left this stream sporting and dancing on in all the freshness of youth
and beauty.

Here is the grassy knoll where we have stood tiptoe and reached our
tiny hands a little higher to catch the gorgeous butterfly that
floated through summer air on silken wings, and then clapped them with
joyous glee at our own disappointment, as it sailed higher up into the
blue air.

Then came the song of the warbling bird, the hum of the mountain bee,
and the rustling of the leaves as they were stirred by the gentle
summer breeze,--all making sweet melody in Nature's many voiced
harmonies.

Here we have sat for hours, wrapt in dreamy reverie, wondering why the
long, fleecy clouds that chased each other over the sun, should cast
such deep, broad shadows over so fair a landscape; little heeding that
they were emblematical of the shadows that coming years would cast
upon our pathway as we passed on in the journey of human life; but
oh, how often has the sun of hope been dimmed by the shadows of
disappointment.

But let us leave this sequestered spot and wander over other scenes
familiar to childhood's years.

Beneath yon large reservoir of water that flashes in the sun beams as
the summer winds heave its troubled bosom, formerly stretched out an
extensive meadow, where we used to stroll for amusement; or to gather
the rich, ripe strawberries that lay concealed beneath the thick,
tall grass that sighed before the breeze like the bosom of the ocean,