They were almost his ruin, sir-those oranges. He used to come up stairs sucking them softly, so that I might not hear, and thinking to deceive me; but I somehow smelt oranges, and it always made me sharper to catch Bobbery whistling little tunes to himself on the way up, just to put me off.

He made a great deal of me, did Bobbery-along of being blind, you see-and so did the neighbors; but I was rare proud of him. You don't know what it is, sir, to sit alone in the dark all day, and then, on a sudden, to hear a fellow call out, "Here we are again! Come down and feel the sun set, and we'll count the coppers!" It would make you love any one, sir, who had a voice like that, let alone a fellow like Bobbery.

Perhaps you didn't happen to be in Kingstown, sir, last spring, when the floods had risen, and the land was under water for miles around. Bobbery had to wade a little going down to his work, but he rather liked it he said; and he used to tuck up his trowsers, and call back to me and laugh, as the water crept around his feet; and he said folks wouldn't want their boots blacked, he feared, for the water would soon take off the polish.

I used to sit on the window-sill to feel the sun, and if I listened very hard I could hear the ripple-ripple of the shallow water at every step that Bobbery made, and it had a pleasant sound, and made a kind of company feeling; but when he was out of hearing, and it still kept rippling up against our walls, the company feeling went away and left me lonely, and sometimes I thought the water hateful, be cause it lay for so very long between me and Bobbery.

Well, once I was sitting alone on the window-sill, and the day was very quiet, so quiet that I did not hear the little rippling waves; and in the quiet I grew frightened at last, and stretched out my hands across the sill, to feel my way down. I felt something that made me shiver and draw back out of the sunlight--that made my whole dark life grow suddenly a beautiful and precious thing-I felt the water rippling almost up to the level of the sill, and I was quite alone, and Bobbery would never know.

I did not call out, or go mad with fright, as I thought at

first I might do: only I crept away, in my everlasting darkness, from the warm sunlight, and sat down on the bed where Bobbery and I slept together, and put my hands over my ears, to shut out the roar of the waters.

How long I sat there I don't know, but I think it must have been for hours, for I felt the sunlight slanting on my face, and the water rushing around me before I moved again. I was hungry, too; but when I tried to get down and reach the cupboard, the water took me off my feet and I crept back to the bed, and on to the shelves of the dresser, to be out of the way. I said my prayers two or three times, and I said some prayers for Bobbery, too, for I knew he would be sorry when he found me some day where I had died all alone, and in the dark. And then I tried to think how things looked from our window, with the water sweeping up to the very sill, and the red sunset lying on it-and beyond, the pretty town and the steeple with the clock; and I thought it was better for me to die than Bobbery, after all, for he could see, while I—I had no pleasures in my life. And yet I wanted to live; I wanted to hear Bobbery's voice again; I wanted the waters to go down, and somebody to remember me at last-for I was afraid.

Well, sir, God answers our prayers sometimes in a way that is terribly just. It takes us a long time to find out that everything is very good, I think, but we come to learn it at last-and learn, too, to leave our prayers as well as the answers to God. Somebody did remember me at last, and came back-somebody whose laughing voice across the waters was nearer every minute-somebody whose hands were on my shoulders, whose eyes, I felt, were on my facesomebody who had never forgotten me-Bobbery!

66

Bobbery! Bobbery!" I cried, and I stretched out my arms to him.

Bobbery said: "I came over in a tub-only think! such a lark! but as I climbed in at the window, our tub drifted away, and however we're to get over I can't tell."

"You must think of something," I said. "Bobbery, it was a long day."

"Why, of course it was," Bobbery answered, “without me. Come along, the river's rising like fury."

"Is it very wide?" I asked.

"Oh, not more 'n a good stretch from here to the dry land -but deep; over six feet, I should say-and rising."

"But the bed, Bobbery," I said, "and the other things." "Well, we must just leave them until it's all right again." "Will it ever be all right?" I asked.

"Why, yes, of course," said Bobbery.

He was such a splendid chap, sir, was Bobbery, and so clever! He took the two chairs that were drifting about the room, and tied them close together, and then we waded across to the window, and stood upon the sill. "I think it's jolly good fun," said Bobbery. only see how your boat's bobbing up and here! Get in quick, or I can't hold her. Here! port her helm, or something! Are you all right?”

"It's splendid," I said; come along."

"If you could down in front

But when Bobbery put his foot on to the unsteady raft, she went down on one side with a plunge. "Never mind," he said: "you've just got to push yourself ashore with this pole, as straight as you can go, and I will follow."

I thought that was true, or I never would have left Bobbery. I took the pole he gave me, and went out on the rest、 less waters, that I felt were blood-red where the setting sun had touched them. People on the opposite side cheered, and cried, and called me, and Bobbery behind called out once or twice, "Ship ahoy!" in a shrill voice, that I knew and loved better than anything on earth, and once I heard him say faintly-he seemed so far away-" In port at last." At last!

The people on shore had ceased their shouts of excite ment and encouragement, the light had died utterly away. In an awful silence, and an awful darkness, I jumped to land, and held out my two hands.

"Bobbery! Bobbery!" I cried, "I want to thank you." Did Bobbery hear, sir, do you think? Do people hear anything, do people understand anything, after they have gone away?

I only knew that the awful silence was turning me to stone, that the awful darkness was rising like a stone wall between me and Bobbery-and I was afraid. When I called, no one

answered me, and I was glad. If his voice was silent, any other voice would have maddened me just then, and I wanted nothing more to tell me all the truth. I learned through the silence on land and sea how God had answered my prayer.

They told me afterward how the plank he was launching to help himself to the shore drifted away from his hand, and was out of sight directly, how they would have saved him if they could, and how, when they began to shout to him directions, he made a sign for silence, and stood straight upon the sill, with the sunset creeping all about him, and the waters washing at his feet. They wondered why he had made no effort to reach the shore with me-they used to wonder for long after, why he had stood so silent, with his eager eyes, and restless feet so strangely still. I knew, of course; but what right had any one else to come between me and Bobbery? It wouldn't have done any one any good to know what I knew--that Bobbery wouldn't let me lose the faintest chance; thought my blind, helpless life quite as well worth saving as his own. I would have done the same for him, sir, any day-for Bobbery and me, we were always fond of each other.

The story's been longer than I thought, sir, but just the evening, and the floods again, and your wanting to know about the cross, brought it back to me like the same evening somehow-and it's company like to talk of the lad.

And Bobbery? he just died, sir; and the folks thought such a deal of him that they collected a bit to set me up, and I took half of the money just to put up this little cross by the river-side--for we always divided the coppers, sir; and I haven't forgotten him-not in these two years! That's all, sir-just all about Bobbery.

-Harper's Bazar.

ANNIE PROTHEROE.-W. S. GILBERT.

A LEGEND OF STRATFORD-LE-BOW.

Oh! listen to the tale of little Annie Protheroe.

She kept a small post-office in the neighborhood of Bow; She loved a skilled mechanic, who was famous in his dayA gentle executioner whose name was Gilbert Clay.

I think I hear you say, "A dreadful subject for your rhymes!"
O reader, do not shrink-he didn't live in modern times!
He lived so long ago (the sketch will show it at a glance)
That all his actions glitter with the lime-light of romance.
In busy times he labored at his gentle craft all day-
"No doubt you mean his Cal-craft" you amusingly will say-
But, no-he didn't operate with common bits of string,
He was a Public Headsman, which is quite another thing.
And when his work was over, they would ramble o'er the lea,
And sit beneath the frondage of an elderberry tree;
And Annie's simple prattle entertained him on his walk,
For public executions formed the subject of her talk.

And sometimes he'd explain to her, which charmed her very much,

How famous operators vary very much in touch,

And then, perhaps, he'd show how he himself performed the trick,

And illustrate his meaning with a poppy and a stick.

Or, if it rained, the little maid would stop at home, and look At his favorable notices, all pasted in a book,

And then her cheek would flush-her swimming eyes would dance with joy

In a glow of admiration at the prowess of her boy.

One summer eve, at supper-time, the gentle Gilbert said
(As he helped his pretty Annie to a slice of collared head),
"This reminds me I must settle on the next ensuing day
The hash of that unmitigated villain, Peter Gray."

He saw his Annie tremble and he saw his Annie start,
Her changing color trumpeted the flutter at her heart;
Young Gilbert's manly bosom rose and sank with jealous fear,
And he said, “O gentle Annie, what's the meaning of this
here?"

And Annie answered, blushing in an interesting way,
You think, no doubt, I'm sighing for that felon, Peter Gray:
That I was his young woman is unquestionably true,
But not since I began a-keeping company with you."
Then Gilbert, who was irritable, rose and loudly swore
He'd know the reason why if she refused to tell him more;
And she answered (all the woman in her flashing from her
eyes),

"You musn't ask no questions, and you won't be told no lies!

"Few lovers have the privilege enjoyed, my dear, by you,
Of chopping off a rival's head and quartering him too!
Of vengeance, dear, to-morrow you will surely take your fill!"
And Gilbert ground his molars as he answered her, "I will!"