The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 | Page 9

moment found himself on his knees at her feet.
"Mary," cried he, "you are my only reality. The others are empty and soulless, but you have a heart. They are the children of a conceited brain and visionary experience; you, only, have I drawn simply and unaffectedly, as you actually existed. Except for you, whom I slighted and despised, my whole romance had been an unmitigated falsehood. To you I owe my preservation from worse than folly, and my initiation into true wisdom. Mary--dear Mary, in return I have but one thing to offer you--my heart! Can you--will you not love me?"--
To his intense surprise, Mary, instead of evincing a becoming sense of her romantic situation, burst forth into a merry peal of laughter, and, catching him by one shoulder, gave him a hearty shake.
"La sakes! Mr. Author, do wake up! did ever anybody hear such a man!"
There was his room, his fire, his chair, his table, and his closely-written manuscript lying quietly upon it. There was he himself on his knees on the carpet, and--there was Mary the house-maid, one hand holding the brimming tea-pot, the other held by the author against his lips, and laughing and blushing in a tumult of surprise, amusement and, perhaps, something better than either.
"Did I say I loved you, Mary?" enquired the author, in a state of bewilderment. "Never mind! I say now that I love you with all my heart and soul, and ten times as much when awake, as when I was dreaming! Will you marry me?"
Mary only blushed rosier then ever. But she and the author always thereafter took their tea cosily together.
As for the romance, the author took it and threw it into the fire, which roared a genial acknowledgment, and in five minutes had made itself thoroughly acquainted with every page. There remained a bunch of black flakes, and in the center one soft glowing spark, which lingered a long while ere finally taking its flight up the chimney. It was the description of the little country girl.
"The next book I write shall be all about you," the author used to say to his wife, in after years, as they sat together before the fire-place, and watched the bright blaze roar up the chimney.
--_Julian Hawthorne._

_A FROSTY DAY._
Grass afield wears silver thatch, Palings all are edged with rime, Frost-flowers pattern round the latch, Cloud nor breeze dissolve the clime;
When the waves are solid floor, And the clods are iron-bound, And the boughs are crystall'd hoar, And the red leaf nail'd aground.
When the fieldfare's flight is slow, And a rosy vapor rim, Now the sun is small and low, Belts along the region dim.
When the ice-crack flies and flaws, Shore to shore, with thunder shock, Deeper than the evening daws, Clearer than the village clock.
When the rusty blackbird strips, Bunch by bunch, the coral thorn, And the pale day-crescent dips, New to heaven a slender horn.
--_John Leicester Warren._
* * * * *
Those who come last seem to enter with advantage. They are born to the wealth of antiquity. The materials for judging are prepared, and the foundations of knowledge are laid to their hands. Besides, if the point was tried by antiquity, antiquity would lose it; for the present age is really the oldest, and has the largest experience to plead.--Jeremy Collier.
[Illustration: COMING OUT OF SCHOOL.--VAUTIER.]

_COMING OUT OF SCHOOL._
If there be any happier event in the life of a child than coming out of school, few children are wise enough to discover it. We do not refer to children who go to school unwillingly--thoughtless wights--whose heads are full of play, and whose hands are prone to mischief:--that these should delight in escaping the restraints of the school-room, and the eye of its watchful master, is a matter of course. We refer to children generally, the good and the bad, the studious and the idle, in short, to all who belong to the genus Boy. Perhaps we should include the genus Girl, also, but of that we are not certain; for, not to dwell upon the fact that we have never been a girl, and are, therefore, unable to enter into the feelings of girlhood, we hold that girls are better than boys, as women are better than men, and that, consequently, they take more kindly to school life. What boys are we know, unless the breed has changed very much since we were young, which is now upwards of--but our age does not concern the reader. We did not take kindly to school, although we were sadly in need of what we could only obtain in school, viz., learning. We went to school with reluctance, and remained with discomfort; for we were not as robust as the children of our neighbors. We hated school. We did not dare to play truant,