the strangely assorted pair, they saw that the child was cold and pulseless. He is dead," said one. Kentuck opened his eyes. "Dead?" he repeated feebly. "Yes, my man, and you are dying too." A smile lit the eyes of the expiring Kentuck. "Dying?" he repeated; "he's a-taking me with him. Tell the boys I've got The Luck with me now." And the strong man, cling ing to the frail babe as a drowning man is said to cling to a straw, drifted away into a shadowy river that flows forever to the unknown sea.

BY RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM.

OE," said old Jarvis, looking out of his window, it was his ground-floor back, "Joe, you seem to be very hot, Joe, and you have got no wig!"

"Yes, sir," quoth Joseph, pausing and resting upon his spade, "it's as hot a day as ever I see; but the celery must be got in, or there'll be no autumn crop, and

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"Well, but, Joe, the sun's so hot, and it shines so on your bald head, it makes one wink to look at it. You'll have a coup de soleil, Joe."

"A what, sir?"

"No matter; it's very hot working; and if you step in-doors I'll give you

"Thank ye, your Honor, a drop of beer will be very acceptable."

Joe's countenance brightened amazingly.

"Joe, I'll give you - my old wig!"

The countenance of Joseph fell, his gray eye had glistened as a blest vision of double-X flitted athwart his fancy; its glance faded again into the old, filmy, gooseberry-colored hue, as he growled in a minor key, "A wig, sir!"

"Yes, Joe, a wig. The man who does not study the comfort of his dependants is an unfeeling scoundrel. You shall have my old worn-out wig."

"I hope, sir, you'll give me a drop o' beer to drink your Honor's health in; it is very hot, andCome in, Joe, and Mrs. Witherspoon shall give it you."

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"Heaven bless your Honor," said honest Joe, striking his spade perpendicularly into the earth, and walking with more than usual alacrity towards the close-cut, quickset hedge which separated Mr. Jarvis's garden from the high-road.

From the quickset hedge aforesaid he now raised, with all due delicacy, a well-worn and somewhat dilapidated jacket, of a stuff by drapers most pseudonymously termed "everlasting." Alack! alack! what is there to which tempus edax rerum will accord that epithet? In its high and palmy days it had been all of a piece; but as its master's eyes now fell upon it, the expression of his countenance seemed to say with Octavian,

Those days are gone, Floranthe!"

It was now, from frequent patching, a coat not unlike that of the patriarch, one of many colors.

Joseph Washford inserted his wrists into the corresponding orifices of the tattered garment, and with a

steadiness of circumgyration, to be acquired only by long and sufficient practice, swung it horizontally over his ears, and settled himself into it.

"Confound your old jacket," cried a voice from the other side the hedge, "keep it down, you rascal! Don't you see my horse is frightened at it ?"

"Sensible beast!" apostrophized Joseph; "I've been frightened at it myself every day for the last two years." The gardener cast a rueful glance at its sleeve, and pursued his way to the door of the back kitchen.

"Joe," said Mrs. Witherspoon, a fat, comely dame, of about five-and-forty," Joe, your master is but too good to you; he is always kind and considerate. Joe, he has desired me to give you his old wig."

“And the beer, Ma'am Witherspoon?" said Washford, taking the proffered caxon, and looking at it with an expression somewhat short of rapture, " and the beer, ma'am!"

"The beer, you guzzling wretch!—what beer? Master said nothing about no beer. You ungrateful fellow, has not he given you a wig?

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Why, yes, Madam Witherspoon! but then, you see, his Honor said it was very hot, and I'm very dry, and

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"Go to the pump, sot!" said Mrs. Witherspoon, as she slammed the back door in the face of the petitioner.

Mrs. Witherspoon was "of the Lady Huntingdon persuasion," and Honorary Assistant Secretary to the Appledore branch of the "Ladies' Grand Junction Waterworking Temperance Society."

Joe remained for a few moments lost in mental ab

straction; he looked at the door, he looked at the wig; his first thought was to throw it into the pigsty, -his corruption rose, but he resisted the impulse; he got the better of Satan; the half-formed imprecation died before it reached his lips. He looked disdainfully at the wig; it had once been a comely jasey enough, of the color of over-baked gingerbread, one of the description commonly known during the latter half of the last century by the name of a "brown George." The species, it is to be feared, is now extinct; but a few, a very few of the same description might, till very lately, be occasionally seen, — rari nantes in gurgite vasto, - the glorious relics of a bygone day, crowning the cerebellum of some venerated and venerable provost, or judge of assize; but Mr. Jarvis's wig had one peculiarity; unlike most of its fellows, it had a tail! cribbed and confined," indeed, by a

shabby piece of faded shalloon.

Washford looked at it again; he shook his bald head; the wig had certainly seen its best days; still it had about it somewhat of an air of faded gentility; it was "like ancient Rome, majestic in decay"; and as the small ale was not to be forthcoming, why-after all, an old wig was better than nothing!

Mr. Jeremiah Jarvis, of Appledore, in the Weald of Kent, was a gentleman by act of Parliament; one of that class of gentlemen who, disdaining the bourgeoise-sounding name of "attorney-at-law," are, by a legal fiction, denominated solicitors. I say by a legal fiction, for surely the general tenor of the intimation received by such as enjoy the advantage of their correspondence has little in common with the idea usually attached to the term