She had a rustic, woodland air,
And she was wildly clad:

Her eyes were fair, and very fair;
-Her beauty made me glad.

"Sisters and brothers, little Maid,

How many may you be?"

"How many? Seven in all," she said, And wondering looked at me.

"And where are they? I pray you tell." She answered, "Seven are we;

And two of us at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea.

"Two of us in the church-yard lie,
My sister and my brother;
And, in the church-yard cottage, I
Dwell near them with my mother."

"You say that two at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea,

Yet ye are seven!-I pray you tell,
Sweet Maid, how this may be."

Then did the little Maid reply,
"Seven boys and girls are we;
Two of us in the church-yard lie,
Beneath the church-yard tree.”

"You run about, my little Maid,
Your limbs they are alive;
If two are in the church-yard laid,
Then ye are only five."

"Their graves are green, they may be seen," The little Maid replied,

"Twelve steps or more from my mother's door, And they are side by side.

"My stockings there I often knit,

My kerchief there I hem;

And there upon the ground I sit,
And sing a song to them.

"And often after sunset, Sir,
When it is light and fair,
I take my little porringer,
And eat my supper there.

"The first that died was sister Jane;
In bed she moaning lay,

Till God released her of her pain;
And then she went away.

"So in the church-yard she was laid;
And, when the grass was dry,

Together round her grave we played,
My brother John and I.

"And when the ground was white with snow,

And I could run and slide,

My brother John was forced to go,

And he lies by her side."

"How many are you, then," said I,
"If they two are in heaven?"
Quick was the little Maid's reply,
"O Master! we are seven."

"But they are dead; those two are dead!
Their spirits are in heaven!"

'Twas throwing words away; for still
The little Maid would have her will,
And said, "Nay, we are seven !"

A WATER-LANE IN FLORIDA.

SIDNEY LANIER.

(From Chapter II of "Florida.”)

Presently we rounded the raft, abandoned the broad and garish highway of the St. John's, and turned off to the right into the narrow lane of the Ocklawaha, the sweetest water-lane in the world, a lane which runs for more than a hundred and fifty miles of pure delight betwixt hedgerows of oaks and cypresses and palms and bays and magnolias and mosses and manifold vine-growths, a lane clean to travel along, for there is never a speck of dust in it save the blue dust and gold dust which the wind blows out of the flags and lilies, a lane which is as if a typical woods-stroll had taken shape and as if God had turned into water and trees the recollection of some meditative ramble through the lonely seclusions of His own soul.

As we advanced up the stream our wee craft even seemed to emit her steam in more leisurely whiffs. as one puffs one's cigar in a contemplative walk through the forest. Dick, the pole-man-a man of marvelous fine functions when we shall presently come to the short, narrow curves-lay asleep or the guards, in great peril of rolling into the river

over the three inches between his length and the edge; the people of the boat moved not, and spoke not; the white crane, the curlew, the limpkin, the heron, the water-turkey, were scarcely disturbed in their quiet avocations as we passed, and quickly succeeded in persuading themselves after each momentary excitement of our gliding by that we were really after all no monster, but only some daydream of a monster.

The stream, which in its broader stretches reflected the sky so perfectly that it seemed a ribbon of heaven bound in lovely doublings along the breast of the land, now began to narrow: the blue of heaven disappeared, and the green of the overleaning trees assumed its place.

The lucent current lost all semblance of water. It was simply a distillation of many-shaded foliages, smoothly sweeping along beneath us. It was green trees, fluent. One felt that a subtle amalgamation and mutual give-and-take had been effected between the natures of water and leaves. A certain sense of pellucidness seemed to breathe coolly out of the woods on either side of us; and the glassy dream of a forest over which we sailed appeared to send up exhalations of balms and odors and stimulant pungencies.

"Look at that snake in the water!" said a gentleman, as we sat on deck with the engineer, just up from his watch.

The engineer smiled. "Sir, it is a water-turkey," he said, gently.

The water-turkey is the most preposterous bird within the range of ornithology. He is not a bird, he is a neck, with such subordinate rights, members,

appurtenances and hereditaments thereunto appertaining as seem necessary to that end. He has just enough stomach to arrange nourishment for his neck, just enough wings to fly painfully along with his neck, and just big enough legs to keep his neck from dragging on the ground; and his neck is lightcolored, while the rest of him is black.

When he saw us he jumped up on a limb and stared. Then suddenly he dropped into the water, sank like a leaden ball out of sight, and made us think he was drowned, when presently the tip of his beak appeared, then the length of his neck lay along the surface of the water, and in this position, with his body submerged, he shot out his neck, drew it back, wriggled it, twisted it, twiddled it, and spirally poked it into the east, the west, the north, and the south, with a violence of involution and contortionary energy that made one think in the same breath of corkscrews and of lightnings. But what nonsense! All that labor and perilous asphyxiation—for a beggarly sprat or a couple of inches of water-snake!

Some twenty miles from the mouth of the Ocklawaha, at the right-hand edge of the stream, is the handsomest residence in America. It belongs to a certain alligator of my acquaintance, a very honest and worthy saurian, of good repute.

A little cove of water, dark green under the overhanging leaves, placid, pellucid, curves round at the river-edge into the flags and lilies, with a curve just heart-breaking for the pure beauty of the flexure of it. This house of my saurian is divided into apartments-little subsidiary bays which are scalloped