It is a bright, bright morning In the cloudless skies of Time. A thousand other choristers A stalwart horseman's pacing A dark bay steed is prancing That speaking eye that searches, Oh! fair was earth around us, In the days that we were picturing, On a slip of plain white paper I now wrote these: Oh! absent long, and long deem'd dead, If now around thy knee A group of rosy prattlers stand, And laugh with infant glee; If she-their mother-makes life's eve My early hopes are all dispelled. Could I but know my bitter life Brought joy to thee, I would not weep Afterwards I leant my head on my hands, and looked out of the window from which I had so often gazed on Mr. Tracy, and shed a few silent tears to the memory of the past. Then I tore from my prayer-book the leaf to which I had fastened the dried blue-bells, folded it up with these two papers of verses, and laid all away in a secret drawer of my desk. Thus I buried my dead love. But it was long ere the grass grew, and flowers sprung up over its grave. It was finished. My young dreams were all ended now. The last dying spark of the fire that had once burnt so brightly, and then smouldered so long in the ashes, was quenched. I went on my way, not glad, but strong. Life could never seem cloudless to me again, for I had known sorrow-but I was young, and it might even yet yield much happiness. I hoped that it would. despair? When did youth As the day passed, and evening began to come on, the country on either hand grew more picturesque. I saw stretching out, far and wide, wild moorland fells, brown with heath and ling, and covered with gorse, whose yellow flowers glowed like burnished gold in the setting sun. Silvery-stemmed birch-trees rose here and there among grey crags. Now and then there was a plantation of firs or larches. Far beyond lay some of the highest Yorkshire hills, whose names I did not know. The coach stopped at Kendal, where I was to sleep. The Rector's carriage was to fetch me to Trevor-Court the next morning. Everything that met my eyes here was so different to anything that I had ever seen, that I felt as if I were in some foreign land. All was new and strange, but very beautiful. The old town with its narrow streets, dark shops, and old-fashioned houses. The old rambling inn with its oaken floors and staircases, and their massive banisters. Its long passages, in several of which stood quaint oaken cabinets, full of antique and valuable china. The chairs, and press, and richly-carved bedstead, of black oak, in the bedroom, far the handsomest bedstead I ever slept in, though it has been my fate to rest my head in some of the wealthiest mansions in England. All was strange and dreamlike, but it was a pleasant dream. I rang for tea. Ah! Londoners don't know what a north-country tea is. I'll tell them what the waiter brought me, a mere solitary coachtraveller, that night: Delicious new home-baked bread, pats of fresh butter, buttered tea-cakes, with currants and without, buttered toast, dry toast, muffins, and oatcake; raspberry jam, preserved plums, fresh eggs, and fried ham; as he put the last dish on the table, he said, gravely, "that if I should like cold roast beef and cold chicken, he would bring them up; but not having the appetite of the bride in the Norse poem, I declined them. After tea, I tied on my bonnet and strolled through the town, and over the bridge to the wild ground beyond the river. On the left before me rose the old town of Kendal, with its modernised castle cresting the hill; on the right, high, heath-clad, swelling slopes, dotted over with white cottages, nestled in greenery; with here and there a path or a sheep-track winding up them. Below ran the clear river, spanned by its graceful bridge; and |