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And still the struggle lasted, till the German,
Roused by her deep groans from his wandering dreams,
Moved, ill at ease, and, feverish, begged for drink.

Up toward the antique Christ in ivory
At the bed's head suspended on the wall
Irene raised the martyr's look sublime;
Then, ashen pale, but ever with her eyes
Turned to the God of Calvary, poured out
The soothing draught, and with a delicate hand
Gave to the wounded man the drink he asked.
And so wore on the laggard, pitiless hours.

But when the doctor in the morning came,
And saw her still beside the officer,
Tending him and giving him his drink

With trembling fingers, he was much amazed

To see that through the dreary watches of the night, The raven locks that crowned her fair young brow at

set of sun,

By morning's dawn had turned to snowy white.

FRANÇOIS COPPÉE.

THE ORIGIN OF SCANDAL.

SAID Mrs. A.

To Mrs. J.

In quite a confidential way,

"It seems to me

That Mrs B.

Takes too much-something in her tea,"

And Mrs. J.

To Mrs. K.

That very night was heard to say
She grieved to touch

Upon it much,

But "Mrs. B. took-such and such!" Then Mrs. C.

Went straight away

And told a friend the self-same day,

""Twas sad to think'

Here came a wink

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"That Mrs. B. was fond of drink." The friend's disgust

Was such she must

Inform a lady " which she nussed," "That Mrs. B.

At half-past three,

Was that far gone she couldn't see." This lady we

Have mentioned, she

Gave needle-work to Mrs. B.,
And at such news

Could scarcely choose

But future needle-work refuse.

Then Mrs. B.,

As you'll agree,

Quite properly-she said, said she,

That she would track

The scandal back

To those who made her look so black. Through Mrs. K.

And Mrs. J.

She got at last to Mrs. A.

And asked her why,

With cruel lie,

She painted her so deep a dye.
Said Mrs. A.

In some dismay,

"I no such thing could ever say:
I said that you

Much stouter grew

On too much sugar-which you do."

THE ARGONAUT.

DOMESTIC ECONOMY.

AMUNSON street man, being told that there were

several pieces of tinware which needed mending, conceived the idea of getting the iron and solder and doing the mending himself. His wife, filled with vague forebodings perhaps, said that the expense was such a trifle that it would hardly pay to do it one's self, to which he responded:

I'll admit that, in this one instance, it would not pay, but there is something in want of repair every little while, and if I have the tools here for fixing it we are saved just so much expense right along. It may not be much in the course of a year, but every little helps, and in time the total amounts to a nice little lump. We don't want the Astors lugging off all the money in the country."

He got the iron, one dollar and fifty cents' worth of solder and ten cents' worth of rosin. He came home with these things and went into the kitchen, looking so proud and happy that his wife would have been glad of the purchase were it not for an overpowering dread of an impending muss. He called for the articles needing repair. His wife brought out a pan.

"Where's the rest? Bring 'em all out, an' let me make one job of 'em while I'm about it."

He got them all and seemed to be disappointed that there were no more of them. He pushed the iron into the fire, got a milk pan inverted on his knees, and with the solder in his hand, waited for the right heat.

"That iron only cost a dollar, and it'll never wear out, and there's enough solder in this piece to do twentyfive dollars' worth of mending," he exclaimed to his wife.

Pretty soon the iron was at right heat, he judged. He rubbed the rosin about the hole which was to be repaired, and held the stick of solder over it, and carefully applied the iron. It was an intensely interesting moment. His wife watched him with feverish interest. He said, speaking laboriously, as he applied the iron: "The only-thing-I-regret-about-it-is-that-I-didn't-think

of-getting-this-before-we"

Then ascended through the ceiling the awfullest yell that woman ever heard, and the same instant the soldering iron flew across the stove, the pan went clattering across the floor, and the bar of solder struck the wall with such force as to smash through both the plaster and the lath. And before her horrified gaze danced her husband in an ecstasy of agony, sobbing, screaming and holding on to his left leg as desperately as if it were made of gold and studded with diamonds.

"Get the camphor, why don't you?" he yelled. "Send for the doctor. Oh, oh, I'm a dead man," he shouted.

Just then his gaze rested on the soldering iron. In an instant he caught it up and hurled it through the window, without the preliminary of raising the sash.

It was some little time before the thoroughly fright

ened and confused woman learned that some of the molten solder had run through the hole in the pan and on his leg, although she knew from the first that something of an unusual nature had occurred. She didn't send for the doctor. She made and applied the poultices herself to save expense. She said:

"We don't want the Astors lugging off all the money in the country." DANBURY NEWS.

"NEARER HOME."

NE sweetly solemn thought
Comes to me o'er and o'er,

I'm nearer home to-day

Than I ever have been before.

Nearer my Father's house,

Where the many mansions be;

Nearer the great white throne,
Nearer the jasper sea;

Nearer the bound of life,

Were we lay our burdens down;

Nearer leaving the cross,

Nearer wearing the crown.

But lying darkly between,

Winding down through the night,
Is the dim and unknown stream
That leads at last to the light.

Closer, closer my steps

Come to the dark abysm,

Closer, death to my lips

Presses the awful chrism.

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