the open doorway as his friends bid him good
bye, and his lank horse plods wearily
campwards.

ONE BY ONE.

    ONE by one the sands are flowing,
        One by one the moments fall;
    Some are coming, some are going,
        Do not strive to grasp them all.

    One by one thy duties wait thee,
        Let thy whole strength go to each,
    Let no future dreams elate thee,
        Learn thou first what these can teach.

    One by one (bright gifts from Heaven)
        Joys are sent thee here below;
    Take them readily when given,
        Ready too to let them go.

    One by one thy griefs shall meet thee,
        Do not fear an armed band;
    One will fade as others greet thee,
        Shadows passing through the land.

    Do not look at life's long sorrow;
        See how small each moment's pain;
    God will help thee for to-morrow,
        Every day begin again.

    Every hour that fleets so slowly
        Has its task to do or bear;
    Luminous the crown, and holy,
        If thou set each gem with care.

    Do not linger with regretting,
        Or for passing hours despond;
    Nor, the daily toil forgetting,
        Look too eagerly beyond.

    Hours are golden links, God's token,
        Reaching Heaven; but one by one
    Take them, lest the chain be broken
        Ere the pilgrimage be done.

RALPH THE NATURALIST.

A STRANGE dreamy fellow was Ralph
Jessett, always wandering about the woods
and fields by himself, and finding out more
secrets of nature, in his queer shambling
way, than he would have ever learnt from
science had he gone through all the triposes
of Cambridge. He knew where almost every
nest in the garden was, from the tomtit's, in
the wall of the old arbour, to the shy linnet's,
hidden low among the shrubbery trees; and
the sitting birds never flew away from Ralph
Jessett's looking at them. They seemed to
know that he was a friend, and would not
harm them. He would tell marvellous stories
of the intelligence of all creation, from snails
to dogs; and as for spiders, and earwigs, and
centipedes, and all manner of creeping, crawling,
wriggling creatures, why to hear him,
you would think that Newton and
Shakspeare were mere humbugs compared to
them. He had no antipathies either. It
was quite curious to see the unconcern with
which he would handle slugs, toads, water-
newts,—every kind of entomological
abomination; saying, with his sweet smile and
embarrassed humility, "The more one knows,
the more one loves all things in nature."
And then he would give long accounts of the
love-worthiness of these creatures, the very
mention of which would have made many a
young lady scream and shudder; but after
hearing Ralph's biographies, one felt quite
respectfully towards efts, and cleggs, and stag-
beetles, and hundred-legs of every race, and
almost ashamed somehow of being a man,
and not an insect.

He had always been queer, this poor relation
of the rich Temples of Manor House.
His mother used to fret about him a great
deal before she died; for she fancied he was
not quite "canny," as the Scotch say, and
that he would never make his way in the
world, left as he was without fortune, and
with such unprofitable tastes only. For he
cared only for natural history, and only for
that experimentally, not scientifically. When
quite a little fellow—and obliged to stop at
home alone, and not take part in any sort of
game or play, because he was so sickly—he
might be heard talking to the butterflies and
birds flying low about him, holding long
conversations with them, and telling them that
he loved them,—oh! far better than
anything else in the world; which he did, excepting
his dear mother.

In the days of witchcraft and fairy-folk,
Ralph would have been thought an elf-child
to begin with, and a wizard as he went on.
As it was, he was such a withered, quaint,
odd-looking creature, with so much irregular
learning, and so much simplicity of character,
that it was a puzzle to many whether he
were 'cute or simple, as the country people
say. And when he went to live at Manor
House, on his mother's death, it was thought
quite a charity in Mr. Temple to take him,
(though he received payment for his education
and maintenance), and a very great honour
for Ralph to be admitted to his establishment.
They were cousins though; and in
early life Ralph's father had been of infinite
service to Mr. Temple. But Ralph thought
it an honour with the rest, and said so
loudly; for he had not a very exalted notion
of his own dignity, and was far more inclined
to gratitude than to self-assertion. His birds
and insects taught him humility, he used
to say.

The Temples were very kind, in their way,
to Ralph. Mrs. Temple took great interest
in him, and supplied him with books, and
encouraged his tastes, so far as she could.
For she was a sweet, placid, fair-faced woman,
—one of those women who go upstairs very
slowly, and who breathe very hard while
they are doing so,—an indolent gentlewoman,
who was never seen to run since her teens,
and who was never known to be cross since
she cut her teeth,—a woman whose most
positive acts were those that should make