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a serious scolding for having given a moment's belief to such a ridiculous report. Your Queen of Beauty' crowns no other knight than the one she did of old," said Debby, timidly, at the same time lifting a pretty chaplet of myrtle and roses from the table where she had laid it, and binding it playfully around the invalid's brow.

Happy Ben! How rapidly he recovered on the elixir of Debby's love! And how bright the remaining hours of his convalescence became with dreams of the time when she whose beauty had animated his pictures, and won him a good part of the distinction he already enjoyed, should be not only the inspiring genius of his studio, but the presiding divinity at his hearthstone.

*

*

"There! that will do," says Hal, who has been following my story, page by page. "Leave us to imagine the widow's surprise, Debby's happiness, and all the details of the wedding and the settlement. I like your story pretty well, sis, but I am afraid the critics will complain of it for wanting a moral."

I have not written for a moral, Hal, but to depict a character, and illustrate village life in its loveliest and most poetic guise. Many a flower, as bright and beautiful as Debby, emits a life of sweetness in the glens and cottage-homes

of our country; and pleasant the task to me, Hal, to bring them out to the sunshine of such gentle sympathies as have followed the life of our sweet Debby from the undisciplined romance of early girlhood, up to its crowning glory of tested truth and requited love.

FORWARD MARCH!

BY A. C. THOMAS.

To the sun of truth if thou turnest thy back,
The shadow of self will darken thy track.
Is "forward!" the motto? 'T will end in wo,
For longer and darker the shadow will grow.

Soul Traveller!

Thou'st turned thy face to the sun"T is a holy pilgrimage, well begun! To the spirit's equator still onward pressStill on, for thy shadow grows less and less. Pause not, pause never! but onward haste, Past syren bower, and o'er satyr waste — For the shrine with beauty and truth is crowned, And glory is beaming forever around.

Thou shalt know thy pilgrimage there complete, When all of shadow is 'neath thy feet.

ABIMELECH.

BY MISS C. W. BARBER.

"And he went unto his father's house at Ophrah, and slew his brethren, the sons of Jerubbaal, being threescore and ten persons, upon one stone."-JUDGES IX. 5.

THERE is a bloody record kept

Of thee, frail erring one;
Strange that from such a noble sire

There sprung so base a son!

Strange that a heart so young and proud
Could prompt to such dark crimes
As stand engraved against thy name
In ever-during lines.

Did not that old, gray, flinty rock,
Stained with thy brethren's gore,
Haunt all thy after dreams of life
With horrid tales of yore?
Did not those rigid, bloodless lips,
And dull, half open eyes,
Seem ever whispering to thy heart,

"Blood! blood! thy hand now dyes?

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Perchance thou thought'st no brow could ache

Beneath a crown of gold;

No heart could feel a pang of pain
Beneath a purple fold;

Deluded wretch! a thousand dream

The same wild vision o'er,

And wake to find that peace hath flown
To visit them no more.

Thy race was short; a little while
Base flattery charmed thine ear,
A little while they hailed thee "king,"
And courtiers crowded near;

But when the purple grape hung ripe
Upon the clinging vine,

Thy guilty followers cursed thy name,
And drank the sparkling wine.

There came an hour- -a fearful hour
Blood stained thy pallid cheek,
And vainly in thy agony

Thy lips essayed to speak;

Revenge had nerved a woman's hand

To deeds of giant power;

How writhed thy soul with deep remorse

In that dark, bitter hour!

Another pang-the bright steel flashed
And glittered in the sun,

Then pierced thy guilty, quivering breast
Thy wretched course was done.

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