tumblin' to the ground, nearly breakin' me neck wid the fall. Whin I came to me sinsis I had a very sore head wid a lump on it like a goose egg, and half of me Sunday coat-tail torn off intirely. I spoke to the chap in the tree, but could git niver an answer, at all, at all. Sure, thinks I, he must have gone home to rowl up his head, for by the powers I didn't throw me stick for nothin'. Well, by this time the moon was up and I could see a little, and I detarmined to make one more effort to reach Dennis's. I wint on cautiously for a while, an' thin I heard a bell. "Sure," sez I, "I'm comin' to a settlement now, for I hear the church bell." I kept on toward the sound till I came to an ould cow wid a bell on. She started to run, but I was too quick for her, and got her by the tail and hung on, thinkin' that maybe she would take me out of the woods. wint, like an ould country steeple-chase, till, sure enough, On we we came out to a clearin' and a house in sight wid a light in it. So, leavin' the ould cow puffin' and blowin' in a shed, I went to the house, and as luck would have it, whose should it be but Dennis's. He gave me a raal Irish welcome, and introduced me to his two daughters--as purty a pair of girls as iver ye clapped an eye on. But whin I tould him me adventure in the woods, and about the fellow who made fun of me, they all laughed and roared, and Dennis said it was an owl. "An ould what?" sez I. "Why, an owl, a bird," sez he. "Do ye tell me now?" sez I, "Sure it's a quare country and a quare bird.” And thin they all laughed again, till at last I laughed myself, that hearty like, and dropped right into a chair between the two purty girls, and the ould chap winked at me and roared again. Dennis is me father-in-law now, and he often yet delights to tell our children about their daddy's adventure wid the owl. ALONZO THE BRAVE AND THE FAIR A warrior so bold, and a virgin so bright, They gazed on each other with tender delight: "And oh!" said the youth, "since to-morrow I go Your tears for my absence soon ceasing to flow, "Oh! hush these suspicions," Fair Imogine said, "Offensive to love and to me; For, if you be living, or if you be dead, I swear by the Virgin that none in your stead "If e'er I, by lust or by wealth led aside, God grant that, to punish my falsehood and pride, To Palestine hastened the hero so bold, But scarce had a twelvemonth elapsed, when, behold! His treasures, his presents, his spacious domain, He dazzled her eyes, he bewildered her brain; And now had the marriage been blest by the priest; The tables they groaned with the weight of the feast, Nor yet had the laughter and merriment ceased, When the bell at the castle tolled-one. Then first with amazement Fair Imogine found His air was terrific; he uttered no sound- His vizor was closed, and gigantic his height, All pleasure and laughter were hushed at his sight; His presence all bosoms appeared to dismay; At length spake the bride-while she trembled-"I pray The lady is silent; the stranger complies- Oh, God what a sight met Fair Imogine's eyes! All present then uttered a terrified shout, The worms they crept in, and the worms they crept out, "Behold me, thou false one, behold me!" he cried, God grants that, to punish thy falsehood and pride, Thus saying, his arms round the lady he wound, Then sunk with his prey thro' the wide-yawning ground, Or the spectre that bore her away. Not long lived the baron; and none, since that time, For chronicles tell that, by order sublime, At midnight, four times in each year, does her sprite, Arrayed in her bridal apparel of white, Appear in the hall with the skeleton knight, While they drink out of skulls newly torn from the grave, THINK OF ME THEN. Think of me!-When? Just at the gentle twilight hour, When the dews are falling on tree and flower, Think of me!-When? As thou art roving through pleasant glades, Let thy thoughts turn for a while to me:- Think of me!-When? As some sweet strain we have loved to hear, Think of me!-When? At the early hours of the Sabbath morn, And the mists are rising from stream and hill:- Think of me!-When? At that lone hour, when, on bended knee, EDUCATION.-SCHUYLER Colfax. All writers on education agree that the chief means of intellectual improvement are five: Observation, Conversation, Reading, Memory, and Reflection. But I have sometimes thought that education did not bring out the last two into the commanding and paramount importance they deserve, sacrificing them to a wider range of reading and of studies. Knowledge is not what we learn, but what we retain. not what people eat, but what they digest, that makes them It is strong. It is not the amount of money they handle, but what they save, that makes them rich. read or study, but what they remember, that makes them It is not what they learned. And Memory, too, is one of those wondrous gifts of God to man that should be assiduously cultivated. Much of your mental acquisitions will form a secret fund, locked up even from your own eyes till you need to bring it into use-a mystery that no philosopher has yet been or ever will be able to explain. There it lies hidden, weeks, months, years, and scores of years, till, mayhap a half-century afterward, it bursts when needed, at Memory's command, upon the mind, like a hidden spring bubbling up at the very hour of need in the pathway of the thirsty traveler. While I have counseled self-reliance, and would and urge you to labor to deserve the good opinion of your go further fellow-men, I do not counsel that longing for fame which is so much more largely developed under our free republic than in any other realm upon the globe. . Lord Mansfield once uttered as advice, what history teaches us he should have declared as an axiom, that that popularity is alone valuable and enduring which follows you, not that which you run after. It was Sumner Lincoln Fairfield who wrote "Fame! 'tis the madness of contending thought, Toiling in tears, aspiring in despair; Which steals like Love's delirium o'er the brain, And, while it buries childhood's purest joys, Wakes manhood's dreary agonies into life." Far be it from me to counsel longings for such a fame as TT |