13. "And now the grave for its cold breast hath won thee, And thy white, delicate limbs the earth will press;

And O! my last caress

Must feel thee cold, for a chill hand is on thee.
How can I leave my boy so pillowed there
Upon his clustering hair!"

14. She stood beside the well her God had given
To gush in that deep wilderness, and bathed
The forehead of her child until he laughed
In his reviving happiness, and lisped
His infant thought of gladness at the sight
Of the cool plashing of his mother's hand.

EXERCISE CL.

THE PRAIRIE ON FIRE.

J. FENIMORE COOPER.

1. The sleep of the fugitives lasted for several hours. The trapper was the first to shake off its influence, as he had been the last to ccurt its refreshment. Rising, just as the gray light of day began to brighten that portion of the studded vault which rested on the eastern margin of the plain, he summoned his companions from their warm lairs, and pointed out the necessity of their being once more on the alert.

2. "See, Middleton !" exclaimed Inez, in a sudden burst of youthful pleasure, that caused her for a moment to forget her situation; "how lovely is that sky; surely it contains a promise of happier times !"

3. "It is glorious!" returned her husband. "Glorious and heavenly is that streak of vivid red, and here is a still, brighter crimson ;-rarely have I seen a richer rising of the sun."

4. "Rising of the sun!" slowly repeated the old man, lift

ing his tall person from its seat, with a deliberate and abstracted air, while he kept his eye riveted on the changing and certainly beautiful tints that were garnishing the vault of heaven. "Rising of the sun! I like not such risings of the sun. Ah's me! the imps have circumvented us with a vengeance. The prairie is on fire !"

3. "God in Heaven protect us!" cried Middleton, catching Inez to his bosom, under the instant impression of the imminence of their danger. "There is no time to lose, old man ; each instant is a day ;-let us fly!"

6. "Whither?" demanded the trapper, motioning him, with calmness and dignity, to arrest his steps. "In this wilderness of grass and reeds, you are like a vessel in the broad lakes without a compass. A single step on the wrong course might prove the destruction of us all. It is seldom danger is so pressing, that there is not time enough for reason to do its work, young officer; therefore, let us await its biddings."

7. "For my part," said Paul Hover, looking about him with no unequivocal expression of concern, "I acknowledge, that should this dry bed of weeds get fairly in a flame, a bee would have to make a flight higher than common to prevent his wings from scorching. Therefore, old trapper, I agree with the captain, and say, mount and run!"

8. "Ye are wrong,―ye are wrong,―man is not a beast, to follow the gift of instinct, and to snuff up his knowledge by a taint in the air, or a rumbling in the sound; but he must see, and reason, and then conclude. So, follow me a little to the left, where there is a rising in the ground, whence we may make our reconnoiterings."

9. The old man waved his hand with authority, and led th way, without further parlance, to the spot he had indicated followed by the whole of his alarmed companions. An ey less practiced than that of the trapper, might have failed in discovering the gentle elevation to which he alluded, and which looked on the surface of the meadow like a growth a little taller than common.

10. When they reached the place, however, the stinted grass itself announced the absence of that moisture which had fed the rank weeds of most of the plain, and furnished a clue to the evidence, by which he had judged of the formation of the ground hidden beneath. Here a few minutes were lost in oreaking down the tops of the surrounding herbage,—which, notwithstanding the advantage of their position, rose even above the heads of Middleton and Paul,-and in obtaining a look-out that might command a view of the surrounding sea of fire.

11. The examination which his companions so instantly and so intently made, rather served to assure them of their desperate situation than to appease their fears. Huge columns of smoke were rolling up from the plain, and thickening in gloomy masses around the horizon. The red glow which gleamed upon their enormous folds, now lighting their volumes with the glare of the conflagration, now flashed to another point, as the flame beneath glided ahead, leaving all behind enveloped in awful darkness, and proclaiming louder than words the character of the imminent and rapidly-approaching danger.

12. "This is terrible !" exclaimed Middleton, folding the trembling Inez to his heart. "At such a time as this, and in such a manner !"

13. "The gates of Heaven are open to all who truly believe,” murmured the pious devotee in his bosom.

14. "This resignation is maddening! But we are men, and will make a struggle for our lives! How now, my brave and spirited friend, shall we yet mount and push across the flames, or shall we stand here, and see those we most love perish in this frightful manner without an effort?”

15. "I am for a swarming time, and a flight, before the hive is too hot to hold us," said the bee-hunter, to whom it will be at once seen that the half-distracted Middleton addressed himself. " Come, old trapper, you must acknowledge this is but a slow way of getting out of danger. If we tarry

here much longer, it will be in the fashion that the bees lis around the straw, after the hive has been smoked for its honey. You may hear the fire begin to roar already; and I know by experience, that when the flame once gets fairly into the prairie grass, it is no sloth that can outrun it."

16. "Think you," returned the old man, pointing scornfully at the mazes of the dry and matted grass which environed them, "that mortal feet can outstrip the speed of fire on such a path ?"

17. "What say you, friend doctor ?" cried the bewildered Paul, turning to the naturalist, with that sort of helplessness with which the strong are often apt to seek aid of the weak, when human power is baffled by the hand of a mightier Being; "what say you; have you no advice to give away, in a case of life and death ?"

18. The naturalist stood, tablets in hands, looking at the awful spectacle with as much composure as though the conflagration had been lighted in order to solve the difficulties of some scientific problem. Aroused by the question of his companion, he turned to his equally calm, though differently occupied associate, the trapper, demanding, with the most provoking insensibility to the urgent nature of their situation, "Venerable hunter, you have often witnessed similar pris matic experiments-"

19. He was rudely interrupted by Paul, who struck the tablets from his hands with a violence that betrayed the utter intellectual confusion which had overset the equanimity of his mind. Before time was allowed for remonstrance, the old man, who had continued during the whole scene like one much at a loss how to proceed, though, also, like one who was rather perplexed than alarmed, suddenly assumed a decided air, as if he no longer doubted on the course it was most advisable to pursue.

20. "It is time to be doing," he said, interrupting the con troversy that was about to ensue between the naturalist and the bee-hunter; "it is time to eave off books and moanings, and to be doing."

21. "You have come to your recollections too late, miser able old man!" cried Middleton; "the flames are within a quarter of a mile of us, and the wind is bringing them down in this quarter with dreadful rapidity."

22. "Anan! the flames! I care but little for the flames! If I only knew how to circumvent the cunning of the Tetons as I know how to cheat the fire of its prey, there would be nothing needed but thanks to the Lord for our deliverance. Do you call this a fire? If you had seen what I have witnessed in the eastern hills, when mighty mountains were like the furnace of a smith, you would have known what it was to fear the flames, and to be thankful that you were spared! Come, lads, come; 't is time to be doing now, and to cease talking; for yonder curling flame is truly coming on like a trotting moos. Put hands upon this short and withered grass where e stand, and lay bare the 'arth."

23, "Would you think to deprive the fire of its victims in this childish manner?" exclaimed Middleton.

24. A faint but solemn smile passed over the features of the old man, as he answered- "Your gran'ther would have said, that when the enemy was nigh, a soldier could do no better than to obey."

25. The captain felt the reproof, and instantly began to im itate the industry of Paul, who was tearing the decayed herbage from the ground in a sort of desperate compliance with the trapper's direction. Even Ellen lent her hands to the labor, nor was it long before Inez was seen similarly employed, though none among them knew why or wherefore. When life is thought to be the reward of labor, men are wont to be industrious. A very few moments sufficed to lay bare a spot of some twenty feet in diameter.

26. Into one edge of this little area the trapper brought the females, directing Middleton and Paul to cover their light and inflammable dresses with the blankets of the party. So soon as this preca ition was observed, the old man approached the opposite side of the grass, which still environed them in a tall