Wending her quiet way, she entered the door of the almshouse.

Sweet on the summer air was the odour of flowers in

the garden;

And she paused on her way to gather the fairest among

them,

That the dying once more might rejoice in their fragrance and beauty.

Then, as she mounted the stairs to the corridors, cooled by the east wind,

Distant and soft on her ear fell the chimes from the belfry of Christ Church,

While, intermingled with these, across the meadows were wafted

Sounds of psalms, that were sung by the Swedes in their church at Wicaco.

Soft as descending wings fell the calm of the hour on her spirit;

Something within her said-"At length thy trials are ended;"

And, with light in her looks, she entered the chambers of sickness.

Noiselessly moved about the assiduous, careful atten. dants,

Moistening the feverish lip and the aching brow, and in silence

Closing the sightless eyes of the dead, and concealing their faces,

Where on their pallets they lay, like drifts of snow by the roadside.

Many a languid head, upraised as Evangeline entered, Turned on its pillow of pain to gaze while she passed, for her presence

Fell on their hearts like a ray of the sun on the walls of a prison.

And, as she looked around, she saw how Death, the consoler,

Laying his hand upon many a heart, had healed it for

ever.

Many familiar forms had disappeared in the night-time; Vacant their places were, or filled already by strangers.

Suddenly, as if arrested by fear or a feeling of wonder, Still she stood, with her colourless lips apart, while a shudder

Ran through her frame, and, forgotten, the flowerets dropped from her fingers,

And from her eyes and cheeks the light and bloom of the morning.

Then there escaped from her lips a cry of such terrible anguish,

That the dying heard it, and started up from their pillows. On the pallet before her was stretched the form of an

old man.

Long, and thin, and grey were the locks that shaded his temples;

But, as he lay in the morning light, his face for a moment Seemed to assume once more the forms of its earlier

manhood;

So are wont to be changed the faces of those who are dying.

Hot and red on his lips still burned the flush of the fever, As if Life, like the Hebrew, with blood had besprinkled

its portals,

That the Angel of Death might see the sign, and pass

over.

Motionless, senseless, dying, he lay, and his spirit exhausted

Seemed to be sinking down through infinite depths in the darkness,

Darkness of slumber and death, for ever sinking and

sinking.

Then through those realms of shade, in multiplied reverberations,

Heard he that cry of pain, and through the hush that succeeded

Whispered a gentle voice, in accents tender and saintlike,

"Gabriel! O my beloved!" and died away into silence. Then he beheld, in a dream, once more the home of his

childhood;

Green Acadian meadows, with sylvan rivers among them, Village, and mountain, and woodlands; and, walking under their shadow,

As in the days of her youth, Evangeline rose in his vision. Tears came into his eyes; and as slowly he lifted his eyelids,

Vanished the vision away, but Evangeline knelt by his bedside.

Vainly he strove to whisper her name, for the accents unuttered

Died on his lips, and their motion revealed what his tongue would have spoken.

Vainly he strove to rise; and Evangeline, kneeling beside him,

Kissed his dying lips, and laid his head on her bosom. Sweet was the light of his eyes; but it suddenly sank into darkness,

As when a lamp is blown out by a gust of wind at a

casement.

All was ended now, the hope, and the fear, and the

sorrow,

All the aching of heart, the restless, unsatisfied longing, All the dull, deep pain, and constant anguish of patience!

And, as she pressed once more the lifeless head to her

bosom,

Meekly she bowed her own, and murmured, "Father, I thank thee!'

Still stands the forest primeval; but far away from its shadow,

Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are sleeping.

Under the humble walls of the little Catholic churchyard, In the heart of the city they lie unknown and unnoticed. Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flowing beside them. Thousands of throbbing hearts, where theirs are at rest and for ever,

Thousands of aching brains, where theirs no longer are busy,

Thousands of toiling hands, where theirs have ceased from their labours,

Thousands of weary feet, where theirs have completed their journey!

Still stands the forest primeval; but under the shade of its branches

Dwells another race, with other customs and language. Only along the shore of the mournful and misty Atlantic Linger a few Acadian peasants, whose fathers from exile Wandered back to their native land to die in its bosom. In the fisherman's cot the wheel and the loom are still busy; Maidens still wear their Norman caps and their kirtles of homespun,

And by the evening fire repeat Evangeline's story, While from its rocky caverns the deep-voiced neighbouring ocean

Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.

VOICES OF THE NIGHT.

PRELUDE.

PLEASANT it was, when woods were green,

And winds were soft and low,

To lie amid some sylvan scene,

Where, the long drooping boughs between,
Shadows dark and sunlight sheen

Alternate come and go;

Or, where the denser grove receives
No sunlight from above,
But the dark foliage interweaves
In one unbroken roof of leaves,
Underneath whose sloping eaves
The shadows hardly move.

Beneath some patriarchal tree
I lay upon the ground;
His hoary arms uplifted he,
And all the broad leaves over me
Clapped their little hands in glee,
With one continuous sound;