in the distant valleys, but they lay there hushed and silent as cities of the dead. An oppressive sense of solitude will steal over the mind of the thoughtful as they gaze upon the busy haunts of man at such a distance as to shut out from the apprehension all but the place of living action.

It was evening, in the early part of September, that Eda sat upon the mossy seat beneath the linden upon this pile of rock. She had read her father's letter and had replaced it in her pocket, when she, in a low voice, broke the silence with the words with which this chapter opens.

The sun was sinking toward the western horizon, tinging the western outlines of mauntains and rocky cliffs with gorgeous gold, and deepening the blue and purple shadows that bathed their eastern fronts. She sat and gazed in the distance, awaiting the evening songs of the colored work hands, as she knew the hour was approaching when it would arise from the plantations in tones and responses mellowed by distance.

At length the first strain arose from a great distance, in a prolonged plaintive melody, and reverbrated along the mountasn side like the silvery tones of a distant flute. She could just distinguish the words,

After a pause of nearly a minute, this line was responded to from another direction, in as clear and mellow a voice, and at a great distance. The response ran thus,

"Tom's gone away."

In a half a minute more arose in another direction,

"Come again to-morrow mornen."

Next follows in still another direction,

"At broke ob de day."

This stanza was repeated, in the same manner, at least twenty times, and broke from as many different directions in which many voices joined at each line, with an interval, or pause of nearly a minute between each line.

The twilight had rendered objects indistinct before the last voice sen up its challenge,

"Way up the stony mountain."

which died away in mountain valleys without response.

Eda rested her head upon her hand as she reclined upon the moss, until her reverie was broken by a voice from below crying: "Eda, child, an't you afear'd you'l take cold 'way up there in the night air?"

"I am coming down, Aunt Rosa," replied Eda to this insignfi

cant summons.

She arose and descended. She found Mrs. Ramsdale sitting upon the steps which led to the neat rustic piazza along the front of the new house.

"I do believe you're in love," said Aunt Rosa, as Eda seated herself beside her on the step. "I might a' most say you're in love, for that's jist the way I was always tryen to git off alone somewhere when I first fell in love with my man; an' it's mighty queer if a girl an't in love at your age."

"Aunt Rosa," said Eda, "what if I am in love? Is there any crime in being in love?"

No, indeed.

"No, dear child. made for, sooner or later; it's right down heart love. you've made a good choice.

That's what we women are an' railey I think the sooner the better, if I'm right glad to find you are in love, ef Who is the feller?"

"I have not said yet that I was in love," said Eda.

"Well you mought as well say so, for you show it in your actions as plain as day. There a'nt no harm in it, as I said before. I'll say this, whoever gets you for a wife will get a help-mate nobody need to be ashamed of, for any young girl that never had no mother. nor no chance to larn anything, like to leave a fine rich home, where she can walk in her silks an' satins every day of her life, an' come away out here to larn how to spin an' work jist to know how to be useful an' do her juty in life, is more than common, an' it's a plaguey good man that deserves sich a wife. Poor, dear child, I know you're in love an' feel lemencholy, an' I know how to pity you, for it's lonesome to you away out here so far from any place. But, never mind, you're larnen very fast, an' then you can go back an' see your feller again. I know it seems long to you, but in this life we've got to meet our ups an' downs; they may come to-day, or they may come to-morrow, or next year, an' we can't tell when, but the're sure to come an' they will, an' everybody's heart is pretty much the same; these ups and downs hurt when they come ; no odds who the body is, or whether they have a dixonary edication, an' use high flown language or not. I reckon some folks thinks that onedicated people ha'nt got no feelens; but that's a great mistake. Now here's me, I know no queen ever loved her husband stronger than I loved my man. I thought it would raily break my heart till I found out that he was in love with me, an' that we was a goen to have each other."

66

Yes, but Aunt Rosa, supposing you had discovered that he did

not love you, and that you were not to have each other, what then would you have done?" asked Eda.

"Don't ask such a question, child. There an't no philosophy in it. It is always a good rule for us to keep in bounds of what is likely to happen, an' not run off into providen for onlikelihoods,"

"Aunt Rosa," said Eda, laying her hand upon the bosom of Mrs. Ramsdale, "I am very unhappy, and I feel as if I could not live without sympathy. I must tell you; I cannot keep my secret. You are so good, you will not tell anyone ;-but, I love and am not loved in return."

"My poor, dear Eda!" said Aunt Rosa, parting the hair on Eda's forehead and kissing her, "You must be mistaken, for surely nobody would be sich a fool as not to love you. Did he tell you that he did'nt love you, or only show it by signs?"

"We have very little acquaintance with each other, and have met but twice or three times, but he has always manifested not only an indifference to my society, but a cold and distant reserve in my presence."

"That's no sign," said Mrs. Ramsdale, and continued, "How could he help loven you? tell me that. Anybody that would'nt love you an't worth haven, an' an't fit for a husband for anybody. Just as like as any way he's just dead in love with you, an' you

know it."

don't

"No, there is another lady he is partial to, and pays marked attentions. They board at the same house, and I have no doubt there is a matrimonial engagement between them."

"Well, it's a pity if it is so. You must try to forget him, I suppose; but there's poor comfort in that. Sometimes I a most think we poor women haʼnt got a fair chance, somehow. If we get in love we mus'nt say a word about it, nor let the men know about it, or they will hoot it at us and call us impudent, brazen things; an' then, again, when I come to consider about it, I think it's all right; for you see, child, we women are queer too; we an't like men. Men they come after us an' seek us out, an' it's our natur to hold back, an' hide our feelens like. If things was different, an' women was allowed to go couretn the men, as they do us, still no rail nice woman would run after the men like they do after us; because it ai'nt decent, an' we wouldn't do it."

"No, Aunt Rosa, I would not for the world he should find out that I have a tender partiality for him."

"That is just it, we are always trying to hide from the men our feelens for them, an' if we was to show our tender feelens they would

despise us for it. It is all righht as it is, an' it ought'nt to be any other way. But don't let's talk any more about it. It makes you lemencholy, an' you won't sleep good to night. We'll talk about our tomorras day's work. You know it's a good rule in housekeeping to always lay out each day's work the night before; then we always know what to go at the first in the morning. What will you begin on?"

'I will go down to the loom and finish that piece of linen,” said Eda.

"Then you did'nt get it done out?"

"No," replied Eda, "When Andy came with the letter from my father I went up to the summit of the rocks, and have been there every since, until you called me."

"Well you'l see, when it comes to be bleached, that you've got as nice a pair of ten hundred linen as you ever laid eyes on."

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Why do you call it ten hundred linen, Aunt Rosa?" enquired Eda.

"Because, you see, child, the reed that it's wove on takes ten hundred threads of the warp, and in course the threads must be very fine. You'll have enough of it to make a nice pair o' sheets an' pillow-slips. An' it is a rule among us country folks that no girl is fit for a wife 'till she can weave and bleach, and make up a pair o' fine sheets and pillow-slips."

"I think the rule is a good one. But I have got to have the process of bleaching," said Eda.

"O that easy done," said Mrs. Ramsdale, "You just bile the brown linen in some lye, 'till it's pretty well biled; then you take it out and spread it on the grass an' let it dry in the sun. As soon as it's dry you sprinkle it with water 'till it is as wet as it can be; an' so whenever it dries you sprinkle it again 'till it's as white as you want it. Then you put it in the sours an' let lay a day an' a night, and then wash it out, an' dry it, an' iron it, and then it's bleached."

"My father will be proud of me, and I will be proud of myself when I show him that piece of linen and tell him I made it," said Eda Wilson erecting herself from the lap of Mrs. Ramsdale upon which she had until now reclined.

"Indeed, it's what any one might be proud of, I'm sure," said Aunt Rosa, "especially a young girl that never saw a spinen' wheel, nor a loom 'till they was twenty years old. Raissen flax, an rating it, an' breaken' it, an' swinglen' it, an' weavin' it, an' bleachin'

it, that's women's work. It's all hard work, but soft is the sleep on the nice clean sheets it makes, then the work is done."

If we are idle, can't sleep, an'

"This life," continued Mrs. Ramsdell, is a queer kind of a riddle, any how. Everything we do that ain't just right brings it's own punishment, just as sure as night follows day. and fool our time away, we have no appetites, an' feel mean generally; but when we do our juty, an' work, we can eat anything but a whetstone; an' then sleep is sleep, full-blooded sleep, no matter whether it's on the soft side of a plank or on a down bed."

"Yes, Aunt Rosa," replied Eda, "I have learned what rest is from being tired, and what appetite is from being hungry."

"There is nothing like hunger to give a relish to one's victuals; it makes old butter taste fresh, and sour milk sweet. Now, my man an' me, when we first set up housekeepin', it's dreadful little we had to begin with, I tell you, except willing hearts, good health, good consciences, and good appetites. An' I tell ye these are all good in their places. Well, we did our best every day. If we had but little to eat, we thought it was good, an' could eat it, and always glad it was no worse; an' whatever the supper lacked we made up in sleep, for we was always tired enough to sleep sound. An' now, that we've got a plenty of everything to live on, I tell my man, sometimes, that I don't enjoy life half as well as we used to when we lived from hand to mouth; an' it's all because we ha'nt got the same good old appetite. But come, child, it's time we was both in bed an' asleep, for we must be up an' at it bright and early." So saying, they separated and retired to rest.

There was much true philosophy in the practical theory of Aunt Rosa Ramsdale. We are obliged to submit to the circumstances of life as they occur. If reluctantly and with dissatisfaction we meet the reverses and privations that every one must expect, we thereby mix the gall and wormword which embitters and poisons the whole cup. If we accept these reverses and misfortunes with cheerfulness and complacency, still looking forward in the future with a firm hope for better things, we create the sunshine around us that gilds the clouds of misfortune and lightens the burden of adversity.

The conduct of our lives should be regulated with reference to the probabilities, not the possibilities of life. It is possible that an accident may transpire to give shape to the entire destiny of an individual. Yet it will not do for any one to sit down and await the accidents of life. If no such accident does transpire, then a life is