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Youth’s Column.
“WEAVING THE WEB.”
'Chinese Boy's Intelligence.—
)es Moines, Iowa, a Swede was ar
led for making a cowardly assault
l three peaceable Cliinamen who
*e on their way to Sunday-school.
of the principal witnesses for the
Isecution was Ah Yaf, a boy of thir-
|n yea : s old. In reply to the ques-
|n, “Do you know what perjury
Ians?” he promptly responded,
To.” The next question was, “Do
Fou know what oath means?” “Yes,”
ras the reply, evinced by holding up
[his right hand after the manner of
fitnesses when sworn, adding “I tell
10 story, I tell truf.” “But,” confin
ed the lawyer, “do you know what
rill happen you if you tell a lie here ?”
r*‘Ye8,” said Ah Yaf, solemnly, point
ing upward his little yellow linger,
“I no go to heaven.” H«w many
American children would have had a
clearer answer than this Chinese boy
dtd?
A Kind Hokse.—A gentleman own
ed a fine horse which was very fond
of him, and would come from the pas
ture at the sound of his voice, and
follow him about like a dog. At one
time, the horse became lame, and was
obliged to stay in his stable and not
be used for many weeks, During this
time, an old cat made her nest upon
the scaffold just above the horse’s
manger, and placed there her little
family of five kittens. She and the
ahorse got on nicely for some days.
Jhe jumped down into his manger
ind went off for feed, and then came
jack and leaped into the manger with
^her foot bleeding and badly hurt, so
[that she could scarcely crawl. She
lanaged to leap away on three feet
id get her breakfast, but when she
[ame back, she was entirely unable to
it to her kittens ; and what do you
link she did? She lay down at the
lorse’s feet and mewed and looked up
several times till, at last,pony seeming
[to understand her wants, reached
down and took the cat in his teeth,
id tossed her up on the scaffold to
attens, who, I doubt not, were
' enough to see her. This was re-
[ted morning after morning. Kit
lid roll off into the manger, go out
k get her breakfast, come back, and
seed up to her family by the kind
‘•This morn I will weave my web,” sue said,
Aud she stood by her loom in tbe rosy light,
And her young eyes, hopefully glad and clear,
Followed alar the swallow’s flight.
“ Ab soon as the day’s first tasks are done;
While yet I am fresh and strong,” said she,
“I will hasten to weave the beaut ful web
Whose pattern Is known to none but me!
“I will weave It fine, I will weave It fair,
And ah! how the colors will glow!” she
said;
“So fadeless and strong will I weave my web,
That perhaps It will live after I am dead,”
But the morning hours sped on apace,
Tbe air grew sweet with the breath of June,
And young Love hid by the walling loom,
Tangling the threads as she hummed a tune.
“Ah 1 life Is so rich and full,” she cried,
“And morn Is short, though the days are
long!
This noon I will weave my beautiful web ;
I will weave It carefully, fine and strong.”
But the sun rode high In the cloudless sky;
The burden and if'eat of the day she bore;
And hither and thither she came and went,
While the loom stood still as it stood before.
“Ah ! life Is too busy at noon,” she said ;
“My web must wait till the eventide,
TUI the common work of the day is done,
And my heart grows calm In the silence
wide.”
So, one by one the hours passed on,
TUI the creeping shadows had longer grown
TUI the houso was still, and the breezes slept,
And the singing birds to their nests had
flown. %
And now I will weave my web," she said,
As she turned to her loom ere set of sun,
And laid her baud on the shining threads
To set them In order, one by one.
But hand was tired and heart was weak ;
‘I am not ns strong as I was,” sigheu she,
And the pattern Is blurred, and the colors
rare,
And not so bright or so fair to seel
“I must wait, I think, till another morn ;
I must go to my rest with my work undone,
It Is growing too dark to weave,” she cried,
As lower aud lower sank the sun,
She dropped the shuttle, the loom stood still;
The weaver slept in the twilight gray.
Dear heart! will she weave her beautiful web
In the golden light of a longer day T
JULIA O. K DORK.
The Missing Jewels,
“It hath a plan, but no plot. Life h ath none.”
—[Festus
Child Workers.
The New York State Medical Society
las taken action relative to the em
ployment Jn factories of children of
pnder ages,and has drafted a bill to go
jforo the Legislature. They ask a law
tat shall provide that no child, “ac-
jially or apparently under the age of
^urteen years,” shall be employed by
iy manufacturing corporation within
[e State, and “no child shall be em
oyed in any factory work unless it
|all have been previously examined
two nhysicians” residing in the
ity were the child is employed
ill certify that the child “is
from chlorotic, anaemic
[ofulous.^TWlltuJuCj bronchitic, or
thisical condition', and is not in any
[e so disabled or crippled as to ren
• its employment in such factory
lork dangerous to its life or injurious
its health or limb,” The persons
charge of factories in which chil-
Iren are employed are to given written
srtificates to this effect, which they
ire to exhibit “to any person request
I to examine” them. I^is also pro-
that no child over fourteen
Fs old shall be employed by a man
Factuing corporation mora than
ten hours a day, aud that no child
}shall be employed by any person.
1 These matters are so worthy of con
sideration as affecting not only the
lives of the children themselves, but
the future welfare of the community,
k that they should meet but little oppo
sition. It i» obvious that all the States
if the U uion are coming to an appre-
jn of the proper treatment of
"piiTdrSn.
Personal and Literar y.
Mr. Whittier, the poet, says
ceives 200 applications for
he# Te
lauto
graph in the
A l>ook
so of year^
thou
autumn
the press
it is said
Loh
re.
limes is of the
"Mr. Tennyson—seventy-
te the poet laureate, Dr.
Kb bears his age wonderfully
Anne Bardulph was not very youth
ful, nor was she particularly hand
some; and she was housekeeper for
the ailing Mrs. Dorman.
This invalid lady resided in a fine
wooden house of many rooms, through
which ran a wide hall with walls of
Pompeiian red, and a gilt-edged ceil
ing that was painted in some curious
and uncertain tint of pale-pinkish
brown. The floor was tessellated in
brown and red, and the dark, carved
doors opefted upon a columnar portico
with broad, brown steps leading down
upon a great lawn flanked with thick
trees of beech and pine.
Across the green lawn in the sweet
yellow April sunshine, walked Anne
Bardulph—a slim, straight woman
with regular and severe features, and
wonderfully large eyes of darkest gray.
She nad an abundance of neatly ar
ranged dark hair, aud she was attired
in a suit of some clinging, dull blue
fabric, with collar and cuffs—white,
prim and immaculate.
Two young men coming upon the
portico saw her—an interesting and
not unlovely figure moving under the
grim, whispering pines.
“The new housekeeper of madame
pleases you—her you admire, per
haps,” one remarked rather quiz-
zingly.
“Would you suggest that Miss Bar
dulph may not merit admiration?”
returned the other, evasively.
“I now do nothing suggest,” was
the protest, in sharp foreign accents.
“I here am come to see much, to much
tbiuk ; but I nothing say until the—
how say you to it?—till the one expo
sure grand.”
Tony Dorman smoked thoughtfully
or several silent minutes. Finally he
tossed uway his segar and turned to
ward his companion.
“D’Razelly,” he began, pleasantly,
“you are here ostensibly only as my
guest aud intimate friend ”
“On the what do you call the osten
sible; I impose not,” interrupted
Louis D’Razelly, quickly and proudly.
“I but the detective am—the servitor
hired of madame to her diamonds of
value flud, and the thief to discover.”
“Yes, I know,” interposed the
youngAentleman, “but I have become
awarijof your worth as a man, and I
regard you as a friend. No
recent visitor at Liberty Hall,
found Alexander H. Sloping in
lost perfect health for one soAtil
and hartL ah work upon
nil ever be more
|to my home tin
feel like this Ij
|o confess to yi
fused by Miss
i supplemei|
[on—“I fai
jreuce, evj
fcar to
nly wel-
|you. If I
lid not be
it I have
[dulph—for
gently aud
n>u have a
>ugh you
expression of trouble and distrust as
he gazed steadily toward the tall,
stately pines that loomed up in sharp
spires against the sweet blue April
sky.
“It is so,” he acknowledged, pres
ently , a hot color reddening his face.
“For her I have the one liking that is
very tender; but also have I the doubt
that is much aud not good. Wiiat of
this do you think ?”
D’Rs.zelly—who had become a de-
teetive only because he had an odd
and inborn fondness for what he con
sidered an exciting and most delecta
ble vocation—opened what one would
presume to be, fro o its exterior ap
pearance, a quaintly bound book. It
was, however, a “detective camera,”
by which he had shortly before ob
tained, and without her knowledge,
several striking photographs of the
woman of whom he had been speak
ing so dubiously.
“What of this do you think?” he
iterated, exhibiting a picture of Miss
Bardulph as she was standing in a
curious attitude of eager and fearful
interest beneath one of the great beech
trees beyond the lawn. At her feet,
beside a pile of moss aud stones, opened
a small cavity, over which she was
bending, while holding low in a loos
ening grasp, what was quite surely a
number of jeweled ornaments.
“I do not know what to think,”
enunciated Mr. Dorman. “It would
seem that my mother’s jewels have
been secreted in that place; and I
should say that Anne has accidentally
discovered the depository.”
“If that is so, why to you or to the
madame, she comes not—all so glad,
*o animate—and tell the discovery so
happy aud not so to be understood?”
D’Razelly demanded with emphasis.
“But—good heavens, Louis! do you
mean tfiat you suspect Miss Bardulph
of wrong doings ?” was the pained ex
clamation. “I must absolutely refuse
to believred that Anne—that ingenious
and serious girl, with her pure eyes aud
innocent brow—is a thief? Although
there may be something indefinable
and mysterious about her. I could
never associate with the mystery of
crime anything she might do.”
She was but his mother’s house
keeper ; she had refused his love and
the name and station he would have
given her, yet was he a right loyal
friend, and would not listen unmoved
or acquiescent to any accusations made
against her.
While D’Razelly, who professed for
her a tender liking, although he
’doubted her much, shrugged his
shoulders, sighed and looked vastly
consequential and melancholy, albeit
he was not a sentimentalist, and had
determined to be austerely practical as
befits a professional of his kind.
“I know nothing of the mystery,
not evil, that you do mean,” he said.
“And to me it does seem that the dia
monds of much value must now to the
madame so disconsolate be restored,
and the woman of the eyes pure, and
the ways that so puzzling are, must
to the custody go.”
“But she never entered this house
until days aftei the diamonds were
missed,” remonstrated Tony Dorman.
“I am decidedly mystified. What is
your theory or your explanation of it
all?”
“She the accomplice of one other is
I do think,” announced the detective,
with grandiloquence of manner. “She
no longer here will stay. She will an
Illness feign, as it may be, and then to
the other she will go away, the dia*
monds with her taking, if her we
not could prevent.”
“That is all very plausible,” re
turned her defender, unconvinced.
“But we will secure my mother’s
precious ornaments, and then I really
must have a positive and irrefutable
evidence against Miss Bardulph before
I shall allow you to denounce her.”
The early dusk had already suffused
the lawn with a purple haze. The
cool air was delicious with the fresh
odors of violets and hyacinths, and
sweet young grasses. The new, rosy
moon and a great, golden star glittered
in the blue western sky; and out
among the gloomy, oomplaining pines
the night birds were tunefully calling.
The two young men crossed the
lawn and entered the dim grove, full
of resinous scents, strange, dreamy
noises, and uneasy aud fantastics
shadows. Mutely aud with soundless
steps they followed the grassy, wind
ing walk that led to the umbraneous
beach of D’Razelly’s singular photo
graph.
Suddenly both started, and simulta
neously retreated around a curve of
the path where they stood as Bilent
and motionless, as the shade In which
they were hidden. Beyond, in the
effulgence of starlight and
moonlight, they saw the suspected
young woman bending over that odd
repository, from which she removed
the moss and pebbles until her intent
watchers beheld the cold inextinguish
able fire of the precious gems gleam
ing within the dark black mould.
“What think you now ?” whispered
D’Razelly excitedly. “The diamonds
she will take. i-ee! is it not so?”
And befoit e other could silence
or restrain him he leaped forward and
confronted Anne, who stood quite
still, and only 1 fied her comely head
fearlessly, smiling *vith calm defiance
aud some assumed amusement.
“Hush!” she murmured, imperi
ously, as he began to speak. “In
another moment the mystery of what
you have presumed to be a robbery
will be elucidated, and precisely as I
believed it would be. Look !”
Down the path, with an unsteady
and unnatural gait, came a surprising
apparition—the figure of a lady. Bare
were her feet, and her gray, drooping
head was uncovered, and her thin
wnite robes glistened with the damp
night dews.
Straight on came the somnambulist.
Pausing at length before the treasure
she had secreted in her abnormal
state, and gazing with unseeing eyes
upon the priceless sparkling things
that she tou ched lovingly with her
delicate withered hands, and then
carefully CDvered again with the thick,
silky moss. Then she smiled faintly,
sighed as with satisfaction, turned and
slowly moved away.
The countenance of Louis D’Razelly
at that moment was not that of an in
dividual conscious of superior discern
ment, and the glance he ventured to
vouchsafe Anne was deprecatory.
“What I should say I know not,”
hestammeied. “What I did think—
what I did so-so very stupid was.
Ah, if the kind mademoiselle would
me but pardon,” he concluded, with
gallant entreaty.
Very demurely she assured him
that his suspicions were quite pardon
able, and perhaps creditable to hie
zeal as a detector and denouncer of
the unrighteous.
Some time later, coming through
the haudsome, brilliantly lighted hall,
Anne met the young master of the
house.
“The tempting reward offered for
the recovery of Mrs. Dorman’s Dia
monds induced me to come here as her
housekeeper,” she explained. “I had
an inexplicable feeling that I might
find the missing jewels. I consulted
no one—no one advised me. i was
really ashamed of my projeot that I
knew was quixotic, if not impractica
ble, and a failure would have made me
ridiculous. Shortly after coming to
Mrs. Dorman, I heard that she had
latterly been haunted by an excessive
and increasing fear of being robbed ;
I learned, too, that she had only re
cently manifested somnambulic stnyp-
toms. The truth came to me as an in
spiration, but only by merest accident,
and only this morning, while I was
exploring for gentian that I did not
find, did I espy the tiny, suggestive
mound of loose, dying moss through
which I saw a single spark of some
thing shining like a glowworm. So I
waited and watched, hoping she would
visit her buried treasure just as did.
The discovery was very simple, and
is now clear to you all.”
“And now you have won the re
ward, you will leave us, I suppose?’
he observed, soberly.
“Yes,” she bravely assented.
“Oh, Anne, if I could only persuade
you to stay 1” he responded quickly
and imploringly. “Do you feel I can
not make you a happy wife?”
“It is not that,” she said, with the
frank, serious manner that had always
so pleased him. “It is that I could not
make you a happy husband. Do be
reasonable, Mr. Dorman, for you must
be well aware that I am not at all the
sort of person whom you ought to
marry. Arid, beside,” she added
with a quaiut little laugh, “I have
profession now, and I must not wed
one who knows nothing of the instincts
and requirements of my calling.”
The handsome young fellow was
somewhat agitated by her speech
which he considered daring and sig
nificant.
“Surely, my dear Anne,” he falter
ed, “you do not wish to become a pro
fessional detective? nor would you in
timate that you have an affection for
Louis D’Razelly who so unjustly
accused you, and who would willingly
have placed you in custody.”
“My friend,” she replied, sweetly,
tear sparkling in eaoh large eye, and
A lovely new color on each soft cheek
“we have just now had an understand
r-Mr. ’I” 1 T He re
his mistake, aud certainly he is not so
hlameable when he would only have
acted conscientiously.”
“Yours is the logic of love, Anna,”
the young man answered dryly. “And
who may understand the heart of a
woman ? You will be Louis’s wife one
of tl ese days.”
His prediction was verified. And so
it happened that a very happy and
satisfactory marriage was affected by
the incident of Mrs. Dorman’s Miss
ing Jewels.
Stories of Marshal Saxe.
His mother, who was an excellent
French linguist, wished him to excel
in that language; and although
Maurice learned to speak it with flu
ency, he was so little grounded in its
orthography that he could only write
it phonetically. He was quite con
scious of the imperfection of his ele
mentary education, as the following
letter will show. It was prompted by
the fact that the French Academy
wanted to elect the conqueror of Fon-
tenoy a member—an honor which
Saxe had the sense to decline. The
Academy expostulated, and asked
why he refused the honor ; here is the
Marshal’s own account, given in a
letter to his friend and benefactor,
Marshal Noailles: “It has been pro
posed to me, my master, to become a
member of the Academy. I answered
that I do not even know how to spell,
and that it would become me as a ring
would a cat. The reply I got was that
Marshal Villars did not know how to
read, let alone write, and that he was
a member. This is persecution. I
don’t want to be made a laughing
stock, and that will be the effect of
this proposal.” That the Marshal’s
estimate of his literary attainments
was not far from the fact will be obvi
ous if we give a sentence or two of the
above letter in the original: “Ils veule
me fere de la Cademie, sela miret com
une, bage a un chas;” a phonetic
guess for “Ils veulent me faire de
’Academic, cela m’iroit comme une
bague a un chat.”
He inherited the great muscular
strength of his father, who, it is
averred, could break a horse shoe with
his hands. Jostled once on the streets
of London by a scavenger, Saxe ex
postulated with the fellow for his
rudeness. The broken English con
firmed the scavenger’s suspicion that
the gentleman, besides being well-
dressed, was a foreigner, and thereiore
a doubly legitimate object of intuit;
he gave for answer a gesture of con
tempt—either threw himself into box
ing attitude, or used the street-boy’s
digital sign of derision, which Saxe
himself employed after the capture of
Iglau to acquaint Marshal Valori wit
his estimate of his military eaoaoity
the great Valori, it is written, a:
swered Saxe after the same fashion
and the two commanders stood glaring
at each other with thumbs at nose and
fingers spread, till Saxe grew tired of
attitudinizing, and jumped into bed.
Mortal flesh could stand the indignity
when a French marshal in ur.iform
and with jewelled fingers was the vis-
a-vis, but not when it was a street
sweeper; ui«l so Saxe, turning his
insulter round, caught him by nape
and seat, and, balancing him horizon
tally above his lead for a moment,
sent him by the projectile’s curve into,
the heart of his own well filled mud
cart, aud passed on without further
comment. He had the stateliness,
stature and good looks of his father,
which, as Pollnitz, says “made his
fathtr very much in love with him ;”
black eyes full of lustrous shining, pas
sionate rather than intellectual ; highly
arched eyebrows and a great mane of
black hair. His wild career—for, in
addition to a powerful frame, another
legacy his father left him was a gre
and undisciplined nature—and ti
two, it may be said, exhaust the p:
monial bequests—his wild career
him a premature wreck. In
when he was ouly fifty years of
Voltaire met him In the streeti
Palis a few days before he left for
campaign of Fontenoy, and asked
Low he, laboring under consump
and dropsy, could think of goin
the camp. “Sir!” replied the
shal sententlously, “the questloj
not about life, but duty.” He
feeble that dm ing the battle he cl
not wear a breast-plate; he w
sort of buckler, made of seve
of quilted taffeta, which rested]
pommel of his saddle when, f<
ute, he was able to mount hli
he waa carried about the fl
baskeAvoven of withes of
suckiiAa leaden byillet to
thirst,
t
A