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having done so, her lips were pressed, almost, as it seemed, involuntarily, to the little naked foot she still held. The other, as if in proud love of liberty, had spurned off to a distance the fellow shoe.

And now the darling, disarrayed for its innocent slumbers, was hushed and quieted, but not yet to rest; the night dress was still to be put on, and the little crib was not there: not yet to rest, but to the mighty duty already required of the young Christian! And in a moment it was hushed - and in a moment the small hands were pressed together between the mother's hands, and the sweet serious eyes were raised and fixed upon the mother's eyes, (there beamed, as yet, the infant's heaven,) and one saw that it was lisping out its unconscious prayer unconscious, not surely unaccepted. A kiss from the maternal lips was the token of God's approval. And then she rose, and gathering up the scattered garments in the same clasp with the half-naked babe, she held it smiling to its father; and one saw in the expression of his face, as he upraised it after having imprinted a kiss on that of his childone saw in it all the holy fervor of a father's blessing.

The mother withdrew with her little one and then the curtain fell and still I lingered; for, after the interval of a few minutes, sweet sounds arrested my departing footsteps. A few notes of the harp, a low prelude, stole sweetly out: a voice still sweeter, mingling its tones with a simple, quiet accompaniment, swelled out gradually into a strain of sacred harmony, and the words of the evening hymn came wafted across the house of prayer. Then all was still in the cottage, and around it; and the perfect silence, and the deepening shadows, brought to my mind more forcibly the lateness of the hour, and warned me to turn my face homewards. So I moved a few steps, and yet again I lingered, lingered still; for the moon was rising, and the stars were shining out in the clear cloudless heaven, and the bright reflection of one danced and glittered, like a liquid firefly, on the ripple of the stream,

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just where it glided into a darker, deeper pool beneath a little rustic foot bridge, which led from the churchyard into a shady green lane communicating with the neighboring hamlet.

On that bridge I stopped a minute longer - and yet another and another minute- for I listened to the voice of the running water; and methought it was yet more mellifluous, more soothing, more eloquent, at that still, shadowy hour, when only that little star looked down upon it with its tremulous beam, than when it danced and glittered in the warm glow of sunshine. There are hearts like that stream, and they will understand the metaphor.

The unutterable things I felt and heard in that mysterious music! Every sense became absorbed in that of hearing; and so, spell-bound, I might have staid on that very spot till midnight, nay, till the stars paled before the morning beam, - if the deep, solemn sound of the old church clock had not broken in on my dream of profound abstraction, and startled me away with half-incredulous surprise, as its iron tongue proclaimed, stroke after stroke, the tenth hour of the night.

LESSON XXXVI.

The Night-blowing Stock. MRS. SOUTHEY.

COME, look at this plant with its narrow, pale leaves,
And its tall, thin, delicate, stem,

Thinly studded with flowers—yes, with flowers—there they

are;

Don't you see, at each joint there's a little brown star?

But in truth there's no beauty in them.

So you ask why I keep it—the little mean thing?
Why I stick it up here, just in sight?

'Tis a fancy of mine. A strange fancy you say.
No accounting for tastes -- in this instance you may,
For the flower. But I'll tell you to-night.

Some six hours hence, when the lady moon
Looks down on that bastioned wall,
When the twinkling stars glance silently
On the rippling surface of the sea,
And heavy the night dews fall, —

Then meet me again in this casement niche,
On the spot where we're standing now:

Nay, question not wherefore; perhaps with me.
To look out on the night, and the bright broad sea,
And to hear its majestic flow.

Well, we're met here again, and the moonlight sleeps
On the sea and the bastioned wall;

And the flowers there below-how the night wind brings
Their delicious breath on its dewy wings;

But there's one, say you, sweeter than all.

What is it? the myrtle, or jessamine?
Or their sovereign lady, the rose ?

Or the heliotrope, or the virgin's bower?
What! neither? O, no, 'tis some other flower,
Far sweeter than any of those.

Far sweeter? And where think you groweth the plant That exhaleth that perfume rare ?

Look about, up and down, but take care, or you'll break With your elbow that poor little thing that's so weak. Why, 'tis that smells so sweet, I declare.

Ah, ha! is it that? Have you found out now
Why I cherish that odd little fright?

All is not gold that glitters, you know,

And it is not all worth makes the greatest show,
In the glare of the strongest light.

There are human flowers, full many, I trow,
As unlovely as that by your side,

That a common observer passeth by
With a scornful lip and a careless eye,

In the heyday of pleasure and pride.

But move one of these to some quiet spot
From the midday sun's broad glare,
Where domestic peace broods with dove-like wing,
And try if the homely, despised thing

May not yield sweet fragrance there.

Or wait till the days of trial come,

The dark days of trouble and woe,

When they shrink and shut up, late so bright in the sun; Then turn to the little despised one,

And see if 'twill serve you so.

And judge not again, at a single glance,

Nor pass sentence hastily.

There are many good things in this world of ours, Many sweet things and rare, weeds that prove precious

flowers,

Little dreamt of by you or by me.

M

LESSON XXXVII.

The Mother. CHARLES SWAIN,

A SOFTENING thought of other years,
A feeling linked to hours

When Life was all too bright for tears,

And Hope sang, wreathed with flowers, A memory of affections fled,

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The thousand prayers at midnight poured
Beside our couch of woes!
The wasting weariness endured

To soften our repose! —

Whilst never murmur marked thy tongue

Nor toils relaxed thy care :

How, Mother, is thy heart so strong

To pity and forbear?

What filial fondness e'er repaid,

Or could repay, the past? Alas for gratitude decayed! Regrets that rarely last!

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