The captain took the miner and showed him the girl and boy,

He asked the girl what her name was, and she answered "Katie Roy."

The miner started for a moment and his face went deadly white,

Then he asked the boy a question-he mightn't have heard aright.

He asked him about his mother, and the miner's face flushed hot

As the children told the story of the mother's weary

lot;

He rushed from the room like a madman, and came back with a bag of gold,

And gave to the starving children as much as their hands could hold.

"Take that," he said, "to your mother-it's the gold that you came to seek ;

God's providence sent you hither, the wanted word to speak

To call the wanderer homeward-he'll sail by to-morrow's ship."

Then he touched the children's foreheads with a hot and trembling lip,

And told them that he was their father-the father who ran away

When things went wrong in the city, and a gambler 'couldn't pay.;

The father who left their mother, and had gone from bad to worse,

Till a stroke of luck at the diggings had suddenly filled his purse.

A white-faced convalescent sat in the workhouse yard, Dozing away her leisure, for her lot was rough and hard;

And a beautiful dream God sent her-a dream of the

long ago,

In the days ere her heart was heavy with a burden of

bitter woe.

She dreamed that her husband called her, with a smile on his handsome face,

And the children ran out toward her-then she woke in a dreary place;

Woke with a cry of wonder, for her husband called her

name,

And, bounding along to greet her, the boy and his sister

came.

Or ever a word she uttered, the children were at her knee

In her lap fell a golden shower, and the boy cried out in glee,

"Look what we've brought you, mother! We've been to the land of gold,

And daddy's got lots of nuggets-more than your hands could hold."

She gave one glance at the treasure, and then her head sank down

On the breast of the sunburnt miner, and the gold slipped from her gown;

And the paupers stared in wonder as the sovereigns rolled away

Folks don't walk into the workhouse with fortunes every day.

Are you anxious to hear the finish? I fancy that you can guess

How Elizabeth Roy's eyes brightened at the old familiar "Bess."

And your fancy can paint the picture of the dawn of a happier fate

As father and mother and children went out of the workhouse gate.

Would you like to know the sequel? Peep through the hedge and see

The dear old home and garden, just as they used to be, And a happy wife and husband, smiling the smile of old

As the children tell the story of their trip to the land of gold.

NATURE OF TRUE ELOQUENCE.

DANIEL WEBSTER.

TRUE eloquence does not consist in speech. It cannot be brought from far. Labor and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshaled in every way, but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion. Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation,

all may aspire after it, they cannot reach it. It comes, if it comes at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force. The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men, when their own lives, and the fate of their wives, their children, and their country hang on the decision of the hour. Then words have lost their power, rhetoric is vain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities. Then patriotism is eloquent; then selfdevotion is eloquent. The clear conception, outrunning the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward, right onward to his object, this, this is eloquence, or, rather, it is something greater and higher than all eloquence: it is action, noble, sublime, Godlike action.

"CURFEW MUST NOT RING
TO-NIGHT."

ROSE HARTWICK THORPE.

LOWLY England's sun was setting o'er the hill

SLO tops far away,

Filling all the land with beauty at the close of one sad day,

And the last rays kissed the foreheads of a man and

maiden fair,

He with footsteps slow and weary-she with sunny, floating hair;

He with bowed head, sad and thoughtful-she with lips all cold and white,

Struggling to keep back the murmur-"Curfew must not ring to-night."

"Sexton," Bessie's white lips faltered, pointing to the prison old,

With its turrets tall and gloomy, with its walls dark, damp, and cold,

"I've a lover in that prison, doomed this very night to die

At the ringing of the curfew, and no earthly help is

nigh!

Cromwell will not come till sunset," and her lips grew strangely white

As she breathed the husky whisper-"Curfew must not ring to-night."

"Bessie," calmly spoke the sexton-every word pierced her young heart

Like the piercing of an arrow, like a deadly poison

dart

"Long, long years I've rung the curfew from that gloomy, shadowed tower;

Every evening, just at sunset, it has told the twilight

hour;

I have done my duty ever, tried to do it just and right, Now I'm old I still must do it; curfew, it must ring

to-night."

Wild her eyes and pale her features, stern and white her thoughtful brow,

And within her secret bosom Bessie made a solemn vow. She had listened while the judges read without a tear

or sigh,

"At the ringing of the curfew Basil Underwood must die."

And her breath came fast and faster, and her eyes grew large and bright;

In an undertone she murmured, "Curfew must not ring to-night."

She with quick steps bounded forward, sprang within the old church door,

Left the old man threading slowly paths so oft he'd trod before:

Not one moment paused the maiden, but with eye and cheek aglow

Mounted up the gloomy tower, where the bell swung to and fro,

As she climbed the dusty ladder on which fell no ray of light,

Up and up, her white lips saying, "Curfew shall not

ring to-night."

She has reached the topmost ladder,-o'er her hangs the great dark bell;

Awful is the gloom beneath her, like the pathway down to hell!

Lo, the ponderous tongue is swinging, 'tis the hour of curfew now,

And the sight has chilled her bosom, stopped her breath, and paled her brow.

Shall she let it ring? No, never! flash her eyes with sudden light,

And she springs and grasps it firmly-"Curfew shall not ring to-night."

Out she swung, far out-the city seemed a speck of light below,

"Twixt heaven and earth her form suspended, as the bell swung to and fro!

And the sexton at the bell-rope, old and deaf, heard not the bell,

But he thought it still was ringing fair young Basil's funeral knell.

Still the maiden clung more firmly, and with trembling lips and white,

Said, to hush her heart's wild beating, "Curfew shall not ring to-night."

It was o'er; the bell ceased swaying; and the maiden stepped once more

Firmly on the dark old ladder, where for hundred years before

Human foot had not been planted-the brave deed that she had done

Should be told long ages after, as the rays of setting

sun

Should illume the sky with beauty; aged sires, with heads of white,

Long should tell the little children curfew did not ring that night.

O'er the distant hills came Cromwell; Bessie sees him, and her brow,

Full of hope and full of gladness, has no anxious traces

now.

At his feet she tells her story, shows her hands all bruised and torn;

And her face, so sweet and pleading, yet with sorrow

pale and worn,