bud. Through its leafless limbs, I can see Heaven, now, and there are no stars in the trees in June.

The Sweet Brier creaks uneasily against the wall; the snow is heaped on the window-sill; the frost ig 'castle-building' on the panes; the streams are dumb; the woods stand motionless under the weight of white winter.

It is Saturday-Saturday afternoon; the children "just let loose from school," and Clear Lake is swarming with juvenile skaters.

Grouped here and there in clusters, like swarms of bees or bevies of blackbirds in council, now and then, one and another and a third dash not in graceful circles, with motion as easy as flying. Huge sixes and sweeping eights, and eagles with enormous length of wing, are "cut" upon the "solid water."

Presently, the whole cluster break and fly in every direction, like a flock of pigeons. There go a brace in a trial of speed; there, a Castor and Pollux, hand in hand; here, a game of goal is going on, and here, a game of "red lion."

Away there, lies a little fellow upon his back, taking his first lesson in Skater's Astronomy. Ask him, and he will tell you he 'saw stars' but a mo ment ago, that never were named.

The sun is going down in the west, and they have been upon the ice since high noon. But what is that to them? What care they for cold, and fatigue, and time? Saturday comes but once a week, and ice hardly once a year. But they'll find ice enough by and by-ice in midsummer-iced hopes, iced friendships, icy hearts. And as for the Saturdays, they'll grow "few and far between"-they'll not come once a week, nor once a month; and happy will he be, who has a Saturday afternoon and evening to end his life with.

Then who says, the boys sha'n't skate? Who grudges them the "rockers?" Look at that little fellow now; on one arm, hang his skates, " a brand new" pair, glittering like a couple of scimetars. 'Tis his first appearance on the Skater's field. Down he gets upon the ice; his little red and white mittens tethered with a string, lie beside him, while with his chubby red fingers, he dallies and tugs with buckles and straps, every now and then blowing his fingers to keep them in a glow. All right and tight, he's rigged, he's ready, he's up and off! What warrior ever harnessed for the field and the fray, with a richer pride mantling his check, or a brighter joy

lighting his eye! There may have been one or two, but there is no record of them in Froissart.

MUSING here by the sleepy fire, this stormy night about 66 one thing and another," the chime of bells, little and big, comes sweetly to my ear through the snowy air.

Those sounds are mnemonic-they are the sweet bells of the past; and in the time of a single note, we are back again into the vanished years, in a winter's night, the moon at the full, some body very near," and the merry bells ringing as they ring now. How silvery were the laughs that issued then, from beneath the downy mufflers and quilted hoods. How bright were the eyes that glittered through green veils then, like stars through a leafy wood.

Bells! There have been knells since then, and those who "make no new friends," must journey alone. You who vaunt upon life and station, and the permanence of things earthly, return to the scenes of your youthful days of a winter's night. And the 'turn out'-let it be as of old, and call here and

there, where dwelt the companions of a brighter time. Here the stranger, there the estranged, and there, echo answers to your impatient rap.

The horses are at the gate, eager to be gone, and shake music from those bells at every toss of the head. But it is not music to you, and turning slowly homeward, you pass, in the moonlight, a field furrowed with many a drifted heap. It is "God's Field," and many who were your companions on just such a night, lie silent there. Ay! muffle the bells for memory, and pass on, a sadder but a wiser man.

The Old Times and the New.

How's your memory? Does it run away back to the days of life's "drowsy east," and do the days that are gone shine yet upon the further borders of it? Or have you one of those narrow memories, not broad enough for any thing but yesterday and the day before? And what do you keep in it? Have you turned it into a blotter to put "credits" to yourself, and "debits" to some body else in; a sort of meagre Almanac of" bills receivable?" Or is it a beautiful

place, like Laurel Hill or Greenwood, filled with the past-sweet records of joys departed-brighter days and downier hours? If so, and I hope so, do you remember the village church, and the choir, and the ininister, and how they used to do then, and all about it? And what wouldn't you and I give, to be set back into the middle of one of those long Sunday afternoons, in one of those old-fashioned square pews, with our feet swinging about eight or ten inches above the floor, mother on one side with the everlasting sprig of carraway; father on the other; the singers on the high seats, away back; the minister come, and all ready? Don't you remember the pulpit? A queer thing, shaped like a swallow's nest, and fastened like a swallow's nest to the wall, about midway between floor and ceiling. Or perhaps it was a great, square, two-story device, with the architecture of a wheat-bin, and a dungeon of a place to put wood in, underneath.

I'll

wager a concordance" it

was one or the other. And what wouldn't you give, to have the faith in one man that you had in that old-fashioned minister? Were you afraid of thunder, and don't you recollect when father asked him home because it was likely to rain, and it did rain, and the thunder jarred the tangled sunbeams out of the