obliged to keep so still that it was very unpleasant. I went from
there to Cousin Ebenezer's. Wall, I stayed to Cousin Eb's four months
or so; then I went to stay a couple of months with Cousin Pildash and
Axy, (Achsa.) So this morning I came from Uncle Abimelech's. I only
stayed there a few weeks, because--But, Cousin Clarry, du look! if
there isn't a sleigh-load of folks coming."

I _did_ look, and saw coming through the great open gate, and up the
avenue, a sleigh, all covered with gold and brown, glittering in the
sun's setting rays. I saw the long, white manes of the ponies, and the
heavy plumes of my beautiful friend, Jane, streaming far in the wind;
and then I saw little Fanny's bright, happy face, and the fierce
moustache of Anna's lieutenant; and then I saw a pair of dark, earnest
eyes, full of devotion, gazing into mine as though at the shrine of
their soul's ideal. Never shall I forget the look they wore, so
inexpressibly full of affection was it.

What a pity stars should set. What a pity that eyes, once overflowing
with the light of wildest, truest love, should grow cold and dim. A
pity, too, that love cannot always be love--that it should find its
grave so often in hate, or indifference, or in sober friendship. Still
that it does not always, let us bless Love, and think that the fault
lies in us, and not in Love, that we are grown so like the clay of
which our bodies are made, that Love, the spirit, cannot find an
abiding-place within us; and, as years come over us, we are content
more and more to harden our hearts, and bask, like butterflies, in the
external sunshine of this beautiful world, until the world within--the
world of thought and feeling--is a weary one, gladdened only with a
few flowers of transcendent sweetness and brightness--rewards of merit
from this work-day, lesson-learning earth.

Meantime were those warm eyes looking love upon me; and meantime, from
out a world of buffalo-robes and furs, were our merry friends
emerging; and then a fervent pressure of a soft, warm hand sent the
bright blood burning to my very temples. Then came numerous other
shakes of the hand, and question sounded upon question, and laugh
pealed upon laugh; a gayer, merrier, madder party never met together.
Sister Anna, and Brother Dick's little love of a Fanny, were a host of
mirth in themselves. The accession of so many merry faces seemed to
act on the uncouth spirits of my Cousin Jehoiakim like so much
exhilara