enlarging his circle of living or
dead things in which he takes interest, and none more profited thus by
the years as they came than Wyman. The bird, the tree, the flower, the
rock, tiny worlds beneath damp stones, little dramas of minute life
within mouldy tree-trunks, the quaint menageries in the sea-caves,
shifted with every tide, whatever the waves brought or the winds
carried or the earth bore were one and all acquaintances of this
delightful and delighted companion. Not without a manly interest in
the world of men and politics, he lived for the most part serenely
above its ferment and passions. Without the large means which, had
they been his, had been in the truest sense and for the best purposes
_means,_ he lived a life of quiet, studious content, made somewhat
hard by ill-health, but, so far as I know, undisturbed by envy of
easier lots than his. Whatever were his crosses in this world--and
they must have been many--no man who knew Wyman could now wish them to
have been changed, if, as no doubt was the case, they helped to build
up a character so filled with honest labor, so pure, so lofty and so
generous--

Nor could Humanity resign
A life which bade her heart beat high,
And blazoned Duty's stainless shield,
And set a star in Honor's sky.

S. WEIR MITCHELL.

PLAYING WITH FIRE.

Apple-blossoms and the pale wild roses that grow in the shadow of
woody lanes were things of which she always reminded you, she was so
slight and so fair, with just a suggestion of bloom about her--the
bloom of youth. Hardly beautiful, but then seventeen summers have a
beauty of their own--a beauty of firm round curves and velvety color,
whose absence a dozen years later works utter transformation. When
Lilian should approach thirty, and the blush that shifted now with
every word she spoke, almost with every thought, should have
paled--when time and tears should perhaps have dimmed the soft
eyes--then she might be, to those who love fleshly magnificence alone,
of sufficiently commonplace appearance, but just now there was
something about her so unique and so attractive that every one when
she passed by turned to discover what it was. For the clear blue of
her eye and the lofty purity of her brow seemed to tell of a spirit
whose beauty far exceeded that of its temple, and the brightness of
the glance and the sweetness of the smile warmed the heart in her
behalf as regular outline and perfect contour are seldom