l66 I CO A-FISHINC. 



ters hap — , and that word so often found in such places 



— PEACE. 



"When the light of those young eyes faded there must 

 have been deep grief in the cottage. Might I not muse 

 and weave a story, standing in the thicket by her grave ? 

 She was past all harm from gossiping story-teller. She 

 whose pure young life would have been marred if any 

 one had ventured to talk too freely of her living. But 

 death, while it sanctifies, makes the dead a sort of pos- 

 session of all the world. We take our dead out of the 

 house, and out of the family circle, and lay them in the 

 open congregation, and mark their names for all the 

 world to read, and if that means any thing, it surely 

 means that the world may now talk of them, for they are 

 beyond reach of injury from mortal voice. 



She who sleeps in the thicket was eighteen years 

 among the trees that are now overshadowing the cottage. 

 I have seen the trees, and they must have been old and 

 stout and broad when she was living. Her name was 

 Faith, a good old name, common in Connecticut, and I 

 dare to think that she was worthy of it. It is a pleasant 

 name for a young girl, implying trustful confidence. Did 

 she not grow up among the beautiful things of earth ? 

 Did she not learn to love them all ? There can be no 

 purer life on earth than that of the young girl w r ho lives 

 in the quiet home of a country farm-house, learning little 

 except of nature, and taught by the country pastor to 

 look always up to God from his works. Do you remem- 

 ber what Sir Thomas Overbury wrote of the " Faire and 

 happy milk maide ?" 



" She dares go alone and unfold sheep in the night, 

 and fears no manner of ill, for she means none. She is 

 never alone, for she is always accompanied with old songs, 



