Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 May 1875 — Page 3

BENSSELAETUNION. JAMES k HEALEY, Proprietors. RENSSELAER, - INDIANA.

REGRET. If I had known, O loyal heart, When, hand to hand, we said farewell, How for all time our paths would part, What shadow o’er our friendship fell, I should have clasped your hand so close In the warm pressure of my own, That memory still would keep its grasp, If I had known. If I had known, when, far and wide, We loitered through the summer land, What Presence wandered by our side, And o’er you stretched its awful hand, I should have hushed my careless speech, To listen, dear, to every tone That from your lips fell low and sweet, If I had known. „ . If I Md known, when your kind eyes Met mine in parting, true and sad — Eyes gravely tender, gently wise, And earnest, rather* more than glad— How soon the lids would lie above, As cold and white as sculptured stone, I should have treasured every glance, If I had known. If I had known how, from the strife Of fears, hopes, passions, here below, Unto a purer, higher life That you were called, 0 friend, to go, 1 should have stayed my foolish tears, And hushed each idle sigh and moan, To bid you a last, long Goa-speed, If I’ had known. If I had known to what strange place, What mystic, distant, silent shore, You calmly turned your steadfast face What time your footsteps left my door, I should have forged a golden link To bind the heart so constant grown, And keep it constant ever there, If I had known. If I had known that, until Death Shall with his finger touch my brow, And still the quickening of the breath That stirs with life’s full meaning now, So long ffly feet must tread the way Of. our accustomed paths alone, I should have prized your presence more, If I had known. H I had known how soon for you Drew near the ending of the fight; And on your vision, fair and new, Eternal peace dawned into sight, I should have begged, as love’s last gift, That you, before God’s great white throne, Would pray for your poor friend on earth, If I had known. —Christian Reid, in Appleton's Journal.

ROBERT’S WIFE.

BY T. ANNIE FROST.

“I am so sorry about Uncle James!” There was real sorrow in Robert Franklin’s voice and eyes as he spoke, ana the lady who listened drew her merry, saucy face into dolorous puckers to suit the occasion. “ Because, you see,” continued Robert, “he fancies because you have $20,000 that you are a fine lady, affected and useless, not the wife for a poor farmer.” “We must show him his mistake,” was the reply. “ But he will not see you. He positively forbids your Coming over to the farm.” “ Does—does he know we are married?” “ I have not dared to tell him. Cowardly, is it not? But he is my only relative, and I love him dearly. It is not because he owns the farm and can leave a little money, Daisy ” “ Hush, love, I know,” Daisy answered, putting a soft, white hand over her husband’s lips. “T have had no other father, or mother either, for that matter, in all my life,” continued Robert, “ and if the farm is dreary, it is home.”. “ And you do not like to be banished! Well, if you will keep your promise and send J ane over to see me you shall not be. Now talk of something else. Oh, •how can I let you go for two long months!” For Robert Franklin had undertaken to go in person -to see about some Western lands in which his uncle had invested, and which threatened to involve him in loss. Daisy could not well take the long journey, and besides Daisy had other schemes in her wise little head. Loving Robert well, she resolved to remove the only shadow from his life—the resolute opposition of his uncle to a finelady wife.

Robert Franklin had been gone from the farm three days when his Uncle James yielded most reluctantly to the pangs of his old enemy, chronic rheumatism, and told Jane,jhis only servant, that he must remain in his room. The . old woman answered promptly: “ If you are going to be laid up, Mr. Franklin, X must have some help. I’m getting old, too, sir, and dotting up and down stairs isn’t so easy as it was twenty years ago!” “ But who will come, Jane? Girls are not plenty here, as you know.” “ I’ve a niece, sir, would come to me, though she’s never lived out.” “ Send for her, then, and—oh! nib my leg, will you!” Late in the afternoon a little bustle be-low-stairs told the invalid of the arrival of the niece. She came with one trunk in a wagon from the railway station, and, standing in the wide, dreary-looking kitchen, looked a picture of healthful beauty. Soft brown curls gathered in a rich knot lett little crinkly ringlets on forehead and caressing the round white throat; large brown eyes lighted a sweet, fair face, and the neat dress of blue woolen covered a dainty figure. “Will you go up-stairs, Miss ?” Jane hesitated. “Margaret!” said the new-comer; “ don’t call your niece Mias, whatever you do. My name is Margaret. Has Mr. Franklin had his supper?” “ Not yet. There’s his dinner, you s&e, scarcely tasted." Margaret looked at the big tray, the blue plate with food heaped upon it, the two-pronged fork and haif-soi led napkin, and did not wonder at the neglected food. “ Show me where things are and I will get the supper,” she said. Jane led her from closet to closet. In one was a set of gilt-edged china, some fine table linen, tableauver and glass. “ Those were bought thirty years ago,” Jane whispered, “when Mr. Franklin expected to be married. She died and thev’ve never been used. ” With her pretty face saddened by the hidden tragedy of those few words Margaret took a small tray from the shelf, and covering it with a snowy napkin selected what she wanted from the closet and went again to the kitchen. James Franklin, weary with the effort to hold a book in his aching hands, was now sitting in a deep arm-chair musing when Margaret tapped at the door. “ Come in!” • But he started as she obeyed. Such a

sweet, bright face was new in the dismal old farm-house, strongly in contrast with the bare, meager room and desolate air surrounding her. “I have brought your supper,” she said, drawing a little table near to the arm-chair and covering it with a white cloth. Then, going tq the door, she entered again with a tray. Upon a white china dish was half a chicken, delicately browned, a potato roasted in the ashes and a slice of buttered toast; and beside this a delicate cup full of fragrant tea. “You must not scold if I have anything wrong,” said a clear, sweet'voice, “ because Aunt Jane is too busy to look after me. I cleaned the fork and spoon, for silver gets dreadfully black”—then more tenderly, as she marked the painful effort to move the tortured fingers—- “ Let me cut the chicken, sir.” Grimly wondering, the old man suffered himself to be fed, finding appetite as the well-prepared food was eaten, and listening well pleased to the cheery voice so unfamiliar in his lonely life. “Jane,” Margaret said, setting down the tray in the kitchen again, “I don’t wonder he is sick. No carpet, no curtains, that great hearse of a bed, and nothing pretty near him.” “ It’s all clean," said Jane. “Clean as wax, but oh! so doleful. Can’t we fix up a cosy room?” “ There’s rooms enough. Six on that floor,” said Jane, “ and none used but the one Mr. Franklin’s in, and Mr. Robert’s the little one next to it.” “ Well, we’ll see to-morrow. Can I have a man to send to town if I want anything?” “ There’s men enough. Will you sleep down here to-night, or in one of the rooms up-stairs??” “ Down here in the room next yours.” “ It’s all ready. ITI-go up now and make Mr. Franklin comfortable for the night” — : = “Comfortable!” Margaret said, ingBut the next morning, after putting a tempting breakfast before the invalid, Margaret selected the vacant bedroom she meant to beautify for his use. It was large, with four windows, light and cheerful, and well suited to her purpose. In the intervals of directing Jane, sending the man to town with her orders and giving her own dainty touch to everything Margaret visited the invalid, reading to him, chatting with him, and making the long hours fly by. It was late in the afternoon when she came in to say: “ Mr. Franklin, the room across the hall has a southern exposure, and I think you will find it more comfortable than this one. Will you try to get there if Aunt Jane and I help you?” “ I’m very well here.” “ But you will be better there. Please come.”

So he yielded, but once fairly in the room could not repress a cry of amazement. Softly-carpeted, white-curtained, a bright fire crackling in the stove, a dainty supper spread upon the table, the room was cosy and cheery enough to coax a smile from the grimmest lips. Yet when James Franklin sank into the bright, chintz-covered easy-chair and looked around him everything was strangely familiar. That was the parlor carpet, taken from the never-opened room below, those were the parlor curtains, freshly ironed and starched and held back with knots of broad ppink ribbon. The bed, bureau, wardrobe, chairs, all were his own, polished till they shone again. The snowy bed-linen, the white counterpane, the bureau covers with their knotted fringe were all his sister’s work, stored away in chests since she died, long, long years ago. Even the chintz on the chair was part of some old curtains he had stuffed away in a longforgotten corner of a closet. “ It is very comfortable, and you are a good, thoughtful girl,” he said, looking round with a keen appreciation of the added comfort. “I wonder we never thought of using these things.” “ Now let me read the rest of our book to you. 1 have some new periodicals in my trunk if you will look at them.” The days flew by, cold weather strengthening, till Robert wrote he was coming home one chill January day. Margaret had been busy for a fortnight before in the lower part of the house, but Mr. Franklin asked no questions: He had been very ill, but was recovering, so that he hoped to welcome Robert in the sitting-room. How he shrank from returning to its dreariness and sending Mafgaret away, he told no one till he held his nephew’s hand fast clasped in his own.

“ I can never tell you, Robert,” he said then, “ what Margaret has been to me. No daughter could have tended me mere patiently and faithfully, and when I could listen she read to me, and talked as pleasantly as if I were a companion to her, instead of a grumpy old bachelor past sixty.” “ I am glad you have been well cared for,” Robert said, turning his head to hide a merry twinkle in his eyes; “ you look very fine here!” But when he carefully led the old man to the sitting-room, both stood amazed. Was the handsomely-carpeted, cheer-fully-furnished room the dreary old place in which they had been so well contented? While they wondered a new sound greeted them —the tones of a piano touched by skilled fingers, and a voice sweet and clear singing a song of welcome. Throwing open a door to disclose a beautifully-furnished parlor, Robert saw also a little figure on the piano stool, clad in a shining black silk, with soft lace and pretty jewelry to adorn it. “ Margaret !” Uncle James cried. But Robert said softly: “Margaret Franklin, Uncle James. Daisy, my wife!” Then she came forward with shining eyes. -—■■ “ I wanted to make you love me,” she said in a low, tender voice, “ for Robert’s sake!” “ And for your own,” he answered; “ but lam bewildered, my dear. Where did these fine things come from?” “ From my old home. They are all mint, and you will let them stay here, will you not, for our new home?” she added, shyly slipping her hand into Rob ert’s. “ I don’t want to take Robert from you. Uncle James, when he is all you have to love, but, if you will give me a place here too I will try to- be a good daughter to you.” “ Give you a place here!” the old man cried; “I think no greater grief could come to me now, Margaret, than the thought of losing you. God ever bless you, child! for lew at your 'age would have cared to so kindly overcome ah obstinate old man’s stupid prejudices.” “ Thank you,” she whispered, touching her lips to his for the first lime; “you have made me very happy.” \ And as she presided over thelarefullyappointed table in a cosily-furnished

dining-room Uncle James had used for spare harness and bags of grain, but which was transformed beyond recognition, there was no cloud on the brightness of the face of Robert’s wife.

RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL.

—At present about 20,000 children in the schools of New York are studying German. —There are * thirty-eight agricultural colleges in this country, employing alto•gether 889 professors and assistants, and instructing 3,917 students. —lt is stated that 20,000 Alaska Indians living along the coast are asking for ministers and teachers, and offer to build churches and school-houses at their own expense. —The Presbyterian Synod of North Carolina has, in forty-seven years, increased from forty-five to ninety-four ministers, from 112 to 206 churches and from 6,052 to 15,453 communicants. —Bishop M’Tyeire enforces the importance of reverence in the Sundayschool with the remark of Mme. Necker: “ Religion will never assume its most sacred aspect to young people unless the very teaching of it is a mode of worship.” —A class of fifty-nine colored adults were confirmed by Bishop Gross, in St. Benedict’s Catholic Church, Savannah, Ga., and six colored women received the white veil at the hands of the Bishop at the same time. They become Sisters of St. Joseph’s. —There are 400 religious journals in the United States. The Methodists have 47, the largest number; then come the Catholics, who number 41; the Baptists, 35; the Presbyterians, 29; the Episcopalians, 21; Lutherans, 14; German Reformed, 14; Jews, 9, and Congregationalists, 8.

—The contributions of Lafayette Avenue Church, Brooklyn, for religious and benevolent objects during the last fifteen years have amounted to $233,900. For sustaining their own church they have raised $264,500. Two other church organizations have gone out from them within the same period. —The Methodists of Chicago and vicinity have purchased a tract of land on the lake shore, north of the city, for the purpose of relocating their camp-grounds from Desplaines. The grounds are expected to be for the Northwest what Sea Cliff and Ocean Grove are to New York, and what Martha’s Vineyard is to New England. —The revival at San Francisco still progresses with unabated interest. More than 1,500 names have been subscribed to the covenant, many. of them young men just entering active life. At a recent converts, meeting 500 were present and took part. In addition to the regular church services out-door meetings are frequently held; jails and other public institutions are visited, and the whole city seems moved. —The whole number of children in the public schools of New Hampshire in 1874 was about 69,178. The average number was 47,275. There is a decrease since 1850 of about 10,000 in the whole number. The amount of money raised by taxation for the support of schools in the State in 1874 was more than double that raised at the former date. The annual reports seem to show that children are taken from school at an earlier age than formerly, and that this evil is increasing year by year. —The matter of making the eldership rotary in the Presbyterian Church, instead of a life-service, may be considered as settled. The Presbyterians are sending their answers overwhelmingly in favor of it. Already many of the churches have arranged their elderships on the rotary plan, and it has been found to work well. The old plan had its merits, but was open to the objection that elders would in the course of time become so aged as to be little better than monuments of services performed in past years.

That Detroit Justice and the Plumber.

“ The old man’ll give it to him heavy!” whispered a boy.as a young man named Hopkins came out o£ the corridor. “He’ll hash him right up!” saida second. * , “ He’ll make a clothes-line of him in just a minute!” put in a third. The young man was a plumber and it was a case of drunkenness. He seemed to feel his approaching doom, and as he toed the mark he said: “Judge, if you’ll let me off I’ll jump this town in ten minutes.” “ Listen, prisoner at the bar,” replied the Court. “ You were drunk, and you are a plumber. Last winter my waterpipe busted and I ran for a plumber. He said he would come right up and fix it, but he let the water gush into my po-tato-bin all day long and never came near. I called upon another, and he swore by the horn spoon that he’d have a man there by seven in the mqrning. No man appeared. I called upon another and he also failed me. A fourth came and shut the water off, left it that way for a week, and the fifth one found the pipes frozen! For eleven long weeks, Charles Hopkins, I’ve had to carry water to wash or go without a clean shirt. I’ve bought ice, melted snow, treasured cold tea as you would gold, and the plumbers still deceive me. Think of an aged man like me being compelled to wash my face in a teacupful of water and to stagger through alleys and backyards with a tub oh my shoulder. If you are a plumber you are like the rest, and if I had the power I’d send you to jail for 5,000 years, i’ll make it three months as you’re a stranger, but I really feel consciencestricken for not putting on a greater punishment.” , The prisoner tried to conceal his occupation, but not being successful he cheerfully accepted the sentence and took the head seat on the saw-horse. —Detroit Free Preaa.

—There is a widow living seven miles northwest of Houston, Tex., with the very appropriate name of Mary Ann Thrift, who makes all the shoes of her father’s family, consisting of eight onten persons, and not one of them has spent a single dime for shoes or boots in live years. She also makes a good hand at cooking, washing, sewing and working hi the held. __ —A veteran shopkeeper says that, although his clerks are very talkative during the day, they are always ready to shut up at night, > The mills at Lewiston, Me., supply employment to 8,544 operatives and produce annually manufactured products to the value of 410,000,000. \ , —How to make hens lay—tie their legs.

Our Young Folks. ' THE CARELESS BOT. BY GEORGE COOPER. Lost! a funDy little fellow, Cheeks of red and hair of yellow'. Send a crier through the town, J Cry him all day,' up and down! These the features in the ease: He never put things in their place. He threw his hat upon the floor; He hung his jacket ou the door; His books—but all his faults why tell? The consequence we know too well. Let anyone do just as he did, Then find the article that’s needed. Vexation followed him each day Because of this untidy way. The birdies twitted him in song, And chirruped as he came along: “ You’re a queer, untidy blade! Eggs of ours are not mislaid. How would we fall in disgrace If our nest we should misplace?” Flowers and leaves upon the tree Whispered: “Look, how orderly! Method see at every turn.” Spite of this he would not learn. Thus from bad to worse he passed— He mislaid himself at last. Lost! a funny little fellow, Cheeks of red and hair of yellow. No doubt lie’s on some high shelf, Where he lias forgot himself. — N. Y. Independents

“WHAT THOU DOEST DO QUICKLY.”

BY M. STRATTON BEERS.

. “ Minnie, dear, put Some wood in, will you? I think the fire is low.” “In a minute, auntie, just one.-’- “ Auntie” turned over toward the wall with a sigh. Minnie heard the sigh and thought it because her auntie had such a headache that she sighed. “ Does your head ache so hard, auntie?” she softly inquired. “ It aches badly, dearie!” “ Can I do anything for you, auntie?” “ Nothing, only the favor I asked of you a bit ago.” “ Oh, yes! the fire. I had almost forgotten it, I declare! I was so entertained' by this book —it is just splendid!" She carefully placed a mark in the book and quietly replenished the fire, being particular not to make any noise that should disturb her auntie, for she knew how dreadfully she suffered when her headaches came on, and how much noise aggravated the pain; then she took the napkin from her auntie’s head and dipped it in the cold ice-water that stood in the bowl by the side of the sofa, and, laying it on the aching head again, bent over and kissed the lips that were so pale and compressed from the suffering her auntie was so patiently enduring. “My poor auntie! I wish your head was well.” A faint smile on the pale lips rewarded her for this expression of sympathy, and she impulsively kissed them -again, -then sat down to her reading. Now Minnie was really a good girl, rather an unusually good girl; but she had one or two exceedingly bad habits that annoyed every one about the house very much, and especially troubled the loving auntie, who tried so hard to cultivate in her little niece habits of promptness and order. Her greatest fault was inattention, and the forgetfulness sure to grow out of this —no matter what it was she had to do, she always wanted to put it off “ just one minute." Her auntie had talked to her kindly many times; she prayed with her and for her; she had several times inflicted upon her some slight punishment or other, hoping by some of these means to cure her, but up to the morning of which I write there had been no apparent change for the better, and Mrs. Wheldon, lying there suffering with the pain in her head, suffered no less from the pain at her heart, for she loved the little orphan niece quite as well as she had loved her own sweet daughters while they remained to gladden the home with their presence; but that had only been a few years, and then they sickened and died, and Minnie, coming just then to claim her auntie’s love, had received that which could, be second only to the dead mother’s, if even that. There came a low tap at the door. Minnie opened it, and Hilda, the house servant, whispered in a voice intended to have been low, but which reached Mrs. Wheldon’s ears quite as distinctly as if it had been intended for her special benefit: “ Minnie, that Rop boy has come for that basket he says your aunt promised to send last night.” “Oh, my goodness! what will I do?” Minnie was too much astonished and alarmed to think to speak low. Mrs. Wheldon turned over and looked up inquiringly. “ What is it, dearie?” “Oh, auntie! I don’t see really how you ever will forgive me, but I —l did really forget to take that basket, and T never thought of it until this minute.” “ Minnie Rice! is it possible?” “Yes, auntie!” and Minnie stood expecting she knew not what, but feeling as if nothing was too dreadful for her to bear now.

Mrs. Wheldon sat up. “ Send the boy up here, Rilda!” Rilda went out and down muttering to herself: “I do hope she will thrash her good this time; she’s the forgetfullest thing I ever seen, and never starts to do nothing until she’s told twenty times, if she can put it off; but la! I forgit mySelf to do things, and she’s a poor, motherless thing. I reckon she will outgrow it in time.” Minnie did not dare to look at her auntie, she was so filled with shame and remorse. The day before her aunt had told her to carry the basket in question to Mrs. Rop, a woman who washed for them sometimes, and who, Minnie knew', had been rather miserable for some weeks. Minnie had immediately begged permission to spend the remainder of the afternoon and night with a little friend who lived about two-thirds of the way to Mrs. Rop’s, promising to come home eariy in the morning. Her favor being granted she had nearly flown to her room to get her cloak and hat, and her aunt being engaged with a caller when she was ready to go she had gone without the usual good-by, and, as it now proved, without the basket also, Which her aunt had placed on the dining room table, telling Minnie to be careful and not forget it. Rilda had known nothing of the intended destination of the basket, and wishing to set the table for tea had transferred the basket to the closet, and thus it had escaped observation by Mrs. Wheldon. Minnie, with her characteristic thought lessness, had gone to her friend’s and made her visit, even remembering to come home early in the morning (which she would not likely have done only from a slight misunderstanding that had some way sprung up between herself and friend as to the relative beauties of their respective Sunday hats, each thinking her own the handsomer), but never once remembering the basket which she was to hare (parried. Now this contained

medicine and some tea and some matches and a couple of candles, beside bread, and meat intended for the tWo childflfcn’S suppers, all of which Mrs. Wheldon had discovered they stood very much in need of and which she had promised to send over before dark. % The little “ Rop boy” came up. lookisg very much ashapied of his ragfpd pants, and still “ raggeder” shoes. , “Good morning, Willie!” Mrs. Wheldon said. “ I am sorry you did not get those things last night; it was a sad mistake upon the part of Minnie. How is your mother?” “She said would you be so kind as to come over a bit. She feels queer like, more than yesterday.” Mrs. Wheldon promised to go and set about getting ready, notwithstanding her aching head. “ Please, auntie, don’t go! your head aches, you know ” Her aunt looked at her with such a sad look she could not say any more. “ Had you any supper, Willie?” she asked. “No, ma’am! nor We haven’t had any breakfast yet, either.” Minnie was resolved “ never, never to forget anything again,” but said simply: “ Oh, auntie!” “ Put on your cloak and hat, Minnie, I want you to carry the basket.” Once at Mrs. Rop’s and Minnie opened her eyes wide with astonishment. The baby of two years was crying loudly and tugging at his mother, whom they found too sick to pay any attention to him. She had grown much worse since Mrs. Wheldon saw her the day before, and Minnie heard her tell her auntie how thankful she would have felt for a candle to have given a little light during the long night, or for the bread and meat for the children, who cried so long before they could forget their hunger sufficiently to go to sleep. “ Minnie, do you know the way to Dr. Metford’s?”

“Yes, ma’am. Shall Igo for him?” “Yes, and ask him to come here as soon as he can.” Minnie went swiftly over the half-doz-en squares to the doctor’s office, found him in and told him her errand, and her face grew very red as she heard him say, half to himself and half to her: “ I guess the medicine I gave your auntie for her couldn’t have had the effect I thought it would.” Minnie tried so hard to tell him that she forgot to take the basket with the medicine, but she could not gather the courage to do so, so she walked along by the side of the doctor, who wondered what made her so unusually quiet. Arrived at Mrs. Hop’s he found her very ill indeed, and Minnie heard him say: “ Soiry, sorry she did not have the medicine last night; think it might have saved a run of fever. V Mrs. Wheldon stayed nearly all day, keeping Minnie with her and doing all she could to make the poor woman comfortable. Toward night a woman came, saying Dr. Metford Had sent her to nurse Mrs. Rop, and then Mrs. Wheldon went home, taking with her the oldest boy, Willie, who could do but little, if anything, to help in the care of either his mother or his brother. All this time she had said nothing to Minnie about her last great failure in doing what she had been told to do. She trusted more in letting her know just all the evil that had resulted from her carelessness. Every day, for a week, she took Minnie to see the sick woman, and then one bright morning they went to find the house all darkened, and the nurse woman told them she had been dead “ since four o’clock.” Minnie was shocked enough. Do what she could, she could not shut away from the ears of her memory the words of Dr. Metford:

“Sorry! sorry! think if she had had the medicine last night she might have been saved a run of fever.” And something kept telling her that but for her own negligence Mrs. Rop might still have been living. She kept hearing the words of her auntie calling outTto her that afternoon, as she started off for her cloak and hat: J “ Put the basket in the hall, dear, and then you’ll not forget to take it;”and she remembered how she had hated just to go across into the dining-room for the basket, feeling so sure she would not forget it, and it would do just as well where it was. “But, oh! I did forget,it! and she died because I did not do as auntie told me!” She cried herself to sleep that night and dreamed that she was a murderess, that all the people in Maysville followed her about, pointing at her, and saying, “ You killed your auntie’s washwoman.” Then she dreamed that the dead woman way lying in bed with her, and that she put both her arms around her, and they were so cold! and then she put her cold lips close to one of her ears and whispered : “ You wouldn’t bring me my medicine and so I had to die, and now I am going to sleep with you always.” When Minnie wakened with a scream, which her auntie heard away down in her room, and which caused her to go quickly up to Minnie’s room, where she found her sitting on the floor close to the door, Minnie told her dreams and sobbed so piteously that Mrs. Wheldon felt sorry for her and sure that this must certainly cure her of this bad habit of hers.

And Minnie was better for a long, long time, but as the time grew long and the remembrance of Mrs. Rop’s death grew fainter she agrin relaxed into the old way, which did almost seem to have been a part of her naturk She was now almost fifteen, a good student, though very often she was obliged to remain and learn her lessons when other of her mates were at play because in this too she was prone to put off getting her lessons until absolutely obliged to do so. The day of which 1 am writing now she had been kept in through everv recess, and besides this had been publicly reproved by her teacher, and as usual under such extreme cases she was much mortified and had resolved all in herr own strength that ,it should never be so again. Again her auntie had a severe headache and had retired early, leaving her niece and William Rop (whom they had kept with them during the five years that bad intervened since his mother’s death) to study their lessons for the next day before they too should go to bed. Hardly had her auntie gone up to her room when Rilda opened the door and said: “ Miss Minnie, I have to go up-street awhile with Mrs. Dean’s girl; the work is all done up, but! 1 put some kindlings for the morning fires into the stove oven to dry; will you look in at them once in a while until the fire gets down and see that they don’t catch fire and burn the house down?” • , “Yes, Rilda, all right! I will watch them.”

Rilda went out, put on her thing*, looked into the oven, tnrned over the kindlings, and then opened the sittingroom door again. “ Miss Minnie, yon are sure you’ll not forget the kindlings?” “ Of course, Rilda! do go ’long and not bother so much!” Minnie was busy trying to learn her algebra lesson for the next day, and in a minute had forgotten the kindlings. Presently Willid finished his lessons, and, yawning in a manner that was more enjoyable than graceful, said he “ guessed he’d go to bed if Minnie wasn’t ’fraid.” “’Fraid, Willie! Of course I’m not afraid. Uncle Rob will be home in twenty minutes, anyway.” So Willie went to bed, and Minnie went on with her lessons. She had finished her algebra, but was getting a lesson in her geometry now, and was studying aloud after the fashion of schoolgirls when committing their lessons at home. “ To find the solidity of a cone or pyramid, whether round, square or triangular. “ First find the area of the base, whether round, eq ” She stopped and listened! “ Had Rilda come back?” For the first time since she had gone Minnie now thought of the kindling-wood. “Mercy to me! what if they’ve all burnt up! Won’t Rilda be mad?” She still listened, there was some noise in the kitchen! “ It must be Rilda!" She would peep in and see. She stopped first to glance at the rule, and went to the door repeating, “ Square, round, oblong or triangular, by some Pa-a-ugh!” It was smoke, heavy, dense, blaek smoke that met her full in the face as she opened the door into the kitchen. “This is dreadful! What shall ldo? I forgot those kindlings and they have set the house on fire."

True enough! the kindlings*had ignited, and some of them falling out of the oven had burned into the pine floor, the fire catching at the braided rug to increase its strength until it had reached a splint-bottom chair that stood on the rug and against a cupboard. Over the door of this hung a tablecloth, upon which had been spilled some tea at supper, and Rilda had rinsed it out and hung it on the cupboard to dry. This caught the flames readily, and altogether, when Minnie remembered to look after the kindlings, she found to her great consternation that there was a great fire already doing its best in the rather close kitchen toward consuming the whole house. Now Maysville did not boast of any fire-engines, and when once a fire got under way it was but little that could be done to stay it in its course. Besides, our Minnie was almost petrified with fright at the sight of the fire. She did close the door, but just because she happened to, not from any “ malice aforethought,” then she ran screaming upstairs. > t “Auntie, auntie, the house is all on fire!” As good fortune would have it, Mrs. Wheldon had not undressed, as had first been her intention, but had lain down with her clothes still on. Now she sprang up, telling Minnie to waken Willie. Just as she reached the landing below her husband came in. He had seen the unusual light in the kitchen and exclaimed : “ I believe the house is oh fire! where is Rilda?” “ Gone out! What can we do?" It took Mr. Wheldon but a minute to decide. He rushed to the door crying “ Fire! fire!” The whole village was alarmed in a moment more, for the smoke and flames now burst through the roof at the corner where the cupboard had been; and the light shot up into the night telling every one where was the fire. Nearly everything was saved by the ready and helpful hands es the accumulated crowd, but the house and the kitchen furniture were soon among the things that toere, and are no more. When Mr. Wheldon heard from Rilda all the circumstances, he said to Minnie: “ Well! I should think one or two more lessons would teach you to attend to things when they ought to be done. I guess, though, you can't learn!" This was all anyone ever said to her; “but we are glad to say she was cured of her worst faults frOm that day forward. If anyone asked a favor of her she granted it immediately, if in her power to grant it at all; her lessons were learned before time to recite them, and if she was told by her uncle or aunt to do anything she charged her mind with it until it was time to do it, and then attended to doing it; and she says that she is never tempted to put off doing anything when it should be done without she sees a mental vision of the poor ing with fever for lack of the medicine she should have carried and the burning house set on fire by the kindling which would never have ignited but for her carelessness. —Chicago Standard.

Banning For Office.

I never run for office but once. At the earnest solicitations of some of my friends, in an unguarded moment I allowed myself to be announced as candidate for the office of Justice of the Peace. Previous to this fool move I had been considered a deeent kind of a man, but the next day when the Bugle came out it was filled with accounts of my previous history that would have curdled the blood of a Digger Indian. A susceptible public Was gravely informed that I was not fit for the office, that I was almost a fool; besides, I had come West under very suspicious circumstances. I had starved my deaf old grandmother to death and then sold the remains to a soap-factory. I had stolen a hand-organ from a poor blind cripple and run away with the proceeds. 1 hadsold my grandfather’s coffin for fourteen dollars and buried the old gent in • a boot-box. In utter despair I rushed around to headquarters, withdrew my name and swore a solemn swear that I would never indulge in politics again. And I never will. —John Quill. - ' 9 • • • —Apropos of the recent death of John Harper, senior member of the firm of Harper Brothers, a singular story is told that one day, a few weeks ago, Mr. Harper returned from a drive, and going into his parlor seated himself before his own portrait and gazed at it long and earnestly. “ Well, Old John Harper, said he at length, “ your time has almost come!” A day or two afterward he was taken sick and neVer afterward left his bed. —A suburban resident of Jersey, w T ho keeps a few chickens, casually remarks that it’s wonderful how his hens have commenced to lay since his hired girl went off the other day for a week’s abr* sence with her relatives.