Has failed, forever failed, all mortal rhyme,
To count the changes of a starry chime;
Nor speech, nor language e'er was found
To translate pure such liquid sound

This bright vignette on nature's page,
Revered in verse through every age,
Electrotyped by Triune hand,
With hidden plates in silent land.

These lovely thoughts in nature's broast,
Have ne'er a mortal volume blessed;
Too bright for poetry, too beautiful for song,
All the ideals fail, to paint the starry throng.

Art veils her face and kneels in reverent tears,
While puzzled science, knitting up the sleeve of years,
Drops all her stitches as she counts again;

Sets up her decades, tries in vain,

With tangled speculations, baffled tries,

To ravel the long mystery of skies.

Like sentinels at intervals ye stand
Along the borders of that frontier land,
Where finite ends, and infinite is spanned,

And ever engineering on your golden track,

Fresh light on mortal path ye're sending back.

Dear face of friendly star! you only smile good-night;

Mid breaking hearthstone links and waning household light;

When loved ones tell us long and last adieu,

Your au revoir you whisper kind and true;

Low through our lattice in some foreign clime,

Sing soft voices, auld lang syne.

Bright beads on strings of ages, the rosary of time,
Guarded by ancient Sages, as amulet sublime,

As on each virgin star they gazed, each pure and radiant face,
Rehearsing Pater Noster lines, perfection, beauty, grace;
Who counts the starry chaplet, where'er on earth he be,
Must offer from his kneeling heart his Gloria Patri.

And we, another prayer send up, unto the Spirit, Son,
That we, like stars in duty's path; may shine unfailing on;
And toiling up earth's cloudy heights may to our zenith rise,
And find our true celestial point, above in paradise ;
Trace back our longitude from earth, on Joy's meridian high,
Counting degress of happiness along the radiant sky.

Oh! could the starry ladder our yearning spirits climb,
And reach the topmost skylight where lamps eternal shine;
In yonder great Valhalla put on our starry crown,
And join the bright procession that moves the ages on.

There come at times such longings to be what we are not,
We wish with sad despondings we had some brighter lot;
Like thee, oh star unchanging, our loftiest endeavor,
Seems ever onward moving, yet standing still forever.

"Twill not be slumbering long; in wider range
There'll be a waking soon; we all shall change;
These mantling folds of care shall backward roll,
Till beckoning stars call up to longing's goal.

We'll greet again bright stars when earth's dark nights are o'er,
And dawns the spirit's higher life on the immortal shore;
Then morning stars shall sing once more, and shout for joy again,
As whiteclad souls through pearly gates pass up the golden plain.

CHAPTER XL.

MR. JOHN PRIDEFIT GOES TO THE WEDDI NG.

"We sit together, with the skies,
The steadfast skies above us;
We look into each other's eyes,
And how long will you love us?
The eyes grow dim with prophecy,
The voices low and breathless,
Till death us part! O words, to be
Our best for Love the deathless."

"How many bridesmaids? What did the bride have on? How did she appear? How long was her trail? What did the bridesmaids wear? Was she married with a ring? How many were at the reception? How many ushers were there?" All these questions asked Mrs. John Pridefit of her husband when he came home one evening, and told her he had stepped into Trinity Church and seen the artist Frank Carleyn, who took her uncle's portrait, married.

Why didn't you come home for me, John ?" said his disappointed wife. "I wanted to see the dresses so much. I like to know what people wear, and at such a time people look as well as they can.'

"Because," said her husband gravely, "I only heard of it ten minutes beforehand, and I knew you couldn't dress in ten minutes."

"Did you go in that rig ?" said she, looking at him with a dismayed expression.

66

Certainly. I went with the dust of the desk on my coat sleeves. I have been in court nearly all day. Nobody looked at me, they all looked at the bride."

"Well," said Mrs. Pridefit, in a more good-humored tone, "What did the bride have on ?-you haven't told me yet.' "She had on something white, I believe-something white."

What is the reason, John," said his wife provoked, "you can never tell what a lady has on ?"

"Well, well," said Mr. Pridefit, apologetically, "everything is ashes of roses now. If her dress was ashes of roses, it must have been the ashes of white roses; for I am sure it was something white. Almost any lady looks well in full bridal costume. Her charms are heightened, or defects softened, by attractive and airy dress; but the poor bridegrooms stand upon their own merits-they look about as God

made them-no veil to adorn, no illusion before and behind and around. But this groom needed no help to make him look handsome-he is a fine-looking fellow, and the bride's face was like the face of an angel."

Well, how many bridesmaids were there?"

"I can't say. I know there was one, and something white too she had on; but I must tell you something. We had cards two weeks ago to this reception. I was at home when they came, and to tell the truth, I lost six hundred dollars that day, so I forgot all about the reception cards."

Mr. Pridefit saw his wife looked more disappointed about the reception than the money, so he added in a husky voice, "To-day is the fourth anniversary of the death of our only child. O Eliza, Eliza! Life has been tame to me since that;" and so it had. Under his pillow, night after night, had that little daguerreotype been hidden-the little lips kissed again and again; for never had John Pridefit loved any living thing as he loved that little, laughing, openhearted, affectionate child, and she only three years ago was drowned in a cistern, not far from her father's country residence.

But Mrs. Pridefit was Mrs. Pridefit still. Her heart still clung to "pomps and vanities;" she regretted even now she could not wear her light blue moiré antique at the artist's reception.

Little did she know that the artist's bride had once received so cold a reception from her hands and heart, when taken half dead from that cistern, only ten years ago. "Who gave away the bride ?" said Mrs. Pridefit.

up

"When the clergyman said in his clear voice, Who giv eth this woman to be married to this man,' a fine-looking gentleman came out from the crowd, and gave her away. They say his name is Selwyn-he is a great friend of Carleyn's. The bride, I think, has no living relative, so this gentleman gave her away."

"That was strange," said Mrs. Pridefit.

"Were there no relatives standing up with them? And where does this Selwyn live? Is he a stranger here? If it hadn't been for my neuralgia I would have found out myself."

"He has boarded some time at Mrs. Edwards', and is a particular friend of Carleyn's. That's all I know about it," said Mr. Pridefit.

"You never can get any news out of a man," said Mrs. Pridefit. But the next day she called on Charity Gouge, and she learned that some unknown friend had furnished the bride's trousseau, and sent her an elegant white satin wedding dress, with two flounces of point lace. At the head of the flounces was a wreath of tuberoses and geranium leaves. With the dress was a bridal veil of point lace also. The bride was said to be portionless; but she was dressed as richly as any wealthy bride, and her husband furnished nothing.

Miss Gouge thought there was some mystery about it. She had even gone so far as to question the dressmaker, but she either could or would reveal nothing, only that Mr. Selwyn ordered the carriage, and he was the last to say good-bye when they left for their wedding tour.

Well," said Mrs. Pridefit," when the bride repeated the words, With all my worldly goods I thee endow,' Mr. Carleyn must have felt liberally endowed. I was married in white silk; I have always been very sorry that I wasn't married in white satin."

While the carriage bore Carleyn and his wife off on their pleasant journey, in a little white-curtained and striped carpeted room in Titusville, sat one evening a rare coupleLevi Longman and Prudence Potter. Levi had concluded to buy a part of the lot belonging to Prudence, so he came one night to make the terms. He flavors his conversation with common sense, sober reason and cool judgment, as he sits in his high-backed chair, tipped against the wall.

When business matters are disposed of, in her laconic way, Prudence draws up her chair a little closer, and asks How that blind doctor in the city recovered his sight?"

In his wisest manner, and most deliberate tone, Levi answered, "All the efforts of surgery and medicine, blisters, moxas, nux vomica, belladonna failed in his case-and then electricity was judiciously applied. I can't describe the