of laughter and tears. The second and third-how well do I remember the last time I saw them! They were dressed in flower-broidered robes, flowers in their hair, the tint of flowers upon their cheeks, and the fragrance of flowers in their breath. They wore broidered girdles of green, and they were all of a flutter, going to some fête. But they have gone together, and almost hand in hand, where flowers bloom all the year long, and where it is one grand fête from June to June again.

Then came one whom the heart aches to think of; a magnificent being, fully rounded into womanhood. With eyes that looked into the soul, as warm, and clear, and noble as a summer Heaven; with a voice full of sweetest music, and with grace in every motion. Living, who could help loving her ?—and dying, who could help weeping for her ?—I am not ashamed to say it, I wept; I am not afraid to tell it, Nature wept; I am not wild to fancy it, Heaven smiled, when she awaited admission on its star-lighted threshold.

But I haven't the heart to recall them all to-day Enough to say, they are dead; the tenth is now dying, and they will all be a family in Heaven. Who is there among my readers to give a tear or a thought to poor, departing OCTOBER ?

SHADOWS that out-live the sunshine, daguerreotypes are. I have been looking at one to-night-a picture of the dead. Dead? Oh, no!--that cannot be dead that we cannot forget.

Well do I remember when it was taken--a tearful April day; showers came out of the rainbows, and sunshine broke out of the clouds. Fitting emblem of her little life, and yours, and mine. They arrayed her in a white robe, folded her white hands upon her breast, wreathed white roses in her hair, and made her as ready as they could for the angels that waited without. There she lay, cold and motionless, but none of us could make her dead.

did I bring a mirror close to those

Again and again,

sealed lips; once

or twice, I fancied its surface was a little dimmed, but it was not so.

There was the dear, pale face,

nothing more. That little cloud of life had floated

away for ever.

Sleep and his brother had stood beside the couch, to claim her as she lay. Both won her, for she slept the sleep of death.

Oh, she was lovely! and as those fair lineaments settled to their last repose, it made the heart ache and the eye dim to look at them. How much there is in the thought, we shall see her like no more; mingled

with her kindred elements, her dust shall be strown to the winds. Her image is pictured now upon the heart, but hearts may break, memory be dimmed with tears and time. Had we but thought of this, the artist should have made her live upon his canvass. Such beauty should not quite depart. Too late—too late!

Far over the waters, in sunny France, in a laboratory, a workman is bending over a crucible and a furnace. Begrimmed with toil, nameless, the utterer of a language not our own. What is he to us, or we to him? Nothing.

It was morning, and through the half-drawn curtain, round that bed of death, a bright ray of sunshine streamed full upon the face of the dead, and grew pale--and well it might, for it was in the presence of Him who shall one day bid the sun put off his robes of glory for the garment of sackclothan instant fell, and then was flying out again into the free, glad gush of morning, and the music of the woods and the birds.

A polished plate—a magical mirror, just stayed it in its flight, and ere it fled, it left thereon the sweet memory it was flying with--the picture of the Dead. The eyes were closed, 'tis true, but then she looked so

sweetly sleeping there. Many times since, be sure, it has been bedewed with tears; many times since, have lips been pressed upon it.

Radiant being! beautiful MAY! She flung but one shadow, and that only, when she died.

You have seen, sometimes, in a June morning, when the birds were in song and the breezes in tune, a sentinel star, that had out-watched the night, lingering on the bright threshold of day. You have watched it as it wavered and grew dim; as it brightened and blushed; as it paled into pearl, receded, and died.

The sky was all beauty, the world was all bliss-
Oh! who would not pray for an ending like this?
So my beautiful May passed away from life's even;
So the blush of her being was blended with heaven;
So the bird of my bosom fluttered up to the dawn-
A window was opened-my darling was gone!
A truant from time, from tears, and from sin,
For the angel on watch took the wanderer in.

WHAT an indictment could be 'found' against Time, if only he came within the jurisdiction of mortals. Count' after 'count'-how they follow one

another.

Time has robbed youth of its step of lightness, and

its locks of gold, and its bounding heart of bliss. He has lifted Heaven away from us, as we have stood up in the full stature of men; for to this the poet testified, when he said,

'It gives me little joy,

To think I'm farther off from Heaven,

Than when I was a boy.'

He has robbed manhood of its form erect, its eagle look, and its soldier tread. He has stolen beauty, line after line, and light after light, from the lips, the cheek, the brow of loveliness.

He has chilled the warmest pulses, dimmed the brightest visions, paralyzed the strongest hand, that ever throbbed with sympathetic pain, or swept the dismal horizon of human sorrow, or struck for God and the right.

He has effaced the inscriptions that love and memory have traced.

He has shrivelled and obliterated our parchments. He has struck from the roll, names that were born

to a good hope of immortality.

He has crumbled the walls of our old homesteads.

He has 'changed' the faces of our old friends.

He has made life too long for our hopes, but too brief for our deeds.