glossy brown hair playing with the winds, and her innocent face smiling upon him with friendly greeting. “She was the best and prettiest child I ever saw,” he often said to himself; “I wonder whether she would be as pleasant now.” Sometimes he thought of going to the West and seeking her out. But he knew not where to find her; his funds were small, and his courage fell at the thought; “Oh, it is many years ago since we were children together. Perhaps I should find her married.” Gradually this one ray of poetry faded out of his soul, and all his thoughts fell into the common prosaic mould. His lot was cast with rough people, who required much work, and gave little sympathy. The image of his little mate floated farther and farther away, and more and more seldom her clear blue eyes smiled upon him through the rainbow-mists of the past, or from the air-castles of the future. In process of time, he married, after the same fashion that a large proportion of men do; because it was convenient to have a wife, and there was a woman of good character in the neighbourhood, willing to marry whoever first offered her a respectable home. Her character bore the stamp of harmless mediocrity. She was industrious and patient, but ignorant, dull, and quietly obstinate. The neighbours said she was well suited to him, he was so rough and passionate; and in the main he thought so himself; though her imperturbable calmness sometimes fretted him, as a rock chafes the lashing ocean into foam. The child that was born to them, they both loved better than they had ever loved; and according to their light, they sincerely strove to do their duty. His bodily wants were well supplied, often at the cost of great weariness and self-sacrifice; but their own rude training had given them few good ideas concerning the culture of an immortal soul. The infant did more for them, than they for him. Angelic influences, unseen and unheard amid the hard struggles of their outward life, became visible and audible through the unconscious innocence of their little one. For the second time in his life, a vision of beauty and love gleamed across the rugged path of that honest, laborious man. Vague impressions of beauty he had constantly received from the great panorama of the universe. His heart sometimes welcomed a bright flower in the sunshine, or a cluster of lilies on the stream; he marvelled at the splendor of the rainbow, and sometimes gazed reverently at the sun sinking to rest in his rich drapery of purple and gold. But these were glimpses of the Infinite; their beauty did not seem to appertain to _him_; it did not enter like a magic charm into the sphere of his own existence, as did the vision of Mary Williams and his own little Joe. The dormant tenderness there was in him leaped up at the smile of his babe, and every pressure of the little fingers made a dimple in the father’s heart. Like the outbursts of spring, after a long cold winter, was this revelation of infancy to him.