Her father, Daniel Taylor was, educated in Yale College. He is a man of superior ability, keen intellect and strong christian character, and is greatly respected by all who know him. Her mother is a lady of rare culture and refinement. Her christian life, mellowed and sweetened by years of invalidism, is most beautiful on whichever side you look. Miss Taylor was instructed by her mother until the age of thirteen, when she began her school life in Cary Collegiate Seminary in Oakfield, N. Y. Subsequent to this she entered the LeRoy Ingham University as a student, from which school she was graduated in June, 1876. On the eleventh of July, 1881, she was united in marriage to Prof. W. A. Henry, a talented gentleman of the State University located in Madison, Wis., where she still resides. Prof. Henry is Dean of the College of Agriculture and is also director of the Ohio Experiment Station. Mrs. Henry's intense nature, her love of poetry and ability to express the same in words were inherited from her mother, and early manifested. Although she has written but little, her poems display marked ability. Had Mrs. Henry continued exercising her gift as a writer, she would no doubt have ranked high as a poet. But serious trouble with her eyes has compelled her to lay down her pen and remain at home in great seclusion, which is the only shadow that falls upon the household to mar the happiness of the trio, herself, her devoted husband and lovely little boy.

FALLING OF THE YEAR.

A. M. S.

THE days are chill with hint of coming frost.
A loneliness pervades the air, and sound
Of rustling, ‘plaining branches skyward tossed
By some lone wind, that homeless e'er is found.

The drifting leaves are floating down in slow
And sad array, like winding solemn train
Of mourners drear; in hush of silent woe
They seek the lonely grave of summer slain.

Fair summer, with her wealth of golden hours, Her thousand winning graces, beauty rare, Is drifting now through sweet elysian bowers; Her tender life no bitter winds could bear.

A gloom is in the sky, and somber clouds Of coldest tint fold down at western gate,

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Where fleeting day glides out; then darkness shrouds

The waiting earth, while care and toil abate.

The pulse of nature slower beats at thought
Of rest, and dreaming noontides weave a spell
Of lotus power, a mystic charming, fraught
With droning sound of wings in wood and dell.

│Amid the sober gray of autumn hours

Drift purest days of silver sheen, like bits Of pearl from gate of city fair that towers In matchless grace, where King of Glory sits.

Sweet wondrous days that blossom into life,

At touch of wooing sunshine, warm and bright Then breathing perfume, till far woods are rife With subtle, drifting incense, fade to-night.

Yet sunset hues of gold and crimson burn
In stately woods that sweep the western sky,
And ruby gleams 'mid bronzing leaves that turn
To catch the tints of morning ere they die.

The shadows sleep in depth of valley wide,

And sunbeams linger where the purpling hills Their glory hold. Thus ebbing slow, the tide Of life drifts on in ever waning rills.

The year is near to death. A holy calm

Falls soft and sweet atween the hours of gloom, Like soothing, rhythmic cadence of a psalm In hush that lieth near an open tomb.

MUTATION.

A FLIGHT of birds to the southward,
And a moaning wind from the northward,
The wheeling sun is quick to run
His appointed way, and the day is done.

A brighter gleam in the starlight,
And a cooler glow in the noonlight,
A longer tend in shadow's trend

Where the larches nod and the willows bend.

A breath of flowers going skyward,
And a cloud of leaves falling earthward,
With sunset tint in richest print,
Bright mosaic rare, with a golden glint.

A crisping sound on the roadside,
And a dreamy haze on the hillside,
With golden sweep of sunlight deep
O'er the bosky dell and the rocky steep.

From twilight dim to the sunrise,

And through all the day to the star-rise, A shifting play of color gay,

Or a somber thread of shading gray.

JUNE.

FILLED with sweetness, rich completeness,
Flowing wine of ruby days,
June the matchless, June the peerless,
Crowns the year with diamond rays.

Rarest gem in nature's setting,

Pure as pearl in ocean hold, Golden rim of sunlight falling

Girds thee close in fretted mold.

Fancy lingers near the portal

Where the changing months appear, Touching each with magic pencil, Witching priestess of the year.

Yet the June month is her darling,
And a robe of fairy sheen
Folds the dainty, graceful being
With the halo of a queen.
Glowing gifts and shining treasure
Doth the royal hand bestow;
Boons unstinted, without measure,
In a thousand channels flow.
Wealth of bloom and leafing perfect
Now the waiting world endow;
Sounds in tone of every insect,

"Summer's crown is on her brow." Roses blush with hearts of crimson; Tintings rare that shells illume Blend with purest buds that whiten; Censers sweet the air perfume.

FROST-WORK.

O EARTH! What strange new atmosphere hath left
Its touch upon thee? Yester eve the dry
And blackened branches lined the gloomy sky
In loneliness profound, of leaves bereft;
Yet now with snowy crystals fashioned deft

Are glittering all, as though immersed in high
And floating vapors that congeal and vie
In myriads of fragments subtly cleft.
The new world, spotless made and pure as deed
Of God, doth stand amazed at sight of her
Own loveliness. Fair prototype of the
Eternal morn, when all things shall be freed
From touch of sin. Then golden harps will stir,
And we for aye the King Immortal see.

MELISSA ELIZABETH RIDDLE BANTA.

M

RS. MELISSA ELIZABETH RIDDLE BANTA was born in Cheviot, a suburb of Cincinnati, O., March 27th, 1834. Her father, James Riddle, was of Scotch descent, and her mother, Elizabeth Jackson, a Quaker, was of English origin. Melissa Elizabeth is the sole daughter of the house. She attended the Wesleyan Female Institute in Cincinnati until her fourteenth year, when, on the removal of the family to Covington, Ky., she was placed in the Female Collegiate Institute of that city, where she was graduated at the age of seventeen years. The same year she made a romantic marriage with Joseph I. Perrin, of Vicksburg, Miss. The young couple lived in Vicksburg, where the bride was a teacher in the public schools. A few days after the first anniversary of the wedding day, September 11th, 1853, Mr. Perrin died of yellow fever. That was the year when the fever was epidemic in the South. Mrs. Banta's recollections of that time are vivid. Her poem, "The Gruesome Rain," embodies a grief, a regret and a hint of the horrors of that season. Mrs. Sophia Fox, hearing of her situation, sent her carriage and servants a distance of twenty-five miles to carry the young widow to her plantation at Bovina, Miss. There she remained for two months, until her parents dared to send for her. Mrs. Fox, with characteristic southern warmheartedness, had supplied all her needs and refused all proffered remuneration on the arrival of Dr. Mount, the old family physician. After the death of Mr. Perrin, a little daughter was born, but in a few weeks she faded from her mother's arms, and the child-widow took again her place in her father's house. For the sake of an entire change of scene her father disposed of his home and business interests in Covington, temporarily, and removed to Bloomington, Ind. It was there Mrs. Perrin met David D. Banta, to whom she was married June 11th, 1856. Soon after the wedding they went to Covington, Ky., and in October, 1847, to Franklin, Ind., where they have since lived. Mrs. Banta is the mother of two sons and one daughter. She has been twice to Europe and has visited all the notable places in the United States. Her letters of travel are only less charming than her poetry. M. H. B.

CHILDHOOD MEMORIES.

I REMEMBER with a pleasure
Very near akin to pain,
All that mingled in my childhood,
Like a distant sweet refrain.