His voice and looks expressed such conviction of the reality of what he saw, that I also looked up to see these beautiful spirits. My glance of disappointment recalled him; and he smiled as he said, "I think it was a dream; but it will be reality soon.--Do not go," said he, as I arose to call for others. "Do not fear, sister. The bands are very loose, and the spirit will go gently, and perhaps even before you could return." I reseated myself, and pressing his wasted hand in mine, I watched,-- "As through his breast, the wave of life Heaved gently to and fro." A few moments more, and I was alone with the dead. We buried Winthrop by the side of Endicott W., and the old pastor was soon laid beside them. * * * * Years have passed since then, and I still love to visit those three graves. But other feelings mingle with those which once possessed my soul. I hear those whose high vocation was once deemed a sure guarantee for their purity, either basely calumniated, or terribly condemned. Their morality is questioned, their sincerity doubted, their usefulness denied, and their pretensions scoffed at. It may be that unholy hands are sometimes laid upon the ark, and that change of times forbids such extensive usefulness as was in the power of the clergymen of New England in former days. But when there comes a muttering cry of "Down with the priesthood!" and a denial of the good which they have effected, my soul repels the insinuation, as though it were blasphemy. I think of the first three pastors of our village, and I reverence the ministerial office and its labors, "If I but remember only, That such as these have lived, and died." SUSANNA. [Illustration: Decoration] THE SUGAR-MAKING EXCURSION. It was on a beautiful morning in the month of March, (one of those mornings so exhilarating that they make even age and decrepitude long for a ramble), that friend H. called to invite me to visit his sugar-lot--as he called it--in company with the party which, in the preceding summer, visited Moose Mountain upon the whortleberry excursion. It was with the pleasure generally experienced in revisiting former scenes, in quest of novelty and to revive impressions and friendships, that our party set out for this second visit to Moose Mountain.