{ 
or she would start up screaming in the 
ghastly moonlight from a vision of her little 
sister, seeing her lonely and crying in the 
Streets. And “ /” was the thong in every 
such mental scourging. 
Her excited dark eyes and nectarine lips, 
always proffering one petition: “Do you 
want a saleswoman, sir ?” passed like a vision 
before many busy men in one day. They 
were all “quite full,” or stared at her be¬ 
cause she brought no letters or recommen¬ 
dations. Clerks patronized her admiringly. 
An intoxicated gentleman (whom 1 should 
call a drunken brute if he had been ragged) 
saw her flying home through one twilight, 
and begged her to “ give me a kiss, my beau¬ 
ty.” There were nights when she had 
neither fire nor supper, because her money 
was running down to pennies, and she had 
no work. 
Ah, her loveliness, her matchless gift of 
loveliness, was less than no capital now. It 
was her snare. A plain woman could pass 
unnoticed where her feet must fly with dis¬ 
gust and terror. 
She was meekly thankful for obtaining 
work from a house that gave out plain sew¬ 
ing. Thus, after weeks of grappling, she be¬ 
gan her light with tiic wolf. 
It was queer how minutely she weighed 
her former life in the scales of present expe¬ 
rience. It had not been a pleasant life. She 
could not say even now that it had been. It 
had galled her in many ways. But it was a 
much more endurable school of patience than 
lue present cue. She had erred in her low¬ 
ering egotism. She hail entered the arena as 
a princess, to have her false robes at once 
torn olf by the beasts, that in scorn refused 
to devour her afterward. In all her former 
troubles, Joe Barclay’s generous, helpful 
spirit had been her refuge. She had no hu¬ 
man refuge now. Cold and hunger and 
prostration and remorse and perpetually re¬ 
curring disappointment were Nora’s mas¬ 
ters; but more than all these was loneliness. 
To the busy and grasping woman who lodged 
her, she was a walking “ sixty-cents-per- 
week;” to the merchant who employed her, 
she was buudle number something; to every¬ 
body else she was as if she were not. 
“Mrs. Barclay used to say my spirit 
would have to be broken,” the wasting girl 
sometimes murmured to herself. “ I think I 
haven’t any spirit to break now.” 
The discipline that Gon sends upon some 
of us is almost incredible. Thus she lived, 
year after year, sometimes employed, some¬ 
times sitting in motionless despair. She 
grew to think of Mercy, up in heaven, and 
prayed devoutly that she might, go her. All 
the strange, fatalistic fancies that haunt a 
morbid mind became her companions. A 
woman of Nora’s nature will not be crushed 
without rauny and fearful struggles. The 
wheel of the year, with its spokes of holi¬ 
days—that were no holidays to her, for she 
was carried on ever to be crushed under 
the relentless tire,— bore her through many 
phases. Sometimes she would start from 
apathetic despair to an extreme of action; 
again she would sit with ashy forehead and 
fierce black eyes, clinching some horrible 
resolution, and suddenly melt from this 
mood to fall down with sobs and cries, be¬ 
seeching the Gon who could help her, and 
in whom she must believe. 
The capacity of a woman for suffering is 
her most accursed heritage. Men make a 
groan, wrap up their heads, and fall like 
C.esar, We are slain every day and give no 
token, and never get the comfort and rest of 
a burial. Why does God try us through 
our natural strength, and on through the 
extent of any draft of strength we may 
draw on Him for? He knows, and He in 
good. 
Tims Nora Fleet went on down that 
long and sunless way, that is not a figure 
of anybody’s brain, but. a nightmare of 
thousands of bodies’ brains. She would 
have been glad if the end bad come. But 
she could not make the end herself, lest like 
a severed cord her life should immediately 
present another end to be grasped, in the 
unseen. 
One night, having no work to carry home, 
she went down by the river, and found a 
place where she could sit and look into the 
water. This could not be very pleasant 
pastime, for it was Christmas Eve and fear¬ 
fully cold. But she sat there for an hour 
watching the chilled ripples that broke near 
her feet. She was hardly like the Nora 
Fleet who four years ago had counted a 
home, a sister find friend among her unap¬ 
preciated Christmas presents. 
This young woman might have returned, 
evening after evening, to look into the river, 
through the rest of her earthly pilgrimage, 
for aught I know, had not a gentleman 
caught sight of her that hour, and come to 
. contemplate her. He was young, tall and 
strong, but his hale face blanched under his 
' beard, and he trembled with emotion; it 
| could not have been with cold, for he was so 
dv warmly clothed. There sat Nora in one of 
► the graceful attitudes of old, a thin, slight 
creature, with her lean hands on her knee. 
He watched her with passionate, pitiful 
brown eyes, and bit his lip and clenched his 
fingers while he watched. 
She was made aware of his presence by a 
voice calling her— 
“ Nora Fleet !” 
She turned her head slowly and saw him, 
but without surprise. 
“ Yes, Joe.” 
Just as she used to answer him when he 
called Her to ride on his sled, or to spead her 
apron for the nuts he had cracked. 
“ What arc you doing?” he inquired with 
a heavy voice which toppled this way and 
that, like a loaded vehicle over rain-washed 
roads. 
“ I’m looking at the water.” 
“Come up here to me!” 
“ I can’t; I’m dizzy; I shall fall if I try to 
come.” 
“ Take my hand and come up at once,” 
commanded Joe, seizing her. And she took 
his hand and obeyed. 
What a funny couple they were, striding 
away through the twilight, to be sure! Joe 
held her tightly but carefully, as lie would 
have held a grasshopper, though Nora, in a 
half-torpid state, showed no desire to escape 
from his benevolent, grasp. He put his great 
bear like, gloves over her hands, remember¬ 
ing as he did so the scarlet mittens she used 
to wear. As for her feet, they were so occu¬ 
pied iu the brisk game of taking four stops 
to his one that the exercise was likely to do 
all necessary to be done for them. 
“Where have you been all these years, 
Nora?” asked Joe, sweeping her around 
corners, and bearing her past street lamps 
with such a draft as ought to have Hared the 
lights. 
“ I have been here,” replied Nora. 
“ Wliat have you been doing ?" 
“ I have been getting my spirit broken.” 
“Are you tired of walking?” interrogated 
her locomotive presently; “shan’t I call a 
cab ?” 
“ No; where are you taking me, Joe?” 
“Home,” answered Joe, emphatically; 
hi! thereafter darted down a secluded street, 
and pulled a key from his pocket before a 
pretty little cottage. “And here we are. 
This is my house. Come in. 1 keep one 
Bridget, (she’s down in the basement if she 
isn’t galloping off somewhere,) and live very 
independently, as a bachelor ought. I’m 
not a farming booby any longer, Nora.* I’m 
in the dry-goods business.” 
Joe put her in a chair before bis glowing 
parlor grate and went off to order some sup¬ 
per. Nora at this juncture, transferred so 
suddenly from cold and wretchedness to 
warmth aud protection, might have fainted 
from tingling and overpowering sensations 
if she had not. begun to cry. She was a 
woman that neither wept nor swooned easi¬ 
ly, but the strongest of us come to times 
when we have no power of ourselves. 
Joe’s last words had pierced her keenly. 
She remembered the foolish speech she had 
once made concerning farmers, though she 
knew Joe had only spoken of his own in¬ 
efficiency at and distaste for agriculture, and 
had stumbled upon her term without any 
idea that he was borrowing from her. But 
she sat crying upon her thin hands, thinking 
of Mercy, aud the long-ago, and what might 
have been in the place of what now was, 
namely, Nora Fleet cowering in Joe’s 
house, a living appeal to his charity. 
While she cried Joe came back, stumbled 
over an ottoman, came and saw her face in 
the full glow of the fire-light, and asked,— 
just as a man will: 
“ What is It, Nora ?” 
“O Jo®, I wish I had been patient with 
your mother, and had staid at home, and 
hadn’t killed Mercy !” 
The man lifted her at once in his brawny 
arms, and sat down, holding her to liis heart. 
And as lie held her he pressed her ever 
closer, as if the pent-up love of years were 
overpowering him. 
“ O Nora, my little darling, you poor, 
well-punished child, haven’t I hunted you 
these years, knowing that you needed me, 
that you would be suffering, away from 
Mercy, from home, and without any mother, 
either cross or kind, to watch over you! "We 
all missed you so, and hoped long that you 
would come hack. My mother was almost 
heart-broken. You didn’t know how she 
loved you. When she learned from Mercy 
that it was a passionate speech she made to 
you after she had been nettled by a gossip¬ 
ing neighbor— 
Nora sat bolt upright and stared at him 
like a ghost. 
“ Is Mercy alive, Joe?" 
“ Lie still, little girl, and rest. I’ll explain 
everything to you if you will promise not to 
get nervous and start. You did not kill 
Mercy; strike that off the list of your sins. 
Mr. Wildmax, who missed his train that 
night of your flitting, came hack to prevail 
on you adventuresses to return home. He 
picked up Mercy off a track where she had 
stumbled down, but could find you nowhere. 
(I think T should have found you, Nora.) 
So you see Mercy is quite alive, unless her 
immersion into matrimony may be termed a 
demise. She and Wildman will eat Christ¬ 
mas mince-pies at the farm to-morrow, aud 
so shall we. IIow glad they will all be when 
I exhibit to them my finally captured wife! 
I have just sent the news.” 
There followed a very long silence, during 
which Nora said her prayers and ruminated, 
leaning very quietly against her quick and 
loving pillow, and during which Joe looked 
into the fire and held his capture quite 
tightly. At length Nora’s rumination 
reached the renunciation-point. 
“ Joe,” slie said, holding to a button of his 
coat, as if afraid of being swept away, “I 
can’t marry you. I’m a great deal worse 
than you think. It was pride as well as im¬ 
patience. that carried me from your father’s 
house. I wanted to do something great in 
the world. I thought I could. Besides, I 
have nothing to bring you ; hardly even my 
old dower of beauty. You would better 
marry some one else, Joe,” she finished, 
sobbing. 
“My liLtlc Nora, great as is the faith I 
have in your chastened judgment, I think 
you had better let me decide in Ibis matter. 
As to what you say about your failure, I 
think you have accomplished something 
great in learning what many do not learn 
till they come to their graves; that we never 
truly succeed in what we undertake on 
wrong principles. And as to your dower, 
you now bring me something more precious 
than my old buoyant, imperious Nora could 
have offered.” 
“ What is it, Joe?” she asked, trembling 
eagerly. • 
“ There comes Bridget, thundering up 
stairs with the tea-tray. And you will slip 
from me, you little ghost? But wait and 
hear me tell. It is a meek and quiet spirit.” 
•--— 
A FRENCH ROMANCE. 
One of those little romances of which the 
French are so fond, has lately taken place in 
Paris, and is thus described : 
M. Robert, an immensely wealthy and 
highly accomplished gentleman, well known 
not only for his valuable collections of paint¬ 
ings and mediaeval relics, but for his slcill as 
a designer and painter, hearing that one of 
his tenants, a M. B., whom he had never 
seen, kept one of the most extensive manu¬ 
factories of fancy boxes and ornamental ob¬ 
jects in France, called on him with a view 
to make his acquaintance. 
Entering ihu counting-room he found a 
good-natured, eccentric gentleman of mid¬ 
dle age, who greeted him thus: 
“ 1 suppose you have seen my advertise¬ 
ment, and have come to apply for that situa¬ 
tion ns fi^j-er?” 
For a joke, M. Robert replied that he had. 
Mr, B. supplied him with paints and brushes, 
and requested him to produce a design for a 
casket. M. Robert soon found out that what 
M. B. really wanted was an artist who would 
strictly carry out bis own ideas, and that 
these were pure, and formed on an extensive 
knowledge of art. lie soon produced a 
sketch, which suited his employer to a dot. 
M. Robert very gravely engaged himself, 
exacted good wages, and Insisted on having 
several new articles of furniture placed in 
the room which was assigned to him. But 
when be was introduced to the work-rooms 
and found one hundred and fifty girls, many 
of them young and beautiful, busily em¬ 
ployed, and was informed that he would be 
required to supply them with designs and 
show the young ladies how they were to be 
carried out, the young artist began to feel as 
if be should need to be carried out himself. 
“ Working for a living,” said be to him¬ 
self, “is not cn Li rely devoid of attraction.” 
Being an accomplished artist, lie pleased 
his employer, and was delighted in seeing 
his designs in steel, silver, enamel or wood. 
He took a pleasure hitherto unknown in 
seeing his works in shop windows, in the 
boudoirs of his friends. This work-shop 
life was carefully concealed, nor did bis em¬ 
ployer suspect who be was. But he soon 
found a more fascinating object in the 
daughter of M. B., who took part in the du¬ 
ties of the manufactory. 8he was remarka¬ 
ble for her accomplishments and beauty, 
and M. Robert soon found that, us regarded 
taste and culture in all matters which es¬ 
pecially interested him, lm had never met 
with one like her. Step by step the pair 
fell in love, and he so ingratiated him¬ 
self with the father that, after due delibera¬ 
tion, lie consented to their union. 
Previous to the marriage the olcl gentle¬ 
man spoke of a dowry. “ I shall give Marie 
50,0001’.,’’ said be, with a little air of boast¬ 
ing. “ Ah, man ywreotl f" 
“ And I suppose,” added M. Robert, 
gravely, “ that 1, too, must settle something 
on my wife. Well—1 will.” 
This caused a peal of laughter, which was 
redoubled when the artist added: 
“ And I will settle this piece of property, 
and house and all, with the building adjoin¬ 
ing, on her.” 
But what was their amazement when he 
drew forth the title deeds, and said : 
“ You seem to forget that I aui your land¬ 
lord ? ' Isn't my name Robert ?” 
The young lady did not faint., but papa 
nearly died of astonishment and joy. There 
was a magnificent wedding, hut the bride¬ 
groom lias not given up business. He de¬ 
clares there is more amusement in being 
useful than in amuBing one’s self. 
foetal (.(emirs. 
GOOD-NIGHT. 
Os the memory how it lingers, 
Like the touch of Riiry lingers; 
Like the sound of joyful singing. 
When the Christmas bell a are ringing— 
Good-night! 
Like .he radiance, fair and tender. 
Of a dresro’s dlviuest splendor ; 
Or the sound of sober sighing. 
When the good old year is dying— 
Good-night! 
Word than which none can be dearer. 
For it bring* the angels nearer— 
Brings the sunset light and glory 
Over life’s sweet summer story— 
Good-night! 
Linger we upon the portal 
Of a life thut is immortal, 
Soon along earth's sunny spaces 
There must dawn some vacant places— 
Good-night! 
--- 
INTERMEDDLING WITH HELP. 
BV A. TIIORN. 
My friend A. came in to see me to-day, and 
we got to chatting of the progress and har¬ 
mony of our neighborhood. Wc spoke of 
C.’s Slaving, during tlie past three years, im¬ 
proved his plot by planting of trees and 
vines, draining, &c., to more than double 
the value of the land without such addition, 
as evidence the plot of equal number of 
acres alongside of Jiitn, owned by M. We 
also alluded to tbe information that might 
be had, were a friendly, honorable feeling 
existing among neighbors, by a weekly meet¬ 
ing for the discussion of the value of plants 
and their cultivation. 
And t hen we spoke of the greatest, curse, 
and the meanest act of man, touching a 
neighborhood— i. e„ the meddling with the 
hired help, the asking of “ What sort of 
a man or woman is he or she for whom you 
work?”—the contemptible mind that asks 
of a hired man or woman,—“ Do you get 
your pay regularly ? Is not he or she cross ? 
How long are you going to stay? They 
have had a good many hired help, but none 
stay long! Bay they can’t bear them ; won¬ 
der how long you will doit! You better 
look out ; and when you get tired, come to 
us. Wc want help, but we don’t agree to 
pay so much a month or week; but wc 
never scold; all we want is to have our 
work done right, and we know you can, if 
you have lived with that man, or woman.” 
We agreed that of all the causes of neigh¬ 
borhood troubles, that which emanates from 
a mean, narrow intellect, only equaled by 
that of the common laboring class, is the 
worst and most to be dreaded, aud that there 
ought to be a law of fine and imprisonment 
punishing any and all intermeddling with or 
questioning of hired help. 
- +-*-■*■ --- 
THE INTELLECT. 
It is Carlyle that speaks of “ a man with 
his intellect a clear, plain, geometrical mir¬ 
ror, brilliantly sensitive of all objects and 
impressions around it, and imaging all things 
in their correct proportions—not t wisted up 
into convex or concave, and distorting every¬ 
thing, so that he cannot see the truth of the 
matter without endless groping and manipu¬ 
lation—healthy, dear and free, and all around 
about him.” 
That is the ideal. What is the actual? 
Bee business men, merchants, ministers, law¬ 
yers, doctors,—in the country, all grades 
from the agricultural king to the man with 
pick and shovel in the ditch ; in cities, down 
through the deepening, darkening vista of 
ignorance, poverty and filth,—look at men 
as they are, and say how nearly the average 
actual intellect approaches the Ideal. 
Blurred by feverish desire; warped by 
prejudice and malevolent passions, twisted 
by temptation, dashed with the filth and 
slime of sensuality, fractured and marred by 
the shock and concussion of dangerous in¬ 
dulgence, softened and dimmed by effeminate 
pleasures,—reflecting lights, now converged 
and crooked by physical depression, now 
seen through the perverting medium of the 
“blues” or the dun clouds of worry, or re¬ 
fracted by the dark atmosphere of ignorance 
and sin, or sent blazing In a t housand gaudy 
iynes faint through lights which the undue [ 
action of any faculty will expand, condense 
or modify, any abnormal physical condition, 
even in the slightest degree, will change, 
which any inherited disposition or proclivity 
will affect,—where will you find that. “ clear, 
plain, geometric mirror” which,receiving 
the pure, full beam with perfect parallelism 
in its rays, reflects the ample, tindislorted 
image of the truth ? Sljftll we not be chari¬ 
table, then, to those who differ from us in 
matters of opinion ? J. AV. Quinby. 
- *~T+ - 
Intoxicating Drinks. —The habit of in¬ 
dulging in ardent spirits by men in office has 
occasioned more iq/ury to the public than 
all other causes. And were I to commence 
my ad mi uistmtion kgain with the experience 
I now have, the first question 1 would ask 
respecting a candidate, would be:—“ Does 
lie use ardent spirits Jefferson. 
WHAT HAS HE MADE? 
The Albany Post thus sensibly replies to 
a statement made in tbe New York Herald 
that during the last twenty years William 
B. Astor has so managed a fortune of twenty 
millions as to roll it into sixty millions: 
“ Suppose he has, what then ? What has 
he made by the operation, except increased 
worriment to keep the run of his increased 
wealth ? Astor, with sixty millions, eats no 
more oysters, quail, woodcock and boned 
turkey, than he did when he was worth ten 
millions. He dresses no better and lias a 
thousand times less fun. We beat him on 
the sleep, and have no law suits with tenants 
and trespassers. Robbers lay for Astor every 
time he goes out-doors after dark. They 
don’t think of U9. Astor, with sixty mil¬ 
lions of dollars, has sixty millions of troubles. 
To keep the run of his rents, bonds and real 
estates keeps Astor in work fourteen hours 
a day, and yet Astor gets three square meals 
a day, which is just what we obtain without 
any millions, any tenants, any real estate, 
and only work eight hours per day. 
“ If men’s happiness increased with their 
money, every body should be justified in 
worshiping the Golden Calf. The happi¬ 
ness increases with their earnings up to a 
certain point—the point necessary to secure 
them the comforts of life, sny $2,000 a year. 
All beyond this is superfluous. Being super¬ 
fluous, iL is productive of no good whatever. 
The richer the man, the greater is the proba¬ 
bility that his sons will live on billiards and 
die in the inebriate asylum. With content¬ 
ment and $2,000 a year a man may be as 
happy as a prince. Without contentment 
you will be miserable, even if your wealth 
equal the rent rolls of Croesus.” 
- 4 -*-+-— 
HOW STATUARY IS MADE. 
But little is known of the art of sculpture 
by tbe masses in this or indeed any country. 
The first thing the sculptor does is to model 
or fashion the figure in clay. He first builds 
a skeleton of iron, and then puts the clay 
upon it, and adds or takes off until the work 
is completed, He then transfers tire model, 
or reproduces it in plaster of Paris. This is 
done by covering the clay with liquid plaster 
to the depth of about one and a-balf inches, 
more or less, according to the size of the 
model —a life-sized picture would require 
the plaster to be laid on at least three inches 
in depth. 
The plaster is then allowed to become 
perfectly hard, or to set, as it is called. The 
clay is then taken out, and the plaster will 
be found to be a mold iu which to cast the 
fact-simile of the original model. An addi¬ 
tional quantity of plaster is then mixed with 
water and poured into the new made mold; 
in thirty or forty minutes it will become set 
and hard. The mold is then taken or cut 
Off by means of knives or chisels. 
The next, thing is the process of cutting 
the head or figure in marble. This is entirely 
mechanical, and is accomplished by measur¬ 
ing instruments, called pointed machines. 
They are so arranged as to give the exact 
distances, points, depths, widths and lengths 
of every part of a head or figure; these are 
pointed to or measured on the marble block, 
and the workman cuts to a hair, according 
to measure, aud mathematical!}' certain. Do¬ 
ing a bust in marble is simply mechanical; 
originating in the clay model is the work of 
the artist. The process of reproducing 
works in plaster is carried on in New York 
very extensively. 
-- 
THE PEACE OF POVERTY. 
Poor people never live in brown-stone 
fronts or elegant villa residences, with all 
the modern improvements. Consequently, 
in the dead of winter, their furnace grates 
never break down, their flat roofs never 
leak, their water pipes never burst. Their 
plate-glass windows are never broken, their 
dumb waiters never give out, their patent 
burglar-alarms never go off at the wrong 
time. Tlieir coachman never get drunk, nor 
careless servants break their Sevres China. 
In fact, one of the chief pleasures of pov¬ 
erty is exemption from the affliction of ser¬ 
vants. No domestics rage around the hum¬ 
ble dwellings of the poor. When the 
daughters of poverty exchange culls, their 
conversation may dwell on pleasanter themes 
than the trials they have undergone with the 
>ok, the minuti* of the chambermaid’s 
jvenlinesa, the fact that the second girl is 
ore than mistrusted of “taking things,” it 
>t being fashionable yet to speak of defal- 
ting with the spoons, though we will 
mbtless soon reach even that point of 
hite-waslied sepulchreism. The enormi- 
js generally of what has been dubbed 
servant-gal ism” disturb not the peace of 
iverty. 
---- 
Truly is life akin to grief,—and how ncc- 
sary is it to our nature ! As the light con* 
imcstlie inanimate substances it rests upon, 
that it requires the night to restore what 
lost during the day, thus does prosperity 
tten upon what is best within us, only to 
; restored by tbe dark blessing of sorrow. 
i 
7 
r 
\ 
V 
