We will now bid the reader adieu, leaving him to imagine that henceforth the fortunes of all of our characters ran in as smooth a tide as is possible in this world. We all know that the stream of actual life flows in an even course with but few. With most it is—romance aside—as our tale has shown it, a confused succession of alternating sensations, sometimes dark and dull of hue, like the clouds of winter, at others, breaking out into the glowing splendor and bright illusions of a dream. * * * * * [Illustration: THE JOLLY RIDE.] * * * * * THE JOLLY RIDE. [WITH A STEEL ENGRAVING.] OH! for those rides, those jolly, jolly rides, When my sister and I were young, When our hearts were bright and our spirits light, Of sorrow and sin unstung. When Neddy we bestrode, with our double load, As good at our need as an Arab steed; And merrily pricked, though he sulked and kicked, O’er rivulet, rock and mead. Alas! for those rides, they are gone, they are past; Ned and we are grown old and gray; But thoughts of those times, like Christmas chimes, In our hearts must ever be gay. H. * * * * * BALLADS OF THE CAMPAIGN IN MEXICO. NO. V. BY HENRY KIRBY BENNER, U. S. A. [Illustration: Buena Vista.] WE lay at AQUA NUEVA, sullenly, in stern repose, Awaiting, with anxiety, the onset of our foes:— We were few; but what of that? We were men, not one of whom But was ready, when his country called, to meet a soldier’s doom, And, looking toward the approaching fight with something like despair, We were deadly as the lion when the hunter treads his lair. Our foes, so said our scouts, when they came, at set of sun, Were led by SANTA ANNA, and were more than five to one;— They were more than twenty thousand, we, little more than four; But deadlier fights, we knew, were fought by our ancestors of yore, When, hand to hand, with axe and bill our fathers clove their way At Agincourt, and Cressy, and purple Poitiérs. Our general’s brow was care-worn; his eye leapt like a hound, Seeking, wherever it rested, the advantage of the ground: Between us and SALTILLO lay a craggy mountain pass, With sierra on sierra in many a granite mass— The plain of BUENA VISTA, where, afterward, we stood And fought till its ravines and sands were purple with our blood.