said to be capable of attaining to an immense age-from eight hundred to a thousand years. This one is just beginning to decay, and yet the oldest people in Springfield cannot remember it otherwise than it is now."

"What a many birthdays it must have seen, said Ellen, laughingly.

“Yes, Ellen, and yet at the last the axe will lay it low; and thus it may teach us the lesson which we should always remember, but which the recurrence of every birthday should impress still more deeply upon our minds,-that however long we may live, our life must at last come to a close, and that every birthday lessens the number. Whether the voyage be long or short, stormy or fair, prosperous or unhappy, we shall all get into port at the end. Let us hope that it may be a peaceful one."

When they arrived at the house, they found Mr. and Mrs. Ansted waiting their coming, for Mr. Ashton had invited them to spend the evening there. The girls hastened to change their walking dress for a costume more suited for a festival occasion, and came down prepared for a pleasant evening. They were afterwards joined by the youthful members of one or two farmers'

families in the neighbourhood, of whom Maud did not know a great deal, but who had shown some kindness towards her. Many agreeable little speeches were made, and many good wishes expressed; and Maud felt very happy, though she could not see the beaming faces of her friends. After tea, Mr. Ashton, for the benefit of a group of his youthful guests, fought some of his former battles over again, and at their request described, with full particulars, the circumstances of the action in which he lost his left hand. Mr. and Mrs. Ansted set others at various games, and inspecting various albums and picture-books: the piano was opened, and the girls took turns with songs and instrumental pieces of various character and quality. Maud took an opportunity once or twice of stealing out into the kitchen among her humbler friends, for she valued their kind feeling and good will none the less because they were poor and lowly. And at the last, everybody having sung, or played, or excused themselves but Maud, the guests began to be pressing for her performance; and she, never having done anything of the kind before strangers, was rather timid at undertaking it; but not to look awkward or seem disobliging,

she consented at once, and taking her seat at the instrument, sang a little plaintive ditty which she often sang to her grandpapa-as simple as it was pretty. And very pretty the youthful singer looked too, with long fair ringlets drooping over her shoulders, in a dress of plain white muslin, with a blue sash. Her face wore a bright and happy expression, which rendered her naturally pleasing features positively beautiful for the time; the flush upon her cheek was of a deeper tint than usual, and those large eyes, so fixed and motionless,. would have been so handsome if they had only been gifted with light and expression. Everybody present felt at the time a peculiar interest in her; and when she began the prelude to another song, every one was hushed and silent, and every eye was bent on her.

MAUD'S SONG.

They tell me of the glorious earth,
And of the glorious sky;

Of the many things that glad the heart,
When imag'd in the eye.

And all is closed and dark to me,

Those joys I cannot know;

Yet do I not repine or grieve,

Since God hath willed it so.

Though He withholds this precious gift,
A gift to few denied,

To Him I owe my life and friends,

And many joys beside.

In this life I may never know
The pleasures of the light,
May never look on human things,
With the gift of human sight.

But visions of a better land

Are treasured in my mind;

Where beams the light, that hath no night,
And where no eye is blind.

There were few in the room who were not affected, even to tears, as Maud finished her song. The piano was closed at once, and no one thought of opening it again that evening,-no one wished to banish from his mind the mournfully pleasant feeling which her singing had produced. It was not so much the words or the music as the artless, modest, half-plaintive manner in which she sang, and the evident circumstance that the words exactly expressed her own feelings. Where she got the song from she could not say. She told Mr. Ashton afterwards, that she seemed to have had it floating in her mind for a long, long time, with an indistinct recollection of some one having repeated it to her years before.

The party broke up shortly after; many of its members cherished the remembrance of it for years, and with a few, I am sure, it remains even to this day.

CHAPTER VIII.

LABOURS OF LOVE.

"So let me ever learn to give,

Pleasure and blessing while I live;
With kindly deed, and smiling face,

A sunbeam, in my lowly place."-MORAL SONGS.

THE kind friends who watched so carefully over Maud's welfare became, about this time, rather anxious on account of her health. Her constitution had not been strong at any period, and, like the greater number of children born in India of English parents, she never enjoyed that robust and vigorous health which we so commonly meet with in children at home. Besides this, she was very tall for her age-her strength had not kept pace with her growth in stature. Mrs. Jackson was alarmed at her frequent complaints of lassitude and weariness, even when she had not been exerting herself, and when there was no cause to account for such feelings. She was troubled, too, with weakness of the chest; the slightest exposure was sufficient to bring on a