green crops, or touched, already, with the tint of the tenderbladed autumn-sown corn. The distant ships seem to be lifting their masts and stretching their red-brown sails close among the branches of the spreading ash. Just by the red-roofed town, the tributary Ripple flows, with a lively current, into the Floss.

3. How lovely the little river is, with its dark, changing wavelets! It seems to me like a living companion, while I wander along the bank, and listen to its low, placid voice, as to the voice of one who is deaf and loving. I remember those large dipping willows. I remember the stone bridge; and this is Dorlcote Mill. I must stand a minute or two here on the bridge and look at it, though the clouds are threatening, and it is far on in the afternoon. Even in this leafless time of departing February, it is pleasant to look at it, perhaps the chill, damp season adds a charm to the trimly kept, comfortable dwellinghouse, as old as the elms and chestnuts that shelter it from the northern blast.

4. The stream is brimful, now, and lies high in this little withy plantation, and half drowns the grassy fringe of the croft in front of the house. As I look at the full stream, the vivid grass, the delicate bright-green powder softening the outline of the great trunks and branches that gleam from under the bare purple boughs, I am in love with moistness, and envy the white ducks that are dipping their heads far into the water, here among the withes, unmindful of the awkward appearance they make in the dryer world above.

5. The rush of the water and the booming of the mill bring a dreamy deafness, which seems to heighten the peacefulness of the scene. They are like a great curtain of sound, shutting one out from the world beyond. Now, there is the thunder of the huge covered wagon, coming home with sacks of grain. That

honest wagoner is thinking of his dinner's getting sadly dry in the oven at this late hour; but he will not touch it, till he has fed his horses,-the strong, submissive, meek-eyed horses.

6. See how they stretch their shoulders up the slope toward the bridge, with all the more energy because they are so near home. Look at their grand, shaggy feet, that seem to grasp the firm earth,— at the patient strength of their necks, bowed under the heavy collar,— at the mighty muscles of their struggling haunches! I should like, well, to hear them neigh over their hardly-earned feed of corn, and see them, with their moist necks, freed from the harness, dipping their eager nostrils into the muddy pond. Now they are on the bridge, and down they go again at a swifter pace, and the arch of the covered wagon disappears at the turning behind the trees.

7. Now I can turn my eyes toward the mill again, and watch the unresisting wheel, sending out its diamond jets of water. That little girl is watching it, too. She has been standing on just the same spot, at the edge of the water, ever since I paused on the bridge; and that queer white cur with the brown ear seems to be leaping and barking in ineffectual remonstrance with the wheel; perhaps he is jealous, because his playfellow in the beaver bonnet is so rapt in its movement.

8. It is time the little playfellow went in, I think; and there is a very bright fire to tempt her, the red light shines out under the deepening gray of the sky. It is time, too, for me to leave off resting my arms on the cold stone of this bridge. Oh! my arms are really benumbed. I have been pressing my elbows on the arms of my chair, and dreaming that I was standing on the bridge in front of Dorlcote Mill, and seeing it as it looked one February afternoon many years ago.

GEORGE ELIOT.

LVIII. VALLEY FORGE.

HENRY ARMITT BROWN (1844-1878) was born in Philadelphia. He was educated at Yale College, and took up the law for a profession. He was an orator of unusual eloquence and power. The most of his speech-making was in the political arena. He made a valiant campaign worker for Rutherford B. Hayes, in his presidential canvass. Brown has left no permanent contribution to literature except such of his speeches as have been preserved.

[Extract from an oration delivered upon the occasion of the first Centenary Anniversary of the Encampment at Valley Forge.]

1. MY COUNTRYMEN: The century that has gone by has changed the face of nature and wrought a revolution in the habits of mankind. We stand to-day at the dawn of an extraordinary age. Freed from the chains of ancient thought and superstition, man has begun to win the most extraordinary victories in the domain of science. One by one he has dispelled

the doubts of the ancient world.

2. Nothing is too difficult for his hand to attempt-no region too remote-no place too sacred for his daring eye to penetrate. He has robbed the earth of her secrets and sought to solve the mysteries of the heavens! He has secured and chained to his service the elemental forces of nature - he has made the fire his steed - the winds his ministers - the seas his pathway the lightning his messengers.

3. He has descended into the bowels of the earth, and walked in safety on the bottom of the sea. He has raised his head above the clouds, and made the impalpable air his resting-place. He has tried to analyze the stars,, count the constellations, and weigh the sun. He has advanced with such astounding speed that, breathless, we have reached a moment when it seems as if distance had been annihilated, time made as naught, the in

visible seen, the inaudible heard, the unspeakable spoken, the intangible felt, the impossible accomplished.

4. And already we knock at the door of a new century which promises to be infinitely brighter and more enlightened and happier than this. But in all this blaze of light which illuminates the present, and casts its reflection into the distant recesses of the past, there is not a single ray that shoots into the future. Not one step have we taken toward the solution of the mystery of life. That remains to-day as dark and unfathomable as it was ten thousand years ago.

5. We know that we are more fortunate than our fathers. We believe that our children shall be happier than we. We know that this century is more enlightened than the last. We believe that the time to come will be better and more glorious than this. We think, we believe, we hope- but we do not know. Across that threshold we may not pass; behind that vail we may not penetrate. Into that country it may not be for us to go. It may be vouchsafed to us to behold it, wonderingly, from afar, but never to enter in. It matters not. The age in which we live is but a link in the endless and eternal chain. Our lives are like the sands upon the shore; our voices like the breath of the summer breeze that stirs the leaf for a moment and is forgotten. Whence we have come and whither we shall go, not one of us can tell. And the last survivor of this mighty multitude shall stay but a little while.

6. But in the impenetrable To Be, the endless generations are advancing to take our places as we fall. For them as for us shall the earth roll on and the seasons come and go, the snowflakes fall, the flowers bloom, and the harvests be gathered in. For them as for us shall the sun, like the life of man, rise out of darkness in the morning and sink into darkness in the night.

For them as for us shall the years march by in the sublime procession of the ages.

7. And here, in this place of sacrifice, in this vale of humiliation, in this valley of the shadow of that Death out of which the life of America arose, regenerate and free, let us believe with an abiding faith that, to them, Union will seem as dear and Liberty as sweet and Progress as glorious as they were to our fathers and are to you and me, and that the institutions which have made us happy, preserved by the virtue of our children, shall bless the remotest generations of the time to come. And unto Him who holds in the hollow of his hand the fate of nations, and yet marks the sparrow's fall, let us lift up our hearts this day, and into his eternal care commend ourselves, our children, and our country.

HENRY ARMITT BROWN.

LIX. SOME USES OF TREES.

1. UTILITARIANS consider the trunk the important part of the tree. The trunk is a wise makeshift of nature which towers aloft, and tries to lift the vital organs of the tree—the leaves — out of harm's way and into purer air and brighter sunshine. Beneath the ground the strong roots and rootlets have hundreds of eager, thirsty mouths which take nourishment from the earth. Water and mineral matter are carried upward by the process of capillary attraction to the leaves in the crown and the branches for digestion and assimilation. A leafless tree stands little chance of living. Trees denuded of their leaves by caterpillars and other mischievous things are deprived of their stomachs and lungs at once.

2. Every leaf on a tree is unceasingly industrious day and