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r ii? i. . -r .^avnacMr-MPimiTi TTmantniCT rTlie 3Iilkingr Hour. You good old Boss, stand quietly now, And don't be turning your head this way. You're looking for Donald, it's plain to see, But he won't he here to-day. Nobody came with me, dear old Bos-, Not even to carry my pail; for, you see, Donald's gone whistling down the lane, Ami jjonam is vexea wun -jic. And all because of a trifling thing: He asked me a question, and I said "Nay." I never dreamed thnt he would not guess It was only a woman's way. I wonder if Donald has evor learned The motto of "Try and try again." I tliiiik, if he had, it might have been He had not learned '? vain. And there needn't have stretched between us V two, ' -On this lair evening, the meadow wide, And I needn't have milked alone to-night, With nobody at my s.de. What was it he said tu me yesier eve, Something about?about my eyes? It's strange how clever that Donald can be; That is, whenever he tries. Now, Bossy, old cow, yoti mustn't tell Tlnit !'r? criwl n. litrlo while milkinz voti; ' ' For, don't y..u sco? it is nothing to me What Donald mar choos to do. [1 he chose to go whistling down the lane, I chose to siug ga\lv coining here, But it's lonely without him, after all; Now isn't it, Bossy cjear? I?hark ! who's that? Oh, Donuld, it's you ! Did yco speak ??excuse me? what did you say? < "May you carry my pail ?" Well, yes; at least, 1 I suppose, is you try, you may. But, Donald, il I had answered No, , Do you think it would have occurred to you Not to be vexed at a woman's way, But to try what coaxing would do ? ? Harper's Weekly j A SOCIETY ITEM. "Did ye see the Thunderer, Miss Ab. j igail?" queried old Simon Sharpe, in ? quite a fever of excitement. He was leaning over the little green- ] painted gate, coatless and blue-shirted. ; Just beyond Miss Abigail Byrnes 1 paused in her task of tying up heavy. , headed August roses?a tall, angular figure, clad in a brown-and-white < striped print and big yellow sun bon- i net. Very bony, scant of smiles, and 1 hard of feature was Miss Abigail, but ; gentle and generous as a child's was j the heart under the ugly calico gown. < "No," she replied, "I haven't seen it ] ?what's the news ?" He responded with a counter ques tion. 1 "You remember Roger Kearney ?" < "To be sure. He went to the city to Start a big store. What of him?" "They be a-saying down at the Cor- 1 nerthat" just "how wlleif he hmTgCtrhis ~ big store built, stocked and llourishin', he has grfne and been burned clean out; every yard of silk stuff and ivory but- 1 tons." i He paused breathless. Miss Abigail clasped her thin hands ] and elevated her pale brows in dis~ MAAiilior Tt*nrrlich nrwl < Hli.IV I1UI/ ill/ l/UO JUiVcmiti uiigiiKiu ???.V. ; eurious rhetoric of her narrator, but ] at the startling information imparted, i "Land sakes 1" she ejaculated. "You < \ don t say so !" 1 Simon nodded vigorously. "Yes," he aflirmed, with apparent ' savage relish observable in even phlegmatic natures when thp misfortune of ? another is the subject of discussion, "lost everything, they say! Hadn't ] no insurance neither. Il'aint saved a spool o' thread. Xot as much ;is a hook, eye, nor darnin' needle left!" j Miss Abigail promptly tied the strings of her suqbonnet afresh and ] let down her gown, which had been ? pinned carefully up. "I'll just run l over to Mrs. Evans'," she declared, "and borrow the Thunderer. She takes ( it News don't taste good at second ( hand, anyhow !" < And she went. Leaning out of a picturesque, vine- j wreathed window up at the rambling, 1 white country house of which Miss < Anigail was mistress looked pretty i Dorothy Stratton. s "Where on earth is aunt going?' < she asked herself bcwilderedly as she caught sight of the tall, Hying figure- i "Leaving the roses only half tied up, < too!" But just then a stray sunbeam lit the stone on Dorothy's finger to \ <1.-17vliner flanip. .She forgot all about 1 Miss Abigail's hurried exit as she ] turned it now this way, now that, and ended by kissing it in a burst of rapt- ] uro. < she i her ] 1 she . e of 1 1 ?rry >ful ion^ ] first ave raen She was so lithe and graceful, with such round marvelous curves of throat and arms. And she held her small, sloe-black head with such charming ilicrnitw And whet, could be more winsome than the face with its clearf colorless skin and liquid gray eyes, and curved black brows and grave, sweet, crimson mouth ? Just how June and July passed neither of these happy, foolish young people could have lucidly explained. And the precise manner in which he had spoken at last, the shy confusion of her answer, the parting with regrets, hopes, love unutterable, was still a mere mystic, entrancing, delicious remembrance. But there was the ring, a glittering, tangible reality. So what wonder Dorothy turned it up and down, and under and over, and kissed it in her sheer joy of heart ? Over at Mrs. Evans' Miss Abigail sat, her sunbonnet untied and pushed back on her head, her spectacles perched on her accommodating rigid nose, deep in the perusal of the Thunderer. "Too bad, eh?" queried Mr?. Evans( briskly "topping" gooseberries. "Yes," assented Miss Abigail, "after all his years of saving?eh ! what's this?" "What's what ?" asked Mrs. Evans, startled at her guest's tone. She was staring straight at the sheet she held, her eyes very troubled and her mouth grimly set. "Dear, dear, Miss Byrnes!" exclaimed Mrs. Evans, in feeble alarm "do tell!' But her visitor made no reply, only roused herself with an effort, tied her sunbonnet strings with an energetic jerk, and marched straight out of the house, the Thunderer in her hand. Mrs. Evans stared after her a moment Then she tapped her forehead significantly, muttered a single word, and went complacently on topping her gooseberries. Dorothy, still sitting dreamily by the vine-wreathed window, twisting the bright circlet round and round on her slim brown finger, started !is Miss Abigail banged the gardengate behind her and hurried up the path. A heavy tread on the stairs, the door was flung wide, and she stalked into the dainty chamber, all pink silesia and snowy-dotted muslin, like a herald of war. "Dorothy!" she said, in quite an awful voice. --"Aunt!" cried Dorothy,"risingr" "Look there ! Read !" She held up the paper and waved her arm with a tragic gesture of command". Dorothy glanced at the paragraph pointed out and read as bidden. And this is what she read: "The social exodus has begun. Among the names of the pleasure-seekers leaving fliis evening on the steamship Asia to summer on the continent we notice ;hose of Paul A. Carlisle and wife." Dorothy looked at the paper blankly Then she began and read it over again. "Well?" questioned Miss Abigail iternly. The girl stood up, white to the very ips and trembling a little. "There's some?mistake !" she said. Miss Abigail gave a distrustful snort. "If there is," she asserted, "jve've nade it! lie's a scamp, my dear !" Ind then, waxing emphatic, "A dou)le-distilled scamn !" "You mustn't speak so !" said Dor)thy, striving to swallow the great ,'hoking luni}) in her throat. "It is? some other?Mr. Carlisle." "Yes," mocked Miss Abigail scornfully, "very likely ! Do you suppose here are two men with exactly the ;ame name?down to the middle ini:ial?whose departure would be considered worth chronicling in the Thunr lerer?do you ?" Jiut Dorotliy sprang to the door, and ran down tiie stairs, and out into the shadowy orchard like a thing pursued. And there she Hung herself down on Lhe smooth, short grass dry-eyed, white ipped, half-mad with scaring, incredulous pain. And up in the room she had just left hard-featured Miss Abigail sat ilown in Dorothy's own particular, beribboned rocker, and flinging her blue ipron over her face cried like a baby Cor very sympathy. Tlie day wore on, the gay, sweet, warm August day. A.nd still Dorothy lay crushed, and A .1 t. 4- 1 it.. T.!? Lamb, auu jiuai b-smiv uuuci buu uig tree. The Thunderer was dated the I5th -this was the 17th. City papers were mellow when they reached the little village. He had been gone two days ?but then he hadn't gone! There was some mistake, she kept telling Kr, though in her In't believe there til went around stern countens. "I'll make some strawberry puffballs for supper," she decided gravely. 'She was always powerful fond of J strawberry puff-balls, and maybe they'll ' comfort her "some!" But then Miss J Abigail had never been in love herself, i and it takes more than strawberry puffballs to cure some heartaches. ? The soft purplish dusk lay over tho , farm when Dorothy felt a gentle touch J on her shoulder. "Come in to supper, child. You'll catch your death o' cold." She rose up slowly. "I am not rroinfr into the house," she t - o o said. "I should smother." Miss Abigail held forth the tempting bait within, and shook her head in sorrowful foreboding as utterly disre- i gardful, Dorothy walked away. Down , at the gate she paused?the low', wide, j green gate where sho had so often \ stood to listen for the ringing footstep : coming up the country road. So often, but now?never again! . Despite the pain of remembrance she ; found herself recalling^ every dear j word, and look, and thought of the j dead summer days. She had been j something of a bookworm all her life, 'j and now flashed to her brain and there burned the rebellious, passionate cry of Othello: My heart is turned to atone; I strike it And it hurts tny hand! Hark! a footstep! she must go in; how i foolish she was growing to imagine it 1 might be?his. nearer?nearer still! fcne couia not j move. She leaned heavily against the j green post pillar. A voice! Whose voice? The gate was flung wide, close arms were round her Dark! Oh how dark it was growing . Five minutes later -Aliss Abigail looked up in swift amazement as a tall . young figure strode ihto the little parlor bearing in his arms a slender, pinkclad burden. "You!." she cried. "I thought you had gone to Europe with your wife. We read it in the Thunderer, and? "And you believed it? Good heavens! Was that why Dolly fainted at sight of me? My father and mother sailed for the Continent. Our initials are the same. I told them all about Dorothy before they lefc, and if she will only consent to a hurried marriage we will join them in P^is in Septem. her. Oh, you're listening, you dear little sinner! What do you say?yes? That is right! Ami-you doubtedjugLBollyr d)obyi?aren't yofcr-ashamwYv? yourself?" "Yes," said Dolly, "I am!" Effect of Lightning on Trees. The Geneva correspondent of the London Times writes: The frequency of thunderstorms in Switzerland this summer (we have on an average two a week) has afforded Professor Colladon of Geneva,?a great authority on elec. tricity and meteorology?ample opportunity of continuing his observations on the effect of lightning on trees and j vegetation generally. He has ascer- ' tained that when lightning strikes a tree it leaves very few marks of its passage on the upper part and middle of the trunk, a peculiarity which he ascribes to the fact of ttibse parts being more impregnated with sugar?a good j conductor?than the lower part. As | the electric fluid descends to the neifrh. borhood of the heavier branches, where ' there is less saccharine matter, it tears > open the bark and in many instances ' shivers the tree. It is no uncommon ! thing to find the lower part of a tree literally cut by the lightning, while the upper portion and the higher branches seemed to have suffered hardly at alL Oaks, however, would appear to present an exception* to this rule, for they are i often found with tops quite blasted j and the passage of the lightning lower > down marked by a gouge-like furrow. ! These furrows sometimes go complete. ' ly round the tree like a screw, the reason of which, says Professor Colladon is that the lightning follows the cells of which the bark is composed lengthwise, and in certain sorts of wood these cells are disposed spirally. A curious effect of lightning on viDes is that it invariably strikes a great many vine j stocks at the same time over a spacei for the most part circular, from eight metres to twenty-five metres iD diameter, and containing, therefore several hundred vines. The plants most affected are those in the centre of the circle, and the number of burned and yellowed leaves diminish in proportion to their distance from that point. In July two vineyards in this cantoq li'or/i utrncif lw liirlit.nirvc nrirl tho firct i nv* --Q idea of their propriet ors, on seeing their shriveled vines, was that a still more dreaded foe, phylloxera, had been at work; but when the professor was call, ed in, he speedily enlightened them as to the true cause of the m.schief, and, in proof of his diagnosis, pointed out that the ground in the centre of the circle was strewn with torn leaves and freshly-broken twigs. ' j Paying: the Blind. Every year, by act of the legislature of Xew York, a sum of twenty tlious" and dollars is distributed among tiie destitute blind of the city of Xew York, numbering about five hundred persons. Those who are able to walk are lead to the ollice of Mr. .Blake, superintendent of the department of out" door noor. each bearinir his doctor's certificate and his departmental ticket, proving his identity and his need. About four hundred of them gathered the other morning to receive their share, -which amounted to thirty-eight dollars for each. Among the unfortunate crowd there are cripples, deaf and dumb, aged people, children, Chinamen, negroes, Germans, Irish, and even a Turk with a red fez and a flowing white beard, all members of the sad brotherhood of the blind. The superintendent knows many of them by sight, and has a pleasant word for all. Magy insist on shaking hands with him, and blessings in all languages fall upon his head. The Xew York Hcrr.l I adds an amusing incident or two of a most touching scene. An old man, with weather-beaten ieatures, ana tne sign "i am miiui mi his breast, waited with a smile on his face, while a pretty little girl with soft dark eyes, wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. A single Chinaman. John Anderson, received his ticket and informed the superintendent that he felt "vely well," but had to "hully up andgettee home to pay lent." Mrs. Shea, a handsome young woman, explained a bruised eye by saying she was trying to see whether her eye or the mantlepiece was the hardest. It was surprising to see how quickly the blind men and women recognized each other in the crowd. Some had guides, while others trusted to their own acute sense 10 carry mem unuugu all right. In no case would the super intendent pay money to anyone but the person for whom it is intended, and where word was received that a blind person could not come to the hall the money was sent by a trusted messenger. A few blind people who did not properly come within the class for whom the donation was intended noisily demanded why they did not receive postal cards. An outburst of anger was always avoided by the diplomatic Cffici^faljo promised to consider the cases and send word of his decision. A stout able-bodied-seMtef-m8{te--as--earr-. nest appeal for thirty-eight dollars, but Mr. Blake was very firm in his refusal. "You get seventy-two dollars a month pension," he said, "and this money is for destitute people." "But you are giving money to Mr Nugent, who owns four lots of ground." "I am, am I? Let me look at the Dook. Ah! Xo, sir, Nugpnt does not get a penny this year. I hope for the sake of'your reputation that the blind people will always warn me of impos" ters, for there are many worthy people who are left out in the cold." The Tiger's Apathetic Victims. As a matter of fact, the tiger is not a specially ferocious animal. As the greatest authority on Indian natural history says, it is a harmless, timid anDimal It feeds on animals that are prodigiously injurious to crops, and there are on record in India the complaints of villagers on the increase of deer and wild pigs in consequence of the destruction of tigers in their neighborhood. "When it gets too feeble to catch wild animals it begins to eat tame ones, or, easier victims still, the men or women who are in charge of 11.- lll~ 71 1 l\ Lilt; UtlLUU. XL LliCll UClAHUCa, <U1 U | "man-eater," a crimin.al against humanity, and death cannot overtake it too soon. But it is only those who know the Hindoo thoroughly who can credit the amazing apathy of these men, even when in imminent danger. So long as it's not actually visablc they refuse to take precaution against peril and I remember during the Afghan war ;issisting to thrash some lazy followers in order to arouse them to a proper sense of the necessity of saving their lives. They had squatted down j. 4-v,? T.-i... IU blUUtVC Uj tuc I UilUOiUC 111 tac JLVii J ber pass, though they knew the enemy was lurking in the rocks above them, and in the jungle behind them; though they had with their own eyes seen the corpses of camp foil owers ly_ ing where they had been murdered when they sat down to smoke. In the very same way, the herdsman comes loanng aiong in me cwnignt, singing a song of the country as he goes (to let the tiger know that he is coining prob. ably), and suddenly out of the sugarcanes Hashes the tiger, and there is an end of that herdsman. ^ But the next man will probably do, the very same thing. lie will take Another road, or course, on his way lijne, but he will lag behind his cattle Bd sing to him. self in the same ridi'ilous way, and out from underneath the tree springs the same old tiger. Indeed, it is one of the problems of Indian administration how to keep the natives from suicide. They prefer to have half .the village down with the small pox, and then to carry a dead chicken round thestrick. en hamlet on the end of a pole, than to be vaccinated. xney preier xo lose a prodigious number of their acquaintances by drowning than to protect theif wells. They prefer to have tens of thousands of men and women bitten in the toes and thumbs; and die therefrom^ than let enough light into a hut to see the difference between fire-wood and 1 cobras. SCIENTIFIC SCRAPS. Distilled water in the daylight is of a blue color. By gaslight the color is green. In the past forty years $40,000,000 has been spent in building and restoring churches in Wales. According to Dr. II. Gradle, the progeny of one of the microscopic beings known as bacteria may. with plenty of food, amount to over 15,000,000 within j twenty-iour nours. i Experiments in determining the height and velocity of clouds by means of photography have been made at Ke^, England, under the direction of Captain Abney. M. Pasteur believes the cholera is produced by minute organisms of some kind, but the germs have not yet been discovered. lie has recommended the French Government to send a special mission to Egypt to study the generation of this dread disease. The doctors disagree. The now fa. mous fossil footprints found last year at Carson, Nevada, and supposed to have been made by pre-historic human giants, are regarded by Professor 0. C. Marsh as probable tracks of a large sloth. It is stated, however, that DrHarkness still insists that the impressions were left by a species of man, and that he finds his theory strength ened by fresh discoveries of tracks | even more clearly defined than those first uncovered. ' Sir Henry Thompson, the London surgeon, recognizes in fish a. combination of all the elements of food that the human body requires in almost every phase of life, more especially by those who follow sedentary employment. To women he considers fish to 1 be an invaluable article of diet, but ho the aotios - that fish-eating increases the brain power. "The only action fish had on the brain was to put a man's body into proper relations with the work he had to do, 1 ^ I Ants as Medicine. , A curious use is made of ants by the i Indians in Brazil, who employ them to ] dress wounds, causing them to bite the i edges together, and then cutting off the head; the jaws will not relax, but i hold the wound together until healed. They were formerly used as a cruel instrument of torture by South African ] tribes, who tied their victim to a tree smeared his body with grease, and placed an ants' nest at his feet. The '< Arabs placed an ant in the hand of a < newly born babe, that the virtues of ] the insect may pass into the infant. < Naturalists also sometimes make use of these industrious scavengers, i When they require a perfect specimen of the smaller vertebrates, they place < the body in a box, bore a few holes in 1 it; and bury it near an ant's nest; in ] a few days a perfect and most delic- 1 iously whitened skeleton will be found i 1 in the box. ] The Human Pulse. The human pulse has rather a wide ^ range, but the general average may be put about as follows: At birth, 140; t at two years, 100; at from sixteen to nineteen years, SO; at manhood, 75; t old age, GO. There are, however, ' great variations consistent with health. Xapoleon's pulse is said to have been ( only 44 in the minute. A case is also ?.. yvf Qrr I railtcu Ui a uccutnjr Ui ui n nuoc ^ pulse was seldom over 30 during the last two years of his life and sometimes s not more than 26. Another man of 87 enjoyed good health and spirits with a pulse of 29, and there is also j on record the curious instance of a i ^ man whose pulse in health was never ^ more than 45, and to be consistent in his inr>iSnsistpnfv whfin hfi hnrl fpvpr I ? 1 his pulse fell to forty, instead of rising, as is usual. An Egg Exchange. o One of the most important of the 1: mercantile institutions of Berlin is an i: egg exchange. As the city consumes t more than 12,000,000 dozens of eggs a annually it is a business of great im- $ portance. On the forenoons of two h days in the week the produce exchange c is wholly given up to the egg dealers, tl both male and female. Uniform rates n for eggs are thus established which are a observed by all dealers. f< > THIS AN'l) THAT. New York in summer uses from 8,000 to 10,000 tons of ice a day. Great attention has been bestowed in Germany within the last two years upon the cultivation of the common nettle. From it an immense number of articles are made, and there is scarcely a branch of textile industry in which it cannot be used. The growing of nettles has become part of one business of every small farmer. The crop never fails, no weather affects it, and as it requires planting only once in every ten or fifteen years, the labor of cultivation is small; and as it needs but three or four inches of earth, many a piece of unprofitable land, even old quarries and gravel-pits, are thus turned to account. A manufacturer in Dresden has succeeded in obtaining from it the finest thread known in the trade, so fine that 100,000 metres ot it (or rather more, than sixty miles of length) weigh only two and a half pounds. A curious kind of wQed which grows in the Arkansas valley has often proved misleading to sportsmen. It is shaped like a ball and varies in size from one foot or less in diameter to five or six feet, some specimens being as tall as a man. It grows upon a small stemt which is, however, stout enough to bear the mass till it has ripenfed and dried, when a puff of wind will blow it over and snap the slender support. Then it is that every gustjOf wind sends it rolling over the ; prairie, bounding over bushes and rocks with the greatest elasticity and lightness. When the wind is strong and high these tumbling weeds present a most peculiar appearance as they bound from rock to rock, and in more than one instance hunters have mistaken . them for bisons and felt considerable irritation at the impossibility of bringing them within range of theif guns. Doctors are known to diffe^ and as a result it sometimes seems! just as well for individuals to consijdt their own convenience instead of tlieir physicians. For example, in the matter , of sleeping, some doctors say lie with the head to the north, others hold , a contrary opinion, and now that long journeys are made byj rail it is amusing to find two !eminent aunnoriues aineriug as wo uijb s?ucbo way to pass the night AiGerman doctor asserts that to lie with] the lest to the engine draws the blojod from th?_J>ruin to. the feet and brodaces cerebral anaemia, followed ly sleep; whereas if the traveller lies with his head in that position, cerebral hyperaemia is the result and sleep ij5 impos. sible. An American authority, on the other hand, holds a directly contrary opinion, and urges his patient^ to take their positions for the night with the head towards the locomotive and so slumber in peace. As sleeping in a railway car is difficult under any circumstances, one might as well try both methods. For many years a club existed and flourished in a small English town in Lancashire, known as the Oyster and Parched Pea Club. Among the staff of officers was one known as Oystericus, whose duty it was to order and look after the oysters, which then came by fleet from London. The club rejoiced in a poet laureate or rhymesmith, and a Cellarius, who looked after the wine. Among the rules and articles of the club was one enjoining that "a oarrei 01 uysjieia uts ^iiuvmcu croijr Monday night during the winter, at ihe equal expense of the members, to ao opened exactly at 7.30 o'clock." Every member on having a son born kvas to pay a gallon, for a daughter lalf a gallon, of port to his brethren o^ ;he club within a month of the birth )f such child, at any public house he ihould choose. / The value of trees in a city can scarcely be exaggerated. In Italy it is in offence against the law to cut them lown, as it is iounci mat an outoreajt )f fever usually follows any clearing iway of the trees. And apart from his, how-much they add to the beauty )f any city. There seems to be an inseparable connection between the trees ind drinking fountains in the munici)al mind, a fact upon which, the pubic are also to be congratulated. In 3rooklyn, where very littlo is done or the city by the authorities, a private association exists fortlieimprovenent of the city, and great attention is laid by the members to the question of he planting of trees. It is little short - _ a. ~ -11---- u?i- ? it a crime IU iuiuw iiauuauuio Ui-ca tu ie mutilated and destroyed, dnd vet it s done every day. Quite Recently a elegraph company, finding the trees in , certain portion of Brooklyn an ob* tacle to the stretching of fiheir wire, ad no compunction whatever in deapitating several of then,, cutting heir heads off in the mos; reckless lanner. Instances of this kind are onstantly occurring, and oilght to be arbidden by law. , ,