And I did love thee, not a transient flame, Burned on the altar of an early dream; No, I have dwelt upon that cherished name Till it became the priestess and the beam, And softly came around our household hearth, The angel wings of woman’s ministry, Rich hopes, as wild and joyous in their birth As were the early dreams of loving thee. And ever thus has been the full, deep tide, Upheaving from this ocean love of mine; A memory forever by my side, To lead me onward to a nobler shrine; The calm, hushed voice still sounding in my sleep, Like to a strain of distant melody, The holy light from out those eyes so deep, That shines on all so clear and tranquilly. Amid my dreams of human faith and love— Of _love_, that stems the tempest and the blast— Of _faith_, that in its tenderness shall prove Its holy office even to the last, Thou hast been present with thy watchful care, Guarding a heart too prone to _dream_ at best, Too much forgetting _one_ whose sinless prayer Has lingered round his home a heavenly guest. But brightly now the sun of promise shines, The dark and stormy waves of time along, With all some token of thy virtue twines, Sweet as the cadence of the evening song; And truly now, when youth’s wild day is o’er, And every fancied passion’s hushed to rest, I give this song to _thee_ from memory’s shore, The echo of the tide within my breast. * * * * * THE FOUNDLING. BY JESSIE HOWARD. CHAPTER I. The March winds blew chillingly over a wide and barren moor in the Highlands of Scotland, and howled fiercely around the isolated dwelling in the middle of it, from whence gleamed a faint light like a beacon in the midst of that desolate waste. Black majestic clouds gathered darker over head, and the wild whistle of the coming tempest grew every moment more shrill; but little were the boding sounds noted within the cottage of Donald McLane, for sterner and fiercer was the storm of sorrow gathering in the human heart of the one lonely watcher, bending over the low pallet where lay, in a still dreamless slumber, the forerunner of one more dreamless yet, the form of her only child. Long silken curls fell on the white pillow, from the still whiter brow of the little sufferer, and pearly lids, with long, dark fringes, drooped over the fair cheek. The coverlet had been cast aside, as by some restless motion, and the snow-white drapery fell in careless folds, half-covering, half-revealing those round and dimpled limbs.