Childhood enters life at the east, coming in, like a young swallow, beneath the eaves; but like Desdemona's handkerchief, he is "little," and he stands erect under the low-curved roof. On he goes, into the middle of the world. How swells the dome above him, and manhood is erect still. But "westward westward," is the word, and by and by, he bends his head beneath the roof. They say he is old—that the weight of years is on him-that he is looking for a place to sleep; but it is only that he may clear the rafters. Low and lower does he bend, until, with form quite doubled, he creeps out just between Hea ven and Earth, and is seen no more.

Death is not afraid of the sunshine, for he comes in June. The rustle of ten thousand leaves does not startle him; the breath of ten thousand flowers does not charm him away. Indeed he loves flowers, for has not a dainty Singer declared that he reaps

"The bearded grain at a breath,

And the FLOWERS that grow between?"

There's a house down in the valley-you can see it from my window-where, when they numbered their treasures, they said, and kept saying, "three, three, three," and there was melody in the monosyllable-a trinity of blessing in the "three;" but

DEATH was counting all the while, and "one

numbering as his own, and his count-alas! for itwas the surest. One star fell from the blue air; it was Heaven aloft, still. One white rose drifted down to earth; it was summer all the same. And soand so what? Philosophy may analyze a tear, but it cannot curve a hope in it-it cannot bid it "exhale." It may make a spectrum, but it cannot make a smile. And the text for this is a brief one:

DIED,

On Saturday night, the 18th of June,
End of the little week of Life,

And it is Sunday to-morrow and to-morrow,
EDITH J. DARLING,

Aged 13.

Amiable, she won all; intelligent, she charmed
all; fervent, she loved all; and

dead, she saddened all.

Beside the little brother who had gone on before, an empty chrysalis is lying. Who seeks EDITHI ? There is a realm where

"December's as pleasant as May”—

where it is June all the year long. There is a Recording Angel, and a book lies open before him, and the page for "June 18th, '53,” bears, in letters of light, the name-EDITH,

A dream-eyed daughter of the "drowsy East" lost a favorite Gazelle. It wandered away in the Persian gardens, and its young Mistress had followed it all the long afternoon. It had come at her call; it had eaten from her hand; it had rested its head on her bosom; it was timid, and she won it; tender, and she cherished it; helpless, and she loved it. And now it had gone; the shadows were deepening and lengthening, and the lost was not found. All the afternoon she had traced it, by the imprint its little feet had left upon the enamelled and emerald sod; but night came on, and, what for the tears and the darkness, the footsteps grew dim, like a half-effaced memory of something loved and lost.

She knelt upon the turf, and bending low, still read the records of the truant's wanderings, and followed them. But the shadows fell too heavily at last, and she sat among the flowers and wept; and as she was mourning, there came to her the fragrance of a flower sweeter than its fellows, and with the sweetness came the thought, still sweeter: her favorite's foot had crushed it, till it uttered that fragrant sigh. So filled with hope, she followed the Gazelle through the darkness by the perfume in its pathway, and she found it at last, its lips reddened with red roses, its limbs laved

in white lilies, sweetly reposing in the "GARDENS OF PARADISE."

There was joy that night amid the darkness and dews. The maiden returned, but she left her heart in token that the treasure lying there was her own; for she had read some where, but not in the Koran, "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

“Our Folk s.”

"OUR FOLKS ' '—we have folks; folks of whose names, ages, and occupations the Census gives no account; folks as good as any body's, "and these are of them :" A flaunting, pompous, Pharisaical Grape VINE, with very broad, green phylacteries, bids fair to overrun the entire premises. It made its appearance, I am told, near the kitchen-door, a few years ago, in a very meek, unostentatious manner a statement, considering the "complexion to which it has come at last," requiring about as much credulity as there is vine, to believe. Its aspirations were soon manifested in the display of divers mermaidish-looking ringlets,

with two or three dainty "quirls" therein, flung out to the wind, and fluttering very gaily indeed.

Its ambitious tendencies being early discovered, a frame, large enough to satisfy any thing short of a Corsican ambition, was erected; and the Vine roofed it, and walled it, and festooned it, and hung rich clusters of grapes around it, and filled it with fragrance, and broke it down, and—and what? That's just it—and what should it do next? Those green ringlets were set afloat again, and the Vine made most insidious advances towards a respectable Apple Tree that stood near; which, being young, and inexperienced in the wiles and ways of Catawbas, Isabellas, and the like, permitted its attentions. So the Vine encircled its waist very lovingly with a tendril and a tendresse that would have been pronounced

quite the thing" in the first circles. Any body would have supposed, for a while, that it would be whirling away with the Apple Tree in a waltz through the Orchard. It did no such thing; but just clambered up higher and higher, and swayed this way and that, and whispered, and swung, and caressed, and made itself as agreeable as possible. By and by, it half said, half sighed, 'Let me fling a wreath over you, sweet Tree,' and a wreath it was