2.  Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold;
   And to the presence in the room he said,
   “What writest thou?” The vision raised its head,
   And, with a look made of all sweet accord,
   Answered, “The names of those who love the Lord.”

3.  “And is mine one?” said Abou.  “Nay, not so,”
   Replied the angel.  Abou spoke more low,
   But cheerly still; and said, “I pray thee, then,
   Write me as one that loves his fellow-men.”

4.  The angel wrote, and vanished.  The next night
   It came again, with a great wakening light,
   And showed the names whom love of God had blessed;
   And, lo!  Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest.

Note.—­The above selection is written in imitation of an
oriental fable.

XXVII.  LUCY FORESTER.

John Wilson (b. 1785, d. 1854), better known as “Christopher North,” was a celebrated author, poet, and critic, born at Paisley, Scotland, and educated at the University of Glasgow and at Oxford.  In 1808 he moved to Westmoreland, England, where he formed one of the “Lake School” of poets.  While at Oxford he gained a prize for a poem on “Painting, Poetry, and Architecture.”  In 1820 he became Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, which position he retained until 1851.  He gained his greatest reputation as the chief author of “Noctes Ambrosianae,” essays contributed to Blackwood’s Magazine between 1822 and 1825.  Among his poems may be mentioned “The Isle of Palms” and the “City of the Plague,” This selection is adapted from “The Foresters,” a tale of Scottish life.

1.  Lucy was only six years old, but bold as a fairy; she had gone by herself a thousand times about the braes, and often upon errands to houses two or three miles distant.  What had her parents to fear?  The footpaths were all firm, and led to no places of danger, nor are infants themselves incautious when alone in then pastimes.  Lucy went singing into the low woods, and singing she reappeared on the open hillside.  With her small white hand on the rail, she glided along the wooden bridge, or tripped from stone to stone across the shallow streamlet.

2.  The creature would be away for hours, and no fear be felt on her account by anyone at home; whether she had gone, with her basket on her arm, to borrow some articles of household use from a neighbor, or, merely for her own solitary delight, had wandered off to the braes to play among the flowers, coming back laden with wreaths and garlands.

3.  The happy child had been invited to pass a whole day, from morning to night, at Ladyside (a farmhouse about two miles off) with her playmates the Maynes; and she left home about an hour after sunrise.