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PATIENCE ON A MONUMENT.

I KNEEL within the church alone
All through the long, long day,
And list the night's low breezes moan
Amid the turrets gray;
In summer-time I faintly hear
The laugh of merry children near,
Their voices blithe and gay

Hushed by the aisles and walls of stone
Down to a sad soft under-tone.

They play amid the quiet graves
That thickly lie around,
And softly to the silent caves

Comes the untroubled sound;
The long grass trembles in the air,
The wild thyme sheds its perfume there
Above the hallowed ground,
And daisies, like Faith's upward eye,
Gaze ever deep into the sky.

Here have I heard the bridal vows
In faltering accents low,
Have gazed on fair unfurrowed brows
Unworn by wave of wo;

Have heard the pastor's voice proclaim
The union of heart and name,

And seen her tears o'erflow
Who saw the strange new path untried,
And feared, yet joyed, to be a bride.
And I have seen through silent aisles
The dead brought solemnly

Past the gray columns' ancient piles,
Beneath my gaze to lie;

And while the clear, calm voice of prayer
Silverly fell on the hushed air,

Have seen the mourner's eye
Turn with a fierce despair on mẹ,
As though I mocked his misery.

I gazed with calm and tranquil gaze
Upon his bloodshot eye;

The sunlight's soft and pleasant rays
Fell on him tenderly;

A prisoned robin's quiet lay
Whispered his wild despair away

Like tones of memory,

And gentler thoughts around him crept,
Until he bowed his head and wept.

I watch amid the slumberers here,
And the long years roll on;

Each Sabbath, listening throngs appear,
Each week, I am alone;
New faces fill each vacant nook,
New children turn their thoughtful look
Upon my brow of stone,

New tombstones stare in moonlight cold,
New lichens grow upon the old.
The gray-haired minister will pass
Amid his flock to rest,
Soon o'er his head the waving grass
By strangers' feet be prest;
The sun's last parting rays will come,
And squares of light amid the gloom
Fall softly on my breast,

Till, rising from their silent caves,
The dead shall leave me but their graves
-Chambers' Journal.

I. R. V.

DUST.

DUST we were, and dust to be,
Dust upon us, dust about us,
Dust on everything we see,

Dust within us, dust without us;
Saith the preacher, "Dust to dust!"
Let them mingle, for they must.
Dust we raise upon the road,
Dust we breathe in dancing-hall;
Dust infests our home abode,

Dust, a pall, is over all! "Tis the housewife's daily bread, Dust, the emblem of the dead.

When the sky above is fair,

And the sun upon the streams,
Floats the dust throughout the air,
Gleaming in its fallen beams;
Every mote is like a man,
Dancing gaily while he can.

Ere the tempest gathers strong,

Blows at times the warning gust, O'er the plain it sweeps along,

Tempest's thrall, a cloud of dust; Every mote is like a man, Flying from Oppression's van. Now the swollen clouds grow dark, Comes the long-expected flood, Falling deluge-like and stark;

Dust is beaten down to mud, So are times when men must grovel In the palace as the hovel.

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BY H. W. LONGFELLOW.

SLOWLY, slowly up the wall

Steals the sunshine, steals the shade; Evening damps begin to fall,

Evening shadows are displayed. Round me, o'er me, everywhere, All the sky is grand with clouds, And athwart the evening air

Wheel the swallows home in crowds. Shafts of sunshine from the West Paint the dusky windows red; Darker shadows deeper rest Underneath and overhead: Darker, darker, and more wan In my breast the shadows fall; Upward steals the life of man, As the sunshine from the wall. From the wall into the sky,

From the roof along the spire; Ah, the souls of saints that die Are but sunbeams lifted higher.

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THERE was no very long time necessary to bring to completion the scheme of Mary; it was still fine weather although the end of October, and Mrs. Cumberland became very soon enthusiastic about the visit to Cheshire, to Castle Vivian, and the Grange. "I expect to see quite a delightful sight in your brother's return to your attached peasantry, Mr. Vivian," said Mrs. Cumberland; and Mr. Cumberland himself was persuaded to go with the party, to initiate the country gentlemen there into his views, and perhaps to extend his own ideas. "There are many admirable customs hidden in the depths of the country," said this candid philosopher; "some ancient use and wont in the matter of welcome, I should not be surprised and I am a candid man, sister Burtonshaw." So the philosopher gave his consent; and hers, too, with a sigh of regret for Sylvo's place, gave Mrs. Burtonshaw.

favors,

During the one day which they spent in London before starting for Cheshire, Zaidee, who felt this journey full of fate for her, a new and decisive crisis in her life, wandered out, in her restless uneasiness. Mary did not watch her quite so jealously as she had done, and she was glad to be alone. Without thinking, Zaidee strayed along those unfeatured lines of street till she came to the well-remembered environment of squares which surrounded Bedford Place. Thinking wistfully of her old self, and her vain childish sacrifice, Zaidee passed timidly through it, looking up for Mrs. Disbrowe's house. Some one before her went up to this house hurriedly as Zaidee advanced, but hesitated, as she did, when he perceived a great many carriages, with coachmen in white gloves and -a large bridal party before the door. The gentleman before her paused a little, and so did Zaidee; there was a momentary commotion in the little crowd, which made an avenue between the door of the house and the carriage drawn up before it, and forth issued a bride in flowing white robes and orange blossoms, not too shy to throw a glance around her as she stepped into the vehicle. Zaidee shrank, fearing to be remembered, when she found how she recognized at once Minnie Disbrowe's saucy face. And Mr. Disbrowe is with the bride; and there is mamma, of still ampler proportions, but not less comely, than of old; and a string of bridesmaids, in whose degrees of stature, one lesser than the other, Zaidee fancies she can see Rosie and Lettie and Sissy, the little rebels who tried her so sorely once. Looking on all this with interested eyes, Zaidee does not immediately perceive that this is Mr. Percy Vivian who was bending his course to Mrs. Disbrow's. When she does perceive him, there is a pause of mutual embarrassment. He is wondering if she can know these people, and she is wondering why he should call at Bedford Place; but the carriages sweep on with their gay company, and after the interchange of a very few formal words, Percy and VOL XII. 4

DCVI. LIVING AGE.

Zaidee take different directions. There is a painful hesitation between them when they address each other, which Zaidee understands very well, but which Percy cannot understand; and once more his thoughts, baffled and perplexed, centre upon Mary Cumberland's beautiful sister, who is so like his own. Unconsciously to himself, this rencontre increases Percy's difficulty. She is not Mary Cumberland's sister; she is only an adopted child. It suddenly occurs to Percy that Mary meant him to draw some inference from this fact, which she stated to him so abruptly; and, more than ever puzzled, his thoughts pursue the subject; but he can draw no inference; he is only extremely curious, interested, and wondering; he never thinks of Zaidee in connection with this beautiful and silent girl.

And the next day their journey began. Travelling in a railway carriage, even when you can fill it comfortably with your own party, is not a mode of journeying favorable to conversation. Leaning back in her corner, covered up and half concealed under Aunt Burtonshaw's shawls, looking at the long stripes of green fields, the flat lines of country that quivered by the window with the speed of lightning, Zaidee found in this dreaded journey a soothing influence which calmed her heart. Convinced as she was that Mary's object was to try her fully, by bringing her into close contact with her own family, Zaidee had earnestly endeavored to fortify herself for the ordeal. But through this long day, when her thoughts were uninterrupted, when no one spoke but Percy and Mary, whose conversation was not for the common ear—or Aunt Burtonshaw, whose addresses were more general, and chiefly directed to the subjects of taking cold or taking refreshments- a pleasant delusion of going home stole upon Zaidee's weary heart. Mr. Cumberland, who had been greatly struck at the very outset of their journey by the large sphere of operation for his educational theory, his decorated and emblazoned letters, in those names of railway stations at present inscribed in prosaic black and white, was making notes and sketches for this important object, to lose no time; Mrs. Cumberland was enjoying her languor; Mrs. Burtonshaw presided over the draughts, the windows, and the basket of sandwiches. There was no painful idea, no scrutiny, or search, or suspicion, in all these faces. Going home! The dream crept over Zaidee's mind, and it was so sweet, she suffered it to come. She closed her eyes to see the joyous drawing-room of the Grange, all bright and gay for the travellers-Elizabeth, Margaret, Sophy - Philip even and Zaidee coming home. These impossible dreams were not common to Zaidee; she yielded herself up to the charm of this one with a thankful heart.

That night they spent at Chester, where Mr. Cumberland made great progress in his scheme for the railway stations. There was still another day's respite for Zaidee, for to-morrow they had arranged to visit Castle Vivian, and the next day after that to continue their journey to the Grange.

In the morning Percy left the party early; he make strange wills in our family," said Percy, had some business, and was to rejoin them by- who, though restless and expectant, could still and-by, but they started without him for Castle smile. "Sir Francis left his property under peVivian. It was a beautiful October day, bright culiar conditions," he concluded abruptly, lookand calm like summer, but with a bracing ing with astonishment at Mary, whose touch breeze, and all the face of the country gleaming upon his arm had brought his explanation to a with a shower which had fallen over-night. The close. But Mary was looking at Zaidee, and he, leaves were dropping from the trees upon their too, turned to look at her. Percy was the unpath, the clouds hurrying along the horizon be- witting instrument of Mary's plot; he was rather fore the wind, leaving great plains and valleys excited, full of a vague and startled expectaof clear sky, as bright as sunshine; unseen tion; but she had not told him the reason of her streams trickled behind the hedge-rows, the air contrivance, and his mind was busy with specuwas full of a twittering cadence of singing-birds lations. Still more uneasy grew Percy as his and waters. Here and there a bit of rude un-eyes followed Mary's glance. Zaidee's beautiful cultivated land threw up its group of ragged firs, figure, standing on this elevated ground, was and spread its purple flush of heather, begin-distinctly relieved against the far-off line of sky. ning to fade, before the travellers; and the woods She was standing shading her eyes with her were rich in autumn robes, against which now hand, as she, too, gazed down the road in expecand then the playful gale made a sudden rush, tation of the new master of Castle Vivian, and throwing a handful of yellow leaves into the air, her eyes were looking far into the air, half wistwhich caught them gently, and sent them down-ful, half indifferent; her cheek was paler than ward in silent circles to their parent soil. When its wont-her hair was loosened a little by the they had come to the gate of Castle Vivian, Percy met them. He was very anxious that the young ladies should alight, and walk up the avenue with him, while the elders of the party drove on. "Come, Lizzy, come,' " Mary cried, as she sprang from the carriage. Zaidee obeyed with some astonishment. Within the gate the road ascended between high sloping banks of turf, here and there broken by an edge of projecting rock or a bush of furze. Percy led his companions up a narrow ascent, half stair, half path, to the top of the bank, from whence they looked down upon the well-kept carriage-road, with its sandy crystals sparkling in the sun. At some little distance before them, where the road, gradually sweeping upward, had reached to the level of the banks, a stately avenue of elms threw their lofty branches against the sky; and at a long distance within these you looked down upon the noble front of a great house, a building of the age of Elizabeth, planting itself firmly with a massive and solid splendor in a bright enclosure of antique gardens. The great deep porch of the central entrance was occupied by servants, one after another looking out as if in There was not a sound or motion more between expectation; and the balcony of a large window these watchers; Zaidee, unconscious of their close by the door was filled with a company of scrutiny, looked down upon the arriving stranladies down below, too, in the carriage-road, ger. The carriage approached rapidly; the and dotted along the banks, were other specta- spectators on the roadside raised their hats and tors looking out anxiously as if for some ex-waved their hands, and cheered his approach pected arrival. Percy led his companions on till with unusual animation. Who was the heir of they had almost reached the entrance of that Sir Francis Vivian? She looked down upon him lofty cluster of elm trees, and were but a little above the level of the road. "Let us wait here," said Percy, in whose voice there was a quiver of emotion. "The heir is coming home to-day we will see him pass if we wait here." Mary did not speak, but Zaidee's surprise was too great for caution. "The heir?" and she turned towards him with an eager glance of Inquiry.

Sir Francis Vivian is dead," said Percy; his successor is to take possession to-day." "Had he a son?" asked Zaidee.

"He had no son; this is the heir of the family, scarcely the heir of Sir Francis Vivian. We

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wind. Percy could not recollect where he had seen this simple attitude, so full of unconscious grace and pre-occupied attention, but it was strangely familiar and well known to him. While he stood in doubt, a very handsome grayhound slowly approached the group, and, with the instinct which directs these animals to lovers of their kind, seated himself, after a few disdainful sniffs at the others of the party, by Zaidee's feet. Percy started with a suppressed exclamation. Long years ago Sermo was dead. long years ago Zaidee was lost. This was a beautiful woman; this was not the brown girl of the Grange; but the group before him was Zaidee and Sermo; the attitude and the conjunction burst upon him with a sudden flash of recognition. His voice did not disturb Zaidee; her mind was absorbed with this gaze of hers looking for the heir of the house of Vivian; but he felt upon his arm the warning touch of Mary's hand. Mary's eyes were meeting his with a glance of warning; and there, ringing along the road, were the cheers of the spectators, and the sound of carriage-wheels.

with her dark wistful eyes, anxious and yet weary, touched with the listlessness of her long endurance. She was not prepared for any trial; she had given herself this day to rest. The carriage was an open carriage, and one man alone sat within it: he was bronzed and darkened, a man beyond his early youth. Zaidee looked at him with eyes which flashed out of their pas sive observation into the keenest scrutiny. In the greatness of her amazed and troubled joy, she could no longer restrain herself. As the carriage-wheels crashed by, over the sandy soil, Zaidee cried aloud, "It is Philip - Philip. Philip is the heir!”

Her voice rose and broke in this great momentary outcry, and she stood still for a moment, with her hands raised and her face flushing like the sky under the sun; then her beautiful arms fell by her side; suddenly she "came to herself." She turned round upon them, drawing back a step, and looking out from her sudden flush of joy with a chill creeping to her heart. She did not look at Mary, she looked past her, full upon Percy Vivian, and with eyes fuil of supplicating terror. Percy, almost unmanned, did not say a word in that moment. He only put out his arms, held up his hands before her; shut out everything from her eyes with an eager gesture. "Home, Zaidee, home," said Percy; "there is no other place in the world-you can only flee to our own home."

For he did not even think of her in this extremity. Flight was the first idea in the minds of both. "I bar you-I bar you; you are ours Bow and forever," cried Percy, grasping her hands together, and forgetting even his brother. "Zaidee-Zaidee-Zaidee-there is nowhere to flee to but home!"

CHAPTER XXXI. HOME.

And by the time she had reached this climax, Sophy came up to the little group which had delayed so long. Sophy's lilies and roses were as sweet as ever, her blue eyes were bright with tears and laughter, her pretty face was dimpling and sparkling all over with the family joy. But when she reached as far as Zaidee, whose face she had not seen at first, Sophy came to a sudden pause. Zaidee could give but one glance at her first and dearest companion, whose wistful and amazed look was turned upon her. Trembling, overpowered, and helpless, she covered her eyes with her hand, and turned away to hide the burst of weeping which she could no longer control. "Percy," said Sophy, in a low and hurried voice, "who is this that is so like our Elizabeth-who is it that weeps at seeing me?" Percy made no answer. The hound still sat at Zaidee's feet, raising his large eyes wistfully to the discussion, sympathetic, and making earnest endeavors to discover what the subject of all this distress and wonder was. Sophy no longer noted Percy and his betrothed; she saw only these two figures-the dog with his head raised, the beautiful stranger turning away from all of them, and struggling with her sobs and tears. She was too hurried, too much excited, to wait for an BUT they were lingering still upon this same answer to her question. She fell upon Zaidee, spot. Zaidee, who made no single effort to deny suddenly clasping her soft arms round her, her identity, with tears in her beautiful eyes, taking possession of the hands which no longer and her face full of supplicating earnestness, made an effort to withdraw themselves. "It is stood withdrawn from them a little, pleading Zaidee! Zaidee! Nobody can deceive me! it is that they would let her go. Her whole heart our own Zay," cried Sophy, with a great outwas in this dreary prayer of hers. Withdrawing burst. "Did you think I would not know her? from Mary her friend, and Percy her cousin, she I!-you know me, Zaidee? say you know me turned her face away from stately Castle Vivian, and you were coming of your own will to weland looked out upon the desolate and blank hor-come Philip. I knew you would come home izon over which the clouds were stealing, and when Philip had Castle Vivian. Zay!—only from whence the chill of approaching winter speak to me- - say you know me as I know you." came in the wind. Zaidee had forgotten for the The two spectators of this scene bent forward moment that she had just seen Philip pass to a anxiously to listen. "Yes, Sophy," said Zaidee, better inheritance than the Grange. She forgot among her tears. Zaidee offered no resistance everything except that she was discovered, and to the close embrace, and made no longer any that they were about to take her, the supplanter, effort to withdraw herself. Sophy, with her arm the wrongful heir, to the home whose natural round her new-found cousin, looked back to possessor she had defrauded. She would not them, waving them on, and hurried forward, permit either of them to hold that trembling breathless with her haste, her crying, her laughand chilled hand of hers, she only besought them ing, her joy of tears. The hound stalked sol-"Let me go away." emnly forward by Zaidee's side, mending his The new master of Castle Vivian had reached stately pace, as Sophy at every step quickened the house by this time, and entered, and from the hers. Percy Vivian and Mary Cumberland, left door came a hasty message to call these loiterers far behind, looked into each other's faces. "When in. This pretty figure ran towards them, across did you discover this?" said the one; and "How that flickering breadth of light and shadow, the slow you were to find it out!" said the other. path under the elm trees. In her haste her fair Percy had by no means subsided out of his first hair came down upon her neck in a long half-bewildered and joyful amazement. But Mary's curling lock; but Sophy Vivian, though she was satisfaction and delight were altogether unnow the Rev. Mrs. Burlington, a married lady, mingled, and had the most agreeable shade of did not think her dignity at all compromised, but self-gratulation in them. "They would never ran on breathless and laughing, as she caught have found her but for me," said Mary Cumthe rebellious tress in her pretty hand. Before berland to herself, and it was not in nature that she had reached the end of the avenue she began the planner of this successful plot should not be calling to them. Percy, Percy, why are you a little proud of her wisdom and her skill. lingering? Philip has come every one is there The windows were open in the great drawingbut you; mamma is anxious to see Miss Cum-room in Castle Vivian, and some of the family berland. I am sure this is Miss Cumberland. had come to the balcony, once more to wonder at Come, come; how can you linger so? Philip is Percy's delay, and look out for him. "Can this be Miss Cumberland whom Sophy is bringing

at home."

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Since the appearance of our last number, nasties, too little to the freedom of peoples. the great fact in this country in relation to But shall we cry out for this reason - Let the war has been the desertion of the nation- there be no war? So have some men played al cause by men from whom the nation had the game of Russia, - refusing to cripple the a right to expect better things. The smaller great foe of liberty at all, because every lesser Peelites we could spare without concern. Sir foe is not to be equally crippled at the same' James Graham might add yet another change time. Our status quo dream, however, is now to the all sorts of changes which have pre- of the past. We have drifted far beyond ceded, and no man feel much either of sorrow that. Austria and Prussia might have made or surprise. But that Mr. Gladstone and the war too much a war of dynasties - thanks Lord John Russell should have gone over to to those powers, there is now the chance of the side of the enemy at such a moment is a its becoming something much better. The grave matter. The statesmanship of the first hoisting of the Union Jack on the isthmus has proved to be the statesmanship of books of Perekop may rouse the sleepers at Vienna mawkish and treacherous when brought into and Berlin, but they will have slept too long. the actual world. The statesmanship of the Sebastopol has fallen. The Crimea evacsecond has been the great Whig drag, im- uated, Russia, we are told, will only be less peding nearly all liberal measures in the Low-disposed than ever to think of peace. er Ilouse for many years past. Lord John doubt of it. If, Alexander II. should submay now attempt to play the great Liberal mit, like Louis XIV., to humiliating terms, again for such has been his wont in every it will be because the strong hand of necesseason of displacement - but it will be too sity has imposed them. Russia must not be late. The experiment has been made too often. expected to think of peace while she has the Most sincerely do we hope, that no great slightest chance of regaining what she had interest of this country will ever be intrusted lost in war. It is an idiot dream to suppose again, either to our late Chancellor of the that she may be soothed into peaceful tendenExchequer, or to our late representative at cies. If her brigand temper be ever curbed, Vienna. We may say of Lord John as of it must be by the strong hand. Lord Brougham, it would have been well for his reputation if he had lived out little more than half his days.

Lord Palmerston is no prodigy either of political consistency or of political earnestness. The war, too, it may be, has had too much respect in its beginning to the safety of dy

No

But the power of Russia, say some, is great, her will indomitable. Yes-and see you not in that the horrors of the sway with which Europe is menaced? The truth lies in a small space. The Allies must beat, or be beaten— that is, must save the independence of Europe, or resign it to Czarism.

THE PRESENT.

Do not, crouch to-day, and worship
The old Past, whose life is fled.
Hush your voice to tender reverence;
Crown'd he lies, but cold and dead:
For the Present reigns our monarch,
With an added weight of hours,
Honor her, for she is mighty!
Honor her, for she is ours!

See the shadows of his heroes

Girt around her cloudy throne;
And each day the ranks are strengthen'd
By great hearts to him unknown;
Noble things the great Past promised,

Holy dreams, both strange and new;
But the Present shall fulfil them,
What he promised, she shall do.

She inherits all his treasures,
She is heir to all his fame,
And the light that lightens round her
Is the lustre of his name ;
She is wise with all his wisdom,

Living on his grave she stands,
On her brow she bears his laurels,
And his harvests in her hands.

Coward, can she reign and conquer
If we thus her glory dim?
Let us fight for her as nobly

As our fathers fought for him.
God, who crowns the dying ages,
Bids her rule, and us obey-
Bids us cast our lives before her,
With our loving hearts, to-day!
Household Words.

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