THE VINE—THE FAMILY. 
63 
comfortable married dames, superannuated spinsters, blooming country- 
cousins, half-fledged striplings, and briglit-eyed boarding-school hoydens. 
They were variously employed; some at a round game, others con¬ 
versing around the fire-place; at one end of the hall was a group of 
young folks, some nearly grown up, others of a more tender and 
budding age, fully engrossed by a merry game; and a profusion of 
wooden horses, penny trumpets, and tattered dolls about the floor, 
showed traces of a troop of little fairy beings, who, having frolicked 
through a happy day, had been carried off to slumber through a peace¬ 
ful night. 
Washington Irving. 
O H, love of loves! to thy white hand is given 
Of earthly happiness the golden key ; 
Thine are the joyous hours of winter’s even, 
When the babes cling around their father’s knee; 
And thine the voice, that, on the midnight sea, 
Melts the rude mariner with thoughts of home, 
Peopling the gloom with all he longs to see. 
Spirit! I’ve built a shrine; and thou hast come, 
And on its altar closed,—for ever closed, thy plume. 
Croly. 
O THE sweet, merry mouths upturned to be kissed 
When I come home, when I come home! 
How the younglings yearn from the hungry nest, 
When I come home, when I come home! 
My weary-worn heart into sweetness is stirred, 
And it dances and sings like a singing-bird, 
On the branch nighest heaven,—a-top of my life, 
As I clasp my winsome, wooing wife ! 
And her pale cheek with rich, tender passion doth bloom, 
Home, home, when I come home, 
