he prayed to God to tell her where the roses might be found.
Then the cold blast numbed her senses, and her sight grew strangely dim;
And a sudden, awful tremor seemed to seize her every limb.

"Oh, a rose!" she moaned, "good Jesus,--just a rose to take to Bill!"
And as she prayed a chariot came thundering down the hill;
And a lady sat there, toying with a red rose, rare and sweet;
As she passed she flung it from her, and it fell at Nelly's feet.

Just a word her lord had spoken caused her ladyship to fret,
And the rose had been his present, so she flung it in a pet;
But the poor, half-blinded Nelly thought it fallen from the skies,
And she murmured, "Thank you, Jesus!" as she clasped the dainty prize.

Lo! that night from but the alley did a child's soul pass away,
From dirt and sin and misery up to where God's children play.
Lo! that night a wild, fierce snowstorm burst in fury o'er the land,
And at morn they found Nell frozen, with the red rose in her hand.

Billy's dead, and gone to glory--so is Billy's sister Nell;
Am I bold to say this happened in the land where angels dwell,--
That the children met in heaven, after all their earthly woes,
And that Nelly kissed her brother, and said, "Billy, here's your rose"?

_George R. Sims._

The Old Actor's Story

Mine is a wild, strange story,--the strangest you ever heard;
There are many who won't believe it, but it's gospel, every word;
It's the biggest drama of any in a long, adventurous life;
The scene was a ship, and the actors--were myself and my new-wed wife.

You musn't mind if I ramble, and lose the thread now and then;
I'm old, you know, and I wander--it's a way with old women and men,
For their lives lie all behind them, and their thoughts go far away,
And are tempted afield, like children lost on a summer day.

The years must be five-and-twenty that have passed since that awful night,
But I see it again this evening, I can never shut out the sight.
We were only a few weeks married, I and the wife, you know,
When we had an offer for Melbourne, and made up our minds to go.

We'd acted together in England, traveling up and down
With a strolling band of players, going from town to town;
We played the lovers together--we were leading lady and gent--
And at last we played in earnest, and straight to the church we went.

The parson gave us his blessing, and I gave Nellie the ring,
And swore that I'd love and cherish, and endow her with everything