Puslapio vaizdai
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in falling so suddenly into the midst of painting-lessons from Miss Dudley, I really felt as if I was having greatness thrust upon me in a manner to take my breath away. If I had only had a little more time to think about it, my touch might have been truer for the nonce. Her paint-box was so handsomely furnished, too, and so daintily ordered, that I scarcely dared touch it. She gave me a little respite, however, by rubbing the colors for me,-colors, some of them, that, for their costliness, I could not allow myself at all at home, — and selected for me two such exquisite brushes from her store! Then she lay down beside me on a "couch of Ind," smiled as I laid her plaid over her feet, and watched me at the work. How that brought my poor Fanny back to me! But my new mistress went on unwearyingly, teaching and encouraging me, and, if I was more than satisfied with her, did not on her part show that she was less than satisfied with me. The clock struck twelve before I dreamed of its taking upon itself to offer such an untimely interruption.

"Now I am nicely rested," said she, soon after; "and I am afraid you must begin to be nicely tired. Do you

not?"

"No, indeed; I seldom do till nine o'clock at night."

"Then we will indulge ourselves here still a little longer. But hark! Are not there my little people back from school?"

The expression common to those who love children stole into her face. Young voices were drawing nearer.

"Come to my arms, O lovely cherub!" said one that had a boyish sound in it, paternally.

"Look out and see them," whispered Miss Dudley to me.

I peeped through the blinds. A handsome and very graceful olive-hued boy, apparently about fourteen years old, with a form like that of the Mercury upborne by a zephyr, eyes like stars, lashes like star-beams, and an expression that would have made him a good study for a picture of Puck, half lean

ing, half sitting, on the stone balustrade, was tenderly dandling in his arms a huge, vulgar - looking, gray, striped stable - cat, that rolled and writhed therein in transports of comfort and affection.

"But, indeed, Paul," remonstrated another voice, tout comme un serin, "Pet ought to be whipped instead of hugged! Lily says so."

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"Tiger Lily? What a cruel girl! O, my Pettitoes! how can she say so?" Why," answered another girlish voice, a little firmer, but hardly less sweet, than the first, "only think! While we were all in school, he watched his opportunity and killed the robin that lives in the crab-apple-tree. The gardener says he heard it cry, and ran with his hoe; and there was this wicked, horrid, grim, great Pet galloping as fast as he could gallop to the stable, with its poor little beak sticking out at one side of his grinning mouth, and its tail at the other!"

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"Why, Pettitoes! how very inconsiderate! You won't serve it so another time, will you? Though how a robin can have the face to squeak when he catches it himself at noon, after cramming himself with worms the whole morning, is more than I can see!"

"O no, Paul! He was singing most sweetly! I heard him; and so did Rose."

"And so did I. He was singing through his nose as bad as Deacon Piper, because he had a worm in his mouth. He could n't leave off gobbling one single minute, not even to practise his music."

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they had that indefinable look of blood which belonged to their kin, which is sometimes, to be sure, to be found in families that have no great-grandfathers, after they have been well-fed, well-read, and well-bred for a generation or two, but to which they had an uncommonly good right, as their pedigree so I afterwards found―ran straight back to the Norman Conquest, without a single "probably" in it. They were, for their age, tall and slender, with yet more springy buoyancy than their aunt in pose and movement. Strangers were always mistaking them for each other. That day I could scarcely tell them apart, though afterwards I wondered at it. Rose was the very prettiest child I ever saw, and Lily pretty nearly the most beautiful person.

Lily was already the tallest. Her thick and wavy hair was blonde cendrée, and all her features were perfectly Grecian. Her eyes were of a very dark blue, that turned into nothing but clear radiance when she was opposed or in any way excited. Her complexion was healthful, but would be described as soft and warm, rather than brilliant. Her whole fair little face was about as firm and spirited as a fair girlish face could be.

Rose's larger eyes were of a pure, deep hazel. Her hair, as thick and curly as Lily's, was far more glossy and flossy, and of the yellowest, brightest. gold-color. Her nose a most perfect little nose -was more aquiline than

her sister's.

Her skin was of the tints of the finest rare-ripe peaches, pure white and deepening pink; and all around her mouth were dimples lying in wait for her to laugh.

As they met Miss Dudley, with the many-colored Virginia creepers behind them and the flowers behind her, a better tableau vivant of “first youth" and first age could scarcely have been put together than they made. It made me wish that I had been more than a painter of specimens. The elder lady presented me to the younger ones; and they greeted me with that pretty courtesy that always charms us twofold when we meet with it in children, because we scarcely expect it of them. Rose's radiant little countenance, especially, seemed to say, "I have heard of you before, and wished to know you"; and that is one of the most winning expressions that a new countenance can wear. Then they put their arms round “dear Aunt Lizzy,” coaxed her for peaches, and obtained the remainder of our basketful without much difficulty; and then I had to depart, but not quite without solace, for Rose ran after me to say, "Aunt Lizzy hopes, if you are not otherwise engaged, to see you again Monday morning at nine; and she sends you this book that she forgot to give you. It made her think of you, she says, when she was reading it."

It was Greenwood's "Sermons of Consolation"; and, written in her hand on the fly-leaf, I found my name.

THE SWORD OF BOLIVAR.

WITH

the steadfast stars above us,

And the molten stars below,

We sailed through the Southern midnight,

By the coast of Mexico.

Alone, on the desolate, dark-ringed,

Rolling and flashing sea,

A grim old Venezuelan Kept the deck with me, 46

VOL. XVIII. -NO. IIO.

And talked to me of his country,
And the long Spanish war,
And told how a young Republic
Forged the sword of Bolivar.

Of no base mundane metal

Was the wondrous weapon made, And in no earth-born fire

Was fashioned the sacred blade.

But that it might shine the symbol
Of law and light in the land,
Dropped down as a star from heaven,
To flame in a hero's hand,

And be to the world a portent
Of eternal might and right,
They chose for the steel a splinter
From a fallen aerolite.

Then a virgin forge they builded
By the city, and kindled it
With flame from a shattered palm-tree,
Which the lightning's torch had lit, -

That no fire of earthly passion
Might taint the holy sword,
And no ancient error tarnish
The falchion of the Lord.

For Quito and New Granada
And Venezuela they pour
From three crucibles the dazzling
White meteoric ore.

In three ingots it is moulded,
And welded into one,
For an emblem of Colombia,
Bright daughter of the sun!

It is drawn on a virgin anvil,

It is heated and hammered and rolled, It is shaped and tempered and burnished, And set in a hilt of gold;

For thus by the fire and the hammer

Of war a nation is built,

And ever the sword of its power
Is swayed by a golden hilt.

Then with pomp and oratory
The mustachioed señores brought
To the house of the Liberator
The weapon they had wrought;

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The chief of a great republic
Plotting rebellion still,—
An apostate faithful only

To his own ambitious will.

Drunk with a vain ambition,

In his feeble, reckless hand, The sword of Eternal Justice Became but a brawler's brand.

And Colombia was dissevered,
Rent by factions, till at last
Her name among the nations
Is a memory of the past.

Here the grim old Venezuelan
Puffed fiercely his red cigar

A brief moment, then in the ocean
It vanished like a star;

And he slumbered in his hammock;
And only the ceaseless rush
Of the reeling and sparkling waters
Filled the solemn midnight hush,

As I leaned by the swinging gunwale
Of the good ship, sailing slow,
With the steadfast heavens above her,
And the molten heavens below.

Then I thought with sorrow and yearning
Of my own distracted land,

And the sword let down from heaven
To flame in her ruler's hand, –

The sword of Freedom, resplendent
As a beam of the morning star,
Received, reviled, and dishonored
By another than Bolivar!

And my prayers flew home to my country:

O ye tried and fearless crew!

O ye pilots of the nation!

Now her safety is with you.

Beware the traitorous captain,

And the wreckers on the shore; Guard well the noble vessel;

And steadily evermore,

As ye steer through the perilous midnight,
Let your faithful glances go

To the steadfast stars above her,
From their fickle gleams below.

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