PATHETIC SELECTIONS.

DEATH OF PAUL DOMBEY.

LITTLE DOMBEY had never risen from his little bed. He lay there, listening to the noises in the street, quite tranquilly; not caring much how the time went, but watching it and watching everything.

When the sunbeams struck into his room through the rustling blinds, and quivered on the opposite wall, like golden water, he knew that evening was coming on, and that the sky was red and beautiful. As the reflection died away, and a gloom went creeping up the wall, he watched it deepen, deepen, deepen into night. Then he thought how the long unseen streets were dotted with lamps, and how the peaceful stars were shining overhead. His fancy had a strange tendency to wander to the river, which he knew was flowing through the great city; and now he thought how black it was, and how deep it would look reflecting the hosts of stars; and, more than all, how steadily it rolled away to meet the

"There! at the bottom of the bed."

"There's nothing there, except papa!"

The figure lifted up its head and rose, and, coming to the bedside, said:

"My own boy! Don't you know me?"

Paul looked it in the face. Before he could reach out both his hands to take it between them and draw it towards him, the figure turned away quickly from the little bed, and went out at the door.

The next time he observed the figure sitting at the bottom of the bed, he called to it.

"Don't be so sorry for me, dear papa. Indeed, I am quite happy!"

His father coming and bending down to him, he held him round the neck, and repeated these words to him several times, and very earnestly; and he never saw his father in his room again at any time, whether it were day or night, but he called out, "Don't be so sorry for me! Indeed, I am quite happy!"

How many times the golden water danced upon the wall, how many nights the dark river rolled towards the sea in spite of him, Paul never sought to know.

One night he had been thinking of his mother and her picture in the drawing room down stairs. The train of thought suggested to him to inquire if he had ever seen his mother. For he could not remember whether they had told him yes or no; the river running very fast, and confusing his

mind.

"Floy, did I ever see mamma?”

"No, darling; why?"

"Did I never see any kind face, like a mamma's, looking at me when I was a baby, Floy?"

"O yes, dear!”

"Whose, Floy?"

"Your old nurse's.

Often."

"And where is my old nurse? Show me that old nurse, Floy, if you please!"

"She is not here, darling. She shall come to-morrow." "Thank you, Floy!"

Little Dombey closed his eyes with these words, and fell asleep. When he awoke, the sun was high, and the broad day was clea: and warm. Then he awoke,—woke mind and body, and sat upright in his bed. He saw them now about him. There was no gray mist before them, as there had been sometimes in the night. He knew them every one, and called them by their names.

"And who is this? Is this my old nurse?" asked the child, regarding, with a radiant smile, a figure coming in.

Yes, Yes. No other stranger would have shed those tears at sight of him, and called him her dear boy, her pretty boy, her own poor blighted child. No other woman would have stooped down by his bed, and taken up his wasted hand, and put it to her lips and breast, as one who had some right to fondle it. No other woman would have so forgotten everybody there but him and Floy, and been so full of tenderness and pity.

"Floy! this is a kind, good face! I am glad to see it again. Don't go away, old nurse. Stay here! Good by!"

"Good by, my child?" cried Mrs. Pipchin, hurrying to his bed's head. "Not good by?"

"Ah, yes! Good by!-Where is papa?

His father's breath was on his check before the words had parted from his lips. The feeble hand waved in the air, as if it cried "Good by!" again.

"Now lay me down; and, Floy, come close to me, and let me see you.

Sister and brother wound their arms around each other, and the golden light came streaming in, and fell upon them, locked together.

"How fast the river runs, between its green banks and the rushes, Floy! But, it's very near the sea now. I hear the waves! They always said so!"

Presently he told her that the motion of the boat upon the stream was lulling him to rest.

sea. And now there was a shore on the bank!

Now the boat was out at before him. Who stood

"Mamma is like you, Floy. I know her by the face!" The golden ripple on the wall came back again, and nothing else stirred in the room. The old, old fashion! The fashion that came in with our first garments, and will last unchanged until our race has run its course, and the wide firmament is rolled up like a scroll. The old, old fashion,— Death!

O, thank God, all who see it, for that older fashion yet, of Immortality! And look upon us, Angels of young children, with regards not quite estranged, when the swift river bears us to the ocean!

CHARLES DICKENS.

TEARS, IDLE TEARS.

FROM "THE PRINCESS"

TEARS, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up from the under world; Sad as the last which reddens over one

That sinks with all we love below the verge,—
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes

The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret,-
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

PICTURES OF MEMORY,×

AMONG the beautiful pictures
That hang on Memory's wall

Is one of a dim old forest,

That seemeth best of all; Not for its gnarled oaks olden,

Dark with the mistletoe;

Not for the violets golden

That sprinkle the vale below;

Not for the milk-white lilies

That lean from the fragrant ledge,
Coquetting all day with the sunbeams,
And stealing their golden edge;
Not for the vines on the upland,
Where the bright red berries rest,

Nor the pinks, nor the pale sweet cowslip,

It seemeth to me the best.

I once had a little brother,

With eyes that were dark and deep;

In the lap of that old dim forest

He lieth in peace asleep:

Light as the down of the thistle,
Free as the winds that blow,

We roved there the beautiful summers,
The summers of long ago;

But his feet on the hills grew weary,
And, one of the autumn eves,
I made for my little brother
A bed of the yellow leaves.
Sweetly his pale arms folded
My neck in a meek embrace,
As the light of immortal beauty
Silently covered his face;
And when the arrows of sunset
Lodged in the tree-tops bright,
He fell, in his saint-like beauty,
Asleep by the gates of light.
Therefore, of all the pictures
That hang on memory's wall,
The one of the dim old forest
Seemeth the best of all.

ALICE CARY.

LITTLE JIM.

THE Cottage was a thatched one, the outside old and mean, But all within that little cot was wondrous neat and clean; The night was dark and stormy, the wind was howling wild,

As a patient mother sat beside the death-bed of her child: A little worn-out creature, his once bright eyes grown dim:

It was a collier's wife and child-they called him little Jim.

And oh! to see the briny tears fast hurrying down her cheek,

As she offered up the prayer, in thought, she was afraid

to speak,

Lest she might waken one she loved far better than her

life;

For she had all a mother's heart had that poor collier's