or pausing to listen to the rattling of wheels and the sounds of hammers that rose from the valley, when Elizabeth suddenly started, and exclaimed, "Listen! there are the cries of a child on this mountain! Is there a clearing near us? or can some little one have strayed from its parents?"

3. Such things frequently happen," returned Louisa. "Let us follow the sounds; it may be a wanderer starving on the hill." Urged by this consideration, the females pursued the low, mournful sounds that proceeded from the forest, with quick and impatient steps. More than once the ardent Elizabeth was on the point of announcing that she saw the sufferer, when Louisa caught her by the arm, and, pointing behind them, cried, "Look at the dog!"

4. The advanced age of Brave had long before deprived him of his activity; and when his companions stopped to view the scenery, or to add to their bouquets," the mastiff would lay his huge frame on the ground, and await their movements, with his eyes closed, and a listlessness in his air that ill accorded with the character of a protector. But when, aroused by this cry from Louisa, Miss Temple turned, she saw the dog with his eyes keenly set on some distant object, his head bent near the ground, and his hair actually rising on his body, either through fright or anger.

5. "Brave!" said she, "be quiet, Brave! what do you see, fellow?" At the sound of her voice, the rage of the mastiff, instead of being at all diminished, was very sensibly increased. He stalked in front of the ladies, and seated himself at the feet of his mistress, growling louder than before, and occasionally giving vent to his ire by a short, surly barking. "What does he see?" said Elizabeth; "there must be some animal in sight.”

6. Hearing no answer from her companion, Miss Temp e turned her head, and beheld Louisa, standing with her face whitened to the color of death, and her finger pointing upward with a sort of flickering, convulsed motion. The quick eye of Elizabeth glanced in the direction indicated by her friend, where she saw the fierce front and glaring eyes of a female

a Bouquet (boo-kā';) a bunch of flowers.

panther, fixed on them in horrid malignity, and threatening instant destruction.

7. "Let us fly!" exclaimed Elizabeth, grasping the arm of Louisa, whose form yielded like melting snow, and sunk lifeless to the earth. There was not a single feeling in the temperament of Elizabeth Temple that could prompt her to desert a companion in such an extremity; and she fell on her knees by the side of the inanimate Louisa, tearing from the person of her friend, with an instinctive readiness, such parts of her dress as might obstruct her respiration, and encouraging their only safeguard, the dog, at the same time, by the sounds of her voice.

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8. "Courage, Brave!" she cried, her own tones beginning to tremble; courage, courage, good Brave!" A quartergrown cub, that had hitherto been unseen, now appeared, dropping from the branches of a sapling that grew under the shade of the beech which held its dam. This ignorant but vicious creature approached near to the dog, imitating the actions and sounds of its parent, but exhibiting a strange mixture of the playfulness of a kitten with the ferocity of its race.

9. Standing on its hind legs, it would rend the bark of a tree with its fore paws, and play all the antics of a cat, for a moment; and then, by lashing itself with its tail, growling, and scratching the earth, it would attempt the manifestations of anger that rendered its parent so terrific. All this time, Brave stood firm and undaunted, his short tail erect, his body drawn backward on his haunches, and his eyes following the movements of both dam and cub.

10. At every gambol played by the latter, it approached nearer to the dog, the growling of the three becoming more horrid at each moment, until the younger beast, overleaping its intended bound, fell directly before the mastiff. There was a moment of fearful cries and struggles; but they ended almost as soon as commenced, by the cub appearing in the air, hurled from the jaws of Brave with a violence that sent it against a tree so forcibly as to render it completely senseless. 11. Elizabeth witnessed the short struggle, and her blood

was warming with the triumph of the dog, when she saw the form of the panther in the air, springing twenty feet from the branch of the beech to the back of the mastiff. No words of ours can describe the fury of the conflict that followed. It was a confused struggle on the dried leaves, accompanied by loud and terrible cries, barks, and growls.

12. So rapid and vigorous were the bounds of the inhabitant of the forest, that its active frame seemed constantly in the air, while the dog fobly faced his foe at each successive leap. When the panther lighted on the shoulders of the mastiff, which was its constant aim, old Brave, though torn with her talons, and stained with his own blood, that already flowed from a dozen wounds, would shake off his furious foe like a feather, and, rearing on his hind legs, rush to the fray again, with his jaws distended, and a dauntless eye.

13. But age, and his pampered life, greatly disqualified the noble mastiff for such a struggle. In every thing but courage he was only the vestige of what he had once been. A higher bound than ever raised the wary and furious beast far beyond the reach of the dog, which was making a desperate but fruitless dash at her, from which she alighted, in a favorable position, on the back of her aged foe.

14. For a single moment only could the panther remain there, the great strength of the dog returning with a convulsive effort. But Elizabeth saw, as Brave fastened his teeth in the side of his enemy, that the collar of brass around his neck, which had been glittering throughout the fray, was of the color of blood, and, directly, that his frame was sinking to the earth, where it soon lay prostrate and helpless.

15. Several mighty efforts of the wildcat, to extricate herself from the jaws of the dog, followed; but they were fruitless, until the mastiff turned on his back, his lips collapsed, and his teeth loosened; when the short convulsions and stillness that succeeded announced the death of poor Brave.

16. Elizabeth now lay wholly at the mercy of the beast. There is said to be something in the front of the image of the Maker that daunts the hearts of the inferior beings of his

creation; and it would seem that some such power, in the present instance, suspended the threatened blow.

17. The eyes of the monster and the kneeling maiden met for an instant, when the former stooped to examine her fallen foe; next, to scent her luckless cub. From the latter examination it turned, however, with its eyes apparently emitting flashes of fire, its tail lashing its sides furiously, and its claws projecting for inches from its broad feet.

18. "Hist! hist!" said a low voice; "stoop lower, girl; your bonnet hides the creature's head." It was rather the yielding of nature, than a compliance with this unexpected order, that caused the head of our heroine to sink on her bosom; when she heard the report of the rifle, the whizzing of the bullet, and the enraged cries of the beast, who was rolling over on the earth, biting its own flesh, and tearing the twigs and branches within its reach. At the next instant, the form of Leather-stocking rushed by her; and he called aloud, "Come in, Hector; come in; 't is a hard-lived animal, and may jump again.”

19. Nathan maintained his position in front of the maidens most fearlessly, notwithstanding the violent bounds and threatening aspect of the wounded panther, which gave several indications of returning strength and ferocity, until his rifle was again loaded; when he stepped up to the enraged animal, and, placing the muzzle close to its head, every spark of life was extinguished by the discharge.

LESSON LXVIII.

SONG OF THE STARS.

BRYANT.

1. WHEN the radiant morn of creation broke,
And the world in the smile of God awoke,

And the empty realms of darkness and death
Were moved through their depths by his mighty breath,

a The name of the hunter.

And orbs of beauty and spheres of flame
From the void abyss by myriads came,·
In the joy of youth, as they darted away
Through the widening wastes of space to play,
Their silver voices in chorus rung,

And this was the song the bright ones sung :

2. "Away, away, through the wide, wide sky,The fair blue fields that before us lie,

3.

a

Each sun, with the worlds that round him roll,

Each planet, poised on her turning pole ;

With her isles of green and her clouds of white,
And her waters that lie like fluid light.

"For the source of glory uncovers his face,
And the brightness o'erflows unbounded space;
And we drink, as we go, the luminous tides
In our ruddy air and our blooming sides;
Lo, yonder the living splendors play;
Away, on our joyous path, away!

4. "Look, look, through our glittering ranks afar,
In the infinite azure, star after star,

How they brighten and bloom, as they swiftly pass!
How the verdure runs o'er each rolling mass!
And the path of the gentle winds is seen,
Where the small waves dance and the young

b

woods lean.

5. "And see, where the brighter day-beams pour,
How the rainbows hang in the sunny shower;
And the morn and eve, with their pomp of hues,
Shift o'er the bright planets and shed their dews.

6. "Glide on in your beauty, ye youthful spheres, To weave the dance that measures the years;

The fixed stars are supposed to be suns like our own, having planets or worlds revolving round them. b The rainbow is formed of drops of rain or water, which sepa. rate the light of the sun into its seven primary colors.