polished sides and glittering
plate of a coffin; there at last lay the weary at rest, the soft,
shining gray hair was still gleaming as before, but deeper furrows on
the wan cheek, and a weary, heavy languor over the pale, peaceful face,
told that those gray hairs had been brought down in sorrow to the grave.
Sadder still was the story on the cloudless cheek and lips of the young
creature bending in quiet despair over her. Poor Ellen! her life's
thread, woven with these two beloved ones, was broken.

And may all this happen?--nay, does it not happen?--just such things
happen to young men among us every day. And do they not lead in a
thousand ways to sorrows just like these? And is there not a
responsibility on all who ought to be the guardians of the safety and
purity of the other sex, to avoid setting before them the temptation to
which so often and so fatally manhood has yielded? What is a paltry
consideration of fashion, compared to the safety of sons, brothers, and
husbands? The greatest fault of womanhood is slavery to custom; and yet
who but woman makes custom? Are not all the usages and fashions of
polite society more her work than that of man? And let every mother and
sister think of the mothers and sisters of those who come within the
range of their influence, and say to themselves, when in thoughtlessness
they discuss questions affecting their interests, "Behold thy
brother!"--"Behold thy son!"

THE CORAL RING.

"There is no time of life in which young girls are so thoroughly selfish
as from fifteen to twenty," said Edward Ashton, deliberately, as he laid
down a book he had been reading, and leaned over the centre table.

"You insulting fellow!" replied a tall, brilliant-looking creature, who
was lounging on an ottoman hard by, over one of Dickens's last works.

"Truth, coz, for all that," said the gentleman, with the air of one who
means to provoke a discussion.

"Now, Edward, this is just one of your wholesale declarations, for
nothing only to get me into a dispute with you, you know," replied the
lady. "On your conscience, now, (if you have one,) is it not so?"

"My conscience feels quite easy, cousin, in subscribing to that
sentiment as my confession of faith," replied the gentleman, with
provoking _sang froid_.

"Pshaw! it's one of your fusty old bachelor notions. See what comes,
now, of your living to your time of life without a wife--disrespect for
the sex, and all that. Really, cousin,