THE PICTURE AT THE FOUNTAIN.

FENELI leaned her head upon the breast of him whom she

accepted thus as her husband. As the waves of the fountain succeeded each other, pure and limpid, so the certainty of his happiness floated into the heart of Ulric. He pressed the young girl gently in his arms. What he said first was lost in the murmuring of the water; then the fountain heard, "Will you be mine?" "Yes, forever." 'It heard other things besides, but it has never repeated them.

Jeremias Gotthelf.

THE supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves-say rather, loved in spite of ourselves.

Victor Hugo.

BE loyal to thy luver trew,

And nevir change hir for a new;
If gude and fayre, of hir have care,
A woman's banning's wondrous sair.

Anne Boswell.

LOVE sought, is good; but given unsought, is better.

TWELFTH NIGHT-Act III., Scene I.

TO

Too late I staid-forgive the crime;

The minutes flew like hours:

How noiseless falls the foot of Time!

That only treads on flowers!

Cot, garden, vineyard, rivulet, and wood,

Lake, sky, and mountain, went along with him!
Could I remain behind? I followed him
To Mantua! to breathe the air he breathed,
To walk upon the ground he walked upon,
To look upon the things he looked upon,
To look, perchance, on him!

J. S. Knowles.

A TALISMAN.

[I love thee, and I feel

That on the fountain of my heart a seal
Is set, to keep its waters pure and bright
For thee.]

P. B. Shelley.

A WOMAN'S QUESTION.

EFORE I trust my fate to thee,

BEFORE

Or place my hand in thine,

Before I let thy future give

Color and form to mine,

Before I peril all for thee, question thy soul to-night for

me.

I break all slighter bonds, nor feel
A shadow of regret;

Is there one link within the Past

That holds thy spirit yet?

Or is thy Faith as clear and free as that which I can pledge to thee?

Does there within thy dimmest dreams

A possible future shine,

Wherein thy life could henceforth breathe,
Untouched, unshared by mine?

If so, at any pain or cost, oh, tell me before all is lost.

Look deeper still. If thou canst feel

Within thy inmost soul,

That thou hast kept a portion back,

While I have staked the whole;

Let no false pity spare the blow, but in true mercy tell

me so.

Is there within thy heart a need
That mine cannot fulfil?

One chord that any other hand

Could better break or still?

Speak now-lest at some future day my whole life wither and decay.

Lives there within thy nature hid

The demon-spirit Change,

Shedding a passing glory still,

On all things new and strange?

It may not be thy fault alone-but shield my heart against

thy own.

Couldst thou withdraw thy hand one day,

And answer to my claim,

That Fate, and that to-day's mistake

Not thou-had been to blame?

Some soothe their conscience thus; but thou wilt surely warn

and save me now.

Nay, answer not-I dare not hear,
The words would come too late;
Yet I would spare thee all remorse,
So comfort thee, my Fate;

Whatever on my heart may fall, remember, I would risk it

all.

Adelaide A. Proctor.

CHOICE OF A WIFE.

WHEN it shall please God to bring thee to man's estate,

use great providence and circumspection in choosing thy wife. For from thence will spring all thy future good or evil; and it is an action of life, like unto a stratagem of war; wherein a man can err but once!

Sir Philip Sydney.

MARRIAGE.

THOSE awful words, "Till death do part,"
May well alarm the youthful heart:

No after-thought when once a wife;
The die is cast, and cast for life;
Yet thousands venture every day,
As some base passion leads the way.

Pert Sylvia talks of wedlock-scenes,
Though scarcely entered on her teens;
Smiles on her whining spark, and hears
His sugared speech with raptured ears;
Impatient of a parent's rule,

She quits her sire, and weds a fool.
Want enters at the guardless door,
And love is fled, to come no more.
Some few there are of sordid mould,
Who barter youth and bloom for gold;
Careless with what, or whom they mate,
Their ruling passion's all for state,
But Hymen, generous, just, and kind,
Abhors the mercenary mind;
Such rebels groan beneath his rod,
For Hymen's a vindictive god.
'Tis an important point to know,
There's no perfection here below,
Man's an odd compound, after all,
And ever has been since the fall.
Say, that he loves you from his soul,
Still man is proud, nor brooks control;
And though a slave in Love's soft school,
In wedlock claims his right to rule.
The best, in short, has faults about him,
If few those faults, you must not flout him;
With some, indeed, you can't dispense,

As want of temper, want of sense.

Vision VII. on Marriage-Nathaniel Cotton.

I CHOSE my wife as she did her wedding gown, for qualities

that would wear well.

Oliver Goldsmith.