fection of comfort and domestic taste, an amplitude of convenience,
which could have been brought about only by the slow ingenuity and
labor of many successive generations, intent upon adding all possible
improvement to the home where years gone by and years to come give a
sort of permanence to the intangible present. An American is sometimes
tempted to fancy that only by this long process can real homes be
produced. One man's lifetime is not enough for the accomplishment of
such a work of Art and Nature, almost the greatest merely temporary one
that is confided to him; too little, at any rate,--yet perhaps too long,
when he is discouraged by the idea that he must make his house warm and
delightful for a miscellaneous race of successors, of whom the one thing
certain is, that his own grandchildren will not be among them. Such
repinings as are here suggested, however, come only from the fact, that,
bred in English habits of thought, as most of us are, we have not yet
modified our instincts to the necessities of our new forms of life. A
lodging in a wigwam or under a tent has really as many advantages, when
we come to know them, as a home beneath the roof-tree of Charlecote
Hall. But, alas! our philosophers have not yet taught us to see what is
best, nor have our poets sung us what is beautifullest, in the kind of
life that we must lead; and therefore we still read the old English
wisdom, and harp upon the ancient strings. And thence it happens, that,
when we look at a time-honored hall, it seems more possible for men who
inherit such a home, than for ourselves, to lead noble and graceful
lives, quietly doing good and lovely things as their daily work, and
achieving deeds of simple greatness when circumstances require them. I
sometimes apprehend that our institutions may perish before we shall
have discovered the most precious of the possibilities which they
involve.

* * * * *

MR. AXTELL.

PART VI.

"The leaves of the second autumn were half-shrivelled in drawing near to
the winter of their age.

"I had been to see your mother. She was ill. Mary's death was slowly,
surely bringing her own near. We had had a long talk that afternoon. Her
visions of life were rare and beautiful. She was like Mrs. Wilton, the
embodiment of all that is purely woman. She had wrought a solemn spell
over me,--made Eternity seem near. I had been changed since that prayer
on the sea-shore, fourteen months