thing dearer. But if you only will forgive me the trick
into which I was led by sickness and want of amusement, and afterward
continued from love of you, it is all I dare ask.

Ever your devoted
PHILIP.

Emotions of various kinds seized the soul of Bessie Linton as she read
Philip's letter once, twice, thrice. First, her heart was hardened to
anything he might say--then as he told of his sufferings a little pity
crept in; and finally, as she concluded the last word for the third
time, her heart was so overflowing with pity--which is akin to
love--that she--forgave him.

At least, so I suppose, as they passed my window just now laughing, and
as happy a married couple as ever you saw, if she _is_ "five years older
than he is, and had the bringin' of him up," to use Mrs. Dartle's
expression.

E. C. HEWITT.

FROM THE FLATS.

What heartache--ne'er a hill!
Inexorable, vapid, vague and chill
The drear sand-levels drain my spirit low.
With one poor word they tell me all they know;
Whereat their stupid tongues, to tease my pain,
Do drawl it o'er again and o'er again.
They hurt my heart with griefs I cannot name:
Always the same, the same.

Nature hath no surprise,
No ambuscade of beauty 'gainst mine eyes
From brake or lurking dell or deep defile;
No humors, frolic forms--this mile, that mile;
No rich reserves or happy-valley hopes
Beyond the bends of roads, the distant slopes
Her fancy fails, her wild is all run tame:
Ever the same, the same.

Oh might I through these tears
But glimpse some hill my Georgia high uprears,
Where white the quartz and pink the pebbles shine,
The hickory heavenward strives, the muscadine
Swings o'er the slope, the oak's far-falling shade
Darkens the dogwood in the bottom-glade,
And down the hollow from a ferny nook
Bright leaps a living brook!

SIDNEY LANIER.

A DAY'S MARCH THROUGH FINLAND.

"Why don't you go to Imatra?" asks my friend P---- as we lean over the
side of the Peterhof steamer and watch the golden domes of St.
Petersburg rising slowly from the dull gray level of the Gulf of
Finland. "Now that you've seen a bit of Central Russia, that's the next
thing for you to do. Go to Imatra, and I'll go too."

"A