Unabashed, the maid began :
"Up and down the brook I ran,
Where, beneath the bank so steep,
Lie the spotted trout asleep.

""Chip!' went squirrel on the wall,
After me I heard him call,
And the cat-bird on the tree
Tried his best to mimic me.

"Where the hemlocks grew so dark
That I stopped to look and hark,
On a log, with feather-hat,
By the path, an Indian sat.

"Then I cried, and ran away;
But he called, and bade me stay;
And his voice was good and mild
As my mother's to her child.

" And he took my wampum chain,
Looked and looked it o'er again;
Gave me berries, and, beside,
On my neck a plaything tied."

Straight the mother stooped to see
What the Indian's gift might be.
On the braid of Wampum hung,
Lo! a cross of silver swung.

Well she knew its graven sign,
Squando's bird and totem pine;
And, a mirage of the brain,
Flowed her childhood back again.

Flashed the roof the sunshine through,
Into space the walls outgrew;
On the Indian's wigwam-mat,
Blossom-crowned, again she sat.

Cool she felt the west-wind blow,
In her ear the pines sang low,
And, like links from out a chain,
Dropped the years of care and pain.

From the outward toil and din,
From the griefs that gnaw within,
To the freedom of the woods
Called the birds, and winds, and

Well, O painful minister!
Watch thy flock, but blame not her,
If her ear grew sharp to hear
All their voices whispering near.

Blame her not, as to her soul
All the desert's glamour stole,
That a tear for childhood's loss
Dropped upon the Indian's cross.

When, that night, the Book was read,
And she bowed her widowed head,
And a prayer for each loved name
Rose like incense from a flame,

To the listening ear of Heaven,
Lo! another name was given:
"Father, give the Indian rest!
Bless him! for his love has blest!"

MY PLAYΜΑΤΕ.

THE pines were dark on Ramoth hill,
Their song was soft and low;
The blossoms in the sweet May wind
Were falling like the snow.

The blossoms drifted at our feet,
The orchard birds sang clear;
The sweetest and the saddest day
It seemed of all the year.

For, more to me than birds or flowers,
My playmate left her home,
And took with her the laughing
spring,

The music and the bloom.

She kissed the lips of kith and kin,
She laid her hand in mine:
What more could ask the bashful boy
Who fed her father's kine?

She left us in the bloom of May:
The constant years told o'er
Their seasons with as sweet May

THE SHADOW AND THE LIGHT.

"And I sought, whence is Evil: I set before the eye of my spirit the whole creation; whatsoever we see therein, - sea, earth, air, stars, trees, moral creatures, - yea, whatsoever there is we do not see, - angels and spiritual powers. Where is evil, and whence comes it, since God the Good hath created all things? Why made He anything at all of evil, and not rather by His Almightiness cause it not to be? These thoughts I turned in my miserable heart, overcharged with most gnawing cares." "And, admonished to return to myself, I entered even into my inmost soul, Thou being my guide, and beheld even beyond my soul and mind

the Light unchangeable. He who knows the Truth knows what that Light is, and he that knows it knows Eternity! O Truth, who art Eternity! Love, who art Truth! Eternity, who art Love! And I beheld that Thou madest all things good, and to Thee is nothing whatsoever evil. From the angel to the worm, from the first motion to the last, Thou settest each in its place, and everything is good in its kind. Woe is me!-how high art Thou in the highest, how deep in the deepest! and Thou never departest from us and we scarcely return to Thee." - Augustine's Soliloquies, Book VII.

THE fourteen centuries fall away Between us and the Afric saint,

No outward sign to us is given, From sea or earth comes no reply;

Hushed as the warm Numidian heaven

He vainly questioned bends our frozen sky.

No victory comes of all our strife, From all we grasp the meaning slips;

The Sphinx sits at the gate of life, With the old question on her awful lips.

In paths unknown we hear the feet Of fear before, and guilt behind; We pluck the wayside fruit, and eat Ashes and dust beneath its golden rind.

From age to age descends unchecked The sad bequest of sire to son, The body's taint, the mind's defect, Through every web of life the dark threads run.

O, why and whither? - God knows all;

I only know that he is good, And that whatever may befall

Or here or there, must be the best that could.

Between the dreadful cherubim

A Father's face I still discern, As Moses looked of old on him, And saw his glory into goodness turn!

For he is merciful as just;

And so, by faith correcting sight, I bow before his will, and trust Howe'er they seem he doeth all things right.

To all who sin and suffer; more

And better than we dare to hope With Heaven's compassion make our longings poor!

THE GIFT OF TRITEMIUS.

TRITEMIUS of Herbipolis, one day, While kneeling at the altar's foot to pray,

Alone with God, as was his pious choice,

Heard from without a miserable voice, A sound which seemed of all sad things to tell,

As of a lost soul crying out of hell.

Thereat the Abbot paused; the chain whereby

His thoughts went upward broken by that cry;

And, looking from the casement, saw below

Truth which the sage and prophet

She cried, "For the dear love of Him who gave

saw,

His life for ours, my child from bond