had lived till her marriage in the humble vicarage in which she was born, she had never passed four-and-twenty hours in that town before she went to reside there; nor had she the slightest acquaintance with any of its inhabitants, except the few shopkeepers with whom her little dealings had lain, and the occasional visitants whom she had met at the Grange.

An Irish officer in the army, happening to be passenger in an armed vessel during the last war, used frequently to wish that they might fall in with an enemy's ship, because he said, he had been in many land battles, and there was nothing in the world which he desired more than to see what sort of a thing a sea-fight was. He had his wish, and when after a smart action, in which he bore his part bravely, an enemy of superior force had been beaten off, he declared with the customary emphasis of an Hibernian adjuration, that a sea-fight was a mighty sairious sort of thing.

The Doctor and Deborah, as soon as they were betrothed, had come to just the same conclusion upon a very different subject. Till the day of their engagement, nay, till the hour of proposal on his part, and the very instant of acceptance on hers, each had looked upon marriage, when the thought of it occurred, as a distant possibility, more or less desirable, according to the circumstances which introduced the thought, and the mood in which it was entertained. And when it was spoken of sportively, as might happen, in relation to either the one or the other, it was lightly treated as a subject in which they had no concern. But from the time of their engagement, it seemed to both the most serious event of their lives.

In the Dutch village of Broek, concerning which, singular as the habits of the inhabitants are, travellers have related more peculiarities than ever prevailed there, one remarkable custom shows with how serious a mind some of

the Hollanders regard marriage. The great house-door is never opened but when the master of the house brings home his bride from the altar, and when husband and wife are borne out to the grave. Dr. Dove had seen that village of great baby-houses; but though much attached. to Holland, and to the Dutch as a people, and disposed to think that we might learn many useful lessons from our prudent and thrifty neighbors, he thought this to be as preposterous, if not as shocking a custom, as it would be to have the bell toll at a marriage, and to wear a windingsheet for a wedding garment.

We look with wonder at the transformations that take place in insects, and yet their physical metamorphoses are not greater than the changes which we ourselves undergo morally and intellectually, both in our relations to others and in our individual nature. Chaque individu, considéré separément, differe encore de lui-même par l'effet du tems; il devient un autre, en quelque manière, aux diverses époques de sa vie. L'enfant, l'homme rait, le vieillard, sont comme autant d'étrangers unis dans une seule personne par le lien mystérieux du souvenir. Of all changes in life, marriage is certainly the greatest, and though less change in every respect can very rarely be produced by it in any persons than in the Doctor and his wife, it was very great to both. On his part it was altogether an increase of happiness; or rather, from having been contented in his station he became happy in it, so happy as to be experimentally convinced that there can be no "single blessedness" for man. There were some drawbacks on her part, - in the removal from a quiet vicarage to a busy street; in the obstacle which four miles opposed to that daily and intimate intercourse with her friends at the Grange, which had been the chief delight of her maiden life; and above all, in the separation from her father, - for

• Necker

even at a distance which may appear so inconsiderable, such it was; but there was the consolatory reflection, that those dear friends and that dear father concurred in approving her marriage, and in rejoicing in it for her sake; and the experience of every day and every year made her more and more thankful for her lot. In the full liturgic sense of the word, he worshipped her, that is, he loved and cherished and respected and honored her; and she would have obeyed him cheerfully as well as dutifully, if obedience could have been shown where there was ever but one will.

THE MYSTIC SUMMER.

BY BAYARD TAYLOR.

'T

IS not the dropping of the flower, The blush of fruit upon the tree, Though Summer ripens, hour by hour, The garden's sweet maternity:

"I is not that birds have ceased to build,

And wait their brood with tender care; That corn is golden in the field, And clover balm is in the air;

Not these the season's splendor bring,
And crowd with life the happy year,
Nor yet, where yonder fountains sing,
The blaze of sunshine, hot and clear.

In thy full womb, O Summer! lies
A secret hope, a joy unsung,
Held in the hush of these calm skies,

And trembling on the forest's tongue.

The lands of harvest throb anew

In shining pulses, far away; The Night distils a dearer dew,

And sweeter eyelids has the Day.

And not in vain the peony burns
In bursting globes, her crimson fire,
Her incense-dropping ivory urns

The lily lifts in many a spire:

And not in vain the tulips clash

In revelry the cups they hold Of fiery wine, until they dash

With ruby streaks the splendid gold!

Send down your roots the mystic charm
That warms and flushes all your flowers,
And with the summer's touch disarm
The thraldom of the under powers,

Until, in caverns, buried deep,

Strange fragrance reach the diamond's home, And murmurs of the garden sweep

The houses of the frighted gnome!

For, piercing through their black repose,
And shooting up beyond the sun,

I see that Tree of Life, which rose
Before the eyes of Solomon:

Its boughs, that, in the light of God,

Their bright, innumerous leaves display, —

Whose hum of life is borne abroad

By winds that shake the dead away.

And, trembling on a branch afar,

The topmost nursling of the skies,

I see my bud, the fairest star

That ever dawned for watching eyes.