It was done, and she raised her head with a laugh of pleasure to her mother's quivering face; and it was sad to see it so shorn; but it was a noble act which must surely bring its own reward; and already as she arose from her voluntary sacrifice, she was like some holy nun; and what she had lost of earth she had gained of heaven.

With hearts refreshed by these mutual deeds of generous love, our mother and child prepared immediately to depart. First kneeling together in the little old chamber, which none like them should ever more inhabit, they asked God's blessing on their wandering way.

As they knelt, the sun was in its meridian in the sky, and the trial of their faith and patience was at its highest measure in their souls.

It would decline now. It would never be so hard to bear again. And they went, peacefully, bearing in their hands their only earthly possessions, the Bible and the little carpet-bag; and quickly paying their rent below with Ruby's treasure, they sought once more the street; the street where Ruby always trembled so; but her mother walked serenely beside her.

'What shall we do? Where shall we go, mother?'

'I do not know my child; but GOD will lead us. I do not fear.' And they go on.

And so GOD does lead them; but He leads them to our hearts. And as they come, and they do come, and the question rises, 'What shall they do? where shall they go?' how dare we answer that God leads them,' and let them go on!

E. K. B.

THE LILA C-TREE.

IN the songful days of June,
When the birds are all a-tune,

And the honey-feast is coming for the humming-bird and bee,
Of all the trees that grow,

And with blossoms that do blow,

The sweetest and the saddest is the lilac-tree.

For, though purple is the bloom

That its crisping buds assume,

Like the tint on far-off mountains beyond the pleasant sea,
Yet the freshness but deceives,

And amid the shady leaves

There is ever a dead blossom on the lilac-tree.

And so it is with all,

That in things both great and small

Of our life a distant gleaming in our dreaming we may see;
For when the heart is gladdest,

Oh! there's something in it saddest,

Like the blossom and the blight upon the lilac-tree.

A FEW years since, his Imperial Majesty, Brother to the Sun' and Emperor of all the Celestials, in the plenitude of his wisdom, saw fit to recall a governor from one of the southern provinces, and after the promulgation of a decree authorizing him to wear an additional peacock-feather in his cap as a reward for signal services, consigned him to private life, and appointed a successor. The new official was one of those eager reformers who desire to innovate some existing custom, and thus procure immortality for their names. He looked about for an appropriate field of action. The veteran pig-tail, the shaven poll, the uncut finger-nails, the golden

lilies with none of these he dared interfere, lest he should confound the true faith with that of the fankweis. At length, with the aid of his private secretary, he concocted a proclamation, well calculated to excite commotion among the celestials. It had only its mathematical character to redeem it. The substance of the general missive was, that the people of the province should refrain in future from putting female infants to death, as, prospectively, this practice would amount to the virtual destruction of human beings. In due time, after learned mandarins had worried their brains unsuccessfully to correct the rash innovator, a complaint was forwarded to Pekin, and the obnoxious governor was recalled.

Diligent investigation, we are convinced, will eventually produce a change in popular sentiment; and the profound idea of the shaven celestial must inevitably prevail in the world. The early traditions of mankind, especially of the Caucasian branch, decidedly lean toward the opinions which he, injudiciously anticipating the progress of civilization, sought to disseminate. Indeed, we think a mandarin would be horrified at some of the pictures which ancient mythology presents, as, for instance, Athenè, a goddess armed, and Artemis with her bow and hunting gear. Plato would astound him with the assurance that women used to participate in military exploits, and the axiom that all animated beings, females as well as males, have a natural ability to pursue in common every suitable virtue.' With the ancient Egyptians also, he would be surprised to learn that women were permitted to attend and deliver lectures upon Philosophy, to participate in husbandry and mechanical employments, and to take part in political affairs.

It is, indeed, difficult to define what views were most generally entertained respecting the feminine sphere. Women, varium et mutabile semper, exercised religious offices as the ministers at temples, interpreters of the oracles, and as prophetesses among the Hebrews. Deborah, the prophetess, for forty years 'judged Israel,' and went with the armies; Huldah was a king's counsellor; and in the times of the New Testament, the daughters of the evangelist Philip did prophesy;' Phebe was diakonos, or minister of the church at Cenchrea, and Priscilla' taught the way of God.' The Germans, acknowledging a quid divinum, or godlike element in women, submitted to their counsels, and yielded to their assumption of vaticinatory power and of the art of healing. In short, they possessed importance in those 'good old times. They even sat on thrones; and we presume that if they had consented to bear the mace, or to exercise police functions, many an Alcibiades would have accepted their escort to the watch-house or the prison.

Even in the Middle Ages, when refinement and civilization struggled a thousand years to conquer Gothic barbarism, there existed women capable of asserting the ancient prerogative. Victoria Colonna, Veronica Gambara, Mary Aquazis, Jane d'Albret,

and the fair professors in the schools of Aleala and Salamanca, were eminent examples of intellectual greatness. But the progress of the age has annihilated their arts, and their memories almost; and as buffoon masquerades are left to commemorate ancient festivals, so the learned women of former times are now represented by the humble school-mistress.

Science alone, however, has not ceased to confer its distinctions upon notable women. There are 'Lost Arts' which need a chronicler to preserve them from oblivion. We do not refer to the arts spontaneous with the sex, the variable coquetries and other guises that they assume, but those old and venerable institutions formerly assigned to women, and symbolized by three implements, the needle, the distaff, and the loom. A generation only has to pass, and these will be almost, if not utterly, forgotten. Yet, in the ancient days, the ages which chroniclers but feebly reach, in the ages which mythology has veiled with her thick curtains, skill in handling those three instruments was made the glory of a woman. Royal hands presided at the distaff. When Hercules bore off Iolé and slew her brother, the oracle at Delphi commanded that he should be sold as a slave, and he thus became the property of Omphalé, the Lydian queen. Taking to herself his leonine robe and club, she made him put on female apparel and spin with her maid-servants, playfully beating him with her slipper because he held the distaff awkwardly. Sardanapalus followed this example, and disgusted his people, who rebelled and overthrew the empire. The raiment of the Macedonian Alexander was spun and wrought by his mother; and that of Augustus by his sisters.

The three dread sisters born of Olympic Zeus and Titanian Themis, divided their task of fixing human destiny. Clotho was the spinster who held the distaff and formed the thread; Lachesis reeled it off and allotted to each mortal his portion; and Atropos severed at the appointed place.

In the thirty-first of Proverbs, the mother of King Lemuel eulogizes a virtuous woman, or as we would express it, a woman of capacity, ascribing to her an industry which would startle the maids and matrons of our time. She seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands. She riseth while it is yet night-her candle goeth not out by night. She layeth her hand to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff. To this implement a fascicle of flax or wool was attached, which being drawn carefully off by the hand, was, by aid of the spindle, converted into yarn or thread.

The addition of the wheel rendered the spinning process more easy and perfect. When human skill had advanced thus far, it would seem, in this particular, to have remained stationary for centuries. Our own memory goes back to the time when the flaxspinning-wheel was considered as a part of the bride's trousseau;

THIS term being the feminine of spinner, was of old applied to young women in that capacity. The custom of requiring every maid to spin the linen for her trousseau eventuated in making spinster the designation of an unmarried woman.

when each maid and matron labored in this department of industry; and a mother and sister, with fingers well moistened, drew down

the fibres of hackled flax from the distaff, and propelling the wheel by the pressing of the foot upon the treadle,' wrought them into thread.

In those times, the swains, copying the example perhaps of Hercules, made visits not unfrequent to the farm-house, to woo the spinning-maids. Never did the fates spin more assiduously the weal of human destiny than on such occasions, when the blushing damsels wrought away with redoubled energy, propelling convulsively the little wheel with their tiny, or rather not so tiny feet, listening with attentive ears to the tales and pleasing speeches uttered so significantly in a soft, cooing tone, not always unattended by nudges and pinches, which, though not exactly in good taste, were very significant and perfectly understood. The