Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by A. B. BURDICK, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southerh District of New York. J. J. REED, Printer and Steréotyper, GLENELVAN. 'Oh! at this hour when half the sky Is glorious with its evening light, While through these elm boughs wet with rain And wood-draped hill, and stream between; I long to know if scenes like this Are hidden from an angel's eyes; If earth's familiar loveliness Haunts not thy heaven's serener skies." AMONG those upward-reaching hills that form the eastern bank of the noble Hudson, on a southern slope, lies Glenelvan. Set like a picture in this grand frame-work of towering cliff and primeval forest, it has, in the foreground, a massive heap of buildings of dark, gray stone, which, with all their uniqueness, have a genuine home-look about them. There, blending their shadows and softening the sun-rays, stand trees of primeval growth. The sturdy oak, the shadowy evergreen, the magnolia, with bright glossy leaves and pale-lipped flowers, the maple with silvery foliage, and the regal pine, standing apart in solemn grandeur listening to the balmiest breezes, holding in their great arms all the gentlest murmurs, in the peaceful security of household. gods; as if conscious that no woodman's axe would ever invade their charmed circle. At the northern gable were two majestic firs-there were many more half a century ago-and farther onward, shading an almost hidden pathway to the cliffs, alone, in gloomy silence, like a sentinel at an outpost, stands the patriarch of his tribe, with many a dark bough scathed by the lightning's breath-seared and broken-but the twain are full of life and vigor. On the east, a cluster of oaks catch the sun's first gleam; on the west, tall, grand, graceful, swaying in the storms of winter, or dancing in the summer winds, are the elms, now in silvery lightness pictured against the sunset sky. On the south are the gardens, and below these the shrubbery of boxwood, with its early-coming, pale, waxen flowers; the ironwood tree glowing in its bright, pink buds and blossoms; the white-thorn, spice-wood, and many other varieties of blossoming shrub found along the borders of the American forests. From below the shrubbery, and winding along beneath the elms, is the carriage-way, leading up to the great arched entrance of the Glenelvanhausen, the ancestral home of the Minsters, whose record showed them to have been a family of rank before their emigration from "Fatherland." Hermann Emil Minster, the founder and builder of Glenelvanhausen, having, early in life, determined to create for himself a "local habitation and a name," in his peregrinations penetrated into the depths of these wilds-found, and was charmed with this glen. Reclining upon the mossy rocks which shut it in, and looking with dreamy eyes upon. the glint of sunshine and rosy light breaking through the interstices of the mingled foliage, throwing the quivering, tremulous shadows upon the tender grass; or, as the glossy leaves were lifted by the lightest breath of the summer wind, came down the swiftly-gliding rays, flashing, dancing, trembling, amid the velvet fringe of moss-grown rocks; and |