right, tew. Mebbe she'll change her mind, 'n' dew it yet. But that don't make a mite o' diff'rence-not a mite. What's mine's her'n, all the same." Then seeing that Phil shook his head a little, he added:

"I'm a man o' my word, 'n' Sam Sanders here 's a witness."

Phil seemed satisfied, or at least silenced; and soon after fell into another lethargy, or doze, from which he started as before:

"Mother, Mother, MOTHER! Alone and poor!"

"Philip, my dear boy! Do you wanter kill yer old friend? Ye might's well's talk so! Oh, if I had a lawyer, I'd fix it all so ye couldn't be so hard on poor ole Zury no more! I'd deed the whole on it, I would -'n' joyfly!"

"Alone and poor," mumbled the sufferer, scarcely knowing what Prouder had said, or what he himself was saying.

"Oh, my God! Can't I do noth'n? My tongue's tied, between the livin' 'n' the dyin' so I can't say what's in my heart to my boy! Here, my son,-look at me a half a minute! Here in my ole pocket-book's money 'n' good notes for risin' nine thaousan' dollars, besides trash. Sam! Say, you Sam! See me give 'n' transfer this h'yer puss'n'l prop'ty to Philip McVey, t' have 'n' t'hold, to be his'n, live er die, 'n' mine no longer!"

"I see you, Uncle Zury," answered Sam.

Even Phil seemed, with the physical possession of this little fortune, to perceive that his filial anxiety as to the provision for his mother and sister was no longer reasonable. He clutched the fat wallet on his breast, and tried to smile at the giver.

"Couldn't ye call me daddy, jes' once, my boy?"

"Daddy, daddy, ye deserve it if ye keep yer word-an' ye will!" "Mightn't I kiss ye jes' once-son?"

"If

ye kin find a place, daddy, that ain't-biled."

And the trembling grizzled lips rested a little while on that pitiful strip of forehead. Then the poor old soul sank into a heap at the head of Phil's cot, and was still.

Zury's attention was attracted by the entrance of the doctor, who called him, and said to him in a low voice:

"That thar young gal whose mother was hurt 's a-comin' in."

"Oh, don't let her," cried Phil, who had been roused by the move

ment.

"I'm coming, Phil! Don't send me off! Oh, please Dear Phil, don't kill me!"

"Well-put the lights where they won't shine on me. So! Oh, Annie!" he murmured, with blistered tongue in shapeless mouth. The dear girl knelt by him, and soiled her sweet lips in his damp and grimy hair.

"I thought you went on the train, Annie!"

"Oh, Phil!" (reproachfully).

yet?"

"Haven't you learned to know me

She put her arm around his head for the first time in her life.

"Have you forgiven me, Annie?"

"I've been trying not to, Phil, for almost twenty-four hours! That was a long time for me to be angry with my own love, don't you think? I don't know whether I could have kept on trying much longer-if it hadn't been for this, I might have tried a while longer. But this puts it all away, far away, out of sight! I don't care for anything now, but this!"

"It was bad, though, wasn't it?"

"Yes; especially seeing that it went on after you knew me." "Oh, if I'd known you a little sooner!"

Then he felt her left hand around his head, and reached up a bandaged and misshapen paw, and grasped the pure, translucent fingers and lifted them where he could see them once more. Not an imperfection

or blemish except on the forefinger, where were those thousands of needle-marks. She saw him look at them.

"My hands would have worked for you and yours, Phil, whenever you came and asked for them."

She had again forgotten her little speech prepared for refusing him.

Annie," he whispered, "can't you put the light so I can see you and you not see me? There-down on the opposite side of the bed-so! I don't want you to carry this picture of me in your memory-looking like this!"

It was difficult to make out his words, try as hard as he might, with his failing strength and faculties, to make them understood. Then he gazed on her face with glazing eyes that seemed to thrust away Death itself in their longing to keep their hold on that beloved vision. But at last they slowly closed, and then Annie sank on her knees at his side, and sobbed and prayed, and prayed and sobbed, till some one came and begged her to go away. She only asked if her mother wanted her, and learning that she was still asleep, resumed her kneeling vigil.

Once more Phil, in his delirium, said aloud: "Mother! MOTHER!" and the sound floated out of the open window into the darkness. Just then an emigrant wagon headed westward passed the station, and from it might have been heard, if any one had listened, a kind of distorted echo:

"By God!"

And the vehicle labored on and disappeared.

While Annie was still kneeling, sobbing, and praying, Phil grew more

restless and feverish, wakeful and flighty. He would try, in his imperfect utterance, to say, "Mother," "Oh, Meg!" "Mother, mother!" and once, in gentle tones:

She rose and kissed his forehead, but he did not know her.

Again she was urged to leave the unfit place, but in vain. Then Phil chanced to say, in a questioning, chiding, expostulatory tone:

"Dolly? Dolly? Why, Dolly!" and then she silently got up and went away.

Then Zury was alone with the poor fellow in his wanderings; now painless, thanks to the merciful provision that ends anguish when death has become inevitable and imminent. Phil's mind strayed farther and farther backward into past years as it lost its hold on the present and future.

"It was not the axe, I tell you! It was the grindstone." Zury bent over him and met his unrecognizing gaze.

"Oh, I-I guess you can't understand-of course you can't! But mother will understand! Mother will know!" and a sweet smile of perfect, restful confidence shone about his eyes. "Mother-and Meg! Meg understands everything!"

Toward morning all his maundering ceased; and Zury observed that the poor head began to roll and turn wearily from side to side. He roused the tired doctor and called his attention to the new circumstance. The doctor nodded and said:

"That's about the last."

When day broke Sam Sanders awoke all feverish from a long stupor; and then he saw that they had pulled the sheet up over the face of what had been Phil McVey. And there at the bed's head, in a crushed heap, crouched poor Zury Prouder,-like a great hulk, wrecked just as it was entering its longed-for harbor.

Mary Barker Dodge.

BORN in Bridgewater, Bucks Co., Penn.

THE CHIMNEY NEST.

A DAINTY, delicate swallow-feather

Is all that we now in the chimney trace
Of something that days and days together
With twittering bird-notes filled the place.

Where are you flying now, swallow, swallow?
Where are you waking the spaces blue?
How many little ones follow, follow,

Whose wings to strength in the chimney grew?

Helen Fiske Jackson.

BORN in Amherst, Mass., 1831. DIED in San Francisco, Cal., 1885.

I know each day will bring its task,
And, being blind, no more I ask.

I do not know the use or name
Of that I spin;

I only know that some one came,
And laid within

My hand the thread, and said, "Since you
Are blind, but one thing you can do."

Sometimes the threads so rough and fast
And tangled fly,

I know wild storms are sweeping past,
And fear that I

Shall fall; but dare not try to find
A safer place, since I am blind.

I know not why, but I am sure
That tint and place,

In some great fabric to endure
Past time and race

My threads will have; so from the first,
Though blind, I never felt accurst.

I think, perhaps, this trust has sprung
From one short word

Said over me when I was young,—

So young, I heard

It, knowing not that God's name signed
My brow, and sealed me his, though blind.

But whether this be seal or sign

Within, without,

It matters not. The bond divine

I never doubt.

I know He set me here, and still,

And glad, and blind, I wait His will;

But listen, listen, day by day,

To hear their tread

Who bear the finished web away,

And cut the thread,

And bring God's message in the sun,

"Thou poor blind spinner, work is done."