buttercups of gold:    Where the dusky turtle lies basking on the gravel Of the sunny sandbar in the middle-tide, And the ghostly dragonfly pauses in his travel To rest like a blossom where the water-lily died. Heigh-ho! Babyhood! Tell me where you linger:     Let's toddle home again, for we have gone astray; Take this eager hand of mine and lead me by the finger Back to the Lotus lands of the far-away. 

  

  

       THE DAYS GONE BY.     

   O the days gone by! O the days gone by!   The apples in the orchard, and the pathway through the rye; The chirrup of the robin, and the whistle of the quail As he piped across the meadows sweet as any nightingale; When the bloom was on the clover, and the blue was in the sky, And my happy heart brimmed over in the days gone by. In the days gone by, when my naked feet were tripped By the honey-suckle's tangles where the water-lilies dipped, And the ripples of the river lipped the moss along the brink Where the placid-eyed and lazy-footed cattle came to drink, And the tilting snipe stood fearless of the truant's wayward cry And the splashing of the swimmer, in the days gone by. O the days gone by! O the days gone by! The music of the laughing lip, the luster of the eye; The childish faith in fairies, and Aladdin's magic ring—   The simple, soul-reposing, glad belief in everything,—   When life was like a story, holding neither sob nor sigh, In the golden olden glory of the days gone by. 

  

  

       MRS. MILLER     

       John B. McKinney, Attorney and Counselor at Law, as his sign read, was, for many reasons, a fortunate man. For many other reasons he was not. He was chiefly fortunate in being, as certain opponents often strove to witheringly designate him, "the son of his father," since that sound old gentleman was the wealthiest farmer in that section, with but one son and heir to, in time, supplant him in the role of "county god," and haply perpetuate the prouder title of "the biggest tax-payer on the assessment list." And this fact, too, fortunate as it would seem, was doubtless the indirect occasion of a liberal percentage of all John's misfortunes. From his earliest school-days in the little town, up to his tardy graduation from a distant college, the influence of his father's wealth invited his procrastination, 

 Prev. P 22/104 next