ed gaily, and promised to entertain the notion, but
recalled their lovers to a remembrance of their hungry state. Merrily
and blithely supped the three maidens and the three friends that night
beneath the greenwood tree; and when in after-years they met at
eventide, all happy husbands and wives, with dusky boys and girls
crowding round them, that it was the brightest moment of their
existence, was the oft-repeated saying of the THREE FRIENDS.

THE ARTIST'S DAUGHTER: A TALE

BY MISS ANNA MARIA SARGEANT.

Act well thy part--there the true honour lies.--POPE.

'I wish, papa, you would teach me to be a painter,' was the
exclamation of a fair-haired child, over whose brow eleven summers
had scarcely passed, as she sat earnestly watching a stern
middle-aged man, who was giving the last touches to the head of a
Madonna.

'Pshaw,' pettishly returned the artist; 'go play with your doll, and
don't talk about things you can't understand.'

'But I should like to learn, papa,' the child resumed: 'I think it
would be so pretty to paint, and, besides, it would get us some more
money, and then we could have a large house and servants, such as we
used to have, and that would make you happy again, would it not,
papa?'

'You are a good girl, Amy, to wish to see me happy,' the father
rejoined, somewhat softened by the artless affection of his little
daughter; 'but women are never painters--that is, they are never
great painters.' The child made no further comment, but still
retained her seat, until her father's task was accomplished.

The chamber in which this brief dialogue took place was a
meanly-furnished apartment in a small house situated in the suburbs
of Manchester. The appearance of the artist was that of a
disappointed man, who contends doggedly with adversity rather than
stems the torrent with fortitude. Habitual discontent was stamped on
his countenance, but ever and anon a glance of fierceness shot from
his full dark eyes, as the thought of the position to which his
talents ought to have raised him would flit across his brain. A
greater contrast could scarcely be conceived than existed between the
father and child: the latter added to the charms of that early period
of life a face and form of exquisite beauty. Her dazzling complexion,
rich auburn hair, and graceful attitudes, accorded ill with the rusty
black frock which was the mourning habiliment for her maternal
parent, and the expression of her features was t