Mary made no answer. She, too, had mo

not to be a long one, came upon her most powerfully, and to her, too, it brought that same gentle melancholy satisfaction which seemed stealing over the mind of her blind brother. He had once asked her, when a very little boy, if she thought he should see in heaven; and the question had made her shed many tears. She wept now, while she listened to his plaintive voice, and heard him talk with humble piety, of his willingness to die in the first blossoming of youth; yet her tears were not tears of bitterness, for she saw that the frame of mind in which he spoke, was one calculated to make him happy, living or dying.

had gone with a young brother all the way, I must be a burden all my life to my parents, up to the Great Oak, on purpose, and assured and can be of little use to any one-even to her the path was dry. She stood at the door, you! I think I know not why-it was not and as she looked up at the clear and beauti- meant I should stay here long. God will soon ful sky, around on the landscape, and again see whether I am patient, amiable, and pious; on the pleading face of her blind brother, she he will take me away when I have been sufficould not find in her heart to say "No."- ciently tried." They went out together, and Mary was glad she had gone. Her own heart seemed to ex-ments when the conviction that her life was pand with quiet happiness as she walked. What invalid is not happy in breathing the open air for the first time, after tedious months of confinement, and feels not as if the simplest act of existence were in itself a luxury? Henry went leaping by her side with short and joyous bounds, pouring forth the exuberance of his spirits in the songs she had taught him, asking a thousand questions, and sometimes stopping to listen when the sound of a sheep-bell, the note of a bird, or the murmur of a distant voice struck on his quick ear. When the way was rough, he walked closer to her side, holding her hand tightly, and seeming as if made happier by the pensive smiles on that pale face he could not see.- She told him so at last, and strove to He asked her sometimes if the walk was strengthen in his mind that feeling which dismaking her cheeks red, for then he knew that arms all vexation and sorrow-a perfect conhis father would say she was well; and some-fidence that there is a secret good in every times he furnished her with food for reflec- event which befalls us. Her own spirit was tion, as she wondered what ideas were con- so deeply imbued with this conviction that it veyed to his mind by the terms he had learned gave the coloring to her whole character; it to use in speaking of visible objects. At last was the idea that occurred to her habitually they came to the Great Oak; and as they sat and incessantly; it was the secret of that peace resting together on a rock under its leafless of mind which neither trouble, poverty, or sickbranches, the gaiety of the blind boy subsided, ness, could ruffle. She taught him how to exand he caught something of the same sedate ercise his mind in trying to discover the good happiness which pervaded the spirit of Mary. shrouded in seeming evil; and how, when the They talked together for a long time, and at justice and mercy of any event were past last sunk into silence. Henry sat musing, finding out, to give up the search in undoubtand Mary involuntarily gazed upon the varying confidence that all was right, suffering ing expressions that passed over his sightless not his soul to be disquieted. but eloquent face, sometimes lighting it almost with a smile, sometimes fading into sadness, betraying the changing tenor of his thoughts, which flowed on, guided only by the mysterious laws of association, and unchecked by the movements of outward objects. At last he asked with a mournful tone

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Mary, do you think it would be a hard thing if I were to die young?"

Mary shrunk from a question which seemed so unnatural for one in his situation; because she did not imagine that such thoughts had ever entered the mind of the gay and laughing boy. She was startled, too, at the coincidence between their reflections; it was as if she had looked into his mind, and found it a mirror of her own. But she asked Henry, quietly, "if he were weary of the life God had given him."

Mary was still an invalid, and soon felt that she had made more exertion than she ought to have done. She paused a moment at the foot of the hill, because there were two ways which led home. They had come by a circuitous path, leading through hills and lanes; and the road by which they now proposed to return, would conduct them across the millbrook, straight to the village. She was weak and faint, and they took the shortest way.Silently they walked on till they had almost reached a small rising ground which lay between them and the mill-stream, when Henry suddenly exclaimed, "Sister Mary, where are we? I hear the water running!" Mary listened a moment with a surprised and anxious countenance, and quickened her pace as they ascended the hill. As soon as they came in sight of the stream, she stopped, astonished and almost terrified. The heavy rain of the previous day, and the melting of the snow among the hills, had swollen the mill-brook

into a deep and rapid stream, and it now caught sight of Mary, carried alive and rushed by them with the sound of many wa-struggling over the mill-dam. With one ters, bearing on its turbid bosom marks of the impulse they rushed down the banks and devastation it had already wrought in its around the mill to her rescue. The father course. The young birches and alders that followed his neighbors with hurried steps and had shaded its green banks the preceding trembling knees, casting a single glance to summer, torn up by the roots, were whirled ascertain that Henry was indeed safe, and along with the current; and amid the white || calling to him as he passed, not to stir till his foam Mary descried the wet, black planks and return. Henry seemed not to hear. He sat beams which told the destruction of an old motionless, and crouching down in the exmill of her father's higher up the stream.- tremity of his terror, uttering quick, low The bridge, and the new mill just below it, shrieks. They were lost in the tumult, and were yet standing, but the waters rose furi- he was left alone. ously against them, and both shook and tottered, Sounds came up every moment amid the tumult, which told that something unseen had given way, and Mary looked around in vain for help or counsel. There was not a human being in sight. She did not try to conceal from Henry their situation; and though the hand she held did not tremble with the natural fear of one so young and helpless, she saw by his countenance that he was awed. A short but fervent prayer was in her mind. There was no time to be lost. She grew weaker every moment; and summoning up all her strength for one effort, with a quick, firm step, looking neither to the right nor to the left, she hastened upon the bridge, leading her blind brother. They had already half crossed it, when Henry, bewildered by the noise and the shaking under his feet, shrunk back involuntarily. Mary flung one arm around him, and feebly strove to drag him forward; when, with a tremendous crash, the main support of the bridge gave way under them, and in an instant they were precipitated amid its wrecks into the raging waters.

The father came down from the flat rocks below the mill, just as the bruised, dripping, ||and lifeless body was drawn out of the water. With sad countenances and silent lips, the two elder brothers laid the pale corpse-for such it was-on a board, and carried it hastily to the village, with a vain hope of resuscitation. The father followed it a few moments anxiously; and then suddenly recollecting his helpless blind boy, he went with one or two of his neighbors to bring him to his desolate home.

Henry was where he had left him, bowed down, silent, motionless. The father's look grew fixed and earnest, as he drew nigh. He strode hastily over the heaps of timber and ruin, stooped to lift his child, and uttered a cry of horror. The lower limbs of the poor blind boy were wedged fast between two heavy beams of the demolished bridge, and he had fainted with excess of agony, Wild and almost superhuman were the efforts with which the father strove to relieve his child from a situation so horrible; but it was not till his friends came, with an axe and hatchet, with calmer heads and steadier hands, to his assistance, that the sufferer was extricated.

There were those who beheld this spectacle, and a wild cry of agony arose amid the din of destruction; but it came not from the lips of the struggling sufferers. William It was a night of grief and agony beneath Halleck had come forth to look for his chil- the roof of William Halleck. The remains dren, and warn them of the freshet. Just as of the fair, gentle, and pious Mary lay stretched he reached the top of the rising ground op-on her own little bed in one room, and in the posite the one they descended, he beheld next, father, mother, brothers and sisters hung them with horror attempting to cross the tot-around the couch of the suffering Henry.tering bridge. It was but for a moment; as he sprang forward at the sight a fearful sound broke on his ear, and in another moment they were snatched from his gaze.

There was a short interval of confusion, shouts and cries. Friends and neighbors came running over the hill, to the scene of destruction, and there were pale, dismayed || faces, hasty suggestions, and wild efforts to discover and save the drowning victims; but all in vain. Suddenly the frantic father descried his Henry sitting apparently in security, upon some of the wrecks of the bridge, which had become jammed together, and was arrested in their progress near the mill. At the same moment the whole group

Acute, indeed, were the pains with which it pleased God to visit the youthful saint, and saint-like indeed was the resignation with which those pains were borne. But about midnight his pains were suddenly calmed, and hope fluttered for a moment in the heavy hearts of those who loved him. It was but for a moment. The physician announced that the process of mortification had begun, and death was drawing nigh. All at once the voice of the blind boy was heard, calling his mother in a faint but calm voice. She came to his bed-side, and he took hold of her hand. Then he asked for his father, brothers, and sisters. They all came. He touched each, and said, "Mary is not here."

No. 4. Lines on reading an Obituary Notice of W. G. Clark.

No one spoke, but he felt his mother's hand quiver in his.

He could not, he could not forget the sweet hour
They plighted their vows in the moon-gilded bow'r ;
"Twas their bosom's first love, and could not expire-
A pulse of the soul-a hallowed fire-

Which burns on life's altar, which glows on the shrine
Of the heart's deep affections-an incense divine.

Time could not destroy a vision so bright,

"Twas the sun of his soul in the noon of his night,
The glimmering stars in the cerulean sky

Were windows which show'd him his Anne on high;
Like an angel of light, through life's stormy way,

THE DAUGHTER'S BURIAL. Summer had come. The wild flowers of early Spring were withered beneath the sun's scorching rays, and sending forth on the gentle wings of the wind the sweet fragrance of their departure. They had sprung upward from the earth's bosom, as the timid heralds of summer's more gorgeous splendor; had

By night she watch'd o'er him, and cheer'd him by day; staid one short month, and were gone. The

In dreams on his pillow, she lay in his arms,
And he revell'd in bliss, as he gaz'd on her charms.
Love, deathless-eternal-to them had been giv'n,
It gleamed through their lives, and rekindled in heaven.
Sag Harbor, L. I., Sept. 1, 1842.

VOCAL MUSIC CONDUCIVE

TO HEALTH.

wild flowers are my favorites, for in them I read a portrayer of human life. Their countless variety, the loveliness and simplicity of some, and the majesty and grandeur of others, their changeless fragrance and beauty, their early bloom, their drooping and dying just upon the confines of winter, like the last lingering and spirit-broken survivor of a past It was the opinion of Dr. Rush, that sing-generation; all mirror forth to the mind that ing by young ladies, whom the customs of so- is accustomed to read in the great book of naciety debar from many other kinds of healthy || ture, the semblance of life. exercise, is to be cultivated not only as an accomplishment, but as a means of preserving health. He particularly insists that vocal music should never be neglected in the edu-|| cation of a young lady; and states that beside its salutary operation in soothing the cares of domestic life, it has a still more direct and important effect. "I here introduce a fact," says Dr. Rush," which has been suggested to me by my profession; that is, the exercise of the organs of the breast by singing contributes very much to defend them from those diseases to which the climate and other causes expose them. The Germans are seldom afflicted with consumption; nor have I ever known more than one case of spitting of blood among them. This, I believe, is in part occasioned by the strength which their lungs acquire by exercising them frequently in vocal music, which constitutes an essential branch of their education." "The music master of our The pastor ended his words of exhortation academy," says Gardner, "has furnished me and prayer-kindred and friends sung a song with an observation still more in favor of this for the lost one, when the black and mournful opinion. He informs me that he had known bier, borne upon men's shoulders, moved from several instances of persons strongly disposed the house of the deceased, to the place apto consumption, restored to health by the ex-pointed for all the living. 'Twas a little ercise of the lungs in singing." In the new establishment of infant schools for children of three or four years of age, every thing is taught by the aid of song. Their little lessons, their recitations, their arithmetical countings are all chaunted; and as they feel the importance of their own voices when joined together, they emulate each other in the power of vociferating. This exercise is found to be very beneficial to their health. Many instances have occurred of weakly children of two or three years of age who could scarcely support themselves, having become robust and healthy by this constant exercise of the lungs. Singing tends to expand the chest, and increase the power of the vital organs.

Did the reader ever stop from his journeyings to pass the Sabbath in any of the villages that repose so quietly among the Green Mountains? If he has, the story of their unbroken stillness need not be told; for once enjoyed, it stamps itself upon the heart, and forms a bright spot in one's life, to which memory loves to lead back the soul in after years, to throw around it again its hallowed influence.

But what means this? Why this measured and solemn walking in the street, ere the sun be down? Why this gathering at a neighbor's house with such looks of sorrow? Ah! a funeral!-I too went forth and mingled with the multitude in their sympathy for the be||reaved, for whose heart has not felt its pangs? And, once felt, what bosom can hold back the deep fountain that swells up from the hidden recess of the soul.

place we stood beside, yet it was a first born's. We have seen the aged die and be gathered unto his fathers like a shock of corn fully ripe in its season; we have seen the middle aged in their strength and glory laid low in death, and there were tears, mingled with the damp earth that covered them; but they were not those bitter scalding tears that wring a mother's heart, when the severing of earth's dearest tie is felt. The shade of six summers had scarcely crimsoned the cheek of this beloved daughter, ere the hand of disease grappled strongly its victim, and in a few brief hours of burning fever, she that was prattling with her brother on the lawn had ceased to be.

No. 4.

Sonnets.-The Touching Reproof.

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BY T. S. ARTHUR.

127

Here, Jane," said a father to his little girl not over eleven years of age," go over to the shop and buy me a pint of brandy."

The father stood there in strength and THE TOUCHING REPROOF. manliness, but his heaving bosom and the stealing tear told but too plainly of the struggling within. The mother was there. She was a young mother, yet was howed down with grief and anxious watching; but it seemed as though she had nerved herself to At the same time he handed her a quarter come and see the end. When the sexton had of a dollar. The little girl took the money laid the turf upon the little mound, and leaned and the bottle, and as she did so, looked her upon his spade, she turned away, and a light||father in the face with an earnest, sad exwas upon her countenance, as if the angel spirit of her daughter had come back from heaven to whisper her-of an immortal union in the place of the holy, where separation will no more come forever. Then I went to my room, to think how often he that knoweth what is best for us, takes the little flowers, even the opening buds, that are too tender for earth, to transplant in a more genial soil on the banks of the river of life.

Written for the Ladies' Garland.
SONNETS.

BY JAMES LUMBARD.

TO DEPARTED SUMMER.
Yes, thou art gone! gone all thy blushing flowers,
And mouldering now their faded beauty lies;
And in a voiceless tomb, thy sunny hours

Lie buried with the gray old centuries.
E'en now do autumn's melancholy skies

Bend o'er the woods, in russet livery clad,

And through the forest glades, the wailing blast
Repeats its hymn in accents low and sad;
Touch'd by its breath, the withered leaves fall fast,
And lie around in rich profusion cast.
Thus fade our joys in all their boasted pride!--
Oh! may we treasure up within our hearts

That glorious hope, whose radiance ne'er departs

That hope to immortality allied!

WITHERED FLOWERS.
Those faded flowers!-sad is the simple tale

By them revealed! Their drooping forms, and eyes
All rayless, clothed in autumn's sober guise,
Make desolate our quiet sylvan vale!

For where a thousand bright and beauteous gems
Sprang up, and breathed their perfume on the air-
And nightly bowed, as if in silent prayer,

Now scarce a leaf clings to their withered stems!
Not profitless, the silent lesson taught

By perished flowers;-their lifeless forms impart
A melancholy tinge to every thought-
A lesson for the light and giddy heart;
How transitory are all human flowers
That bloom in loveliness in earthly bowers!

AUTUMN LEAVES.
More glorious are the leaves now in decay,
Than when they prophesied approaching spring.
And with what brilliancy they pass away,
While all things else are sad and withering!
Oh! why does such undying beauty cling
To autumn leaves thus in the hour of death?
Why are they graced with smiles of joyous mirth,
While summer's roses, blasted by the breath

Of chilly winds, are swept away from earth,
From which they erst received a happy birth?
How emblematic of the dying christian's hope,
Which, with a more transcendant brightness glows,
As evening's solemn shades around him close,
While from afar he sees heaven's shining portals ope!

Utica, N. Y. 1842.

pression. But he did not seem to observe it, although he perceived it, and felt it; for he understood its meaning. The little girl lingered, as if reluctant, from some reason, to go on her errand.

"Did you hear what I said?" the father asked angrily, and with a frowning brow, as he observed this.

Jane glided from the room and went over to the shop, hiding, as she passed through the street, the bottle under her apron. There she obtained the liquor, and returned with it in a few minutes. As she reached the bottle to her father, she looked at him again with the same sad, earnest look, which he observed. It annoyed and angered him.

"What do you mean by looking at me in that way? ha?" he said, in a loud, angry

tune.

Jane shrunk away, and passed into the next room, where her mother lay sick. She had been sick for some time, and as they were poor, and her husband given to drink, she had sorrow and privation added to her bodily sufferings. As her little girl came in she went up to the side of her bed, and bending over it leaned her head upon her hand. She did not make any remark, nor did her mother speak to her, until she observed the tears trickling through her fingers.

"What is the matter, my dear?" she then asked tenderly.

The little girl raised her head, endeavoring to dry up her tears as she did so.

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"I feel so bad, mother," she replied. “And why do you feel bad, my child?" Oh, I always feel so bad when father sends me over to the shop for brandy. And I had to go just now. I wanted to ask him to buy you some nice grapes and oranges with the quarter of a dollar-they would taste so good to you-but he seemed to know what I was going to say, and looked at me so cross that I was afraid to speak. I wish he would not drink any more brandy. It makes him so cross; and then how many nice things he might buy for you with the money it takes for liquor."

The poor mother had no words of comfort to offer her little girl, older in thought than in years; for no comfort did she herself feel, in view of the circumstances that troubled