after he is expected to be down street. He lays the button exactly on the site of its predecessor, and pushes the needle through one eye, and carefully draws the thread after, leaving about three inches of it sticking up for leeway. He says to himself,-"Well, if women don't have the easiest time I ever see." Then he comes back the other way, and gets the needle through the cloth well enough, and lays himself out to find the eye, but in spite of a great deal of patient jabbing, the needle point persists in bucking against the solid parts of that button, and finally, when he loses patience, his fingers catch the thread, and that three inches he had left to hold the button slips through the eye in a twinkling, and the button rolls leisurely across the floor. He picks it up without a single remark, out of respect to his children, and makes another attempt to fasten it. This time when coming back with the needle he keeps both the thread and button from slipping by covering them with his thumb, and it is out of regard for that part of him that he feels around for the eye in a very careful and judicious manner; but eventually losing his philosophy as the search becomes more and more hopeless, he falls to jabbing about in a loose and savage manner, and it is just then the needle finds the opening, and comes up through the button and part way through his thumb with a celerity that no human ingenuity can guard against. Then he lays down the things, with a few familiar quotations, and presses the injured hand between his knees, and then holds it under the other arm, and finally jams it into his mouth, and all the while he prances about the floor and calls upon heaven and earth to witness that there has never been anything like it since the world was created, and howls, and whistles, and moans, and sobs. After awhile he calms down, and puts on his pants, and fastens them together with a stick, and goes to his business a changed man.

· LITTLE PAT AND THE PARSON.

He stands at the door of the church peeping in,
No troublesome beadle is near him;

The preacher is talking of sinners and sin,
And little Pat trembles to hear him;—

A poor little fellow alone and forlorn,
Who never knew parent or duty;
His head is uncovered, his jacket is torn,
And hunger has withered his beauty.

The white-headed gentleman shut in the box,
Seems growing more angry each minute;
He doubles his fist and the cushion he knocks,
As if anxious to know what is in it.

He scolds at the people who sit in the pews,-
Pat takes them for kings and princesses;
(With his little bare feet-he delights in their shoes;
In his rags he feels proud of their dresses!)

The parson exhorts them to think of their need,
To turn from the world's dissipation,

The naked to clothe, and the hungry to feed,—
Pat listens with strong approbation!

And when the old clergyman walks down the aisle,
Pat runs up to meet him right gladly,

"Shure, give me my dinner!" says he with a smile,
"And a jacket, I want them quite badly."

The kings and the princesses indignantly stare,
The beadle gets word of the danger,
And, shaking his silver-tipped stick in the air,
Looks knives at the poor little stranger.

But Pat's not afraid, he is sparkling with joy,
And cries,-who so willing to cry it?
"You'll give me my dinner,-I'm such a poor boy:
You said so,-now don't you deny it."

The pompous old beadle may grumble and glare,
And growl about robbers and arson;

But the boy who has faith in the sermon stands there,
And smiles at the white-headed parson!

The kings and princesses may wonder and frown,
And whisper he wants better teaching;

But the white-headed parson looks tenderly down
On the boy who has faith in his preaching.

He takes him away without question or blame,

As eager as Patsy to press on,

For he thinks a good dinner (and Pat thinks the same)
Is the moral that lies in the lesson.

And after long years, when Pat handsomely drest,-
A smart footman,-is asked to determine

Of all earthly things what's the thing he likes best?
He says, "Och, shure, the master's ould sermin!"

"THE PENNY YE MEANT TO GI'E."

There's a funny tale of a stingy man,

Who was none too good, but might have been worse, Who went to his church on a Sunday night,

And carried along his well filled purse.

When the sexton came with his begging-plate,
The church was but dim with the candle's light;
The stingy man fumbled all through his purse,
And chose a coin by touch, and not sight.
It's an odd thing, now, that guineas should be
So like unto pennies in shape and size.
"I'll give a penny," the stingy man said:
"The poor must not gifts of pennies despise."
The penny fell down with a clatter and ring!
And back in his seat leaned the stingy man.
"The world is so full of the poor," he thought:
"I can't help them all-I give what I can."
Ha, ha! how the sexton smiled, to be sure,
To see the gold guinea fall into his plate!
Ha, ha! how the stingy man's heart was wrung,
Perceiving his blunder, but just too late!

"No matter," he said: "in the Lord's account
That guinea of gold is set down to me.
They lend to him who give to the poor:
It will not so bad an investment be."

"Na, na, mon," the chuckling sexton cried out:
"The Lord is na cheated-He kens thee well;
He knew it was only by accident

That out o' thy fingers the guinea fell!

"He keeps an account, na doubt. for the puir:
But in that account He'll set down to thee

Na mair o' that golden guinea, my mon,
Than the one bare penny ye meant to gi'e!"

There's a comfort, too, in the little tale-
A serious side as well as a joke;

A comfort for all the generous poor,

In the comical words the sexton spoke;

A comfort to think that the good Lord knows
How generous we really desire to be,

And will give us credit in His account
For all the pennies we long "to gi'e."

SCENE AT NIAGARA FALLS.-CHARLES TARSON.

It is summer. A party of visitors are just crossing the iron bridge that extends from the American shore to Goat's Island, about a quarter of a mile above the Falls. Just as they are about to leave, while watching the stream as it plunges and dashes among the rocks below, the eye of one fastens on something clinging to a rock-caught on the very verge of the Falls. Scarcely willing to believe his own vision, he directs the attention of his companions. The terrible news spreads like lightning, and in a few minutes the bridge and the surrounding shore are covered with thousands of spectators. "Who is he?" "How did he get there?" are questions every person proposed, but answered by none. No voice is heard above the awful flood, but a spy-glass shows frequent efforts to speak to the gathering multitude. Such silent appeals exceed the eloquence of words; they are irresistible, and something must be done. A small boat is soon upon the bridge, and with a rope attached sets out upon its fearless voyage, but is instantly sunk. Another and another are tried, but they are all swallowed up by the angry waters. A large one might possibly survive; but none is at hand. Away to Buffalo a car is dispatched, and never did the iron horse thunder along its steel-bound track on such a godlike mission. Soon the most competent life-boat is upon the spot. All eyes are fixed upon the object, as trembling and tossing amid the boiling white waves it survives the roughest waters. One breaker past and it will have reached the object of its mission. But being partly filled with water and striking a sunken rock, that next wave sends it hurling to the bottom. An involuntary groan passes through the dense multitude, and hope scarcely nestles in a single bosom. The sun goes down in gloom, and as darkness comes on and the crowd begins to scatter, methinks the angels looking over the battlements on high drop a tear of pity on the scene. The silvery stars shine dimly through their curtain of blue. The multitude are gone, and the sufferer is left with his God. Long before morning he must be swept over that dreadful abyss; he clings to that rock with all the tenacity of life, and as he surveys the horrors of his position,

strange visions in the air come looming up before him, He sees his home, his wife and children there; he sees the home of his childhood; he sees that mother as she used to soothe his childish fears upon her breast; he sees a watery grave, and then the vision closes in tears. In imagination he hears the hideous yells of demons, and mingled prayers and curses die upon his lips.

No sooner does morning dawn than the multitude again rush to the scene of horror. Soon a shout is heard: he is there he is still alive! Just now a carriage arrives upon the bridge, and a woman leaps from it and rushes to the most favorable point of observation. She had driven from Chippewa, three miles above the Falls; her husband had crossed the river, night before last, and had not returned, and she fears he may be clinging to that rock. All eyes are turned for a moment toward the anxious woman, and no sooner is a glass handed to her, fixed upon the object, than she shrieks, "Oh, my husband!" and sinks senseless to the earth. The excitement, before intense, seems now almost unendurable, and something must again be tried. A small raft is constructed, and, to the surprise of all, swings up beside the rock to which the sufferer has clung for the last forty-eight hours. He instantly throws himself full length upon it. Thousands are pulling at the end of the rope, and with skillful management a few rods are gained toward the nearest shore. What tongue can tell, what pencil can paint, the anxiety with which that little bark is watched as, trembling and tossing amid the roughest waters, it nears that rockbound coast? Save Niagara's eternal roar, all is silent as the grave. His wife sees it and is only restrained by force from rushing into the river. Hope instantly springs into every bosom, but it is only to sink into deeper gloom. The angel of death has spread his wings over that little bark; the poor man's strength is almost gone; each wave lessens his grasp more and more, but all will be safe if that nearest wave is past. But that next surging billow breaks his hold upon the pitching timbers, the next moment hurling him to the awful verge, where, with body erect, hands clenched, and eyes that are taking their last look of earth, he shrieks, above Niagara's eternal roar, "Lost!" and sinks forever from the gaze of man.

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