MAY. 
HEARTSEASE AND DAISY—THE PLAYMATES. 
‘ Oh, for the April sun and shower, 
The sweet May dews of that fair land, 
Where Daisies, thick as starlight, stand, 
In every walk.’—J. Montgomery. 
Y only brother was a second self. Not that he resembled 
me in any respect, for he was beautiful to a prodigy, and 
I an ordinary child; he was wholly free from any pre¬ 
dilection for learning, being mirthful and volatile in the 
highest degree: and though he listened when I read to 
him the mysterious marvels of my favourite nursery books, 
I doubt whether he ever bestowed an after-thonght on 
anything therein contained. The brightest, the sweetest, 
the most sparkling creature that ever lived, he was all joy, all love. 
I do not remember to have seen him for one moment out of temper, 
or out of spirits, for the first sixteen years of his life; and he was to me 
what the natural sun is to the system. We were never separated; our 
studies, our plays, our walks, our plans, our hearts, were always one. 
That holy band which the Lord has woven, that inestimable blessing 
of fraternal love and confidence, was never broken, never loosened 
between us, from the cradle to his grave; and God forbid I should 
say or think that the grave has broken it! If I have not from the 
outset included that precious brother in my sketch, it was because I 
should almost as soon have deemed it necessary to include by name 
my own head or my own heart. He, too, was musical, and sang sweetly; 
and I cannot look back on my childhood without confessing that its 
cup ran over with the profusion of delights that my God poured into it. 
Personal Recollections. 
A GOLD and silver cup 
Upon a pillar green, 
Earth holds her Daisy up 
To catch the sunshine in ; 
