their journal has done more than any other in the country to promote a healthy tone in polite literature,—­that their home-life has been made happy by the influences of refinement and taste,—­and that they have given away to the poor money enough almost to build a city, and to the unfortunate spoken kind words enough to fill a library, are all assertions which none can truthfully deny.  If, therefore, to look back upon a long life not uselessly spent is what will give us peace at last, then will the evening of their days be all that they could desire; and their “silver hairs,” the most appropriate crown of true patriotism,

  “Will purchase them a good opinion,
  And buy men’s voices to commend their deeds.”

* * * * *

SONNET.

WRITTEN AFTER A VIOLENT THUNDER-STORM IN THE COUNTRY.

  An hour agone, and prostrate Nature lay,
  Like some sore-smitten creature, nigh to death,
  With feverish, pallid lips, with laboring breath,
  And languid eyeballs darkening to the day;
  A burning noontide ruled with merciless sway
  Earth, wave, and air; the ghastly-stretching heath,
  The sullen trees, the fainting flowers beneath,
  Drooped hopeless, shrivelling in the torrid ray: 
  When, sudden, like a cheerful trumpet blown
  Far off by rescuing spirits, rose the wind,
  Urging great hosts of clouds; the thunder’s tone
  Swells into wrath, the rainy cataracts fall,—­
  But pausing soon, behold creation shrined
  In a new birth, God’s covenant clasping all!

* * * * *

THE PROFESSOR’S STORY.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE SPIDER ON HIS THREAD.

There was nobody, then, to counsel poor Elsie, except her father, who had learned to let her have her own way so as not to disturb such relations as they had together, and the old black woman, who had a real, though limited influence over the girl.  Perhaps she did not need counsel.  To look upon her, one might well suppose that she was competent to defend herself against any enemy she was like to have.  That glittering, piercing eye was not to be softened by a few smooth words spoken in low tones, charged with the common sentiments which win their way to maidens’ hearts.  That round, lithe, sinuous figure was as full of dangerous life as ever lay under the slender flanks and clean-shaped limbs of a panther.

There were particular times when Elsie was in such a mood that it must have been a bold person who would have intruded upon her with reproof or counsel.  “This is one of her days,” old Sophy would say quietly to her father, and he would, as far as possible, leave her to herself.  These days were more frequent, as old Sophy’s keen, concentrated watchfulness had taught her, at certain periods of