books on the shelves above them. This done, she closed an old-fashioned piano, which nearly filled one side of the room, and giving one finishing touch to the roses, which had been newly placed in some vases upon the tables, and another to the cushions of a low couch, which stood beside the window, with a smile of satisfaction lighting up her thoughtful face, Agnes left the room, and in a few minutes had crossed the park, and was threading her way along the winding path leading through the hazel copse, which skirted the end of the Rectory garden: then, passing over the rustic bridge, which had been lately thrown across the brook, she was soon standing among the galaxy of blossoms which surrounded her peaceful home.

For a moment her shadow darkened the little vine-wreathed casement of the sittingroom; that moment was sufficient to satisfy Agnes that May was not awaiting her return with her usual impatience; so, entering the house, she passed quietly along the passages, and up the broad oaken staircase to her own chamber, where a young woman sat sewing busily, in the midst of such a suspicious confusion of white silk and lace, white ribbon and roses, that one would have declared, but for the silence of those village authorities who are always the first to hear and talk of such events, that there was to be a wedding at Dahlwell | Rectory before many more suns had shone upon its blossoming flowers, and fair young mistresses.

While Agnes took up a piece of the white ribbon, and began to twist it into sundry bows and knots, till it assumed the appearance of that familiar bridal appendage-a favour, the shadows of the quivering leaves lay on the Indian matting before the couch down stairs, where, scarcely a year before, May Leslie wept to think of Frank Leonard's return; but where she now sat looking so serenely happy that one would have thought no tear had ever fallen on those fair cheeks, where the long lashes lay in such soft repose. It was a womanly instinct which made her drop those dark fringes yet closer over her eyes; she felt that the deep, earnest gaze of her companion was rivetted upon her, and this was, perhaps, the reason why the blushes came and went so rapidly with the smiles which dimpled her sweet face. Not that it was

anything new for Frank to take Agnes' place by the side of her sister-it was as much his seat as the oaken library chair had been in other years; and the happy smile of the blind girl possessed as strong a power of attraction to him now, as her bright eyes and sunny glances in the days of her early girlhood.

"The evening is very lovely Frank, is it not? I remember what glorious sunsets we used to enjoy together before you went to India, and to my dreamy fancy they are clear and bright as ever. I shall scarcely be able to realize these scenes when I leave this dear old home for another."

"We shall, I trust, spend many such rare sunsets together, my own May; and you will soon learn to realize them as fully in the "Lady's Room," at Dahlwell Park, as in this more familiar one. I left Agnes busy among the books and flowers, and everything is arranged so exactly after the model of this room, that my sweet wife will scarcely know that she has left her old home for another,"

So these lovers spoke on, till the golden sunset faded to a rosaic tint, the harbinger of its eastern splendour. And this red evening light promised no more for the morrow than was richly fulfilled. There was never a brighter morning known in Dahlwell, than that which made May Leslie the wife of Frank Leonard; and often in after years, when her husband sat and watched the unchanged sweetness of her smile, or listened to the clear, joyous tones of her loving voice, he would draw her yet closer to his heart, and bless the memory of that day when he won this true wife; to be, in all her hopeful strength of will and action, the best and brightest sunshine of his life. E. P. R.

WELSH HANDBILL.-We have seen many specimens of the ludicrous produced by misspelling, but the following genuine announcement of lost sheep exceeds anything we ever read:-"Lost soposed to be astrayed out of the near Cross y Cylog of William Morgan 19 ship in which was two rams and one black you; also a very remarkall you that ass her hed a one side as if her neck was disgoint short tails and to or three a slit in the left year of um all.”

HOME OF MY CHILDHOOD.

HOME of my early Childhood! scene of all
The joys, the woes, that infancy befall,
How shall my trembling pen find power to tell
The grief express'd in that fond word-Farewell!
Oh! can I quit those haunts, to mem'ry dear,
Without the last fond tribute of a tear?
Can I forget the many joyous hours
That fled on rapid wing beneath thy bow'rs?
Can I look back upon those days gone by,
Without the heart-felt homage of a sigh?
Oh, no! though never more my eyes may dwell
On those old halls they long have lov'd so well,
Though distant climes my future dwelling be,
Home of my Childhood! I'll remember thee.

Thy mantled walls are hastening to decay,
Beneath the stern Destroyer's ruthless sway;
No cheerful sound of song or childish mirth
Now echoes blithely round thy sombre hearth;
The feet of strangers now at freedom roam
Within the dwelling that was once my home;
And ere a few short years their course have run,
The work of fell destruction will be done,
And nought but ruin'd walls remain to tell
Where rose the mansion that I lov'd so well:
But ever present, ever dear to me,
Must, e'en in ruins, that loved mansion be:
While the sad words my mem'ry's tablets fill,
Home of my Childhood! yes, I love thee still.

The shrubs and flowers that bloom'd in fragrance round,

Now trail neglected on the moss-grown ground;
The spreading vine, that once with clusters smiled,
Hangs loosely now, all desolate and wild;
The glitt'ring stream that babbled on its way,
Gladly reflecting each adorning ray,

Now murmurs on its darken'd course, and laves
A tangled mass of brushwood with its waves.
The ancient oaks-those venerable trees,
That softly answer'd every passing breeze,
Are prostrate now-the woodman's sturdy blow
Has laid the monarchs of the forest low.
The leafy bowers, where oft in childish play
On mossy banks, we pass'd the summer's day,
And in the twilight of the verdant shade
Our rural feast was joyously display'd;
While careless laughter echo'd widely round,
As flowers were cul", and fragrant wreaths were
wound-

Those bowers, ir deed, may still their shadows fling
O'er banks besp gled with the flow'rs of spring:
New forms of youth inay on those banks recline,
And other hands the gaudy chaplet twine;
But unto strangers thou canst never be-
Home of my Childhood!-what thou art to me.
Why does my sadden'd fancy love to trace
The faded splendour of that long-loved place?
What boots it now to tell of times gone by-
Of feudal pride, or gorgeous panoply?
Why does the blazon'd 'scutcheon still remain
To speak of that which ne'er will be again?
The sculptured stone-the old armorial shield,
With many a quaint device upon its field,
Still stands in hoary sadness, to relate
Its ancient master's dignity and state.
But pass'd is all this greatness; other hands
Have grasp'd possession of my father's lands,

And soon, perhaps, no traces will appear
Of all that flourish'd once so proudly there;
Yet while my pulses throb, my heart will tell-
Home of my Childhood!-that I love thee well.

The shades of evening gather slowly round,
And twilight thickens o'er the darken'd ground;
Night's sombre mantle, like a fun'ral pall,
Will soon in sadness o'er the landscape fall;
E'en while I turn to look one fond adieu,
Her envious hand has snatch'd it from my view.
But oh! no darkness, absence, nor decay,
Can from my mem'ry chase the scene away,
Nor soothe the sorrows that my bosom swell,
While to my Childhood's Home I bid a last
farewell.
E. G. H.

THE LITTLE PET PLANT.

A FLORIST a sweet little blossom espied,
Which bloom'd by its ancestors, by the road-side;
Its sweetness was simple, its colours were few,
Yet the blossom look'd fair on the spot where it
grew.

The florist beheld it, and cried-"I'll enchant
The botanical world with this sweet little plant;
Its leaves shall be shelter'd and carefully nursed;
It shall charm the whole world, though I met with
it first-
Under a hedge."

He carried it home to his hot-house with care, And he said-"Though the rarest exotics are there,

My little pet plant, when I've nourish'd its stem,
In tint and in fragrance shall imitate them;
And none shall suspect from the road-side it

came.

Rodium Sidus I'll call it-a capital name;
While botanists look through their glasses, and

view

Its beauties, they'll never suspect that it grew-
Under a hedge."

The little pet plant, when it shook off the dirt
Of its own native ditch, soon began to be pert,
And toss'd its small head, for perceiving that

none

But exotics were round it, it thought itself one.
As a wild flower, all would have own'd it was fair,
And praised it, though gaudier blossoms were
there;

But when it assumes hot-house airs, we see thro'
The forced tint of its leaves, and suspect that it
grew-
Under a hedge.

MORAL.

In the by-ways of life, oh! how many there are
Who, being born under some fortunate star,
Assisted by beauty or talents, grow rich,
And bloom in a hot-house instead of a ditch.
And whilst they disdain not their own simple
stem,

The honours they grasp may gain honour for them;

But when, like the pet plant, such people grow pert,

We discover their origin lay in the dirt

Under a hedge!