"Tell them about this last--that I was desperate--I had broke jail--knew the officers were on my track--and was penniless. Give me--more--brandy. So. Why, I can't see you any more, little Jenny--and yet it is morning, isn't it, not night!" He gasped for breath and clutched feebly at the air. "Kiss me--little Jenny--mer--mercy--_Lord Jesus_--better--better times--hereafter!" A shudder, and the man was dead, and Jane was left all alone in the world. Poor, besotted, frantic Michael Green, all sin-scorched as he was, had passed from the judgment of men to the more merciful judgment beyond. Yet the orphan, if alone, lacked neither sympathy nor protection. Nor did she ever lack from that moment the respect and confidence of the man of whose heart she had from the first been mistress. So that the true happiness came in time which is so often the sweeter for being deferred. HENRY SEDLEY. DEFEATED. Give me your hand--nay, both, as I confront you. Let me look in your eyes, as once before. I gaze, and gaze. Oh, how they change and soften! I stand within the portal: lo! a door-- A door close shut and barred. I knock and listen. No sound, no answer. Doubtingly I wait. Oh! for one glance beyond that guarded entrance, The power that mystic realm to penetrate. I touch the barrier with hands entreating, If it would yield to me, and none beside. What bitter pain, what sense of loss and failure, To come so near, and come to be denied! Softly I call, but only silence answers-- Silence, and the quick throbbing of my heart. Immovable, the frowning bar abideth: Kneeling, I kiss the threshold and depart. MARY L. RITTER. SHALL PUNISHMENT PUNISH? It is published that in England a man has been undergoing an aggregate imprisonment of ten years for breaking a shop window, at different times, and that when recently pardoned he immediately broke the same window again for the purpose of being again arrested. One who knows nothing more than this of the facts cannot presume to determine what punishment should in justice be given to this particular offender; but the case is interesting as an extreme example of what frequently occurs in a less striking degree in this country. Police courts become acquainted with a class of criminals who would rather go to jail for their dinner, especially in winter, than earn a dinner by hard work. They are the confirmed vagabonds from whom the army of summer tramps is chiefly recruited. They never feel truly virtuous and happy in cold weather except when they have committed a petty offence and are on the way to "punishment," which consists in accepting from a thoughtful public a warm shelter and all the food they want. It is their business to live, at times if not constantly, in this way. Sending them to jail for their offences is known by the courts that send them to be nothing but a sorry farce.