think there’s any cause of complaint—­not I!  She’s a modest, nice, ladylike girl:  she is indeed, although she isn’t so handsome as her sister.  Dear, dear me! look at that girl now!  Won’t she be a prize for some man?  I declare I haven’t seen so handsome a girl for many a day.  And, as I tell you, Mr. Trewhella, it’s no use trying to prevent it:  if one of the Trelyons falls in love with a girl, the girl’s done for:  she may as well give in.”

“If I may say so,” observed the old clergyman, with a sly gallantry, “you do not give the gentlemen of your family credit for the most remarkable feature of their marriage connections.  They seem to have had always a very good idea of making an excellent choice.”

The old lady was vastly pleased.  “Ah, well,” she said, with a shrewd smile, “there were two or three who thought George Trelyon—­that was this young man’s grandfather, you know—­lucky enough, if one might judge by the noise they made.  Dear, dear! what a to-do there was when we ran away!  Why, don’t you know, Mr. Trewhella, that I ran away from a ball with him, and drove to Gretna Green with my ball-dress on, as I’m a living woman?  Such a ride it was!—­why, when we got up to Carlisle—­”

But that story has been told before.

CAMP-FIRE LYRICS.

II.—­NIGHT—­LAKE HELEN.

  I lie in my red canoe
    On the water still and deep,
  And o’er me darkens the blue,
    And beneath the billows sleep,

  Till, between the stars o’erhead
    And those in the lake’s embrace,
  I seem to float like the dead
    In the noiselessness of space.

  Betwixt two worlds I drift,
    A bodiless soul again—­
  Between the still thoughts of God
    And those which belong to men;

  And out of the height above,
    And out of the deep below,
  A thought that is like a ghost
    Seems to gather and gain and grow,

  That now and for evermore
    This silence of death shall hold,
  While the nations fade and die
    And the countless years are rolled.

  But I turn the light canoe,
    And, darting across the night,
  Am glad of the paddles’ noise
    And the camp-fire’s honest light.

EDWARD KEARSLEY.

* * * * *

MILL’S ESSAYS ON RELIGION.

An interest attaches to Mr. Mill’s posthumous Essays on Religion which is quite independent of their intrinsic value or importance.  The position of their author at the head of an active school of thinkers gives them to a certain extent a representative character, while, in connection with the curious account of his mental training presented in his autobiography, they merit perhaps still closer attention as a subject of psychological study.  It is not, however, in this latter light that we can undertake to examine them here.  Our object is merely to point out some of the fallacies and contradictions which might escape the notice of a cursory reader, and which show with how uncertain a step a philosopher who piqued himself on the clearness and severity of his logic moves on ground where a stronger light than that of reason was needed to irradiate his path.