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Lady T. And I was a fool to marry you, an old dangling bachelor, who was single at fifty, only because no one would have him.

Sir P. You were pleased enough to listen to me. You never had such an offer before.

Lady T. No! didn't I refuse Sir Tivy Terrier, who every body said would have been a better match? for his estate is just as good as yours, and he has broke his neck since we have been married. Sir P. I have done with you, madam! You are an unfeeling, ungrateful-but there's an end of every thing. A separate maintenance as soon as you please. Yes, madam, or a divorce! I'll make an example of myself for the benefit of all old bachelors. Lady T. Agreed! agreed! And now, my dear Sir Peter, we are of a mind once more, we may be the happiest couple in the world-and never differ again, you know-ha! ha! ha! Well, you are going to be in a passion, I see, and I shall only interrupt you; so bye-bye. (Exit Lady T)

Sir P. Plagues and tortures! I am the most miserable fellow! keep her temper; no! she may break my heart, but she shan't keep

Can't I make her angry either! O,
But I'll not bear her presuming to

her temper.

Liberty and Independence.
JULY 4, 1776.

There was tumult in the city,

In the quaint old Quaker town,
And the streets were rife with people
Pacing restless up and down;

People gathering at corners,

Where they whispered each to each,
And the sweat stood on their temples,
With the earnestness of speech.

As the bleak Atlantic currents

Lash the wild Newfoundland shore,
So they beat against the State House,
So they surged against the door;

Sheridan.

And the mingling of their voices
Made a harmony profound,
Till the quiet street of Chestnut
Was all turbulent with sound.

"Will they do it?" "Dare they do it?"

"Who is speaking?" "What's the news?" "What of Adams?" "What of Sherman?" "Oh! God grant they won't refuse;

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"Make some way there!" "Let me nearer!" "I am stifling!" "Stifle, then! When a nation's life's at hazard,

We've no time to think of men."

men.
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So they beat against the portal,

Man and woman, maid and child;

And the July sun in heaven

On the scene looked down and smiled.

The same sun that saw the Spartan

Shed his patriot blood in vain,
Now beheld the soul of freedom,
All unconquered rise again.

See! see! the dense crowd quivers
Through all its lengthy line,
As the boy beside the portal
Looks forth to give the sign;
With his little hands uplifted,
Breezes dallying with his hair,
Hark! with deep, clear intonation
Breaks his young voice on the air.

Hushed the people's swelling murmur,
List the boy's exulting cry!
"Ring!" he shouts, "ring! grandpa,
Ring! oh, ring for LIBERTY !"
Quickly at the given signal

The old bellman lifts his hand,
Forth he sends the good news, making
Iron music through the land.

How they shouted! what rejoicing!

How the old bell shook the air,
Till the clang of freedom ruffled

The calmly gliding Delaware.
How the bonfires and the torches
Lighted up the night's repose,
And from flames, like fabled Phoenix,
Our glorious liberty arose.

That old State House bell is silent,

Hushed is now its clamorous tongue;
But the spirit it awakened

Still is living-ever young;

And when we greet the smiling sunlight,
On the fourth of each July,

We will ne'er forget the bellman,
Who, betwixt the earth and sky,
Rang out loudly "INDEPENDENCE,"
Which, please God, shall never die.

Mary Maloney's Philosophy.

"What are you singing for?" said I to Mary Maloney.

"

Oh, I don't know, ma'am, without it's because my heart feels happy."

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Happy, are you, Mary Maloney? Let me see; you don't own a foot of land in the world?"

"Foot of land, is it?" she cried, with a hearty Irish laugh; “oh, what a hand ye be after joking; why, I haven't a penny, let alone the land."

"Your mother is dead!"

"God rest her soul, yes," replied Mary Maloney, with a touch of genuine pathos; "may the angels make her bed in heaven."

"Your brother is still a hard case, I suppose."

“Ah, you may well say that. It's nothing but drink, drink, drink, and beating his poor wife, that she is, the creature"

"You have to pay your little sister's board."

"Sure, the bit creature, and she's a good little girl, is Hinny, willing to do whatever I axes her. I don't grudge the money what goes for that."

"You haven't many fashionable dresses either, Mary Maloney."

"Fashionable, is it? Oh, yes, I put a piece of whalebone in my skirt, and me calico gown looks as big as the great ladies'. But then ye says true, I hasn't but two gowns to me back, two shoes to me feet, and one bonnet to me head, barring the old hood ye gave me."

"You haven't any lover, Mary Maloney."

"Oh, be off wid ye-ketch Mary Maloney getting a lover these days, when the hard times is come. No, no, thank Heaven I haven't got that to trouble me yet, nor I don't want it."

"What on earth, then, have you got to make you happy? A drunken brother, a poor helpless sister, no mother, no father, no lover; why, where do you get all your happiness from ?"

"The Lord be praised, Miss, it growed up in me. Give me a bit of sunshine, a clean flure, plenty of work, and a sup at the right time, and I'm made. That makes me laugh and sing, and then if deep trouble comes, why, God helpin' me, I'll try to keep my heart up. Sure, it would be a sad thing if Patrick McGrue should take it into his head to come an ax me, but, the Lord willin', I'd try to bear up under it."

Philadelphia Bulletin.

The Ballad of Babie Bell.
Ι

Have you not heard the poets tell
How came the dainty Babie Bell
Into this world of ours?

The gates of heaven were left ajar:
With folded hands and dreamy eyes,
Wandering out of Paradise,

She saw this planet, like a star,

Hung in the glittering depths of even,

Its bridges, running to and fro,

O'er which the white-winged angels go,
Bearing the holy dead to heaven!

She touched a bridge of flowers, those feet,
So light they did not bend the bells

Of the celestial asphodels!

They fell like dew upon the flowers,

Then all the air grew strangely sweet; And thus came dainty Babie Bell

Into this world of ours.

II.

She came and brought delicious May, The swallows built beneath the eaves;

Like sunlight in and out the leaves,
The robins went, the livelong day;
The lily swung its noiseless bell,

And o'er the porch the trembling vine
Seemed bursting with its veins of wine;

How sweetly, softly, twilight fell!
Oh, earth was full of singing birds,

And opening spring-tide flowers,

When the dainty Babie Bell

Came to this world of ours!

III.

O Babie, dainty Babie Bell,
How fair she grew from day to day!
What woman-nature filled her eyes,
What poetry within them lay!
Those deep and tender twilight eyes,
So full of meaning, pure and bright,
As if she yet stood in the light
Of those opened gates of paradise!
And so we loved her more and more;
Ah, never in our hearts before

Was love so lovely born;
We felt we had a link between

This real world and that unseen,

The land beyond the morn"

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