Home and Friends around us.

Hawker and the Publican, The

Health, Wealth, and Happiness: A Dialogue.. M. C. Hitchen

Help each other

Hitherto and Henceforth..

Home and the Man, The ....

How long, O Lord, how long?

How they brought Father home..

Knight and a Lady, A

Like me....

Charles Swain...

Joseph Darrah

43

12

1

CONTENTS.

Nobleman, the Fisherman, and the Porter, The..J. G. Saxe

Roundabout Way of Telling Bad News, A....Anon...

Sweetest, Saddest, Strangest Story, The......Little Sower.

60

171

.... 101

29

42

True and False Idea of a Pledge, The: Dialogue..M.Duffill

107

"What doth the Lord require of thee?"......J. G. Whittier

172

I

CHARLES SWAIN.

NEVER knew a kindness yet
But, as Time's seasons ran,
Some seed of hope from it was set
That promised good for man:
I never knew a feeling heart,
In needful cases shewn,
But it a spirit could impart
Congenial to its own!

For kindness is a power divine,
An essence not of earth;

It wreathes the everlasting shrine
Where holiest things have birth;
It hath a life beyond to-day;

And when this life is o'er,
'Twill meet us smiling on our way,
And good for good restore.

I never knew a generous hand
Grow poorer for such deed;
A power we all can understand

Still bids that hand succeed.
Whate'er a noble act may cost,
Whate'er the service given,
A kindness done is never lost,
Neither on earth nor heaven!

2

The Coat and the Pillow.

THE COAT AND THE PILLOW.
J. EDWARDS.

T chanced that the Coat of a very fine fellow

IT

Had been thrown on the bed, and lay close to the Pillow; With that ease which high company gives (for the Coat Had been much in the world and in circles of note)

"Friend Pillow," says he, "why that look of distress?
By your crumpled condition you've slept ill, I guess.
Or, perhaps, that your master is gone you are sorry?
(He's a very fine fellow) if so I feel for ye:

I am always delighted to go where he goes,

And mix in the mirth that around him he throws.

"Twould delight you to see with what graceful composure
He throws down his guineas or stakes an inclosure.
T'other night, 'twas at whist, that Sir Somebody blundered,
And lost him I think 'twas not less than a hundred :

To have seen him, my friend, you'd conclude he had won,
Such an easy, good-tempered smile he put on !

"What with dancing, and singing, and laughing, and drinking,

You'd wonder what time he has left him for thinking.
If he wins, if he loses, he still appears glad;

I can never believe he knows how to be sad.

With such mental control, and a heart so at ease,
Sure never was found a man formed so to please."

"And now," says the Pillow, "'tis my turn to speak,
If I let you alone you'll go on for a week,
Since you say that with you he's as light as a feather,
Pray keep him, or come to bed always together:

For the moment you're off, such a row there commences,
You'd think he was fairly bereft of his senses.

"Such complaining, such sorrow, repenting, and hate;
Such cursing his fortune, and blaming his fate,
That, taking in Bedlam, there is not in town
A Pillow whose state I'd not change with my own.

"The night that Sir Somebody lost him a hundred,
As soon as he laid himself down, how he thundered!
I never was in such a fright in my life,

He could not worse treat me if I were his wife.