4.  Who but the locksmith could have made such music?  A gleam of sun, shining through the unsashed window and checkering the dark workshop with a broad patch of light, fell full upon him, as though attracted by his sunny heart.  There he stood working at his anvil, his face radiant with exercise and gladness, his sleeves turned up, his wig pushed off his shining forehead—­the easiest, freest, happiest man in all the world.

5.  Beside him sat a sleek cat, purring and winking in the light, and falling every now and then into an idle doze, as from excess of comfort.  The very locks that hung around had something jovial in their rust, and seemed like gouty gentlemen of hearty natures, disposed to joke on their infirmities.

6.  There was nothing surly or severe in the whole scene.  It seemed impossible that any of the innumerable keys could fit a churlish strong-box or a prison door.  Storehouses of good things, rooms where there were fires, books, gossip, and cheering laughter—­ these were their proper sphere of action.  Places of distrust, and cruelty, and restraint they would have quadruple-locked forever.

7.  Tink, tink, tink.  No man who hammered on at a dull, monotonous duty could have brought such cheerful notes from steel and iron; none but a chirping, healthy, honest-hearted fellow, who made the best of everything and felt kindly towards everybody, could have done it for an instant.  He might have been a coppersmith, and still been musical.  If he had sat in a jolting wagon, full of rods of iron, it seemed as if he would have brought some harmony out of it.

Charles Dickens.

Home thoughts, from abroad.

Oh, to be in England now that April’s there,
And whoever wakes in England sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brush-wood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—­now! 
And after April, when May follows
And the white-throat builds, and all the swallows! 
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops—­at the bent spray’s edge—­
That’s the wise thrush:  he sings each song twice over
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture! 
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children’s dower
—­Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

EOBEBT BKOWNING.

Lochinvar.

I.

Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of the West,—­
Through all the wide border his steed was the best! 
And, save his good broadsword, he weapon had none,—­
He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone. 
So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,
There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.