Mr. Winkle deeply affected. The adjuration was rather unnecessary; the probability being, that, if Mr. Pickwick had declined to keep himself up for anybody else's sake, it would have occurred to him that he might as well do so for his own.

"Do you feel the bottom there, old fellow?" said Wardle. "Yes, certainly," replied Mr. Pickwick, wringing the water from his head and face, and gasping for breath. "I fell upon my back. I couldn't get on my feet at first."

The clay upon so much of Mr. Pickwick's coat as was yet visible bore testimony to the accuracy of this statement; and, as the fears of the spectators were still further relieved by the fat boy's suddenly recollecting that the water was nowhere more than five feet deep, prodigies of valor were performed to get him out. After a vast quantity of splashing and cracking and struggling, Mr. Pickwick was at length fairly extricated from his unpleasant situation, and once more stood on dry land.

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'Oh, he'll catch his death of cold!" said Emily. "Dear old thing!" said Arabella. "Let me wrap this

shawl round you, Mr. Pickwick."

"Ah! that's the best thing you can do," said Wardle; "and, when you've got it on, run home as fast as your legs can carry you, and jump into bed directly."

A dozen shawls were offered on the instant; and, three or four of the thickest having been selected, Mr. Pickwick was wrapped up, and started off under the guidance of Mr. Weller, presenting the singular phenomenon of an elderly gentleman dripping wet, and without a hat, with his arms bound down to his sides, skimming over the ground without any clearly defined purpose, at the rate of six good English miles an hour.

But Mr. Pickwick cared not for appearances in such an extreme case; and, urged on by Sam Weller, he kept at the very top of his speed until he reached the door of Manor Farm, where Mr. Tupman had arrived some five minutes before, and had frightened the old lady into palpitations of the heart by impressing her with the unalterable conviction that the kitchen-chimney was on fire, -a calamity which always presented itself in the most glowing colors to the old lady's mind when anybody about her evinced the smallest agitation.

Mr. Pickwick paused not an instant until he was snug

in bed. Sam Weller lighted a blazing fire in the room, and took up his dinner; a bowl of punch was carried up afterwards, and a grand carouse held in honor of his safety. Old Wardle would not hear of his rising: so they made the bed the chair, and Mr. Pickwick presided. A second and a third bowl were ordered in; and, when Mr. Pickwick awoke next morning, there was not a symptom of rheumatism about him which proves, as Mr. Bob Sawyer very justly observed, that there is nothing like hot punch in such cases; and that, if ever hot punch did fail to act as a preventive, it was merely because the patient fell into the vulgar error of not taking enough of it.

DICKENS.

A PICTURE.

A REVERENT hush fell on the waiting crowd,
And solemnly a voice uprose in prayer.

A sunbeam through the half-closed lattice stole,
And lighted up the lofty frescoed cross,
And fell upon the speaker's silvered head
As if it were a benison from Heaven.

About the altar and the white-haired saint,
Were others haloed with the crown of time,
Who long had battled in the blessed strife,
And only waited for the victor's palm;

And some in manhood's strong and fervent noon,
And others in the grace and flush of youth.
In bowed and humble attitude they sat,
The chosen shepherds of the Master's fold.

And on the breast of one there leaned a child,
A little child with curling golden hair,

With bright blue eyes, and tender, dimpled hands
That lightly rested on the father's arm.
No need for her to bow the sorrowing head,

Or drop the bitter penitential tear.

Sweet innocence its unstained image kept
In the soft eyes that wondering upward turned.

Not yet the voice within her spirit cried
From out the world's wild, stormy wilderness:
She had not wandered in its mazy depths;
Her feet yet lingered by the sunny paths
In which so lately she had strayed from heaven.

And while the father's face was lowly bent,
And rested hidden in his lifted hand,
The gentle child in conscious safety lay,
Securely folded in her father's arms,
And listening to the music of his heart.

Sweet picture! type of saintly confidence!
That brings afresh the tale of olden time,
When the disciples of the Master's choice
Went anxiously inquiring of their Lord
The secret way that to the kingdom led;
"And in their midst he set a little child."
MRS. H. A. BINGHAM.

TOBE'S MONUMENT.

seven-days' fight

THE " was ended. Hundreds of our brave boys lay with white, still faces upturned to the sky on the slopes of Malvern Hill, or moaned away their lives in the marshes along the Chickahominy. The worn, battered remnants of the Grand Army of the Potomac were encamped at Harrison's Landing, on the James, waiting for transports to take them back to Washington.

It was "after taps," a sultry, Southern-summer night. On the extreme edge of the encampment, on the side nearest the enemy, a sentinel paused in his walk, and peered cautiously out into the darkness. "Pshaw!" he said: "it's nothing but a dog." He was resuming his walk, when the supposed quadruped rose suddenly, and walked along two feet, in a manner so unmistakably human, that the sentinel lowered his musket once more, and shouted, "Halt! Advance, and give the countersign!" A faint, childish voice said, "Ain't got none, massa.

66 'Well, there, now!” said the sentinel, “if it ain't just

a little darky, and I guess I've frightened him half to death. Come here, Snowball."

The child crept up, and said tremblingly, "'Deed, massa, I ain't got nuffin ter gib yer."

"Well, who asked you to give me any thing?

"Yer done ax me fer gib yer suffin jes' now; and I ain't got nuffin 'cep' my close what I got on.”

"Well, you needn't fret; I don't want 'em. — Corporal of the guard! Post two."

The corporal hastened to "post two," and found the sentinel with his hand on the shoulder of a little black boy, who, between fear, fatigue, and hunger, was unable to give any account of himself. "I'll take him to Capt. Leigh," the corporal said: "he's officer of the day. Maybe he'll be able to get something out of him.”

The captain stood in front of his tent, looking out into the night, when the corporal and his charge approached.

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Captain," said he, "here's a boy just come into the lines.' "Very well: you can leave him here."

At the first sound of the captain's voice, the boy drew nearer to him, as knowing instinctively that he had found a friend.

"You can go into that tent, and sleep till morning," said the captain.

"What is your name?" was Capt. Leigh's first question the next morning.

"Name Tobe."

"Is that all?"

"Dat's all, Mass Cap'n."

"How old are you?

"Dunno, Massa Cap'n. Nobody nebber done tole me dat ar.

"Where have you come from?"

"Come fum de back o' Richmon', Mass Cap'n."

"What did you come here for?"

"All de res' ob 'm runned away; an' ole mass he wor so mad, I wor jes' feared o' my life. 'Sides, I t'ought I mought fin' my mammy ef I got 'mong der Unions.” "Where is your mother?"

"Dunno, Mass Cap'n. Ole mass done sol' her down in Georgy las' corn-shuckin', an' I ain't nebber heerd ob her But I t'ought mebby she mought ha' runned 'way too, an' I'd fin' her wid der Unions."

sence.

"Well, now, what are you going to do?"

"Dunno, Mass Cap'n. I'd like ter stay 'long wid you." "What can you do?"

"Kin wait on yer, Mass Cap'n; kin shine up boots; an"" - brightening up as his eyes, wandering round, caught sight of the horses "kin clean de hosses right smart." "You are not big enough to take care of a horse."

"'Deed I is, Mass Cap'n; an' I ain't 'fraid o' no hoss. Ole mass allus sent me ter tend ter de hosses dat nobody else couldn't manage. Dey allus lets me handle 'em ef dey's ebber so debblesome. Jes' yer try me, Mass Cap'n, an' see ef I telled yer de troof."

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If I keep you with me you must be a good boy, and do as I tell you.'

“'Deed I will, Mass Cap'n. I'se do ebery work yer say, sho's yer born.”

So when the troops left Harrison's Landing, Tobe went too, in charge of the captain's horse and baggage; and, when the steamer was fairly under way, he brightened into a new creature as every revolution of the wheel placed a greater distance between himself and "ole massa. 99

"Massa Cap'n," he asked one day, "whar is we gwine at?"

“Either to Washington or Alexandria: I don't know exactly which."

"Will dar be one sto' up dar, cap'n?"

Yes, there are plenty of stores. What do you want from one?"

'Please, Mass Cap'n, please, jess"—and he stammered, and caught his breath, apparently overwhelmed with the magnitude of his desires.

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Well, out with it.

want?"

What wonderful thing do you

"Please, Mass Cap'n, jess buy me one banjo." "A banjo! What on earth do you want of that?” "Kin play de banjo right smart, an' dance too. Kin! Mass Cap'n, I plays fer yer all de time."

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There'd be rather too much of a good thing about that." "Is yer gwine to git it fer me?”

“I don't know. I'll see when we get there.”

Pay-day came. Everybody got fixed up; and Tobe fell heir to an old cavalry-uniform. It didn't fit, to be sure. The pantaloons came up to his shoulders, and were rolled up