She was not what the world calls wise;
  Yet, the mute language of her eyes
  Was worth a thousand homilies.

  She was so crystal pure a thing,
  That sin to her could no more cling
  Than water to a sea-bird’s wing.

  Like memory-tones heard long ago,
  Her gentle voice was soft and low,
  But plaintive in its underflow.

  Her life so slowly loosed its springs,
  Long ere she passed from earthly things,
  We saw the budding of her wings.

  She lingered so in taking leave—­
  Heaven granted us a long reprieve—­
  That when she went we could not grieve.

  The very night that Hester died,
  There came and stood my couch beside,
  A gentle spirit glorified.

  And often in my darker mood,
  When evil thoughts subdue the good,
  I see her clasp the holy Rood.

  But when my better hopes illume
  The narrow pathway to the tomb,
  My Hester’s presence fills the room.

THISTLE-DOWN.

THERE is no time like these clear September nights, after sunset, for a revery.  If it is a calm evening, and an intense light fills the sky, and glorifies it, and you sit where you can see the new moon, with the magnificent evening star beneath it, you must be a stupid affair, indeed, if you cannot then dream the most heavenly dreams!

But Rosalie Sherwood, poor young creature, is in no dreaming mood this lovely Sabbath night.  Her heart is crushed in such an utter helplessness, as leaves no room in it for hope:  her brain is too acutely sensitive, just now, for visions.  The thistle-down, in beautiful fairy-like procession, floats on and up before her eyes, and as she watches the frail things, they assume a new interest to her; she feels a human sympathy with them.  Like the viewless winds they come, from whence she knows not; and go, whither? none can tell.  They are homeless, and she is like them; but she is not as they, purposeless.

If you could look into her mind, you would see how she has nerved it to a great determination; how that, mustering visions and hopes once cherished, she had gone forward to a bleak and barren path, and stands there very resolute, yet, in the first moment of her resolve, miserable; no, she had not yet grown strong in the suffering; she cannot this night stand up and bear her burden with a smile of triumph.

Rosalie Sherwood was an only child, the daughter of an humble friend Mrs. Melville had known from girlhood. She, poor creature, had neither lived nor died innocent.

On her death-bed, Cecily Sherwood gave her unrecognised child to the care of one who promised, in the sincerity of her passion, to be a mother to the unfortunate infant.  And during the eighteen years of that girl’s life, from the hour of her mother’s death to the day when she was left without hope in the world, Rosalie had found a parent in the rigid but always kind and just Mary Melville.