mark of whip on white face stirred
To gleaming scarlet at his words.
"Forgive them all who use you ill,
She taught me that and I fulfill;
I would her hand might touch my face,
Though she's so pure and I so base."
Low Flossie bent and kissed the brow,
With smile of bliss transfigured now;
Death, the angel, sealed it there,

"Twas sent to God with "mother's prayer."

SMALL THINGS.-R. M. MILNES.

A sense of an earnest will

To help the lowly living,
And a terrible heart-thrill,

If you have no power of giving;

An arm of aid to the weak,

A friendly hand to the friendless;
Kind words, so short to speak,

But whose echo is endless:

The world is wide,--these things are small,
They may be nothing-but they may be all.

SURLY TIM'S TROUBLE.-FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT.

This pathetic reading, in the Lancashire dialect, is an abridgment of a beautiful story from the charming pen of MRS. BURNETT, which may be found in a book of hers, entitled "SURLY TIM AND OTHER STORIES," published by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.

[Surly Tim is represented to have been an operative in one of the large manufactories in the north of England. He had gained the name of "Surly Tim" through his strange demeanor toward his companions, often refusing to answer their questions or perform any of the ordinary civilities, on account of which his fellow workmen had given him the cold shoulder and dubbed him "Surly Tim." But one of the partners of the firm took a great deal of interest in Tim, thinking there must be something beneath the rough exterior, and so endeavored from time to time to draw him out, but without success, until one night, as he was going home, he chanced to pass the village churchyard, and heard a noise as of a man in distress just over the fence. Getting over to speak to him, he discovered that the man was none other than Surly Tim, sitting by two graves, one the longer and the other a shorter. Shortly, being grateful for the sympathy thus extended him, “Surly Tim” begins to tell his story, and why it is that he conducts himself as he does. It seems that some years before he had been married to a very lovely woman; but that she had previously been married to a soldier, one Phil Brent, who had beaten and abused her and finally deserted her and gone into the army, and whom she had heard by letter was killed at the Crimea. Supposing herself free again, of course, she had married Tim. He, after describing the courtship up to a little time before their marriage, says of her in his broad, north-of-England dialect:]

Rosanna Brent an' me got to be good friends, an' we walked home together o' nights, an' talked about our bits o' wage, an' our bits o' debt, an' th' way that wench 'ud keep me up i' spirits when I were a bit down-hearted about owt, wur just a wonder. An' bein' as th' lass wur so dear to me, I made up my mind to ax her to be summat dearer. So

once goin' home wi' her, I takes hold o' her hand an' lifts it up an' kisses it gentle,- -as gentle an' wi' summat th' same feelin'

as I'd kiss the Good Book.

"Sanna," I says, “bein' as yo've had so much trouble wi' yo're first chance, would yo' be afeard to try a second? Could yo' trust a mon again? Such a mon as me, 'Sanna?"

"I wouldna be feart to trust thee, Tim," she answers back soft an' gentle after a manner. "I wouldna be feart to trust thee any time."

I kisses her hand again, gentler still.

"God bless thee, lass," I says. "Does that mean yes?" She crept up closer to me i' her sweet, quiet way. "Aye, lad," she answers. "It means yes, an' I'll bide by it." "An' tha shalt never rue it, lass," said I. "Tha's gi’en thy life to me, an' I'll gi' mine to thee, sure an' true."

So we wur axed i' th' church th' next Sunday, an' a month fra' then we were wed; an' if ever God's sun shone on a happy mon, it shone on one that day, when we come out o' church together-me an' Rosanna-an' went to our bit o' a home to begin life again. I couldna tell thee, Mester,-theer bean't no words to tell how happy an' peaceful we lived fur two years after that. My lass never altered her sweet ways, an' I just loved her to make up to her fur what had gone by. I thanked God-a'-moighty fur his blessin' every day, an' every day I prayed to be made worthy of it. An' here's just wheer I'd like to ax a question, Mester, about summat 'at's worretted me a good deal. I dunnot want to question th' Maker, but I would loike to know how it is 'at sometime it seems 'at we're clean forgot-as if He couldna fash hissen about our troubles, an' most loike left 'em to work out theirsens? Yo' see, Mester, and we aw see sometime, He thinks on us, an' gi's us a lift; but hasna tha thysen seen times when tha stopt short and axed thysen, “Wheer's God-a'-moighty, 'at he disna straighten things out a bit? Th' world's i' a power o' a snarl. Th' righteous is forsaken, 'n' his seed's beggin' bread. An' th' devil's topmost again." I've talked to my lass about it sometime, an' I dunnot think I meant harm, Mester, for I felt humble enough-an' when I talked, my lass she'd listen an' smile soft and sorrowful, but she never gi' me but one answer.

"Tim," she'd say, "this is on'y th' skoo', an' we're the scholars, an' He's teachin' us His way. The Teacher wouldna be o' much use, Tim, if the scholars knew as much as he did, an' I allers think it's th' best to comfort mysen wi' sayin', 'The Lord-a'-moighty, he knows.'"

At th' eend o' th' year th' child wur born, th' little lad here, [touching the turf with his hand,] "Wee Wattie" his mother ca'd him, au' he wur a fine, lightsome little chap. He filled th' whole house wi' music day in an' day out, crowin' an' crowin'-an' cryin' too, sometime.

Well, Mester, before th' spring wur out Wee Wat wur toddlin' round, holdin' to his mother's gown, an' by th' middle o' th' next he was cooin' like a dove, an' prattlin' words i' a voice like hers. Happen we set too much store by him, or happen it wur on'y th' Teacher again teachin' us His way, but hows'ever that wur, I came home one sunny mornin' fro' th' factory, an' my dear lass met me at th' door all white an' cold, but tryin' hard to be brave an' help me to bear what she had to tell.

"Tim," said she, "th' Lord ha' sent us trouble; but we can bear it together, canna we, dear lad?"

That wur aw, but I knew what it meant, though th' poor little lamb had been well enough when I kissed him last.

I went in an' saw him lyin' theer on his pillows, strugglin' an' gaspin' in hard convulsions, an' I seed aw wur over. An' in half an hour, just as the sun crept across th' room an' touched his curls, th' pretty little chap opens his eyes aw

at once.

"Daddy!" he crows out. "Sithee Dad-" an' he lifts hissen up, catches at th' floatin' sunshine, laughs at it, and fa's back-dead, Mester.

I've allers thowt 'at th' Lord-a'-moighty knew what he wur doin' when he gi' th' woman t' Adam i̇' the Garden o' Eden. He knowed he wur nowt but a poor chap as couldna do for hissen; an' I suppose that's th' reason he gi' the woman th' strength to bear trouble when it comn. I'd ha gi'n clean in if it hadna been fur my lass when th' little chap deed.

But the day comn when we could bear to talk about him, an' moind things he'd said an' tried to say i' his broken,