Her tears of grief were tears of joy,
As folded in his strong embrace,
She looked in Esek Harden's face.
"O truest friend of all!" she said;
"God bless you for your kindly thought,
And make me worthy of my lot!"

He led her through his dewy fields,

To where the swinging lanterns glowed, And through the doors the huskers showed. "Good friends and neighbors!" Esek said, "I'm weary of this lonely life; In Mabel see my chosen wife!

"She greets you kindly, one and all; The past is past, and all offence

Falls harmless from her innocence. Henceforth she stands no more alone: You know what Esek Harden is;He brooks no wrong to him or his."

Now let the merriest tales be told,

And let the sweetest songs be sung,
That ever made the old heart young!
For now the lost has found a home

And a lone hearth shall brighter burn,
As all the household joys return!

Oh, pleasantly the harvest moon,

Between the shadow of the mows,

Looked on them through the great elm-boughs! On Mabel's curls of golden hair,

On Esek's shaggy strength, it fell;

And the wind whispered, "It is well!"

Abridged. F. G. Whittier.

SCENE FROM THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.

SCENE II.-Belmont. A Room in Portia's House.

Enter PORTIA and NERISSA.

Por. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world.

Ner. You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in the same abundance as your good fortunes are; and yet, for aught I see, they are as sick that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing. It is no mean happiness, therefore, to be seated in the mean; superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.

Por. Good sentences and well pronounced.

Ner. They would be better if well followed.

Por. If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions. I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may devise laws for the blood; but a hot temper leaps over a cold decree; such a hare is madness, the youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good counsel, the cripple. But this reasoning is not in the fashion to choose me a husband. O me! the word choose! I may neither choose whom I would, nor refuse whom I dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father. Is it not hard, Nerissa, that I cannot choose one, nor refuse none?

Ner. Your father was ever virtuous; and holy men at their death have good inspirations; therefore, the

lottery that he hath devised in these three chests of gold, silver, and lead (whereof who chooses his meaning, chooses you), will, no doubt, never be chosen by any rightly, but one whom you shall rightly love. But what warmth is there in your affection towards any of these princely suitors that are already come?

Por. I pray thee overname them; and as thou namest them, I will describe them; and according to my description, level at my affection.

Ner. First, there is the Neapolitan prince.

Por. Ay, that's a colt, indeed, for he doth nothing but talk of his horse; and he makes it a great appropriation to his own good parts, that he can shoe him himself; I am much afraid he would house me in a smithy.

Ner. Then, is there the county Palatine.

Por. He doth nothing but frown; as who should say, "An you will not have me choose:" he hears merry tales and smiles not; I fear he will prove the weeping philosopher, when he grows old, being so full of unmannerly sadness in his youth. I had rather be married to a death's-head with a bone in his mouth, than to either of these. God defend me from these two!

Ner. How say you by the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon?

a man.

Por. God made him, and therefore let him pass for In truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker; but, he! why he hath a horse better than the Neapolitan's; a better bad habit of frowning than the count Palatine. He is every man in no man: if a throstle sing, he falls straight a capering; he will fence with his own shadow. If I should marry him, I should

marry twenty husbands. If he would despise me, I would forgive him; for if he love me to madness, I shall never requite him.

Ner. What say you then to Faulconbridge, the young baron of England?

Por. You know I say nothing to him, for he understands not me nor I him; he hath neither Latin, French, nor Italian; and you will come into the court and swear that I have a poor pennyworth in the English. He is a proper man's picture; but, alas! who can converse with a dumb show? how oddly he is suited! I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round-hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behavior everywhere.

Ner. What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbor?

Por. That he hath a neighborly charity in him, for he borrowed a box of the ear of the Englishman, and swore he would pay him again when he was able. I think the Frenchman became his surety, and sealed under for another.

Ner. How like you the young German, the Duke of Saxony's nephew?

Por. Very vilely in the morning, when he is sober; and most vilely in the afternoon, when he is drunk; when he is best, he is a little worse than a man; and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast. An the worst fall that ever fell, I hope I shall make shift to go without him.

Ner. If he should offer to choose, and choose the right casket, you would refuse to perform your father's will, if you should refuse to accept him.

Por. Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee set

a deep glass of Rhenish wine on the contrary casket: for, if the devil be within, and that temptation without, I know he will choose it. I will do anything, Nerissa, ere I will be married to a sponge.

Ner. You need not fear, lady, the having any of these lords; they have acquainted me with their determinations; which is, indeed, to return to their home and to trouble you with no more suit, unless you may be won by some other sort than your father's imposition, depending on the caskets.

Por. If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as chaste as Diana, unless I be obtained by the manner of my father's will. I am glad this parcel of wooers are so reasonable; for there is not one among them but I dote on his very absence, and I pray God grant them a fair departure.

Ner. Do you not remember, lady, in your father's time, a Venetian, a scholar and a soldier, that came hither in company of the Marquis of Montferrat ?

Por. Yes, yes; it was Bassanio; as I think, so he was called.

Ner. True, madam; he, of all the men that ever my foolish eyes looked upon, was the best deserving a fair lady.

Por. I remember him well, and I remember him worthy of thy praise. How now! What news?

Enter a SERVANT.

Serv. The four strangers seek for you, madam, to take their leave; and there is a forerunner come from a fifth, the prince of Morocco, who brings word, the prince, his master, will be here to-night.

Por. If I could bid the fifth welcome with so good