their sockets; his bones were cracking with cold; his blood gurgled from his veins, and froze in red icicles over his flesh! He lingered thus, suffering the most excruciating torments all that terrible night; and so near his own home, too, that in a calm, still evening his piteous cries could have been heard at his own fireside! But his almost distracted wife knew not that he had been so cruelly deceived, and was languishing his life away so near his home! She would have flown to his relief on wings of pity and compassion-unwearying wings that always lift the body of any angel of mercy over every obstacle, when commissioned to minister to the wants of suffering humanity everywhere. She would have pillowed his dying head upon her bosom out in the cold night, and perished with him there.

As Mrs. D drew the cottage door ajar that dismal night to watch for her beloved, she could see the swaying tops of the very tree by the road-side, beneath whose sighing branches her husband was then dreaming and dying in the agonies of delirium. It was a fearful death!

But the morning's sun shone out smilingly from the eastern skies, and the restless winds had ceased their revelings, when a neighbor passed that way and found a stiff and frozen corpse stretched by the road-side. There was the bundle of presents for his family whom he had not forgotten in his last resolve to be faithful and true, but to whom he was husband and father no more! And close by his side was the conqueror-the half-empty bottle, the remaining contents of which was the only unfrozen thing in all the sad ruin, as though it proved itself to be close kindred to the spirits of those regions infernal where all is everlasting burning.

When that ghastly form, once the loved father of those weeping, little children, and the cherished comforter of that now stricken widow, was taken home to await the preparation for burial, it was more than the disconsolate woman could endure. She wept as one for whom there was no more comfort-no more hope.

The grave received its new victim with a welcome, and he was covered deep and alone for his long rest. Not until the judgment day will those lips that so often tasted the wine, be parted to curse or to confess; but then they will move once more, when the great burden of a life's sorrows will be spoken by the drunkard, and the penalty be inflicted not only on the unfortunate inebriate, but likewise on the one who suffered less in this life-the vender of the poison-whose sin is greater in the sight of just Heaven. And when comes the vender's terrible judgment, then will the whole truth be told before the great assizes of the recompensing Judge of all, and the legalizer of the traffic in intoxicating drink will hear the severest doom that stands affixed to any violated law of God. Oh, save the living from incurring that awful sentence !

The widow never recovered from her deep affliction. It was too much for her sensitive, delicate nature, and she sunk beneath the weight of her troubles. In a few months she died of grief, far away from the scene of her many trials, even in the midst of friends. She was laid to rest in a beautiful cemetery. Hers is a Christian's grave; and when her honored dust shall be gathered into living flesh "in the twinkling of an eye," when the archangel's trump shall sound down from the Judgment Throne of Jehovah, her pale lips will praise the Lord

for so soft a slumber, and shout aloud at the opening of the golden gates of so sweet a heaven, as she hears the welcome, "Well done-enter into the joys of thy Lord!"

Heaven has befriended the orphans. And may those who fear no danger, think of the many who have fallen!

WINTER.

'Tis winter, and the cold winds moan
Through all the Northern lands;
The streams are fastened, every one,
In icy fetter-bands.

So shall the wintry air of death
Congeal our flowing tears,

And chill our life-blood, stop our breath,
And end our trial years.

The crystal snow, so pure and light,
Is sifted to the ground;

The fields and forests, sprinkled white,

No more with mirth resound.

So shall a white and spotless shroud

Our mortal forms enfold,

When these young hearts of ours, so proud,
In death are still and cold.

The gentle birds have gone away
To sing in orange groves;
And there, O, sweetly all the day,

They tell their tender loves!

So Death-our spirits then shall stay
In heavenly bowers so fair,

And sweetly sing, and dove-like play
Among the laurels there.

VALLEY FORGE.

EARLY in the morning of a chilly day toward the close of November, 1860, we started on the comfortable cars of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, bound for a day's ramble along the banks of the romantic Schuylkill. In about an hour after our departure from the city of Brotherly Love, we arrived at the secluded dale at the mouth of Valley Creek, distant twenty miles north-west from the city, known on the page of our country's history, and in the sad remembrances of those who there exhibited true patriotic devotion, as Valley FORGE a name dear to every American heart.

The forest trees that stood in clusters on the hillslopes on either side of the valley, had already shaken off their summer foliage, and were bared to the cold winds that moaned sad autumn-farewells through their desolate branches. The fields had assumed the dull, dead brown that frosts bring in exchange for the living green of summer. The sky was leaden, and the atmosphere damp and disagreeable. The day was peculiarly appropriate for visiting the scenes of suffering and of sorrow, such as were here endured by the noble faithful of the "times that tried men's souls."

The river curves a little to the left as you ascend its