“How?” “You have a daughter, and you intend to give her ten thousand as a marriage portion.” “I do.” “Sir, I will take her with nine thousand.” IN SOLITUDE.—Those beings only are fit for solitude who like nobody, are like nobody, and are liked by nobody.—_Zimmerman._ IN LASTING REMEMBRANCE.—Write your name with kindness, love, and mercy on the hearts of the people you come in contact with year by year, and you will never be forgotten. A CURIOSITY IN WORDS.—The five vowels appear in alphabetical order in “abstemious,” also in the word “facetious,” and “abstemiously” and “facetiously” give us the _y_. LOOKING AHEAD.—When we meet with the little vexatious incidents of life, by which our quiet is too often disturbed, it will prevent many painful sensations if we only consider—How insignificant this will appear a twelvemonth hence. HOW TO BE LEARNED.—A Persian philosopher being asked by what method he had acquired so much knowledge, answered, “By not being prevented by shame from asking questions when I was ignorant.” LIBERTY. ’Tis liberty alone that gives the flower Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume. _Cowper._ WIDESPREAD SORROW. Man’s inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn. —_Burns._ JEALOUSY. Trifles light as air Are to the jealous confirmation strong As proofs of holy writ.—_Shakespeare._ A BARGAIN HUNTER.—It is told of a gentleman that he had a passion for the purchase of second-hand furniture at auctions, and that in making “good bargains” he had filled his house with antiquated and almost useless articles. Upon one occasion, his wife took the responsibility, without consulting or apprising her husband, to have a portion of the least useful removed to an auction-room. Great was her dismay when, on the evening of the day of sale, the majority of the articles came back to the house. The husband had stumbled into the auction-room, and, not knowing his own furniture, had purchased it at better bargains than at first. CONSTANT COMPANIONS.—Hypocrisy and cunning travel together, and they cannot get very far separately. ADVICE TO A WIFE.—Try to make home necessary to a man’s happiness, and you will almost always succeed. ECHOES. How sweet the answer Echo makes To Music at night, When, roused by lute or horn, she wakes, And far away o’er lawns and lakes Goes answering light! Yet Love hath echoes truer far, And far more sweet, Than e’er, beneath the moonlight’s star, Of horn, or lute, or soft guitar, The songs repeat. ’Tis when the sigh, in youth sincere, And only then— The sigh that’s breathed for one to hear— Is by that one, that only Dear, Breathed back again. —_Thomas Moore._