Dear Aunt Nora! If thou _wert_ yclept "spinster," never did a heart more filled with good and pure and kindly impulses beat than thine! Indeed, I have ever ascribed my deep reverence for the sisterhood in general to my affectionate remembrances of this childhood's friend. The oracle of our village was Aunt Nora Meriwether--and how could "old maid" be a stigma upon her name, when it was by virtue of this very title that she was enabled to perform all those little kindly offices which her heart was ever prompting, and which made up the sum of her simple daily existence! It was said that Aunt Nora was "disappointed" in early life--but however this may have been, certain it was that the tales (and they _did_ intimate--did the good people of our village--that if Aunt Nora had a weakness, it consisted in over-fondness for story-telling) she treasured longest, and oftenest repeated, were those in which the fair heroine was crossed in love. Many a time have we, a group of gay and happy-hearted children, gathered round her feet, as she sat in the low doorway of her cottage-home, and listened with intense interest to a tale of her youthful days, gazing the while with eyes in which the bright drops of sympathy oft would glisten, upon the kind face bent upon our own in such loveful earnestness. And we would hope, in child-like innocence of heart, that _we_ might never "fall in love," but grow up and be "old maids," just like our own dear Aunt Nora! Whether we still continued to hope so, after we had grown in years and wisdom, it behoveth me not to say! I am quite sure you would rather listen to the tale now before thee, dear reader, from the good old lady's own lips--for it is but a simple sketch at best, and needeth the charm thrown around it by a heart which the frost of many winters had not sealed to the tenderest sympathies of our nature--and the low-toned voice, too, that often during her narrative would grow tremulous with the emotion it excited. But, alas! this may not be! that low voice is hushed--the little wicket-gate now closed--the path which led to her cottage-door untrodden now for many a day--and that kind and gentle heart is laid at rest beneath bright flowers, planted there by loving hands, in the humble church-yard. But this day is so lovely--is it not? With that soft and shadowy mist hanging like a gossamer veil over Nature's face, through which the glorious god of day looks with a quiet smile, as though he loved to dwell upon a scene so replete with home-breathing beauty! And that smile! how lovingly it rests upon the lawn and the meadow and the brook! How it lingers upon the sweet flowerets which have not yet brushed the tears from their eyes, until those dewy tear-drops seem--as if touched by a fairy wand--to change to radiant gems! How it peeps into every nook and dell, until the silent places of the earth rejoice in the light of that glory-beaming smile! The busy hum of countless insects--the soft chime of the