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visible. No advertisements in the newspapers, of "Painting done here;" no "Apprentices wanted," for Nature's hands are all journeymen; not a leaf with a capital or an exclamation point on it. Ah! that

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May Duke" belongs to the Royal Family ofNature.

Pumpkins and Enterprise.

LAST Summer, I remember, a little vine-a Pumpkin vine-came out of the ground in a cornfield, 'up the road,' and there it was, in the midst of the corn, unseeing and unseen. So there was nothing for it, but to make the best of its way out to the fence that bounded the road, some eighteen or twenty feet distant, where there would be some prospect of its being appreciated, if it could. Could? Could? But it did, for away it went, vine and leaves, baggage and all, through the corn, this way and that, out to the fence, and up the fence, three rails, and through the fence. And what do you think it did then? Just unravelled a delicate yellow blossom, and held it there, for every one passing to see, saying all the time, as well as it could-and it could as well as any body-" It's me!

See what I've done-this! Isn't it pretty?" Well, there it held it, and every body saw it, and no body thought any thing about it.

Passing that way in the Fall, lo! a PUMPKIN, rotund, golden, magnificent, held out at arm's length by the little vine; held in the air-held week after week, and never laid down, nights, nor Sundays, nor any time.

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Now, man your brakes"-rig your levers, ye Archimedes-es, and pump up from the earth, and along that vine, and from the surrounding air, the raw material for just such another article as that, and yoù shall have two summers to do it in. Bring on the Alembic, wherein shall be distilled from the falling rain, the essence of Pumpkin, and we'll let it go without painting.

Death.

THE World is curved round about with Heaven, and Heaven never seems nearer than in June. Its great blue rafters bend low on every hand, and how one can get out of the world, without getting into Heaven, is to us a physical mystery.

L

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 Heaven 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

he was

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;

dead, she saddened all.

and

Beside the little brother who had gone on before, an empty chrysalis is lying. Who seeks EDITH? 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

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