lost crater
The coral-builders laid their marvellous pile;
Millions on millions wrought, till ages later
Saw reared to light and air the circling isle.

Thus Science dreams: but from the dream upflashes
On his swift thought the subtly shadowed truth,
That all serener joys bloom on the ashes,
The lava, and spent craters of lost youth.

The heart, long worn by fierce volcanic surges,
Feels its old world slow sinking from the sight,
Till o'er the wreck a home of peace emerges,
Bright with unnumbered shapes of new delight.

THE PROFESSOR'S STORY.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE WIDOW BOWENS GIVES A TEA-PARTY.

There was a good deal of interest felt, as has been said, in the lonely
condition of Dudley Venner in that fine mansion-house of his, and with
that strange daughter, who would never be married, as many people
thought, in spite of all the stories. The feelings expressed by the good
folks who dated from the time when they "buried aour little Anny Mari,"
and others of that homespun stripe, were founded in reason, after all.
And so it was natural enough that they should be shared by various
ladies, who, having conjugated the verb _to live_ as far as the
preterpluperfect tense, were ready to change one of its vowels and begin
with it in the present indicative. Unfortunately, there was very little
chance of showing sympathy in its active form for a gentleman who kept
himself so much out of the way as the master of the Dudley Mansion.

Various attempts had been made, from time to time, of late years, to get
him out of his study, which had, for the moat part, proved failures. It
was a surprise, therefore, when he was seen at the Great Party at
the Colonel's. But it was an encouragement to try him again, and the
consequence had been that he had received a number of notes inviting him
to various smaller entertainments, which, as neither he nor Elsie had
any fancy for them, he had politely declined.

Such was the state of things when he received an invitation to take tea
_sociably,_ with _a few friends,_ at Hyacinth Cottage, the residence of
the Widow Rowens, relict of the late Beeri Rowens, Esquire, better known
as Major Rowens. Major Rowens was at the time of his decease a promising
officer in the militia, in the direct line of promotion, as his
waistband was getting tighter every year; and, as all the world knows,
the militia-officer who splits off most buttons and fills the largest
sword-belt