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"Come here, Tops, you monkey!" said St. Clare, calling the child up to him.

Topsy came up; her round, hard eyes glittering and blinking with a mixture of apprehensiveness and their usual odd drollery. "What makes you behave so?" said St. Clare, who could not help being amused with the child's expression.

"Spects it's my wicked heart," said Topsy, demurely; "Miss Feely says so."

"Don't you see how much Miss Ophelia has done for you? She says she has done everything she can think of."

"Lor, yes, Mas'r! old Missus used to say so, too. She whipped me a heap harder, and used to pull my har, and knock my head agin the door; but it didn't do me no good! I spects, if they's to pull every spear o' har out o' my head it wouldn't do no good, neither-I's so wicked! Laws! I's nothin' but a nigger, no ways!"

"Well, I shall have to give her up,” said Miss Ophelia; “I can't have that trouble any longer."

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'Well, I'd just like to ask one question," said St. Clare. "What is it?"

"Why, if your Gospel is not strong enough to save one heathen child, that you can have at home here, all to yourself, what's the use of sending one or two poor missionaries off with it among thousands of just such? I suppose this child is about a fair sample of what thousands of your heathen are."

Miss Ophelia did not make an immediate answer; and Eva, who had stood a silent spectator of the scene thus far, made a silent sign to Topsy to follow her. There was a little glass-room at the corner of the verandah, which St. Clare used as a sort of reading-room; and Eva and Topsy disappeared into this place.

"What's Eva going about now?" said St. Clare; "I mean to see."

And advancing on tiptoe, he lifted up a curtain that covered the glass-door, and looked in. In a moment, laying his finger on his lips, he made a silent gesture to Miss Ophelia to come and look. There sat the two children on the floor, with their side faces towards them, Topsy, with her usual air of careless drollery and unconcern; but opposite to

her, Eva, her whole face fervent with feeling, and tears in

her large eyes.

"What does make you so bad, Topsy? Why won't you try and be good? Don't you love anybody, Topsy ?”

"Dunno nothin' bout love; I loves candy and sich, that's all," said Topsy.

"But you love your father and mother?"

"Never had none, ye know. I telled ye that, Miss Eva." "Oh, I know, said Eva, sadly; "but had you any brother or sister, or aunt, or-"

"No, none on 'em-never had nothin' nor nobody."

“But, Topsy, if you'd only try and be good, you might—” "Couldn't never be nothin' but a nigger, if I war ever so good," said Topsy. "If I could be skinned, and come white, I'd try then."

"But people can love you, if you are black, Topsy. Miss Ophelia would love you, if you were good.”

Topsy gave a short, blunt laugh that was her common mode of expressing incredulity.

"Don't you think so?" said Eva.

"No; she can't bar me, 'cause I'm a nigger-she'd 's soon have a toad touch her! There can't nobody love niggers, and niggers can't do nothin'! I don't care," said Topsy, beginning to whistle.

"Oh, Topsy, poor child, I love you!" said Eva, with a sudden burst of feeling, and laying her little thin, white hand on Topsy's shoulder; "I love you, because you haven't had any father, or mother or friends; because you've been a poor, abused child! I love you, and I want you to be good. I am very unwell, Topsy, and I think I sha'n't live a great while; and it really grieves me to have you be so naughty. I wish you would try to be good for my sake-it's only a little while I shall be with you."

The round, keen eyes of the black child were overcast with tears-large, bright drops rolled heavily down, one by one, and fell on the little white hand. Yes, in that moment a ray of real belief, a ray of heavenly love had penetrated the darkness of her heathen soul! She laid her head down between her knees, and wept and sobbed-while the beauti

ful child, bending over her, looked like the picture of some bright angel stooping to reclaim a sinner.

"Poor Topsy!" said Eva, "don't you know that Jesus loves all alike? He is just as willing to love you as me. He loves you just as i do-only more, because he is better. He will help you to be good; and you can go to heaven at last, and be an angel forever, just as much as if you were white. Only think of it Topsy! you can be one of those spirits bright, Uncle Tom sings about."

"O, dear Miss Eva, dear Miss Eva!" said the child; "I will try; I never did care nothin' about it before."

St. Clare, at this instant, dropped the curtain. "It puts me in mind of mother," he said to Miss Ophelia. "It is true what she told me; if we want to give sight to the blind, we must be willing to do as Christ did-call them to us, and put our hands on them."

"I've always had a prejudice against negroes," said Miss Ophelia," and it's a fact, I never could bear to have that child touch me; but I didn't think she knew it."

"Trust any child to find that out," said St. Clare; "there's no keeping it from them. But I believe that all the trying in the world to benefit a child, and all the substantial favors you can do them, will never excite one emotion of gratitude, while that feeling of repugnance remains in the heart-it's a queer kind of a fact-but so it is."

'I don't know how I can help it," said Miss Ophelia; "they are disagreeable to me-this child in particular-how can I help feeling so?"

"Eva does, it seems."

"Well, she's so loving! After all, though, she's no more than Christ-like," said Miss Ophelia; "I wish I were like her. She might teach me a lesson."

"It wouldn't be the first time a little child has been used to instruct an old disciple, if it were so,” said St. Clare.

From "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

MARY'S DIMINUTIVE SHEEP.

Mary possessed a diminutive sheep,

Whose external covering was as devoid of color as the congealed aqueous fluid which occasionally presents insur mountable barriers to railroad travel on the Sierras ; Anderywhere that Mary peregrinated,

The 'avenile Southdown was certain to get up and get right after her.

It tagged her to the alphabet dispensary one day,

Which was in contravention of established usage;

It caused the other youthful students to cachinnate and skyfungle

To perceive an adolescent mutton in an edifice devoted to the dissemination of knowledge.

And so the preceptor ejected him from the interior,
But he continued to roam in the immediate vicinity,
And remained very composedly in the neighborhood
Until Mary once more became visible.

"What causes the juvenile sheep to hanker after Mary so?"
Queried the inquisitive children of their tutor;
"Why, Mary bestows much affection upon the little animal
to which the wind is tempered when shorn, you must
be aware,"

The preceptor with alacrity responded.

WAITING BY THE GATE.-W. C. BRYANT.

Beside a massive gateway built up in years gone by,
Upon whose top the clouds in eternal shadow lie,
While streams the evening sunshine on quiet wood and lea,
I stand and calmly wait till the hinges turn for me.

The tree-tops faintly rustle beneath the breeze's flight,
A soft and soothing sound, yet it whispers of the night;
I hear the wood-thrush piping one mellow descant more,
And scent the flowers that blow when the heat of day is o'er

Behold the portals open, and o'er the threshold, now,
There steps a weary one with a pale and furrowed brow;
His count of years is full, his allotted task is wrought;
He passes to his rest from a place that needs him not.

In sadness then I ponder how quickly fleets the hour
Of human strength and action, man's courage and his power

I muse while still the wood-thrush sings down the golden day,

And as I look and listen the sadness wears away.

Again the hinges turn, and a youth, departing, throws
A look of longing backward, and sorrowfully goes;
A blooming maid, unbinding the roses from her hair,
Moves mournfully away from amidst the young and fair.

Oh glory of our race that so suddenly decays!

Oh crimson flush of morning that darkens as we gaze!
Oh breath of summer blossoms that on the restless air
Scatters a moment's sweetness and flies we know not where!

I grieve for life's bright promise, just shown and then withdrawn;

But still the sun shines round me: the evening bird sings on,
And I again am soothed, and, beside the ancient gate,
In the soft evening sunlight, I calmly stand and wait."

Once more the gates are opened; an infant group go out, The sweet smile quenched forever, and stilled the sprightly shout.

Oh frail, frail tree of life, that upon the greensward strows
Its fair young buds unopened, with every wind that blows!

So come from every region, so enter, side by side,
The strong and faint of spirit, the meek, and men of pride.
Steps of earth's great and mighty, between those pillars gray,
And prints of little feet, mark the dust along the way.

And some approach the threshold whose looks are blank with fear,

And some whose temples brighten with joy in drawing near,
As if they saw dear faces, and caught the gracious eye
Of Him, the sinless teacher, who came for us to die.

I mark the joy, the terror; yet these within my heart,
Can neither make the dread nor the longing to depart;
And, in the sunshine streaming on quiet wood and lea,
I stand and calmly wait till the hinges turn for me.

THE BOOTBLACK.

Here y'are? Black your boots, boss,
Do it for jest five cents;

Shine 'em up in a minute,

That is 'f nothin' prevents.

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