id="Page_37" class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[pg 37]"/>There were the old-fashioned boxes that had garnished his mother's toilet-table when he, a sickly child, slept in her dressing-room; the silver taper-stand which the young advocate bought for her with his first fee; a row of small packets inscribed by her hand, and containing the hair of such of her children as had died before her; and more odds and ends of a like sort--pathetic tokens of a love which bound together for a little while here on earth, and binds together for evermore in heaven, Christian mother and son.

    Sir Walter of the land
    Of song and old romance,
Tradition in his cunning hand
    Obedient as the lance

    His valiant Black Knight bore,
    Wove into literature
The legend, myth, and homely lore
    Which now for us endure,

    To charm our weary hours,
    To rouse our stagnant hearts,
And leave the sense of new-born powers,
    Which never more departs.

    We thank him in the name
    Of One who sits on high,
And aye abides in every fame
    Which makes a brighter sky.