ones, His grace was filling my heart with a
new and living light.

It was then that I first sought some
tidings of her. The friend to whom I wrote,
gave me a brief answer. She was dead!
Carried away by the raging of the great
pestilence; and the young husband had
already filled her place with a second wife.

From that day I have never written her
name until now; but she has always lived
within my heart. My affections are no longer
placed on the things of this world; they bud
and bloom in a brighter one, and I hope one
day to gather their blossoms there.

A MICROSCOPIC DREAM.

"IT is incomprehensible!" said my venerable friend.
—"It is perfectly incomprehensible!"
repeated that aged person, when, for
the first time, I displayed with my best
microscope, the active little inhabitants of a
narrow ditch which separates his lands from
the highway road. "What is the purpose of
the strange contortions and the incessant
movement in which those green-coated
fellows seem to spend their existence? I had
heard a good deal about this before; but
the reality far surpasses the description.
What can be the meaning of it all? It is
incomprehensible!"

Now this, for my respected visitor, was
saying a great deal; because, in the popular
belief of the neighbourhood, there was no
saying what he did not know. Secrets, both
family and physical, unsuspected by others,
were familiar to him. His keen eye and his
sharp observation led him to a right
conclusion from the scantiest of premises. People
felt that he read their thoughts and understood
their actions. Whether through long
experience, or by a prophetic gift, whenever
he predicted the future course of an
individual, that prediction was sure to come
true; marriages would turn out happy or
wretched, a child would be a blessing or a
torment to its parents, exactly as the
white-haired seer foretold. He was privately
consulted in stolen interviews by people who had
fallen into trouble, masters suspecting the
honesty of their servants, lovers doubting the
truth of their sweethearts, mothers trembling
for the life of their infant, whispered their
anxieties into his confidential ear, and received
in return useful counsels for their guidance.
Nay, even a notion had got abroad that the
respected sage was endowed with something
more than human powers,— that he was
"nae cannie" altogether,— a little bit of a
wizard, in short. He had a book which
nobody had ever seen lying open, unguarded,
or out of his sight,— a thick, square book,
bound in some curious, foreign, wrinkled
leather, with bright brass clasps that closed
of themselves and opened with a secret
spring, a book in which he did not conceal
that he read frequently and regularly by
night and by day. To this weird book was
generally ascribed the power and the insight
which my visitor was known to exercise over
men and things.

To give one instance out of many: A fire
broke out in the sage's village. It raged,
and threatened to spread universal destruction.
Every exertion failed to get it under,
till some one conceived the bright idea of
sending for the sage. When summoned, they
found him reading his book. He came,
bringing the book also under his cloak. He
advised them how to proceed,— the simplest
possible proceeding, which they wondered
they had not thought of before,— and, sitting
down on a block of wood, a little way off,
he went on reading his book by the light
of the fire. From that moment, the enemy
was mastered. He gave a few more orders,
still reading on; and the faster he read, the
faster the flames were extinguished. When
he shut up his book, the last spark was
out, and nothing remained, but a black heap
of smouldering ashes. What he read in
that book was too powerful for the fire to
resist!

Therefore, I say, it was a great thing
for him to observe to me that the sight I
showed him was incomprehensible; it was
much that he should inquire what was the
object and end of the busy and eccentric
movements performed by the created things
hitherto unseen by his fleshly eye, though
they were not unknown to his mental
vision.

"Before I can tell you what they are about
and what they want," I replied, "I must
first ascertain what they really are. That
is easy enough. You have your book;
I have my books too, and plenty of them.
Only look here: all on the same subject;
native, foreign, new, and old; English, French,
and German; duodecimo, small octavo, large
octavo, with woodcuts, plates, coloured and
plain, atlases, and indexes, exceedingly
complete and full. If I don't find out the very
last word about our little green acquaintances
before to-morrow morning, you may change
me into an animalcule myself with the aid
of your potent book, if you can, and may
set me to creep, and crawl, and spin, for a
thousand years, in any variety of shape you
please."

The worthy elder took his leave. I
conducted him on his way as far as the
respect due to his age aud position required,
ami then returned to my own quiet study
which adjoined my bedroom.

Though the evening was getting on, there
was still plenty of summer's light in the sky,
and my lamp stood ready, when darkness
should come. The objects, whose nature had
moved our curiosity, were still on the stage
of the microscope, aud still were living and
pursuing their mysterious dances and
attitudes. I looked, and looked, and looked