hrough a lovely meadow, and then stretches ound a rocky peninsula, — curving in and out, nd lingering as if it had a human heart and loved hat which it enriched. On a gentle slope, risng from the meadow and catching the first rays of the morning sun, stood an old-fashioned paronage, about half a mile from the village, and it right angles with it, so that its road and shaded ide-walks, and the goings-out and comings-in of is flock, could be overlooked by the good pastor. Parson Draper's were not the days of agricultural und horticultural societies, and just as he received he place, he was content to hold and leave it. He cut the hay from the meadow, and pastured a ew sheep in the beautiful wood of maples, oaks, and beeches, that sheltered him from the northwest wind, where, if they did not find the sweetest pasture in the world, they looked prettily, cropping their scanty food from the rocky knolls, or grouped together in the shaded dells. The good man, according to his views of them, performed his duties faithfully. He read diligentÎy large books of divinity, preached two sermons (never an old one) every Sabbath, was punctual at weddings and funerals, and abstracted no time from these sacerdotal offices to improve his rugged garden, or till his little farm. He had but two children, the one a worthless son, and the other a girl, a most dutiful and gentle creature, who married a merchant, lived prosperously in a city for two or three years, and then returned a widow, penniless, and with an only son, to her father's house. She bore her reverses meekly, and direct -- ed all her energies to one object, the sine qui non of a New-England mother, -a good educa tion for her son. The boy, William Barclay, found only happiness in the change. He was released from what seemed to him a prison, a nursery in a narrow city street, and permitted to feed grandfather's sheep, to harness his horse, sometimes to ride and drive him; in short, to employ those faculties that employed are blessings, and unemployed, tormentors. The parsonage, as we have said, was apart from the village. Either because of his early solitude, or through the leading of his mother, who, turned back from the world, loved to commune with God in his works, or from an innate love of natural beauty, William Barclay knit his heart to this home of his childhood; and when his grandfather died, and the place was sold, and he was compelled to leave it, he felt much as might our firs' parents, when from Paradise they "took their solitary way." His mother had a pittance, and this, with strain ing every nerve, and now and then a lift from: friend, enabled her to go on with her favorite pro ject. She and her son were received in the fami lies of her friends, and changed their abode ac cording to the liberality or convenience of their pa trons. But William was kept at his books, andthi repaid her for every sacrifice and every exertion. William, however, was not of a temper to brook this strain on his mother, and partial dependence on others. As soon as he was of an age to comprehend it, he renounced the idea of what is tech nically called an education, the four years at college, threw himself on his own exertions, and by hook and by crook, that is, by infinite ingenuity and diligence, and by the most severe self-denial and frugality, he supported himself, obtained the rudiments of an excellent education, and learned the art of printing. At the age of twenty-two he was the conductor of a valuable printing-press in the city of New York, in partnership with Norton, its proprietor, and with a reasonable prospect of a joint property in the concern. In the mean time, his earnings were sufficient to enable him to maintain a family and go ahead. Thankful ought we to be, that in our favored land a working man need not wait till he be bald or gray before he may, with prudence, avail himself of the blessed institution of marriage; that if, like William Barclay, he be capable, diligent, frugal, and willing to dispense with superfluities, he may, while hope is unblighted, resolution vigorous, and love in its early freshness, assume the responsibilities of a married man. In Europe,-ay, in what merry England," it is not so; the kind order of nature and Providence is baffled, and the working man, be he "capable, diligent, and frugal," has an alms-house in his perspective, or the joyless alternative, a life of safe and pining singleness. was - And is this our home?" said Mrs. Barclay to her husband, as they entered a small, newly-built, two-story house in Greenwich Street. "Yes, dear Anne; and if it were but in Greenbrook, and a little stream before it, and an oak wood on one side, and a green lane to the road on the other, we should stand a good chance at love in a cottage." "I see how it is, William; I have yet to cure you of your homesickness for the old parsonage Who knows but we may go there some time or other? In the mean time, let us try if we cannot be happy with love in a small house, instead of a cottage. وق "You could make the happiness of any home to me, Anne. Shifted about as I have been from pillar to post, I scarcely know what home is, from experience; but it is a word, that to my mind ex presses every motive and aid to virtue, and indicates almost every source of happiness. I am sure of content; but will not you, Anne, contras this little dwelling with your father's spacious house, and when you look into the dirty street, or into our poor, cramped, ten-feet yard, will you not pine to see the golden harvests we left waving on the sunny slopes of Greenbrook, or for the beautiful view, from your window, of meadow and mountain? Will you not miss the pleasant voices of home?— the footsteps of sisters and brothers?" "Yes," replied the wife, smiling through the tears that gushed from nature's fount at the picture of her father's house, "Yes, I shall miss all this,- for who ever did, or ever can, forget a happy home? I may even shed many tears, William; but they will be like the rain that falls when the sun shines, - there will be no cloud over the heart. I am sure I shall never repent the promise made this night three weeks, forsaking all others to cleave to you alone. "I trust you will not, Anne. But I cannot help wishing I was not obliged at once to put you to such a test. This house seems to me smaller than when I hired it; this parlor is scarcely big enough to turn in." "Now it struck me as just of the right size. I always had a fancy for a snug parlor. Nothing looks so forlorn as a large, desolate, cold, halffurnished, shabby parlor." Mr. Barclay smiled, "You have certainly contrived, Anne, to make the large parlor look disagreeable." "And I will try my best to make the small one agreeable." A look from her husband indicated his belief that she could not fail. "And can you say any thing for this little bed-room?" he asked, opening the door into an adjoining apartment. After an instant's survey she replied, me exactly." "But that is an ugly jut." "It suits "It's not pretty, but how neatly the bureau fits in, and this nice little closet, what a blessing! a grate too! I did not expect this. It suits me exactly," she repeated with hearty emphasis. "But perhaps you did not mean this for our apartment. "You must decide that. There is a room above this precisely like it." "Then this shall be for mother, she minds stairs and we do not. And here she shall have |