THE OLD FARM-HOUSE. 
O, dear the old farm-house to me! 
The homely ways, the ample cheer. 
The refuge at my mother’s knee 
From childhood’s every grief and fear. 
And dear the memory of those days 
Bathed In love’s amher atmosphere, 
When nil our voices rose in praise, 
When sire and child were bowed In prayer. 
But where are they, 
The fond, the gay, 
Who filled the great white house in May ? 
Gone like the birds from lust year’s nest! 
Gone as the leaves in autumn fly ! 
Some to the cities of the West; 
Some toil beneath nn Indian sky ; 
Some, other prairies sow and reap ; 
One saDk beneath the moaning sea 
Some in the churchyard lie asleep. 
And, quivering in the old roof-tree. 
One homesick waits 
The swing of gates 
To waft her to heaven’s bright estates! 
6ur £torg-8fyltyr. 
ALL FOE A SONG, 
BY MRS. HATTIE F. BELL. 
It had been a hard day for Lettie Morris— 
a hard, cheerless day. A11 the long, warm fore¬ 
noon she had been standing at the ironingtable 
in the little, low, dingy kitchen, until her head 
ached and her back ached, and the round, plump 
face, which whs always rosy, was ten times rosier 
than ever. And I doubt, if you would have even 
called her pretty could you have peeped through 
the morning-glory vines that I.ettie'sowii lit tle 
brown hands had planted and trained over the 
window, that she might have at least one thing 
to look at w hile at work that seemed fresh and 
glad—one thing she might call her own to love 
—for lettie was an orphan. She had a pleas¬ 
ant home and a kind father and loving mother 
once, but for tbreo years the daisies had blos¬ 
somed on their graves in a far-away city of the 
dead, where Lettie had not oven the satisfac¬ 
tion of weeping over them. She tried to be 
thankful that, she had a home, or at least a place 
to stay, with her widowed aunt, but though 
Mrs. St. John %vas naturally a good sort of a 
woman, her daughter, Miss Arabella, was the 
lady of the house and Its supreme rulor, and 
her mother was too weak and Indolent to look 
into matters, or know or care how things were 
managed, so she was blind to the looks of ha¬ 
tred and deaf to tho tones of Insulting supe¬ 
riority which that young lady hestowedn 
upon poor little Lettie. H_ 
No wonder then, tliut Lettik’s heart li | 
often ached with a sad feeling of lone-' ; 
liuoss, and a longing for somebody to love 
her and say kind words to her. She was 
almost seventeen, bur she had never been 
into society since she came to live with 
her aunt, and the few young gentlemen — - 
who visited Arabella never saw the little li: 
ldtchen-muid of course. Only once Clar¬ 
ence Lee, the banker’s son, and himself a 
young lawyer of high repute, beard her 
singing a low, sweet song, and could not 
help asking who had such a sweet voice. 
Akabeli.a felt more indignant than she 
cared to show at this outburst of enthusi¬ 
asm from lips that had never uttered a 
single praise for her own singing, though 
she Invariably sent her voice up to the 
highest notch she was capable of reaching 
and trilled her most intricate passages 
solely for his benefit. All tho satisfaction 
he derived from this voluntary entertain¬ 
ment, however, was the Inward consola¬ 
tion he gave himself by thinking he was 
glad he wasn't that piano, to undergo such 
a thumping and whacking and pounding 
as that received from the Jewelled hands 
of Auahella 8t, John. So when he 
spoke so warmly of the voice he heard 
from the kitchen and seemed all absorbed 
In listening to it, she was so enraged as to 
forget the sweet expression she assumed 
for her gentlemen callers, and this one in 
particular, and allowed an ugly frown to *1 
deepen the wrinkle between her brows 
that she had spent a whole quarter of an ■ 
hour trying to smooth out that very even¬ 
ing. 
“ It’s nobody hut our kitchen girl," she 
said. “ Probably practising one of her 
Irish songs." 
But the quick ear of Clarence knew It 
was no “ Irish song" that so entranced 
him, for even as they spoke the clear, 
sweet notes of “ Annie Laurie" floated up 1/ 
from the dingy room below. Clarence w 
noticed the frown on Arabella's brow 
and her evident air of dissatisfaction, and ~ 
was rather disenchanted with the fair lady ^ 
whom he had heretofore thought was so ' J| 
angelic iu disposition and amiable In man- js 
ner, so well had she played her game, for 
she had boasted she meant to win Clar¬ 
ence Lee and live on b is father’s property. 
As the soDg still continued and Clar¬ 
ence still seemed to have one ear for that 
and one for her, she asked to he excused 
for a moment, and left the room. As she 
went out, the door which she thought she 
latched swung open again and Clarence 
became an involuntary, but much inter- _ 
ested, listener to a choice bit of conversa¬ 
tion which came up from the kitchen 
- 
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDKRBKN.-[See page 140.] 
quarter. “You little, noisy hussy !-wliat are 
you about? Take that 1” followed by a cuff tn 
the ear, “disturbing everybody with your bawl¬ 
ing songs! Goto work now and don’t let me 
hear any more out of your head." 
“Why, Cousin ARABELLA,” bogan a sweet, 
small voice, full of tears. 
"Don't Cousin mo!” broke In that young 
lady. “ Quit your blubbering and go to work!” 
—and giving the door a slam, as if to add a part¬ 
ing emphasis to lior commands, she glided up 
stairs again, and stopping long enough to look 
in the mirror on tho hat-stand In the hall, 
wreathed her distorted face in tho blandest of 
smiles, opened the parlor door, which Clar¬ 
ence had again dosed, was all sunshine to him 
who still sat there as If spell-hound. His first 
Impulse had been to seize his bat and rush into 
the street; but ho was arrested by the pleading 
eloquence of that same sweet voice he had lis¬ 
tened to while singing hla favorite song, and so 
he dosed the door and again Boated himself to 
await Arabella’s return. 
“ You really* must think me rude and unlady¬ 
like, Mr. Lee, for leaving you so long to your¬ 
self, but. 1 only went down to tell Bridget to 
give us another of those droll songs of hers. 
They* seem to interest you so, and thoydosouud 
rather wild and romautic, 1 confess." 
He was surprised at her cool, deliberate false¬ 
hood, arid looked up expecting she would at 
least blush ; hut there she stood cairn, compla¬ 
cent and unblushing, with that same unvarying 
smile on her face that ClarEnCe had within 
one short hour learned to despise. 
“Yes," he replied, “ I heard you tell her." 
That was all—all lie said, and stepping into tho 
hull took his hat and gloves and walked away, 
with a cool “ Good evening," leaving Arabella 
f soling rather crestfallen, for she saw at a glance 
her beautiful castle in the air all fallen to the 
ground. She knew ho must despise her, but 
her only regret was that she had lost a hand¬ 
some beau ami could no longer look forward to 
old Mr. Lee's estate us her own In tho future. 
But she determined to vent out lior spite on 
poor little Lettie. 
This all happened the eveuingbefore my story 
commences, so you may know that Lettie'S 
hoart was heavy enough on tills hot July morn¬ 
ing with all the week's ironing on her hands, 
besides the rest of the family housework. No 
wonder she sighed often to herself; oo wonder 
the gentle brown eyes were full of tears. But 
tho ironing was all done, at last. Tho sheets 
and pillow-cases hung smooth and spotless on 
tho clothes-hars, and the tablecloths and nap¬ 
kins were folded neatly and laid on the broad 
shelf by the stove to thoroughly air before put¬ 
ting away in the drawer, while Arabella’s 
ruffles and laces and embroideries were all 
starched and fluted and crimped to perfection, 
so that even that lady herself could find no 
fault with them. 
The dinner over and the afternoon work out 
of the way, Lettie flew up to her own little 
room as to a haven of security, for here no one 
ever intruded upon her. It was up too high for 
Mrs. St. John to drag her fat, dumpy figure, 
Hildas long as Arabella could summon Let- 
tie at her bidding, she hud no idea of climbing 
up the kitchen stairs to sec whatsho was doing. 
Tills little sanctum of Lettie’s was by no means 
an Inviting-looking roam. The floor was hare 
with the exception of a small piece of torn and 
faded rag carpet that Lettie bad one day Ashed 
out of the ash-heap and cleaned and spread be¬ 
fore her bed. The walls, also, were cheerless 
ami unpapered, but she had two pictures which 
she had out out of a pictorial newspaper which 
she found once In tho street. One of these 
Lettie never tired of gating at. It was 
_ the picture of a little curly-headed girl, 
just out of bed on Christmas morning, 
taking the first peep Into her stocking, 
which was crammed full of goodies; and 
as Lettie looked at the bright face and 
happy eyes, sho remembered a time far 
\ away—at least It seemed far away to think 
of, she Telt so old now—a time when she, 
too, hung up her »l, or king arid had aMerry 
Christmas like this little girl in tho pict- 
M nw; and then sho turned to the bit of 
H broken looking-glass thatlay on her toilet 
table—and what this table was l don’t 
A' know as you ever could guess—a rough 
fel dry goodabox, with her own little faded 
tjjj green shawl on It for a spread. She took 
#| up the broken bit of glass and looked into 
u| It long and earnestly. 
W “ I feel real old,” she said to herself, 
|J “but 1 ain’t seventeen yet—not till next 
H week," and here came another sigh for 
R the glad birthdays past and gone. It was 
* not a very old-looking face that met hers 
) In the mirror. Two rosy cheeks, two brown 
r , eyes, a slightly turned-up nose, a ripe, red 
» mouth which held pretty, white teeth, 
' and a mass of goldpii-browo huir, which 
N was the envy of Arabella, who had to 
rely upon a fashionable milliner for that 
v I which Nature had denied her, or rather, 
Sv that which she had lost by crimping and 
» frizzing and pinching with hot irons. 
^ But Lettie wuh In no mood to-day to 
look on the blight side of anything,so the 
rosy, youthful face was not rosy or youth- 
si;::; ful or pretty to her. Sho saw only what 
Bhe felt. But sho had a love of neatness, 
|| and soslio mechanically smoothed out the 
long silken tresses and put on her white 
I? muslin with blue forget-me-nots sprinkled 
IS all ovor it, (a dross made over by her own 
H hands from one of her mother’s,) fastened 
a knot of blue ribbon in her huir and sat 
g* down lu the window and looked out info 
if the great old oak treo that leaned close 
b up to the sill and swayed to and fro with 
Jjgr its wealth of midsummer fuliuge. This 
I?: was her favorita seat. It seemed, Home¬ 
ly how, as if tho old tree could sympathize 
H= with her and to It she told her troubles, 
€ and the whisper of Its leaves was like a 
g soft, loving response to her weary young 
|g heart. She loved this old tree—the only 
friend she could claim upou the whole 
g broad earth—and this afternoon she pour- 
11 ed out her heart to It after her own child- 
§| like, impulsive fashion. 
“ Oh! you dear old tree you, whatever 
g should I do without you? I’m so glad 
H God made you grow! T wonder if He 
pi didn’t think of me when llo first looked 
sj down aud saw tho little acorn lying on the 
ground, arid thou whispered to it to climb 
up here by the window, on purpose so 
