But her mother-a charming woman—
Couldn't think of such trifles, you know!
Oh, she's really a charming woman!

But I think she's a little too thin;
And no wonder such very late hours
Should ruin her beautiful skin!
Her shoulders are rather too bare,

And her dress might be longer, they say;
But I'm told that those charming women
May dress in this scant sort of way.
Yes, she's really a charming woman!
But have you observed, by the bye,
A something that's rather uncommon,
In the flash of that very bright eye?
It may be a fancy of mine,

Though her voice has a rather sharp tone;
But I'm told that those charming women
Are apt to have wills of their own!

She sings like a bulfinch or linnet,

And she talks like an archbishop, too;
She can play you a rubber, and win it,
If she's got nothing better to do!
She can chatter of poor laws and tithes,
And the value of labour and land;
"Tis a pity when charming women

Talk of things they don't understand!

I'm told that she hasn't a penny,

Yet her gowns would make Mr. Worth stare, And I fear that her bills must be manyBut, you know, that's her husband's affair! Such husbands are very uncommon, So regardless of prudence and pelf ; But they say such a charming woman Is a fortune, you know, in herself! She has brothers and sisters by dozens, And all charming people, they say! And she's several tall Irish cousins, Whom she loves—in a sisterly way.

Oh, young men ! if you'd take my advice
You will find it an excellent plan-
Don't marry a charming woman,
If you are a sensible man!

The Carpenter's Son.

(Verse printed as prose.)

"Isn't this Joseph's son?"-ay, it is He; Joseph the carpenter-same trade as me-I thought as I'd find it—I knew it was here-but my sight's getting queer. I don't know right where, as his shed must ha' stood—but often, as I've been a planing my wood, I've took off my hat, just with thinking of He at the same work as me. He warn't that set up that He couldn't stoop down and work in the country for folks in the town; and I'll warrant he felt a bit pride, like I've done at a good job begun. The parson he knows that I'll not make too free, but on Sunday I feels as pleased as can be, when I wears my clean smock, and sits in a pew, and has thoughts a few. I think of as how not the parson hissen, as a teacher and father and shepherd o' men, not he knows as much of the Lord in that shed, where He earned His own bread. And when I goes home to my missus, says she, "Are you wanting your key?" for she knows my queer ways, and my love for the shed (we've been forty years wed). So I comes right away by mysen, with the book, and I turns the old pages and has a good look for the text as I've found, as tells me as He were the same trade as me. Why don't I mark it? Ah, many says so, but I think I'd as lief, with your leave let it go: it do seem that nice when I fall on it sudden— unexpected you know?

The Ropewalk.

In that building long and low,
With its windows all a-row,

Like the port holes of a hulk,
Human spiders spin and spin,
Backward down their threads so thin
Dropping, each, a hempen bulk.
At the end, an open door;
Squares of sunshine on the floor
Light the long and dusky lane;
And the whirring of a wheel,
Dull and drowsy, makes me feel
All its spokes are in my brain.
As the spinners to the end
Downward go and re ascend,

Gleam the long threads in the sun;
While within this brain of mine
Cobwebs brighter and more fine
By the busy wheel are spun.
Two fair maidens in a swing,
Like white doves upon the wing,
First before my vision pass;
Laughing, as their gentle hands
Closely clasp the twisted strands,
At their shadows on the grass.
Then a booth of mountebanks,
With its smell of tan and planks,
And a girl poised high in air
On a cord, in spangled dress,
With a faded loveliness,

And a weary look of care.
Then a homestead among farms,
And a woman with bare arms
Drawing water from a well;
As the bucket mounts apace,
With it mounts her own fair face,
As at some magician's spell.

Then an old man in a tower,
Ringing loud the noontide hour,

While the rope coils round and round,
Like a serpent at his feet,

And again, in swift retreat,

Nearly lifts him from the ground.

Then within a prison yard,
Faces fixed, and stern, and hard,
Laughter and indecent mirth;
Ah! it is the gallows tree;
Breath of Christian charity,

Blow and sweep it from the earth!

Then a schoolboy, with his kite
Gleaming in a sky of light,

And an eager, upward look ;
Steeds pursued through lane and field;
Fowlers with their snares concealed;
And an angler by a brook,

Ships rejoicing in the breeze,

Wrecks that float o'er unknown seas, Anchors dragged through faithless sand;

Sea fog drifting overhead,

And, with lessening line and lead,

Sailors feeling for the land.

All these scenes do I behold,
These, and many left untold,

In that building long and low;
While the wheel goes round and round,

With a drowsy, dreamy sound,

And the spinners backward go.

SATIRE AND HUMOUR.

Aunt Tabitha.

(Verse printed as Prose.) Whatever I do and whatever I say, Aunt Tabitha tells me that isn't the way; when she was a girl (forty summers ago), Aunt Tabitha tells me they never did so.-Dear aunt! If I only would take her advice-but I like my own way, and I find it so nice! and besides, I forget half the things I am told, but they all will come back to me when I am old.—If a youth passes by, it may happen, no doubt, he may chance to look in as I chance to look out; she would never endure an impertinent stare, it is horrid, she says, and I mustn't sit there. A walk in the moonlight has pleasures, I own, but it isn't quite safe to be walking alone; so I take a lad's arm,just for safety, you know,--but Aunt Tabitha tells me, they didn't do so.-How wicked we are, and how good they were then! They kept at arm's length those detestable men; what an era of virtue she lived in !-but stay-were the men all such rogues in Aunt Tabitha's day?-If the men were so wicked-I'll ask my papa how he dared to propose to my darling mamma ? Was he like the rest of them? Goodness! who knows? and what shall I say if a wretch should propose ? —I am thinking if aunt knew so little of sin, what a wonder Aunt Tabitha's aunt must have been! and her great-aunt—it scares me how shockingly sad that we girls of to-day are so frightfully bad!—A martyr will save us, and nothing else can ; let me perish to rescue some wretched young man! Though when to the altar a victim I go, Aunt Tabitha 'll tell me she never did so !

Trouble in the 'Amen Corner.'

(Verse printed as Prose.)

'Twas a stylish congregation, that of Theophrastus Brown, and its organ was the finest and the biggest in the town, and