WHY DOESN'T (IE GO AND GET HER, Over the west the glory dies away. Faint rose flecks gleaming in the dark. ening sky; And the low sounds that mark the close of day Rise up from wood and upland-—rise and die; Soft silence falls o'er meadow, hill and grove, And in the hush I want you, O, my love. In the gay radiance of the morning hour, In the warm brooding glory of the noon, When man and Nature, in their prime of power, With the day's fullness blend in eager tune, The rush of life forbids the pulse to move, hat now, in yearning passion, wants you, love. Wants you to watch the crimson glow and fade, Through the great branches of the broad- ening line; Wants you to feel the soft, gray, quiet shade, Lap the tired world in blessad event me, Wants you to whisper; “Come, your power to prove, The gloaming necds its angel; come, my ove, How THE PEARLS WERE STOLEN. While the young Lady Duceville was dressing for dinner on a certain chilly January evening her aunt, the Dowager Duchess of Goldoni, came into the She was already dressed, and very serious. Evidently she had cone to talk over something, but before she had time to speak Lady Duceville’s maid burst out into tears and sobs. The young Marchioness turned round and stared at her in amazement; for Mills was ‘a very quiet and decorous person usually. “What ever is the matter, Mills?” queried Lady Duceville. “I thought I should have died of shame, your Grace,” said the woman addressing herself to the Duchess, “when I came out of my room this morning and found that paper posted on the door. It seemed as if they suspec- ted me! I know, of course, it isn’t so, because the notices are on all the ser- vants’ doors. Bat, your Grace, the po- lice will be called in if the pearls aren’t given up by next Monday; and is there any hope that the wicked creature that’s done it will give them up?”’ “I don’t know, Mills,” said the Du. chess, Mills had been her servant before she was Lady Duceville's, and the Duchess was never a mistress whose maids wre afraid to speak to her. But this ade the present circumstance all the more dreadful to poor Mills, The Duchess, whoge jewels were very splendid, had a pearl necklace of fabu- lous value. She had left that necklace on her dressing table for a short time the evening before. When her maid went to get it, to clasp round her neck, 1L was gone, OOH. seemed that the neck- lace really was gone the Duchess told her hostess. Lady Duceville and the Duchess were staying at Rookwood, one of the pleasantest country houses to visit in all England. A very gay week it had been there, and Lady Rookwood said extra servants had been employed in the house, and she really could not vouch for the honesty of her own house hold. The Duchess’s pearls were a great prize, and sometimes servants un- derstood the value of such things only too well. So Lord Rookwood had some notices printed which stated that unless the pearls were produced on a certain dav the police would be sent for to search the servants’ rooma, “I suppose,” said the Dachess thoughtfnlly, “that Lord Rookwood thinks It the best plan to try first by holding out this chance to the thief. If whoever it is confesses and gives up the pearls before Monday nothing will be done. Of course we shall have got the pearls; but I shall not be satisfied, for I think it 1s horrible that such wickedness should go unpunished. Except that the pearls are an heirloom, I would not have allowed Lord Rookwood to try this plan. Are you ready, Gertrude? Let Mills go, then, for she is hardly fit for her work. Don’t allow this to up- set you so, Mills, No one can suspect old and faithful servants any more than one would suspect members of one's own family.” “But it is posted up on all our doors,” murmured Mills, “Well, well, of course; if put on one it must be put on all,” said the Du- chess, Mills went away. When she had shut the door the Duchess said, ‘‘Surely the servants must know the police are already in the house? If not, I suppose there are detectives in disguise. Lord Rookwood told me he had summoned people from Scotland Yard immediate. }y.M “Did be?” said Lady Duceville. “Shall we go down?” she added aftera minute, during which the Duchess look- el at her keenly. : © “Gertrude,” she said, “why do you gamble so much? I wish you would give up the cards, You are looking borribly 1ll. It is a hideous vice, this hunger for excllement! Gertrude, I be- lieve you have lost and are in debl.” “Well,” said Lady Duceville, “what if I am?” “1+ is seandalous!” exclaimed the Duchess, trude.” “I know that,” said Lady Duceville quietly. “Duceville will not help you.” “I know that,’ she repeated. **What will you do, then?” ‘Get out of my difficulties unaided.” “Gertrude, yon make me shudder. I am certain there will be some horrible ending to this life of excitement you are now leading—something that will get into the society papers and disgrace us all.” ““There isthedinner gong,’’ said Lady Duceville as pale as a ghost, yet very beautiful in spite of her pallor and the lack of any bappy smile in her eyes or on her mouth; the Duchess with a thun- der cloud upon her face, She had no children, and this her at one time fa- vorite niece would inherit her jewels and personal property, for Gertrude, be- fore her marriage, had been like her daughter. But she was that no longer, and the Duchess was very angry and very much ashamed, Lady Duceyille was extremely obser- vant, She noticed two fresh faces among the footmen who waited attable, Something told her that these were de- tectives. After dinner she pleaded in- disposition, and went up stairs early. Perhaps this was partly to avoid the card room, where she would be missed and asked for. She had lost her all, and how much more beside she alone knew. Her face was very hard and very white as she went down the long corridor to her rooms. There was a bright fire in the dressing room, and Mills was busy there. Lady Duceville went in, sat down, and drew a key from its hiding place within the bosom of her dress. “I will not help you, Ger- “There is a locked casket within my jewel case, Mills,” “Will you get it out and open it with this key?” Mills did so, unlocking the jewel case first with the key she carried herself, As she lifted the lid of the casket she be- gan to tremble, and at last her limbs gave way beneath her; she tell upon her knees, and put the casket on the ground, lest it should fall from her unnerved hands, “The Duchess’s pearls!” she exclaim- ed. Lady Duceville eyed her keenly; her face was white and hard, “You must give them up to her,” said Lady Duce- ville, “I, my lady?” exclaimed Mills in un- mixed astonishment, “Yes,” said Lady Duceville, rather as if talking to herself than anything else, “I cannot get them away now these men are here. At least I dare not venture it. You must give them up, and I must—well, God or the devil alone knows what I shall do!” she said. Mills rose to her feet, leaving the casket where it was, “You stole these pearls, my lady!" “It was hardly stealing,” said Lady Duceville, repeating an argment which she had used with great effect to her- self before the last act, but which now sounded weak even to her own ears, “They will be mine some day." “If it was not stealing, my lady, then you need not be afraid to take them to the Duchess yourself." “1 prefer you should do it,” Duceville dryly. “I have never disobeyed jou before, my lady,” said Mills, **but this I cannot do. I was not sure her Grace did not suspect me this evening when she was here. Nothing could convince her that I had not stolen the pearls if I took them back to her.” ° “Just 80,” said Lady Duceville, “That is what you wish her to think!" exclaimed Mills, suddenly grasping the situation. “] must save myself,” sald Lady Duceville, looking at her with cold eyes, Then Mills understood that she had a desperate woman to deal with, *‘I shall tell her Grace the truth,” she exclaim- ed “Yes?' said Lady Duoceville. “And so shall I. Which of us do you think she will believe?” Mills saw that she was helpless, “Very well, my lady,” she said; “I will go now-—-1 will leave the house, and if you must makes me a victim, be it so, But I have been an honest woman all my life, and I cannot pretend to be a thief now, even for your ladyship,”’ “Well,” said Lady Duceville indiffer- ently, if you stay the Duchess is sure to hush the thing up and forgive you, as you have been with us so long, But if you go like a thief, leaving your spoil bebind you because you are atraid to take it, of course you are ruined. Peo- ple always suspect servants, you know,” “Yes, my lady,’ said Mills suddenly, “I do know. Why did not Lord Rook- wood have that notice posted on every door in the house? We are treated as if we were not the same flesh and blood as those we serve. And I think it isso, for no poor serving women that I have ever known could be so cruel as your ladyship is now." “It is no use being insolent, Mills,” said Lady Daceville, “and I think it’s a pity to leave those pearls on the floor there, Pick them up and take them to Grace's room.’ “No, my lady, I cannot touch them again!” “Very well, then; go.” “Yes, my lady, I will go.” Mills turned to the door, opened it, and then said Lady paused, “If you restore the pearls, how will you pay your debts?’ she said, almost in a whisper, “What is that to you?” asked Lady Duceville, eompeled to make some an- swer by the look in Mill's face. “Her Grace will not pay them—TLord Duceville will not pay them; but per- haps Captain Vavasour can find the money if you are in desperate need! But then you, too, will be ruined, even if you have paid your debts of honor!®’ It was not maid speaking to mistress; it was one desperate woman speaking to another. Lady DIuceville flinched and fell back a step, white as a sheet, She had no idea Mills knew her secrets so well! During the instant’s pause, while they gazed at each other, the door was gently pushed open. The Duchess en- terred softly, and locked the door be- hind her, She was just about to kneck when Mills opened the door to go out; she had heard what had passed since. Her eyes fell instantly upon the open casket on the floor and the pearls lying within it. Then she looked at the wo- men, and read their faces. That same night tbe household of Rookwood heard the good, if extraord- inary, news that the Duchess had found her pearls. They had fallen behind her toilet-table, and had been overlooked in the hurried and excited search made for them, Lady Duceville left Rookwood on the ground of illness; she was gay and brilliant, and her absence was felt. She fulfilled none of her other winter en- gagewments, but went into retirement in a Catholic convent. Lady Duceville had hitherto called herself of no reli- gion; but the a devout Catholic, and this change was stood to be the result of her influence, Lady Duceville's debts were paid; and as Captain Vavasour had nothing to do with it the Duchess must have supplied the money, Probably this was the price of the gay and beautiful young Marchi- ones: 's conversion and reform. Dachess was under- ‘Wet the Hopes.,'” pillar which for many long, iong years was lying slmost buried in the earth. Princes had tried to raise it, but in vain. No workman could do it. Inthe year 1584 the Pope of that time sent a builder to make one more teial, It was no easy matter to free the great pillar from the deep soil 1n which it had sunk, and then to drag so buoge a size and weight of stone to the place where it was to stand, When this was done Fontana, the builder, asked the Pope to fix a day for raising it. The Pope did 50, and said he would be there with all his court, and that this would bring out all the people of the city. “That is what 1 dread,” ssdd Fon- tana, ‘for if they shout and make a noise it may startle some of the men in the midst of their work, and my voice will not be heard.” “Never,” sald the Pope. “1 will take care of that, He wrote an edict that any one should be put to death who dared to utter a sound while the work of ralsing the great pillar went on. This edict was posted up all over the city. On the fix- ed day Fontana mounted the high scaf- fold, from which he was to direct the men by means of bells and flags as sig- nals. The whole space of a wide square was full of people; it seemed to be pav- ed with heads, all still as death, and as if spell-bound. At last the signal was given, and the pillar began to rise, Cables and ropes strained and creaked, Up slowly rose the giant block of stone. Fontana waved his flags, the Pope lean- ed forward, the people held their breath one moment more, and the work would be done! All at once a crack was heard. The heavy mass would not move again, and soon it began to sink, for the ropes did not bear upon it. Fontana was at a loss, with a sense of despair in his soul; but a shout was heard from amid the crowd, “Water! water! Wet the ropes!” This wassoon done. The slack hempen rope shrunk back tight to its place—once more each man bent down for a last pull with right good will. The pillar was set up for the gaze of the world then and for ages yet to come. He who spoke the word in season was a poor sailor, who had long known the use of ropes made of hemp, and, in spite of his good ser- vice, he was taken bound before the Pope, and all men stood in fear of his life, as the law had been broken. For- tunately then the Pope was not in a cruel mood, and instead of pumshing the man he gave him a reward. Make a Beginning. Remember in all things that if you do not begin you will never come to an end. The first weed pulled up in the garden, the first seed in the ground, the first shilling put in the savings bank and the first mile traveled on a journey are all important things ; they make a beginning, and thereby a hope, a pro- mise, a pledge, an assurance that you are in earnest in what you have under- taken, How many a poor, idle, hesi. tating outcast is now creeping and crawling on his way through the world who might have held up his head and prospered, if, instead of pulting off his resolutions of industry and amendment, he had only made a beginning! Curlositios of Government. Next to the President of the United States the best-paid Federal ofiicial is the Clerk of the Supreme Court, The States of Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont have less than one-halt the population of Illinois, but have the same number of representatives in Con- gross—twenty-two. Pennsylvania has a larger number of postofiices than any other State. Nota clerk in the pension office in this city draws less than $1,000 a year salary, the average for the 1,173 clerks being $1,204. Even the copyists get $900 a year. These clerks have light labor and short hours. The average salary of the railway postofice clerks throughout the country is only $077 a year, These men work hard at the most trying labor and have long hours, Eighty years ago North Carolina had as many representatives in Congress as New York. North Carolina now has nine, or one less than she had in 1800, while New Yark has thirty-four. There are 419 typesetters, besides apprentices, In the Government print. ing office. Estimating Congress to be in session 200 days a year, the salaries of Senators and Representatives amount to about $10,000 a day. The State of Nevada which has two Senators and Representative in Congress, has not so large a population by 617 souls as the city of New Haven, Conn. A number of the United States Sen- ale’s employes are put down on the re- cords as ‘‘skilled laborers,” and draw pay at $1,000 a year, those who are merely “unskilled laborers” $840 a year, The distinctions between the two is the kind of brooms they man- ipulate, The *‘skilled” laborer uses a common broom to sweep stone flagging, while the *‘unskiiled” laborer wields a coarse broom in sweeping carriage- WAYS, one hile aii gel During the past ten years the Gov. ernment has expended nearly §70,000,000 in caring {or the Indians, The total num- ber of Indians attached to agencies is only 246,000, and of these 60,000 in In- dian Territory, 7,700 in Wisconsin, and 5,000 in New York are supposed to at least partially self-supporting. Last year the Postoflice Department used $11,000 worth of ink for stamping and canceling letters, The five States of Delaware, Colora- do, Florida, Nevada and Oregon com- bined have not so great a population by about 100,000 souls as the city of New York. Yet New York city has but 8 Representatives in Congress, while the five States have sixteen ten Senators, in the fiscal year ended June 30, the Governments disbursements signs reached a sum 8X ments for ali purposes in the year 1560, be besides their for pen- which exceeds by millions of dollars the disburse- There are in the railway mall service fteen clerks who ds f 19 Hi aw the salary of $12 a year each. From the five York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Ohio, the Government derives one- haif of all its postal revenues, States of. New Illinois, Last year the Government paid for several coples of Puck for use of de- partment officials, The Government expended $41,228. - 60 last year for “*North American Eth- nology" for the Smithsonian Institu- tion, It costs $30,000 a year to light the Capitol and grounds, More than one-half of the internal revenue receipts of the Government comes from the four States of Illinois, New York, Ohio and Kentucky. To wait upon the 76 Senators there are 242 employes, not counting police, watchmen and librarians, Virginia now has the same number of Congressmen she had in 1700, when there were only 65 members of the House, There are several postofiices in the country at which the annual salary ot the postmaster is only $1. Postal cards cost the Government 54 cents and 4 nmlls a thonsand. “Five hundred and eighty-nine dol- lars for wines, liquors and mineral wa- ters for use of Board of Visitors to Naval Academy,” is an item in last year's expenditures of the Goverment, The Pension Office expends more toan $60,000 a year investigating alle- ged pension frauds. At the Signal Service training school, Arlington Heights, the students of meteorology, barometers and anemome- ters are compelled to leave their study tables in the exact center of the room, their bunks in a eertain corner, their coats hnng upon certain nails, and their text-books piled up in a certain manner before retiring for the night; these and a hundred more sumilar regulations be- ing prescribed ‘‘by order of the Chief Signal Oficer.”” Their Sunday dinner is coffee, bread, and dried apples stewed, After having expended more than a hundred mullions of dollars upon its buildings in this District, the Govern- ment finds itself paying nearly $6,000 a month for rent of private buildings, The Postoffice Department uses $30,- 000 worth of wrapping twine a year, The thirteen Slates of Arkansas, Calitornia, Colorado, Connecticut, Dela« ware, Florida. Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and West Virginia, with an aggregate population which does not exceed that of New York alene, have twenty-six United States Senators to New York's two. California, with less than half the population of Indiana, pays to the Gov- ernment more money for postal service. Among the expenditures of the Gov- ernment last year was an item ‘‘for manufacturing medals $25,408.23." It costs the Government $187,000 a year to maintain lights and buoys on the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri rivers, Two-fifths of all the newspapers and periodicals sent through the mais by publishers at pound rates are mailed at New York city. Nineteen thousand seven hundred and ecighty-eight dollars of the public funds wasrecently expended for **mach- inery and experiments in the manufac- ture of sugar.” To supply public bulldings through- out the ¢ountry with fuel, light and water requires an expenditure of §1,- 000 a day, Seven hundred and fifty persons are constantly employed by the two Houses of Congress (while in session) in and about the Capitol. The Government has sold more than two hundred millions dollars worth of public lands in eighty years. In the last twenty yesrs the Govern ment has paid for interest on the public debt the enormous sum of §2,080,000,- 000, a sum which would defray all the expenses of the Government, excepting intereston the public debt, for nearly nine yews to come, at the present rate of expenditure; and for nearly thirty - five years if expensas could be limited to what they were in 1860. ERC Faculties of Birds. In stedying the habits of birds one cannot but be struck with the fact that in propertion to their many dangers, experiences and pleasures, they become warm-bearted, quick-witted, bold or timid, ferocious or cunning, passionate as the falcon, or deliberate as the rook, according to the life they have to lead, display in many ways a remarkably high degree of intelligence, for instance-—which is found from Si- beria to the Cape—has a kind of human faculty, as Mr. Ruskin observes, adapting itself to chimate, as well almost human domesticity of temper, with curious fineness of sagacity and sympathies in taste. A family of them, much petted by a lady, were constantly in as adding materials to their nest, and make realhavoc in the flower garden; for though straw snd leaves are their chief ingre- dients, they seem to have an eye for beauty, and the old hen has been rounded with a brilliant wreath of scar- sUur- let anemonies. This esthetic water-hen, with ber mate, lived at Cheadle in Staf. fordshire, in the rectory moat, for seve- ral seasons, always, however, leaving it in the spring. “Being constantly came quite tame, built 3! in a thornbush, covered with ivy, which had fallen into the water; and when the young were a few days old the parents brought them up close to the drawing- room window, there they were regularly fed with wheat; as the lady of the house paid them the greatest attention, they learned to look upon her as their natuml protectress, so much so, that one bird in particular, which was much persecuted by the rest, would, when at- tacked, fly to her for refuge; and when- ever she called, the whole flock, as tame as barn-door fowls, quitted the water and assembled round, to the number of seventeen, They also made other friends in the dogs belonging to the fa- mily, approaching them without fear, though hurrying off with great alarm on the appearance of a strange dog.” Frank Buckland gives several curious instances of the special habits of some birds in procuring their food. The blackbirds, thrushes, elc,, carry snails considerable distances for the purpose of breaking thelr shells against some rock or stone. Thomas Edward, the Scottish naturalist, describes gulls and ravens flying to a grea! height with crabs and other shellfish, and letting them fall on stones in order to smash the shells, and if they do not break on the first attempt, he says they pick them up again and carry them up yet higher, repeating the operation again and again till the shell is broken. Ravens also often resort to this contrivance. Dar. win tells of a bird having been repeat. edly seen to hop on a poppy-stem, and shake the head with his bill till many seeds were scattered, when it sprang to the ground and ate the seeds, bins Pies and Pletures. Adolphe Duglere, the famous Paris cook, who died recently at the age of 80, was for many years in the service of Baron Rothschild, He started a busi. noss of his own in 1848 as a rival of Richer, was subsequently at the Freres Provencaux, and in 1866 went to the Cafe Anglais, where, except for a short interval, he remained until his death. He befriended Millet and Diaz in their early difficulties, and was a judge of pictures, Ir a cyclone ever strike this city it would be a sorry day indeed for dused Dusting for a Living. “I'm a duster,’ said a young woman whom a reporter met in a private house In New York, “a professional duster, I’m not the only one. It's a regular profession, dusting is, now-a-days. The parlors of the rich have grown to be 80 many museums of delicate and costly ornaments, To dust and arrange {hese collections every day would too severely tax the strength of wealthy ladies. To set the servants at the work was fourd to be bad management, not because they were bungling and liable to smash tue delicate fabrics, but because the servants have no time to spare from their other duties, Therefore the mis- tresses employ competent women to keep thelr parlors in order, The dust- ing business is an established industry, but it is confined to the metropolis, almost entirely to the region of brownstone fronts. All the dusters | know of are women who better days, but, of course, it isn’t every educated and refined who make a good duster.” “What are the requirements?’’ and have seen wolan Cail **she must be light-footed, quick anc To visit beds ine strong in her wrists and arms, a dozen houses in the forenoon callers arrive and dust and arrange 's play. A wolnan The things is no child angt 1 iv frames 2 Inust lainy jump al Well, $I v hey remuneration? visil—somelimes more, ome houses where the hostess entertain good 114 y argiont 4 ¢ ¥ ai weg many guests the room re ged tha arra;l every day, Orders are given to r dusters to change the arrangements of the appointments every time they come, Then again, a duster must to take hold of knack and how HOw brush to The must know just what s rt of for { se every sort of qusting, { brush that will not break a filmy tissue { of glass is useless on a piece of furniture and would not reach the ceiling corners, i She and be careless or slapdash There are few bits of bric-a-brac in these parlors that 1 could replace with six months’ earnings, must have several brushes, she must not ran inetd for an instant. ns A Tricks of Memory. Atl a meeting of the Boston Scientific Society, the most popular dis- course of the evening was that by the President, John Ritchie, Jr., on **Vis- ulation,” or the peculiar mental faculty possessed by some people, by which cer- tain abstractions definite shape. It was noticed particularly in the matter of figures, and a number of curious diagrams were shown, exhibit- ing the different idiosyncrasies of in- For instance, in the man’s mind a certain definite shape of totally irrelevant character ; 100 would carry this figure further on, while 25 would bring up before the mind's eye only half of it. The power of visulation in numbers wou recent assume a dividuals on this point, the number 50 called up 21% = sryrymt € rig » . 1d account for some of the of otherwise incomprehensible feats It extends out- side of the domain of figures, however, In the time of Sir 5 ¥ y f 4 T5114 portrait painter achieved a great repu- some mathematicians, Joshua Reynolds a tation by painting portraits from only one sitting. After looking at a per- son’s face for an hour he was able to bring it up before him in all its details at any subsequent time by a mere effort of the will, A case was related of a man who learned to sing in opera by mechanical means, Ouoe night he was thrown entirely out by a person near the stage turning the pages of a score, He was obliged to send out and request the discontinuance of the operation be- fore he could proceed with his part, The fact is that he could only sing by seeing the mental image of the pages of the score from which he had learned before his eyes, and to his surprise and discomfiture he found that the turning of the real leaves by the auditor carried over the imaginary leaves from which he was reading, and often in the wrong place, inasmuch as his score was dif- ferently printed. Various other curious facts of a like nature were cited. 1 he Hangman, In Austria, where capital offences are punished by banging, the executioner is a government official with a fixed sal- ary and certain perquisites, and a staff of helpers under him. He is attired in a showy uniform with a cocked hat and jack boots, and rides up to the scaffold on a prancing steed under military es- cort. Conspicuous are the new white gloves worn in performing his functions, and thrown off afterward never to be used again, This functionary 1s not chosen from the scum of the population, nor is he treated with contumacy. As was the case in Franoe, the office is cou- fined very much toone family, descend- ing from father to son. A clumsy exe- cution or an unseemly exhibition at the gallows, such as we in this country are too familiar with, is a thing impossible in Austria, The Henker, as he is styled in other parts of Germany, combines with his ghastly duties the business of capturing all stray dogs in the highways and streets unmuszled, sunday. What Sunday is to Christians Mon. day 1s to the Greeks, Tuesday to the Persians, Wednesday to the Assyrians, Thursday to the Egyptians, Friday to the Turks and Saturday to the Jews and Seventh-day Bavtists,