; he had a fever this
time. Then the snow came on. We had some little store of provisions that
had been made up for us for the journey to Dublin, else we must have
perished when we were snowed up. I am sure the people in the village
never know'd that we were in that hut, or they would have come to help
us, for they bees very koind people. There must have been a day and a
night that passed, I think, of which I know nothing. It was all a dream.
When I got up from my illness, I found my boy dead--and the others with
famished looks. Then I had to see them faint with hunger."

The poor woman had told her story without any attempt to make it
pathetic, and thus far without apparent emotion or change of voice; but
when she came to this part, and spoke of her children, her voice changed
and failed--she could only add, looking at Gerald, "You know the rest,
master; Heaven bless you!"

_The Christmas Box_

* * * * *

THE COSMOPOLITE.

* * * * *

ENGLISH GARDENS.

We are veritable sticklers for old customs; and accordingly at this
season of the year, have our room decorated with holly and other
characteristic evergreens. For the last hour we have been seated before
a fine bundle of these festive trophies; and, strange as it may seem,
this circumstance gave rise to the following paper. The holly reminded
us of the Czar Peter spoiling the garden-hedge at Sayes Court; this led
us to John Evelyn, the father of English gardening: and the laurels
drove us into shrubbery nooks, and all the retrospections of our early
days, and above all to our early love of gardens. Our enthusiasm was
then unaffected and uninfluenced by great examples; we had neither heard
nor read of Lord Bacon nor Sir William Temple, nor any other illustrious
writer on gardening; but this love was the pure offspring of our own
mind and heart. Planting and transplanting were our delight; the seed
which our tiny hands let fall into the bosom of the earth, we almost
watched peeping through little clods, after the kind and quickening
showers of spring; and we regarded the germinating of an upturned bean
with all the surprise and curiosity of our nature. As we grew in mind
and stature, we learned the loftier lessons of philosophy, and threw
aside the "Pocket Gardener," for the sublime chapters of Bacon and
Temple; and as the stream of life carried us into its vortex, we learned
to contemplate their