A Rditrie, If w oonlcl moot who Imv* t>n long opart I wnmUr what flmt word* yonr lip* would nay. And what flrst thonglita woald wakon in your haart If we eoald mart by any rhanoa to-day. If fea to foca lon thia fouly lana We two should otaud with paoae of sudden feat, Which would l>e ft nit—a sense of joy or pain— ! If we could meat? Ton would not IH< the light you used to know In eye* that have grown ditn with many taarx, Nor erar more tho smiles of long ago On lip* made sorrowful by wasting years, Aud. looking at you. I might also find Rome trace* of "thehordcn and the heat," Of youthful grace and gladuww left behind— I If we could meet? Ah, well! The sky is cloudless overhead, The sunlight never fell with fairer gleam, And flow'ry held* tu.d woods are round tnc spread. And singing waters murmur through my dream; Bui yet I know what brighter beams would fall, How ov'ry wind and flow'r would grow more sweet, Wlmt richer glory would encompass nil— If we could meet? Forever and forever, duur, I know I may not hear your voice or see your face. But, oh, my darling, if it might lie so Al this calm hour and in this quiet place! Yon might be cold, or careless, or estranged. With scarce one swifter throb your heart migh heat, Bnt you would find uay IOTO at least un changed. If we could meet? JACK'S MARY. •* I was younft, T was fair, I had once not a care," sang Hettina Lyons, in a doleful tone. " ' Yet you pined like a slave,' not 1 by the sad sea wave exactly, hut at the old farm," broke in a merry voice. "So I did, Clare, and often wish my self hack again." " What ! and leave all your Iftight prospects ?" " If you mean Visions of the future 1 as they present themselves to me now. yes, if I could take up the old, happy dreams of the past again." . " Hut you cannot make me believe you would forsake your brilliant pros pects and return to the hum-drum life you quitted." " I would indeed, |fi>r I cannot even ' think of my brilliant future, as you term it, without a shudder." "Come, girls, if you are going to the fair it is time you were dri"sssi," said Chalmers, entering the room where the two cousins were seated. "Aunt Winnie, I wish you would leave me home. I am not in the mood for pleasure to-day," said liettina. " I ild not bring you here to mope. You had plenty of time for that in the country. When you have secured your own comfortable home you can mope In it to your heart's content, but not now." " One would think that securing a comfortable home was the end and aim of a woman's existence. lam heartily j tired of being preached to about set tling in life, and to tell you as I told you a hundred times before. Aunt Win nie, I will not marry for the sake of a home." Mrs. Chalmers looked at her with se vere disapprobation. " I gave you credit for l>eing a reas onable woman, Hettina; not a way ' "ward child." she said. " Of course I'm waywar/l for claim ing the right to th.nk for myself on the subject of matrfiuony." " That will do, my dear; remain at home and return to tho ftirm to-mor row, if you choose; I have no desire to Influence your conduct. Coms Clare, you, at least, are always ready to please me." "Yes, auntie; lam quite prepared and will only detain you while I put on my bonnet aiM gloves," was the prompt reply. liettina spent the afternoon commun ing with her own thoughts, which were far from pleasant ones. "I will be true to my own love whatever may betide," she was singing when her aunt and cousin returned. "Oh, Bet," exclaimed the latter when they were alone, •• we had a lovely time, but Aunt Winnie was dis appointed, she is so anxious about your future, you know," "Now, Clare, hush; don't you be gin a sermon. I get enough of that from auntie. I have been question ing my heart this afternoon, aud have determined that no one shall persuade me to marry a man I do not hive for sake of a comfortable home. What comfort could I And in sitting down by his tlreside with longing regret" for the presence of another. I would be acting false to myself and falsi' to Mr. Wetherill, and alth # •' i do not like him he deserves a icttcr fate than that." " Hut if that other person doesn't care for yon f " I never said he didn't, rare former* and Bcttina's eyes flashed resentfully. "An ugly old cousin whom he is pledged to marry stands lietween us, and the worst of it is she does not pretend to care for him. Their parents concocted tho match when they were too young to understand anything about such matters. Fred would give up everything, friends, home, fortune, if I would consent, hut how can 1 when the failure of her pet scheme would break his lady mother's hpart. My coining out of the affair heart broken is of no consequence, for I am only a JKKIT girl who is expected to marry the first man that offers a com fortable home." " Did you ever see this cousin ?" " No," replied Hettina wiping her eyes. " Then how do you know she is old and ugly?" • " I know she is older than Fred, and I think she must he awful homely, else lie would have learned to care for her." "A very logical conclusion," laughed Clare. "Perhaps the assertion that! she does not love him is based on one." "Hut I aiu sure she doesn't love j hiin," interrupted the other, eagerly. | " llow could she hide it if she did? Fred knew that I loved him long be fore we talked about it, hut you see he felt In honor hound to his cousin, and knew it was not right to speak of love to me." " Ife evidently overcame his scruples," observed Clare. " Yes, after he was perfectly con vinced that his cousin didn't care for him. Indeed, she told him so." "T'nder such circumstances, if she is a true woman, she would conceal her love, even though her heart were breaking." Bettina lmikeil up quicklv. " Were you ever in love, Clare?" she asked. Clare Hushed a little. " You don't suppose I would tell you, even if I j were? Ido not approve of parading such matters before the world." " Oh, perhaps you are one of the kind who woaid 'let concealment like a worm"— What is the rest of it? I Something ai>ut damask cheeks;' only your cheeks could hardly be 1 called damask, for you are fright fully pale." Clare smiled good-naturedly. " I trust lam one of the kind who 1 wouldn't make a goose of myself, and j fret altout a man who didn't care for me." " Yon evidently don't believe that ; Fred loves me. lam half inelined to j convince you all that he docs. I'll! tell you another thing, Clare. 1 l>- i lieve if auntie would let Mr. Wetherill alone he would transfer his affections to you in no time. You don't know how oddly he looks at you sometimes. If I were in love with him I would be horribly jealous. I really lielieve if he had seen you before he asked me to marry him he would never have asked the question, although I am younger ami—" "'And prettier,'you were going to say, you vain girl." " Well, ever) if I am, I'm not half as good ao' you, you dear, sober old Clare. But, good or bad, I am not going to sacrifice myself to please two old women—for that's just what it , amounts to. I gave up Fred to please i his mother, and am going to marry Mr- ; Wetherill to please Aunt Winnie ; at ! least she thinks I am." For a week or more after the events just related llettina appeared to la one of the most docile creatures Im aginable, and Aunt Winnie and she were again on the most amicable terms, but Clare felt instinctively that she was plotting mischief. One day Mrs. Chalmers went to pay a long-promised visit to a friend residing in the coun try. As soon as she was gone the young girl dressed herself in a neat walking costume and left the house. Clare did not miss her until she had occasion to go to her room, where she expected to lind her, but found instead a note addressed to herself, which she opened with trembling fingers, and read; " Dr.AH CI.AKE—I faney that you will not be much astonished to learn that I have gone to meet Fred. Every thing is arranged, and we will IK> mar ried in a few hours. Aunt Winnie will lie furious, but will recover from the shock more rapidly than I would from a broken heart if I followed her i Ml vice. Will you please tell Mr. Weth erill when he comes to-night? Dear Clare, don't he angry with yoiij own " BKTTINA." "Thank Godl" ejaculated Clare, fer vently, as she finished nailing. "They are both saved, but how shall I ever ! tell him? Capricious little pet, may you never have cause to regret the sthp you have taken!" She met Mr. Wetherill with a com posed air, although her heart was throbbing painfully. " Miss Lyons is net at home," she j said. "Not at home?" in a tone of sur . prise. 44 No, Mr. Wetherlll; fthe'a gone ! away, leaving me HII unpleasant task to perform. 1 hope you will not bn too much shocked," she went on, ner vously; "but I am afraid she is mar—. Bend this note; it will expluin all." She trembled like an aspen as she watched him reading the note, ids face j growing pule and flushed alternately, j " I am so grieved, Mr. Wetherlll." "You need not lie, Miss Clare. I admire Bettinn's courage and honesty j in refusing to give her hand where she [ could not bestow her heart. She has saved us both from life-long unhappi ness." Clare gazed at him, too much amazed to speak. "Miss Clare, will you listen to a story that has been trembling on my ! lips since I first met you here?" Without waiting for a reply he con tinued: " Many years ago there was a young man—a mere lad—whom we will call .lack. He was a farmer's son, and poor. Near his father's place lived a widow and her only child, Mary. Jack loved this little girl from her baby- ' hood, and'when she was fourteen and lie nineteen the two promised to be true to each other as long as life lasted. Shortly afterward Jack went out Into tho world to try to make a home for the child who had promised to he his | wife. Several letters were exchanged ! until Mary's mother discovered what was going on, and forbid her to write any more. About year after their separation her mother died, and she went to a distant city to reside with relatives. .Tack did not hear of these events until he returned to his old home, two years later. Then he made inquiries fur his little love, but could gain no further tidingsof her. Several years passed, and he was successful beyond even his boyish expectations During this period he met many beauti ful women, hut little Mary's Image refused to leave its shrine in his heart. ' One day be saw a notice of her mar riage. Then hope died, but memory remained. As time passed he he- j came weary of his bachelor's life, and concluded to marry. Chance threw him In the society of young girl whose unconventional manner* proved a strong attraction, and in a short time he a*kcd her to be his wife. He thought the reluctant air with which she con sented was due to badifulness, but later on discovered that her heart be ionged to some one else. Then he de termined to question her closely re garding the matter, and if his conjec tures were true to give her back bei promise. Meantime hejiw-t a woman wonderfully like his lost love. Yet she was not cnlhd Mary, nor did she |x-ar the name of the man whom she had married, and, while bound to the young girl, lie could not ask her for an expla nation. At last he found himself ftce, and—Miss Clare, it rests with you to decide how the story of Jack's love shall end." A profound silence reigned for a few moments, then Clare exphiinisl in a low. tremulous voice: " After the death of Mary's mother \ she went to live with her father's brother, whose daughter was also named Marv Latnson. In order to avoid confusion Jack's Mary was calhsl by her second name, Clare. It was Mary's cousin who married, hut the orphan girl remained true to her early love." " And her constancy is at 1 ast re warded," said Mr. Wetherlll, drawing her to his breast. .She laid her head in a restful way on his shoulder, and thus Aunt Winnie found them when she returned in a great state of excitement, having re ceived a telegram from Bettina an nouncing her marriage. "Well," she ejaculated, when the situation was explained, "I am glad wo are going to keep you in the family. But I must say Bettina would have made yon a brilliant wife." "Clare will make a loving wife, and I am satisfied with the exchange, Mrs. Chahneis," he answered, fervently. A Phenomenal City. The city of Tcxarkaaa. though small in comparison to some of the other cities of the Union, is the most phe nomenal. It lies in two States—Texas and Arkansas, henee Its name. The .State line runs through the center of , its chief street. Its population is fi.OOO. It is considered the gateway of the Southwest. Four railroads center there, the climate Is like that of Italy and tramps are not tolerated. Money is plenty and the people ar prosperous. When people < ravi lcln a nlfl. ,-nl View. If one feels a desire to sup full horrors in Washington, says a letter from the nat ional capital, there is no way in which success is so certain and se speedy as an ascent of tin- .'175 feet of the unfinished Washington monu ment. Although no accident of any kind whatever has happened since the work was begun, owing to the admi rable precautions that have been ole served, the mere contemplation of the d aigers to he avoided would give Gen eral Washington himself, if he were alive, tho cold creeps. It must be re membered that the monument is already among the highest structures hi the world, while the transporta tion of the gigantic blocks of stone to the top is something which lias no parallel in this country, and has sel dom been equaled anywhere. Whether the ascent is calculated to inspire fear or not may lie imagined from tin- reply made lv one of tlie highest officials in \\ ashington to the inquiry, " Were you —were you not just a little frightened going lip?" * Frightened! I was per fectly terrified!" was the hearty re sponse given with all the force of em phasis. The ascent is male by the elevator, which runs through the middle of tin great obelisk- This elevator is a mere open platform, which does not deserve the name of an alleviator, as Mrs. Hi n eral Hiitlory puts it; it is rather t! terrifter. Every time it goes up it carries from live to ten lons of stzti'-, and the only way fyr visitors to g t to the top is to huddle around the immense mass of stone on the diulxdical • bxiking machine. The platform Ix-gins to move slowly and laboriously upward, grinding and creaking at every inch from the enormous weight it lifts, in half a minute the light of day totally disappears, and at that moment the horrors of the jiositioii suddenly swoop down upon inc. To I*. dangling hun dreds of feet above a chasm with only a nqte between a fall to the bottom with lo.oon pounds of stone is enough to appal any imagination. Although the darkness is blackness inconceiv ■ able and the intense silenccjirokcn only by the groaning of the great ma - feeling its way painfully upward, ret the frightful abyss appears t<> lxs-onie of itself Ixith audible and visible. Tie last 150 feet of balancing between heaven and earth is like hanging lx tween life and death. Even the ele vator man gives up his heroic effort* to keep up the courage of the party. At length light from the top begin to apjx-ar, and in a minute or two a pallid party of pleasure seekers step unt on the platform at the top. nearly 100 feet in the air. There is an enorm ous iron structure running through the middle of the obelisk and around this the stone is blocked, "NX feet are added •very week in thr<-.- tiers of twv looking at It from any point of ele vation. Everything else grows minute from the top of the monument except the white splendor of the capitol. It sccrns to lie on a mountain instead of a hill, and atnid the ilimiaishinguf every other object the great white dome stands gradually out, so high that it looks as though poised in air. ' Fire lays a grievous tax upnn Lon don. The losses from it amount to $500,000 a month. The Greatest I.lGnr French Fainter. Personally Meissonier In man whom it in difili'iilt to describe. Picture to yourself a little hit of a fellow, a* '•risk and merry a* if hi> Wit , listening to some stimulating music, to which all other ears were deaf. On this body ♦of a dwarf is set a magnificent head - a head that is almost that of a vision ary—with long locks of waving and | snowy white hair, and with a long ..heard as white as the hair. lie reminds ' ! you of one of those personifications of rivers in which the ancients delighted, or, rather, of one of those musing fath ers of the earth that Coysevox has carved for us under the thick linden trees of the park at Versailles, When one looks at this Imposing head and venerable beard, one entirely j loses sight of the slender body j that ends in a pair of trousers i like those x>f the Eng]jsh horse trainer, Learned and witty to the ut most limit, and, like a true Parisian, fond of ridiculing everything, with a sharp eye to his own glory, the great painteris more interesting within the i walls of liisstudio, surrounded by the j tokens of his work. The studio is an ! enormous one, and fairly flooded with light. It (swell stocked with pictures, incomplete sketches, precious furni ture, arms and hangings. It is so large t hat even the "Marriage of ('ana" could have been painted in it with case, and yet it is here that Meissonier touches and retouches,with a religious patience, those diminutive pictures that the. amateurs are so glad to COVT with gold pieces and hank notes. In spite of its si/ethe studio is arranges! witheo queUislincKs tliat is almost feminine. Here and there on the arm-chairs and di vans are negligently cast clothes of rich. I Iv colored velvet s,a musketeer's hat with its white, trailing plume, a theatrical sword with an elaborate carved hilt, a ! I>ilc of brilliantly colored silks and . Eastern stuffs. Everywhere, drawn | ujt in line, on easels, hanging on the wiills and even resting against the tables, pictures and quartettes, which we never grow tired of admiring. The work of the artist that is now the furthest advanced represents two lovers singing a duet. The man, • draped in a purple sitnarre, is allowing hLs fingi r to wander over the keys of an organ, while his head is thrown back toward her who stands beside 1 ( him. The picture contains all the ' harm of a mystic ode, all the tender ness of two hearts which are filb-d with hut one and the same feeling. The r<*l and gn-n color* in the picture are as dazzling a* oriental g'l* spread out in the intense glare j <>f an Eastern sun. The master chats pleasantly with such visitors and friends as come in. His voice is clear, but, at the end of his sentences it Ise coioes weak, and has some almost childish inflections. He taught easily and readily, and, from force of habit can listen gravely and calmly to the hyperbolical praises that are so prodi gally bestowed upon him and his work- Meissonier does not content himself with Iwing one of the great contemporary masters. He is. also, as learned a col lector of rare old books as any biblio pbilist of the institute. It is by study ing those that he is enabled to produce in his pictures such faithful representa tions of the centuries that have vanisbisl, and of scenes of adventure and chivalry that have lxx-n forgotten hv the common herd. Brought in the Ur*r% Meat Alive. A Toronto lawyer, who was one of a party out hunting lately in the Mns koka district, had a narrow escape front the rather dangerous embraces of a l>car. The incident is an amasing one. It appears that the members of the party had arranged that they should take turns at the cooking. The gent le man in qtiestion .lid not take kindly to this work, and when the remainder of ' the party returned from the chase he was invariably asleep, not having pre pared a meal. His companions l>e came tired of this conduct, and on this occasion ordered him out to bring in some game. This he proceeded very gladly to do. In j a few minutes, however, he was seem returning at the top of Ids speed, with an immense I tear in hot pursuit, lie ilashisl into the shanty, the heavy doors of which were at once barrel against the would-be intruder, the gal lant hunter exclaiming: "lloys, here's your fresh meat, all alive." After sonic dozen shots had lioen fired into j th boar's laxly from the roof of the shanty, where the gallant hunters had ! managed to crawl through one of the j numerous smoke-holes, they descended, and after some slight delay in re moving the skin were se sauce enough to go round now.*' Walt Whitman exclaims in one of his jsK-ms; "Give me solitude!** Very * easily obtained, sir. Start to take up a collection for the Washington monu ment. The advance agent of a had show luis the l>est time. He can get out of town Wore hiscoinpnr performs. It is the manager who must stay and pay salaries and hear the complaints. A farm that recently yielded a profit of SIO,OOO a year ha* Im left by a wealthy bachelor of Oregon to aschool for young la/Li/*. Very few men who have escajcd matrimony exhibit so much gratitude to the girls. General Wolseley, the hero of the tyO'ptian war. is the author of a book called " The Soldier's Pocket Book for Fi/#d Service." As the British soldier gets only twenty cents a day, he can't have much use for a pocket book. A shirt has two arn. the same as pantal/sins have two legs; yet one i called a pair and the other is only one. Isn't it time that we let up on astron omy and paid more attention to every day trifles that vex the clearest minds ? Four-year-old Augustus is found shaving the hea/l of his cat with his father's rasar, and is severely reproved by bis nurse. " But," says the little fellow, "men always have such a hard time shaving, I want to practice Wore my l-card grows." An old farmer bought a work called "Hints on Fencing," supposing it set forth the advantages and cheapness of one fence over another. He cxprrased himself very vigorously when he dis eovered that the book related to an entirely di Stare" t kind of fencing. "Mamma," *ed little Edith, "be all grown folks hateful ?" •• Why, Edith," replied licr mother, " what put that idea in your head?" "Noth ing. mamma, only I know everybody who comes here is hateful, 'cause I've always heard yon say so after they went out," They were talking about midnight assaults, when a dWor spoke up and said he was never handled roughly but -inee; but then he was nearly killed. However, he was lucky enough to dis cover his assailants. - Who were they; who were they?" exclaimed everybody. "Starving undertakers, starving undertakers, brought down from affluence to penury after I came to reside In the town," said the docto