“How changed was life!  A waste no more
    Beset by Pain, and Want, and Wrong,
  Earth seemed a glad and fairy shore,
    Made vocal with Hope’s impassioned song. 
  But ye bright sentinels of Heaven! 
    Far glories of Night’s radiant sky! 
  Who when ye lit the brow of Even
    Has ever deemed man born to die?

  IV.

  “’Tis faded now!  That wondrous grace
    That once on Heaven’s forehead shone: 
  I see no more in Nature’s face
    A soul responsive to mine own. 
  A dimness on my eye and spirit
    Has fallen since those gladsome years,
  Few joys my hardier years inherit,
    And leaden dulness rules the spheres.

  V.

  “Yet mourn not I!  A stern high duty
    Now nerves my arm and fires my brain. 
  Perish the dream of shapes of Beauty! 
    And that this strife be not in vain
  To war on fraud intrenched with power,
    On smooth pretence and specious wrong,
  This task be mine tho’ Fortune lower—­
    For this be banished sky and song.”

“How did it happen, mamma,” inquired Marguerite, “that Uncle Barnes has not become a distinguished man?  Is he not clever like Uncle Horace, or was he not fond of learning?  It seems strange that he never left home to seek his fortune in the world.”

“Brother Barnes has quite as much genius,” mamma quickly replied, “as your Uncle Horace, and under equally favoring circumstances would have made as brilliant a man.  A farmer’s life was distasteful to him, and it was for years his dream to go away from home, and receive an education that would fit him for the bar or the pulpit, towards both of which ‘callings’ he was strongly attracted.  It would, however, have been impossible for father to have hewn a farm unaided out of the wilderness, and he could not afford to hire any assistance, so brother Barnes generously sacrificed all his own aspirations and preferences, and devoted his life, which might have been a brilliant and successful one, to the dull routine of farm acres.”

“Did Uncle Barnes resemble papa much, as a boy?” inquired Ida.

“Your uncle was of a very different temperament,” replied mamma; “he was as gay and loquacious as your papa was silent and abstracted.  He was very fond of reading and of study, but he lacked your papa’s perseverance; he was more awake to the outer world and its distractions, whereas brother Horace was oblivious to everything else, when he once held a book in his hand.

“I have told you what a splendid voice your grandfather had.  Brother Barnes was the only one of the five children who inherited it, and with it a very quick ear for music.  I remember hearing mother say, that when he was three and four years old, he was often called upon to sing for our friends, who not unfrequently rewarded his talent with presents; however, at the time when his voice changed, it completely lost its musical qualities, to our great regret.