rcury's day seems scarcely at all connected with his name,
but comes from Wodin, who was imagined to be chief among the gods of
those barbarous tribes."

TOMMY'S VALENTINE.

BY MRS. M. D. BRINE.

He was only a little street sweeper, you know,
Barefooted, and ragged as one could be;
But blue were his eyes as the far-off skies,
And a brave-hearted laddie was Tommy Magee.
But it chanced on the morning of Valentine's Day
Our little street sweeper felt lonely and sad;
"For there's _no fun_," thought he, "for a fellow like me,
And a valentine's something that _I_ never had."

But he flourished his broom, and the crossing made clean
For the ladies and gentlemen passing his way;
And he gave them a smile, singing gayly the while,
In honor, of course, of St. Valentine's Day.
Now it happened a party of bright little girls,
All dainty and rosy, and brimming with glee,
Came over the crossing, a careless glance tossing
To poor little barefooted Tommy Magee.

But all of a sudden then one of them turned,
And running to Tommy, thrust into his hand,
With a smile and a blush, and the whispered word "Hush,"
A beautiful valentine. You'll understand
How Tommy stood gazing, with wondering eyes,
After the group of wee ladies so fine,
As with joy without measure he held his new treasure;
And this is how Tommy got _his_ valentine.

LOST IN THE SNOW.

Among the dangers of the winter in the Pass of St. Gothard is the
fearful snow-storm called the "guxeten" by the Germans, and the
tourmente or "tormenta" by the Swiss. The mountain snow differs in form,
as well as in thickness and specific gravity, from the star-shaped
snow-flakes on the lower heights and in the valleys. It is quite floury,
dry, and sandy, and therefore very light. When viewed though a
microscope it assumes at times the form of little prismatic needles, at
other times that of innumerable small six-sided pyramids, from which, as
from the morning star, little points jut out on all sides, and which,
driven by the wind, cut through the air with great speed. With this fine
ice-dust of the mountain snow, the wind drives its wild game through the
clefts of the high Alps and over the passes, particularly that of St.
Gothard. Suddenly it tears up a few hundred thousand cubic feet of this
snow, and whirls it up high into the air, leaving it to the mercy of the
upper current, to fall to the gr