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Question upon question poured in upon Frank when he had done, which it would take too much space to repeat. Suffice it to say that all is now well with the Hardy family. Called upon to suffer deeply together they are now united in happiness and prosperity.

With them this blessed Christmas day the peace and joy are too deep for boisterous mirth. Theirs is purest happiness, though tinged and chastened by a touch of sadness; and so, the last wild peal of those Christmas bells speaks to their spirits in the angelic words

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."

RHO PI.

STORM AND CALM.

The winter wind howls fiercely round the house,
And beats and batters at each rattling pane.
Though baffled oft, it swift returns again,
And wildly shrieks our terror to arouse,
With sounds like demons holding deep carouse,
Or Bacchanals with frenzy-fired brain.
But vain its fury; all its powers are vain
To shake the peace we feel, myself and spouse.

For here we sit beside the glowing fire,

And hand in hand recall the bygone days;
The flowery paths we trod; the sunny Mays
Which have been ours; the realised desire,
Whose memory is a theme can never tire.

So calmly love with recollection plays.

J. A. L.

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THE PUDDLER'S STORY.

THE irontrade's bad now, and there ain't work enough to keep half the furnaces going, as you may see by taking a walk about this neighbourhood and look at furnace arter furnace with the grass sprouting on the top 'stead o' the flame coming out nice and lively, and all as quiet as a berrin' ground 'stead o' the engines blowing and roaring, and the steam rushing out o' the safety-valves, as the old-fashioned engineers always kep' it-though now these new-fangled chaps say as it's wasteful, and for matter o' that actooaly wants to burn the smoke as comes out o' the top o' the furnaces, jest as if there was any sense in that. Why only the other day some doctor comes round here-jest as if a doctor knowed anything about iron-and you should have heer'd him talk! Such stuff as I've never heer'd afore, and I've been at these 'ere ironworks, man and boy, a matter of five-and-forty year. What I says is, they get readin' their books too much and tryin' to find out that as it stands to sense, no one ought to know. All these doctors and schoolmasters and chaps as comes swarming round trying their 'speriments, and talking about "chemistry" and all that there, it's them as has ruined the iron trade in this country. Here they be come and built a Board School right on the other side o' the pit mount, and the bell ding-dongs, ding-dongs enough to drive you mad, and here are these works standing idle, and moss growing amongst the machinery.

Why when I was a lad, bless you, these 'ere works, they was on night and day, and as for chemistry as they calls it, it was kep' to it's right place, namely, Mr. Jones's shop in the market place with the red and green bottles, and he used to sell good stuff, as if you took some of it on Saturday night, you'd have to stop in all day o' Sunday, and made you feel as weak as a kitten, and that showed the strength on it-but now they has their 'pathic physic-little grains like grains o' sand, and

pills is'nt what they was, blessed if I don't have to take seven at once to do me any good. It's all the same all throughout-Board Schools, eddication, free libarys, and tinned meat, and all the good old-fashioned things has gone out-good trade among 'em. Why I've seen the time when I was getting my five quid * a week at the puddling, and we could afford to have our roast duck and green peas brought into the forge for us dinners, and now here I am just living in this 'ere gate keeper's house a watching to see that this 'ere deserted old ironworks don't run away. "Many of us at work here?" I should think so. We used to reckon there was three hundred and fifty employed in these works, and the master one of the good old-fashioned sort, and had his beefsteak and bottle of champagne in the office of a morning at eleven o'clock, and kep' his four hunters in the season, and spent his money like a lord. He didn't go poking round seeing if he could bottle up smoke and use it over again, nor he didn't have a doctor's shop in the office, with bottles and pestle and mortars, and such-more like he had a good cupboard with some fine old port and sherry in it as he could give a customer if he happened to come round. What I say is, Providence is agen 'em. They say these here scientific chaps don't believe in ne'er a God, and thinks they can work things out theirselves, thinks they understands the top and bottom of everything, but they don't, and it stands to reason that Providence 'ill be agen 'em. Everybody knows that the iron trade's gone to the dogs since they began to take the sway. Why, bless you,

sir, I've seen things as not the wisest chap as ever lived could understand, as shows me we ain't intended to go poking and probing into things, and if you do go probing and poking you can do no good; it puts me in mind o' when these works were all in full go and I used to come on the night turn every other week. There seemed to come such a queer kind o' quiet about three o'clock i' the morning. Here was the works all going at it hammer and tongs, and the furnaces as bright as day, and yet it seemed that the quiet and the dark o' the mountains closed in upon us, and every now and then there'd come a sighing wind as 'ud make you feel there was summat ghostly about it, and that I've often seen Irish Mike-that was a chap as worked here then-cross himself, though he dain't know I was looking at him. There's summat about the dark you can't understand, and there's summat about everything you can't understand, and you ain't meant to, neither; and since these here chaps have been going round trying to show that you can understand everything, why everything's gone wrong.

"What queer things have I seen?" Why some queer 'uns I can tell you. That was one o' the rummest as took place close on Christmas eight and twenty years ago come the Tuesday afore next Christmas Day. We'll just walk into the forge, though I can't abear to go into it by myself and see the grass growing between the iron flooring plates, and the grease on the wheels all gone to mouldiness, and the daylight looking through the roof in many a place like the holes in a beggar's ragged shirt. Well, here's the furnace I used to work, and here's my tools, which is growing rusty,

* Pounds.

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