- St. Talent lie's Moraine. With a mule eaow the morning ol Vol an Hue' day. And ilaaaUngly white grew the snow 'neeth the son. And the ioiclee gleamed in • wonderful way, i\e though a young rainbow were troao In eaoh one. When Net lie Lee drew her red hood o'er her head, And wrapped np the baby In warm woolen cloak ( The mietreee was (till sound asleep in her bed). ' And alipped out, never dreaming of Barney O'lioke. Ol courec not! Why ahould ehe? She'd not known him long. And' when round the corner a-amiling ho came, Dinner pail in his hand, on his lipe an old eong, Hor heart gave a leap as he called 00l hor name. ' ' Oh, well, snre it's lock to be meetin'you here, The first girl I've seen on St. Valentine's day. Did yon meet e'er e boy 'lore you met me, my dear?' "An' what U I did !" was all Nellie would eay. Ask the wise little birds;" and he laughed in her eyee, Then bent o'er the baby and gave it a kiss. A kin ?—three or tour, till in baby surprise It gased at him, thinking, " What uncle is this?" Then away sent my lad, and my laesio flew home In a moment to take otT her hood and her shawl; And the mistress not yet to her breakfast had come, And so never knew Nell had been out at all. Aud though not once that day rang the post man the bell With a lew tender linca cr a bit ola verse. " What matter? I know that the kisses,' Mid Nell, " Barney gave to the baby were meant tor the nurse." Harper'l H ttkly. A PYRAMID OF CABBAGES. " Why, where nre yon going, Isabe' RaatmnnP Not into the farm-yard, amelyf" " Yes, Miss Lottie Mayell, I am going into the farm-yard, surely," replied Isabel, with a mischievous light in her big gray eyes, and a charming smile on her prettily curved lips, as she opened the gate leading to that place. "No where else can we be confidential with out running the risk of being overheard. The farmer's family are in the orchard; Charley and a half-dozen of his play mates are playing in the flower garden; there's a young couple in the parlor at the piano, he making love, and she not making music, and a still younger couple whispering and giggling in the bay-window; anntie is in my room en joying 'Splendid Misery;'and grandma is in auntie's room dsraing stockings. And so, if you really want to hear "tight away' why I am here instead of at one of my nsnal summer haunts, you must e'en follow me to the farm-yard. Besides which "-speaking %rith in creased animation —"I have lately, strange as it may seem to yen, devel oped quite a passion for farm-yards." "It doesn't seem at all strange to me, my dear, for during our ten years' friendship you've always been develop ing some odd passion or other. Bui I've never lost faith in you. Lead on; I'll follow." And stepping daintily and gracefully, unimpeded by trains or demi-tralns, the young girls threaded their way through the crowd of hens and chickens holding a loud and lively conversation prepara tory to going to roost; past the cows waiting to he milked, and turning their beads to look after the intruders with great solemn brown eyes; and old Low bead, the white horse, sinking his thirst at the water trough—to the extremcend ok' the yard, where a pile of cabbages, neatly arranged in the form of a pyra mid, confronted them. " Behold," said Isabel, stopping be fore it " how nature lends herself to art! (That sounds well, though I don't know now as it means anything.) This mighty structure, formed of the green and succulent cabbage, is no donbt the work of some hnmble field-laborer, who, having read of the pyramids of fCgypt—incited thereto, no doubt by the newspaper paragraphs about our own dear obelisk—has sought to vary the monotony of cabbage life by build ing as cione an imitation as bis material would allow. Let ua hope that this flight of imagination may lead to a higher one, and thmt the cabbage man, like the batter woman, may meet with public recogni tion, and at last I* crowned with a wreath of laurel. Often from the hum bleat sources sprins the .greatest works of genius. Burns— Lottie." breaking off suddenly, and assuming a cheerful tone —"why do 70U break in upon my elo quence with rude and unseemly laugh ter? 1 was about to repeat to you Long fellow's last poem; now I won't. See what you frivolity has lost you! And take a scat on tbe extnoe base of the pyramid (I prefer the mound of sods in this secluded corner, sacred to some tbody's rake and hoe), while I go back to the commonplace.'* " Thank you, Bell dear, I'll share the soda with 70a, if you please. I have an idea that a oabbage would prove a very uncomfortable seat under any circum stance*. And do go back to the com monplace, that's a darling, for I'm dying to know what happened since wo parted an age ago." "An age ago I Ono year and a half exactly. I was then engaged to Claude Venner. Pretty name, isn't itP And he was a pretty little fellow, with nice curly hair, and lovely blue eyes, with lashes long enough for a bang, small dimpled hands, and not an idea in his little round head. My mother—with all due deference I say it—and his mother to whom I accord much less deiercnco —made the match when I was eighteen, and 1 unmade it at twenty. I never loved Claude. How could IP And he never loved me. How could hoP We were the victims of circumstances and match-making mammns, and two mor tals more unlike it would be hard to find. He was the most conventional of men, and would have nearly died if at one of those dreary dinner parties in which his soul delighted someb dy had whispered to him that his back hair wasn't parted straight, while I have often been strongly tempted to shock the full-dressed guests, at the very start, by asking for more soup. "Well, last June, at Newport, my diminutive friend Eda Smythe, with a head the exact counterpart of Claude's, appeared upon the scene, and she and my betrothed fell in love with each other at first sight. Mtimnia fretted and fumed and scolded, and asked me, with tragic emphasis, how I could look calmly on and see so many thousands of dollars being lost to the family, for she was sure that nrtful mink would persuade poor deai Claude to elope or something; but I continued to look calmly on, until one evening Claude, with a deep sigh, kissed Etta's hand as he bade her' good-night,' when I turned suddenly upon them and hade them fol low mo to my room. There I forgave— quite in the manner of a stage parent— the infatuated midgets their base du plicity, gave them my blessing, kissed them both; and as soon as they, beam ing with joy, had departed, I, aiso beam ing with joy, and not quite in the man ner of a stage parent, except perhaps a Pinafore one, executed a pirouette—a mad, revolving pirouette—in honor of my newly acquired freedom. Mamma was awfully angry, but they're' awfully happy, and they've named the baby after me. My chains (they were never very heavy. I must confess) broken beyond repair, I flirted more than ever, ail the time growing as weary as could he of hear ing the same compliments and making the same replica, and doing this thing in the morning.nnd that in the afternoon, and the other in the evening, and at last I fled from the old familiar throng precipitant.y one rainy day, leaving my maid to pack my wardrobe and follow. And I determined that this summer I would try pastures entirety new. Auntie had often tcld me of the pleasant, oid fasbi nod farmhouse which she dis covered years ago, and I coaxed mamma —promising to take Charley, our young est, who is the 'worrit* of her life, with mc—to let me spend three of my j four out-of-thc-city months here. And, j Lottie, I have never been so happy be- j fore, and 1 am firmiy convinced that here 1 have found the kind of life that would suit me best. I was bom to love cows and chickens, to make butter, to build pyramids of cabbages." " You!" laughed her friend. " I think I see you in the dairy, in neat cambric dress, witli sleeves rolled to the elbow, stamping the pats of butler with your monogram—for that's as near as you'd ever come to churning; and in the hennery, scattering ccrn to the chickens from a dainty white apron, a curiously shaped rustic hat meanwhile shading your rose-and-crcam com plexion from the sun. You bora to love cows and chiekenst—you who have reigned a city belle for four long years!" " And for three been most ready to abdicate. By-the-bye"—with assumed carelessness—" have you s