THE MOTHER'S JOY.

Flushed was the cheek and bright the eye
Of the lovely lady Clare,

And fast her dark steed seemed to fly,
As wild hawk cleaves the air.

She had rode to the sound of the cheering horn,
In pursuit of the panting deer,

Since the first faint rays of the clouded morn
Had pierced the forests sere."

But cold in his life-blood now he lay,
And the sport of the day was done,
And slowly the hunters turned away
'Neath the rays of the setting sun.

And weary seemed both man and steed
As their way to their homes they took,
For the chase had been hot, and little heed
Had been given to hill or brook.

“And whither so fast, my lady bright ?” Cried her lord in some surprise,

"Would you chase the deer through the coming night, With no light but your flashing eyes?"

"The deer I chase is my own sweet boy

Whom I kissed at dawn of day,

And his laugh would be fled, and hushed his joy, If longer I delay.

"My horse will bear me fleetly still,
For no hill or stream he cares,
It almost seems that he knows my will,
That my wild desire he shares.

"And swiftly, swiftly on he'll press
Till we reach our castled home,

And my darling springs to my fond caress
And welcomes back his own."

NIAGARA.

J. R. ORTON.

CHAPTER I.

HAVING given myself a day or two to recover from the fatigues of a perilous excursion, I stepped on board one of the little steamboats plying between Buffalo and Chippeway, for Niagara Falls. The morning was fair, and the boat just comfortably full. Depositing my baggage in the gangway, I took a peep into the miniature cabin and lounged upon deck. In a moment more the boat was under way, and I gazed with delight on the beautiful and ever shifting panorama around me. The receding city, Black Rock, the Canada shore and the Niagara River, were all embraced in a glance. There were the ruins of Fort Erie, dark and desolate, originally a stone structure of great solidity and strength; and built by the French more than a hundred years ago. In the sortie of our troops into Canada, during the late war, it was wrested from the British and demolished. A little beyond was the small village of Waterloo: and soon thereafter we approached Grand Island, famous as the

spot selected by M. M. Noah of New York, in 1825, for the ingathering of the Jews. The city of Ararat, then founded with solemn ceremonies, has never grown beyond its original limits; and is only marked by a small brick monument, inscribed, “Ararat, a city of Refuge for the Jews."

At the foot of Grand Island is Navy Island, celebrated in the recent Patriot struggles on the frontier: and a little below is Chippeway, well known in the annals of our last war: and nearly opposite on the American shore, is Schlosser, where the steamboat Caroline was cut out, in the Patriot war, with the loss of one or more lives; and set on fire and sent over the Falls at midnight.

The historical incidents connected with the Niagara River, aside from the fine scenery of this portion of the broad stream itself, its islands and its shores, will always furnish abundant interest to the voyager between Buffalo and the Falls. But long before we approached Chippeway, as I thought of the more glorious object still, which was soon to burst upon my senses for the first time in the Falls themselves, I had lost sight of all else, and watched with the intenseness of a seer in his rapt mood, the white masses of spray in the distance, ascending in every form of beauty to the clouds; and hovering like the wings of angels above the spot, where many of the hopes and anticipations of years were centered.

Passing through a drawbridge into the mouth of Chippeway Creek, I found myself upon British ground,