Ferns and mosses, shaded green,
The gabled house is dimly seen.

Winds, with poplar trees at play,
Chafe with tossing boughs all day
Weather-beaten walls of gray.

Open wide the trellised door:
Sunset glories go before,
Fall upon the kitchen floor,

Turn to gold the swinging loom
Standing in the corner's gloom
Of the low brown-raftered room.

Brazen dogs that ever sleep
Silently the entrance keep
Of the fireplace huge and deep.

Charity, stop no more to dream:
Covers lift with puffing steam;
Waiting stands the risen cream.

Change to white your apron gray,
Sprinkled clothes to fold away,
Ready for another day.

Quickly now the table spread
With its homespun cloth of red,
Savory meats and snowy bread.

On the shelf a pink-lipped shell,
That for ever tries to tell
Ocean music, learned so well.

Tiptoe on the cricket stand:
Take it in your sun-browned hand--
Shell from eastern tropic land.

Let your clear voice through it ring,
Homeward the hired help to bring
From the distant meadow-spring.

Far away they hear the call:
Look! they come by orchard wall,
Where the apple-blossoms fall.

One that foremost leads the plough
Sees you in the doorway now--
Breaks a bending apple-bough;

Waves it by the meadow creek:
Answering blushes on your cheek
Tell the words you do not speak.

Out upon the rippling river
Purple lights of sunset quiver,
Rustling leaves reflected shiver.

Shell in hand, she goes to greet
Her lover, where the turf-grown street
And the meadow pathway meet.

Insect voices far away,
Hushed in silence through the day,
Whisper in the night of May,

While in vain the pink-lipped shell,
Murmuring in its hollow cell,
Would its own love-story tell.

Through the drifting apple-snow,
Where the four-leafed clovers grow,
Hand in hand they homeward go;

And they vow, whate'er the weather,
Mid the brier, through the heather,
They will walk life's way together.

Parting when the day grows late,
If a moment at the gate
One alone is left to wait,

Yet each other they will greet
Where life's shadeless, dusty street
And the heavenly pathway meet.

MARGARET MASON.

BERRYTOWN.

CHAPTER XI.

Catharine sprang from her bed at daybreak that morning. She could
scarcely stop singing in the bath. She had so much to do, so much to
do! The air blew bri