g to my wife about this. She
is the truest and kindest of women, as you know, but she can't
understand keeping anything a secret, and she always begs of us to leave
her out of the smallest plot of the most innocent kind, because she must
let it all out prematurely. Now I'll release you, and you have, at all
events, one friend in life to be going on with--friend among the aged I
mean; the rest will come fast enough."

With a bewildered head and a bursting heart, Minola found her way to her
own room.

MOHEGAN-HUDSON.

Where the northern forest flings
Its shadows over weeping hills,
Rivulets rise in myriad springs
And run to meet in roaring kills.
Soon from these a great stream grows;
Grows--and grows more strong and free,
Till a noble river flows;
Flows majestic to the sea.

Born of Adirondac tears,
Nursed by storms of Katterskill,
Yet a smiling face it wears,
Rolls in tranquil silence still.
Gliding first o'er sands of glass,
Then 'midst grassy meads estray,
Now it shoots the highland pass,
Hurrying southward on its way.

River, but the sea as well;
Steady drift and changing tide;
Here may float a cockle-shell,
Or the ocean navies ride.
'T is the sea in landscape set;
'T is the sea, by limits bound;
But it is the river yet,
Flowing through enchanted ground.

Countless wealth its currents bear,
Wrought from forest, field, and mine;
Giant steamships o'er it fare,
Clouds of sails in sunlight shine.
Through the darkness, as in light,
Sail the constant fleets the same;
While along the shores at night
Furnace fires perpetual flame.

In the bright October days,
While I float upon the stream,
Mellowed by transfiguring haze,
All is like a fairy dream:
Groves and gardens, towns and towers,
Mountain tops and vales between,
As the gods had builded bowers
Scarce concealed and scarcely seen.

Thine no borrowed glories! thine,
Matchless river! are thy own!
O'er thy scenes no false lights shine
From the ages dead and gone.
Round no castles' crumbling walls
Troops of knightly spectres throng,
And within no ruined halls
Thrills the spectre maiden's song;

Save when dusky phantoms glide,
Still intent on savage rites,
Or when he of Sunnyside
Mar