Her eyes they shone with willful mirth, and like a golden flood

Her

sunny hair rolled downward from her little scarlet hood.

I once was out a-fishing, and though sturdy at the

oar,

My arms were growing weaker, and I was far from

shore;

And angry squalls swept thickly from out the lurid skies,

And

every

landmark that I knew was hidden from mine eyes;

The gull's shrill shriek above me, the sea's strong bass beneath.

The numbness grew upon me with its chilling touch of death,

And blackness gathered round me; then through the night's dark shroud

A clear young voice came swiftly as an arrow cleaves the cloud.

It was a voice so mellow, so bright and warm and

round,

As if a beam of sunshine had been melted intc

sound;

It fell upon my frozen nerves and thawed the springs

of life;

I grasped the oar and strove afresh; it was a bitter

strife.

The breakers roared about me, but the song took bolder flight,

And rose above the darkness like a beacon in the

night;

And swift I steered, and safely struck shore, and by God's rood

Through gloom and spray I caught the gleam of Hilda's scarlet hood.

The moon athwart the darkness broke abroad a misty

way,

The dawn grew red beyond the sea and sent abroad

the day;

And loud I prayed to God above to help me, if He

could,

For deep into my soul had pierced that gleam from Hilda's hood.

I sought her in the forest, I sought her on the strand,

The pine-trees spread their dusky roof, bleak lay the glittering sand,

Until one Sabbath morning at the parish church I

stood

And saw amid a throng of maids, a little scarlet hood.

Then straight my heart ran riot, and wild my pulses

flew ;

I strove in vain my flutter and my blushes to sub

due.

"Why, Eric!" laughed a roguish maid, "your cheeks are red as blood."

"It is the shine," another cried, "from Hilda's scarlet hood."

I answered not, for 'tis not safe to banter with a girl;

The trees, the church, the belfry danced about me in

a whirl;

I was as dizzy as a moth that flutters round the flame;

I turned about, and twirled my cap, but could not speak for shame.

But that same Sabbath ev'ning, as I sauntered o'er the beach,

And cursed that foolish heart of mine for choking up my speech,

I spied, half wrapped in shadow at the margin of the

wood,

The wavy mass of sunshine that broke from Hilda's hood.

With quickened breath on tiptoe across the sand I

stepped;

Her face was hidden in her lap, as though she mused

or slept;

The hood had glided backward o'er the hair that downward rolled

Like some large petal of a flower upon a stream ɔf

gold.

"Fair Hilda," so I whispered, as I bended to her ear: She started up, and smiled at me without surprise or fear.

"I love you, Hilda," said I; then, in whispers more

subdued,

[hood." "Love me again, or wear no more that little scarlet

"Why, Eric," cried she, laughing, "how can you talk so wild?

I was confirmed last Easter, half maid and half a

child;

But since you are so stubborn,-no, no; I never

could,

Unless you guess what's written inside my scarlet hood."

"I cannot, fairest Hilda," quoth I, with mournful

mien,

While with my hand I gently, and by the maid un

seen,

Snatched from the clustering wavelets the brightly flaming thing,

And saw naught there but stitches, small, crosswise, meandering.

"There's nothing in your hood, love," I cried with heedless mirth.

"Well," laughed she, "out of nothing God made both heaven and earth.

But since the earth to you and me as heritage was

given,

I'll only try to make for you a little bit of heaven." HJALMER HJORTH BOYESEN,

RURAL INFELICITY.

HE had been to town-meeting, had once voyagea a

hundred miles on a steamboat, and had a brother who had made the overland trip to California.

She had been to quiltings, funerals, and a circus or two; and she knew a woman who thought nothing of setting out on a railroad journey where she had to wait fifteen minutes at a junction and change cars at a depot.

So I found them-a cozy-looking old couple, sitting up very straight in their seat, and trying to act like old railroad travelers. A shadow of anxiety suddenly crossed her face; she became uneasy, and directly she asked:

"Philetus, I act'lly b'lieve we've went and took the wrong train!”

"It can't be, nohow," he replied, seeming a little startled. "Didn't I ask the conductor, and he said we was right?"

"Yaas, he did; but look out the window, and make sure. He might have been deceivin' us."

The old man looked out the window at the flitting fences, the galloping telegraph-poles, and the unfamiliar fields, as if expecting to catch sight of some landmark, and forgetting for a moment that he was a thousand miles from home.

"I guess we're all right, Mary," he said, as he drew in his head.