Dear Mrs. B.-Chops and Tomato sauce. Yours, Pick wick." Gentlemen, what does this mean? Chops and Tomato sauce. Yours, Pickwick! Chops! Gracious heavens! and Tomato sauce! Gentlemen, is the happiness of a sensitive and confiding female to be trifled away by such shallow artifices as these? The next has no date whatever, which is in itself suspicious. 'Dear Mrs. B., I shall not be at home till to-morrow. Slow coach." And then follows this very remarkable expression: "Don't trouble yourself about the warming-pan." The warming-pan! Why, gentlemen, who does trouble himself about a warming-pan? Why is Mrs. Bardell so earnestly entreated not to agitate herself about the warming-pan, unless (as is no doubt the case) it is a mere cover for hidden fire-a mere substitute for some endearing word or promise, agreeably to a preconcerted system of correspondence, artfully contrived by Pickwick with a view to his contemplated desertion, and which I am not in a condition to explain? And what does this allusion to the slow coach mean? For aught I know, it may be a reference to Pickwick himself, who has most unquestionably been a criminally slow coach during the whole of this transaction, but whose speed will now be very unexpectedly accelerated, and whose wheels, gentlemen, as he will find to his cost, will very soon be greased by you!

But enough of this, gentlemen; it is difficult to smile with an aching heart; it is ill jesting when our deepest sympathies are awakened. My client's hopes and prospects are ruined, and it is no figure of speech to say that her occupation is gone indeed. The bill is down-but there is no tenant. Eligible single gentlemen pass and repass-but there is no invitation for them to inquire within or without. All is gloom and silence in the house, even the voice of the child is hushed; his infant sports are disregarded when his mother weeps. But Pickwick. gentlemen, Pickwick, the ruthless destroyer of this

domestic oasis in the desert of Goswell street-Pickwick who has choked up the well and thrown ashes on the sward-Pickwick, who comes before you to-day with his heartless Tomato sauce and warming-pan-Pickwick stiil 1ears his head with unblushing effrontery, and gazes with out a sigh on the ruin he has made. Damages, gentlemen-heavy damages is the only punishment with which you can visit him; the only recompense you can award to my client. And for those damages she now appeals to an enlightened, a high-minded, a right-feeling, a conscientious, a dispassionate, a sympathizing, a contemplative jury, of her civilized countrymen.

MAUD MULLER.

WHITTIER.

MAUD MULLER, on a summer's day,
Raked the meadow sweet with hay.
Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth
Of simple beauty and rustic health.
Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee
The mock-bird echoed from his tree.

But, when she glanced to the far-off town,
White from its hill-slope looking down,
The sweet song died, and a vague unrest,
And a nameless longing filled her breast;
A wish, that she hardly dared to own,
For something better than she had known.

The Judge rode slowly down the lane,
Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane;

He drew his bridle in the shade

Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid;

And ask a draught from the spring that flowed
Through the meadow, across the road.

She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up,
And filled for him her small tin cup,

And blushed as she gave it, looking down
On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown.
"Thanks!" said the Judge, a sweeter draught
From a fairer hand, was never quaffed."

He spoke of the grass, and flowers, and trees,
Of the singing birds and the humming bees;
Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether
The cloud in the west would bring foul weather.
And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown,
And her graceful ankles bare and brown,
And listened, while a pleased surprise
Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes.

At last, like one who for delay
Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away.

Maud Muller looked and sighed: “Ah, me!
That I the Judge's bride might be !
He would dress me up in silks so fine,
And praise and toast me at his wine.

"My father should wear a broadcloth coat;
My brother should sail a painted boat.
I'd dress my mother so grand and gay,
And the baby should have a new toy each day.
And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor
And all should bless me who left our door."

The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill,
And saw Maud Muller standing still.

"A form more fair, a face more sweet,
Ne'er has it been my lot to meet;
And her modest answer and graceful air
Show her wise and good as she is fair.

"Would she were mine, and I to-day,
Like her, a harvester of hay!

No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs,
Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues;
But low of cattle and song of birds,
And health, and quiet, and loving words."

But he thought of his sisters, proud and cold,
And his mother, vain of her rank and gold.
So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on
And Maud was left in the field alone.

But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,
When he hummed in court an old love-tune.
And the young girl mused beside the well,
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell.

He wedded a wife of richest dower,
Who lived for fashion, as he for power.
Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow,
He watched a picture come and go;
And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes
Looked out in their innocent surprise.

Oft, when the wine in his glass was red,
He longed for the wayside well instead ;
And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms
To dream of meadows and clover-blooms.
And the proud man sighed, with secret pain,
Ah, that I were free again!-

Free as when I rode that day,

Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay."

She wedded a man unlearned and poor,
And many children played round her door.
But care and sorrow and wasting pain
Left their traces on heart and brain.
And oft, when the summer sun shone hot
On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot,
And she heard the little spring brook fall
Over the roadside, through the wall,
In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein,
And gazing down with timid grace,
She felt his pleased eyes read her face.

Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls
Stretched away into stately halls;
The weary wheel to a spinet turned,
The tallow candle an astral burned;
And for him who sat by the chimney lug,
Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug,
A manly form at her side she saw,
And joy was duty, and love was law.
Then she took up her burden of life again,
Saying only, "It might have been!"

Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,

For rich repiner and household drudge
God pity them both, and pity us all
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall
For of all sad words of tongue or pen,

The saddest are these: "It might have been 1
Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes;
And in the hereafter, angels may
Roll the stone from its grave away!