litics,--that their
journal has done more than any other in the country to promote a
healthy tone in polite literature,--that their home-life has been made
happy by the influences of refinement and taste,--and that they have
given away to the poor money enough almost to build a city, and to the
unfortunate spoken kind words enough to fill a library, are all
assertions which none can truthfully deny. If, therefore, to look back
upon a long life not _uselessly spent_ is what will give us peace at
last, then will the evening of their days be all that they could
desire; and their "silver hairs," the most appropriate crown of true
patriotism,

"Will purchase them a good opinion,
And buy men's voices to commend their deeds."

* * * * *

SONNET.

WRITTEN AFTER A VIOLENT THUNDER-STORM IN THE COUNTRY.

An hour agone, and prostrate Nature lay,
Like some sore-smitten creature, nigh to death,
With feverish, pallid lips, with laboring breath,
And languid eyeballs darkening to the day;
A burning noontide ruled with merciless sway
Earth, wave, and air; the ghastly-stretching heath,
The sullen trees, the fainting flowers beneath,
Drooped hopeless, shrivelling in the torrid ray:
When, sudden, like a cheerful trumpet blown
Far off by rescuing spirits, rose the wind,
Urging great hosts of clouds; the thunder's tone
Swells into wrath, the rainy cataracts fall,--
But pausing soon, behold creation shrined
In a new birth, God's covenant clasping all!

* * * * *

THE PROFESSOR'S STORY.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE SPIDER ON HIS THREAD.

There was nobody, then, to counsel poor Elsie, except her father, who
had learned to let her have her own way so as not to disturb such
relations as they had together, and the old black woman, who had a
real, though limited influence over the girl. Perhaps she did not need
counsel. To look upon her, one might well suppose that she was
competent to defend herself against any enemy she was like to have.
That glittering, piercing eye was not to be softened by a few smooth
words spoken in low tones, charged with the common sentiments which
win their way to maidens' hearts. That round, lithe, sinuous figure
was as full of dangerous life as ever lay under the slender flanks and
clean-shaped limbs of a panther.

There were particular times when Elsie was in such a mood that it must
have been a bold person who wo