e, I will hang my
picture, with the doves and the olive-branch, above it; and there shall
be a shelf for hyacinths in the window."

Thus she ran on in her pretty house-wifely manner, cooing like the doves
she talked of, plotting the arrangement of the parlor opposite, of the
long dining-room stretching athwart the house in the rear, and of the
kitchen under a roof of its own, still farther back,--he all the while
giving grave assent, as if he listened to her contrivance: he was only
listening to the music of a sweet voice that somehow charmed his ear,
and thanking God in his heart that such music was bestowed upon a sinful
world, and praying that he might never listen too fondly.

Behind the house were yard, garden, orchard, and this last drooping away
to a meadow. Over all these the pair of light feet pattered beside the
master. "Here shall be lilies," she said; "there, a great bunch of
mother's peonies; and by the gate, hollyhocks";--he, by this time,
plotting a sermon upon the vanities of the world.

Yet in due time it came to pass that the parsonage was all arranged
according to the fancies of its mistress,--even to the Major's sword and
the twin doves. Esther, a stout middle-aged dame, and stanch
Congregationalist, recommended by the good women of the parish, is
installed in the kitchen as maid-of-all-work. As gardener, groom, (a
sedate pony and square-topped chaise forming part of the establishment,)
factotum, in short,--there is the frowzy-headed man Larkin, who has his
quarters in an airy loft above the kitchen.

The brass knocker is scoured to its brightest. The parish is neighborly.
Dame Tourtelot is impressive in her proffers of advice. The Tew
partners, Elderkin, Meacham, and all the rest, meet the new housekeepers
open-handed. Before mid-winter, the smoke of this new home was piling
lazily into the sky above the tree-tops of Ashfield,--a home, as we
shall find by and by, of much trial and much cheer. Twenty years after,
and the master of it was master of it still,--strong, seemingly, as
ever; the brass knocker shining on the door; the sword and the doves in
place. But the pattering feet,--the voice that made music,--the tender,
wifely plotting,--the cheery sunshine that smote upon her as she
talked,--alas for us!--"All is Vanity!"

ROGER BROOKE TANEY.

A little more than two centuries ago, Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury
published his great treatise on government, under the title of
"Leviathan; o