nter had
touched its verdure; but its variegated green and yellow leaves were the
same as when I had seen them, and attempted, with boyish hands, to
imitate, nearly half a century ago. A little farther off, the "decent
church" peered from among the majestic ash, elm, and chestnut trees,
with which it was surrounded--the growth of centuries--casting a deep
and solemn shadow over the place of graves. The humble offices, and the
corn-yard in which I had rejoiced to mingle in rural occupations and
frolic, were near; and nothing was wanted to realize the scenes of my
youth, save the presence of the venerable patriarch and my mother, and
their little ones grouping around their knees, or at the frugal board.

But the illusion was short-lived. A holly tree, in the adjoining
parterre, caught my eye. When I knew it of old, it was a little bush, in
which the goldfinch and the linnet nestled, and were protected under my
juvenile guardianship; but, now it had grown up to a stately tree. I
saw, in the mirror over the mantelpiece, the image of my own visage, in
which there were lines that time and the world's cares imprint on the
smoothest brow and the most blooming cheek. The yellow locks of my
forehead were fled, and the few remaining hairs were beginning to be
silvered with grey. My son, too, rising almost to manhood, stood up
before me, unconscious of the recollections and visions which flitted
through my mind. These things dispelled my reverie; and my wandering
thoughts were recalled to the realities of the passing hour.

It was on a Saturday evening that I thus revisited Kirkhall; and my
melancholy meditations were soon partially dissipated by the cheerful,
but moderate hospitalities of my host; which were truly such as to make
me feel that I was, as it were, among mine own kindred, and at my
_father's fireside_.

What a flood of emotions and remembrances spring forth at the mental
utterance of these words! On retiring from the parlour, I was ushered
into what was, of old, denominated, in the quaint colloquial language of
Scotland, "The Prophet's Cham'er"--that is, the apartment for study,
which was to be found thus distinguished in all the old manses of our
clergy. It was now a bedroom, the library being established in another
apartment; and I laid my head upon the pillow in a chamber which was
consecrated, in my memory, by the recollection that within its walls
good men had often thought of "the ways of God to man," and prep