Ligonier Banner., Volume 14, Number 20, Ligonier, Noble County, 4 September 1879 — Page 7

Che Ligonier Bammer, .L‘IG;O;\TI.ER, '-.;Edit:o :m: régi;:mA.‘

: s KNITTING, : - Kxtrrine gayly in the sunshine, While the fragrant blossoms blow, And the light winds stir-the petals . Till they fall like flakes of snow; *. “Laughing gladly, glancing shyly i At the lover by her side— . . Saucy dimples, coy confessions, All a maiden’s love and pride; ‘ Weaving in with skillful fingers = - , . ._Girlish fancies, pure desires, While the brightness of the future . Flashes through the twinkling wires; And a young heart’s fond ambitions, Tender hopes and golden dreams Deepen as the sunlight deepens, With its thousand darts and gleams. Krnitting silent in the shadows; With a droopm%. weary head, Gazing out into the twmgﬁht. - , . -Whence the life and light had fled; Moving nerveless, languid fingers, Striving to b@ bright in vain, . And to still the heart’s wild flutter, Throbbing in its mighty pain; . ‘Working through the silky texture _ All a woman’s anguished fears, Looking out on past and future - Through a mist of' burning tears. Knitting patient in the twilight; . .. Quiet bearing all her woe, . While the roses shed their petals In a fragrant summer snow. Knitting fiercely, in the anguish . . Of a buruing, fiery strife; - / Or quietly in the sunlight . " Of a calm heart’s bappy life. Knitting heavily and slowly, v *_ln lite’s last fitful hours; Or skillfully and gayly, ph Among the summer flowers, : Weaving in a glorious future, Of a soul’s dumb aching pain, ‘With the memory of pleasuyes . That will never come again—Thus a woman'’s life is bounded ' _ By the humbie, daily task; Meekly taking up her burden, . - Pausing not to strive or ask. - Ah! how many hearts beside us, : © _ Were we not so worldly wise, : Might we see in gentle moments, Looking oat from wistful eyes; And how often, did we listen, : ; : 'Neath a gay and laughing tone, Could we hear the bitter yearning' Of a strong heart’s restless moan. : : —Chambers’ Journal.

e s~ e JACK’S GREAT PERIL. - A Startling Story of a Railroad Adventure. I NEVER saw such a change in a man in my life! When we last met, Jack—well, I must not give his real name, considering vghat I am going to relate, so I'll call him Jack Pallant--was, as he had ever been since I knew him, one of the lightest-hearted, cheeriest fellows in the world, full of fun, and up toreverything, and gentle and tender as a woman, with the courage of a lion. And now, what did I find him? Even though but thrée months had elapsed, he had become a grave, dejected, saddened man—in a word, hardly recognizable, either mentally or physically. 1 was - shocked, and of course he saw that 1 was. He came to see me, indeed, the moment he heard I was in town, that I might learn from his own mouth what had happened, instead of at second-hand. , Jack had always been -more or less a spoiled boy—only sons are always more or less spoiled—and, having lost his mother when quite a child, it was not wonderful that his poor old dad made much of him.. But he had taken the spoiling kindly, and beyond making him perhaps a little idle and thoughtless, it had done him no harm. There was no harm in the fellow; he spent more money than he should, put many young soldiers do that without coming to much grief in the long run, and his father, a soldier before him, re%arded the failing leniently, paid his bills, and . looked. pleasant. Beyond adding that he was a rather short, dapper little. fellow, I need not say much more about him; I have only to try and put into coherent shape the strange and tragical business which had so féarfully altered him.

He was coming to town one autumn evening for a few, days’ leave from Gunnersholt, where he was quartered. I can see him as plainly as if I had been there, springing into: the first carriage that offered room, without rerard to who was in it; for he was the %east fastidious of men, without the s]ightest particle of ‘‘ haw-haw Eride and nonsense, or that stand-offishness of manner, too usual with men in his position; ready to make himself happy wherever he was, or in whatever company. e .

But it so happened, it appears, on this occasion that he got into an empty carriage; at least he thought so, for it was twilight, and he ‘did not observe for the first moment the figure of a woman, seated in a further corner, dressed in dark clothes, and thickly vejled. L : The sudden discovery that he was not alone rather startled him for a moment, and it may be, as he said, that the evening before having been a guest night at mess, his nerves were not quite up to their usual tone. He was not the lad, however, to be long in such a situation without making some, remark to his fellow-traveler, though in this case an unusual hesitation to go so came over him, owing to her mysterious appearance and extreme stillness. The between-lights of the car-riage-lamp and the evening 'sky prevented him from discerning details, but there she sat, perfectly rigid, and with not a vestige of - her face visible ‘through the thick black veil. ’

t¢ Ahem! ahem!’ he said at last, shifting one seat nearer to her and nearly opposite; ‘‘ Ik hope I have not intruded on you; I thou%ht the carriage was empty. I mag be disturbing you, I fear.”” He would say any thing in a random sort of way, to break the ice, as he called it. : ‘ ; ‘No ariswer. A long pause. *Very singular,”’ he thought; and he moved to a seat exactly opposite the ﬁg;n'e, making another commonplace observation. No response or any movement. : :

‘« Asleep, I suppose,’’ he said 10 himself; and he sat quietly watching her while the train rattled on for a mile or two. A station was reached and a stoppage made, with the usual accompaniments of screech, and whistling, and slamming of doors, but without producing any change in the posture of the occupant of the opposite corner. ‘The train again moved on. “Can’tbe asleep,” he muttered, ¢ What's the matter with her?’ . : The window ‘was shut close; he let it

down with a temendous eclatter and bang, remarking that ‘“he hoped, as the evening was fine, the weather warm and the carriage close (for he declared to me there was a peculiar odor hanging about which struck him from the first), ‘‘she would not object to a little o . :

Still no reply. Then he said, ¢he feared she was not well; would she like hin: to pull the bell for the guard and have the train stopped again?’ But nothing he could say or do elicited any sign of life from her. - Jack now became seriously uncomfortable and alarmed on her account. He thought she could not be asleep, but had fainted. Suddenly it crossed his mind that she was dead Night had now closed in, but as the last tinge of twilight faded from the sky the carriage lamp gained its full power and revealed every object more plainly than hitherto. - ‘ ~ Jack leaned toward the motionless form. A long black veil, falling from a close-fitting hat-like bounet, enveloped nearly the whole upper part of her figure; indeed, on close inspection, it hardly looked like an ordinary veil, but more like a large black silk handkerchief. Her dress was of common black stuff, much worn and frayed, from amid the folds of which appeared the ends of a piece of rope that must have been fastened around her waist; and one hand, incased in an old ill{ittizug black glove, lay placidly on her ap.- , | Full of uncomfortable sensations, Jack was about to lift the veil, when, for the first time, the figure moved; its other hand stole slowly from beneath the folds of the dress, and the veil was gradually lifted and thrown up over the head. - .

Involuntarily my friend shrank back into the corner of his seat, for a face was - revealed to him which no one could have looked upon without a sense of awe. It was that of a woman somewhat past middle age, thin, haggard and pale to a degree which only death could parallel. The features, finely chiseled and proportioned, showed that at one time there must have been supreme beauty; while, though the irongray hair looked a little disheveled and unkempt, the glance of the eye was steady, calm and determined. - In this glance lay, chiefly, the aweinspiring expression of the face, for, in addition to the penetrating look, there was a persistency in it, and at the same time a fascination quite terrible. It fixed itself upon Jack from the first moment that eye met eye, and for several minutes not a word was spoken on either side. Presently, however, he tried to pull himself tbgether, and to assume his usual light-hearted manner, which had thus for 2 minute been so strangely and unusually disturbed, and he said, briskly: - “I beg your pardon; I was afraid you were ill.”’ -

* She slightly bent her head, but spoke not a work nor withdrew her glance. He felt. more and more that it was costing him an effort to be himself. Her slow, stealthy, albeit lady-like demeanor added greatly to the effect already produced, and a curious sensation was gradually creeping over him, that—impossible as it might seem—that face was not strange to him. Little as he, with his temperament, was given to speculation or introspection, he found himself striving to look back for some event or circumstance in. his life which might give him a clew. Had he ever dreamed of such a face, or had he seen it in childhood? He was' puzzled, affected, quite put out. And still the deep, penetrating eyes were fixed on his, piercin%l, as it were, into his very soul. And the hands!— what were they doing? Taking off the gloves as with a set, deliberate purpose; and the long, white, thin, almost claw-like fingers worked strangely and nervously, slowly closing and opening upon the palm, as if preparing to grasp something. | ' Again he strove to throw off the unpleasant, unusual sensation which had crept over him. ‘ ' ‘“I can’t stand this,”’ he thought; I was never so uncomfortable in my life! I must do something or say something to put a stop to this, to make her take her eyes off me!” He moved abruptly to the further corner of the carriage, and to the same side on which the woman sat. ¢“Ill try and dodge her in that way,” he said to himselt; ¢¢she shall not sit and glare at me in this fashgont? 0. o But she, too, immediately shifted her place, and, risi;ng, to' her full height, which was very gxéeat, went over to the seat exactly opposite to. him, never for one single second dropping her eyes from his. - He looked out of the window with a vague notion of getting out of the carriage; when, suddenly, passing a little station which herecognized, but at which the train did not stop, an idea struck him—an idea after his own heart—a comic idea! He availed himself of it on the instant, and assuming an ease which :i‘oubtless sat ill upon him, and which he was far from feeling, he ;})lointed' with his thumb back toward the station they had just passed, as he said mysteriously, in-a hollow voice: :

‘Do you know that place?”’ : She seemed to answer in the affirmative by a slight inclination of the head, as before. ‘ “Ah! you do. Good! Longmoor!”’ he went on; ¢ then I don’t mind telling you a secret.”” He paused. (“I'll fri%hten ber,”” he thought.) ‘¢“Criminal lunatics,” he said aloud; “[ am one of them. I have just escaped from there!” He leaned forward, as if to impress her with his words; she also bent forward until her lips almost touched his ear, as she hissed into 1t: L ¢ So have I!” ~ With what had already gone before, this' put the finishing touch to Jack’s uneasiness of mind.- It was not, as he said, the mere presence of the woman, or ‘the revelation which his joke had elicited, which scared him, though the circumstance ‘in’ itself might' be unpleasant enough, o - “I should have faced it right away from the first, as any man would have done, had it not been for the remarkable influence her face and look had upon me; that unaccountable feeling t]fat she was no stranger to me, it was that unnerved and even appalled me."

No sooner had she uttered the words, “So have 1.”” than Jack sprang to the cord communicating with the guard’s van, for he felt their truth, andg saw in them a key to the whole mystery. But, ere his hand had reaehed the cord, she had seized him round the waist with one arm as with the grip of a vise, and at the same instant he felt one of those terrible hands at his throat. : Every effort to release himself was fruitless; her strength seemed superhuman, and was as far beyoad his as was her stature. Her face glowered close down upon his now, still with the same fell expression.

¢“The only thing’ I could have done,” went on Jack, in describing the scene to me—and just here heshall speak for himself; ‘¢ the only means by which I might perhaps have made her relax her hold would have been by aiming oneor two tremendous blows with my right fist (which was at liberty) at her face. Had it been a man’s, there would have been no hesitation; had it been, indeed, that of an ordinary woman, at such a pass I should not have hesitated to strike her, to stun her, if I could, by any means; but that face, that I seemed to know so well, yet 86 mysteriously, I Bould not raise my hand against it, and, as my arm ‘swung up with the first inpulse to deal her a blow, it fell helpless by my side. Vain were my efforts to get her hand awav from my throat; there was a terrible swaying to and fro for a minute or two; I felt the grip of the long fingers tightening, and myself choking. Suddenly we fell, the whole carriage seemed to be falling—there was a fearful jerk or two, a strange upheaving of the floor, a tremendous rattle anf crash—l appeared to be thrown headlong to some great distance, and—all was darkness!”’ ' The-termination of thatdeadly struggle was brought about in a manner as marvelous and unlooked-for as could well have been imagined. : Some fifty souls, say, were traveling in that train, all save one in perfect security. Jack’s life alone was in danger, when, lo! by one of those marvelous coincidences which do happen at times in the supreme moments of existence, the rescue came, but at the cost of many a life, which just before would have seemed worth treble the purchase of Jack’s. :

At the very instant that his might have depended upon another tightening grip or two from the hand of a maniac a frightful catastrophe occurred to the train. The tire of an engine wheel broke, and half a dozen carriages were hurled down a steep embankment. The scene that succeeded is, unhappily, of too common an' occurrence to need more than a word of reference here. Seven passengers were killed outright; double that number 'slightly or-badly hurt; the remainder escaping, as by a miracle, with nothing 'else than a severe shak.inf. e ‘ My friend was among the shaken. He had been thrown clear of the debris on to a soft grassy spot, half-bank, half-hedge; emphatically, Ais life was saved! : But what followed it was that which caused the suffering, that which wrought the terrible change in Jack. _ln the darkness of that soft autumn night he strove, foremost among those who had been spared, to render such help as was possible to the less fortunate. When the official assistance came, and fires wereset blazing to give light, almost his first care was to try and seek out his dangerous fellowtraveler. In the confusion nobody was prepared, of course, to listen to J);ck’s account of her, even had he been pre-. pared then to give it. She was not, evidently, moving about among the crowd; he assured himself of that; but supposing her, like himself, to have escaped injury (and he concluded that this was likely), might she not, with the stealth and cunning incidental to her malady, be hiding, .and by thus further eluding detection become, with her homicidal mania, as dangerous to the community at large as some fierce, wild animal would be? The thought made him shudder; he must lose no time in assﬁng himself of her fate. As soon -8 an approach to order could be evolved out of that awful chaos, hé had cofivinced ,himself that she was not among the injured. Then he turned to the dead. His eye fell upon several mutilated and motionless forms which had been laid in an omiuous row at the foot of one part of the embankment. - Hers was not among them; he could find no trace of her.

At length, as a sickly dawn was beginning to make the search easier, he endeavored to discover -the spot where the carriage he had occupied had fallen, and to retrace his steps (quite to the rear of the train, by the way,) to the place where he found himself lying after the catastrophe. By this time he had made known briefly to some officials that a woman was iissing who had been in the carriage with him, and one or two of them followed him in his quest. Presently he realized pretty well where he had been thrown; he all but identi~ fied the spot. Then he scrambled through the hedge, and there, on the opposite side, ‘on the sloping bank of a ditch, he beheld, lying quite' still, her dark, unmistakable form.

He ran forward, and, bending over her and looking down upon the marble, upturned face, saw at a glance that there was nothing dangerous about her now—those terrible eyes were closed forever! Except fora sli%ht wound on one temple, whenee a little blood had trickled, and the distorted, but now rigidly closed hand, which had been so lately at his throat, she looked as calm and uninjured as if she were merely sleeping, while death had restored for a brief period much of that beauty, the traces of which had struck him when her veil was first lifted.

One of the surgeons here came hurryiné up in answer to summons. ““Good heavens!” he exclaimed, ‘“here she is, then, at last! Why, she must have been in the train? How on earth did she ma.nage e ‘“ Who is she?’ inquired Jack, earnestly, with a strange return of the old, inexplicable sensation. ‘ Who is she? You appear to know her. Pray tell me.”’ ‘ : :

*‘Oh, one of our inmates; she got away ﬁesterday morning, no one knows how,” was the reply. “You are from Longmoor, then.

How long has she been there? 'What is her name?”? i : ¢¢ Oh, she has been there upward of twenty years, I believe; long before my fime.” A ! ; ¢« And her name?’ ¢ 4 * Upon my word, at this moment, I can hardly,” went on the doctor, mechanically passing his ﬁn§ers over one of the pulseless wrists before him, and with a calm hesitation, which contrasted strongly with Jack’s earnest, impetuous manner, ‘“I can hardly remember. I think she was committed for the murder of her own little ﬁirl. It was a sad case, I know. Ah! her name; I have it,"’ went on the doctor, suddenly; ¢ her name was Pallant—Rachel Pallant.?’

Jack sprang from the kneelin posture in which he was, as if he haﬁ been shot. Why, that was his own dead mother’s name! But, pshaw! what of that? Well, it was rather a startling coincidence; that wasall! Ay, but was it all? Indeed, no. v The inquest led to arevelation. That inquiry fully explained what had been the nature of the influence which the weird pale face and strange presence had had upon my friend. =~ - The strong but subtle link which no time or absence can quite sunder existing between mother and son had made itself felt the instant those two sat face to face, for the unhappy woman was indeed none other than Jack’s own mother! - : E

He had never been told; in fact, it had: been carefully kept from him. Why run the risk of clouding for life that bright and happy temperament? He was only four years old when the dreadful business happened; hence, he had scarcely known a mother’s care —she was lost to him, to the world, as completely as if she had died. Nay, death would have been a mercy by comparison, and it was generally assumed that she was dead; only a few very intimate friends knew the truth.

The poor lady’s mind had given way suddenly after the birth of a child, which did not live. Within a week the homicidal mania possessed her; by the merest chance she had been prevented from committing some frightful outrage wupon her Tittle boy., my poor friend Jack; and restraint not having been put upon her in time—for her malady had hardly been suspected, so unlooked for was its appearance—she consummated her deadly propensity upon her eldest child, a girl fifteen years of age—Kkilled her, in a word, as she lz:,iy asleep. : . r And here, after a lapse of twenty years, was the climax and end of the tragedy, as dreadful as anything that had gone before. The order for release, when it came, brought with it as much suffering (to all but one) as had the order for captivity. No wonder that Jack was an altered man. I have never seen a smile on his face since —though I trust that time, with its bealing influence, msay at least soften the blow. .

An Enraged Mother and a Pair of Fleeing Lovers. ‘

QUITE an amusing scene yesterday afternoon was afforded to' the residents on Broadway, in the vicinity of-the Postoffice, East St. Louis. It appears Louis Arnodt and Kate Bartel live in South St. Louis, and for some time have been courting, though opposed by the young lady’s mother, Mrs. Bartel. They finally eoncluded to get married, and as they could not well do so ‘in South St. -Louis without the mother’'s knowledge, the couple decided to come to East St. Louis and have the ceremony performed. They therefore arranged matters and quietly proceeded to th(f bridge, crossed in the streetcars, and hoped in a few moments to be united as man and wife.. But in this they were for a time, at least, disappointed. After Louis and his betrothed had left South St. Louis some indiscreet, or discreet, as the case may be, friend imparted the secret to Mrs.. Bartel, who at once became greatly enraged at the action of her daughter, and forthwith put on her hat, grasped an umbrella, and followed after the matrimonially-inclined couple. She traced them to the bridge, across to East St. Louis, and’ as she a%proached Wider’s drug store; on Broadway, she saw ahead of her ‘the young lady and gentleman in whom she was just then greatly interested. As she espied her daughter and him who was anxious to become her son-in-law she quickened her pace. The couple, who were leisurely walking, discussing their immediate future, hearing a quickened and rather heavy tramping behind them, looked around, and were greatly surprised to see so close to them the one they had plotted to elude, at least until the ceremony was over. The daughter uttered an exclamation of surprise, shrieked, started on a run, Louis following them, and Mzs. Bartel closely Jpursuing them. This performance attracted a large crowd, who knew not what it wag about, but were interested in its outcome. - 'The three had a lively race for some distance, but the mother caught the daughterin front of Bassion’s grocery store, and here ensued a scene which, though unpleasant to the daughter - and her intended, ap-, peared to be relished by the congregated crowd. The mother caught Katie by the clothing and commenced. beating her with the umbrella and berat-' ing her. Katie .would occasionally elude the mother’s _E‘ias_p,”but only for. a moment, when the umbrella wounld again be descending. upon the poor’ irl’s head and baek. Itis said that %ouis attempted to save his affianced, but the umbrella was a preventive, and the girl had to beat the infliction ‘until that article fell to pieces. The: girl now got away, ran in through the store, out at the rear, around several old dwellinﬁs, -and finally left the moth‘er at sea, she having lost the trail. Be--yond the Cairo Short Line Railroad the ~couple again met, walked over the Indianapolis & St. Louis trestlework to the river, crossed on the ferry to St. Louis; and, it is said, there took the Spread Eagle boat for “Alton, where it is - suppﬁmﬁ , t!ﬁr will - ,‘ly@léf@cﬁ“ that which the old lady so ruthlessly interfered with in East St. Louis. “The mother was considerably nonplussed, and, after a vain search, left in an angry mood for St. Louis, "agparentlﬂ conviriced that Louis Arnodt, despite a her endeavors to the contrary, will be her son-in-law.—B¢. Louis Republican.

2,33 ' ¢ £ Youths’> Department. *“GOUD-BY! VACATION IS OVER!® Ox, so much to say good-by to, when the summer goesaway! i| - : ; : The sweet, glad days of simmer that cannot * _longer stay! - G Good-by to fair green meadows all starred with - - daisies white, = : Ard the dgnit_wggul nodding ferns, and grasses tall _and light, < s And bligiercups 80 golden, beneath the summer 2 s L ; 1 : 5 v ¥ Round which the yellow butterflies so. lazily would fly; : 3 . c A And oh! the clover blossom, sweet as the new- . made hay, ; - Where bees would gather honey the livelong .. bappy day. e . ek Good-by to shady woodland, and little mounCtdinagdl, ) oo v In sha.czﬁ\{v or in sunshine its own song singing And to the stately trees where the birdies build . their nest, ; , And the leaves so softly rustle to lull them to their rest; L And all the sweet, wild roses that in the hedges grow, o And the fragrant blessom hiding in cool, green grass below; ; : To meadow brooks and mill-ponds, to orchard. and to lane, : : We sadly bid good-by till the summer comes again. : But the barns, the fragrant barns, with doors set open wide ! To welcome summer’s harvest, and the boys and girls beside. Oh! the childish shouts and laughter, the glee-' ful calls which rang | - o Through every stoat old rafter, as from beam o ' beam theysprang! ~ : / But alas! Good-by, old barn, for vacation time is o’er, . Good-by to beam and rafter, and old grainsprinkled floor! _ N To all the dear sweet hours beneath the sum.met’s sky, . , To birds and fields and blossoms, we sadly bid good-by! ! : —Youth's Companion.

GRETELEIN AND HER QUEER : STOVE, ‘ FAR off, over the blu\gxal waters, there is a queer little house, in a queer little German town. In.this house there is a very strange tall stove; a stovenearly as high as a man, made of white porcelain, girdled with bands of brass which shine like burnished gold when the stream of eastern sunshine gleams through the small-paned window. In this house there lives a large family of children, with a dear father and mother to watch over them—Gretelein, Marie, Fritz and baby Lizette. Gretelein was an odd young girl, with great, wide blue eyes, and two little yellow plaits of hair hanging straight down her back and tied with blue ribbons.

One day, Gretelein was left alone in the family room, where the norcelain stove was. She looked cautiously around to see that nobody was peeping through the windows, then she cregt; softly on tip-toe to the stove and suddenly opened a little door in the upper part and peered = into a sort of little oven. It was all of white porcelain, and looked like a cunning little white room. Many times before had Gretelein crept up to this stove and peered into her fairy house, as she called it; but it was always empty and silent as now. - So Gretelein turned away with g sigh, her blue eyes wider and more wistful than ever. e :

. The next evening, when it was almost dusk, Gretelein sat on a little wooden chair close to the window, trying to finish a pair of woolen socks for the dear father’s birthday. No one else was in the room, and Gretelein often turned toward the tall stove, standing like a ghost in the pale light. 1t was growing too dark to see, the busy click of her needles stopped, and Gretelein leaned back in her chair to rest. Suddenly a soft noise attracted ber notice; it sounded like the whirring of many wings. Quickly she stole across the floor, crept up to the stove, and with a quick motion opened the little porcelain door. What a strange si%ht met Gretelein’s gaze!—a sight which made her eyes open wider than ever before, and her breath came thick and fast through her startled lips. There, in. the silent white chamber, thronged a restless mass of little people, each no bigger than her finger. Before Gretelein could recover, the tallest and handsomest of these little elves fluttered through the open door, alighting upon Gretelein's shoulder.’ ‘fWel%, Gretelein,”’ shrilled the little man, *‘ you have found us at last.” : She started so violently as the little elf spoke, that he nearly lost his balance, and clutched at her dress to keep from falling. HEL She was dreadfully frightened, and was on the peint of running away; she did wish some one would come in; she: thought she would never go mnear this: dreadful stove a%‘ain. -~ How could she have been so foolish as to wateh for fairies, and to wish that she could see them! 4 ‘4

““You are afraid of us,”’ squeaked the little man. < You fooligh child, don’t you know 'we lived in this house and this stove long before you were born—before your mother and father were born??’ G ¢« How could you live so long and not grow abit?”’ ventured Gretelein, under her bragths.. » 4.0 vty o 4 : ““We had something else to. do—we have t 0 make everybody else grow; we are your household elves; we work, oh, how hard we do work over you, even at night; we have to rack our' poor brains to supply you with dreams; you are such ah unreasenable set, you mortals, that you hiave to'be amused even when you are asleep! Here, Dreams, wake up! It is almost night, time to b,be%in WOTIG T i Srition L gt Ba D A . Two drowsy little elves rolled from an obscure corner, and sat . up rubbi their, ayes; one K was a d_rea.mysfac];lg, fair-haired little fellow, the other looked in' o''surly way from undér a pair-of black brows. He had a strangei white, terrified look, and ¢rept timidly behind his brother. ' .«

| *These;" ' said the i elf-king, * are Dream and Nightmare, starting out.on their(,ni%ht,’s Woßks. oora o Gretelein, ‘'was next. attracted to a lively group lin a corner. Foremost among them stood the queerest little maan, with such a comical twist to his mouth, and black merry eyes, that Gretelein laughed in spité of herself. s That,” said the elf-king, *isJokes, and that little chap next to him ‘is’ Laughter, and after s%resm' and Night-/ mare are through with you, before your ‘eyes are fairly opened; Jokes jumps ‘into your ear, and La.ufghte,r. perches ‘himself in the corners of your mouth, and such a whisk as he gives it. The little fellow hiding bebind there, looking rather ashamed, is Mischief. . But sometimes that scowling group in the

other corner get ahead of this one. That little imp no bigger than your thumb-nail is - Cross-patch. He is dreadfully troublesome and hard to get -rid.of, when he once. fastens .on you.” {‘He fastened on Marie, yesterday,’” said Gretelein, ‘‘and I .ought not to have blamed her so much, for after all it was not her fault, but that little Appigite o el e - “ Hoity, toity! ‘not ‘so fast, little maiden;. if Marie had resclved that Cross-patch should leave, Cross-patch would have to go. None of my elves ever stay where they ‘are not-wanted. Some ‘are more easily frightened off than others.. The uglier the imps are the tighter they hold, but the worst of them can be shaken off. There,'” he continued, ‘“is a. set that are hard to get rid of when once they take hold. That is Jealousy, and that Eavy;that migerable starveling is Selfishness, and that horrid toad is Gluttony.”? : Gretelein shrank in’ dismay from these wretched- little elves, and wondered how anybody could allow them: to fasten on them. :Suddenly Gretelein’s attention was arrested by a radiant little elf floating * above all the others. \ o » b . ¢<Oh, how beautiful, how ‘beautiful he is! Why,” said Gretelein, *my dear motherlooks like him, when she bends to kiss me good-night.”? - ‘¢ That,’’ said the -elf-king, ¢is Love. He stays nearly all the time with the dear mother; he gstrokes her soft cheeks and smooths l& brow; he looks deep into her tender eyes until they shine so blue; he holds her gentle hands and passes them over Gretelein’s eyes when she is sick.” L *“ And the dear little angel who goes hand in hand with Love?” =

_ ‘““He,” said the elf-king, “is called ¥aith.” e E . ““ And those glorious ones?’ asked breathless Gretelein. o ‘“ They are Peace and Joy.”” =~ ¢ Oh, oh, oh!” said Gretelein, ‘“how Ido love them! Will they stay with me, too, these four beautiful ones? She stretched her arms with a ery of entreaty - and—woke “with a great start.. ' ' 0 ' - The supper-bell was ringing, Marie and Fritz were standing in front of her laughing heartily, and the mother with baby Lisette in her arms was smiling down at her. e . Gretelein rubbed her eyes, then, suddenly remembering the fairies, she ran to the stove and looked in. There - was nothing there. = . . *¢Oh, they have gone! ‘they have gone!” said Gretelein, the tears in her eyes. “You have been dreaming,”” said the mother. ‘“Let us go to supper; after that, you can tell us your dreami.? b ons B vl s i Gretelein almost choked over the first mouthfuls, she was so sorry to find it was not really true. 3 SR “ Do tell us about it,”’ said Marie. _ “ Do, Gretelein,” said Fritz. ‘“What did you expect to find in the stove?”’ Gretelein was a brave girl, so she suppressed her own sorrow and told her dream. . & i . . While they were talking, Gretelein sat in a brown study. She presently looked up with a smile. 3 | ‘lt was true, after all,”’ said Greteo, PR ¢ True!” exclaimed Fritz. ¢Do you take me for a dunce? You always were a sillythingthatbelieved in ghosts and fairies. - Girls haven’t a bit of sense!”’ A e Lot ~ ““There is one of them this moment, he is hanging- in the corner of your mouth and wrinkling up your nose,” said Gretelein.© - . : Fritz involuntarily put up his hand. ~ *“Pooh! what nonserse!” - = ‘¢ And little Cross-patch was on the point of making ugly frowns on my forehead only I asked him very politely toganay.’ ; i S The mother smiled down at Gretelein. ' ‘¢ There, there,”’ said Gretelein, ¢is ! that lovely little angel fairy looking from mother’s eyes. Don’t you see him, children? lam glad I had that dream,’”” whispered Gretelein, nestling close to her mother, ¢“even if it isn’t really true.”’ —Rosamond Dale OQwen, tn St. Nicholas: =~ Sl

Rose Terry Cooke’s Experience in Shop-. . ping in New York. Ir you are '‘a shop-girl, be one with all your strength; do not treat the poor creatures who come to buy goods with. such lofty superciliousness as to crush . their hopes and send them ’awag empty. Toomany of this easy and ladylike profession. forget that it is their . duty to sell %dods,, not. to put down : customers. - I never shall forget an experience of mine in New York—only one out of -many. . I went into one of - the two greatest dry-goods shogs intent on buying a gown, and was ushered by a courteous-enough youth.into the la~ dies’, department. Here the scene changed—courtesy did not rise to this, story. There were six or eight elegant, languid creatures behind the counters, who instinctively knew I was from the country and: not likely to be a great purchaser. I was a. little frightened, - but still civil, and quite bent on a cash- ' mere suit, so I ran the gauntlet of these ' demoiselles, being received as an'in- - truder—costumes dusty and shopworn ! pointed out to me on . their pegs with: . an air of . mere sufferance -that at last became quite intolerable; and a general sense of my -ignorance and inconsequence in the eyes,of all this metropolitan elegance, at last drove meout of . the shop, with a vow in. my heart never ; to {rust mdysel_f in that palace again, . . - But I did want K my gown, so in a'. meek and humiliated ‘spirit I entered another less-pretentious Isho%f‘Where I was taken in charge at once by a rosy, ' cheerful . little ' German damsel, who setved me with such alacrity and devo- ° ‘tion, fetching 'everything from every-: where and ¢¢ w{iangibn”’ with such sun- - ny patience, that I bought asuit I did not want at all, old-fashioned; gray instead of black, quite too tighﬁ,;and‘:eﬁde_- i ficient in various ways; but glorified to ‘me for, the: ‘time. being by the bright - ‘and cordial perseverance. of this girl, -}th did haravvo;:k weblédaniit&?n hly. there and ask forﬁms ——; and if ever . 1 want another New York garment L. shall find her out again; though I will: nﬁﬁmmiae to, lgthéi’gg:ﬂmt manner. ‘blind my eyes as it did before.—Sunday Wdfternoony T o Mol