jest went at it rale hearty and boy-like, 's if he enjoyed it; and the Juke, he couldn't help a smilin' too.

I was a-goin' then, but I jest thought I'd stop a minnit more, and ask the Prince about the ball. 'So," sez I, "I s'pose you had a proper good time last night to the ball; and, before I go, I should jest like to inquire if you danced with my niece's daughter Georgyanny Wetherell. I told her mother that Georgy looked as handsome as Cinderilly, when her godmother come and took her to the Prince's ball, in the chariot made out of a punkin, and the mice for hosses; and I'd bet ennything she'd dance with the Prince, too!" "I danced with several very handsome young ladies," sez Albert Ed'ard, "and should a been glad to a-danced with more; but, to please the Governor and the Mare, and some other public dignitaries, I had to dance once in a while with the merried ones. I seem to disremember about your grandniece, ma'am." "Oh," sez I, “you'll be shore to remember her by the gown she had on! It was of rale satin, and the skirt was all ruffled and furbelowed off with gold fixin's, and she wore a lace juniper over it; her mother called it so, but I should say 'twas a petticoat." "Wall," sez the Prince, "I dare say I did. dance with the young lady, fur there were several with junipers on; but I've kinder got 'em confused. I danced seventeen times in all, ma'am, and didn't git home till five o'clock this mornin'-that accounts fur my bein' so late to breakfast." Oh, don't say a word," sez I. "Georgyanny, she wa'n't up when I come out; young folks will be young folks, and you'll hev to do up a lot of sleepin bymeby, to pay for being kept up so late of nights. I stole off airly, to ketch ye before they begun to tote ye round to-day. You must get orful tired,

Albert Ed'ard?" "Oh, la, I don't mind it," sez he, "young hearts, light heels.' Enny time, I could

'Dance all night till broad daylight,

And go home with the Juke in the mornin'!'

He gits kinder tuckered out, but I feel fust rate next day."

"Wall," sez I, a-gettin' up for good then, "I must be a-goin' now, and giv you a chance ter read your letters! I'm proper glad I come down to see you, and much obleeged for your politenance, I'm shore; and if you only had time to stop and come up to our place in Bosc'wine-close by to Concord, the capital of the State I'd try to show you that New Ham'shire farmin' folks know how to treat people that's been perlite to 'em. I ain't a mite sorry I come down to Bostin, for I've seen the old pensioner and the young Prince. La! who'd a-thought when our merlishy was a-fi'tin' the British reg'lars over to Bunker Hill, eighty year ago and up'ards, that the posterity of old King George and the last end of the revolutioners should a-had a good social set down together, as I hear you'n he did yisterday? We read in the Scriptur, how the time shall come when the lion and the lamb shall lay down together; but Mister Wetherell, Ruthy Ann's husband, sez this is the lion and the unicorn and the 'Merican eagle all bein' in the same cage ter once. Ennyhow, I'm proper thankful you've come over to see us, Albert Ed'ard; and I hope you'll come ag'in an' stay longer, and yer marm'll come too! Here's a rale nice Bald'n apple I happen to hev in my pocket-it come from the old place up ter Bosc' wine, growed in the corner orchard, and mebbe you'll kerry it home to yer ma'am with my respecks, Miss Sophrony Ward, Bosc'winc, New

"I'm much

Ham'shire?" and I gin it rite inter his hand. obleeged to you, I'm shore, ma'am !" sez Albert Ed'ard, and he made a proper perlite bow and laid the Bald'n on the silver waiter 'long of the letters; "and if you'll wear this ring, p'r'aps it'll sarve as a remembrancer of the Prince of Wales when he is in his own country ag'in." An' if you'll believe it, Miss Pettengill, he up and took a beautiful ring rite off of his own finger and gin it to me. I'll git it and show it to you; I keep it in a little box, on cotton wool, in my upper drawer. There! ain't it a rale beauty? La, you'd orter seen how supprised they ware to Ruthy Ann's when I showed it to 'em arter I got hum! They sed they wouldn't a-believed I'd had a talk with the Prince if 'twa'nt fur that evvydence; and it turned out arter all, that Georgyanny hadn't danced with Albert Ed'ard, only touched his hand in the same set; and her father he sed her old Aunt Sophrony'd got ahead of her time, complete.

Wall, I thanked the Prince as well as I knowed how, and made a low curchy, and told him I was shore I wished the Bald'n apple was a berrill on 'em inste'd of one, to kerry home to Victory, and then I bid him good-by and come away. The Juke and the rest, they all bowed rale perlite when I was a-comin' out, for they'd seen what a good talk Albert Ed'ard and I'd had together. You never see a man so clever as that perlice ossifer was when I passed by him in the entry. He was rale likely lookin', I ken tell you, Miss Pettengill, and handsome enough to be a Juke or a Lord hisself, "Taint all the good looks that is gi'n to "Lords, Dukes, and Earls, and folks of high renown," as the old song used to say; and black whiskers are 'nuff site handsomer'n red ones, enny day, to my mind.

But, Miss Pettengill, I guess them apple dumplin's'll be done to a charm!-and arter dinner I'll set down and tell you the rest; though I must say, Miss Pettengill, amongst all the great sights I see down in Bostin, the best and greatest was my visit to see the Prince! MARY W. JANVIRN.

WELL,

SELLING THE FARM.

ELL, why don't you say it, husband? I know
what you want to say;

You want to talk about selling the farm, for the mort-
gage we cannot pay.

I know that we cannot pay it; I have thought of it o'er

and o'er;

For the wheat has failed on the corner lot, where wheat never failed before.

And everything here's gone backward since Willie went off to sea

To pay the mortgage and save the farm, the homestead, for you and me.

I know it was best to give it; it was right that the debts be paid

The debts that our thoughtless Willie, in the hours of his weakness, made;

And Will would have paid it fairly, you know it as well as I,

If the ship had not gone down that night, when no other ship was nigh.

But, somehow, I didn't quit hoping, and ever I've tried to pray

1

(But I know if our Will was alive on earth, he'd surely been here to-day).

I thought that the merciful Father would somehow care for the lad,

Because he was trying to better the past, and because he was all we had.

But now I am well-nigh hopeless, since the hope for my boy has fled,

For selling the farm means giving him up, and knowing for sure he's dead.

O Thomas! how can we leave it, the home we have always known?

We won it away

our own.

from the forest, and made it so much

First day we kept house together was the day that you brought me here;

And no other place in the wide, wide world will ever be half so dear.

Of course you remember it, Thomas-I need not ask you, I know,

For this is the month, and this is the day-it was twenty-six years ago.

And don't you remember it, Thomas, the winter the barn was made,

How we were so proud and happy, for all our debts were

paid?

The crops were good that summer, and everything worked like a charm,

And we felt so rich and contented, to think we had paid for the farm.

And now to think we must leave it, when here I was hoping to die;