repudiated all censorious and uncharitable feelings. This was in harmony with her whole historywith every previous and every subsequent development of her character. Not even a shadow of malice or revenge ever fell upon her heart. She often remarked, that there was no offense against friendship which she could not pardon; and that the greater the injury, the greater the glory of forgiveness.

On one occasion, having received a provocation of no inconsiderable magnitude-a provocation which, in ninety-nine cases of a hundred, would have proved the death-warrant of all friendly intercourse between the parties-she wrote on a slip of paper, and placed where they must inevitably meet. the eye of the offender, the following original lines:

"The chain shall never thus be riven,

While heart and hope can live;
For O! if sweet to be forgiven,
'Tis sweeter to forgive!"

Such instances of long-suffering meekness are not very common; and when they do occur, merit all commendation. Coldness and cruelty seldom transform us into angels of love. Insult and injury rarely excite our pity, so much as they wound our pride. Too often, alas! the formula of forgiveness is the mere pretext of a heartless policy; revenge, in one form, is relinquished for a higher gratification

in another; and commiseration, allied to contempt, is indulged as a relief from exhaustion.

"How beautifully falls

From human lips, that blessed word-Forgive!
Thrice happy he whose heart has been so schooled

In the meek lessons of humility,

That he can give it utterance! It imparts
Celestial grandeur to the human soul,
And maketh man an angel!"

CHAPTER VIII.

ROSEBUDS.

"There are some hours that pass so soon,
Our spell-touched hearts scarce know they end."
Mrs. Welby.

"АH! were I a little while gifted with creative power, I would produce a world especially for myself, and suspend it under the mildest sun—a little world, where I would have nothing but little lovely children; and these I would never suffer to grow up, but only to play eternally; and if a seraph were weary of heaven, or his golden pinions drooped, I would send him to sojourn a month in my happy infant world; for no angel, as long as he saw their innocence, could lose his own!"

So says, or rather sings, the eccentric Walt in the Flegeljahre. Beautiful extravaganza, breathing the spirit of the truest poetry! Childhood is full of the poetic. It concentrates all the elements of the beautiful. Therefore the true poet has always exhibited a fondness for little children. And there is scarcely a lovelier trait of character, or a clearer indication of an innocent heart. He who can listen to the flute-like voices of childhood, and look upon its gladsome features, blcoming like the first roses in

the first morning of Paradise, without kindling into love and joy, has no appreciation of the beautiful, and has lost one of the purest elements of his nature. He who loves not children, loves not God. Was not Jesus once a child? and did he not bless the little ones, declaring that "of such is the kingdom of heaven?"

This was one of Adaline's most prominent characteristics, of which many pleasing instances are on record in the diary. Often--to use her own language-she "lived over again an hour of the early past," in extemporizing a story for the entertainment of "little Emory." Ever and anon she chronicles the incidents of a ride or a visit, in which she is sure to introduce her amusing interviews with children. Nothing delighted her more than a party of little girls, from six to ten years old, whom she frequently gathered around her at The Grove, participating in their simple sports with a zest equal to that of any of her rosy guests. An occasion of this kind is thus recorded:

"A rare day. One of my charming juvenile parties. I gave the little fairies the freedom of the house. Books, drawings, paintings, engravings, shells, boxes, herbarium, every thing was laid under contribution to the occasion; and such delight, wonder, admiration, ecstacy, as shone in their sunny faces and burst from their ruby lips, might have stirred a deeper heart than mine. Chairs and sofas

were entirely discarded; and, strewed like rosebuds over the carpet, some were regaling themselves with the visions of the gladsome tale, some lavishing their heartiest éloges on the executions of my pencil, some oh-ing and ah-ing over the engravings in the magazines, some rattling about among miscellaneous toys and trinkets, and some dancing to the spirit-flashes which the prism flung upon the wall. I walked with them in the garden and the grove, sat down under the shady hickories, made large additions to my stock of household knowledge, was initiated into the art of making chairs from grass, and learned withal some pretty lessons in human nature. We wandered in the orchard, gathering fruit from no forbidden tree; and I felt that, if our great fore-mother was expelled from Paradise, one of her daughters at least had been restored. I was a child again. The blood leaped along my veins in rapture. I could have ballanced myself on the stamen of a lilly. Ah! it was painful to break the delusion; I was not a child!

"Childhood! To me that word is fraught with all that God has made of loveliness. Children! I love them for their honesty, their simplicity, their credulity. They have no stratagems. Their hearts are as transparent as crystal, and as beautiful as diamonds. Children! incarnate beams of light! roses sparkling with dew in the morning sunshine! Ah! can such bright and joyous creatures be destined to sin, and sorrow, and the manifold infirmi