my parting words you may depend. Let the other world be what it will, gorgeous beyond all we can fancy of it, blissful beyond all we can hope of it, do not fear in me an altered or forgetful heart. I dare not promise more; yet, if it be possible, I will return. But, remember, there may well be that other world, and yet we, in ours, may misjudge its nature. Farewell! Never part with hope. With your fears I know you never can part. Now farewell!"

And he too went upwards, through the cool water to the plants that bordered its side; and from the leaf of a golden kingcup he rose out of his native element into that aerial world into which the Water Grub's eye never could yet pierce.

His companions lingered a while near the spot where he had disappeared, but neither sign nor sound came to them. Only the dreary sense of bereavement reminded them that he once had been.

Then followed the hours of vain expectation, the renewed disappointment, the cruel doubts, the hope that struggled with despair.

And after this others went upwards in succession; for the time came to all when the lustrous eyes of the perfect creature shone through the masked face of the Grub, and he must needs pass forward to the fulfilment of his destiny.

But the result among those who were left was always the same. There were ever some that doubted and feared, ever some that disbelieved and ridiculed, ever some that hoped and looked forward.

Ah! if they could but have known, poor things! If those eyes, fitted for the narrow bounds of their water world, could have been endued with a power of

R

vision into the purer element beyond, what a lifetime of anxiety would they not have been spared! ease, what rest, would have been theirs!

What

But belief would, in that case, have been an irresistible necessity, and Hope must have changed her

name.

And the Dragonfly, meanwhile, was he really faithless as they thought? When he burst his prison-house by the water side and rose on glittering wings into the summer air, had he indeed no memory for the dear ones he had so lately left ? no tender concern for their griefs and fears? no recollection of the promise he had made?

Ah! so far from it, he thought of them amidst transports of his wildest flights, and returned ever and ever to the precincts of that world which had once been the only world to him. But in that region also, a power was over him superior to his own, and to it his will must submit. To the world of waters he could never more return.

The least touch upon its surface, as he skimmed over it with the purpose of descent, brought on a deadly shock, like that which, as a Water Grub, he had experienced from emerging into air, and his wings involuntarily bore him instantly back from the unnatural

contact.

"Alas for the promise made in ignorance and presumption, miserable Grub that I was!" was his bitter, constantly-repeated cry.

And thus, divided and yet near, parted yet united by love, he hovered about the barrier that lay between them, never quite, perhaps, without a hope that some accident might bring his dear ones into sight.

Nor was his constancy long unrewarded, for as, after even his longest roamings, he never failed to return to the old spot, he was there to welcome the emancipated brother who so soon followed him.

And often, after that, the breezy air by the forest pond would resound in the bright summer afternoons with the clashing of Dragonflies' wings, as, now backwards, now forwards, now to one side, now to another, without turn or intermission, they darted over the crystal water in the rapture of a new life.

It might be, on those occasions, that some fresh arrival of kindred from below, added a keener joy to their already joyous existence. Sweet assuredly it was to each new comer, when the riddle of his fate was solved, to find in the new region, not a strange and friendless abode, but a home rich with the welcomes of those who had gone before.

Sweet also it was, and strange as sweet, to know that even while they had been trembling and fearing in their ignorant life below, gleams from the wings of those they lamented were dropping like star-rays on their home, reflected hither and thither from the sun that shone above. Oh! if they could but have known! -Mrs. Gatty.

Ir-re-sist'-i-ble, not to be kept back.

Ra-pine', act of plundering.

Be-reave'-ment, loss of friends.

In-vol-un-ta-ri-ly, not subject to the will.

In-ter-mis'-sion, rest.

Pre'-cincts, outward limits.

Nor fields with gleaming steel be covered o'er;
The brazen trumpets kindle rage no more;
But useless lances into scythes shall bend
And the broad falchion in a ploughshare end.
Then palaces shall rise; the joyful son
Shall finish what his short-liv'd sire begun;
Their vines a shadow to their race shall yield,
And the same hand that sow'd shall reap the field
The swain in barren deserts with surprise
Sees lilies spring and sudden verdure rise,
And starts, amidst the thirsty wilds to hear
New falls of water murmuring in his ear.
On rifted rocks, the dragon's late abodes,
The green reed trembles and the bulrush nods.
Waste sandy valleys, once perplex'd with thorn,
The spiry fir and shapely box adorn;

To leafless shrubs the flowery palms succeed,
And odorous myrtle to the noisome weed;

The lambs with wolves shall grace the verdant mead,
And boys in flowery bands the tiger lead;

The steer and lion at one crib shall meet,

And harmless serpents lick the pilgrim's feet;
The smiling infant in his hand shall take
The crested basilisk and speckled snake,
Pleas'd, the green lustre of the scales survey,
And with their forky tongue shall innocently play.

Fal'-chion, a sword.

Rift'-ed, split or burst open.

Pope.

Bas'-i-lisk, a fabulous serpent, having a white spot on its head resembling a crown.