t! are the children home?"

"Yes, love!" I answer him gently,
"They're all home long ago;"--
And I sing, in my quivering treble,
A song so soft and low,
Till the old man drops to slumber,
With his head upon his hand,
And I tell to myself the number
At home in the better land.

At home, where never a sorrow
Shall dim their eyes with tears!
Where the smile of God is on them
Through all the summer years!
I know,--yet my arms are empty,
That fondly folded seven,
And the mother heart within me
Is almost starved for heaven.

Sometimes, in the dusk of evening,
I only shut my eyes,
And the children are all about me,
A vision from the skies:
The babes whose dimpled fingers
Lost the way to my breast,
And the beautiful ones, the angels,
Passed to the world of the blest.

With never a cloud upon them,
I see their radiant brows;
My boys that I gave to freedom,--
The red sword sealed their vows!
In a tangled Southern forest,
Twin brothers bold and brave,
They fell; and the flag they died for,
Thank God! floats over their grave.

A breath, and the vision is lifted
Away on wings of light,
And again we two are together,
All alone in the night.
They tell me his mind is failing,
But I smile at idle fears;
He is only back with the children,
In the dear and peaceful years.

And still, as the summer sunset
Fades away in the west,
And the wee ones, tired of playing,
Go trooping home to rest,
My husband calls from his corner,
"Say, love, have the children come?"
And I answer, with eyes uplifted,
"Yes, dear! they are all at home."

MARGARET E.M. SANGSTER.

JIM'S KIDS.

Jim was a fisherman, up on the hill,
Over the beach lived he and his wife,
In a little house--you can see it still--
An' their two fair boys; upon my life
You never seen two likelier kids,
In spite of their antics an' tricks an' noise,
Than them two boys!

Jim would go out in his boat on the sea,
Just as the rest of us fishermen did,
An' when he come back at night thar'd be,
Up to his knees in the surf, each kid,
A beck'nin' and cheer-in' to fisherman Jim;
He'd hear 'em, you bet, above the roar
Of the waves on the shore.

But one night Jim came a sailin' home
And the little kids weren't on the sands;
Jim kinder wondered they hadn't come,
And a tremblin' took hold o' his knees and hands,
And he learnt the worst up on the hill,
In the l