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•' MARGARET BY MART E. BRIAN. Margaret Vane’s last pnpil had kissed her white forehead with a reverent adien and with drawn, leaving her alone, save for my silent and unnoticed presence. The room was cool and sweet with the faint perfume of Chinese ro ses. and the shadows of the oak trees that shad- ded it around, came in with the snnshine at the window and lay trembling upon the floor. She sat at the piano near the centre of the room, and the sunset reached an arm of light through the parted curtain and laid its hand in benediotion upon the pure brow and the soft, brown hair folded back in Madonna bands above it. She was playing, and I at the open window with the curtains falling half around me, was listening and adoring; for Margaret Vane was my Baint, and all that my soul possessed of nooility,of ge nius and virtue, was laid at her feet. Margaret Vane was one to be worshipped—like a star—at a distance. Often as I came to look at her, I had never touched the ‘spirit-small hand' now invoking the spell of music from the ivory and rose-wood home in which it slept; I had never put to my lips one of the long, light curls that she sometimes allowed to bathe her neck with their shining ripples; never offered her aught save the silent homage that revealed itself in every look and motion. She seemed ever to move iu an atmosphere of her own creating—an atmosphere which she purified by her presence and by the few words that dropped from her lips and sweetened the air around her like incense breathed from a censor. And she sat there in her serene and stately beauty, with the sunset crown upon her head, and the sweet and solemn music that she played, painting itself upon her face, and I knew that she sat there for the last time. I knew that I should never more listen while her soul gave voice to its strange and beautiful thoughts in the weird, yearning, melancholy symphonies she improvised. It was the evening before her bri dal. I had known of it all along; I had known that this silent homage I laid at her feet was un blessed by hope, and that it must all end in this. But, like one who watches a beloved friend dy ing gradually, almost imperceptibly, of the withering blight of consumption, I had come to regard the calamity as something far in the fu ture, and almost uncertain, and even now, I scarcely realized its nearness. But 1 looked upon her with that earnest, pho tographing gaze with which a mother regards the face of her dead child, that the coffin lid will soon shut forever from her tears and her kisses. Not a feature, not a line of her beauty escaped me. I saw even the blue veins wandering be neath the transparency of her temples. I mark ed the pearl-like paleness of her spiritual face, the delicacy of its features, the whiteness and the amplitude of the brow and the depths of the •yes—clear, but fathomless—that were looking out into vacanoy. I watched the rising and falling of the white rose on her bosom, and traced the outline of her beautiful neck through the snowy muslin that veiled it She appeared unconscious of my presenoe, for the soul that looked from her eyes seemed wandering far over the hills and billowy woods she saw from the window— far away into some region of infinitude. She had greeted me as she always did, with a placid smile, had receiv ed my invariable gift of flowers, and had begun, unasked—for she had ceased waiting for my re quest—to play the dreamy German fantasias which she knew I so passionately loved. It had been a day for the soul to forget Earth and dream of the Heaven it oame from—a day full of halmiDess »nd beau.'; - , z siLiaao Jwe- ken only by suoh sounds as deepened, not dis turbed the feeling of solitude—the woodbird’s fragment of song, the dove’s low cooing in the pines, the soft rippling of the ctream over the willows, whose long, green fingers played in its cool waters. Now, the day was dying as tran quilly as it had lived. I saw a few white clouds near the horizon, floating slowly on to join the rest at the burial of the sun. The full foliaged poplars—half in light and half in shadow— scarcely quivered, exoept when a breeze ran over them, and left in its track a silvery gleam where it had turned the white linings of the leaves to the sunlight. The swallows were wheel ing around in dizzy evolutions, like dead leaves in the eddy of a stream, and afar—from the mel ancholy pines that skirted the hills—came the sound I had heard all day—the sweet, sad plaint of the doves. All these I marked minutely, as the dying man notes every feature of the last sunset scene he shall look upon, even though the melodies of Heaven are faintly filling his ear. It seemed that this day of dreamy loveliness was the last of my life, for with its departing sun went Jail of the hope and happiness my soul coveted. When another sun should laugh in the blushing East, she, who was my life's sole brightness, would have left me forever. And so I watched the sun set without, and the angel face within, while that soft, mournful music floated around me like the waves of a blue and moonlighted sea. She was playing the Sophien waltz of Strauss, who loved the prinoess Sophie and composed for her bridal the sad, yearning, tender waltz that bears her name, and that brings tears to the eyes of the dancers, even with festive roses on their bosoms and festive smiles on their lips. It was played at the bridal of the high-born lady so hopelessly loved, and the great oompos- er stood aloof and watched her light form sway and float to the wildering music, till overcome —as the spectators thought—with fatigue, she sank fainting to the floor. All the sweetness of love, the sadness of re proach, the wildness of despair, throb and pulse through this music in which the lover alone dar ed pour forth the smothered yearning of his soul. It interpreted all I had felt and suffered, but might not tell. Wave after wave it went over me, and I thrilled and shuddered as though it was my own heart-strings that trembled beneath the white fingers of the player. It was more than I could bear. There were words strug gling up to my lips—a name that always rises from the heart when it feels how powerless it is to endure or to strive alone against the grief that masters it ‘Oh, God!' I muttered as I bowed my head upon the embrasure of the window among the cool leaves of the ivy. There was a sound as though a band had dropped upon the keys and then the music oeased, and there was a light step I knew too well, and I felt that Margaret Vane stood beside me. She bent down so near that her soft hair touched my cheek and I heard the faint, irreg ular beating of her heart She attempted none of those commonplace consolations that are such mockery to the heart in its moments of bitter est emotion. She did not bid me remember my manhood or call pride to my aid. She did not say ‘be brave, be strong,’ nor tell me that life might have other hopes and purposes. Her refinement of feeling was too delicate for that. ‘Claude,’ she said, in her sweet, distinct tone, ‘is there nothing I can do for you ?’ It was the first time she had called me by that name; indeed, onr intercourse had been a silent and reserved one, and yet, I knew that she had all along been oonscious of my love for her. No man ever yet truly loved a woman and snooeed- ed in concealing it from her. He may not be tray it in word or glance, or scarce perceptible pressure of the hand; yet, in some inexplicable way it will mafco itself known to her. Marga- Yane knew that the hours I had passed, sit- by that ivied window listening to the mu sic her touoh evoked, were the sweetest and dear est of my life. She knew that every glance she gave me—every smile that flitted over her lips —every movement of her delioate figure—every tremble of the curls on her white neok—was something for me to dream over and remember forever. And yet, she gave no outward token of that knowledge. Her manner was simply oalm and unoonscious. She had asked me if there was any thing she oould do for me, and her hand lay lightly as a rose-leaf on my arm. I took it and raised it to my lips. ‘Margaret,’ I said, 'I could bear this eter nal parting—this giving you up to another, if I knew that you ever had felt—that you do still feel, kindly towards me.’ •More than that, Claude: my warm regard is yours.’ ‘And nothing more? Oh! Margaret, you give that to many; is there not something more for me—some feeling a little, only a little, deeper and stronger than the friendship you have for all?’ She stood for a moment in silence. 'Would it make you any happier to know that thit was so, Claude ?’ ‘Happier and better,' I said. 'Then believe it. Ah, Claude,’ and she bent over me and put baok my hair with her slender fingers—‘every curl of this soft, fair hair is dear to me .’ She spoke the words slowly, with that deep, low utterance that betrays strong and repressed feeling. Ah! what new life and vigor those soft- spoken words brought to me. I would have caught her to my heart in a passionate embraoe, but she put me baok gently, but firmly. ‘And yet,’ she went on, ‘I can never be more to you than I now am. We must part to-night and forever.’ ‘Listen,’ see continued, as I attempted to speak, ‘and you shall know why. The hand you hold was placed by a dying father in that of another, while I promised and called upon Heaven to witness it, that I would marry him—my fath er's cousin—a good and learned man whom he knew would be kind to his orphan child. Such a vow cannot be broken, Claude. I was young — almost a child when it was made—and half ador ed my father. But that does not help it. A vow like that must not be broken.’ 1 knew it. The hope that had fluttered in my heart, died «ut with a faint, sick feeling,and my head, which was again pressed to the oool ivy leaves, felt numb and strange. ‘God bless you Claude, my own Claude,’ said the sweetest voioe under Heaven. ‘God bless you and help yon to bear this. Bemember it is not forever. You believe in the soul’s immor tality: love is a part of the soul and is as undy ing as the God who gave it. We shall meet again.’ Her lips thrilled upon my forehead. She pressed them there long and tenderly, and then glided from my side. I thought her gone, and did not raise my head until a low moan startled me. I looked up quickly and saw Margaret Yane. She was leaning in the door frame, pale as marble—paler even than was her wont, and with both hands pressed tightly over her heart. Then I remembered I had heard more than once that Margaret had disease of the heart. It was too large for its pericardium, the village physician said, and the least excitement made it flatter like a prisoned bird. He said, too, that at any time, and suddenly, it might cause her death. With a pang of self-reproach at hav ing oiused her this suffering, I started forward to her assistance, but she waved me back, smil ed a faint, sweet smile, and murmuring it was nothing, gathered her white scarf around her and floated away through the shadows of the poplar grove. At the same moment, the last sunbeams faded fri/LLi r?u j/iU e 4iir." .. 1 - IX .V irtr'XV 1 ui'r Ul'- parting glory, and the day was done. I sat there till the stars oame out and looked down with their serious eyes, and the winds awoke and shivered in the poplars and sang unutterable things to the old pines in the distance. I sat till the scene was glorified by the light of the full orbed summer moon, and the air seemed full of spirits and the silence was eloquent as with the music that still played on in my soul. When at last I left the plaoe, it was late, for the Pleiades had tracked their way half up to the zenith, searching for their lost sister. My path did not lie near the home where Margaret dwelt with h6r uncle,but I was possessed with a feverish desire only fora while longer to breathe the same air that she did. And so, soaroe knowing what I did, I wan dered on through the heavy dew of the clovery path, with the sorrowful moon and stars look ing down upon me, through the boughs over head. There were lights flashing from the man sion windows, a sound of many voices and forms moving to and Iro in the illuminated rooms. They were there to celebrate Margaret’s marriage. I drew near to the scene of festivity —so near that as I stood in the shadow of the acacia trees, I could look in at the brilliant scene through the window, whose curtains were swept aside. Margaret stood in the centre of the room, fair and pale and stately as the lillies on her brow. I started at beholding the spiritual beauty of her face. There was upon it nothing of anguish or suffering, but an expression ineffably beau tiful—something more than serenity—some thing not of earth—an expression we sometimes see on the face of infants, when they lie and gaze into vacanoy. And there was in her eyes that strange, far-away look we have seen in the eyes of those who stand by the river of death, and look with unobscured vision at the hither Bhore. She smiled and bowed with her accustomed grace and sweetness to those who pressed around her, and frequently she turned to speak to the middle-aged, well-preserved, noble-looking man beside her. And he was her husband. I was glad to see that he seemed good and gen tle; that he looked with grave tenderness upon the woman at his side, whose beauty he might admire, but whose rare loveliness of character, whose delicaoy of heart and purity of soul, he oould never appreciate or comprehend, By-and-by, as I stood looking in at the win dow, the music began with the gayest of mea sures, and a dance was formed. Margaret plead some excuse to one who requested her hand, and then whispered a few words to her hus band, who presently led forward her stately aunt. Nearly all the guests were soon dancing, but I did not watch their movements. I saw only Mar garet, who was bending over a vase of tube-roses that sat on the table, suffocating in the atmos phere of their own fragrance. After a little while she glided from the room, walked to and fro in the colonnade for a few times, Btood and played listlessly with the leaves of a jessamine that garlanded one of the col- ums, and then came out into the open air and went past me, so near that a fold of her whits dress almost touched me as I - tood leaning against the acacia tree, with its feathery branoh- es falling aronnd me. As she passed, I caught sight of her face gleam ing whitely in the moonlight, and its expres sion filled me with dread. She went on through the avenue lined with cape jessamines, now in the fullness of their bloom, through the gate way and into the same path that had just led me to the house. I followed at a little distance, her white-robed, swift-gliding figure that float ed on through shadow and moonlight, like a disembodied spirit At last she reached the pop lar grove, the academy and then the music- room. She hesitated a moment, went in, and before I reached her, I heard the soft notes of a prelude trembling through the silenoe of the summer midnight I went in and sat down in my aocustomed plaoe, by the ivied window. As I entered, she merely raised her eyes, look ed* at me a moment with no expression of sur prise, and then fixed her gaze, as usual, on the window opposite, and kept on with her playing. And suoh music I never heard before, and never shall again; an improvisation,in which the pleadingB of an earthly love, so deep and sor rowful and strong, that the air trembled at its utteranoe, was blended with the sweetness of resignation, the sublimity of faith and the ec stasy of adoration. Gradually the latter expres sion predominated. Love still sounded a sweet and mournful refrain, but praise and aspiration rose above it, and drowned its yearning voioe. It seemed that the eagle soul was shaking every dewdrop of earth from its wings, and was plu ming itself for flight. I felt my own spirit ris ing—up—borne upon the waves of that won drous melody. The scene, the hour, the spir itual moonlight, the scarcely trembling leaves of the poplars, the stillness, so death-like, save for that music that swelled and died and wailed and exultechalternately—all these were enough to make the soul lose consciousness of bodily encumbrance, and dream itself free. I had not once looked upon the face of her who played that supernatural music. A feeling of awe was upon me, as though I sat iu the presenoe of one from another world, and felt the icy purity of the atmosphere it had brought with it. Then, too, my faculties were all absorbed in one. I could only listen to that music which seemed still to wind up and up, as a bird that soars away into a summer Heaven, and scarcely casts a glance at earth. Higher and higher it rose, until at length there came the plaintive refrain, and then a burst of rejoicing, triumphant mel ody, and then a sudden cessation of the music and a silence as of the grave. 1 sprang to my feet. Margaret’s head had drooped forward and rested on the piano. 8he was perfectly motionless. I was at her side in a moment; I raised her head and it drooped on my breast like a broken lily.fc.Her eyes were closed, and the long lashes that lay upon her cheek did not stir. I bent my ear to her lips, but there was no sound of breathing. I laid my hand upen her heart, but felt no motion. The poor prisoned bird had ceased to flutter; it was free at last. It had soared away on that final strain of glorious, exulting musie. I held but the alabaster lamp—the light that made it so beautiful was extinguished. Oh, Margaret! Mar garet ! *•***• Years have passed since then—summers and winters I know not how many, for I note the seasons only by the flowers upon her grave. The turf is greon upon it now, and while I write these last lines, the lillies above it are folding their white hands m their evening prayer, and the forget-me-not’s are gazing at the twilight stars, through the tears in their blue eyes. The poplar leaves are silently quivering, as they did on that unforgotten night— ‘That night of all nights in the year.’ I am a man of the world, now —a man of bus iness, breathing the exhalations from musty books, and the dust of crowded thoro’fares,com ing daily in contact with all that is selfish and base and unlovable in human niture. I have lost much of my old love and trust in my fel low-men, but the dust that has settled on my heart has left one spot green and fresh—the memory of the love that hallowed my existence. I do not regret having once loved, though that love was dashed with sorrow and hopelessness. Earth has no gift that would buy its sacred memory; all the glittering wealth of that island beyond the sea, could not tempt me to part with it. And the only hour when I ;ruly live, is, when forgetting the sordid carej of the day, I steal away through the grove^^hrough the Evidently the sobjects got on the inside of Julia ‘just right' further along—hence these sentimental songs. We might as well have said hence ‘these tears’ at once, for the Sweet Sin ger's best grip is death. Her vigorous fancy and fine mastery of language enable her to handle all subjects with the most felioitous effect, but it isn’t until you put her on a tombstone that Julia is really at home. For instance, take those exquisite verses on the fate of little Hi. Helsel who— ‘was a small boy ot his age, When lie was five years or so Was shocked by lightning while to play Which caused him not to grow. No less shocking were the emotional circum stances of Hiiam’s youth: His parents parted when he was small And both are married again. How sad it was for them to meet And view his last remains - Nothing is said about his father's wife and his mother’s husband, though we presume they were present upon this harrowing mortuary occa sion, for: He was living with his father then, As many a friend can tell; 'Tissaid his father’s second wife That she did not use him well. It is comforting to know that little Hi ‘was lining with his father’ when the family assem bled to view his remains. But the most hair-lifting of all the death scenes described by the Sweet Singer is that which she recounts in the afflicting ballad of ‘Lois House,’ sung, so the legend states, in the air of ‘Sophronia’s Farewell—and if anything could be conspicuously dispiriting it must be taking leave of a female named Sophronia. Our person is now so clammy with tears that we hardiv think we can pursue Miss House’s tak ing off, but we’ll make a stagger at it if it costs us a sleepless night. Miss House’s lover, who takes the part of leading juvenile—the theatri cal papers would call him the masher—in the tragedy, is named Joe Morris, but the young la dy alludes to him as ‘Joy.’ Thusly: Joy laid her dying head on Ids bosom once more Pressed her to his heart as he had oft done before, Saying “Dear Lois, are you going to leave me?” “Yes, Joy, I can no longer remain here with thee. “Oh, Joy, can you give me up, dearest,” said she “If you say yes, love, I can ieave in peace; In heaven,love, I will be waitingfor thee Be true to our Savior—you’ll soon follow me.” But no, it is as we feared. We cannot go on. The human heart has its limits. Suffice it to say that Miss House was gathered to the angels, leaving— Her true lover on whom she could trust To moulder her fair form awhile in the dust - We have never been able to see why Mr. Mor ris should have resorted to a plan so temporary in its nature, but surely if it gave him any com fort to moulder Miss House's fair though lifeless form in the dust a while, we are the last to de ny him that melancholy satisfaction. We are, however forgetting ourselves, toying with the memories the name of the Sweet Sin ger has awakened and forgetting in the seduc tive tenderness of the Sentimental Songs the no less fascinating loveliness of the Later Poems. In approaching these latter, we shall bear in mind the melting appeal with which the gushing Ju lia wound up her first warbling: And now, kind friends, what 1 have wrote I hope you will pass o’er And not criticize as some have done Hitherto here before. It’s like snatobing your tongue away from a frozen pump-handle, but we have it to do and we shall up and do it Only one more quota tion, like the last lingering dig at the jam when we hear footsteps on the stairway—it is about temperance this time, as if anybody oould be temperate after reading Julia’s poetry! Julia seems to have taken a hand in the Murphy movement. She drums for the red ribbon while Murphy canvasses for the blue, but they are af ter tne same thing as you can see: Ah! lay the flowing bowl aside And pass saloons if you can, And let the people see that you Can be a sober man. Go join the Temperance Army And battle for the right And light against the enemy With all your mane and might. If the Sweet Singer has gone in to fight with all her mane, whiskey might as well save time by throwing up the sponge at once, Murphy oould do a regular water-works business by engaging her to go aronnd the country and sing her own songs at the doors of rum-shops. The wrenoh has to come though. We can’t dodge it. We’ve got to cut loose from Julia, somehow. It would be base ingratitude to drop the subjeot without a word of comment, howev er, and we cannot do it. All we ask is that Ju lia will remember that we have never oriticized her hitherto herebefore,’ and therefore we do not come within the terms of her reproach. These poems of Mrs. Moore's have sprung into such world-wide notoriety that no family news paper can afford to ignore them even to oblige the author. They are found to suit every taste to meet every yearning of the human soul. They act mildly and beneficently on the system, without griping or other unpleasant effects, and they are warranted not to lose their freshness. If it be possible to find any objection to Julia’s poetry—and on this point we are not wholly satisfied —it may be that she rnns j ust a leetle too much to death. The ‘worm that never dies' seems to have lodged itself in Julia and to exert rather an undesirable influence upon her thoughts. It occurs to ns that a good solid searching article of vermifuge is what she chief ly needs. In closing we are happy to be able to say that the painful doubts aroused by the por trait of the author which accompanies every edi tion of the Sweet Singer’s works have quite re cently been set at rest by an interesting domes tic event in the Moore household. Those who have ‘herebefore’ been unable to decide whether that wood cut represented, as it purported to do, a Michigan female, or a Kaffir chieftain or Jesse Pomeroy in a Figi Wig or Barnum’s Wild Man of Borneo, may now set their torn and agi tated minds at rest; for the Sweet Singer has just presented the bewildered Mr. Moore with a ten pound edition of her songs, bearing every evidence of oeing genuine and covering with just odium every doubt as to its origin. The paternal Moore very probably reflects at times that this latest music Is very late indeed, but his sufferings are nothing to the relief which this occurrence has brought to the harrowed and suspicious public.—New Orleans Times. ' Receipts From “My Mother’s Cook- Book.” stillness oi tlie nigm, ana wOii«*f '.e stars are holiest, the winds sweetest, and the moonlight the most fair and tender, I open the piano, around which something of her presence still hangs, like perfume left by a faded flower, and sitting down in the old, accustomed place, look away to the dark pines in the distance, and fancy I hear again the wondrous music, and the voice so sweet and solemn that murmured, ‘We shall meet again.’ Michigan’s SWEET SINGER. Twenty-five Cents Worth of “Poetry.” A Rich Review of a Rich Book* Those who feared that the Sweet Singer of Michigan would furl her song, and that the world was about to lose the minstrel while one happy Miohigander gained a wife and partner, have just encountered the most delightful and nplifting surprise of their lives, it was almost more than one dared to hope—at least to put into the form of words—but the consuming sus pense is over at last and the ‘Later Poems of Jnlia A. Moore, the Sweet Singer of Michigan,’ ar« nestling, as it were, in onr bosom. We shonld have known that modest pamphlet in the dark, on a desert island—so small, so thin, so unostentatious, and yet so full of richness ! It carried us back a year, to the first wild agita tion we experienced when Julia A. Moore bulg ed in upon the public with her ‘Sentimental Song Book’ and reached for the human heart strings with her large and nervous hand. Ah ! with what a sweetly cathartic effect the name of Julia A. Moore descends into the memory ! How it penetrates to every remotest corner of the heart and starts the sluggish currents of remin iscence into violent activity ! Shall we ever for get the emotions with which we first gazed up on the frontispiece of the ‘Sentimental Song Book’ where a speaking wood cut of the Sweet Singer smears the fingers, with printer's ink and turns the mind to thoughts oi Kaffir Chief tains or female pirates or object lessons in Ly on's Kathairon for the hair ? Never, never. We may truly say of Julia’s physiognomy, as of her poetry, its like was never seen on earth. It is hard at such times as this to deny our selves the incalculable luxury of looking back at those sublime efforts of which these ‘later poems’ are the supplement and scalp-lock. Ask us not to make the sacrifice for we shall decline. Even the most unselfish must draw a line some where, and the Sweet Singer’s poetry is where we have driven our stakes. It seems to us that we could revel perpetually iu the gifted Julia’s description of her childhood. Nothing more exquisitely naive and yet powerfully graphic was ever written: My parents moved to Algoma Near twenty-live years ago And bought one hundred acres of land, That’s a good-sized farm you know - She does not state whether her parents had a- that period evolved her from the nebular hyt pothesis of the neighborhood, but she leaves it to be inferred that they had, for she goes on to say: My heart was gay and happy This was ever in my mind, There is better times a coming And I hope some day to And Myself capable of composing. It was my heart’s delight To compose on a sentimental subject When it came into my mind just right: to the L iter Poems as well as to the Sentimental Song Book, and our religious determination to observe their moral is only second to the amaze ment and horror it gives us to learn that any one could have been so black a fiend as to crit icize Julia ‘-hitherto here before.” The most striking of the Later Poems are those on Andrew Jackson and Byron. Though descriptive of citizens who are alas ! now dead, they are not couched in the same funeral strain as the obituaries on Hiram Helsel and Lois House. They take a rather heroic flight—grand, epic, homicidal so to speak, and pulsate with martial sounds, the trumpet's stirring blare, the file's exhilarating throb. Speaking of A. J. she says: The dauntless energy of Jackson. Oh, should never be forgot, Or the battle of New Orleans Where he diligently fought. This picture of Jackson diligently fighting at New Orleans is perhaps the boldest touch she has ever put upon the canvas of her verse. We can see old Hlokory, as plain as day, buckling down to his work and making things red hot for the Britishers. Of Byron the Sweet Singer speaks more gin- gorly, though with the feeling that is to be ex pected of one great poet treating of another: Lord Byron was an Englishman, A poet I believe, His first works in old England Were poorly received. How exact and perspicious and yet how wary! She boldly states that he was an Englishman, making herself responsible lor the truth of the assertion; but when it comes to the qualifica tion she diplomatically says ‘I believe.’ This is genius. This is true poetry, if we know its earmarks and we ought to—we bunked with one four months in 62. Julia proceeds: He was a sad child of nature Of fortune and of fame; Also sad child to society For nothing did lie gain But slanders and ridicule, Througbout his native land; Thus the ’poet of the passions,’ Lived unappreciated man. How much better to be the poet of the heart and the emotions like Julia, and thus escape being a sad child of nature. Julia is not sad. One glance at her wood cut assures you of that. She looks as if she had taken an overdose of calomel and had her doubts of the future state, but she is not sad—oh, heaven, no! only thoughtful, like. Some of the poet’s remarks on the Chicago fire are are in her finest vein. The fire was put cut some years ago and has lost much of its ex citing power, but as the Sweet Singer judicious ly observes: The great Chicago fire, friends, Will never be forgot; In the history of Chicago It will remain a darken spot. She is probably not aware that the burnt dis trict has been rebuilt and that you can no lon ger tell where it was; bat poets never conde scend to these coarse details. Again: Mothers with dear little infants Some clinging to.theii - breast, (Babies are notoriously eccentric in their hoars for taking refreshments.) People of every description All laid down there to rest With the sky as their covering Ah, pillows they had none, Sad, on sad, it must have been For those poor homeless ones. Sad indeed ! We know of nothing more mel- anoholy than to sleep in October with only the sky for covering and without a pillow. Our tears well np again at the recollection of those sufferings albeit nearly seven years have passed. Bat we mast tear ourselves away from Julia. Wafers.—Two cups of sugar, one cup of butter, half a cap of milk, half a spoonful of saleratus, flour to roll stiff and thin. Molasses Drop Cake.—One oup of molasses, half a oup of butter, three cups of flour, two teaHpoonsful of ginger, one teaspoonful of soda; beat the ingredients well together, and drop 1- Tfjth i 1 * fl ti»y hri^a firwlfl — * .. Crispts. —Two cups of sugar, one cup of butter, two eggs, half a cup of ginger, half a cup of milk, not qufte half a teaspoonful of soda, flour enough to roll t;ut thin; cut in small cakes, and bake in a pretty quick oven. Icing.—To one pound of powdered white sugar, put the beaten whites of four eggs; beat the whites very light, and stir iu the sugar by degrees; flavor with lemon and spread with a knife dipped into cold water. Grape Butter.—Prepare your fruit the same as tor preserves, allowing a pound of sugar to a pint of vinegar to three pounds of sugar; add a teasponful of cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, and allspice; boil until jellied, stirring it all the time. Canned Grapes.—Take the?Concord grape when fully ripe, stemming them without break ing any more than can be helped; allow a little over a quarter of a pound of sugar to a pound of fruit; make a syrup of about a quart of water at a time, putting in fruit enough for only one can; let your syrup, with the fruit in it just come to a boil, putting them in the cans before they erack open. Seal them up’ Frcit Pudding (cold).—Put a layer of any kind of fruit (previously stewed with sugar, and allowed to get cold) or jam into a deep glass dish, mix three tablespoonfuls of cornflour with a gill of milk, boil one pint of milk with the thin rind of a lemon, with sugar to taste; when well flavored with the lemon, pour the boiling milk through a strainer on to the eorn- flour, stir and return it to a saucepan; boil five minutes, or until it thickens, and when cool enough not to break the glass, pour on the fruit, and leave it to get quite cold and set. Orna ment according to fancy with jam, preserved fruit, or angelica. English Bread and Butte Pudding.—One loaf of baker's bread, cut in thin slices and buttered; butter the dish well; put a layer of bread and of raisins, a little cinnamon, nut meg, and sugar; then a layer of buttered bread, and continue until the dish is full; make a custard with a quart of rich milk and five eggs, leaving out four whites. Flavor with lemon, pour it ever the bread and batter, and other in gredients, cover the dish down and set it in a cool place. After it is well soaked, it should, bake for about half or three-quarters of an hour. Meanwhile beat the whites with powdered sugar to a froth, pile it upon the padding, when cooked, return it to the oven till it assumes a light brown, then take it out, sprinkle it with lamps of red currant jelly, and it is ready for the table. No sauce needed. Country Boys’ Revenge on a City Belle. A singular and an atrocious thing occurred at Milton on the Hudson, New York, on the eve ning of July 4. A young lady from Brooklyn, Miss Louisa Henser, visiting a friend’s honse came from an entertainment twenty minutes before the rest of the party, and was alone in the house for that length of time. Immediate ly she entered, two masked men followed, seiz ed and chloroformed her. They then deliber ately stripped her of every article of clothing except shoes and stockings and left her in that condition, insensible. Her friends came in time to hear the scoundrels escaping. _ No other iuj ury was done the young lady, and it is thought the men committed the outrage to shame and humiliate the yonng lady, who had held her self aloof from the ooantry people, not engag- ing in their rural sports and pastimes. It was certainly a carious way for the jilted country swain to get ‘even’ with the city belle. ui He who eats mince pie in a restnrant affords — beautiful and teaching evidence of child-like faith in his fellow-man.