minute, now, might be the means of saving her brother's life. And so, in an incredibly short time, Blossom reached the Capital, and hastened immediately to the White House.

The President had but just seated himself to his morning's task, of overlooking and signing important papers, when, without one word of announcement, the door softly opened, and Blossom, with downcast eyes, and folded hands, stood before him.

"Well, my child," he said in his pleasant, cheerful tones, "what do you want so bright and early in the morning?"

"Bennie's life, please, sir," faltered Blossom.

"Bennie? Who is Bennie?"

"My brother, sir. They are going to shoot him for sleeping at his post."

"Oh, yes," and Mr. Lincoln ran his eye over the papers before him. "I remember! It was a fatal sleep. You see, child, it was at a time of special danger. Thousands of lives might have been lost for his culpable negligence."

"So my father said," replied Blossom gravely, "but poor Bennie was so tired, sir, and Jemmie so weak. He did the work of two, sir, and it was Jemmie's night, not his; but Jemmie was too tired, and Bennie never thought about himself, that he was tired too."

"What is this you say, child? Come here; I do not understand," and the kind man caught eagerly, as ever, at what seemed to be a justification of an offense.

Blossom went to him: he put his hand tenderly on her shoulder, and turned up the pale, anxious face toward his. How tall he seemed, and he was President of the United States too! A dim thought of this kind passed for a moment through Blossom's mind; but she told her simple and straightforward story, and handed Mr. Lincoln Bennie's letter to read.

He read it carefully; then, taking up his pen, wrote a few hasty lines, and rang his bell.

Blossom heard this order given: "SEND THIS DISPATCH AT ONCE." The President then turned to the girl and said: "Go home, my child, and tell that father of yours, who could approve his country's sentence, even when it took the life of a child like that, that Abraham Lincoln thinks the life far too precious to be lost. Go back, or— wait until to-morrow; Bennie will need a change after he has so bravely faced death; he shall go with you."

"God bless you, sir," said Blossom; and who shall doubt that God heard and registered the request?

Two days after this interview, the young soldier came to the White House with his little sister. He was called into the President's private room, and a strap fastened "upon the shoulder." Mr. Lincoln then said: "The soldier that could carry a sick comrade's baggage, and die for the act so uncomplainingly, deserves well of his country." Then Bennie and Blessom took their way to their Green Mountain home. A crowd gathered at the Mill Depot to welcome them back; and, as farmer Owen's hand grasped that of his boy, tears flowed down his cheeks, and he was heard to say fervently, "THE LORD BE PRAISED!"

N. Y. Observer.

The Cynic.

The Cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man, and never fails to see a bad one. He is the human owl, vigilant in darkness and blind to light, mousing for vermin, and never seeing noble game.

The Cynic puts all human actions into only two classes-openly bad, and secretly bad. All virtue, and generosity, and disinterestedness, are merely the appearance of good, but selfish at the bottom. He holds that no man does a good thing except for profit. The effect of his conversation upon your feelings is to chill and sear them; to send you away sour and morose.)

His criticisms and innuendoes fall indiscriminately upon every lovely thing, like frost upon the flowers. If Mr. A. is pronounced a religious man, he will reply: yes, on Sundays. Mr. B. has just joined the church: certainly; the elections are coming on. The minister of the gospel is called an example of diligence: it is his trade. Such a man is generous: of other men's money. This man is obliging: to lull suspicion and cheat you. That man is upright: because he is green.)

Thus his eye strains out every good quality, and takes in only the bad. To him religion is hypocrisy, honesty a preparation for fraud, virtue only a want of opportunity, and undeniable purity, asceticism. The livelong day he will coolly sit with sneering lip, transfixing every character that is presented.

It is impossible to indulge in such habitual severity of opinion upon our fellow-men, without injuring the tenderness and delicacy of our own feelings. A man will be what his most cherished feelings are. If he encourage a noble generosity, every feeling will be enriched by it; if he nurse bitter and envenomed thoughts, his own spirit will absorb the poison, and he will crawl among men as a burnished adder, whose life is mischief, and whose errand is death.

He who hunts for flowers, will find flowers; and he who loves weeds, may find weeds.

Let it be remembered that no man, who is not himself morally diseased, will have a relish for disease in others. Reject then the morbid ambition of the Cynic, or cease to call yourself a man. H. W. Beecher.

The Drummer's Bride.

Hollow-eyed and pale at the window of a jail,

Thro' her soft disheveled hair, a maniac did stare, stare, stare!
At a distance, down the street, making music with their feet,
Came the soldiers from the wars, all embellished with their scars,
To the tapping of a drum, of a drum;

To the pounding and the sounding of a drum!

Of a drum, of a drum, of a drum! drum, drum, drum!

The woman heaves a sigh, and a fire fills her eye.

When she hears the distant drum, she cries, "Here they come!

here they come!"

Then, clutching fast the grating, with eager, nervous waiting,
See, she looks into the air, through her long and silky hair,
For the echo of a drum, of a drum;

For the cheering and the hearing of a drum!

Of a drum, of a drum, of a drum! drum, drum, drum!

And nearer, nearer, nearer, comes, more distinct and clearer,
The rattle of the drumming; shrieks the woman,
"He is coming,
He is coming now to me; quick, drummer, quick, till I see!"
And her eye is glassy bright, while she beats in mad delight
To the echo of a drum, of a drum;

To the rapping, tapping, tapping of a drum!

Of a drum, of a drum, of a drum! drum, drum, drum!

Now she sees them, in the street, march along with dusty feet,
As she looks through the spaces, gazing madly in their faces;
And she reaches out her hand, screaming wildly to the band;
But her words, like her lover, are lost beyond recover,
'Mid the beating of a drum, of a drum;

'Mid the clanging and the banging of a drum!

Of a drum, of a drum, of a drum! drum, drum, drum!

So the pageant passes by, and the woman's flashing eye
Quickly loses all its stare, and fills with a tear, with a tear;
As, sinking from her place, with her hands upon her face,
"Hear!" she weeps and sobs as wild as a disappointed child;
Sobbing, "He will never come, never come!

Now nor ever, never, never, will he come

With his drum, with his drum, with his drum! drum, drum, drum!”

Still the drummer, up the street, beats his distant, dying beat,
And she shouts, within her cell, "Ha! they're marching down to hell,
And the devils dance and wait at the open iron gate:

Hark! it is the dying sound, as they march into the ground,

To the sighing and the dying of the drum!

To the throbbing and the sobbing of the drum

Of a drum, of a drum, of a drum! drum, drum, drum!"

The Isle of Long Ago.

O, a wonderful stream is the river Time,
As it runs through the realm of tears,
With a faultless rhythm and a musical rhyme,
And a boundless sweep and a surge sublime,

As it blends with the Ocean of Years.

How the winters are drifting, like flakes of snow,
And the summers, like buds between;

And the year in the sheaf-so they come and they go,
On the river's breast, with its ebb and flow,
As it glides in the shadow and sheen.

There's a magical isle up the river of Time,
Where the softest of airs are playing;
There's a cloudless sky and a tropical clime,
And a song as sweet as a vesper chime,

And the Junes with the roses are staying.

And the name of that Isle is the Long Ago,

And we bury our treasures there;

There are brows of beauty and bosoms of snow
There are heaps of dust-but we loved them so!-
There are trinkets and tresses of hair;

There are fragments of song that nobody sings,
And a part of an infant's prayer;

There's a lute unswept, and a harp without strings
There are broken vows and pieces of rings,

And the garments that she used to wear.

There are hands that are waved, when the fairy shore
By the mirage is lifted in air;

And we sometimes hear, through the turbulent roar,
Sweet voices we heard in the days gone before,
When the wind down the river is fair.

O, remember for aye, be the blessed Isle,
All the day of our life till night—

When the evening comes with its beautiful smile,
And our eyes are closing to slumber awhile,
May that "Greenwood" of Soul be in sight!

In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright:
Above, the spectral glaciers shone;
And from his lips escaped a groan,

"Excelsior!"