I well remember, when my coat (the only one I had) Was seedy grown and threadbare, and, in fact, most "shocking bad."

The tailor's stern remark when I a modest order made; "Cash is the basis, sir, on which we tailors do our trade.”

Her winter cloak was in his shop by noon that very day; She wrought on hickory shirts at night that tailor's skill to

pay;

I got a coat and wore it; but, alas! poor Hannah Jane Ne'er went to church or lecture, till warm weather came again.

Our second season she refused a cloak of any sort,

That I might have a decent suit in which t' appear in court;
She made her last year's bonnet do, that I might have a hat;
Talk of the old-time, flame-enveloped martyrs after that!

No negro ever worked so hard; a servant's pay to save,
She made herself most willingly a household drudge and

slave.

What wonder that she never read a magazine or book, Combining as she did in one, nurse, housemaid, seamstress, cook!

What wonder that the beauty fled that I once so adored! Her beautiful complexion my fierce kitchen fire devoured; Her plump, soft, rounded arm was once too fair to be concealed;

Hard work for me that softness into sinewy strength congealed.

I was her altar, and her love the sacrificial flame;
Ah! with what pure devotion she to that altar came,
And, tearful, flung thereon-alas! I did not know it then-
All that she was, and more than that, all that she might have
been!

At last I won success. Ah! then our lives were wider parted; I was far up the rising road; she, poor girl, where we started. I had tried my speed and mettle, and gained strength in

every race;

I was far up the heights of life-she drudging at the base.

She made me take each fall the stump; she said t'was my

career;

The wild applause of list'ning crowds was music to my ear.
What stimulus had she to cheer her dreary solitude?
For me she lived on gladly, in unnatural widowhood.

She couldn't read my speech, but when the papers all agreed T'was the best one of the session, those comments she could read;

And with a gush of pride thereat, which I had never felt, She sent them to me in a note with half the words misspelt.

At twenty-eight the State-house; on the bench at thirtythree;

At forty every gate in life was opened wide to me.

I nursed my powers and grew, and made my point in life, but she

Bearing such pack-horse weary loads, what could a woman be?

What could she be! Oh, shame! I blush to think what she has been

The most unselfish of all wives to the selfishest of men.
Yes, plain and homely now she is; she's ignorant, 'tis true;
For me she rubbed herself quite out, I represent the two.

Well, I suppose that I might do as other men have done First break her heart with cold neglect, then shove her out alone.

The world would say 'twas well, and more, would give great praise to me,

For having borne with "such a wife" so uncomplainingly.

And shall I? No! The contract 'twixt Hannah, God and me, Was not for one or twenty years, but for eternity.

No matter what the world may think; I know down in my heart

That, if either, I'm delinquent; she has bravely done her part.

There's another world beyond this; and, on the final day,
Will intellect and learning 'gainst such devotion weigh?
When the great one, made of us two, is torn apart again
I'll yield the palm, for God is just, and he knows Hannah
Jane.

PETROLEUM V. NASBY (D. R. LOCKE).

CONNOR.

"To the memory of Patrick Connor; this simple stone was erected by his fellow-workmen."

THOSE words you may read any day upon a white slab in a cemetery not many miles from New York; but you might read them an hundred times without guessing at the little tragedy they indicate, without knowing the humble romance which ended with the placing of that stone above the dust of one poor humble man.

In his shabby frieze jacket and mud-laden brogans, he was scarcely an attractive object as he walked into Mr. Bawne's great tin and hardware shop one day and presented himself at the counter with an,

"Ive been tould ye advertized for hands, yer honor.”

"Fully supplied, my man," said Mr. Bawne, not lifting his head from his account book.

"I'd work faithfully, sir, and take low wages, till I could do better, and I'd learn-I would that."

It was an Irish brogue, and Mr. Bawne always declared that he never would employ an incompetent hand.

Yet the tone attracted him. He turned briskly, and with his pen behind his ear, addressed the man, who was only one of fifty who had answered his advertisement for four workmen that morning

"What makes you expect to learn faster than other folks -are you any smarter!

"I'll not say that; said the man, "but I'd be wishing to; and that would make it aisier."

"Are you used to the work?"

"Ive done a bit of it."

"Much?"

No, yer honor, I'll tell no lie, Tim O'Toole had n't the like of this place; but I know a bit about tins."

"You are too old for an apprentice, and you'd be in the way I calculate," said Mr. Bawne, looking at the brawny arms and bright eyes that promised strength and intelligence. "Besides I know your country-men-lazy, good-fornothing fellows who never do their best. No, I've been taken in by Irish hands before, and I wont have another."

"The Virgin will have to be after bringing them over to me in her two arms, thin," said the man, despairingly, “for I've tramped all the day for the last fortnight, and niver a job

can I get, and that's the last penny I have, yer honor, and it's but a half one."

As he spoke he spread his palm open, with an English half-penny in it.

Bring whom over?" asked Mr. Bawne arrested by the odd speech, as he turned upon his heel and turned back again.

"Jist Nora and Jamesy."

"Who are they?"

"The wan's me wife, the other me child," sail the man. "O masther, just thry me. How'll I bring em over to me, if no one will give me a job? I want to be airning, and the whole big city seems against it, and me with arms like them."

He bared his arms to the shoulder as he spoke, and Mr. Bawne looked at them, and then at his face.

"I'll hire you for a week," he said; "and now, as it's noon, go down to the kitchen and tell the girl to get you some dinner-a hungry man can't work."

With an Irish blessing, the new hand obeyed, while Mr. Bawne, untying his apron, went up stairs to his own meal. Suspicious as he was of the new hand's integrity and ability, he was agreeably disappointed. Connor worked hard, and actually learned fast. At the end of the week he was engaged permanently, and soon was the best workman in the shop.

He was a great talker, but not fond of drink or wasting money. As his wages grew, he hoarded every penny, and wore the same shabby clothes in which he had made his first appearance.

"Beer costs money," he said one day, "and ivery cint I spind puts off the bringing Nora and Jamesy over; and as for clothes, them I have must do me. Better no coat to my back than no wife and boy by my fireside; and anyhow, it's slow work saving."

Other

It was slow work, but he kept at it all the same. men, thoughtiess and full of fun, tried to make him drink; made a jest of his saving habits, coaxed him to accompany them to places of amusement, or to share in their Sunday frolics.

All in vain. Connor liked beer, liked fun, liked companionship; but he would not delay that long-looked-for bringing of Nora over, and was not "mane enough" to accept

favor of others. He kept his way, a martyr to his one great wish, living on little, working at night on any extra job that he could earn a few shillings by, running errands in his noon-tide hours of rest, and talking to any one who would listen to him of his one great hope, and of Nora and of little Jamesy.

At first the men who prided themselves on being all Americans, and on turning out the best work in the city, made a sort of butt of Connor, whose "wild Irish" ways and verdancy were indeed often laughable. But he won their hearts at last, and when one day mounting a work-bench, he shook his little bundle, wrapped in a red kerchief, before their eyes, and shouted, "Look, boys; I've got the whole at last! I'm going to bring Nora and Jamesy over at last! Whorooo!! I've got it!!!" all felt sympathy in his joy, and each grasped his great hand in cordial congratulations, and one proposed to treat all round, and drink a good voyage to Nora.

They parted in a merry mood, most of the men going to comfortable homes. But poor Connor's resting-place was a poor lodging-house, where he shared a crazy garret with four other men, and in the joy of his heart the poor fellow exhibited his handkerchief, with his hard-earned savings tied up in a wad in the middle, before he put it under his pillow and fell asleep.

When he awakened in the morning, he found his treasure gone; some villain, more contemptible than most bad men, had robbed him.

At first Connor could not even believe it lost. He searched every corner of the room, shook his quilt and blankets, and begged those about him "to quit joking, and give it back.” But at last he realized the truth

Is any man that bad that it's thaved from me?" he asked, in a breathless way. "Boys, is any man that bad?" And some one answered: "No doubt of it, Connor; it's sthole."

Then Connor put his head down on his hands and lifted up his voice and wept. It was one of those sights which men never forget. It seemed more than he could bear, to have Nora and his child "put" as he expressed it" months away from him again."

But when he went to work that day it seemed to all who saw him that he had picked up a new determination. His hands were never idle. His face seemed to say, "I'll have Nora with me yet."