A rank adjudged by toil-worn merit,
Content that from employment springs,
A heart that in his labor sings;
A heritage, it seems to me,

A king might wish to hold in fee.

What doth the poor man's son inherit?
A patience learned of being poor,
Courage, if sorrow come, to bear it,
A fellow-feeling that is sure

To make the outcast bless his door;
A heritage, it seems to me,
A king might wish to hold in fee.

O rich man's son! there is a toil
That with all others level stands;
Large charity doth never soil,

But only whiten, soft white hands,— This is the best crop from thy lands; A heritage, it seems to me,

Worth being rich to hold in fee.

poor man's son! scorn not thy state; There is worse weariness than thine,

In merely being rich and great;
Toil only gives the soul to shine,
And makes rest fragrant and benign;

A heritage, it seems to me,

Worth being poor to hold in fee.

Both heirs to some six feet of sod,
Are equal in the earth at last;

Both, children of the same dear God,

Prove title to your heirship vast
By record of a well-filled past;
A heritage, it seems to me,
Well worth a life to hold in fee.

AN EASTERN APOLOGUE

ANONYMOUS

BDALLAH sat at his morning meal, when there alighted

on the rim of his goblet a little fly. It sipped an atom of sirup and was gone. But it came next morning, and the next, and the next again, till at last the scholar noticed it. Not quite a common fly, it seemed to know that it was beautiful, and it soon grew very bold. And lo! a great wonder: it became daily larger, and yet larger, till there could be discerned in the size, as of a locust, the appearance as of a man. From a handbreadth it reached the stature of a cubit; and still, so winning were its ways, that it found more and more favor with this son of infatuation. It frisked like a Satyr, it sang like a Peri, and like a moth of the evening it danced on the ceiling, and, like the king's gift, whithersoever it turned, it prospered.

The eyes of the simple one were blinded, so that he could not in all this perceive the subtility of an evil gin. Therefore the lying spirit waxed bolder and yet bolder, and whatsoever his soul desired of dainty meats he freely took; and when the scholar waxed wroth, and said: "This is my daily portion from the table of the Mufti; there is not enough for thee and me," the dog-faced deceiver played some pleasant trick, and caused the silly one to smile. Until in process of time, the scholar perceived that, as his guest grew stronger and stronger, he himself waxed weaker and weaker.

Now, also, there arose frequent strife betwixt the demon and his dupe, and at last the youth smote the fiend so sore, that he departed for a season. And when he was gone, Abdallah rejoiced and said: "I have triumphed over mine enemy, and whatsoever time it pleaseth me, I shall smite him so that he die. Is he not altogether in mine own power?" But after not many days the gin came back again, and this time he was arrayed in goodly garments, and he brought a present in his hand, and he spake of the days of their first friendship, and he looked so mild and feeble, that his smooth words wrought upon this dove without a heart, and saying: "Is he not a little one?" he received him again into his chamber.

On the morrow, when Abdallah came not into the assembly of studious youth, the Mufti said: "Wherefore arrieth the son of Abdul? Perchance, he sleepeth." Therefore they repaired even to the chamber; but to their knocking he made no answer. Wherefore, the Mufti opened the door, and lo! there lay on the divan the dead body of his disciple. His visage was black and swollen, and on his throat was the pressure of a finger, broader than the palm of a mighty man. All the stuff, the gold, and the changes of raiment belonging to the helpless one, were gone, and in the soft earth of the garden were seen the footsteps of a giant. The Mufti measured one of the prints, and, behold! it was six cubits long.

Reader, canst thou expound the riddle? Is it the Bottle or the Betting-book? Is it the Billiard table or the Theater? Is it Smoking? Is it Laziness? Is it Novel-reading? But know that an evil habit is an elf constantly expanding. It may come in at the keyhole, but it will soon grow too big for the house. Know, also, that no evil habit can take the life of your soul, unless you yourself nourish it, and cherish it, and by feeding it with your own vitality, give it a strength greater than your own.

AN ORDER FOR A PICTURE

NOTE TO THE PUPIL.

1820. She and her sister

ALICE CARY

Alice Cary was born near Cincinnati in Phoebe wrote sketches and poems, many of which were very popular. Alice Cary wrote three novels. None of their writings with the exception of a few poems are now read to any extent. Alice Cary died in 1871.

H, good painter, tell me true,

Has your hand the cunning to draw
Shapes of things that you never saw?
Ay? Well, here is an order for you.

Woods and cornfields a little brown,

The picture must not be over bright,-
Yet all in the golden and gracious light
Of a cloud when the summer sun is down.

Alway and alway, night and morn,
Woods upon woods, with fields of corn

Lying between them, not quite sere
And not in the full, thick, leafy bloom,
When the wind can hardly find breathing room
Under their tassels,— cattle near,

Biting shorter the short green grass,
And a hedge of sumac and sassafras,
With bluebirds twittering all around,-
Ah, good painter, you can't paint sound!

These and the little house where I was born,
Low and little and black and old,
With children, many as it can hold,
All at the windows, open wide,-

Heads and shoulders clear outside,
And fair young faces all ablush;

Perhaps you may have seen, some day,
Roses crowding the self-same way,
Out of a wilding, wayside bush.

Listen closer. When you have done

With woods and cornfields and grazing herds,
A lady, the loveliest ever the sun

Looked down upon, you must paint for me;
Oh, if I only could make you see

The clear blue eyes, the tender smile,
The sovereign sweetness, the gentle grace,
The woman's soul and the angel's face
That are beaming on me all the while!
I need not speak these foolish words;
Yet one word tells you all I would say,-
She is my mother; you will agree
That all the rest may be thrown away.

Two little urchins at her knee
You must paint, sir, one like me,—
The other with a clearer brow,
And the light of his adventurous eyes
Flashing with boldest enterprise:

At ten years old he went to sea,—
God knoweth if he be living now,-
He sailed in the good ship Commodore,—

Nobody ever crossed her track

To bring us news, and she never came back.

Ah, 'tis twenty long years and more,
Since that old ship went out of the bay