rs but such terrors as the
darkness of a Spring night makes. They do not take hold on your soul as
the dreams of youth and manhood will do.

Your highest hope is shadowed in a cheerful, boyish home. You wish no
friends but the friends of boyhood; no sister but your fond Nelly; none
to love better than the playful Madge.

You forget, Clarence, that the Spring with you is the Spring with them,
and that the storms of Summer may chase wide shadows over your path and
over theirs. And you forget that Summer is even now lowering with its
mist, and with its scorching rays, upon the hem of your flowery May!

* * * * *

----The hands of the old clock upon the mantel, that ticked off the
hours when Charlie sighed and when Charlie died, draw on toward
midnight. The shadows that the fire-flame makes grow dimmer and dimmer.
And thus it is that Home, boy home, passes away forever,--like the
swaying of a pendulum,--like the fading of a shadow on the floor!

_SUMMER;_

OR,

_THE DREAMS OF YOUTH._

_DREAMS OF YOUTH._

_Summer._

I feel a great deal of pity for those honest but misguided people who
call their little, spruce suburban towns, or the shaded streets of their
inland cities,--the country and I have still more pity for those who
reckon a season at the summer resorts--country enjoyment. Nay, my
feeling is more violent than pity; and I count it nothing less than
blasphemy so to take the name of the country in vain.

I thank Heaven every summer's day of my life, that my lot was humbly
cast within the hearing of romping brooks, and beneath the shadow of
oaks. And from all the tramp and bustle of the world into which fortune
has led me in these latter years of my life, I delight to steal away for
days, and for weeks together, and bathe my spirit in the freedom of the
old woods; and to grow young again, lying upon the brook-side, and
counting the white clouds that sail along the sky softly and
tranquilly--even as holy memories go stealing over the vault of life.

I am deeply thankful that I could never find it in my heart so to
pervert truth as to call the smart villages with the tricksy shadow of
their maple avenues--the Country.

I love these in their way, and can recall pleasant passages of thought,
as I have idled through the Sabbath-looking towns, or lounged at the
inn-door of some quiet New-England village. But I love far better to
leave them behind me, and to dash b