"how I am to write comic scenes if Lysimachus and Roxalana here putin the heavy business every five minutes ?" "Forgive them-the poor things are hungry."

"Then let them be hungry in another room," said the irritated scribe. "They shan't cling round my pen and paralyze it just when it is going to make all our fortunes; but you women," snapped Triplet the Just, "have no consideration for people's feelings! Send them all to bed-every man Jack of them."

Finding the conversation taking this turn, the children raised a unanimous howl.

Triplet darted a fierce glance at them.

"Hungry! hungry!" cried he, "is that a proper expression to use before a father who is sitting down here all gayety"-scratching wildly with his pen-" and hilarityto write a com-comedy-" he choked a moment, and then in a very different tone, all sadness and tenderness, he said, "Where's the youngest? Where's Lucy? As if I didn't know you were hungry!"

Lucy came to him directly. He took her on his knee, pressed her gently to his side and wrote silently.

"Father," said Lucy, aged five, the germ of a woman, "I am not so very hungry."

“And I'm not hungry at all," said bluff Lysimachus, taking his sister's cue, and then going upon his own tack he added, “I had a great piece of bread and butter yesterday.” Play us a tune on the fiddle, father," said Lucy.

66

"Aye, do, husband. That helps you often in your writing."

Lysimachus brought the fiddle, and Triplet essayed a merry tune; but it came out so doleful that he shook his head and laid the instrument down.

"No," said he, "let us be serious and finish this comedy

slap off. Perhaps it hitches because I forgot to invoke the comic muse. She must be a black-hearted jade if she doesn't come with merry notions to a poor devil, starving in the midst of his starving little ones."

"We are past help from heathen goddesses," said the "We must pray to Heaven to look down upon us and our children."

woman.

The man looked up with a very bad expression on his

countenance.

"You forget," said he, sullenly.

"Our street is very

narrow and the opposite houses are very high."

"James!"

"How can Heaven be expected to see what honest folk endure in such a hole as this?" cried the man fiercely. "James!" said the woman with fear and sorrow, words are these ?"

"what

The man rose and flung his pen upon the floor. "Have we given honesty a fair trial-yes or no?" "No," said the woman without a moment's hesitation, "not till we die as we have lived. Children," said she, lest perchance her husband's words should have harmed their young souls, "the sky is above the earth, and Heaven is higher than the sky, and Heaven is just."

"I suppose it is so," said the man, a little cowed by her. "Everybody says so, but I can't see it; I want to see it, but I can't," cried he fiercely. "Have my children offended Heaven? They will starve! They will die! If I was Heaven I would be just and send an angel to take these children's part. They cried to me for bread--I had no bread, so I gave them hard words. The moment I had done that I knew it was all over. God knows it took a long while to break my heart, but it is broken at last-quite, quite broken!"

The poor man laid his head upon the table and sobbed beyond all power of restraint. The children cried round him, scarce knowing why, and Mrs. Triplet could only say, "My poor husband!" and prayed and wept upon the couch where she lay.

It was at this juncture that a lady who had knocked gently, and unheard, opened the door and with a light step entered the apartment.

"Wasn't somebody inquiring for an angel just now? Here I am! See, Mr. Triplet!"

"Mrs. Woffington," said Triplet, rising and introducing her to his wife. Mrs. Woffington planted herself in the middle of the floor, and with a comical glance, setting her arms akimbo, uttered a shrill whistle.

66 Now you will see another angel-there are two sorts of them."

Her black servant Pompey came in with a basket. She took it from him.

"I heard that you were ill, ma'am, and I have brought you some medicine from Burgundy. Mrs. Triplet, will you allow me to eat my luncheon with you? I am very hungry." Turning towards Pompey she sent him out for a pie which she professed she had fallen in love with at the corner of the street.

"Mother," said Alcibiades, "will the lady give me a bit of her pie?"

"Hush! you rude boy!" cried the mother.

"She is not much of a lady if she does not," cried Mrs. Woffington. "Eat away, children. Now's your time!

When once I begin the pie will soon end."

Lucy said gravely, "The lady is very funny. Do you ever cry, pretty lady?"

"Oh, of course not," ironically.

"Comedy is crying," said Lucy, confidentially. "Father cried all the time he was writing his one."

Triplet turned red as fire.

"Hold your tongue!" said he. "I was bursting with merriment. Wife, our children talk too much; they put their noses into everything and criticise their own father. And when they take up a notion, Socrates couldn't convince them to the contrary. For instance, Madame, all this morning they thought fit to assume that they were starving." "So we were," said Lysimachus, "till the angel came and then sent out for a pie."

"There-there-there-now you mark my words," said Triplet. "We shall never get that idea out of their heads-"

"Until," said Mrs. Woffington, putting another huge piece of pie into Roxalana's plate, "we put a very different idea into their stomachs." This and the look she cast upon Mrs. Triplet fairly caught that good though somber personage. She giggled, put her hand to her face and said, "I'm sure I ask your pardon, ma'am.”

It was no use. The comedian had determined that they should all laugh and they were made to laugh. Their first feeling was wonder. Were they the same who ten minutes ago were weeping together? Yes! Ten minutes ago they were rayless, joyless, hopeless. Now the sun was in their hearts, and sighing and sorrow had fled away. It was magical! Could a mortal play upon the soul of man, woman, and child like this? Happy Mrs. Woffington! And suppose this was more than half acting, but such acting as Triplet never dreamed of? If it were art, glory to such art so worthily applied, and honor to such creatures as this, that come like sunshine into poor men's homes, and turn drooping hearts to happiness and hope.--Peg Woffington.

THE NOBILITY OF LABOR.

THOMAS CARLYLE.

Two men I honor, and no third. First the toilworn Craftsman that with earth-made Implement laboriously conquers the Earth and makes her man's. Venerable to me is the hard hand, crooked, coarse; wherein, notwithstanding, lies a cunning virtue, indefeasibly royal, as of the Scepter of this Planet. Venerable, too, is the rugged face, all weather-tanned, besoiled, with its rude intelligence, for it is the face of a Man living manlike. Oh, but the more venerable for thy rudeness, and even because we must pity as well as love thee! Hardly entreated brother! For us was thy back so bent; for us were thy straight limbs and fingers so deformed; thou wert our Conscript, on whom the lot fell, and fighting our battles wert so marred. For in thee, too, lay a god-created Form, but it was not to be unfolded; incrusted must it stand with the thick adhesions and defacements of Labor, and thy body like thy soul was not to know freedom. Yet toil on, toil on; thou art in thy duty, be out of it who may; thou toilest for the altogether indispensable-for daily bread.

A second man I honor, and still more highly; Him who is seen toiling for the spiritually indispensable, not daily bread, but the bread of life. Is not he, too, in his duty; endeavoring towards inward Harmony; revealing this by act or by word, through all his outward endeavors, be they high or low? Highest of all, when his outward and inward endeavor are one; when we can name him Artist, not earthly Craftsman only, but inspired Thinker, who with heaven-made Implement conquers Heaven for us. If the poor and humble toil that we may have food, must not the