Why should I tell you of the tea-table, loaded with delicacies in the matted hall, as the soft evening sun-set poured its last rays through it? of the symmetrical figure clad in snowy whiteness—the Grecian features, the dark Andalusian eyes, beaming with kindness from behind the glittering silver at its head? Why, that the youngster tied by the handkerchief in the high chair at his mother’s side, pertinaciously kicked his tiny red shoes about him in frolic glee, while my little knight of the golden locks, did the duty of the trencher at his father’s elbow? Why, that as the shades of evening faded into twilight, that the young gentry were snugly ensconced in their little bed, the mother’s soft cheek pressed against the forehead of the eldest as he lisped his evening prayer? and why, as soon “like twin roses on one stalk,” as they were wrapped in innocent slumber, we sat in the fading twilight, talking over old scenes and boyish recollections, retracing our steps back to those days which, softened by the lapse of time, appear divested of every thing save brightness and sunshine? why but to tell you that we were aroused from those retrospections, by the sound of the church-going bell, musically chiming in the distance. THE COUNTRY PASTOR. The slow tolling—now almost dying away, and now striking more strongly upon the ear—arose from the church in the neighbouring town, where my friends were in the habit of worshipping, and where they were to have the opportunity on that evening of hearing the voice of their time-honoured pastor—an opportunity which his great age and increasing infirmities had made equally rare and valuable. I gladly accepted the invitation to join them, as, aside from a desire to see the aged man, of whom I had so often heard, if there is a time for devotion more consonant to my feelings than another, it is when the quietness and serenity of a summer’s evening dispel all external impressions, and every thing appears in unison with harmony and benevolence.