O, the day when thou goest a-wooing,
Philip, my king!

When those beautiful lips 'gin sueing,
And, some gentle heart's bars undoing,
Thou dost enter, love crowned, and there
Sittest love glorified! Rule kindly,
Tenderly over thy kingdom fair;

For we that love, ah! we love so blindly,
Philip, my king!

I gaze from thy sweet mouth up to thy brow,
Philip, my king!

The spirit that there lies sleeping now

May rise like a giant, and make men bow

As to one heaven-chosen amongst his peers.

My Saul, than thy brethren higher and fairer,
Let me behold thee in future years,

Yet thy head needed a circlet rarer,
Philip, my king!

A wreath, not of gold, but palm. One day,
Philip. my king!

Thou, too, must tread, as we trod, a way
Thorny, and cruel, and cold, and gray;

Rebels within thee and foes without

Will snatch at thy crown. But march on, glorious,

Martyr, yet monarch! till angels shout,

As thou sitt'st at the feet of God victorious,
"Philip, my king!"

DEATH OF MURIEL, THE BLIND CHILD.-(FROM "JOHN HALIFAX.")

John opened the large book-the Book he had taught all his children to long for and to love-and read out of it their favorite history of Joseph and his brethren. The mother sat by him by the fireside, rocking Maud softly on her knees. Edwin and Walter settled themselves on the hearth-rug, with great eyes intently fixed on their father. From behind him the candle-light fell softly down on the motionless figure in the bed, whose hand he held, and whose face he every now and then turned to look at-then, satisfied, continued to read. In the reading his voice had a fatherly, flowing calm-as Jacob's might have had, when the children were tender," and he gathered them all around him under the palm trees of Succoth-years before he cried unto the Lord that bitter cry (which John hurried over as he read): "If I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved."

For an hour, nearly, we all sat thus, with the wind coming up the valley, howling in the beach-wood, and shaking the casement as it passed outside. Within, the only sound was the father's voice. This ceased at last; he shut the Bible, and put it aside. The group-that last perfect household picture-was broken up. It melted away into things of the past, and beeame only a picture

forevermore. "Now, boys, it is full time to say good-night. There, go and kiss your sister." "Which?" said Edwin, in his funny way. We've got two now; and I don't

know which is the biggest baby." "I'll thrash you if you say that again," cried Guy. "Which, indeed! Maud is but the baby. Muriel will always be sister." "Sister" faintly laughed, as she answered his fond kiss-Guy was often thought to be her favorite brother. "Now, off with you boys; and go downstairs quietly-mind, I say quietly."

They obeyed-that is, as literally as boy-nature can obey such an admonition. But an hour after, I heard Guy and Edwin arguing vociferously in the dark, on the respective merits and future treatment of their two sisters, Muriel and Maud.

John and I sat up late together that night. He could not rest even though he told me he had left the mother and her two daughters as cosy as a nest of woodpigeons. We listened to the wild night, till it had almost howled itself away; then our fire went out, and we came and sat over the last fagot in Mrs. Todd's kitchen, the old Debatable Land. We began talking of the long ago time, and not of this time at all. The vivid present--never out of either mind for an instant we in our conversation did not touch upon, by at least ten years. Nor did we give expression to a thought which strongly oppressed me, and which I once or twice fancied I could detect in John likewise; how very like this night seemed to the night when Mr. March died; the same silentness in the house, the same windy whirl without, the same blaze of the wood-fire on the same kitchen ceiling. More than once I could almost have deluded myself that I heard the faint moans and footsteps overhead; that the stair-case door would open, and we should see there Miss March, in her white gown, and her pale, steadfast look.

"I think the mother seemed very well and calm to-night," I said hesitatingly, as we were retiring. "She is, God help her-and us all." He will."

That was all we said.

He went up-stairs the last thing, and brought down word that mother and children were sound asleep.

"I think I may leave them until daylight to-morrow. And now, Uncle Phineas, go you to bed, for you look as tired as tired can be."

I went to bed; but all night long I had disturbed dreams, in which I pictured over and over again, first the night when Mr. March died, then the night at Longfield, when the little white ghost had crossed by my bed's foot into the room where Mary Baines' dead boy lay. And continually, towards morning, I fancied I heard through my window, which faced the church, the faint, distant sound of the organ, as when Muriel used to play it.

Long before it was daylight I rose. As I passed the boys' room, Guy called out to me: "Halloa! Uncle Phineas, is it a fine morning? for I want to go down into the wood and get a lot of beech wood and fir-cones for sister. It's her birthday to-day, you know." It was for her. But for us-O Muriel, our darling, darling child!

Let me hasten over the story of that morning, for my old heart quails before it still. John went early to the room upstairs. It was very still. Ursula lay calmly asleep, with baby Maud in her bosom; on her other side, with eyes wide open to the daylight, lay-that which for more than ten years we had been used to call blind Muriel.' She saw now.

Just the same homely room-half bed-chamber, half a nursery- the same little curtain'ess bed where, for a week past, we had been accustomed to see the wasted figure and pale face lying, in smiling quietude all day long.

It lay there still. In it, and in the room, was hardly any change. One of

Walter's play-things was in the corner of the window sill, and on the chest of drawers stood the nosegay of Christmas roses which Guy had brought for his sister yesterday morning. Nay, her shawl-a white, soft, furry shawl, that she was fond of wearing-remained still hanging up behind the door, One could almost fancy the little maid had just been said "good-night" to, and left to dream the childish dreams on her nursery pillow, where the small head rested so peacefully, with that pretty babyish night-cap tied over the pretty curls. There she was, the child who had gone out of the number of our children-our earthly children-forever.