"It would be hard to be separated from her, and the village needs her society and influence; and Odora will soon be a young lady; our Florence is very much attached to her, I wish she could always be her companion." Mr. Willard visited Roselle, several times during the summer, and again in the fall, carrying away a prize which had been appreciated there for more than twenty years. Odora was very sad when she took leave of her friends, and when the carriage drove away from what had been her happy home, through her tears she bade it "farewell." It was a cold bleak November's day, and sometimes Odora's heart sank within her, when she thought of what she had left behind. Alpheus sat by her side, but it happened to be one of his cross days, so he paid but little attention to his sister. epa Leeds dora our › her, com veral again prize re for took e car been rs she cold times when hind. hap S, SO ister. Odora pointed to a large spreading tree that was stripped of its foliage, and in an under-tone told her brother that she was like it. He pugnaciously answered her, "I don't know how you are like that great tree, unless it is because you feel so big." Her dark blue eyes filled with tears as they mildly rested upon him. "Don't talk so, dear brother, I only meant that we had left all our dear friends in Roselle." "Well, if that is what you meant, I should think you are more like the leaves under the tree than anything else; that large beech has got large roots, and it is very evident that our roots were not very deep; if they had been, this Champlain wind would not have upset us and blown us so far from our native soil." Odora laughed more to make her brother good-natured, than because she was happy, and said, "Oh, you include yourself, you use the plural I see." She leaned over and placed her arms around his neck, and kissed the brow that had been all day frowning upon everything his eyes rested upon, and gently said, "Dear brother, if we are only rooted and grounded in Christ, these changes will lead us to place our affections on that God that changeth not. We shall no doubt be happy in our new home; Mr. Willard looks very pleasantly upon us; he told me this morning that he intended to send us to the best school in the state." "He will probably send us back to Roselle then," was Alpheus's reply. "He told me this morning, that he designed to send us to the Academy at Mount Hope." "Well, brother, that is the very place I have wanted to go to for a long time, and how pleasant it will be if we can be there together." "That if has blighted the hopes of a great many, Odora,-if mother had not taken it into her head to get married, we should have been at home, and if she had sacked him we should not have been lashed into shoe-strings by this north wind, that almost freezes my ears, with no prospect of its abating, for the clouds are as black as night." "Dear brother, let me repeat to you Shelley's beautiful poem upon the cloud, and the wind wont blow half so hard, nor the clouds look half so black." "Well, let us have it then; anything to kill time. You will no doubt do it justice, seeing you are a poetess." "I'll do my best, so we will have it. I. "I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, From the seas and the streams; I bear light shades for the leaves when laid In their noon-day dreams. From my wings are shaken the dews that waken When rocked to rest on their mother's breast I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under, And then again I dissolve it in rain, And laugh as I pass in thunder. II. "I sift the snow on the mountains below, In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, Over earth and ocean with gentle motion, This pilot is guiding me, Lured by the love of the genii that move In the depths of the purple sea; Over the rills and the crags and the hills, Over the lakes and plains, Wherever he dream under mountain or stream, The spirit he loves remains, And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, Whilst he is dissolving in rain. |