another," said the dying woman faintly. They were her last words.

Hand-in-hand, the reconciled brothers knelt beside the couch of Ruth's mother, and watched her during the long hours of night, which she passed in unconscious lethargy, until the spirit fled on the wings of sunrise.

Horace and Stephen Leigh followed the remains of the aged widow to the grave, and saw her laid beside Ruth in the church-yard on the hill-side. Then they returned home-to a home which was henceforth to be the same for both brothers. They never spoke of the past, but lived together as though it had never been. They were not rivals now, for they knew that "death sanctifieth all things," and that in heaven “there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage."

Under the willow-tree was placed a stone, with Ruth's name and age, and that of her mother. Below the latter was engraved this line from the Holy Book

Now I think that a church-yard wakes each solemn
thought

Which dwells in the heart, or at least that it ought;
But if gravely disposed, and with sentiment fraught,
Can we help ourselves if for a moment we're caught
By a frolicsome sprite,
Who most doth delight
In his motley to deck,
And show us the speck
Where absurdity lurks,

With its smiles and its smirks ;
Enwreathing its thread

With things mournful and dread,
Till so fast are they wed
That perforce we are led
To yield up our heart

To the merrier part.

This just was the case that soft summer night,
When the stars broke through the pale twilight,
And the young moon shone serenely bright,
As if she never looked below
On strife or sorrow, sin or woe,

I sat down to rest on an old tomb-stone,
By grass and wild flowers all o'ergrown;
But through wild flowers and grass I was able to scan

"Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be The legend it bore, which thus began:-
called the children of God."

new);

But it also was hinted that bacon, or pin,
Or paper, or tea, might be purchased within,
And needles, and tape, and sugar and cheese;

So doubtless each customer's taste they could please,
And please themselves also, with profit and ease;
As no opposition had they to dread,

So peaceful and happy the life that was led
By the Slumberwellites, or the Slumberwellilions
(I know not which term may best suit the millions).
No doubt, they were excellent folks in their way,
And in candour and justice, this much I will say,
If in church or in church-yard you wander awhile,
Through the tall dark grass, or the echoing aisle,
As on wood or on stone
The inscriptions are shown
Though to answer's a task,
You'd be tempted to ask,

"Since only the good people here seem to lie,
Pray what do you do with the bad when they die?"

"In memory of a darling wife,
The joy and solace of my life,

This stone is raised by him who now,
Longing, himself awaits the blow,
When death shall kindly lay him low;
For Death, so cruel to divide,
Alone can place us side by side.

Also in memory of"-was underneath;
But here the weeds had formed a sort of wreath,
So that I could not see

The village poesy,

Though I supposed it then

Turned to that "best of men"

Himself, who doubtless followed to the grave
The lost and loved his anguish could not save!
I should have said

That at the head,

Where was recounted this sad tale,
A stooping figure seemed to wail,
And with one wing was clearly trying
(A stony wing, not meant for flying)
To wipe away the stony tears
That after five-and-thirty years
(So from the battered date appears),
Still cours'd adown the stony cheeks,
Whose many weather-beaten streaks,
Neighboured too by a broken nose,
And loss of fingers, and of toes,
Proclaimed that either rude old Time,
Or Slumberwell's ungenial clime
Had shown but small respect to one
Who through all trials still wept on.

Mine was a kind of waking dream,
And while I pondered there did seem
A sort of radiance to gleam,

Which I could plainly trace,
As if to quickly chase
From the stone angel's face
All signs of woe;

That there might grow,
Curling the lip the while,
A most indubitable smile;
And but a minute after,
With smothered laughter,
The bruised and broken thing,
Still resting on one wing,

Bade me, in voice though low yet clear,
To tear away the weeds that grew so near;
Murmuring the while, "Ah! when she first lay here
He used to come and water with a tear
The earth that covered her-e'en me he'd grasp,
And wreaths of flowers around me clasp ;
He said he envied me, that I should ever be
Near the sad home of his dear Emily:
Yet somehow, after a few weeks were gone,
He used to leave me very much alone;
The flowers he twined around my urn,
Were faded quite before his next return;

And soon he made his visits 'few and far between,'
Till for three months at once he was not seen.
But when at last he came, no tear was shed,
Upon his Emily's low narrow bed;

And, oh! the next time that he came,

I did not know him for the same.

Sables were doffed; he smiled and looked so gay-
I should observe, he only passed this way
To church upon his second bridal day!"
I started as I tore away
The grass and wild flowers that had
Cloud-like around the lettered stone,
And thus I read-

grown

"In memory of dear Jane,
The second wife of Walter Blane."
"Go on," the stony figure said,
And, half indignant, half in dread,
I turned to the same work once more,
And grass and wild flowers quickly tore,
Till there appeared another name,
And to the third-third-wife I came!

A LOVER'S PERVERSITY.

BY MRS. ABDY.

Why dost thou blame her? why deplore
My sad and blighted youth?
Why dost thou number o'er and o'er
Her broken vows of truth?

No force can bind, no spell restrain
The wild and wayward will;

I know her false, I know her vain,
And yet I love her still!

Why name her errors? none to me
Are hidden or unknown;
Thy memory, faithful though it be,
Surpasses not my own:

The icy scorn by which she tried
My young true heart to chill,
Her wounding words, her mocking pride,
I own-yet love her still!

Trust me, I seek not to defend

The false one from thy blame;

Yet could a thousand tongues, my friend,
Hourly her faults proclaim,

And Echo, ere the accents die,
Spread them from hill to hill-
My truant heart would yet reply,
Alas! I love her still!

TO THE LAURESTINUS.
(Impromptu Lines.)

BY GEORGE J. O. ALLMAN.

Pride of the garden! when the Winter's snow
The earth embosoms in its fleecy thrall—
When never sun doth shed its genial glow

To free each leaflet from its frozen pall

When, one by one, have slowly disappear'd

The varied flowers, whose blossoms shed a joy
O'er Autumn's rugged brow, by Summer rear'd,
But for his chill, rude graspings to destroy-

Pale, blooming Evergreen! thy virgin white
Uprears, in sweetest loveliness its crown:
It hails stern Hyems with its radiance bright,
To court his smile, to deprecate his frown.

Thou, too, who, when the Spring doth don her robe,
And fills the air with balmy sweets again,
To ope each bright-eyed flower, and swell each lobe,
Till, budding, it doth burst its prison'd chain-

Dost dwindle, like the song of wood-birds wild,
To emptiness, and in the living green
In vain we search for Winter's favorite child,
And wonderment doth guess where it hath been-

Yet, when the snows, returning, fill the air

With icy whisperings, and crisp the plain With snowy garment, still, sweet Laurel, there Thou blossomest in beauty once again!

Thou art the truest emblem of that Thing,

The Genius of Man, whose wondrous birth, Though the shoots fade, with happier times doth bring

Fresh forms of beauteousness to gladden Earth!

"All hail to the new-born year!

To the child of hope and fear!
He comes on his car of state,
And weaves our web of fate;

And he opens his robe to receive us all,
And we live or die, and we rise or fall,
In the arms of the new-born year!

"Hope! spread thy soaring wings!

Look forth on the boundless sea,
And trace thy bright and beautiful things
On the veil of the great To be.

"Build palaces broad as the sky,

And store them with treasures of light;
Let exquisite visions bewilder the eye,
And illumine the darkness of night

"We are gliding fast from the buried year,

And the present is no more;

But Hope, we will borrow thy sparkling gear,
And shroud the future o'er."

The gate of the year!-the birth-morn of them again. They sleep; our eyes will soon another round of months has dawned, and glad-grow heavy likewise! ness reigns around us far and wide-music, and mirth, and jubilation. From how many lips pass those gentle words, "A happy New Year!" Some in accustomed careless courtesy, and some in hollow mockery; but more, far more, we trust, in all true brotherly human kindness.

ever-changing light and shade; while the sun glints on them through wreathing mists that curl around the higher summits in fantastic shapes-a never-resting sea of cloud; now swelling up like ocean's troubled billows; anon spreading out as calm, and we might also fancy as lucid, as a waveless lake!

Dark is thy birth-time, Onew-born year! heavy | the dark brown hills and half green valleys, in are the clouds that curtain thy wintry cradle! And yet in these our northern regions, cold though they be, when we hear from age-stained church-towers the old bells ring out in the still midnight to welcome thee, as they did thy predecessors centuries ago, at first low and sweet, with silvery tones like the fairy bells of a summer's eve, when "the moon sleeps with Endymion," then all at once swelling into a loud triumphant peal, as for a nation's highest jubilee-sorrow after a season imperceptibly melts away, and January's first murky morn becomes as blithe as the dewy repose of June's twilight. Perchance the clouds roll gently away at intervals, until they rest only on the distant horizon, leaving our neighbour mountains depicted in stern majesty against the intensely blue arch of heaven, whence the stars, twinkling like spiritual eyes that may not show forth all their lustre, look down in lovely, yet awe-inspiring splendour. Can we behold those perpetual watchers, whose circuit has not intermitted since Creation was called from Chaos, shining with the same surpassing brilliancy that rivetted the gaze of patriarchs, when earth was young, without feeling a sense-subduing emotion come over us, and kneeling entranced in spirit, hearing as it were their mysterious music as they move in unvarying courses? Nor is night only fair. Often by day how beautiful appear

Oh, there is ever splendour perceptible in this visible creation-an harmonious loveliness, born of all things Deity has made. The proudest and the meanest unite together-the rugged and the delicate combine in forming the magnificent whole; whilst MAN, its Lord, too often disregards the mind-treasures it offers to his grasp; so their precious influences ascend in vain, and he, foolishly ungrateful, goes on his way, troubled at heart, yet not knowing why he is dispirited. But not so all. Some gentler ones there are, who seek to gather to themselves riches worldlings never comprehend, and reading with attentive eyes the book of Nature, obtain an inward, an imperishable joy, owning in His munificent gifts their great Creator. In this happy band, kind reader ours, we trust that you are numbered; then will you find gladness alike when Winter reigns, and when the Springbirds sing, and, patiently awaiting May's merry hours, endure with cheerfulness the dark skies and cutting blasts of JANUARY.

No. II. FEBRUARY.

"The night was Winter in his roughest mood;
The morning sharp and clear. But now at noon,
Upon the southern side of the slant hills,
And where the woods fence off the northern blast,
The season smiles, resigning all its rage,
And has the warmth of May. The vault is blue
Without a cloud, and white without a speck
The dazzling splendour of the scene below."

CowPER.-The Task, book vi.

A song in the early month!

Sing ye it merrily!

A song for the young and fair,
And all kind souls that be!

A cheerful lay for the long-wish'd day
When love may his tale disclose;
Oh, many a cheek, ere morning break,
Will glow with a richer rose;

And many a maiden's heart will bound
As she reads each pencill'd line,
Blessing the light of the sunshine bright
That shows her true Valentine!

Although February is a cold, bleak, and often stormy month, symptoms of approaching spring begin to develop themselves-faint foreshadowings of the beauty about to descend on earth. Already the sleeping Titan moves, not yet fully awakened, but needing only the first touch of vernal messengers to arise in renovated majesty already a few glad-hearted birds resume their

cheerful songs, warbling as if their happiness might never keep silence, and delighted to bask in a brief mid-day sunshine-even when the white frost-rime has hardly melted from immense tree-boughs and long ghost-like windlestraws. Blessings on the sweet melody that re minds us of Summer's enthusiastic musical loveliness, inducing dreams of blue skies and