One day last June, in an eager hunt

For a friend's place, down by the river front,
1 suddenly heard a piercing cry,—

A cry of grief from the pier hard by;
And half a hundred hurrying feet

Were speeding across the rough-paved street.
I joined the crowd. At the pier-head, lo!
A woman, wringing her hands in wo,

Screamed, “Oh! my child!" while men did shout,
And out in the current, out, far out,

A man was struggling to keep afloat
A baby form. "A boat! a boat!"

We shouted. Then stalwart arms and brave
Pulled hurriedly forth, two lives to save.

'Twas not in vain, for, quicker than thought,
Those dripping two to the pier they brought.
"The child's alive!" they cried with zest,
And the babe was clasped to its mother's breast.
But what of him-the other one-

With his face upturned to the noonday sun
Lifeless they lifted him up, and then

A bystander said: “Why, it's Cripple Ben!”

EARTH'S NOBLEMEN.

The noblest men I know on earth,

Are men whose hands are brown with toil. Who, backed by no ancestral graves,

Hew down the woods, and till the soil,

And win thereby a prouder name
Than follows kings' or warriors' fame.
The working men, whate'er their task,
Who carve the stone or bear the hod,
They bear upon their honest brows

The royal stamp and seal of God;
And worthier are their drops of sweat
Than diamonds in a coronet.

God bless the noble working men,

Who rear the cities of the plain;

Who dig the mines, who build the ships,
And drive the commerce of the main:
God bless them! for their toiling hands
Have wrought the glory of all lands.

DIFFICULT LOVE-MAKING.

The boy who sells fruit and confectionery on the train is usually a very vigorous sort of boy, with an eye strictly to business, and with no romantic thoughts running through his active brain. One of them came very near ruining the happiness of two souls for life, the other day. A young man sat in the seat with a pretty girl; and, though the passengers couldn't distinguish their conversation from the noise made by the cars, it was pretty evident that what was being said was of great interest to the young couple. He was saying Jenny, darling! I have long been wishing an opportunity to tell you of my great regard for

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"

"Peanuts?" inquired the fruit-and-confectionery boy, thrusting his basket in front of the pair.

"No!" exclaimed the young man in an annoyed tone, and waving his hand to one side. "As I was saying, Jenny," he continued, when the boy had passed on, “ I have long wanted to tell you of my regard for you. You are everything to me; and always, in your absence, my thoughts are constantly dwelling upon

"Nice candy! Prize in every box!" interrupted the boy, totally ignorant of the interesting conversation he was interrupting. The young man shook his head, while the girl looked mad enough to bite a hairpin in two. When the boy had left, the young man resumed:

"I do not think you are entirely insensible to my regard, and I feel certain that you in some degree reciprocate. Tell me, darling, if I have a right to think that you are fond of—” "Nice, fresh figs-ten cents a—”

The boy saw by the countenance of the pair that he could make no sale, and moved ahead with the basket. The young man finished with his eyes the sentence he had commenced, and waited for an answer. It came, murmured in his ear, that no other person might learn its import:

"Oh, Charlie! you've no idea how happy you make me by your avowal! You know that I care for you only, and that my regard for you is as lasting as——

"Maple candy-very nice!" said the boy, displaying a tempting array of the delicacy.

"Clear out!" ejaculated the young man, between his teeth in a savage tone; and, as the boy cleared out, he turned to his sweetheart for the continuation of her answer.

"As lasting as eternity! I have always cared more for you than for anybody else. All our folks think you are just splendid; and mother says you are as good as"Pop corn-fresh this morning!”

The young man arose hastily and lifted the boy several seats down the aisle, and the girl fell to crying in her handkerchief. The young man resumed his seat, and sat in a moody silence until the train stopped at his station, when in company with the young lady, he alighted; while the boy went on with his business, in utter ignorance of the fact that he had, perhaps, broken up a most interesting and happy courtship.

LITTLE NELLIE IN THE PRISON.

PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE,

The eyes of a child are sweeter than any hymn we have sung,
And wiser than any sermon is the lisp of a childish tongue!

Hugh Falcon learned this happy truth one day;
('Twas a fair noontide in the month of May)—
When, as the chaplain of the convicts' jail,
He passed its glowering archway, sad and pale,
Bearing his tender daughter on his arm.
A five years' darling she! The dewy charm
Of Eden star-dawns glistened in her eyes,
Her dimpled cheeks were rich with sunny dyes.

"Papa!" the child that morn, while still abed,
Drawing him close toward her, shyly said:
"Papa! oh, wont you let your Nellie go
To see those naughty men that plague you so,
Down in the ugly prison by the wood?

Papa, I'll beg and pray them to be good.”

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What, you, my child?" he said, with half a sigh.

"Why not, papa? I'll beg them so to try."

The chaplain, with a father's gentlest grace,
Kissed the small ruffled brow, the pleading face;

"Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings still,
Praise is perfected," thought he; thus his will
Blended with hers, and through those gates of sin,
Black, even at noontide, sire and child passed in.

Fancy the foulness of the sulphurous lake,
Wherefrom a lily's snow-white leaves should break,
Flushed by the shadow of an unseen rose!
So, at the iron gate's loud clang and close,
Shone the drear twilight of that place defiled,
Touched by the flower-like sweetness of the child!

O'er many a dismal vault, and stony floor,
The chaplain walked from ponderous door to door.
Till now beneath a stair-way's dizzy flight
He stood, and looked up the far-circling height;
But risen of late from fever's torture-bed,
How could he trust his faltering limbs and head?

Just then, he saw, next to the mildewed wall,
A man in prisoner's raiment, gaunt and tall,
Of sullen aspect, and wan, downcast face,
Gloomed in the midnight of some deep disgrace;
He shrank as one who yearned to fade away,
Like a vague shadow on the stone-work gray,
Or die beyond it, like a viewless wind;
His seemed a spirit faithless, passionless, blind
To all fair hopes which light the hearts of men,—
A dull, dead soul, never to wake again!

The chaplain paused, half doubting what to do,
When little Nellie raised her eyes of blue,
And, nowise daunted by the downward stir
Of shaggy brows that glowered askance at her,
Said, putting by her wealth of sunny hair,-
"Sir, will you kindly take me up the stair?
Papa is tired, and I'm too small to climb."
Frankly her eyes in his gazed all the time,
And something to her childhood's instinct known
So worked within her, that her arms were thrown
About his neck. She left her sire's embrace
Near that sad convict heart to take her place,
Sparkling and trustful!—more she did not speak;
But her quick fingers patted his swart cheek
Caressingly,-in time to some old tune
Hummed by her nurse, in summer's drowsy noon!

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Perforce he turned his wild, uncertain gaze

Down on the child! Then stole a tremulous haze
Across his eyes, but rounded not to tears;
Wherethrough he saw faint glimmerings of lost years
And perished loves! A cabin by a rill

Rose through the twilight on a happy hill;
And there were lithe child-figures at their play
That flashed and faded in the dusky ray;
And near the porch a gracious wife who smiled,
Pure as young Eve in Eden, unbeguiled!

Subdued, yet thrilled, 'twas beautiful to see
With what deep reverence, and how tenderly,
He clasped the infant frame so slight and fair,
And safely bore her up the darkening stair!
The landing reached, in her arch, childish ease,
Our Nellie clasped his neck and whispered:
"Please,

Wont you be good, sir? For I like you so,
And you are such a big, strong man, you know—"
With pleading eyes, her sweet face sidewise set.
Then suddenly his furrowed cheek grew wet
With sacred tears-in whose divine eclipse
Upon her nestling head he pressed his lips
As softly as a dreamy west-wind's sigh,-
What time a something, undefined but high,
As 'twere a new soul, struggled to the dawn

Through his raised eyelids. Thence, the gloom withdrawn
Of brooding vengeance and unholy pain,

He felt no more the captive's galling chain;

But only knew a little child had come

To smite despair, his taunting demon, dumb;

A child whose marvelous innocence enticed

All white thoughts back, that from the heart of Christ
Fly dove-like earthward, past our clouded ken,
Child-like to bless, or lives of child-like men!

Thus he went his way,

An altered man from that thrice blessed day;
His soul turned ever to the soft refrain

Of words once uttered in a sacred fane:
"The little children, let them come to me;
Of such as these my realm of heaven must be;"
But most he loved of one dear child to tell,

The child whose trust had saved him, tender Neil!