(SEE FRONTISPIECE.)

My father's house was indeed a pleasant home; and father was the supreme guide of his own household. He was gentle, but he could be firm and resolute when the case demanded. Mother was the sunshine of our little garden of love; her talents and energy gave her influence; and united to a man like father, she was all that is lovable in the character of woman.

But the dear old home, where I grew from infancy to boyhood, and from boyhood to youth, I shall never forget. It was a large house on the slope of a hill, just high enough to overlook several miles of our level country, and smooth enough with its soft grassy carpet for us to roll down from the summit to the foot of the hill. At the back of the house was another hill, where we used to roll under the shade of the old elm, and where Miles and I would sit whole afternoons and fly the kite, each taking turns in holding the string. This was a happy place for us, and especially in the spring time, when the happy looking cows grazed along the pathway which winds around the elm to the stream where Kate and I used to sail my little boat. All summer long this place was vocal with the songs of birds, which built their nests in safety among the tall trees of the grove in the rear of the farm. We had also the music of the running brook, and the pleasant hum of my father's cotton mill, which brought us in our daily bread. Haying time was always a happy season for us boys. Father's two horses, "Dick" and "Bony" would take off the farm as large a load of hay as any in the village.

Years past on, and we were a happy band of brothers and sisters. After Kate, came the twins, Margaret and Herbert, and last of all came the youngest darling, blue eyed Dora. We had a happy childhood. Our station in the world was high enough to enable us to have all the harmless pleasures and studies that were useful and actually necessary to boys and girls of our station. Father always thought that it was better in early youth not to force the boys to too hard study, and mother loved best to see Kate and Margaret using the fingers in fabricating garments, than in playing the harp. We were free, happy, roving children on father's farm, unchained by the forms of fashionable life. We had no costly dresses to spoil, and were permitted to play in the green fields without a servant's eye, and to bathe in the clear shallow stream without fear of drowning. As I have said before, these were happy days; and when I think of them gone, I often express my regret that we did not improve them more for the cultivation of the mind and the affections. In the next story you will see that there were some passing clouds in our early summer days.