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heaped on stone, as if by the hand of man; and in the crevices, shrubs, and mosses, and wild-flowers, had found root, and were hanging like garlands round a gigantic tomb. As we neared the place of our destination, the valley widened, the one range of hills stretching on to the right, the other trending away to the left along the coast of the bay, which lay calm and beautiful before us. An island, above whose rocky and precipitous coast were green slopes, to which a thin haze lent unwonted beauty, stretched across the quiet waters; "and far away were the blue hills of the opposite horn of the bay. By the road-side a small stream from one of the hills danced along its way, broken by many falls, and tumbling headlong at last over a tall rock into the sea. There were fishing-boats moving in the bay, and a little packet-boat was waiting, with loosened sails, for a passenger.

We spent some time in exploring on foot some of the rugged paths made by the watercourses of spring on the hillsides, finding here and there patches of grass, and sometimes even of clover, and catching, as we rose higher, glimpses of scenery that awakened our admiration. At length we made our way to the unsightly village, and visited the school. It was with a strange feeling that I heard the familiar words of holy writ stammered forth by the ragged children in that wild place. We obtained a holiday for the poor little creatures, and moved on towards the church. It was a low wooden building, with a disproportionately small tower at one end; but the interior was plain and neat. The burying-ground about it was on the slope of a hill, so rocky and bare, that when a corpse was to be interred, the mould to cover it was necessarily brought from a distance. Scanty, coarse grass grew about the little mounds that were scattered here and there, with rude, unengraved stones at their head. Two graves were distinguished from the rest by a covering of stone, surrounded by a light wooden railing. One of them, I knew, contained the ashes of a little child, whose parents had chosen

to bury her in that sad place; the other was the resting-place of one to whom a sorrowful history belonged. I had felt a strange interest in her who lay sleeping there, and now all I had heard of her trials came vividly back to my mind.

She was a member of a respectable family in the west of England, and had married with the consent of her relations. Soon after her marriage, her husband proposed to visit America, where he was supposed to possess considerable property. Full-of hope, she accompanied him, leaving her home, and all the long-tried love that had blessed her there, to follow him with all a woman's fearless trust. He gave some plausible reason for calling at Newfoundland on his way to the continent of America, and she arrived there, wearied and ill, after a tedious voyage. Professing anxiety about her health, and assuring her it was absolutely necessary for the good of his estates that he should proceed on his way immediately, he left her in Lodgings, and sailed for America. A few days afterwards, messengers from England landed at St. John's in search of the fugitive husband, who was no swindler.

more than a common

Although deserted, a stranger in a strange land, yet the poor young wife was not long friendless. Some benevolent persons offered her an asylum, and with them she found a home for some months. There was something inexpressibly touching in the gentle, uncomplaining patience with which, as I have been told, she bore the grief that had made life dark for her. She never mentioned him who had so heartlessly deceived and deserted her. Surely she had loved him well to leave country and kindred to follow him, and surely the grief that had the sharpest sting was the knowledge of his unworthiness! Her trust was broken forever; and as none could know the depth and sacredness of the love she had once felt, so none could have part in the bitterness of her disappointment and sorrow.

But, though her lips were silent, her pale cheek and failing

frame bore witness to the trouble that was slowly consuming her life. No word ever came from him, whom, perhaps, even yet she regretted. She did not say she expected to hear from him, and yet surely her woman's heart must have clung to some faint hope that, after all, he might not be as they said, and that he would come or send to her, and not leave her utterly desolate, to die among strangers! But time passed on and brought no change, save that she grew weaker; and when, at last, the long winter was over, and the streams burst gayly from their icy bonds, the sorrowful stranger passed from the earth forever.

The remembrance of all this crossed my mind as I stood beside the grave, and tried to tear away the coarse grass that had forced its way between the railings, half hiding the stone slab. She who had been the darling of a happy home, who had been for a while a happy wife; she whose heart sorrow had broken, yet not imbittered; she, the grateful, patient, sorrowful woman,—lay there at my feet! Of all to whom she had been most dear, not one had soothed her hours of sorrow, not one had held her dying head, not one had looked upon her grave; and I, a very stranger, stood there alone, with tears in my eyes and sympathy in my heart, for grief that had passed by forever.

In the mean time, my companions had all left me, and, sud denly waking from my meditations, I hurried after them to a small cottage, which we entered. There was but one person there, a very aged man, leaning over the expiring embers of a wood fire. The wide chimney was the only passage through which the light entered; but it was a matter of little consequence to him, for he had long been totally blind. He was ninety-six years old; had left his native place in Devonshire, at the age of five-and-twenty, to seek his fortune in Newfoundland; and had lived for seventy long years in the village in which we found him not in the same house, for he must, I should think, have outlived many such frail habitations.

The

schoolmaster, who had accompanied us, lifted the old man's red cap, and his long snowy hair fell over his shoulders. One of our party was a little child, fair and gay, the petted darling of us all; and there was something very affecting in the contrast between the glow and beauty of her young life and the helplessness and poverty of that man's old age. "He had children," he said, "but he knew little of them now; he was very old; he did not often hear any thing of them." Poor old man! My heart ached for him, and the merry child grew silent and grave, and crept closer to her mother.

But a slow step drew near, and an old woman entered the cottage, laden with sticks. She took little notice of us, but made her way to the chimney-corner, and, laying her hand on the old man's knee, bent over the fire and heaped on the sticks till there was a cheerful blaze. The schoolmaster told us she was the old man's wife, younger than himself by twenty years.

We turned away, and the door closed on the poor old couple. The sunshine could not enter their windowless dwelling; poverty and age were their daily companions; and yet there was something beautiful and soothing in the remembrance of that weak woman still fulfilling her labor of love! All was not dark in that poor hovel, for kindliness and affection had lived on through time and change; and I thanked Heaven that such things could be.

I remember little else of our excursion. There was a scrambling walk among the rocks, not the less agreeable for being almost dangerous. Then we made a hasty sketch of one of the little coves with which the shores of the bay abound, and then we all returned to the miserable inn and made ready for our homeward drive, lingering yet again to gaze on the sparkling waters the only life-like things in the landscape.

About a year later my father again visited the old man I have mentioned. The long winter had tried him severely,

His mind, too, shared

and the hand of death was upon him. the general decay, and he wandered in his speech. In a few weeks the old fisherman was carried to his grave. The life of nearly a century was over, leaving no trace, save, perhaps, something of regret in the heart of the old wife, who must soon have followed him to the land of forgetfulness.

LESSON XXIX.

The Ocean. BRYAN W. PROCTOR.

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O THOU vast Ocean! ever sounding sea!
Thou symbol of a drear immensity!
Thou thing that windest round the solid world
Like a huge animal, which, downward hurled
From the black clouds, lies weltering and alone,
Lashing and writhing till its strength be gone
Thy voice is like the thunder, and thy sleep
Is as a giant's slumber, loud and deep.
Thou speakest in the east and in the west
At once, and on thy heavily laden breast
Fleets come and go, and shapes that have no life
Or motion, yet are moved and met in strife.

The earth hath nought of this: no chance nor change
Ruffles its surface, and no spirits dare

Give answer to the tempest-waken air;
But o'er its wastes the weakly tenants rango
At will, and wound its bosom as they go :
Ever the same, it hath no ebb, no flow;
But in their stated rounds the seasons come,
And pass like visions to their viewless home,

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