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[For the Sanny South.] LIFE’S CHOICE. BY MRS. AMELIA V. PURDY. To conquer or be conquered; there's your choice! To let life’s heavy cross crush you to earth. Or with brave heart to press on, step by step, And win the crown, to feel it hardly worth The sum it costs of sleepless, weary nights And tireless labor ’neatli the noonday sun; To be so feeble that the crown itself Will seem of iron weight when it is won. But what of that? And e’en if life should end In the grave, and there should be no fairer world, As standard bearers we should bear aloft A stainless flag that no mean foe has furled. ’Twere better to be pure and strong and true— Nobler to conquer than be conquered, and Nobler to wear out than to idly rest, To die with lily fame and lily hand; But sure as stars are, we shall live again, And he who earns and wears the crown in this, In the higher life shall sit upon a throne And spend eternity with God in bliss. [For The Sunny South.] THE MUIRSDALE ROMANCE; -OR,- A WOMAN’S HATE BY DIRS. E. BlIltK COLLINS. A SCRAP OF PAPER. “ She stood like the thought of a sculptor, carved In marble, snowy and cold; But her pure, sweet look was as foul a lie As ever a woman told.” Professor Midnight stood alone in his room, the morning after the occurrences recorded in the preceeding chapter. There was a strange light in his eyes, from which the spectacles had been removed, and his form was not quite as bent as usual. There was something very mys terious about this old, mesmeric and clair voyant physician. In his hand, he held a letter which he had just torn open, and eagerly peru sed the contents, the few lines traced upon the paper, in a bold, masculine hand. The letter seemed to give him pleasure; he read it carefully and re-read it; then crumpling the paper in his hand, he held it over a lighted match, and as it consumed into tinder, he shook the fragments into the empty grate. Then he hurriedly resumed his spectacles, and when he opened the door of his apartment, shortly after, and left the room, it was the usual bent and aged professor, who passed over the threshold. Hardly had he disappeared down the long corridor, when the door opposite her own steal thily opened, and a woman glided hastily forth —a woman with wild, staring eyes, and a face white as the colorless faces of the dead; it was Cora Vavasour. Hastily shrouding her features in the black lace shawl which she had flung about her should ers, she laid her hand upon the knob of the door coming all other considerations, they pocketed the money, and moved away in a body to drink the health of the giver. Dennis paused before following in their wake, to reply to the Professor’s assertion. “ Sure, yer Honor, I wasn’t. There’s many quare things in this world, ye know,” shutting one eye, and blinking at his auditor with the other. “And sure, sir,”he continued eagerly, “ that’s jist what me Uncle Larry said when his ould woman died. He lost her three times — do ye see ?” “Three times?” It was the voice of young LeGrande, who had strolled lazily up just in time to hear the Irish man’s last remark. It was easy to see that his advent was not agreeable to the Professor; bat LeGrande himself was blind to all that. He was one of those complacent people who see the world through a pair of very conceited specta cles. “Three times !” he repeated, idly chewing the end of his cigar. “What do you mean, you rascal? How could a man’s wife die three times ?” “ Did I say so ?” howled Dennis, rushing for ward. “ Sure, and I’ve been and heard stranger things nor that. If ye’d have been wid me at Muirs ” “ Hush /” “Now, thin!” cried Dennis, wildly, squaring off for a tight. “I jist want to know who’s a sayin’ hush to me ivery time I opens me mouth,? I “Well, well, Dennis,’ interposed the Pro fessor, conciliatingly, “never mind. Suppose now you tell us all about your Uncle Larry, and how lie lost that wife of his three times ?” If the Professor had hoped by this ruse to rid himself of his unwelcome companion, he did not succeed. The prospect of a long story did not scare LeGrande. He threw himself negli gently upon a bench nearby, and lighted a fresh cigar. “Yes, go on, my good fellow,” he drawled; “ let’s hear all about it. Take a seat, Professor.” Biting his lip with vexation, Professor Mid night seated himself, and Dennis, removing his cap, and having vigorously mopped his manly forehead for a few moments with an immense red cotton handkerchief, launched into his story. “Ye see, gintlemen,” he bagan, “ me Uncle Larry and his old woman hadn’t been the best of friends for many a long day; in fact, they didn’t thry to be; so, they jist parted dacintly and quietly—he lay dead drunk on the floor, and she jist run out of the house. Well, sure, they niver saw each other agin, and for forty year they niver heerd so much as the scratch of the pin from one another. But at last me uncle he heerd that she was dead, and thin the way he did cry and take on!—sure, ’twas perfectly awful! Thin, when paple would say to him, ‘ Sure, ye didn’t see yer old woman for so long a time, ye should be used to living widout her,’ he would burst out a cryin’, and say (sure, many a time I’ve heerd him at it), ‘ Och ! thin, sure, leading into the I rotessor s apartment. She | jf s Leing sich a long time without me poor glanced up and down the hall; nobody was Jtlolly that makes mein all this throuble. If we had been living dacently and rispectably to- visible. There was a little nervous tremor, and then she turned the knob and entered the room. Straight up to the grate she hastened, and stoop ing gazed upon the fragments of paper, which the Professor had tossed therein. One small, white hand was hurriedly extended and thrust into the blackened mass. A look of intense gether, quarreling ivery day like other married paple, I might soon git over me grief, and think perhaps her going on the long road before me was all the betther. But, ye see, ’twas so long since I parted with the crature, and she had gone so clare and cleane outen me head for so disappointment crept over her pale face, as she man y years, that (now I know she is dead) faith, saw that he—not satisfied with merely tearing the paper—had burned it also: and she turned to leave the room. “ Ah ! what is that ?” Her quick eye caught a glimpse of something—one scrap of the mys terious letter—unburned, unharmed, lying like a snowflake at her feet. Springing forward she caught it up and her eyes devoured its contents greedily. There was space for but few words; but what ever those words were they had power to blanch the white cheek still more ghastly, and make she comes back to me for all the world as she was whin I first married her, and I can’t drive her away. Och, it’s a droll thing to have the thoughts and notions I had forty years ago com ing back, young and fresh, into me heart, and to see the ould face and the ould body outside, that is like an ould cabin failin’ to ruin, and the j inside so fresh.’ I “Shure, gintleman, whin he got to that, he’d always stop and look around, and take a wee dhrop of the crature—me uncle Larry could take his sup wid the best. Thin he’d go on to theMenderformreel like^ a drunkard^, as she ! how he lost her three times. Ye see, gintle- ui- - - *■ men, when he got word from Dublin that poor Molly had died in the hospital, and that she had begged wid her last words to be taken home and buried dacently among her own paple, and not be left to lie among strangers in Dublin, sure he promised before God and man that he’d niver stop nor stay till he’d bring her home; so he took a car and put into it a good feather | bed and an ilegant stuff quilt, detarmined that the poor crature should have iverything dacint for her journey home, and that the rain should not come to her. Well, he took his ould horse and harnessed him to the car, and soon he ar rived in Dublin. He wint to the hospital, and they' showed him the grave where poor Molly was put in, and he took the coffin and all jist as it was, and put it into the car, and packed up a half dozen bottles of parliament whisky, jist to refresh him on the way and kape the throuble out of his heart. “ When the night was falling, sure he did n’t quite like to be all alone wid poor Molly, so he made the ould horse gallop while iver he could; and sure to hear the coffin rattling aginst the car, faith, t’was very awful! But at last the coffin seemed to be fixed quite stiddy, for he heered no more noise. Well, whin he got to the public house, where they were to shtop for the night, and they wint out to the car to bring Molly into a dacint room, where they could wake her ginteelly, sure the devil a bit of poor Molly wasn’t there at all, and they found the wings of the car broken clane away, and the coffin had fallen out on the road. This he called losing poor Molly the second time; and sure he had eleven good miles to go before he found her agin. “ Well, to make a long story short, he started agin on the way, and, faith, he got so used to having the poor creature wid him that manys the shanabos about ould times he had wid her on the road. He tould her everything that had happened, since she wint away, and he said he often thought that poor Molly must be greatly altered to let him have all the talk to himself. Sure, when he reflected that he had n’t behaved very ginteelly to her, for so many years, in niver sinding her anything, not so much as a scratch of the pen, he thought he’d make up for it, and, faith, he jist axed her pardon, and said every thing that was dacint and comfortable, to make clutched -wildly at the marble mantel, for sup port. Then, opening the door, she dashed like a maniac across the wide corridor and into her own apartment. Meantime, Professor Midnight was lounging over the hotel grounds, with the air of a profes sional idler. Shunning the different groups of fashionables, scattered about, he managed to find his way, at last, to an obscure corner, where a number of the servants employed at the Ocean House, were gathered around the form of a burly Irishman, who, in their midst, with loud voice and much gesticulation, was regaling them with some wonderful adventure. A queer-looking figure, surely ! A red face from which peered a pair of small, twinkling, black eyes, like plums in an overgrown dum pling; a head of frousy, red hair, standing up “like quills upon the fretful porcupine:” he was clad in a nondescript suit of clothes, ill- fitting, half-worn, evidently picked up at inter vals, from unknown or obscure establishments. A strange look passed over the Professor’s sphinx s-like features, as his eyes fell upon the apparition. “So soon !” he muttered to himself, and then quickly drew near the group and observed the central figure closely. “Faith!” he was saying, indignantly, “ It was not in ould Ireland, nor 4 yet in Asy or Afriky, or any other countery in Europe. So, ye need n’t be after askin’ me any more sich questions, I jist tould yez the full sarcumstance, and if that aint proof that it did happin, then I tell yez no more. Dennis McCarthy don’t tell no lies ! And if ther’s ever a man of yez all don’t belave it, jist let him step farninst this fist of mine, and I’ll bate the devil out of him; sure that I will.” “But, you was saying,” teased asaucy-looking little fellow in livery, “that you heard them voices shrieking and howling, and seen the old one himself—a sitting on the door step, Now, all I want to know is where that there house is situated and what’s the reason you keep us in the dark. If your story is Simon pure, why, give us the street and number, and we’ll call on that there family.” “Sure, there was n’t ary a family at all,” angrily began Dennis—for by this time the reader will have recognized the ci-devant coach- “ Well, he hurried the ould soldier dacintly, and as he niver agin got money enough to go to Dublin, faith, poor Molly had to take the will for the deed and lie contint where she was. And sure, gentlemen, that’s' the true story of how me uncle Larry lost his wife three times.” As Dennis concluded his narrative, Professor Midnight glances at Le Grande; he was fast asleep. The Professor arose hastily, and without vouchsafing a remark in regard to the Irishman’s wonderful narrative, he beckoned Dennis aside. “My good man,” he began, “if ever I hear of your repeating tales of what you saw and heard at Muirsdale ” “ Muirsdale !” exclaimed poor Dennis, “sure, sir, and I niver mentioned no names. How did ye know?” “ No matter, Dennis. I merely wish to say that if the spirits know of your repeating that tale—and if you do repeat it they will know it— they will haunt you, night and day, and you will see stranger sights, and hear stranger sounds than anything you saw at Muirsdale. Will you remember and hold your tongue?" “Sure, the devil fly away wid me if I don’t!” cried the thoroughly frightened Irishman. “If Dennis McCarthy wags his tongue wid that story, surely, and may it dhrop out intireiy. Och, but the howly saints presarve us,” he cried, crossing himself vigorously. “ Sure, I belave I’ve shtumbled into a hull nest of ghostesses ” “Hold on a moment, Dennis, you’re out of employment now, eh ?” “ That I am. Sure you know all me saycrets; I wouldn’t work wid them sperrits at Muirsdale; so now I am a lone stranger in the hull place, and ” “Well," interrupted the Professor, “I want just such a man as you. I want to employ you over in the city, and I’ll pay you well. Is it a bargain ?” “Am I to work wid the ghostesses ? “ No, Dennis, surely not. But make haste; is it a bargain ?” “Sure, it is.” “Very well, follow me.” The Professor, with his new acquisition, turned towards the hotel. Dennis, in the mean time, subjected to divers and sundry remarks from the servants, as they strode leisurely back from their health drinking—somewhat in the advisory line—such as “Go in, Ireland,” “Pull dewn your vest,” etc. It was an idle hour for the servants, and, anxious for amusement, they waited and watch ed for the re-appearance of the Irishman, whom they were determined should contribute to their mirth. But they watched and waited in vain. They were doomed to disappointment. Tired out at last, they gave up in disgust, while the saucy little page aforesaid hazarded the opinion, which instantly met with approval and straightway became popular, that “that there old ghost man had made a mummy out of Erin go braugh.” However that may be, Dennis never appeared in their midst again. At twi light that evening, however, a tall footman in a scarlet and black livery stole quietly forth from Professor Midnight’s apartments, and descend ing the broad staircase which led to the grounds, disappeared down the long avenue. Soon after the clatter of a horse’s hoofs was heard, and some one, vigorously whistling “Wearing of the Green,” galloped rapidly towards the city. It was Dennis McCarthy, the Irish coachman. (TO BE CONTINUED.) [For Tlie Sunny South.] ELISE VON SCHTTLL; -OR.- A WAIF’S AD VENTURES. BY LOVELADY. man “ sure as my name is Dennis, there wasn’t nobodv at all, at all. barring the lady with the mmd aad bis own aisy. And so at last they W, rinc on her finaer.” g ot borne. big ring on her finger. With an annoyed look upon his wrinkled visage, Professor Midnight stepped hastily for- “ Ah! good morning, Dennis,” he cried blan- ^“ How did ye known me name was Dennis?” inquired coachy thrusting his hands into his pockets and trying to look dignified. “No matter,” answered the Professor, “I know a good coachman when I see him, and I’ve not set my eyes on you for nothing.” Pleased and flattered, the son of Erin sur veyed the new comer for a moment, with a lei surely stare. “ Sure, if ye aint the ould spalpeen that brings up the ghostesses and things ! Ah! but you ought to be at “ Hush!” The word sounded very close to the ear ot Dennis. He sprang forward and gazed about him with a frightened air. “ Did anybody say hush, jist now t he cried, wildly. “You’re dreaming, Dennis,” remarked Prof) Midnight. , , . , He put one hand into his pocket as he spoke, and drawing forth several coins, distributed them among the servants, who at first looked askance at them, fearing that they might be be witched or something; but soon, cupidity over- “ Well, sure there was Nelly Lynch—an ould gossip of Molly’s, and whin they was waking poor Molly, the night before he was to bury her, sure, Nelly and me and uncle.Larry, they took a glass too much in drinking a happy and a bless ed rest to poor Molly; and Nelly she takes it into he ’>ead that they should open the coffin and look at her. “No sooner said than done; but jist think what he felt whin he saw a bald head and an ugly ould face. “‘Sure,’ he cries, ‘this can’t niver be my Molly, a clane, sprightly girl.’ ‘“Well, says Nelly,’ ‘that bates everything. Here, you’ve thrying to conceit an ould woman past sixty, into a purty girl.’ “She looked at her agin and agin, and swore she’d know her among a thousand, and that she was n’t one bit changed. “This vexed me uncle Larry, and he wint up to the coffin, wid a candle in his hand, and he pulled down the winding sheet, and there was— not Molly, sure enough—but a poor, old soldier, wid a wooden leg, and covered over wid the marks of wounds. This was what he called losing Molly for the third time—and afther all the trouble and expinse he had to bring her home!—And to think of his opening his heart, and telling his secrets to a stranger, and a man too, instead of his poor ould woman ! CHAPTER XYI. Alphonse took the paper and the cross anu entered the sleeping apartment, leaving Henri in a state of great anxiety and suspense. He had not long to wait, however, for the old man soon returned, and, to Henri’s great surprise, said, with a smiling countenance : “Good news, Senor ; better than we dared anticipate. Here is the Pope’s own signature, which will remove the bolts of the deepest dun geon in the land. I had no dream of such per fect success.” “How did you effect such a miracle, Al phonse ? ” “Between sleeping and waking, I got the sig nature. I explained it to him while he was asleep, and gave him the cross while awake. I read your petition to him while asleep and waked him to sign it. He growled and asked for Mark. I told him Mark had been called off for a faw minutes on urgent business, and he replied : ‘ True ; wait till morning. I don’t know where is my signet. Let the young man sleep in the palace. ’ “May it please your Holiness, I presumed to say, this young man has done what you con sider a great service. His request is simple, but there is life involved in it. “ ‘Did you say he is in prison? He shall be released.’ “No, may it please your Reverence ; but his best friend is in danger. “ ‘Well, I am sorry, but Mark has my signet. He will see to it when morning comes,’ said the drowsy Pope. “Here are pen and ink. I will not even bring the light near to blind you. Just write your name across this paper; it will be suffi cient. “ ‘Look you, old man ! You are a bold fel low to disturb me so persistently, and Mark is over-bold to be off when I want him. But, let me see—the youth did me some service. I re member that very well; but I can’t exactly think what it was—and this request is small recompense, I imagine—and here is my cross again. I am too sleepy to be troubled about it. Here, take the signature and be gone, and call Mark to his post. I’ll look into all this to-mor row ; ’ and as I left the chamber I heard the heavy breathing of his drug-stupefied slumber. ” Henri felt that stratagem had been practiced, and he rightly surmised that Alphonse must have induced the half-conscious potentate to believe that he himself was in danger and de sired liberty. But the danger of the Baron was imminent, and without a moment’s delay for further explanations, Henri eagerly ques tioned Alphonse as to the next step. “ Let us hasten to liberate the captive, and as soon as you get him outside the gates, fly—fly for your lives. To-morrow the Pope may repent of his clemency, and if the Baron is again im prisoned, woe to all your efforts.” “Alphonse, this kindness makes me your debtor. You may be in danger here yourself; will you not go with us ? ” “lam not ready to leave yet. I am notin any danger. You will hear from me again.” “Well,” said Henri, “there is still a favor you can do for me. You are acquainted here— tell me where I can conceal my friend until I return to the inn and get ready to start.” “My abode is in sight of the palace gates. I will give you the key, and you can conceal him there until you are ready. Indeed, my watch will be about expired, and I will accompany him there myself.” This conversation had been held in a whis per, as they walked swiftly and noiselessly along through devious halls and long passages, until Alphonse at last opened a door and de scended a flight of stops. There he produced a small lantern from under his mantle, lit it and raised a trap-door; still descended another flight of stone steps and stood before a large door. Henri feared that at every angle in the corridors they would ^encounter interruption, but the household was fast asleep, except a solitary monk now and then. Alphonse boldly knocked at the great oaken door, which was openened by a gigante with harsh, repulsive countenance— sucli as might have served critically for an art ist’s design of the basilisk—and in a stentorian voice asked why he was disturbed. “I come with an order for the immediate re lease of a prisoner. Here is the Pope’s endorse- ment.” “This is strange,” said the jailer, scrutinizing the paper closely; “ yet I must obey; the signa ture is genuine. I suppose I must not question my conflicting orders, but always obey the last. Yet I don’t understand it.” “Nor I either,” replied Alphonse. “The or der was given this young man, and I was in structed to see it executed.” Henri said not a word, and could scarcely conceal his impatience at the delay. The jailer eyed him closely and malignantly. * Henri realized the peril of the situation, but he was made of the right metal, and in the cause of a friend counted it honor to dare much. At last, after a seeming age, the jailor turned in sullen silence and led the way down into the earth to the dark cell which contained the Baron. The bewildered prisoner could not re alize that it was his beloved Henri who embraced him, and his surprise was greater when Henri said: “ Gome, dear Baron; let us hasten to quit this place.” “What! going? I thought you had come to share my cell.” “No; I have come for you at the Pope’s or der;” and he continued in a whisper: “ Say nothing—not a word, as you value your life; only hurry to leave this place.” They left the cell, and without a word the jailor led the way to his own door, and as he was entering, said over his shoulder: “ You can find your way out as you came in. I shall keep this warrant as my safeguard.” “Certainly,” responded Alphonso; and as the great door banged to, he continued: “Now, my friend, hasten quietly.” The trio reached the gates, and Alphonso pointed to a small cottage near by, and handed Henri a key, saying: “ X shall join yon as soon as I call Mark. Yes, there is the signal for a change of the watch ! Fly-fly !” Henri flew on the winged feet of Mercury to the little inn, aroused the landlord, told him he had heard of the danger of a friend, and wanted to start immediately. The gruff host began to make loud objections, but Henri handed him twice the amount of the night’s reckoning as recompense for the disturbance, which quite reconciled him to the trouble. “ Very well; I am always at the service of such reasonable customers. What is it I can do ?” “Fresh horses;” and he began to open his purse, which sight had the magic effect of mak ing everything possible with the considerate landlord. J ust as Henri was entering the house, a little discreet forethought induced him to turn and say: “ Give me your best horses, landlord; the road to Naples is long, and in some places rough.” When he saw vigorous preparations afoot in the stable-yard, he proceeded to arouse the Bar oness, and soon made the excited lady compre hend that for some reason of vital importance to her husband, they must immediately set out. “ But, Henri, I do not like to leave Rome un til we see or hear from him. Are you sure we are acting prudently ?” “My dear lady, can’t you trust me? His safety requires our immediate departure. When we are off, I shall tell you everything; now, we must use every dispatch and secrecy. The very walls have ears here in Rome. Say nothing— only make haste and trust me.” She and Elise were waiting on the doorstep when the carriage drove up. Henri dropped some extra coins into his host’s open palm, made some inquiry about the route to Naples, and the carriage went rolling over the streets of Rome. Before the little house of Alphonso, Henri drew in the reins, saying: “ We will take in another passenger; only be quiet and speak not a word above a whisper.” Two forms emerged from the darkness, and in an undertone Henri leaned out and said: “ Alphonse, when and where shall I hear from you ?” “At Front Abbey within the month. Now fly, Senor—fly for your lives!” While they were exchanging these few words, the other figure entered the carriage, and the Baron was embracing his wife and child. “Alphonse, how far is it to Naples?” said Henri, as he gathered up the reins; and without waiting for the reply, let fall his whip about the horses’ flanks, and away dashed the good steeds, bearing the happy, reunited family from the city of danger. [For The Sunny South.] MT TREE OF AMBROSIA. BY SYLVIA HOPE. CHAPTER XIX. ORAND, THE GUIDE. “ Heaven’s.sovereign spares all beings but Himself That hideous sight—a naked humau heart.” [Young’s Night Thoughts. About twenty miles north of Florence, in Italy, the country bordering on the range of the Appenines is irregular and broken. This re gion is unproductive and thinly inhabited, ex cept in the small fertile valleys. Along the main highway, two or three centuries ago, might be found at convenient distances small wayside inns for the accommodation of travelers; but horsemen and footmen who chose the shorter, more difficult routes across the mountains were often compelled to rely on their own knapsacks for refreshment, and at night seek safety and repose in some crevice of the rocks. A single horseman—not the proverbial hero, mailed and spurred, but an old man in citizen’s garb—wended his way along the valley, seeking a refuge for the night. The season was deep winter, and a threatening storm lowered over the valley. The distant muttering of thunder echoed from the mountain sides and impelled the rider to urge forward his jaded horse. The gethering mists almost obscured the distant prospect, and the traveler was ready almost to despair of finding a shelter, when his straining eyes caught sight of a red glimmer of light in the distance. The tempest and the darkness were hand in hand fast approaching as the worn-out horse halted before the door of a hut, from which the flood of cheerful light was pouring. The traveler’s hail was answered by a portly man, backed by a troup of men, women and children. Food and shelter were readily prom ised him, but for his weary horse, the only comfort was a shelter under a neighboring cliff, with a scanty bundle of hay. The horse being consigned to the tender mercies of a shaggy- headed urchin, the traveler entered the hut with the curious occupants. (.O BE CONTINUED.) We all have dreams and visions of things beautiful. Fancy takes wonderful flights oft- times and brings back to the mind’s kaleido scope pictures that seem too ethereal for earthly creation. We delight to linger over the religion of ancient Rome and Greece; to live over the days of fabled gods —giving delicious shivers at the thought of rousing the ire of some divin ity of Olympus, and being turned into a great horned cow; or having some impassioned swain coming a supplicant to our dwellings and hang ing a garland bedewed with his tears at our doors; or, better still, gaining entrance to Thes salian groves, and, under the inspiring strains of Apollo’s lute, dancing, laughing and drink ing ambrosia. Am I dreaming this New Year’s morning, or am I in the sun-girt land of Thessaly? The sun shines down through curtains of gray; the earth is covered with a carpet of snow, and my orange tree, weighty still with its golden fruitage, is draped with a mantle of whiteness, through which the luscious balls gleam, while pendent below is a fringe of icicles so bright, so sparkling and fantastic under tne sun’s rays, that “ ’twere better not to breath or speak,” lest the vision of enchantment should vanish for ever. It is the tree of ambrosia—ready prepared food for the gods,and waiting for Hebe to gather. The sun delights to turn that way; his gaze falls with lingering caress upon the oranges half hidden in their drapery of white and green, and presses kisses upon the hem of fringe so ardently that it shrinks and tears of crystal flow. It is the tree of the gods—sparkling, scintil lating, radiant with immortality—the only cheer ful thing in all the wintry landscape. A narrow, long sheet of white, a tall row of snow-capped houses, a pallid sky meeting a pallid horizon, and one blue spot through which the sun shines, is the picture. Away in the West the pines move their iced needles shiveringly; the ground is brown and bare un der the snow; the chrysnthums frozen, and the merry little birds trembling at the severe touch of winter. Poor, timid ferns! they, too, are blanched and still in their dark homes: hart’s tongue, maidens’ hair and aspleniam. Naught is left to tell the tale of our sunny land to the New Year save the oranges, and they are snow-frosted, icicledand prepared for the banquet of the im mortals. Where has gone our pleasant clime ? Where are the azure skies, the mellow, wintry sun shine, the hardy blooming plants, and the sweet, low drip of rain—a drip, drip, drip that charms the ear and lulls the senses like ab sinthe ? A spell is over the land, cognate of North’s harsh touch—a vague, faint augury to our South ern hearts. And Boreas is abroad. He rushes with a hol low, consumptive sound, passes by beyond the great earth-mounds, rising white and spectral like icebergs, and hides with a wild roar in the depths of the pine ferest. My tree of ambrosia shivers at his touch. It was reared in a land “Where the winds of the North, becalmed in sleep, Their conch-shells never blow.” and warmth and gentle Notus were its play mates. What will be the sequence when my tropic pet puts on mortality again ? Will the oranges fall to the ground, chilled to their hearts’ core ? Will the green of leaf fade and the parent stem die? To-morrow will tell; to-morrow the snow will melt and my tree of ambrosia vanish. ABOUT WOMEN. Sporting with words blew aside a little the pow der-smoke of the battle of Shiloh, and etherized the pain of one of our soldiers whose cheek and chin had been carried away by a shot. “ What «an we do for you?” asked his comrades. “Boys” said he, with what articulation was left him, “ I should like a drink of water mighty well, if I only had the face to ask for it.” Zeal is very blind or badly regulated when it encroaches upon the rights of others. Madame Rudersdorf, the singer, has a beauti ful model farm at Lakside, Mass. It is culti vated under her own eyes to a charm, and she owns quantities of live stock. She makes re markable butter—so good that it is sold in Bos ton for ninety cents a pound. Last year, it will be remembered, a young English lady, Miss Stratton distinguished her self by making the ascent of Mont Blanc in mid-winter—on January 31. She is a large, handsome girl, with a private income of six thousand dollars per annum, and is about to marry the Alpine guide with whom she has made many ascents. Although in love with her, he could not wed her, he said, unless she would become a Roman Catholic. She has decided to abjure the Protestant faith, and is now building a chateau near Argentine, in Switzerland, where the happy pair will dwell. From New York comes a touching story of Miss Eliza Weathersby, the beautiful actress so well known and so much admired here. It tells how Claude Burroughs was her first betrothed, her first love. And when his charred remains were taken from the ruins of the Brooklyn fire, she alone of women was allowed to see them; nay, demanded the privilege, saying she was no child. And they tell of how, night after night, she fainted between the scenes at Niblo’s, where she was the light and life of Baba; and so they put only the exquisite flowers she sent, out of all the beautiful tributes that covered the poor actor’s bier, into his grave. A missionary in Armenia writes: “ Girls here newly born, are hastily engaged to boys not yet a year old. In every house there are several en gaged girls, and also several engaged boys; so that if we should wish to engage our Zenope (about four years old), perhaps we could find a girl, but it would be necessary to wait until a new one was born; then, if we heard quickly of her birth, we might secure her—otherwise there would be no chance. These past days several children were married who could not tie their girdles, they were so small. In my school some of the boys and girls are married, and some are engaged* The girls are sold as cows or other animals, for from seventy-five to one hundred and seventy-five dollars. A Novel Newspaper. London has a large weekly newspaper called the Obituary, devoted, as its title shows, to obituary and mortuary proceedings. Undertakers who get up funerals in every variety,cremationists,embalm- •rs, vault-makers and grave-diggers all have their say in its columns, while the makers of humble tombstones and the sculptors of gorgeous monu ments are ready to decorate the last home of man. Crape-makers, manufacturers of all sorts of fun eral appliances, and especially mourning mantua makers, claim the attention of the afflicted in their special advertisements. Wills of distinguished in dividuals are given, and lost wills advertised; the cards of attorneys drilled in probate matters, and advertisements for absent heirs, make up a potrion of its patronage. The reading matter is all suited to the subject, while the obituary notices form a staple item, and ,if necessary, choice notices are written by distinguished writers for the afflicted friends and relations of deceased persons. Great poets are charged with the utterance of grand and eternal truths, which though they may have been before unuttered, will at once strike the popular heart. With them the words are of small moment—the thought is everything. They who have little to say are solicitous to make the most of that little by draping it in the finest trappingsof language. Much ornament of style oftener than otherwise results from conscious feebleness of) thought.