+ 
that it was some one residing in their own I 
township. Finally it was a settled thing 
that it was the great Mr, L.’s wife, as she 
was considered by some as being the most 
intellectual woman residing in the village. 
Now, perhaps you think 1 became at 
once a “rising star’’ in the literary world, 
and thus quickly amassed a fortune. Far 
from it, my friends. I was not a Mrs. Sooth 
worth, a Mrs. Stowe, nor a Miss Pjiki-pb; 
1 was only “ Cousin E.” I believe I did 
gain some notoriety among certain eircb'H; 
and my little “study" was frequently 
crammed with reading matter and my purse 
was replenished occasionally ‘with small 
sums of money sent in mysterious looking 
envelopes. But my fortune did not grow 
very fast that way. 
One day I was looking over the advertising 
columns—of course with my presentiment 
in view— of Moore's Rural New-Yorker, 
which possibly I might not have had if I bad 
not used my little “gift" to some purpose; 
when my eye caught the words “ Sent Free ' 
in large capital letters. What was sent free? 
why, a certain variety of popular seeds, that 
were selling at fabulous rates. 
Why couldn’t I cultivate a small patch of 
ground and raise choice seeds and some 
vegetables, and thus increase my stores? I 
w as almost entirely dependent upon my own 
exertions for my support, and was somewhat 
anxious to have a fair income against “a 
rainy day.” I sent for those seeds; and in 
due time they came to hand, together with 
several other packages 1 had ordered. I 
rented a patch of land, and sowed my seeds 
in well pulverized soil, prepared by my own 
hands. Part of them grew and flourished ; 
1 >iiL owing to inexperience and a poor sea¬ 
son, my gains were not excessively large. 
Bui I was not to he discouraged by one 
failure. I studied the experience of such 
writers as .James Vick, Mr. Barry, and a 
host of others as famous for their success in 
agriculture and horticulture. Surely with 
such aids I need not fail entirely. The 
second year I cleared the snug little sum of 
fifty dollars. After this I enlarged my 
borders and sent for a greater variety of 
seed, always choosing the most hardy sorts. 
1 found they were really the most profitable, 
if they did not bring t lie highest market 
price of the tenderer varieties. 
I had a good, high fence built all round 
my domain, for one or two calls from my 
neighbors' unruly cattle came near being 
the ruin ot all my garden castles. 1 trained 
up flowering vines on light trellis work just 
inside the fence on two sides, and grape 
vines over the remaining two sides. It was 
a great pleasure to spend an hour or two in 
the early morning, amid the fragrance and 
beauty of flowers and nourishing vegetation, 
Five years’ patient and watchful care 
made my garden a constant joy. Daily the 
table was covered with luxuries that had 
been cultivated with loving hands. Three 
or four limes a month my purse was well 
filled when it. came from the city, where 
my produce always found a ready market. 
As time passed on 1 learned many lessons 
from my plants that would never lie lost to 
me. Sometimes 1 found my patience tried 
to the uttermost, for with all the experience 
1 could glean from others nod gain for my¬ 
self, 1 never could head off a drouth or a 
frost, whenever either chose to make me a 
visit. Thus the great part of a season’s 
labor would seem to be lost; 1 say seem to 
be lost, because there was an inward growth 
of the mind during those seasons that was 
not always visible to the bodily sense of 
sight, yet which was really of quite as much 
importance as was the loss of a few vege¬ 
tables or bright flowers that must of neces¬ 
sity soon pass away. 
At the end of ten years I had bought me 
a pretty cottage, with several acres of land 
which I had put under a high state of cul¬ 
tivation, and was able to hire good garden¬ 
ers to do my work (though 1 always kept a 
small patch for my especial cure), while 1 
sat in my well-furnished library and wrote 
articles for the press, for which 1 was well 
paid—probably because I wrote from actual 
experience, and knew of that which I af¬ 
firmed. After all, the papers did help me 
to my fortune. 
■■ ■■ - ■ + - 
SUNSHIN E AND SLEEP. 
Sleepless people—and they are many in 
America—should court, the sun. The very 
worst soporific is laudanum, and the very 
best, sunshine. Therefore, it is very plain 
that poor sleepers should passes many hours 
as possible in sunshine, and as few as pos¬ 
sible in the shade. Many women are mar¬ 
tyrs, and yet they do not know it. They 
shut the sunshine out. of their houses and 
their hearts, they wear vails, they carry 
parasols, they do all possible to keep off the 
subtlest, and yet most potent influence which 
is intended to give them strength and beauty 
and cheerfulness. Is it. not time to change 
all this, and so get color and roses in our 
pale cheeks, strength in our weak backs, 
and courage in our timid souls? The women 
of America are pule and delicate; they may 
be blooming and strong, and the sunlight 
will be a potent aid in this transformation. 
PEARLS AND BLACKBERRIES. 
“ No!" said Dr. Darling, slowly—" no! I 
can’t believe the evidence of my own 
senses!” And as he enunciated the words 
with impressive distinctness lie looked sol¬ 
emnly at Harry Clifford. 
He might have found a worse looking in¬ 
dividual to fix his regards upon than this 
young M. D., who had taken his first lessons 
in bones, muscles and human anatomy, with 
(lie therapeutics belonging thereto, in the 
little office across the hall, and was just pre¬ 
paring to hang up a shingle of his own ; for 
Harry Clifford was tall and shapely, with 
red-brown hair and a huge aburn mustache, 
and merry eyes that laughed like springs of 
wafer in the sunshine. 
Dr. Darling took off his spectacles, folded 
them, and deliberately placed them jn their 
case, still without taking his eyes from his 
neophyte. Harry Clifford smiled; but he 
looked a little embarrassed, notwithstanding. 
“ She would have you in a minute, if you 
were to propose,” pursued Dr. Darling, drop¬ 
ping great red hot splashes of sealing wax 
over a sheet of blotting paper, and stamping 
them with his monogram seal in an aimless 
sort of way. 
“ Yes; but I tell you, Sir, I don’t want to 
propose,” said Harry, staring at the inter¬ 
twined D. J. D.’s as if they were the most 
interesting things in the world. 
“ You don’t want a pretty girl for a wife?” 
“ Not that pretty girl in particular, doc¬ 
tor ? ” 
“Nor fifty thousand dollars?” added the 
doctor, pronouncing the three momentous 
words in a manner that made them sound 
very weighty indeed. 
“1 would not object to the fifty thousand 
dollars in itself, sir; hut as a mere appendage 
to Miss Bradbury-’’ 
“ I believe the boy is Cl'azy 1” ejaculated 
Dr. Darling. “ Well, well, as the Scotch pro¬ 
verb has it, ‘a will'll’ man maun hachisway,’ 
and 1 shall interfere no further. By-the-way, 
Hurry-” 
“ Yes, sir.” 
“ You are going to the city this afternoon ?” 
“ That is my present intention, sir.” 
“Stop at Depierre’s, will you, and leave 
Ml'S. Darling’s pearl brooch to get mended. 
I ought to have done it a week ago, but a 
man can’t think of everything.” 
“ Certainly, doctor; and Hurry Clifford de¬ 
posited the pearl brooch—an old fashioned 
ornament of massive gold.set with liny seed 
pearls—in his waistcoat pocket. 
“ Rather a careless way to carry jewelry, 
young man 1” said Dr. Darling, elevating his 
eyebrows. 
“ 1 never lose anything!” asserted Harry, 
in an off-hand sort of way. 
The morning sun was casting bright, 
flickering threads of gold across the kitchen 
floor; live morning glories and Madeira 
vines, trained across the casement, stirred 
softly in the mid July air; mid Ursula Per¬ 
cy, Mrs. Darling’s orphan niece, was busy 
“doing up” blackberries. 
Fresh as a rose, with hazel eyes, softened 
to intense blackness at times by the shadow 
of her long lashes, and smiling scarlet lips, 
she stood there—her calico dress concealed 
by lhe house-wifely apron of white dimity 
that was tied round her waist, and her black 
curls tucked remorselessly hack of her ears— 
looking demurely into the bubbling depths 
of the preserving kettle, like a beautiful 
parody on one of the witches in “ Macbeth ;” 
while on the whitely scoured pine table be¬ 
yond, a glittering tin vessel was upheaped 
with the beautiful jet-black fruit, each sepa¬ 
rate berry Hashing like the eye of an Orien¬ 
tal belle. 
“ Ursula 1” 
The pret ty young girl started, very nearly 
dropping her skimmer into the preserving 
kettle. 
“ IIow you startled me, Harry.” 
Harry advanced into the kitchen, with an 
admiring look at the bright face, flushed 
with a little blush and a good deal of stove 
heat. 
“ You are always at work, Ursula.” 
“ 1 have got to work, Harry, to earn my 
own living,” Ursula Percy answered, with a 
slight uplifting ol her exquisite black brows: 
“1 am notan heiress, like Miss Bradbury.” 
“Confound Miss Bradbury!" exclaimed 
our hero. “ i hear nothing but Miss Brad¬ 
bury the whole time.” 
“ Shu is a very sweet young lady, Harry,” 
said Ursula, in mildly reproving accents. 
“ ] dare say ; but—what a lot of blackber¬ 
ries you have here, to be sure, Ursula !’’ 
“Forty quarts,” said Ursula, demurely. 
“ Aunt Darling always enjoys them so much 
in the winter.” 
Hurry put a honey globule of fruit into 
his mouth. 
“ Blackberries are a beautiful fruit, Ur¬ 
sula.” 
“Very;” and Miss Percy skimmed dili¬ 
gently away at the boiling caldron. 
“ Especially when you are doing them up,” 
added the young M. D., with rather a clum¬ 
sy effort at compliment. 
Ursula did not answer. Harry walked up 
to the range and took both her hands in bis. 
“ Harry, don’t ! The berries will burn.” 
“ Let ’em burn, then, who cares?” 
“But what do you want?” she asked, 
struggling impotently to escape, and laugh¬ 
ing in spite of the grave look she fain would 
have assumed. 
“To see your eyes, Ursula.” 
She lifted the soft hazel orbs to his face; 
then withdrew them with sudden shyness. 
“Do you know what answer I read in 
those eyes, dearest?” he whispered, after a 
moment or two of silence, broken only by 
the hissing and simmering of the boiling 
blackberries, 
“No,” 
“ 1 read yes /” 
“ Oh, Harry, I dare not. Uncle and aunt 
are determined you shall marry Miss Brad¬ 
bury.” 
“And 1 am so determined not to marry 
her. Is a man to be given away as if he were 
a house and lot or a bundle of old clothes, 1 
should like to know? Ursula-” 
“ Harry, they are burning! I am sure of 
it. I can smell them. Oh, do let go my 
hands!” 
Harry Clifford deftly seized the big iron 
spoon, and stirred the boiling depths vigor¬ 
ously. 
“ It’s all your imagination, Ursula!” 
“ No, it’s not; and it they are the least bit 
scorched they will be spoiled for Aunt Dar¬ 
ling.” 
“ But, Ursula-” 
The creaking sound of an open door be¬ 
yond suddenly dissolved the tete-a-tete. Ur¬ 
sula almost pushed Harry Clifford out of the 
kitchen. 
“You’ll be on the piazza to-night when 
they have all gone to the concert ?” he per¬ 
sisted in asking through the crack of the 
door. 
“Yes, yes, anything — everything; only 
go !” 
And Harry went, beginning to realize that 
love-making and preserving did not assimi¬ 
late. 
“Your pearl brooch, my dear? Oh, re¬ 
member now. 1 gave it to Harry more 
than a week ago to have mended. 1 dare 
say its done by this time?” and Dr. Darling 
turned expectantly to our hero. 
“ I’m very sorry," began Harry; “ but the 
brooch disappeared in the most unaccount¬ 
able manner from my vest pocket. 1 know 
I put it there-” 
“ Yes,” dryly interrupted the elder gentle¬ 
man, “ I remember seeing you put it there, 
and you nasged meat the time that you 
never lost anything. So the brooch is gone, 
eh?” 
“ Y T e, sir, it is gone. But Mrs. Darling 
may rest assured,” Harry added, with a 
glance toward that lady, “ that 1 will re¬ 
place it at the very earliest opportunity.” 
“ Oh, it is of no consequence at all!” said 
Mrs. Darling, will) a countenance that said 
plainly, It is of the very greatest conse¬ 
quence 1 “Perhaps we shall find it some¬ 
where about the house ” 
But the days slipped by one by one, and 
the doom of the pearl brooch remained in¬ 
volved in the deepest mystery. Harry Clif¬ 
ford bought another one and presented it to 
Mrs. Darling with a complimentary speech, 
Mrs. Darling laughed, and pinned it into the 
folds of the thread lace barb she wore at 
her throat. 
“But it’s so strange what can have be¬ 
come of the other 1” said Mrs. Darling. 
It was in the golden month of September 
that the old doctor ami Mrs. Darling made 
up their minds to invite Miss Bradbury to 
tea. 
“We’ll have pound cake and preserved 
blackberries,” said Mrs. Darling, who al¬ 
ways looked at the material side of things. 
“And if Harry don’t come to terms now, 
he never will,” added her husband, who 
didn’t. 
“ Get out the best China and the chased 
silyer tea service, Ursula,” said Mrs. Dar¬ 
ling. 
“ And wear your pink French calico, 
child ; it’s the most becoming dress you 
have,” said her uncle, with a loving glance 
at the bright liLlleJjrimette. 
And Ursula Percy obeyed both of their 
mandates. 
Miss Bradbury came—a handsome, showy 
young lady, with a smooth “society" man¬ 
ner that made Ursula feel herself very coun¬ 
trified and common indeed. 
“ Delicious preserves these!” said Miss 
Bradbury. 
“ They are of Ursula’s making,” said Mrs. 
Darling. And Harry Clifford passed his 
plate for a second supply. 
“ I remember the day they were brewed, 
or baked, or whatever it is you call it,” said 
he, with an arch glance at Ursula. 
Suddenly old Dr. Darling grew purple in 
the face, and began to cough violently. 
Every one started up. 
“He swallowed the spoon I” cried Miss 
Bradburry. 
“ Oh, oh 1 he’s got the apoplexy 1” screamed 
Mrs. Darling, hysterically. 
“ Uncle! dearest uncle !” piped up poor 
little Ursula, vaguely catching at a glass of 
water. 
But Dr. Darling recovered without any 
more disastrous symptoms. 
“ It isn’t the spoon, and I don’t come of an 
apoplectic family,” said he, “ But upon my 
w ord, this is about the biggest blackberry I 
ever came perilously near swallowing!” And 
lie Held out his wife’s pearl brooch, boiled up 
in llie blackberries! 
There was a momentary silence around 
the table; and then it was broken by Mrs. 
Darling—one of those blessed old ladies who 
never see an inch beyond their own specta¬ 
cled noses. 
“ My goodness gracious!” said Mrs. Dar¬ 
ling, “ how could it ever have come into the 
preserved blackberries? 1—don’t—see—” 
“ Bui I do, said Dr. Darling, looking pro- 
vokingly knowing. “ Yes; 1 see a good many 
things now that I didn’t see before,” 
And Harry, glancing across the, table at 
Ursula, was somewhat consoled to perceive 
that Her cheek was a shade more scarlet, if 
that were possible, than bis own. 
He followed the old doctor into bis office 
when the evening meal was concluded—Ur¬ 
sula did not know how she ever would have 
lived through it, were it not for Mrs. Dar¬ 
ling’s delightful ohluseness,and Sophy Brad¬ 
bury’s suiTftCe-cbarm of manner—and plung¬ 
ed boldly into the matter. 
“Doctor—■” he began, valiantly; but the 
old gentleman interrupted him. 
“ There's no need of any explanation, my 
boy,” he said. "1 know why you didn’t, 
want to marry Miss Bradbury. And I don’t 
say that i blame you much; only 1 came 
very near choking to death with Ursula’s 
blackberry jam !” 
And Dr. Darling laughed again until, had 
his spouse been present, site would surely 
have thought a second attack of apoplexy 
among the inevitables. 
“ Little Ursula !” lie added. “ Who would 
have thought of it? Well, you shall have 
my blessing.” 
The pearls were all discolored, and the 
gold of the old-fashioned brooch tarnished 
with the alchemy of cooking; hut Ursula 
keeps that old ornament yet, more tenderly 
treasured than all the modern Knickknacks 
with which her young husband loads her 
toilet-table. And every year when she pre¬ 
serves blackberries, Dr. Darling comes to 
tea, and makes ponderous wilicisms, and pre¬ 
tends to search in the crystal preserve dish 
for a “ boiled brooch !” 
But then, jolly old gentlemen will have 
their jokes. 
- ♦♦♦ - 
A ROMANCE OF REAL LIFE. 
From Newcastle, Kentucky, a newspa¬ 
per correspondent writes this singular bit of 
romance: 
I write this letter in the house of an old 
lady who is a niece of that Rebecca Bryan 
who became the wife of Daniel Boone, and 
concerning whose eyes (the young hunter is 
said to have mistaken them for those of a 
deer) the pretty backwoods romance is told. 
This lady is herself also the widow of one 
of Daniel Boone’s own nephews, her second 
husband, who assisted in bringing the great 
hunter back to Kentucky. She was born in 
one of tbe chief old pioneer stations (her 
grandfather’s) near Lexington, and, although 
she is in her eighty-first year, she is active 
in body, busying herself with her flowers 
and garden, clear sighted and alert in spirit. 
Recently she heard that one of her middle- 
aged sons, absent over twenty years in Cali¬ 
fornia, and presumed dead for more than 
half of that time, was yet alive, and her joy 
was great. He, too. had supposed his mother 
to be long dead. 
The old lady has a romance connected 
with her second marriage. It. is as follows: 
When her mother was a young lady, Col. 
William Boone, the nephew of Daniel men¬ 
tioned above, was very much in love with 
her, and asked her, on one occasion, to 
marry him. She told him she was engaged 
to Morgan Bryan, and that they were en¬ 
gaged to be married in a few days. Col. 
Boone went away and married another 
young woman. Afterward he, wjth Jos 
wife, visited the other young married couple 
when their first child (uow in her filth score 
of years) was but a very few days old, and 
seeing the baby, he laughed, and said to her 
mother:—“Now, Milly, as you wouldn’t 
have me yourself, you’ll give me the girl for 
my second wife, won’t you ?” Whether 
any jesting promise was made I am not in¬ 
formed, but the baby grew up, and at twen¬ 
ty-five she was married, had several chil¬ 
dren, became a widow after nine years, and 
remained one for a long time, when Col. 
Boone’s first wife having died some years 
previously, she really became, in her own 
middle life, the wife of Her mother’s early 
lover, who had claimed her in her cradle. 
The good old lady is accustomed, in relating 
this to her sons and nieces, to speak of it as 
“ one of the most remarkable things that 
ever happened.” I think so too, and It is a 
true stoiy. 
OVER THE HILLS. 
BY KATE CAMERON. 
Ovku the hills,—the glad, green hills, 
Gstyly I returned In toy childhood’s hours, 
Hearing the music ot the rills. 
Gathering the early budding flowers ; 
Never a thought of care or grief 
Shadowed mo In that morning time, 
f ree ns a hird—light as a leaf, 
My heart rang out its merry chime 
Over the lulls—could I go hack 
And elns?) again those treasures fled, 
How bright would be that shining trnck, 
How dear those friends, now changed or dead! 
Over the lulls, the golden hilis 
Weary i tread in the nnon-dity heat, 
While busy toil encli moment fills, 
Rough is the path beneath ray feet. 
Faint and fuintor. I see the gleams 
Of dewy grass and morning sky: 
And one by mo my cherished dreams 
Shrink from t.ho daylight’s glare, and die. 
Over the hills,-how dark and long 
The Journey seems when Faith grows dim! 
But when Hope sings her cheering song, 
Onee more I follow the rainbow's rim. 
Over the hills,—the purple hills 
,My step must go In the twlllght.gray. 
My heat! with eager longing tlirills 
To view that country far away. 
Sweeter than any earthly bliss. 
Fairer than all ray visions gone, 
That, life which takes tho place of this 
Welcome will he its early dawn t 
Over the hills, those bights sublime 
Ry tireless saints and angel s trod, 
How blest forevermore to climb 
The white, eternal hills of God! 
-♦»» - 
GOD’S SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. 
Bishop Simpson writes thus eloquently on 
this subject, in the Methodist:—It is said 
that Fletcher, when a young man, was 
very anxious to join the army to go to South 
America. The vessel was ready to start, 
friends secured him an appointment, but the 
morning he was to have sailed the servant, in 
coming into his room at breakfast, stumbled 
and spilled over him the boiling coffee, and 
so scalded him that he was unable to go on 
his journey, lie lamented the accident— 
was disappointed in all his plans; but the 
vessel was never heard from. Fletcher 
was spared to become a preacher of the gos¬ 
pel, a man who wielded by his pen, as well 
ns by his voice, an overwhelming influence 
upon the minds of men, and being dead yet 
speaketh. 
No miracle was wrought. Wesley, the 
little boy, is sleeping in the upper story of 
Epwort.fi Rectory. It is on fire; he is for¬ 
gotten ; but suddenly a woman remembers 
there is a child asleep, and she calls, and the 
child shows his head at the window ; and a 
brave man, at the risk of himself being burn¬ 
ed, mounts a ladder, and the little fellow 
throws himself into his arms and is saved, 
and Wesley is spared to enlighten the world. 
No law of nature is violated; but oh I these 
suggestions, these thoughts that drop from 
heaven, that change and mold the whole 
sphere ot our lives 1 This breathing! God 
breathed into man, and lie became a living 
soul. Jesus, when he rose from the dead, 
breathed and said :—“ Receive ye the Holy 
Ghost.” Thai spirit of breathing, that 
spiritual influence, it comes down oil the 
hearts of men, am) may change and fashion 
and mold and save, and yet all these laws 
of nature remain uniform and immutable. 
God is all around us. God’s Jaws stand all 
the time. We lean on them like pillars of 
the universe. We place our feet on them 
like the rock of ages. We hold fast to them, 
knowing the foundations shall give way 
sooner than they. 
And yet, in the midst of all these, there is 
a sphere under which we can work in har¬ 
mony with those laws and have their pro¬ 
tecting power, and still Goc! can care for the 
men who care for Him. Here is the whole 
realm in which we may find safety. 1 will 
nut say positively that God never interfered 
with nature's law's, that there is never any 
response in this direction in answer to 
prayer. I will not. make the affirmation that 
God never suspends a natural law : hut I 
will say, I see no necessity for it- Christ 
never showed any example of it In His own 
life; and save when there was a necessity 
for declaring God was there, that He might 
give a revelation, and men might know it 
was from God, we find no such case ot mi¬ 
raculous intervention. And now, then, it 
God can so work, what is to prevent us feel¬ 
ing we are encircled within His arms and 
IIis power attends us ? 
--- 
The Test.— He who knows how to make 
persons around him, wherever lie goes, hap¬ 
py ; he who knows how to do it in morning 
and noon aud night; he who knows how to 
make love his uniform disposition; be who 
knows how to radiate sympathy, and gentle¬ 
ness, and kindness, and forbearance, and pa¬ 
tience towards others, and to make men feel 
richer for his being with them—he has the 
critical test of piety. 
--- 
Preserve your conscience al ways sot t am 
sensitive. If but one sin forces its way into 
that tender part of the soul and dwells there 
the road is paved for a thousand iniquities. 
