the gold that ever was mined? If we had had thousands of thousands, would we not have filled up her grave with the worthless dross of gold, rather than that she should have gone down there with her sweet face and all her rosy smiles?" There was no reply; but a joyful sobbing all over the room. Never mind the letter, nor the debt, father," said the eldest daughter. "We have all some little things of our own -a few pounds-and we shall be able to raise as much as will keep arrest and prison at a distance. Or if they do take our furniture out of the house, all except Margaret's bed, who cares? We will sleep on the floor; and there are potatoes in the field, and clear water in the spring. We need fear nothing, want nothing; blessed be God for all his mercies." Gilbert went into the sick room, and got the letter from his wife, who was sitting at the head of the bed, watching, with a heart blessed beyond all bliss, the calm and regular breathings of her child. "This letter," said he mildly, "is not from a hard creditor. Come with me while I read it aloud to our children." The letter was read aloud, and it was well fitted to diffuse pleasure and satisfaction through the dwelling of poverty. It was from an executor to the will of a distant relative, who had left Gilbert Ainslie fifteen hundred pounds. "The sum," said Gilbert, "is a large one to folks like us, but not, I hope, large enough to turn our heads, or make us think ourselves all lords and ladies. It will do more, far more, than put me fairly above the world at last. I believe, that with it, I may buy this very farm, on which my forefathers have toiled. But God, whose Providence has sent this temporal blessing, may he send wisdom and prudence how to use it, and humble and grateful hearts to us all." 66 You will be able to send me to school all the year round now, father," said the youngest boy. "And you may leave the flail to your sons now, father," said the eldest. "You may hold the plough still, for you draw a straighter furrow than any of us; but hard work for young sinews; and you may sit now oftener in your arm-chair by the ingle. You will not need to rise now in the dark, cold, and snowy winter mornings, and keep thrashing corn in the barn for hours by candle-light, before the late dawning.” There was silence, gladness, and sorrow, and but little sleep in Moss-side, between the rising and setting of the stars, that were now out in thousands, clear, bright, and sparkling over the unclouded sky. Those who had lain down for an hour or two in bed, could scarcely be said to have slept; and when, about morning, little Margaret awoke, an altered creature, pale, languid, and unable to turn herself on her lowly bed, but with meaning in her eyes, memory in her mind, affection in her heart, and coolness in all her veins, a happy group were watching the first faint smile that broke over her features; and never did one who stood there forget that Sabbath morning, on which she seemed to look round upon them all with a gaze of fair and sweet bewilderment, like one half conscious of having been rescued from the power of the grave. LESSON LXXIV. The Grave Stones,-A Fragment.-JAMES GRAY. THE grass is green and the spring floweret blooms, The merry singer is the living link Of many a thousand years of death gone by, The remnant of a moment, spared by him This globe is but our fathers' cemetery The sun, and moon, and stars that shine on high, Kythe* like the passing meteor of the deep: As heedless of it. Thus he perishes. The sun's last ray fell slanting on a thorn Alas! I knew the little tenant well: That oft had clung around me like a wreath *Kythe or kithe; Show, used here as a neuter verb: The oldest English poets use it actively. "Ne kithe hire jalousie."-Chaucer. LESSON LXXV. Stanzas written at Midnight.-D. MOIR. 'Tis night-and in darkness the visions of youth Flit solemn and slow in the eye of the mind; The hope they excited hath perished, and truth Laments o'er the wrecks they are leaving behind. "Tis midnight—and wide o'er the regions of riot Are spread, deep in silence, the wings of repose; To omen a something like hope to the breast. The bosom of man in his solitude feels! Where, where are the spirits in whom was my trust, 'Mid foes that beset me, and friends that are cold; Doomed soon in the flames that it raised to depart; Let the storms of adversity lower; 'tis in vain Tho' friends should forsake me, and foes should combine-- For far o'er the regions of doubt and of dreaming, And bright through the tempest the rainbow is streaming, LESSON LXXVI. Slavery.-CowPER. O FOR a lodge in some vast wilderness, Might never reach me more. My ear is pained, Of wrong and outrage, with which earth is filled. He finds his fellow guilty of a skin Not colored like his own; and having power Abhor each other. Mountains interposed I had much rather be myself the slave, |