CHAPTER I.

In song the spring comes welling To-day, from out the grass; And not a hedge but 's telling Earth's gladness as you pass. Far up the bright blue sky

The quivering lark is singing; The thrush, in copses nigh,

Shouts out the joy it's bringing.
W. C. BENNETT.

Ir is a trite observation, and yet one of those which it does not seem useless perpetually to reiterate, how great is the extent of mischief produced by the indulgence of what are commonly called, and what people are more especially inclined to call in themselves-venial faults.

Another observation, perhaps equally trite and equally worthy attention, is recorded by Miss Edgeworth in the proverb prefixed to one of the most incomparable of her incomparable tales, "Barring out," that "The mother of mischief is no bigger than a midge's wing."

the aspect of external nature; and he has com pared it to the ineffable brightness of the early dawn of day. Were I gifted with the power of expression which belongs to the poet, I could have been tempted to add something to the beautiful lines

Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing boy;

But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,

He sees it in his joy;

The youth who, daily from the East
Must travel, still is Nature's priest,
And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended;

At length the man perceives it die away
And fade into the light of common day.

I would have wished to have added for the consolation of those who, under that fervid and arid noon, look back with fond regret upon the hours of dawn, that as the light descends and the sun of life sinks slowly to the west, colors and lights more beautiful than all, gather round the

A lovely wood, in the loveliest time of the English year, when May has just merged into June; when the oak is still in its golden or crimson spring tints; the beech yet silken and of a tender green; the ash putting forth its soft leaves, and the anemone, the blue hyacinth, the lychness, and the white stitchwort in flower; and the fairy groves of bilberries under our feet, are hanging forth their little rose-colored bells, and as happy a party are sitting together in this wood, and enjoying this delightful time of the year, as ever sallied forth, basket in hand, to gather cowslips in the meadows, or explore the brown horrors of the forest.

They are in their several periods of life, just of the ages when such delights are most exquisitely enjoyed.

Wordsworth, in a poem, the beauty of which has rendered it almost too commonly known to bear a quotation, has celebrated the lovely lights that play round the imagination of the child and the youth, diffusing such a heavenly glow upon

That the man, as he travels onward, when the heat and turmoil of the noontide hours are at an end, beholds those heavenly visions of the morning with a something more sober, yet more beautiful and tender still, welcoming, as it were, his return to the regions from whence "trailing clouds of glory," he originally sprang; once more those finer imaginations which, in the active and stirring business of middle life, had faded into "common day," return to bless the wearied laborer, and to glorify the evening of his hours before he sinks to his final rest. the soft dew of evening falls, and the quiet moon rises over the eastern woods, the nightingale sings the requiem of the sun as he disappears amid the gathering curtains of the night.

While

To return from this effusion to plain story.

The little party assembled in this lovely wood, upon this most enchanting day, consisted of a set of young people still children, and of one aged gentlewoman.

There were some servants in attendance at a

little distance, which showed that the party belonged to a class in the higher walks of life; but the ease, gayety, and simplicity of the little set proved that they had inherited its refinement and escaped all in it that was false or artificial, had profited by its privileges and escaped its snares, so far, at least. And this happy exemption was chiefly owing to the character of the aged lady, to whom her rank and dignity, combined with her character and temper, gave such a powerful influence in this circle of human life.

I am one of those, and I believe my taste has