seated beneath the old yew tree in the church-
yard.

It was summer now; bright, beautiful
summer with the birds singing, and the
flowers covering the ground, and scenting the
air with their perfume.

But he was not alone now, nor did the little
girl steal near on tiptoe, fearful of being heard.
She was seated by his side, and his arm was
round her, and she looked up into his face,
and smiled as she whispered: " The first
evening of our lives we were ever together
was passed here: we will spend the first
evening of our wedded life in the same quiet,
happy place." And he drew her closer to him
as she spoke.

The summer is gone; and the autumn;
and twenty more summers and autumns have
passed away since that evening, in the old
churchyard.

A young man, on a bright moonlight night,
comes reeling through the little white gate,
and stumbling over the graves. He shouts
and he sings, and is presently followed by
others like unto himself, or worse. So, they
all laugh at the dark solemn head of the yew
tree, and throw stones up at the place where
the moon has silvered the boughs.

Those same boughs are again silvered by
the moon, and they droop over his mother's
grave. There is a little stone which bears
this inscription:—

"HER HEART BRAKE IN SILENCE."

But the silence of the churchyard is now
broken by a voice—not of the youth—nor a
voice of laughter and ribaldry.

"My son!—dost thou see this grave? and
dost thou read the record in anguish, whereof
may come repentance?"

"Of what should I repent? " answers the
son; " and why should my young ambition
for fame relax in its strength because my
mother was old and weak?"

"Is this indeed our son? " says the father,
bending in agony over the grave of his beloved.

"I can well believe I am not; " exclaimeth
the youth. " It is well that you have brought
me here to say so. Our natures are unlike;
our courses must be opposite. Your way
lieth here—mine yonder!"

So the son left the father kneeling by the
grave.

Again a few years are passed. It is winter,
with a roaring wind and a thick grey fog.
The graves in the Church-yard are covered
with snow, and there are great icicles in the
Church-porch. The wind now carries a
swathe of snow along the tops of the graves,
as though the " sheeted dead " were at some
melancholy play; and hark! the icicles fall
with a crash and jingle, like a solemn
mockery of the echo of the unseemly mirth of
one who is now coming to his final rest.

There are two graves near the old yew
tree; and the grass has overgrown them.
A third is close by; and the dark earth at
each side has just been thrown up. The
bearers come; with a heavy pace they move
along; the coffin heaveth up and down, as
they step over the intervening graves.

Grief and old age had seized upon the
father, and worn out his life; and premature
decay soon seized upon the son, and gnawed
away his vain ambition, and his useless
strength, till he prayed to be borne, not the
way yonder that was most opposite to his
father and his mother, but even the same way
they had gone—the way which leads to the
Old Churchyard Tree.

SABBATH PARIAHS.

WE are overwhelmed with " Chips " from
letter-writers, letter-senders, letter-receivers,
letter-sorters, and post-office clerks. Our
own office has become a post-office. It would
seem as if all the letters that ought to have
been written for delivery on several previous
Sundays in the ordinary course, and by the
agency of the great establishment in St.
Martin's-le-Grand, have only not been indited
in order that we might be the sufferers.
Doubtless, the other channels of public
information have equally received in the course
of each week the surplus of what would have
been, but for the Plumptre and Ashley
obstruction, Sunday letters. The public are in
arms, and every arm has a pen at the end;
every pen is dipped in the blackest ink of
indignation, or is tinged with the milder tint
of remonstrance.

Our most desperate remonstrants are
provincial post-office clerks; for it would appear
that Lord Ashley's outcasts from Sunday
society have a worse chance of being received
into it now than ever. Their labours are in
many cases so heavy on Saturday nights, that
they are obliged to lie in bed during the
whole of church time on Sunday, to recover
from their fatigues.

We select one from the heap, for publication.
The writer gives a clear account of the
hardships of a provincial post-office clerk
before he was relieved from Sunday duty by
the Royal mandate.

"Sir,

"For three years I was what you
are pleased to call in your article on the
' Sunday Screw ' a Post-Office Pariah, at an
office in a most ' corresponding ' town; my
Sunday duties were as follows:—at four I
rose, sorted my letters and newspapers,
delivered them to the messengers, sorted and
stamped (both sides) the letters for the cross-
country mails, swept out and dusted the
place, then I went to my room again, had
a nap, rose, washed, and dressed in my best;
I came down to breakfast at eight, took a
walk, till Church time, and amused myself
till five in the afternoon, when I attended at
the office and received letters till half-past
six.