NATIONAL WHlG.

THE CITY CL E R K

NJ MISS oArHAnIsE N. srpsswr,K.
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nv MISS CATHARIKE N. sEDsEwtK.


"A sisters love, dwell upon the theme


The only love on earth to which the earth


Has given no taint OF self regardlul care


HENY WARE.


II is about the middle Of November
bright, soft day, when the genial spirit OF
the year looks back with one Of his farewell
smiles. His warm breath has spread a sill
yer haze over the rugged hill-sides. The
mountain tops are shining dried leaves.
bitten off by the frost, turn round and round
and drop without sound. A rather mar
row, brisk stream runs rapidly, descending
as it goes, till it reaches the rear of neat,
one-story house, where, being set back BY
a dam below, it seems like plate Of bur-
nished steel from which soft vapor is ris-
ing. Around its edges is thin coating oil
ice, indicating the cold of the preceding
night The house stands on the declvity
of hill that slopes gradually from the
road, "a hundred yards from it, with on.
end to the river, the other to the road, and
fronting South. Behind it is little gar
den-patch, which in its winter adversely
shows signs of being cared for and loved !;
some plants being carefully lied up, and a
few covered with old boxes and barrels.
There are some other signs of refinement,
not too common about the humble dwell
ings of our country parts; vines trained
about the low door, and rose bushes so
nicely fitted around the old windows thai
they seem to have come and to stay there
of their own accord. Neatness, that good
angel of an humble home, keeping all right
with her ever rustling wings, hovers round
this pretty dwelling. A small woodpile is
laid up as if by mathematical rule. No
litter of any kind is anywhere to be seen,
and one wonders what the splendid cock
with his pedestrian harem can find to make
them pick SO busily around the sunny door
way.


1t is but nine o'clock, and morning at
that hour, on the fifteenth of November,
had hardly dawned on luxurious dwellers
in great houses but here how much OF
the daily work had been accomplished. A
pale, and in common parlance, unfortunate
man." is sitting bolstered in an easy chair
near cheerful fire, his right arm and leg
withered and useless. His wife, woman
with mild, thoughtful face, sits near the
window making vest, and with the imple-
ments Of tailoring about her. With every
stitch, and without hindering it, she turns
her eye on the lame man, and addressing
him as country wives use, she says, "Do
you find your paper interesting, father Is
it almost time Tor fathers drops ?'' and the
answer is "Yes,D or "No," as may be, but
always in cheerful tone, which, coming
from that poor, mutilated figure, is startling
like light suddenly kindled in darkness
A trig little lass is putting the last touches
to the mornings house work. She has
cleared away the breakfast, skinned the
milk, "swept up" and .smopped up" and
is ready to sit down BY her mother to finish
off the work that always accumulatesfor
Saturday. Both fathers and mothers eyes
often turn to her, and who would not love
to look on face SO beaming with intelli-
gence, SO fresh and cheerful. Never were
there prettier or brighter lips, or more
beautiful teeth, or in palace or cottage a
more elec,rifyiDg smile than little Ruth
Hathaway's Perhaps it derived this quail
ity from cast Of sadness and care on her
brow it was shadow on rose. There
it fell when her father was brought home
from his new factory with the flesh torn
from his arm and leg, and there it remained
indelible. As TO the rest, the face is pretty
and pleasing, but not beautiful; her eyes are
rather small and greyish, and her complex
Jon clear and pure, is not brilliant. Her hair
not ouly does not curl, and is neither au-
burn, chestnut, nor raven, but very com
mon brown, and only remarkable for the
neatness with which she arranges it on her
very weli-shaped head. Ruth is said 10 be
the image Of her father, and she rather
prides herself on this resemblance.


Ralph Hathaway is reckooed by common
observers, as we have said, ain ssunfortunate
man - could any amount Of ll-luck or ca
lamty make that epithet fitting him whose
temperament is SO cheerful that his sun
will break through the heaviest clouds p
His heart is a ever-intermitting fountain ol
love to God, and peace and goodwill to
MN.


.HRuth, what are you listening for p
asked the father; 81 hear nothing bat the
factory"


"Nor I, father; Iwish we did not always
hear that,-lt-"


eIt puts you in mind Of fathers acciden,
know, Rulhy, and SO it does me, but then
it sets me off thinking how my life was
spared, and how Ishould never have known
what good woman mother is, but for that
~ is not every wife that would care fol
such poor rack as am"


go, father ~ exclaimed both mother and
child