Thy father's pride and hope!

(He'll break the mirror with that'skipping-rope !) With pure heart newly stamped from nature's mint(Where did he learn that squint ?)

Thou young domestic dove!

(He'll have that jug off with another shove !)
Dear nursling of the hymeneal nest!

(Are those torn clothes his best ?)
Little epitome of man!

(He'll climb upon the table, - that's his plan!) Touched with the beauteous tints of dawning life (He's got a knife !)

Thou enviable being!

No storms, no clouds, in thy blue sky foreseeing, Play on, play on,

My elfin John!

Toss the light ball; bestride the stick

(I knew so many cakes would make him sick!)
With fancies buoyant as the thistle-down,
Prompting the face grotesque, and antic brisk
With many a lamb-like frisk

(He's got the scissors, snipping at your gown!)
Thou pretty, opening rose!

(Go to your mother, child, and wipe your nose !) Balmy, and breathing music like the south(He really brings my heart into my mouth!) Fresh as the morn, and brilliant as its star, (I wish that window had an iron bar!) Bold as the hawk, yet gentle as the dove, (I'll tell you what, my love,

I cannot write, unless he's sent above!) 23 *

LESSON LXX.

Domestic Love. CAMPBELL,

THY pencil traces on the lover's thought Some cottage-home, from towns and toil remote, Where love and lore may claim alternate hours, With peace embosomed in Idalian bowers! Remote from busy life's bewildered way, O'er all his heart shall Taste and Beauty sway; Free on the sunny slope or winding shore, With hermit-steps to wander and adore! There shall he love, when genial morn appears, Like pensive Beauty smiling in her tears, To watch the brightening roses of the sky, And muse on nature with a poet's eye! And when the sun's last splendor lights the deep, The woods and waves, and murmuring winds asleep, When fairy harps the Hesperian planet hail, And the lone cuckoo sighs along the vale, His path shall be where streamy mountains swell Their shadowy grandeur o'er the narrow dell; Where mouldering piles and forests intervene, Mingling with darker tints the living green; No circling hills his ravished eye to bound, Heaven, earth, and ocean blazing all around!

The moon is up,-the watch-tower dimly burns, –
And down the vale his sober step returns ;
But pauses oft, as winding rocks convey
The still sweet fall of music far away;

And oft he lingers from his home a while,
To watch the dying notes, and start, and smile!
Let winter come! let polar spirits sweep

The darkening world, and tempest-troubled deep;

Though boundless snows the withered heath deform,
And the dim sun scarce wanders through the storm,
Yet shall the smile of social love repay,
With mental light, the melancholy day!
And when its short and sullen noon is o'er,
The ice-chained waters slumbering on the shore,
How bright the fagots in his little hall

Blaze on the hearth, and warm the pictured wall!
How blest he names, in love's familiar tone,
The kind fair friend by nature marked his own;
And, in the waveless mirror of his mind,
Views the fleet years of pleasure left behind,
Since when her empire o'er his heart began,
Since first he called her his before the holy man!

Trim the gay taper in his rustic dome, And light the wintry paradise of home; And let the half-uncurtained window hail Some wayworn man benighted in the vale! Now, while the moaning night-wind rages high, As sweep the shot-stars down the troubled sky; While fiery hosts in heaven's wide circle play, And bathe in lurid light the milky way; Safe from the storm, the meteor, and the shower, Some pleasing page shall charm the solemn hour, With pathos shall command, with wit beguile A generous tear of anguish, or a smile !

LESSON LXXII.

The Neighbor in Law.

MRS. CHILD.

"Who blesses others in his daily deeds,
Will find the healing that his spirit needs;
For every flower in others' pathway strewn,
Confers its fragrant beauty on our own."

"So you are going to live in the same building with Hetty Turnpenny," said Mrs. Lane to Mrs. Fairweather. "You will find nobody to envy you. If her temper does not prove too much even for your good nature, it will surprise all who know her. We lived there a year, and that is as long as any body ever tried it."

"Poor Hetty!" replied Mrs. Fairweather, "she has had much to harden her. Her mother died too early for her to remember; her father was very severe with her; and the only lover she ever had borrowed the savings of her years of toil, and spent them in dissipation. But Hetty, notwithstanding her sharp features, and sharper words, certainly has a kind heart. In the midst of her greatest poverty many were the stockings she knit, and the warm waistcoats she made, for the poor, drunken lover whom she had too much sense to marry. Then you know she feeds and clothes her brother's orphan child."

"If you call it feeding and clothing!" replied Mrs. Lane. "The poor child looks cold and pinched, and frightened all the time, as if she were chased by the east wind. I used to tell Miss Turnpenny she ought to be ashamed of herself, to keep the poor little thing at work all the time, without one minute to play. If she does but look at the cat, as it runs by the window, aunt Hetty gives her a rap over the knuckles. I used to tell her she would make the girl just such another our old crab as herself."

"That must have been very improving to her disposition," replied Mrs. Fairweather, with a good-humored smile. "But

in justice to poor aunt Hetty, you ought to remember that she had just such a cheerless childhood herself. Flowers grow where there is sunshine."

"I know you think every body ought to live in the sunshine," rejoined Mrs. Lane; "and it must be confessed that you carry it with you wherever you go. If Miss Turnpenny has a heart, I dare say you will find it out, though I never could, and I never heard of any one else that could. All the families within hearing of her tongue called her the neighbor in law."

Certainly, the prospect was not very encouraging; for the house Mrs. Fairweather proposed to occupy, was not only under the same roof with Miss Turnpenny, but the buildings had one common yard in front. The very first day she took possession of her new habitation, she called on the neighbor in law. Aunt Hetty had taken the precaution to extinguish the fire, lest the new neighbor should want hot water before her own wood and coal arrived. Her first salutation was, "If you want any cold water, there is a pump across the street; I do not like to have my house slopped all over.

"I am glad you are so tidy, neighbor Turnpenny," replied Mrs. Fairweather; "it is extremely pleasant to have neat neighbors. I will try to keep every thing as bright as a new five cent piece, for I see that will please you. I came in merely to say good morning, and to ask if you could spare little Peggy to run up and down stairs for me, while I am getting my furniture in order. I will pay her sixpence an hour."

Aunt Hetty began to purse up her mouth for a refusal; but the promise of sixpence an hour relaxed her features at once. Little Peggy sat knitting a stocking very diligently, with a rod lying on the table beside her. She looked up with timid wistfulness, as if the prospect of any change was like a release