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breath, as he went along, holding by the fence now and then.

"It's the chance!" he said. "And Martha! It 's Martha and the little chaps!"

But he was not sure. He was yet so near to the place where it would have been forever too late. If Ready saw that with his wary eye, turned now and then. as he trotted before, -if he had any terror in his dumb soul, (or whatever you choose to call it,) or any mad joy, or desire to go clean daft with rollicking in the snow at what he had done, he put it off to another season, and kept a stern face on his captive. But Yarrow watched it; it was the first home-face of them all.

"Be a man," it said. "Let the thief go. Home 's before you, and love, and years of hard work for the God you did

not know."

So they went on together. They came at last to the house, - home. He grew blind then, and stopped at the gate; but the dog went slower, and waited for him to follow, pushed the door open softly, and, when he went in, laid down in his old place, and put his paws over his face.

When Martha Yarrow heard the step at last, she got up. But seeing how it was with him, she only put her arms quietly about his neck, and said,—

"I've waited so long, my husband!" That was all.

He lay in his old bed that evening; he made her open the door, feeling strong enough to look at them now, Jem and Tom and Catty, in the warm, well-lighted room, with all its little Christmas gayeties. They had known many happy holidays, but none like this: coming in on tiptoe to look at the white, sad face on the pillow, and to say, under their breath, "It's father." They had waited so long for him. When he heard them, the closed eyes always opened anxiously, and looked at them: kind eyes, full of a more tender, wishful love than even mother's. They came in only now and then, but Martha he would not let go from him, held her hand all day. Ready

had made his way up on the bed and lay of my own life. They'll not love me over his feet. less."

"That's right, old Truepenny!" he

said.

They laughed at that: he had not forgotten the old name. When Martha looked at the old yellow dog, she felt her eyes fill with tears.

He did not talk much that day; even to her he could not say that which was in his heart; but it seemed to him there was One who heard and understood,looking out, after all was quiet that night, into the far depth of the silent

"God did not want a messenger," she sky, and going over his whole wretched thought: as if He ever did!

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life down to that bitterest word of all, as if he had found a hearer more patient, more tender than either wife or child.

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MEMORIÆ POSITUM

R. G. S.

1863.

I.

BENEATH the trees,

My life-long friends in this dear spot,
Sad now for eyes that see them not,

I hear the autumnal breeze

Wake the sear leaves to sigh for gladness gone,
Whispering hoarse presage of oblivion,

Hear, restless as the seas,

Time's grim feet rustling through the withered grace
Of many a spreading realm and strong-stemmed race,
Even as my own through these.

Why make we moan

For loss that doth enrich us yet
With upward yearnings of regret?

Bleaker than unmossed stone

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can make to you no revelation. It is departed, none knows whither. He is as much a part of the past as if he had tended flocks for Abraham on the plains of Mamre.

This, when biographies are at their best. Generally, they are at their worst. Generally, they don't know the things you wish to learn, and when they do, they don't tell them. They give you statistics, facts, reflections, eulogies, dissertations; but what you hunger and thirst after is the man's inner life. Of what use is it to know what a man does, unless you know what made him do it? This you can seldom learn from memoirs. Look at the numerous brood that followed in the wake. of Shelley's fame. Every one gives you, not Shelley, but himself, served up in Shelley sauce. Think of your own experience: do you not know that the vital facts of your life are hermetically sealed? Do you not know that you are a world within a world, whose history and geography may be summed up in that phrase which used to make the interior of Africa the most delightful spot in the whole atlas,—“ Unexplored Region"? One person may have started an expedition here, and another there. Here one may have struck a river-course, and there one may have looked down into a valley-depth, and all may have brought away their golden grain; but the one has not followed the river to its source, nor the other wandered bewilderingly through the valley-lands, and none have traversed the Field of the Cloth of Gold. So the geographies are all alike: boundaries, capital, chief towns, rivers, mountains, and lakes. And what is true of you is doubtless true of all. Faith is not to be put in biographies. They can tell what your name is, and what was your grandfather's coat of arms, when you were born, where you lived, and how you died,-though, if they are no more accurate after you are dead than they are before, their statements will hardly come under the head of “reliable intelligence." But even if they are accurate, what then? Suppose you

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"One to long darkness and the frozen tide, One to the peaceful sea!' All this is nothing and accounts for nothing, yet this is all. Whether you were susceptible of calmness or deeply turbulent, whether you were amiable, or only amiably disposed,-whether you were inwardly blest and only superficially unrestful, safely moored even while tossing on an unquiet sea, - what you thought, what you hoped, how you felt, yes, and how you lived and loved and hated, they do not know and cannot tell. A biographer may be ever so conscientious, but he stands on the outside of the circle of his subject, and his view will lack symmetry. There is but one who, from his position in the centre, is competent to give a fair and full picture, and that is your own self. A few may possess imagination, and so partially atone for the disadvantages of position; but, ten hundred thousand to one, they will not have a chance at your life. You must die knowing that you are at the mercy of whoever can hold a pen.

Unless you take time by the forelock and write your biography yourself! Then you will be sure to do no harm, inasmuch as no one is obliged to read your narrative; and you may do much good, because, if any one does read it and become interested in you, he will have the pleasant consciousness of living in the same world with you. When he drives through your street, he can put his head out of the carriage-window and stand a chance of seeing you just coming in at the front gate. Also, if you write your biography yourself, you can have your choice as to what shall go in and what shall stay out. You can make a discreet selection of your letters, giving the go-by to that especial one in which you rather is there such a word as

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