Conrad lived in Ohio-a German he is, you know

The house stood in broad corn-fields, stretching on, row after row.

The old folks made me welcome; they were kind as kind could be;

But I kept longing, longing, for the hills of the Tennessee.

Oh! for a sight of water, the shadowed slope of a hill!
Clouds that hang on the summit, a wind that never is still!
But the level land went stretching away to meet the sky-
Never a rise, from north to south, to rest the weary eye!

From east to west, no river to shine out under the moon,
Nothing to make a shadow in the yellow afternoon:
Only the breathless sunshine, as I looked out, all forlorn;
Only the "rustle, rustle," as I walked among the corn.

When I fell sick with pining, we didn't wait any more,
But moved away from the corn-lands, out to this river-shore-
The Tuscarawas it's called, sir-off there's a hill, you see-
And now I've grown to like it next best to the Tennessee.

I was at work that morning. Some one came riding like mad Over the bridge and up the road-Farmer Rouf's little lad. Bareback he rode; he had no hat; he hardly stopped to say, "Morgan's men are coming, Frau; they're galloping on this way.

"I'm sent to warn the neighbors. He isn't a mile behind; He sweeps up all the horses-every horse that he can find. Morgan, Morgan the raider, and Morgan's terrible men, With bowie-knives and pistols, are galloping up the glen!"

The lad rode down the valley, and I stood still at the door; The baby laughed and prattled, playing with spools on the floor;

Kentuck was out in the pasture; Conrad, my man was gone. Near, nearer, Morgan's men were galloping, galloping on!

Sudden I picked up baby, and ran to the pasture-bar. "Kentuck!" I called-"Kentucky!" She knew me ever so far!

I led her down the gully that turns off there to the right, And tied her to the bushes; her head was just out of sight.

As I ran back to the log house, at once there came a sound— The ring of hoofs, galloping hoofs, trembling over the ground

Coming into the turnpike out from the White-Woman GlenMorgan, Morgan the raider, and Morgan's terrible men.

As near they drew and nearer, my heart beat fast in alarm; But still I stood in the door-way with baby on my arm. They came; they passed; with spur and whip in haste they sped along

Morgan, Morgan the raider, and his band, six hundred strong.

Weary they looked and jaded, riding through night and through day;

Pushing on East to the river, many long miles away,

To the border-strip where Virginia runs up into the West, And fording the Upper Ohio before they could stop to rest.

On like the wind they hurried, and Morgan rode in advance; Bright were his eyes like live coals, as he gave me a sideways glance;

And I was just breathing freely, after my choking pain, When the last one of the troopers suddenly drew his rein.

Frightened I was to death, sir; I scarce dared look in his face, As he asked for a drink of water, and glanced around the place.

I gave him a cup, and he smiled-'twas only a boy, you sec;
Faint and worn, with dim-blue eyes; and he'd sailed on the
Tennessee.

Only sixteen he was, sir-a fond mother's only son-
Off and away with Morgan before his life had begun!
The damp drops stood on his temples; drawn was the boy-
ish mouth;

And I thought me of the mother waiting down in the South.

Oh! pluck was he to the backbone, and clear grit through and through;

Boasted and bragged like a trooper; but the big words wouldn't do ;

The boy was dying, sir, dying, as plain as plain could be, Worn out by his ride with Morgan up from the Tennessee.

But when I told the laddie that I too was from the South, Water came in his dim eyes, and quivers around his mouth. "Do you know the Blue-Grass country?" he wistful began to say;

Then swayed like a willow-sapling, and fainted dead away.

I had him into the log house, and worked and brought him to;

I fed him, and I coaxed him, as I thought his mother'd do; And when the lad got better, and the noise in his head was

gone,

Morgan's men were miles away, galloping, galloping on.

Oh, I must go," he muttered; "I must be up and away! Morgan-Morgan is waiting for me! Oh, what will Morgan say?"

But I heard a sound of tramping and kept him back from the door

The ringing sound of horses' hoofs that I had heard before.

And on, on, came the soldiers-the Michigan cavalry—
And fast they rode, and black they looked, galloping rapidly,—
They had followed hard on Morgan's track; they had fol-
lowed day and night;

But of Morgan and Morgan's raiders they had never caught a sight.

And rich Ohio sat startled through all those summer days; For strange, wild men were galloping over her broad high

ways

Now here, now there, now seen, now gone, now north, now east, now west,

Through river-valleys and corn-land farms, sweeping away her best.

A bold ride and a long ride! But they were taken at last. They almost reached the river by galloping hard and fast; But the boys in blue were upon them ere ever they gained the ford,

And Morgan, Morgan the raider, laid down his terrible sword.

Well, I kept the boy till evening-kept him against his will

But he was too weak to follow, and sat there pale and still. When it was cool and dusky-you'll wonder to hear me tellBut I stole down to that gully, and brought up Kentucky

Belle.

I kissed the star on her forehead-my pretty gentle lass-
But I knew that she'd be happy back in the old Blue-Grass.
A suit of clothes of Conrad's, with all the money I had,
And Kentuck, pretty Kentuck, I gave to the worn-out lad.

I guided him to the southward as well as I knew how;
The boy rode off with many thanks, and many a backward
bow;

And then the glow it faded, and my heart began to swell, As down the glen away she went, my lost Kentucky Belle! When Conrad came in the evening, the moon was shining high;

Baby and I were both crying-I couldn't tell him whyBut a battered suit of rebel gray was hanging on the wall, And a thin old horse, with drooping head, stood in Kentucky's stall.

Well, he was kind, and never once said a hard word to me; He knew I couldn't help it-'twas all for the Tennessee. But, after the war was over, just think what came to pass A letter, sir; and the two were safe back in the old BlueGrass.

The lad had got across the border, riding Kentucky Belle; And Kentuck she was thriving, and fat, and hearty, and well; He cared for her, and kept her, nor touched her with whip or spur.

Ah! we've had many horses since, but never a horse like her!

THE KING'S PICTURE.-HELEN B. BOSTWICK.

There is in every human being, however ignoble, some hint of perfection; some one place where-as we may fancy-the veil is thin which hides the divinity behind it.-CONFUCIAN CLASSICE.

The king from his council chamber

Came weary and sore of heart;
He called for Iliff the painter,
And spake to him thus apart:
"I am sickened of faces ignoble,
Hypocrites, cowards, and knaves!

I shall shrink to their shrunken measure,
Chief slave in a realm, of slaves!

"Paint me a true man's picture,
Gracious and wise and good;
Endowed with the strength of heroes,
And the beauty of womanhood;
It shall hang in my inmost chamber,
That thither when I retire,

It may fill my soul with grandeur
And warm it with sacred fire.”

So the artist painted the picture,
And hung it in the palace hall;
Never a thing so goodly

Had garnished the stately wall.
The king, with head uncovered,
Gazed on it with rapt delight,

Till it suddenly wore strange meaning,
And baffled his questioning sight.

For the form was his supplest courtier's,
Perfect in every limb!

But the bearing was that of the henchman
Who filled the flagons for him;

The brow was a priest's who pondered
His parchments early and late;
The eye was a wandering minstrel's
Who sang at the palace gate.

The lips, half sad and half mirthful,
With a flitting, tremulous grace,
Were the very lips of a woman

He had kissed in the market place;
But the smile which her curves transfigured,
As a rose with its shimmer of dew,
Was the smile of the wife who loved him,
Queen Ethelyn, good and true.

Then "Learn, O King," said the artist,
"This truth that the picture tells-
How, that in every form of the human,
Some hint of the highest dwells;
How, scanning each living temple
For the place where the veil is thin,
We may gather, by beautiful glimpses,
The form of the God within."

SHE WANTED AN EPITAPH.

She came in from the country a few days ago and ordered a head-stone for the grave of her departed husband. The marble-cutter was to have it all ready yesterday, when she was to come in again with the inscription, have the letters carved on and take the stone away.

She was on time, but she wore an anxious, troubled look, having failed to write up such a notice as she thought the stone ought to bear.

"I want suthin' that'll do my poor dead Homer justiss," she explained to the marble-cutter. “I think I ought to have one or two verses of poetry, and then a line or two at the bottom-suthin' like 'Meet me on the other shore,' you know."

The cutter said he thought he could get up something, and she entered the office and he took out twenty-three sheets of foolscap and three pen-holders and set to work, while she held her breath for fear of disturbing his thoughts. He