intellectual, affectionate nature made him to be an object of devoted love to every one of that home-circle. I see, even at this distance of time, the little table at my uncle's elbow, with a few choice books, and hear him reading to eager listeners. He never regarded it as any sacrifice or any virtue, but simply as his proper mission, to surround his sisters and his doting old mother with comforts purchased by his own self-denial; to bestow upon them the rich treasures of his intellect, and to lavish on them that affluence of affection with which he was endowed. Evening after evening, year after year, would he sit among them, holding affectionate intercourse with them, cheering and brightening the quiet monotony of their lives with his fresh feeling and quick humor. Yet, could any have looked into the future, they would have seen him more than requited for his small sacrifices by being tended through years of pain and suffering, with an affectionate solicitude, such as no pen can describe. They would have seen the querulousness of protracted illness borne with woman's gentlest patience; a loving hand ever ready to minister to his slightest wish; the choicest fruits and jellies brought, with which to tempt a failing appetite; and the richest bouquets, tendered with love's own hand, to please the eye. The foot, the hand, the eye and the heart, which never wearied, because love sustained, were all busy in his service, and when, at last, he piously resigned his life into the hands at which he had received it, eyes heavy with watching and weeping followed his heavenward way, and hearts which only lived in him, enshrined him in their affectionate memory. I do not love to dwell on that sad time when he passed from among us; I prefer to look back to the still winter nights when the home-circle was as I first knew it; when my two aunts, my little orphan brother and myself, used all to look with love and reverence to the occupants of the two chairs in the chimney-corner. My Aunt Kitty used to sit a little apart from the rest of us, a piece of sewing being her ostensible occupation, but with an indolent and absent air. She was the youngest child, and had, doubtless, been injured by a too fond parental indulgence. Her mind should have had careful training, for its exuberance needed pruning; but in the absence of this she had become abstracted, undecided and inefficient; fond of minute, vague and metaphysical speculations, tending to nothing; full of plans unshaped and ill-defined, and of thoughts in chaotic confusion. As it was, my Aunt Kitty was harmless, inoffensive and affectionate, and held on her uncertain course, unmolested by her family. The plainness of her features made it exceedingly improbable that she should ever attract a single lover to her side, and yet I have always inferred, from sundry whisperings, that she had had her love secrets like other maidens; but, if so, they must have died a premature death, as nothing tangible ever came of them. Aunt Milly was my favorite aunt, and always stands out the most prominent figure in my reveries. She was older than Aunt Kitty by some twenty years, but a far more animated and genial person. What a large soul shone forth from her benevolent blue eyes, and what a kindly smile glowed on her pleasant features! I wish that I could describe her, not only as she seems to me to-day, but as she seemed in my young days, when it was not the least of her attractions, that she knew the exact estimate little children put upon round-hearts, penny trumpets, picture-books, and the like, and that her ready purse had a habit of supplying the demands of a dozen of small people, myself being among the number. In fact, she had an amazing faculty of discerning, as by intuition, and of meeting the wants of great and small, and this was, perhaps, one secret of her influence with children, though, doubtless, a larger reason lay in her remarkable sincerity, and the confidence she possessed in others. Indeed, so little of doubt and mistrust had she in her nature, that she could never attain to that penetrativeness which becomes part of almost every character with advancing years. The veriest beggar could deceive her, and, on the other hand, the merest child could look into those mild eyes of hers, and read something there corresponding to his own trustfulness, which assured him of intelligent sympathy. Words of mine are inadequate to express the excellence of her character. If her intellectual' attainments were few, her heart attainments had an unfathomed depth; her sympathies were large, ready and strong; her faith in human kind was the faith of a little child, and her cheerfulness had such a communicable quality about it, that the weariest and most disconsolate could no more escape its influence than the pale lotus flower can escape the fervor of a tropi cal sun. She was a model of patient endurance and quiet fortitude, able to veil her profoundest grief with a meek resignation, and to bear the acutest physical suffering uncomplainingly, lest another's keen sensibilities should be stirred for her. Her self-abnegation was so entire that it had often the effect to make others as forgetful of her wants as she was herself; and such was her humility that she was ever best satisfied when thus cast into the shade. She was an humble, self-sacrificing being, with such a fund of patient hopefulness and ready sympathy as no vicissitudes or ingratitude could exhaust. Perhaps in all this there was something, which, to some, would appear insipid, had it not been for a certain serene dignity of character which she possessed, and over which in my childhood I had puzzled much, because it seemed to my young, speculative mind to be rather something grafted on to her nature, than an original part of it, but which, in later life, I have learned to regard as the result, in such gentle characters as hers, of true heart sorrow. sorrow of sorrows had indeed early fallen on my Aunt Milly's young The life, and cast its lengthened shadow athwart its whole pathway. I never shall forget the morning, when, sitting by my side, Aunt Milly laid her knitting in her lap, and, meekly folding her hands and composing her features, told me the short story which had made life sorrowful to her. Her blue eyes seemed to be looking deeply into the buried past, her voice had a rich pathos in it, and her manner a pious resignation which could come only from a purified heart. I shall not attempt to give the tale in her own words. She was the eldest of eight children, always delicate and ailing, and an unfit little creature to take the rough and tumble of life; yet she was her mother's sole assistant in rearing six boisterous, funloving boys, for the young Kitty was not given to the mother until the boys were men. Milly's mother, blessed with a hale, rugged, old-fashioned constitution, could neither comprehend nor make due allowances for the feeble little Milly; it was Milly here, and Milly there, from morning till night. Milly must make her father's tea and give the boys their porridge, brush out the parlors, rub the mahogany, tend the baby, and wait upon her mother, whom the cares of maternity kept often in the nursery. With advancing years, other cares were laid upon her young shoulders. The sewing of so large a family was no trifle, and this weary task likewise devolved upon Milly. Milly was so patient, so willing, so self-forgetting, that nobody ever thought her goodness was imposed upon; and yet little Milly ought to have been at school all this time; she ought to have been developing her delicate frame by wholesome exercise, and fresh air; and her little childish heart ought not to have been all this time pining for companionship and sympathy. She rarely played like other children; how could she, when the work of a full-grown woman was exacted of her? She saw her little brothers play, but rarely joined in their sports; if they wanted twine for their kite, she would run for it; if they wanted a ball, she would make it; but she never used such things for her own amusement; and so she became a woman in feeling, while but a child in years. A child-woman, what a sad thing to be! If Milly had a sore throat, it must be looked to; if a fever, she must be nursed through it, for Milly's services were too valuable to be long dispensed with; but for any tenderness or sympathy beyond this, poor Milly knew not where to look for it. Thus she lived in a sort of nun-like seclusion, with no young friends, no kind of companionship; treasuring up the wealth of her young thoughts and affections for what? - At last a cousin of her mother came to visit them. He was a young man, graceful, handsome, full of joyous, hopeful life. His eye fell on Milly's modest countenance, and her mild blue eye, and timid, gentle smile at once interested him. Days passed, and they remained under the same roof, her occupation the daily, unending routine, and his the constant study of her character. Day by day the beauty of her life, its piety, its sacrifices, its purity, its loneliness, became more evident to him. Business, which had called him here, at length called him home again, and months passed before Milly saw again his friendly face at her father's house. He now came with a strong motive at his heart, a purpose to win Milly's regard, as she had already won his; and how would he succeed? Ah! never had his heart so failed him, as when he asked himself the question; for on his success, he felt, depended the happiness of his life. His strong self-reliance quite forsook him whenever he thought of it, and he almost felt a woman's blush upon his cheek when he met Milly, and heard her warm, innocent welcome. He had but a brief time to spend in her sweet society, and when again he said farewell, he was too uncertain of the impression he had made to venture his all upon the one little word; he preferred to wait, and let absence speak awhile for him to the maiden's soul. If we look into Milly's heart during that brief absence, we shall find the dear cousin's image holding quite a high place there, almost the highest; yet she, all unconscious how very near she was to the grand catastrophe in woman's life. To have one face always pictured in the mind's eye, to hold the whole world severely up to one model of ex cellence, and to pass the adverse judgment on the whole world instead of the model, is a dangerous state for a woman's mind; yet this was the present condition of young Milly's. One more visit from the mother's cousin and all was concluded between them. The most sacred, irrevocable vow was breathed into each other's soul, with no witness except the eye of Omniscience, and then they parted for a few weeks. Milly had now found sympathy and companionship, which seemed all the brighter for the eclipse in which she had hitherto lived. Another heart beat in unison with hers, responding to its every chord, and making a harmony which she had not even dreamed of before; she knew she loved, and she knew herself beloved. Could any happiness transcend this? Thenceforth, what exertion could be to her a toil? How could she ever again feel herself to be little else than a drudge? Where was the difficulty that she would not encounter bravely? What the misfortune which she could not surmount, leaning on a strong arm and a stout heart, which were henceforth to be as much a part of herself as the little, nervous arm at her side, and her fluttering, timid heart? The lovers had parted with the understanding that the secret of their mutual love should be shared with none until the traveller's return; so day after day passed on. To Milly they were days of such soul-sunshine as she had never known before; to the rest of her family they were much like other days, - they knew of no change, unless, indeed, they noticed an unwonted radiance in Milly's eyes. The close of a damp, chill, November day brought the family, one after another, to the hearth-stone, when one, as he drew off the damp coat he had worn through the day, said gravely, "This is sad news for your Uncle Ben's family, mother, and sad for ourselves, too. Cousin Edward rode on the outside of the stage-coach, through two stages, during the fearful storm two weeks ago, because the coach was full, and took a violent cold, and by the next day fever set in, so that he could not proceed with his journey. From the moment he became delirious he had not his reason until he died." Upon this announcement, there was a stifled cry, a heavy fall, and Milly lay, as if lifeless, at the speaker's feet. He raised her up, exclaiming, "There has been fever in her eyes for days past. I have seen it; the poor girl is a slave to us all; she is not properly cared for; it is cruel." They bathed her brow, and rubbed her cold hands, and |