"I thought it was a bird."

"Can it be there is such heathenism in our very midst!" said the lady to herself. Her interest in the state of Margaret was quickened, and she pushed her inquiry with most philanthropic assiduity.

"Do you never say your prayers?" she asked. "No, ma'am," replied Margaret.

Mary's Dream."

"I can say the Laplander's Ode and

46 What do you do when you go to bed?"

"I go to sleep, ma'am, and dream."

"In what darkness you must be at the Pond!"

"We see the sun rise every morning, and the snow-drops don't open till it's light."

"I mean, my poor child, that I am afraid you are very wicked there."

'I try to be good, and pa is good when he don't get rum at Deacon Penrose's; and Chilion is good; he was going to mend my flower-bed to-day to keep the hogs out."

What, break the Sabbath! Violate God's holy day! Your father was once punished in the stocks for breaking the Sabbath. God will punish us all if we do so."

แ

"Will it put our feet in the stocks the same as they did father?”

'No, my child. He will punish us in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone."

What, the same as Chilion and Obed and I burnt "Alas! alas!" sorrowed the lady.

"We were so bad," continued Margaret, "I thought I should cry." "Deacon Penrose and the rest of us have often spoken of you at the Pond; and we have thought sometimes of going up to see you. what a dreadful condition your father is!"

"Yes, ma'am, sometimes. He rolls his eyes so, and groans, and shakes, and screams, and nobody can help him. I wish Deacon Penrose would come and see him, and I think he would not sell him any more rum.” "Poor little one!-don't you know anything of the Great God who made you and me?"

"Did that make me? I am so glad to know. The little chickens come out of the shells, the beans grow in the pods, the dandelions spring up in the grass, and Obed said I came in an acorn; but the pigs and wild turkeys eat up the acorns, and I can't find one that has a little girl in it like me."

"Would you like to come down to Meeting again?"

"I don't know as I like the Meeting. It don't seem so good as the Turkey Shoot and Ball. Zenas Joy didn't hurt my arm there, and Beulah Ann Orff and Grace Joy talked with me at the Ball. To-day

they only made faces at me, and the man at the door told me to throw away my flowers."

"How deceitful is the human heart, and desperately wicked!"

"Who is wicked?"

"We are all wicked."

"Are you wicked? then you do not love me, and I don't want you to go with me any farther."

"Ah! my dear child, we go astray speaking lies as soon as we be born."

"I never told a lie."

"The Bible says so: do not run away; let me talk with you a little more."

"I don't like wicked people."

"I wish to speak to you about Jesus Christ; do you know him?" "No, ma'am-yes, ma'am, I have heard Hash speak about it when he drinks rum."

"But did you not hear the Minister speak about him in the pulpit today?"

"Yes, ma'am,-does he drink rum too?"

"No, no, child; he only drinks brandy and wine.”

"I have heard Hash speak so when he only drank that."

"The Minister is not wicked like Hash,-he does not get drunk." "Hash wouldn't be wicked if he didn't drink. I wish he could drink and not be wicked too."

"Oh! we are all wicked, Hash and the Minister, and you and I; we are all wicked; and I was going to tell you how Christ came to save wicked people."

"What will he do to Hash?"

"He will burn him in hell-fire, my child."

"Won't he burn the Minister too? I guess I shall not come to Meeting any more. You and the Minister and all the people here are wicked. Chilion is good. I will stay at home with him."

"The Minister is a holy man-a good man, I mean; he is converted; he repents of his sins. I mean he is very sorry he is so wicked." "Don't he keep a-being wicked? You said he was wicked."

Why, yes, he is wicked. We are all totally depraved. You do not understand. I fear I cannot make you see it as it is. My dear child, the eyes of the carnal mind are blind, and they cannot see. I must tell you, though it may make you feel bad, that young as you are, you are a mournful instance of the truth of Scripture. But I dare not speak smooth things to you. If you would read your Bible, and pray to God, your eyes would be opened so you could see. But I did want to tell you about Jesus Christ, who was both God and Man. He came and died for

us. He suffered the cruel death of the cross. The Apostle John says, he came to take away the sins of the world. If you will believe in Christ he will save you. The Holy Spirit, that came once in the form of a dove, will again.come, and cleanse your heart. You must have faith in the blood of Christ. You must take him as your Atoning Sacrifice. Are you willing to go to Christ, my child?"

"Yes, ma'am, if he won't burn up Hash; and I want to go and see that little crooked boy too."

"It's wicked for children to see one another Sundays."

"I did see him at Meeting."

"I mean to meet and play and show picture-books, and that little boy is very apt to play; he catches grasshoppers, and goes down by the side of the brook, before sundown; that is very bad."

"Are his eyes sore like Obed's, sometimes, and the light hurts him?" "It is God's day, and he won't let children play."

"He lets the grasshoppers play."

"But he will punish children."

"Won't he punish the grasshoppers too?" "No."

"Well, I guess I am not afraid of God."

Miss Amy, whether that she thought she had done all she could for the child, or that Margaret seemed anxious to break company with her, or that she had reached a point in the road where she could conveniently leave her, at this instant turned off into Grove Street, and Margaret pursued her course homeward. She arrived at the water a little before sunset; she fed her chickens, her squirrel and robin; her own supper she made of strawberries and milk in her wooden bowl and spoon. She answered as she best could the inquiries and banterings of the family touching the novel adventures of the day. She might have been tired, but the evening air and the voices of the birds were inviting, and her own heart was full of life; and she took a stroll up the Indian's Head.

To this place Margaret ascended; hither had she often come before, and here in her future life she often came.

She went up early in the morning to behold the sun rise from the eastern hills, and to be wrapt in the fogs that flowed up from the River; at noon, to lie on the soft grass under the murmuring firs, and sleep the midtide sleep of all nature; or ponder with a childish curiosity on the mystery of the blue sky and the blue hills; or, with a childish dread, to brood over the deep dark waters that lay chasmed below her. She came up in the fall to pick brambleberries and gather the leaves and crimson spires of the sumach for her mother to color with.

She now came up to see the sun go down. Directly on the right of

the sunsetting was an apparent jog or break at the edge of the world, having on one side something like a cliff or sharp promontory, jutting towards the heavens, and overlooking what seemed like a calm clear sea beyond within this depression lay the top of Umkidden, before spoken of; here also, after a storm, appeared the first clear sky, and here at midday the white clouds, in long ranges of piles, were wont to repose like ships at anchor. Near at hand, she could see the roads leading to Dunwich and Brandon, winding, like unrolled ribbons, through the woods. There were also pastures covered with gray rocks that looked like sheep; the green woods in some places were intersected by fields of brown rye or soft clover. On the whole, it was a verdant scene. Greenness, like a hollow ocean, spread itself out before her; the hills were green and the depths also; in the forest, the darkness, as the sun went down, seemed to form itself into caverns, grottos, and strange fantastic shapes, out of solid greenness. In some instances she could see the tips of the trees glancing and frolicking in the light, while the greedy shadows were crawling up from their roots, as it were out of the ground, to devour them. Deep in the woods the blackcap and thrush still whooted and clanged unweariedly; she heard also the cawing of crows, and scream of the loon; the tinkle of bells, the lowing of cows, and bleating of sheep were distinctly audible. Her own Robin, on the Butternut below, began his long, sweet, many-toned carol; the tree-toad chimed in with its loud trilling chirrup; and frogs, from all the waters around, crooled, chubbed, and croaked. Swallows skimmered over her, and plunged into the depths below; swarms of flies in circular squadrons skirmished in the sunbeams before her eyes; at her side, in the grass, crickets sung their lullabies to the departing day; a rich, fresh smell from the water, the woods, wild-flowers, grass-lots, floating up over the hill, regaled her senses. The surface of the Pond, as the sun declined, broke into gold ripples, deepening gradually into carmine and vermilion; suspended between her eye and the horizon was a table-like form of illuminated mist, a bridge of visible sunbeams shored on pointed shining piers reaching to the ground.

Margaret sat, we say, attentive to all this; what were her feelings we know not now, we may know hereafter; and clouds, that had spent the Sabbath in their own way, came with her to behold the sunsetting; some in long tapering bands, some in flocky rosettes, others in broad, many-folded collops. In that light they showed all colors, rose, pink, violet, and crimson, and the sky in a large circumference about the sun weltered in ruddiness, while the opposite side of the heavens threw back a purple glow. There were clouds, to the eye of the child, like fishes; the horned-pout, with its pearly iridine breast and iron-brown back; floating after it was a shiner, with its bright golden armory; she saw the

blood-red fins of the yellow-perch, the long snout of the pickerel, with its glancing black eye, and the gaudy tail of a trout. She beheld the sun sink half below the horizon, then all his round red face go down; and the light on the Pond withdraw, the bridge of light disappear, and the hollows grow darker and grimmer. A stronger and better defined glow streamed for a moment from the receding depths of light, and flashed through the atmosphere. The little rose-colored clouds melted away in their evening joy, and went to rest up in the dark unfathomable chambers of the heavens. The fishes swam away with that which had called them into being, and plunged down the cataract of light that falls over the other side of the earth; the broad massive clouds grew denser and more gloomy, and extended themselves, like huge-breasted lions couchant, which the Master had told her about, to watch all night near the gate of the sun. She sat there alone, with no eye but God's to look upon her; he alone saw her face, her expression, in that still, warm, golden sunsetting; she sat as if for her the sun had gone down and the sky unloosed its glory; she sat mute and undisturbed, as if she were the child-queen of this great pageant of Nature.