in her warm corner; and don't go out of suredly have written, not the song, but a school without me. song of the shirt; for once when she was That afternoon the two girls went hand questioned as to the dull monotony of her in hand to Jessie's door. "Have you plenty to eat, if you've no fire?" asked Annie. "This is the first day mother has been forced to send me to school without any breakfast," said Jessie, hanging down her head, as if ashamed of the confession. 66 Here," said Annie, after a slight pause, untwisting the paper in which were deposited her first earnings; "I won't go in with you, for your mother might not like to take it from a little girl like me; but'and she put two shillings into Jessie's hand-"that is to buy you something to eat, and a fire; and if your mother can sew as well as I can," said Annie, with pardonable vanity, "I can tell her how to get plenty of money to pay for both." No wonder Annie's riches increased the first investment was a good one. Nevertheless, the concealing it from her parents she knew to be wrong; she feared they would disapprove; and she added to her little prayer at night, after the usual ending of "God bless father and motherand forgive me for keeping secret that I helped Jessie Wilson." Could the recording angel carry up a purer prayer to heaven? Of course, Mr. and Mrs. Linton very soon discovered that Mr. Seamwell, of the "Ready-made Linen Warehouse," was the grand source of Annie's wealth. He said there was no one who could work like her, and that he would give her eighteenpence each for the finest description of shirt-making. This was no great payment for Annie's exquisite stitching-and, thirty years ago, it would have brought her threeand-sixpence a shirt. But Annie is of the present, not of the past; and as she could complete a shirt a day, her fingers flying swifter than a weaver's shuttle, she earned nine shillings a week. "Good wife," said Mr. Linton, "we are not so poor but that we can maintain our daughter till she's twenty, and by that time, at the present rate of her earnings, she will have a little fortune in the bank." But this little fortune amassed but slowly, for Annie seldom had nine shillings to put by at the end of the week-there were other "Jessie Wilsons" who required food and fire. Had Annie been a poet, she would as work: "Dull? Delightful!" said Annie, in advocacy of her calling. "Why, with this rare linen and fine thread, my stitches seem like stringing little pearls along the wristbands and collar!" What an antisong of the shirt might not Annie have written! Annie's eighteenth birthday was celebrated by a tea-party to all the seamstresses of Mr. Seamwell's establishment, where she was now forewoman; besides being a cheerful, kind-hearted little creature, beloved by everybody, it was a compliment, Mr. Seamwell said, she well deserved— her admirable superintendence of the department allotted her having increased his business tenfold. Some time after, there was a greater day of rejoicing in the firm of Seamwell and Co. The father had taken his son as a partner, and the son took a partner for life-the indefatigable little seamstress, Annie Linton. There never was a blither bridal. Annie-herself having risen from the ranks-had a present for every workwoman. Indeed it was a day of presents, for on that very morning, and in time to be worn at the wedding, a shawl arrived for Annie all the way from India-an Indian shawl that a duchess would have envied! Upon it was pinned a paper, on which was written: "Wear this for the sake of one who is now rich and happy, but who never can forget the service you rendered to the poor school-girl-JESSIE WILSON." "Annie," said young Seamwell after the marriage, "I fell in love with you when you were a child, and came to our shop for your first sewing. I also happened to be passing when you gave part of your first earnings to Jessie Wilson. I was a boy then, but I said to myself: 'If I were a man, I'd marry Annie Linton; not because she's so pretty'-here Annie blushed most becomingly-not because she's so industrious, but because she's so kind-hearted."" NOTHING can be very ill with us when all is well within: we are not hurt till our souls are hurt. If the soul itself be out of tune, outward things will do us no more good than a fair shoe to a gouty foot.Sibs. mer's queen Had clad the earth,) now Boreas' blast down blew; And small fowls flocking, in their songs did rue The Winter's wrath, wherewith each thing, defaced, In woeful wise bewail'd the Summer past: The cruel season, bidding me withhold WINTER, BY SPENSER. NEXT came the chill December: Yet he, through merry feasting which he made And great bonfires, did not the cold remember; His Saviour's birth his mind so much did glad: Upon a shaggy bearded goat he rodeThe same wherewith Dan Jove in tender years, They say, was nourish'd by the Ioan maid; And in his hand a broad deep bowl be bears, Of which he freely drinks a health to all his peers. Lastly, came Winter clothed all in frieze, Chattering his teeth for cold that did him chill; While on his hoary beard his breath did freeze, And the dull drops, that from his purpled bill, As from a limbeck, did adown distill: In his right hand a tipped staff he held, With which his feeble steps he stayed still; For he was faint with cold, and weak with eld, That scarce his loosèd limbs he able was to wield. VOL. V.-41 CHRISTMAS TIDE, BY SHAKSPEARE. SOME say that ever 'gainst that season comes, Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long; And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow'd, and so gracious is the time. THE SHEPHERDS' SONG. SWEET Music, sweeter far Than any song is sweet Sweet Music, heavenly rare, Mine ears, O peers, doth greet. You gentle flocks-whose fleeces, pearl'd with dew, Resemble Heaven, whom golden drops make bright Listen, O listen, now; O not to you Our pipes make sport to shorten weary night; But voices most divine Make blissful harmony- For what else clears the sky? Lo, how the firmament Within an azure fold, The flock of stars hath pent, That we might them behold. Yet from their beams proceedeth not this light, Nor can their crystals such reflection give; What then doth make the element so bright? The heavens are come down upon earth to live. But hearken to the song: Glory to glory's King, And peace all men among, These choristers do sing. Angels they are, as also shepherds, he From God, our heavenly Father, A blessed angel came, And unto certain shepherds Brought tidings of the same; How that in Bethlehem was born The Son of God by name. O tidings, &c. Fear not, then said the angel, The shepherds at those tidings And went to Bethlehem straightway, O tidings, &c. But when to Bethlehem they came, They found him in a manger His mother Mary kneeling Now to the Lord sing praises, All you within this place, And with true love and brotherhood Each other now embrace, This holy tide of Christmas All others doth deface. O tidings, &c. THE APPROACH OF CHRISTMAS. BY JOHN GAY. WHEN rosemary, and bays, the poets' crown, Lo! meager Want uprears her sickly head; SUMMER TOIL, AND WINTER CHEER. (From Poor Robin's Almanack.) Now after all our slaving, toiling, E give in our present number several are the scenes which he looked upon-the the elder poets; and add the above moonlight view of Bethlehem, the birth-place of Christ, as a suitable counterpart to them. We may not be able to determine the exact spot where Christ was crucified, or point to the cave in which, for part of three days, his body lay; nor is the locality from which he ascended to heaven ascertainable. The Scriptures are silent, and no other authority can supply the information. But we know that in the Holy Land -that Mount Olivet which once overlooked Jerusalem-we know that Mount Gerizim still overhangs the Valley of Shechem-that there is the hill where once stood Samaria-that there is Nazareth, within whose secluded vale our Lord so long awaited the time appointed for his public ministry-the plain of Gennesareth, and the Sea of Galilee-the mountains to which he retired-the plains in which he wrought his miracles-the waters which he trod, and the Jordan, still rolling its |