ing strength seemed to return that day,
And I was mad with hope that God would stay
Death's pale approach--Oh! all hath long passed by!
Long years! long years! and now, I well know why
Thine eyes, quick-filled with tears, were turned away.
First loved; first lost; my mother: time must still
Leave my soul's debt uncancelled. All that's best
In me and in my art is thine:--Me-seems
Even now, we walk afield. Through good and ill,
My sorrowing heart forgets not, and in dreams,
I see thee, in the sun-lands of the blest.

FOOTNOTE:

[43] By permission of the author, and publishers, the Cassell
Publishing Co., N. Y.

"CHRISTIAN REID."

FRANCES C. TIERNAN.

MRS. TIERNAN has written many novels of Southern life. She is a
daughter of Colonel Charles F. Fisher of Salisbury, North Carolina,
who was killed in the battle of Manassas. Her best known book, "The
Land of the Sky," describes a summer tour through the grand mountains
of her native State, taken before the railroads had penetrated them.

WORKS.

Valerie Aylmer.
Mabel Lee.
Nina's Atonement.
Carmen's Inheritance.
Hearts and Hands.
Land of the Sky.
Heart of Steel.
Summer Idyl.
Roslyn's Fortune.
Morton House.
Ebb Tide.
Daughter of Bohemia.
A Gentle Belle.
A Question of Honor.
After Many Days.
Bonny Kate.
Armine.
Miss Churchill.
Land of the Sun (1895).

[Illustration: ~Mt. Mitchell, N. C. Above the Clouds.~]

ASCENT OF MOUNT MITCHELL, BLACK MOUNTAIN, NORTH CAROLINA.

(_From The Land of the Sky._[44])

The sun is shining brightly, and his golden lances light up the depths
of the forest into which we enter--an enchanted world of far-reaching
greenness, the stillness of which is only broken by the voice of the
streams which come down the gorges of the mountain in leaping
cascades. Few things are more picturesque than the appearance of a
cavalcade like ours following in single file the winding path (not
road) that leads into the marvelous, mysterious wilderness. When the
ascent fairly begins, the path is often like the letter S, and one
commands a view of the entire line--of horsemen in slouched hats and
gray coats, of ladies in a variety of attire, with water-proof cloaks
serving as riding-skirts, and hats garlanded with forest wreaths and
grasses. The guide tramps steadily ahead, leading the pack-horse, and
we cat