to us as a
priceless bequest; push them not from the daily walks of the world's
life: let them scatter some humanities in the sullen marts of business;
let them glide in through the open doors of the heart; let their glee
lighten up the feast, and gladden the fireside of home:

"That the night may be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day
May fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away."

* * * * *

=_Jane T.L. Worthington,-1847._= (Manual, p. 524.)

From "Love Sketches."

=_237._= THE SISTERS.

The sisters were together, together for the last time in the happy home
of their childhood. The window before them was thrown open, and the
shadows of evening were slowly passing from each familiar outline on
which the gazers looked. They were both young and fair; and one, the
elder, wore that pale wreath the maiden wears but once. The accustomed
smile had forsaken her lip now, and the orange-flowers were scarcely
whiter than the cheek they shaded. The sister's hands were clasped in
each other, and they sat silently watching the gradual brightening of
the crescent moon, and the coming forth, one by one, of the stars. Not a
cloud was floating in the quiet sky; the light wind hardly stirred the
young leaves, and the air was fraught with the fragrance of early spring
flowers. It was the hour when reverie is deepest, and fantasies have the
earnestness of truth, when memory is melancholy in its vividness, and we
feel, "almost like a reality," the presence of those who may bless our
pathway no more. The loved, the lost--

"So many, yet how few!"--

gather around us, not as they are, chastened and troubled by battling
with trials and disappointments, but as they used to be, in the glow of
unwearied expectation. Old fears flit before us altered into pleasures,
and old hopes return bathed in tears.

* * * * *

=_Alice Cary, 1820-1871._= (Manual, p. 484.)

From "Clovernook."

=_238._= THE END OF THE HISTORY.

And so with the various seasons of the year. May, with her green lap
full of sprouting leaves and bright blossoms, her song-birds making the
orchards and meadows vocal, and rippling streams and cultivated gardens;
June, with full-blown roses and humming-bees, plenteous meadows and wide
cornfields, with embattled lines rising thick and green; August, with
reddened orchards and heavy-headed harvests of grain, Oct