J. R. GROVE & J. B. ODER, VOLUME I. Two Lives. BY OBOROF. W. BEARS. They sat with their small white feet in the brook. Two country maidens, of beauty rare. Kate, with her bright cspieitie look, And blue-eyed Blanche with her Bolden hair. The air was fragrant with new-mown hay. The wild bee wrought with a drowsy hum ! And they chatted the dreamy hours away With girlish plans for the year to come. And she with the eyes of n sparkling jot Would be content as a farmer’s wile. To shun the follies that wear and fret, For the quiet pleasures of country life. Then Blanche, with her laughing eyes of blue. Shook down a river of sunny hair That rippled and flowed in the golden hue O'er bosom and neck, and shoulder bare. " And I,” she said, " will live in the town. With lackeys to go or to come at oall; And I should bo proud if men might crown Me queen ofbeanty at rout or ball. " My husband shall be a millionaire.” Ah. poorly you guess the future life : On you, with your beauty ripe and rare, Shall fall the lot of a armor’s wife And red lipped Kate, with her midnight curls, Shall win the riches for which you pine. Her brow shall glisten with gems and poarls. Her table with plato and costly wine. But she shall long for the new mown hay. And the gttshy shadowson upland leas. And sicken and tire of her splendid way, And sigh for the brooks, and birds, and bees. And you will sneer at your narrow lot. Anu woary and tire of your household cares. And each shall covet what each has not. And pine for the burden the other wears. Oh 1 city dame, and oh I farmer’s wife— Each from the other too long estranged ; Ye were two jewels of love and life. If but the settling were turned and changed. MY OLD UMBRELLA. I always prided myself upon the nut tinesa of my appearance before I was married ; and if there was one particu lar thing which I liked to have stylish, it was my umbrella. The best silk and the finest frames were hardly good enough, and my umbrella was generally about as slim and nicely shaped as a cane : so much so that Brown used to ohalf me continually about its appear ance, anil say it was a bachelor's um brella—his being almost the size of Mrs. (■lamp’s. It was three years ago this month, and the weather was evidently in a very sorrowful mood, for it just poured all day long, something like cats and dogs which auntie always uses as a simile when it rains very hard. I had to leave the office a number of times during the day, and about 2 o'clock went to the bank to get a check cashed, and of •ourse my umbrella, not this one, was u constant use. There were some dozen persons waiting on a line, at the counter, and I had to wait also. Wait ing there in a damp room wasn’t very agreeable; but I just hung my um brella on the edge of the counter un til 1 had doiu, and just there 1 lost it, for 1 got the cash I had forgotten the umbrella, and left the bank with cut it. When I reached the street 1 missed and back 1 posted, but it was gone— v lore, by whom taken or how I never loiind out, but hanging on the counter instead was an old dilapidated looking thing, made of blue cotton. It was enough to make me shower left-handed blessings on the party who had made the exehango ; but here, by the way, I might just as well observe that it was really a hlossing to me, only in dis guise. As the rain poured in torrents, I just made tile best of the matter, and stalked into the street as apparently unconcerned as possible, me, the natty Thornton, as m, chums called me, perambulating those streets where my said friends most do congregate, and under a big cotton umbrella, large enough to shelter a whole family ol seven. Brown met me first. “ Ah 1” said he, “got a family now— congruulate you, my boy I’’ Am from him to the office, each and j' every friend I had seemed to be in t>- btret-i JHng 1 „,y appearance n ,: tli i st or a laugh. Confound it ! I 'most mud enough to smas.i the ol> 0 to pieces; but 1 didn’t, for it ruined too hard for any such foolish ness. Several times during that afternoon I vainly endeavored to borrow or steal another one : hut it was of no use ; and for home I started with it, getting into *lie same omnibus as Brown, who at once commenced at me with, “ I say, old fellow, when did it take plaee ?’’ Thinking innocence might extricate me from this confounded chaffing, I asked, “ What take place?” “ Why, your becoming a married Benedict.” “ Well, you are mistaken, for I still remain my own master and am not compelled to be at home every night at ten, or else suffer the discordant din of a scolding partner.” Ibis was intended for him, but he shook it off easily, and gnvo it back with a vengeance. “ Yes, but being as you are, you are mightily put out about carrying an um brella more serviceable than ornamen tal; whereas, I, being married, satisfy myself with what I have. To be a philosopher you must get married, and who knows but what that same umbrella may come into service then?” 1 escaped from him then, as I had reached the street I wunted to get out at; and, leaving the omnibus, I ele vated the umbrella to protect mo from the pouring rain. At the corner, under a shop awning, stood two lovely damsels, evidently waiting for the rain to cease, for they were without um brellas. Over-sensitive in regard to my appear ance, 1 could not help noticing the Utter as they regarded me. And, to tell the truth, there was somewhat of a ® KW d!° T‘‘ at ’ Imagine a fasli jonably-dressed young man, rather good lookmg’ dectdedly genteel,’and over his bead an enormous old cotton umbrella, *nd you 11 see me as those girls saw me then. ° sSSfIESSIS “Spdies, my s*,you are wlth ° ut one, can I offer you my services as tarns I V,, revolving that if they went f memy umbrella than *feiTeXd : ng “Th^ bigger.” Somebody once asked Tom Corwin if he had heard a certain story of Lewis D. Campbell’s. “Was it about himself?” inquired Mr. Corwin. “ No, I believe not.” “ Well, then, 1 never heard it,” said Mr. Corwin, gravely. A correspondent asks, and then an swers, the following riddle: What is the difference between the passion for chignons and a storm at sea? One is a raging main, and the other a raging mania. On hearing the report that the shock ing condition of the firemen’s hose had resulted in the destruction of a large amount of property, a woman sat up all night darning her husband’s stock ings. More revenge for tho Union —ISaxon tourist (at Irish railway station): “What time does the half-past eleven train start, Paddy ?” Porter: “At thurtty minutes to twelve—sliarrup, sir I” Harry—“ Your dawg is werry thin, William.” William—” He is werry bad ; but when he dies I am going to stuff him, Harry.” Harry (insinuating ly)_“ Hadn’t you better stuff him be fore he dies?” The rite of baptism being about to bo administered to several infants, a con fused clergyman requested, with great solemnity, that “ All children having parents whom they wish to be baptized, will please to present them before the altar.” A Scotch minister recently told his neighbor that he spoke two hours and a half the Sunday previous. “ Why, were you not tired to death ?” asked the neighbor. “ Aw, nae,” said he ; “ I was as fresh as a rose; “but it would have done your heart good to see how tired the congregation was.” A lady, impelled by the demands ot fashion to seek recreation (?) in the country during the summer monthß, writes back despairingly : “ Did you ever revel in the gaities of a half-grown, torpid village, where a walk to the grave-yard was the only recreation, and where, if you indignantly refuse to walk, you were shudderingiy reminded, ‘ Ah, poor child, you may have to go there soon ?’ ” Railway Accidents. A careful investigation recently made, shows that in England the systematic overworking of railway employes is a fruitful sources of accident. The gen tleman making the investigation has found cases in which engine-drivers have been kept at work for twenty-three, twenty-four, and sometimes for twenty eight hours, without intermission; guards (conductors) have served con tinuously for forty hours ; and signal men are required to remain at their posts for twelve or thirteen hours every day, gaining an occasional Sunday of rest only by woiking eighteen, hours on the Saturday preceding. Now that the subject of railway accident* is likely to receive some attention at the hands of our law givers, would it not be well, to make some inquiries into the require ments of our railway companies in this matter.