Stage-Driver Stories, by Rose Terry Cooke. Stories of Saddle-Bag Preachers, by H.L. Winckley. My First Visit to a Newspaper Office, by Murat Halstead. Queen Victoria's Household and Drawing-Rooms, by H.W. Lucy. Child Friendships of Charles Dickens, by his Daughter, Mamie Dickens. Our Herbariums; Adventures in Collecting Them, by A Young Lady. My Pine-Apple Farm, with incidents of Florida Life, by C.H. Pattee. Bigwigs of the English Bench and Bar, by a London Barrister, W.L. Woodroffe. At School with Sir Garnet Wolseley, and the Life of a Page of Honor in the Vice-Regal Court of Dublin, by Nugent Robinson. Student Waiters. Some Humorous Incidents of a Summer Vacation in the White Mountains, by Child McPherson. * * * * * THE EDITORIALS OF THE COMPANION, without having any bias, will give clear views of current events at home and abroad. THE CHILDREN'S PAGE will sustain its reputation for charming pictures, poems, and stories for the little ones. ISSUED WEEKLY. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE, $1.75. SPECIMEN COPIES FREE. SPECIAL OFFER.--To any one who subscribes now, and sends us $1.75, we will send the Companion free to January 1st, 1884, and a full year's subscription from that date. Address, PERRY MASON & CO., 41 TEMPLE PLACE, BOSTON, MASS. _Please mention where you read this Advertisement._ * * * * * HOUSEHOLD. For nothing lovelier can be found In woman than to study _household_ good.--_Milton._ THE SCHOOL-MARM'S STORY. A frosty chill was in the air-- How plainly I remember-- The bright autumnal fires had paled, Save here and there an ember; The sky looked hard, the hills were bare, And there were tokens everywhere That it had come--November. I locked the time-worn school-house door, The village seat of learning. Across the smooth, well trodden path My homeward footstep turning; My heart a troubled question bore, And in my mind, as oft before, A vexing thought was burning. "Why is it up hill all the way?" Thus ran my meditations: The lessons had gone wrong that day And I had lost my patience. "Is there no way to soften care, And make it easier to bear Life's sorrows and vexations?" Across my pathway through the wood A fallen tree was lying; On this there sat two little girls, And one of them was crying. I heard her sob: "And if I could, I'd get my lessons awful good, But what's the use of trying?" And then the little hooded head Sank on the other's shoulder. The little weeper sought the arms That opened to enfold her. Against the young heart, kind and true, She nestled close, and neither knew That I was a beholder.