dence, his smile deepened, and he mounted the steps and pulled the bell.

"Is the lady at home?" he inquired of the girl who answered the bell.

The girl thought he was the census taker, and she seated him in the parlor and called the lady of the house. When the lady entered the stranger rose, bowed, and said:

'Madam, I have just arrived in this town after a tour extending clear down to Florida, and wherever I went I was received with glad welcome."

"Did you wish to see my husband?" she asked, as he opened the tin trunk.

"No, madam; I deal directly with the lady of the house in all cases. A woman will appreciate the virtues of my exterminator and purchase a bottle, where a man will order me off the steps without glancing at it.”

"Your-your what?" she asked.

"Madam,” he replied, as he placed a four-cunce phial of dark liquid on the palm of his left hand; "madam, I desire to call your attention to my Sunset Bedbug Exterminator. It has been tried at home and abroad, and in no case has it failed to-"

"What do you mean, sir?" she demanded, getting very red in the face. "Leave this house instantly."

“Madam, I do not wish you to infer from my—” "I want you to leave this house!" she shrieked. "Madam, allow me to explain my-"

"I will call the police!" she screamed, making for the door, and he hastily locked his trunk and hurried out.

Going down the street about two blocks he saw the lady of the house at the parlor window, and instead of climbing the steps he stood under the window and politely said:

"Madam, I don't wish to even hint that any of the bedsteads in your house are inhabited by bedbugs, but-" "What! What's that?" she exclaimed.

"I said that I hadn't the remotest idea that any of the bedsteads in your house were infested by bedbugs," he replied.

“Take yourself out of this yard!" she shouted, snatching a tidy off the back of a chair and brandishing it at him.

"Beg pardon, madam, but I should like to call your—"

"Get out!" she screamed; "get out, or I'll call the gardener!"

"I will get out, madam, but I wish you understood—”

"J-a-w-n! J-a-w-n!" she shouted out of a side window, but the exterminator agent was out of the yard before John could get around the house.

He seemed discouraged as he walked down the street, but he had traveled less than a block when he saw a stout woman. sitting on the front steps of a fine residence, fanning herself. "Stout women are always good-natured," he soliloquized as he opened the gate.

"Haven't got anything for the grasshopper sufferers!" she called out as he entered.

There was an angelic smile on his face as he approached the steps, set his trunk down, and said:

66

'My mission, madam, is even nobler than acting as agent for a distressed community. The grasshopper sufferers do not comprise a one-hundredth part of the world's population, while my mission is to relieve the whole world."

“I don't want any peppermint essence," she continued as he started to unlock the trunk.

"Great heavens, madam, do I resemble a peddler of cheap essences?" he exclaimed. "I am not one. I am here in Detroit to enhance the comforts of the night-to produce pleasant dreams. Let me call your attention to my Sunset Bedbug Exterminator, a liquid warranted to-"

"Bed what?" she screamed, ceasing to fan her fat cheeks. "My Sunset Bedbug Exterminator. It is to-day in use in the humble negro cabins on the banks of the Arkansaw, as well as in the royal palace of her Majesty Q—”

"You r-r-rascal! you villyun!" she wheezed; "how dare you insult me, m—”

"No insult, madam, it is a pure matter of—”

"Leave! Git o-w-t!" she screamed, clutching at his hair, and he had to go out in such a hurry that he couldn't lock the trunk until he reached the walk.

He traveled several blocks and turned several corners before he halted again, and his smile faded away to a melancholy grin. He saw two or three ragged children at a gate, noticed that the house was old, and he braced up and entered.

"I vhants no zoap," said the woman of the house as she stood in the door.

"Soap, madam, soap? I have no soap. I noticed that you lived in an old house, and as old houses are pretty apt to be infested-"

"I vhants no bins or needles to-day!" she shouted.

Madam, I am not a peddler of Yankee notions," he replied. "I am selling a liquid, prepared only by myself, which is warranted to-"

"I vhants no baper gollers!" she exclaimed, motioning for him to leave.

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"Paper collars! I have often been mistaken for Shakspeare, madam, but never before for a paper collar peddler. Let me unlock my trunk and show-"

"I vhants no matches-no dobacco-no zigars!" she interrupted; and her husband came round the corner and, after eyeing the agent for a moment, remarked:

"If you don't be quick out of here I shall not have any shoking about it!”

At dusk last night the agent was sitting on a salt barrel in front of a commission house, and the shadows of evening were slowly deepening the melancholy look on his face. -Detroit Free Press.

ANNIE'S TICKET.

Please, sir, I have brought you the ticket
You gave her a short week ago;

My own little girl I am meanin',

The one with the fair hair, you know,
And the blue eyes so gentle and tender,
And sweet as the angels above,

God help me, she's one of thim now, sir,
And I've nothing at all left to love.

It has come on me suddin, ye see, sir;
She was never an ailin' child,
Though her face was as white as a lily,
And her ways just that quiet and mild.
The others was always a trouble,

And botherin', too, every way,

But the first tears as ever she cost me
Are them that I'm sheddin' to-day.
KKKK*

'Twas on Tuesday night that she sickened;
She had been as blithe as a bird
All day, with the ticket you gave her,
And never another word

But "Mammie, just think of the music!"
And "Mammie, they'll give us ice cream;
We can roll on the turf and pick posies-
Oh! Mammie, it 's just like a dream!"
And so, when the fever came on her,

It seemed the one thought in her brain;
'Twould have melted the heart in your breast, sir,
To hear her again and again

Beggin', "Mammie, oh! please get me ready-
The boat will be gone off, I say;

I hear the bell ring! where 's my ticket?
Oh! won't we be happy to-day?"

Three days she raved with the fever,

With her face and her hands like a flame;
But on Friday, at noon, she grew quiet,
And knew me and called me by name.
My heart gave a leap when I heard it;
But oh, sir, it turned me to stone,

The look round the mouth, pinched and drawn like-
I knew God had sent for his own.

And she knew it too, sir, the creature,
And said when I told her the day,
In her weak little voice, "Mammie, darlin',
Don't cry 'cause I'm going away.
To-morrow they'll go to the picnic,

They'll have beautiful times, I know;

But heaven is like it, and better,
And so I am ready to go.

"And, Mammie, I ain't a bit frightened;
There's many a little girl died;

And it seems like the dear lovin' Saviour
Was standin' right here by my side.
Take my ticket, dear Mammie, and ask them
If some other child, poor and sad,
That hasn't got heaven and Jesus,
May go in my place and be glad."

And then, "wish good-by, Mammie, darlin',"
She drew my lips down to her own,
Then the One that she felt close beside her
Bent too, and I sat there-alone.

And so I have brought you the ticket,

Though my heart, sir, seems ready to break,

To ask you to make some poor creature
Feel glad for my dead darlin's sake.

THE LOST CHURCH.-ROBERT TILNEY.

FROM THE GERMAN OF UHLAND.

It is believed that a church once stood in the depths of one of the German oak woods, but at so distant an age that all trace of it has passed away. The peasantry, however, believe that its bells are still heard ringing through the wood. On this legend the poet has founded the following vision:

In yon dense wood full oft a bell

Is heard o'erhead in pealings hollow;
Yet whence it comes can no one tell,
Nor scarce its dark tradition follow.
For winds the chimes are wafting o'er,
Of the lost church in mystery shrouded;
The pathway, too, is known no more,
That once the pious pilgrims crowded.
I lately in that wood did stray,
Where not a footworn path extended,
And from corruptions of the day
My inmost soul to God ascended;
And in the silent, wild repose

I heard that ringing-deeper, clearer;
The higher my aspirings rose,

The sound descended fuller, nearer.
That sound my senses so entranced,
My soul grew so retired and lowly,
I ne'er could tell how it had chanced
That I had reached a state so holy.
A century, it seemed to me,

Or more, had passed while I was dreaming,
When I a radiant place could see

Above the mists, with sunlight streaming.
The heavens a deep, dark blue appeared,
The sun's fierce light and heat were flowing,
And in the golden light, upreared,

A proud cathedral pile was glowing.
It seemed to me the clouds so bright,
As if on wings, that pile was raising,
Until its spires were lost to sight

Within the blessed heavens blazing.

And lo! that sweet bell's music broke
In quivering streams from out the tower;
No mortal hand its tones awoke-
That bell was rung by holy power.
And through my beating heart, too, swept
That power in full and perfect measure;
And then in that high dome I stepped
With faltering feet and tim'rous pleasure.