Year: 1875

is an ugly looking thing any way one can
fix it, and twenty cottins are, Of course,
twenty times uglier


Queer place" soliloquized Tomtit Il
rather like it, though And the boy
smiled sickly smile 'He thought I'd be
afraid. A man who has been on whaling
voyage"-here little thirteen years-old
drew himself up to his full height-'isn't
likely to be scared by two, four, six, eight
ten, twelve, fourteen, sixteen, eighteen,
twenty empty boxes! I guess mott"


The child must have been exceedingly
weary tor he had 10 sooner located him
self on one of the tall, black stools than
he sank into profound slumber His
body swayed to and fro in very decided
manner. At last it gave an extra curve
and Tomtit fell. He broke neither his
slumber nor his neck-heroes never break
their necks, believe. The critics, how
ever, sometimes do for them | know an
| instance


Tomtit lay at the foot Of his perpendicu-
lar bed, and there we will leave him-leaye
him sleeping with one OF his thin, brown
hands grasping the leg OF the stool, and
! one foot in a cotfin-the first time, think,
that such a fact has been recorded of any
body, though we often heard Of people
having zone foot in the grave


But while whisper in your ear, let him
sleep.


There is a curious skeleton in Jedd Pail
try's heart, and every Christmas eve it
turns and twists, and makes the old man
feel queer pains and sec strange sights.
These skeletons are very common to the
human race generally. They are the phan
toms of evil deeds and malignant thoughts
mental spirites that grow up in single
night, like toad-stools. Be wary, that you
may not have one growing in your bosom
it will show itself.


But the undertaker's skeleton for the
present


There was never any body prettier than
Nannette Pallfry. Indeed it would be
hard to find in any woman's eyes more
enchanting light than that which lay in
Nannette's. Her voice, like the poets
western wind, was sweet and low She
was as lovely and natural as a summer
wild flower, and so good that sin in her
was no evil


Nh Theologian. YOU would interrupt
me.


| will explain: Ii she had been more
worldly wise, cautious instead Of loving,
arttul instead of sincere, in short, any
thing but the very angel she was, Nan
nette's life would have seemed purer in
the worlds ewes but not in Gods | know
that.


Nannettes history is an old story, told
every day. For shame, man that it is
told every day She lived, and loved, and
trusted, and that is all of it, or nearly.


One December night she came in the
her hberw to eF ta1hssFtss dths 6y 3aH Thing IN
Gods world he loved with human love
She did not weep, she did not even muir
mur, she only pressed the hand Of a child
who walked YEARLY beside her and passed
on


Her life from that time was 80 full of
suffering, yet SO womanly and true, that
the angels might sit and listen to narra-
ton of it with delight Nannette went far
away from the city, and in little town by
the sedgv sea shore taught her bov to
pray.


Year after year went by.
The world went on like a great wheel
men, and women and children dropped off
like flies, and Jedd Palltry's hammer was
busy Now while shrouds were being
made, and coffins vanished, and the old
world was turning on its axis Nannette
died


The night OF her death, just as old Jedd
was fitting the lining to an infants coffin,
| grave grew up at his feet-a willow and
rose-bush and he heard the singing OF
birds He knew what it meant. He knew
| that someWhere-he could not tell where
there was another mound just like the
one beside him. Oh how blithely the
little birds sang to Jedd. There was a
| new heaven and new earth for somebody
that night, and how merrily the robins
sang about it. All this happening while
| the snowfakes were running nimbly over
the house-tops like little white mice.
| Every Christmas-eve, at the same hour,
Jedd sees this phantom mound with its
| signing willow tree and its fairy birds,
| fitting here and there like the fragments
of a broken rainbow! And at night he
has fearful dream. He fancies that four
fever tiends. jaundiced visage, brain fever,
shouting deliriously, scarlet fever with
red hot eyes and their disgusting hands,
hiss him on the mound till poor Jedd is
near going mad with agony and fear


Nannette's child was adopted by fish
e1man's wite-very badly adopted, for
when poor Tom was not busy catching fish
he was catching something else SO be-
tween boating and beating the child was
not as happy as he might have been with
more of one and less Of the other, or a
genteel sufficiency Of both. Having in
| dulged in four years experience in being
whaled. he took it into his head to have 4
hand in the business himself "Tc be or
not to be" beaten any more was his de-
cislon; SO one fine morning, without as
much as the cognizance Of his beloved
mother Amphitrite, he placed his name in
the books of the good ship Marie The
resa, and sailed out Of port with light
heart one suit of clothes and a prospect
Of hard work, which is all the rig out
a true sailor needs Heaven bless him !


But Tom was too delicately made for 4
whaling voyage, and after wasting three
years of the golden part of his life, he
| found himself in our great city one night
without money or friends, OF place to
| lie in. He wandered from street to street,
so charmed with the mad Wrangling of
sleigh-bells-a new music to him-and SO
dazzled by the shop windows that he for
got his hunger and the web of difficulties
which time and tate, busy monsters, We're
weaving for him But hunger, under such
circumstances, like renewed note, only
spares one for little while 1t came back
to him with interest, his hunger and he
grew disconsolate.


The city, with all its strange neatness
was forgotten in turn. The snow chilled
him, and the happy children buying toys
in the grand shops, and the merry sleighs
darting through the street likes swallows,
gave him an acute sense Of loneliness.
There was no mother and sisters to put
gay presents in his stockings. Indeed, if
there had been, they might have bought
the stockings, too, for never one had Tom
on those cold little feet.


Tom looked in Maillard's window at the
rare pastry and CONNECTIONS, and his hun
ger grew maddening. He turned from the


heaped delicacies, fearing that he might


be tempted to thrust his arm through the
thick nlate plass and helm hinacalt lie