female college, and a few weeks ago she arrived home for the holiday vacation. The old man was in attendance at the depot in Albany when the train arrived, with the old horse in the delivery wagon to convey his daughter and her trunk home. When the train had stopped in the Union Depot, a bewitching array of dry-goods and a wide-brimmed hat dashed from the cars and flung itself into the elderly party's arms.

Why, you superlative pa!" she exclaimed, "I'm so utterly glad to see you."

The old man was somewhat unnerved by the greeting, but he recognized the sealskin cloak in his grip as the identical piece of property he had paid for with the bay mare, and he sort of squat it up in his arms and planted a kiss where it would do most good, with a report that sounded above the noise of the depot. In a brief space of time the trunk and its attendant baggage were loaded into the wagon, which was soon bumping over the hubbles toward home.

"Pa, dear," said the young miss, surveying the team with a critical eye, "do you consider this quite excessively beyond?"

"Hey?" returned the old man, with a puzzled air; "quite excessively beyond what? Beyond Greenbush? I consider it somewhat about two miles beyond Greenbush, continuing from the Bath-way, if that's what you mean."

"Oh, no, pa, you don't understand me," the daughter exclaimed, "I mean this horse and wagon. Do you think they are soulful?--do you think they could be studied apart in the light of a symphony or even a single poem, and appear as intensely utter to one on returning home as one could express?"

The old man twisted uneasily in his seat, and muttered something about he believed it used to be an express-wagon before he bought it to deliver pork in, but the conversation appeared to be in such a lonesome direction, that he fetched the horse a resounding crack, and the severe jolting over the frozen ground prevented further remarks.

"Oh, there is that lovely and consummate ma!" screamed the returned collegiate, as they drove up to the door, and presently she was lost in the embrace of a motherly woman in spectacles.

"Well, Maria," said the old man at the supper-table, as he nipped a piece of butter off the lump with his own knife, “an' how d'you like your school?"

"Well, there, pa, now you're shouting-I mean I consider it too beyond," replied the daughter. "It is unquenchably ineffable. The

girls are sumptuously stunning—I mean grand—so exquisite--so intense; and then the parties, the calls, the rides-oh, the past weeks have been ones of sublime harmony,"

"I s'pose so-I s'pose so," nervously assented the old man as he reached for his third cup--half full-" but how about your books, readin', writin', grammar, rule o' three-how about them?"

Pa, don't!" exclaimed the daughter, reproachfully; the rule of three! grammar! It is French, and music, and painting, and the divine in art, that has made my school-life the boss-I mean that has rendered it one unbroken flow of rhythmic bliss-incomparably and exquisitely all but."

"The grocery-man and his wife looked helplessly across the table. After a lonesome pause the old lady said :-

"How do you like the biscuits, Maria?"

"They are too utter for anything," gushed the accomplished young lady, "and this plum-preserve is simply a poem of itself.”

The old man abruptly arose from the table and went out of the room rubbing his head in a dazed and benumbed manner, and the mass convention was dissolved. That night he and his wife sat alone by the stove until a late hour, and at the breakfast table the next morning he rapped smartly on the plate with the handle of his knife, and remarked:

"Maria, me an' your mother have been talkin' the thing over, an' we've come to the conclusion that this boarding-school business is too much nonsense. Me an' her consider that we haven't lived sixty odd consummate years for the purpose of raisin' a curiosity, an' there's goin' to be a stop put to this unquenchable foolishness. Now, after you've finished eatin' that poem of fried sausage an' that symphony of twisted doughnuts, you take an' dust up-stairs in less 'n two seconds, an' pull off that fancy gown an' put on a caliker, an' then come down here an' help your mother to wash the dishes. I want it distinctly understood that there ain't goin' to be no more rhythmic foolishness in this house so long as your superlative pa an' your lovely an' consummate ma's runnin' the ranch. You hear me, Maria?".

Maria was listening.

ANONYMOUS.

PETER'S RIDE TO THE WEDDING.

Peter would ride to the wedding-he would,

So he mounted his ass-and his wife
She was to ride behind, if she could,
"For," says Peter, "the woman, she should
Follow, not lead through life.

'He's mighty convenient the ass, my dear,
And proper and safe--and now

You hold by the tail, while I hold by the ear,
And we'll ride to the kirk in time, never fear,
If the wind and the weather allow."

The wind and the weather were not to be blamed,
But the ass had adopted the whim

That two at a time was a load never framed

For the back of one ass, and he seemed quite a-hamed That two should stick fast upon him.

"Come, Dobbin," says Peter, "I'm thinking we'll trot." "I'm thinking we won't," says the ass,

In language of conduct, and stuck to the spot
As if he had shown he would sooner be shot

Than lift up a toe from the grass.

Says Peter, says he, "I'll whip him a little,”

"Try it, my dear," says she,

But he might just as well have whipped a brass kettle;

The ass was made of such obstinate mettle

That never a step moved he.

"I'll prick him, my dear, with a needle," said she, "I'm thinking he'll alter his mind,”

The ass felt the needle, and up went his heels; "I'm thinking," says she, "he's beginning to feel Some notion of moving-behind."

"Now lend me the needle and I'll prick his ear, And set t'other end, too, a-going."

The ass felt the needle, and upward he reared;
But kicking and rearing was all, it appeared,
He had any intention of doing.

Says Peter, says he, "We get on rather slow;
While one end is up t'other sticks to the ground
But I'm thinking a method to move him I know,
Let's prick head and tail together, and so

Give the creature a start all around."

So said, so done; all hands were at work,
And the ass he did alter his mind,

For he started away with so sudden a jerk,
That in less than a trice he arrived at the kirk,
But he left all his lading behind.

ANONYMOUS.

THE MILLS OF GOD.

[The reader will readily appreciate this delightful piece, and find in it a charming exercise for lofty, grand, and dignified recitation.]

Those mills of God! Those tireless mills!

I hear their ceaseless throbs and thrills,

I see their dreadful stones go round,
And all the realms beneath them ground;
And lives of men and souls of states,
Flung out, like chaff, beyond their gates.

And we, O God! With impious will,
Have made these Negroes turn Thy mill!
Their human limbs with chains we bound,
And bade them whirl Thy mill-stones round,
With branded brow and fettered wrist,
We bade them grind the Nation's grist!

And so like Samson-blind and bound-
Our Nation's grist this Negro ground,

And all the strength of Freedom's toil,
And all the fruits of Freedom's soil,
And all her hopes and all her trust,

From Slavery's gates were flung, like dust.

With servile souls this mill we fed,

That ground the grain for Slavery's bread:
With cringing men, and groveling deeds,
We dwarfed our land to Slavery's needs;
'Till all the scornful nations hissed,
To see us ground with Slavery's grist.

The mill grinds on! From Slavery's plain
We reap great crops of blood-red grain;
And still the Negro's strength we urge,
With Slavery's gyve and Slavery's scourge;
And still we crave-on Freedom's sod-
That Slaves shall turn the mills of God!

The mill grinds on! God lets it grind!
We sow the seed--the sheaves we bind:
The millstones whirl as we ordain;
Our children's bread shall test the grain!
While Samson still in chains we bind,
The mill grinds on! God lets it grind!

DUGANNE.

THE BLIND PREACHER.

[The following extract is from Wirt's "British Spy." Rousseau, mentioned in the last paragraph was a celebrated Swiss philosopher. The reader will find this one of the most pathetic and beautiful pieces of a descriptive character in our language. It should be read colloquially, and in an animated manner.]

One Sunday, as I traveled through the County of Orange, my eye was caught by a cluster of horses, tied near a ruinous, old, wooden house in the forest, not far from the road-side. Having frequently seen such objects before, In traveling through these States, I had no difficulty in understanding that this was a place of religious worship. Devotion, alone, should have stopped me to join in the