The still more embarrassed maiden blushed, but she did not withdraw the hand which the young knight had grasped. He raised and kissed it. The next moment the trembling, but glad girl, fell weeping on his bosom. She, too, had thought only of him. The proudest family in the south of France, to this day, trace their origin to the union of Zelma and de Guiscan. * * * * * * * * LITTLE CHILDREN. BY MRS. C. H. W. ESLING. I love those little happy things, they seem to me but given, To mirror on this lower earth, the far-off smiling heaven, Their blue eyes shining ever bright like violets steep’d in dew. Their looks of angel innocence—who’d not believe them true? The echo of the merry laugh, so full of heartfelt glee, The very revelry of joy, untameable, and free; The little feet that almost seem to scorn our mother earth, But ever, ever lisping on in frolic, and in mirth. Oh! how we look on them, and think of all our childhood’s hours, When we were sunny-hearted too, and wander’d among flowers, When like to theirs, our floating locks, were left to woo the breeze, Oh! Time, in all thy calendar, thou’st no such times as these. I do forget how many years have sadly passed me by, Since my young sun of rising morn, shone gayly in the sky; When I behold these happy things in all their joyous play, Pouring the sunshine of their hearts, upon my cloudy way. Would I could watch their gentle growth, and guard them from the blight, That ever tracks the steps of Time, like darken’d clouds of night, Would I could see their laughing eyes still innocently wear The looks of guileless purity, unmixed with woe, or care. Dear little children, ye have been to me, a source of joy, The sweet drop in the bitter cup of life’s too sad alloy, In ye, mine early days return, the rainbow days of youth, Of single-hearted blessedness, of tenderness, and truth. Philadelphia, January, 1841. * * * * * THE SILVER DIGGER. BY J. TOPHAM EVANS. “Ha! ha! ha!” shouted Piet Albrecht, “and so old Chriss Mienckel is going to be married at last, and to pretty Barbara Mullerhorn, the violet of the forest! Your gold and silver are the best suitors after all! Give me a purse of yellow pieces before all the rifles of the mountain. What sayest thou, comrade,” continued he, clapping upon the back a young man, who sat next to him, “dost thou not think that old Mullerhorn, the gold-lover, would have fancied thee much better, if thou hadst carried more metal in thy pouch than upon thy shoulder?” “I pray thee, Piet,” responded the young man, “keep thy scurvy jests to thyself. My soul is far too heavy for mirth.”