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Hush! The giant winds were howling, wild the winds began to moan

"It is time the lamp was lighted, let me pass!" her white

lips groan.

"He must even now be struggling 'gainst the fury of the night-"

Dared she think what would befall him if she failed to set

the light?

Sneeringly Grey barred her entrance, mocked with taunting words and air;

Stood he with his face turned seaward and his back toward the stair.

"Father!" Hush! to ears of marble do you cry for mercy.
Hark!

One mad blast-or cry for succor-
-wails from seaward
through the dark.

'Tis his voice! Despair-born courage sweeps her veins like
liquid fire:

With a cry of "I will save him!" backward Margot pushed her sire.

Trifles turn the wheel of fortune, trifles turn the scale of doom.

Margot stands there wildly staring, all alone, within the gloom,

And a sullen thud, then silence dead, her straining ear appalls,

'Twas the horrid, muffled thumping of a body as it falls!

Some one found them there together three days later, it is

said;

There they found the harmless maniac, there they found the old man dead!

"He had fallen in the darkness," said they, "on that stormy

night,

Climbing up, had lost his balance when he went to set the light!

And the shock has turned her brain, poor lass! she is a

sorry sight!"

On the day old Grey was buried a young bronzed sailor trod the road

Leading to the Starhead light-house, and he whistled as he strode,

Paused beside the open window, caught one glimpse of Margot's face,

Then his wild, glad cry of "Darling!" rang like clarion through the place.

But no smile of welcome gave she-no glad light glowed from her eyes;

With bowed head she stood before him, like one lost in

vague surmise;

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And a low, unceasing whispering held she ever, not with him

But with phantom shapes her fancy bred in her mind's chambers dim.

As he bent to catch the murmur, trembling at her eyes strange light

"I must turn the green light seaward," said she, "'twill be rough to-night!"

Then they told him-some one told him, for few dared to face his grief-

But he looked as one not hearing, or too stunned for true be lief.

And they stole away and left him: "It were better she had

died,

Or that he had never loved her, poor, young things!" they softly sighed.

But the village folk will tell you, if the sequel you would hear,

How a wedding strange and solemn took place in the young New Year,

And how tenderly the bridegroom to the altar led his bride, And how all the women whispered: "It were better she had died!"

And how mournful was that wedding, and how every eye shed tears,

They will tell you, till your heart aches as its end the story

nears;

They will tell you how she watches for his sail, across the

wave,

Knowing not he is beside her - for her mind is in the grave; They will tell you how he woos her, strives her memory to

recall,

How with dumb trust she adores him and obeys-but that

is all;

And how Allan shares her vigil in the tower each stormy

night,

Tenderly her mad whim humors, and to seaward turns the light.

"THE HALF WAS NOT TOLD ME."

T. DEWITT TALMAGE.

What is that long procession approaching Jerusalem; I think from the pomp of it there must be royalty in the train. I smell the breath of the spices which are brought as presents, and I hear the shout of the drivers, and I see the dust-covered caravan showing that they come from

far away.

Cry the news up to the palace. The Queen of Sheba advances. Let all the people come out to see. Let the mighty men come out on the palace corridors. Let Solomon come down the stairs of the palace before the Queen has alighted. Shake out the cinnamon and the saffron and the calamus and the frankincense, and pass it into the treasure housc. Take up the diamonds until they glitter in the sun.

The Queen of Sheba alights. She enters the palace. She washes at the bath. She sits down at the banquet. The cup-bearers bow. The meats smoke. The music trembles in the halls and through the corridors until it mingles in the dash of the waters from the molten sea. Then she rises from the banquet, and she walks through the conservatories, and she gazes on the architecture, and she asks Solomon many strange questions, and she learns about the religion of the Hebrews, and she then and there becomes a servant of the Lord God. She is overwhelmed. She begins to think that all the spices she brought, and all the precious woods which are intended to be turned into harps and psalteries and into railings for the causeway between the temple and the palace, and the one hundred and eighty thousand dollars in money,-she begins to think that all these presents amount to nothing in such a place, and she is almost ashamed that she had brought them. She says within herself: " I heard a great deal about this place and about this wonderful religion of the Hebrews, but I find it far beyond my highest anticipations. It exceeds everything that I could have expected. The half,-the half was not told me."

Well, there is coming to every Christian a far greater surprise. Heaven is an old story. Everybody talks about it. There is hardly a hymn in the hymn-book that does not refer to it. Children read about it in their Sabbath-school book. Aged men put on their spectacles to study it. We say it is a harbor from the storm. We call it our home. say it is the house of many mansions. We weave together all sweet, beautiful, delicate,

We

exhilarant words; we weave them into letters, and then we spell it out in rose and lily and amaranth. And yet that place is going to be a surprise to the most intelligent Christian.

Like the Queen of Sheba, the report has come to us from the far country, and many of us have started. It is a desert march, but we urge on the camels. What though our feet be blistered with the way? We are hastening to the palace. We take all our loves and hopes and Christian ambitions, as frankincense and myrrh and cassia, to the great King. We must not rest. We must not halt. The night is coming on, and it is not safe out here in the desert. Urge on the camels! I see the domes, against the sky, and the houses of Lebanon, and the temples and the gardens. See the fountains dance in the sun, and the gates flash as they open to let in the poor pilgrims. Send the word up to the palace that we are coming and that we are weary of the march of the desThe King will come out and say: "Welcome to the palace; bathe in these waters, recline on these banks. Take this cinnamon and frankincense and myrrh, and put it upon a censer and swing it before the altar."

ert.

And yet, my friends, when heaven bursts upon us it will be a greater surprise than that-Jesus on the throne and we made like him! All our Christian friends surrounding us in glory! All our sorrows and tears and sins gone by forever! The thousands of thousands, the the one hundred and forty and four thousand, the great multitudes that no man can number, will cry world without end: "The half,-the half was not told us!"

AN ALL-AROUND INTELLECTUAL MAN.-TOM MASSON,
He was up in mathematics,
Had a taste for hydrostatics,

And could talk about astronomy from Aristarchus down;
He could tell what kind of beans

Were devoured by the Chaldeans,

And he knew the date of every joke made by a circus clown.

He was versed in evolution,

And would instance the poor Russian

As a type of despotism in the modern age of man.
He could write a page of matter

On the different kinds of batter

Used in making flinty gimcracks on the modern cooking plan.

He could revel in statistics,

He was well up in the fistics,

Knew the pedigree of horses dating'way back from the ark.
Far and wide his tips were quoted,

And his base-ball stuff was noted.

In political predictions he would always hit the mark.
He could write upon the tariff,

And he didn't seem to care if

He was called off to review a book or write a poem or two:
He could boil down stuff and edit,

Knew the value of a credit,

And could hustle with the telegraph in a style excelled by few.

He could tell just how a fire

Should be handled; as a liar

He was sure to exercise a wise, discriminative taste.
He was mild and yet undaunted,

And no matter what was wanted

He was always sure to get it first, yet never was in haste.
But despite his reputation

As a brainy aggregation,

He was known to be deficient in a manner to provoke,
For no matter when you met him

He would borrow if you let him,

And he seemed to have the faculty of always being broke.

THE YOUNG BOOTBLACK-W. F. Burroughs. Shine, sir? Have a shine? make 'em look like patent leather, Or put this oil on,-make 'em stand all sorts o' weather, Rain or snow-no matter which, sir.

Only a nickel: come-you're rich, sir;

I need some money bad, to buy some bread,

For Mammy and little sister-Daddy, you see's dead.

Before he died, sir, we were living well;

Had a nice store, and lots o' things to sell;

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