They let the flag fall over the dead face again, set their shoulders to the bier, and moved forward, bringing down their great staves rhythmically as they walked.  The boy stood still looking after them.  When they passed out into the sunshine of the open hillside he ran to the edge of the thicket so that he could still follow them with his eyes.  They plodded on, growing smaller and smaller in the distance, until as they paused on the crest of the hill only a spot of red could be seen, brilliant against the brilliant sky.

The boy went back and picked up his bundle.  When he returned to the edge of the thicket the spot of red was disappearing over the hill.  He took off his cap and stood there until there was nothing before him but the sun shining on the hillside.

Then he turned about, and walking steadily, Nathaniel Everett entered into his own world.

NOCTES AMBROSIANAE

  From Hemlock Mountain’s barren crest
  The roaring gale flies down the west
  And drifts the snow on Redmount’s breast
      In hollows dark with pine.

      Full in its path from hill to hill
  There stands, beside a ruined mill,
  A lonely house, above whose sill
      A brace of candles shine.

      And there an ancient bachelor
  And maiden sister, full three-score,
  Sit all forgetful of the roar
      Of wind and mountain stream;

      Forgot the wind, forgot the snow,
  What magic airs about them blow? 
  They read, in wondering voices low,
      The Midsummer Night’s Dream!

      And, reading, past their frozen hill
  In charmed woods they range at will
  And hear the horns of Oberon shrill
      Above the plunging Tam;—­

      Yea, long beyond the cock’s first crow
  In dreams they walk where windflowers blow;
  Late do they dream, and liker grow
      To Charles and Mary Lamb.

HILLSBORO’S GOOD LUCK

When the news of Hillsboro’s good fortune swept along the highroad there was not a person in the other three villages of the valley who did not admit that Hillsboro deserved it.  Everyone said that in this case Providence had rewarded true merit, Providence being represented by Mr. Josiah Camden, king of the Chicago wheat pit, whose carelessly bestowed bounty meant the happy termination of Hillsboro’s long and arduous struggles.

The memory of man could not go back to the time when that town had not had a public library.  It was the pride of the remote village, lost among the Green Mountains, that long before Carnegie ever left Scotland there had been a collection of books free to all in the wing of Deacon Bradlaugh’s house.  Then as now the feat was achieved by the united efforts of all inhabitants.  They boasted that the town had never been taxed a cent to keep up the library, that not a person had contributed a single penny except