Yet she was a cheerful soul, this stately madam who sadly gazes into the fire on the Christmas Eve of seventy years ago—­a cheerful, loving soul, and a kindly (notwithstanding her chastisement of the delinquent Silvy); and after all the winter wore not unhappily away.

With the opening spring husband and son returned to gladden her heart, and we close the little diary with a smile at once of sympathy and of amusement as we read that while madam had intended to meet her loved ones with the family coach on their landing from the sloop at Poughkeepsie, thirty miles from her home, she was “so detained by reason of the depth and vileness of the mud that it was full fifteen miles this side the river” (Hudson) “that our coach fell in with a hired carriage coming this way.  The road was so bad that we had difficulty in passing, and it was not until we were almost by that my dear husband noticed his own coach.  There was some trouble in getting from the one carriage to the other, but when all were safely in the coach there was much rejoicing, you may be sure.”

ETHEL C. GALE.

A MARCH VIOLET.

    Black boughs against a pale, clear sky,
    Slight mists of cloud-wreaths floating by;
    Soft sunlight, gray-blue smoky air,
    Wet thawing snows on hillsides bare;
    Loud streams, moist sodden earth; below
    Quick seedlings stir, rich juices flow
    Through frozen veins of rigid wood,
    And the whole forest bursts in bud. 
    No longer stark the branches spread
    An iron network overhead,
    Albeit naked still of green;
    Through this soft, lustrous vapor seen,
    On budding boughs a warm flush glows,
    With tints of purple and pale rose. 
    Breathing of spring, the delicate air
    Lifts playfully the loosened hair
    To kiss the cool brow.  Let us rest
    In this bright, sheltered nook, now blest
    With broad noon sunshine over all,
    Though here June’s leafiest shadows fall. 
    Young grass sprouts here.  Look up! the sky
    Is veiled by woven greenery,
    Fresh little folded leaves—­the first,
    And goldener than green, they burst
    Their thick full buds and take the breeze. 
    Here, when November stripped the trees,
    I came to wrestle with a grief: 
    Solace I sought not, nor relief. 
    I shed no tears, I craved no grace,
    I fain would see Grief face to face,
    Fathom her awful eyes at length,
    Measure my strength against her strength. 
    I wondered why the Preacher saith,
    “Like as the grass that withereth.” 
    The late, close blades still waved around: 
    I clutched a handful from the ground. 
    “He mocks us cruelly,” I said: 
    “The frail herb lives, and she is dead.” 
    I lay dumb, sightless, deaf as she;
    The long slow hours passed over me.