THE LITTLE BROWN CURL.

A quaint old box with a lid of blue, All faded and worn with age; A soft little curl of a brownish hue, A yellow and half-written page. The letters, with never a pause nor dot, In a school-boy's hand are cast; The lines and the curl I may hold to-day, But the love of the boy is past. It faded away with our childish dreams, Died out like the morning mist, And I look with a smile on the silken curl That once I had tenderly kissed. One night in the summer—so long ago— We played by the parlor door, And the moonlight fell, like a silver veil, Spreading itself on the floor. And the children ran on the graveled walk At play in their noisy glee; But the maddest, merriest fun just then Was nothing to John and me. For he was a stately boy of twelve, And I was not quite eleven— We thought as we sat by the parlor door We had found the gate to heaven. That night when I lay on my snowy bed, Like many a foolish girl, I kissed and held to my little heart This letter and silken curl. I slept and dreamed of the time when I Should wake to a fairy life; And sleeping, blushed, when I thought that John Had called me his little wife. I have loved since then with a woman's heart, Have known all a woman's bliss, But never a dream of the after life Was ever so sweet as this. The years went by with their silver feet, And often I laughed with John At the vows we made by the parlor door When the moon and stars looked on. Ah? boyish vows were broken and lost, And a girl's first dream will end, But I dearly loved his beautiful wife, While he was my husband's friend. When at last I went to my childhood's home Far over the bounding wave, I missed my friend, for the violets grew And blossomed over his grave. To-day as I opened the old blue box, And looked on this soft brown curl, And read of the love John left for me When I was a little girl, There came to my heart a throb of pain, And my eyes grew moist with tears, For the childish love and the dear, dear friend, And the long-lost buried years.