we are bored to death with cards and handbills and
circulars. Come, I can't stand here all day."

"Didn't you know that I was a minister?" he asked as he backed off.

"No, nor I don't know it now; you look like the man who sold the woman
next door a dollar chromo for eighteen shillings."

"But here is my card."

"I don't care for cards, I tell you! If you leave that gate open I
will have to fling a flower-pot at you!"

"I will call again," he said, as he went through the gate.

"It won't do any good!" she shouted after him; "we don't want no
prepared food for infants--no piano music--no stuffed birds! I know
the policemen on this beat, and if you come around here again, he'll
soon find out whether you are a confidence man or a vagrant!"

And she took unusual care to lock the door.

THE BELL OF THE "ATLANTIC."

MRS. SIGOURNEY.

Toll, toll, toll!
Thou bell by billows swung,
And, night and day, thy warning words
Repeat with mournful tongue!
Toll for the queenly boat,
Wrecked on yon rocky-shore!
Sea-weed is in her palace halls--
She rides the surge no more.

Toll for the master bold,
The high-souled and the brave,
Who ruled her like a thing of life
Amid the crested wave!
Toll for the hardy crew,
Sons of the storm and blast,
Who long the tyrant ocean dared;
But it vanquished them at last.

Toll for the man of God,
Whose hallowed voice of prayer
Rose calm above the stifled groan
Of that intense despair!
How precious were those tones,
On that sad verge of life,
Amid the fierce and freezing storm,
And the mountain billows strife!

Toll for the lover, lost
To the summoned bridal train
Bright glows a picture on his breast,
Beneath th' unfathomed main.
One from her casement gazeth
Long o'er the misty sea:
He cometh not, pale maiden--
His heart is cold to thee?

Toll for the absent sire,
Who to his home drew near,
To bless a glad, expecting group--
Fond wife, and children dear!
They heap the blazing hearth,
The festal board is spread,
But a fearful guest is at the gate:--
Room for the sheeted dead!

Toll for the loved and fair,
The whelmed beneath the tide--
The broken harps around whose strings
The dull sea-monsters glide!
Mother and nursling sweet,
Reft from the household throng;
There's bitter weeping in the nest
Where breathed their soul