the doors and windows. Mrs. Cannon sat down at the piano and began to play, softly at first and then with considerable abandon.

The music must have stirred the cheese up, for she hadn't played more than a bar or two when she fetched the key-board a fore and aft rake that jarred my very soul, and bounced off the stool, exclaiming, "Phew! it's in the piano!" She yanked open the top, peered in, extracted the box, smelt it, shivered, read the label, shivered some more, gave me a withering look and threw it out of the dining-room window. I respect my wife's prejudices, so I said nothing, but went out and rescued the cheese and, after some cogitation, put it in an old barrel and piled boards over the top.

Major and Mrs. Cascobel were invited to dinner, and, as they came early, I invited the Major out in the yard to sample the cheese.

He said he had never eaten Brie, but he didn't believe there was anything in the cheese line that was too many for him. So we took a couple of crackers and a spoon and sallied forth.

As we reached the yard he made some remark about pole-cats being very annoying, but I was busy with the barrel and couldn't hear just what he said. Well, I spread some of the delicious, fragrant, white cream on the crackers and handed one to Cascobel.

He asked me if I didn't think the bouquet was a trifle pronounced, but I said no, and he took a bite with an air of stern resolution that I thought unsuited to the occasion. Then he laid down the cracker and said sadly, "I can eat most anything, but, if you'll excuse me, I'll pass this time."

"Certainly," said I; "it's a cultivated taste."

"So is one for soap-grease, I fancy," he rejoined; and then he became rather disagreeable, said he could take a spade and dig something better to eat than that out of a cemetery, that I'd better get the coroner to come and sit on it and hold it down, and that a burial permit

would be a good thing. I took it all in good part, and asked him if he thought it would be safe from rats in the barrel. "You bet!" he replied heartily, "I never had much use for a rat, but it has too much sense to tackle that cheese. Aren't you going to chain it up?"

About midnight there was an awful row in the back yard, and, running to the window, I saw by the brilliant moonlight a Mephitis Americana turning back summersaults to an accompaniment of mortified, despairing howls. The cover was off the barrel, and it was evident that the cheese had knocked poor M. A. out in one round.

The next morning both my servants left, the neighbors complained to the commanding officer that I maintained a nuisance, Mrs. Cannon gave a small and select "conversazione" of two, at which I "assisted" (in the French sense), and she suggested that she would like to go to New York for a few weeks while the state of Minnesota was being aired.

I got an official letter from the Adjutant directing me to abate the nuisance, and an order was issued forbidding "all officers and others to keep or maintain, within the limits of the reservation, any polecat, Fromage de Brie, or other noxious or offensive animal."

A BRAVE WOMAN.-JOHN F. NICHOLLS.

I talked with a stalwart young seaman last week on Ratcliffe Highway;

He belonged to the crew of a steamer that was wrecked in Aberdour Bay.

And I asked him if he would mind telling the way he was saved from the sea?

Then (excepting the rhyme) he narrated the following story

to me:

"Well, you see, we had started for home, sir, and were anx

ious to get on our way,

When it came on to blow big guns, sir, as we stood off Aberdour Bay;

But our craft was so sturdy a steamer, that we laughed and thought light of the gale,

For no matter how angry the weather, we never had known her to fail.

"But accidents weaken the strongest, and our skipper's brown face grew long,

When a message came up from below, sir, that the engines had all gone wrong.

Then we set to and hoisted what canvas we thought that the vessel would bear,

And tried to beat clear of the bay, sir, for the gale was driving in there.

"But, no; it was useless our trying, for the wind blew so frightfully hard

That on to the shore, to leeward, the ship drifted yard after yard;

The skipper roared, 'Let go the anchor!' We did so, our drifting was checked;

But we knew if the cable should snap, sir, the ship would be certainly wrecked.

"The billows dashed over, around us, as though mad that we held our own;

Then 'crack!' 'twas the cable parting, and our hearts seemed turned into stone;

Once more we were driven shorewards, this time at a furious rate;

There was nothing could possibly check us, so the steamer rushed on to her fate.

"Then we felt her quiver and shudder, as she struck on the pebbly beach,

And we looked with despair at the shore, sir, that, living, we could not reach;

For the surf was boiling and hissing, and dashing with all its force,

And no man could have swum to the land, sir, not if he'd the strength of a horse.

"There was only one woman ashore there, and we'd hardly a glimmer of hope,

Yet I managed to screw up my spirits, and determined to throw her a rope;

I tried, but too great was the distance; and, despairing, I saw it fall short;

But that woman dashed into the surf, sir, and the next time I threw it 'twas caught.

"God bless her! she caught up that rope, sir, and, in spite of the boisterous sea,

She wound it three times round her body, and up from the water went she;

And she beckoned us each to come quickly, but we thought that 'twould be but in vain;

'For no woman alive,' we murmured, 'can stand such a terri ble strain!'

"But yet we would try, for 'twas certain delay meant a terrible death;

So we started a man on the voyage, whilst the rest of the crew held their breath;

There, 'hand over hand' he traveled, whilst as firm as a rock stood she,

Till at length the seaman was saved, sir, from the clutch of the merciless sea.

"Then one after the other we followed, till the whole of the crew were on land;

Oh! you ought to have seen us struggling for a grasp of that brave woman's hand!

It may seem very foolish to you, sir, but I felt almost ready

to cry;

And there wasn't a sailor amongst us but what had a tear in his eye.

"Every true-hearted man or woman will praise this true heroine's act;

It isn't a jumble of fiction, but a plain, undeniable fact;

I declare she's as plucky a woman as any of which I have

read;

Quite fit to take rank with Grace Darling and the Women of Mumbles Head."

HER VISION.

Low on a sick bed she helplessly lay,

And constantly murmured again and again: "A block, and two crosses; a dot, and a star,

A circle, three bars, and the links of a chain."

Her friends and her minister stood by her bed,

And whispered, "Her mind ever dwelt on high themes, We'll carefully treasure each word that she says, Perchance 'tis of heavenly spheres she now dreams.” When fully recovered they showed her the scroll And earnestly begged her to tell what it meant: "In dreams was your body divorced from your soul, And this the new universe whither you went?" A gleam of amusement o'erspread her fair face, A laugh sweet and merry reechoed afar, "Oh, couldn't you see I was trying to trace The Supplement patterns in Harpers' Basar?"

ENEMIES MEET AT DEATH'S DOOR.

WILLA LLOYD JACKSON.

The battle was over and the sun had gone down. The dense white smoke of the great cannons had been dispersed by the evening breeze that crept faint and sweet from the dark woods near by, lifting with touch as light as a living hand's the damp hair on icy foreheads, and fluttering in sad mockery the torn and bloody flag yet grasped by a hand forever still.

The rabbit that had been driven away by the fearful noise of battle stole timidly, with many a start and shiver, back to its young, hidden in the long grass beneath the hedge of wild rose, and clear and shrill the cricket piped its evening song as if in scorn of the strife and tumult of an hour ago.

Defeat had been suffered and victory gained, and the triumphant host had followed hot and fast in the path of the retreating foe, and for the time being the battlefield, with its wounded and dead, lay still and quiet, save for a low moaning here and there, and the death rattle now and again that told of some soldier's great promotion.

Beneath a spreading oak that grew close to where a grim-mouthed cannon breathed its silent threat, lay two, clad in uniforms of different colors, one of well-worn gray, with the three stars that marked the collar dimmed and dark with a slowly oozing crimson stain, and the other of blue, like the wearer's own young eyes, and torn with a horrid rent in the breast.

The gray-haired man in the colonel's uniform roused at last from the swoon in which he lay and glanced about him in restless pain, only to meet the blue eyes near him. Just a smooth, boyish face, with the light of laughter hardly gone from it, but now white and drawn with a sick pain, and the mouth, that had not long lost its childish curve, stern with a pitiful effort at self-command; and clear and distinct to the older man came a