horus, "It is spring! it is spring!"

The grass comes, the flower laughs where lately lay the snow,
O'er the breezy hill-top hoarsely calls the crow,
By the flowing river the alder catkins swing,
And the sweet song-sparrow cries, "Spring! it is spring!"

Hark, what a clamor goes winging through the sky!
Look, children! Listen to the sound so wild and high!
Like a peal of broken bells,--kling, klang, kling,--
Far and high the wild geese cry, "Spring! it is spring!"

Bear the winter off with you, O wild geese dear!
Carry all the cold away, far away from here;
Chase the snow into the north, O strong of heart and wing,
While we share the robin's rapture, crying, "Spring! it is spring!"

THE CHARCOAL-BURNERS' FIRE; OR, EASTER EVE AMONG THE COSSACKS.

(_A Russian Legend._)

BY DAVID KER.

"If you want me to tell you any wonderful stories, Barin, such as
_you've_ been telling us," says Ostap Mordenko, shaking his bushy
yellow beard, as he finished his cup of tea, "you're just looking for
corn upon a rock, as the saying is; for _I_ never had an adventure
since the day I was born, except that time when I slipped through a
hole in the ice, last winter. But, perhaps, it will do as well if I
tell you an old tale that I've heard many a time from my grandfather,
that's dead (may the kingdom of heaven be his!), and which will show
you how there may be hope for a man, even when everything seems to be
at the very worst.

"Many, many years ago, there lived in a village on the Don River, a
poor man. When I say he was poor, I don't mean that he had a few holes
in his coat at times, or that he had to go without a dinner every now
and then, for that's what we've all had to do in our time; but it
fairly seemed as if poverty were his brother, and had come to stay with
him for good and all. Many a cold day his stove was unlighted, because
he couldn't afford to buy wood; and he lived on black bread and cold
water from the New Year to the Nativity--it was no good talking to
_him_ about cabbage soup, or salted cucumber, or tea with lemon in
it.[A]

"Now, if he had only had himself to be troubled about, it wouldn't have
mattered a kopeck,[B] for a _man_ can always make shift for himself.
But, you see, this man had been married once upon a time, and, although
his wife was gone, his three children were left, and he had _them_ to
care for as well as himself. And, what was worse, instead of being
boys, who m