though pa has been cheated of his bishops and senators and things (poor dear, he never dreams that sons of his might have turned out farmers like himself, only not half so good) the girls have certainly made up his loss in husbands, Indeed, pa seems to have more sons-in-law than he knows quite what to do with—and as to grand- sons | “If one could only feed them like chickens !'’ sighs poor ma plain. tively. After that little business talk pa and I had behind the barn I've settled in ay mind that the Browrs have got to economize, and I mean to start with the grand children by way of a noble beginning. “Now look here, ma,” I say Lo the dear old soul who is already swearing at me with big auxious eyes, like a hen with her feathers ruffled, “‘this thing has gone on long enough, and I just mean to hitch old Calico to the cart and dump every scrap of a grandehild at his own lawful door—I do! It's down- right mean in the girls to impose on us in this everlasting way—as if there wasn't work enough of our own ys “There, there, sis,’’ interrupts ma, pathetically, ‘‘they only mean to please pa"! “And a nice way they take to doit! Pa’s an old man now, and after pinch- ing and slaving all his live for us army of girls, what right bave they to keep him pinching and slaving to the last? Oh, you needn't look at me like that, ma, dear: children, like good mane ners, ought to be found at home—hi, you, Tom, Dick, Harry, etc., ete.” and when at last I have packed them in the wheezy old cart, and we go laughing, scratching and squalling down the road, I feel like the pied piper of Hamelin, only there's no hill with wide, greedy jaws, wait ing at the end of the trip——more’s the pity i" That sounds as if Sis Brown was not fond of children : but I really am, when they come like silk frocks and other oc- easional luxuries ; considered as every dav affairs, however, if I am to be al- lowed a preference between the two why, give me the 1eusts of Egypt and accept my grateful thanks. When I have impartially divided their howling household gods between the eight sisters who live so uncomfor- tably near, the sun is sinking behind the trees in a blaze of glorious yellow, There is a long road with many leafy turnings, that Calico knows as well as I, and while she dawdles along it with languid elegance that suits us both, I git, tailor fashion, in the bottom of the cart. thinking. heedless of whip or rein. I read a story once MEMORIES. —— BY A. ASHMUN KELLY. a All softly falls the sunlight this peaceful summer day, Thro the open casement ins flood of crys tal spray: While the ony Birds without the shady maples throng, 2 And fi) the morning air with the richness of their song: f “I'he scent of blooming roses, the murmur of the bees, The soft and tender sighing of the oderous summer breeze, : Oh, how they thrill the soul with a strange and sweet delight, And makethis dreary world of urs more I beautiful and bright!’ i Oft the heart in sudh moments a tender sadness fools, When a shade of mournful fancy in silence o'er it steals When some recollection of the past will come to mind, As if it were a message born on the drowsy wind. Back to my sunny childhood to-day my memories go . ; i live again the pure young life I lived so long ago, Ere aught of sin or sorrow had furrowed oer my, brow, : Or brought the early snow-flakes which frost my thin locks now. Dimly thro’ the mists of my foolish heart 1 ae My mother's loved image and I upon her knee; : How sweetly plays the warm smile upon her sun lit face, On es h familiar feature heaven's reflected light I trace. And for her boy she’s breathing to heaven a farventi prayer, : Fhat the L .r might make her darling his one especial care; Nor let thro life his footsteps from truth and honor stray, But teach him e'er to love his God, His ho- ly will obey. My mother dear! no other name sounds half as sweet as thine, a Around thy ssinted memory love's tendrills closely twine! And tho thee storms of years have seared my weary heart, The love I bear for thee shall neler thro’ life depart! The birds sing sweetly o'er her, and just above her grave The willows in the sunshine their graceful branches wave: There the sunshine and the shadews of years have come and gone, Leaving mo in sadness and tears to follow on. How peacefully she slumbers in the city of the dead, Where the grass is springing lightly above her pemceful bed; ; While I sitsa ily dreaming oer the mem ries of the pnast, : A nd longing still to slumber with the silent and the blest 0 happy singing birds, this happy summer Sing on your careless songs and sing my grief away! Impart the sunny mood of thy little breasts to me, Wha lives but in the pastand in a memory | Bryn Mawr, Pa, Hous Naw a Sis Brown's Fortune. To begin with, I am a young perscn witli big bones and plenty of them— and I don't care a button if my hair is 1! I have good reason to know that I am cousideradde beantiful ; that my instance—but there's really distressing de- tals, My falbe:, Peter Brown—ihe best farmer living in all Foirfax, be the dead one whom he may —is the unfor- tunate possessor of thirteen children, every single one of them girls—and the magried ones, too, for that matter ! "Of course, girls are all very well as far as they’ go, but one gets too much of a good thing sometimes, and so when poor pa takes a notion to upbraid fate because alt his boys turned ont girls, I must say I rebel aginst the decree that condemns me to slavish frocks and frizzes. Most good folks sing out that they want to carry harps and be augels, put” I-if only 1 were Peter Brown, junior, and had a farm like pa! 1 don’t blame ma, of course, but I really do think the even dezen ought to have contented her—and, what's more, I say, 50, when pa and I get beyond the subduing influence of her eye-for there’s nothing trifling about ma’s eye ! When pa and ma’s love was young, and their future a rose-colored rose— there! I've heard pa say it a dozen times, but ‘when a girl happens to be shackled with a memory like a bey’s pocket upside down and the middle nowhere, snd got that memory from her ma, [ suppose there’s to be allow- ances—anyhow the first girls got the benefit of it all Tn the Way of mugs and soral, and hames as finda fiddled ; then there came such a disastrous lull in pa’s enthusiasm. that ma says, ‘when he panted up from the fields one hot noon and found out dear old twins waiting, insted of his dinner, it set him so fran- tic that he threatened to“bunch the whole family together like a string of fish and do a dark and desperate deed. But ma just kept ont having her own way—which means girls— until by the time she wound up the home circle with me--at your service—sbe bad sc worn ber intellect down at the heels thinking up double-barreled names for the other dozen, that she handed my chris over to pa, and pa ever- lastingly disgraced himself, in my esti. mation, by heartlessly calling me Sis abs dutely nothing but Sis, If I had been a boy this indignity, at loast—but there are some wrongs so great that the only thing one can con- veniently do is to forgive them | But, f ¢ £ a. B® apr : Hse of a devil-fish crawling over the roof of a pretty cot- tage bY some I don't suppose there was a word of truth init; re southern sea not nose, o need for for but, some way, ever since pa made a sel clean breast of his troubles, 1 can’t get that shiny black monster out of ms Eh nvm wih # dav Dime ie % a nord a mot indeed, that tgage like ours was a trifle the worst of the two, becanse there's only one weapon to fight it, and where in the world is pa to get the first red cent of that terrible three thousand dollars ¥ If pa had only told me in time, perhaps I might have done some- thing heoric with my poultry—a flock of grey geese did grand things for his tory once on a time—but no, he kept as dumb as Cheops, until I found it all out myself, and no thanks to anybody. The way of it was: Ma started me down to the meadow one evening last week to see what pa meant by keeping supper waiting, and when I found him leaning against the barn there as quiet and gray as the twilight shadows, why, I think the One who doeth all things well must bave put it in my heart to wake him up and tell me the matter. There is no woman in all this big glorious world so weak as Samson with his head shaved, and so he told me be- tween sobs—I don't ever want to see my father cry again—how the big fam- fly had gobbled up the small earnings, and how at last there was nothing to do but to borrow money on the dear, shab- by old place, and now a villainous bill of some sort was coming due, “Never mind, dad,” I said, ‘come along to supper; I'll get you out of your fix.” I don’t think pa realized at the min- ute—and 1'm sure I did not—that I had never so much as seen a hundred dol- fares in all my life together, for he fol- lowed me home contentedly, put his head under the spout while I pumped, and then, with his hand on my shoul der, went into tne house and ate supper ‘@wugh for two! The next day pa was out of his head with 4 fever, and now to see him prodding about the farm with a stick in his hand and a pain in his back—poor, dear pa! Of course, the first thing that suggested itself at his bedside was blood, and plenty of it, and I did saddle Calico and race off to mur- der the mortgage man—but I might have saved mys The Consul and His Wife. A Protestant Bshop who bad just been appointed to a missionary see in China wished to pay a visit of ceremony to the Taostai, er Chinese official who was in charge of the city which was en- trusted to the Bishop's spiritual care. Asthe British Consul, who was to aceom- pany him, would be in uniform, the happy thought struck the Bishop that it would be well for him to appear in his episcopal robes and lawn sleeves. This was carried out, to the great be wilderment of the Tao-tal, who had, of course, never bebeld anything simsilar, He treated his visitors with the usual as render butter ;. add the yesterday ; but, tell Why Was ve