the wild joy of this happy meeting, and the mother's spirit knelt before the heaven-built temple of light which arched above, and offered the incense of its prayers for him whose wickedness of heart had steeped her earthly days in bitterness; but who was yet to her the token of a youthful hope, and the living memory of a trusting love. Her earnest spirit, in the gush of its awakened affection for the child of her bosom, called upon its God to have mercy upon him, and to snatch his soul from the blackness of its guilt and the impending terrors of destruction. And the prayer went upward, and the angels sung. * * * * * The drunkard staggered to the wretched home, and reeling into the silent room gazed upon the wife and child. They spoke not, moved not; he stooped to touch, but recoiled in horror, for both of them were dead. The mother, in her sweet dream, had glided into the blissful evening land, and he, the destroyer of a wife and child, now felt in all the piercing agony of sin and shame, the scorpion stings of conscience. He fell upon his knees and prayed for mercy! His withering soul seemed struggling within him, and he gasped for breath. He had wandered into wicked paths, he had blighted a gentle heart by cruelty and neglect, he had wasted his own child's meal in drunkenness and villainy, while it lay on its mother's breast perishing for want of food. He felt all the terrors of remorse, and hell seemed gaping beneath him! He arose and wept, and the first tear he shed was carried by invisible hands upward to that world of peace, as a sacrifice of penitence to the kneeling spirit of a mother. He wandered away in silence, and where he went were the falling tears which spoke, in accents eloquent and true, the silent utterance of a repentant heart. PLATE GLASS--WHAT IT IS, AND HOW IT IS MADE. Two other gentlemen occupied the railway carriage, which, on a gusty day in December, was conveying us toward Gravesend, _via_ Blackwall. One wore spectacles, by the aid of which he was perusing a small pocket edition of his favorite author. No sound escaped his lips; yet, his under-jaw and his disengaged hand moved with the solemn regularity of an orator emitting periods of tremendous euphony. Presently, his delight exploded in a loud shutting up of the book and an enthusiastic appeal to us in favor of the writings of Dr. Samuel Johnson. "What, for example, can be finer, gentlemen, than his account of the origin of glass-making; in which, being a drysalter, I take a particular interest. Let me read the passage to you!" "But the noise of the train--" "Sir, I can drown that."