What a varying thing is the stream of life! How it sparkles and glitters! Now it bounds along its pebbly bed, sometimes in sunshine, and sometimes in shade; sometimes sporting round all things, as if its essence were merriment and brightness; sometimes flowing solemnly on, as if it were derived from Lethe itself. Now it runs like a liquid diamond along the meadow; now it plunges in fume and fury over the rock; now it is clear and limpid, as youth and innocence can make it; now it is heavy and turbid, with the varying streams of thought and memory that are ever flowing into it, each bringing its store of dulness and pollution as it tends towards the end. Its voice, too, varies as it goes; now it sings lightly as it dances on; now it roars amidst the obstacles that oppose its way; and now it has no tone but the dull low murmur of exhausted energy. Such is the stream of life! yet, perhaps, few of us would wish to change our portion of it for the calm regularity of a canal--even if one could be constructed without locks and floodgates upon it to hold in the pent-up waters of the heart till they are ready to burst through the banks. Life was in its sparkling aspect with Zara Croyland and Sir Edward Digby, when they set out on horseback for the house of old Mr. Croyland, cantering easily along the roads of that part of the country, which, in the days I speak of, were soft and somewhat sandy. Two servants followed behind at a discreet distance; and lightly passing over hill and dale, with all the loveliness of a very bright portion of our fair land stretched out around them, the young lady and her companion drew in, through the eyes, fresh sensations of happiness from all the lovely things of nature. The yellow woods warmed their hearts; the blue heaven raised their thoughts; the soft air refreshed and cheered all their feelings; and, when a passing cloud swept over the sky, it only gave that slight shadowy tone to the mind, which wakens within us the deep, innate, and elevating movements of the spirit, that seem to connect the aspect of God's visible creation, with a higher and a purer state of being. Each had some spring of happiness in the heart fresh opened; for, to the fair girl who went bounding along through that gay world, the thought that she was conveying to a dear sister tidings of hope, was in itself a joy; and to her companion a new subject of contemplation was presenting itself, in the very being who accompanied him on the way--a subject quite untouched and novel, and, to a man of his character and disposition, a most interesting one.