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IT WAS THE LAST NIGHT of the old year, and I sat by my fireside musing on the eventful past and dreaming of the shadowy future. Without, the sharp winds blew fierce and loud, and the snow, which fell heavily, drifted against the window.

Rapidly ebbing where the last hours of the year whose opening moments we had heard welcomed in by the chiming of the joy-bells, it seemed but a little while ago. In that brief interval, spring had come laughing as she unlocked the ice-imprisoned rills, and sent them singing on their way; she had touched the lark's wing, and sent him soaring to the skies, trilling his gushing melodies; she had dropped crocus buds upon the frosty earth, and tempted the snowdrops to rear their delicate young brows from beneath their cold white shrouds; and then she stepped forth with smiling eyes and clapping hands to greet the sunny summer tide, with a garland of rosebuds and lily bells in her hair. And summer came, brightening all nature with her glance; trees blossomed, and birds sang, and flowers budded in the sunlight of her smile; and then the green corn of summer was turned into the golden sheaves of autumn beneath the enchanting wands that the bright gun bent over them, mellow fiuits filled her horn, and her praiscs echoed in woodland and on crag, and in soft vales, as the welcome song of the harvest rung out right joyously to greet the precious grain gathered safely home. And then old winter, with his beard of icicles, and crown of laurel, succeeded all, announcing how soon the blithe year should pass away through the portals of the present, to mingle with the dim cycles that crowd the dusky halls of the long, forgotten past, laden with how heavy a freight of joys and sorrows, aspirations, opportunities, disappointments, sins and sufferings, smiles and tears.

As I sat thus musing, I was startled at the sight of an aged figure who stood beside me, holding out a trembling hand, and bidding

H. GIDDİNS.

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me a tearful 'Adieu.' Very majestic he looked, as his long white locks hung about his shoulders, and his snowy beard swept my his breast, but very sorrowful withal; traces were there upon his furrowed cheek of a once cheerful youth, of a season when hope had glistened in those sorrowing eyes; but, alas, the spark of hope seemed to have been extinguished, and he looked (and the look made me sad) as though conscious he had been wronged, cruelly wronged. I entreated him to speak; he silently shook his head, and tears trickled down his aged cheeks. I implored, I besought him to stay; but, pointing forward, he intimated he must be going. Grieved at his grief, I asked its cause, whereupon he took from his bosom a roll which he opened, showing it to be closely written. I read it; it was a catalogue of his wrongs. As I tremblingly read the memento, I asked him if these wrongs might not be redressed; but he shook his head, and pointed further on, and still I read, more wrongs! more, many more wrongs! Records of wasted hours, and misspent moments; tear-blinded, I could read no further; I grew sick at heart-when, lo, he turned and summoned a legion of buried witnesses, who thronged around him, the ghosts of all his hours, save the last, which was even now rapidly declining. Loud and long, and grievous were their reproaches; many and frequent their tears: some came with records of squandered moments, some with unseized and unimproved opportunities, some with black and dire sins, and others with broken vows, and resolutions once so warmly made, so soon forgotten. Many of them told the blessings they had brought; how the seasons had dropped, with delicate fingers, rose leaves upon the dusty life-path; how sweet songs of hope and love had echoed ever and anon, how the blue sky had blossomed with smiling stars that looked down so lovingly, how friends had clustered about the hearthstone, and loving hearts beat sympathetic music; but, alas! how all had been

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rgotten, and never perfumed by the sweet cense of a fragant gratitude. Then some inted to empty seats, and hinted of sick ambers, and green grassy hillocks in far Tay churchyards. But how their lessons ad been disregarded, and in the loud wail of epining and unsubmissive sorrowing, their ft whispers had been unheard, and their ving vigils unnoticed and unimproved; and, as the aged being looked upon the motley Baltitude, he wept again. I turned away, nable to look longer upon their black cataLogue. I tried to stop my ears to their sorSowing reproaches. When I again looked, they had shifted the picture; now the scene was a blessed on, very bright and beautiful; yful, I asked its meaning, and a sore blight fell upon the brightness and the beauty when they answered in solemn tone, the picture was what I might have been. As the scene faded they rung again the bells that I had heard ringing in the first of these hours, but as I remembered my vows that I had then laid upon the altar of the year's first hour, the ringing of the bells seemed but the knelling of all my hopes.

But in a moment all were gone save my first visitor, who, too, was passing out, sad, silent, and solitary. He lingered on the threshold, and as I looked, a youth, very beautiful, with soft, beaming eyes, and smooth, fair brow, stepped forward. He, too, held a parchment, but it was spotless, as yet unwritten. I rose, and seizing the old man by the hand, let fall a tear upon it. I vowed to cheerish my new visitor, and fill only with bright characters his recording parchment, and while the tears fell from my eyes, the sunbeams from the brow of the younger one flashed upon them, and there arched over us a bow of hope, I looked towards my aged friend, hoping to receive a smile, but he was gone. Tnrning to him who was left, I found him tracing his first record, which one of

hope.

I rose to vow him my constancy, but he, too, was gone. The scene faded, and waking from what had been but a dream, I found myself sitting by the fireside; the embers were dying out, the lamp burnt low and dim, and without, the merry bells were ringing in the new young year.

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