"Now Tom and Ada; I know you want to be married."-Tom looked up and Ada looked down." I know it, and I don't object at all myself. Tom minds his shop and you, Ada, mind your needle."-Both looked uncommonly happy.-"But one thing I have to say I am a Conservative myself, and I expect everybody about me to be likewise." Tom shivered. "Now the election is coming on, week after next, they say, or may be next. Well, now I am told that, that the Chartist folks, who have been and disgraced our town, are putting a man forward-sure to be a blackguard whoever he is. Now, what I want to say is this. If Tom goes and makes a fool of himself and votes for that man, he loses Ada, that's all!"

And Mr. Brancrust took a large draught and looked Tom steadily in the face. Tom thought of his meeting with Sniggers, and on his own resolutions against the Conservative party, and he felt very wretched indeed.

"That's my mind!" said Mr. Brancrust, thumping the table.

"Oh! it's all right,” said Ada, jumping up and taking the candle again, "Tom will be good and do as he is bid, I know, Good night!" and they heard her little feet tripping up stairs.

Before the sound of these little feet had died away, Mr. Brancrust had lighted another pipe, and Tom, in the fulness of his heart, rose on his legs with a glass in his hand, and said with a kind of a gasp of joy, "Mr. Brancrust-God bless her!" Mr. Brancrust took a whiff, and then a sip, and, nodding his head three or four times, muttered, "Aye, aye, she is a good girlvery!"

Little more was said that evening, and Tom rose up to go, with his head in a greater whirl than ever, what with his double allowance of love and pleasure and Islay whiskey.

When he got safely inside his own little dwelling, a startling fact came into his memory.-Mr. Sniggers had said he should come that evening and he had not been at home to receive him. "What would Mr. Sniggers think?" Think him a traitor, a lukewarm in the cause of freedom-think-think anything bad of him-but, really, somehow he had quite forgotten the absent Sniggers when he was with Ada.

The next morning, as Tom was unscrewing and taking down his shutters, in a different frame of mind to that in which he did so but two days ago, the postman gave him a note. It was from Sniggers. That gentleman "recited" that he had called on Mr. Suffrage as he promised, but found him out-that he could not call again at present on account of business; pardoned Mr.

"when the heart was

Suffrage for being out of the way, as entangled he knew how the case stood." Again commended Tom's change from aristocratic to democratic principles-exhorted Tom to "live and die with him (Sniggers) round the bauner of freedom, which was unfurled in Lower Fleecington." Told him to come that night to the institute, where he (Sniggers) would meet him and introduce him to the members.

Now this note rather unhinged Tom's serenity. He had been so full of Ada that he had forgotten all beside; but now, as he opened the note, all his perplexities came back upon him like cre

ditors and demanded his attention. He remembered his vows to Sniggers the deeper ones formed in his soul against Cavendishand the love of Ada, with her terrible father's terrible determination! Humming in his ears constantly were that father's solemn words, "If he goes and votes for that man, he loses Ada-that's all!" "That's all !" did he say? horrible old monster, when he knew all along that it was a shutter-up to me!—but I don't mind -I must go to the meeting-I shall be laughed through the town if I don't. I suppose everything will work right in the end-I can't help it-Ada knows I can't. I WILL go to the meeting." AND TOM WENT.

In the commercial room of the "Cat and Trumpet," the democratic club of Lower Fleecington held its meetings, and there eternal destruction to half the thrones of Europe was thumped and hammered into the table by the fists of the members. There, in fact, as one of the members boasted in the peroration of his speech-"We rule Little Fleecington, and Little Fleecington goes a good way towards ruling England!" There kings and clergymen were jingled into shame by the spoons in the glasses—there honourable members spat abhorrence of tyranny and chewed "pigtail" on the sawdusted floor-AND THERE WENT TOM Suffrage.

The first thing that met Tom's eyes, and rather annoyed them too, was a chaos of tobacco smoke, and a row of red faces looming above it, like cherubs on a tombstone, lacking legs. The next thing Tom saw was Francis Sniggers, with his hat on one side, and the smoke of a cigar curling into his nostrils. This gentleman, after giving his brandy a stir, held out his finger to Tom, and taking the cigar from his lips, drew up himself to his utmost, raised his hand and said in a sepulchral voice,

"Gents, the new 'un!"

This was the signal; all sprang on their feet-the gas was turned out to a faint speck of blue-the door was locked-Tom's arms bound to his body-his eyes were wrapped up in a towel-a tall,

gaunt member (a shoemaker) unsheathed a rusty old sword, and mounted guard at the door. A few minutes of silence followed, and Tom bitterly cursed democrat-associations and lawyer's clerks, in the person of Sniggers. A blow on a gong was heard—Tom's bandage was taken off, and he found himself in a blaze of light— they had turned on the gas. Each member had robed himself in black calico, and each face was covered with a black mask, and all the eyes in the black masks were turned towards him, Tom half shuddered-then with a fearful effort he tried to laugh; the attempt was however, a woeful failure; so Tom kept silence, and struggled to look composed. Then the president and the man with the sword came and stood, one in front and the other behind him. There were a host of absurd vows proposed and sworn to— there was a chorus in dog-latin. Tom's eyes were again tied up whilst the members unrobed; then were uncovered to reveal to him all of them, sitting as when he first entered, and diligently lighting their pipes. Tom was a member of the G. D. A. (Grand Democratic Association) of Little Fleecington.

In honour of this event, up got the shoemaker to make a speech. It was not a very learned speech, but for all that it was a very brilliant one. The impression it made (on the spoons and the table) was enormous. The peroration, indeed, was a perfect triumph.

Now came Tom's turn to answer. Tom, indeed, had been aware of the fact that he must answer for some time, and had been sipping brandy and water nervously, alternately out of his neighbour's glass and his own, when the rattle of spoons and knuckles told that Mr. Mincepoints had finished, and a dead silence followed.

Then, indeed, Tom felt very queer-very queer—indeed he had never in his life felt anything like it. He seemed not to have the slightest control over his muscles, indeed he half fancied that he must have walked into limbs belonging to somebody else, and which did'nt fit him, for his knees rattled against one another, and his teeth rattled, and his hands rattled like the teeth and head and knees of a man of ninety-he felt as if he was under a huge burningfor every eye was on him. He got up somehow or other, and he certainly spoke.

glass,

WHAT he spoke was not much, although it lasted a long time; it consisted of a broken sentence, repeated with variations a many times over-a number of words scarcely audible, with every now and then a loud one jumping up from the ranks, such as -happy-beyond measure-honour-Chartism-freedom-Lower Fleecington-aristocracy-and-Mr. Sniggers. Then Tom sat down amid a deafening storm of rattling and cheering, and applied himself to his brandy with a crimson face.

Then Mr. Sniggers made a grand display of oratory and law— praised the "eloquent address" of the new member—congratulated Lower Fleecington on his acquisition to its democratic club -trampled the aristocracy under his Wellington boots, and "resumed his seat" with a sneer.

The smoke from the pipes hides what follows, as it did the faces of the honourable members, and not till next month will it be blown away; suffice to relate, that had Ada seen her Thomas in his way home that night, she would not have “liked him.”

It was a little, trembling child, with slender, fragile form,

That wandered by its mother's side through cutting wind and storm;
It looked into her sleet-washed face, and tears began to flow;
"Oh, mother! dearest mother! do, pray, stop the tiresome snow!"
And still that little, trembling child, with sad beseeching glance,
Contending with the falling flakes and striving to advance,
Will linger in my memory wherever I may go,

With the confident entreaty, "Dear mother! stop the snow!"

When misfortune, with its crushing weight, and sadness with it gloom,
Closes darkly round our cherished ones with shadows of the tomb;
When grief, or care approaches, with lingering steps and slow,
What heart-breaking entreaties, if we can, to "Stop the snow!"—
When pestilence holds thousands within its fearful grasp,
And ruthless war and rapine join in one unholy clasp,
With the trustfulness and confidence of children may we know
There is One above the tempest who can save us from the snow!

IOTA.

SONNET.

FAIR star, that riseth on the lonely night,

Cresting the abysmal blackness with thy ray,
Trembling emerging, at the close of day,
Upon the realm of gloom, thou constant, bright
Inhabitants of darkness! Thy pure light
To me is emblem of the glowing flame,
That bursts upon the worn-life, wanderer's sight,
When sick of toil and unaccomplished aim,
With anguished heart and spirit trouble-tried,
He stretches forth appealing hands to heaven,
And dying feels new strength and solace given.
The glance of God o'erhangs the dismal void;
While Faith, that orbed not in his daylight sky,
Now beams prophetic of Eternity.

W. T. MATSON.

WHAT FROM THE SEA?

SHIPPING intelligence and shipping lists are now attracting more attention than usual; they are scanned with much greater interest in these days of travel and emigration than formerly, when a man who had even been a short voyage was made a lion of, and one who had seen the far antipodes reckoned a marvel and a wonder in human shape. Here in England it is difficult to find a family now who has not some connexion, or at least some friend, who has left the tight little island, lured by the love of adventure, or the prospect of wealth, both often combined. How the anxious ones at home seize on any piece of information respecting the land their relative or their friend has made the goal of his expectations, from the scraps in the Times and other papers, to whole volumes on the Gold Country, treating on Geology, Minerology, and Metallurgy, not to speak of the smaller fry-cheap pamphlets" How to Emigrate and enjoy yourself"-"How to Sail, Settle, and Succeed."―Then what eagerness is displayed in the perusal of private letters from friends actually arrived, giving such contradictory accounts, coloring their writing so much with their character and disposition; how many bright eyes gaze unwearidly along the lengthy lists of vessels spoken, perplex ship owners with constant enquiries, and, in fact, do everything short of actually writing to accuse Captain Maberly of retaining their letters in his unhappy marque for incomprehensible documentsthe dead-letter office!

The Shipping Lists, though laconic, are wearisome enough in their dry detail, and few indeed would have any desire to wade through them, except for a purpose, which has weight enough to make them often more interesting than the most brilliant romance, -speculation, and risk, affection, friendship, love, hope, avarice— some of the deepest feelings of which human nature is capable, have been, and will be, excited by those dreary-looking lists.

Fancy, for instance, a small shipowner who has made a venture quite as large, or larger, than his utmost means will permit of; his vessel is long behind her time in arriving. At last, a letter from his correspondent or agent comes, which has been unaccountably delayed in its transit through some foreign post-office. There has been a misapprehension as to whether the vessel was to be insured on this side or the other, and through this, or some error of the kind, the risk has been left open. Before the owner