made his way to the tavern.

"At last I have thee!" cried

he internally. "O most fugacious of meals, what a repast I will make of it! What a breakfast I shall have! Never was a breakfast so intensified !"

Jack Abbott, with the note in his hand, arrived at the tavern, went up the steps, hurried through the passage. Every inch of the way was full of hope and bliss, when, lo! whom should his eyes light on but the other landlord whom he had just left in the court-room, detailing his version of the story to the new landlord, and evidently poisoning his mind with every syllable. Raging with hunger as he was, Jack could not stand this. With a despair for which he could find no words, he turned away in the direction of his lawyer's. "Now the lawyer," quoth he, soliloquizing, "was an intimate friend of my father's, so intimate that if he offers me breakfast I can accept it, and of course he will. I shall plainly tell him that I prefer breakfast to lunch; in short, that I have made up my mind to have it, even if I wait till dinner-time or tea-time, and he'll laugh, and we shall be jolly, and I shall get something to eat at last. Exquisite moment! What a breakfast I shall eat!"

The lawyer, Mr. Pallinson, occupied a good large house, with the marks of plenty on it. Jack hailed the sight of the fire blazing in the kitchen. "Delicious spot!" thought he, kettle, pantry and all that. Hope there is milk left,

66

and bread and butter. What slices I will eat!"

But Jack unfortunately rang the bell of the office, instead of the house, and found himself among a parcel of clerks. Mr. Pallinson was out; was not expected home till evening. Jack in desperation stated his case. Νο result but, "Very strange, sir," from one of the clerks. No Mrs. Pallinson existed to whom he might apply, so, blushing and stammering "Good-morning," Jack found

himself out again in the wide world of pavement and houses. The clerks had told him that Mr. Fallinson always dined at the Mendall coffee-house when away on special business, and towards it our hero turned his hungry and melancholy steps, determined to wait there for him. "Ah," thought Jack, with a sigh, "five o'clock isn't far off, and then I'm certain. What a breakfast I shall have when it does come! At length five o'clock strikes, and at the same moment enters Mr. Pallinson. He was a brisk, good-humored man, who greeted Jack heartily. "Here, John, plates for two! You'll dine, of course, with your father's old friend." Jack's heart felt itself at home with this cordiality, and he at once entered into the history of his morning. The good and merry lawyer, who understood a joke, entered heartily, and with great bursts of laughter, into Jack's whim of still having his breakfast, and it was accordingly brought up, with an explanation to the waiter that "his friend here had got up so late, and kept such fashionable hours, that he must needs breakfast while he himself was dining." "And so," said the shrewd attorney, as the waiter was respectfully bowing himself out, "no harm's done, and now peg away." Jack did not wait for a second bidding. The bread and butter was at last actually before him, not so thick as he had pictured it, but as the waiter had turned his back three slices could be rolled into one. This arrangement was accordingly made, the mouth was ready to swallow-enter Mr. Goodall!

"Breakfast is abolished for me," thought Jack, laying down the bread and butter, "there's no such thing. Henceforth I will not attempt it."

The lawyer and Mr. Goodall were well known to each other, but what had brought him thither was a confused story. He had somehow heard of a Mr. Abbott having ordered

three breakfasts and having been taken to jail. He had followed him up from place to place till he found him in the tavern.

"I'm very glad indeed, sir, to find you so comfortably situated, after the story that half-witted fellow of a waiter told me at the coffee-house. But don't let me interrupt your tea, I beg of you!"

"Luckiest of innocent fancies," thought our hero, "he thinks I'm at tea!" He plunged again at the bread and butter. He was really breakfasting! "I beg your pardon," he said, with his mouth full. "I'm eating a little too fast, but may I trouble you for that loaf? These slices are very thin, and I'm so ravenously hungry." Jack doubled his thin slices; he took huge bites; he swilled his tea, as he had sworn he would; he had eggs on one side of him, ham on the other, his friends before him, and was as happy as a prince escaped from a foreign land; and when he had at length finished, talking and laughing all the while, or hearing talk and laughter, he pushed the breakfast-cup aside, and chuckled to himself, "I've had it! Breakfast hath been mine! And now, my dear Mr. Pallinson, I'll take a glass of your port!"

MISS EDITH HELPS THINGS ALONG.

BRET HARTE.

"My sister'll be down in a minute and says you're to wait, if you please,

And says I might stay till she came if I'd promise her never to tease, Nor speak till you spoke to me first. But that's nonsense, for how would you know

What she told me to say if I didn't? Don't you really and truly think so?

'And then you'd feel strange here alone! And you wouldn't know just where to sit;

For that chair isn't strong on its legs, and we never use it a bit.

We keep it to match with the sofa. But Jack says it would be like you

To flop yourself right down upon it, and knock out the very last

screw.

"S'pose you try? I won't tell. You're afraid to! Oh! you're afraid they would think it was mean!

Well, then, there's the album-that's pretty, if you're sure that your fingers are clean,

For sister says sometimes I daub it, but she only says that when she's cross.

There's her picture. You know it? It's like her, but she ain't as good looking of course!

"This is ME. It's the best of 'em all. Now, tell me, you'd never have thought

That once I was little as that? It's the only one that could be

bought,

For that was the message to pa from the photograph man where I

sat

That he wouldn't print off any more till he first got his money for that.

"What? Maybe you're tired of waiting. Why, often she's longer than this.

There's all her back hair to do up, and all of her front curls to friz. But it's nice to be sitting here talking like grown people, just you

and me.

Do you think you'll be coming here often? Oh, do! But don't come like Tom Lee.

"Tom Lee? Her last beau. Why, my goodness, he used to be here day and night,

Till the folks thought that he'd be her husband, and Jack says that gave him a fright.

You won't run away then, as he did? for you're not a rich man,

they say.

Pa says you're as poor as a church mouse.

how poor are they?

Now, are you? And

"Ain't you glad that you met me? Well, I am, for I know now you're hair isn't red;

But what there is left of it's mousy, and not what that naughty

Jack said.

But there! I must go.

just to see

Sister's coming. But I wish I could wait

If she ran up to you and she kissed you in the way that she used to kiss Lee."—Independent.

A HISTORICAL ADDRESS.

DANIEL WEBSTER.

UNBORN ages and visions of glory crowd upon my soul, the realization of all which, however, is in the hands and good pleasure of Almighty God; but, under His divine blessing, it will be dependent on the character and the virtues of ourselves, and of our posterity. If classical history has been found to be, is now, and shall continue to be, the concomitant of free institutions and of popular cloquence, what a field is opening to us for another Herodotus, another Thucydides, and another Livy!

And let me say, gentlemen, that if we and our pos terity shall be true to the Christian religion-if we and they shall live always in the fear of God, and shall respect His commandments-if we and they shall maintain just, moral sentiments, and such conscientious convictions of duty as shall control the heart and life,-we may have the