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UNCLE NED'S TALE.
AN OLD DRAGOON'S STORY.
I OFTEN, musing, wander back to days long since gone by.
And far-off scenes and long-lost forms arise to fancy's eye.
A group familiar now I see, who all but one are fled,—
My mother, sister Jane, myself, and dear old Uncle Ned.
I'll tell you how I see them now. First, mother in her chair
Sits knitting by the parlor fire, with anxious matron air;
My sister Jane, just nine years old, is seated at her feet.
With look demure, as if she, too, were thinking how to meet