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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