nt by an unknown
hand, which they supposed to be mine. A thought struck me, and after
some trouble I ferreted out the fact, that, although the rich old man
had, for reasons connected with the good order of the barracks,
always exacted every cent of the rent from each tenant, whatever the
consequences, he had many times, as in this case, secretly returned more
than it had cost them to pay it. They were left to believe him a hard
man, and often attributed his benefits to societies and persons whose
charity would have been stifled by the whiskey-stench of their rooms.

Thus, then, went on his life, until the day when the Golden Wedding
was to be celebrated. That year, the sons, with the vine-dressers, the
bottlers, corkers, and all, gathered together and said,--

"Come, now! let us this year make a wine that shall be like the nectar
for a true man's soul!"

So, with one accord, they gathered the richest grapes, and selected from
them; then they made the wine-press clean and sweet, and cast the grapes
therein. One great hiss,--a spurt of gold flushed with rubies,--and all
that is acrid is left, all that is rich and sweet is borne away, to be
labelled "GOLDEN WEDDING."

And now, as I taste it, it seems to me flavored beyond all earthly wine,
as if it were the expression of an humble and faithful man, who had a
legitimate object, which he obtained by steadfastness. The wine-makers
maintain, that wine, though long confined in bottles, sympathizes still
with the vines from which it was pressed; and when the season of the
flowering of vines comes, it is always agitated anew. Surely the Catawba
must ever sparkle afresh, when in it, as now, we pledge the memory of
the brave and wise pioneer whose life climbed to its maturity along with
the purple clusters which so had garnered the frost and sunshine of a
life as well as of the seasons.

THE SILURIAN BEACH.

With what interest do we look upon any relic of early human history!
The monument that tells of a civilization whose hieroglyphic records we
cannot even decipher, the slightest trace of a nation that vanished and
left no sign of its life except the rough tools and utensils buried
in the old site of its towns or villages, arouses our imagination and
excites our curiosity. Men gaze with awe at the inscription on an
ancient Egyptian or Assyrian stone; they hold with reverential touch the
yellow parchment-roll whose dim, defaced characters record the meagre
learning