"I thank you," answered I, rallying more and more; "thanks to you, we have, each of us, had a lesson we can never forget. Certainly every hearse ought to have written upon it, for a motto, the words 'This I say unto you, The time henceforth is short, in order that those who weep may be as though they wept not, and those that rejoice as those that rejoice not, and the using this world as not abusing it; for the fashion of this world passeth away.' You know what the undertaker said?" I continued, smiling through a few tears that would come; "he expected a ride with him was to some the most easin' kind of a ride that ever they had. I expect it has been so to me. I shall think of it henceforward as an antidote, whenever passing things make me unhappy."

"You unhappy, Katy! O, how sorry I am! I was too selfish to imagine anybody could be unhappy but I. Are you unhappy?”

"Sometimes; everybody is."

"And I have made you more so." "You will make me less so another time; and then it will be even."

I ought. You have made me less so a great deal, for these last few weeks, and, on the whole, ever since I knew you. You must not think you have failed altogether because I have behaved so to-day. I can't guess what got into me. I never mean to do so again. I have been better, and I will be better."

"If the disorder has assumed the intermittent form," said I, profession

ally, mimicking my guardian, "it ought to go off upon a course of bark. What do you say to trying a little hard, real work by way of bitters?"

"I do not care. After what I have done, you cannot ask of me anything but what I will do."

"Then let us keep a sewing-school once a week for some of the poor little waifs and strays about the streets. We can read them a story, and give them a cake, and make it a little treat to them." "I will, and begin with the dirtiest and the naughtiest."

Thus prosaically our grim adventure ended. I had been revolving the plan of the sewing-school in my own mind for some time before, especially for Nelly's benefit; but she was generally indisposed to active exertion, and averse to practical matters. Therefore I had been obliged to watch for a favorable opening, which her penitence afforded me. As I did not wish to put it to too hard a test, and for other reasons also, I discouraged, however, the idea of giving the precedence to the naughtiest and dirtiest children. We decided that I should ask Miss Trimmer of the town school, a worthy young woman with whom I was acquainted, to choose out the best six of the motherless poor little girls among her pupils to form the nucleus of our class, that we might train them for tame elephants to help us to break in the wild ones. In the mean time, I thought that, if we succeeded in making them enjoy themselves, their reports would make their mates eager to be admitted likewise, as they might be afterwards by instalments, bearing tickets of recommendation from their mistress as rewards for good conduct in the public school. I hoped also to be able, through Miss Trimmer, to get leave to teach them through the cold weather in the school-house, before the fires went out on Wednesday afternoon; and Julia cheerfully promised us the use of her arbor and garden in the summer.

THE

'HE October days grow rapidly shorter, and brighten with more concentrated light. It is but half past five, yet the sun dips redly behind Conanicut, the sunset-gun booms from our neighbor's yacht, the flag glides down from his mainmast, and the slender pennant, running airily up the opposite halyards, dances and flickers like a flame, and at last perches, with dainty hesitation, at the mast-head. A tint of salmon-color, burnished into long undulations of lustre, overspreads the shallower waves; but a sober gray seems to steal in beneath the sunset rays, and will soon claim even the brilliant foreground for its own. Pile a few more fragments of drift-wood upon the fire in the great chimney, little maiden, and then couch yourself before it, that I may have your glowing childhood as a foreground for those heaped relics of shipwreck and despair. You seem, in your scarlet boating-dress, Annie, like some bright tropic bird, alit for a moment beside that other bird of the tropics, flame.

Thoreau thought that his genius dated from an earlier period than the agricultural, because he preferred woodcraft to gardening; and I am content to fancy that mine appertains to the period when men had invented neither saws nor axes, but simply picked up their fuel in forests or on ocean-shores. Fire is a thing that comes so near us, and combines itself so closely with our life, that we enjoy it best when we work for it in some way, so that our fuel shall warm us twice, as the country people say,

once in the obtaining, and again in the burning. Yet no work seems to have more of the flavor of play in it than that of collecting drift-wood on

A Lyke-Wake Dirge.

some convenient beach, or than this boat-service of ours, Annie, when we go wandering from island on to island in the harbor, and glide over sea-weed groves and the habitations of crabs,— or to the flowery and ruined bastions of Rose Island, or to those caves at Coaster's Harbor where we played Victor Hugo, and were eaten up in fancy by a cuttle-fish. Then we voyaged, you remember, to that further cave, in the solid rock, just above low-water-mark, a cell unapproachable by land, and high enough for you to stand erect. There you wished to play Constance in Marmion, and to be walled up alive, if convenient; but as it proved inconvenient on that day, you helped me to secure some bits of drift-wood instead. Longer voyages brought waifs from remoter islands, whose very names tell perchance the changing story of mariners long since wrecked, isles baptized Patience and Prudence, Hope and Despair. And other relics bear witness of more distant beaches, and of those wrecks which still lie, sentinels of ruin, along Brenton's Point and Castle Hill.

To collect drift-wood is like botanizing, and one soon learns to recognize the prevailing species, and look with pleased eagerness for new. It is a tragic botany indeed, where, as in enchanted gardens, each specimen has a voice, and, as you take each from the ground, you expect from it a cry like the mandrake's. And from what a garden it comes! As one walks round Brenton's Point after an autumnal storm, it seems as if the passionate heaving of the waves had brought wholly new tints to the surface, hues unseen even in dreams before, greens and purples impossible in serener days.

These match the prevailing green and purple of the slate-cliffs; and Nature in truth carries such fine fitnesses yet further. For, as we tread the delicate sea-side turf, which makes the farthest point seem merely the land's last bequest of emerald to the ocean, we suddenly come upon curved lines of lustrous purple amid the grass, rows on rows of bright muscle-shells, regularly traced as if a child had played there, the graceful high-water-mark of the terrible storm. It is the crowning fascination of the sea, the consummation of such might in such infantine delicacy. One feels it again in the summer, when our bay is thronged for miles on miles with inch-long jelly-fishes, lovely creatures, in shape like disembodied gooseberries, and shot through, and through in the sunlight with all manner of blue and golden glistenings, and with tiny rows of fringing oars that tremble like a baby's eyelids. There is less of gross substance in them than in any created thing, - mere water and outline, destined to perish at a touch, but seemingly never touching, for they float secure, finding no conceivable cradle so soft as this awful sea. They are like melodies amid Beethoven's Symphonies, or like the songs that wander through Shakespeare, and that seem things too fragile to risk near Cleopatra's passion and Hamlet's woe. Thus tender is the touch of ocean; and look, how around this piece of oaken timber, twisted and torn and furrowed,

its iron bolts snapped across as if bitten, there is yet twined a gay garland of ribbon-weed, bearing on its trailing stem a cluster of bright shells, like a mermaid's chatelaine.

Thus adorned, we place it on the blaze. As night gathers without, the gale rises. It is a season of uneasy winds, and of strange, rainless storms, which perplex the fishermen, and indicate rough weather out at sea. As the house trembles and the windows rattle, we turn towards the fire with a feeling of safety. Representing the fiercest of all dangers, it yet indicates security and comfort. Should a gale tear the

roof from over our heads and show the black sky alone above us, we should not feel utterly homeless while this fire burned; - such a feeling of protection at least I can recall, when once left suddenly roofless by night in one of the wild gorges of Mount Katahdin. There is a positive demonstrative force in an open fire, which makes it a fit ally in a storm. Settled and obdurate cold may well be encountered by the quiet heat of an invisible furnace. But this howling wind might depress one's spirits, were it not met by a force as palpable,—the blast within answering to the blast without. The chimney then becomes the scene of contest, wind meets wind, sparks encounter raindrops, they fight in the air like the visioned soldiers of Attila; sometimes a daring drop penetrates and dies hissing on the hearth; and sometimes a troop of sparks make a sortie from the chimney-top. I know not how else we can meet the elements by a defiance so magnificent as that of an open hearth; and in burning drift-wood, especially, we turn against the enemy his own ammunition. For on these fragments three elements have already done their work. Water racked and strained the hapless ships, air hunted them, and they were thrown at last upon earth, the sternest of all. Then fire took the shattered remnants, and made them into an adequate defence for us against all three.

It has been pointed out by botanists, as one of Nature's most graceful retributions, that, in the building of the ship, the apparent balance of vegetable forces is reversed, and the herb becomes master of the tree; when the delicate blue-eyed flax, taking the stately pine under its protection, spreads over it in cordage, or expands in sails. But more graceful still is this further contest between the great natural elements, when this most fantastic and vanishing thing, this delicate and dancing flame, subdues all these huge vassals to its will, and, after earth and air and water have done their utmost, comes in to complete the task, and

be crowned as monarch. "The sea drinks the air," said Anacreon, "and the sun the sea." My fire is the child of the sun.

I come back from every evening stroll to this gleaming blaze; it is a domestic lamp, and shines for me everywhere. It seems to burn visibly through the dark houses, lighting up the whole of this little fishing hamlet, which forms the outer edge of the fashionable watering-place. I fancy that others too perceive it, and that certain visitors are attracted, even when the storm keeps neighbors and friends at home. For the slightest presage of foul weather is sure to bring to the opposite anchorage a dozen silent vessels, that glide up the harbor for refuge, and are heard but once, when the chain-cable rattles as it runs out, and the iron hand of the anchor grasps the rock. It always seems to me that these unwieldy visitors are gathered not about the neighboring lighthouse only, but around our ingle-side. Welcome, ye great winged strangers, whose very names are unknown. This hearth is comprehensive in its hospitalities; it will accept from you either its fuel or its guests; your mariners may warm themselves beside it, or your scattered timbers may warm me. Strange instincts might be supposed to thrill and shudder in the ribs of ships that sail toward the beacon of a drift-wood fire. Morituri salutant. A single shock, and all that magnificent fabric is perhaps mere fuel to prolong the flame.

Here, beside the roaring ocean, this blaze represents the only receptacle more vast than ocean.

"un

We say, stable as water." But there is nothing unstable about this flickering flame: it is persistent and desperate, relentless in following its ends. It is the most tremendous physical force that man can use. "If drugs fail," said Hippocrates, use the knife; should the knife fail, use fire." Conquered countries were anciently given over to fire and sword; the latter could only kill, but the other could annihilate. See how thoroughly it does its

work, even when domesticated: it takes up everything upon the hearth and leaves all clean. The Greek proverb says, that "the sea drinks up all the sins of the world." It is the most capacious of all things, save fire only. But its task is left incomplete it only hides its records, while fire destroys them. In the Norse Edda, when the gods try their games, they find themselves able to out-drink the ocean, but not to eat like the flame. Logi, or fire, licks up food and trencher and all. This chimney is more voracious than the sea. Give time enough, and all which yonder depths contain shall pass through this insatiable throat, leaving only a few ashes and the memory of a flickering shade, -pulvis et umbra. We recognize this when we have anything to conceal. Deep crimes are buried in earth, deeper are sunk in water, but the deepest of all are confided by trembling men to the profounder secrecy of flame. If every old chimney could narrate the fearful deeds whose last records it has cancelled, what sighs of undying passion would breathe from its dark summit, groans of guilt! Those lurid sparks that whirl over yonder house-top, tossed aloft as if fire itself could not contain them, may be the last embers of some written scroll, one rescued word of which might suffice for the ruin of a household, and the crushing of many hearts. "Behold," shrieks the blast, "it is the last opportunity." Withhold thy secrets, fearful witness, and treasure not wrath against the day of wrath.

what

But this domestic hearth of ours holds only, beside its drift-wood, the peaceful records of the day,—its shreds and fragments and fallen leaves. As the ancients poured wine upon their flames, so I pour rose-leaves in libation; and each day contributes the faded petals of yesterday's wreaths. All our roses of this season have passed up this chimney in the blaze. Their delicate veins were filled with all the summer's fire, and they returned to fire once more, - ashes to ashes, flame

to flame. For holding, with Bettina, that every flower which is broken becomes immortal in the sacrifice, I deem it more fitting that their earthly part should die by a concentration of that burning element which would at any rate be in some form their ending; so they have their altar on this bright hearth.

Let us pile up the fire anew with drift-wood, Annie. We can choose at random; for our logs came from no single forest. It is considered an important branch of skill in the country to know the varieties of fire-wood, and to choose among them well. But tonight we have the whole Atlantic shore for our wood-pile, and the Gulf Stream for a teamster. Every foreign tree of rarest name may, for aught we know, send its treasures to our hearth. Logwood and satinwood may mingle with cedar and maple; the old cellar-floors of this once princely town are of mahogany, and why not our fire? I have a very indistinct impression what teak is; but if it means something black and impenetrable and nearly indestructible, then there is a piece of it, Annie, on the hearth at this moment.

It must be owned, indeed, that timbers soaked long enough in salt-water scem almost to lose their capacity of being burnt. Perhaps it was for this reason, that, in the ancient "lykewakes" of the North of England, a pinch of salt was placed upon the dead body, as a safeguard against purgatorial flames. Yet salt melts ice, and so tends to warmth, one would think; and one can fancy that these fragments should be doubly inflammable, by their saline quality, and by the unmerciful rubbing which the waves have given them. For see what warmth this churning process communicates to the clotted foam which lies in tremulous masses among the rocks, holding all the blue of ocean in its bubbles. After one's hands are chilled with the water, one can warm them in the foam. These drift-wood fragments are but the larger foam of shipwrecks.

What strange comrades this flame

brings together. As foreign sailors from remotest seas may sit and chat side by side, before some boardinghouse fire in this seaport town, so these shapeless sticks, perhaps gathered from far wider wanderings, now nestle together against the back-log, and converse in strange dialects as they burn. It is written in the Heetopades of Veeshnoo Sarma, that, "as two planks, floating on the surface of the mighty receptacle of the waters, meet, and having met are separated forever, so do beings in this life come together and presently are parted." Perchance this chimney reunites the planks, at the last moment, as death must reunite friends.

And with what wondrous voices these strayed wanderers talk to each other on the hearth! They bewitch us by the mere fascination of their language. Such a delicacy of intonation, yet such a volume of sound. The murmur of the surf is not so soft or so solemn. There are the merest hints and traceries of tones, phantom voices, more remote from noise than anything which is noise; and yet there is an undertone of roar, as of a thousand cities, the cities whence these wild voyagers came. Watch the decreasing sounds of a fire as it dies, for it seems cruel to leave it, as we do, to die alone. I watched beside this hearth last night. As the fire sank down, the little voices grew stiller and more still, and at last there came only irregular beats, at varying intervals, as if from a heart that acted spasmodically, or as if it were measuring off by ticks the little remnant of time. Then it said, "Hush!" two or three times, and there came something so like a sob that it seemed human; and then all was still.

If these dying voices are so sweet and subtile, what legends must be held untold by yonder fragments that lie unconsumed! Photography has familiarized us with the thought that every visible act, since the beginning of the world, has stamped itself upon surrounding surfaces, even if we have not yet skill to discern and hold the image.