e world is forgotten, and into the attic come dear faces
from that distant land of childhood, where a strange enchantment
glorified the commonplace, and made the dreams of night seem real.
Footsteps that have long been silent are heard upon the attic floor,
and voices, hushed for years, whisper from the shadows from the other
end of the room.

A moonbeam creeps into the attic and transfigures the haunted chamber
with a sheen of silver mist. From the spinning-wheel come a soft hum
and a delicate whir; then a long-lost voice breathes the first notes
of an old, old song. The melody changes to a minuet, and the lady in
the portrait moves, smiling, from the tarnished gilt frame that
surrounds her--then a childish voice says: "Mother, are you asleep?"

Down the street the postman passes, bearing his burden of joy and
pain: letters from far-off islands, where the Stars and Stripes gleam
against a forest of palms; from the snow-bound fastnesses of the
North, where men are searching for gold; from rose-scented valleys and
violet fields, where the sun forever shines, and from lands across the
sea, where men speak an alien tongue--single messages from one to
another; letters that plead for pardon cross the paths of those that
are meant to stab; letters written in jest too often find grim earnest
at the end of their journey, and letters written in all tenderness
meet misunderstandings and pain, when the postman brings them home;
letters that deal with affairs of state and shape the destiny of a
nation; tidings of happiness and sorrow, birth and death, love and
trust, and the thousand pangs of trust betrayed; an hundred joys and
as many griefs are all in the postman's hands.

No wonder, then, that there is a stir in the house, that eyes
brighten, hearts beat quickly, and eager steps hasten to the door of
destiny, when the postman rings the bell!

A Summer Reverie

I sit on the shore of the deep blue sea
As the tide comes rolling in,
And wonder, as roaming in sunlit dreams,
The cause of the breakers' din.

For each of the foam-crowned billows
Has a wonderful story to tell,
And the surge's mystical music
Seems wrought by a fairy spell.

I wander through memory's portals,
Through mansions dim and vast,
And gaze at the beautiful pictures
That hang in the halls of the past.

And dream-faces gather around me,
With voices soft and low,