The

The blue walls of heaven, built up in the heavy masonry of night, parted, without a crash, nay, even without the soft and silken rustle of a curtain. lights aloft, were put out, one after another, to give effect to the scene; the gates of red gold swung back, noiselessly as the parting of soft lips in dreams, and a threshold and hall inlaid with pearl, were disclosed.

There was a flush, a gleam, and a glow over the lake, and there, paused the Sun, as if enchanted with the scene he smiled on. A moment, and he stepped forth, but there was no jar; a moment more, and cloud, and wood, and hill, were all of a glory. And there was song, sweetest song; the deep, blue Heaven was full of voices of unseen birds, that fluttered at the pale portal of morning.

Five o'clock and a summer morning! A silver mist hangs along the streams, a few downy clouds are afloat, and the landscape is heavy with dew.

The cows turned out from the milking, are tinkling their way along the winding path to the woods; the robins are calling to each other in the orchard, and an enterprising hen in the barn, is giving "the world assurance of". -an egg. Some how, earth, in such a morning, looks as if it were just finished, the coloring

not dry, the mouldings not "set," without a grave or a grief in it.

Noting the way of the wind,' and remembering that the sun came out,' as it set, last night, it is pronounced a good day for haying. So forth to the meadow they go, the farmer, the neighbors and the boys, 'armed and equipped;' a young bare-footed Commissary bringing up the rear with earthen jug and bright tin pail. Much talk of 'wide swaths' and 'mowings round,' with laugh and jest, beguiles the journey through the pasture to the field of battle. Coats and jackets fly like leaves in winter weather, and on moves the phalanx with the steady step and sweep, amid the tall, damp grass. One bends to the scythe as if it were an oar, and pants on in the rear of his fellows. Another walks erect and boldly up to the grass, the glittering blade the while, curving freely and easily about his feet. The fellow in Kentucky Jean, expended his strength in boasting, on the way, and labors like a ship in a heavy sea, while the quiet chap in tow, that never said a word, is the pioneer of the field.

On they move, toward the tremulous woods in the distance. One pauses, brings the snath to "order arms," and you can hear the tink-a-tink of the

rifle,' as it sharpens the edge of Time's symbol. An other wipes the beaded drops from his brow, and then, the swath-notes blend again, in full orchestra.

Onward still; they are hidden in the waving grass-all but a broken line of broad-brimmed hats, that rising and falling, seem to float slowly over the top of the meadow.

Ten o'clock, and a cloudless sky! The birds and the maples are silent and still; not a flutter or twitter in woodland or fallow. Far up in the blue, a solitary hawk is slowly swinging in airy circles over the farm. Far down in the breathless lake, sweeps his shadowy fellow. The long, yellow ribbon of road leading to town, is a-quiver with heat. Brindle' and 'Red' stand dozing in the marsh; the sheep are panting in the angles of the fences; the horses are grouped beneath the old oaks; Lock, the faithful guardian of the night, has crawled under the wagon for its shadow, now and then, snapping in his sleep, at the flies that hum around his pendent ears; the cat has crept up into the leafy butternut, and stretched herself, at length, upon a limb, to sleep; JEMMY is dreaming on his drowsy perch; and even the butterflies, weary of flickering in the sunshine, rest like full-blown exotics, on the reeds.

The children of the neighboring school, all flushed and glowing, come bounding down the slope, in couples, the old red pail swung up between; and the clatter of the windlass betokens' the old oaken bucket' already dripping up into the sun, with its brimming wealth of water.

Twelve o'clock and a breathless noon!

The corn

fairly curls' in the steady blaze. The sun has driven the shadows around under the west and north walls; it has reached the noon-mark on the threshold, and pours its broad beams into the hall; the Morning Glories have struck' their colors, and a little vine trailed up the wall by a string of a shroud, shows decided symptoms of 'letting go.'

The horn winds for dinner, but its welcome note surprises the mowers in the midst of the meadow, and they'll cut their way out, like good soldiers, despite the signal.

Back we are again to the field; aye, and back too, upon the threshold of childhood. A chance breath wafts to us, the sweet, old-fashioned fragrance of the new-mown hay, and we are younger in memory than we'll ever be again. The angry hum of the bees just thrown out of house and home; and the whistling quail, as she whirled timidly away before the

steady sweep of the whetted scythes; and the shout of PORTER or JOHNNY, as the next stroke laid open her summer hopes to the day; and the bell-tones of the Bob-o'-links swinging upon the willows in the 'Hollow.' Can't you hear-don't you remember them all?

And have you forgotten the green knoll under the wide-spreading beech-or was it a maple?—and how hungry you were, at the morning lunch, just from sympathy, though you hadn't 'earned your salt' for a week? And the brown jug filled with pure cold water, and—in those old times, you know-the little black bottle, with something stronger, just 'to qualify' it, as they said, that nestled lovingly together, amid the cool and dewy grass in the fence-corner? I am sure you remember how the magnificent loads went trembling into the barn, you upon the top, and how they heaped the new hay into the empty 'mow,' till it was half as high as the ladder-up to the 'big beam'-up to the swallow-hole; and how you crept up with a young troop, and hid away in a dark corner, festooned with cobwebs, and 'played' you were a 'painter' or a catamountain, and growled terrifically, to the unspeakable dread of your little brother, or cousin, or some body. Or, how, wearied of the