has wound it up will soon be still. The iron pulses of the old timepiece seem to flutter, as though its own spirit were departing. Its tongue is thick; its face is white as one struck with death.

But, just as grandfather's heart, after running for eighty years, ceased to tick, the old clock rallied, as much as to say:

"It is the last thing I can do for him, and so I must toll the death-knell - One! two! three! four! five! six! seven! eight! nine! ten! eleven! twelve !"

With that it stopped.

Ingenious craftsmen attempted to repair it, and oiled the wheels and swung the pendulum. But it would not go! Its race was run; its heart was broken; its soul had departed. When grandfather died, the clock died with him.— T. De Witt Talmage.

THE YOUNG GRAY-HEAD.

'M thinking that to-night, if not before,

There'll be wild work. Dost hear old Chewton roar?

It's brewing up, down westward; and look there!
One of those sea-gulls! ay, there goes a pair:
And such a sudden thaw! If rain comes on,
As threats, the waters will be out anon.
That path by the ford's a dangerous bit of way-
Best let the young ones bide from school to-day.

The children themselves join in this request; but the mother resolves that they shall set out—the two

Y

girls, Lizzy and Jenny, the one five and the other seven. As the dame's will was law, so,

One last fond kiss.

"God bless my little maids!" the father said, And cheerily went his way to win their bread.

Prepared for their journey, they depart, with the mother's admonitions to the elder.

"Now, mind and bring

Jenny safe home," the mother said.

To pull a bough or berry by the way;

"Don't stay

And when you come to cross the ford, hold fast
Your little sister's hand till you're quite past
That plank's so crazy, and so slippery,
If not o'erflowed, the stepping-stones will be.
But you're good children-steady as old folk,
I'd trust ye anywhere." Then Lizzy's cloak
(A good gray duffle) lovingly she tied,
And amply little Jennie's lack supplied

With her own warmest shawl. "Be sure," said she, "To wrap it round, and knot it carefully

(Like this) when you come home, just leaving free One hand to hold by. Now, make haste, awayGood-will to school, and then good right to play."

The mother watched them as they went down the lane, overburdened with something like a foreboding of evil which she strove to overcome; but could not during the day quite bear up against her own thoughts, especially as the threatened storm did at length truly set in. His labor done, the husband makes his three

miles' way homeward, until his cottage coming into view, all its pleasant associations of spring, summer, and autumn, with its thousand family delights, rush on his heart:

There was a treasure hidden in his hat

A plaything for his young ones. He had found
A dormouse nest; the living ball coiled round
For its long winter sleep; and all his thought,
As he trudged stoutly homeward, was of naught
But the glad wonderment in Jenny's eyes,
And graver Lizzy's quieter surprise,

When he should yield, by guess and kiss and prayer,
Hard won, the frozen captive to their care.

Out rushes his fondling dog Tinker, but no little faces greet him as wont at the threshold; and to his hurried question,

"Are they come ?· 't was no."

To throw his tools down, hastily unhook
The old crack'd lantern from its dusty nook,
And, while he lit it, speak a cheering word
That almost choked him, and was scarcely heard,
Was but a moment's act, and he was gone

To where a fearful foresight led him on.

A neighbor accompanies him; and the faithful dog follows the children's track.

So speaking, breathlessly he hurried on

Toward the old crazy foot-bridge. It was gone!
And all his dull contracted light could show

Was the black, void, and dark swollen stream below. "Yet there's life somewhere

whine

more than Tinker's

That's sure," said Mark. "So, let the lantern shine Down yonder; there's the dog-and hark!" "Oh, dear!"

And a low sob came faintly on the ear,

Mock'd by the sobbing gust. Down, quick as thought,
Into the stream leaped Ambrose, where he caught
Fast hold of something-a dark, huddled heap-
Half in the water, where 't was scarce knee-deep
For a tall man; and half above it propp'd
By some old ragged side-piles that had stopt
Endways the broken plank when it gave way

With the two little ones that luckless day.

My babes! my lambkins!" was the father's cry. One little voice made answer, "Here am I!"

'Twas Lizzy's.

white,

There she crouched, with face as

More ghastly by the flickering lantern light,

Than sheeted corpse. The pale blue lips drawn tight,
Wide parted, showing all the pearly teeth,

And eyes on some dark object underneath,
Wash'd by the turbid water, fix'd like stone-
One hand and arm stretch'd out, and rigid grown,
Grasping, as in the death-gripe, Jenny's frock.
There she lay drowned.

They lifted her from out her watery bed;
Its covering gone, the lovely little head

Hung like a broken snow-drop, all aside,

And one small hand. The mother's shawl was tied,
Leaving that free about the child's small form,
As was her last injunction, “fast and warm.”
Too well obey'd-too fast! A fatal hold
Affording to the scrag, by a thick fold,
That caught and pinn'd her to the river's bed;
While through the reckless water overhead
Her life-breath bubbled up.

"She might have lived,

a tor

Struggling like Lizzy," was the thought that rived The wretched mother's heart, when she knew all, "But for my foolishness about that shawl" ture aggravated by the tones of the surviving child, who half deliriously kept on ejaculating:

"Who says I forgot?

Mother! indeed, indeed, I kept fast hold,

And tied the shawl quite close-she can't be coldBut she won't move we slept I don't know how

But I held on and I'm so weary now

----

And it's so dark and cold! — oh, dear! oh, dear!And she won't move - if father were but here!"

Thus all night long from side to side she turned, Piteously plaining like a wounded dove, With now and then the murmur, "She won't move." And lo! when morning, as in mockery, bright, Shone on that pillow-passing strange the sight — The young head's raven hair was streak'd with white! Caroline Southey.

"

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