winding up to the village glimmers uncertainly in the starlight, and dark
forms hover vaguely about. Strangers say that it is a very depressing
station at which to arrive, but we know better. There is no feeling in the
world like that with which one starts up the white road, stars below him
in the quiet pool, stars above him in the quiet sky, friendly lights
showing the end of his journey is at hand, and the soft twilight full of
voices all familiar, all welcoming.

Poor old Uncle Abner Rhodes, returning from an attempt to do business in
the city, where he had lost his money, his health, and his hopes, said he
didn't see how going up to Heaven could be so very different from walking
up the hill from the station with Hemlock Mountain in front of you. He
said it didn't seem to him as though even in heaven you could feel more
than then that you had got back where there are some folks, that you had
got back home.

Sometimes when the stars hang very bright over Hemlock Mountain and the
Necronsett River sings loud in the dusk, we remember the old man's speech,
and, though we smile at his simplicity, we think, too, that the best which
awaits us can only be very much better but not so very different from what
we have known here.




PETUNIAS--THAT'S FOR REMEMBRANCE


It was a place to which, as a dreamy, fanciful child escaping from
nursemaid and governess, Virginia had liked to climb on hot summer