When the lessons and tasks are all ended, And the school for the day is dismissed, The little ones gather around me To bid me "good night," and be kissed. Oh, the little white arms that encircle My neck in their tender embrace; Oh, the smiles that are halos of heaven, Shedding sunshine of love on my face. And when they are gone, I sit dreaming Of my childhood--too lovely to last-- Of joy that my heart will remember While it wakes to the pulse of the past: Ere the world and its wickedness made me A partner of sorrow and sin, When the glory of God was about me, And the glory of gladness within. I ask not a life for the dear ones All radiant, as others have done; But that life may have just enough shadow To temper the glare of the sun; I would pray God to guard them from evil; But my prayer would bound back to myself: Ah, a seraph may pray for a sinner. But a sinner must pray for himself^ I shall leave the old house in the autumn, To traverse its threshold no more; Ah! how I shall sigh for the dear ones That meet me each morn at the door; I shall miss the "good-nights" and the kisses, And the gush of their innocent glee; The group on the green, and the flowers That are brought every morning for me. ---------- {71} From The Lamp. ALL-HALLOW EVE; OR, THE TEST OF FUTURITY. BY ROBERT CURTIS. CHAPTER XIII. The next morning Winny presented herself at the breakfast-table, looking more attractive and more tidily dressed, her rich glossy hair better brushed and smoothed down more carefully than was usual at that hour of the day. Her daily custom, like all other country girls who had household concerns to look after, was not to "tidy herself up" until they had been completed. She was not ignorant, however, of the great advantage which personal neatness added to beauty gave a young girl who had a cause to plead. And although the man upon whom she might have to throw herself for mercy was her father, she was not slow on this occasion to claim their advocacy for what they might be worth. But she had also prayed to God to guide her in all her replies to the parent whom she was bound to honor and obey, as well as to Love. She had not contented herself with having set out her own appearance to the best advantage, but she had also set out the breakfast-table in the same way. The old blue-and-white teapot had been left on the dresser, and a dark-brown one, with a figured plated lid, taken out of the cupboard of Sunday china. Two cups and saucers, and plates "to match," with two real ivory-hafted knives laid beside them. There was also some white _broken_ sugar in a glass bowl, which Winny had won in a lottery at Carrick-on-Shannon from a "bazaar-man." There was nothing extraordinary in all this for persons of their means, though, to tell the truth, it was not the every-day paraphernalia of their breakfast-table. Winny had not been idle either in furnishing the