They reach a spot where a mother stands,
With a baby, shaking its little hands,
Laughing aloud at the gallant sight

Of the mounted soldiers fresh from the fight.
The captain laughs out: "I will give you this,
A bright piece of gold, your baby to kiss.”

"My darling's kisses cannot be sold,
But gladly he'll kiss a soldier bold."
He lifts up the babe with a manly grace,
And covers with kisses its smiling face,
Its rosy cheeks and its dimpled charms,
And it crows with delight in the soldier's arms

"Not all for the captain," the troopers call;
"The baby, we know, has a kiss for all."
To each soldier's breast the baby is pressed

By the strong, rough men, and kissed and caressed,
And louder it laughs, and the lady's face
Wears a mother's smile at the fond embrace.

"Just such a kiss," cried one warrior grim,
"When I left my boy, I gave to him."
“And just such a kiss, on the parting day,
I gave to my girl, as asleep she lay.'

Such were the words of these soldiers brave,

And their eyes were moist when the kiss they gave.

G. R. EMERSON.

CONNOR.

To the memory of Patrick Connor, this simple stone was erected by his fellow workingmen.

HESE words you may read any day upon a white

THESE

slab in a cemetery not many miles from New York; but you might read them a hundred times without guessing at the little tragedy they indicate, without knowing the humble romance which ended with the placing of that stone above the dust of one poor, humble

man.

In his shabby frieze jacket and mud-laden brogans, he was scarcely an attractive object as he walked into Mr. Bawne's great tin and hardware shop one day, and presented himself at the counter with an

"I've been tould ye advertised for hands, yer honor." "Fully supplied, man," said Mr. Bawnc, not lifting his head from his account book.

“I'd work faithfully, sir, and take low wages, till I could do better, and I'd learn—I would that."

It was an Irish brogue, and Mr. Bawne always declared that he never would employ an incompetent hand.

Yet the tone attracted him. He turned briskly, and with his pen behind his ear, addressed the man, who was only one of fifty who had answered his advertisement for four workmen that morning :—

"What makes you expect to learn faster than other folks, are you any smarter?"

"I'll not say that; " said the man; "but I'd be wishing to; and that would make it aisier."

"Are you used to the work?

"I've done a bit of it."

"Much?"

"No, yer honor, I'll tell no lie. Tim O'Toole had'nt the like of this place; but I know a bit about tins.”

"You are too old for an apprentice, and you'd be in the way, I calculate," said Mr. Bawne, looking at the brawny arms and bright eyes that promised strength and intelligence. "Besides, I know your countrymen— lazy, good-for-nothing fellows, who never do their best. No, I've been taken in by Irish hands before, and I won't have another."

"The Virgin will have to be after bringing them over to me in her two arms, thin," said the man, despairingly, "for I've tramped all the day for the last fortnight, and niver a job can I get, and that's the last penny I have, yer honor, and it's but a half one."

As he spoke he spread his palm open, with an English half-penny in it.

"Bring whom over?" asked Mr. Bawne, arrested by the odd speech, as he turned upon his heel and turned back again.

"The wan's me wife, the other me child," said the man. O masther, just try me! How'll I bring 'em over to me, if no one will give me a job? I want to be airning, and the whole big city seems against it, and me with arms like them."

He bared his arms to the shoulder as he spoke, and Mr. Bawne looked at them, and then at his face.

'I'll hire you for a week," he said; "and now, as it's noon, go down to the kitchen and tell the girl to get you some dinner-a hungry man can't work."

With an Irish blessing the new hand obeyed, while Mr. Bawne, untying his apron, went up stairs to his own

meal. Suspicious as he was of the new hand's integrity and ability, he was agreeably disappointed. Connor worked hard, and actually learned fast. At the end of the week he was engaged permanently, and soon was the best workman in the shop.

He was a great talker, but not fond or drink or wasting money. As his wages grew, he hoarded every penny, and wore the same shabby clothes in which he had made his first

appearance.

"Beer costs money," he said, one day, "and ivery cint I spind puts off the bringing Nora and Jamesy over; and as for clothes, them I have must do me. Better no coat to my back than no wife and boy by my fireside; and anyhow, its slow work saving."

It was slow work, but he kept at it all the same. Other men, thoughtless and full of fun, tried to make him drink; made a jest of his saving habits, coaxed him to accompany them to places of amusement, or to share their Sunday frolics.

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All in vain. Connor liked beer, liked fun, liked companionship; but he would not delay that long-lookedfor bringing of Nora over, and was not mane enough" to accept favors of others. He kept his way, a martyr to his one great wish, living on little, working at night on any extra job that he could earn a few shillings by, running errands in his noontide hours of rest, and talking to any one who would listen to him of his one great hope, and of Nora and of little Jamesy.

At first the men who prided themselves on being all Americans, and on turning out the best work in the city, made a sort of butt of Connor, whose "wild Irish " ways and verdancy were indeed often laughable. But he won their hearts at last, and when, one day, mounting

a work-bench, he shook his little bundle, wrapped in a red kerchief, before their eyes, and shouted, "Look, boys; I've got the whole at last! I'm going to bring Nora and Jamesy over at last! Whorooo? I've got it!" all felt sympathy in his joy, and each grasped his great hand in cordial congratulations, and one proposed to treat all round and drink a good voyage to Nora.

They parted in a merry mood, most of the men going to comfortable homes. But poor Connor's resting-place was a poor lodging-house, where he shared a crazy garret with four other men, and in the joy of his heart the poor fellow exhibited his handkerchief, with his hardearned savings tied up in a wad in the middle, before he put it under his pillow and fell asleep.

When he awakened in the morning he found his treasure gone; some villain, more contemptible than most bad men, had robbed him.

At first Connor could not believe it lost. He searched every corner of the room, shook his quilt and blankets, and begged those about him to "quit joking, and give it back."

But at last he realized the truth

"Is any man that bad that its thaved from me?" he asked, in a breathless way.

bad?" And some one answered: nor, it's sthole."

Boys, is any man that

No doubt of it, Con

Then Connor put his head down on his hands and lifted up his voice and wept. It was one of those sights which men never forget. It seemed more than he could bear, to have Nora and his child "put," as he expressed it, "months away from him again."

But when he went to work that day it seemed to all who saw him that he had picked up a new determina