"Perhaps," said the girl, "you would like a flower to carry away with you; here is a rose growing by the window where Goldsmith used to sit. Some have even said that it sprang from the stem of the one he planted; and if you will promise to believe this too, as well as the rest of my story, you shall have it."

"Oh! you are very kind: I will believe anything you say; I have a great horror of unbelief. Yes, I do believe it. Thank you."

After strolling leisurely over the grounds, where the writer of the Vicar of Wakefield once lived, we parted with our fair cicerone, and drove round the old Church through the village. The quiet shadows of evening twilight were gently falling over the scenery; the rusted hand of the old clock (what a charm there is in old clocks since Dickens has written about Master Humphrey's) were slowly wandering over the defaced dial on the gray tower, which was overhung with the greenest ivy, clambering from the ground to its

top; a few old trees stood near the church, and the rooks were flying from the tower to seek their homes for the night in the branches. Under their deep shadows the generation, that had animated this scene, in Goldsmith's days, had long ago lain down in their last repose.

Over the graves of some who had been distinguished, handsome monuments were placed; rude old stones marked the place where most of the villagers had been buried; while a green mound, covered with a few weeds or flowers, was the only memorial that rose over the ashes of the humble and the poor. All we knew of the company of sleepers there was, that they once lived and moved in this lovely hamlet; heard offers of mercy from that old temple; and were gathered to their fathers.

We passed over the village green, where the noisy urchins were playing; and across which the cows were going to the farm-houses with "the tinkling bell." It was one of those lovely rural scenes which abound in England, of whose cottages and hedge-rows, churches

and graveyards, the old poets have so often told us. When we had left the village a mile behind us, the mellow tones of the bell came musically over the fields.

Before us we had a single peep through the trees at "Quiet Home," the cottage of my friend. It was all English; you could not find the like of it but in this island. I wish I could tell you all about that "Quiet Home." My visit, which I intended should be confined to two hours, lasted as many days; and it will be a long time before I forget that sweet little cottage, which stands nestled there among the green trees and shrubbery.

It is not so dreadful a thing as might happen, after all, to be an old maid, you would say, if you could for once step across the threshold of that " Quiet Home." The sisters have passed what in common parlance is called the sunny side of thirty; but their hearts are just as fresh and buoyant, warm and generous as ever. If fortune, beauty, wit, and accomplishments can gain "a settlement for life,"

they could have been married long ago. But, in truth, as they said, "they were as happy in each other's society as they had any desire to be; earth was a Paradise to them; it might not be, if any change should occur." (I beg you will not think, dear, that I proposed any; though I know not what I might have done, had I not been already blessed.) Books, music, gardens, fountains, flowers, rich landscapes, fortune, health, confidence, sisters' love, which cannot be selfish, a house in town, and friends everywhere! How few on earth have all this!

We all gathered around the hospitable board, and passed away the evening in conversation about France, and Spain, and Italy, where they had travelled; our own land of the Pilgrims; of friends, some of whom were in distant countries, some on the wide sea, and some in Heaven-who cannot tell of loved ones who are dead-who are in a brighter world than ours; and who does not love to

speak of them? "Oh! the grave! the grave!

It buries every error, covers every defect, extinguishes every resentment! From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections.” Who knows how to speak to the heart better than Irving?

One of the ladies put these lines into my hand in manuscript :

ABSENT FRIENDS.

Oh! when the heart is lonely,
Musing on joys gone by-
When memory's mournful tribute
Is the whisper of a sigh-
Still, still, all is not sorrow;
With sadness pleasure blends,

As from the past we borrow

The smiles of absent friends.

How oft, when gently stealing
Alone 'neath twilight ray,
When every harsher feeling
Is chasten'd by its sway,
Will memory softly ponder,

As o'er the past she bends,
And erring fancy wander

To greet our absent friends.