spun in a factory built with hands--not stolen from a silkworm's shroud-not continuations of the pursestrings; chords of a nobler harp than Apollo swept, that sometimes play Eolian to the wings of angel thought.

Here, then, music has its origin-hente, like the winged courier of the ark, it goes forth, and hither it returns, with the blessing and the song of peace. All hearts-gentle Charity, look the other way while I write it all hearts are not full strung, but what of that? Paganini made his fortune by playing upon one string, and Nature made some to be like him.

Physiologists tell us that if one, with whom the daughters of music are brought low," stand on the sounding shore amid the thunder of ocean, he can distinguish those softer tones, that had floated round him inaudible in the silence. And so it is with the bird-like voices of the purer and the past, that wander by unheard on muffled wing, yet sometimes amid the din and hurry of the thronged and dusty world, thrill ear and heart, and charm us, for a moment, back to our better selves, ere the spring array of life was doffed for the rustling gold of harvest, or bound in the sheaf to fade upon the floor of the thresher.

Age must bring its dower of the silver tress, but

what of that, if the heart be young? Music, as I am regarding it, is the great cosmetic that keeps it from growing old with years. But to be this, it must also be heart-born. If it springs thence, it will rise like a fountain to its height again-fountain? aye, that's the word!—and fall like it, in hope and beauty, over some other fountain that has ceased to play melodiously as of old-its sublime mission of beauty and blessing unended, till "the pitcher and the wheel are broken, when the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit unto God who gave it."

The Wind and the Night.

SOME of the fruit-trees hereabouts have strange ways of their own; indeed, I suspect a little appletree of being partly human. About tall enough to speak Everett's

"You'd scarce expect one of my age,"

there it stood, in full leaf, every one newly varnished, holding on with all its might to a huge apple, pendent from the very extremity of a limb, its first sole offering to Autumn and its owner. There it stood, as if

straining every woody muscle to hold the wonder up to sight, and by the air of its little top, seeming as plain as words to say, "Look at me and mine, won't you?" Vain, little thing!

Close by, stands another tree of about the same size, and sporting, like its comrade, one big, red apple. But it seems to have learned wisdom from its ambitious little neighbor, and instead of holding out its burden at arm's length, it has taken it at an advantage,' having thrown it carelessly over a limb midway, with two or three glossy leaves disposed carefully over it, for all the world as our grandmothers-God bless them-used to carry their knitting work, with the neatly-folded blue cotton handkerchief, and the white stars in it—what has become of the blue cottons, and the stars, and the grandmothers? Lack-aday! all alike, worn out, and faded, and gone)—laid carefully over it.

There stood the little tree, as nonchalant as a dead shot, as much as to say, "that's nothing to what I'll do, by-and-by." I'll wager something on that tree. Ah! that by-and-by! There's the song of youth and hope, and the beat of a heart, locked up in it. And who would hush the song and muffle the throb beneath the mantle of worldly wisdom, but a dog and a cynic,

and they are brothers. Sing on! beat on.

is the music of the march of life.

say I! It

There's a Quince Tree. With its twisted, crooked trunks, springing out of the ground all together, and turning and crowding in every direction, before they make a final shoot upward into the air, it looks as if it had been in such a desperate hurry to get up in the world, that it hadn't taken time to make ready, and hardly knew which way to go, when it got up. There are quite as many Quince bushes of the genus homo as of the "Cydonia Vulgaris," as the schoolmen call it. Well, tarts are pleasant, sometimes, if not too

tart.

How the Woods welcome a breeze, and how varied the modes in which that welcome is given. Have you ever thought of it, and did you ever see a wind? There's one coming now-a mere breath-creeping over the marsh, as if it would take the trees by surprise. Catch its portrait now, while you can. See it run over the tall grass, something like a shadow, with a sunbeam following hard after it. That Elm, with its pensile branches, like lace edging on the border of the meadow! The wind has swung itself up into it, and sways to and fro, as merrily as a Canary in a ring. Down it glides, and away for that silvery

Poplar. How it shivers and quivers. Is the thing timid or glad? Glad, I'll warrant, all of a tremble with very joy. The breath takes courage, and strengthens to a breeze. There's " a brave old Oak," crooked and gray, like the tarnished old pendulum it is, swinging in the clear, sunny air, as it has swung these years and years.

That billowy maple feels it now. How it swells, and rocks, and rolls, with its green billows, that harmonize so perfectly with the blue sky. What song has gone up from those leafy deeps, morning and evening, evening and morning, many a long-gone summer!

And there, in the distance, a tall tree-I don't know its name-tosses its lofty boughs, as if it would fain go with the breeze, and float away in a cloud And these little bushes-what a flutter there is among the small fry! How they curl down to the ground and lie flat in the long grass. Then, up they come, and look taller than ever.

The breeze is in all the woods, and all the woods are "a wave offering." Nodding, and waving, and trembling-rocking, and rolling, and swinging-shivering, and rustling, and tossing-the welcome of the Woods to the gentle wind. Deep, dark, glossy-vel. vety and silken greens are blended in the blast.