OLD LETTERS.

MRS. JOSEPH C. NEAL.

Through her tears she gazed upon them,
Records of that brief bright dream!
And she clasped them closer-closer—
For a message they would seem
Coming from the lips now silent-
Coming from a hand now cold,
And she felt the same emotion

They had thrilled her with of old:

Blended with a holy grieving

Blended with a throbbing painFor she knew the hand that penned them Might not clasp her own again.

And she felt the desolation

That had fallen on her heart;

Bitter memories thronged around her,

Bitter murmurs would upstart.

It is passed. The sob is stifled

Quivering lips are wreathed with smiles, Mocking with their strange deceiving,

Watchful love she thus beguilesWith the thought that o'er her spirit

Sorrow's shadow scarce is thrown ;

For those letters have a message
To her heart, and hers alone.

CHAUCER'S TALE OF THE PRIORESS.

JOHN S. HART.

CHAUCER, in his Canterbury Tales, imagines a company of persons, thirty in number, to have met accidentally at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, all bound on a pilgrimage to the tomb of Thomas-a-Becket, at Canterbury. These pilgrims, after some conference, resolve to perform the journey together, under the guidance of their jolly host of the Tabard as master of ceremonies, and to beguile the tedium of the way by each one telling a Tale, both going and returning. The tales thus supposed to have been told by these Canterbury pilgrims, give the name to the work, "The Canterbury Tales."

These Canterbury pilgrims were probably the most various and motley, as well as the most joyous cavalcade, that ever set out on such an expedition. Every one of the thirty was from a walk in life differing in some respects from the rest, each representing some particular phase of society, and yet all brought together by an interest that blends all social distinctions, and at that