to bed, and the Squire gathered up his shoes and stockings and followed.

Sally and I were left sitting a good yard apart, honest measure. For fear of getting tongue-tied again, I set right in, with a steady stream of talk. I told her all the particulars about the weather that was past, and also made some pretty cute guesses at what it was like to be in future. At first, I with gave a hitch up my chair at every full stop. Then growing saucy, repeated it at every comma, and semicolon; and at last, it was hitch, hitch, hitch, and I planted myself fast by the side of her.

I

"I swow, Sally, you looked so plaguy handsome to day, that I wanted to eat you up."-Pshaw, get along you," says she. My hand had crept along, somehow, upon its fingers, and begun to scrape acquaintance with hers. She sent it home again, with a desperate jerk. "Try it agin"—no better luck. Why, Miss Jones you're gettin' upstropulous, a little old madish, I guess." "Hands off is fair play, Mr. Beedle."

66

It is a good sign to find a girl sulkey. I knew where the shoe pinched. It was that are Patty Bean business. So I went to work to persuade her that I had never had any notion after Patty, and to prove it I fell to running her down at a great rate. Sally could not help chiming in with me, and I rather guess Miss Patty suffered a few. I, now, not only got hold of her hand without opposition, but managed to slip an arm round her waist. But there was no satisfying me; so I must go to poking out my lips after a buss. I guess I rued it. She fetched me a slap in the face that made me see stars, and my ears rung like a brass kettle for a quarter of an hour. I was forced to laugh at the joke, tho' out of the wrong side of my mouth, which

gave my face something the look of a gridiron. The battle now began in the regular way. "Ah, Sally, give me a kiss, and ha' done with it, now.-I won't, so there, nor tech to.—I'll take it, whether or no.-Do it, if you dare."-And at it we went, rough and tumble. An odd destruction of starch now commenced. The bow of my cravat was squat up in half a shake. At the next bout, smash went shirt collar, and, at the same time, some of the head fastenings gave way, and down came Sally's hair in a flood, like a mill dam broke loose, carrying away half a dozen combs. One dig of Sally's elbow, and my blooming ruffles wilted down to a dish-cloth. But she had no time to boast. Soon her neck tackling began to shiver. It parted at the throat, and, whorah, came a whole school of blue and white beads, scampering and running races every which way, about the floor.

By the Hokey; if Sally Jones is'nt real grit, there's no snakes. She fought fair, however, I must own, and neither tried to bite nor scratch; and when she could fight no longer, for want of breath, she yielded handsomely. Her arms fell down by her sides, her head back over her chair, her eyes closed and there lay her little plump mouth, all in the air. Lord! did ye ever see a hawk pounce upon a young robin? Or a bumblebee upon a clover-top ?-I say nothing.

Consarn it, how a buss will crack, of a still frosty hight. Mrs. Jones was about half way between asleep and awake. "There goes my yeast bottle, says she to herself-burst into twenty hundred pieces, and my bread is all dough agin."

The upshot of the matter is, I fell in love with Sally Jones, head over ears. Every Sunday night, rain or

shine, finds me rapping at 'Squire Jones' door, and twenty times have I been within a hair's breadth of popping the question. But now I have made a final resolve; and if I live till next Sunday night, and I don't get choked in the trial, Sally Jones will hear thunder.

VENETIAN MOONLIGHT.

By Frederick Mellen.

THE midnight chime had tolled from Marco's towers;
O'er Adria's wave the trembling echo swept;
The gondolieri paused upon their oars,

Mutt'ring their prayers as through the still night crept.

Far on the wave the knell of time sped on,
Till the sound died upon its tranquil breast;
The sea-boy startled as the peal rolled on;
Gazed at his star, and turned himself to rest.

The throbbing heart, that late had said farewell,
Still lingering on the wave that bore it home,
At that bright hour sigh'd o'er the dying swell,
And thought on years of absence yet to come.

'T was moonlight on Venetia's sea,
And every fragrant bower and tree
Smiled in the golden light;
The thousand eyes that clustered there
Ne'er in their life looked half so fair
As on that happy night.

A thousand sparkling lights were set
every dome and minaret;

On

While through the marble halls,
The gush of cooling fountains came,
And crystal lamps sent far their flame
Upon the high-arched walls.

But sweeter far on Adria's sea,
The gondolier's wild minstrelsy
In accents low began;

While sounding harp and martial zel
Their music joined, until the swell

Seemed heaven's broad arch to span.

Then faintly ceasing-one by one,
That plaintive voice sung on alone
Its wild, heart-soothing lay;

And then again that moonlight band
Started, as if by magic wand,

In one bold burst away.

The joyous laugh came on the breeze,
And, 'mid the bright o'erhanging trees,
The mazy dance went round;
And as in joyous ring they flew,
The smiling nymphs the wild flowers threw
That clustered on the ground.

Soft as a summer evening's sigh,
From each o'erhanging balcony

And

Low fervent whisperings fell;
many a heart upon that night
On fancy's pinion sped its flight,
Where holier beings dwell.

Each lovely form the eye might see,

The dark-browed maid of Italy

With love's own sparkling eyes;

The fairy Swiss-all, all that night,
Smiled in the moonbeam's silvery light,
Fair as their native skies.

The moon went down, and o'er that glowing sea,
With darkness, Silence spread abroad her wing,
Nor dash of oars, nor harp's wild minstrelsy
Came o'er the waters in that mighty ring.
All nature slept—and, save the far-off moan
Of ocean surges, Silence reigned alone.

BALLOONING.

waters.

By I. McLellan, Jr.

THE clear sun of a fine September day, was glittering on roof and steeple, and the cheerful breeze of early autumn breathing its harp-like melody over woods and A vast multitude stood around me, attentively watching the expanding folds of my balloon, as it swayed to and fro in the unsteady air. As I prepared to take my place in its car, I noticed an involuntary shudder run through the assemblage, and anxious glances pass from face to face. At length, the process of inflation was completed, the music sounded, the gun was discharged, the ropes were loosened, and the beau tiful machine arose in the air, amid the resounding cheers of thousands. As it ascended, I cast a hasty look on the sea of upturned heads, and thought I read one general expression of anxiety, in the faces of the multitudinous throng, and my heart warmed with the consciousness, that many kind wishes and secret hopes were wafted with me on my heavenward flight. But very soon, mine eye ceased to distinguish features and forms, and the collected throng became blended in one confused mass, and the green common itself had dwindled into a mere garden-plat, and the magnificent old Elm in its centre to a stunted bush, waving on the hill-side.

Upward, upward! my flying car mounted and mounted, into the yet untraversed highways of the air, swifter than pinion-borne bird, or canvas-borne vessel, yet