would reject it; if it assumed not the ‘pomp and circumstance’ of royalty, though it worked miracles, we would cry, Away with it.  Eighteen hundred years have not completely transformed or transmuted the world; we are yet ready to reject the true, and be humbugged by the false.  More than eighteen hundred and sixty-two years may yet elapse before the bells that ‘ring out the old and ring in the new,’ will ’ring out the false and ring in the true.’  Then farewell humbug.

Yes, it is altogether probable that long before humbug is no more, you and I will—­I was about to say be in the narrow house, but prefer an expression of Carlyle’s—­we will have ‘vanished into infinite space.’  I prefer this for the same reason that one of Hood’s characters was thankful that ‘Heaven was boundless.’  She it was whom the physician pronounced ‘dying by inches.’  ‘Only think,’ exclaimed the consternated husband, ‘how long she will be dying!’ I suppose to the poor man Grim Death appeared to hold in his skeleton fingers, instead of an hour-glass, a twenty-year glass.

That the sands of his glass may, for you, married or single, neither run too fast nor too slow, is sincerely the wish of

Your well-wisher,

MOLLY O’MOLLY.

* * * * *

ALL TOGETHER.

  Old friends and dear! it were ungentle rhyme,
    If I should question of your true hearts, whether
  Ye have forgotten that far, pleasant time,
    The good old time when we were all together.

  Our limbs were lusty and our souls sublime;
    We never heeded cold and winter weather,
  Nor sun nor travel, in that cheery time,
    The brave old time when we were all together.

  Pleasant it was to tread the mountain thyme;
    Sweet was the pure and piny mountain ether,
  And pleasant all; but this was in the time,
    The good old time when we were all together.

  Since then I’ve strayed through many a fitful clime,
    (Tossed on the wind of fortune like a feather,)
  And chanced with rare good fellows in my time;
    But ne’er the time that we have known together: 

  But none like those brave hearts, (for now I climb
    Gray hills alone, or thread the lonely heather,)
  That walked beside me in the ancient time,
    The good old time when we were all together.

  Long since, we parted in our careless prime,
    Like summer birds no June shall hasten hither;
  No more to meet as in that merry time,
    The sweet spring-time that shone on all together.

  Some to the fevered city’s toil and grime,
    And some o’er distant seas, and some—­ah! whither? 
  Nay, we shall never meet as in the time,
    The dear old time when we were all together.

  And some—­above their heads, in wind and rime,
    Year after year, the grasses wave and wither;
  Ay, we shall meet!—­’tis but a little time,
    And all shall lie with folded hands together.