Miss Thoughtless rarely does anything for herself. She wants Mary, on all occasions, to pin her tippet, to tie her shoes, or to put on her India rubbers. When she proceeds to do anything, she wants the servants to wait on her. What a difference between these two young ladies! If you were to see them, you might soon tell which was Miss Thoughtless; because you would see something disorderly in her looks, something disorderly in her dress, and something disorderly in her manner of speaking. * * * * * WISDOM FROM A JESTER.――Bishop Hall tells us, that there was a certain nobleman who kept a fool or jester, (a thing common in former days in the families of the great,) to whom one day he gave a staff, with a charge to keep it till he should meet with one who was a greater fool than himself. Not many days after, the nobleman was ill, and near death. The jester came to see him, and his lordship said to him, “I must soon leave you.” “And where are you going?” asked the fool. “Into another world,” replied his lordship. “And when will you come again? within a month?” “No.” “Within a year?” “No.” “When then?” “Never?” “Never!” said the jester; “and what provision hast thou made for thy entertainment there where thou goest?” “None at all.” “No!” said the fool, “none at all! Here, then, take my staff; for, with all my folly, I am not guilty of any such folly as this!” [Illustration] The Little Mariner. Ay, sitting on your happy hearths, beside your mother’s knee, How should you know the miseries and dangers of the sea? My father was a mariner, and from my earliest years, I can remember night and day my mother’s prayers and tears. I can remember how she sighed when blew the stormy gale; And how for days she stood to watch the long-expected sail; Hers was a patient, silent grief; but fears and long delay, And wakeful nights and anxious days, were wearing her away. And when the gusty winds were loud, and autumn’s leaves were red, I watched with heavy heart beside my mother’s dying bed; Just when her voice was feeblest, the neighbors came to say, The ship was hailed an hour before, and then was in the bay. Alas! too late the ship returned, too late her life to save; My father closed her dying eyes, and laid her in the grave. He was a man of ardent hopes, who never knew dismay; And, spite of grief, the winter-time wore cheerfully away. He had crossed the equinoctial line, full seven times and more, And, sailing northward, had been wrecked on icy Labrador. He knew the Spice isles every one, where the clove and nutmeg grow, And the aloe towers, a stately tree, with clustering bells of snow.