brook, half-hidden by large trees, was a small, white cottage with two low wings. This was the residence of Mr. May and his five orphan children. Miss Litchfield had hardly alighted from the carriage, when Helen May, followed by her three younger sisters and their little brother, came running out to welcome their "dear aunt Jane," and almost to carry her in their arms into the house. Julia followed in silence. Her cousins, though perfectly polite, were also perfectly at ease. Instead of being over-powered with diffidence on receiving their rich and fashionable cousin, they seemed to regard her merely as a relative whom they were glad to see, and would strive to make happy. Julia was certainly a good deal surprised, and a little piqued; but she kept her feelings to herself, and observed with great interest every thing which went on around her.

The house was furnished with the extreme of simplicity, but every thing was so exquisitely neat and so tastefully arranged, as to present a charming appearance of comfort. The dress of the girls was of the same description, simple, yet neat and tasteful. They all had fine hair, and with their clear complexions and bright, intelligent countenances, they struck the eye of a stranger as an extremely beautiful group of girls. But what filled Julia with wonder and almost with envy, was the artist-like development of neck, arms, and bust; the arrow-like straightness, and the freedom and grace of movement which they all possessed from the oldest to the youngest. But, ah! there was one draw-back; the hands though handsomely shaped, were certainly somewhat large and brown, and Julia looked with complacency at her own delicate and aristocratic fingers.

The first evening was devoted to the amusement of the visitors. At tea-time Julia was rather surprised to discover that they kept a servant, a good natured looking maid-of-all-work, though she did scarcely anything about the table.

The next morning Miss Litchfield begged Helen not to put herself out on their account, but to go on with her affairs in her usual way. The day passed. When Julia retired to her chamber at night, she began to think. A new phase of life had been

opened before her; new ideas had dawned upon her mind. She had seen this family of five managed with love and kindness by the eldest among them, scarcely yet eighteen. She had heard this girl, early in the morning, read a chapter in the Bible and offer an appropriate prayer, while the younger ones knelt around her with simple and touching reverence. Then she saw them as busy as bees and as gay as birds, perform each one her allotted task in the household work. One milked the cow and skimmed the cream. One prepared the table for breakfast. One made the beds and swept the rooms, while the little ones weeded the flower-beds in the garden and in the court yard.

But with all their life and animation, there was a gentle spirit of propriety and a loving tractability entirely different from the rude and hoidenish manners one sometimes meets with in countrybred girls. The little polite observances and delicate attentions of refined life, seemed as much their habit as if it had been innate and not taught. At half-past nine o'clock, the rooms being in perfect order, and the help in the neat kitchen, singing a Scotch ditty, and ironing the clothes for the week, the children repaired to a pleasant little apartment in one of the wings, fitted up as a schoolroom, and where Julia was surprised to find quite a large library, globes, maps, a guitar, a drawing apparatus, &c.. Here she learned that Helen daily taught her sisters and little brother, writing, arithmetic, geography, natural history, and many other things, which their eager desire for improvement led them to strive to acquire.

Helen seemed to have a natural gift at teaching. Here was no weariness, no discouragement. The little minds were as active as the little bodies had been; and when the regular two hours were ended, each one left the room with some little treasure of knowledge or of skill, something which advanced them a step in the scale of mind and consequently of happiness. Then, the run before dinner, the simple meal prepared and cleared away in the same manner, and by the same hands that the breakfast had been, and enlivened by the same exuberant cheerfulness and animated intelligence. After dinner, came a change of dress, but nothing better than a neat calico and a cambric collar, with its

knot of pretty ribbon. Then followed the pleasant afternoon, with needlework and books, the prolonged evening meal, the twilight stroll to a beautiful point of scenery, the sweet singing, the cheerful conversation, the affectionate "good night," with twining arms and beaming looks; all had been observed, and all had read a lesson to Julia which had awakened her indolent and slumbering mind, and now she sat and thought. "How has she done it all?" said Julia to herself. "What is the secret of her intelligence, her activity, her good spirits, and above all, of her ease and self-reliance? Where did she get her manners? How did one so poor become so lady-like and selfpossessed? If I had been left in her situation, I should have been ignorant and miserable; and I am as it is, in comparison with these girls." Tears of mortification and regret forced their way in spite of the pride which endeavored to restrain them.

[To be concluded.]

THE WINTER EVENING FIRESIDE.

BY REV. E. P. DYER.

I LOVE in Winter's eve to sit beside the genial stove,
And take upon my willing knees the children of my love,
And tell my private history, for thirty years and more,
To ears which listen eagerly to things unheard before;

To see their bright teeth glisten, as I mention something queer,
Or how their young eyes sparkle, as my story wakes a tear.
With queries strange and curious they question me at times,
To learn how some small incident with other matters chimes;
And oft express their wonder, that a gray-haired man like me,
E'er knew so little as they know, or such a child could be.
Their little hearts beat merrily, with wild delight and joy,
To learn that I was once a little flaxen-headed boy.

Or if from memory I relate some scene as I proceed,

Which filled my heart with anguish then, and makes it still to bleed,
With kisses of true sympathy, they print my moistened cheek,
And so arouse my pitying love, my lips can scarcely speak.

O, call not that a lovely life the bachelor must lead,
Who has no little hearts to love, no little mouths to feed.
He never knew true happiness, the height of human bliss,
Who has not sat the central source in such a scene as this.

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He never tasted pleasure's cup, unmixed with base alloy,
Who has not held on parent knee, his little girl or boy,

And listened to the joyous laugh which falls from childhood's tongue,
To hear what ludicrous events took place when he was young.
Commend me to the hermit's hut, or to the dungeon's cell,

But never to the social world in solitude to dwell.

If I must live, O let me live, a dying world to bless,

Refreshed by woman's soothing love and childhood's warm caress.

When Winter's dreary day is past and all its duties done,

Allow me on my knee to hold a daughter or a son,
And stories of the olden time to tell and laugh and sing,
And what care I for poverty? I'm happy as a king.

I REMEMBER my Grandfather. His image is before me now, his reverend head, from which years had swept every semblance of hair, except the snow-white ear-locks; his noble forehead, polished like marble, the two prominent points seeming almost to radiate the light; his mild eye; his benign countenance, whose prevailing expression of kindness was heightened by the remarkably finelooking mouth. As he appeared to my childish eye, he appears now in memory's glass. I see him sitting with the large family Bible before him, reading in solemn tones chapter after chapter from its sacred pages. Its yellow leaves tell the story of his faithfulness to this day, where, on a blank page, are recorded the dates at which he commenced and finished reading it aloud fourteen successive times. Singular and pleasant it is too to notice, that in their early days, when little children were clustered about him who would be wearied by a lengthy service, he was several years in completing its perusal; but as they grew older, and many of them began also to take delight in the daily worship, the period shortened, and at last, when the family were scattered, and he and my grandmother were left alone, they sat long at their morning devotions, and he read, as I said, chapter after chapter,

until the last reading occupied but a little more than one year. I hear again his familiar voice, as he bowed in prayer before that family altar, and remember how he always sought a blessing on "his children and his children's children," to the latest posterity. Well might he trust in covenant mercies. He was the descendant of many generations, "passed into the skies." His ancestors had for more than a hundred years occupied one pulpit in his native State, and he had himself been nearly forty years a watchman on the walls of Zion. How steadfast was his faith, how earnest his devotion to his Master's cause! "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee." Often have I heard it said of him, that he was never but once known to be agitated. It was during a severe thunder storm. As he sat with his family around him, the lightning did its deadly work again and again near their dwelling, and the scene was terrific. Peal after peal rolled over their heads, when suddenly a more vivid flash and crashing bolt thrilled all with dread. As it passed harmlessly by, he rose from his chair, and with pallid face and trembling tones, said, "thank God, my children, we are safe."

He was like a solid pillar, on which wife and children and the feeble of his flock leaned in every hour of need. Peace and confidence flowed into their hearts from his unwavering trust. Many were the mournful exclamations in subsequent days, after he had gone to his rest, when trial and affliction came, "O, if he were but living, how he would aid us to bear up under these dark dispensations."

I remember his venerable aspect as he stood in the old pulpit, with its sounding board, seeming nearer heaven than earth, and shall never forget the horror which crept through every fibre of my frame, as I heard him once read a sentence of excommunication against an offending member of his church. "May God have mercy on his soul!" was the closing sentence. How like the knell of execution it sounded, especially as it came from lips so kind.

He lived beyond the allotted period of human life, visited by few human infirmities, and disturbed by few mortal cares. It