er little child.

A beam of the slant west sunshine
Made the wan face almost fair,
Lit the blue eyes' patient wonder,
And the rings of pale gold hair.

She kissed it on lip and forehead,
She kissed it on cheek and chin
And she bared her snow-white bosom
To the lips so pale and thin.

Oh, fair on her bridal morning
Was the maid who blushed and smiled,
But fairer to Ezra Dalton
Looked the mother of his child.

With more than a lover's fondness
He stooped to her worn young face,
And the nursing child and the mother
He folded in one embrace.

"Blessed be God!" he murmured.
"Blessed be God!" she said;
"For I see, who once was blinded,--
I live, who once was dead.

"Now mount and ride, my goodman,
As thou lovest thy own soul!
Woe's me, if my wicked fancies
Be the death of Goody Cole!"

His horse he saddled and bridled,
And into the night rode he,--
Now through the great black woodland,
Now by the white-beached sea.

He rode through the silent clearings,
He came to the ferry wide,
And thrice he called to the boatman
Asleep on the other side.

He set his horse to the river,
He swam to Newbury town,
And he called up Justice Sewall
In his nightcap and his gown.

And the grave and worshipful justice
(Upon whose soul be peace!)
Set his name to the jailer's warrant
For Goodwife Cole's release.

Then through the night the hoof-beats
Went sounding like a flail;
And Goody Cole at cockcrow
Came forth from Ipswich jail.

ELLEN.

If the publishers of the "Atlantic" will permit me, I should like to
tell a little incident, growing out of the War, which came under my
notice in the summer of 1861. I can give it only as a fragment, for I
never heard the end of it, and that, to be candid, is my principal
reason for telling it at all,--in the hope, slight enough, it is true,
that some chance reader may be able to supply to me what is wanting. For
this reason I shall give the true names of persons and places, and the
dates also, as nearly as I can recollect them. It is only a simple story
of a private in the Twenty-Fourth Ohio Volunteer Militia, and his
sister, and may not touch others as it did me, for I can give but the
bald facts; but I, seeing the reality, can remember nothing in the war