mute language of her eyes
Was worth a thousand homilies.

She was so crystal pure a thing,
That sin to her could no more cling
Than water to a sea-bird's wing.

Like memory-tones heard long ago,
Her gentle voice was soft and low,
But plaintive in its underflow.

Her life so slowly loosed its springs,
Long ere she passed from earthly things,
We saw the budding of her wings.

She lingered so in taking leave--
Heaven granted us a long reprieve--
That when she went we could not grieve.

The very night that Hester died,
There came and stood my couch beside,
A gentle spirit glorified.

And often in my darker mood,
When evil thoughts subdue the good,
I see her clasp the holy Rood.

But when my better hopes illume
The narrow pathway to the tomb,
My Hester's presence fills the room.

THISTLE-DOWN.

THERE is no time like these clear September nights, after sunset,
for a revery. If it is a calm evening, and an intense light fills
the sky, and glorifies it, and you sit where you can see the new
moon, with the magnificent evening star beneath it, you must be a
stupid affair, indeed, if you cannot then dream the most _heavenly_
dreams!

But Rosalie Sherwood, poor young creature, is in no dreaming mood
this lovely Sabbath night. Her heart is crushed in such an utter
helplessness, as leaves no room in it for hope: her brain is too
acutely sensitive, just now, for visions. The thistle-down, in
beautiful fairy-like procession, floats on and up before her eyes,
and as she watches the frail things, they assume a new interest to
her; she feels a human sympathy with them. Like the viewless winds
they come, from whence she knows not; and go, whither? none can
tell. They are homeless, and she is like them; but she is not as
they, purposeless.

If you could look into her mind, you would see how she has nerved it
to a great determination; how that, mustering visions and hopes once
cherished, she had gone forward to a bleak and barren path, and
stands there very resolute, yet, in the first moment of her resolve,
miserable; no, she had not yet grown strong in the suffering; she
cannot _this_ night stand up and bear her burden with a smile of
triumph.

Rosalie Sherwood was an only child, the daughter of an humble friend
Mrs. Melville had known from girlhood. _She_, poor creature, had
neither lived nor died innocent.

On her death-bed, Cecily Sherwood gave her unrecognised