calm and holy religion is mirrored in every page. The sorrow-stricken mourner finds therein the sweet and healing balm of consolation, and the bitter tears cease to flow when she points to that better land where the loved and the lost are waiting for us.
“Many of her works are gay and spirituel, full of delicate wit, ‘bright as the flight of a shining arrow.’ Often have the smiles long exiled from the lips, returned at the bidding of her merry muse. Home, especially, she describes with a truthfulness which is enchanting. She seems to have dipped the pen in her own soul, and written of its emotions. She exalts all that is good, noble, or generous in the human heart, and gives to even the clouds of existence a sunny softness, like the dreamy light of a Claude Lorraine picture.”
AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP BAG.
It was a rainy day, a real, old-fashioned, orthodox rainy day. It rained the first thing in the morning, it rained harder and harder at midday. The afternoon was drawing to a close, and still the rain came down in steady and persevering drops, every drop falling in a decided and obstinate way, as if conscious, though it might be ever so unwelcome, no one had a right to oppose its coming. A rainy day in midsummer is a glorious thing. The grass looks up so green and grateful under the life-giving moisture; the flowers send forth such a delicious aroma; the tall forest-trees bend down their branches so gracefully in salutation to the messengers of heaven. There are beauty, grace, and glory in a midsummer rain, and the spirit of man becomes gay and buoyant under its influence. But a March rain in New England, when the vane of the weather cock points inveterately to the north-east, when the brightness, and purity, and positiveness of winter is gone, and not one promise of spring breaks cheeringly on the eye, is a dismal concern.
Little Estelle stood looking out at the window, with her nose pressed against a pane of glass, wishing it would clear up, it was so pretty to see the sun break out just as he was setting. The prospect abroad was not very inviting. It was a patch of mud and a patch of snow, the dirtiest mixture in nature’s olio. A little boy went slumping by, sinking at every step almost to his knees; then a carriage slowly and majestically came plashing along, its wheels
