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WE8TMINSTER ABBEY. f Rough was the winter eve; Their craft the fishers leave, And down o’er the Thames the ifarkness drew. One still lags lasts, and turns, and eyes the Pile, Huge lu the gloom, across In Thorney Isle, King Sebert’s work, the wondrous Minster new. —’Tls Darnbeth now, where then They moor’d their boats among the bulrush stems ; And that new minster in the matted fen. The world-lam ed Abbey by the westering T hames. His mates are gone, and he For mist can hardly see A strange wayfarer coming to his side, Who bade him loose his boat, and fix his oar, And row him straightway to the further shore, And wait while he did there a space abide. The fisher awed obeys, That voice had note so clear of sweet com mand : Through pouring tide he pnlls and driz zling haze, And sets his irelght ashore on Thorney strand. The minster’s outlined mass Rose dim from the morass, And thitherward the stranger took his way. Lo, on a sudden all the Pile is bright! Nave, choir and transept glorified with light While tongues of fire on ooign and carving play! And heavenly odors fair Come streaming with the floods of elory in, And carols float along the happy air As if the reign of joy did now begin. Then all again is dark. And by the fisher’s bark The unknown passenger returning stands, —O Saxon fisher ! thou hast had with thee The fisher lrom the Lake of Galilee, So saitb he, blessing him with outspread hands; Then fades, ImtspeakB the while: At dawn thou to King Sebert shalt relate How his Saint Peter's Church in Thorney Isle Peter, his iriend, with light did consecrate. MATTIIKVr AKNOL1). Coming Back. Up in a city garret, on a hot June day, a weary woman leaned back, in her chair, and pressed her fingers against the eyes that refused longer to see the stitches in the shop-work over which she had toiled from day-break till now four o’clock in the afternoon. From the street far below her, a voice had only that moment soared upward, calling, “Btrawberr-ees ! ripe, red, strawberr-ees!” And, as if by magic, her thoughts turning backward hsd carried her to Depdene, the home of her youth, and to a certain lovely June day in her sixteenth year, when she had stood in the strawberry pasture on the Blessing Farm, with the red berries perfuming the air, and said the words which sev ered her fate from that of Maurice Blessing, and made her life what it was on this day, almost hopeless and ceaseless struggle for bread won at k he needle’s point. Ho\^ all rose up before her! The ^pture sloping upward to the r gm k ten woods, whose tops seemed toucM^Jfc|^P lj l ue Bky, sloping waff th the cold spring leapRft- <4|^ rough a wooden trough among its lower stones. And below the wall—“the thirty-acre mowing” spread out like an immense emerald velvet carpet, with the two- story cream colored house lifting its piazzaed front at the extreme end just where the shaded lane began, and led from the Blessing farm o« into the village road. “She, the poor orphan girl, had been offered this comfortable home; and she had refused it—for what ? For dream of fame which had left her toiling in this hot garret while in the black trunk yonder, the book which was to have made her fortune, refused by one publisher after another, was lying till she could find courage to thrust it into the fire. “Scarcely two years!” she sighed, rockim* herself to and fro. “And Maurice has sold his old farm and gone to Colorado, and I am here, lonely, disappointed, old before time. Oh, if I could only live day over again and be as wise now ! For now I know tlu^I love him—row, wLAAisforej^Kolate!” calenture ets for one >me, Hester e desk where 'ealth was stored, closest economy, she had ma^m^ro lay aside a few dollars, for the gl )omy purpose of paying the ex euse of her own sickness and death, heu tiie time should come for her to die amoug strangers. From this sacred hoard she counted .out jl sum sufficient to take thought. “Aud will work all the harder after I return, to make up this sum again. But see Depdene, uow that it is fairly in my mind, I must! And uow I will take one more look at the dear old farm before it is in the hands of strangers, aud so altered that I shall not know it.” The next day saw her on her way. The two years of her absence had been years of change to the little country village. A railway wiaked across the hill- road from Torrington. Once she would have made the journey in a yellow “stage” drawn by four horses, with John Colney the crossest and most dis agreeable of earthly stage drivers, on the box. The village, too, was smartened und freshened up—new houses, new fences, a new iron fence around the small oval park that graced the centre of the town; new names above the gilded frouts of the shops ; a new set of gig gliug misses, on their way to the new brown stone Academy, which stood where she had once thought it an •honor to attend the district school, in a plain one story structure of faded brick. No doubt all these alterations were for the better ; but they made her heart ache with a sense of loss unspeakable; And she turned Into the shaded lane that led only to the Blessing Farm, dreading to see the old home desecra ted by the stranger's hand. No ; there it stood, as she had always knowu it—the very picture of home comfort, the centre of all those modest luxuries that a well to-do farmer of all other men most easily commands. But Although the dear old house was unchanged, its inmates were new and strange to her. A stout, middle-aged man, in a white summer suit, with a broad brimmed hat and cigar, sat on the steps of the piazza, reading a news paper. A fashionably dressed lady, some y ars bis junior, swung in a hammock upon the lawn, lost in a novel. Several children, in .s-oad-brimmed bats and brown Holland blouses, were making the lives of two nurses a burden to them further down the lawn, among the elm trees, where a swing had hung lrom time imme morial. City” was stamped on every face and figure that she saw. Had Maurice sold his place to some retired merchant, who would over-or nament and disfigure it. in the mod ern villa style ? “If one could live their lives over after they grow older aud are taught by experience what is best for them:” thought Hester in her sadness, once more. Bhe would have gone up to the house and asked leave to rest aud look around if it bad remained in the care of old Farmer Williams and his wife, the tenants of the upper farm. But she could not face those prosper ous, hapi y “city people,” who would look at her with their coldly curious eyes aud wonder, almost audibly, what she could waut,” eveu if they did*^^bsolutely mistake her for a ‘ * tramp7^^*» “I wish I could have gone through the strawberry pasture once more,” she thought, as she turned buck to ward the railway station, tired, hungry and unrefreshed. At the foot of the lane a gentleman, in a summer suit of silver-gray, Btood leaning against the bars, with his straw hat drawn down over his eyes so far that he failed to Bee the stranger's silent approach. “Will you let me pass, If you please?” said Hester, at last, after waiting some moments. He wheeled round, as if she had struck him, and stared doubtiugly in her face. She uitered a great cry. “Maurice! Maurice! I heard that youHiad sold the farm and gone to olorado.” “Hester! Can this be you?” he an swered. His eyes seemed to devour her- Words rose to his lips aud were forced back again. At last he asked : “Is your husband here with you, Hestety ?” M “My kusband!” w “Whm yes! I heard that you were marrieofvery soon after you went to the city!” “You heard wrong, Maurice. I have not been married. I have never eve thought of such a thing.” “But why did you go, then, lleHter? Why dul you leave Depdene? Why did you refuse to mn.rry me, if —if there wasj^^pe else in the way ?” been realized, of ihe unlucky book that was lying in the black trunk, of the little burial board so hardly earned and saved. The tears came quickly to her eyes , obscuring the honest, handsome face on which she gazed. “Don’t cry, Hester,” said Maurice Blessing, taking her hand. “And tell me why you would uot marry me, dear?” “Because I was a fool!” sobbed Hester. “Isthe folly ended?” asked Maurice, hiding a smile as he bent over her. “Can you give me a different answer, now, Hester? If you can, we will be just the happiest pair on earth, here on the dear old farm.” “But you sold it and went to Colo rado,” said Hester, wonderingly, “at least I heard so.” “I was a fool, too, Hester; for I went to Colorado, and I was quite ready to sell. But my brother-in-law, from the city, persuaded me to rent it to him for one year, till I had ti ne to think the matter over. When I came to my senses—although I had uot forgotten you, darling—I was very glad that the poor old place was mine still, and I came back some six weeks ago, to see it. My sister and her husband and family go back to the city next week, stopping at the mountains on their way. I shall be left alone, with good Mrs. Williams for my housekeeper, and her husband as head hired man— just as I was before. Hester won’t you take pity on me, and come and share my home ? I have never cared for any one but you.” I do not know in what words Hester answered him. But I see her daily in the cream-colored farmhouse, the very model of au active, bustling, good ttm- pered farmer’s wife. As for the book, she has utterly for gotten it. She needs its recompense no longer, and she is far too happy to care or wish for fame. Heart Offerings The light dispels our mourning dreams, Dissolves our castles in the air, Whose turrets seemed to reach the skies, So beautiful aud fair. StUl may the wild wood yield a shade, The desert hold a spring, Whose limpid waters lu our need May rest and solace bring. — MKS. ,1 Kit N INGHAM. The ainted branches of the tree, II lopped with care a strength may give By which the rest may bloom and live. —BYKON. Love comes and tarries, Love the load carries, When love with love marries, Only for Love. — O. w. BUNGAY. The Choicest Gems of Purest Ray Serene. Day Is a snow-white dove of heaven, That from the east glad message brings , Night in a stealthy, evil raven. Wrapt to the eyes in Ms black wings. —T. B. ALDRICH it Man is but half without woman; and As do idolators their heavenly gods, We dely ihe things that we adore. —FE8TUU. Still panting o’er the orowd to reign, More Joy it giveN a woman’s breast, To make ten frigid coxcombs vain, Than one true manly lover’s breast. — UOOKII. Charming woman can true converts make We love the precepts for the teacher’s sake: Virtue in her appeals so bright and gay. We hear with pleasure and with pride obey. — FRANKLIN. N aught can to peace the busy woman charm; And, if she can’t do good, she must do harm. —LAMB. An Eccentric Visitor. A Man whe Proposed to Institute a New School of Philosophy. “Are you busy ?” asked the city ed itor. “Always have time to hear long stories, particularly those in which Bint and John figure, and where Ike, the neighborhood wit, tells how he came to town and cheated a Hebrew gentleman who swore that he wouldn’t sell the coat for less than $10, but who finally let Ike have the garment for 75 cents and a promise to call again.” The man was bored. He put his elbows on the table and looked sor rowful. “I am the author of a new school of philosophy,” he said, “but I have found no disciples. The world is too rapid. The present becomes the past before I can make, any one under stand me. AVhen I explain myself you may consider me insane.” “When did you kill him?” “I have killed no one.” “Then you are not insane.” “Bince the days of Chaucer there have been a great m ny eminent men in the world. From that time until ‘the present day a great many children have died before they arrived at the age of ten years. Now, sir, I have taken np the belief that if all the peo ple who have lived h*ad died, and if all the children that died had lived, the world would have had its Shake speare, its Bacon, its Newton and its Napoleon.” “How about Oscar Wilde?” “I say that the world would have been just as well off. We might uot nave had the railroad, for invention is an accident, but we would have had something just as complete. America would have been built—” “And would the jury have brought in a verdict of guilty as indicated ?” “I say that nothing w°uld be lost. Now, the souls of these children that died young. What became ©f them? At what trine, I ask, does the soul enter the body? Can’t answer? Are Infant Bhakespeares to be raised up at the resurrection ? Will they continue the process of teethiug, and will their mothers walk around with them ! At what time, I ask, sir, will the body arise? In what shape? AVill it be young, or will it arise with wrinkles of age on its brows ? Can the mitn who ha« been eaten by cannibals arise?” “Walt, I’ll be back in a minute,” aud the city editor went back ami re quested the foreman to help him ijeot a taazy man. When he returned he found that the man had stolen his p’pe and a new book, The Three Links of Sausage; or, “The Spoiled Venison Ham.” iy only one day, Everywhere some dear temptation Holds allurements fair and new; Sale a little child doth lead him, All the perilous pathway through. Evermore his spirit sees her, Be it early, be it late— Still the little, dear child daughter, Molly, waiting by the gate. MAKY CLEMMER. Misunderstandings are far more dif ficult things than people imagine, in love or in friendship. He that does good for good’s sake seeks neither praise nor reward though sure of both at last. To most men experience is like the stern lights of a ship, which illumine only the track it has passed.- Cole- ridge. *Tbe lovliest faces are to be seen at moonlight, when one sees half with the eye and half with the fancy. —Bovee. Be thou the iainbow to the storms of life ! the evening beam that smiles the clouds away and tints to-morrow with prophetic ray!— Byron. Utopia. Your lazy loon, If dainty pigeons Up to his mouth well roasted flew, He would not taste them, no, not he, Unless well carved and served up, too ! —Blackwood'8 Magazine Aglaia. The tamarisks bow’d their heads, compell'd By no ungentle force; The breeze a sunny fragrance held, Mingled of sea and gorse; And on the turf the daisies shone ; The heaving turfs desire Was plainly to be trodden on ; The daisies were on fire For something far more pure and warm Than they ; and on them there I for a moment, saw thy form Rise In the happy air. —The Spectator. Misfortunes, in fine, can not be avoided ; but they can be sweetened, if not overcome, and our live# made happy by philosophy. — Seneca. We are surrouuded by abysses, but the greatest of all depths is in our own heart, and an irresistible leaning leads us there. Draw thyself from th y sel f.—Ooethe. To vilify a great man is the readiest way in which a little man can him self attain greatness. The crab might never have become a a*>ustellation bu^ for the courage evinced in nibbling Hercules on the heel,—Poe. Blessings often fail to reach us through the wall of circumstances with which ws have surrounded our lives. The Ignorance of Amateur Collectors. ■ . About Crows. Is there ever a hard question In mor als, that children do not drive straight ueitioniug ? Mr. Tuer records some curious anec dotes of the exaggerated value set upon Bartolozzi’s engravings by cer tain persons. One of his correspond ents had a set of the “ Elements ” and au historical print, all in fair condi tion, but cut close, which the pro prietor supposed to be worth about £700 or £800 apiece. Before, however, even this sum was accepted, Messrs. Christie were to be asked to value the prints, in case they might be worth still more. This is ignorance of one sort. Here is ignorance of another sort. A lady took a print out of a frame, folded it up in a letter, and asked for an opinion as to its value, explaining that she prized it highly because it had descended to her from ber grandmother. Two anecdotes giveu by Mr. Tuer, showing the cruel damage done by the ignorant wealthy we will transfer to our pages: Au amateur, wishing to illustrate a book with a head of the Virgiu Mary, bought of one of our largest print- dealers a proof worth about £60 of Muller’s “Madonna di Ban Sisto,” after Raffaelle. When he had paid for it, he calmly proceeded in the pres- of the astonished dealer to cut out the head of the Madonna with a penknife, saying he did not want the remaining portion of the print, which he left be hind. Some years afterward tne ama teur died, aud his effects were sold at Christie’s; amongst them was the small book containing the head of the Madonna, which the printrdealer bought at the sale for a mere trifle. The h«ad was carefully removed from the book, and sent, together with the remaining portion of the print, to the restorer, who inlaid it so well that it appeared uninjured. The next instance is still worse A nobleman, now living, commis sioned a print-dealer some five years ago to make a colleotoon of fine prints, principally fancy subjects after Sir Joshua Reyuolds, for which, as might be expected, he gave long prices, When he thought he had accumulated sufficient for his purpose he had his treasures cut out into various shapes t,o fit harmoniously, as he thought, one into the other, and mounted, brilliantly varnished ovi r, on a tliree- leaved screen; but when the work was finished he did net like the ap pearance, so forthwith had the prints carefully taken off, aud the varnish removed, for placing in a scrap-book. Professor Linden said a good word the other day at Buffalo for that much persecuted bird, the common crow (Corvut Americanua). The crow of Amenica belongs to a scattered family of about 200 species, iucluding among them the buzzard, jay, raven and magpie. Cf the genus proper to which the crow belongs, seven examples are found in the United States, the great black raven being at the head. In the wilderness abut 100 mile3 from Buf falo, on the shores of Lake Ontario, ravens weie found. Their nests were so secluded as rarely to be discovered. So wary were the birds that Mr. Lin den had found it impossible to obtain a specimen. They were reported more abundant on the Canada shore of Lake Ontario, but it was impossi ble to procure a specimen even there, though a liberal reward had been of fered. The crow was only preserved from annihilation by its great cun ning. Even in captivity the bird dis plays a degree of sagacity which almost resembles human intelligence. Air. Linden admitted that the crow could hardly be called a sweet singer ; still when tamed he made a very in teresting pet. On the whole, he might safely be set down as a useful bird and a real frieud of the farmer. He eats large quantities of noxious in sects, aud though he has a bad habit of pulling up young tender shoots of grain, it was a question whether the damage was not more than compen sated by the number of larvtB of bee tles thus brought to light and de voured. X Aphoristic. To be understood is twice one’s self. Love dies of satiety ana is buried in Aff pbilosopy lies in two words— “sustain” and “abstain.” oblivion. Politeness is a wreath of flowers that, adorns the world, The homeliest task gets beautiful, if loving hands do them. Where is the thief who cannot find bad when he hunts it? Grief may bide an evening gitest, Hut Joy Khali come a morning guest. A woman’s dress is like the envelope of a letter; the cover is frequently an index to the contents. Every strong, active bad man is systematically engaged in creating aud sharpening the instrumen. ofj his own destruction. He who reads much 'is a great observer, and looks | tiulte through the deeds ol men. ke may be as much courage dis- li iu enduring with resignation [fferings of the soul, as remain- i\ under under the showers of n a battery, ytunlty no li as 11L..4 Age is’i Thau And i