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LEASES OF LIFE. 



" He's his own landlord, his own tenant : stay 

 Long as he will, he dreads no quarter-day." 



THE Demon of Frost set out, one dark November morning, to 

 do the bidding of the grim monarch Death. He passed over a 

 forest, and the last leaves of autumn fell in countless thousands 

 at his touch. He passed over a desolate moor, and meeting a 

 benighted traveller, he heaped his snow bed, piped his shrill 

 lullaby, and whistled at knowing it was the wanderer's last. 

 He entered a garden, and the surviving dahlias shrank in their 

 velvet mantles, and died at the bidding of his icy breath. Then 

 he laid one of his freezing fingers on a little caterpillar, and the 



