with me again, Master Charles;" but I hid myself within the long cloak which my father wore; and, taking hold of his hand, said, "No, no, mayn't I stay with you, father?" He had not noticed me before, but now he pressed my hand more closely within his, and said to the poor woman, very mildly: "I will keep him with me." We entered the church, and I trembled all over; every one looked so grave, and a loud mournful bell tolled just over my head, which I had not heard before.

My father was very attentive to the service; but I saw that he always looked at the coffin, and moved his head quickly whenever it was moved. I could not think what the great pit was made for in the churchyard. I had guessed, from what I heard the clergyman say, that my mother's body was in the coffin; but I did not guess they were going to bury the coffin in the ground, because the hawthorn blossoms were not buried, and the grass in the churchyard was just as green as that in the field. My father stood at one end of the grave, with his head uncovered; he never once moved his eyes, but his face was very pale, and his lips shook. I was frightened, and only just peeped my head out of his long cloak. Elizabeth stood very near him, but a thick veil hung down over her face, and through it I saw she held her handkerchief before her eyes. When the coffin sounded at the bottom of the grave, my father started and shivered, just as if he had been cold; it was odd, I thought then, for the weather was mild and warm; I did not know that he shivered from grief; soon after this my

father walked away; I wondered why he should go, and leave my mother's body in the deep dark hole; I had half a mind to stay, but my poor father looked so mournful that I slowly accompanied him home.—I had cried a little once or twice, but I had never missed my mother so much till when I passed her room door, as I went up stairs to bed; I ran up faster than Jenny, and I could not help going in; it was almost dark, the cold air came in through the open windows; the carpets were all taken up, and the room looked very desolate. My mother's favourite little work table was pushed up in a corner, and on it lay a turnscrew and some screws: in the middle of the room were two odd looking stands, like those which they put the coffin on in the church, and some sawdust was thinly strewed on the floor. I was standing in this room, almost ready to cry, and thinking of my dear, dear mother, and that I should perhaps grow up to be a man, and never see her again till I died. I had never felt so very, very miserable as I then did; I have never felt so miserable since. It grew darker and darker, still I was standing in the middle of the room. I began by degrees to be afraid of moving; and I put both my hands before my eyes, that I might not see any thing, for every thing looked so melancholy. All at once I heard something pass rustling by my head; and then I heard it flutter against the window. I did not consider one moment; but I burst out into a loud fit of crying. Jenny heard me, she had been looking about, for she could not think where I had gone. When she came in I ran to her, and began to

make more noise: I would not tell her why I cried out, nor would I go away with her; but I seemed as if her presence only gave me the liberty of crying more violently. I would not be pacified, when Elizabeth came into the room. She spoke to me: I turned round, taking away Jenny's apron, behind which I had hidden my face. I minded all Elizabeth told me directly, for she spoke just like my mother. "Act like a manly boy, my dear Charles," she said; " and tell me calmly why you are so frightened." "Oh! there it is, there it is," I cried loudly, for, during the time my sister had spoken so quietly, I heard the loud fluttering again. Elizabeth guessed instantly what had frightened me; she went up to the window, and, coming again to me, took my hand, to lead me to the window. "Oh! no, no," I cried out, but at last I let her draw me forward. I kept my eyes covered at first by my hands, but at last I opened them, finger by finger, and saw a large moth, beating its wings against the window, and seeming quite as terrified as I had been. Elizabeth sat by my bedside that night (she always heard me say my prayers after my mother died), and talked to me till I fell asleep. When I woke the next morning, I went up to the window; the first thing I saw was the church; I remembered that my mother's body had been lying out all night, and ran as fast as I could to the churchyard. The dark pit was not to be seen, nor could I find where it had been for some time. On the spot was a sort of mound raised up, like many others in the churchyard, covered with fresh turf, and bound together with

osiers. One little cowslip was growing up among the grass; the soft pale green stem of this flower was no longer than a long blade of grass; but I was quite glad to see it, and every morning I went to look if the buds were blown, and when the weather was very dry I always watered it. After it left off blowing I never forgot it; but loved its little crumpled half-hidden leaves better than all the brightest summer flowers: now there are more than thirty cowslips on my mother's grave. A cowslip was her favourite flower.

ANONYMOUS.

ON OUR PASSAGE THROUGH LIFE.

A REVERIE.

I Do not much love the tribe of dreaming writers. There is something very unnatural in supposing such products of understanding, such a regular series of ideas, generally abstruse and allegorical enough to put the comprehension of a waking reader upon the stretch, to be the effects of wild imagination, at those hours when she is most unassisted by reason and memory. Yet it is pity

a lively fancy should be balked, and confined to the dull road of essay writing, merely to avoid such a trifling absurdity in the phrase. It might certainly be changed, with great propriety, into that of a reverie, which, by people that indulge their imaginations, is often carried on a very considerable time, with as gay a variety of circumstances and as lively colouring as the poppydipped pencil of Morpheus could ever produce.

Be it allowed me then to say, that one afternoon this summer I fell into a deep reverie, lulled by the whispering of groves, the soft descent of a refreshing shower, and the musical repetitions of a thrush; the air around me was perfumed with jessamines and woodbines; and I found myself perfectly in a poetical situation. The volume I had in my hand should of right, to be sure, have been Ovid or Petrarch; but it was Sunday, and the genteel reader must excuse me if I own that it contained the book of Ecclesiastes.

The soothing scene about me had at length suspended my reading; but my thoughts were still filled with many beautiful images of the nothingness and vanity of human life. There is something so bounded and so shadowy in our existence that the celestial beam of understanding, which shows us what it is, must give us almost a disgust of life itself, were not our affections attached to it by so many tender ties, as call back our proud thoughts every moment. "Most miserable state!" continued I, in a melancholy soliloquy," what wretchedness are we conversant in, to what mean objects are we bound down, how little a way can we see round us, how much less can we comprehend through what a wild of errors lies the narrow path of truth! Narrow and long! Long? Why then it is not, methinks, so strange that one should not step to the end of it at once. Well, suffice it that our progress be gradual, but what a thick dark hedge is here on either side! How much pleasanter would it be to break through it, and view the fair varieties of the universe as we pass along! Suppose it quite