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Then was triumph at Turin: "Ancona was free!"

And some one came out of the cheers in the street,

On which, without pause, up the telegraph-
line

Swept smoothly the next news from Gaeta:
Shot!

With a face pale as stone, to say something Tell his mother. Ah, ah! "his," "their"

to me.

My Guido was dead! I fell down at his

feet,

While they cheered in the street.

mother-not "mine"!

No voice says "My mother" again to me.
What?

You think Guido forgot?

I bore it; friends soothed me; my grief Are souls straight so happy that, dizzy with

looked sublime

As the ransom of Italy. One boy remained

heaven,

They drop earth's affections, conceive not of woe?

To be leant on and walked with, recalling I think not. the time

When the first grew immortal, while both of us strained

To the height he had gained.

And letters still came, shorter, sadder, more strong,

Writ now but in one hand, "I was not to faint

forgiven

Themselves were too lately

Through that Love and Sorrow which reconciled so

The Above and Below.

O Christ of the seven wounds, who lookedst through the dark

To the face of thy mother! consider, I pray,

One loved me for two-would be with me How we common mothers stand desolate,

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Ah, ah, ah! when Gaeta's taken, what then? | Dead! One of them shot, by the sea in the When the fair wicked queen sits no more

at her sport

Of the fire-balls of death crashing souls out of men?

When the guns of Cavalli with final re

tort

Have cut the game short?

When Venice and Rome keep their new jubilee,

When your flag takes all heaven for its white, green and red,

When you have your country from mountain

to sea,

When King Victor has Italy's crown on his

head

(And I have my Dead)

What then? Do not mock me. Ah, ring

your bells low,

east,

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And burn your lights faintly! My country Fear ye foes who kill for hire?

is there,

Above the star pricked by the last peak of

snow:

My Italy's there, with my brave civic
Pair,

To disfranchise despair!

Will ye to your homes retire?
Look behind you! They're afire;

And, before you, see

Who have done it! From the vale
On they come; and will ye quail?
Leaden rain and leaden hail
Let their welcome be.

Forgive me.
Some women bear children in In the God of battles trust!
strength,
Die we may, and die we must;
And bite back the cry of their pain in But oh where can dust to dust

self-scorn;

But the birth-pangs of nations will wring us

at length

Be consigned so well

As where Heaven its dews shall shed
On the martyred patriot's bed,

Into wail such as this-and we sit on for- And the rocks shall raise their head

lorn

When the man-child is born.

Of his deeds to tell?

JOHN PIERPONT.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF GABRIEL

[graphic]

BETTEREDGE.

AM not superstitious. I have | ing, as you shall presently see. I went into the service of the old lord, their father (he had the longest tongue and the shortest temper of any man, high or low, I ever met with)

read a heap of books in my time; I am a scholar in my own way. Though turned seventy, I possess an active memory, and legs to correspond. You are not to take it, if you please, as the saying of an ignorant man when I express my opinion that such a book as Robinson Crusoe never was written, and never will be written again. I have tried that book for years-generally in combination with a pipe of tobacco-and I have found it my friend in need in all the necessities of this mortal life. When my spirits are bad, Robinson Crusoe; when I want advice, Robinson Crusoe; in past times when my wife plagued me, in present times when I have had a drop too much, Robinson Crusoe. I have worn out six stout Robinson Crusoes with hard work in my service. On my lady's my lady's last birthday she gave me a seventh. I took a drop too much on the strength of it, and Robinson Crusoe put me right again. Price four shillings and sixpence, bound in blue, with a picture into the bargain.

I say I went into the service of the old lord as page-boy-in-waiting on the three honorable young ladies at the age of fifteen years. There I lived till Miss Julia married the late Sir John Verinder-an excellent man who only wanted somebody to manage him. And, between ourselves, he found somebody to do it; and, what is more, he throve on it, and grew fat on it, and lived happy and died easy on it, dating from the day when my lady took him to church to be married to the day when she relieved him of his last breath and closed his eyes for ever.

I have omitted to state that I went with the bride to the bride's husband's house and lands down here. "Sir John," she said, "I can't do without Gabriel Betteredge." "My lady," says Sir John, "I can't do without him, either." That was his way with her, and that was how I went into his service. It was all one to me where I went, so long as my mistress and I were together.

Seeing that my lady took an interest in the out-of-door work and the farms, and such like, I took an interest in them too-with all the more reason that I was a small farmer's seventh son myself. My lady got me put under the bailiff and I did my best, and gave satisfaction, and got promotion accord

I spoke of my lady a line or two back. If you know anything of the fashionable world, you have heard tell of the three beautiful Miss Herncastles-Miss Adelaide, Miss Caroline and Miss Julia, this last being the youngest, and the best of the three sisters in my opinion; and I had opportunities of judg-ingly.

Some years later on the Monday, as it to give me her services for nothing. That was might be my lady says, the point of view I looked at it from-economy, with a dash of love. I put it to my mistress, as in duty bound, just as I have put it to myself.

"Sir John, your bailiff is a stupid old man. Pension him liberally, and let Gabriel Betteredge have his place."

On the Tuesday, as it might be, Sir John

says,

"My lady, the bailiff is pensioned liberally, and Gabriel Betteredge has got his place." You hear more than enough of married people living together miserably; here is an example to the contrary. Let it be a warning to some of you, and an encouragement to others. In the mean time, I will go on with my story.

Well, there I was in clover, you will say. Placed in a position of trust and honor, with a little cottage of my own to live in, with my rounds on the estate to occupy me in the morning, and my accounts in the afternoon, and my pipe and my Robinson Crusoe in the evening, what more could I possibly want to make me happy? Remember what Adam wanted when he was alone in the garden of Eden; and if you don't blame it in Adam, don't blame it in me.

The woman I fixed my eye on was the woman who kept house for me at my cottage; her name was Selina Goby. I agree with the late William Cobbett about picking a wife. See that she chews her food well and sets her foot down firmly on the ground when she walks, and you're all right. Selina Goby was all right in both these respects, which was one reason for marrying her. I had another reason, likewise, entirely of my own discovering. Selina, being a single woman, made me pay so much a week for her board and services. Selina, being my wife, couldn't charge for her board, and would have

"I have been turning Selina Goby over in my mind," I said, "and I think, my lady, it will be cheaper to marry her than to keep her."

My lady burst out laughing and said she didn't know which to be most shocked at, my language or my principles. Some joke tickled her, I suppose, of the sort that you can't take unless you are a person of quality.

Understanding nothing myself but that I was free to put it next to Selina, I went and put it accordingly. And what did Selina say? Lord! how little you must know of women if you ask that! Of course she said "Yes."

As my time grew nearer, and there got to be talk of my having a new coat for the ceremony, my mind began to misgive me. I have compared notes with other men as to what they felt while they were in my interesting situation, and they have all acknowledged that about a week before it happened they privately wished themselves out of it. I went a trifle farther than that, myself: I actually rose up, as it were, and tried to get out of it. Not for nothing; I was too just a man to expect she would let me off for nothing. Compensation to the woman when the man gets out of it is one of the laws of England. In obedience to the laws, and after turning it over carefully in mind, I offered Selina Goby a feather-bed and fifty shillings to be off the bargain. You will hardly believe it, but it is nevertheless true : she was fool enough to refuse.

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