down they go, like leaves in winter weather, and the victory is declared for our District, and the school is 'dismissed.'

Then comes the hurrying and bundling, the whispering and glancing, the pairing off and the tumbling in. There are hearts that flutter and hearts that ache; mittens' that are not worn, secret hopes that are not realized, and fond looks that are not returned. There is a jingling among the bells at the door; one after another the sleighs dash up, receive their nestling freight, and are gone.

Our Master covers the fire, and snuffs out the candles-don't you remember how daintily he used to pinch the smoking wicks, with fore-finger and thumb, and then thrust each hapless luminary, head first, into the tin socket?-and we wait for him.

The bells ring faintly in the woods, over the hill, in the valley. They are gone. The school house is

dark and tenantless, and we are

Merry, care-free company!

alone with the night.

Some of them are

sorrowing, some are dead, and all, I fear, are changed. SPELL! Ah! the 'spell' that has come over that crowd of young dreamers-over you, over me-will it ever, ever be dissolved ? In the white radiance of Eternity!'

How, like the shadow upon the dial, thought is ever returning to the place of beginning! Where we first began to live-where we first began to love; to the trysting-place and the homestead, the play-ground and the grave-yard:

The Children of the Sun, where'er they roam,
Deem that the Gods to them, this boon have given,
That each freed spirit seeks its native home,
And wings from thence, a speedier flight to Heaven.

As some dim fountain-when day's golden chain
Leads captive, earth-unfolds its cloudy wings,
Sublimely seeks its native heaven again,
And o'er the sun, its rainbow glory flings;

So when THY memory beams upon the thought,
Its pinions tremble for the homeward flight;
O'er many a hallowed, many a heavenly spot,
It lingers long-'tis lingering there to-night.

It were not strange, if 'neath some sacred shade,
A tear should glitter on thy billowed breast;
It were not strange, if o'er the buried dead,
Some heart should sigh, Here let me be at rest!

Home! ever Home! How glides the bird-like thought
Back to the roof-tree where it plumed its wing,
Ere tears had stained it, or the tempest caught

And strown the bower, where first it learned to sing.

WHILE I write, a strange, sad scene is being enacted, one which hangs over the mind, as I think of it, a sombre cloud of thought. A noble being, in the full maturity of life, is nearing the last hours of his existence, and from present indications, by the turn of the tide,' to-night, he will cease to be a mariner of life.

6

To see the strong limbs settle into the repose of death, is sad at any time, but there are circumstances connected with this, which invest it with an unwonted and melancholy interest.

He is the last of TEN, who, within a single year, have died, one after another, and but a little whilea few days apart! I remember them all; I knew them well, and many a day have I passed with them during this eventful year. First (I will not mention names,) an old man died; but his locks were white, and his pulses chilled, and the tears of the mourners fell slow and freezingly round the shallow grave. The old, like withered leaves, hold to life by a frail tenure there comes a husky breath, and they are

gone. Next went his brother, younger than he, a man of a cold, stern spirit; but he had friends-and who has not?-and so he died. And then a change came over a younger member of the family—a wild, boisterous, dashing blade, the musician of the group. He would have made a 'King's Trumpeter;' and what blasts I have heard him sound! Such blasts as Scott said 'were worth a thousand men.' And I have heard him play dirges too. They played for him at last. The daughters of music are brought low,' and he sleeps. His gentle sisters three, as if they knew the way he led, by the tones of his spiritbugle, followed him, one after one.

O hark! O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, further going!

O sweet and far, from cliff and star,

The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!

Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:

Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

'O love, they die in yon rich sky,

They faint on hill, or field or river;
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,

And grow forever and forever.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wide echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying?'

The youngest went first; innocence knows no fear, and she passed away smiling-a gentle creature, full

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 ?