must thread the needle, or live in maiden The week we passed there was a happy one, liberty another year. Loud shouts and merry pleasant at the time, and pleasant to think laughter proclaimed the young lady's success over, a bright spot in memory. Adieu, then, We were half afraid of another punch-making; dear Killarney! some day, some of us may but fine speeches and good wishes, and wet hope to wander by those shores again, and feet, were sufficient, and sent us merrily back take another view of scenes very well worth to our boat to proceed on our voyage. We the very slight trouble of the journey. really lived on the lakes during the last day

of our pleasant visit to Killarney.

"THY WILL BE DONE."

LET the scholar and divine

Tell us how to pray aright;
Let the truths of Gospel shine
With their precious hallowed light;
But the prayer a mother taught
Is to me a matchless one;
Eloquent and spirit-fraught

Are the words "Thy will be done."
Though not fairly understood

Still those words at evening hour,
Imply some Being great and good,
Of mercy, majesty and power,
Bending low on infant knee,

And gazing on the setting sun,

I thought that orb his home must be,
To whom I said "Thy will be done."

I have searched the sacred page,
I have heard the godly speech,
But the lore of saint or sage

Nothing holier can teach.
Pain has wrung my spirit sore,

But my soul the triumph won,
When the anguish that I bore
Only breathed," Thy will be done."

They have served in pressing need,

And now, bofore closing these hasty notes, before taking you back, courteous reader, to Dublin, dear Dublin, that beautiful city of happy people, beautiful sprite of some negligence, happy notwithstanding many rags, gay over much misery, with the ready answer ever at hand, and a queer jaunty sort of politeness never wanting, preferable, some think, to the sober, surly manner met elsewhereone word on some of the little matters that might be mended in a country improving every day. First, we would have the streets of Dublin cleaner. Then there should be less delay on ihe railway journey. Next, we would recommend a more moderate scale of charges at the hotel at Killarney, and a little more attention from the landlord. It would not be amiss were he to make it a rule to receive all arriving. He might even enter with the first dish at dinner, and take the orders for the wines. Under his eyes, probably, we should have been spared the annoyance of being served one day by a very confused waiter, whose unsteady movements endangered our dresses, our shoulders, and the loss to the dishes of their gravy-even a dish itself was in jeopardy-a fine leg of mutton rocked very wildly on its china plate. Also, had the kitchen been more carefully supervised, we should hardly have been presented, on four consecutive days, with four consecutive legs of mutton, although we had urgently called for Kerry beef. The fowls were thin and badly trussed, the pastry heavy, no dressed dishes good, and yet at the head of the kitchen was a chef of reputation, with other paper-caps under his sway. Why this high flight should have been attempted was the mistake. What If you take a great deal of pains to serve the more was wanted than the dainty fare the world and to benefit your fellow-creatures, and hills, the streams, the farm, the dairy could if, after all, the world scarcely thanks you for the supply? These plainly but well cooked are make a loud talking about the world's ingratitude, trouble you have taken, do not be angry and fitter viands for the tourists' healthy appetite for if you do, it will seem that you cared more than ill-arranged entrées. Lastly the appear-about the thanks you were to receive than about ance of the landlord to take leave of those by the blessings which you professed to bestow. whose visitings he lives, and to speed them on their further journey, would, with his thanks and good wishes, be a pleasanter last recollection of Killarney, than the formidable array of servants watching for further extras which blocks up the passage to the carriage door. But these are minor grievances. In essentials there was no room for fault-finding: the house was clean, the beds excellent, the The triumphs of truth are the most glorious, servants attentive, and every arrangement chiefly because they are the most bloodless of all was made to facilitate the grand object of the victories, deriving their highest lustre from the visit—a thorough enjoyment of the scenery. Inumber of saved, not of the slain.

Have nerved my heart in every task,
And howsoe'er my breast may bleed,
No other balm of prayer I ask,
When my whitened lips declare

Life's last sands have almost run,
May the dying breath they bear

Murmur forth-"Thy will be done."

The

Biography is useless which is not true. weaknesses of character must be preserved, however insignificant or humbling; they are the errata of genius, and clear up the text.

If we examine the subject, it is not pride that makes us angry, but the want of foundation for pride; and for this reason humility often displeases us as much.

A RAILWAY TRIP & ITS CONSEQUENCES.

THERE is much between the cup and the lip, says the old proverb, and universal experience attests the truth of it,-for, is there one of our race, whatever his age, or lot, or condition, who has not to his sorrow realized the fact? I know there is not. Has not the youth who was running full tilt after some coveted indulgence, seen the ripe cherry drop past his lips when his mouth was most wooingly open to receive it?

Has not the coy damsel who was innocently plotting to accomplish some end, on which she, in her simple wisdom thought her happiness depended, found the whole scheme most unexpectedly thwarted?

Has she not, when with all a maiden's inventive ingenuity, she was quietly and steadily manovering to attain her object, found her mother step in, and versed in all the tactics of girls in their teens, from personal practice in bygone days, frustrate the darling scheme, just when it seemed gliding on to a blissful conclusion?

Has not the merchant laid his plans, wisely and well, in order to realize a darling speculation, and these have gone on for a time as his heart could wish, so that a prosperous issue seemed certain, but just at the eleventh hour, when he was fondly calculating his probable gains, an unforeseen hitch has suddenly upset them, and his high hopes have been utterly overthrown?

In short, where is the child of man, who has not by some unforeseen occurrence, been bamboozled out of what he had counted on as a foregone conclusion?

This is a long preamble, but it is pertinent to my purpose, for I am yet aching from the effects of a disappointment on which I did not reckon, when I started the other day, on what I designed to be, a pleasant expedition.

Let me premise, too, that I have been a traveller by sea and land, for somewhat more than thirty years, and never was one minute behind time for ship or steamer, stage-coach or rail-car, on the contrary, I have had always some half hour to spend in superintending the preparations for starting, and watching the arrival of puffing and bustling passengers.

Thus confirmed as I vainly thought in habits of punctuality, I repaired to the railway station of the finest city in the neighboring States, New Haven, to wit, aud took my place in one of the cars, to visit another city some thirty miles distant. Exactly at the stipulated hour the train started, and was soon whirling along a coast which must have cost the sturdy Puritan Fathers many a heartache, ere they wrung out of it the needful aliment for the life that now is.

Our company was as usual in a railway car, a miscellaneous one, it comprehended age and infancy, married folks and single, rich and poor, there were grand-mammas with pet grandchildren, and mothers with their little ones out for a jaunt. Gents trying to read newspapers, and youths poring over some cheap novel,—delicate ladies who dreaded the draft from open windows, and nervous ones who could not breathe while they were shut,-sweet smiling damsels, with moustached and scented dandy acquaintances, to see them safely in and out of the car,-farmers and mechanics,-one young couple with their squalling first born, and an innocent pair, who had very recently plighted their troth to each other, and were as yet under the potent influence of the Honey Moon, for open and unwearied was the billing and cooing in which they indulged, notwithstanding the many eyes of wondering misses which intently watched them.

Has not the lawyer been consulted by a heavy pursed country squire, on some question of grievance, which a dogged determination to stand up for his right, had invested with an importance which nothing but law can vindicate and uphold? And has he not chuckled in his inmost soul, as he listened to the goose who seemed so anxious to be plucked, a long list of pleas, answers, demurrers, replies and duplicates, with their inseparable concomitants of fees for advising, charges for extending, and retainers for pleading, dancing before his mind's eye in all the glory of what is known in Scotland as "a thriving plea," i. e. a Law Suit, with a strong principle of vitality in it. But the atmosphere of a lawyer's office, the ominous bundles of papers, the long ranges of books in professional binding, and above all, the legal jargon of the proceeding, alarmed the simple squire, so that after a sleepless night, he determined to drop the business-to, our numbers. pocket the wrong, and keep out of the grasp of a lawyer's clutches, and the legal spider disappointed of his prey, has had to shake his web again and see that its threads were in better trim to secure the next fly that blundered into them.

Such we were a motley assemblage it is true, but all satisfied, and on we rattled, from station to station, now leaving, and no new comers adding

Like all travellers whose misfortune it is to journey alone, I prefer a seat on which I have no companion, and as in every car there are several of these, I generally choose that next the door, which faces the company, because I can vary the

monotony by a furtive glance at the varied countenances before me, as well as by a sidling look at the landscape which is careering past the window.

right, the train had started, he ran and shouted, and the brakesman saw and heard us; for the last car was not ten yards from the platform on which we were running, but the rascal whose unmistakeable Milesian phiz was dilated at the fun, grinned at our frantic efforts to overtake the train.

These were verily made in vain, for what could two poor mortals do, though their strength had not only been combined, but quadrupled, in con

I had Le Diable Boiteux in my pocket, but reading was out of the question in that road, nor did I regret it. I had a group before me which Lavater would have delighted to gaze upon, and outside I caught a glimpse of the alternate patches of cultivated land, bare rock, and salt marshes, by which we bolted. Then we would soon be attending with the condensed speed of a troop of our journey's end,—I would look on my fellow horses? We nevertheless still ran, yet the passengers as they parted, never to meet again distance widened between us, and though we under one roof in this world, and I would see the hallooed as if the well-being of the State had city of whaling vessels. been at issue, it booted us not, the steam beat us hollow. Yet we clung in hope to the cars, and strove to comfort one another, as we still trotted on-that the engine would be reversed immediately-we were sure of that-they would never leave two passengers who had paid their fare, to the tender mercies of a scorching sun on an exposed track, they could not but know that scores upon scores had been destroyed lately by coups de soleil, and they never would abandon us to the risk of such a casualty,- -so we reasoned to our own entire satisfaction,—the thing was inconceivable,—they never could and they never would, but our convictions could not stop the

But alas! in these foreshadowings of coming entertainment, I reckoned without mine host, these little enjoyments were not to fall to my lot, a very different termination of my jaunt awaited me. I was not to see my fellow travellers emerge from their places, and severally wend their ways to their desired havens. I was not to ascertain whether the happy billing couple would be as loving in the street as they had shown themselves in the car, nor was I to watch how the frail grandmamma would pilot her boisterous, wilful pet through the bustle and business of the terminus.

The cup was in my hands it is true, but it was train, for it still sped on till it disappeared in the not destined to reach my lips.

far distance, and we became at length thoroughly alive to the fact, that we were left behind, with ten miles between us and our goal.

All however went smoothly with me, till we reached and were ferried over the Connecticut River, where other cars awaited us; the change Like wise men and good philosophers, we was soon made, the swarm of human beings who began now to compare notes, as to our relative streamed out of the set of cars, soon found their misfortune, for there might be a drop of comfort way into another, and in a few seconds all were to the one, if the other had more to grieve for, humming in their chosen places. I, too, got my and certainly that comfort was mine, for my customary corner, but there was some delay in brother in tribulation had more abundant cause starting. The authorities were apparently hold- for lamentations than I, for he had that morning ing a council; all was hushed and still while they started from New York to see his family after an were confabbing, here then was an opportunity absence of eleven months, they lived in a village for me to catch a look up the river, whose beauties six miles beyond the city we were bound to, and I had heard greatly extolled. I had only to step he had to be back to his vessel in New York on on to the platform, and round the station-house, the following day; moreover he had already and all would be before me. In an evil hour, I missed a train in the morning, and walked ten forsook my place, and sought the stolen pleasure, miles, and now the probability was, that though and sweet it was, for the instant I enjoyed it, the he should walk steadily on, he would be too late broad waters were sleeping in sunshine, and their for the steamboat which sailed in the evening for beautiful banks were a fitting fringe to them, his village, and he would, therefore, have to walk "this is indeed a lovely river," said I to one who the six miles farther, so that he would merely had followed me out of the car and now stood have an hour or two with his wife and children, beside me, but his answer put my poetical feel-ere he had to leave them again. He had, thereings to flight," the train's off," he shouted and ran, I following but altogether incredulous of the fact, for no bell had rung, nor had the usual cry, "all aboard," been uttered, but verily he was

fore, ample cause for complaining, whereas, my only ground of complaint was, that I was well stricken in years, and though a tolerable pedestrian on a good path or a plank road, I trembled at the

thought of struggling for 16 miles along a track more and mightier were they which I had yet to which was made up of loose sand or looser gravel; encounter,-one reflection of my bluff associate moreover, from the detestable station house which had hidden the moving off of the train from us, far onward as the eye could reach, not a single dwelling was visible, so that the journey had every appearance of being a tiresomely lonely

one.

So circumstanced, we paused for a little to consider whether we should wait six hours for the next train or push on, trusting that we might ere long come upon some farmers lot where a conveyance might be hired. My companion decided for the latter alternative, and I drawn by sympathy resolved to accompany him.

We began, then, our dreary pilgrimage, and dreary it was, indeed, seeing that in eight miles we saw not a house, nor met a human being, the footing too, was execrable-and to me, at least, intolerably fatiguing, the sand yielding at every step; while to crown my misery we had several bridges to pass along, mere car breadths of sleepers, supported on piles, on which the rails were laid, and stretching across little bays of salt water, some forty or fifty yards, and one at least three times that length.

cast a gleam of comfort into my troubled spirit. I candidly confess the fact. "What if there's been a blow up in the train? I guess if there has we're better as we are," and I really thought as he did-the thing was possible, and if it did happen, then our being left behind would be a providential escape,—but the comfort did not last, nothing of the kind occurred, no wreck of either car or carcass did we meet with on our solitary way, only the bare weary rails in their misty longitude stretched away indefinitely before us.

I hate a straight road, I have utterly loathed one, ever since when leaving Paris for Boulogne, I passed along the Chaussée Royale, through the forest of Chantilly many years ago, the lumbering diligence entered on it long before noon, and at night-tall was still trundling along it, the Chausee before and behind it, straight and pointed as a needle, and nothing on either side but tall trees, where sombre shade made the solitude more dreary-nay, so irksome did it become, that there was really something enlivening in the crack of the postillions whip; his very “sacrées” were rousing, and the tinkling of the miserable ill-assorted bells which were tied here and there upon the sorry harness of the horses was a sort of relief.

Now, gentle reader, imagine an old man an amateur traveller, picking his steps along the villainous viaducts, over sleepers nearly three feet apart, with the green, green sea gurgling and Yet grievous as the monotony of the road was billowing in all its tantalizing wantonness under-I was perched up in the coupée and stretched at his feet, without one friendly board to hide its my ease, my annoyances were merely mental, and restless motion from his aching eyes; and you I managed at times to forget these in a comfort can judge of the grim exercise I had to go able snoose. through, and the measure of enjoyment I had in performing it. It was far otherwise with my nautical chum, who, had his feet been garnished with claws, could not have clung to them more 'securely than he did, his head never swam, his heart never fluttered, his knees never shook, but on, on, on, plank after plank he footed over as heads-thirst-burning thirst filled up the measur● deftly as if he had been on dry land.

It was not so with me, my eyes reeled, my head was dizzy, my heart thumped until I gasped from its throbbing, and Belshazzars knees were not more loose in their joints than mine, they literally smote each other, for there was a smart breeze Betting in from the sea, and more than once I had to stand still to regain my balance and rally my scattered wits-I felt that there was but a step between me and death-a lustier puff of wind or an extra smiting of my joints might have sent me the way of all the earth, and closed for ever my peregrinations. Oh! how fervently did I give God thanks when I had fairly got over the first of these rascally footways, little knowing that

But it was not so now, on this railroad excur sion here; there was a miserable monotony to jade the mind, grievous fatigue to exhaust the body, and fear and trembling on the detestable viaducts to give pungency to both-moreover, with a broiling August sun flaming over our

of my woes. I fancied that I realized in all its intensity, the misery of pilgrims in the desert,— for we were in a wilderness of salt meadows-not a rill of fresh water was there,-water there was in abundance, but it was that of the sea, and there was no well, for man had with one consent abandoned the coast, as too bleak for his abodə and too bare for his culture. During twelve weary miles not a human being did we see, save three laborers on a portion of the road, but these told us there was a house a little further on,—this oasis we at length reached, and moistened our parched throats with copious draughts of sparkling cold water, and here I learned to my un speakable satisfaction, that the station-house was

mile distant, and that there the public road could be taken which was as direct to the city as

the rail track.

Disgusted as ever exhausted traveller was with the execrable road he had to trudge over, the thought of escaping from its sand and gravel, was a merciful relief, and with a stout heart I set out to master the remaining mile, but alas, I had not as yet emptied my cup of suffering, for we shortly came upon one of the longest viaducts which had yet been met with, and as if to increase my tribulations the sleepers were wider apart than usual. One solatium I had however in this, the extremity of my trial-there was a good deal of undersparring in the framework of the bridge, which hid the motion of the water, and greatly lessened my perplexity-with this as the capping of my calamity, my trouble ended, for we shortly after got upon the main road, and a waggon coming up its hearty owner invited us to come into it, and though his business lay only half a mile further on, yet he kindly drove into the city and up to the railway terminus.

Now, courteous reader, is not the proverb right? Is there not much between the cup and the lip and in parting let me counsel you never to leave a car—where no profession is made of stopping—but keep your seat, and so you will escape the misery which I endured.

consider as one of the greatest faults in the female character that nervous timidity which, from the most frivolous causes, induces young women to faint, and shriek, and give way to ridiculous paroxysms of fear, that are sometimes the result of constitutional weakness, but oftener conventional and affected, and then assuredly calling for no sympathy.

It seems that before my father leased the farm of Cherry-tree Topping, a burglary, attended by fatal circumstances, had been committed in the house. The then resident, Mr. Roby, was an elderly man, accounted wealthy, but of no generous or charitable disposition, though overpartial to the indulgences of the table, and ostentatious in the dis play of furniture and household luxuries that were justly deemed unsuitable to his condition. His wife was dead, and two daughters composed his family. Educated in that faulty and foolish manner which, by the substitution of superficial and imperfectly acquired accomplishments for substantially useful qualifications, unfits the respectable yeoman's daughter for the station she was born to dignify and ornament, those poor girls had passed a few years at a third-rate boarding-school, where they were taught to smatter imperfect French, to play the pianoforte, for which they had no taste, and to manufacture such ornamental work as neither practically nor aesthetically served to enlarge their capacities for utility, or expand their intellects. The consequences were obvious. Returned to their father's house, they were unfit to manage it, and the conduct of the establishment devolved upon a clever but dishonest upper-servant; whilst their time was swallowed up in a hundred frivolous details, which added neither to their charms as women, nor to their respectability Ir is strange-nor is this observation a new amongst their neighbours. Mr. Roby grumone-how certain localities become subject, as bled at their extravagance, but his vulgar it were, to certain analogous events; just as pride reconciled him to a display of his wealth; in some families a disease may appear to be nor was it until the elopement of his younghereditary, or a predisposition to peculiar ec-est daughter with a reckless young dancingcentricities continue to shew itself for several master at Taunton, who reckoned on receiving centuries. I remember an elm-tree near the a pardon and a portion from the parent of his good town of Taunton, in passing near which bride, that he began to question the merits of So many of our acquaintances had somehow his own management. The change in his dischanced to sprain an ankle, that we gave it position from indifference to querulous tyranthe name of the Twistfoot-tree. In like man-ny did not mend matters; and when, after a ner I have to relate a series of somewhat romantic facts which took place at the old farmhouse of Cherry-tree Topping, in Somerset, where I was born, where I afterwards became a wife, and where I have since lived many years a widow, with my good kind children and grandchildren around me.

DIOGENES.

WHAT HAPPENED AT CHERRY-TREE

TOPPING.

I had no part in the first event of which I have chosen to be the narrator. It occurred before I was born, but was frequently the subject of conversation at our fireside, where my excellent father took great delight in placing it before my mental view in the shape of a warning against what he was inclined to

short season of hardship and poverty, his till then unforgiven child was restored to him a widow, she found a household that had been altered, but had not been reformed in her ab

sence.

It was at this time the burglary took place. On a Sabbath night, when the servants had retired, and when Mr. Roby, after an ample supper, sat half stupified over a third tumbler of strong punch, while his daughters were individually devouring the pages of a novel, a loud noise was heard in the room beneath the drawing-room, in which they were seated.— This room, miscalled the study, contained not