ost,--the son, in respect to whom he feels at last a "reasonable
assurance" that the youth has entered upon a glorious inheritance in
those courts where one day he will join him, and the sainted Rachel too,
and clasp again in his arms (if it be God's will) the babe that was his
but for an hour on earth.

TIED TO A ROPE.

You don't know what a Hircus Oepagrus is, Tommy? Well, it is a big
name for him, isn't it? And if you should ask that somewhat slatternly
female, who appears to employ tubs for the advantage of others rather
than herself, what the animal is, she would tell you it is a goat. See
what a hardy, sturdy little creature he is; and how he lifts up his
startled head, as the cars come thundering along, and bounds away as if
he were on the rugged hills that his ancestors climbed, ages ago, in
wild freedom. O that cruel rope! how it stops him in his career with a
sudden jerk that pulls him to the ground! See where it has worn away the
hair round his neck, in his constant struggles to escape. See how he has
browsed the scanty grass of that dry pasture, in the little circle to
which he is confined, and is now trying to reach an uncropped tuft, just
beyond his tether. And the sun is beating down upon him, and there is
not the shade of a leaf for him to creep into, this July day. Poor
little fellow!

Not waste my sympathy on a common goat? My dear Madam, I can assure you
that ropes are not knotted around the neck of Hirci Oepagri alone. And
when I was bemoaning the captivity of yonder little browser we have left
behind, I was bewailing the fortune of another great order of the
Mammalian class,--an order that Mr. Huxley and Mr. Darwin and other
great thinkers of the day are proving to be close connections of their
humbler brethren that bleat and bark and bray. The bimanal species of
this order are similarly appendaged, though they are not apt to be
staked beside railways or confined to a rood of ground.

Do you see Vanitas at the other end of the car? Does he look as though
he carried about with him a "lengthening chain"? No one would certainly
suppose it. Yet he is bound as securely as the poor little goat. We may
go to the fresh air of his country-seat this July day, or to the
sea-breezes of his Newport cottage next month, or he may sit here, "the
incarnation of fat dividends," while you and I envy him his wealth and
comforts; but he can never break his bonds. They are riveted to the
counters of the money