great cry of pity from the beach. Four men arose with the wreck out of the deep, clinging to the rigging of the remaining mast; uppermost, the active figure with the curling hair.

There was a bell on board; and as the ship rolled and dashed, this bell rang; and its sound, the knell of those unhappy men, was borne towards us on the wind. Again we lost her, and again she rose. Two of the four men were

gone.

I noticed that some new sensation moved the people on the beach, and I saw them part, and Ham come breaking through them to the front.

Instantly I ran to him, for I divined that he meant to wade off with a rope. I held him back with both arms; and implored the men not to listen to him, not to let him stir that sand.

Another cry arose, and we saw the cruel sail, with blow on blow, beat off the lower of the two men, and fly up in triumph round the active figure left alone upon the mast. Against such a sight, and against such determination as that of the calmly desperate man, who was already accustomed to lead half the people present, I might as hopefully have entreated the wind.

I was swept away to some distance, where the people around me made me stay; urging, as I confusedly perceived, that he was bent on going, with help or without, and that I should endanger the precautions for his safety by troubling those with whom they rested. I saw hurry on the beach, and men running with ropes, and penetrating into a circle of figures that hid him from me. Then I saw him standing alone, in a seaman's frock and trousers, a rope in his hand, another round his body, and several of the best men holding to the latter.

The wreck was breaking up. I saw that she was parting in the middle, and that the life of the solitary man upon the mast hung by a thread. He had a singular red cap on, not like a sailor's cap, but of a finer color; and as the few planks between him and destruction rolled and bulged, and as his death-knell rung, he was seen by all of us to wave this cap. I saw him do it now, and thought I was going distracted, when his action brought an old remembrance to my mind of a once dear friend, the once dear friend, Steerforth.

Ham watched the sea until there was a great retiring wave; when he dashed in after it, and in a moment was buffeting with the water, rising with the hills, falling with the valleys, lost beneath the foam, -borne in towards the shore, borne on towards the ship.

At length he neared the wreck. He was so near, that with one more of his vigorous strokes he would be clinging to it, when, a high, green, vast hillside of water moving on shoreward from beyond the ship, he seemed to leap up into it with a mighty bound, and the ship was gone!

They drew him to my very feet, insensible, dead. He was carried to the nearest house, and every means of restoration was tried; but he had been beaten to death by the great wave, and his generous heart was stilled forever.

As I sat beside the bed, when hope was abandoned, and all was done, a fisherman who had known me when Emily and I were children, and ever since, whispered my name at the door.

66

Sir, will you come over yonder?”

The old remembrance that had been recalled to me was in his look, and I asked him, "Has a body come ashore?" "Yes."

"Do I know it?"

He answered nothing. But he led me to the shore. And on that part of it where she and I had looked for shells, two children, on that part of it where some lighter fragments of the old boat blown down last night had been scattered by the wind, among the ruins of the home he had wronged, I saw him lying with his head upon his arm, as I had often seen him lie at school.

DICKENS.

THE SERENADE.

JOSIE JOHNSON, she was a sweet spinner who spun,
And Sam Salter, her lover, a singer who sung,
And her heart with his wiles like a wringer he wrung.

As the yarn on the spindle was winding, she wound
Her affections around him, which finding, he found
A pleasure in grinding the bosom he ground.

For Sam's fickle heart, it did swing as 'twas swung
To a girl in the choir who did sing where he sung,
And made walls and rafters to ring till they rung.

So one night, serenading her, creeping, Sam crept
To her window, while Josie, who weeping had wept
Her eyes almost out before sleeping, now slept.

The stars strewed the sky thick as ever 'twas strown;
The zephyrs blew balmy as ever they'd blown;
And Sam threw his voice slick as ever he'd thrown.

The maid serenaded, she tore, or did tear,
Out of bed, and the clothing she wore she did wear,
And herself to the window she bore or did bear.

Josie, too, at Sam's voice lightly springing up sprung From her couch, and the shutters back flinging she flung, And meanwhile to her rival Sam, singing, thus sung:

“Cruel alto, thy voice sends the dart it has sent That rends this fond heart - more precisely, has rentAnd which bleeding now spends the last drop it has spent.

"O deal not the wounds thou hast formerly dealt, For I kneel at thy window or rather have knelt; But make me feel better than ever I've felt."

Could Sam in his plaint more time spending have spent,
Or more pathos still to it lending have lent,
Towards him his girl's heart, fondly wending, had went.

But here Josie, enraged, cried out, "Bleeding or bled,
I'll teach you you'd better be heeding your head;
And a pitcher near by, swiftly speeding, she sped.

Now Josie, though not a singer who sung,
Was something in the way of a flinger who flung,
For square on Sam's forehead the wringer it wrung.

But the missile was frail, for, in cleaving, it cleft;
So then, bleeding in earnest, Sam, leaving it, left
One damsel bereaving, the other bereft.

THE "OLE MARSTER'S" CHRISTMAS.

66 YER axes me what dis heah is, sah?

Well, hit's nuffin', sah, but jes' er coat
Jes' wun ob dese long, gray, ulsty kin',
Whar buttons close up on de th❜oat.
I got hit ter fit on er fren', sah,

An' I'se gwine an' wid my own han'
Ter wrop hit eroun' de bes' hart, sah,
Dat is beatin' ter day in dis lan'!

"No, tain't fer nobody whar's kin ter me
'Cept dis, sah, dat in dem ole days
'Fore de wah an' fore freedum cum in, sah,
He wuz den my 'Ole Marster' always.
He wuz kin' an' ez jest ez er judge, sah,
An' always done right by us all,

An' he nebber forget w'en twuz Christmas
Ter hab sumthin' in han' fer us all!

"But de wah an' destruckshin cum on him,
An' he loss all he had in de lan',
An' feebled, an' fren'less, an' weak, sah,
Had ter lib by de wuck ob hiz han'.

I tell yer de fite's bin er hard ’un -
Dis keepin' de wolf fum de do',
An' off en he'z sed he'd gib up, sah,
An' not try ter fite enny mo'!

"But I'd brace him up, sorter-like, sayin':
'Dar's better times cumin' ahead
Jes' keep on er peggin' an' prayin',
An' nebber say die tell yer dead!'
An' so, he'd keep tryin' an' tryin',
But he couldn't keep up a strong lick;
An' at las' had ter gib up hiz weepon
An' lay down like a little chile, sick!

66

"Den we dun de bes' wuck in de wull', sah,
Ter bring him ag'in ter hisse'f,

Ter keep his po' body awhile heah,
An' keep in hit hiz flickerin' bref;

But I seed him dis mawnin' so po❜ly,
So thin, an' so pale, an' so bar',
Dat I jes' tuck er holt on my heart-strings
An played 'em fer all dat wuz dar!
"So I'se tuck all de munney I'd laid up
Fer ter buy me my own Christmus gif",
An' boughten dis coat, good an' warm, sah,
Fer ter gib my Ole Marster a lif'!
I know he'll be glad wid de cumfurt

Hit'll bring ter hiz weakly ole frame;
While me? I kin skirmish eroun' heah,
An' feel happy an' rich jes' de same!"
So went the old man on his mission
As happy as ever a king,

His heart beating holier music
Than ever a mortal can sing.

And though others may think that a nigger
Has never the gift of a soul,

He's got something will pass for its equal
When Heaven shall call its last roll!

ATLANTA CONSTITUTION.

HOW THE COLONEL TOOK IT.

IN SQUARE. AN AFFAIR IN THE PENINSULA.
WE were standing foot to foot, and giving shoot for shoot,
Hot and strong went our volleys at the blue;

We knelt, but not for grace, and the fuse lit up the face
Of the gunner, as the round shot by us flew.

Oh, the bugle it blew loud, the shot blew in a cloud,
And the bayonets of the boys were at play;

The old Colonel, puffing fust, was almost like to bust,
With shouting "Faugh a ballagh, clear the way!"

Bedad! our steels were thick, and it made us mad, not sick,
To see the brave boys melting like the dew;

But the colors overhead, with a whirling gust of red,
Like a thunder-cloud above us fought and blew.

The Colonel he was blown, yet he struck up Garry Ow'n; "I know who'll be tired first of this play:

And every now and then, like a dragon from his den,
He outs with "Faugh a ballagh, clear the way!"