apples, and try in every way to get into orchards when they have gained a taste for the fruit. They have been known to unhead apple barrels, and they will eat apples from the lower limbs of a tree, and reach high for the apple limbs after the fruit on the lower limbs are gone. They like sour apples, and in this way become cider drinkers.

Eliza stopped the wagon. She got out of it, and tied the horse to a tree by the roadside. It was midnight—Halloween. She thought of English merrymakings, of the games with apples, of the curious old stories and songs that she had heard on such nights as this in her girlhood. She hurried past the graves and came to the white horse, and said, "Jack! Jack!" The horse seemed alarmed, let his raised body down to the ground, snorted, and trotted away.

Eliza stood there all alone at that still midnight hour.

The moon rode clear in the heavens now; the woods were still, and around her were graves. Did she believe in spirits? Yes, in her mother's, and as soon as she thought of that she recalled that she had been sent for the doctor, and that it was her duty to hurry on. Her heart would have been light, but for her pity for Obed. He had indeed proved a coward, but he had been wrongly taught and trained.

She rode to the doctor's house, roused the doctor, and brought him back with her to the neighborhood, and left him at poor Mrs. Hopgood's, and then rode home.

She was surprised to see a crowd of men before the door. Obed stood among them. They awaited her coming in intense interest, but in silence.

She got down from the wagon, saying, "Some one will have to carry the doctor back again."

"Who will go?" asked Mr. Miller.

There was no response. No one wanted to meet a white horse with his body on a cloud and "his feet in the sky" on this mysterious night of Halloween.

"I will go," said Eliza, firmly.

"Yes, Eliza, you go," said Mr. Miller. "You are a brave girl."

Eliza mounted the wagon seat.

Obed stepped up to her, and whispered, "Say, Eliza, what was it?"

"I will never tell; remember, now remember once for all, for your sake, Obed, I will never tell. You played me a mean trick, Obed; but other people were to blame for it; you never had any one to teach you like my mother. For your sake, Obed, left, as you are, all alone in the world, I will never say another word. Now I have done my whole duty, Obed, and, although I cannot trust you, I will always be your friend."

Obed turned away.

"What did she say?" asked the people.

"She said that she would never tell what she saw," said Obed.

"I shall keep a close eye on that girl hereafter. There may be witches, and she may be one. This is a very strange night, this Halloween." So said Mrs. Miller.

Obed had received an arrow in his heart. "Although I cannot trust you," the words spoken by Eliza haunted him. He went about a dull, absent-minded young man, and the people attributed his sadness to the sight that he had seen in the midnight ride.

Eliza was always very kind to him. She never spoke to him of the night that he had deserted her but once. It was on the eve before she united with the village church.

"Obed," she said, "I have something on my conscience. I owe it to you to say that what I saw on that Halloween night would never have harmed you or me."

This confession added to his depression of spirits. He had indeed been a coward, and forfeited the trust of the best and truest heart that he had ever known.

The Revolution came. A new flag leaped into the air. Obed had heard the cannon of Bunker Hill, and seen from afar the smoke of the battle as it arose on the afternoon of that fateful day.

There was a call for minute-men. A horseman came riding into Medfield, blowing a horn, and calling upon the farmers to volunteer.

Obed started up at the sound. He knew what was wanted.

He called Eliza out under the great elms.

"English Eliza, I am going. I shall never come back. You will never see me again. I shall never come back. Some one must die in this cause, and who better than I? Coward you think me, but you do not know me. I am not afraid to die. We were thrown upon the world together, and I have thought well of you. Don't you remember how we used to go sassafrasing with each other?"

"Yes, Obed."

"And looking for Indian-pipe when we were not looking for anything?"

"Yes."

"And picking blue gentians in the old cranberry meadows?"

"Yes."

"And listening to the bluebirds when the maples were red; and to the martin birds when the apple-trees were in bloom; and to the red robins, and all?"

"Yes, yes."

"And we used to sing out of the same book on Sundays."

"Yes."

"You remember; I do. Eliza, I want you to make me one promise."

"I always thought well of you, Obed. I would die for you."

"I am going away, and I shall die for the cause. Some day the news will come back to ye that I am dead; that I fell on the field somewhere. I do not know where it will be. Will you forgive me, then, for being a coward on that Halloween night when I was a boy and you was a girl? Promise me that now."

"I forgave you long ago. I believe you to be a brave, true-hearted man, Obed. I think the world of you."

"But you don't know that I am not a coward. You will know. You will forgive all, then?"

"Yes; there is nothing between us now."

"'Yes,' you say. That word is all that I desire in this world. I am now ready to go."

He fell fighting bravely at Monmouth. Then English Eliza for the first time told the story of the midnight ride on Halloween, and what it was that Obed saw, and she added in tears,

"But he was a brave man, Obed was!"

HER FIRST SEA VIEW.

She walked across the glistening sands,
Beneath the morning skies,
With tangled sea-weed in her hands,
And sunshine in her eyes.

Far off—as far as she could see—
The snowy surges beat,
And once—she laughed delightedly—
The water kissed her feet.

She tossed her pretty curly head—
Her lips, half-open buds—
"It's mermaids' washing-day," she said;
"The sea is full of suds!"

Then part in glee, and part in doubt,
And wholly in surprise,
She added, "When the wash is out,
I wonder how it dries?"

Martha T. Tyler.

HOW TO FIND AND MOUNT SIGNETS.

Scarabæus.

There is nothing prettier or more attractive, hanging on the walls of one's parlor or chamber, than a group of signet impressions in sealing-wax of various colors, artistically arranged and handsomely mounted; while the pleasure to be derived in seeking them is quite as keen as that which the coin or stamp hunter enjoys, without the expense attached to them, for our seals cost comparatively nothing. The outfit is simple, consisting of a dozen sticks of sealing-wax in different colors—black, brown, red, gold, white, and green, making a charming combination with any other shades that take the fancy of the collector. A light wooden or strong pasteboard box to carry the articles, a box of matches, a white taper (cut in