Minutes filled with shadeless gladness;
Minutes just as brimmed with sadness;
Happy smiles and wailing cries;
Crows and laughs and tearful eyes;
Lights and shadows, swifter born
Than on wind-swept Autumn corn;
Ever some new tiny notion,
Making every limb all motion;
Catchings up of legs and arms;
Throwings back and small alarms;
Clutching fingers; straightening jerks;

Twining feet whose each toe works;
Kickings up and straining risings;
Mother's ever new surprisings;
Hands all wants and looks all wonder
At all things the heavens under;
Tiny scorns of smiled reprovings
That have more of love than lovings;
Mischiefs done with such a winning
Archness that we prize such sinning;
Breakings dire of plates and glasses;
Graspings small at all that passes;
Pullings off of all that's able
To be caught from tray or table;
Silences-small meditations
Deep as thoughts of cares for nations
Breaking into wisest speeches
In a tongue that nothing teaches;
All the thoughts of whose possessing
Must be wooed to light by guessing;
Slumbers such sweet angel-seemings
That we'd ever have such dreamings;
Till from sleep we see thee breaking,
And we'd always have thee waking;

Jane's a prettier name beside;
But we had a Jane that died.
They would say, if 'twas Rebecca,
That she was a little Quaker.
Edith's pretty, but that looks
Better in old English books;
Ellen's left off long ago;
Blanche is out of fashion now.
None that I have named as yet
Are so good as Margaret.
Emily is neat and fine;

What do you think of Caroline?
How I'm puzzled and perplexed
What to choose or think of next!

I am in a little fever

Lest the name that I should give her Should disgrace her or defame her;I will leave papa to name her.

‘I am a Christian made this day;" Now frighted clings to nurse's hold, Shrinking from the water cold,

Whose virtues, rightly understood,

Are, as Bethesda's waters, good.

Strange words, "The world, the flesh, the devil,"

Poor babe, what can it know of evil?

But we must silently adore

Mysterious truths, and not explore.

Enough for him, in after-times,

When he shall read these artless rhymes,

If, looking back upon this day

With quiet conscience, he can say,

The Dead Woll.

You need n't be trying to comfort me-I tell you my dolly is dead!

There's no use in saying she is n't, with a crack like that in her head.

It's just like you said it would n't hurt much to have my tooth out, that day;

But I know that she knew it now, and I just believe, I do,

That her poor little heart was broken, and so her head broke too.

Oh, my baby! my little baby! I wish my head had been hit!

For I've hit it over and over, and it has n't cracked a bit.

And I guess you must think I'm a baby, when you say you can mend it with glue:

buried, of course:

We will take my little wagon, Nurse, and you shall be the horse;

And I'll walk behind and cry, and we'll put her in this, you see

You might make her look all mended - but what do I care for looks?

Why, glue's for chairs and tables, and toys and the backs of books!

My dolly! my own little daughter! Oh, but it's the awfullest crack!

under the maple-tree.

And papa will make me a tombstone, like the one he made for my bird;

And he'll put what I tell him on it—yes, every single word!

I shall say: "Here lies Hildegarde, a beautiful doll, who is dead;

her poor head went whack

Against that horrible brass thing that holds up the

little shelf.

Now, Nursey, what makes you remind me? I know that I did it myself!

I think you must be crazy-you'll get her another head!

her head."

MARGARET VANDEGRIFT.

The Angel's Whisper.

A superstition prevails in Ireland that, when a child' smiles in its sleep, it is "talking with angels."

A BABY was sleeping;
Its mother was weeping;

And to think I had n't quite finished her elegant

new spring hat!

And I took a sweet ribbon of hers last night to tie on that horrid cat!

When my mamma gave me that ribbon-I was playing out in the yard —

She said to me, most expressly, "Here's a ribbon for Hildegarde."

And I went and put it on Tabby, and Hildegarde saw me do it;

'But I said to myself, "Oh, never mind, I don't believe she knew it!"

And the tempest was swelling
Round the fisherman's dwelling;

And she cried, "Dermot, darling, oh come back to me!"

Her beads while she numbered,

The baby still slumbered,

And smiled in her face as she bended her knee:

"Oh, blest be that warning,

My child, thy sleep adorning,

For I know that the angels are whispering with thee.

"And while they are keeping Bright watch o'er thy sieeping