yet enjoyed the day fully as much as usual.

It was

no small matter, too, that the evening, converted by a rare transmutation into the delicious "blink of rest" which Burns so truthfully describes, was all my own.

I was as light at heart next morning as any of my brother workmen. There had been a hard frost during the night, and it lay white on the grass as we passed onward through the fields, but the sun rose in a clear atmosphere, and the day mellowed, as it advanced, into one of those delightful days of early spring which give so pleasing an earnest of whatever is mild and genial in the better half of the year.

All the workmen rested at midday, and I went to enjoy my half hour alone on a mossy knoll in the neighboring wood, which commands through the trees a wide prospect of the bay and the opposite shore. There was not a wrinkle on the water, nor a cloud in the sky, and the branches were as moveless in the calm as if they had been stretched on canvas.

From a wooded promontory that extended half way across the bay, there ascended a thin column of smoke. It rose straight as the line of a plummet for more than a thousand yards, and then, on reaching a thinner stratum of air, spread out equally on every side, like the foliage of a stately tree.

Ben Wyvis N rose to the west, white with the yet unwashed snows of winter, and as sharply defined in the clear atmosphere as if all its sunny slopes and blue retiring hollows had been chiseled in marble. A line of snow ran along the opposite hills; all above was white, and all below was purple.

They reminded me of the pretty French story, in which an old artist is described as taxing the ingenuity of his future son-in-law, by giving him as a subject for his pencil a flower-piece composed of only white flowers, of which the one half were to bear their proper color, the other half a deep purple hue, and yet all be perfectly natural; and how the young man solved the riddle and gained his wife, by introducing a transparent purple vase into the picture, and making the light pass through it so as to strike upon the flowers that were drooping over the edge.

I returned to the quarry convinced that a very exquisite pleasure may be a very cheap one, and that the busiest employment may afford leisure enough to enjoy it.

HUGH MILler.

Biography. - Hugh Miller was born in Scotland in 1802, and died in 1856.

When he was five years old, his father was lost at sea. From that time, his education was superintended by two uncles, one of whom taught him natural history, and the other, literature. At the age of seventeen years, he became a stone-mason, which vocation he followed until he was thirty-four. In 1829, he published a volume, entitled "Poems Written in the Leisure Hours of a Journeyman Mason," and some years later, "Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland." His industry as a student of natural history and his remarkable ability as a writer were publicly acknowledged by the British Association in 1840, the same year that he became editor of the Edinburgh "Witness.” Owing to overwork, his mind gave way and he died in 1856. Miller's principal works are: "Old Red Sandstone," "My Schools and School-masters," and "Testimony of the Rocks."

Notes.

"Twa Dogs"-twa meaning two-is a poem by Robert Burns, one of the best known poets of Scotland.

"Blink of rest," a very short period of rest-blink meaning a glance.

Ben Wyvis is a mountain in Scotland. The word Ben means

either mountain or summit.

Around this lovely valley rise
The purple hills of Paradise.
O, softly on yon banks of haze
Her rosy face the summer lays!
Becalmed along the azure sky,
The argosies of Cloudland lie,

Whose shores, with many a shining rift,
Far-off their pearl-white peaks uplift.

Through all the long midsummer day,
The meadow-sides are sweet with hay.
I seek the coolest sheltered seat,

Just where the fields and forest meet-
Where grow the pine-trees tall and bland,
The ancient oaks austere and grand,
And fringy roots and pebbles fret
The ripples of the rivulet.

I watch the mowers as they go

Through the tall grass, a white-sleeved row.
With even strokes their scythes they swing,
In tune their merry whetstones ring.
Behind, the nimble youngsters run,
And toss the thick swaths in the sun.
The cattle graze, while warm and still,
Slopes the broad pasture, basks the hill,
And bright, where summer breezes break,
The green wheat crinkles like a lake.

The butterfly and humble-bee
Come to the pleasant woods with me;
Quickly before me runs the quail,
Her chickens skulk behind the rail;
High up the lone wood-pigeon sits,
And the woodpecker pecks and flits;
Sweet woodland music sinks and swells,
The brooklet rings its tinkling bells,
The swarming insects drone and hum,
The partridge beats his throbbing drum

The squirrel leaps among the boughs,
And chatters in his leafy house;

The oriole flashes by; and, look!

Into the mirror of the brook,

Where the vain bluebird trims his coat,
Two tiny feathers fall and float.

As silently, as tenderly,

The down of peace descends on me.
O, this is peace! I have no need
Of friend to talk, of book to read:
A dear Companion here abides;

Close to my thrilling heart He hides:
The holy silence is His voice:

I lie, and listen, and rejoice.

J. T. TROWBRIDGE.

Biography.-John Townsend Trowbridge was born at Ogden, New York, in 1827.

In 1846, Trowbridge made a visit to New York City and began his literary labors. A year later he went to Boston, and soon acquired a wide reputation. He is now editor of 66 Our Young Folks." His first publication, "Father Brighthopes," appeared in 1853, under the literary name of Paul Creyton.

His works are numerous, and bright and pleasing in style.

65.-AN HEROIC DEED.

tōry, a supporter of the British king.

eôr'di al, hearty; warm. sym'pa thy, fellow-feeling. eŏn’ju gal, belonging to marriage.

pā'thos, sorrowfulness; sadness.

N

ean teens', vessels used by sol-
diers for carrying water.
ex trăv'a gant, wild.
eon duet' ed, led.

e quipped' (kwipt), provided;
furnished for service.
ăn’guish (ăng gwish), agony.

Mr. Jasper, a sergeant in the Revolutionary Army, had a brother who had joined the British, and who likewise held the rank of sergeant in their garrison at Ebenezer, Georgia. No man could be truer to the American cause than Sergeant Jasper; yet he warmly loved his tory brother, and actually went to the British garrison to see him.

His brother was exceedingly alarmed lest he should be seized and hung as an American spy; for his name was well known to many of the British officers. "Do not trouble yourself," said Jasper; "I am no longer an American soldier."

"Thank God for that, William," said his brother, heartily shaking him by the hand; "and now only say the word, my boy, and here is a commission for you, with regimentals and gold, to fight for his majesty, King George."N

Jasper shook his head, and observed, that though there was but little encouragement to fight for his country, he could not find it in his heart to fight against her. And there the conversation ended. After staying two or three days with his brother, inspecting and hearing all that he could, he took