"I tell you no !

"Why, it's Mary's birth-day, and all the little children are going. Her mother is going to make lots of cakes and tarts, and her father has bought oranges and nuts. O, dear, we must go!" and Matilda clasped her hands in the eagerness of her appeal.

"Matilda Eulalia, don't say another word about the party, but sit down and eat your breakfast; the table has been waiting this half hour."

Mr. Smith was vexed at his wife's un

just decision, and felt for the disappointment of the children, but he hated a quarrel, and experience had taught him that he would come off worsted in a contest, so he withdrew in silence.

The children teased and pouted, and flouted, and went to school with red eyes and sore hearts. Still Mrs. Smith was inexorable.

"Good morning," said a cheerful, friendly voice. She started and beheld the object of her unfounded hatred, Mrs. John Smith, the mechanic's wife, stood in the dining-room door-way. She had thrown a handkerchief over her head, and run across the street to ask her neighbor to let Matilda and Orlando attend her children's party. She was dressed in a nicely fitting calico wrapper, her dark hair was bound smoothly around a head of fine moral and intellectual development, her face was well formed and winning in its expression, and her beautiful brown eyes spoke volumes in favor of their possessor. She looked the lady, and a born lady she was, by right of the inherent qualities of

"Good morning," said the merchant's lady, coldly and stiffly, meanwhile flattering herself that that coldness and stiffness was haughty condescension; "will you take a seat?"

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No, I thank you; I am busy with an important baking on my hands. It is lit tle Mary's birth-day, and she is to cele brate it with a party. Will you let your children come early after dinner?"

Now it was our aspiring Mrs. Smith's time to triumph. To be able to refuse a civility point blank, was a privilege she had longed to enjoy. "I beg you to excuse me, but really I disapprove of large parties for children, and, on all occasions, I endeavor to keep mine by themselves as much as possible!"

A puzzled smile parted the lips of little Mary's mother; it rose to her eyes, and lighted them with a gleam of surprise and amusement, and then with a slight flush, showing wounded feeling, she bowed and silently turned away.

At noon time the children clamorously renewed their importunities. They could not be denied going to the party. Lily Johnson, and Eddie and Sarah Harcourt were going, why could not they?

This put a new face upon affairs; Lily Johnson and the little Harcourts were to be there. Mrs. Smith began to regret that she had cut her neighbor so decidedly, but it was too late to retract now. So through that long Saturday afternoon, while the shouts of the merry party over the way rung upon the air, "Tilda" and "Guss" moped about the house and cried, or wrangled with each other.

The

One auspicious morning Mrs. Smith awoke to find herself a rich woman. evening mail, delayed beyond its usual hour, brought the unexpected tidings of good fortune in a large yellow envelope, sealed with a red wafer. Mrs. Smith had retired for the night, so the important missive was allowed to lay unopened until morning. It might however, have had some magnetic influence upon the lady's visions, for she floated all night in a charmed dream, with the glitter of silks and the flash of jewels before her eyes, and seemed to be not herself, but some

high-born duchess or princess of royal

blood.

She had nearly completed her morning toilet, when she espied the letter upon her dressing-table. Her correspondence was limited, so it was with lively curiosity that she examined the superscription, and then separated the wafer. A few ill-spelt, scrawling lines, were traced upon the coarse paper, but they had a meaning which caused her pulses to leap as though the letter was charged with electricity.

An aged grand-uncle whom she had never seen, and scarcely heard of, had suddenly stepped out of this world, leaving his property to be divided among his distant relatives. The letter announced this fact, and that she had a claim upon fifty thousand dollars.

Mrs. Smith grew giddy with joy, yet, half incredulous, she studied the ines over and over. There it was in plain fig. ures, $50,000. And it was hers, all hers. She was a rich woman now, and could

hold

up her head as high as she pleased. She laughed and cried alternately; she walked back and forth with a proud sweep of her skirts; she smiled congratulations upon herself in the mirror, and tossed her head with as fine an air as any Miss McBride.

While thus occupied, Tilda threw open the door, calling loudly, "Mother, mother, breakfast is ready and waiting! father has come back from the store, and Bridget is getting cross because you are so late. 0, have you got a letter? who is it from, mother?"

"Matilda Eulalia, my dearest daughter, come here!" cried Mrs. Smith, radiantly. The little maiden advanced as she was bid and was received in her mother's arms with the greatest demonstrations of joy and tenderness. "My darling child, now I am so happy! a great fortune has fallen to me; I am a rich woman, and you are an heiress, and my noble boy is a great heir! I had such dreams last night, and no wonder ! "

"O, I am glad," cried the child; "and now we can have everything we want! I shall have a piano and a canary bird in a gold cage, and brother can have a pony and a real gun. Say, ma; are you ever

so rich, and can we have everything we want?"

'Yes, my little heiress!"

"But if Orlando is a great heir, I'll be a great heiress, too; I will have as much as he!"

Mrs. Smith laughed and said, "Yes, certainly, certainly," and hastened down stairs, followed by the little, great heiress, in high glee.

"O, father," she cried, "a great, big fortune has fallen down upon mother, and we are all rich, and can have everything we want! O, brother, you can have a pony and a gold saddle, if you like, and I shall have a piano and lots and lots of pretty things."

66

What nonsense are you talking?" said Mr. Smith; come, the breakfast is getting cold; let us sit down to the table."

"I care little for breakfast," said the stately mistress of fifty thousand, "and let me tell you, Mr. Smith, the child was not talking such nonsense as you suppose. Read this letter. My dear, old uncle, Lemuel Higgins, is dead, and I am one of his heirs."

Somewhat mystified, honest John Smith: took the letter and read. He had never heard of her dear old uncle before, and thought the rich relative had stepped in and out of the play very mysteriously. "This is strange," he murmured, knitting his brow. "I never heard of Lemuel Higgins before."

"But I have," put in his wife, swelling with importance; "I have heard of him many times when I lived home with my father. He was a bachelor, a queer sort of a man. He went off a long, long time ago, to the Indian frontiers and became a trapper. They said he made a vast fortune trading in furs. Noble old gentleman! I little thought he'd remember me so generously!"

'I don't see how he has remembered you at all, as he never saw or heard of you. He died, and as he left no will, his money is to be divided among his heirs."

Mrs. Smith looked in dignified reproach upon her matter-of-fact husband, then drew her handkerchief forth with an affect ing flourish, and wiped her eyes.

"You

VICTORY OR DEFEAT?

Every loyal heart is praying for the salvation of our beloved country; and we feel that honor and liberty, interests more precious than life itself, depend upon the success of our union arms. When last summer from the bloody field of strife, the terrible cry of defeat was borne to us, and in the first moments of tumult and horror we feared to see our very Capital desecrated by the hands of traitors, even strong men wept and shuddered. How pale with grief, or stern with fierce determination were the faces that met us then!

Now we are cheered with repeated victories, and our hearts leap with joyful exultation. How our fathers and brothers and husbands shake hands and congratulate one another with beaming smiles, over a victory! Ah, but these are dear bought victories! With the shout of triumph is blended the wail of orphans and widows, and rivers of tears flow by the streams of blood.

Dear reader, there are better victories than these, glorious as we esteem them, bloodless victories over the rebellious elements within the human soul.

You arise some morning and carelessly go about your duties forgetting to fortify yourselves against the probable assaults of the enemy. Your fortress is weak and vulnerable at some points, so by and by when temptation assails in an unguarded moment, you are obilged to yield with a struggle more or less severe, as the case may be.

Perhaps you have been overcome by petulance, or impatience, or uncharitablenesss, perhaps selfishness has conquered you, or you have yielded to a spirit of unreconciliation, or faithlessness, or ingratitude. It may be you have not utterly fallen, and have been guiltless with your lips, so that no human being knows of the conflict and ignominious defeat in your soul. But you know it by the sore wounds of your spirit, and he who watches

from above, the contest between marshalled hosts, and shapes events so as to carry out his infinite plan, notes it with a Father's eye.

Many will lie down upon their pillows tonight, weeping, or sad enough to weep, because moral defeat has marked the day. But those who have conquered, who can write 'victory' upon the golden annals of the day, will fall asleep with joy and gratitude in their hearts.

Let those who weep take courage, for the noblest have often erred, and asking forgiveness, begin the new day in the strength of prayer and holy resolutions. Let those who have conquered, be humble in their joy, for without the help of heaven they may fall to

What a wonderful and spicy ingredient of our nation it is! A great creative genius- & grand artificer out of nothing! We have just been perusing the fire-a brave, crackling wood fire on the hearth- and unconsciously lost ourselves in an imaginary battle. A battle has been fought among the flames and coals and living embers. We saw the charges of the cavalry, the fall of men, the rout and confusion of the combatants. A little girl is at our side whose eyes have been directed to the same object, but no word had been for some time spoken, and no hint on our part of what we saw. Suddenly she spoke. "Do you see those horsemen in the fire, flying for their lives? They are the South. Do you see that great body of men after them, that seem to