for their grandfather, who hide in the secret alcoves of the
heart a more sacred memory of one who found his way there before dear
old grandfather came. What sorrows these memories have sown along the
way of life! but they have winced not when the thorn has pricked; and
how she has folded to her bosom dear John, while imagination made him
the more dear Willie, her first and foremost love! These endure in
secret, and are the more sacred for this; they die only with the dead
heart. Oh! the grave, the secrets of the grave, are they hidden there
for ages, or shall they survive as treasures for eternity?

I have been wandering among the graves of those loved best when the
heart could love most, and dead memories sprouted anew, and with them
a flash of the feelings which made them treasures of the heart. Yonder
is the grave of Thomas W. Cobb; near me is that of him most
loved--William C. Dawson; and here, in this green grave, is Yelverton
P. King; and near him is the last resting-place of Adeline Harrison.
Dear, sweet Adeline, you went, in truth, to heaven, ere yet the bud of
life had opened into flower! This is the county of my birth, and all
of these, save Cobb, were natives, too, of the dear old land.

To me, how near and dear were these! Turn back, O Time, thy volume for
fifty years, and let me read over anew the records of dead days, and
make memories once more realities, as they were real then--else hurry
on to the end, that I may know with these, or with these forget
forever! I would not linger in the twilight of life, with all of time
dimming out, and nothing of eternity dawning upon my vision. Let me
sleep in the forgetfulness of the one, to awake to the fruition of the
other!

I have been to the graves of my father and my mother. For more than a
third of a century they have been sleeping here. I sat down in the
moonlight, and placed my hand upon the cold, heavy stone which rests
above them: they do not feel its pressure, but sleep well. They are
but earth now--and why am I here? The moon and the stars are the same,
and as sweetly bright, looking down upon this sacred spot, as they
were when, a little child, I sat upon the knee of her who is nothing
here, and listened to her telling me the names of these, as she would
point to them, and ask me if I did not see them winking at me. Yet
they are there, and the same now as then. But where is that gentle,
sweet, affectionate mother? Is she up among these gems of heaven