Sometimes I dream a happy dream—
   I think that she is laid
Beside our own old village church,
    Where we so often played;
And I can sit upon her grave,
    And with her we shall lie,
Afar from where the city's noise,
    And thronging feet go by.

Nay, mother—mother—weep not so,
    God judges for the best,
And from a world of pain and woe,
    He took her to his rest;
Why should we wish her back again?
    Oh, freed from sin and care,
Let us the rather pray God's love,
    Ere long to join her there.

THE FIRE ANNIHILATOR.

"WATER, and nothing but water!"
exclaimed Mr. John Diggs, the great sugar-
baker (everybody knows old John Diggs),
"Water, I say, is the natural enemy of fire;
and any man who dares to say otherwise is no
better that a fool or a charlatan. I should
like to knock such a fellow down. I know
more about fire than all the learned talking
chaps in England, and it's of no use to tell
me when a house is in a blaze, that any thing
but water can put it out. Not a bit of it.
Don't attempt to say so; I won't hear it!"

Mr. Diggs gave vent to his feelings in the
above oracular form at his Club, on Thursday
evening last, on which occasion he happened
to be the Chairman. It was in consequence
of one of the junior members reading a
passage from a scientific Journal, to the effect
that water was almost as much a friend to
fire, as an enemy—and that, at any rate, they
were near of kin—quoting Mr. Phillips, the
Inventor of the Fire Annihilator, as a
practical authority on the subject. This was
what had so enraged Mr. Diggs, sugar-baker,
and chairman of the Albert Rock and Toffee
Club.

Mr. John Diggs is a man who always
carries his will before him, like a crown on a
cushion, while his reason follows like a page,
holding up the skirts of his great coat.
Honest-hearted, and not without generosity,
he is much esteemed in spite of his many
perversities. He possesses a shrewd observation,
and a good understanding, when once
you can get at it; but his energies and animal
spirits commonly carry him out of all bounds,
so that to bring him back to rational judgment
is a work of no small difficulty. He
is open to conviction, as he always says, but
he is a tip-top specimen of the class who
commonly use that expression; his open door is
guarded by all the bludgeons of obstinacy,
behind which sits a pig-headed will, with its
eyes half shut.

This is the man, and in the condition of
mind which may be conjectured from his
speech in the chair, just quoted, who drove
up in his gig last Friday, as the clock struck
four, to the gates of the London Gas Works,
Vauxhall, in order to hear, with his own ears,
Mr. Phillips dare to say he could extinguish
the most violent flames without the use of
water; and to see, with his own eyes, the
total failure of the attempt, and the exposure
of the humbug.

To make sure of entire sympathy in all his
perversities, Mr. Diggs had brought his wife
with him; and to insure a ready assistance in
the detection of any tricks, his foreman, Mr.
White, had been sent on by the steamer. A
real reason lay at the bottom of all this; for
the work-place and warehouse of Mr. Diggs
were worth £60,000; part of which sum, no
insurance could cover; and his stock in trade
as well as his works, he but too well knew,
were of a most combustible nature. No
laughing matter—therefore not a thing to be
trifled with.

Mr. Diggs met his foreman in the yard,
waiting for his arrival; and the party having
displayed their tickets, were ushered across
and around, till they came to a large brick
building, with a long row of arched window-
holes along the top, apparently for the ready
escape of volumes of smoke. The window
holes all looked very black about the edges.
So did the door-posts. The walls were very
dingy and besmutched. Mrs. Diggs had put
on her best spring bonnet with orange ribbons,
and her pink and fawn-coloured silk shawl.
She had a sudden misgiving, but it couldn't
be helped now.

They were ushered through a large, smutty
door, into a brick building, paved with bricks,
and having arched recesses, here and there, at
the lower part. Commodious retreats, in case
the flames put forth their tongues beyond
their usual range, and advanced towards the
centre of the building,—as Mr. Diggs devoutly
hoped they might. At one end, the wooden
frame-work of a house, with ground-floor, and
first and second floor, presented its front. It
was black and charred from recent fire, with
sundry repairs of new planks, which "brought
out" the black of the rest, both without and
within, to the greatest advantage. Level
with the lowest window was a sort of
lecturer's stage of rough planks, at the back of
which lay the model of a ship's hull, some six
or seven feet in length; and to the right of
this, the model of a house, with lower and
upper floor, of about two feet and a half in
height.

Fronting this stage, model ship, model
house, and actual house, was a semicircle
of chairs and benches—not too near—with
ample room left at the sides for the sudden
flight of visitors who had seated themselves
in an incredulous and unimaginative state
of mind, nearer than subsequent events
seemed to warrant. Then, there were the
arched recesses; then, a low stage with seats;
then, a broad flight of wooden stairs at
the opposite end, by which visitors could
ascend to a high platform, leading also to side