Mr. Waldie’s fifty-fifth birth-day was celebrated by a wedding; but Mr. Waldie still enjoyed his celibacy and his secret. Celina became the wife of Willington Merwyn. At the request of the eccentric but kind bachelor, the happy pair took up their abode with him. He probably did not gain much in the way of quiet by this arrangement, for in the course of a few years a certain little rosy-cheeked De Courcy and his chubby sister started the decorous echoes of the old house with the sounds of baby-grief and baby-joy. However, there is a wonderful power of adaptation in the human mind, and Mr. Waldie learned, after a while, to allow them free ingress to his student’s den, while he often neglected his speculative theories for practical illustrations of kindly affections. Celina made quite as good a wife as if she had been brought up in the usual lady-like ignorance of science. She shaped and sewed her children’s garments, concocted puddings and pies, directed the mechanism of her household, and was quite as useful in her sphere as the most vehement declaimer against _learned women_ could have deemed necessary to vindicate her character. Mr. Waldie never regretted the result of his experiment. He lived in perfect harmony and peace with his now enlarged family, and it was not until Celina had become a comely matron and her children had grown up to love and reverence him, that the old man was gathered to his fathers. But his secret had been discovered long before his death, for he gradually lost his little personal vanity as soon as he finally concluded to remain a bachelor, and he did not find any decrease in Celina’s affection even when she learned that _he wore_ A WIG. * * * * * SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES. Though the ever-heaving ocean Bear us from our forest-land, Through the rising waves’ commotion, To a far and foreign strand; Still the heart, all space unheeding, Firmly ’gainst our progress strives, Leaves us, and with haste is speeding To our sweethearts and our wives. Ye may bind the eagle’s pinion,— Check the deer’s impetuous course,— Curb the steed to your dominion,— Quell the torrent’s headlong force,— But the spirit, fetters spurning As our proud ship onward drives, Leaves us, in its joy returning To our sweethearts and our wives. Noah’s freed and wand’ring raven Toward the ark for safety flew; Backward, to the spotless heaven, Springs, at morn, the vesper dew. Thus affection’s fond devotion, Balm and solace of our lives; Flies, like incense, o’er the ocean, To our sweethearts and our wives. P. E. * * * * * THE DUEL. BY E. S. GOULD, ESQ. OF NEW YORK.