of the winter; and the labourers thought it
the best winter they had ever known for
constant work. Those who employed the
labour hoped it would answer—found it
expensive—must trust it was all right, and
would yield a profit by and by. As for the
Woodruffes, they were too poor to employ
labourers. But some little hope had entered
their hearts again, and brought strength, not
only to their hearts, but to their very limbs.
They worked like people beginning the world.
As poor Abby could keep the house and
sew, while attending to her little school,
Becky did the lighter parts (and some which
were far from light) of the garden work,
finding easy tasks for Moss and Allan
worked like a man at the drains. They had
been called good drains before; but now,
there was an outfall for deeper ones; and
deeper they must be made. Moreover, a
strong rivalry arose among the neighbours
about their respective portions of the
combined drainage; and under the stimulus of
ambition, Woodruffe recovered his spirits and
the use of his limbs wonderfully. He suffered
cruelly from his rheumatism; and in the
evenings felt as if he could never more lift a
spade; yet, not the less was he at work again
in the morning, and so sanguine as to the
improvement of his ground, that it was
necessary to remind him, when calculating
his gains, that it would take two years, at
least, to prove the effects of his present
labours.

LINES TO A DEAD LINNET.

BY A SOLITARY STUDENT.

SWEET little friend in hours of lonely thought,
And studious toil thro' the unresting day,
Why hast thou left me to the sullen hours,
So dull and changeless now? Thy light-heart song.
And fluttering plume of joy, beguile no more
My weary mind, happy when so estranged,
From books, which are the bane of all repose.

The secret bustle of thy frequent meal,
Like elfin working mischief, all unseen
At bottom of thy cage; thy dipping bill,
Oft splashing sportive o'er the learned tome,
And rousing my 'rapt soul to homelier themes;
The tuning twitter, snatch'd and interrupt—
The timorous essay, low and querulous—
The strain symphonious—and the full burst of song,
That made my study-walls re-echo sweet
The harmonious peal, while all its tatter'd maps
And prints unfrained, responsive tremblings gave;—
All these are past, and joy takes wing with thee.

Nor less, when in the dreary night, far spent,
Still was I pondering o'er the murky page,
Hast thou attracted notice by thy bill
Rattling along the wires; and in the twinkle—
The clos'd—and then, bright little eye, half-oped,
Well have I read thy meaning, and full soon,
Thus warned of needful slumber, borne away
The wasted lamp, and sought my lonely couch.

Thy empty cage now hangs against the wall!
No one inhabits it—nothing is there—
Thy seed-box is half full of dust and film;
A spider weaves within thy water-glass:
The wretchedness of silence—no response
To calls and questionings of the heart—the mind—
All show me thou art dead—for ever gone!
I stand and gaze on thy perplexing cage—
Like a friend's house—deserted! one we have loved—
And before which, returning after years,
We pause, and think of hours enjoyed within;
And gaze upon the dusty shutters—closed!

THE GOOD GOVERNOR.

IN a region where favourable latitude and
tempering sea-breezes combine to produce
perpetual summer, lie "the still vexed
Bermoothes," the Bermuda of modern navigators,
where one-half of the year is the fitting seed-
time for plants of the tropical, and the other
half of the temperate zones. These islands,
discovered to us by a shipwreck, with one
exception, our oldest colony, offer a miniature
copy of the institutions of the parent state.

About twenty square miles of surface,
consisting of one island thirty miles long by two
broad, and a half-dozen aide-de-camp sort of
islets, support a population rather less
numerous, and considerably less wealthy, than
that of the City of Canterbury; and enjoy
the dignity of a capital, with two thousand
inhabitants; of a Governor and Commander-
in-Chief, who takes his seat on "the throne"
when opening the Bermoothean Parliament;
of a Council, or miniature House of Lords,
and a Representative Assembly of thirty-six
members, forming a miniature House of
Commons. They had formerly an
Archdeacon, but, by one of those extraordinary
decisions that occasionally originate in high
quarters, the Archdeacon has been metamorphosed
into a Bishop of Newfoundland, whom
the Bermudians never see, although they still
have the honour of paying the salary of
the late Archdeacon.

Formerly Bermuda, like Virginia, from
which it was an offshoot, was a slave colony,
and grew tobacco. But tobacco would not
pay, and every Bermudian, being born within
a mile of the water, was bred amphibious.
Capital cedar for ship-building grows on the
hills, and harbours are all around to receive
the craft when built. So it came to pass, that
the "'Mudian" clippers became plentiful all
over the neighbouring seas, and took a large
share of the carrying trade between our
American colonies and the West Indies.
Even when a large slice of these said colonies
had struggled into the Republic of the United
States, the 'Mudians continued to do a good
stroke of sea-faring business.

Then whales abounded in the neighbouring
seas, and every 'Mudian took to handling the
oar, the lance, or the harpoon, at a time of
life when other children were driving hoops,
or riding rocking-horses.