Lite fM 13ninth llcmncmt. •fARV *' KOKZiBR Vrep rl ur NEW SERIES, • Terms— l cch a home should be fixed and peimanent If to arv cause m<>re than another is to be attributed the reac tions of domestic and social tie' iu modern society, it is the absence of those influen ces which exist onlv iti a fixed home. It is living in rented houses, hired rooms, and Hotels, temporary and often cherries retreats, where everything that pertains to the free-hold in another's—where everv improvetnei t you make loses its interest, front the thought that it is yours at the will of another. The very idea that you own the sod you tread on, that by your la bor one spot has been acquired sacred to your rights, your tasies and interests, be gets a feeling of independence. Bayard Tayor, describing an extended view from high mountains, says that a feeling of re gret came over him as he remembered that but one foot of all this broad earth was his. To a man of family, the purchase of a homestead is its first step to indepen dent manhood. WOMAN A CIVII.IZER. If God were to take the nin and moon and stars oot of the heavens, the chances of husbandry would be what ? If God were to take woman out ot life, what would be the chances for refii emeut and civilization in her heart it spring from her? Her pow er and influence mark the civilization of any country. A man who lives in a com munity where he has the privilege of a woman's society, and is subject to womanV influence, is almost of necessity refined, more than he is aware of; and, when men are removed from the genial influenee of virtuous womanhood, the very best de generate, or feel the deprivation. There is something wanting in the air when you get west of the Allegheny moun tains on a sultry day of summer. The air of the mountain is supplied with a sort of pabulum from the salt water of the ocean, by which one is sustained in the sultriest days of midsummer Now, what the salt is to the air, that is woman's lnflu erce to the virtue of a community. You breathe it without knowing it. All you know is that you are made stronger and better; and a man is not half a man unless a woman helps him to be. One of the mis chiefs of camp life is that women are re moved from it. The men may not know what it is tha lets them down to a lower state of feeling, or what that subtle influ ence was that kept them up to a higher state of refinement, but it is the absence ot woman in the one case, as it was the pres ence of woman in the other. Woman is a light which God has set before man to show him the way to go, and blessed is he who has s< nse enough to follow it ! H. W.Beecher. The following very perspicuous end la conic manner of telling a plain story may be instructive to slanders : "Mother Jasper told me that she heard Grate Wood's wife say that John Hard stone's aunt mentioned to her that Mrs Trusty was present when the widow Bow man said that Captain Heartall's cousin thought Ensign Doolittle's sister beliered that old MraOiby reckoned that Sam Tri fle's better half bad told Mrs. Spaulding that sfaa heard John Renner's woman say that her mother told her that Mrs. Baga telle had two buabaudd." ••TO SPBAK HIS THOUGHTS IS BYIBY FIHBMAV'S •ICiT, "-Thrall IsffsHn. 9 TUNKHANNOCK, PA., WEDNESDAY, FEB. 20, 1867 NELLIE HAY. A LOT* r-TOBT. "Is that Oldtowu Church yonder, if you please, sir?" A girl spoke to me. I turned and look ed at her. There are women at sixteen. This one was a child. She wore the scan tiest of cotton dresses, belted at the waist, a pair of leather boots and a white apron. Ir. her hand she carried a sun-bonnet, and her hair, cropped close like a boy's curltd in black rings about her head. The face was a baby's face in sweetness and inno cence—the little brown bands the bands of toil. No young lady this, yet there was nothing coarse or vulgar about her, unless it were those hands. "That is. Oldtown Church, my dear," I said. "Are you going there?" "Ye, sir, to see the wedding. Are you ?" I was, more fool I, though I did not say so to this child. The bridejfor whom the • ells were ringing, was to be mine once— would have been but for the accident which had crippled me and changed her heart She had done nothing openly treacherous, but I saw the truth and set her free. She took her freedom gladly, and we were two. She had quite forgot ten me, no doubt. I believed then I never ceuld forget her, 1 knew exactly how she would look in snowy silk and lace and coronet of pearls 1 had dreamed of her in bridal robes so often. I nodded to the little thing beside me, trudging over the tall grass almost to her waiaf, looking at me wistmlly. "I never saw a wedding," she said. "No ?" "No, sir. Grandfather said I might come. lie didn't care himself. It's a long walk, too, from the tavern, and he's very old." "Does your grandfather keep the tav ern ?" I asked. "No, sir. I wi*h he did !" said tbe child. "He has only his fiddle, and peo ple half the tme don't care for tunes. — What else can he do, though! To-night there's a dance, and he's to play for them That's why we stopped A poor fiddler's untaught grandchild— as poor as decent poverty could be—yet her presence somehow cheered me. Half child, half woman, and a child at heart. In nocent and beautiful and kindly. I en couraged her to linger at my side. I said to her; "I will show you a place where you can see the bride well. It is tbe gallery.— Will you like that?" "I don't know," she said. "I havn'l been to cbureli often. We pray together in lonely places, grandfather and I. Will you be there, sir?' "Yes." "I know I should like it." "Come with me, then," I said, and she followed me. I had meant to hide myself in the gal lery, and see lost l>ve married, quite un seen. This companionship had not been in my role at all. But 1 liked it; no friend no relation, not my own sister, would I have added besid** me; but tt is elfish thing was too innocent to fear. I led the way up the dark old stairs, and toward the spot quite sheltered from the general view. Then 1 sat down, and she stood leaning over the balustrade. The church was full of bonnets. Eere and there only a masculine bead. The minister was in his scat, reading, in a posi tion taken for effect. He was a handsome man. and knew it perfectly well. Girls whispered and giggled, matrons fanned themselves, and men yawned. Soon the soft roll of carriages on t'ie grav el path was hear.l, and the Mial-partv entered. 1 saw her at last—Aletta. •'ls that the bride?" haif-sobbed the girl's voice at my sid&r "Is it a real lady ? she looks like wax. O how pretty, how beautiful! Look! look!" She touched rae with her little brown hand, and looked at me, her eyes spread ing : ' Did you ever see her before ?" she askr ber. I said no other word but I led her to an inner room, while two men bore tbe dead man up stairs. She wept wildly, but my presence seemed to comfort her. After a while she i'rew closer to me, and sitting on a low stool, l< aned her forehead on my knee. Soon her hand rested on it, and in an hour she had sobbed herself to sleep. I said a few words to the landlady when I arose to leave ; and she promised to attend to mr orders, enforced by the con tents of my pocket-buok. "The yirl shan't go until I hear from you sir,"' she said "Indeed, I don't know where she would g". She seems friendless, and. such a child for her age. Thank you, sir.' And I went on my way again, thinking not of Aietta but of the dead fiddler's grandchild. This sun-browned waif, so simple and so ignorant, so friendless and alone. I was young yet —not five-and-twenty— and a bachelor, and likely to be one my life long. I had no proper home to take her to, and no friend to aid me. At last, in my extremity I thought of Betty, who had once been my nur>e, and who loved me as she might her own son—and in the gloam - ing I made my way to her poor home. I found her trimming her vines in the bit of garden ground, and had my usual kiss across the fence even belore the gate was opened. "I've been thinking of you," she said.— ''l knew it was you as soon as I heard some one coming. 'Tisu't every young gentle man w<>u,d trouble himself to see an old body .ike ine. Sit down, honey, and rest." "1 come to a-k a favor, Betty,' 1 said. "Just name it, Master Bertie." "Will you take a boarder, Betty ?" "Bless ran ! In my two rooms ?" "Only a child, Betty." "A chi d, Master Albert!" 1 told her of the fiddler's death, and of the girl. "I have money enough," I said, "but no female relatives. I can only come to you." "You have always been kind-hearted from a boy," she said. "I'll take the little girl, Master Bertie." Theu she put both hands on my shoul ders. # "You haven't fretted, have you 1" she asked. "Fretted !" I asked. "Why P "Nay, why indeed ?" said old Betty.— "Better fish in the sea than ever were caught y-1." Then in a moment more she added. "I've been to see the w dding." I felt my face fiush. "Shall I bring the girl to-mrrow, after her grandfather's funeral ?" I ask>-d. "When you please,'' said Betty. "But Master Albert, what do you mean to do with her ? You are doing all this iu a hur ry. Just think a bit." "I mean to adopt this child," I said "It will make me happy to have a young thing to care for." Betty laughed. "You'll have young things of your own, please God, some day," she said. " IFhy, at your age, life is before you.' "I shall never raarrv, Betty," I said. She caught my fingers in a clasp with her horny, hard-wotking hands. "I wish you were hack again a baby on my knee, Master Bertie," she said. "I'd like to sing vou to sleep as I did then.— Ah ! it's a grief to us old women to see the young we nourished grow up so tall and so old, with their troubles so shut up in their own h arts that we can't comfort them.— Going ? Well, then, good night! I'm ready for the child when you will. I'm ready for anything that will cheer you, Master Bertie. I ought to say Master Albert al ways now, I suppose ; but the old times do come back so!" I left her leaning OV-T her gate,hooking wistfully after me. knowing, as a mother trri' f which I had buried in my heart. A' dif her words had given me a pang, it was like 9ome ointment which mak< s the wound sm ave a mere pittance, was wilied to strangers. One day a lady in black walked into my office ; •h. n she lifted ner veil I saw it wa> Aletta Stanton's face, closer tome than it hak been since we parted My heart gave no wild throb ; I felt as thougn I were a mere stranger. Courteously and quite calmly I heard her business. She intended to contest the will, and needed advice. I gave her what I could. I refer red her to a brother law yei as the only one who would best espouse ber cause. As for myself, I to'd ber truly that my time was too completely occupied to undertake anything more -nd I wished her success. She looked at me wistfully with her great blue eyes full of tears as she arose to go. "It was cruel of him," she said—"very cruel to leave me so poor; but he was nev er kind, never—not even in the honey moon " "I regret to hear it," I said. "I could expect nothing more," she said; •'I did not love him—l never loved but one, and that one —" She paused and looked at me. "Tnatone I love 5t.11," she said. And Heaven koows no feeling of revenge or petty triumph was in my heart when I looked in Alett.it Stanton's eyes as if I did not understand her, and courteously bowed her out "Did I ever care for that woman?" I thought; "or is it all a dream !" I took my adopted child to the theatre that night, and we saw "The Lady of Ly ons'* together. It was her first play-going experience, and she enjoyed it lmm -nsely. She wore a white dress and bonnet, and the coral drops I had fastened a few days before in ber little ears. I ••as very proud ot her. I could not help looking into her eyes, touching her hami witb mine. When 1 left her 1 kissed her. "Good night, mv child," I said. And she answered "Good night," with a cheek dyed on the instant deeper scarlrt, and ran away as Betty came out to chat with xe. From that night I dated an odd change. My adopted child seemed shy of letting me keep her hand—shv even of chatting at she did, She was graver, more woman ly. I fancied she did not care for ine ks 6he did • Perhaps some of those farmers who leaned over the g*te at sunset, gome of those young fellows who so often eacor tcd her home from church, had won her from me. I grew a little moody. I found myself in brown studies when I should have been at work. At last I determiued to discover whether I was really to lose my child, and wnt down to the cottage. — I found ber there sitting at work with Bet ty. After all, it was no easy task. I could not do it as I had hoped. I tried jesting, and spoke ot one and of the other of the j young fellows near. "We shall hare Nel lie stolen from us, I suppose ? I said.— | "There is nothing so easily lost from a j ffttni yM pretty daughter. But who fc i ' Master Albert,'* she said, "whatever she was when she came here, Nellie is no . child now. 0, Master Allwsrt, I can't be i licve you've done it on purpose? You i couldn't —such a sweet innocent thing! but it is done. All I can say is, go away, or let her go, and may be the wound will heal, I ou^lit to have spoken m time I was an old fool. O, how could you, Mas ter Albert ?—-How could you ?" "What have 1 done?" 1 cried. "I wo'd rather die than harm her." " And yet you've made her love you," said Betty, sternly. "You who knew you , uever would love her. 1 ru've been very selfi.-h, Master Albert." A new light dawned upon me—a radi ance brilliant bevond my hopes. "Betty," said I, "you are dreaming.— She must think me old enough to be a grandfather, with my long lace aud bald crown and this crutch. I've had one dream broken ; don't set me dreaming again for Heaven's sate!" Old Betty looked at me; and then caught i my face in her hands and kissed me. | "Master B. rtie," said she, "I shan't tell yon a woid more. The child is under the i grapevine out yor.der; go and find out what you want to kuow for yourself. You silly, handsome, good-for-nothing fellow !** I found my child uuder the grapevine, her face wet with tears. I sat down by her and put my arm about Iter waist. "Nellie," said I, "don't shrink frvm me. lam your tiue ftiend. Your friend, what ever answer you may give me now. lam older than you. lam not vain enough to think myself a young gill's bean-ideal.— But I love you dearly, Nellie. Can you love me enough to be my w.f ? If you cannot, if another claims your heart, do not say yes from gratitude. Tell me the trutb r and still retain a father's, brother's, friend's affection. Neilie f I bent over her, and my life seemed ID her keeping. Until that moment 1 had not known myself. I loved ' her madly, 1 felt it now lettrr, far better, than in my youth I had loved Aletta Stan . ton. She spoke no word, " Nellie ?" said 1, "Nellie ?" and a brown hand was laid of its own accord in mine, and beneath my gaze the daik eyes dared not lift themselves, but bid their sweetness on my breast. Nellie was mine. 1 sat with her beating heart so near my own, and thought it all over, I remember ed the child in her cotton gown standing in the gallery of the church, that wedding. 0 mo n ; I remembered the child whom I had taught; the girl with whom 1 bad passed such happy hours; and felt that this living love, sprung, phoenix-like, from the ashes of the dead one, was the purest feel ing ot my life. So my old saucy of keeping house with my child came true at last; onlv when she crossed the threshold of my home with me I called her wife. And still the touch of that brings comfort with it; still her sweet voice is better to me than all the music in the world. Ami, as in mv youth I fancied myself old, surely in ray age I shall believe myselfyv that "voice." In ibis negro bnsi ntss they totally disregard it. The Jaco bins s.-em to be wary in their impeachment scheme, and for the present they lie rather low upon it. Tbeir Judiciary C'oinmtlee has resolved to be SECRET in its move ments, and threatens to punish anybody who discloses any paitolits proceedings in relation to the impeachment pr.j. ct. What do they mean by this ? Cau any of their friends tell ? JSOP* Congressman Went worth declar ed, in a recent speec'i, that "this Country is in more dang, r to-day from extravagance ; and corruption than it ever was from the | rebellion." and that "never were the signs iso ominous of u powerful combination to increase the public debt and postpone its payment, to continue the suspension of specie payments, to denote money to ques tionable railroad companies, who already have large grants of land, and to make ex travagant appropriations to questionable ob jects.'. Here we have the testimony of a lead ing Black Republican. A certain Mr. Coffin once being blrmnd by the birth of a son, a friend offered one ': hundred dollars foi the privilege of nam " iog him. The offer waa, however, declined when it was proposed to chrisUa the child | j Mahogaey. * ' w v VOL. 6 NO. 28. to hare yoo, Nellie f" She looked at me as children took be fore they burst into tears —her chin quit ering, her throat swelling—then she dropped her woib, and stole from the room without answering me. "What ails the child, Betty ?" I asked. "Hare I off nded her!" Old Betty stood before me, sturdy and stern— a look in her face I bad never be fore seen there.