expected but that the outgrowth should be abnormal and unhealthy. Yet the young girl by no means regarded herself as an unhappy or a blighted person. Indeed, for many months previous to Lissa's coming, the matter had almost entirely passed from her mind. She meant to be amiable, and upon Lissa's arrival, set herself determinedly "to make the best of it." She was extremely considerate of her sister; lavishing the most endearing epithets upon her. Yet there were hours when looks of cold avoidance, which Lissa vainly sought to understand, gave her sisterly heart a cruel pain. What seemed strangest was that Elinor had grown shy and reserved toward the brother, who yet, it was easy to perceive, possessed the warmest homage of her heart. One day after Lissa had sat at the piano with Gordon at her side turning leaves, Elinor said: "Lissa, why do you confine the curls at your ears? They are far more graceful flowing freely. You are such a minor-keyed little thing, that anything like a loud style of dress would destroy you. You think that is slang? Now your hair is right; thank you. It is such a golden fleece! All the gentlemen will be seeking it like that old Mr. Jason, you remember." "Jason had a woman to aid him, though," said Lissa laughing. "Are you going to play Medea and help them rob me of my pretty curls?" "Nay verily. O Lissa, I'm glad you are genuine flesh and blood. You're always human. Now one-half the time, I feel like an apparition, and the other half like a stone giant." "I always quake at apparitions," said Lissa gaily, "but you are too substantial. I never thought you would be such an Amazon." And her sister's generous shoulders received a loving embrace. “Child, you are verdant, but very charming. I'm so glad you've come to stay." And Elinor tried to be glad, but she could not put away a haunting jealousy of her brother's kindness toward Lissa, or the fearful dread of a possibility which should compel her to confess what she knew or guessed of their relationship. Very many and sharp were the thorns in Elinor's garland of roses. Gordon Carryl's early manhood is the fair out-blooming that his youth had promised. He has become neither fascinatingly immoral, nor forbiddingly righteous; but remains the pure-minded, sound-hearted, clear-headed, model gentleman. Would there were more such. (To be continued.) THE FIRST BORN. BY MRS. MARY C. PECKHAM. My little one, whose being sweet And fills me with an awesome fear And wherefore thou art coming here. So tender and so innocent. And bounded by a calm content? The garment of our human pain? To seek and lose—and question why — To love like gods-like clay to die Sure, this for thee were little gain! My child, will not thy little face To her whose life thy own controls? Than motherhood to deathless souls. Then come, dear Heart, come little feet! God make thy pathway very sweet With lily, rose, and blossom whiteAnd make the soul He gives thee shine With glory sacred and divine As that the Christ-Child wears in light. Come, Baby heart! Come, Baby lips! I see my little angel stand, To travellers in a thirsty land. He views me with his father's eyes, Full of all loving sympathies. He puts me at my Father's feet, Strange paradox of love to see! Drawn downward, yet drawn up to thee Father and mother both is He. W THE PARTED TREES. BY MRS. N. T. MUNROE. E build and we tear down, we plant and we uproot, the sum of the undoing equals that of the done. For we work in blindness and to short purposes, seeing not the end from the beginning, ignorant of conclusive results. We build a house and we fence it and lay out the grounds, and byand-by we find, to accommodate ourselves to circumstances, or to gratify our growing tastes or prevailing fashions, we must make many changes. Trees are in wrong positions, shrubs are misplaced, fences not where they should be, so we pull to pieces work that has been done with much labor and expense. Much of the work of life is done to seemingly cross purposes. One man rears and plants, then sells; and another comes and tears up the work of the former to work out his own ideas; his ideas changing with time, and his wishes growing with his ideas, call for more changes, and so the work goes on. We are never ready to sit down and enjoy what we have, always a few more things to be done, which being done, others come up. A house just as we want it, grounds finished, with nothing further to wish or to change, if possible, were, I think, not desirable. Any body owning a rood of ground or the smallest roof over their heads knows this is so. The simplest flower garden is always calling for a re-arrangement, and frequent transplantation is often an actual necessity. I think this propensity for change is stronger in the spring than at any other time. In the city it shows itself by the removal of families from one house to another, and in the country by transplanting and rearranging of grounds, but it is the same trait all through. It is an epidemic that is universal, At and rages in proportion to the ability to gratify its curious cravings. The amount of funds it is capable of absorbing if yielded to is truly wonderful. Unlike scarlet fever, meases, hooping cough, and such epidemics, its attacks are of annual occurrence. least such is my opinion based on observation and experience. It came to me this spring as usual, and under its attack I ordered a maple tree near my window to be transplanted. It was too near the house, and too near the window now it had attained such a size; for we will plant trees unmindful of their growth. Wishing to save it while it was possible, its transplanting could be no longer delayed. It was done. The spade was laid to the root and ere the leaf-buds were swollen it was placed in a better situation. On a warm spring-like day, a short time after its removal, I took, for the first time, an outside view of the place where my maple had stood. The maple is a favorite tree with me. It is pretty in the spring with its blossoms, all through the summer its foliage is bright and delicate, and in the autumn it is gorgeous with gold or crimson color, according to its variety. This was golden. Of all trees, forest, fruit, or evergreens, I am most intimately acquainted with maples. Beside this of which I have spoken, there are two in front of the house and near the street; graceful in shape, clean in foliage, but my chief delight is one larger than any of these, of more spreading and luxuriant growth, which shades the dining-room windows and also the chamber above, reaching up to the very roof of the dwelling. It showers the ground in the springtime with its scarlet blossoms, at my chamber window the summer through, I can sit and look into the midst of its spreading branches, and as the summer breezes gently stir them I imagine it is a breathing thing. In the autumn it holds its leaves longer than any tree, owing to its sheltered position, and at last it stands a golden glory with the sunshine flickering through its branches. No other tree can be to me what this has been,—even almost more than human companionship. May its branches overshadow me when my eyes are growing dim and my feet tending to the shadowy valley, and until that time comes, O let me, looking into its shade and watching the swaying of its graceful branches, its budding in the springtime, its ripening in the autumn, its nakedness in the winter, count the years of my waiting with a Christian patience. But to return to my transplanted maple. Close to the place where my maple had stood, and its companion for many years, was a slender white birch. were only brothers. Then there was that great fellow on the other side of the house, whose scarlet blossoms blew over to them in the springtime, he had a splendid situation and was a magnificent fellow, but then he was all alone. To be sure there was a tall ash near by, but they were no companions; and as for the apple trees and pear trees they were a lower order of beings and of not much account. But O, they were so much better off than any of these, because, The birch is a graceful tree in all its varieties, and its drooping gracefulness and slenderness seem peculiarly to make it a femi-and he said it very tenderly and softly, nine tree. In its sapling state I had thought this a black birch, and as it grew older I was a little disappointed to find its bark grew white. For there is a little ghostliness about a white birch when its trunk glistens in the moonlight, and its pendulous branches swing to and fro in uncertain shadow. they had companionship. And when he said such things, the birch bowed her branches and her leaves trembled and her tassels shook with pleasure. And as years passed the trees stretched out their branches to each other more and more, and talked more and more tenderly. Two tall, wide-spreading evergreens stood the other side of the birch, and sometimes the maple was so foolish as to imagine the birch had a leaning that way; and sometimes it must be owned the birch was a little coquettish and pretended she liked them very much; but when she saw the maple really felt hurt, she whispered to him that if she did lean that way it was ow Within sight of the house is a grove of white birches, upon whose boughs many generations of children have swung, and which is rendered peculiarly attractive by an awful tale of love and murder. But my birch is not one of these. I pulled it up with my own hands, a mere slip of a thing, from among the debris where a neighboring cellar was being dug, and planted it in its presenting to the force of the east wind, and so the place. It shot up straight and slender as maple spread his branches wider and broader birches do, and was nearly as tall as the ma- to keep the east wind from her. And then ple. From where I was now standing, the the two whispered together that evergreens maple being away, I had a new view of it. were very good screens from the wintry In transplanting the one I had not thought blast, and they were rather glad they were of the other, and now as I looked at the there. They sometimes talked of the linbirch, its loneliness struck to my heart. It dens by the fence,and considered them pretty looked so slight, so drooping, so forlorn. trees, but too far off for much acquaintance, There was the very attitude of sorrow and as were also a couple of elms and a few pines of mourning in its drooping tasseled branches, that stood also in a line with the fence. and its white, slender trunk. Poor tree! it They did not at all take to the fruit trees. had lost its companion. And they had stood They thought them terribly dwarfed, and together through so many years, through so the ground about them was being continually many driving storms and bitter blasts she disturbed and torn up. True they blossomed had been protected by the firmer trunk and rather prettily in the spring, and bore fruit stouter branches and thicker foliage of her in the autumn, when the bugs and birds and companion! And now she must bear alone worms would let them, but they really were the bitter blasts and scorching suns. They not much taller than they were years ago, as had stood together so long and held such how could they be, when every little while a sweet converse together! He had whis- man came with a pair of big shears fastened pered to her how of all the trees in the place to & pole and cut their tops off. The peach they were the happiest. The two maples in trees especially were terribly, scraggy, defront of the house were larger, but they stood formed things, they felt only pity for them; in the very face of the blast and they took and they were very short-lived, for one or all the dust of the street, and moreover they two dead stumps were dug up every year. selves. All that these two trees had been to each other passed through my mind as I stood looking at my lonely birch. She was thin and ghastly, for her leaves were not yet out, and her few tassels hung mournfully down, and I fancied she stretched out her arms imploringly towards her companion, who now stood so far from her there was no possibility of their voices reaching each other. Indeed fruit trees were always being peered | greens had their own talks among theminto by inquisitive people, and talked about and looked over, and had no time to themselves only in the winter, and if all this was the penalty of bearing fruit, they were glad enough they were not fruit trees. So they grew together. Every spring they felt new life, all through the summer they kept up their leafy murmuring, and in the autumn they mutually admired each other, and dropped their leaves together. Through the winter the birch always held some of her tassels, and one season in imitation of her the maple succeeded in holding to a few of his leaves through rain and snow and wind, while the birch shook her tassels and laughed. As the maple stood near the window, he could see a good deal that took place in the house, much of which he reported to the birch, and much talk they had about it. Sometimes the birch tried hard to stretch her branches so she could hear and see for herself, for the maple was not always communicative enough to suit her, but she had never been able to do so. The seat by the window below the maple was a favorite one with the family, and was seldom vacant. In summer time, when the windows were open, people coming through the garden were apt to stop at the window and chat with those inside, and so, much knowledge of matters and things did the two trees gain which gave them much to talk about. Much did they know of this household, of its family gatherings, its merry meetings, its welcome to friends. Much, too, which many did not know, of secret griefs, of falling tears and the burden of a weary heart. And they not only knew the household, but they grew to be familiar with its best friends, for they were used to come to the house by the garden walk, and glance in at the window in passing, for the recognition of a look and the lighting of the eyes. In this same garden walk they witnessed in the warm summer weather the parting in the morning and the meeting at night. So they never lacked for entertainment, these two. I can't say if they gave any bits of information to the evergreens. Their language was different and they could not well understand each other, and the ever For a mere whim and in utter thoughtlessness that they could have any feeling about the matter, I had parted them, and now it was too late to repair the deed. Turning my attention from the birch I looked towards the maple. There was a little doubt as to his surviving the shock of transplanting, for I feared his delicate fibres had been rather rudely torn from the soil, yet he stood up tall and stately, like a sentinel, in his new position by the garden gate. There was no soft voice to answer his complaints if he made any. The linden trees near where he stood were strangers to him. Will my trees waste away in vain yearning for the communion of speech? I cannot decide whether it will be a comfort or an aggravation to be so near and yet so separated; yet as sight is next to, if not more than speech, they may take some comfort from even this that is left them. I fancy they will watch each other when the spring starts the sap in their trunks, to see if their branches fill with leaves, and when the autumn winds come they will hope that their leaves may mingle. Ah! parted trees, how my pity goes out to you when I think of your happy years now over, of all your leafy murmurs which you can enjoy together no more. Were it better the years had never been? Does regret for what can never be again, outweigh the pleasure of remembrance? I wonder in myself whether ye have any hope in the future, that some kind hand may transplant the birch by the side of her former companion? Or do ye live only in the present? and will the birch, shivering in the blast which sweeps by her, cling closer to the sturdy evergreen that so well protects her from the wintry wind? Or have ye no remembrance and do ye wake from each winter's sleep to a world fresh none. RAILROAD MISERY. Translated from the German of P. C. Geisler. BY MRS. L. P. PALMER. and new? And is our death but a winter's | arated companions, wish that the birch stood 1 sleep and our waking a new spring? Not by the maple. And perhaps when another 80. Our death is not a winter's sleep. spring comes I will place it where it can keep Through the winter's sleep the tree lives, but guard by the gate in company with its former when we die we vanish and are seen no more. companion, with room enough for all future Where is the analogy between this waking aspirations of growth, and yet near enough of nature from sleep and the resurrection of to renew their murmurous converse. man? The former we see and so believe, the latter we have never seen. What assur ance does one give of the other? I think The awakening of nature is but a figure of the resurrection; it doesn't hold, we can build nothing on it. Nature awakes 66 in spring, but as surely dies again. Or if you say it never dies, it only sleeps, then how does it help us? Is our future to be a continued change, a constant sleeping and waking? Because the tree grows with new life every spring it gives me no assurance of another life such as my spirit craves. Because the seed that I put in the ground, a dark, unsightly thing, grows up to something wondrous to behold, am I assured that the dead body laid away will undergo like wondrous change? Or granted, what then? The wondrous miracle lives its little day, and behold another change, it dies and is not. Is the buried mortal to be raised in like wondrous beauty, but to go through continued changes? I get lost in mazes of conjecture, only for this one thing that Nature surely teaches; which is, that a good Power leads through all these changes, and that through them all no atom is lost. And will the Good Father be kinder to grass and bush and tree than to man? Yet God deals not in superfluities. To the fish destined to pass his life in cavern darkness he gives no eyes. Had Nature and its teachings been enough for mortal wants, for mortal comfort in its hour of sorest need, he would have given no revelation. It was not enough. And he gave us that Divine Life that we might know that we were more than the tree that grows or the beast that perishes. But as to my trees, the buds will swell and the sun and rain do their usual work upon them, whether or no they feel the pangs of separation. And I know that after all it is only the reflection of my own heart that gives to the parted trees their look of loneliYet I would fain, to ease my heart that is sore with the thought of long sep ness. "W HERE are ye fled, good old times, when one pursued his life-course quietly and deliberately, while now all crowds and drives and tumbles topsy-turvy! For pleasure there is no more space or timetherefore happy era, when one could think of father Saturn with wings! But what are wings now-a-days? A wretched means of moving forward, which may be compared to the at one time famous Post-snail of Old Germany, in contrast with the Electric Telegraph, at one end of which one sneezes and another a hundred miles distant immediately answers with "prosit." Truly, Time murders itself, it is time no more; life becomes a Tarantula dance and the human being is hunted through the same before he has rightly reflected whether or not he really exists." Thus did I philosophize, not in the best of moods, for I had been compelled to break off two hours of the best sleep on a soft down bed, to carry out a long-cherished plan, which considered in all its details, should prove that I, notwithstanding my grumbling, was not averse to the noble creations of the new time, that I comprehended them and had courage to trust myself to a being which, driven by the power of a conquered and chained element, should with the quickness of the wind carry me to the place of my destination-in other words I wanted to go to Bamberg and return home in the evening. My sister pleaded with me and repeated her proverb, "He who goes into danger falls therein " more than a hundred times. The good soul! With her warning and the many accidents which Satan's great-grandchild, the railroad car, had caused in Russia, an account of which she had read in the newspaper, she might have turned me from my |