t is time;
for as the sun sinks over the western wave the sea grows melancholy
and the surf has a saddened tone. The distant sails appear astray and
not of earth in their remoteness amid the desolate waste. My spirit
wanders forth afar, but finds no resting-place and comes shivering
back. It is time that I were hence. But grudge me not the day that has
been spent in seclusion which yet was not solitude, since the great
sea has been my companion, and the little sea-birds my friends, and
the wind has told me his secrets, and airy shapes have flitted around
me in my hermitage. Such companionship works an effect upon a man's
character as if he had been admitted to the society of creatures that
are not mortal. And when, at noontide, I tread the crowded streets,
the influence of this day will still be felt; so that I shall walk
among men kindly and as a brother, with affection and sympathy, but
yet shall not melt into the indistinguishable mass of humankind. I
shall think my own thoughts and feel my own emotions and possess my
individuality unviolated.

But it is good at the eve of such a day to feel and know that there
are men and women in the world. That feeling and that knowledge are
mine at this moment, for on the shore, far below me, the fishing-party
have landed from their skiff and are cooking their scaly prey by a
fire of driftwood kindled in the angle of two rude rocks. The three
visionary girls are likewise there. In the deepening twilight, while
the surf is dashing near their hearth, the ruddy gleam of the fire
throws a strange air of comfort over the wild cove, bestrewn as it is
with pebbles and seaweed and exposed to the "melancholy main."
Moreover, as the smoke climbs up the precipice, it brings with it a
savory smell from a pan of fried fish and a black kettle of chowder,
and reminds me that my dinner was nothing but bread and water and a
tuft of samphire and an apple. Methinks the party might find room for
another guest at that flat rock which serves them for a table; and if
spoons be scarce, I could pick up a clam-shell on the beach. They see
me now; and--the blessing of a hungry man upon him!--one of them sends
up a hospitable shout: "Halloo, Sir Solitary! Come down and sup with
us!" The ladies wave their handkerchiefs. Can I decline? No; and be it
owned, after all my solitary joys, that this is the sweetest moment of
a day by the seashore.

EDWARD FANE'S ROSEBUD.

There is hardly a more difficul