away time with dumb-bells, brace up! brace up! and health, strength, and enthusiasm will urge you on to still greater achievements and to ultimate success.

"Look up—not down! The mists that chill and blind thee
Strive with pale wings to take a sunward flight;
Upward the green boughs reach; the face of nature,
Watchful and glad, is lifted to the light.

The strength that saves comes never from the ground
But from the mountain-tops that shine around.
"Look forward, and not back! Each lost endeavor
May be a step upon thy chosen path;

All that the past withheld, in larger measure,
Somewhere, in willing trust, the future hath-
Near and more near the ideal stoops to meet
The steadfast coming of unfaltering feet."
Brace up! Brace up!

THE TOLL-GATE OF LIFE.

We are all on our journey. The world through which we are passing is in some respects like a turnpike-all along where vice and folly have erected their toll-gates for the accommodation of those who choose to call as they go-and there are very few of all the hosts of travelers who do not occasionally stop a little at one or the other of them, and consequently pay more or less to the tax-gatherers. Pay more or less we say, because there is a great variety, as well in the amount as in the kind of toll exacted at these different stopping-places.

Pride and fashion take heavy tolls of the purse-many men have become beggars by paying at their gates-the ordinary rates they charge are heavy, and the road that way is none of the best.

Pleasure offers a very smooth, delightful road at the outset ; she tempts the traveler with many fair promises, and wins thousands; but she takes-without mercy; like an artful robber, she allures till she gets her victim in her power, and then she strips him of wealth and money, and turns him off a miserable object, into the worst of our most rugged roads of life.

Intemperance plays the part of a sturdy villain. He is the very

MRS. GREYLOCK TELLS ABOUT THE PLAY.

241

worst toll-gatherer on the road, for he not only gets from his customers their money and their health, but he robs them of their very brain. The men you meet on the road, ragged and ruined in fame and fortune, are generally his visitors.

And so we might go on enumerating many others who gather toll from the unwary. Accidents often happen, it is true, along the road, but those who do not get through at least tolerably well, have been stopping by the way at some of these places. The plain, common-sense men who travel straight forward, get through without much difficulty.

This being the state of things, it becomes every one at the outset, if he intends to make a comfortable journey, to take care what kind of company he keeps in with. We are all apt to do as companions do-stop where they stop, and pay toll where they pay. The chances are ten to one but our choice in this particular always decides our fate.

Be careful of your habits, these make men. And they require long and careful culture, ere they grow up to a second nature. Good habits we speak of. Bad habits are easily acquired-they are spontaneous weeds, that flourish rapidly and rankly without care or culture.

MRS. GREYLOCK TELLS ABOUT THE PLAY.

"Was the play good, my dear?" asked Mr. Greylock the other night, after his wife had come home from the theater, where she had been with some friends.

"Good!" cried little Mrs. Greylock, enthusiastically, "it was just grand, Mortimer! It was a lovely play, and the dresses! In the first act she wore one of the most bewilderingly beautiful things I ever saw in all my mortal life-a pale apple-green skirt, brocaded in the sweetest shade of pink, with a perfectly magnificent train of

"Was her acting good?"

"heavy silver brocade without a particle of trimming on it. But the waist was trimmed all over with something I couldn't make out, although I strained my eyes trying to all the time she was on the stage. It was an evening dress, and when she first came on she had on

"But was she any good as an actress?"

"My dear, please don't interrupt-an opera cloak of soft pink plush, lined with apple-green satin, with the loveliest fringe, with seed pearls shining in it, and

"But tell me about her acting."

"Then in the second act she wore the most magnificent bridal costume I ever laid my eyes on—a heavy, shining, ivory satin, with the most immense court train, and yards and yards of the loveliest Brussels lace. The whole front of the dress was one mass of tiny flounces of real lace, and down the sides there were cascades of the lace and pearl passementerie, while at the back

"But the play, my dear, I"

"And the sleeves of the dress were of the lace, and they hung clear to the ground, away from the arm, you know. I never saw anything like it before; I can't begin to describe it to you, but it was perfectly—”

"You need not describe any more of it, my dear; I'd rather hear about

"Then in the next act she came on in the most exquisite thing -a lovely shade of rose-pink silk, made with a sweeping train over a petticoat of Turkish embroidery. Oh! that embroidery was too sweet! She wore with the dress a

"Come, come, my dear, have done with her gowns, and-" "Yes, yes, I am done with the gowns; but I was going to tell you about her jewels. With the pink dress she wore a perfectly gorgeous diamond necklace, and in her ears she had

"I don't care a continental what she had in her ears-don't care much whether she had any ears at all or not. Can she act? That's what I'd like to know."

"Act? Of course she can act. I never saw a woman more perfectly self-possessed than she was. She never sat down or rose awkwardly a single time, and I never saw any one manage a train more gracefully than she, and in the fourth act her train was so immense! It was one of the heaviest Lyons velvet, with a front of netted silk; she wore with it the heaviest girdle of jet I ever Her arms were bare. She'd beautiful arms, too, and "At least, tell me what the play was."

saw.

,,

-diamonds on her wrists and on a velvet around her throat,

and-oh, the play, did you ask?"

AFTER TWENTY YEARS.

"Yes, what was the play?"

243

"Why, it was—it was-now, let me see what was the play? Strange, I remember seeing it on the-run downstairs and get my muff, dear, and you'll find a program in it. I really don't remember just what the name of the play was."

GOOD OLD MOTHERS.

Somebody has said that "a mother's love is the only virtue that did not suffer by the fall of Adam." Whether Adam fell or not, it is quite clear that the unselfish love of a good mother is the crowning glory of the race. No matter how long and how sorely it may be tried, its arms are ever open to receive the returning prodigal. One faithful heart never loses its affection for the wanderer who has strayed from the fold. Adversity and sorrow may come with all their terrible force, but the motherly affection clings to its idol closely. We never see a good old mother sitting in the arm-chair that we do not think of the storms which have pelted into her cheerful face without souring it. Her smile is a solace, her presence a benediction. A man may stand more exertion of some kinds than a woman, but he is apt to lose much of his laughter, his cheerfulness, his gentleness, and his trust. Yet we rarely find a frail mother whose spirit has been worn threadbare and unlovely by trials that would have turned a dozen men into misanthropes and demons. A sweet old mother is common. A sweet old father is not so common. In exhaustless patience, hope, faith, and benevolence the mothers are sure to lead. Alas, that their worth too often is not fully known and properly appreciated until they pass beyond mortal reach! God bless the good old mothers!

AFTER TWENTY YEARS.

The coffin was a plain one-a poor, miserable pine coffin. One flower on the top; no lining of white satin for the pale brow; no smooth ribbons about the coarse shroud. The brown hair was laid decently back, but there was no primped cap with the tie beneath the chin. The sufferer of cruel poverty smiled in her sleep; she had found bread, rest, and health.

"I want to see my mother," sobbed a poor little child, as the undertaker screwed down the top.

"You cannot; get out of my way, boy; why does not some one take the brat?"

"Only let me see one minute!" cried the orphan, clutching the side of the charity box, as he gazed upon the coffin, agonized tears streaming down the cheeks on which the childish bloom ever lingered. Oh! it was painful to hear him cry the words: "Only once; let me see my mother, only once!"

Quickly and brutally the heartless monster struck the boy away, so that he reeled with the blow. For a moment the boy stood panting with grief and rage-his blue eyes distended, his lips sprang apart, fire glistened through his eyes as he raised his little arm with a most unchildish laugh, and screamed: "When I'm a man I'll be revenged for that!"

There was a coffin and a heap of earth between the mother and the poor forsaken child-a monument much stronger than granite, built in the boy's heart, the memory of the heartless deed.

The court-house was crowded to suffocation.

"Does any one appear as this man's counsel?" asked the judge. There was a silence when he had finished, until, with lips tightly pressed together, a look of strange intelligence blended with haughty reserve on his handsome features, a young man stepped forward with a firm tread and a kindly eye to plead for the friendless one. He was a stranger, but at the first sentence there was a silence. The splendor of his genius entranced-convinced. The man who could not find a friend was acquitted. "May God bless you, sir; I cannot!" he exclaimed. "I want no thanks," replied the stranger.

“I—I—I—believe you are unknown to me."

"Sir, I will refresh your memory. Twenty years ago this day you struck a broken-hearted little boy away from his mother's coffin. I was that boy."

The man turned pale.

"Have you rescued me then to take my life?"

"No; I have a sweeter revenge. I have saved the life of a man whose brutal conduct has rankled in my breast for the last twenty years. Go, then, and remember the tears of a friendless child."