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"Two shakes-oh! luckless verse ! 'Twould make a patient worse!"

"It did so, sir,-and so a third we tried."

"Well! and what then?"-" Then, sir, my master died."

ST. ROMUALD.

ROBERT SOUTHEY.

ONE day, it matters not to know
How many hundred years ago,
A Spaniard stopt at a posada door:

The landlord came to welcome him, and chat
Of this and that,

For he had seen the traveller there before.

"Does holy Romuald dwell
Still in his cell?"

The traveller ask'd, 66 or is the old man dead?"
"No, he has left his loving flock, and we

So good a Christian never more shall see," The landlord answer'd, and he shook his head.

cc Ah, sir! we knew his worth.

If ever there did live a saint on earth!

Why, sir, he always used to wear a shirt For thirty days, all seasons, day and night: Good man, he knew it was not right

For dust and ashes to fall out with dirt, And then he only hung it out in the rain, And put it on again.

"There used to be rare work

With him and the devil there in yonder cell,
For Satan used to maul him like a Turk.
There they would sometimes fight

All through a winter's night,

From sunset until morn,

He with a cross, the devil with his horn;

The devil spitting fire with might and main,
Enough to make St. Michael half afraid;
He splashing holy water till he made
His red hide hiss again,

And the hot vapour fill'd the little cell.

This was so common, that his face became

All black and yellow with the brimstone flame, And then he smelt-O dear! how he did smell!

66 Then, sir! to see how he would mortify The flesh! If any one had dainty fare, Good man, he would come there,

And look at all the delicate things, and cry,
'Oh, belly, belly!

You would be gormandizing now, I know;
But it shall not be so:

Home to your bread and water-home, I tell ye!'"

"But," quoth the traveller, "wherefore did he leave A flock that knew his saintly worth so well? "Why," said the landlord, "sir, it so befell

He heard unluckily of our intent

To do him a great honour, and, you know,
He was not covetous of fame below,

And so by stealth one night away he went."

"What was this honour, then?" the traveller cried. "Why, sir," the host replied,

"We thought, perhaps, that he might one day leave us; And then, should strangers have

The good man's grave,

A loss like that would naturally grieve us,
For he'll be made a saint of, to be sure.
Therefore we thought it prudent to secure

His relics while we might,

And so we meant to strangle him one night."

LOST AND FOUND.

From the "Atlantic Monthly,"

No one can appreciate fully the misery of losing a husband in the unknown wilderness of the streets of New York, without having previously experienced the misery of being the very shyest person in all the uncomfortable world.

Half-way across the continent, and travelling night and day, would have been enough to fatigue Hercules himself, who never had any such labours to perform among all his famous dozen; and we were about as weary of jar and joggle and tumult as one would think the round globe itself should be at this point of time. However, the earth never stops to rest in her rolling, and why should we? We must follow her example and despatch on a smaller scale, and go straight through to Canada that night.

It might be supposed that so long a journey, and a winter's residence in one of the gayest of gay cities, would have overcome in great measure the painful diffidence of a retiring nature; but, on the contrary, it had only intensified it, every fresh approaching face had become a fresh agony, every introduction had assumed as dreadful a guise as a death-warrant, and instead of gaining courage or chic, or the aplomb of a woman of the world, I had gradually acquired the habit of hiding. under my thick veil, and wishing for nothing but the cap of invisibility.

This and shyness was, and is, the curse of my existence; it put me from the beginning under the feet of servants; I took what waiters chose to bring me, and never grumbled; I hardly ever went out without the tacit permission of my chambermaid; I walked a mile. rather than ask my way of the next person; in the cars I alternated between comfort and distress with my ticket, according to the exit or entrance of the conductor; and as for hackmen they drove me to distrac

tion, I have seen my friend pay one at the door with my own eyes, but have unhesitatingly paid him over again, on his stout asseveration that nothing of the kind had ever taken place. I have been considerately requested by another to alight at the foot of Somerset Street, in a sister city, as his horses could not conveniently climb the hill, and have remunerated him with a full fare, obeyed his wish, and modestly climbed the hill myself; and I never knew the time when I seemed to be rolling along luxuriously in my private coach, that the wretch of a driver did not take a short cut down some back slum, and destroy the illusion by inviting upon the box a comrade in shirt-sleeves,which can be the appropriate livery of nobody but bishops, and I am not a bishop. Taking the total of so much shyness, it is evident that I am not exactly the person to lose a husband in a labyrinth with which I am utterly unacquainted, and to whose mazes I have not the slightest clew, with the hope of finding him again. However, all this is mere digression.

I lived, be it known, through the ordeal of the splendid hotel upholstery and mirrors, designed especially to put you out of countenance, endured the breakfast at the Fifth Avenue, and the impertinent staring of my vis-à-vis: furthermore, survived several stately calls, and at last sallied forth for my purchases and the boat, safe in my husband's escort.

I had with me only my travelling-bag; for it had seemed unnecessary on the previous night to bring all our luggage up to the hotel,-big trunk, little trunk, bandbox, and bundle. Do not, I beg you, imagine that all the contents of the chests and portmanteaus were vanities of mine; indeed, lace and linen, bonnet and bernouse, filled one little trunk alone; the rest belonged to Charlie, every inch of them. And what was there in them? Why,-newspapers. I knew you would not believe me, yet I assure you again that their contents were nothing but newspapers. All the way from Omaha, from St. Louis, from Chicago, from Cin

cinnati, from Baltimore,-nothing but newspapers; after every stay in every town a new trunk appeared, and in its recesses were filed away the invaluable newspapers, Chicago Tomahawks, and La Crosse What-isit's, and Baltimore Butcher-Blades, and Congressional Chesterfields, the contemporary records of the time, Charlie said, which no student of history could spare. These, accordingly, were left in the baggage-room at the station, in one of those spasms of economy that always prove more expensive in the end, and now they were to be expressed across the city to the boat, and there was very little time to do it.

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"We never can have any peace about your shopping with such a weight on our minds as all that luggage, said Charlie. "I think that had best be attended to

first."

"Not at all," I answered, not feeling the possible loss of the trunks to be complete ruin; "for if we once go down there we shall never come back, and there are all our presents to buy."

"Well, then, you had best do the buying, my love, and I will do the luggage."

me.

"Me!" I exclaimed, in a consternation.

"Yes. Why not?"

"But you know I always make somebody buy for I can't beat the creatures down; and they clap on the pinnacle of prices the moment they lay eyes on my face."

"Well, it will be a good lesson to you. Early exercises in bargains. I don't see anything else to be done."

"But what?"

"But for me to take a stage down to the station,it is an hour's ride, and for you to saunter down Broadway."

"What-without you ?"

"Why, certainly; they don't murder in open daylight on Broadway."

"But I don't know my way."

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