"Oh! why has worth so short a date, 

 While villains ripen gray with time." 



Burns. 



DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY 



OF 



LUCIUS S. WILLSON 



One of nature's noblemen: My companion in many a woodland stroll, whose keen 

 eye observed and gloried in the charms of varied pastoral scenes, whose listening 

 ear heard and delighted in the caroling of feathered songsters and the cadence of 

 murmuring streams. His ear caught the music of breezes as they wandered through 

 the boughs of forest trees, and, while striking the tenderest chords on their ^Eolian 

 harps of russet-brown leaves, in the Autumn of 1882, they muttered to him their last 

 farewell, and whispered something like Eternity. 



THE AUTHOR. 



