in white lilies, sweetly reposing in the "GARDENS OF PARADISE."

There was joy that night amid the darkness and dews. The maiden returned, but she left her heart in token that the treasure lying there was her own; for she had read some where, but not in the Koran, "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

“Our Folks

"OUR FOLKS". -we have folks; folks of whose names, ages, and occupations the Census gives no account; folks as good as any body's, "and these are of them :" A flaunting, pompous, Pharisaical GRAPE VINE, with very broad, green phylacteries, bids fair to overrun the entire premises. It made its appearance, I am told, near the kitchen-door, a few years ago, in a very meek, unostentatious manner—a statement, considering the "complexion to which it has come at last," requiring about as much credulity as there is vine, to believe. Its aspirations were soon manifested in the display of divers mermaidish-looking ringlets,

with two or three dainty "quirls" therein, flung out to the wind, and fluttering very gaily indeed.

Its ambitious tendencies being early discovered, a frame, large enough to satisfy any thing short of a Corsican ambition, was erected; and the Vine roofed it, and walled it, and festooned it, and hung rich clusters of grapes around it, and filled it with fragrance, and broke it down, and-and what? That's just it—and what should it do next? Those green ringlets were set afloat again, and the Vine made most insidious advances towards a respectable Apple Tree that stood near; which, being young, and inexperienced in the wiles and ways of Catawbas, Isabellas, and the like, permitted its attentions. So the · Vine encircled its waist very lovingly with a tendril and a tendresse that would have been pronounced "quite the thing" in the first circles. Any body would have supposed, for a while, that it would be whirling away with the Apple Tree in a waltz through the Orchard. It did no such thing; but just clambered up higher and higher, and swayed this way and that, and whispered, and swung, and caressed, and made itself as agreeable as possible. By and by, it half said, half sighed, 'Let me fling a wreath over you, sweet Tree,' and a wreath it was.

'Just a festoon or two;' and festoons almost hid the poor Tree from view.

Now the Vine crept up, sans ceremonie, put out its great broad leaves, and disposed its clusters to the sun and in the shade alamode, and thought nothing of the means whereby it had gotten "up in the world." Meanwhile, its victim struggled on a year or two; paid a feeble tribute to Flora, and a feebler one to Pomona-if that's her name-while the Vine heaped the Summer on its half-leafless branches, and rolled up like a great green billow into the sun. Not content with this, the unprincipled thing paid its addresses to a Peach Tree, and more than half ruined it; but the Tree bore it all patiently, and never said a word, and never "peached." And so the Vine keeps "going on," to the great "taking on" of all orderly Apple and Peach Trees, and the great scandal of the neighborhood.

ANOTHER OF THEM.

A GENTLEMAN in a suit of sober brown pays daily devoirs and devours to a Cherry Tree near the house. Taking one or two of the ripened rubies, dainty fellow that he is, he sits and amuses himself by the hour, echoing the various notes that are uttered around

him. He is a decided Robin, a querulous Cat-bird, a veritable Thrush, and a positive Goldfinch, by turns, and sometimes, as if a hand-organ should go crazy, and play all its tunes at once, he gives them all together. The northern MOCKING BIRD is a "character," though he has none of his own, and never was known to utter an original idea upon music in his life. He has many relatives who never wear feathers except in hats and bonnets, and whose chief merit is that of a blank wall, saying nothing of themselves, but giving back imperfectly, the utterances of others.

This worthy in October brown is not a Bachelor, as one might surmise by his freedom from care, and light merry air, but a very respectable Benedict. His family, three members—one died in shell-dom-reside in a little Oak tree across the road, and are nearly ready to leave the old homestead, and "do for themselves." What a medley of Sparrows and Quails, of Blue Jay and Robin, lies within the circumference of that little nest; and they are all "Our Folks."

EVERY evening, a little after sunset, a WHIPPOORWILL takes up his position and his trisyllabic song on a fallen tree, not far from the house. A queer bird,

careless in domestic matters-for it builds no nest of any account-it sits and sings through the deepening twilight on into the moonlight; and if you creep sufficiently near, you will see that it positively beats time with its little foot upon the log, and hear, between the strains, a click like that of a clock just as it strikes the hour.

A rare Music Box is the Whippoorwill, manufactured, tuned, and wound by the same fingers that keyed the spheres to their sublime harmonies.

AND there's JEMMY," a little top-knotted, greencoated Canary of some five months, that sits in his cage, crumbles his cracker, notches his fresh lettuce, cracks his Canary seed, makes his toilet, and ogles the Yellow Birds that ride around his prison on the swells of the air.

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A while ago, Jemmy was slightly depressed, and for cause," as will be seen. Relying too much on the twist in the conjugal tie, Lucy—she's one of “Our Folks," but the Census Takers have her "description" -suffered Jemmy's wife, NELLY, to fly out to a Lilac Tree in front of the house, supposing, of course, she would fly back on wings of love; but the swaying