THE WHITE ROSES.

and set me an example of fortitude and resolution to crush a passion, which, as our consciences cannot now approve it, would only lead to misery. Then, in a better world we may yet be happy together.'-To this declaration she stedfastly adhered. In vain did my father and I entreat her to remove to our house, where she should be regarded as my sister. 'William,' said she, when I closely pressed her on the subject, 'is your brother's friend; but I wish while I live to be reminded of nothing but the grave. In this humble dwelling I spent the three happiest days of my life, and there'pointing to the church-yard-'I see the spot where the bones of my dear mother repose.'

"Grief soon undermined her constitution, and in a few weeks the bloom of health and youth was fled. 'My dear Hannah,' said I, one day when I called to see her, and my eye dwelt with sorrow on her pallid countenance, how quickly have the roses faded from these lovely cheeks!' She heaved a sigh and smiled. Next morning I found her in a high fever; the physician declared her state to be dangerous. She drew me gently to her bed. Last night,' said she, in a faint voice, 'an angel appeared to me in a dream: The roses of thy cheeks,' said he, ' are faded, because thou hast striven on earth to perform thy duty receive in their stead the flowers of Paradise, which never fade.'-He presented to me three white roses, and the moment I touched them the angel vanished.'-She now thought of nothing but

death, for which she sought earnestly to prepare herself, and on the third day she was no more.

A grave was dug for her beside her mother, on the spot where I have planted the white rose-trees in memory of my beloved friend. Early in the morning, my brother and I followed her without noise to the grave. Just at the moment when I had caused the coffin to be opened for the last time, William, who had known nothing of her illness, and had hoped to see her again at matins, came unexpectedly to us from the church. With fixed eye, and looks of unutterable horror, he threw himself on his knees beside the corpse: not a tear dropped from his eye, not a word from his lips; he only kissed her clasped hands, and we had some difficulty to remove him. Every morning at sunrise he continued to visit the grave, and there he tarried till the moment when the sexton was about to lock the gate of the church-yard. He never spoke to any one, but would look wildly up to Heaven, and then fix his eyes for hours together immoveably on the grave. His father imagined that a change of scene might mitigate his sorrow, and had him conveyed, but not without the most obstinate resistance, to an eminent physician at Warsaw. The resources of art, however, failed; the increasing derangement of his mind proved incurable. His father's remorse comes too late-poor William! he is confined in a madhouse!"

now

THE ELDER'S DEATH-BED.

It was on a fierce and howling winter day that I was crossing the dreary moor of Auchindown, on my way to the manse of that parish, a solitary pedestrian. The snow, which had been incessantly falling for a week past, was drifted into beautiful but dangerous wreaths, far and wide, over the melancholy expanse--and the scene kept visibly shifting before me, as the strong wind that blew from every point of the compass struck the dazzling masses, and heaved them up and down in endless transformation. There was something inspiriting in the labour with which, in the buoyant strength of youth, I forced my way through the storm-and I could not but enjoy those gleamings of sun-light that ever and anon burst through some unexpected opening in the sky, and gave a character of cheerfulness, and even warmth to the sides or summits of the stricken hills. Sometimes the wind stopt of a sudden, and then the air was as silent as the snow-not a murmur to be heard from spring or stream, now all frozen up over those high mooorlands. As the momentary cessations of the sharp drift allowed my eyes to look onwards

and around, I saw here and there up the little opening valleys, cottages just visible beneath the black stems of their snow covered clumps of trees, or beside some small spot of green pasture kept open for the sheep. These intimations of life and happiness came delightfully to me in the midst of the desolation; and the barking of a dog, attending some shepherd in his quest on the hill, put fresh vigour into my limbs, telling me that, lonely as I seemed to be, I was surrounded by cheerful though unseen company, and that I was not the only wanderer over

the snows.

As I walked along, my mind was insensibly filled with a crowd of pleasant images of rural winter-life that I helped me gladly onwards over many miles of moor. thought of the severe but cheerful labours of the barnthe mending of farm-gear by the fireside the wheel turned by the foot of old age, less for gain than as a thrifty pastime-the skilful mother, making "auld claes look amaist as weel 's the new"-the ballad unconsciously listened to by the family all busy at their own tasks round the singing maiden-the old traditionary tale told by some wayfarer hospitably housed till the storm should blow by-the unexpected visit of neighbours on need or friendship-or the footstep of lover undeterred by snowdrifts that have buried up his flocks ;—but above all, I thought of those hours of religious worship that have not yet escaped from the domestic life of the peasantry of Scotland-of the sound of psalms that the depth of snow

cannot deaden to the ear of him to whom they are chanted -and of that sublime sabbath-keeping which, on days too tempestuous for the kirk, changes the cottage of the shepherd into the Temple of God.

With such glad and peaceful images in my heart, I travelled along that dreary moor, with the cutting wind in my face, and my feet sinking in the snow, or sliding on the hard blue ice beneath it-as cheerfully as I ever walked, in the dewy warmth of a summer morning, through fields of fragrance and of flowers. And now I could discern, within half an hour's walk, before me, the spire of the church, close to which stood the manse of my aged friend and benefactor. My heart burned within me as a sudden gleam of stormy sunlight tipt it with fire and I felt, at that moment, an inexpressible sense of the sublimity of the character of that grey-headed shepherd who had, for fifty years, abode in the wilderness, keeping together his own happy little flock.

As I was ascending a knoll, I saw before me on horseback an old man, with his long white hairs beaten against his face, who nevertheless advanced with a calm countenance against the hurricane. It was no other than my father, of whom I had been thinking-for my father had I called him for twenty years-and for twenty years my father had he truly been. My surprise at meeting him on such a moor-on such a day, was but momentary, for I knew that he was a shepherd who cared not for the winter's wrath. As he stopped to take my hand kindly