.

Our old acquaintance, Time, drops in,
And while the running sands
Their golden thread unheeded spin,
He warms his frozen hands.

Stay, winged hours, too swift, too sweet,
And waft this message o'er
To all we miss, from all we meet
On life's fast-crumbling shore:

Say that to old affection true
We hug the narrowing chain
That binds our hearts,--alas, how few
The links that yet remain!

The fatal touch awaits them all
That turns the rocks to dust;
From year to year they break and fall,
They break, but never rust.

Say if one note of happier strain
This worn-out harp afford,
--One throb that trembles, not in vain,
Their memory lent its chord.

Say that when Fancy closed her wings
And Passion quenched his fire,
Love, Love, still echoed from the strings
As from Anacreon's lyre!

January 8, 1885.

VII. A RECORD OF ANTIPATHIES

In thinking the whole matter over, Dr. Butts felt convinced that, with
care and patience and watching his opportunity, he should get at the
secret, which so far bad yielded nothing but a single word. It might
be asked why he was so anxious to learn what, from all appearances, the
young stranger was unwilling to explain. He may have been to some extent
infected by the general curiosity of the persons around him, in which
good Mrs. Butts shared, and which she had helped to intensify by
revealing the word dropped by Paolo. But this was not really his
chief motive. He could not look upon this young man, living a life
of unwholesome solitude, without a natural desire to do all that his
science and his knowledge of human nature could help him to do towards
bringing him into healthy relations with the world about him. Still,
he would not intrude upon him in any way. He would only make certain
general investigations, which might prove serviceable in case
circumstances should give him the right to counsel the young man as
to his course of life. The first thing to be done was to study
systematically the whole subject of antipathies. Then, if any further
occasion offered itself, he would be ready to take advantage of it.
The resources of the Public Library of the place and his own private
collection were put in requisition to furnish him the singular and
widely scattered facts of which he was in search.

It is not every reader who will care to follow Dr. Butts in his study
of the natural history of antipathies