When all was over, and each family quietly asleep in its own hut, I found myself wide awake. Cruelly wide awake, I might say. For, hard as I had tried to keep my thoughts of home away, they did come. So I wandered out into the starlight all alone, turned my face to the south, and let myself imagine all about them there. I wished them each a merry Christmas, and prayed that they might be kept alive and in health. Coming away, I threw a kiss to my dear little sister, and thought, "Who knows but some northern gale may blow it straight upon her cheek!"

There was once a child, and he strolled about a good deal, and thought of a number of things. He had a sister, who was a child too, and his constant companion. The two used to wonder all day long. They wondered at the beauty of the flowers; they wondered at the height and blueness of the sky; they wondered at the depth of the bright water;

they wondered at the power of God who made the lovely world.

They used to say to one another, sometimes, supposing all the children upon earth were to die, would the flowers, and the water, and the sky, be sorry? They believed they would be sorry. For, said they, the buds are the children of the flowers, and the little playful streams that gambol down the hillsides are the children of the water; and the smallest bright specks playing at hide and seek in the sky all night must surely be the children of the stars; and they would all be grieved to see their playmates, the children of men, no more.

There was one clear shining star that used to come out in the sky before the rest, near the church spire, above the graves. It was larger and more beautiful, they thought, than all the others, and every night they watched for it, standing hand in hand at the window. Whoever saw it first, cried out, "I see the star!" And often they cried out both together, knowing so well when it would rise, and where. So they grew to be such friends with it, that, before lying down in their beds, they always looked out once again, to bid it good night; and when they were turning round to sleep, they used to say, "God bless the star!

But while she was still very young-oh, very, very young-the sister drooped, and came to be so

weak that she could no longer stand in the window at night; and then the child looked sadly out by himself, and when he saw the star, turned round and said to the patient, pale face on the bed, "I see and then a smile would come upon the the star! face, and a little weak voice used to say, "God bless my brother and the star!"

And so the time came, all too soon!-when the child looked out alone, and when there was no face on the bed; and when there was a little grave among the graves, not there before; and when the star made long rays down toward him, as he saw it through

his tears.

Now, these rays were so bright, and they seemed to make such a shining way from earth to heaven, that when the child went to his solitary bed, he dreamed about the star; and dreamed that, lying where he was, he saw a train of people taken up that sparkling road by angels. And the star, opening, showed him a great world of light, where many more such angels waited to receive them.

All these angels, who were waiting, turned their beaming eyes upon the people who were carried up into the star; and some came out from the long rows in which they stood, and fell upon the people's necks, and kissed them tenderly, and went away with them down avenues of light, and were so happy in their company, that, lying in his bed, he wept for joy.

But there were many angels who did not go with them, and among them one he knew. The patient face that once had lain upon the bed was glorified and radiant, but his heart found out his sister among all the host.

His sister's angel lingered near the entrance of the star, and said to the leader among those who had brought the people thither, "Is my brother come?" And he said, "No."

She was turning hopefully away, when the child stretched out his arms, and cried, "O sister, I am here! Take me!" and then she turned her beaming eyes upon him, and it was night; and the star was shining into the room, making long rays down toward him as he saw it through his tears.

From that hour forth, the child looked out upon the star as on the home he was to go to, when his time should come; and he thought that he did not belong to the earth alone, but to the star, too, because of his sister's angel gone before.

CHARLES DICKENS.

The busy world shoves angrily aside
The man who stands with arms akimbo set,

Until occasion tells him what to do;

And he who waits to have his task marked out

Shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

SUNSET.

Slowly, slowly up the wall

Steals the sunshine, steals the shade;
Evening damps begin to fall,
Evening shadows are displayed.
Round me, o'er me, everywhere,
All the sky is grand with clouds,
And athwart the evening air

Wheel the swallows home in crowds.
Shafts of sunshine from the west

Paint the dusky windows red;
Darker shadows deeper rest
Underneath and overhead.
Darker, darker, and more wan,

In

my breast the shadows fall; Upward steals the life of man, As the sunshine from the wall. From the wall into the sky, From the roof along the spire; Ah! the souls of those that die Are but sunbeams lifted higher.

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.