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my head, of course it does not soothe me.

Sometimes in the visions of the night I am happy. I dream that I am at the top of Mount Washington. Cold, pure air rushes by me; clouds lie, like a gray ocean, beneath me. I am alone upon the giant rock, with the morning star and the measureless heights of sky. I tremble at the awful silence,—exult fear-fully in it. The clouds roll away, and leave the world revealed, lying motion-less and inanimate at my feet. Yet I am as far from all sight of humanity as before! Should the whole nation be swarming below the mountain, armies drawn up before armies, with my eyes resting upon them, I should not see them, but sit here in sublime peace. Man's puny form were from this height as undis-tinguishable as the blades of grass in the meadows below. I know, that, if all the world stood beneath, and strained their vision to the utmost upon the very spot where I stand, I should still be in the strict privacy of invisibility. This isolation I pine for. But I can never, never feel it—out of a dream.

You guess rightly. I am in a repining mood, and must pour out all my griev-ances. I feel my helplessness cruelly.

But I must forget myself a little while, and describe these Springs to you, with the company here assembled,—only twen-ty or thirty people. The house is a good enough one; the country yet very wild. My couch is daily wheeled to a shady porch which looks down the avenue of trees leading to the spring, a white marble basin, bubbling over with bright water.

Gay parties, young ladies with lovers, happy mammas with their children, fa-thers with their clinging daughters, pass me,—and I, motionless, follow them with my eyes down the avenue, until they emerge into the sunlight about the spring. Many of them give me a kindly greeting; some stop to stare. The look of pity which saddens nearly every face that approaches me cuts me to the heart. Can I never give joy, or excite pleasurable emotion? Must I always be a mute and unwilling petitioner for sym-pathy in suffering?—always giving pain? never anything but pain and pity?

There is a summer-house near the spring, and now I lie there, watching the water-drinkers. Like rain upon the just and unjust, the waters benefit all,—but surely most those simple souls who take them with eager hope and bless them with thankful hearts. The first who ar-rive are from the hotel, mostly silken suf-ferers. They stand, glass in hand, chat-ting and laughing,—they stoop to dip,—and then they drink. These persons soon return to the house in groups,—some gayly exchanging merry words or kindly greetings, but others dragging weary limbs and discontented spirits back to loneliness.

The fashionable hour is over, and now comes another class of health-seekers. A rough, white-covered wagon jolts up. The horse is tied to a post, a curtain un-buttoned and raised, and from a bed upon the uneasy floor a pale, delicate boy, shrinking from the light, is lifted by his burly father. The child is carried to the spring, and puts out a groping hand which his father bids him drink. He cannot find the glass, and his father must put it to his lips. He is blind, except to light,—and that only visits those poor sightless eyes to agonize them! Where the water flows off below the basin in a clear jet, the father bathes his boy's fore-head, and gently, gently touches his eye-lids. But the child reaches out his wasted hands, and dashes the water against his face with a sad eagerness.

Other country vehicles approach. The people are stopping to drink of this wa-ter, on their way to drink of the waters of life in church. They are smart and smiling in their Sunday clothes. I ob-serve, that, far from being the old or dis-eased, they are mostly young men and pretty girls. The marble spring is a charming trysting-place!

There are swarms of children here all