Up to her room, and I heard her

Kneeling beside her bed.

She prayed in her childish fashion,

But her words were choked with tears -I had told her it wasn't always

God the prayer of the children hears.

She prayed that her absent father
Might come back safe and well,
From the perils of war and battle,
To mother and little Nell.

And, ere ever her prayer was finished,
The door was opened wide,
And my darling rushed towards me,—
My darling who had died!

I gave one cry and I fainted,

And Nell ran down at the cry:
"They said God wouldn't hear me,"
She told him by-and-by.

When the shock of surprise was over
We knew what the miracle meant,
There'd been a mistake in the bodies,

And the news to the wrong wife sent.

There were two of his name in the regimentThe other was killed, and when

It came to making the list out

An error was made in the men. Yet I think as I clasp my darling, Would he still be here to-day Had I shaken Nell's simple tenet,

"God listens when children pray?"

THE CHRISTMAS GUESTS.-LINDSAY Duncan.

"The loneliest night of all the year!

The sick man murmured with a weary moan, "And I shall spend, without a creature near, Another dreary Christmas-tide alone!"

A wooden shanty, common, rough, and bare,
Rude shelter offered to a suffering man;
Its door flung open to the warm night air,
Courting, in vain, a breeze his cheek to fan

A man well on in years: deep-lined and gray

His brow, and those scant locks which o'er it hung; One who had lost, he had been heard to say,

All he had lived for while he still was young;

A world-worn wanderer on the face of earth,
Whom death and sorrow, in an evil time,
Had driven from the country of his birth
To lonely labor in an Austral clime;

Where toiling without heart, to keep alive
A life he did not cherish, he had failed,
As hopeless toilers fail mid those who strive;
For sorry life alone his gains availed.

Half-dressed, and flung upon his restless bed,
He, burning-eyed, gazed out upon the night;
Gazed from the glowing darkness overhead

To where the distant township's lamps shone bright.

"Full many kindly souls," he muttered low,
"Feasting and laughing on this Christmas eve,

Did they my dire extremity but know

Would gladly seek my sufferings to relieve.

"And who am I, to wrap me in my pride,

Scorning to ask what would be freely given? Yet, no! I cannot beg!" he feebly cried,

"Help, to be help for me, must come from heaven!"

E'en as he spoke, high in the vast dark blue,
A meteor, loosened from its viewless ties,
Across the star-flow'red fields of ether flew,
Like some grand fire-winged bird of paradise.

Its trailing lustre shed a transient gleam
Upon two figures at the open door,
Whose faces brightened with a tender beam
The lonely hut that was so dim before.

A woman and a child! Was he distraught,
That neither fear nor wonder held him bound
To welcome beings who, his reason taught,

Had slept for twenty years in English ground?

Why should he fear them? Were they not his own,The wife, the child, with whom his heart had died?

What wonder if, when he was sick and lone,

They left their heaven for service at his side?

Hand clasped in hand they crossed his threshold now,
Smiling upon their loved one as they came;
They spoke no word, but kissed his pain-dewed brow,
And coolness fell upon his fevered frame.
How 'twas he knew not-but within a space
That seemed no longer than a moment's flight
A happy change had come upon the place,
And all around him streamed a soft, clear light.
The child was hanging garlands every where,
Familiar wreaths of holly's glossy green,
Of laurel and of bay; while here and there

Gleamed marvelous unknown blooms of snowy sheen.

The mother spread the table for a feast,

As though resuming old, sweet household care;
And he, in whom all sense of pain had ceased,
Was gently led this wondrous meal to share.
What was his fare, that eve of Christmas morn?
He cannot tell us, and he only could;

But, if 'twere not a dream of weakness born,
He, for the first time, tasted angels' food!
Then, smiling still, they held his feeble hands,
And sweetly raised that old, old hymn of praise,
That echoes on through widest-sundered lands,

In Christian hearts all earthly Christmas days.
"Come, all ye faithful!" Were they calling him?
Bidding him seek a heavenly Bethlehem?
He smiled in answer as his eyes grew dim,

And strove to rise that he might follow them.
"Joyful and triumphant!" Ah! such harmonies
Thrilled through the humble hut as human ear,
Unhelped by angel-teachers from the skies,

Has never heard, may never hope to hear.

Grandly it rose and swelled, that Christmas song!
Surely the choirs of heaven joined the strain-
That mighty stream of praise that bore along
Upon its flood a being freed from pain!

When his next neighbors, on the Christmas day,
Some friendly impulse to his shanty led,

Calm, placid, still, upon his bed he lay,

A smile was on his face-and he was dead!

PETER MULROONEY AND THE BLACK

FILLY.

Kitchen maids are so often bothered in their household duties by the gallantries of the men servants, that my wife had selected one from the Congo race of negroes, ugly to look at, but good tempered, and black as your hat. Phillis was her name, and a more faithful, devoted, and patient creature we never had around us. have thus introduced her, because she was a conspicuous personage in some of the droll incidents connected with my taking into service a queer specimen of a Patlander, by name Peter Mulrooney.

I

Mulrooney applied to me for a situation as groom, in the place of one I had just dismissed; and on my inquir ing if he could give me a reference as to his character and qualifications, he mentioned the name of Mr. David Urban (a personal friend of mine), with whom he had lived. "An' sure," said he with enthusiasm, "there isn't a dacenter jintleman in all Ameriky."

"I am happy to hear him so well spoken of," said I, "but if you were so much attached to him, why did you quit his service?"

"Sorra one o' me knows," said he, a little evasively, as I thought. "Ayeh! but 'twasn't his fault, anyhow." “I dare say not; but what did you do after you left Mr. Urban?"

"Och, bad luck to me, sir! 'twas the foolishest thing in the world. I married a widdy, sir."

"And became a householder, eh?"

"Augh!" he exclaimed, with an expression of intense disgust, "the house wouldn't hold me long; 'twas too hot for that, I does be thinkin'."

"Humph! You found the widow too fond of having her own way, I suppose?"

"Thru for you, sir; an' a mighty crooked

mighty crooked way it was,

that same, an' that's no lie."

"She managed to keep you straight, I dare say."

'Straight! Och, by the powhers, Misther Stanley, ye may say that! If I'd swallowed a soger's ramrod, 'tisn't straighter I'd have been!"

"And the result was, that, not approving the widow's discipline, you ran away and left her?"

"Sure sir, 'twas asier done nor that.

Her first husband, betther luck to him, saved me the throuble." "Her first husband! had she another husband living?" "Oh, yis, sir; one Mike Connolly, a sayfarin' man who was reported dead; but he came back one day, an' I resthored him his wife and childher. Oh, but 'twas a proud man I was, to be able to comfort poor Mike, by givin' him his lost wife-an' he so grateful, too! Ah, sir, he had a ra'al Irish heart."

Being favorably impressed with Peter's genuine good humor, I concluded to take him at once into my service. Nor was I mistaken in his character, for he took excellent care of my horses, and kept everything snug around the stables. One day I thought I would test his usefulness in doctoring, so I sent for him to the house.

Peter," said I, "do you think I could trust you to give the black filly a warm mash this evening?"

As he stared at me for a minute or two without replying, I repeated the question.

"Is it a mash, sir?" said he. "Sure, an' I'd like to be plasin' yer honor any way, an' that's no lie."

As he spoke, however, I fancied I saw a strange sort of puzzled expression flit across his face.

"I beg pardon, sir," continued he, "but 'tis bothered I am; will I be afther givin' her an ould counthry mash, or an Ameriky mash?

"I don't know if there is any difference between them," I answered, rather puzzled at what he was aiming, bu I found afterwards that he didn't know what a mash was. "Arrah, 'tis rasonable enough ye shouldn't," said Peter, "considerin' that yer honor never set fut in ould Ireland."