to-night. Things are not quite so desperate as they appear. You haven't got over Christmas-week."

7. "I am well. Never was better. But I can see, I hope, what's before my eyes; and the fact is, Mrs. Crowfield, things must not go on as they are going. There must be more care, more attention to details. There's Maggie,that girl never does what she is told. You are too slack with her, ma'am. She will light the fire with the last paper, and she won't put my slippers in the right place; and I can't have my study made the general catch-all and menagerie for Rover and Jennie, and her basket and balls, and for all the family litter."

8. Just at this moment, I overheard a sort of sigh from Jennie, who was swelling with repressed indignation at my attack on her worsted. She sat, with her back to me, knitting energetically, and said, in a low, but very decisive tone, as she twitched her yarn;

'Now, if I should talk in that way, people would call me cross, and that's the whole of it."

9. I pretended to be looking into the fire in an absentminded state; but Jennie's words had started a new idea. Was that it? Was that the whole matter? Was it, then, a fact, that the house, the servants, Jennie and her worsted, Rover and Mrs. Crowfield, were all going on pretty much as usual, and that the only difficulty was, that I wascross? How many times had I encouraged Rover to lie just where he was lying when I kicked him! How many times, in better moods, had I complimented Jennie on her neat little fancy-works, and declared that I liked the social companionship of ladies' work-baskets among my papers! Yes, it was clear. After all, things were much as they had been, only I was cross.

10. Cross! I put it to myself, in that simple, old-fashioned word, instead of saying that I was out of spirits, or nervous, or using any of the other smooth phrases with which we, good Christians, cover up our little sins of temper. "Here you are, Christopher," said I to myself, "a literary man,

with a somewhat delicate nervous organization, and a sensitive stomach, and you have been eating like a sailor or a ploughman; you have been merry-making and playing the boy for two weeks; up at all sorts of irregular hours, and into all sorts of boyish performances; and the consequence is, that, like a thoughtless young scape-grace, you have used up, in ten days, the capital of nervous energy that was meant to last you ten weeks.

11. "You can't eat your cake and have it too, Christopher When the nervous fluid-source of cheerfulness, giver of pleasant sensations and pleasant views-is all spent, you can't feel cheerful; things cannot look as they did when you were full of life and vigor. When the tide is out, there is nothing but unsightly, ill-smelling tide-mud, and you can't help it; but you can keep your senses,—you can know what is the matter with you,-you can keep from visiting your ever-dose of Christmas mince-pies, and candies, and jocularities on the heads of Mrs. Crowfield, Rover, and Jennie, whether in the form of virulent morality, pungent criticism, or a free kick, such as you just gave the poor brute."

12. "Come here, Rover, poor dog!" said I, extending my hand to Rover, who cowered at the farther corner of the room, eyeing me wistfully,-" come here, you poor doggie, and make up with your master. There, there! Was his master cross? Well, he knows it. We must forgive and forget, old boy, must n't we?" And Rover nearly broke his own back and tore me to pieces, with his tremulous tail-waggings.

13. "As to you, puss," I said to Jennie, "I am much obliged to you for your free suggestion. You must take my cynical moralities for what they are worth, and put your little traps into as many of my drawers as you please."

14. In short, I made it up handsomely all around,—even apologizing to Mrs. Crowfield, who, by-the-by, has summered me and wintered me so many years, and knows all

my airs and cuts and crinkles so well, that she took my irritable, unreasonable spirit as tranquilly as if I had been a baby cutting a new tooth.

"Of course, Chris., I knew what the matter was; don't disturb yourself," she said, as I began my apology; "we understand each other."

MRS. H. B. STOWE.

XXXV. THE BATTLE OF NASEBY.*

I.

H, wherefore come ye forth, in triumph from the North,

And wherefore doth your rout send forth a joyous shout?
And whence be the grapes of the wine-press which ye tread?

II.

Oh, evil was the root, and bitter was the fruit,

And crimson was the juice of the vintage that we trod; For we trampled on the throng of the haughty and the strong, Who sat in the high places, and slew the saints of God.

III.

It was about the noon of a glorious day of June,

That we saw their banners dance, and their cuirasses shine; And the Man of Blood was there, with his long essenced hair, And Astley, and Sir Marmaduke, and Rupert of the Rhine.

IV.

Like a servant of the Lord, with his Bible and his sword,
The general rode along us, to form us to the fight,

* Naseby is a village in Northamptonshire, England. Here was fought a decisive battle between the royal forces commanded by Charles I. and those of the Parliament under Fairfax, June 14, 1645. The royal center was commanded by the king in person, the right wing by Prince Rupert, and the left by Sir Marmaduke Langdal.

Fairfax, supported by Skippon, commanded the center of his army, with Cromwell on his right wing, and Ireton on his left. The royal army, though successful in the first part of the action, was totally defeated.

When a murmuring sound broke out, and swelled into a shout, Among the godless horsemen, upon the tyrant's right.

V.

And, hark! like the roar of the billows on the shore,

The cry of battle rises along their charging line!
For God! for the Cause! for the Church! for the Laws!
For Charles, King of England, and Rupert of the Rhine!

VI.

The furious German comes, with his clarions and his drums,
His bravoes of Alsatia, and pages of Whitehall;

They are bursting on our flanks. Grasp your pikes, close your ranks,

For Rupert never comes but to conquer or to fall.

VII.

They are here! They rush on! We are broken! We are gone!
Our left is borne before them like stubble on the blast.

O Lord, put forth thy might! O Lord, defend the right!
Stand back to back, in God's name, and fight it to the last.

VIII.

Stout Skippon hath a wound; the center hath given ground; Hark! hark! What means this trampling of horsemen in our

rear?

Whose banner do I see, boys? 'Tis he, thank God! 'tis he, boys. Bear up another minute: brave Oliver is here.

IX.

Their heads all stooping low, their points all in a row,
Like a whirlwind on the trees, like a deluge on the dykes;
Our cuirassiers have burst on the ranks of the Accurst,
And at a shock have scattered the forest of his pikes.

X.

Fast, fast, the gallants ride, in some safe nook to hide
Their coward heads, predestined to rot on Temple Bar;
And he he turns, he flies:-shame on those cruel eyes
That bore to look on torture, and dare not look on war.

LORD MACAULAY.

is more or less a mystery and a surprise. We go out in the morning, and no thrush or finch is to be heard; we go out again, and every tree and grove is musical; yet again, and all is silent. Who saw them come? Who saw them depart?

2. This pert little winter-wren, for instance, darting in and out the fence, diving under the rubbish here and coming up yards away,-how does he manage with those little circular wings to compass degrees and zones, and arrive always in the nick of time? Last August I saw him in the remotest