so be an instinct of parentage beyond this
human race, a heart of hearts, cor cordium. As we all crave something
to protect, so we long to feel ourselves protected. We are all infants
before the Infinite; and as I turned from that cottage window to the
resplendent sky, it was easy to fancy that mute embrace, that shadowy
symbol of affection, expanding from the narrow lattice till it touched
the stars, gathering every created soul into the armsof Immortal Love.

FOOTPATHS.

All round the shores of the island where I dwell there runs a winding
path. It is probably as old as the settlement of the country, and has
been kept open with pertinacious fidelity by the fishermen whose right
of way it represents. In some places, as between Fort Adams and Castle
Hill, it exists in its primitive form, an irregular track above rough
cliffs, whence you look down upon the entrance to the harbor and watch
the white-sailed schooners that glide beneath. Elsewhere the high-road
has usurped its place, and you have the privilege of the path without
its charm. Along our eastern cliffs it runs for some miles in the rear
of beautiful estates, whose owners have seized on it, and graded it,
and gravelled it, and made stiles for it, and done for it everything
that landscape-gardening could do, while leaving it a footpath still.
You walk there with croquet and roses on the one side, and with
floating loons and wild ducks on the other. In remoter places the path
grows wilder, and has ramifications striking boldly across the
peninsula through rough moorland and among great ledges of rock, where
you may ramble for hours, out of sight of all but some sportsman with
his gun, or some truant-boy with dripping water-lilies. There is always
a charm to me in the inexplicable windings of these wayward tracks; yet
I like the path best where it is nearest the ocean. There, while
looking upon blue sea and snowy sails and floating gulls, you may yet
hear on the landward side the melodious and plaintive drawl of the
meadow-lark, most patient of summer visitors, and, indeed, lingering on
this island almost the whole year round.

But who cares whither a footpath leads? The charm is in the path
itself, its promise of something that the high-road cannot yield. Away
from habitations, you know that the fisherman, the geologist, the
botanist may have been there, or that the cows have been driven home
and that somewhere there are bars and a milk-pail. Even in the mid