breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long-expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried hurrah!

There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavor, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by the apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone on the dish), they hadn't ate it all at last! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits in particular were steeped in sage and onion to the eye-brows! But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone too nervous to bear witnesses to take the pudding up, and bring it in.

Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning out! Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the backyard, and stolen it, while they were merry with the goose; a supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were supposed.

Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastry cook's next door to each other, with a laundress

next door to that! That was the pudding. In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered, flushed, but smiling proudly, with the pudding like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for so large a family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovelful of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass two tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle.

These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed :

"A merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us !'

"God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all.

FIRST in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen, he was second to none in the humble and endearing scenes of private life. Pious, just, humane, temperate, and sincere; uniform, dignified, and commanding, his example was as edifying to all around him as were the effects of that example lasting.

To his equals he was condescending; to his inferiors kind; and to the dear object of his affections exemplarily tender. Correct throughout, vice shuddered in his presence, and virtue always felt his fostering hand; the purity of his private character gave effulgence to his public virtues.

His last scene comported with the whole tenor of his life although in extreme pain, not a sigh, not a groan escaped him, and with undisturbed serenity he closed his well-spent life. Such was the man America has lost! Such was the man for whom our nation mourns! Methinks I see his august image, and hear, falling from his venerable lips, these deep-sinking words:

Cease, sons of America, lamenting our separation:

go on, and confirm by your wisdom the fruits of our joint counsels, joint efforts, and common dangers! Reverence religion; diffuse knowledge throughout your land; patronize the arts and sciences; let liberty and order be inseparable companions; control party spirit, the bane of free government; observe good faith too, and cultivate peace with all nations; shut up every avenue to foreign influence; contract rather than extend national connection; rely on yourself only; be American in thought and deed! Thus will you give immortality to that Union, which was the constant object of my terrestrial labors. Thus will you preserve, undisturbed to the latest posterity, the felicity of a people to me most dear: and thus will you supply (if my happiness is now aught to you) the only vacancy in the round of pure bliss high Heaven bestows."

MAY-DAY SONG.

OLD ENGLISH.

REMEMBER US poor Mayers all !
And thus we do begin

To lead our lives in righteousness,
Or else we die in sin.

We have been rambling all the night,

And almost all the day;

And now returnèd back again,

We have brought you a branch of May.

A branch of May we have brought you,
And at your door it stands ;

It is but a sprout, but it's well budded out
By the work of our Lord's hands.

The hedges and trees they are so green,
green as any leek;

As

Our Heavenly Father He watered them
With His heavenly dew so sweet.

The heavenly gates are open wide,
Our paths are beaten plain;
And if a man be not too far gone,
He may return again.

The life of man is but a span,

It flourishes like a flower;

We are here to-day and gone to-morrow,

And we are dead in an hour.

The moon shines bright, and the stars give a light,

A little before it is day:

So God bless you all, both great and small,
And send you a joyful May !

DECORATION DAY.

FRANCIS M. FINCH.

By the flow of the inland river,

Whence the fleets of iron have fled,

Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver,
Asleep are the ranks of the dead;