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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3
+September 1848, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: George R. Graham
+        Robert T. Conrad
+
+Release Date: September 24, 2009 [EBook #30076]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRAHAM'S MAGAZINE, SEPT 1848 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David T. Jones, Juliet Sutherland and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at
+http://www.pgdpcanada.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: J. Addison
+ANGILA MERVALE
+or
+SIX MONTHS BEFORE MARRIAGE.
+_Engraved Expressly for Graham's Magazine_]
+
+
+GRAHAM'S MAGAZINE.
+
+VOL. XXXIII.      PHILADELPHIA, SEPTEMBER, 1848.     No. 3.
+
+
+
+
+ANGILA MERVALE;
+
+OR SIX MONTHS BEFORE MARRIAGE.
+
+BY F. E. F., AUTHOR OF "AARON'S ROD," "TELLING SECRETS," ETC.
+
+
+"They say Miss Morton is engaged to Robert Hazlewood," said Augusta
+Lenox.
+
+"So I hear," replied Angila Mervale, to whom this piece of news had
+been communicated. "How can she?"
+
+"How can she, indeed?" replied Augusta. "He's an ugly fellow."
+
+"Ugly! yes," continued Angila, "and a disagreeable ugliness, too. I
+don't care about a man's being handsome--a plain black ugliness I
+don't object to--but _red_ ugliness, ah!"
+
+"They say he's clever," said Augusta.
+
+"They always say that, my dear, of any one that's so ugly," replied
+Angila. "I don't believe it. He's conceited, and I think disagreeable;
+and I don't believe he's clever."
+
+"I remarked last night that he was very attentive to Mary Morton,"
+continued Augusta. "They waltzed together several times."
+
+"Yes, and how badly he waltzes," said Angila. "Mary Morton is too
+pretty a girl for such an awkward, ugly man. How lovely she looked
+last night. I hope it's not an engagement, for I quite like her."
+
+"Well, perhaps it is not. It's only one of the _on dits_, and probably
+a mere report."
+
+"Who are you discussing, girls?" asked Mrs. Mervale, from the other
+side of the room.
+
+"Robert Hazlewood and Miss Morton," replied Augusta, "they are said to
+be engaged."
+
+"Ah!" said Mrs. Mervale. "Is it a good match for her?"
+
+"Oh, no!" chimed in both the girls at once. "He's neither handsome, nor
+rich, nor any thing."
+
+"Nor any thing!" repeated Mrs. Mervale, laughing. "Well, that's
+comprehensive. A young man may be a very respectable young man, and be
+a very fair match for a girl without being either handsome or rich;
+but if he is positively 'nothing,' why, then, I grant you, it is bad
+indeed."
+
+"Oh, I believe he is respectable enough," replied Augusta, carelessly,
+for, like most young girls, the word "respectable" did not rank very
+high in her vocabulary.
+
+"And if he is not rich, what are they to live on," asked Mrs. Mervale.
+
+"Love and the law, I suppose," replied her daughter, laughing. "He's a
+lawyer, is he not Augusta?"
+
+"Oh!" resumed Mrs. Mervale, "he's a son, then, I suppose, of old John
+Hazlewood."
+
+"Yes," replied Augusta.
+
+"Then he may do very well in his profession," continued Mrs. Mervale,
+"for his father has a large practice I know, and is a very respectable
+man. If this is a clever young man, he may tread in his father's
+footsteps."
+
+This did not convey any very high eulogium to the young ladies' ears.
+That young Robert Hazlewood might be an old John Hazlewood in his turn
+and time, did not strike them as a very brilliant future. In fact they
+did not think more of the old man than they did of the young one.
+
+Old gentlemen, however, were not at quite such a discount with Mrs.
+Mervale as with her daughter and her friend; and she continued to
+descant upon the high standing of Mr. Hazlewood the elder, not one
+word in ten of which the girls heard, for she, like most old ladies,
+once started upon former times, was thinking of the pleasant young
+John Hazlewood of early days, who brought back with him a host of
+reminiscences, with which she indulged herself and the girls, while
+they, their heads full of last night's party and Mary Morton and
+Robert Hazlewood, listened as civilly as they could, quite unable to
+keep the thread of her discourse, confounding in her history Robert
+Hazlewood's mother with his grandmother, and wondering all the while
+when she would stop, that they might resume their gossip.
+
+"You visit his sister, Mrs. Constant, don't you?" asked Augusta.
+
+"Yes, we have always visited the Hazlewoods," replied Angila, "but I
+am not intimate with any of them. They always seemed to me those kind
+of pattern people I dislike."
+
+"Is Mr. Constant well off?" inquired Mrs. Mervale.
+
+"No, I should think not," replied Angila, "from the way in which they
+live. They have a little bit of a two-story house, and keep only a
+waiter girl. How I do hate to see a woman open the door," she
+continued, addressing Augusta.
+
+"So do I," replied her friend. "I would have a man servant--a woman
+looks so shabby."
+
+"Yes," returned Angila. "There's nothing I dislike so much. No woman
+shall ever go to my door."
+
+"If you have a man servant," suggested Mrs. Mervale.
+
+"Of course," said Angila; "and that I will."
+
+"But suppose you cannot afford it," said her mother.
+
+"I don't choose to suppose any thing so disagreeable or improbable,"
+replied her daughter, gayly.
+
+"It may be disagreeable," continued Mrs. Mervale, "but I don't see the
+improbability of the thing, Angila, nor, indeed, the disagreeability
+even. The Constants are young people with a small family, and I think
+a woman is quite sufficient for them. Their house is small, I
+suppose."
+
+"Oh, yes, a little bit of a place."
+
+"Large enough for them," replied Mrs. Mervale, whose ideas were not as
+enlarged as her daughter's.
+
+"Perhaps so," said Angila, "but I do hate low ceilings so. I don't
+care about a large house, but I do like large rooms."
+
+"You can hardly have large rooms in a small house," remarked Mrs.
+Mervale, smiling.
+
+"Why, Mrs. Astley's is only a two-story house, mamma, and her rooms
+are larger than these."
+
+"Yes, my dear, Mrs. Astley's is an expensive house; the lot must be
+thirty feet by--"
+
+But Angila had no time to go into the dimensions of people's "lots."
+She and Augusta were back to the party again; and they discussed
+dresses, and looks, and manners, with great _goût_.
+
+Their criticisms were, like most young people's, always in extremes.
+The girls had either looked "lovely" or "frightful," and the young men
+were either "charming" or "odious;" and they themselves, from their
+own account, had been in a constant state of either delight or terror.
+
+"I was so afraid Robert Hazlewood was going to ask me to waltz," said
+Angila; "and he waltzes so abominably that I did not know what I
+should do. But, to my delight, he asked me only for a cotillion, and I
+fortunately was engaged. I was so glad it was so."
+
+"Then you did not dance with him at all?"
+
+"No--to my great joy, he walked off, angry, I believe."
+
+"Oh, my dear!" remonstrated her mother.
+
+"Why not, mother," replied Angila. "He's my 'favorite aversion.' Well,
+Augusta," she continued, turning to her friend, "and when do you sail
+for New Orleans?"
+
+"On Monday," replied Augusta.
+
+"On Monday!--so soon! Oh, what shall I do without you, Augusta!" said
+Angila, quite pathetically. "And you will be gone six months, you
+think?"
+
+"Yes, so papa says," replied the young lady. "He does not expect to be
+able to return before May."
+
+"Not before May! And its only November now!" said Angila, in prolonged
+accents of grief. "How much may happen in that time!"
+
+"Yes," returned her friend, gaily, "you may be engaged before that."
+
+"Not much danger," replied Angila, laughing.
+
+"But remember, I am to be bridemaid," continued Augusta.
+
+"Certainly," said Angila, in the same tone, "I shall expect you from
+New Orleans on purpose."
+
+"And who will it be to, Angila," said Augusta.
+
+"That's more than I can tell," replied Angila; "but somebody that's
+very charming, I promise you."
+
+"By the way, what is your _beau ideal_, Angila, I never heard you
+say," continued Augusta.
+
+"My _beau ideal_ is as shadowy and indistinct as one of Ossian's
+heroes," replied Angila, laughing; "something very distinguished in
+air and manners, with black eyes and hair, are the only points decided
+on. For the rest, Augusta, I refer you to Futurity," she added, gayly.
+
+"I wonder who you will marry!" said Augusta, with the sudden fervor of
+a young lady on so interesting a topic.
+
+"I don't know, only nobody that I have ever seen yet," replied Angila,
+with animation.
+
+"He must be handsome, I suppose," said Augusta.
+
+"No," replied Angila, "I don't care for beauty. A man should have a
+decided air of the gentleman, with an expression of talent, height,
+and all that--but I don't care about what you call beauty."
+
+"You are very moderate, indeed, in your requirements, my dear," said
+her mother, laughing. "And pray, my love, what have you to offer this
+_rara avis_ in return for such extraordinary charms."
+
+"Love, mamma," replied the gay girl, smiling.
+
+"And suppose, my dear," pursued her mother, "that your hero should set
+as high an estimate upon himself as you do upon yourself. Your tall,
+elegant, talented man, may expect a wife who has fortune, beauty and
+talents, too."
+
+Angila laughed. She was not vain, but she knew she was pretty, and she
+was sufficiently of a belle to be satisfied with her own powers if she
+could only meet with the man, so she said, playfully.
+
+"Well, then, mamma, he won't be _my_ hero, that's all."
+
+And no doubt she answered truly. The possession of such gifts are very
+apt to vary in young ladies' eyes according to the gentleman's
+perception of their charms. And heroes differ from one another,
+according as the pronouns "mine and thine," may be pre-fixed to his
+title.
+
+"And such a bijou of a house as I mean to have," continued Angila,
+with animation. "The back parlor and dining-room shall open into a
+conservatory, where I shall have any quantity of canary-birds--"
+
+"My dear," interrupted her mother, "what nonsense you do talk."
+
+"Why, mamma," said Angila, opening her eyes very wide, "don't you like
+canaries?"
+
+"Yes, my dear," replied her mother, "I don't object to aviaries or
+conservatories, only to your talking of them in this way, as matters
+of course and necessity. They are all very well for rich people."
+
+"Well, then, I mean to be rich," continued Angila, playfully.
+
+"That's the very nonsense I complain of," said her mother. "It's
+barely possible, but certainly very improbable, Angila, that you ever
+should be rich; and considering you have been used to nothing of the
+kind, it really amuses me to hear you talk so. Your father and I have
+lived all our lives very comfortably and happily, Angila, without
+either aviary or conservatory, and I rather think you will do the
+same, my love."
+
+"Your father and I!" What a falling off was there! for although Angila
+loved her father and mother dearly, she could not imagine herself
+intent upon household occupations, an excellent motherly woman some
+thirty years hence, any more than that her _beau ideal_ should wear
+pepper and salt like her father.
+
+"It was all very well for papa and mamma," but to persuade a girl of
+eighteen that she wants no more than her mother, whose heart happens
+to be like Mrs. Mervale, just then full of a new carpet that Mr.
+Mervale is hesitating about affording, is out of the question.
+
+And, unreasonable as it may be, whoever would make a young girl more
+rational, destroys at once the chief charm of her youth--the
+exuberance of her fresh imagination, that gilds not only the future,
+but throws a rosy light upon all surrounding objects. Her visions, I
+grant you, are absurd, but the girl without visions is a clod of the
+valley, for she is without imagination--and without imagination, what
+is life? what is love?
+
+Never fear that her visions will not be fulfilled, and therefore bring
+disappointment--for the power carries the pleasure with it. The same
+gift that traces the outline, fills up the sketch. The girls who dream
+of heroes are those most ready to fall in love with any body--and no
+woman is so hard to interest as she who never had a vision, and
+consequently sees men just as they are; and so if Angila talked
+nonsense, Mrs. Mervale's sense was not much wiser.
+
+Angila was a pretty, playful, romantic girl, rather intolerant of the
+people she did not like, and enthusiastic about those she did; full of
+life and animation, she was a decided belle in the gay circle in
+which she moved.
+
+Miss Lenox was her dearest friend for the time being, and the proposed
+separation for the next six months was looked upon as a cruel
+affliction, only to be softened by the most frequent and confidential
+correspondence.
+
+For the first few weeks of Augusta's absence, the promises exchanged
+on both sides were vehemently fulfilled. Letters were written two or
+three limes a week, detailing every minute circumstance that happened
+to either. But at the end of that time Angila was at a party where she
+met Robert Hazlewood, who talked to her for some time. It was not a
+dancing party, and consequently they conversed together more than they
+had ever done before. He seemed extremely amused with her liveliness,
+and looked at her with unmistakable admiration. Had Augusta Lenox been
+there to see, perhaps Angila would not have received his attentions so
+graciously; but there being nothing to remind her of his being her
+"favorite aversion," she talked with animation, pleased with the
+admiration she excited, without being annoyed by any inconvenient
+reminiscences. And not only was Miss Lenox absent, but Miss Morton was
+present, and Angila thought she looked over at them a little
+anxiously; so that a little spirit of rivalry heightened, if not her
+pleasure, certainly Hazlewood's consequence in her eyes. Girls are
+often much influenced by each other in these matters--and the absence
+of Miss Lenox, who "did not think much of Robert Hazlewood," with the
+presence of Miss Morton who did, had no small influence in Angila's
+future fate.
+
+"Did you have a pleasant party?" asked Mrs. Mervale, who had not been
+with her daughter the evening before.
+
+"Yes, very pleasant," replied Angila; "one of the pleasantest
+'conversation parties' I have ever been at."
+
+And "who was there--and who did you talk to?" were the next questions,
+which launched Angila in a full length description of every thing and
+every body--and among them figured quite conspicuously Robert
+Hazlewood.
+
+"And you found him really clever?" said her mother.
+
+"Oh, decidedly," replied her daughter.
+
+"Who," said her brother, looking up from his breakfast, "Hazlewood?
+Certainly he is. He's considered one of the cleverest among the young
+lawyers. Decidedly a man of talent."
+
+Angila looked pleased.
+
+"His father is a man of talent before him," observed Mrs. Mervale. "As
+a family, the Hazlewoods have always been distinguished for ability.
+This young man is ugly, you say, Angila?"
+
+"Yes--" replied Angila, though with some hesitation. "Yes, he is ugly,
+certainly--but he has a good countenance; and when he converses he is
+better looking than I thought him."
+
+"It's a pity he's conceited," said Mrs. Mervale, innocently; her
+impression of the young man being taken from her daughter's previous
+description of him. "Since he is really clever, it's a pity, for it's
+such a drawback always."
+
+"Conceited! I don't think he's conceited," said Angila, quite
+forgetting her yesterday's opinion.
+
+"Don't you? I thought it was you who said so, my dear," replied her
+mother, quietly.
+
+"Yes, I did once think so," said Angila, slightly blushing at her own
+inconsistency. "I don't know why I took the idea in my head--but in
+fact I talked more to him, and became better acquainted with him last
+evening than I ever have before. When there is dancing, there is so
+little time for conversation; and he really talks very well."
+
+"He is engaged to Miss Morton, you say?" continued Mrs. Mervale.
+
+"Well, I don't know," replied Angila, adding, as she remembered the
+animated looks of admiration he had bestowed upon herself, "I doubt
+it--that is the report, however."
+
+"Hazlewood's no more engaged to Mary Morton than I am," said young
+Mervale, carelessly. "Where did you get that idea?"
+
+"Why every body says so, George," said Angila.
+
+"Pshaw! every body's saying so don't make it so."
+
+"But he's very attentive to her," replied Angila.
+
+"Well, and if he is," retorted Mervale, "it does not follow that he
+must be in love with her. You women do jump to conclusions, and make
+up matches in such a way," he continued, almost angrily.
+
+"I think she likes him," pursued Angila. "I think she would have him."
+
+"Have him! to be sure she would," replied George, in the same tone;
+not that he considered the young lady particularly in love with his
+friend, but as if any girl might be glad to have him--for brothers are
+very apt to view such cases differently from sisters, who refuse young
+gentlemen for their friends without mercy.
+
+"But he's ugly, you say," continued Mrs. Mervale, sorrowfully, who,
+old lady as she was, liked a handsome young man, and always lamented
+when she found mental gifts unaccompanied by personal charms.
+
+"Yes, he's no beauty, that's certain," said Angila, gayly.
+
+"Has he a good air and figure?" pursued Mrs. Mervale, still hoping so
+clever a man might be better looking after all.
+
+"Yes, tolerable--middle height--nothing remarkable one way or the
+other." And then the young lady went off to tell some piece of news,
+that quite put Mr. Hazlewood out of her mother's head for the present.
+
+When Angila next wrote to Augusta, although she spoke of Mrs.
+Carpenter's party, a little consciousness prevented her saying much
+about Robert Hazlewood, and consequently her friend was quite
+unsuspicious of the large share he had in making the party she
+described so pleasant.
+
+Hazlewood had really been pleased by Angila. She was pretty--and he
+found her lively and intelligent. He had always been inclined to
+admire her, but she had turned from him once or twice in what he had
+thought a haughty manner, and consequently he had scarcely known her
+until they met at this little _conversazione_ of Mrs. Carpenter's,
+where accident placed them near each other. The party was so small
+that where people happened to find themselves, there they staid--it
+requiring some courage for a young man to break the charmed ring, and
+deliberately plant himself before any lady, or attempt to talk to any
+one except her beside whom fate had placed him.
+
+Now Angila had the corner seat on a sofa near the fire-place, and
+Hazlewood was standing, leaning against the chimney-piece, so that a
+nicer, more cosy position for a pleasant talk could hardly be
+conceived in so small a circle. Miss Morton was on the other side of
+the fire-place, occupying the corresponding situation to Angila, and
+Angila could see her peeping forward from time to time to see if
+Hazlewood still maintained his place. His back was turned toward her,
+so if she did throw any anxious glances that way, he did not see them.
+
+Angila met him a few evenings after this at the Opera, and found that
+he was a passionate lover of music. They talked again, and he very
+well, for he really was a sensible, well-educated young man. Music is
+a favorite source of inspiration, and Hazlewood was a connoisseur as
+well as amateur. She found that he seldom missed a night at the Opera,
+and "she was surprised she had not seen him there before, as she went
+herself very often."
+
+"He had seen her, however;" and he looked as if it were not easy not
+to see _her_ when she was there.
+
+She blushed and was pleased, for it evidently was not an unmeaning
+compliment.
+
+"Mr. Hazlewood's very clever," she said the next day; "and his tastes
+are so cultivated and refined. He is very different from the usual run
+of young men." (When a girl begins to think a man different from the
+"usual run," you may be sure she herself is off the common track.)
+"There's something very manly in all his sentiments, independent and
+high-toned. He cannot be engaged to Mary Morton, for I alluded to the
+report, and he seemed quite amused at the idea. I can see he thinks
+her very silly, which she is, though pretty--though he was two
+gentlemanly to say so."
+
+"How, then, did you find out that he thought so," asked George,
+smiling.
+
+"Oh, from one or two little things. We were speaking of a German poem
+that I was trying to get the other day, and he said he had it, but had
+lent it to Miss Morton. 'However,' he added, with a peculiar smile,
+'he did not believe she wanted to read it, and at any rate, he would
+bring it to me as soon as she returned it. He doubted whether she was
+much of a German reader.' But it was more the smile and the manner in
+which he said it, than the words, that made me think he had no very
+high opinion of her literary tastes."
+
+"He may not like her any the less for that," said George, carelessly.
+"I think your clever literary men rarely do value a woman less for her
+ignorance."
+
+But there was an expression in Angila's pretty face that seemed to
+contradict this assertion; for, like most pretty women, the was vainer
+of her talents than her beauty--and she thought Hazlewood had been
+quite struck by some of her criticisms the night before.
+
+However this might be, the intimacy seemed to progress at a wonderful
+rate. He called and brought her books; and they had a world to say
+every time they met, which, whether by accident or design, was now
+beginning to be very often.
+
+"You knew old Mr. Hazlewood, mamma, did not you?" said Angila. "And
+who did you say Mrs. Hazlewood was?" And now she listened very
+differently from the last time that her mother had launched forth on
+the topic of old times and friends. Angila was wonderfully interested
+in all the history of the whole race, for Mrs. Mervale began with the
+great grandfathers, maternal and paternal; and she kept the thread of
+the story with surprising distinctness, and made out the family
+pedigree with amazing correctness.
+
+"Then they are an excellent family, mamma," she said.
+
+"To be sure they are," replied Mrs. Mervale, "one of the oldest and
+best in the city."
+
+It was wonderful what a quantity of books Angila read just about this
+time; but Hazlewood was always sending her something, which she seemed
+to take peculiar pleasure in surprising him by having finished before
+they met again. And her bright eyes grew brighter, and occasionally,
+and that not unfrequently, they had an abstracted, dreamy look, as if
+her thoughts were far away, occupied in very pleasant visions--whether
+they were now of Ossian-heroes, dark-eyed and dim, we doubt.
+
+She was rather unpleasantly roused to a waking state, however, by a
+passage in one of Augusta Lenox's last letters, which was,
+
+"What has become of your 'favorite aversion,' Robert Hazlewood? When
+are he and Mary Morton to be married? I give her joy of him--as you
+say, how can she?"
+
+Angila colored scarlet with indignation as she read this, almost
+wondering at first what Augusta meant.
+
+She did not answer the letter; some consciousness, mixed with a good
+deal of vexation, prevented her.
+
+Hazlewood's attentions to Angila began to be talked of a good deal.
+Her mother was congratulated, and she was complimented, for every body
+spoke well of him. "A remarkably clever young man with excellent
+prospects," the old people said. The young girls talked of him
+probably pretty much as Angila and Augusta had done--but she did not
+hear that, and the young men said,
+
+"Hazlewood was a devilish clever fellow, and that Angila Mervale would
+do very well if she could get him."
+
+That the gentleman was desperately in love there was no doubt; and as
+for the young lady--that she was flattered and pleased and interested,
+was hardly less clear. Her bright eyes grew softer and more dreamy
+every day.
+
+Of what was she dreaming? What could her visions be now? Can she by
+any possibility make a hero of Robert Hazlewood? Sober common sense
+would say "No!" but bright-eyed, youthful imagination may boldly
+answer, "Why not?" Time, however, can only decide that point.
+
+Two more letters came from Augusta Lenox about this time, and remained
+unanswered. "Wait till I am engaged," Angila had unconsciously said to
+herself, and then blushed the deepest blush, as she caught the words
+that had risen to her lips.
+
+She did not wait long, however. Bright, beaming, blushing and tearful,
+she soon announced the intelligence to her mother, asking her consent,
+and permission to refer Mr. Hazlewood to her father.
+
+The Mervales were very well pleased with the match, which, in fact,
+was an excellent one, young Hazlewood being in every respect Angila's
+superior, except in appearance, where she, as is the woman's right,
+bore the palm of beauty. Not but that she was quick, intelligent, and
+well cultivated; but there are more such girls by hundreds in our
+community, than there are men of talent, reading, industry and worth
+to merit them; and Angila was amazingly happy to have been one of the
+fortunate few to whose lot such a man falls.
+
+And now, indeed, she wrote a long, long letter to Augusta--so full of
+happiness, describing Hazlewood, as she thought, so distinctly, that
+Augusta must recognize him at once--so she concluded by saying,
+
+"And now I need not name him, as you must know who I mean."
+
+"I must know who she means!" said Augusta, much perplexed. "Why I am
+sure I cannot imagine who she means! Talented, agreeable, with
+cultivated tastes! Who can it be? 'Not handsome, but very
+gentlemanlike-looking.' Well, I have no idea who it is--I certainly
+cannot know the man. But as we sail next week, I shall be at home in
+time for the wedding. How odd that I should be really her bridemaid in
+May after all!"
+
+Miss Lenox arrived about two months after Angila's engagement had been
+announced, and found her friend brilliant with happiness. After the
+first exclamations and greetings, Augusta said with impatient
+curiosity,
+
+"But who is it, Angila--you never told me?"
+
+"But surely you guessed at once," said Angila, incredulously.
+
+"No, indeed," replied her friend, earnestly, "I have not the most
+distant idea."
+
+"Why, Robert Hazlewood, to be sure!"
+
+"Robert Hazlewood! Oh, Angila! You are jesting," exclaimed her friend,
+thrown quite off her guard by astonishment.
+
+"Yes, indeed!" replied Angila, with eager delight, attributing
+Augusta's surprise and incredulous tones to quite another source. "You
+may well be surprised, Augusta. Is it not strange that such a man--one
+of his superior talents--should have fallen in love with such a
+mad-cap as me."
+
+Augusta could hardly believe her ears. But the truth was, that Angila
+had so long since forgotten her prejudice, founded on nothing, against
+Hazlewood, that she was not conscious now that she had ever
+entertained any such feelings. She was not obliged, in common phrase,
+to "eat her own words," for she quite forgot that she had ever uttered
+them. And now, with the utmost enthusiasm, she entered into all her
+plans and prospects--told Augusta, with the greatest interest, as if
+she thought the theme must be equally delightful to her friend--all
+her mother's long story about the old Hazlewoods, and what a "charming
+nice family they were," ("those pattern people that she hated so," as
+Augusta remembered, but all of which was buried in the happiest
+oblivion with Angila,) and the dear little house that was being
+furnished like a bijou next to Mrs. Constant's, (next to Mrs.
+Constant's!--one of those small houses with low ceilings! Augusta
+gasped;) and how many servants she was going to keep; and what a nice
+young girl she had engaged already as waiter.
+
+"You mean, then, to have a woman waiter?" Augusta could not help
+saying.
+
+"Oh, to be sure!" said Angila. "What should I do with a man in such a
+pretty little establishment as I mean to have. And then you know we
+must be economical--Mr. Hazlewood is a young lawyer, and I don't mean
+to let him slave himself to make the two ends meet. You'll see what a
+nice economical little housekeeper I'll be."
+
+And, in short, Augusta found that the same bright, warm imagination
+that had made Angila once dream of Ossian-heroes, now endowed Robert
+Hazlewood with every charm she wanted, and even threw a romantic glow
+over a small house, low ceilings, small economies, and all but turned
+the woman-servant into a man. Cinderella's godmother could hardly have
+done more. Such is the power of love!
+
+"Well," said Augusta, in talking it all over with her brother, "I
+cannot comprehend it yet; Angila, who used to be so fastidious, so
+critical, who expected so much in the man she was to marry!"
+
+"She is not the first young lady who has come down from her pedestal,"
+replied her brother, laughing.
+
+"No, but she has not," returned Augusta, "that's the oddest part of
+the whole--she has only contrived somehow to raise Hazlewood on a
+pedestal, too. You'd think they were the only couple in the world
+going to be married. She's actually in love with him, desperately in
+love with him; and it was only just before I went to New Orleans that
+she said--"
+
+"My dear," interrupted her mother, "there's no subject on which women
+change their minds oftener than on this. Love works wonders--indeed,
+the only miracles left in the world are of his creation."
+
+"But she used to wonder at Mary Morton's liking him, mamma."
+
+"Ah, my dear," replied her mother, "that was when he was attentive to
+Mary Morton and not her. It makes a wonderful difference when the
+thing becomes personal. And if you really love Angila, my dear, you
+will forget, or at least not repeat, what she said six months before
+marriage."
+
+
+
+
+A NEW ENGLAND LEGEND
+
+BY CAROLINE F. ORNE.
+
+[The subject of the following ballad may be found in the "Christus
+Super Aquas" of Mather's Magnalia.]
+
+
+  "God's blessing on the bonny barque!" the gallant seamen cried,
+  As with her snowy sails outspread she cleft the yielding tide--
+  "God's blessing on the bonny barque!" cried the landsmen from the shore,
+  As with a swallow's rapid flight she skimmed the waters o'er.
+  Oh never from the good old Bay, a fairer ship did sail,
+  Or in more trim and brave array did court the favoring gale.
+  Cheerily sung the marinere as he climbed the high, high mast,
+  The mast that was made of the Norway pine, that scorned the mountain-blast.
+  But brave Mark Edward dashed a tear in secret from his eye,
+  As he saw green Trimount dimmer grow against the distant sky,
+  And fast before the gathering breeze his noble vessel fly.
+  Oh, youth will cherish many a hope, and many a fond desire,
+  And nurse in secret in the heart the hidden altar-fire!
+  And though young Mark Edward trode his deck with footstep light and free,
+  Yet a shadow was on his manly brow as his good ship swept the sea;
+  A shadow was on his manly brow as he marked the fading shore,
+  And the faint line of the far green hills where dwelt his loved Lenore.
+  Merrily sailed the bonny barque toward her destined port,
+  And the white waves curled around her prow as if in wanton sport.
+  Merrily sailed the bonny barque till seven days came and past,
+  When her snowy canvas shivered and rent before the northern blast,
+  And out of her course, and away, away, careered she wild and fast.
+  Black lowered the heavens, loud howled the winds, as the gallant barque
+      drove on,
+  "God save her from the stormy seas," prayed the sailors every one,
+  But hither and thither the mad winds bore her, careening wildly on.
+  Oh, a fearful thing is the mighty wind as it raves the land along,
+  And the forests rock beneath the shock of the fierce blasts and the strong,
+  But when the wild and angry waves come rushing on their prey,
+  And to and fro the good ship reels with the wind's savage play,
+  Oh! then it is more fearful far in that frail barque to be,
+  At the mercy of the wind and wave, alone upon the sea.
+  Mark Edward's eye grew stern and calm as day by day went on,
+  And farther from the destined port the gallant barque was borne.
+  From her tall masts the sails were rent, yet fast and far she flew,
+  But whither she drove there knew not one among her gallant crew,
+  Nor the captain, nor the marineres, not one among them knew.
+  Now there had come and past away full many weary days,
+  And each looked in each other's face with sad and blank amaze,
+  For ghastly Famine's bony hand was stretched to clutch his prey,
+  And still the adverse winds blew on as they would blow alway.
+  And dark and fearful whispered words from man to man went past,
+  As of some dread and fatal deed which they must do at last.
+  And night and morn and noon they prayed, oh blessed voice of prayer!
+  That God would bring their trembling souls out of this great despair.
+  And every straining eye was bent out o'er the ocean-wave,
+  But they saw no sail, there came no ship the storm-tost barque to save.
+  The fatal die was cast at length; and tears filled every eye
+  As forth a gentle stripling slept and gave himself to die.
+  They looked upon his pure white brow, and his face so fair to see,
+  And all with one accord cried out, "Oh, God! this must not be!"
+  And brave Mark Edward calmly said, "Let the lot fall on me."
+  "Not so," the generous youth exclaimed, "of little worth am I,
+  But 'twould strike the life from out us all were it thy lot to die."
+  "Let us once more entreat the Lord; he yet our souls may spare,"
+  And kneeling down the gray-haired man sent up a fervent prayer.
+  Oh mighty is the voice of prayer! to him that asks is given,
+  And as to Israel of old was manna sent from heaven,
+  So now their prayer was answered, for, leaping from the sea,
+  A mighty fish fell in their midst, where they astonished be.
+  "Now glory to the Father be, and to the Son be praise!
+  Upon the deep He walketh, in the ocean are His ways,
+  'Tis meet that we should worship Him who doeth right always."
+  And then from all that noble crew a hymn of joy arose--
+  It flowed from grateful hearts as free as running water flows.
+
+  Day after day still passed away, gaunt Famine pressed again,
+  Each turned away from each, as if smit with a sudden pain.
+  They feared to meet each other's eyes and read the secret there,
+  And each his pangs in silence strove a little yet to bear.
+  The eye grew dim with looking out upon the weary main,
+  Wave rolling after wave was all that answered back again.
+  But night and morn and noon they prayed--oh blessed voice of prayer!
+  That God would bring their trembling souls out of this great despair.
+  Again the fatal die was cast; a man of powerful frame
+  Slowly and with reluctant step to the dread summons came.
+  Large drops of anguish on his brow--his lips were white with fear--
+  Oh 'tis a dreadful death to die! Is there no succor near?
+  They looked around on every side, but saw no sight of cheer.
+  "It is not for myself I dread," the sailor murmured low,
+  "But for my wife and little babes, oh what a tale of wo!"
+  "It shall not be," Mark Edward cried, "for their dear sakes go free.
+  I have no wife to mourn my fate, let the lot fall on me."
+  "Not so, oh generous and brave!" the sailor grateful said,
+  "The lot is mine, but cheer thou her and them when I am dead."
+  And turning with a calmer front he bade the waiting crew
+  What not themselves but fate compelled, to haste and quickly do.
+  But who shall do the dismal work? The innocent life who take?
+  One after one each shrunk away, but no word any spake.
+  Still hunger pressed them sore, and pangs too dreadful to be borne.
+  "Be merciful, oh Father, hear! To thee again we turn."
+  Then in their agony they strove, and wrestled long in prayer,
+  Till suddenly they heard a sound come from the upper air,
+  A sound of rushing wings, and lo! oh sight of joy! on high
+  A great bird circles round the masts, and ever draws more nigh.
+  In lightning play of hope and fear one breathless moment passed,
+  The next, the bird has lighted down and settled on the mast.
+  And soon within his grasp secure a seaman holds him fast.
+  "Now glory be unto our God--and to His name be praise!
+  Upon the deep he walketh, in the ocean are his ways,
+  From ghastly fear our suppliant souls he royally hath freed,
+  And sent us succor from the air in this our sorest need."
+
+  But day by day still passed away, and Famine fiercer pressed,
+  And still the adverse winds blew on and knew no change or rest.
+  Yet strove they in their agony to let no murmuring word
+  Against the good and gracious Lord, from out their lips be heard.
+  But with their wildly gleaming eyes they gazed out o'er the main.
+  Wave rolling after wave was all that answered back again.
+  On the horizon's distant verge not even a speck was seen,
+  But the cresting foam of breaking waves still shimmering between.
+  And fiercer yet, as hour by hour went slowly creeping by,
+  The famine wrung their tortured frames till it were bliss to die.
+  And hopes of further aid grew faint, and it did seem that they
+  Out on the waste of waters wide of Heaven forgotten lay.
+  But night and morn and noon they prayed--oh blessed voice of prayer!
+  That God would save their trembling souls out of this great despair.
+  Again the fatal die was cast, and 'mid a general gloom,
+  Mark Edward calmly forward came to meet the appointed doom.
+  But when they saw his noble port, and his manly bearing brave,
+  Each would have given up his life that bold young heart to save.
+  They would have wept, but their hot eyes refused the grateful tear,
+  Yet with sorrowful and suppliant looks they drew themselves more near.
+  Mark Edward turned aside and spoke in accents calm and low,
+  Unto a man with silver hair, whose look was full of wo,
+  And bade him if the Lord should spare, and they should reach the shore,
+  To bear a message from his lips to his beloved Lenore.
+  "Tell her my thoughts were God's and hers," the brave young spirit cried,
+  "Tell her not how it came to pass, say only that I died."
+  Then with a brief and earnest prayer his soul to God he gave,
+  Beseeching that the sacrifice the lives of all might save.
+  Each looked on each, but not a hand would strike the fatal blow,
+  It was a death pang but to think what hand should lay him low.
+  And sick at heart they turned away their misery to bear,
+  And wrestled once again with God in agony of prayer.
+  As drops of blood wrung from the heart fell each imploring word,
+  Oh, God of Heaven! and can it be such prayer is still unheard?
+  They strained once more each aching orb out o'er the gloomy main,
+  Wave rolling after wave was all that answered back again.
+  They waited yet--they lingered yet--they searched the horizon round,
+  No sight of land, no blessed sail, no living thing was found.
+  They lingered yet--hope faded fast from out the hearts of all.
+  They waited yet--till black Despair sunk o'er them like a pall.
+  They turned to where Mark Edward stood with his unblenching brow,
+  Or he must die their lives to save, or all must perish now.
+  They lingered yet--they waited yet--a sudden shriek rung out--
+  "A sail! A sail! Oh, blessed Lord!" burst forth one joyful shout.
+  New strength those famished men received; fervent their thanks, but brief--
+  They man their boat, they reach the ship, they ask a swift relief.
+  Strange faces meet their view, they hear strange words in tongues unknown,
+  And evil eyes with threatening gaze are sternly looking down.
+  They pause--for a new terror bids their hearts' warm current freeze,
+  For they have met a pirate ship, the scourge of all the seas.
+  But up and out Mark Edward spake, and in the pirates' tongue,
+  And when the pirate captain heard, quick to his side he sprung,
+  And vowed by all the saints of France--the living and the dead--
+  There should not even a hair be harmed upon a single head,
+  For once, when in a dismal strait, Mark Edward gave him aid,
+  And now the debt long treasured up should amply be repaid.
+  He gave them water from his casks, and bread, and all things store,
+  And showed them how to lay their course to reach the destined shore.
+  And the blessing of those famished men went with him evermore.
+
+  Again the favoring gale arose, the barque went bounding on,
+  And speedily her destined port was now in safety won.
+  And after, when green Trimount's hills greet their expectant eyes,
+  New thanks to Heaven, new hymns of joy unto the Lord arise.
+  For glory be unto our Lord, and to His name be praise!
+  Upon the deep he walketh, in the ocean are his ways.
+  'Tis meet that we should worship him who doeth right always.
+
+
+
+
+SONG OF SLEEP.
+
+BY G. G. FOSTER.
+
+
+    Oh the dreamy world of sleep for me,
+      With its visions pure and bright,--
+    Its fairy throngs in revelry,
+      Under the pale moonlight!
+    Sleep, sleep, I wait for thy spell,
+    For my eyes are heavy with watching well
+    For the starry night, and the world of dreams
+    That ever in sleep on my spirit beams.
+
+    The day, the day, I cannot 'bide,
+      'Tis dull and dusty and drear--
+    And, owl-like, away from the sun I hide,
+      That in dreams I may wander freer.
+    Sleep, sleep, come to my eyes--
+    Welcome as blue to the midnight skies--
+    Faithful as dew to drooping flowers--
+    I only live in thy dreamy bowers.
+
+    The sun is purpling down the west,
+      Day's death-robes glitter fair,
+    And weary men, agasp for rest,
+      For the solemn night prepare.
+    Sleep, sleep, hasten to me!
+    The shadows lengthen across the lea;
+    The birds are weary, and so am I;
+    Tired world and dying day good-bye!
+
+
+
+
+THE CRUISE OF THE RAKER.
+
+A TALE OF THE WAR OF 1812-15.
+
+BY HENRY A. CLARK.
+
+(_Continued from page_ 74.)
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+_The Chase and the Capture._
+
+On the deck of the pirate craft stood a young man of powerful frame,
+and singularly savage features, rendered more repulsive by the
+disposition of the hair which was allowed to grow almost over the
+entire mouth, and hung from the chin in heavy masses nearly to the
+waist. With his elbow resting against the fore-mast of the vessel, he
+was gazing through a spy-glass upon the brig he had been so long
+pursuing. A burly negro stood at the helm, holding the tiller, and
+steering the brig with an ease which denoted his vast strength,
+scarcely moving his body, but meeting the long waves, which washed
+over the side of the vessel, and rushed in torrents through the
+hawse-holes, merely by the power of his arm.
+
+"Keep her more in the wind," shouted the commander, with an oath, to
+the helmsman.
+
+"Ay, ay sir," responded the negro gruffly.
+
+"Don't let me hear a sail flap again or I'll score your back for you,
+you son of a sea-cook."
+
+With this pleasant admonition the young man resumed his night-glass.
+
+The captain of the pirate brig was an Englishman by birth; his history
+was little known even to his own crew, but it was remarkable that
+though always savage and blood-thirsty, he was peculiarly so to his
+own countrymen, evincing a hatred and malignancy toward every thing
+connected with his native land, that seemed more than fiendish--never
+smiling but when his sword was red with the blood of his countrymen,
+and his foot planted upon her conquered banner. It was evident that
+some deep wrong had driven him forth to become an outcast and a fiend.
+A close inspection of his features developed the outlines of a noble
+countenance yet remaining, though marred and deformed by years of
+passion and of crime. His crew, which numbered nearly fifty, were
+gathered from almost every nation of the civilized world, yet were all
+completely under his command. They were now scattered over the vessel
+in various lounging attitudes, apparently careless of every thing
+beyond the ease of the passing moment, leaving the management of the
+brig to the two or three hands necessary to control the graceful and
+obedient craft.
+
+For long hours the captain of the pirate brig stood following the
+motions of the flying merchantman; he thought not of sleep or of
+refreshment, it was enough for him that he was in pursuit of an
+English vessel, that his revenge was again to be gratified with
+English blood.
+
+He was roused by a light touch of the arm--he turned impatiently.
+
+"Why, Florette."
+
+A beautiful girl stood beside him, gazing into his face half with fear
+and half with love. Her dress was partly that of a girl and partly of
+a boy; over a pair of white loose sailor's trowsers a short gown was
+thrown, fastened with a blue zone, and her long hair fell in thick,
+luxuriant masses from beneath a gracefully shaped little straw
+hat--altogether she was as lovely in feature and form as Venus
+herself, with an eye blue as the ocean, and a voice soft and sweet as
+the southern breeze.
+
+"Dear William, will you not go below and take some rest?"
+
+"I want none, girl; I shall not sleep till every man on yonder vessel
+has gone to rest in the caves of ocean."
+
+"But you will eat?"
+
+"Pshaw! Florette, leave me; your place is below."
+
+The girl said no more, but slowly glided to the companion-way and
+disappeared into the little cabin.
+
+The long night at length wore away, and as the clear light of morning
+shone upon the waters the merchant vessel was no longer visible from
+the deck of the pirate.
+
+"A thousand devils! has he escaped me. Ho! the one of you with the
+sharpest eyes up to the mast-head. Stay, I will go myself."
+
+Thus speaking, the captain mounted the main-mast and gazed long and
+anxiously; he could see nothing of the vessel. He mounted still
+higher, climbing the slender top-mast till with his hand resting upon
+the main-truck he once more looked over the horizon. Thus far his gaze
+had been directed to windward, in the course where the vanished brig
+had last been seen. At length he turned to leeward, and far in the
+distant horizon his eagle eye caught faint sight of a sail, like the
+white and glancing wing of a bird. With wonderful rapidity he slid to
+the deck, and gave orders to set the brig before the wind. The
+beautiful little bark fell off gracefully, and in a moment was swiftly
+retracing the waters it had beaten over during the night.
+
+"The revenge will be no less sweet that it is deferred," exclaimed the
+pirate captain, as he threw himself upon the companion-way. "Thirty
+English vessels have I sunk in the deep, and I am not yet
+satisfied--no, no, curses on her name, curses on her laws, they have
+driven me forth from a lordly heritage and an ancient name to die an
+outcast and a pirate."
+
+Pulling his hat over his dark brow, he sat long in deep thought, and
+not one in all his savage crew but would have preferred to board a
+vessel of twice their size than to rouse his commander from his
+thoughtful mood.
+
+Captain Horton for some hours after it had become dark the preceding
+night, had kept his vessel on the same course, perplexing his mind
+with some scheme by which he might deceive the pirate. At length he
+gave orders to lower away the yawl boat, and fit a mast to it, which
+was speedily done. When all was ready, he hung a lantern to the mast,
+with a light that would burn but a short time, and then putting out
+his own ship-light, he fastened the tiller of the yawl and set it
+adrift, knowing that it would keep its course until some sudden gust
+of wind should overcome its steerage way. As soon as he had
+accomplished this, he fell off before the wind, and setting his brig
+on the opposite tack, as soon as he had got to a good distance from
+the light of the yawl, took in all sail till not a rag was left
+standing. He kept his brig in this position until he had the
+satisfaction of seeing the pirate brig pass to windward in pursuit of
+his boat, whose light he knew would go out before the pirate could
+overtake it. When the light of the chase had become faint in the
+distance, he immediately crowded on all sail, and stood off boldly on
+his original course.
+
+None of his crew had gone below to turn in, for all were too anxious
+to sleep, and his passengers still stood beside him upon the
+quarter-deck; John with a large bundle under his arm, which, in answer
+to an inquiry from the merchant, he said was merely a change of dress.
+
+"I think we have given them the slip this time, Mr. Williams," said
+Captain Horton.
+
+"I hope so, captain."
+
+"You can sleep now without danger of being disturbed by unwelcome
+visiters, Miss Julia."
+
+"Well, captain, I am as glad as my father you have escaped. I wish we
+had got near enough to see how they looked though."
+
+"We ought rather, my dear girl, to thank God that they came no nearer
+than they did," said her father half reproachfully.
+
+"True, father, true," and bidding Captain Horton good-night, they
+retired to the cabin.
+
+"You did fool them nice, didn't you, captin?" said John.
+
+"Yes, John, it was tolerably well done, I think myself," replied the
+captain, who, like all of mankind, was more or less vain, and prided
+himself peculiarly upon his skill in his own avocation.
+
+"I shouldn't ha' been much afraid on 'em myself if they had caught
+us," said John.
+
+"You wouldn't, ah!"
+
+"No! I should ha' hated to see all the crew walk on the plank as they
+call it, specially Dick Halyard, but I thinks I should ha' come it
+over 'em myself."
+
+"Well, John, I hope you'll never have such occasion to try your powers
+of deceit, for I fear you would find yourself wofully mistaken."
+
+"Perhaps not, captin, but I'm confounded sleepy, now we've got away
+from the bloody pirates, so I'll just lie down here, captin; I haint
+learned to sleep in a hammock yet. I wish you'd let me have a berth,
+captin, I hate lying in a circle, it cramps a fellow plaguily."
+
+John talked himself to sleep upon the companion-way, where the
+good-natured master of the brig allowed him to remain unmolested, and
+soon after yielding the helm to one of the mates, himself "turned in."
+
+As the morning broke over the sea clear and cloudless, while not a
+sail was visible in any quarter of the horizon, the revulsion of
+feeling occasioned by the transition from despair to confidence, and
+indeed entire assurance of safety, was plainly depicted in the joyous
+countenances of all on the Betsy Allen. The worthy captain made no
+endeavor to check the boisterous merriment of his crew, but lighting
+his pipe, seated himself upon the companion-way, with a complacent
+smile expanding his sun-browned features, which developed itself into
+a self-satisfied and happy laugh as Mr. Williams appeared at the
+cabin-door, leading up his daughter to enjoy the pure morning air,
+fresh from the clear sky and the bounding waters.
+
+"Ha! ha! Mr. Williams, told you so, not a sail in sight, and a fine
+breeze."
+
+"Our thanks are due to you, Captain Horton, for the skillful manner in
+which you eluded the pirate ship."
+
+"Oh! I was as glad to get out of sight of the rascal as you could have
+been, my dear sir, I assure you; now that we are clear of him, I ain't
+afraid to tell Miss Julia that if he had overhauled us we should have
+all gone to Davy Jones' locker, and the Betsy Allen would by this time
+have been burnt to the water's edge."
+
+"I was not ignorant of the danger at any time, Captain Horton."
+
+"Well, you are a brave girl, and deserve to be a sailor's wife, but
+I'm married myself."
+
+"That is unfortunate, captain," said Julia, with a merry laugh, so
+musical in its intonations that the rough sailors who heard its sweet
+cadence could not resist the contagion, and a bright smile lit up each
+weather-beaten countenance within the sound of the merry music.
+
+"Well, I think so myself, though I wouldn't like Mrs. Horton to hear
+me say it, or I should have a rougher breeze to encounter than I ever
+met round Cape Horn--ha! ha! ha! You must excuse me, Miss Julia, but I
+feel in fine spirits this morning, not a sail in sight."
+
+"Sail ho!" shouted the look-out from the main cross-trees.
+
+"Ah!--where away?"
+
+"Right astern."
+
+"Can it be that they have got in our wake again. I'll mount to the
+mast-head and see myself."
+
+Seizing the glass the captain ascended to the cross-trees, where he
+remained for a long time, watching the distant sail. At length he
+returned to the deck.
+
+"They've got our bearings again somehow, confound the cunning rascals;
+and, by the way they are overhauling us, I judge they can beat us as
+well afore the wind as on a tack."
+
+"Well, Captain Horton, we must be resigned to our fate then. It
+matters not so much for me, but it is hard, my daughter, that you
+should be torn from your peaceful home in England to fall a prey to
+these fiends."
+
+"They are a long way from us yet, father; let us hope something may
+happen for our relief, and not give up till we are taken."
+
+"That's the right feeling, Miss Julia," said the captain. "I will do
+all I can to prolong the chase, and we will trust in God for the
+result."
+
+Every device which skillful seamanship could practice was put in
+immediate operation to increase the speed of the brig. There was but a
+solitary hope remaining, that they might fall in with some national
+vessel able to protect them from the pirate. The sails were frequently
+wet, the halyards drawn taut, and the captain himself took the helm.
+When all this was done, each sailor stood gazing upon the pirate as if
+to calculate the speed of his approach by the lifting of his sails
+above the water. The greater part of his top-sails were already in
+sight, and soon the heads of her courses appeared above the wave,
+seeming to sweep up like the long, white wings of a lazy bird, whose
+flight clung to the breast of the sea, as if seeking a resting-place.
+
+By the middle of the day the pirate was within three miles of the
+merchantman, and had already opened upon her with his long gun.
+Captain Horton pressed onward without noticing the balls, which as yet
+had not injured hull or sail. But as the chase approached nearer and
+nearer, the shots began to take effect--a heavy ball made a huge rent
+in the mizzen-topsail--another dashed in the galley, and a third tore
+up the companion-way, and still another cut down the fore-topmast, and
+materially decreased the speed of the vessel.
+
+Noticing this the pirate ceased his fire, and soon drew up within hail
+of the merchantman.
+
+"Ship ahoy--what ship?"
+
+"The Betsy Allen, London."
+
+"Lay-by till I send a boat aboard."
+
+Captain Horton gave orders to his crew to wait the word of command
+before they altered the vessel's course, and then seizing the trumpet,
+hailed the pirate.
+
+"What ship's that?"
+
+"The brig Death--don't you see the flag?"
+
+"I know the character of your ship, doubtless."
+
+"Well, lay-by, or we'll bring you to with a broadside."
+
+Perceiving the inutility of further effort, Captain Horton brought-to,
+and hauled down his flag.
+
+In a short time the jolly-boat of the pirate was lowered from the
+stern, and the commander jumped in, followed by a dozen of his crew.
+
+The vigorous arms of the oarsmen soon brought the boat to the
+merchantman, and the pirate stood upon the deck of the captured
+vessel.
+
+"Well, sir, you have given us some trouble to overhaul you," said he,
+in a manner rather gentlemanly than savage.
+
+"We should have been fools if we had not tried our best to escape."
+
+"True, true--will you inform me how you eluded our pursuit last night.
+I ask merely from motives of curiosity?"
+
+Captain Horton briefly related the deception of the boat.
+
+"Ah! ha! very well done. Here Diego," said he to one of the sailors
+who had followed him, "go below and bring up the passengers."
+
+The swarthy rascal disappeared with a malignant grin through the
+cabin-door, and speedily escorted Mr. Williams to the deck, followed
+by Julia, and, to the surprise of Captain Horton and his crew, another
+female.
+
+"Now, captain," said the pirate, with a fiendish smile, "I shall
+proceed to convey your merchandize to my brig, including these two
+ladies, though, by my faith, we shall have little use for one of them.
+After which I will leave you in quiet."
+
+"I could expect no better terms," said Captain Horton, resignedly.
+
+"O, you will soon be relieved from my presence."
+
+Julia clung to her father, but was torn from his grasp, and the good
+old man was pushed back by the laughing fiends, as he attempted to
+follow her to the boat. The father and daughter parted with a look of
+strong anguish, relieved in the countenance of Julia by a deep
+expression of firmness and resolution.
+
+John was also seized by the pirates, but he had overheard the words of
+their captain that they would soon be left in quiet, and had already
+commenced throwing off his woman's dress.
+
+"Hillo! is the old girl going to strip? Bear a hand here, Mike,"
+shouted Diego, to one of his comrades, "just make fast those
+tow-lines, and haul up her rigging."
+
+Mr. Williams, who immediately conceived the possible advantage it
+might be to Julia to have even so inefficient a protector with her as
+John, addressed him in a stern tone.
+
+"What, will you desert your mistress?"
+
+John stood in doubt, but he was a kind-hearted fellow, and loved Julia
+better than he did any thing else in the world except himself; and
+without further resistance or explanation, allowed himself to be
+conveyed to the boat, though the big tears rolled down his cheeks, and
+nothing even then would have prevented his avowing his original sex,
+but a strong feeling of shame at the thought of leaving Julia.
+
+For hours the pirate's jolly-boat passed backward and forward between
+the two brigs; the sea had become too rough to allow the vessels to be
+fastened together without injury to the light frame of the pirate
+bark; and night had already set in before all the cargo which the
+pirates desired had been removed from the merchantman; but it was at
+length accomplished, and once more the pirates stood upon the deck of
+their own brig.
+
+In a few words their captain explained his plan of destruction to his
+crew, which was willingly assented to, as it was sufficiently cruel
+and vindictive. Three loud cheers burst from their lips, startling the
+crew of the Betsey Allen with its wild cadence, and in another moment
+the pirate-captain leaped into his boat, and followed by a number of
+his crew, returned to the merchantman.
+
+Still preserving his suavity of manner, he addressed Captain Horton as
+he stepped upon the deck, after first ordering the crew to the bows,
+and drawing up his own men with pointed muskets before the
+companion-way.
+
+"Captain Horton, as you are, perhaps, aware it is our policy to act
+upon the old saying that 'dead men tell no tales,' and after
+consultation among ourselves, we have concluded to set your vessel on
+fire, and then depart in peace, leaving you to the quiet I promised
+you."
+
+"Blood-thirsty villain!" shouted the captain of the merchantman, and
+suddenly drawing a pistol, he discharged it full at the pirate's
+breast. The latter was badly wounded, but falling back against the
+main-mast, was able to order his men to pursue their original design
+before he fell fainting in the arms of one of his men, who immediately
+conveyed him to the boat.
+
+The savages proceeded then to fire the vessel in several different
+places, meeting with no resistance from the crew, as a dozen muskets
+pointed at their heads admonished them that immediate death would be
+the consequence.
+
+As soon as the subtle element had so far progressed in its work of
+destruction that the hand of man could not stay it, the pirates jumped
+into their boat, and with a fiendish yell, pulled off for their own
+vessel.
+
+For a very short time the crew of the merchantman stood watching the
+flame and smoke which was fast encircling them, then rousing their
+native energies, and perceiving the utter impossibility of conquering
+the fire, they turned their attention to the only resource left--the
+construction of some sort of a raft that would sustain their united
+weight.
+
+The progress of the flames, however, was so rapid, that though a score
+of busy hands were employed with axes and hatchets, the most that
+could be done was to hurl overboard a few spars and boards, cut away
+the bowsprit and part of the bulwarks, before the exceeding heat
+compelled them to leave the brig.
+
+Mr. Williams, who had remained in a state of stupor since the loss of
+his daughter, was borne to the ship's side, and hurriedly fastened to
+a spar; and then all the crew boldly sprung into the water, and
+pushing the fragments of boards and spars from the burning brig, as
+soon as they attained a safe distance, commenced the construction of
+their raft in the water. This was an exceedingly difficult
+undertaking; but they were working with the energies of despair, and
+board after board was made fast by means of the rope they had thrown
+over with themselves; and in the light of their burning vessel they
+managed at length to build a raft sufficiently strong to bear their
+weight.
+
+Then seating themselves upon it, they almost gave way to despair; they
+had lost the excitement of occupation, and now, in moody silence,
+watched the mounting flames. They were without food, and the sea ran
+high; their condition did, indeed, seem hopeless--and their only
+refuge, death.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+_The Escape._
+
+The fire had made swift work during the time the unfortunate crew were
+occupied in building the raft, and the little brig was now almost
+enveloped in smoke and flame. A burst of fire from her main hatchway
+threw a red glare over the turbulent waters, and showed the vessel's
+masts and rigging brightly displayed against the dark sky above and
+beyond them. The main-sail by this time caught fire, and was blazing
+away along the yard fiercely; and the flame soon reached the loftier
+sails and running rigging; the fire below was raging between decks,
+and rising in successive bursts of flame from the hatchways. The
+vessel had been filled with combustible material, and the doomed brig,
+in a short space of time, was one mass of flame.
+
+To a spectator beholding the sight in safety, it would have been a
+magnificent spectacle--the grandest, the most terrific, perhaps, it is
+possible to conceive--a ship on fire at night in the mid-ocean. The
+hull of the vessel lay flaming like an immense furnace on the surface
+of the deep; her masts, and the lower and topsail-yards, with
+fragments of the rigging hanging round them, sparkling, and scattering
+the fire-flakes, rose high above it, while huge volumes of smoke ever
+and anon obscured the whole, then borne away by the strong breeze,
+left the burning brig doubly distinct, placed in strong relief against
+the dark vault of heaven behind. The lofty spars, as their fastenings
+were burnt through, fell, one by one, into the hissing water, and at
+length the tall masts, no longer supported by the rigging, and nearly
+burnt into below the deck, fell over, one after the other, into the
+deep.
+
+Suddenly Captain Horton started to his feet,
+
+"It is, it is a sail--look, do you now see it coming up in the light
+of the brig?"
+
+"It is so, captain," responded his men one after the other.
+
+"Thank God we shall yet be saved! If the pirate had scuttled the ship
+we should have had no chance; but his cruel course has saved us, for
+the flame has attracted some vessel to our succor."
+
+"Perhaps the pirate returning," remarked Mr. Williams.
+
+"No, that kept on before the wind, and this is coming up. God grant it
+be an English vessel, and a swift one, and we may yet save your
+daughter!"
+
+This remark struck a chord of hope in the heart of Mr. Williams, and
+roused him to his native manliness.
+
+"But," said he, "our own vessel has drifted far from us, and we shall
+not be seen by this one."
+
+"I think they will come within hail; they will at least sail round the
+burning vessel, in the hopes of picking up somebody. Come, my men,
+let's make some kind of sail of our jackets, a half a mile nearer the
+ship may save us all our lives."
+
+With a cheer as merry as ever broke from their lips when on board
+ship, the reanimated sailors went to work, and soon reared a small
+sail made of their clothing, which caught enough wind to move them
+slowly onward.
+
+"Steer in the wake of our own vessel, my men, and the strange sail
+will come right on to us--get between them."
+
+"Ay, ay, sir!"
+
+As the approaching vessel drew nearer, the crew of the Betsy Allen
+sent up a cheer from their united voices which, to their great joy,
+was answered from the strange sail.
+
+"Ahoy, where away?"
+
+"Three points on your weather bow--starboard your helm, and you'll be
+on us."
+
+"Ay, ay."
+
+In a very short time the shipwrecked crew stood on the deck of the
+privateer Raker, which, attracted by the light of their burning brig,
+had varied somewhat from its course, to render assistance if any were
+needed. Captain Greene and his men soon became acquainted with the
+history of the crew of the lost brig, and every attention was shown to
+them.
+
+Captain Horton gave them a brief account of the pirate's assault, and
+the abduction of Julia.
+
+"O Captain Greene, save my child, if possible. She is my only one,"
+exclaimed Mr. Williams.
+
+"Which way did she steer, Captain Horton?"
+
+"She went off right before the wind, sir, and is not three hours ahead
+of us."
+
+"Mr. Williams I will immediately give chase, and God grant that I may
+overtake the scoundrels."
+
+"A father's thanks shall be yours, sir."
+
+"Never mind that--you had all better turn in; I will steer the same
+course with the pirate till morning, sir; and if he is then in sight,
+I think he is ours--for there are few things afloat that can outsail
+the Raker."
+
+The crew of the Betsy Allen, whose anxiety and exertions during the
+last few hours had been excessive, gladly accepted the captain's
+offer, and were soon snoring in their hammocks. Captain Horton and Mr.
+Williams remained on the deck of the Raker, the one too anxious for
+revenge upon the pirate who had destroyed his brig, to sleep, and the
+other too much afflicted by the loss of his daughter, and the painful
+thoughts which it engendered, to think of any thing but her speedy
+recovery.
+
+The long night at length wore away, and with the first beams of the
+morning sun the mists rolled heavily upward from the ocean. To the
+great joy of all on board the Raker, the pirate-brig was in sight,
+though beyond the reach of shot from the privateer.
+
+Although the captain of the Raker had sufficient confidence in the
+superior speed of his own vessel, yet to avoid the possibility of
+being deceived, he decided to pretend flight, well assured that the
+pirate would give chase. He accordingly bore off, as if anxious to
+avoid speaking him, and displaying every sign of fear, had the
+satisfaction of perceiving the pirate change his course, and set all
+sail in pursuit.
+
+In order to test the relative speed of the two vessels he did not at
+first slacken his own sail, but put his brig to its swiftest pace. He
+had reason to congratulate himself upon the wisdom of his manoeuvre
+when he perceived that in spite of every exertion the chase gained
+upon him, and it was evident that unless he was crippled by a shot, he
+might yet escape.
+
+As the pirate bore down upon his brig, Captain Greene perceived, by
+aid of his glass, that the number of the crew on board was
+considerably superior to his own, even with the addition of the crew
+of the Betsy Allen. In consideration of this fact, he determined to
+fight her at a distance with his long gun. This he still kept
+concealed amidships, under the canvas, desiring to impress fully upon
+his opponent the idea of his inferiority.
+
+Leaving the vessels thus situated, let us visit the pirate again.
+
+Julia, and John in his disguise, were conveyed to his deck, where they
+were speedily separated. Julia was conducted below, where, to her
+surprise and joy, she found a companion of her own sex, in the person
+of Florette.
+
+The wounded commander of the pirate was also conveyed to his berth,
+where Florette, with much grief, attended to nurse him. It was in her
+first passionate burst of sorrow that Julia discovered her love for
+the pirate, from which circumstance she also derived consolation and
+relief; and having already, with the natural firmness of her mind,
+shaken off the deep despondency which had settled upon it when first
+torn from her father, she began to resolve upon the course of action
+she would pursue, in every probable event which might befall her.
+
+During the long night the pirate lay groaning and helpless; but such
+was the strength of his will, and the all absorbing nature of his
+hatred, that when informed on the succeeding morning that a vessel was
+in sight, he aroused his physical powers sufficiently to reach the
+deck, where, seating himself on the companion-way, he watched the
+strange sail with an interest so intense, that he almost forgot his
+painful wounds.
+
+He had hardly taken his position before the captain of the Raker
+uncovered and ran out his long gun, and to the surprise of all on
+board the pirate, a huge shot, evidently sent from a gun much larger
+than they had supposed their antagonist to possess, came crashing
+through their main-sail.
+
+Too late the pirates perceived the error into which they had fallen;
+and were aware of the immense advantage which the long gun gave their
+opponent, enabling him, in fact, to maintain his own position beyond
+the reach of their fire, and at the same time cut every mast and spar
+on board the pirate-brig to pieces, unless, indeed, the latter might
+be fortunate enough, by superior sailing, to get beyond the reach of
+shot without suffering material injury.
+
+Perceiving this to be his only resource, orders were given on board
+the pirate again to 'bout ship, and instead of pursuing to be
+themselves in turn fugitives. But they were not destined to escape
+without injury. Another shot from the Raker bore away their
+foretop-sail, and sensibly checked their speed. To remedy this
+misfortune, studding-sails were set below and aloft, and for a long
+time the chase was continued without the shot from the Raker taking
+serious effect on the pirate; and, indeed, the latter in a
+considerable degree increased the distance between the two vessels.
+But while the captain and crew of the Raker were confident of
+eventually overtaking their antagonist, the men in the pirate-brig had
+already become convinced that in such a harassing and one-sided mode
+of warfare, they stood no chance whatever, and demanded of their
+captain that he should make the attempt to close with the Raker and
+board. This he sternly refused, and pointed out to his men the folly
+of such a course, as upon a nearer approach to the privateer, his
+rigging and masts must necessarily suffer in such a manner as to place
+his brig entirely at the command of the Raker. His men admitted the
+truth of his reasoning, but at the same time evinced so much
+dissatisfaction at their present vexatious situation, that their
+captain plainly perceived it was necessary to pursue some course of
+action to appease their turbulent spirits.
+
+With a clouded brow he returned to his cabin with the assistance of
+Florette, who had watched with a woman's love to take advantage of
+every opportunity to aid him.
+
+Reaching the cabin, his eyes fell upon the form of Julia, eagerly
+bending from the little window as she watched the pursuing brig,
+fervently praying that its chase might be successful.
+
+As she turned her eyes in-doors at the noise made by the entrance of
+the pirate, his keen glance noticed the light of hope which shone in
+her beautiful eyes, which she strove not and cared not to conceal.
+
+"My fair captive," said he, with a sneering smile, "do you see hope of
+escape in yonder approaching vessel?"
+
+"My hope is in God," was the calm reply of the lovely girl.
+
+"That trust will fail you now, sweet lady."
+
+"I believe it not; when has He deserted those whose trust was in him?"
+
+"So have you been taught, doubtless, so you may yet believe; but you
+have still to learn that if there is such a being, he meddles not with
+the common purposes of man. It is his government to punish, not
+prevent; and man here on earth pursues his own course, be it dark or
+bright--and God's hand is not interposed to stay the natural and
+inevitable workings of cause and effect. No, no! here, on this, my own
+good ship, _I_ rule; and there is no hand, human or divine, that will
+interpose between my determination and the execution of my purpose."
+
+"Impious man! you may yet learn to fear the power you now despise."
+
+"Ha! ha! ha!--do I look like a man to be frightened by the words of a
+weak girl, or by the name of a mysterious being, whose agency I have
+never seen in the workings of earthly affairs."
+
+"I have no mercy to expect from one who has consigned a whole ship's
+crew, without remorse, to a cruel death."
+
+"Well, were they not Englishmen? I have not for years, lady, spared an
+Englishman in my deep hatred, or an Englishwoman in my lust!"
+
+"Yet are they not your own countrymen?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Unnatural monster!"
+
+The pirate smiled. "I could relate a history of wrong that would
+justify me even in your eyes. If I have proved a viper to my native
+land, it is because her heel has crushed me--but the tale cannot be
+told now. If yonder vessel overtake us, and escape become impossible,
+my own hand will apply the match that shall blow up my brig, and all
+it contains. Before that time you will be a dishonored woman, to whom
+death were a relief. Nothing but this wound has preserved you thus
+long. With this assurance I leave you."
+
+The pirate returned to the deck, where, notwithstanding the pain of
+his injuries, he continued to take command of the brig.
+
+He had hardly vanished from the cabin before Florette stood by the
+side of Julia.
+
+"Lady," said she, "I overheard your conversation with the captain of
+this brig, and I pity you most truly."
+
+"Pity will little avail," replied Julia.
+
+"That is true, yet I would aid you if possible."
+
+"And you--do not you, too, desire to escape from this savage?"
+
+"Alas! lady, I have learned to love him."
+
+"_Love_ him!"
+
+"I have now been on this brig more than three years. I was taken from
+a French merchant vessel in which I was proceeding to French Guinea,
+to live with a relative there, having lost all my immediate kindred in
+France. While crossing the Bay of Biscay, a heavy storm drove us out
+to sea, and while endeavoring to return in shore, we fell in with this
+vessel--all on board were murdered but myself, so I have been told. I
+was borne to this cabin, which has since been my home. I was treated
+with much respect by the captain, and being all alone, I don't know
+why it was, I forgot all his crimes, and at length became his willing
+mistress. You turn from me in disgust, and in pity--yet so it is. And
+now, lady, if you are bold enough to risk your life, you may escape."
+
+"I would gladly give my life to save my honor."
+
+Florette gazed with a melancholy smile upon her companion; perhaps
+thoughts of her own former purity came over her mind.
+
+"It is a bold plan," said she, "but it is on that account that I am
+more confident of success, as all chance of escape will be deemed
+hopeless."
+
+"What is your plan?"
+
+"Night is now approaching, and it is probable the pursuing brig will
+not gain on us before dark. I have noticed that the ship's boat hangs
+at the stern, only fastened by the painter. If you have courage enough
+to descend to the boat by the painter, I will cut it, and you will
+then be directly in the course of the pursuing brig, and will be
+easily picked up."
+
+"But how can I get to the vessel's deck without being seen?"
+
+"I have thought of that; we will wait till dark, when you shall put on
+a similar dress with mine, and then you can go to any part of the
+vessel you choose without being suspected. You must watch your time to
+steal unobserved behind the man at the helm, and drop yourself into
+the boat; I will soon after appear on deck, and if you are successful
+in escaping observation, I shall be able then to cut the painter
+without difficulty, as the darkness will conceal my movements. Do you
+understand the plan?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"And you are not afraid to put it into execution?"
+
+"Oh, no, no! and I thank you for your kind aid."
+
+"I am not wholly disinterested, lady; you are beautiful, and may steal
+away the captain's heart from me."
+
+Julia shuddered.
+
+"Be ready," continued Florette, "and as soon as possible after it
+becomes dark we will make the attempt."
+
+It was as Florette had called it, a bold plan, but not impracticable,
+as any one acquainted with the position of things will at once
+acknowledge. Only one man would be at the tiller, and he might or
+might not notice the passing of any other person behind him. This
+passage once accomplished, it would be an easy undertaking to slide
+down the strong painter, or rope which made fast the boat to the stern
+of the brig. It was a plan in which the chances were decidedly in
+favor of the success of the attempt.
+
+The Raker had for some time ceased firing, and set studding-sails in
+hopes of gaining on the pirate; but the most the privateer was able to
+do, was to still preserve the relative positions of the two vessels.
+
+The sun sunk beneath the waters, leaving a cloudless sky shedding such
+a light from its starry orbs, that if the pirate had hoped to escape
+under cover of the night, he speedily saw the impossibility of such an
+attempt eluding the watch from the privateer.
+
+The captain of the pirate still kept his position upon the
+companion-way, with his head bent upon his breast, either buried in
+thought, or yielding to the weakness of his physical powers,
+occasioned by the loss of blood from his wound.
+
+Florette, who was continually passing up and down through the
+cabin-door, carefully noted the state of things upon the quarter-deck,
+and perceiving every thing to be as favorable as could be expected,
+soon had Julia in readiness for her share in the undertaking.
+
+"But first," said she, "let me put out the light in the binnacle."
+
+The girl stood for a moment in deep thought, when her ready wit
+suggested a way to accomplish this feat, sufficiently simple to avoid
+suspicion. Seizing the broad palmetto hat of the pirate, and bidding
+Julia to be in readiness to profit by the moment of darkness which
+would ensue, she returned to the deck, and approaching the pirate,
+exclaimed,
+
+"William, I have brought you your hat."
+
+At the moment of presenting it to him, as it passed the
+binnacle-light, she gave it a swift motion, which at once extinguished
+the flame.
+
+"Curses on the girl!" muttered the man at the helm.
+
+"O, I was careless, Diego; I will bring the lantern in a moment;" and
+laying down the hat on the companion-way beside the pirate, who paid
+no attention to the movements around him, she glided back to the
+cabin.
+
+"Here, lady," said she, "be quick--hand this lantern to the man at the
+helm, and then drop silently behind him while he is lighting it. I
+will immediately follow and take your place beside him. You understand
+me?"
+
+"Yes, clearly."
+
+"Well, as soon as I begin to speak with him, let yourself down into
+the boat by the painter, which I will soon cut apart, and then you
+will at least be out of the hands of your enemies."
+
+Julia took the hand of Florette in her own, and warmly thanked her,
+but the girl impatiently checked her.
+
+"Take this pistol with you also."
+
+"But why?" inquired Julia, with a woman's instinctive dread of such
+weapons.
+
+"O, I don't mean you should shoot any body, but if the boat drifts a
+little out of the brig's course, you might not be able to make
+yourself heard on her deck."
+
+"True, true."
+
+"The night is so still that a pistol-shot would be heard at a good
+distance."
+
+"O, yes, I see it all now; I was so anxious to escape from this
+terrible ship that I thought of nothing else; and there is poor John."
+
+"You must not think of him--it will be no worse for him if you go, no
+better if you remain. Here, take the lantern--say nothing as you hand
+it to the man at the tiller, but do as I told you."
+
+Pressing the hand of Florette, Julia mounted to the deck with a
+painfully beating heart, but with a firm step. She handed the lantern
+to the steersman, who received it surlily, growling some rough oath,
+half to himself, at her delay, and leaning upon the tiller, proceeded
+to relight the binnacle-lamp. Julia fell back cautiously, and in
+another moment the light form of Florette filled her place.
+
+"I was very careless, Diego," said she.
+
+"Yes," replied he, gruffly.
+
+"Well, I will be more careful next time."
+
+"You'd better."
+
+Julia, during the short time of this conversation, had disappeared
+over the stern, and as the vessel was sailing before a steady wind,
+found little difficulty in sliding down the painter into the yawl.
+She could hardly suppress an exclamation when a moment afterward she
+found the ship rapidly gliding away from her, and leaving her alone
+upon the waters in so frail a support. Her situation was, indeed, one
+that might well appall any of her sex. To a sailor it would already
+have been one of entire safety, but to her it seemed as if every
+succeding wave would sink the little boat as it gracefully rose and
+fell upon their swell; but seating herself by the tiller, she managed
+to guide its motions, and with a calm reliance upon that God whose
+supporting arm she knew to be as much around her, when alone in the
+wide waste of waters, as when beside her own hearth-stone, in quiet
+and happy England, she patiently awaited the issue of her bold
+adventure.
+
+She had but a short time to wait when she perceived the dark outlines
+of the Raker bearing directly down upon her. As it approached it
+seemed as if it would run directly over her boat, and excited by the
+fear of the moment, and the anxiety to be heard, she gave a louder
+shriek than she supposed herself capable of uttering, and at the same
+time fired off her pistol.
+
+Both were heard on board the Raker.
+
+"Man overboard!" shouted the look-out.
+
+"Woman overboard, you lubber," said a brother tar; "didn't you hear
+that screech?"
+
+"Hard a port!"
+
+"Hard a port 'tis."
+
+"Right under the lee bow."
+
+"Well, pitch over a rope whoever it is. What does this mean?" said
+Lieutenant Morris, as he approached the bows.
+
+"Can't say, sir--some deviltry of the pirates, I reckon, to make us
+lose way."
+
+"By heavens! it is a woman," cried the lieutenant, "let me throw that
+rope, we shall be on the boat in a minute. Hard a port!"
+
+The rope, skillfully thrown by the young lieutenant, struck directly
+at the feet of Julia. With much presence of mind she gave it several
+turns around one of the oar-locks, and her boat was immediately hauled
+up to the side of the brig, without compelling the latter to slacken
+sail.
+
+In another moment she was lifted to the deck of the Raker.
+
+"Julia! thank Heaven!" exclaimed her father.
+
+With a cry of joy she fainted in his arms, and was borne below, where
+she speedily recovered, and related the manner of her escape from the
+pirate.
+
+All admired the courage of the attempt, and Lieutenant Morris, as he
+gazed upon the lovely countenance, which returning sensation was
+restoring to all its wonted bloom and beauty, one day of intense
+sorrow having left but slight traces upon it, he felt emotions to
+which he had hitherto been an entire stranger, and sought the deck
+with a flushed brow and animated eye, wondering at the vision of
+beauty which had risen, like Cytherea, from the sea.
+
+[_To be continued._
+
+
+
+
+THE PRAYER OF THE DYING GIRL.
+
+BY SAMUEL D. PATTERSON.
+
+
+    Oh! take me back again, mother, to that home I love so well,
+    Whose memory rules my fluttering heart with a mysterious spell:
+    I think of it when lying on my weary couch of pain,
+    And I feel that I am dying, mother--Oh! take me home again!
+
+    They tell me that this sunny clime strength to the wasted brings,
+    And the zephyr's balmy breezes come with healing on their wings;
+    But to me the sun's rich glow is naught--the perfumed air is vain--
+    For I know that I am dying--Oh! then, take me home again!
+
+    I long to find myself once more beside the little stream
+    That courses through our valley green, of which I often dream:
+    I fancy that a cooling draught from that sweet fount I drain--
+    It stills the fever of my blood--Oh! take me home again!
+
+    And then I lie and ponder, as I feel my life decline,
+    On the happy days that there I spent when health and strength were mine;
+    When I climbed the mountain-side, and roved the valley and the plain,
+    And my bosom never knew a pang of sorrow or of pain.
+
+    And when the sun was sinking in the far and glowing west,
+    I came and sat me by thy side, or nestled in thy breast,
+    And heard thy gentle words of love, and listened to the strain
+    Of thy sweet favorite evening hymn--Oh! take me home again!
+
+    How bright and joyous was my life! Night brought refreshing rest,
+    And morning's dawn awakened naught but rapture in my breast:
+    Now, sad and languid, weak and faint, I seek, but seek in vain,
+    To lay me down in soft repose--Oh! take me home again!
+
+    The hand of death is laid upon thy child's devoted head--
+    I feel its damp and chilling touch, so cold, so full of dread--
+    It palsies every nerve of mine--it freezes every vein--
+    Oh! take me then, dear mother--Oh! take me home again!
+
+    There, with my wan brow lying on thy fond and faithful breast,
+    Let me calmly wait the summons that calls me to my rest:
+    And when the struggle's o'er, mother--the parting throe of pain--
+    Thou'lt joy to know thy daughter saw her own loved home again!
+
+
+
+
+A WRITTEN LEAF OF MEMORY.
+
+BY FANNY LEE.
+
+
+Poor Fanny Layton! Oh! how well I remember the last time I ever saw
+her! 'Twas in the dear old church whither from early childhood my
+footsteps were bent. What feelings of holy awe and reverence crept
+into my heart as I gazed, with eyes in which saddened tears were
+welling, upon the sacred spot! How my thoughts reverted to other
+days--the days of my early youth--that sweet "spring-time" of life,
+when I trod the blooming pathway before me so fetterless and free,
+with no overshadowing of coming ill--no anxious, fearful gazing into
+the dim future, as in after years, but with the bounding step that
+bespeaks the careless joyousness which Time, oh all too soon! brushes
+from the heart with "rude, relentless wing." How eagerly I would
+strive to subdue my impatient footsteps then to the calmer pace of
+more thoughtful years, as I gradually drew nearer to the holy
+sanctuary, although mine eyes would oft, despite my utmost endeavors,
+wander to the eaves of that time-worn, low-browed church, to watch the
+flight of the twittering host who came forth, I fancied, at my
+approach to bid me welcome! How I would cast one "longing, lingering
+look" at the warm, bright sunshine that irradiated even those gray
+walls, ere I entered the low porch whence it was all excluded by the
+ivy which seemed to delight in entwining its slender leaves around the
+crumbling pillars, as if it would fain impart strength and beauty to
+the consecrated building in its declining years.
+
+But a long--long time had passed since then, and I had come to revisit
+my village-home, and the memory-endeared haunts of my girlhood, for
+the last time, ere journeying to a distant land. The place was little
+changed, and every thing around that well-remembered spot came laden
+with so many sweet and early associations, that the memory of by-gone
+hours swept thrillingly across my heart-strings, and it was not until
+after I had taken my accustomed seat in the old-fashioned high-backed
+pew, that I was roused from my busy wanderings in the "shadowy past,"
+by the voice of our pastor--
+
+    "Years had gone by, and given his honored head
+     A _diadem of snow_--his eye was dim"--
+
+his voice grown weak and tremulous with increasing years, although
+there was a something in its tone so full of simple-hearted
+earnestness, that had never failed to find its way to the most gay and
+thoughtless spirits of his little flock. And now how reverently I
+gazed upon the silvered locks of him who had been mine own faithful
+guide and counselor along the devious pathway of youth--feeling that
+his pilgrimage was almost ended--his loving labors well nigh over--and
+soon he would go down to the grave
+
+    "Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
+     Around him and lies down to peaceful dreams."
+
+I looked around--and it was sad to see how few there were of all the
+familiar faces I had left--and those few--oh, how changed! But there
+was one to whom my glance reverted constantly, nor could I account for
+the strange fascination which seemed to fix mine eyes upon her. And
+yet, as I looked, the spring of memory seemed touched, and suddenly
+there appeared before me _two_ faces, which I found it impossible to
+separate in my bewildered rememberings--although so very unlike as
+they were! The one so bright and joyous, with blue laughter-loving
+eyes, in which an unshadowed heart was mirrored--and the other--the
+one on which my gaze was now fixed so dreamily--wan and faded,
+although it must once have been singularly beautiful, so delicate and
+fair were the features, and so pure and spiritual was the white brow
+resting beneath those waving masses of golden hair--a temple meet,
+methought, for all high and earnest feeling--then, too, there was a
+sweet--yet oh! how sorrow-shaded and subdued--expression flitting
+around the small mouth, as though a world-torn and troubled spirit,
+yet meek and long-suffering, had left its impress there! Her
+eyes--those large, deep, earnest eyes--how they haunted me with their
+eager restlessness, wandering to and fro with a perturbed, anxious,
+asking look, and then upturned with a fixed and pleading gaze, which
+moved one's very heart to see. Her dress was very simple, and yet I
+could not help thinking it strangely contrasted with the
+sorrow-stricken expression of that fair though faded face.
+
+A wreath of orange-blossoms encircled the small cottage-bonnet, and a
+long white veil half concealed in its ample folds the fragile form,
+which, if it had lost the roundness of early youth, still retained the
+most delicate symmetry of outline; upon her breast lay, half hidden, a
+withered rose, fit emblem, methought, for her who wore it. Oft-times
+her pale thin hands were clasped, and once, when our pastor repeated
+in his own low, fervent tone--"Come unto me, all ye heavy-laden, and I
+will give you rest"--her lip quivered, and she looked quickly up, with
+
+    "A glance of hurried wildness, fraught
+     With some unfathomable thought."
+
+My sympathies were all out-gushing for her, and when the full tones of
+the organ peeled forth their parting strain and we went forth from the
+sanctuary, my busy dreamings of the present and the past all were
+merged in one honest desire to know the poor girl's history. I learned
+it afterward from the lips of Aunt Nora Meriwether.
+
+Dear Aunt Nora! If thou _wert_ yclept "spinster," never did a heart
+more filled with good and pure and kindly impulses beat than thine!
+Indeed, I have ever ascribed my deep reverence for the sisterhood in
+general to my affectionate remembrances of this childhood's friend.
+The oracle of our village was Aunt Nora Meriwether--and how could "old
+maid" be a stigma upon her name, when it was by virtue of this very
+title that she was enabled to perform all those little kindly offices
+which her heart was ever prompting, and which made up the sum of her
+simple daily existence! It was said that Aunt Nora was "disappointed"
+in early life--but however this may have been, certain it was that the
+tales (and they _did_ intimate--did the good people of our
+village--that if Aunt Nora had a weakness, it consisted in
+over-fondness for story-telling) she treasured longest, and oftenest
+repeated, were those in which the fair heroine was crossed in love.
+
+Many a time have we, a group of gay and happy-hearted children,
+gathered round her feet, as she sat in the low doorway of her
+cottage-home, and listened with intense interest to a tale of her
+youthful days, gazing the while with eyes in which the bright drops of
+sympathy oft would glisten, upon the kind face bent upon our own in
+such loveful earnestness. And we would hope, in child-like innocence
+of heart, that _we_ might never "fall in love," but grow up and be
+"old maids," just like our own dear Aunt Nora! Whether we still
+continued to hope so, after we had grown in years and wisdom, it
+behoveth me not to say! I am quite sure you would rather listen to the
+tale now before thee, dear reader, from the good old lady's own
+lips--for it is but a simple sketch at best, and needeth the charm
+thrown around it by a heart which the frost of many winters had not
+sealed to the tenderest sympathies of our nature--and the low-toned
+voice, too, that often during her narrative would grow tremulous with
+the emotion it excited. But, alas! this may not be! that low voice is
+hushed--the little wicket-gate now closed--the path which led to her
+cottage-door untrodden now for many a day--and that kind and gentle
+heart is laid at rest beneath bright flowers, planted there by loving
+hands, in the humble church-yard. But this day is so lovely--is it
+not? With that soft and shadowy mist hanging like a gossamer veil over
+Nature's face, through which the glorious god of day looks with a
+quiet smile, as though he loved to dwell upon a scene so replete with
+home-breathing beauty! And that smile! how lovingly it rests upon the
+lawn and the meadow and the brook! How it lingers upon the sweet
+flowerets which have not yet brushed the tears from their eyes, until
+those dewy tear-drops seem--as if touched by a fairy wand--to change
+to radiant gems! How it peeps into every nook and dell, until the
+silent places of the earth rejoice in the light of that glory-beaming
+smile! The busy hum of countless insects--the soft chime of the
+distant water-fall--the thrilling notes of the woodland
+choristers--the happy voice of the streamlet, which hurries on ever
+murmuring the same glad strain--the gentle zephyr, now whispering
+through the leafy trees with low, mysterious tone, and then stealing
+so gently, noiselessly through the shadowy grass, till each tiny blade
+quivers as if trembling to the touch of fairy feet. These are Nature's
+voices, and do they not seem on a day like this in the sweet
+summer-time to unite and swell forth in one full anthem of harmony and
+praise to the great Creator of all? And does it not seem, too, as we
+gaze (for thou art sitting now with me, art thou not, gentle reader?
+on the mossy bank beneath the noble elm which has for many years
+stretched out its arms protectingly over mine own old homestead, while
+I recount to thee this simple tale of "long ago") upon the scene
+before us, so replete with quiet loveliness it is--that in every heart
+within the precincts of our smiling village there must be a chord
+attuned to echo back in voiceless melody the brightness and the beauty
+around? Yet oh! how many there may be, even here, whose sun of
+happiness hath set on earth forever! How many whose tear-dimmed glance
+can descry naught in the far future but a weary waste--whose
+life-springs all are dried--whose up-springing hopes all withered by
+the blighting touch of Sorrow!
+
+    *    *    *    *    *
+
+Dost thou see that little cot nestled so closely beneath the
+hill-side? and covered with the woodland vine which hath enfolded its
+tendrils clingingly around it--peeping in and out at the deserted
+windows, or climbing at will over the latticed porch, or trailing on
+the ground and looking up forlornly, as though it wondered where were
+the careful hands which erst nourished it so tenderly. The place seems
+very mournful--with the long grass growing rankly over the once
+carefully-kept pathway, and a few bright flowers, on either side,
+striving to uprear their beauteous heads above the tangled weeds which
+have well nigh supplanted them. Neglect--desolation is engraven on all
+around, and even the little wicket, as it swings slowly to and fro,
+seems to say, "All gone! go-ne!" The wind, how meaningly it steals
+through the deserted rooms, as though breathing a funereal dirge over
+the departed! How "eloquent of wo" is that sound! Now swelling forth,
+as it were, in wild and uncontrollable grief, and now sinking
+exhaustedly into a low and touching mournfulness which seems almost
+human! But to our tale.
+
+One bright morning, now many years ago, a lady clothed in garb of
+mourning, accompanied by a little bright-eyed girl of perhaps some
+nine summers, and her old nurse, alighted at the village inn. Now this
+seemingly trivial circumstance was in reality quite an event in our
+quiet community, and considerably disturbed the good people thereof
+from the "even tenor of their way." Indeed, there were many more
+curious eyes bent upon the new-comers than they seemed to be at all
+aware of, if one might judge from the cold and calm features of the
+lady, or the assiduous care which her companion was bestowing upon one
+particular bandbox, which the gruff driver of the stage-coach was, to
+be sure, handling rather irreverently, actually seeming to enjoy the
+ill-concealed anxiety of the poor old woman for the safety of her
+goods and chattels, while the child followed close beside her mamma,
+her sparkling eyes glancing hither and thither with that eager love of
+novelty so natural to the young. At length, however, the trunks,
+boxes, packages, &c., &c., all were duly deposited, and duly
+inspected also, by the several pairs of eyes which were peering
+through the narrowest imaginable strips of glass at neighboring
+window-curtains or half-closed shutters. The driver once more mounted
+his box, cracked his whip, and the lumbering coach rattled rapidly
+away, while the travelers, obeyed the call of the smiling and
+curtseying landlady, and disappeared within the open door of the inn.
+
+Oh, what whisperings and surmisings were afloat throughout our village
+during the succeeding week! "Who _can_ this stranger-lady be? From
+whence has she come, and how long intend remaining here?" seemed to be
+the all-important queries of the day; and so gravely were they
+discussed, each varying supposition advanced or withdrawn as best
+suited the charity or credulity of the respective interrogators, that
+one would certainly have thought them questions of vital importance to
+their own immediate interests. Strange to say, however, with all this
+unwonted zeal and perseverance, at the end of the nine days, (the
+legitimate time for wonderment,) all that the very wisest of the group
+of gossips could bring forward as the fruits of her patient and
+untiring investigation, was the simple fact that the lady's name was
+Layton--the nurse's Jeffries--and that the child, who soon became the
+pet of the whole household, was always addressed by the servants at
+the inn as "Miss Fanny," and, moreover, that Mrs. L. was certainly in
+mourning for her husband, as she had been seen one morning by the
+chambermaid weeping over the miniature of a "very fine-looking man,
+dressed in uniform," and had, in all probability, come to take up her
+residence in our quiet Aberdeen, as she had been heard inquiring about
+the small cottage beneath the hill, (the self-same, dear reader, the
+neglect and desertion of which were but now lamented.)
+
+Truth to tell, it _was_ shrewdly surmised that the landlady at the
+"Golden Eagle" had gleaned more particular information than this,
+although whenever she was questioned concerning the matter, she did
+only reply by a very grave shake of the head, each vibration of which
+(particularly when accompanied by a pursing of the mouth, and a
+mysterious looking round) more and more convinced her simple-minded
+auditors (i.e. some of them, for it is not to be denied that there
+were a few incredulous ones who, either from former experiences, or
+natural sagacity, or some cause unknown, hesitated not to declare it
+to be their fixed and unalterable opinion that these seeming
+indications of superior knowledge on the part of good Mrs. Gordon,
+were but "a deceitful show," "for their '_delusion_' given,") that
+she, Mrs. G., had been entrusted either by Mistress Jeffries, the
+nurse, or perhaps by the lady herself, with a weighty and important
+secret, which it would be very dreadful, indeed, to disclose. And yet,
+when such a possibility was vaguely hinted to her, she did not, (as
+one would be disposed to do who was really striving to deceive the
+eager questioners around her, by giving them an erroneous impression
+as to the amount of her knowledge on the subject,) seize the idea with
+avidity, and seem manifestly anxious to encourage such a supposition.
+On the contrary, it was evidently deeply distressing to her that any
+one should cherish such a thought for a moment; and she begged them so
+earnestly, almost with tears in her eyes, not to mention it again, and
+said so much about it, reverting to the theme invariably when the
+conversation chanced to turn upon some other topic, as though it quite
+weighed upon her mind, that at length her companions inwardly wondered
+what had given rise to the belief in their minds, and yet, as one old
+lady said, looking sagaciously over her spectacles, "that belief waxed
+stronger and stronger."
+
+Time passed on--days merged themselves into weeks, and weeks to
+months, and the harmony and quietude of Aberdeen was fully restored.
+The "Widow Layton," (for thus, from that time, was she invariably
+styled,) after all due preliminaries, had taken quiet possession of
+the little vine-clad cot; and although she was not as "neighborly" as
+she might have been, and never communicative as to her previous
+history, still might the feeling of pique with which they at first
+received such a rebuff to their curiosity, have been a very evanescent
+one in the minds of the villagers, had it not chanced that Aberdeen
+was blessed (?) with two prim sister-spinsters, (was it they or Aunt
+Nora, who formed the exception to the general rule? I leave it for
+thee, dear reader, to decide, since with that early-instilled
+reverence before mentioned, I cannot consider my humble opinion
+infallible,) whose hearts, according to their _own_ impression on the
+subject, quite overflowed with charity and benevolence, which
+manifested itself in the somewhat singular method of making every one
+around them uncomfortable, and in the happy faculty which they
+possessed in an eminent degree, of imparting injurious doubts and
+covert insinuations as to the manners and habits of their neighbors,
+who else might have journeyed peacefully adown the vale of life in
+perfect good faith with all the world; moreover, they hated a mystery,
+did these two sister-spinsters, from their own innate frankness and
+openness of disposition, they said, and considered themselves so much
+in duty bound to ferret out the solution of any thing which bore the
+semblance to an enigma, that they gave themselves no rest, poor,
+self-sacrificing creatures, until they had obtained their object. And
+well were they rewarded for this indefatigable zeal, for they had the
+satisfaction of knowing that they had found out more family secrets,
+destroyed more once-thought happy marriages, and embittered more
+hearts than any two persons in all the country round.
+
+They lived in the heart of our village, (and never did that heart
+quicken with one pulsation of excitement or surprise, or joy or
+sorrow, but they were the first to search into the why and wherefore,)
+in a large two story house, isolated from the rest, which seemed to
+emulate its occupants in stiffness and rigidity, and whose glassy eyes
+looked out as coldly upon the beauteous face of nature, as they from
+their own stern "windows of the soul," upon the human face divine.
+There was no comfort, no home-look about the place; even the flowers
+seemed not to grow by their own sweet will, but came up as they were
+bidden, tall and straight, and stiff. And the glorious rays of the sun
+glanced off from the dazzling whiteness of the forbidding mansion, as
+though they had met with a sudden rebuff, and had failed to penetrate
+an atmosphere where every thing seemed to possess an antipathy to the
+bright and the joyous. It was strange to see what a chilliness
+pervaded the spot. The interior of the house (which I once saw when a
+child; and, oh! I never _can_ forget the long, long-drawn sigh that
+escaped my lips as I once more found myself without the precincts of a
+place where my buoyant spirits seemed suddenly frozen beneath the
+glance of those two spinsters, where even the large, lean cat paced
+the floor with such a prim, stately step, now and then pausing to fix
+her cold, gray eyes upon my face, as though to question the cause of
+my intrusion, and also to intimate that she had no sort of sympathy
+with either my feelings, or those of children in general.) Every thing
+bore the same immovable look--the narrow, high-backed chairs seemed as
+if they had grown out of the floor, and were destined to remain as
+stationary as the oaks of the forest; the "primeval carpet," over
+which the Misses Nancy and Jerusha Simpkins walked as though mentally
+enumerating the lines that crossed each other in such exact squares,
+never was littered by a single shred; and the high, old-fashioned
+clock still maintained its position in the corner from year to year,
+seeming to take a sort of malicious satisfaction in calmly ticking the
+hours away which bore the Misses Simpkins nearer and nearer to that
+_certain_ age (which they, if truth must be told, were in nowise
+desirous to reach) when all further endeavors to conceal the
+foot-marks of stern old Father Time would be of no avail.
+
+It was at the close of a chilly evening late in autumn--old Boreas was
+abroad, and had succeeded, it would seem, in working himself into an
+ungovernable fit of rage, for he went about screaming most
+boisterously, now hurrying the poor bewildered leaves along,
+maliciously causing them to perform very undignified antics for their
+_time of life_, while they, poor old withered things, thus suddenly
+torn from the protecting arms of their parental tree, flew by, like
+frightened children, vainly striving to gain some place of shelter.
+Alas! alas! no rest was there for them. What infinite delight their
+inveterate persecutor seemed to take in whirling them round and round,
+dodging about, and seeking them in the most unheard-of places, where
+they lay panting from very fright and fatigue. And then off he would
+start again, shaking the window-sashes as he passed, with wild, though
+impatient fury, remorselessly tearing down the large gilt signs which
+had from time immemorial rejoiced in the respective and respectable
+names of several worthies of our village, and then speeding away to
+the homes of said worthies, to proclaim the audacious deed through the
+key-hole, in the most impudent and incomprehensible manner possible.
+It was on such an evening as this, a few months after the arrival of
+the Laytons at Aberdeen, that the Misses Simpkins sat in their
+cheerless back-room, hovering over a small fire, busily plying their
+noisy knitting-needles, and meantime indulging in their usual dish of
+scandal, which, however, it is but justice to say, was not quite so
+highly seasoned with the spice of envy and malice as was its wont.
+Whether it was that the memory of a bright and beaming little face
+that had intruded upon their solitude during the afternoon, had half
+succeeded in awakening the slumbering better nature which had slept so
+long, it was somewhat doubted if any effort could resuscitate it
+again; whether it was that the lingering echo of a certain sweet,
+childish voice that had beguiled the weary hours of their dullness and
+monotony, and with its innocent prattle, had, in some degree, forced
+an opening through the firm frost-work which had been gradually
+gathering for years round their hearts, I cannot tell; but true it is
+that as the sister spinsters sat there, with the faint and feeble
+flame struggling up from the small fire, and the light from the one
+tall candle flickering and growing unsteady as it flashed upon the two
+thin, sharp faces close beside it, while the antique furniture looked
+more grotesque and grim than ever in the deep shadow, and the
+never-wearying clock still ticked calmly on, regardless alike of the
+contending elements without and the wordy warfare within; true it is
+that the conversation between the sisters was divested of one half its
+wonted acrimony.
+
+"To be sure," said Miss Simpkins the younger, at length, after a
+pause, in which the half-awakened better nature seemed strongly
+disposed to resume its slumbers again, "little civility has the Widow
+Layton to expect from any body with her distant bows and uppish airs,
+when one ventures to express an interest in her; and if I hadn't a
+very forgiving disposition, oh! Jerusha! Jerusha! I don't think I'd
+trouble myself to call upon her again. But I feel it to be my duty to
+advise her to put little Fanny to school, for she's a good child and
+winsome-like, and running at large so will just be the spoiling of
+her."
+
+"Well, Jerusha," responded Miss Nancy, who had, perhaps, a little
+leaven more than her sister, of tartness in her disposition, and on
+whose face an habitual expression of acidity was rapidly increasing,
+"you know very well that the widow considers herself a little above
+every body else in Aberdeen, and you might as well talk to a stone
+wall as to her about sending the child to school. Why haven't I done
+my best at talking to her? Haven't I told her of Miss Birch's school,
+where the children don't so much as turn round without their teacher's
+leave, and where you might hear a pin drop at any time. Haven't I told
+her that she might easily save a good deal in the year, by renting one
+half of that snug little cottage--and what thanks did I get? A reply
+as haughty as if she were the greatest lady in the land, instead of
+being, as she is, a nameless, homeless stranger, who cannot be 'any
+better than she should be,' or she would never make such a mighty
+mystery about her past life, that she 'trusted Miss Simpkins would
+allow her to be the best judge as to the proper method of educating
+her child, and also as to the means of retrenching her own expenses if
+she found it needful.'"
+
+Unkind, unjust, unfeeling Nancy Simpkins! and has not that settled,
+ever-present sorrow upon those pale features; have not those
+grief-traced lines around the compressed mouth, and across the once
+smooth and polished brow; has not the sad garb of the mourner, which
+speaks of the lone vigil, the weary watching, the hope deferred, or it
+may be the sudden stroke of the dread tyrant Death, no appeal to thy
+frozen sympathies? Canst thou suffer thy better nature to resume its
+deep and trance-like sleep again, and rob that poor widowed mother of
+her only hope on earth, that bright, glad creature, who carries
+sunshine to her otherwise desolate home, but to pinion her free and
+fetterless spirit beneath the iron rule and despotic sway of the
+village task-mistress?
+
+We will leave the Misses Simpkins, and thou pleasest, reader mine, to
+the enjoyment of their envy-tinctured converse, and turn the page of
+Mrs. Layton's life.
+
+An only child of wealthy parents, petted, caressed and idolized, she
+had sprung into womanhood, with every wish anticipated, every desire
+gratified ere half expressed, if within the reach of human
+possibility, what wonder, then, that she grew wayward and willful, and
+at length rashly dashed the cup of happiness of which she had drank so
+freely in her sunny youth from her lip, by disobeying her too fond and
+doating parents, in committing her life's destiny to the keeping of
+one who they, with the anxious foresight of love, too well knew would
+not hold the precious trust as sacred. Brave and handsome and gifted
+he might be, but the seeds of selfishness had been too surely sown
+within his heart; and he had won the idol of a worshiping crowd, more,
+perchance, from a feeling of exultation and pride in being able to
+bear away the prize from so many eager aspirants, than any deep-rooted
+affection he felt for the fair object of his solicitude. The novelty
+and the charm soon wore away, and then his beautiful bride was
+neglected for his former dissolute associates. He afterward entered
+the navy, and somewhat more than ten years after they were wedded,
+fell in a duel provoked by his own rash, temper. From the moment that
+Mrs. Layton recovered from the trance-like swoon which followed the
+first sight of her husband's bleeding corpse, she seemed utterly,
+entirely changed. She had truly loved him, he who lay before her now,
+a victim of his own rash and selfish folly, and with all a woman's
+earnest devotion would have followed him to the remotest extremes of
+earth; but her feelings had been too long trampled upon, her heart too
+bruised and crushed ever to be upraised again. She had leaned upon a
+broken reed, and had awakened to find herself widowed, broken-hearted.
+And she arose, that desolate and bereaved one, and folding her child
+closer to her breast, went forth into the cold world
+friendless--alone! Once would her grief have been loud and passionate
+and wild, but she had passed through a weary probation, and had
+learned "to suffer and be still." How, in that dark hour, did her
+lost mother's prayer-breathed words, her father's earnest entreaties
+come back to smite heavily upon her sorrow-stricken spirit--but
+remorse and repentance were now all too late. And yet not too late,
+she murmured inly, for had she not a duty to perform toward the little
+being, her only, and, oh! how heaven-hallowed, tie to earth, consigned
+to her guardianship and care. Did she not firmly resolve never by
+ill-judged and injudicious fondness to mark out a pathway filled with
+thorns for her darling. It may be that that widowed mother erred even
+in excess of zeal, for she would resist the natural promptings of her
+heart, and check the gushing affection which welled from the deepest,
+purest fountain in the human heart, lest its expression might prove
+injurious to the loved one in after years. And thus there grew a
+restraint and a seeming coldness on the part of the mother, a constant
+craving for love, which was never satisfied, and a feeling of fear on
+the child's, which shut them out from that pure trust and confidence,
+which are such bright links in the chain that binds a mother to her
+child.
+
+    *    *    *    *    *
+
+This, then, was the Widow Layton who with her little one and nurse had
+sought our village, immediately after the decease of her husband, as a
+peaceful asylum from the noise and tumult of a world where, in happier
+days, she had played so conspicuous a part. It was not so much that
+she sedulously avoided all mention of her past history to the eager
+questioners around her, from a disinclination that it should be known,
+as that she little understood the character of the villagers
+themselves--ofttimes mistaking a really well-meant interest in her
+welfare for an idle and impertinent curiosity. Mrs. Layton had been
+highly born and nurtured, and there seemed to her delicate mind a
+something rude and unfeeling in the manner with which her too
+officious friends and neighbors would touch upon the sources of grief
+which were to her so sacred. And therefore, perhaps unwisely, she held
+herself aloof from them, replying to their different queries with that
+calm and easy dignity which effectually precluded all approach to
+familiarity, and engendered a dislike in the minds of those who were
+little accustomed to meet one who could not enter into all their
+feelings, plans and projects--which dislike was constantly kept alive
+and fostered by the united exertions of the two sister spinsters. Good
+Mrs. Jeffries, too, the fond old nurse who had never left her beloved
+mistress through all her varying fortunes, was all too faithful and
+true to reveal aught that that kind mistress might wish untold; and
+thus it was that the curiosity of the good people of Aberdeen was kept
+continually in check, and about the unsuspecting inmates of Woodbine
+Cottage was thrown a mystery that was becoming constantly augmented by
+their incomprehensible silence on the subject.
+
+    *    *    *    *    *
+
+Weeks--months--years sped swiftly away, and the widow, by her free and
+unostentatious charities and her angel-ministering to the poor, the
+afflicted and the bereaved, had almost eradicated the first
+unpleasing impression made upon the simple-hearted people of
+Aberdeen; so that, although the Misses Simpkins still held their
+nightly confabulations, they did not venture as at first, so openly to
+propagate their animadversions concerning the "mysterious stranger,"
+but on the contrary, always made it a point to preface any sudden and
+amiable suggestion that presented itself to their minds with "not that
+I would say any thing against her, but it does seem a little
+singular," &c. But of Miss Fanny--sweet, witching Fanny Layton! who
+had grown in beauty and grace day by day, not one word did they dare
+to speak in her dispraise! For was there one in all Aberdeen who would
+not have resented the slightest intimation of disrespect to our lily
+of the valley--whose joy-inspiring and sorrow-banishing presence was
+welcomed delightedly by young and old, both far and near? And oh! was
+there ever music like her sweet, ringing laugh, or melody like the
+low-toned voice which was always eloquent of joyousness. Whether she
+sat in the humble cottage, lending kind and ready assistance to the
+care-worn matron, by playfully imprisoning the little hands of the
+children within her own petite palms, while she recounted to them some
+wonderful tale, her brilliant fancy, meantime, never soaring above
+their childish comprehension, although she was regarded by her little
+auditors as nothing less than a bright fairy herself, who was thus
+familiar with all that witching tribe, and who could with her own
+magic wand thus open to them stores of such strange and delightful
+things as was never before dreamed of in their youthful
+philosophy--while their patient, painstaking mother would now and then
+glance up from her never-ending task, with a smile of such beaming
+pleasure and gratitude as amply repaid the gentle being, who seemed in
+her loveful employ to be the presiding angel of that humble
+dwelling-place. Whether she would "happen-in" of a long, warm summer
+afternoon to take a cup of tea with a neighboring farmer's wife--an
+honor that never failed to throw that worthy woman into a perfect
+fever of anxiety and delight--who would proffer a thousand and one
+apologies for the deficiencies that only existed in her own perverse
+imagination, if, indeed, they existed even there, for her bright eyes
+were contradicting a pair of rosy lips all the while, as they glanced
+with a lurking--yet I am sure laudable--pride, from the "new chany
+sett" (which was wont on great occasions to be brought forward) to the
+rich treasures of her well-kept dairy, that her busy feet had been
+going pat-a-pat from cupboard to cellar, and cellar to cupboard, for a
+whole hour previous collecting, to place in all their tempting
+freshness before her beloved guest. Or whether she came with her
+simple offering of fresh flowers--her word of sympathy and comfort--or
+some choice dainty, that seemed "_so_ nice" to the sick and suffering,
+who had turned away with loathing from every thing before, but who
+could not fail to find _this_ delicious, for was it not made and
+brought by the hands of dear Miss Fanny's self? Still did her presence
+seem to make sunlight wherever she went!
+
+Fanny was a young lady now--although you would scarce believe it, for
+she was a very child at heart, with all a child's unworldliness,
+unsuspecting confidence, and winning innocence. And yet there was
+deep, deep down in that loveful, earnest heart, that Joy and all Joy's
+sister spirits seemed to have taken captive, a fount whose seal had
+never been found.
+
+Oh, Fanny, dear, darling Fanny Layton! wo, wo for thee the day when
+first that hidden seal was broken! When Hope and Doubt and Fear by
+turns played sentinel to the hidden treasure, the door to which, when
+once flung back, never can be reclosed again! When joy and gladness
+but tarried a little while to dispute their prior right to revel
+undisturbed in that buoyant heart of thine, and then went tearfully
+forth, leaving for aye a dreary void, and a deep, dark shadow, where
+all had been but brightness and beauty before! Oh, why must the
+night-time of sorrow come to thee, thou gentle and pure-hearted one?
+Thou for whom such fervent and fond prayers have ascended, as should,
+methinks, have warded off from, thee each poisoned shaft, and proved
+an amulet to guard thee from all life's ills! Thy sixteenth summer,
+was it not a very, very happy one to thee, sweet Fanny Layton? But
+happiness, alas! in this cold world of ours, is never an unfading
+flower; and although so coveted and so sought, still will droop in the
+eager hands which grasped it, and die while yet the longing eyes are
+watching its frail brightness with dim and shadowful foreboding!
+
+Just on the outskirts of our village there slept a silent, secluded
+little nook, which the thickly-growing trees quite enclosed, only
+permitting the bright sun to glance glimmeringly through their
+interwoven leaves and look upon the blue-eyed violets that held their
+mute confabulations--each and all perking up their pretty heads to
+receive the diurnal kiss of their god-father Sol--in little lowly
+knots at their feet. Kind reader, I am sure I cannot make you know how
+very lovely it was, unless you yourself have peeped into this
+sheltered spot--seen the cool, dark shadows stretching across the
+velvet turf, and making the bright patches of sunlight look brighter
+still--have stood by the murmuring brook on which the sun-bright
+leaves overhead are mirrored tremulously, and upon whose brink there
+grows so many a lovely "denizen of the wild"--gazed admiringly upon
+the beautiful white rose Dame Nature hath set in the heart of this
+hidden sanctuary, as a seal of purity and innocence--and more than
+this, have turned from all these to watch the fairy form flitting from
+flower to flower, with so light a step that one might mistake it for
+some bright fay sent on a love-mission to this actual world of
+ours--if one did not know that this was Fanny Layton's dream-dell--that
+in this lovely spot she would spend hours during the long, warm summer
+days, poring over the pages of some favorite author, or twining the
+sweet wild flowers in fragrant wreaths to bedeck her invalid mother's
+room--or, perchance, staying for awhile those busy fingers, to indulge
+in those dreamy, delicious reveries with which the scene and hour so
+harmonized.
+
+One day--and that day was an era in poor Fanny's life which was never
+afterward to be forgotten--our lovely heroine might have been seen
+tripping lightly over the smooth sward, the green trees rustling
+musically in the summer breeze, and Nature's myriad tones "concerting
+harmonies" on hill and dale. And one needed but to see the smiling
+lip, and those clear, laughter-loving eyes peeping from beneath just
+the richest and brightest golden curls in the world, to know what a
+joyous heart was beating to that fairy-light and bounding step. Wonder
+none could be, that many an eye brightened as she passed, and many a
+kindly wish--that was never the less trustful and sincere for that it
+was couched in homely phrase--sped her on her way. Dream-dell was
+reached at length--the flowering shrubs which formed the rural
+gate-way parted, and Fanny threw herself on the waving grass, with a
+careless grace which not all the fashionable female attitudinizers in
+the world could have imitated, so full of unstudied ease and
+naturalness it was--with her small cottage bonnet thrown off that
+wealth of clustering curls which were lifted by the soft summer wind,
+and fell shadowingly over the brightest and most beaming little face
+upon which ever fond lover gazed admiringly--with eyes which seemed to
+have caught their deep and dewy blue from the violets she clasped in
+one small hand, and on which they were bent with a silent glance of
+admiration--for Fanny was a dear lover of wild-wood flowers, as who is
+not who bears a heart untouched by the sullying stains of earth? One
+tiny foot had escaped from the folds of her simple muslin dress, and
+lay half-buried in the green turf--a wee, wee foot it was, so small,
+indeed, that it seemed just the easiest thing possible to encase it
+within the lost slipper of Cinderella, if said slipper could but have
+been produced; at least so said a pair of eyes, as plainly as pair of
+eyes _could_ say it, which peering from behind a leafy screen, were
+now upon it fixed in most eager intensity, and now wandered to the
+face of the fair owner thereof, who was still bent over the flowers in
+the small hand, as if seeking some hidden spell in their many-colored
+leaves.
+
+That pair of eyes were the appurtenances belonging to a face that
+might have proved no uninteresting study to the physiognomist, albeit
+it would have puzzled one not a little, methinks, to have formed a
+satisfactory conclusion therefrom, so full of contradictions did it
+seem. A mass of waving hair fell around a brow high and
+well-developed, though somewhat darkly tinged by the warmth, mayhap,
+of a southern sun, and the eyes were large and lustrous, yet there was
+a something unfathomable in their depths, which made one doubt if they
+were truly the index of the soul, and might not be made to assume
+whatever expression the mind within willed. At present, however, they
+were filled only with deep admiration mingled with surprise, while
+around the mouth, which, in repose, wore a slightly scornful curve,
+there played a frank and winning smile, as, advancing with a quiet
+courtesy that at once bespoke him a man of the world, despite slouched
+hat and hunting-frock, the intruder upon our heroine's solitude
+exclaimed, with half-earnest, half-jesting gallantry, "Prithee, fair
+woodland nymph, suffer a lone knight, who has wandered to the confines
+of a Paradise unawares, to bow the knee in thy service, and as
+atonement meet for venturing unbidden into thy hidden sanctum, to
+proffer thee the homage of his loyal heart!"
+
+Fanny was but a simple country maiden, all unskilled in the light and
+graceful nothings which form the substance of worldly converse, and so
+the warm, rich crimson crept into her cheek,
+
+    "The color which his gaze had thrown
+     Upon a cheek else pale and fair,
+     As lilies in the summer air."
+
+and the wee foot forthwith commenced beating a tatoo upon the heads of
+the unoffending flowers around, who breathed forth their perfumed
+sighs in mute reproachfulness; but she was still a woman, and so with
+all a woman's ready tact she replied, though with the flush deepening
+on her cheek, and a scarce-perceptible tremor in her voice,
+
+"Indeed, sir stranger, since thou hast given me such unwonted power, I
+must first use my sceptre of command in banishing all intruders into
+my august presence, and invaders of this 'hidden sanctum,' which is
+held sacred to mine own idle feet alone!"
+
+And there was a merry look of mischievous meaning stealing in and out
+of those bright eyes as they were for a moment uplifted to the face of
+the stranger, and then again were shadowed by the drooping lid.
+Whether it was that said "intruder" detected a something in the tone
+or the demure glance of the fair girl which contradicted the words she
+spoke, or whether that very glance transfixed him to the spot, history
+telleth not, but stay he did; and if his tarrying was very _heart_ily
+objected to by his companion, if the words which fell from his lip in
+utterance how musical, for the space of two fastly-fleeting hours,
+were not pleasing to the ear of the maiden, then, indeed, did that
+soft, bright glow which mantled her fair cheek, and the rosy lip,
+half-parted and eloquent of interest, sadly belie the beating heart
+within, as the twain walked lingeringly homeward, the dark shadows
+lengthening on the green grass, and the setting sun flinging a flood
+of golden-tinted light upon the myriad leaves which were trembling to
+the love-voice of the soft summer breeze.
+
+Softly was the latch of the wicket lifted, and light was the maiden's
+step upon the stair, as she sought her own little chamber. Was she
+gazing forth from the open window to admire the brilliancy of that
+gorgeous sunset? Was it to drink in the beauty and brightness of that
+sweet summer eve, or to feel the soft breeze freshly fanning her
+flushed cheek? Nay, none of these. See how earnestly her gaze is bent
+upon the retreating form of the stranger; and now that he is lost to
+view, behold her sitting with head resting on one little hand, quite
+lost in a reverie that is not like those of Dream-dell memory, for now
+there comes a tangible shape in place of those ideal ones, and the
+echo of a manly voice, breathing devotion and deference in every tone,
+still is lingering in her enchained ear. For the first time she
+forgets to carry her offering of fresh flowers to her mother's room.
+Ah! her busy fingers have been strewing the bright leaves around
+unconsciously, and she blushingly gathers the few remaining ones, and,
+with a pang of self-reproach, hastens to her mother's side.
+
+It is with a sigh of relief that Fanny beholds her invalid parent
+sleeping sweetly--a relief that was augmented by the question which
+burst suddenly upon her mind, "Can I tell her that I have had a
+stranger-companion in my wanderings?" Wonder not at the query, gentle
+reader, for remember that the life of our sweet Fanny had not been
+blessed with that loving confidence which is the tenderest tie in the
+relation of mother and child. Her love was ever intermingled with too
+much fear and restraint from earliest youth, for that interchange of
+counsel and trust which might have been a sure safeguard against many
+of earth's ills. And it was perhaps that very yearning to fill the
+only void left in her happy heart which prompted her to give the helm
+of her barque of life, so soon and so confidingly into the hands of a
+stranger.
+
+Day succeeded day, and still the lovers, for they were lovers now,
+were found at their sweet trysting spot, seeking every pretext for
+frequent meetings, as lovers will, until many were the heads in
+Aberdeen which were shaken in wise prognostication; and the Misses
+Simpkins, to their unspeakable relief, had found a new theme whereon
+to exercise their powers conversational, while the children of the
+village mourned the absence of their kind "Fairy," and wished with all
+their little hearts that Miss Fanny would send away that "naughty man"
+who kept her from their homes.
+
+Poor Fanny! the hidden seal had been touched at length, and on the
+deep waters beneath was shining Love's own meteor-light--a light that
+was reflected on every thing around.
+
+    "It was as her heart's full happiness
+     Poured over _all_ its own excess."
+
+How swiftly the days flew by, "like winged birds, as lightly and as
+free." And, oh! how priceless, peerless was the gift she was yielding
+to the stranger in such child-like confidence and trust. There was so
+much up-looking in her love for him; it seemed so sweet to recognize
+the thoughts which had lain dormant in her own soul, for want of
+fitting expression, flowing from his lip clothed in such a
+beauty-breathing garmenture. And now Fanny Layton was a child no
+longer. She had crossed the threshold, and the "spirit of unrest" had
+descended upon her, albeit as yet she knew it not. Her heart seemed so
+full of sunshine, that when she ventured to peep into its depths, she
+was dazzled by that flood of radiance--and how could she descry the
+still shadow. Alas! that on this earth of ours with the sunlight ever
+comes the shadows, too, which was sleeping there, but to widen and
+grow deeper and darker when love's waters should cease to gush and
+sparkle as at the first opening of that sweet fount.
+
+But the day of parting came at length--how it had been dwelt upon with
+intermingling vows, promises, caresses on his part, with trust, and
+tenderness, and tears on hers! A sad, sad day it was for Fanny
+Layton, the first she had ever known that was ever heralded by
+sorrow's messenger. How she strove to dwell upon Edward Morton's
+words, "It will not be for long;" and banish from her heart those
+nameless, undefinable fears which _would_ not away at her bidding. The
+sky looked no longer blue--the green earth no longer glad; and traces
+of tears, the bitterest she had ever shed, were on that poor girl's
+cheek, as she went forth to meet her beloved, for the last time.
+
+It matters not to say how each familiar haunt was visited that day;
+how each love-hallowed spot bore witness to those low murmured words
+which are earth's dearest music; how time wore on, as time will,
+whether it bears on its resistless tide a freightage of joys or
+sorrows, pleasures, or pains, until at length the last word had been
+said, the last silent embrace taken; and now poor Fanny Layton stood
+alone, gazing through blinding tears upon the solitary horseman who
+rode swiftly away, as if another glance at the fair creature who stood
+with straining gaze and pallid cheek and drooping form, would all
+unman him. Was it this, or was it that in that hour he felt his own
+unworthiness of the sacred trust reposed in him?
+
+We will believe, dear reader, that whatever after influences may have
+exercised dominion over his heart; however he may have been swerved
+from his plighted faith by dreams of worldly ambition, or wealth, or
+power; however cold policy may have up-rooted all finer feeling from
+his soul, we will believe that no thoughts of treachery, no meditated
+falsehood mingled with that parting embrace and blessing; that
+although he had bowed at many a shrine before, and therefore could not
+feel all the depth and purity of the unworldly affection which he had
+won, still he did not, could not believe it possible that that
+priceless love would be bartered for pomp and station, he did mean,
+when he placed the white rose, plucked from the heart of Dream-dell,
+in the little trembling hand which rested on his shoulder, and
+murmured "Fanny, darling, ere this bud hath scarce withered, I shall
+be with you again," that it should be even as he said. Alas! alas! for
+the frailty of human nature!
+
+That night poor Fanny pressed the precious rose to her quivering lip,
+and sobbed herself, like a child, to sleep.
+
+The next day wore away--the next--the next--still no tidings from the
+absent one; and he had promised to write as soon as he arrived "in
+town!" What could it mean?
+
+Oh, that weary watching! The hours moved, oh, so leaden-paced and
+slow! Every day the poor girl waited for the coming of the post-man;
+and every day, with a pang at her heart, and tear-dimmed eyes, she saw
+him pass the door. "Edward has been detained; he will come yet, I'm
+sure," a fond inner voice whispered; "perhaps he has sent no letter,
+because he'll be here himself so soon!" Poor Fanny! another week, and
+still no letter, no tidings. "Oh! he must be ill!" she whispered,
+anxiously, but never thought him false. Oh, no! she was too
+single-hearted, too relying in her trust fora doubt so dreadful; but
+her step grew heavier day by day--her cheek so very, very pale,
+except at the post-man's hour, when it would burn with a feverish
+brightness, and then fade to its former pallid hue again; her sweet
+voice was heard no longer trilling forth those thrilling melodies
+which had gladdened the heart of young and old to hear. The visits to
+Dream-dell were less and less frequent, for now how each remembrance
+so fondly connected with that spot, came fraught with pain; the works
+of her favorite author's lay opened, but unread, upon her knee; and
+the fastly-falling tears half-blotted out the impassioned words she
+had once read with _him_ with so happy a heart-thrill.
+
+The widow saw with anxiety and alarm this sudden change; but she was
+an invalid--and the poor suffering one strove to hide her sickness of
+the heart, and mother though she was, Mrs. Layton discovered not the
+canker-worm which was nipping her bud of promise, but would whisper,
+"You confine yourself too much to my room, my child, and must go out
+into the bright sunshine, so that the smile may come back to your lip,
+the roses to your cheek."
+
+One day, now three months after Edward Morton's departure, Miss
+Jerusha Simpkins was seen threading her way to Woodbine Cottage. She
+held a newspaper carefully folded in her hand, and on her pinched and
+withered face a mingled expression of caution and importance was
+struggling.
+
+Lifting the latch of the embowered door, the spinster walked into the
+small parlor, where Fanny Layton was engaged in feeding her pet
+canaries; poor things! they were looking strangely at the wan face
+beside the cage, as if they wondered if it could be the same which
+used to come with wild warblings as sweet and untutored as their own.
+Fanny turned to welcome the intruder, but recognized Miss Simpkins
+with a half-drawn sigh, and a shrinking of the heart, for she was ever
+so minute in her inquiries for that "runaway Mr. Morton."
+
+"A beautiful day, Miss Fanny," commenced the spinster, looking sharply
+around, (she always made a point of doing two things i.e. entering the
+houses of her neighbors without knocking, and then taking in at a
+glance not only every thing the room contained, but the occupation,
+dress, &c. of the inmates for after comment,) and then throwing back
+her bonnet, and commencing to fan herself vigorously with the folded
+paper, "I thought I must run round to-day and see how your mother did,
+and bring her to-day's paper. I happened to be standing by the window
+when the penny-post came by, and Nancy says to me, 'Jerusha,' says
+she, 'do run to the door and get the Times--I haven't seen it for an
+age,' for we aint no great readers at our house; so I steps to the
+door and gets one from neighbor Wilkins--he is a very pleasant-spoken
+man, and often drops in of a morning to have a chat with me and Nancy.
+Well, what should I see the first thing (for I always turn to the
+marriages and deaths) but Mr. Edward Morton's marriage to the elegant
+and rich Miss--Miss--dear me! I've forgot the name now--do you see if
+you can make it out," handing her the paper; "but, bless me! what is
+the matter, Miss Fanny? I don't wonder you're surprised; Nancy and me
+was--for we did think at one time that he had an attachment to
+Aberdeen; but, la! one can't put any dependence on these wild-flys!"
+
+The last part of the cruel sentence was wholly lost upon poor Fanny,
+who sat with fixed and stony gaze upon the dreadful announcement,
+while it seemed as if her heart-strings were breaking one by one. In
+vain Miss Simpkins, thoroughly alarmed at length, strove to rouse her
+from this stupor of grief. In vain did her dear old nurse, who ran in
+affrighted at the loud ejaculations of the terrified but unfeeling
+creature who had dealt the blow, use every epithet of endearment, and
+strive to win one look from the poor sufferer, into whose inmost soul
+the iron had entered, upon whose heart a weight had fallen, that could
+never, never be uplifted again on earth. Every effort alike was
+useless; and for days she sat in one spot low murmuring a plaintive
+strain, rocking to and fro, with the white rose, _his_ parting gift,
+tightly clasped in her pale fingers, or gazing fixedly and vacantly
+upon the birds who sang still, unconsciously above her head. After a
+time she became more docile, and would retire to rest at night, at the
+earnest entreaties of her poor old nurse--but reason's light, from
+that fearful moment, was darkened evermore. She would suffer herself
+to be led out into the open air, and soon grew fond again of being
+with her old playmates, the children; but her words were
+unintelligible now to them, and she would often throw down the wreath
+she was twining, and starting up, would exclaim, in a tone that
+thrilled to one's very heart, "Oh, has he come? Are you sure he has
+not come yet--_my rose_ is almost _withered_?"
+
+Poor, poor Fanny Layton! She would go to church regularly--it was
+there, dear reader, that her faded face had brought to me such
+bewildered rememberings of the Fanny Layton of other years--and always
+dressed in the same mock-bridal attire. And there was not an eye in
+that village-church but glistened as it rested upon the poor, weary,
+stricken one, in her mournful spirit-darkness, and no lip but murmured
+brokenly, "Heaven bless her!"
+
+This was the last drop in the cup of the bereaved desolate widow. She
+soon found that rest and peace "which the world cannot give or take
+away." She sleeps her last, long, dreamless sleep.
+
+It was not long ere another mound was raised in the humble
+church-yard, on which was ever blooming the sweetest and freshest
+flowers of summer, watered by the tears of many who yet weep and
+lament the early perishing of that fairest flower of all. And a marble
+slab, on which is simply graven a dove, with an arrow driven to its
+very heart, marks the last earthly resting-place of our Lily of the
+Valley.
+
+
+
+
+THE SPANISH PRINCESS TO THE MOORISH KNIGHT.
+
+BY GRACE GREENWOOD.
+
+
+    Thou darest not love me!--thou canst only see
+    The great gulf set between us--had'st thou _love_
+    'Twould bear thee o'er it on a wing of fire!
+    Wilt put from thy faint lip the mantling cup,
+    The draught thou'st prayed for with divinest thirst,
+    For fear a poison in the chalice lurks?
+    Wilt thou be barred from thy soul's heritage,
+    The power, the rapture, and the crown of life,
+    By the poor guard of danger set about it?
+    I tell thee that the richest flowers of heaven
+    Bloom on the brink of darkness. Thou hast marked
+    How sweetly o'er the beetling precipice
+    Hangs the young June-rose with its crimson heart--
+    And would'st not sooner peril life to win
+    That royal flower, that thou might'st proudly wear
+    The trophy on thy breast, than idly pluck
+    A thousand meek-faced daisies by the way?
+    How dost thou shudder at Love's gentle tones,
+    As though a serpent's hiss were in thine ear.
+    Albeit thy heart throbs echo to each word.
+    Why wilt not rest, oh weary wanderer,
+    Upon the couch of flowers Love spreads for thee,
+    On banks of sunshine?--voices silver-toned
+    Shall lull thy soul with strange, wild harmonies,
+    Rock thee to sleep upon the waves of song.
+    Hope shall watch o'er thee with her breath of dreams.
+    Joy hover near, impatient for thy waking,
+    Her quick wing glancing through the fragrant air.
+
+    Why dost thou pause hard by the rose-wreathed gate,
+    Why turn thee from the paradise of youth,
+    Where Love's immortal summer blooms and glows,
+    And wrap thyself in coldness as a shroud?
+    Perchance 'tis well for _thee_--yet does the flame
+    That glows with heat intense and mounts toward heaven.
+    As fitly emblem holiest purity,
+    As the still snow-wreath on the mountain's brow.
+
+    Thou darest not say I love, and yet thou _lovest_,
+    And think'st to crush the mighty yearning down,
+    That in thy spirit shall upspring forever!
+    Twinned with thy soul, it lived in thy first thoughts--
+    It haunted with strange dreams thy boyish years,
+    And colored with its deep, empurpled hue,
+    The passionate aspirations of thy youth.
+    Go, take from June her roses--from her streams
+    The bubbling fountain-springs--from life, take _love_,
+    Thou hast its all of sweetness, bloom and strength.
+
+    There is a grandeur in the soul that dares
+    To live out all the life God lit within;
+    That battles with the passions hand to hand,
+    And wears no mail, and hides behind no shield!
+    That plucks its joy in the shadow of death's wing--
+    That drains with one deep draught the wine of life,
+    And that with fearless foot and heaven-turned eye,
+    May stand upon a dizzy precipice,
+    High o'er the abyss of ruin, and not _fall_!
+
+
+
+
+THE LIGHT OF OUR HOME.
+
+BY THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.
+
+
+    Oh, thou whose beauty on us beams
+      With glimpses of celestial light;
+    Thou halo of our waking dreams,
+      And early star that crown'st our night--
+
+    Thy light is magic where it falls;
+      To thee the deepest shadow yields;
+    Thou bring'st unto these dreary halls
+      The lustre of the summer-fields.
+
+    There is a freedom in thy looks
+      To make the prisoned heart rejoice;--
+    In thy blue eyes I see the brooks,
+      And hear their music in thy voice.
+
+    And every sweetest bird that sings
+      Hath poured a charm upon thy tongue;
+    And where the bee enamored clings,
+      There surely thou in love hast clung:--
+
+    For when I hear thy laughter free,
+      And see thy morning-lighted hair,
+    As in a dream, at once I see
+      Fair upland scopes and valleys fair.
+
+    I see thy feet empearled with dews,
+      The violet's and the lily's loss;
+    And where the waving woodland woos
+      Thou lead'st me over beds of moss;--
+
+    And by the busy runnel's side,
+      Whose waters, like a bird afraid,
+    Dart from their fount, and, flashing, glide
+      Athwart the sunshine and the shade.
+
+    Or larger streams our steps beguile;--
+      We see the cascade, broad and fair,
+    Dashed headlong down to foam, the while
+      Its iris-spirit leaps to air!
+
+    Alas! as by a loud alarm,
+      The fancied turmoil of the falls
+    Hath driven me back and broke the charm
+      Which led me from these alien walls:--
+
+    Yes, alien, dearest child, are these
+      Close city walls to thee and me:
+    My homestead was embowered with trees,
+      And such thy heritage should be:--
+
+    And shall be;--I will make for thee
+      A home within my native vale
+    Where every brook and ancient tree
+      Shall whisper some ancestral tale.
+
+    Now once again I see thee stand,
+      As down the future years I gaze,
+    The fairest maiden of the land--
+      The spirit of those sylvan ways.
+
+    And in thy looks again I trace
+      The light of her who gave thee birth;
+    She who endowed thy form and face
+      With glory which is not of Earth.
+
+    And as I gaze upon her now,
+      My heart sends up a prayer for thee,
+    That thou may'st wear upon thy brow
+      The light which now she beams on me.
+
+    And thou wilt wear that love and light
+      For thou'rt the bud to such a flower:--
+    Oh fair the day, how blest and bright,
+      Which finds thee in thy native bower!
+
+
+
+
+AN INDIAN-SUMMER RAMBLE.
+
+BY ALFRED B. STREET.
+
+
+It was now the middle of October. White frosts had for some time been
+spreading their sheets of pearl over the gardens and fields, but the
+autumn rainbows in the forests were wanting. At last, however, the
+stern black frost came and wrought its customary magic. For about a
+week there was a gorgeous pageantry exhibited, "beautiful,
+exceedingly." But one morning I awoke, and found that the mist had
+made a common domain both of earth and sky. Every thing was merged
+into a gray dimness. I could just discern the tops of trees a few feet
+off, and here and there a chimney. There was a small bit of fence
+visible, bordering "our lane," and I could with difficulty see a
+glimmering portion of the village street. Some gigantic cloud appeared
+to have run against something in the heavens and dropped down amongst
+us. There were various outlines a few rods off, belonging to objects
+we scarce knew what. Horses pushed out of the fog with the most sudden
+effect, followed by their wagons, and disappeared again in the
+opposite fleecy barrier; pedestrians were first seen like spectres,
+then their whole shapes were exhibited, and finally they melted slowly
+away again, whilst old Shadbolt's cow, grazing along the grassy margin
+of the street, loomed up through the vapor almost as large as an
+elephant.
+
+About noon the scene became clearer, so that the outline of the
+village houses, and even the checkered splendors of the neighboring
+woods could be seen; so much of Nate's sign, "Hammond's sto--" became
+visible, and even Hamble's great red stage-coach was exhibited,
+thrusting its tongue out as if in scorn of the weather.
+
+In the afternoon, however, the mist thickened again, and the whole
+village shrunk again within it, like a turtle within its shell. The
+next morning dawned without its misty mask, but with it rose a gusty
+wind that commenced howling like a famished wolf. Alas! for the
+glories of the woods! As the rude gusts rushed from the slaty clouds,
+the rich leaves came fluttering upon them, blotting the air and
+falling on the earth thick as snow-flakes. Now a maple-leaf, like a
+scalloped ruby, would fly whirling over and over; next a birch one
+would flash across the sight, as if a topaz had acquired wings; and
+then a shred of the oak's imperial mantle, flushed like a sardonyx,
+would cut a few convulsive capers in the air, like a clown in a
+circus, and dash itself headlong upon the earth. Altogether it was an
+exciting time, this fall of the leaf. Ah! a voice also was constantly
+whispering in my ear, "we all do fade as the leaf!"
+
+I took a walk in the woods. What a commotion was there! The leaves
+were absolutely frantic. Now they would sweep up far into the air as
+if they never intended to descend again, and then taking curvatures,
+would skim away like birds; others would cluster together, and then
+roll along like a great quivering billow; others again would circle
+around in eddies like whirlpools, soaring up now and then in the
+likeness of a water-spout, whilst frequently tall columns would march
+down the broad aisles of the forest in the most majestic manner, and
+finally fall to pieces in a violent spasm of whirling atoms. Even
+after the leaves had found their way to the earth they were by no
+means quiet. Some skipped uneasily over the surface; some stood on one
+leg, as it were, and pirouetted; some crept further and further under
+banks; some ran merry races over the mounds, and some danced up and
+down in the hollows. As for the trees themselves, they were cowering
+and shivering at a tremendous rate, apparently from want of the cloaks
+of which every blast was thus stripping them.
+
+A day or two after came the veritable soft-looking, sweet-breathing
+Indian-Summer--"our thunder." No other clime has it. Autumn expires in
+a rain-storm of three months in Italy; and it is choked to death with
+a wet fog in England; but in this new world of ours, "our own green
+forest land," as Halleck beautifully says, it swoons away often in a
+delicious trance, during which the sky is filled with sleep, and the
+earth hushes itself into the most peaceful and placid repose. There it
+lies basking away until with one growl old Winter springs upon Nature,
+locks her in icy fetters, and covers her bosom with a white mantle
+that generally stays there until Spring comes with her soft eye and
+blue-bird voice to make us all glad again.
+
+Well, this beautiful season arrived as aforesaid, and a day "turned
+up" that seemed to be extracted from the very core of the season's
+sweetness. The landscape was plunged into a thick mist at sunrise, but
+that gradually dwindled away until naught remained but a delicate
+dreamy film of tremulous purple, that seemed every instant as if it
+would melt from the near prospect. Further off, however, the film
+deepened into rich smoke, and at the base of the horizon it was
+decided mist, bearing a tinge, however, borrowed from the wood-violet.
+The mountains could be discerned, and that was all, and they only by
+reason of a faint jagged line struggling through the veil proclaiming
+their summits. The dome above was a tender mixture of blue and silver;
+and as for the sunshine, it was tempered and shaded down into a tint
+like the blush in the tinted hollow of the sea-shell.
+
+It was the very day for a ramble in the woods; so Benning, Watson, and
+I, called at the dwelling of three charming sisters, to ask their
+mamma's consent (and their own) to accompany us. These three Graces
+all differed from each other in their styles of beauty. The eyes of
+one were of sparkling ebony, those of the other looked as if the
+"summer heaven's delicious blue" had stained them, whilst the third's
+seemed as though they had caught their hue from the glittering gray
+that is sometimes seen just above the gold of a cloudless sunset.
+
+We turned down the green lane that led from the village street, and
+were soon in the forests. The half-muffled sunlight stole down sweetly
+and tenderly through the chaos of naked branches overhead; and there
+was a light crisp, crackling sound running through the dry fallen
+leaves, as though they had become tired of their position, and were
+striving to turn over. So quiet was the air that even this faint sound
+was distinctly audible. Hark! whang! whang! there rings the woodman's
+axe--crack! crash! b-o-o-m!--Hurrah! what thunder that little keen
+instrument has waked up there, and what power it has! Say, ye wild,
+deep forests, that have shrunk into rocky ravines, and retreated to
+steep mountains, what caused ye to flee away from the valleys and
+uplands of your dominion? Answer, fierce eagle! what drove thee from
+thy pine of centuries to the desolate and wind-swept peak, where alone
+thou couldst rear thy brood in safety? Tell, thou savage panther, what
+made the daylight flash into thy den so suddenly, that thou didst
+think thy eye-balls were extinguished?
+
+And thou, too, busy city, that dost point up thy spires where two
+score years ago the forest stood a frown upon the face of Nature--what
+mowed the way for thee? And, lastly, thou radiant grain-field, what
+prepared the room for thy bright and golden presence? Whew! if that
+isn't a tremendous flight, I don't know what is! But the axe, as Uncle
+Jack Lummis says of his brown mare, is "a tarnal great critter, any
+how!"
+
+How Settler Jake's cabin will gleam those approaching winter nights
+from the "sticks" that axe of his will give him out of the tree he has
+just prostrated. It is really pleasant to think of it. There will be
+the great fire-place, with a huge block for a back-log; then a pile
+will be built against it large enough for a bonfire--and then such a
+crackling and streaming! why the dark night just around there will be
+all in a blush with it. And the little window will glow like a red
+star to the people of the village; and then within, there will be the
+immense antlers over the door, belonging to a moose Jake shot the
+first year he came into the country, all tremulous with the light, and
+the long rifle thrust through it will glitter quick and keen; and the
+scraped powder-horn hung by it will be transparent in redness; even
+the row of bullets on the rude shelf near the window will give a dull
+gleam, whilst our old acquaintance, the axe, will wink as if a dozen
+eyes were strewn along its sharp, bright edge. And then the brown and
+tortoise-shell cat belonging to the "old woman" will partake of the
+lustre; and the old woman herself--a little, active, bustling body,
+will be seated in one corner of the fire-place, after having swept
+clean the hearth; and "Sport" will have coiled his long body on a
+bear-skin near her. Lastly, the settler himself will be sitting upon a
+stool opposite "Betsey," with his elbows on his knees, smoking a pipe
+as black as his face at the "spring logging." But stop--where was I?
+Oh, in the woods!"
+
+"Look! look!" cries Susan, the owner of the gray orbs, with an accent
+of delight, "see that beautiful black squirrel eating!"
+
+We all looked, and sure enough, there is the little object in a nook
+of warm bronze light, with his paws to his whiskered face, cracking
+nuts, one after another, as fast as possible. But he stops, with his
+paws still uplifted, looks askance for a moment, and away he shoots
+then through the "brush-fence" at our side like a dart.
+
+We soon find the tree whence he gathered his fruit. It is a noble
+hickory, with here and there a brown leaf clinging to its boughs. A
+stone or two brings the globes that hold the nuts to the earth. They
+have commenced cracking, and with a little exertion we uncover the
+snow-white balls. We are now all determined to rob the tree. It has no
+business to be displaying its round wealth so temptingly. And, beside,
+it will, if let alone, most probably entice boys from the little black
+school-house out yonder to "play truant." So it is unanimously voted
+that Benning, who is light and active, should climb the tree. Up he
+goes, like one of those little striped woodpeckers that are so often
+seen in the woods tapping up the trees, and immediately his hands and
+feet make the branches dance, whilst the green globes drop like great
+hail-stones on the earth. We then commence stripping the nuts from
+their covers, and soon the base of the tree is covered with them. We
+then stow the ivories away in our bags, and start for new havoc.
+
+We come now to the brush-fence. It is a perfect _chevau-de-frize_. It
+looks at us with a sort of defying, bristling air, as if it said as
+Wilson, the horse-jockey, says when some one endeavors to hoodwink him
+in a bargain, "You can't come it!"
+
+We wont try here, but a little lower down there is a gap made by John
+Huff's cow, that uses her horns so adroitly in the attack of a fence,
+no matter how difficult, that I verily believe she could pick a lock.
+We pass through the kindly breach and skirt the fence for some little
+distance to regain the path. The fence on this side is densely plumed
+with blackberry vines. What a revel I held there two months ago. The
+fruit hung around in rich masses of ebony, each little atom composing
+the cone having a glittering spot upon it like a tiny eye. How the
+black beauties melted on my tongue in their dead-ripe richness. One
+bush in particular was heavy with the clusters. After despoiling the
+edges I opened the heart, and there, hidden snugly away, as if for the
+wood-fairies, were quantities of the sable clusters, larger and more
+splendid than any I had seen. I immediately made my way into the
+defences of that fortress. There was a merciless sacking there,
+reader, allow me to tell you. But that is neither "here nor there" on
+the present occasion.
+
+How beautifully the soft, tender dark light slumbers on objects where
+the great roof of the forest will allow it. There is an edge of deep
+golden lace gleaming upon that mound of moss, and here, the light,
+breaking through the overhanging beech, has so mottled the tawny
+surface of the leaves beneath as to make it appear as if a
+leopard-skin had been dropped there.
+
+B-o-o-m, b-o-o-m, boom-boom--whi-r-r-r-r-r--there sounds the drum of
+the partridge. We'll rouse his speckled lordship probably below,
+causing him to give his low, quick thunder-clap so as to send the
+heart on a leaping visit to the throat.
+
+We now descend the ridge upon which we have been for some time, to a
+glade at the foot. The sweet haze belonging to the season is
+shimmering over it. It is a broad space surrounded on all sides by the
+forest. The first settler in this part of the country had "located"
+himself here, and this was his little clearing. His hut stood on an
+eminence in one corner. He lived there a number of years. He was a
+reserved, unsocial man, making the forest his only haunt, and his
+rifle his only companion. He was at last found dead in his cabin.
+Alone and unattended he had died, keeping to the last aloof from human
+society. The hut was next occupied by a singular couple--an old man
+and his idiot son. The father was of a fierce, savage temper, but
+seemed very fond, although capriciously so, of his child. Sometimes he
+would treat him with the greatest tenderness, then again, at some
+wayward action of the idiot, he would burst upon him with an awful
+explosion of passion. The old man had evidently been a reckless
+desperado in other days, and many in the village suspected strongly
+that he had once been a pirate. He was addicted to drinking, and now
+and then, when bitten by the adder, would talk strangely. He would
+commence narrating some wonderful hurricane he had experienced on the
+Spanish Main, and would launch out upon the number of times he had
+headed boarding parties, and once, in a state of great intoxication at
+the village tavern, he rambled off into a story about his having made
+an old man walk the plank. He would, however, check himself on all
+these occasions before he went far. He became involved in a fight one
+time with a great lounging fellow about the village, whose propensity
+to bully was the only salient point in his character. They
+clinched--the old man was thrown, and the bystanders had just time to
+pull the bully away, to prevent a long keen knife in the grasp of
+Murdock (for such was the old man's name) from being plunged into his
+side.
+
+Suddenly the idiot-boy disappeared. The passers-by had frequently seen
+him (for he was an industrious lad) working in the little patch
+belonging to the cabin, but from a certain time he was seen no more,
+and the old man lived alone in his cabin. A change, too, gradually
+grew over him. He became silent and deeply melancholy, and his
+countenance settled into an expression of stern, rigid sorrow. His eye
+was awful. Wild and red, it seemed as if you could look through it
+into a brain on fire.
+
+At last he commenced rubbing his right hand with his left. There he
+would fasten his gaze, and chafe with the most determined energy. He
+would frequently stop and hold the hand to his eye for a moment, and
+then recommence his strange work. To the inquiries of the village
+people concerning his son, he would give no answer. He would roll upon
+the inquirer for an instant his fierce, mad eye, and then prosecute
+his mysterious chafing more rigorously than ever.
+
+Things continued so for about a fortnight after the disappearance of
+the idiot, when one dark night the village was alarmed by the
+appearance of flames from the clearing. Hurrying to the spot, they
+were just in time to see the blazing roof of the hut fall in. The next
+morning disclosed, amidst the smouldering ashes, a few charred bones.
+Murdock was not again seen or heard of from that night.
+
+The glade is now quiet and lonely as if human passions had never been
+unloosed there in the terrific crime of parricide--the consequent
+remorse merging into madness, and a fiery retributory death. Upon the
+grassy mound, which the frost has not yet blighted, a beautiful white
+rabbit has just glided. The lovely creature darts onward, then
+crouches--now lays his long ears flat upon his shoulders, and now
+points them forward in the most knowing and cunning manner. He plays
+there in his white, pure beauty, as if in purposed contrast to the
+blood-stained and guilty wretch who expired on the same spot in his
+flaming torture. But the little shape now points his long, rose-tinted
+ears in our direction, and then he does not disappear as much as melt
+from our sight like the vanishing of breath from polished steel. We
+then enter fully into the glade. One of the trees at the border is a
+magnificent chestnut. I remember it in June, with its rich green
+leaves hung over with short, braided cords of pale gold. These braided
+blossoms have yielded fruit most plenteously. How thickly the
+chestnuts, with their autumn-colored coats and gray caps, are
+scattered around the tree, whilst the large yellow burrs on the
+branches, gaping wide open, are displaying their soft velvet inner
+lining in which the embedded nuts have ripened, and which in their
+maturity they have deserted.
+
+After changing the position of the little glossy things from the earth
+to our satchels, we cross the glade, and strike a narrow road that
+enters the forests in that direction. We pass along, our feet sinking
+deep in the dead leaves, until we come to an opening where a bridge
+spans a stream. It is a slight, rude structure, such as the emigrating
+settler would (and probably did) make in a brief hour to facilitate
+his passage across. Let us sketch the picture to our imagination for a
+moment. We will suppose it about an hour to sunset of a summer's day.
+There is a soft richness amidst the western trees, and the little
+grassy opening here is dappled with light and shade. The emigrant's
+wagon is standing near the brink, with its curved canvas top, white as
+silver, in a slanting beam, and the broad tires of its huge wheels
+stained green with the wood-plants and vines they have crushed in
+their passage during the day. The patient oxen, which have drawn the
+wagon so far, are chewing their cud, with their honest countenances
+fixed straight forward. Around the wagon is hung a multitude of
+household articles--pans, pails, kettles, brooms, and what not; and on
+a heap of beds, bedding, quilts, striped blankets, &c., is the old
+woman, the daughter, about eighteen, and a perfect swarm of
+white-headed little ones. The father, and his two stalwort sons, are
+busy in the forest close at hand. How merrily the echoes ring out at
+each blow of their axes, and how the earth groans with the shock of
+the falling trees. The two largest of the woodland giants are cut into
+logs--the others are also divided into the proper lengths. The logs
+are placed athwart the stream several feet distant from each
+other--the rest are laid in close rows athwart, and lo! the bridge.
+Over the whole scene the warm glow of the setting sun is spread, and a
+black bear, some little distance in the forest, is thrusting his great
+flat head out of a hollow tree, overseeing the proceedings with the
+air of a connoisseur.
+
+The bridge is now old and black, and has decayed and been broken into
+quite a picturesque object. One of the platform pieces has been
+fractured in the middle, and the two ends slant upwards, as if to take
+observations of the sky; and there is a great hole in the very centre
+of the bridge. Add to this the moss, which has crept over the whole
+structure, making what remains of the platform a perfect cushion, and
+hanging in long flakes of emerald, which fairly dip in the water, and
+the whole object is before you. The stream has a slow, still motion,
+with eddies, here coiling up into wrinkles like an old man's face, and
+there dimpling around some stone like the smiling cheek of a young
+maiden, but in no case suffering its demureness to break into a broad
+laugh of ripples. In one spot tall bullrushes show their slender
+shapes and brown wigs; in another there is a collection of waterflags;
+in another there are tresses of long grass streaming in the light flow
+of the current, whilst in a nook, formed by the roots of an immense
+elm on one side, and a projection of the bank on the other, is a thick
+coat of stagnant green--a perfect meadow for the frogs to hold their
+mass meetings in, differing from ours, however, from the fact of
+theirs being composed of all talkers and no listeners.
+
+Let us look at the stream a little, which has here expanded into a
+broad surface, and view its "goings on." There is a water-spider
+taking most alarming leaps, as if afraid of wetting his feet; a
+dragon-fly is darting hither and yon, his long, slender body flashing
+with green, golden and purple hues; a large dace has just apparently
+flattened his nose against the dark glass inward, dotting a great and
+increasing period outward. A bright birch-leaf, "the last of its
+clan," has just fallen down, and been snapped at most probably by a
+little spooney of a trout, thinking it a yellow butterfly; and on the
+bottom, which, directly under our eyes is shallow, are several
+water-insects crawling along like locomotive spots of shadow and
+reflected through the tremulous medium into distorted shapes. However,
+we have lingered here long enough--let us onward.
+
+What on earth is that uproar which is now striking our ear. Such
+hoarse notes, such rapid flutterings, whizzings, deep rumbling sounds,
+and such a rustle of dead leaves surely betoken something. We turn an
+elbow of the road, and a flashing of blue wings, and darting of blue
+shapes in the air, now circling round, now shooting up, and now down,
+with a large beech tree for the centre, meet our eyes. The tumult is
+explained. A colony of wild pigeons is busy amongst the beech-nuts,
+which the frost has showered upon the earth. The ground for some
+distance around the tree is perfectly blue with the birds picking, and
+fighting, and scrambling. It is ludicrous to see them. Here a score or
+two are busy eating, looking like a collection of big-paunched,
+blue-coated aldermen at a city feast; there, all are hurrying and
+jostling, and tumbling over one another like the passengers of a
+steamboat when the bell rings for dinner. By the side of yonder bush
+there is a perfect duel transpiring between two pugnacious pigeons
+dashing out their wings fiercely at each other with angry tones, their
+beautiful purple necks all swollen, and their red eyes casting
+devouring looks, whilst two others are very quietly, yet swiftly, as
+if making the most of their time, causing all the nuts in sight, and
+which probably induced the quarrel, disappear down their own throats.
+See! here is a pigeon who has over-estimated his capacity of
+swallowing, or has encountered a larger nut than usual, for he is
+exhibiting the most alarming symptoms of choking. He stretches his
+neck and opens his bill like a cock in the act of crowing, at the same
+time dancing up and down on his pink legs as if his toes had caught
+fire. However, he has mastered the nut at last with a vigorous shake
+of his neck, and bobs industriously again at his feast.
+
+Determining to have some of the brown luscious mast, we make a foray
+amongst the gorging host, and succeeded in causing a cloud of them to
+take wing, and in securing a quantity of the spoil.
+
+We then start again on our way, but do not advance far
+before--b-r-r-r-r-r-h--off bursts a partridge, and shoots down the
+vista of the road, with the dark sunshine glancing from his mottled
+back. If little "Spitfire" was here, how he would yelp and dance, and
+dart backward and forward, and shake his tail, so as to render it
+doubtful whether it wouldn't fly off in a tangent.
+
+Rattat, tattat, tat--tat--t-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r--there is the great
+red-headed woodpecker, or woodcock, as he is called by the country
+people, looking like a miniature man with a crimson turban and sable
+spear, attacking the bark of yon old oak. He is making a
+sounding-board of the seamed mail of the venerable monarch, to detect
+by the startled writhing within the grub snugly ensconced, as it
+thinks, there, in order to transfix it with his sharp tongue through
+the hole made by his bill. He ceases his work though as we
+approach--and now he flies away.
+
+A mile farther, we come to the strawberry-field belonging to Deacon
+Gravespeech, the outlines of whose dark, low farm-house are etched on
+the mist which is again slowly spreading over the landscape, for it is
+now near sunset. Having left the forest, we see the mild red orb, like
+an immense ruby, just in the act of sinking in the bank of pale blue
+which now thickens the Western horizon. But what have we here? A
+splendid butternut tree, with quantities of the oval fruit scattered
+about amidst the brown leaves, in their coats of golden green. What a
+rich lustre is upon them, made brighter by the varnish, and how
+delightful their pungent perfume. Let us crack a few of the strong,
+deeply-fluted shells. In their tawny nooks nestle the dark,
+golden-veined meats, which with the most delicious sweetness crumble
+in the mouth.
+
+Of all the fruits of the Northern forests give me the butternut; and,
+speaking of fruits puts me in mind of the strawberry field. I was here
+with a small party one day last June. The field was then scattered
+thickly over with the bright crimson spotting fruit, and the fingers
+of all of us were soon dyed deeply with the sweet blood. There is
+great skill in picking strawberries, let me tell you, reader, although
+it is a trifle. Go to work systematically, and don't get excited.
+Gather all as you go, indiscriminately. Don't turn to the right for
+two splendid berries, and leave the one in front, for it is just as
+likely, before you gather the two, a cluster, with five ripe tempting
+fellows, will cause you to forget the others, and in whirling yourself
+around, and stretching over to seize the latest prize, your feet and
+limbs not only destroy the first and second, but a whole collection of
+the blushing beauties hid away in a little hollow of buttercups and
+dandelions.
+
+Well, "as I was saying," I was here with a small party, and had fine
+sport picking, but the next day a precept, at the suit of Peter
+Gravespeech, was served upon Hull and myself, (the two gentlemen of
+the party,) issued from "Pettifogger's Delight," as the office of
+Squire Tappit, the justice, was called throughout the village: action,
+trespass. "For the fun of the thing" we stood trial. The day came, and
+all the vagabonds of the village,--those whose continual cry is that
+they "can never get any thing to do," and therefore drive a brisk
+business at doing nothing,--were in attendance. The justice was a
+hot-tempered old fellow, somewhat deaf, and,--if his nose was any
+evidence,--fond of the brandy bottle.
+
+The witness of the trespass, who was a "hired hand" of Deacon
+Gravespeech, was present, and after the cause had been called in due
+order, was summoned by the deacon (who appeared in proper person) to
+the stand. He was generally very irascible, a good deal of a bully,
+rather stupid, and, on the present occasion, particularly drunk.
+
+"Now, Mr. Hicks," said the deacon, respectfully, (knowing his man,)
+after he had 'kissed the book,' "now, Mr. Hicks (his name was Joe
+Hicks, but universally called 'Saucy Joe,') please tell the justice
+what you know of this transaction."
+
+"Well, squire, I seed 'em!" replied Joe, to this appeal, facing the
+justice.
+
+"Who?" ejaculated the justice, quickly.
+
+"Who!" answered Joe, "why, who do you spose, but that'ere sour-faced
+feller, (pointing at Hull,) what looks like a cow swelled on clover,
+and that 'ere little nimshi, who isn't bigger than my Poll's knitten
+needle. They was with four female critters."
+
+"Well, what were they about?" asked the deacon.
+
+"What was they about!" (a little angrily,) "you know as well as I do,
+deacon, for I telled ye all about it at the time."
+
+"Yes, but you must tell the justice."
+
+"Answer, witness!" exclaimed the justice, somewhat sternly.
+
+"Oh! you needn't be flusterfied, Squire Tappit; I knowed ye long afore
+ye was squire, and drinked with ye, too. For that matter, I stood
+treat last!"
+
+"That's of no consequence now, Mr. Hicks," interposed the deacon,
+throwing at the same time a deprecatory glance at the old justice,
+whose nose was growing redder, and whose eye began to twinkle in
+incipient wrath.
+
+"Let the gentleman proceed with his interesting developments," said
+Hull, rising with the most ludicrous gravity, and waving his hand in a
+solemn and dignified manner.
+
+"Well," said Joe, a little mollified at the word 'gentleman,' "ef I
+must tell it agin, I must, that's all. They was a picken strawberries
+like Old Sanko."
+
+"How long do you think they were there, trampling down the grass?"
+asked the deacon.
+
+"Why, I spose from the time I seed 'em"--here he stopped abruptly,
+glanced out of the window toward the tavern, spit thirstily, and then
+looked at the deacon.
+
+"Let the gentleman proceed," again cried Hull, half rising, in mock
+respect.
+
+"_Pro_ceed!" said the justice, angrily.
+
+"Well, as I was a sayen, from the time I seed 'em---- But I say,
+deacon, I'm monstrous dry. You're temp'rance I know; but sposen as how
+you treat me and old Squire Tappit there to some red eye. He won't
+refuse, no how you can fix it, and as for me, I am so dry I really
+can't talk."
+
+"Go on with your story, you scoundrel!" shouted the justice,
+exasperated beyond all bounds, "or I'll commit you to prison."
+
+"Commit me to prison, you old brandy-jug!" yelled Joe, swinging off
+his ragged coat at a jerk, and throwing it on the floor, "commit _me_,
+you mahogany-nosed old sarpent!" advancing close to the justice, with
+both of his great fists ready.
+
+"Let the gentleman proceed," here broke in Hull again, in an agony of
+laughter.
+
+And, sure enough, the "gentleman" did proceed. Launching out his right
+fist in the most approved fashion at the nose of the justice, Joe was
+in an instant the center of a perfect Pandemonium. The constable
+rushed in to protect the justice, who was shouting continually, "I
+command the peace;" the bystanders, ready for a fight at any time,
+followed his example, and, for a few minutes, there was a perfect
+chaos of arms, legs, and heads, sticking out in every direction.
+
+The first thing Hull and I saw were the heels of the justice
+flourishing in the air, and the last was Joe going off to jail in the
+grasp of the constable one way, and the deacon sneaking off another.
+We never heard afterward of the suit, but "Let the gentleman proceed,"
+was for a long time a by-word amongst us in the village.
+
+After crossing the strawberry field we came to a "cross-road" leading
+to the turnpike. In a few minutes we arrived at "Cold Spring," where a
+little streak of water ran through a hollowed log, green with moss,
+from the fountain a short distance in the forest, and fell into a
+pebbly basin at the road-side. We here refreshed ourselves with
+repeated draughts of the sweet, limpid element, and then, resuming our
+walk, soon found ourselves upon the broad, gray turnpike, with the
+village upon the summit of the hill, about half a mile in front.
+
+The sun had long since plunged into the slate-colored haze of the
+West; the thickening landscape looked dull and faded; the mist was
+glimmering before the darkened forests; the cows were wending
+homeward, lowing; the woodsmen passed us with axes on their shoulders;
+and, mounting the hill, we saw here and there, a light sparkling in
+the village, following the example of the scattered stars that were
+timidly glancing from the dome of the purpled heavens.
+
+
+
+
+THE LOST PET
+
+BY MRS. LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.
+
+[SEE ENGRAVING.]
+
+
+    When Mary's brother went to sea,
+      He lingered near the door,
+    Beside the old, familiar tree,
+      He ne'er had left before,
+
+    And though gay boyhood loves to seek
+      New regions where to tread,
+    A pearl-drop glittered on his cheek
+      As tenderly he said--
+
+    "The gentle dove I reared with care,
+      Sister, I leave to thee,
+    And let it thy protection share
+      When I am far at sea."
+
+    Whene'er for Willy's loss she grieved,
+      His darling she caressed,
+    That from her hand its food received,
+      Or nestled in her breast;
+
+    And sometimes, at the twilight dim,
+      When blossoms bow to sleep,
+    She thought it murmuring asked for him
+      Whose home was on the deep.
+
+    And if her mother's smile of joy
+      Was lost in anxious thought,
+    As memories of her sailor-boy
+      Some gathering tempest wrought,
+
+    She showed his pet, the cooing dove,
+      Perched on her sheltering arm,
+    And felt how innocence and love
+      Can rising wo disarm.
+
+    When summer decked the leafy bowers,
+      And pranked the russet plain,
+    She bore his cage where breathing flowers
+      Inspired a tuneful strain;
+
+    And now and then, through open door,
+      Indulged a wish to roam,
+    Though soon, the brief excursion o'er,
+      The wanderer sought its home.
+
+    She laughed to see it brush the dew
+      From bough and budding spray.
+    And deemed its snow-white plumage grew
+      More beauteous, day by day.
+
+    The rose of June was in its flush,
+      And 'neath the fragrant shade
+    Of her own fullest, fairest bush
+      The favorite's house was staid,
+
+    While roving, bird-like, here and there,
+      Amid her flow'rets dear,
+    She culled a nosegay, rich and rare,
+      A mother's heart to cheer.
+
+    A shriek! A flutter! Swift as thought
+      Her startled footstep flew,
+    But full of horror was the sight
+      That met her eager view--
+
+    Her treasure in a murderer's jaws!
+      One of that feline race
+    Whose wily looks and velvet paws
+      Conceal their purpose base.
+
+    And scarce the victim's gushing breast
+      Heaved with one feeble breath,
+    Though raised to hers, its glance exprest
+      Affection even in death.
+
+    Oh, stricken child! though future years
+      May frown with heavier shade,
+    When woman's lot of love and tears
+      Is on thy spirit laid--
+
+    Yet never can a wilder cry
+      Thy heart-wrung anguish prove
+    Than when before thy swimming eye
+      Expired that wounded dove.
+
+
+[Illustration: THE LOST PET
+Engraved Expressly for Graham's Magazine
+Figure from I. M. Wright. Drawn with original scenery & engraved by Ellis.]
+
+
+
+
+FIEL A LA MUERTE, OR TRUE LOVE'S DEVOTION.
+
+A TALE OF THE TIMES OF LOUIS QUINZE.
+
+BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, AUTHOR OF "THE ROMAN TRAITOR,"
+"MARMADUKE WYVIL," "CROMWELL," ETC.
+
+(_Concluded from page_ 91.)
+
+
+PART III.
+
+    For there were seen in that dark wall,
+    Two niches, narrow, dark and tall.
+    Who enters by such grisly door,
+    Shall ne'er, I ween, find exit more.--WALTER SCOTT.
+
+It would be wonderful, were it not of daily occurrence, and to be
+observed by all who give attention to the characteristics of the human
+mind, how quickly confidence, even when shaken to its very
+foundations, and almost obliterated, springs up again, and recovers
+all its strength in the bosoms of the young of either sex.
+
+Let but a few more years pass over the heart, and when once broken, if
+it be only by a slight suspicion, or a half unreal cause, it will
+scarce revive again in a life-time; nor then, unless proofs the
+strongest and most unquestionable can be adduced to overpower the
+doubts which have well-nigh annihilated it.
+
+In early youth, however, before long contact with the world has
+blunted the susceptibilities, and hardened the sympathies of the soul,
+before the constant experience of the treachery, the coldness, the
+ingratitude of men has given birth to universal doubt and general
+distrust, the shadow vanishes as soon as the cloud which cast it is
+withdrawn, and the sufferer again believes, alas! too often, only to
+be again deceived.
+
+Thus it was with St. Renan, who a few minutes before had given up even
+the last hope, who had ceased, as he thought, to believe even in the
+possibility of faith or honor among men, of constancy, or purity, or
+truth in women, no sooner saw his Melanie, whom he knew to be the wife
+of another, solitary and in tears, no sooner felt her inanimate form
+reclining on his bosom, than he was prepared to believe any thing,
+rather than believe her false.
+
+Indeed, her consternation at his appearance, her evident dismay, not
+unnatural in an age wherein skepticism and infidelity were marvelously
+mingled with credulity and superstition, her clear conviction that it
+was not himself in mortal blood and being, did go far to establish the
+fact, that she had been deceived either casually or--which was far
+more probable--by foul artifice, into the belief that her beloved and
+plighted husband was no longer with the living.
+
+The very exclamation which she uttered last, ere she sunk senseless
+into his arms, uttered, as she imagined, in the presence of the
+immortal spirit of the injured dead, "I am true, Raoul--true to the
+last, my beloved!" rang in his ears with a power and a meaning which
+convinced him of her veracity.
+
+"She could not lie!" he muttered to himself, "in the presence of the
+living dead! God be praised! she is true, and we shall yet be happy!"
+
+How beautiful she looked, as she lay there, unconscious and insensible
+even of her own existence. If time and maturity had improved Raoul's
+person, and added the strength and majesty of manhood to the grace and
+pliability of youth, infinitely more had it bestowed on the beauty of
+his betrothed. He had left her a beautiful girl just blooming out of
+girlhood, he found her a mature, full-blown woman, with all the flush
+and flower of complete feminine perfection, before one charm has
+become too luxuriant, or one drop of the youthful dew exhaled from the
+new expanded blossom.
+
+She had shot up, indeed, to a height above the ordinary stature of
+women--straight, erect, and graceful as a young poplar, slender, yet
+full withal, exquisitely and voluptuously rounded, and with every
+sinuous line and swelling curve of her soft form full of the poetry
+and beauty both of repose and motion.
+
+Her complexion was pale as alabaster; even her cheeks, except when
+some sudden tide of passion, or some strong emotion sent the impetuous
+blood coursing thither more wildly than its wont, were colorless, but
+there was nothing sallow or sickly, nothing of that which is
+ordinarily understood by the word pallid, in their clear, warm,
+transparent purity; nothing, in a word, of that lividness which the
+French, with more accuracy than we, distinguish from the healthful
+paleness which is so beautiful in southern women.
+
+Her hair, profuse almost to redundance, was perfectly black, but of
+that warm and lustrous blackness which is probably the hue expressed
+by the ancient Greeks by the term hyacinthine, and which in certain
+lights has a purplish metallic gloss playing over it, like the varying
+reflections on the back of the raven. Her strongly defined, and nearly
+straight eyebrows, were dark as night, as were the long, silky lashes
+which were displayed in clear relief against the fair, smooth cheek,
+as the lids lay closed languidly over the bright blue eyes.
+
+It was a minute or two before Melanie moved or gave any symptoms of
+recovering from her fainting fit, and during those minutes the lips of
+Raoul had been pressed so often and so warmly to those of the fair
+insensible, that had any spark of perception remained to her, the fond
+and lingering pressure could not have failed to call the "purple
+light of love," to her ingenuous face.
+
+At length a long, slow shiver ran through the form of the senseless
+girl, and thrilled, like the touch of the electric wire, every nerve
+in St. Renan's body.
+
+Then the soft rosy lips were unclosed, and forth rushed the ambrosial
+breath in a long, gentle sigh, and the beautiful bust heaved and
+undulated, like the bosom of the calm sea, when the first breathings
+of the coming storm steal over it, and wake, as if by sympathy, its
+deep pulsations.
+
+He clasped her closer to his heart, half fearful that when life and
+perfect consciousness should be restored to that exquisite frame, it
+would start from his embrace, if not in anger or alarm, at least as if
+from a forbidden and illicit pleasure.
+
+Gradually a faint rosy hue, slight as the earliest blushes of the
+morning sky, crept over her white cheeks, and deepened into a rich
+passionate flush; and at the same moment the azure-tinctured lids were
+unclosed slowly, and the large, radiant, bright-blue eyes beamed up
+into his own, half languid still, but gleaming through their dewy
+languor, with an expression which he must have been, indeed, blind to
+mistake for aught but the strongest of unchanged, unchangeable
+affection.
+
+It was evident that she knew him now; that the momentary terror,
+arising rather, perhaps, from fear than from superstition, which had
+converted the young ardent soldier into a visitant from beyond those
+gloomy portals through which no visitant returns, had passed from her
+mind, and that she had already recognized, although she spoke not, her
+living lover.
+
+And though she recognized him, she sought not to withdraw herself from
+the enclosure of his sheltering arms, but lay there on his bosom, with
+her head reclined on his shoulder, and her eyes drinking long draughts
+of love from his fascinated gaze, as if she were his own, and that her
+appropriate place of refuge and protection.
+
+"Oh! Raoul," she exclaimed, at length, in a low, soft whisper, "is it,
+indeed, you--you, whom I have so long wept as dead--you, whom I was
+even now weeping as one lost to me forever, when you are thus restored
+to me!"
+
+"It is I, Melanie," he answered mournfully, "it is I, alive, and in
+health; but better far had I been in truth dead, as they have told
+you, rather than thus a survivor of all happiness, of all hopes;
+spared only from the grave to know _you_ false, and myself forgotten."
+
+"Oh, no, Raoul, not false!" she cried wildly, as she started from his
+arms, "oh, not forgotten! think you," she added, blushing crimson,
+"that had I loved any but you, that had I not loved you with my whole
+heart and being, I had lain thus on your bosom, thus endured your
+caresses? Oh, no, no, never false! nor for one moment forgotten?"
+
+"But what avails it, if you do love no other--what profits it, if you
+do love me? Are you not--are you not, false girl,--alas! that these
+lips should speak it,--the wife of another--the promised mistress of
+the king?"
+
+"I--I--Raoul!" she exclaimed, with such a blending of wonder and
+loathing in her face, such an expression of indignation on her tongue,
+that her lover perceived at once, that, whatever might be the infamy
+of her father, of her husband, of this climax of falsehood and
+self-degradation, she, at least, was guiltless.
+
+"The mistress of the king! what king? what mean you? are you
+distraught?"
+
+"Ha! you are ignorant, you are innocent of that, then. You are not yet
+indoctrinated into the noble uses for which your honorable lord
+intends you. It is the town's talk, Melanie. How is it you, whom it
+most concerns, alone have not heard it?"
+
+"Raoul," she said, earnestly, imploringly, "I know not if there be any
+meaning in your words, except to punish me, to torture me, for what
+you deem my faithlessness, but if there be, I implore you, I conjure
+you, by your father's noble name; by your mother's honor, show me the
+worst; but listen to me first, for by the God that made us both, and
+now hears my words, I am not faithless."
+
+"Not faithless? Are you not the wife of another?"
+
+"No!" she replied enthusiastically. "I am not. For I am yours, and
+while you live I cannot wed another. Whom God hath joined man cannot
+put asunder."
+
+"I fear me that plea will avail us little," Raoul answered. "But say
+on, dearest Melanie, and believe that there is nothing you can ask
+which I will not give you gladly--even if it were my own life-blood.
+Say on, so shall we best arrive at the truth of this intricate and
+black affair."
+
+"Mark me, then, Raoul, for every word I shall speak is as true as the
+sun in heaven. It is near two years now since we heard that you had
+fallen in battle, and that your body had been carried off by the
+barbarians. Long! long I hoped and prayed, but prayers and hopes were
+alike in vain. I wrote to you often, as I promised, but no line from
+you has reached me, since the day when you sailed for India, and that
+made me fear that the dread news was true. But at the last, to make
+assurance doubly sure, all my own letters were returned to me six
+months since, with their seals unbroken, and an endorsement from the
+authorities in India that the person addressed was not to be found.
+Then hope itself was over; and my father, who never from the first had
+doubted that you were no more--"
+
+"Out on him! out on him! the heartless villain!" the young man
+interrupted her indignantly. "He knows, as well as I myself, that I am
+living; although it is no fault of his or his coadjutors that I am so.
+He knows not as yet, however, that I am _here_; but he shall know it
+ere long to his cost, my Melanie."
+
+"At least," she answered in a faltering voice, "at least he _swore_ to
+me that you were dead; and never having ceased to persecute me, since
+the day that fatal tidings reached, to become the wife of La
+Rochederrien, now Marquis de Ploermel, he now became doubly urgent--"
+
+"And you, Melanie! you yielded! I had thought you would have died
+sooner."
+
+"I had no choice but to yield, Raoul. Or at least but the choice of
+that old man's hand, or an eternal dungeon. The _lettres de cachet_
+were signed, and you dead, and on the conditions I extorted from the
+marquis, I became in name, Raoul, only in name, by all my hopes of
+Heaven! the wife of the man whom you pronounce, wherefore, I cannot
+dream, the basest of mankind. Now tell me."
+
+"And did it never strike you as being wonderful and most unnatural
+that this Ploermel, who is neither absolutely a dotard nor an old
+woman, should accept your hand upon this condition?"
+
+"I was too happy to succeed in extorting it to think much of that,"
+she answered.
+
+"_Extorted!_" replied Raoul bitterly, "And how, I pray you, is this
+condition which you extorted ratified or made valid?"
+
+"It is signed by himself, and witnessed by my own father, that, being
+I regard myself the wife of the dead, he shall ask no more of
+familiarity from me than if I were the bride of heaven!"
+
+"The double villains!"
+
+"But wherefore villains, Raoul?" exclaimed Melanie.
+
+"I tell you, girl, it is a compact--a base, hellish compact--with the
+foul despot, the disgrace of kings, the opprobrium of France, who sits
+upon the throne, dishonoring it daily! A compact such as yet was never
+entered into by a father and a husband, even of the lowest of mankind!
+A compact to deliver you a spotless virgin-victim to the vile-hearted
+and luxurious tyrant. Curses! a thousand curses on his soul! and on my
+own soul! who have fought and bled for him, and all to meet with this,
+as my reward of service!"
+
+"Great God! can these things be," she exclaimed, almost fainting with
+horror and disgust. "Can these things indeed be? But speak, Raoul,
+speak; how can you know all this?"
+
+"I tell you, Melanie, it is the talk, the very daily, hourly gossip of
+the streets, the alleys, nay, even the very kennels of Paris. Every
+one knows it--every one believes it, from the monarch in the Louvre to
+the lowest butcher of the Faubourg St. Antoine!
+
+"And they believe it--of me, of _me_, they believe this infamy!"
+
+"With this addition, if any addition were needed, that you are not a
+deceived victim, but a willing and proud participator in the shame."
+
+"I will--that is--" she corrected herself, speaking very rapidly and
+energetically--"I _would_ die sooner. But there is no need now to die.
+You have come back to me, and all will yet go well with us!"
+
+"It never can go well with us again," St. Renan answered gloomily.
+"The king never yields his purpose, he is as tenacious in his hold as
+reckless in his promptitude to seize. And they are paid beforehand."
+
+"Paid!" exclaimed the girl, shuddering at the word. "What atrocity!
+How paid?"
+
+"How, think you, did your good father earn his title and the rich
+governorship of Morlaix? What great deeds were rewarded to La
+Rochederrien by his marquisate, and this captaincy of mousquetaires.
+You know not yet, young lady, what virtue there is nowadays in being
+the accommodating father, or the convenient husband of a beauty!"
+
+"You speak harshly, St. Renan, and bitterly."
+
+"And if I do, have I not cause enough for bitterness and harshness?"
+he replied almost angrily.
+
+"Not against me, Raoul."
+
+"I am not bitter against you, Melanie. And yet--and yet--"
+
+"And yet _what_, Raoul?"
+
+"And yet had you resisted three days longer, we might have been
+saved--you might have been mine--"
+
+"I am yours, Raoul de St. Renan. Yours, ever and forever! No one's but
+only yours."
+
+"You speak but madness--your vow--the sacrament!"
+
+"To the winds with my vow--to the abyss with the fraudful sacrament!"
+she cried, almost fiercely. By sin it was obtained and sanctioned--in
+sin let it perish. I say--I swear, Raoul, if you will take me, I am
+yours."
+
+"Mine? Mine?" cried the young man, half bewildered. "How mine, and
+when?"
+
+"Thus," she replied, casting herself upon his breast, and winding her
+arms around his neck, and kissing his lips passionately and often.
+"Thus, Raoul, thus, and now!"
+
+He returned her embrace fondly once, but the next instant he removed
+her almost forcibly from his breast, and held her at arm's length.
+
+"No, no!" he exclaimed, "not thus, not thus! If at all, honestly,
+openly, holily, in the face of day! May my soul perish, ere cause come
+through me why you should ever blush to show your front aloft among
+the purest and the proudest. No, no, not thus, my own Melanie!"
+
+The girl burst into a paroxysm of tears and sobbing, through which she
+hardly could contrive to make her interrupted and faultering words
+audible.
+
+"If not now," she said at length, "it will never be. For, hear me,
+Raoul, and pity me, to-morrow they are about to drag me to Paris."
+
+The lover mused for several moments very deeply, and then replied,
+"Listen to me, Melanie. If you are in earnest, if you are true, and
+can be firm, there may yet be happiness in store for us, and that very
+shortly."
+
+"Do you doubt me, Raoul?"
+
+"I do not doubt you, Melanie. But ever as in my own wildest rapture,
+even to gain my own extremest bliss, I would not do aught that could
+possibly cast one shadow on your pure renown, so, mark me, would I not
+take you to my heart were there one spot, though it were but as a
+speck in the all-glorious sun, upon the brightness of your purity."
+
+"I believe you, Raoul. I feel, I know that my honor, that my purity is
+all in all to you.
+
+"I would die a thousand deaths," he made answer, "ere even a false
+report should fall on it, to mar its virgin whiteness. Marvel not
+then that I ask as much of you."
+
+"Ask anything, St. Renan. It _is_ granted."
+
+"In France we can hope for nothing. But there are other lands than
+France. We must fly; and thanks to these documents which you have
+wrung from them, and the proofs which I can easily obtain, this cursed
+marriage can be set aside, and then, in honor and in truth you can be
+mine, mine own Melanie."
+
+"God grant it so, Raoul."
+
+"It shall be so, beloved. Be you but firm, and it may be done right
+speedily. I will sell the estates of St. Renan--by a good chance,
+supposing me dead, the Lord of Yrvilliac was in treaty for it with my
+uncle. That can be arranged forthwith. Conduct yourself according to
+your wont, cool and as distant as may be with this villain of
+Ploermel; avoid above all things to let your father see that you are
+buoyed by any hope, or moved by any passion. Treat the king with
+deliberate scorn, if he approach you over boldly. Beware how you eat
+or drink in his company, for he is capable of all things, even of
+drugging you into insensibility, and here," he added, taking a small
+poniard, of exquisite workmanship, with a gold hilt and scabbard, from
+his girdle, and giving it to her, "wear _this_ at all times, and if he
+dare attempt violence, were he thrice a king, _use it_!"
+
+"I will--I will--trust me, Raoul! I _will_ use it, and that to his
+sorrow! My heart is strong, and my hand brave _now_--now that I know
+you to be living. Now that I have hope to nerve me, I will fear
+nothing, but dare all things."
+
+"Do so, do so, my beloved, and you shall have no cause to fear, for I
+will be ever near you. I will tarry here but one day; and ere you
+reach Paris, I will be there, be certain. Within ten days, I doubt not
+I can convert my acres into gold, and ship that gold across the narrow
+straits; and that done, the speed of horses, and a swift sailing ship
+will soon have us safe in England; and if that land be not so fair, or
+so dear as our own France, at least there are no tyrants there, like
+this Louis; and there are laws, they say, which guard the meanest man
+as safely and as surely as the proudest noble."
+
+"A happy land, Raoul. I would that we were there even now."
+
+"We will be there ere long, fear nothing. But tell me, whom have you
+near your person on whom we may rely. There must be some one through
+whom we may communicate in Paris. It may be that I shall require to
+see you."
+
+"Oh! you remember Rose, Raoul--little Rose Faverney, who has lived
+with me ever since she was a child--a pretty little black-eyed
+damsel."
+
+"Surely I do remember her. Is she with you yet? That will do
+admirably, then, if she be faithful, as I think she is; and unless I
+forget, what will serve us better yet, she loves my page Jules de
+Marliena. He has not forgotten her, I promise you."
+
+"Ah! Jules--we grow selfish, I believe, as we grow old, Raoul. I have
+not thought to ask after one of your people. So Jules remembers little
+Rose, and loves her yet; that will, indeed, secure her, even had she
+been doubtful, which she is not. She is as true as steel--truer, I
+fear, than even I; for she reproached me bitterly four evenings since,
+and swore she would be buried alive, much more willingly imprisoned,
+than be married to the Marquis de Ploermel, though she was only
+plighted to the Vicomte Raoul's page! Oh! we may trust in her with all
+certainty."
+
+"Send her, then, on the very same night that you reach Paris, so soon
+as it is dark, to my uncle's house in the Place de St. Louis. I think
+she knows it, and let her ask--not for me--but for Jules. Ere then I
+will know something definite of our future; and fear nothing, love,
+all shall go well with us. Love such as ours, with faith, and right,
+and honesty and honor to support it, cannot fail to win, blow what
+wind may. And now, sweet Melanie, the night is wearing onward, and I
+fear that they may miss you. Kiss me, then, once more, sweet girl, and
+farewell."
+
+"Not for the last, Raoul," she cried, with a gay smile, casting
+herself once again into her lover's arms, and meeting his lips with a
+long, rapturous kiss.
+
+"Not by a thousand, and a thousand! But now, angel, farewell for a
+little space. I hate to bid you leave me, but I dare not ask you to
+stay; even now I tremble lest you should be missed and they should
+send to seek you. For were they but to suspect that I am here and have
+seen you, it would, at the best, double all our difficulties. Fare you
+well, sweetest Melanie."
+
+"Fare you well," she replied; "fare you well, my own best beloved
+Raoul," and she put up the glittering dagger, as she spoke, into the
+bosom of her dress; but as she did so, she paused and said, "I wish
+_this_ had not been your first gift to me, Raoul, for they say that
+such gifts are fatal, to love at least, if not to life."
+
+"Fear not! fear not!" answered the young man, laughing gayly, "our
+love is immortal. It may defy the best steel blade that was ever
+forged on Milan stithy to cut it asunder. Fare you--but, hush! who
+comes here; it is too late, yet fly--fly, Melanie!"
+
+But she did not fly, for as he spoke, a tall, gayly dressed cavalier
+burst through the coppice on the side next the château d'Argenson,
+exclaiming, "So, my fair cousin!--this is your faith to my good
+brother of Ploermel is it?"
+
+But, before he spoke, she had whispered to Raoul, "It is the Chevalier
+de Pontrein, de Ploermel's half brother. Alas! all is lost."
+
+"Not so! not so!" answered her lover, also in a whisper, "leave him to
+me, I will detain him. Fly, by the upper pathway and through the
+orchard to the château, and remember--you have not seen this dog. So
+much deceit is pardonable. Fly, I say, Melanie. Look not behind for
+your life, whatever you may hear, nor tarry. All rests now on your
+steadiness and courage."
+
+"Then all is safe," she answered firmly and aloud, and without casting
+a glance toward the cavalier, who was now within ten paces of her
+side, or taking the smallest notice of his words, she kissed her hand
+to St. Renan, and bounded up the steep path, in the opposite
+direction, with so fleet a step as soon carried her beyond the sound
+of all that followed, though that was neither silent nor of small
+interest.
+
+"Do you not hear me, madam. By Heaven! but you carry it off easily!"
+cried the young cavalier, setting off at speed, as if to follow her.
+"But you must run swifter than a roe if you look to 'scape me;" and
+with the words, he attempted to rush past Raoul, of whom he affected,
+although he knew him well, to take no notice.
+
+But in that intent he was quickly frustrated, for the young count
+grasped him by the collar as he endeavored to pass, with a grasp of
+iron, and said to him in an ironical tone of excessive courtesy,
+
+"Sweet sir, I fear you have forgotten me, that you should give me the
+go-by thus, when it is so long a time since we have met, and we such
+dear friends, too,"
+
+But the young man was in earnest, and very angry, and struggled to
+release himself from St. Renan's grasp, until, having no strong
+reasons for forbearance, but many for the reverse, Raoul, too, lost
+his temper.
+
+"By heaven!" he exclaimed, "I believe that you do _not_ know me, or
+you would not dare to suppose that I would suffer you to follow a lady
+who seeks not your presence or society."
+
+"Let me go, St. Renan!" returned the other fiercely, laying his hand
+on his dagger's hilt. "Let me go, villain, or you shall rue it!"
+
+"Villain!" Raoul repeated, calmly, "villain! It is so you call me,
+hey?" and he did instantly release him, drawing his sword as he did
+so. "Draw, De Pontrien--that word has cost you your life!"
+
+"Yes, villain!" repeated the other, "villain to you teeth! But you
+lie! it is your life that is forfeit--forfeit to my brother's honor!"
+
+"Ha! ha!" laughed Raoul, savagely. "Ha-ha-ha-ha! your brother's honor!
+who the devil ever heard before of a pandar's honor--even if he were
+Sir Pandarus to a king? Sa! sa!--have at you!"
+
+Their blades crossed instantly, and they fought fiercely, and with
+something like equality for some ten minutes. The Chevalier de
+Pontrien was far more than an ordinary swordsman, and he was in
+earnest, not angry, but savage and determined, and full of bitter
+hatred, and a fixed resolution to punish the familiarity of Raoul with
+his brother's wife. But that was a thing easier proposed than
+executed; for St. Renan, who had left France as a boy already a
+perfect master of fence, had learned the practice of the blade against
+the swordsmen of the East, the finest swordsmen of the world, and had
+added to skill, science and experience, the iron nerves, the deep
+breath, and the unwearied strength of a veteran.
+
+If he fought slowly, it was that he fought carefully--that he meant
+the first wound to be the last. He was resolved that De Pontrien never
+should return home again to divulge what he had seen, and he had the
+coolness, the skill, and the power to carry out his resolution.
+
+At the end of ten minutes he attacked. Six times within as many
+seconds he might have inflicted a severe, perhaps a deadly wound on
+his antagonist; and he, too, perceived it, but it would not have been
+surely mortal.
+
+"Come, come!" cried De Pontrien, at last, growing impatient and angry
+at the idea of being played with. "Come, sir, you are my master, it
+seems. Make an end of this."
+
+"Do not be in a hurry," replied St. Renan, with a deadly smile, "it
+will come soon enough. There! will that suit you?"
+
+And with the word he made a treble feint and lounged home. So true was
+the thrust that the point pierced the very cavity of his heart. So
+strongly was it sent home that the hilt smote heavily on his
+breast-bone. He did not speak or groan, but drew one short, broken
+sigh, and fell dead on the instant.
+
+"The fool!" muttered St. Renan. "Wherefore did he meddle where he had
+no business? But what the devil shall I do with him? He must not be
+found, or all will out--and that were ruin."
+
+As he spoke, a distant clap of thunder was heard to the eastward, and
+a few heavy drops of rain began to fall, while a heavy mass of black
+thunder-clouds began to rise rapidly against the wind.
+
+"There will be a fierce storm in ten minutes, which will soon wash out
+all this evidence," he said, looking down at the trampled and
+blood-stained greensward. "One hour hence, and there will not be a
+sign of this, if I can but dispose of him. Ha!" he added, as a quick
+thought struck him, "The Devil's Drinking-Cup! Enough! it is done!"
+
+Within a minute's space he had swathed the corpse tightly in the
+cloak, which had fallen from the wretched man's shoulders as the fray
+began, bound it about the waist by the scarf, to which he attached
+firmly an immense block of stone, which lay at the brink of the
+fearful well, which was now--for the tide was up--brimful of white
+boiling surf, and holding his breath atween resolution and abhorrence,
+hurled it into the abyss.
+
+It sunk instantly, so well was the stone secured to it; and the fate
+of the Chevalier de Pontrien never was suspected, for that fatal pool
+never gave up its dead, nor will until the judgment-day.
+
+Meantime the flood-gates of heaven were opened, and a mimic torrent,
+rushing down the dark glen, soon obliterated every trace of that
+stern, short affray.
+
+Calmly Raoul strode homeward, and untouched by any conscience, for
+those were hard and ruthless times, and he had undergone so much wrong
+at the hands of his victim's nearest relatives, and dearest friends,
+that it was no great marvel if his blood were heated, and his heart
+pitiless.
+
+"I will have masses said for his soul in Paris," he muttered to
+himself; and therewith, thinking that he had more than discharged all
+a Christian's duty, he dismissed all further thoughts of the matter,
+and actually hummed a gay opera tune as he strode homeward through the
+pelting storm, thinking how soon he should be blessed by the
+possession of his own Melanie.
+
+No observation was made on his absence, either by the steward or any
+of the servants, on his return, though he was well-nigh drenched with
+rain, for they remembered his old half-boyish, half-romantic habits,
+and it seemed natural to them that on his first return, after so many
+years of wandering, to scenes endeared to him by innumerable fond
+recollections, he should wander forth alone to muse with his own soul
+in secret.
+
+There was great joy, however, in the hearts of the old servitors and
+tenants in consequence of his return, and on the following morning,
+and still on the third day, that feeling of joy and security continued
+to increase, for it soon got abroad that the young lord's grief and
+gloominess of mood was wearing hourly away, and that his lip, and his
+whole countenance were often lighted up with an expression which
+showed, as they fondly augured, that days and years of happiness were
+yet in store for him.
+
+It was not long before the tidings reached him that the house of
+D'Argenson was in great distress concerning the sudden and
+unaccountable disappearance of the Chevalier de Pontrien, who had
+walked out, it was said, on the preceding afternoon, promising to be
+back at supper-time, and who had not been heard of since.
+
+Raoul smiled grimly at the intimation, but said nothing, and the
+narrator judging that St. Renan was not likely to take offence at the
+imputations against the family of Ploermel, proceeded to inform him,
+that in the opinion of the neighborhood there was nothing very
+mysterious, after all, in the disappearance of the chevalier, since he
+was known to be very heavily in debt, and was threatened with deadly
+feud by the old Sieur de Plouzurde, whose fair daughter he had
+deceived to her undoing. Robinet, the smuggler's boat, had been seen
+off the Penmarcks when the moon was setting, and no one doubted that
+the gay gallant was by this time off the coast of Spain.
+
+To all this, though he affected to pay little heed to it, Raoul
+inclined an eager and attentive ear, and as a reward for his patient
+listening, was soon informed, furthermore, that the bridegroom marquis
+and the beautiful bride, being satisfied, it was supposed, of the
+chevalier's safety, had departed for Paris, their journey having been
+postponed only in consequence of the research for the missing
+gentleman, from the morning when it should have taken place, to the
+afternoon of the same day.
+
+For two days longer did Raoul tarry at St. Renan, apparently as free
+from concern or care about the fair Melanie de Ploermel, as if he had
+never heard her name. And on this point alone, for all men knew that
+he once loved her, did his conduct excite any observation, or call
+forth comment. His silence, however, and external nonchalance were
+attributed at all hands to a proper sense of pride and self-respect;
+and as the territorial vassals of those days held themselves in some
+degree ennobled or disgraced by the high bearing or recreancy of their
+lords, it was very soon determined by the men of St. Renan that it
+would have been very disgraceful and humiliating had their lord, the
+Lord of Douarnez and St. Renan, condescended to trouble his head about
+the little demoiselle d'Argenson.
+
+Meanwhile our lover, whose head was in truth occupied about no other
+thing than that very same little demoiselle, for whom he was believed
+to feel a contempt so supreme, had thoroughly investigated all his
+affairs, thereby acquiring from his old steward the character of an
+admirable man of business, had made himself perfectly master of the
+real value of his estates, droits, dues and all connected with the
+same, and had packed up all his papers, and such of his valuables as
+were movable, so as to be transported easily by means of pack-horses.
+
+This done, leaving orders for a retinue of some twenty of his best and
+most trusty servants to follow him as soon as the train and relays of
+horses could be prepared, he set off with two followers only to
+return, riding post, as he had come, from Paris.
+
+He was three days behind the lady of his love at starting; but the
+journey from the western extremity of Bretagne to the metropolis is at
+all times a long and tedious undertaking; and as the roads and means
+of conveyance were in those days, he found it no difficult task to
+catch up with the carriages of the marquis, and to pass them on the
+road long enough before they reached Paris.
+
+Indeed, though he had set out three days behind them, he succeeded in
+anticipating their arrival by as many, and had succeeded in
+transacting more than half the business on which his heart was bent,
+before he received the promised visit from the pretty Rose Faverney,
+who, prompted by her desire to renew her intimacy with the handsome
+page, came punctual to her appointment. He had not, of course,
+admitted the good old churchman, his uncle, into all his secrets; he
+had not even told him that he had seen the lady, much less what were
+his hopes and views concerning her.
+
+But he did tell him that he was so deeply mortified and wounded by her
+desertion, that he had determined to sell his estates, to leave France
+forever, and to betake himself to the new American colonies on the St.
+Lawrence.
+
+There was not in the state of France in those days much to admire, or
+much to induce wise men to exert their influence over the young and
+noble, to induce them to linger in the neighborhood of a court which
+was in itself a very sink of corruption. It was with no great
+difficulty, therefore, that Raoul obtained the concurrence of his
+uncle, who was naturally a friend to gallant and adventurous daring.
+The estates of St. Renan, the old castle and the home park, with a few
+hundred acres in its immediate vicinity only excepted, were converted
+into gold with almost unexampled rapidity.
+
+A part of the gold was in its turn converted into a gallant brigantine
+of some two hundred tons, which was despatched at once along the coast
+of Douarnez bay, there to take in a crew of the hardy fishermen and
+smugglers of that stormy shore, all men well-known to Raoul de St.
+Renan, and well content to follow their young lord to the world's
+end, should such be his will.
+
+Here, indeed, I have anticipated something the progress of events, for
+hurry it as much as he could in those days, St. Renan could not, of
+course, work miracles; and though the brigantine was purchased, where
+she lay ready to sail, at Calais, the instant the sale of St. Renan
+was determined, without awaiting the completion of the transfer, or
+the payment of the purchase-money, many days had elapsed before the
+news could be sent from the capital to the coast, and the vessel
+despatched to Britanny.
+
+Every thing was, however, determined; nay, every thing was in process
+of accomplishment before the arrival of the fair lady and her nominal
+husband, so that at his first interview with Rose, Raoul was enabled
+to lay all his plans before her, and to promise that within a month at
+the furthest, every thing would be ready for their certain and safe
+evasion.
+
+He did not fail, however, on that account to impress upon the pretty
+maiden, who, as Jules was to accompany his lord, though not a hint of
+whither had been breathed to any one, was doubly devoted to the
+success of the scheme, that a method must be arranged by which he
+could have daily interviews with the lovely Melanie; and this she
+promised that she would use all her powers to induce her mistress to
+permit, saying, with a gay laugh, that her permission gained, all the
+rest was easy.
+
+The next day, the better to avoid suspicion, Raoul was presented to
+the king, in full court, by his uncle, on the double event of his
+return from India, and of his approaching departure for the colony of
+Acadie, for which it was his present purpose to sue for his majesty's
+consent and approbation.
+
+The king was in great good humor, and nothing could have been more
+flattering or more gracious than Raoul de St. Renan's reception. Louis
+had heard that very morning of the fair Melanie's arrival in the city,
+and nothing could have fallen out more _apropos_ than the intention of
+her quondam lover to depart at this very juncture, and that, too, for
+an indefinite period from the land of his birth.
+
+Rejoicing inwardly at his good fortune, and of course, ascribing the
+conduct of the young man to pique and disappointment, the king, while
+he loaded him with honors and attentions, did not neglect to encourage
+him in his intention of departing on a very early day, and even
+offered to facilitate his departure by making some remissions in his
+behalf from the strict regulations of the Douane.
+
+All this was perfectly comprehensible to Raoul; but he was far too
+wise to suffer any one, even his uncle, to perceive that he understood
+it; and while he profited to the utmost by the readiness which he
+found in high places to smooth away all the difficulties from his
+path, he laughed in his sleeve as he thought what would be the fury of
+the licentious and despotic sovereign when he should discover that the
+very steps which he had taken to remove a dangerous rival, had
+actually cast the lady into that rival's arms.
+
+Nor had this measure of Raoul's been less effectual in sparing Melanie
+much grief and vexation, than it had proved in facilitating his own
+schemes of escape; for on that very day, within an hour after his
+reception of St. Renan, the king caused information to be conveyed to
+the Marquis de Ploermel that the presentation of Madame should be
+deferred until such time as the Vicomte de St. Renan should have set
+sail for Acadie, which it was expected would take place within a month
+at the furthest.
+
+That evening, when Rose Faverney was admitted to the young lord's
+presence, through the agency of the enamored Jules, she brought him
+permission to visit her lady at midnight in her own chamber; and she
+brought with her a plan, sketched by Melanie's own hand, of the
+garden, through which, by the aid of a master-key and a rope-ladder,
+he was to gain access to her presence.
+
+"My lady says, Monsieur Raoul," added the merry girl, with a light
+laugh, "that she admits you only on the faith that you will keep the
+word which you plighted to her, when last you met, and on the
+condition that I shall be present at all your interviews with her."
+
+"Her honor were safe in my hands," replied the young man, "without
+that precaution. But I appreciate the motive, and accept the
+condition."
+
+"You will remember, then, my lord--at midnight. There will be one
+light burning in the window, when that is extinguished, all will be
+safe, and you may enter fearless. Will you remember?"
+
+"Nothing but death shall prevent me. Nor that, if the spirits of the
+dead may visit what they love best on earth. So tell her, Rose.
+Farewell!"
+
+Four hours afterward St. Renan stood in the shadow of a dense trellice
+in the garden, watching the moment when that love-beacon should
+expire. The clock of St. Germain l'Auxerre struck twelve, and at the
+instant all was darkness. Another minute and the lofty wall was
+scaled, and Melanie was in the arms of Raoul.
+
+It was a strange, grim, gloomy gothic chamber, full of strange niches
+and recesses of old stone-work. The walls were hung with gilded
+tapestries of Spanish leather, but were interrupted in many places by
+the antique stone groinings of alcoves and cup-boards, one of which,
+close beside the mantlepiece, was closed by a curiously carved door of
+heavy oak-work, itself sunk above a foot within the embrasure of the
+wall.
+
+Lighted as it was only by the flickering of the wood-fire on the
+hearth, for the thickness of the walls, and the damp of the old
+vaulted room rendered a fire acceptable even at midsummer, that
+antique chamber appeared doubly grim and ghostly; but little cared the
+young lovers for its dismal seeming; and if they noticed it at all, it
+was but to jest at the contrast of its appearance with the happy hours
+which they passed within it.
+
+Happy, indeed, they were--almost too happy--though as pure and
+guiltless as if they had been hours spent within a nunnery of the
+strictest rule, and in the presence of a sainted abbess.
+
+Happy, indeed, they were; and although brief, oft repeated. For,
+thenceforth, not a night passed but Raoul visited his Melanie, and
+tarried there enjoying her sweet converse, and bearing to her every
+day glad tidings of the process of his schemes, and of the certainty
+of their escape, until the approach of morning warned him to make good
+his retreat ere envious eyes should be abroad to make espials.
+
+And ever the page, Jules, kept watch at the ladder-foot in the garden;
+and the true maiden, Rose, who ever sate within the chamber with the
+lovers during their stolen interviews, guarded the door, with ears as
+keen as those of Cerberus.
+
+A month had passed, and the last night had come, and all was
+successful--all was ready. The brigantine lay manned and armed, and at
+all points prepared for her brief voyage at an instant's notice at
+Calais. Relays of horses were at each post on the road. Raoul had
+taken formal leave of the delighted monarch. His passport was
+signed--his treasures were on board his good ship--his pistols were
+loaded--his horses were harnessed for the journey.
+
+For the last time he scaled the ladder--for the last time he stood
+within the chamber.
+
+Too happy! ay, they were too happy on that night, for all was done,
+all was won; and nothing but the last step remained, and that step so
+easy. The next morning Melanie was to go forth, as if to early mass,
+with Rose and a single valet. The valet was to be mastered and
+overthrown as if in a street broil, the lady, with her damsel, was to
+step into a light caleshe, which should await her, with her lover
+mounted at its side, and high for Calais--England--without the
+risk--the possibility of failure.
+
+That night he would not tarry. He told his happy tidings, clasped her
+to his heart, bid her farewell till to-morrow, and in another moment
+would have been safe--a step sounded close to the door. Rose sprang to
+her feet, with her finger to her lip, pointing with her left hand to
+the deep cupboard-door.
+
+She was right--there was not time to reach the window--at the same
+instant, as Melanie relighted the lamp, not to be taken in mysterious
+and suspicious darkness, the one door closed upon the lover just as
+the other opened to the husband.
+
+But rapid and light as were the motions of Raoul, the treacherous door
+by which he had passed into his concealment, trembled still as
+Ploermel entered. And Rose's quick eye saw that he marked it.
+
+But if he saw it, he gave no token, made no allusion to the least
+doubt or suspicion; on the contrary, he spoke more gayly and kindly
+than his wont. He apologized for his untimely intrusion, saying that
+her father had come suddenly to speak with them, concerning her
+presentation at court, which the king had appointed for the next day,
+and wished, late as it was, to see her in the saloon below.
+
+Nothing doubting the truth of his statement, which Raoul's intended
+departure rendered probable, Melanie started from her chair, and
+telling Rose to wait, for she would back in an instant, hurried out of
+the room, and took her way toward the great staircase.
+
+The marquis ordered Rose to light her mistress, for the corridor was
+dark; and as the girl went out to do so, a suppressed shriek, and the
+faint sounds of a momentary scuffle followed, and then all was still.
+
+A hideous smile flitted across the face of de Ploermel, as he cast
+himself heavily into an arm-chair, opposite to the door of the
+cupboard in which St. Renan was concealed, and taking up a silver bell
+which stood on the table, rung it repeatedly and loudly for a servant.
+
+"Bring wine," he said, as the man entered. "And, hark you, the masons
+are at work in the great hall, and have left their tools and materials
+for building. Let half a dozen of the grooms come up hither, and bring
+with them brick and mortar. I hate the sight of that cupboard, and
+before I sleep this night, it shall be built up solid with a good wall
+of mason-work; and so here's a health to the rats within it, and a
+long life to them!" and he quaffed off the wine in fiendish triumph.
+
+He spoke so loud, and that intentionally, that Raoul heard every word
+that he uttered.
+
+But if he hoped thereby to terrify the lover into discovering himself,
+and so convicting his fair and innocent wife, the villain was
+deceived. Raoul heard every word--knew his fate--knew that one word,
+one motion would have saved him; but that one word, one motion would
+have destroyed the fair fame of his Melanie.
+
+The memory of the death of that unhappy Lord of Kerguelen came
+palpably upon his mind in that dread moment, and the comments of his
+dead father.
+
+"I, at least," he muttered, between his hard set teeth, "I at least,
+will not be evidence against her. I will die silent--_fiel a la
+muerte_!"
+
+And when the brick and mortar were piled by the hands of the
+unconscious grooms, and when the fatal trowels clanged and jarred
+around him, he spake not--stirred not--gave no sign.
+
+Even the savage wretch, de Ploermel, unable to believe in the
+existence of such chivalry, such honor, half doubted if he were not
+deceived, and the cupboard were not untenanted by the true victim.
+
+Higher and higher rose the wall before the oaken door; and by the
+exclusion of the light of the many torches by which the men were
+working, the victim must have marked, inch by inch, the progress of
+his living immersement. The page, Jules, had climbed in silence to the
+window's ledge, and was looking in, an unseen spectator, for he had
+heard all that passed from without, and suspected his lord's presence
+in the fatal precinct.
+
+But as he saw the wall rise higher--higher--as he saw the last brick
+fastened in its place solid, immovable from within, and that without
+strife or opposition, he doubted not but that there was some concealed
+exit by which St. Renan had escaped, and he descended hastily and
+hurried homeward.
+
+Now came the lady's trial--the trial that shall prove to de Ploermel
+whether his vengeance was complete. She was led in with Rose, a
+prisoner. _Lettres de cachet_ had been obtained, when the treason of
+some wretched subordinate had revealed the secret of her intended
+flight with Raoul; and the officers had seized the wife by the
+connivance of the shameless husband.
+
+"See!" he said, as she entered, "see, the fool suffered himself to be
+walled up there in silence. There let him die in agony. You, madam,
+may live as long as you please in the Bastille, _au secret_."
+
+She saw that all was lost--her lover's sacrifice was made--she could
+not save him! Should she, by a weak divulging of the truth, render his
+grand devotion fruitless? Never!
+
+Her pale cheek did not turn one shade the paler, but her keen eye
+flashed living fire, and her beautiful lip writhed with loathing and
+scorn irrepressible.
+
+"It is thou who art the fool!" she said, "who hast made all this coil,
+to wall up a poor cat in a cupboard, as it is thou who art the base
+knave and shameless pandar, who hast attempted to do murther, and all
+to sell thine own wife to a corrupt and loathsome tyrant!"
+
+All stood aghast at her fierce words, uttered with all the eloquence
+and vehemence of real passion, but none so much as Rose, who had never
+beheld her other than the gentlest of the gentle. Now she wore the
+expression, and spoke with the tone of a young Pythoness, full of the
+fury of the god.
+
+She sprung forward as she uttered the last words, extricating herself
+from the slight hold of the astonished officers, and rushed toward her
+cowed and craven husband.
+
+"But in all things, mean wretch," she continued, in tones of fiery
+scorn, "in all things thou art frustrate--thy vengeance is naught, thy
+vile ambition naught, thyself and thy king, fools, knaves, and
+frustrate equally. And now," she added, snatching the dagger which
+Raoul had given her from the scabbard, "now die, infamous, accursed
+pandar!" and with the word she buried the keen weapon at one quick
+and steady stroke to the very hilt in his base and brutal heart.
+
+Then, ere the corpse had fallen to the earth, or one hand of all those
+that were stretched out to seize her had touched her person, she smote
+herself mortally with the same reeking weapon, and only crying out in
+a clear, high voice, "Bear witness, Rose, bear witness to my honor!
+Bear witness all that I die spotless!" fell down beside the body of
+her husband, and expired without a struggle or a groan.
+
+Awfully was she tried, and awfully she died. Rest to her soul if it be
+possible.
+
+The caitiff Marquis de Ploermel perished, as she had said, in all
+things frustrated; for though his vengeance was in very deed complete,
+he believed that it had failed, and in his very agony that failure was
+his latest and his worst regret.
+
+On the morrow, when St. Renan returned not to his home, the page gave
+the alarm, and the fatal wall was torn down, but too late.
+
+The gallant victim of love's honor was no more. Doomed to a lingering
+death he had died speedily, though by no act of his own. A
+blood-vessel had burst within, through the violence of his own
+emotions. Ignorant of the fate of his sweet Melanie, he had died, as
+he had lived, the very soul of honor; and when they buried him, in the
+old chapel of his Breton castle, beside his famous ancestors, none
+nobler lay around him; and the brief epitaph they carved upon his
+stone was true, at least, if it were short and simple, for it ran only
+thus--
+
+          =Raoul de St. Renan.
+
+           Fiel a la Muerte.=
+
+
+
+
+THE POET'S HEART.--TO MISS O. B.
+
+BY CHARLES E. TRAIL.
+
+
+    Like rays of light, divinely bright,
+      Thy sunny smiles o'er all disperse;
+    And let the music of thy voice,
+      More softly flow than Lesbian verse.
+    By all the witchery of love,
+      By every fascinating art--
+    The worldly spirit strive to move,
+      But spare, O spare, the Poet's heart!
+
+    Within its pure recesses, deep,
+      A fount of tender feeling lies;
+    Whose crystal waters, while they sleep,
+      Reflect the light of starry skies.
+    Thy voice might prophet-like unclose
+      Its bonds, and bid those waters start,
+    But why disturb their sweet repose?
+      Spare, lady, spare the Poet's heart!
+
+    It cannot be that one so fair,
+      The idol of the courtly throng--
+    Would condescend his lot to share,
+      And bless the lowly child of song,
+    Would realize the soul-wrought dreams,
+      That of his being form a part,
+    And mingle with his sweetest themes;
+      Then spare, O spare, the poet's heart!
+
+    The poet's heart! ye know it not,
+      Its hopes, its sympathies, its fears;
+    The joys that glad its humble lot;
+      The griefs that melt it into tears.
+    'Tis like some flower, that from the ground
+      Scarce dares to lift its petals up,
+    Though honeyed sweets are ever found
+      Indwelling in its golden cup.
+
+    Love comes to him in sweeter guise,
+      Than he appears to other men--
+    Heav'n-born, descended from the skies,
+      And longing to return again.
+    But bid him not with me abide,
+      If he can no relief impart;
+    Ah, hide those smiles, those glances hide,
+      And spare, O spare, the Poet's heart!
+
+
+
+
+THE RETURN TO SCENES OF CHILDHOOD.
+
+BY GRETTA.
+
+
+    "You have come again," said the dark old trees,
+       As I entered my childhood's home.
+    "You have come again," said the whispering breeze,
+      "And wherefore have you come?
+
+    "When last I played round your youthful brow
+       Its morning's light was there,
+    But you bring back a shadow upon it now,
+       And a saddened look of care.
+
+    "Have you come, have you left earth's noisy strife,
+       To seek your favorite flowers?
+    They are gone, like the hopes which lit your life,
+       Like your childhood's sunny hours.
+
+    "Have you come to seek for your shady dell,
+       For that spot in the moonlit grove,
+    Where first you were bound by the magic spell,
+       And thrilled to the voice of love?
+
+    "Has your heart been true to that early vow,
+       And pure as that trickling tear?
+    Does that voice of music charm you now
+       As once it charmed you here?
+
+    "Years have been short, and few, since last
+       As a child you roamed the glen;
+    But what have you learned since hence you passed,
+       What have you lost since then?
+
+    "You have brought back a woman's ruddier cheek,
+       A woman's fuller form,
+    But where is the look so timid and meek,
+       The blush so quick and warm?
+
+    "Have you come to seek for the smiles of yore,
+       For your brief life's faded light?
+    Do you hope to hear in these shades once more
+       The blessing and 'good-night?'
+
+    "Do you come again for the kisses sweet,
+       Do you look as you onward pass
+    For the mingled prints of the tiny feet
+       In the fresh and springing grass?
+
+    "Have you come to sit on a parent's knee
+       And gaze on his reverend brow?
+    Or to nestle in love and childish glee
+       On her bosom, that's pulseless now?
+
+    "Why come you back? We can give you naught,
+       No more the past is ours,
+    Thine early scenes with their blessings fraught,
+       Thy childhood's golden hours."
+
+    I have come, I have come, oh haunts of youth,
+      With a worn and weary heart;
+    I have come to recall the love and truth
+      Of my young life's guileless part.
+
+    I have come to bend o'er the holy spot
+      Where I prayed by a father's knee--
+    Oh I am changed--but I ne'er forgot
+      His look, his smile for me.
+
+    I have not been true to my heart's first love
+      Here pledged 'neath the moonlit heaven,
+    But I come to kneel in the lonely grove
+      And ask to be forgiven.
+
+    I have not brought back the hopes of youth,
+      Or the gentle look so meek,
+    I mourn o'er my perished faith and truth
+      And the quick blush of my cheek.
+
+    But, oh ye scenes, that have once beguiled,
+      In the peaceful days of yore.
+    I would come again like a little child
+      With the trust I knew before.
+
+    I would call back every hope and fear,
+      The heart throbs full and high,
+    The prattling child that rambled here,
+      And ask if it were _I_?
+
+    And I would recall the murmured prayer,
+      And the dark eyes look of love,
+    While unseen angels hovered there
+      From the starry worlds above.
+
+    And I've come to seek one flower here,
+      Just one, in its fading bloom,
+    Though it must be culled with a gushing tear
+      From a parent's grassy tomb.
+
+    And I'll bear it away on my lonely breast,
+      As a charm 'mid earth's stormy strife,
+    An amulet, worn to give me rest,
+      On the billowy waves of life.
+
+    I wait not now by the dancing rill
+      For the steps of my playmates fair--
+    They are gone--but yon heaven is o'er me still,
+      And I'll seek to meet them there.
+
+    Parents, and friends, and hopes are gone,
+      And these memories only given,
+    But they shall be links, while the heart is lone,
+      In the "chain" that reaches heaven.
+
+
+
+
+SUNSHINE AND RAIN.
+
+BY GEORGE S. BURLEIGH.
+
+
+    O Blessed sunshine, and thrice-blessed rain,
+      How ye do warm and melt the rugged soil,--
+      Which else were barren, nathless all my toil
+    And summon Beauty from her grave again,
+    To breathe live odors o'er my scant domain:
+      How softly from their parting buds uncoil
+      The furléd sweets, no more a shriveled spoil
+    To the loud storm, or canker's silent bane;
+    Were it all sun, the heat would shrink them up;
+      Were it all shower, then piteous blight were sure;
+    Now hangs the dew in every nodding cup,
+      Shooting new glories from its orblets pure.
+    Sunshine and shower, I shrink from your extremes,
+    But with delight behold your blended gleams.
+
+
+
+
+THE CHRISTMAS GARLAND.
+
+BY MISS EMMA WOOD.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE BOARDING-SCHOOL.
+
+
+Christmas is coming! The glad sound awakes a thrill of joy in many a
+heart. The children clap their tiny hands and laugh aloud in the
+exuberance of their mirth as bright visions of varied toys and rich
+confectionary flit before their minds. The sound of merry sports--the
+gathering of the social band--the banquet--all are scenes of joy.
+Shout on bright children, for your innocent mirth will rise as incense
+to Him who was even as one of you. The Son of God once reposed his
+head upon a mortal breast and wept the tears of infancy. Now risen to
+His throne of glory, his smile is still upon you, bright Blossoms of
+Blessedness.
+
+Christmas is coming! is the cry of the young and gay, and with light
+hearts they prepare for the approaching festival. The holyday robes
+are chosen, and the presents selected which shall bring joy to so many
+hearts. The lover studies to determine what gift will be acceptable to
+his mistress, and the maiden dreams of love-tokens and honeyed words.
+Nor is the church forgotten amid the gathering of holyday array, for
+that, too, must be robed in beauty. The young claim its adornment as
+their appropriate sphere, and rich garlands of evergreen, mingled with
+scarlet berries, are twined around its pillars, or festooned along its
+walls. Swiftly speeds their welcome task, and a calm delight fills
+their hearts, as they remember Him who assumed mortality, and passed
+the ordeal of earthly life, that he might be, in all things, like unto
+mankind. Blessed be this thought, ye joyous ones, and if after-years
+shall bring sorrow or bitterness, ye may remember that the Holiest has
+trod that path before, and that deeper sorrow than mortality can
+suffer, once rested upon his guiltless head.
+
+Christmas is coming! is the thought of the aged, and memory goes back
+to the joys of other years, when the pulses of life beat full and
+free, and their keen sensibilities were awake to the perception of the
+beautiful. Now the dim eye can no longer enjoy the full realization of
+beauty, and the ear is deaf to the melodies of Nature, but they can
+drink from the fountain of memory, and while looking upon the mirth of
+the youthful, recollect that once they, too, were light-hearted and
+joyous. Blessed to them is the approaching festival, and as they
+celebrate the birth of the Redeemer, they may remember that He bore
+the trials of life without a murmur, and laid down in the lone grave,
+to ensure the resurrection of the believer, while faith points to the
+hour when they shall inherit the glory prepared for them by His
+mission of suffering.
+
+Christmas is coming! shouted we, the school-girls of Monteparaiso
+Seminary, as we rushed from the school-room, in glad anticipation, of
+the holydays. How gladly we laid down the books over which we had been
+poring, vainly endeavoring to fix our minds upon their pages, and
+gathered in various groups to plan amusements for the coming festival.
+One week only, and the day would come, the pleasures of which we had
+been anticipating for months. Our stockings must be hung up on
+Christmas Eve, though the pleasure was sadly marred because each of us
+must, in our turn, represent the good Santa-Claus, and contribute to
+the stockings of our schoolmates, instead of going quietly to bed, and
+finding them filled on Christmas morning by the good saint, or some of
+his representatives. How eagerly we watched the Hudson each morning,
+to see if its waves remained unfettered by ice, not only because the
+daily arrival of the steamboat from New York was an era in our
+un-eventful lives, but there were many of our number whose parents or
+friends resided in the city, from whom they expected visits or
+presents. We were like a prisoned sisterhood, yet we did not pine in
+our solitude, for there were always wild, mirth-loving spirits in our
+midst, so full of fun and frolic that the exuberance of their spirits
+was continually breaking out, much to the discomfort of tutors and
+governesses. When the holydays were approaching, and the strict
+discipline usually maintained among the pupils was somewhat relaxed,
+these outbreaks became more numerous, insomuch that lessons were
+carelessly omitted, or left unlearned. When study hours were over
+misrule was triumphant. Lizzie Lincoln could not find a seat at the
+table where some of the older girls were manufacturing fancy articles
+for Christmas presents, and avenged herself by pinning together the
+dresses of the girls who were seated around the table, and afterward
+fastening each dress to the carpet. Fan Selby saw the manoeuvre, and
+ran to her room, where she equipped herself in a frightful looking
+mask, which she had manufactured of brown paper, painted in horrid
+devices. Arrayed in this mask, and a long white wrapper, she came
+stalking in at the door of the sitting-room. In their fright the girls
+screamed and tried to rush from the table, when a scene of confusion
+ensued which beggars description. The noise reached the ears of the
+teachers, who came from different parts of the house to the scene of
+the riot, but ere they reached it, Fan had deposited the mask out of
+sight in her own room, and was again in her place, looking as innocent
+as if nothing had happened. She even aided the teachers in their
+search for the missing "fright." When this fruitless search was ended,
+and a monitress placed in the sitting-room to prevent further riots,
+a new alarm was raised. Mary Lee blackened her face with burnt cork,
+and entered the kitchen by the outside door, begging for cold
+victuals, much to the terror of the raw Hibernians who were very
+quietly sitting before the fire, and telling tales of the Emerald
+Isle, for they feared a negro as they would some wild beast. They ran
+up stairs to give the alarm, but when they returned the bird had
+flown, and while a fruitless search was instituted throughout the
+basement, Mary was in her own room, hastily removing the ebon tinge
+from her face. Such were a few among the many wild pranks of the
+mischief spirits, invented to while away the time. Quite different
+from this was the employment of the "sisterhood." A number of the
+older pupils of the school had seated themselves night after night
+around the table which stood in the centre of the sitting-room, in
+nearly the same places, with their needle-work, until it was finally
+suggested, that, after the manner of the older people, we should form
+a regularly organized society. Each member should every night take her
+accustomed place, and one should read while the others were busy with
+their needle-work. To add a tinge of romance to the whole, we gave to
+each of our members the name of some flower as a soubriquet by which
+we might be known, and Lizzie Lincoln (our secretary) kept a humorous
+diary of the "Sayings and Doings of Flora's Sisterhood." Anna Lincoln
+was the presidentess of our society, and we gave her the name of Rose,
+because the queen of flowers seemed a fitting type of her majestic
+beauty. But the favorite of all was Clara Adams, to whom the name of
+Violet seemed equally appropriate. Her modesty, gentleness, and
+affectionate disposition had won the love of all, from Annie Lincoln,
+the oldest pupil, down to little Ella Selby, who lisped her praises of
+dear Clara Adams, and seemed to love her far better than she did her
+own mad-cap sister.
+
+When we celebrated May-day Clara was chosen queen of May, though
+Lizzie Lincoln was more beautiful, and Anna seemed more queenly. It
+was the instinctive homage that young hearts will pay to goodness and
+purity, which made us feel as if she deserved the brightest crown we
+could bestow. If one of us were ill, Clara could arrange the pillows
+or bathe the throbbing temples more tenderly than any other, and
+bitter medicines seemed less disgusting when administered by her. Was
+there a hard lesson to learn, a difficult problem to solve, a
+rebellious drawing that would take any form or shadowing but the right
+one, Clara was the kind assistant, and either task seemed equally easy
+to her. While we sat around the table that evening, little Ella Selby
+was leaning on the back of Clara's chair, and telling, in her own
+childish way, of the manifold perfections of one Philip Sidney, a
+classmate of her brother in college, who had spent a vacation with him
+at her home. Ella was quite sure that no other gentleman was half so
+handsome, so good, or kind as Mr. Sidney, and she added,
+
+"I know he loves Clara, for I have told him a great deal about her,
+and he says that he does."
+
+The girls all laughed at her simple earnestness, and bright blushes
+rose in Clara's face. Many prophecies for the future were based on
+this slight foundation, and Clara was raised to the rank of a heroine.
+It needs but slight fuel to feed the flame of romance in a
+school-girl's breast, and these dreamings might long have been
+indulged but for an interruption. A servant came, bringing a basket,
+with a note from the ladies engaged in decorating the church,
+requesting the young ladies of the school to prepare the letters for a
+motto on the walls of the church. The letters were cut from
+pasteboard, to be covered with small sprigs of box. Pleased with the
+novelty of our task we were soon busily engaged, under the direction
+of Clara and Anna Lincoln. Even the "mischief spirits" ceased their
+revels to watch our progress. Thus passed that evening, and as the
+next day was Saturday, and of course a holyday, we completed our work.
+The garlands were not to be hung in the church until the Wednesday
+following, as Friday was Christmas day. We employed ourselves after
+study hours the intervening days in finishing the presents we had
+commenced for each other. On Wednesday morning Lucy Gray, one of our
+day-scholars, brought a note from her mother, requesting that she
+might be excused from her afternoon lessons, and inviting the teachers
+and young ladies of the school to join them in dressing the church.
+Here was a prospect for us of some rare enjoyment; and how we plead
+for permission, and promised diligence and good behaviour for the
+future, those who remember their own school-days can easily imagine.
+At length permission was granted that Anna and Lizzie Lincoln, Fan
+Selby, Clara Adams, and I, accompanied by one of the teachers, might
+assist them for an hour or two in the afternoon. Never did hours seem
+longer to us than those that passed after the permission was given
+till we were on our way. The village was about half a mile from our
+seminary, but the walk was a very pleasant one, and when we reached
+the church our faces glowed with exercise in the keen December air. We
+found a very agreeable company assembled there, laughing and chatting
+gayly as they bound the branches of evergreen together in rich
+wreaths. Our letters were fastened to the walls, forming a beautiful
+inscription, and little remained to be done, save arranging the
+garlands. Clara and Fan Selby finished the wreaths for the altar, and
+were fastening them in their places, when a new arrival caused Fan to
+drop her wreath, and hasten toward the new-comers, exclaiming,
+
+"Brother Charles, I am so glad to see you!"
+
+Then, after cordially greeting his companion, she asked eagerly of her
+brother,
+
+"Have you come to take us home?"
+
+"No, mad-cap," was the laughing reply, "we are but too glad to be free
+for one Christmas from your wild pranks. Sidney is spending the
+Christmas holydays with me, and as the day was fine we thought we
+would visit you. When we reached the village we learned that several
+of the young ladies of the school were at the church, and called,
+thinking that you might be of the number."
+
+Turning to Sidney, Fan said, playfully,
+
+"Follow me, and I will introduce you to Ella's favorite, Clara Adams."
+
+Before Clara had time to recover from her confusion caused by their
+entrance Fan had led Philip Sidney to her, and introduced him as the
+friend of whom little Ella had told her so much. The eloquent blushes
+in Clara's face revealed in part the dreams that had been excited in
+her breast, while Philip, with self-possessed gallantry, begged leave
+to assist her in her task, and uttered some commonplace expressions,
+till Clara was sufficiently composed to take her part in conversation.
+The teacher who accompanied us, alarmed at his attention, placed
+herself near them, but his manner was so respectful that she could
+find no excuse to interrupt their conversation. Philip Sidney was
+eminently handsome, and as his dark eye rested admiringly upon her,
+who will wonder that Clara became more than usually animated! nor is
+it strange that the low, musical tones of his voice, breathing
+thoughts of poetry with the earnestness of love, should awaken a new
+train of thought in the simple school-girl. She answered in few words,
+but the drooping of her fringed lids and the bright color in her cheek
+replied more eloquently than words. The moments flew swiftly, the
+garlands were placed, and the teacher who had watched them with an
+anxious eye, announced that it was time to return to the seminary.
+Philip knew too well the strictness of boarding-school rules to hope
+for a longer interview, yet even for the sake of looking longer on her
+graceful figure, and perchance stealing another glance from her bright
+eyes, he insisted upon seeing little Ella. Charles Selby objected, as
+it was growing late, and he had an engagement for the evening in the
+city. Reluctantly Philip bade Clara farewell, and from the door of the
+church watched her receding figure until she disappeared around the
+turn of the road. From that moment Clara was invested by her
+schoolmates with all the dignity of a heroine of romance, and half the
+giddy girls in school teazed her mercilessly, and then laid their
+heads upon their pillows only to dream of lovers.
+
+Christmas eve came. The elder ladies of the school accompanied our
+Principal to the church to listen to the services of the evening. We
+were scarcely seated when we perceived nearly opposite to us, that
+same Philip Sidney, who was the hero of our romance. Poor Clara! I sat
+by her side, and fancied I could hear the throbbing of her heart as
+those dark, expressive eyes were fixed again on hers, speaking the
+language of admiration too plainly to be mistaken. Then as the
+services proceeded, his countenance wore a shadow of deeper thought,
+and his eyes were fixed upon the speaker. Thus he remained in earnest
+attention till the services closed. When we left the church, a smile,
+and bow of recognition passed between him and Clara, but no word was
+spoken. Our sports that evening had no power to move her to mirth, but
+she remained silent and abstracted. The next Saturday Mrs. Selby came
+to see her daughter, and soon after her arrival, Fan laid a small
+package on the table mysteriously, saying to Clara, "You must answer
+it immediately," and left the room. Clara broke the seal, and as she
+removed the envelope, a ring, containing a small diamond, beautifully
+set, fell to the floor. I picked it up, and looking on the inside, saw
+the name of Philip Sidney. As soon as she had read the note, she gave
+it to me, and placed the ring upon her finger. Then severing a small
+branch from a myrtle plant, which we kept in our room as a relic of
+home, she placed it, with a sprig of box, in an envelope, and, after
+directing it to Philip Sidney, gave it to Fan, who enclosed it in a
+letter to her brother. The note which Clara gave me was as follows:
+
+"Forgive my presumption, dear Clara, in addressing you, so lately a
+stranger. Think not that I am an idle flatterer, when I say that your
+beauty and worth have awakened a deep love for you in my heart, and
+this love must be my excuse. I would have sought another interview
+with you, but I know the rules of your school would have forbid, and
+the only alternative remaining is to make this avowal, or be forgotten
+by you. I do not ask you now to promise to be mine, or even to love
+me, till I have proved myself worthy of your affection. My past life
+has been one of thoughtlessness and inaction, but it shall be my
+endeavor in future to atone for those misspent years. Your image will
+ever be with me as a bright spirit from whose presence I cannot flee,
+and whisper hope when my energies would fail. I only ask your
+remembrance till I am worthy to claim your love. If you do not see me
+or hear from me at the end of five years, you may believe that I have
+failed to secure the desired position in the world, or am no longer
+living. Will you grant me this favor--to wear the ring enclosed, and
+sometimes think of me? If so, send me some token by Mrs. S., to tell
+me that I may hope."
+
+The evergreens, with their language of love and constancy were the
+token, and the ring sparkled upon Clara's finger, so that I knew well
+that Philip Sidney would not soon be forgotten.
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+A GLANCE AT HOME.
+
+The little village of Willowdale is situated in one of those romantic
+dells which are found here and there among the hills of Massachusetts.
+A small stream, tributary to the Connecticut, flows through the
+village, so small that it is barely sufficient to furnish the
+necessary mill-seats for the accommodation of a community of farmers,
+but affording no encouragement to manufacturers. It is to this reason,
+perhaps, that we may attribute the fact that a place, which was
+amongst the earliest settlements of Massachusetts, should remain to
+this day so thinly inhabited. The rage for manufactures, so prevalent
+in New England, has led speculators to place factories on every stream
+of sufficient power to keep them in operation, and a spirit of
+enterprise and locomotion has caused railroads to pass through
+sections of the country hitherto unfrequented by others than tillers
+of the soil. Cities have sprung up where before were only small
+villages, and brisk little villages are found, where a few years ago
+were only solitary farm-houses. But in spite of all such changes,
+Willowdale has escaped the ravages of these merciless innovators. The
+glassy river still glides on in its natural bed, and even the willows
+on its banks, from which the village takes its name, are suffered to
+stand, unscathed by the woodman's axe. The "iron horse" has never
+disturbed the inhabitants by his shrill voice, and the rattling of
+cars has not broken upon the stillness of a summer-day. The village is
+not on the direct route from any of the principal cities to others,
+consequently the inhabitants suffer little apprehension of having
+their fine farms cut up by rail-road tracks. The village consists of
+one principal street, with houses built on both sides, at sufficient
+distances from the street and each other, to admit of those neat
+yards, with shade-trees, flowers, and white fences, which are the
+pride of New England, and scattered among the surrounding fields are
+tasteful farm-houses.
+
+There are two houses of worship in the place: the Episcopal church,
+which was erected by the first settlers, before the revolution; and
+the Congregationalist house, more recently built. There is but little
+trade carried on in the place, and one store is sufficient to supply
+the wants of the inhabitants. The Episcopal church stands on a slight
+eminence, at a little distance from the main street of the village,
+and a lane extending beyond it leads to the parsonage. A little
+farther down this lane is my father's house, and nearly opposite the
+house of Deacon Lee, the home of Clara Adams. Clara was left an orphan
+at an early age. Her father was the son of an early friend of the old
+rector. The latter, having no children, adopted Henry Adams, and
+educated him as his own son, in the hope of preparing him for the
+ministry, but with that perversity so common in human nature, the
+youth determined to become an artist. The rector, not wishing to force
+him unwillingly into the sacred office, consented that he should
+pursue his favorite art. He placed him under the tuition of one of the
+first painters in a neighboring city, hoping that his natural genius,
+aided by his ambition, might enable him to excel. Henry Adams followed
+his new pursuit with all the ardor of an impetuous nature, till the
+bright eyes of Clara Lee won his heart, and his thoughts were directed
+in a new channel, until he had persuaded her to share his lot. It
+proved, indeed, a darkened lot to the young bride. Her husband was a
+reckless, unsatisfied being, and though he ever loved her with all the
+affection of which such natures are capable, the warm expressions of
+his love, varied by fits of peevishness and ill-humor, were so unlike
+the calm, unchanging devotedness of her nature that she felt a bitter
+disappointment. Soon after the birth of their daughter his health
+failed, and he repaired to Italy for the benefit of a more genial
+climate, and in the hope of perfecting himself in his art. He lived
+but a few months after his arrival there, and the sad intelligence
+came like a death-blow to his bereaved wife. She lingered a year at
+the parsonage, a saddened mourner, and then her wearied spirit found
+its rest. The old rector would gladly have nurtured the little orphan
+as his own child, but he could not resist the entreaties of Deacon
+Lee, her mother's brother, and reluctantly consented to have her
+removed to his house. Yet much of her time was spent at the parsonage,
+and growing up as it were in an atmosphere of love, it is not strange
+that gentleness was the ruling trait of her character. Deacon Lee was
+one of that much-scandalized class, the Congregationalist deacons of
+New England, who have so often been described with a pen dipped in
+gall, if we may judge from the bitterness of the sketches. Scribblers
+delight in portraying them as rum-selling hypocrites, sly topers,
+lovers of gain, and fomenters of dissension, and so far has this been
+carried, that no tale of Yankee cunning or petty fraud is complete
+unless the hero is a deacon. It is true there are far too many such
+instances in real life, where eminence in the church is their only
+high standing, and the name of religion is but a cloak for selfish
+vices, but it is equally true that among this class of men are the
+good, the true, and kind, of the earth, whose lives are ruled by the
+same pure principles which they profess. Such was Deacon Lee, and it
+were well if there were more like him, to remove the stain which
+others of an opposite character have brought upon the office. He was
+one of those whom sorrow purifies, and had bowed in humble resignation
+to heavy afflictions. Of a large family only one son had lived to
+attain the years of manhood. The mother of Clara had been very dear to
+him, and he felt that her orphan child would supply, in a measure, the
+place of his own lost ones. His wife was his opposite, and theirs was
+one of those unaccountable unions where there is apparently no bond of
+sympathy. Stern and exact in the performance of every duty, she wished
+to enforce the same rigid observance upon others. The loss of her
+children had roused in her a zeal for religion, which, in one of a
+warmer temperament, would have been fanaticism. While her husband was
+a worshiper from a love of God and his holy laws, she was prompted by
+fears of the wrath to come. He bowed in thankfulness, even while he
+wept their loss, to the Power that had borne his little ones to a
+brighter world, while her life gained new austerity from the thought
+that they had been taken from her as a judgment on her worldliness and
+idolatry. She loved to dwell upon the sufferings of the Pilgrim
+Fathers of New England, and emulate their rigid lives, forgetting that
+it was the dark persecution of the times in which they lived that left
+this impress upon their characters. Her husband loved to commend the
+good deeds of their neighbors, while she was equally fond of censuring
+transgressors. Perhaps the result of their efforts was better than it
+would have been had both possessed the disposition of either one of
+them. Her firmness and energy atoned for the negligence resulting from
+his easy temper, and his sunny smile and kind words softened the
+asperity with which she would have ruled her household. Their son was
+engaged in mercantile business in a neighboring city, and their home
+would have been desolate but for the presence of little Clara. She was
+the sunshine of the old man's heart, and he forgot toil and weariness
+when he sat down by his own fireside, with the merry prattler upon his
+knee, and her little arms were twined about his neck. She was the
+image of his lost sister, and it seemed to him but a little while
+since her mother had sat thus upon his knee, and lavished her caresses
+upon him. In spite of the predictions of the worthy dame that she
+would be spoiled, he indulged her every wish, checking only the
+inclination to do wrong. Nor was the good lady herself without
+affection for the little orphan, but she wished to engraft a portion
+of her own sternness into her nature, and in her horror of prelacy she
+did not like to have such a connecting link between her family and
+that of the rector. She had never loved Clara's father, yet she could
+not find it in her heart to be unkind to the little orphan, so she
+contented herself with laying his faults and follies at the door of
+the church to which he belonged. Clara had been my playfellow from
+infancy, and at the village school we had pursued our studies
+together. When my parents decided to place me at a boarding-school on
+the banks of the Hudson, I plead earnestly with the deacon that Clara
+might go with me. Her aunt objected strenuously to her acquiring the
+superficial accomplishments of the world, but the old man for once in
+his life was firm, and declared that Clara should have as good an
+education as any one in the vicinity. Accordingly we were placed at
+Monteparaiso Seminary, where was laid the scene of the last chapter.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE RETURN HOME.
+
+Our school-days passed, as school-days ever will, sometimes happily,
+and again lingering as if they would never be gone. Clara was still
+the same sweet, simple-minded innocent girl, but her mirth was subdued
+by thoughtfulness, though the calm tranquillity of her life was
+unruffled by the new feeling that had found a place in her heart. She
+pursued her studies with constant assiduity, and at the close of our
+third year at school, was the first scholar in the institution. She
+was advanced beyond others of her age when she entered, and had
+improved every opportunity to the best of her abilities after becoming
+a member of the school. Three years was the period assigned for our
+school-days, and we were to return to Willowdale at the close of that
+time. Though we loved our schoolmates dearly, we were happy to think
+of meeting once more with the friends from whom we had so long been
+separated. Anna Lincoln had left the year before, and Lizzie had taken
+her place as Presidentess of "the Sisterhood." Fan Selby had left off
+her wild pranks and become quite sedate. Mary Lee was less boisterous
+in her mirth than formerly, and the younger members of the school
+seemed ready to take the places of those who were about to leave. It
+was sad for us when we bade farewell to the companions of years,
+though we were pleased with the thought of seeing more of the world
+than a school-girl's life would allow. I will not attempt to describe
+our joy when we were once more at our homes, nor the warm reception of
+those around our own firesides. Never was there a happier man than old
+Deacon Lee, as he led Clara to the window, that he might better see
+the rich bloom on her cheek, and the light of her eye. "Thank God!"
+was his fervent ejaculation, "that you have come to us in health. I
+was afraid that so much poring over books would make you look pale and
+delicate, as your poor mother did before she died. How much you are
+like what she was at your age." Then with a feeling of childish
+delight he opened the door of their rustic parlor, and showed her a
+small collection of new books, a present from the rector, and a neat
+piano, which he had purchased himself in Boston to surprise her on her
+return.
+
+"You are still the same dear, kind uncle," said Clara, as she run her
+fingers over the keys, and found its tone excellent; "you are always
+thinking of something to make me happy. How shall I ever repay your
+kindness?"
+
+"By enjoying it," was his reply. "The old man has a right to indulge
+his darling, and nothing else in this world can make him so happy as
+to see your rosy cheeks and bright eyes, and hear your merry voice;
+but let us hear you sing and play."
+
+Tears of delight glistened in the old man's eyes as she warbled
+several simple airs to a graceful accompaniment. Mrs. Lee sighed
+deeply, and would have given them a long lecture upon the vanities and
+frivolities of the world, had not Clara changed the strain, and sung
+some of her favorite hymns.
+
+"Are you not tired?" asked her uncle, with his usual considerate
+kindness. "Come, let us go to the garden, and see the dahlias I
+planted, because I knew the other flowers would be killed by the frost
+before you came home."
+
+"With pleasure," answered Clara; "but first let me sing a song that I
+have learned on purpose to please you."
+
+Then she sung the beautiful words, "He doeth all things well." The old
+man's eyes beamed with a holy light as he listened to the exquisite
+music which expressed the sentiments that had pervaded his life. As
+she rose from the piano, he laid his hands upon her head caressingly,
+saying, "Blessed be His name, who guards my treasures in Heaven, and
+has still left me this rich possession on earth." The old lady, melted
+by the sight of his emotion, and the sentiment expressed, clasped her
+to her heart, and called her her own dear child.
+
+Months glided on with swift wings, and even Mrs. Lee was forced to
+give up her arguments against a fashionable education. She had
+predicted that Clara would be a fine lady, and feel above performing
+the common duties of life; but every morning with the early dawn she
+shared the tasks of her aunt, and seemed as much at home in the dairy
+or kitchen as when seated at her piano. Her step was as light and
+graceful while tripping over the fields as it had been in the dance,
+and her fingers as skillful in making her own and her aunt's dresses,
+as they had been at her embroidery. The good dame had learned to love
+the piano, and more than once admitted that she would feel quite
+lonely without it. So she was fain to retreat from her position, by
+saying that her old opinions held good as general rules, though Clara
+was an exception, for no one else was ever like her. At length her old
+feelings revived when a young farmer in the neighborhood aspired to
+the hand of Clara, and was kindly, though firmly, refused. She was
+sure that it came of pride, and that the novels she had read had
+filled her head with ideas of high life. But her good uncle came to
+the rescue, and declared that her inclinations should not be crossed,
+and he had no wish that she should marry till she could be happier
+with another than she was with them. Clara longed to tell him of her
+acquaintance with Philip Sidney, but she feared it would make him
+anxious, and resolved to say nothing till time had proved the truth of
+her lover. From this time forth the subject of her marriage was not
+mentioned, and Clara was left free to pursue her own inclinations. Her
+presence was a continual source of happiness to her uncle, and her
+life flowed on like a gentle stream, diffusing blessings on all around
+her, while a sense of happiness conferred threw a lustre around every
+hour.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+Five years had passed since the commencement of our tale, and Clara
+and I still remained at our homes in Willowdale. Life had passed
+gently with us, and the friendship formed in our school-days remained
+unbroken. It was sweet to recall those days; and we passed many a
+pleasant hour in the renewal of old memories. Clara had heard nothing
+from Philip Sidney, save once, about a year before, when a letter from
+Fan Selby informed her that he had called on them. He had inquired
+very particularly after Clara, and said that he intended to visit
+Willowdale the following year, but where the intervening time was to
+be passed she did not know. It seemed very strange to me that Clara
+should not doubt his truth from his long silence, but her faith
+remained unshaken.
+
+It was the day before Christmas, and the young people of Willowdale
+were assembled to finish the decorations of the church. The garlands
+were hung in deep festoons along the walls, and twined around the
+pillars. The pulpit and altar were adorned with wreaths tastefully
+woven of branches of box mingled with the dark-green leaves and
+scarlet berries of the holly, the latter gathered from trees which the
+old rector had planted in his youth, and carefully preserved for this
+purpose. On the walls over the entrance was the inscription, "Glory to
+God in the highest, on earth peace and good-will to men," in letters
+covered with box, after the model of those we had seen in our
+school-days. We surveyed our work with pleasure, mingled with anxiety
+to discover any improvement that might be made, for we knew that a
+stranger was that night to address us. The growing infirmities of the
+old rector had for a long time rendered the duties of a pastor very
+fatiguing to him, and he had announced to us the Sabbath before, that
+a young relative who had lately taken orders, would be with him on
+Christmas Eve, and assist him until his health should be improved. The
+news was unwelcome to the older members of the congregation, who had
+been so long accustomed to hear instruction from their aged pastor
+that the thought of seeing another stand in his place was fraught with
+pain to them. He had been truly their friend, sharing their joys and
+sorrows--and their hearts were linked to him as childrens' to a
+parent. At the baptismal font, the marriage altar, and the last sad
+rites of the departed, he had presided, and it seemed as if the voice
+of a stranger must strike harshly upon their ears. But to the young
+there was pleasure in the thought of change; and though they dearly
+loved the old man, the charm of novelty was thrown around their dreams
+of his successor. No one knew his name, though rumor whispered that he
+had just returned from England, where he had spent the last year. No
+wonder, then, that we looked with critic eyes upon our work, eager to
+know how it must appear to one who had traveled abroad, and lingered
+among the rich cathedrals of our fatherland. Clara alone seemed
+indifferent, and was often rallied on her want of interest in the
+young stranger, I alone read her secret, as she glanced at the gem
+which sparkled upon her finger, for I knew that her thoughts were with
+the past--and Philip Sidney.
+
+Christmas Eve arrived, as bright and beautiful as the winter nights of
+the North. A light snow covered the ground, and the Frost King had
+encrusted it with thousands of glittering diamonds. The broad expanse
+of the valley was radiant in the moonbeams, and the branches of the
+willows were glittering with frosty gems. The church was brilliantly
+lighted, and the blaze from its long windows left a bright reflection
+upon the pure surface of the snow. The merry ringing of sleigh-bells
+were heard in every direction, and numerous sleighs deposited their
+fair burden at the door. There was a general gathering of the young
+people from ours and the neighboring villages, to witness the services
+of the evening, and brighter eyes than a city assembly could boast,
+flashed in the lamp-light. The garlands were more beautiful in this
+subdued light than they had been in the glare of day, and their
+richness was like a magic spell of beauty to enthrall the senses of
+the beholder. Clara and I were seated in one of the pews directly in
+front of the altar, occasionally looking back to see the new arrivals,
+and return the greetings of friends from other villages. Suddenly the
+organ swelled in a rich peal of music, and the old pastor entered,
+followed by the youthful stranger. There was no time to scrutinize the
+features of the latter ere he knelt and concealed his face, yet there
+was something in the jetty curls that rested upon his snowy surplice,
+as his head laid within his folded hands that looked familiar, and
+Clara involuntarily grasped my hand. As he arose and opened the
+prayer-book to turn to the services of the evening, he took a
+momentary survey of the congregation. That glance was enough to tell
+us that the stranger was Philip Sidney. As his eye met Clara's, a
+crimson flush spread over his pale face, his dark eye glowed, and his
+hand trembled slightly as he turned over the leaves. It was but a
+moment ere he was calm and self-possessed again, and when he commenced
+reading the services his voice was clear and rich. The deepest silence
+pervaded the assembly, save when the responses rose from every part of
+the house. Then the organ peals, and the sweet voices of the choir
+joined in the anthems, and again all was still. The charm of eloquence
+is universally acknowledged, and the statesman, the warrior, and
+votary of science have all wielded it as a weapon of might, but we can
+never feel its irresistible power so fully as when listening to its
+richness from the pulpit. The perfect wisdom of holy writ, the majesty
+of thought, and purity of sentiment it inspires, will elevate the mind
+of the hearer above surrounding objects, and when to this power is
+added beauty of language and a musical voice, the spell is deeper.
+Such was the charm that held all in silent attention while Philip
+Sidney spoke. The scene was one which would tend to fix the mind on
+the event it was designed to commemorate, and the sweet music of his
+words might remind one of the angel's song proclaiming "Glory to God
+in the highest, on earth peace and good-will to men." Richer seemed
+its melody, and more beautiful his language, as he dwelt upon the love
+and mercy of the Redeemer's mission, and the hope of everlasting life
+it brought to the perishing. He led them back to the hour when moral
+darkness enshrouded the world, and mankind were doomed to perish under
+the frown of an offended God. There was but one ray to cheer the
+gloom, the prophetic promise of the Messiah who should come to redeem
+the world. To this they looked, and vainly dreamed that he should
+appear in regal splendor, to gather his followers and form a temporal
+kingdom. Far from this, the angel's song was breathed to simple
+shepherds, and the star in the East pointed out a stable as the lowly
+birth-place of the Son of God. He came, not to rule in splendor in the
+palaces of kings, but to bring the gospel of peace to the lowliest
+habitations, and fix his throne in the hearts of the meek and
+humble-minded. He claimed no tribute of this world's wealth as an
+offering, but the love and obedience of those whom he came to save.
+Earnestly the speaker besought his hearers to yield to their Saviour
+the adoration which was his due, and requite His all-excelling love
+with the purest and deepest affections of their hearts. Every eye was
+fixed upon the speaker, every ear intently listened to catch his
+words, and tears suffused the eyes so lately beaming with gayety. At
+the close of his eloquent appeal, there were few in that congregation
+unmoved. The closing prayers were read, the benediction pronounced,
+and the audience gradually left the house. Clara and I were the last
+to leave our seats, and as we followed the crowd that had gathered in
+the aisles before us she did not speak, but the hand that rested in
+mine trembled like a frightened bird. Suddenly a voice behind us
+whispered the name of Clara. She turned and met the gaze of Philip
+Sidney. The trusting faith of years had its reward, and those so long
+severed met again. Not wishing to intrude upon the joy of that moment,
+I left them, and followed on with the old rector. We walked on in the
+little foot-path that led to our homes; and while Clara's hand rested
+upon his arm, the young clergyman told the tale of his life since
+their parting.
+
+"But how did it come," asked Clara, "that you chose the sacred
+profession of the ministry?"
+
+"I cannot fully trace the source of the emotions that led me to become
+a worshiper at the throne of the Holiest, unless it is true that the
+love of the pure and good of earth is the first pluming of the soul's
+pinions for heaven. I went to church that Christmas eve, urged only by
+the wish to look upon your face once more, yet, when there, the words
+of the speaker won my attention. I had listened to others equally
+eloquent many times before; but that night my heart seemed more
+susceptible to religious impressions. I felt a deep sense of the folly
+and ingratitude of my past life, and firmly resolved for the future to
+live more worthily of the immortal treasure that was committed to my
+charge. Prayerfully and earnestly I studied the Word of Life, and
+resolved to devote myself to the ministry. I wrote to my worthy
+relative, the rector of Willowdale, for his advice, and found, to my
+great joy, that he was your devoted friend. He condemned my rashness
+in the avowal I had made to you, and insisted that there should be no
+communication between us until I had finished my studies. I consented,
+on condition that he should write frequently and inform me of your
+welfare. One year ago I had completed my studies, and would have
+hastended to you, but my stern Mentor insisted that I should travel
+abroad, as he said, to give me a better knowledge of human nature, and
+test the truth of my early affection. I have passed the ordeal, and
+now, after an absence of five years, returned to you unchanged in
+heart."
+
+The rest of the conversation was lost to me, as I reached my home; but
+that it was satisfactory to those engaged in it I know from the fact,
+that the next day I had the pleasure of congratulating Clara upon her
+engagement, with the full consent of her relatives. The remainder of
+the tale is quickly told. The old rector resigned his pastoral charge
+to Philip Sidney, with the full approbation of his parishioners; and
+it was arranged that the old rector and his wife should remain at the
+parsonage with the young clergyman and his bride. Deacon Lee became
+warmly attached to Philip, and felt a father's interest in the
+happiness of Clara, though he sometimes chid her playfully for keeping
+their early acquaintance a secret from him. As for Mrs. Lee, she was
+so proud of the honor of being aunt to a minister, that she almost
+forgot her dislike to prelacy. It is true she was once heard to say to
+one of her gossiping acquaintances, that she would have been better
+pleased if Clara had married a good Congregationalist minister, even
+if he had not preached quite so flowery sermons as Philip Sidney.
+
+One bright day in the month of May following was their wedding-day.
+The bride looked beautiful in her pure white dress of muslin, with a
+wreath of May-blossoms in her hair. Blessings were invoked on the
+youthful pair by all, both high and low, and sincere good wishes
+expressed for their future happiness. Here I will leave them, with the
+wish that the affection of early years may remain through life
+undimmed, and that the Christmas Garland, so linked with the history
+of their loves, may be their emblem.
+
+
+
+
+HEADS OF THE POETS.
+
+BY W. GILMORE SIMMS.
+
+I.--CHAUCER.
+
+        ----Chaucer's healthy Muse,
+    Did wisely one sweet instrument to choose--
+    The native reed; which, tutored with rare skill,
+    Brought other Muses[1] down to aid its trill!
+    A cheerful song that sometimes quaintly masked
+    The fancy, as the affections sweetly tasked;
+    And won from England's proud and _foreign_[2] court,
+    For native England's _tongue_, a sweet report--
+    And sympathy--till in due time it grew
+    A permanent voice that proved itself the true,
+    And rescued the brave language of the land,
+    From that[3] which helped to strength the invader's hand.
+    Thus, with great patriot service, making clear
+    The way to other virtues quite as dear
+    In English liberty--which could grow alone,
+    When English speech grew pleasant to be known;
+    To spell the ears of princes, and to make
+    The peasant worthy for his poet's sake.
+
+
+II.--SHAKSPEARE.
+
+        ----'T were hard to say,
+    Upon what instrument did Shakspeare play--
+    Still harder what he did not! He had all
+    The orchestra at service, and could call
+    To use, still other implements, unknown,
+    Or only valued in his hands alone!
+    The Lyre, whose burning inspiration came
+    Still darting upward, sudden as the flame;
+    The murmuring wind-harp, whose melodious sighs
+    Seem still from hopefullest heart of love to rise,
+    And gladden even while grieving; the wild strain
+    That night-winds wake from reeds that breathe in pain,
+    Though breathing still in music; and that voice,
+    Which most he did affect--whose happy choice
+    Made sweet flute-accents for humanity
+    Out of that living heart which cannot die,
+    The Catholic, born of love, that still controls
+    While man is man, the tide in human souls.
+
+
+III.--THE SAME.
+
+        ----His universal song
+    Who sung by Avon, and with purpose strong
+    Compelled a voice from native oracles,
+    That still survive their altars by their spells--
+    Guarding with might each avenue to fame,
+    Where, trophied over all, glows Shakspeare's name!
+    The mighty master-hand in his we trace,
+    If erring often, never commonplace;
+    Forever frank and cheerful, even when wo
+    Commands the tear to speak, the sigh to flow;
+    Sweet without weakness, without storming, strong,
+    Jest not o'erstrained, nor argument too long;
+    Still true to reason, though intent on sport,
+    His wit ne'er drives his wisdom out of court;
+    A brooklet now, a noble stream anon,
+    Careering in the meadows and the sun;
+    A mighty ocean next, deep, far and wide,
+    Earth, life and Heaven, all imaged in its tide!
+    Oh! when the master bends him to his art,
+    How the mind follows, how vibrates the heart;
+    The mighty grief o'ercomes us as we hear,
+    And the soul hurries, hungering, to the ear;
+    The willing nature, yielding as he sings,
+    Unfolds her secret and bestows her wings,
+    Glad of that best interpreter, whose skill
+    Brings hosts to worship at her sacred hill!
+
+[Footnote 1: The Italian.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Norman.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The French.]
+
+
+IV.--SPENSER.
+
+    It was for Spenser, by his quaint device
+    To spiritualize the passionate, and subdue
+    The wild, coarse temper of the British Muse,
+    By meet diversion from the absolute:
+    To lift the fancy, and, where still the song
+    Proclaimed a wild humanity, to sway
+    Soothingly soft, and by fantastic wiles
+    Persuade the passions to a milder clime!
+    His was the song of chivalry, and wrought
+    For like results upon society;
+    Artful in high degree, with plan obscure,
+    That mystified to lure, and, by its spells,
+    Making the heart forgetful of itself
+    To follow out and trace its labyrinths,
+    In that forgetfulness made visible!
+    Such were the uses of his Muse; to say
+    How proper and how exquisite his lay,
+    How quaintly rich his masking--with what art
+    He fashioned fairy realms and paints their queen,
+    How purely--with how delicate a skill--
+    It needs not, since his song is with us still!
+
+
+V.--MILTON.
+
+    The master of a single instrument,
+    But that the Cathedral Organ; Milton sings
+    With drooping spheres about him, and his eye
+    Fixed steadily upward, through its mortal cloud,
+    Seeing the glories of Eternity!
+    The sense of the invisible and true
+    Still present to his soul, and in his song;
+    The consciousness of duration through all time,
+    Of work in each condition, and of hopes
+    Ineffable, that well sustain through life,
+    Encouraging through danger and in death,
+    Cheering, as with a promise rich in wings!
+    A godlike voice that, through cathedral towers
+    Still rolls, prolonged in echoes, whose deep tones
+    Seem born of thunder, that subdued to music
+    Soothe when they startle most! A Prophet Bard,
+    With utt'rance equal to his mission of power,
+    And harmonies that, not unworthy heaven,
+    Might well lift earth to equal worthiness.
+
+
+VI.--BURNS AND SCOTT.
+
+        ----Not forgotten or denied,
+    Scott's trumpet-lay, and Burns's violin-song;
+    The one a call to arms, of action fond;
+    The other, still discoursing to the heart--
+    The lowly human heart--of loves and joys--
+    Such as beseem the cotter's calm fireside--
+    Cheerful and buoyant still amid a sadness--
+    Such sadness as still couples love with care!
+
+
+VII.--BYRON.
+
+        ----For Byron's home and fame,
+    It needed manhood only! Had he known
+    How sorrow should be borne, nor sunk in shame,
+    For that his destiny decreed to moan--
+    His Muse had been triumphant over Time
+    As still she is o'er Passion; still sublime--
+    Having subdued her soul's infirmity
+    To aliment; and, with herself o'ercome,
+    O'ercome the barriers of Eternity,
+    And lived through all the ages, with a sway
+    Complete, and unembarrassed by the doom
+    That makes of Nature's porcelain, common clay!
+
+
+VIII.-A GROUP.
+
+_Shelly and Wordsworth,--Tennyson, Barrett, Horne and
+Browning;--Baily and Taylor;--Campbell and Moore._
+
+        ----As one who had been brought,
+    By Fairy hands, and as a changeling left
+    In human cradle, the sad substitute
+    For a more smiling infant--Shelly sings
+    Vague minstrelsies that speak a foreign birth,
+    Among erratic tribes; yet not in vain
+    His moral, and the fancies in his flight
+    Not without profit for another race!
+    He left his spirit with his voice--a voice
+    Solely spiritual, which will long suffice
+    To wing the otherwise earthy of the time,
+    And, with the subtler leaven of the soul,
+    Inform the impetuous passions!
+
+            With him came
+    Antagonist, yet still with sympathy,
+    Wordsworth, the Bard of the contemplative,
+    A voice of purest thought in sweetest music!
+    --These, in themselves unlike, together linked,
+    Appear in unison in after days,
+    Making progressive still, the mental births,
+    That pass successively through rings of time,
+    Each to a several conquest; most unlike
+    That of its sire, yet borrowing of its strength,
+    Where needful, and endowing it with new,
+    To meet the new necessity which still
+    Haunts the free progress of each conquering race.
+    --Thus, Tennyson and Barrett, Browning, Horne,
+    Blend their opposing faculties, and speak
+    For that fresh nature, which in daily things
+    Beholds the immortal, and from common forms
+    Extorts the Eternal still! So Baily sings
+    In Festus; so, upon a humbler rank,
+    Testing the worth of social policies,
+    As working through a single human will,
+    The Muse of Taylor argues--Artevelde,
+    Being the man who marks a popular growth,
+    And notes the transit of a thought through time,
+    Growing as still it speeds.....
+
+             Exquisite
+    The ballads of Campbell, and the lays of Moore,
+    Appealing to our tastes, our gentler moods,
+    The play of the affections, or the thoughts
+    That come with national pride; and as we pause
+    In our own march, delight the sentiment!
+    But nothing they make for progress. They perfect
+    The language, and diversify its powers--
+    Please and beguile, and, for the forms of art,
+    Prove what they are, and may be. But they lift
+    None of our standards; help us not in growth;
+    Compel no prosecution of our search,
+    And leave us, where they found us--with the time!
+
+
+
+
+HOPE ON--HOPE EVER.
+
+BY H. CURTISS HINE, U. S. N.
+
+
+    Poor stricken one! whose toil can gain,
+      And barely gain, the coarsest fare,
+    From bitter thoughts and words refrain;
+      Yield not to dark despair!
+    The blackest night that e'er was born
+    Was followed by a radiant morn;
+    Heed not the world's unfeeling scorn,
+    Nor think life's brittle thread to sever;
+    Hope on--hope ever!
+
+    Hope, though your sun is hid in gloom,
+      And o'er your care-worn, wrinkled brow,
+    Grief spreads his shadow--'tis the doom
+      That falls on many now.
+    Grim Poverty, with icy hand,
+    May bind to earth with ruthless band
+    Bright gifted ones throughout the land;
+    But struggle still that band to sever--
+    Hope on--hope ever!
+
+    Sit not and pine that FORTUNE led
+      Another on to grasp her wreath;
+    The same blue sky is o'er thy head,
+      The same green earth beneath,
+    The same bright angel-eyes look down,
+    Each night upon the humblest clown,
+    That sees the king with jeweled crown;
+    Of these, stern fate can rob thee never--
+    Hope on--hope ever!
+
+    What though the proud should pass thee by,
+      And curl their haughty lips with scorn;
+    Like thee, they soon must droop and die,
+      For all of woman born,
+    Are journeying to a shadowy land,
+    Where each devoid of pride must stand,
+    By hovering wings of angels' fanned;
+    There sorrow can assail thee never--
+    Hope on--hope ever!
+
+    Then plod along with tearless eye,
+      Poor son of toil! and ne'er repine,
+    The road through barren wastes may lie,
+      And thorns, as oft hath mine;
+    But there was ONE who came to earth,
+    Star-heralded at hour of birth,
+    Humble, obscure, unknown his worth,
+    Whose path was thornier far. Weep never!
+    Hope on--hope ever!
+
+
+
+
+MEXICAN JEALOUSY.
+
+A SKETCH OF THE LATE CAMPAIGN.
+
+BY ECOTIER.
+
+
+On the 15th of September, two days after the storming of Chapultepec,
+a small party of soldiers, in dark uniforms, were seen to issue from
+the great gate of that castle, and, winding down the Calzada, turn
+towards the City of Mexico. This occurred at 10 o'clock in the
+morning. The day was very hot, and the sun, glancing vertically upon
+the flinty rocks that paved the causeway, rendered the heat more
+oppressive.
+
+At the foot of the hill the party halted, taking advantage of the
+shade of a huge cypress tree, to set down a litera, which four men
+carried upon their shoulders. This they deposited under one of the
+arches of the aqueduct in order the better to protect its occupant
+from the hot rays of the sun.
+
+The occupant of the litera was a wounded man, and the pale and
+bloodless cheek, and fevered eye showed that his wound was not a
+slight one. There was nothing around to denote his rank, but the camp
+cloak, of dark blue, and the crimson sash, which lay upon the litera,
+showed that the wounded man was an officer. The sash had evidently
+been saturated with blood, which was now dried upon it, leaving parts
+of it shriveled like, and of a darker shade of crimson. It had
+staunched the life-blood of its wearer upon the 13th. The soldiers
+stood around the litter, their bronzed faces turned upon its occupant,
+apparently attentive to his requests. There was something in the
+gentle care with which these rude men seemed to wait upon the young
+officer, that bespoke the existence of a stronger feeling than mere
+humanity. There was that admiration which the brave soldiers feel for
+him who has led them in the field of battle, _at their head_. That
+small group were among the first who braved the frowning muzzles of
+the cannon upon the parapets of Chapultepec. The wounded officer had
+led them to those parapets.
+
+The scene around exhibited the usual indications of a recent field of
+battle. There were batteries near, with dismounted cannon, broken
+carriages, fragments of shells, dead horses, whose riders lay by them,
+dead too, and still unburied. Parties were strolling about, busied
+with this sad duty, but heaps of mangled carcases still lay above
+ground, exhibiting the swollen limbs and distorted features of
+decomposition. The atmosphere was heavy with the disagreeable odor,
+and the wounded man, turning upon his pillow, gently commanded the
+escort to proceed. Four stout soldiers again took up the litera, and
+the party moved slowly along the aqueduct, toward the Garita Belen.
+The little escort halted at intervals for rest and to change bearers.
+The fine trees that line the great aqueduct on the Tacubaya road,
+though much torn and mangled by the cannonade of the 13th, afforded a
+fine shelter from the hot sun-beams. In two hours after leaving
+Chapultepec, the escort entered the Garita Belen, passed up the Paseo
+Nuevo, and halted in front of the Alameda.
+
+Any one who has visited the City of Mexico will recollect, that
+opposite the Alameda, on its southern front, is a row of fine houses,
+which continue on to the Calle San Francisco, and thence to the Great
+Plaza, forming the Calles Correo, Plateros, &c. These streets are
+inhabited principally by foreigners, particularly that of Plateros,
+which is filled with Frenchmen. To prevent their houses from being
+entered by the American soldiery upon the 14th, the windows were
+filled with national flags, indicating to what nation the respective
+owners of the houses belonged. There were Belgians, French, English,
+Prussians, Spanish, Danes, and Austrians--in fact, every kind of flag.
+Mexican flags alone were not to be seen. Where these should have been,
+at times, the white flag--the banner of peace--hung through the iron
+railings, or from the balcony. In front of a house that bore this
+simple ensign, the escort, with the litera, had accidentally stopped.
+
+The eye of the wounded officer rested mechanically upon the little
+flag over his head, when his attention was arrested by noticing that
+this consisted of a small, white lace handkerchief, handsomely
+embroidered upon the corners, and evidently such as belonged to some
+fair being. Though suffering from the agony of his wound, there was
+something so attractive in this discovery, that the eyes of the
+invalid were immediately turned upon the window, or rather grating,
+from which the flag was suspended, and his countenance changed at
+once, from the listless apathy of pain to an expression of eager
+interest. A young girl was in the window, leaning her forehead against
+the _reja_, or grating, and looking down with more of painful interest
+than curiosity upon the pale face beneath her. It was the window of
+the _entresol_, slightly raised above the street, and the young girl
+herself was evidently of that class known to the aristocracy of Mexico
+as the "leperos." She was tastefully dressed, however, in the
+picturesque costume of her class and country, and her beautiful black
+hair, her dark Indian eye, the half olive, half carmine tinge upon her
+soft cheek, formed a countenance at once strange, and strikingly
+beautiful. Her neck, bosom, and shoulders, seen over the window-stone,
+were of that form which strikes you as possessing more of the oval
+than the rotund, in short the model of the perfect woman.
+
+On seeing the gaze of the wounded man so intently fixed upon her, the
+young girl blushed, and drew back. The officer felt disappointed and
+sorry, as one feels when the light, or a beautiful object is suddenly
+removed from his sight; still, however, keeping his eyes intently
+fixed upon the window, as though unable to unrivet his gaze. This
+continued for some moments, when a beautiful arm was plunged through
+the iron grating, holding in the most delicate little fingers a glass
+of pi[~n]al.
+
+A soldier stepped up, and taking the proffered glass, held it to the
+lips of the wounded officer, who gladly drank of the cool and
+refreshing beverage, without being able to thank the fair donor, who
+had withdrawn her hand at parting with the glass. The glass was held
+up to the window, but the hand that clutched it was coarse and large,
+and evidently that of a man. A muttered curse, too, in the Spanish
+language, was heard to proceed from within. This was heard but
+indistinctly. The invalid gazed at the window for some minutes,
+expecting the return of the beautiful apparition, then as if he had
+given up all hope, he called out a "gracias-adios!" and ordered the
+escort to move on. The soldiers, once more shouldering the litera,
+passed up the Calle Correo, and entered the Hotel Compagnon, in the
+street of Espiritu Santo.
+
+For two months the invalid was confined to his chamber, but often,
+during that time, both waking and dreaming, the face of the beautiful
+Mexican girl would flit across his fevered fancy. At the end of this
+time his surgeon gave him permission to ride out in an easy carriage.
+He was driven to the Alameda, where he ordered the carriage to halt
+under the shade of its beautiful trees, and directly in front of the
+spot where he had rested on entering the city. He recognized the
+little window. The white flag was not now there, and he could see
+nothing of the inmates. He remained a considerable time seated in the
+carriage, gazing upon the house, but no face appeared at the cold iron
+grating, no smile to cheer his vigil. Tired and disappointed, he
+ordered his carriage to be driven back to the hotel.
+
+Next day he repeated the manoeuvre, and the next, and the next, with a
+like success. Probably he had not chosen the proper time of day. It
+was certainly not the hour when the lovely faces of the Mexican women
+appear in their balconies. This reflection induced him to change the
+hour, and, upon the day following, he ordered his carriage in the
+evening. Just before twilight, it drew up as usual under the tall
+trees of the Alameda. Imagine the delight of the young officer, at
+seeing the face of the beautiful Mexican through the gratings of the
+_reja_.
+
+The stir made by the stopping of the carriage had attracted her. The
+uniform of its inmate was the next object of her attention, but when
+her eyes fell upon the face of the wearer, a strange expression came
+over her countenance, as if she were struggling with some indistinct
+recollections, and all at once that beautiful countenance was suffused
+with a smile of joy. She had recognized the officer. The latter, who
+had been an anxious observer of every change of expression, smiled in
+return, and bowed an acknowledgment, then turning to his servant, who
+was a Mexican, he told him, in Spanish, to approach the window, and
+offer his thanks to the young lady for her act of kindness upon the
+15th of September.
+
+The servant delivered the message, and shortly afterward the carriage
+drove off. For several evenings the same carriage might be seen
+standing under the trees of the Alameda. An interesting acquaintance
+had been established between the young officer and the Mexican girl.
+About a week afterward, and the carriage appeared no more. The invalid
+had been restored to perfect strength.
+
+December came, and upon the 15th of this month, about half an hour
+before twilight, an American officer, wrapped in a light Mexican
+cloak, passed down the Calle San Francisco, and crossed into the
+Alameda. Here he stopped, leaning against a tree, as though observing
+the various groups of citizens, who passed in their picturesque
+dresses. His eye, however, was occasionally turned upon the houses
+upon the opposite side of the street, and with a glance of stealthy,
+but eager inquiry. At length the well-known form of the beautiful
+"lepera" appeared at the window, who, holding up her hand, adroitly
+signaled the officer with her taper, fan-like fingers. The signal was
+answered. She had scarcely withdrawn her hand inside the reja when a
+dark, scowling face made its appearance at her side, her hand was
+rudely seized, and with a scream she disappeared. The young officer
+fancied he saw the bright gleaming of a stiletto within the gloomy
+grating.
+
+He rushed across the street, and in a moment stood beneath the window.
+Grasping the strong iron bars, he lifted himself up so as to command a
+view of the inside, which was now in perfect silence. His horror may
+be imagined when, on looking into the room, he saw the young girl
+stretched upon the floor, and, to all appearances, dead. A stream of
+blood was running from beneath her clothes, and her dress was stained
+with blood over the waist and bosom. With frantic energy the young man
+clung to the bars, and endeavored to wrench them apart. It was to no
+purpose, and letting go his hold, he dropped into the street. The
+large gate of the house was open. Into this he rushed, and reached the
+_patio_ just in time to catch a glimpse of a figure escaping along the
+azotea. He rushed up the steep stone stairway, and grasping the
+parapet, raised himself on the roof. The fugitive had run along a
+series of platforms of different heights, composed by the azoteas of
+houses, and had reached a low roof, from which he was about to leap
+into an adjoining street, where he would, in all probability, have
+made good his escape. He stood upon the edge of the parapet,
+calculating his leap, which was still a fearful plunge. It was not
+left to his choice whether to take or refuse it. A pistol flashed
+behind him, and almost simultaneously with the report he fell forward
+upon his head, and lay upon the pavement below, a bruised and bleeding
+corpse. His pursuer approached the parapet, and looked over into the
+street, as if to assure himself that his aim had been true, then
+turned with a fearful foreboding, and retraced his way over the
+azoteas. His fears, alas! were but too just. She was dead.
+
+
+
+
+TO GUADALUPE.
+
+BY MAYNE REID.
+
+
+      Adieu! oh, in the heart's recess how wildly
+    Echo those painful accents of despair--
+      And spite our promise given to bear it mildly;
+    We little knew how hard it was to bear
+      A destiny so dark: how hard to sever
+    Hearts linked as ours, hands joined as now I grasp thee
+      In trembling touch: oh! e'er we part forever,
+    Once more unto my heart love's victim let me clasp thee!
+
+      It is my love's last echo--lone and lonely
+    My heart goes forth to seek another shrine,
+      Where it may worship pronely, deeming only
+    Such images as thee to be divine--
+      It is the echo of the last link breaking,
+    For still that link held out while lingering near thee--
+      A secret joy although with heart-strings aching
+    To breathe the air you breathed--to see, to hear thee.
+
+      And this link now must break--our paths obliquing
+    May never meet again--oh! say not never--
+      For while thus speaking, still my soul is seeking
+    Some hope our parting may not be forever--
+      And like the drowning straggler on the billow,
+    Or he that eager watches for the day,
+      With throbbing brain upon a sleepless pillow--
+    'Tis catching at the faintest feeblest ray.
+
+      Now faint and fainter growing, from thee going,
+    Seems every hope more vague and undefined--
+      Oh! as the fiend might suffer when bestowing
+    A last look on the heaven he left behind:
+      Or as earth's first-born children when they parted
+    Slowly, despairingly, from Eden's bowers,
+      Looked back with many a sigh--though broken-hearted,
+    Less hopeless was their future still than ours.
+
+      If we have loved--if in our hearts too blindly
+    We have enthroned that element divine--
+      In this, at least, hath fate dealt with us kindly;
+    Our mutual images have found a shrine--
+      An altar for our mutual sacrifice:
+    And spite this destiny that bids us sever,
+      Within our hearts that fire never dies--
+    In mine, at least, 'twill burn and worship on forever.
+
+      Thee not upbraiding--thou has not deceived me--
+    For from the first I knew _thy compromise_--
+      No, Guadalupe--this hath never grieved me--
+    I won thy love--so spoke thy lips and eyes:--
+      The consolation of this proud possessing
+    Should almost change my sorrow into bliss:
+     I have thy heart--enough for me of blessing--
+    Another may take all since I am lord of this.
+
+      Why we have torn our hearts and hands asunder--
+    Why we have given o'er those sweet caresses--
+      The world without will coldly guess and wonder--
+    Let them guess on, what care we for their guesses!
+      The secret shall be ours, as ours the pain--
+    A secret still unheeding friendship's pleading:
+      What though th' unfeeling world suspect a stain,
+    But little fears the world a heart with anguish bleeding.
+
+      'Tis better we should never meet again--
+    Our love's renewing were but thy undoing:
+      When I am gone, time will subdue thy pain,
+    And thou wilt yield thee to another's wooing--
+      For me, I go to seek a name in story--
+    To find a future brighter than the past--
+      Yet 'midst my highest, wildest dreams of glory,
+    Sweet thoughts of thee will mingle to the last.
+
+      And though this widowed heart may love another--
+    For living without love, it soon would die--
+      There will be moments when it cannot smother
+    Thy sweet remembrance with a passing sigh.
+      Amidst the ashes of its dying embers
+    For thee there will be found one deathless thought;
+      Yes, dearest lady! while this heart remembers,
+    Believe me, thou shall never be forgot.
+
+    Once more farewell! Oh it is hard to yield thee,
+      To lose for life, forever, thing so fair!
+    How bright a destiny it were to shield thee--
+      Yet since I am denied the husband's care,
+    This grief within my breast here do I smother--
+      Forego _thy_ painful sacrifice to prove,
+    That I have been, what never can another,
+      The hero of thy heart, my own sweet victim love.
+
+
+
+
+THE FADED ROSE.
+
+BY G. G. FOSTER.
+
+
+    Torn from its stem to bloom awhile
+      Upon thy breast, the dazzling flower
+    Imbibed new radiance from thy smile--
+      But, ah! it faded in an hour.
+    So thou, from peaceful home betrayed,
+      In beaming beauty floated by;
+    But ere thy summer had decayed,
+      We saw thee languish, faint and die.
+
+      _Extempore. On a Broken Harp-string._
+    Too rude the touch--the broken cord
+    No more may utter music-word,
+    Yet lives each tone within the air,
+    Its trembling sighs awakened there.
+    So in my heart the song I sung,
+    When thou in rapture o'er me hung,
+    Still lives--yet thine is not the spell
+    To lure the music from its shell.
+
+
+
+
+THE CHILD'S APPEAL.
+
+AN INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
+
+BY MRS. MARY G. HORSFORD.
+
+
+    Day dawned above a city's mart,
+      But not 'mid peace and prayer;
+    The shouts of frenzied multitudes
+      Were on the thrilling air.
+
+    A guiltless man to death was led,
+      Through crowded streets and wide,
+    And a fairy child, with waving curls,
+      Was clinging to his side.
+
+    The father's brow with pride was calm,
+      But trusting and serene,
+    The child's was like the Holy One's
+      In Raphael's paintings seen.
+
+    She shrank not from the heartless throng,
+      Nor from the scaffold high;
+    But now and then with beaming smile
+      Addressed her parent's eye.
+
+    Athwart the golden flood of morn
+      Was poised the wing of Death,
+    As 'neath the fearful guillotine
+      The doomed one drew his breath.
+
+    Then all of fiercest agony
+      The human heart can bear
+    Was suffered in the brief caress,
+      The wild, half-uttered prayer.
+
+    But she, the child, beseechingly
+      Upraised her eyes of blue,
+    And whispered, while her cheek grew pale,
+      "I am to go with you?"
+
+    The murmur of impatient fiends
+      Rung in her infant ear,
+    And purpose strong woke in her heart,
+      And spoke in accent clear;
+
+    "They tore my mother from our side
+      In the dark prison's cell,
+    Her eyes were filled with tears--she had
+      No time to say farewell.
+
+    "And you were all that loved me then,
+      But you are pale with care,
+    And every night a silver thread
+      Has mingled with your hair.
+
+    "My mother used to tell me of
+      A better land afar,
+    I've seen it through the prison bars
+      Where burns the evening star.
+
+    "Oh! let us find a new home there,
+      I will be brave and true,
+    You cannot leave me here alone,
+      Oh! let me die with you."
+
+    The gentle tones were drowned by shrill
+      And long protracted cries;
+    The father on his darling gazed,
+      The child looked on the skies.
+
+    Anon, far up the cloudless blue,
+      Unseen by mortal eye,
+    God's angels with two spirits passed
+      To purer realms on high.
+
+    The one was touched with earthly hues
+      And dim with earthly care,
+    The other, as a lily's cup
+      Unutterably fair.
+
+
+
+
+THE OLD FARM-HOUSE.
+
+BY MARY L. LAWSON.
+
+
+    I love these gray and moss-grown walls,
+      This ivied porch, and trelliced vine,
+    The lattice with its narrow pane,
+      A relic of the olden time;
+    The willow with its waving leaves,
+      Through which the low winds murmuring glide,
+    The gurgling ripple of the stream
+      That whispers softly at its side.
+
+    The spring-house in its shady nook,
+      Like lady's bower shadowed o'er--
+    With clustering trees--and creeping plants
+      That cling around the rustic door,
+    The rough hewn steps that lend their aid
+      To reach the shady cool recess,
+    Where humble duty spreads a scene
+      That hourly comfort learns to bless.
+
+    Upland the meadows lie around,
+      Fair smiling in the suns last beam;
+    Beneath yon solitary tree
+      The lazy cattle idly dream;
+    Afar the reaper's stroke descends,
+      While faintly on the listening ear
+    The teamster's careless whistle floats,
+      Or distant song or call I hear.
+
+    And leaning on a broken stile,
+    With woods behind and fields before,
+    I watch the bee who homeward wends
+    With laden wing--his labors o'er;
+    The happy birds are warbling round,
+    Or nestle in the rustling trees--
+    'Mid which the blue sky glimmers down,
+    When parted by the passing breeze.
+
+    And slowly winding up the road
+      The wane has reached the old barn-floor,
+    Where plenty's hand has firmly heaped
+      The golden grain in richest store.
+    This 'mid the dream-land of my thoughts
+      With smiling lip I own is real,
+    Yet fancy's fairest visions blend
+      With all I see, and all I feel.
+
+    Then tell me not of worldly pride
+      And wild ambition's hopes of fame,
+    Or brilliant halls of wealth and pride,
+      Where genius sighs to win a name;
+    Give _me_ this farm-house quaint and old,
+     These fields of grain, the birds and flowers,
+    With calm contentment, peace and health,
+      And memories of my earlier hours.
+
+
+
+
+"'TIS HOME WHERE THE HEART IS."
+
+_WORDS BY MISS L. M. BROWN_.
+
+MUSIC COMPOSED BY KARL W. PETERSILIE,
+
+_Professor of Music at the Edgeworth Seminary, N. C._
+
+Presented by George Willig, No. 171 Chesnut Street, Philad'a.
+[Copyright secured.]
+
+_Expressivo_
+
+[Illustration: music]
+
+
+I've wander'd in climes, where the wild chamois
+
+_Con spirito_.
+
+strays, Have gain'd the wild height, Where the fierce
+lightning plays, Seen glory and
+
+_crescendo_
+
+greatness in power and might, And honor and splendor
+sink in darkness of night, I've sought 'mid the crowd,
+pure pleasure, but pain, As the
+
+_dolce_.
+
+_Con Anima._
+
+bee, that sips sweets, the poison too drained;
+Ah! 'twas all delusive, for sorrows would come,
+Oh, 'tis home where the heart is, where the heart is 'tis home.
+
+SECOND VERSE.
+
+    I've courted the breath of a balm southern clime,
+    Where sweetest of flow'rs, soft tendrils entwine;
+    Have listed the song bird's notes borne on the air,
+    That wakens and wafts the rich odors elsewhere;
+    As tones on the ear so the dream of the past,
+    Softly plays round the heart-green isle of the waste;
+    Yes! 'twas all a life-dream, and still 'tis not gone,
+    Oh, 'tis home where the heart is, where the heart is 'tis home.
+
+THIRD VERSE.
+
+    I've cross'd the blue sea, I've sought out a home
+    In the land of the free, freedom beckon'd me come;
+    And friends of the stranger have sooth'd the sad heart,
+    With kindness and sympathy, sweet balm for the smart;
+    The light of the soul, doth play round it still,
+    Like the perfume the urn, in which roses distil;
+    Thoughts of affection forbid me to roam,
+    Oh, 'tis home where the heart is, where the heart is 'tis home.
+
+
+
+
+REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.
+
+     _Hawkstone: A Tale of and for England in 184-. New
+     York: Standford & Swords. 2 vols. 12mo._
+
+We were attracted to this novel by seeing the words "fifth edition" on
+its title page. After reading it, it is easy to account for its
+popularity. It is at once a most exciting romance and a defence of an
+unpopular religious body. The author (said to be Professor Sewall,)
+belongs to the Oxford School of Episcopalians, or to adopt his own
+view of the matter, to the one Catholic church. The object of the
+novel is to present the ideas of Church and State held by that class
+of religionists who are vulgarly called Puseyites. This is done partly
+in the representation of character and narration of incident, which
+constitute the romance of the book, and partly by long theological
+conversations which occur between a few of the characters. The
+interest of the work never flags, and it is among the few religious
+novels which are not positive bores to all classes of readers. In
+respect to its theology, it gives the most distinct view of the
+doctrines of the High Church party of Oxford which we have seen. The
+author is as decisive and bitter in his condemnation of Romanism as of
+dissent. He considers that the peculiar doctrines and claims which
+distinguish the Roman Catholic church from the Church of England are
+_novelties_, unknown to the true church of the apostles and the
+fathers. He has no mercy for the Romanists, and but little for the
+young men of his own school who favor the Papacy. Those who are
+accustomed to associate Puseyism with a set of sentimentalists, who
+mourn the Reformation, wish for the return of the good old times of
+the feudal ages, and give Rome their hearts and Canterbury only their
+pockets, will find that such doctrines and practices find no favor in
+the present volumes. The greatest rascal in the novel is a piece of
+incarnate malignity named Pearce--a Jesuit, whom the author represents
+as carrying out the principles of Romanism to their logical results in
+practice.
+
+But if the reader will find his common notions of Puseyism
+revolutionized by the present novel, he will be a little startled at
+its real doctrines and intentions. The author has the most supreme and
+avowed contempt for liberal ideas in Church and State; and for every
+good-natured axiom about toleration and representative government he
+spurns from his path as a novelty and paradox. There is nothing
+dominant in England which he does not oppose. The Whig party he deems
+the avowed enemies of loyalty, order and religion. The Conservatives,
+with Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington at their head, he
+conceives destitute of principle, and the destroyers of the British
+empire. There is not a concession made to liberal ideas within the
+present century which he does not think wicked and foolish. The
+manufacturing system and free trade, indeed the whole doctrines of the
+political economists in the lump, he looks upon alternately with
+horror and disdain. He seems to consider the State and Church as an
+organized body for the education of the people, whose duty is
+obedience, arid who have no right to think for themselves in religion
+or politics, for they would be pretty sure to think wrong. All
+benevolent societies, in which persons of different religious views
+combine for a common object, he considers as productive of evil, and
+as an assumption of powers rightly belonging to the church. Indeed, in
+his system, it is wrong for any popular association to presume to
+meddle with ignorance and crime, unless they do it under the sanction
+and control of the church. He considers it the duty of a church
+minister to excommunicate every man in his parish who is _guilty_ of
+schism--that is, who has the wickedness to be a papist or dissenter.
+But it is useless to proceed in the enumeration of our author's
+dogmatisms. If the reader desires to know them, let him conceive the
+exact opposite of every liberal principle in politics, political
+economy and theology, which at present obtains in the world, and he
+will have the system of "Hawkstone."
+
+A good deal of the zest of the novel comes from the throng of
+paradoxes in which the author wantons. He has a complete system of
+thought to kill out all the mind of the English people, and render
+them the mere slaves of a hierarchy, and all for the most benevolent
+of purposes. In his theory he overlooks the peculiar constitution and
+character of the English people, and also all the monstrous abuses to
+which his system would inevitably lead, in his desire to see a
+practical establishment of the most obnoxious and high-toned claims of
+his church. He is evidently half way between an idealist and a
+sentimentalist, with hardly an atom of practical sagacity or knowledge
+of affairs. The cool dogmatism with which he condemns the great
+statesmen of his country, is particularly offensive as coming from a
+man utterly ignorant of the difficulties which a statesman has to
+encounter. It is curious also to see how extremes meet; this theory of
+absoluteism "fraternizes" with that of socialism. A person reading, in
+the second volume, the account of Villiers' dealings with his
+tenantry, and his new regulations regarding manufactures, would almost
+think that Louis Blanc had graduated at Oxford, and left out in his
+French schemes the agency of the church, from a regard to the
+prejudices of his countrymen.
+
+With all its peculiarities and heresies, however, the novel will well
+reward the attention of readers of all classes. It is exceedingly well
+written, and contains many scenes of uncommon power, pathos and
+beauty. With these advantages it may also claim the honor of being the
+most inimitable specimen of theological impudence and pretension which
+the present age has witnessed.
+
+
+     _The Planetary and Stellar Worlds: A Popular Exposition
+     of the Great Discoveries and Theories of Modern
+     Astronomy. In a Series of Ten Lectures. By O. M.
+     Mitchell, A. M. New York: Baker & Scribner. 1 vol.
+     12mo._
+
+Mr. Mitchell is not only an accomplished astronomer, in every respect
+qualified to be the interpreter of the mysteries of his science to the
+popular mind, but, if we may judge from the style of his book, is a
+fine, frank, warm-hearted, enthusiastic man. On every page he gives
+evidence of really loving his pursuit. By a certain sensitiveness of
+imagination, and quickness of sensibility, every thing he contemplates
+becomes alive in his mind, and an object in which he takes a personal
+interest. This gives wonderful distinctness to his exposition of
+natural laws, and his delineation of the characters and pursuits of
+men of science. His Copernicus, Kepler, Gallileo and Newton are not
+dry enumerations of qualities, but vivid portraits of persons. He
+seems in close intellectual fellowship with them as individuals, and
+converses of them in the style of a friend, whose accurate knowledge
+is equalled by his intense affection. So it is with his detail of the
+discovery of a new law, or fact in science. His mind "lives along the
+line" of observation and reasoning which ended in its detection, and
+he reproduces the hopes, fears, doubts, and high enthusiasm of every
+person connected with the discovery. His delineation of Kepler is
+especially genial and striking. By following this method he infuses
+his own enthusiasm into the reader, bears him willingly along through
+the most abstruse processes of science, and at the end leaves him
+without fatigue, and ready for a new start.
+
+In the treatment of scientific discoveries, by minds like Mr.
+Mitchell's, we ever notice an unconscious personification of Nature,
+as a cunning holder of secrets which only the master-mind can wrest
+from her after a patient siege. The style of our author glows in the
+recital of the exploits of his band of astronomers, as that of a
+Frenchman does in the narration of Napoleon's campaigns. This is the
+great charm of his book, and will make it extensively popular, for by
+it he can attract any reader capable of being interested in a tale of
+personal adventure, ending in a great achievement. We can hardly bring
+to mind a popular lecturer or writer on science, who has this power to
+the extent which Mr. Mitchell possesses it. He himself has it by
+virtue of the mingled simplicity and intensity of his nature.
+
+One of the most striking lectures in Mr. Mitchell's volume is that on
+the discoveries of the primitive ages, in which he represents the
+processes of the primitive observer, with his unarmed eye, in
+unfolding some of the laws of the heavens; and he indicates with great
+beauty what would be his point of departure, and what would be the
+limit of his discoveries. This lecture is a fine prose poem. There is
+a passage in the introductory lecture which grandly represents the
+continual watch which man keeps on the heavens, and the slow, silent
+and sure acquisitions of new truths, from age to age. "The sentinel on
+the watchtower is relieved from duty, but another takes his place, and
+the vigil is unbroken. No--the astronomer never dies. He commences his
+investigations on the hill-tops of Eden--he studies the stars through
+the long centuries of antedeluvian life. The deluge sweeps from the
+earth its inhabitants, their cities and their mountains--but when the
+storm is hushed, and the heavens shine forth in beauty, from the
+summit of Mount Arrarat the astronomer resumes his endless vigils. In
+Babylon he keeps his watch, and among the Egyptian priests he inspires
+a thirst for the sacred mysteries of the stars. The plains of
+Shinar--the temples of India--the pyramids of Egypt, are equally his
+watching places. When science fled to Greece, his home was in the
+schools of her philosophers: and when darkness covered the earth for a
+thousand years, he pursues his never-ending task from amidst the
+burning deserts of Arabia. When science dawned on Europe, the
+astronomer was there--toiling with Copernicus--watching with
+Tycho--suffering with Gallileo--triumphing with Kepler."
+
+We trust that this volume will have an extensive circulation. It will
+not only convey a great deal of knowledge to the general reader, but
+will also inspire a love for the science of which it treats.
+
+
+     _Harold, the last of the Saxon Kings. By Sir Edward
+     Bulwer Lytton, Bart. New York: Harper & Brothers._
+
+This is Bulwer's most successful attempt at writing an historical
+novel, but with all its merits, it is still rather an attempt than a
+performance. Considered as a history of the Norman invasion, it
+contains many more facts than can be found in Thierry, at least in
+that portion of his work devoted to Harold and William. Bulwer seems
+to have obtained his knowledge at the original sources, and the novel
+is certainly creditable to his scholarship. But he has not managed
+his materials in an imaginative way, and fact and fiction are tied
+rather than fused together. The consequence is that the work is not
+homogeneous. At times it appears like history, but after the mind of
+the reader has settled down to a historical mood, the impression is
+broken by a violent intrusion of fable, or an introduction of modern
+sentiment and thought. It has therefore neither the interest of
+Thierry's exquisite narrative of the same events, nor the interest
+which might have been derived from a complete amalgamation of the
+materials into a consistent work of imagination. Considered also as a
+reproduction of ancient men and manners it is strikingly defective.
+With many fine strokes of the pencil, where the author confines
+himself to the literal fact, his portraits, as a whole, are
+overcharged with _Bulwerism_. His imagination is not a mirror. It can
+reflect nothing without vitiating it. He does not possess the power of
+passing a character through his mind and preserving its individuality.
+It goes in as Harold, or Duke William, or Lafranc, but it comes out as
+Sir E. Bulwer Lytton, Bart.
+
+The novel contains much of that seductive sentiment, half romantic,
+half misanthropic, which is the characteristic of Bulwer's works, and
+it is expressed with his usual beauty and brilliancy of style. Here
+and there we perceive allusions to his own domestic affairs, which
+none but Lady Bulwer can fully appreciate. Every reader of the novel
+must be struck with its attempt at the moral tone. Edith, the heroine,
+is the bride of Harold's soul, and Platonism appears in all its
+splendor of self-denial and noble sentiments in a Saxon thane and his
+maiden. History pronounces this lady to be his mistress, and it
+certainly is a great stretch of the reader's charity to be compelled
+to view her in the capacity of saint. Not only, however, in the loves
+of Harold and Edith, but all over the novel, there is a constant
+intrusion of ethical reflections, which will doubtless much edify all
+young ladies of a tender age. These would be well enough if they
+appeared to have any base in solid moral principle, but they are
+somewhat offensive as the mere sentimentality of conscience and
+religion, introduced for the purposes of fine writing. Suspicion,
+also, always attaches to the morality which exhibits itself on
+rhetorical stilts, and the refinement which is always proclaiming
+itself refined. Since the time of Joseph Surface there has been a
+great decline in the market price of noble sentiments.
+
+
+     _The History of England, from the Invasion of Julius
+     Cæsar to the Reign of Victoria. By Mrs. Markham. A New
+     Edition. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 12mo._
+
+This is a new and revised edition of a work which has long been used
+in the education of boys and girls. Its information is, of course,
+milk for babes. We think that books of this class should be prepared
+by persons very different from Mrs. Markham. She, good lady, was the
+wife of an English clergyman by the name of Penrose, and she wrote
+English history as such a person might be supposed to write it. With
+every intention to be honest, her book has many facts and opinions
+which boys and girls will have to take more time to unlearn than they
+spent in learning, unless they intend to be children their whole
+lives.
+
+There is, however, a story in the volume regarding the Duke of
+Marlborough, which we think few of our readers have seen. The duke's
+command of his temper was almost miraculous. Once, at a council of
+war, Prince Eugene advised that an attack on the enemy should be made
+the next day. As his advice was plainly judicious, he was much
+exasperated at the refusal of the duke's consent, and immediately
+called him a coward and challenged him. Marlborough cooly declined
+the challenge, and the enraged prince left the council. Early the
+following morning he was awoke by the duke, who desired him instantly
+to rise, as he was preparing to make the attack, and added, "I could
+not tell you of my determination last night, because there was a
+person present who I knew was in the enemy's interest, and would
+betray us. I have no doubt we shall conquer, and when the battle is
+over I will be ready to accept your challenge." The prince, seeing the
+superior sagacity of Marlborough, and ashamed of his own intemperance,
+overwhelmed the duke with apologies, and the friendship of the two
+generals was more strongly cemented than ever. The anecdote is of
+doubtful origin, but it is an admirable illustration both of the
+character of Marlborough and Eugene.
+
+
+     _Letters from Italy: and The Alps and the Rhine. By J.
+     T. Headley. New and Revised Edition. New York: Baker &
+     Scribner. 1 vol. 12mo._
+
+We believe that these were Mr. Headley's first productions, and were
+originally published in Wiley & Putnam's Library. The present edition
+has a preface, devoted to the consideration of the new aspect Italy
+has assumed since the book was written, and a very judicious
+flagellation is given to that arch traitor and renegade, Charles
+Albert, King of Sardinia, whom events have transformed from a
+trickster and tyrant into a patriot leader. We agree with Mr. Headley
+in thinking that the Italians are more likely to be endangered than
+benefitted by his position at the head of their armies.
+
+"The Alps and the Rhine" is, in our opinion, Mr. Headley's most
+agreeable work. The descriptions of scenery are singularly vivid and
+distinct, and are given in a style of much energy and richness. The
+chapters on Suwarrow's Passage of the Glarus, Macdonald's Pass of the
+Splugen, and the Battle of Waterloo, are admirably done. That on
+Macdonald is especially interesting. Those who doubt Mr. Headley's
+talents will please read this short extract: "The ominous sound grew
+louder every moment, and suddenly the fierce Alpine blast swept in a
+cloud of snow over the mountain, and howled like an unchained demon,
+through the gorge below. In an instant all was blindness and confusion
+and uncertainty. The very heavens were blotted out, and the frightened
+column stood and listened to the raving tempest that made the pine
+trees above it sway and groan, as if lifted from their rock-rooted
+places. But suddenly a still more alarming sound was heard--'An
+avalanche! an avalanche!' shrieked the guides, and the next moment _an
+awful white form came leaping down the mountain_, and striking the
+column that was struggling along the path, passed strait through it
+into the gulf below, carrying thirty dragoons and their horses with it
+in its wild plunge."
+
+
+     _Principles of Zoology. Touching the Structure,
+     Development, Distribution and Natural Arrangement of
+     the Races of Animals, Living and Extinct. Part I.
+     Comparative Physiology. By Louis Agassiz and Augustus
+     A. Gould Boston: Gould, Kendall & Lincoln. 1 vol.
+     12mo._
+
+The name of Professor Agassiz, the greatest of living naturalists, on
+the title page of this volume, is of itself a guarantee of its
+excellence. The work is intended for schools and colleges, and is
+admirably fitted for its purpose, but its value is not confined to the
+young. The general reader, who desires exact and reliable knowledge of
+the subject, and at the same time is unable to obtain the larger works
+of Professor Agassiz, will find in this little volume an invaluable
+companion. It has all the necessary plates and illustrations to
+enable the reader fully to comprehend its matter. The diagram of the
+crust of the earth, as related to zoology, is a most ingenious
+contrivance to present, at one view, the distribution of the principal
+types of animals, and the order of their successive appearance in the
+layers of the earth's crust. The publishers have issued the work in a
+style of great neatness and elegance.
+
+
+     _The Writings of Cassius Marcellus Clay, including
+     Speeches and Addresses. Edited with a Preface and
+     Memoir by Horace Greely, New York: Harper & Brothers._
+
+This is a large and beautiful octavo, and is embellished with an
+admirable likeness of Mr. Clay. The people of this country are so well
+acquainted with the peculiarities of Cassius M. Clay's manner, that we
+will not pause to characterize it; and his views upon public subjects
+are so partisan that we leave their discussion to the politicians of
+the country. The eminent abilities of Mr. Greely are displayed in the
+execution of the duties of editor; and the memoir which introduces the
+work does full justice to the subject.
+
+
+     _The Odd Fellows' Amulet, or the Principles of Odd
+     Fellowship Defined; the Objections to the Order
+     Answered, and its Advantages Maintained. By Rev. D. W.
+     Bristol. Auburn: Derby, Miller & Co._
+
+This is a beautiful little volume, admirably illustrated. It is well
+written; will be read with interest by the general reader, and should
+be in the possession of every member of the great and beneficent order
+which it advocates and vindicates.
+
+
+     _The Baronet's Daughters, and Harry Monk._
+
+Mrs. Grey, who is recognized as one of the most accomplished female
+novelists of the present day, has recently given to the public another
+interesting volume, bearing the above title. There are two stories,
+both of which are marked by the ability which characterizes the whole
+of Mrs. Grey's works, and are well calculated to make a sultry
+afternoon pass agreeably away. The American publisher is Mr. T. B.
+Peterson, who furnishes a neat and uniform edition of Mrs. Grey's
+novels.
+
+
+TO OUR READERS.
+
+The Proprietors of "Graham's Magazine," desirous of maintaining for it
+the high reputation it has secured in the estimation of the people of
+the United States, are determined to spare no pains to increase its
+value, and make it universally regarded as the best literary
+publication in the country. To this end they have placed in the hands
+of several of our best engravers a series of plates, which will be
+truly remarkable for their superiority in design and execution. As
+usual, the pens of the best American writers will be employed in
+giving grace and excellence to its pages, and in addition to articles
+which have been secured from new contributors of acknowledged ability,
+they have the pleasure of announcing that an engagement has been
+effected with J. BAYARD TAYLOR, Esq., whose writings are so
+extensively known and admired, by which his valuable assistance will
+be secured in the editorial department of this Magazine exclusively.
+This arrangement will, we are assured, be hailed with pleasure by the
+host of friends which the Magazine possesses throughout the Union, as
+an earnest that no efforts will be omitted to show the sense the
+proprietors entertain of past favors, by rendering their work still
+more attractive and deserving of patronage for the future.
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+Certain irregularities in spelling and grammar have been left as in
+the original. Small errors in punctuation have been corrected without
+comment.
+
+1. page 122--added apostrophe to word 'wont' in phrase '..he wont be
+my hero...'
+
+2. page 123--corrected typo 'will' to 'well' in phrase 'They are all
+very will for rich people.'
+
+3. page 125--corrected error in text 'almost wondering at first what
+Angile meant.' to 'almost wondering at first what Augusta meant.'
+
+4. page 130--corrected typo 'spedily' to 'speedily' in phrase '...fit
+a mast to it, which was spedily done.'
+
+5. page 143--corrected typo 'brightnesss' to 'brightness' in phrase
+'...the beauty and brightnesss of that sweet...'
+
+6. page 153--corrected typo 'stong' to 'strong' in phrase '...or some
+stong emotion...'
+
+7. the notation [~n] has been used to designate an n with a tilde above it
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3
+September 1848, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRAHAM'S MAGAZINE, SEPT 1848 ***
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3
+September 1848, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: George R. Graham
+        Robert T. Conrad
+
+Release Date: September 24, 2009 [EBook #30076]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRAHAM'S MAGAZINE, SEPT 1848 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David T. Jones, Juliet Sutherland and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at
+http://www.pgdpcanada.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<br /><br />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 615px;">
+<img src="images/illus120.png" width="615" height="800"
+alt="ANGILA MERVALE" title="" /></div>
+<h5>J. Addison</h5>
+<h4>ANGILA MERVALE</h4>
+<h5><span class="smcap">or</span></h5>
+<h4>SIX MONTHS BEFORE MARRIAGE.</h4>
+<h5><i>Engraved Expressly for Graham's Magazine</i></h5>
+<br /><br />
+
+<h1>GRAHAM'S MAGAZINE.</h1>
+<br />
+<h4><span class="smcap">Vol. XXXIII.</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; PHILADELPHIA,&nbsp;&nbsp;SEPTEMBER,&nbsp;&nbsp;1848.&nbsp;
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">No.</span> 3.</h4>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>
+
+<h3>TABLE OF CONTENTS</h3><br />
+<table summary="TOC" width="80%">
+<tr><td><a href="#ANGILA_MERVALE"><b>ANGILA MERVALE.</b></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">121</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#A_NEW_ENGLAND_LEGEND"><b>A NEW ENGLAND LEGEND.</b></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">126</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#SONG_OF_SLEEP"><b>SONG OF SLEEP.</b></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">128</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#THE_CRUISE_OF_THE_RAKER"><b>THE CRUISE OF THE RAKER.</b></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">129</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#THE_PRAYER_OF_THE_DYING_GIRL"><b>THE PRAYER OF THE DYING GIRL.</b></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">136</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#A_WRITTEN_LEAF_OF_MEMORY"><b>A WRITTEN LEAF OF MEMORY.</b></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">137</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#THE_SPANISH_PRINCESS_TO_THE_MOORISH_KNIGHT">
+<b>THE SPANISH PRINCESS TO THE MOORISH KNIGHT.</b></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">146</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#THE_LIGHT_OF_OUR_HOME"><b>THE LIGHT OF OUR HOME.</b></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">146</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#AN_INDIAN-SUMMER_RAMBLE"><b>AN INDIAN-SUMMER RAMBLE.</b></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">147</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#THE_LOST_PET"><b>THE LOST PET.</b></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">152</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#FIEL_A_LA_MUERTE_OR_TRUE_LOVES_DEVOTION">
+<b>FIEL A LA MUERTE, OR TRUE LOVE'S DEVOTION.</b></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">153</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#THE_POETS_HEART_TO_MISS_O_B">
+<b>THE POET'S HEART.&mdash;TO MISS O. B.</b></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">161</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#THE_RETURN_TO_SCENES_OF_CHILDHOOD">
+<b>THE RETURN TO SCENES OF CHILDHOOD.</b></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">162</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#SUNSHINE_AND_RAIN"><b>SUNSHINE AND RAIN.</b></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">162</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#THE_CHRISTMAS_GARLAND"><b>THE CHRISTMAS GARLAND.</b></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">163</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#HEADS_OF_THE_POETS"><b>HEADS OF THE POETS.</b></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">170</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#HOPE_ON_HOPE_EVER"><b>HOPE ON&mdash;HOPE EVER.</b></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">171</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#MEXICAN_JEALOUSY"><b>MEXICAN JEALOUSY.</b></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">172</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#TO_GUADALUPE"><b>TO GUADALUPE.</b></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">174</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#THE_FADED_ROSE"><b>THE FADED ROSE.</b></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">174</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#THE_CHILDS_APPEAL"><b>THE CHILD'S APPEAL.</b></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">175</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#THE_OLD_FARM-HOUSE"><b>THE OLD FARM-HOUSE.</b></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">175</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#TIS_HOME_WHERE_THE_HEART_IS">
+<b>"'TIS HOME WHERE THE HEART IS."</b></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">176</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#REVIEW_OF_NEW_BOOKS"><b>REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.</b></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">178</td></tr>
+</table>
+<br /><br />
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="ANGILA_MERVALE" id="ANGILA_MERVALE"></a>ANGILA MERVALE;</h2>
+
+<h3>OR SIX MONTHS BEFORE MARRIAGE.</h3>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<h4>BY F. E. F., AUTHOR OF "AARON'S ROD," "TELLING SECRETS," ETC.</h4>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>"They say Miss Morton is engaged to Robert
+Hazlewood," said Augusta Lenox.</p>
+
+<p>"So I hear," replied Angila Mervale, to whom
+this piece of news had been communicated. "How
+can she?"</p>
+
+<p>"How can she, indeed?" replied Augusta. "He's
+an ugly fellow."</p>
+
+<p>"Ugly! yes," continued Angila, "and a disagreeable
+ugliness, too. I don't care about a man's
+being handsome&mdash;a plain black ugliness I don't
+object to&mdash;but <i>red</i> ugliness, ah!"</p>
+
+<p>"They say he's clever," said Augusta.</p>
+
+<p>"They always say that, my dear, of any one
+that's so ugly," replied Angila. "I don't believe it.
+He's conceited, and I think disagreeable; and I
+don't believe he's clever."</p>
+
+<p>"I remarked last night that he was very attentive
+to Mary Morton," continued Augusta. "They
+waltzed together several times."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and how badly he waltzes," said Angila.
+"Mary Morton is too pretty a girl for such an awkward,
+ugly man. How lovely she looked last night.
+I hope it's not an engagement, for I quite like her."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, perhaps it is not. It's only one of the
+<i>on dits</i>, and probably a mere report."</p>
+
+<p>"Who are you discussing, girls?" asked Mrs.
+Mervale, from the other side of the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Robert Hazlewood and Miss Morton," replied
+Augusta, "they are said to be engaged."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said Mrs. Mervale. "Is it a good match
+for her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no! chimed in both the girls at once. "He's
+neither handsome, nor rich, nor any thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor any thing!" repeated Mrs. Mervale, laughing.
+"Well, that's comprehensive. A young man
+may be a very respectable young man, and be a very
+fair match for a girl without being either handsome or
+rich; but if he is positively 'nothing,' why, then, I
+grant you, it is bad indeed."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I believe he is respectable enough," replied
+Augusta, carelessly, for, like most young girls, the
+word "respectable" did not rank very high in her
+vocabulary.</p>
+
+<p>"And if he is not rich, what are they to live on,"
+asked Mrs. Mervale.</p>
+
+<p>"Love and the law, I suppose," replied her
+daughter, laughing. "He's a lawyer, is he not
+Augusta?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" resumed Mrs. Mervale, "he's a son, then,
+I suppose, of old John Hazlewood."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Augusta.</p>
+
+<p>"Then he may do very well in his profession,"
+continued Mrs. Mervale, "for his father has a large
+practice I know, and is a very respectable man. If
+this is a clever young man, he may tread in his
+father's footsteps."</p>
+
+<p>This did not convey any very high eulogium to the
+young ladies' ears. That young Robert Hazlewood
+might be an old John Hazlewood in his turn and
+time, did not strike them as a very brilliant future.
+In fact they did not think more of the old man than
+they did of the young one.</p>
+
+<p>Old gentlemen, however, were not at quite such a
+discount with Mrs. Mervale as with her daughter
+and her friend; and she continued to descant upon
+the high standing of Mr. Hazlewood the elder, not
+one word in ten of which the girls heard, for she,
+like most old ladies, once started upon former times,
+was thinking of the pleasant young John Hazlewood
+of early days, who brought back with him a host
+of reminiscences, with which she indulged herself
+and the girls, while they, their heads full of last
+night's party and Mary Morton and Robert Hazlewood,
+listened as civilly as they could, quite unable
+to keep the thread of her discourse, confounding in
+her history Robert Hazlewood's mother with his
+grandmother, and wondering all the while when she
+would stop, that they might resume their gossip.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You visit his sister, Mrs. Constant, don't you?"
+asked Augusta.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we have always visited the Hazlewoods,"
+replied Angila, "but I am not intimate with any of
+them. They always seemed to me those kind of
+pattern people I dislike."</p>
+
+<p>"Is Mr. Constant well off?" inquired Mrs.
+Mervale.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I should think not," replied Angila, "from
+the way in which they live. They have a little
+bit of a two-story house, and keep only a waiter
+girl. How I do hate to see a woman open the door,"
+she continued, addressing Augusta.</p>
+
+<p>"So do I," replied her friend. "I would have a
+man servant&mdash;a woman looks so shabby."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," returned Angila. "There's nothing I
+dislike so much. No woman shall ever go to my
+door."</p>
+
+<p>"If you have a man servant," suggested Mrs.
+Mervale.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," said Angila; "and that I will."</p>
+
+<p>"But suppose you cannot afford it," said her
+mother.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't choose to suppose any thing so disagreeable
+or improbable," replied her daughter,
+gayly.</p>
+
+<p>"It may be disagreeable," continued Mrs. Mervale,
+"but I don't see the improbability of the thing,
+Angila, nor, indeed, the disagreeability even. The
+Constants are young people with a small family, and
+I think a woman is quite sufficient for them. Their
+house is small, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, a little bit of a place."</p>
+
+<p>"Large enough for them," replied Mrs. Mervale,
+whose ideas were not as enlarged as her daughter's.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps so," said Angila, "but I do hate low
+ceilings so. I don't care about a large house, but I
+do like large rooms."</p>
+
+<p>"You can hardly have large rooms in a small
+house," remarked Mrs. Mervale, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Mrs. Astley's is only a two-story house,
+mamma, and her rooms are larger than these."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my dear, Mrs. Astley's is an expensive
+house; the lot must be thirty feet by&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But Angila had no time to go into the dimensions
+of people's "lots." She and Augusta were back to
+the party again; and they discussed dresses, and
+looks, and manners, with great <i>go&ucirc;t</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Their criticisms were, like most young people's,
+always in extremes. The girls had either looked
+"lovely" or "frightful," and the young men were
+either "charming" or "odious;" and they themselves,
+from their own account, had been in a constant state
+of either delight or terror.</p>
+
+<p>"I was so afraid Robert Hazlewood was going to
+ask me to waltz," said Angila; "and he waltzes so
+abominably that I did not know what I should do.
+But, to my delight, he asked me only for a cotillion,
+and I fortunately was engaged. I was so glad it
+was so."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you did not dance with him at all?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;to my great joy, he walked off, angry, I
+believe."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my dear!" remonstrated her mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not, mother," replied Angila. "He's my
+'favorite aversion.' Well, Augusta," she continued,
+turning to her friend, "and when do you sail for
+New Orleans?"</p>
+
+<p>"On Monday," replied Augusta.</p>
+
+<p>"On Monday!&mdash;so soon! Oh, what shall I do
+without you, Augusta!" said Angila, quite pathetically.
+"And you will be gone six months, you
+think?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, so papa says," replied the young lady.
+"He does not expect to be able to return before
+May."</p>
+
+<p>"Not before May! And its only November now!"
+said Angila, in prolonged accents of grief. "How
+much may happen in that time!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," returned her friend, gaily, "you may be
+engaged before that."</p>
+
+<p>"Not much danger," replied Angila, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"But remember, I am to be bridemaid," continued
+Augusta.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," said Angila, in the same tone, "I
+shall expect you from New Orleans on purpose."</p>
+
+<p>"And who will it be to, Angila," said Augusta.</p>
+
+<p>"That's more than I can tell," replied Angila;
+"but somebody that's very charming, I promise
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"By the way, what is your <i>beau ideal</i>, Angila, I
+never heard you say," continued Augusta.</p>
+
+<p>"My <i>beau ideal</i> is as shadowy and indistinct as
+one of Ossian's heroes," replied Angila, laughing;
+"something very distinguished in air and manners,
+with black eyes and hair, are the only points decided
+on. For the rest, Augusta, I refer you to Futurity,"
+she added, gayly.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder who you will marry!" said Augusta,
+with the sudden fervor of a young lady on so interesting
+a topic.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, only nobody that I have ever seen
+yet," replied Angila, with animation.</p>
+
+<p>"He must be handsome, I suppose," said Augusta.</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied Angila, "I don't care for beauty.
+A man should have a decided air of the gentleman,
+with an expression of talent, height, and all that&mdash;but
+I don't care about what you call beauty."</p>
+
+<p>"You are very moderate, indeed, in your requirements,
+my dear," said her mother, laughing. "And
+pray, my love, what have you to offer this <i>rara avis</i>
+in return for such extraordinary charms."</p>
+
+<p>"Love, mamma," replied the gay girl, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"And suppose, my dear," pursued her mother,
+"that your hero should set as high an estimate upon
+himself as you do upon yourself. Your tall, elegant,
+talented man, may expect a wife who has fortune,
+beauty and talents, too."</p>
+
+<p>Angila laughed. She was not vain, but she knew
+she was pretty, and she was sufficiently of a belle to
+be satisfied with her own powers if she could only
+meet with the man, so she said, playfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, mamma, he won't be <i>my</i> hero, that's
+all."</p>
+
+<p>And no doubt she answered truly. The possession
+of such gifts are very apt to vary in young ladies'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>
+eyes according to the gentleman's perception of their
+charms. And heroes differ from one another, according
+as the pronouns "mine and thine," may be pre-fixed
+to his title.</p>
+
+<p>"And such a bijou of a house as I mean to have,"
+continued Angila, with animation. "The back
+parlor and dining-room shall open into a conservatory,
+where I shall have any quantity of canary-birds&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear," interrupted her mother, "what nonsense
+you do talk."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, mamma," said Angila, opening her eyes
+very wide, "don't you like canaries?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my dear," replied her mother, "I don't
+object to aviaries or conservatories, only to your
+talking of them in this way, as matters of course and
+necessity. They are all very well for rich people."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, I mean to be rich," continued Angila,
+playfully.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the very nonsense I complain of," said
+her mother. "It's barely possible, but certainly
+very improbable, Angila, that you ever should be
+rich; and considering you have been used to nothing
+of the kind, it really amuses me to hear you talk so.
+Your father and I have lived all our lives very comfortably
+and happily, Angila, without either aviary
+or conservatory, and I rather think you will do the
+same, my love."</p>
+
+<p>"Your father and I!" What a falling off was
+there! for although Angila loved her father and
+mother dearly, she could not imagine herself intent
+upon household occupations, an excellent motherly
+woman some thirty years hence, any more than that
+her <i>beau ideal</i> should wear pepper and salt like her
+father.</p>
+
+<p>"It was all very well for papa and mamma," but
+to persuade a girl of eighteen that she wants no more
+than her mother, whose heart happens to be like Mrs.
+Mervale, just then full of a new carpet that Mr.
+Mervale is hesitating about affording, is out of the
+question.</p>
+
+<p>And, unreasonable as it may be, whoever would
+make a young girl more rational, destroys at once
+the chief charm of her youth&mdash;the exuberance of her
+fresh imagination, that gilds not only the future, but
+throws a rosy light upon all surrounding objects.
+Her visions, I grant you, are absurd, but the girl
+without visions is a clod of the valley, for she is
+without imagination&mdash;and without imagination, what
+is life? what is love?"</p>
+
+<p>Never fear that her visions will not be fulfilled,
+and therefore bring disappointment&mdash;for the power
+carries the pleasure with it. The same gift that
+traces the outline, fills up the sketch. The girls
+who dream of heroes are those most ready to fall in
+love with any body&mdash;and no woman is so hard to
+interest as she who never had a vision, and consequently
+sees men just as they are; and so if Angila
+talked nonsense, Mrs. Mervale's sense was not much
+wiser.</p>
+
+<p>Angila was a pretty, playful, romantic girl, rather
+intolerant of the people she did not like, and enthusiastic
+about those she did; full of life and animation,
+she was a decided belle in the gay circle in which
+she moved.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Lenox was her dearest friend for the time
+being, and the proposed separation for the next six
+months was looked upon as a cruel affliction, only to
+be softened by the most frequent and confidential
+correspondence.</p>
+
+<p>For the first few weeks of Augusta's absence, the
+promises exchanged on both sides were vehemently
+fulfilled. Letters were written two or three limes a
+week, detailing every minute circumstance that
+happened to either. But at the end of that time
+Angila was at a party where she met Robert Hazlewood,
+who talked to her for some time. It was not
+a dancing party, and consequently they conversed
+together more than they had ever done before. He
+seemed extremely amused with her liveliness, and
+looked at her with unmistakable admiration. Had
+Augusta Lenox been there to see, perhaps Angila
+would not have received his attentions so graciously;
+but there being nothing to remind her of his being
+her "favorite aversion," she talked with animation,
+pleased with the admiration she excited, without
+being annoyed by any inconvenient reminiscences.
+And not only was Miss Lenox absent, but Miss
+Morton was present, and Angila thought she looked
+over at them a little anxiously; so that a little spirit
+of rivalry heightened, if not her pleasure, certainly
+Hazlewood's consequence in her eyes. Girls are
+often much influenced by each other in these
+matters&mdash;and the absence of Miss Lenox, who "did not
+think much of Robert Hazlewood," with the presence
+of Miss Morton who did, had no small influence in
+Angila's future fate.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you have a pleasant party?" asked Mrs.
+Mervale, who had not been with her daughter the
+evening before.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, very pleasant," replied Angila; "one of
+the pleasantest 'conversation parties' I have ever
+been at."</p>
+
+<p>And "who was there&mdash;and who did you talk to?"
+were the next questions, which launched Angila in
+a full length description of every thing and every
+body&mdash;and among them figured quite conspicuously
+Robert Hazlewood.</p>
+
+<p>"And you found him really clever?" said her
+mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, decidedly," replied her daughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Who," said her brother, looking up from his
+breakfast, "Hazlewood? Certainly he is. He's
+considered one of the cleverest among the young
+lawyers. Decidedly a man of talent."</p>
+
+<p>Angila looked pleased.</p>
+
+<p>"His father is a man of talent before him," observed
+Mrs. Mervale. "As a family, the Hazlewoods
+have always been distinguished for ability.
+This young man is ugly, you say, Angila?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;" replied Angila, though with some hesitation.
+"Yes, he is ugly, certainly&mdash;but he has a good
+countenance; and when he converses he is better
+looking than I thought him."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a pity he's conceited," said Mrs. Mervale,
+innocently; her impression of the young man being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>
+taken from her daughter's previous description of
+him. "Since he is really clever, it's a pity, for it's
+such a drawback always."</p>
+
+<p>"Conceited! I don't think he's conceited," said
+Angila, quite forgetting her yesterday's opinion.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you? I thought it was you who said so,
+my dear," replied her mother, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I did once think so," said Angila, slightly
+blushing at her own inconsistency. "I don't know
+why I took the idea in my head&mdash;but in fact I talked
+more to him, and became better acquainted with him
+last evening than I ever have before. When there
+is dancing, there is so little time for conversation;
+and he really talks very well."</p>
+
+<p>"He is engaged to Miss Morton, you say?" continued
+Mrs. Mervale.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't know," replied Angila, adding, as
+she remembered the animated looks of admiration
+he had bestowed upon herself, "I doubt it&mdash;that is
+the report, however."</p>
+
+<p>"Hazlewood's no more engaged to Mary Morton
+than I am," said young Mervale, carelessly. "Where
+did you get that idea?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why every body says so, George," said Angila.</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw! every body's saying so don't make it so."</p>
+
+<p>"But he's very attentive to her," replied Angila.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, and if he is," retorted Mervale, "it does
+not follow that he must be in love with her. You
+women do jump to conclusions, and make up matches
+in such a way," he continued, almost angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"I think she likes him," pursued Angila. "I
+think she would have him."</p>
+
+<p>"Have him! to be sure she would," replied
+George, in the same tone; not that he considered the
+young lady particularly in love with his friend, but
+as if any girl might be glad to have him&mdash;for brothers
+are very apt to view such cases differently from
+sisters, who refuse young gentlemen for their friends
+without mercy.</p>
+
+<p>"But he's ugly, you say," continued Mrs. Mervale,
+sorrowfully, who, old lady as she was, liked a handsome
+young man, and always lamented when she
+found mental gifts unaccompanied by personal
+charms.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he's no beauty, that's certain," said Angila,
+gayly.</p>
+
+<p>"Has he a good air and figure?" pursued Mrs.
+Mervale, still hoping so clever a man might be
+better looking after all.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, tolerable&mdash;middle height&mdash;nothing remarkable
+one way or the other." And then the young
+lady went off to tell some piece of news, that quite
+put Mr. Hazlewood out of her mother's head for the
+present.</p>
+
+<p>When Angila next wrote to Augusta, although she
+spoke of Mrs. Carpenter's party, a little consciousness
+prevented her saying much about Robert Hazlewood,
+and consequently her friend was quite unsuspicious
+of the large share he had in making the party
+she described so pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>Hazlewood had really been pleased by Angila.
+She was pretty&mdash;and he found her lively and intelligent.
+He had always been inclined to admire her,
+but she had turned from him once or twice in what
+he had thought a haughty manner, and consequently
+he had scarcely known her until they met at this
+little <i>conversazione</i> of Mrs. Carpenter's, where
+accident placed them near each other. The party
+was so small that where people happened to find
+themselves, there they staid&mdash;it requiring some
+courage for a young man to break the charmed ring,
+and deliberately plant himself before any lady, or
+attempt to talk to any one except her beside whom
+fate had placed him.</p>
+
+<p>Now Angila had the corner seat on a sofa near the
+fire-place, and Hazlewood was standing, leaning
+against the chimney-piece, so that a nicer, more
+cosy position for a pleasant talk could hardly be conceived
+in so small a circle. Miss Morton was on
+the other side of the fire-place, occupying the corresponding
+situation to Angila, and Angila could see
+her peeping forward from time to time to see if
+Hazlewood still maintained his place. His back was
+turned toward her, so if she did throw any anxious
+glances that way, he did not see them.</p>
+
+<p>Angila met him a few evenings after this at the
+Opera, and found that he was a passionate lover of
+music. They talked again, and he very well, for he
+really was a sensible, well-educated young man.
+Music is a favorite source of inspiration, and Hazlewood
+was a connoisseur as well as amateur. She
+found that he seldom missed a night at the Opera,
+and "she was surprised she had not seen him there
+before, as she went herself very often."</p>
+
+<p>"He had seen her, however;" and he looked as if
+it were not easy not to see <i>her</i> when she was there.</p>
+
+<p>She blushed and was pleased, for it evidently was
+not an unmeaning compliment.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Hazlewood's very clever," she said the next
+day; "and his tastes are so cultivated and refined.
+He is very different from the usual run of young
+men." (When a girl begins to think a man different
+from the "usual run," you may be sure she herself
+is off the common track.) "There's something very
+manly in all his sentiments, independent and high-toned.
+He cannot be engaged to Mary Morton, for
+I alluded to the report, and he seemed quite amused
+at the idea. I can see he thinks her very silly, which
+she is, though pretty&mdash;though he was two gentlemanly
+to say so."</p>
+
+<p>"How, then, did you find out that he thought so,"
+asked George, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, from one or two little things. We were
+speaking of a German poem that I was trying to get
+the other day, and he said he had it, but had lent it
+to Miss Morton. 'However,' he added, with a
+peculiar smile, 'he did not believe she wanted to read
+it, and at any rate, he would bring it to me as soon
+as she returned it. He doubted whether she was
+much of a German reader.' But it was more the
+smile and the manner in which he said it, than the
+words, that made me think he had no very high
+opinion of her literary tastes."</p>
+
+<p>"He may not like her any the less for that," said
+George, carelessly. "I think your clever literary
+men rarely do value a woman less for her ignorance."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But there was an expression in Angila's pretty
+face that seemed to contradict this assertion; for, like
+most pretty women, the was vainer of her talents than
+her beauty&mdash;and she thought Hazlewood had been
+quite struck by some of her criticisms the night before.</p>
+
+<p>However this might be, the intimacy seemed to
+progress at a wonderful rate. He called and brought
+her books; and they had a world to say every time
+they met, which, whether by accident or design, was
+now beginning to be very often.</p>
+
+<p>"You knew old Mr. Hazlewood, mamma, did not
+you?" said Angila. "And who did you say Mrs.
+Hazlewood was?" And now she listened very
+differently from the last time that her mother had
+launched forth on the topic of old times and friends.
+Angila was wonderfully interested in all the history
+of the whole race, for Mrs. Mervale began with the
+great grandfathers, maternal and paternal; and she
+kept the thread of the story with surprising distinctness,
+and made out the family pedigree with amazing
+correctness.</p>
+
+<p>"Then they are an excellent family, mamma,"
+she said.</p>
+
+<p>"To be sure they are," replied Mrs. Mervale,
+"one of the oldest and best in the city."</p>
+
+<p>It was wonderful what a quantity of books Angila
+read just about this time; but Hazlewood was always
+sending her something, which she seemed to take
+peculiar pleasure in surprising him by having finished
+before they met again. And her bright eyes grew
+brighter, and occasionally, and that not unfrequently,
+they had an abstracted, dreamy look, as if her thoughts
+were far away, occupied in very pleasant visions&mdash;whether
+they were now of Ossian-heroes, dark-eyed
+and dim, we doubt.</p>
+
+<p>She was rather unpleasantly roused to a waking
+state, however, by a passage in one of Augusta
+Lenox's last letters, which was,</p>
+
+<p>"What has become of your 'favorite aversion,'
+Robert Hazlewood? When are he and Mary Morton
+to be married? I give her joy of him&mdash;as you say,
+how can she?"</p>
+
+<p>Angila colored scarlet with indignation as she read
+this, almost wondering at first what Augusta meant.</p>
+
+<p>She did not answer the letter; some consciousness,
+mixed with a good deal of vexation, prevented her.</p>
+
+<p>Hazlewood's attentions to Angila began to be
+talked of a good deal. Her mother was congratulated,
+and she was complimented, for every body spoke
+well of him. "A remarkably clever young man
+with excellent prospects," the old people said. The
+young girls talked of him probably pretty much as
+Angila and Augusta had done&mdash;but she did not hear
+that, and the young men said,</p>
+
+<p>"Hazlewood was a devilish clever fellow, and
+that Angila Mervale would do very well if she could
+get him."</p>
+
+<p>That the gentleman was desperately in love there
+was no doubt; and as for the young lady&mdash;that she
+was flattered and pleased and interested, was hardly
+less clear. Her bright eyes grew softer and more
+dreamy every day.</p>
+
+<p>Of what was she dreaming? What could her
+visions be now? Can she by any possibility make
+a hero of Robert Hazlewood? Sober common sense
+would say "No!" but bright-eyed, youthful imagination
+may boldly answer, "Why not?" Time, however,
+can only decide that point.</p>
+
+<p>Two more letters came from Augusta Lenox about
+this time, and remained unanswered. "Wait till I
+am engaged," Angila had unconsciously said to herself,
+and then blushed the deepest blush, as she
+caught the words that had risen to her lips.</p>
+
+<p>She did not wait long, however. Bright, beaming,
+blushing and tearful, she soon announced the intelligence
+to her mother, asking her consent, and permission
+to refer Mr. Hazlewood to her father.</p>
+
+<p>The Mervales were very well pleased with the
+match, which, in fact, was an excellent one, young
+Hazlewood being in every respect Angila's superior,
+except in appearance, where she, as is the woman's
+right, bore the palm of beauty. Not but that she was
+quick, intelligent, and well cultivated; but there are
+more such girls by hundreds in our community, than
+there are men of talent, reading, industry and worth
+to merit them; and Angila was amazingly happy to
+have been one of the fortunate few to whose lot such
+a man falls.</p>
+
+<p>And now, indeed, she wrote a long, long letter to
+Augusta&mdash;so full of happiness, describing Hazlewood,
+as she thought, so distinctly, that Augusta must recognize
+him at once&mdash;so she concluded by saying,</p>
+
+<p>"And now I need not name him, as you must know
+who I mean."</p>
+
+<p>"I must know who she means!" said Augusta,
+much perplexed. "Why I am sure I cannot imagine
+who she means! Talented, agreeable, with cultivated
+tastes! Who can it be? 'Not handsome, but very
+gentlemanlike-looking.' Well, I have no idea who it
+is&mdash;I certainly cannot know the man. But as we
+sail next week, I shall be at home in time for the
+wedding. How odd that I should be really her
+bridemaid in May after all!"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Lenox arrived about two months after Angila's
+engagement had been announced, and found
+her friend brilliant with happiness. After the first
+exclamations and greetings, Augusta said with impatient
+curiosity,</p>
+
+<p>"But who is it, Angila&mdash;you never told me?"</p>
+
+<p>"But surely you guessed at once," said Angila,
+incredulously.</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed," replied her friend, earnestly, "I
+have not the most distant idea."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Robert Hazlewood, to be sure!"</p>
+
+<p>"Robert Hazlewood! Oh, Angila! You are jesting,"
+exclaimed her friend, thrown quite off her
+guard by astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed!" replied Angila, with eager delight,
+attributing Augusta's surprise and incredulous
+tones to quite another source. "You may well be
+surprised, Augusta. Is it not strange that such a
+man&mdash;one of his superior talents&mdash;should have fallen
+in love with such a mad-cap as me."</p>
+
+<p>Augusta could hardly believe her ears. But the
+truth was, that Angila had so long since forgotten her
+prejudice, founded on nothing, against Hazlewood,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>
+that she was not conscious now that she had ever
+entertained any such feelings. She was not obliged,
+in common phrase, to "eat her own words," for
+she quite forgot that she had ever uttered them. And
+now, with the utmost enthusiasm, she entered into
+all her plans and prospects&mdash;told Augusta, with the
+greatest interest, as if she thought the theme must be
+equally delightful to her friend&mdash;all her mother's
+long story about the old Hazlewoods, and what a
+"charming nice family they were," ("those pattern
+people that she hated so," as Augusta remembered,
+but all of which was buried in the happiest oblivion
+with Angila,) and the dear little house that was being
+furnished like a bijou next to Mrs. Constant's, (next
+to Mrs. Constant's!&mdash;one of those small houses with
+low ceilings! Augusta gasped;) and how many servants
+she was going to keep; and what a nice young
+girl she had engaged already as waiter.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean, then, to have a woman waiter?"
+Augusta could not help saying.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, to be sure!" said Angila. "What should I
+do with a man in such a pretty little establishment
+as I mean to have. And then you know we must
+be economical&mdash;Mr. Hazlewood is a young lawyer,
+and I don't mean to let him slave himself to make
+the two ends meet. You'll see what a nice economical
+little housekeeper I'll be."</p>
+
+<p>And, in short, Augusta found that the same bright,
+warm imagination that had made Angila once dream
+of Ossian-heroes, now endowed Robert Hazlewood
+with every charm she wanted, and even threw a
+romantic glow over a small house, low ceilings,
+small economies, and all but turned the woman-servant
+into a man. Cinderella's godmother could
+hardly have done more. Such is the power of
+love!</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Augusta, in talking it all over with
+her brother, "I cannot comprehend it yet; Angila,
+who used to be so fastidious, so critical, who expected
+so much in the man she was to marry!"</p>
+
+<p>"She is not the first young lady who has come
+down from her pedestal," replied her brother,
+laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"No, but she has not," returned Augusta, "that's
+the oddest part of the whole&mdash;she has only contrived
+somehow to raise Hazlewood on a pedestal, too.
+You'd think they were the only couple in the world
+going to be married. She's actually in love with
+him, desperately in love with him; and it was only
+just before I went to New Orleans that she said&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear," interrupted her mother, "there's no
+subject on which women change their minds oftener
+than on this. Love works wonders&mdash;indeed, the
+only miracles left in the world are of his creation."</p>
+
+<p>"But she used to wonder at Mary Morton's liking
+him, mamma."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, my dear," replied her mother, "that was
+when he was attentive to Mary Morton and not her.
+It makes a wonderful difference when the thing
+becomes personal. And if you really love Angila,
+my dear, you will forget, or at least not repeat, what
+she said six months before marriage."</p>
+<br /><br />
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="A_NEW_ENGLAND_LEGEND" id="A_NEW_ENGLAND_LEGEND"></a>A NEW ENGLAND LEGEND</h2>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<h4>BY CAROLINE F. ORNE.</h4>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<h5>[The subject of the following ballad may be found in the "Christus
+Super Aquas" of Mather's Magnalia.]</h5>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"God's blessing on the bonny barque!" the gallant seamen cried,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As with her snowy sails outspread she cleft the yielding tide&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"God's blessing on the bonny barque!" cried the landsmen from the shore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As with a swallow's rapid flight she skimmed the waters o'er.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh never from the good old Bay, a fairer ship did sail,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or in more trim and brave array did court the favoring gale.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cheerily sung the marinere as he climbed the high, high mast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mast that was made of the Norway pine, that scorned the mountain-blast.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But brave Mark Edward dashed a tear in secret from his eye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As he saw green Trimount dimmer grow against the distant sky,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And fast before the gathering breeze his noble vessel fly.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh, youth will cherish many a hope, and many a fond desire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And nurse in secret in the heart the hidden altar-fire!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And though young Mark Edward trode his deck with footstep light and free,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet a shadow was on his manly brow as his good ship swept the sea;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A shadow was on his manly brow as he marked the fading shore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the faint line of the far green hills where dwelt his loved Lenore.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Merrily sailed the bonny barque toward her destined port,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the white waves curled around her prow as if in wanton sport.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Merrily sailed the bonny barque till seven days came and past,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When her snowy canvas shivered and rent before the northern blast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And out of her course, and away, away, careered she wild and fast.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Black lowered the heavens, loud howled the winds, as the gallant barque drove on,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"God save her from the stormy seas," prayed the sailors every one,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But hither and thither the mad winds bore her, careening wildly on.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh, a fearful thing is the mighty wind as it raves the land along,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">And the forests rock beneath the shock of the fierce blasts and the strong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But when the wild and angry waves come rushing on their prey,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And to and fro the good ship reels with the wind's savage play,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh! then it is more fearful far in that frail barque to be,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At the mercy of the wind and wave, alone upon the sea.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mark Edward's eye grew stern and calm as day by day went on,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And farther from the destined port the gallant barque was borne.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From her tall masts the sails were rent, yet fast and far she flew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But whither she drove there knew not one among her gallant crew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor the captain, nor the marineres, not one among them knew.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now there had come and past away full many weary days,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And each looked in each other's face with sad and blank amaze,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For ghastly Famine's bony hand was stretched to clutch his prey,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And still the adverse winds blew on as they would blow alway.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And dark and fearful whispered words from man to man went past,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As of some dread and fatal deed which they must do at last.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And night and morn and noon they prayed, oh blessed voice of prayer!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That God would bring their trembling souls out of this great despair.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And every straining eye was bent out o'er the ocean-wave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But they saw no sail, there came no ship the storm-tost barque to save.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fatal die was cast at length; and tears filled every eye<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As forth a gentle stripling slept and gave himself to die.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They looked upon his pure white brow, and his face so fair to see,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all with one accord cried out, "Oh, God! this must not be!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And brave Mark Edward calmly said, "Let the lot fall on me."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Not so," the generous youth exclaimed, "of little worth am I,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But 'twould strike the life from out us all were it thy lot to die."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Let us once more entreat the Lord; he yet our souls may spare,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And kneeling down the gray-haired man sent up a fervent prayer.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh mighty is the voice of prayer! to him that asks is given,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And as to Israel of old was manna sent from heaven,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So now their prayer was answered, for, leaping from the sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A mighty fish fell in their midst, where they astonished be.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Now glory to the Father be, and to the Son be praise!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon the deep He walketh, in the ocean are His ways,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Tis meet that we should worship Him who doeth right always."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And then from all that noble crew a hymn of joy arose&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It flowed from grateful hearts as free as running water flows.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Day after day still passed away, gaunt Famine pressed again,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each turned away from each, as if smit with a sudden pain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They feared to meet each other's eyes and read the secret there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And each his pangs in silence strove a little yet to bear.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The eye grew dim with looking out upon the weary main,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wave rolling after wave was all that answered back again.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But night and morn and noon they prayed&mdash;oh blessed voice of prayer!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That God would bring their trembling souls out of this great despair.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Again the fatal die was cast; a man of powerful frame<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Slowly and with reluctant step to the dread summons came.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Large drops of anguish on his brow&mdash;his lips were white with fear&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh 'tis a dreadful death to die! Is there no succor near?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They looked around on every side, but saw no sight of cheer.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"It is not for myself I dread," the sailor murmured low,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"But for my wife and little babes, oh what a tale of wo!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"It shall not be," Mark Edward cried, "for their dear sakes go free.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I have no wife to mourn my fate, let the lot fall on me."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Not so, oh generous and brave!" the sailor grateful said,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"The lot is mine, but cheer thou her and them when I am dead."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And turning with a calmer front he bade the waiting crew<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What not themselves but fate compelled, to haste and quickly do.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But who shall do the dismal work? The innocent life who take?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One after one each shrunk away, but no word any spake.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still hunger pressed them sore, and pangs too dreadful to be borne.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Be merciful, oh Father, hear! To thee again we turn."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then in their agony they strove, and wrestled long in prayer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till suddenly they heard a sound come from the upper air,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A sound of rushing wings, and lo! oh sight of joy! on high<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A great bird circles round the masts, and ever draws more nigh.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In lightning play of hope and fear one breathless moment passed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The next, the bird has lighted down and settled on the mast.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And soon within his grasp secure a seaman holds him fast.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Now glory be unto our God&mdash;and to His name be praise!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon the deep he walketh, in the ocean are his ways,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From ghastly fear our suppliant souls he royally hath freed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sent us succor from the air in this our sorest need."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But day by day still passed away, and Famine fiercer pressed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And still the adverse winds blew on and knew no change or rest.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet strove they in their agony to let no murmuring word<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Against the good and gracious Lord, from out their lips be heard.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But with their wildly gleaming eyes they gazed out o'er the main.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wave rolling after wave was all that answered back again.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On the horizon's distant verge not even a speck was seen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the cresting foam of breaking waves still shimmering between.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And fiercer yet, as hour by hour went slowly creeping by,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The famine wrung their tortured frames till it were bliss to die.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And hopes of further aid grew faint, and it did seem that they<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Out on the waste of waters wide of Heaven forgotten lay.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But night and morn and noon they prayed&mdash;oh blessed voice of prayer!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That God would save their trembling souls out of this great despair.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Again the fatal die was cast, and 'mid a general gloom,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mark Edward calmly forward came to meet the appointed doom.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But when they saw his noble port, and his manly bearing brave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each would have given up his life that bold young heart to save.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They would have wept, but their hot eyes refused the grateful tear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet with sorrowful and suppliant looks they drew themselves more near.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mark Edward turned aside and spoke in accents calm and low,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unto a man with silver hair, whose look was full of wo,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bade him if the Lord should spare, and they should reach the shore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To bear a message from his lips to his beloved Lenore.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Tell her my thoughts were God's and hers," the brave young spirit cried,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Tell her not how it came to pass, say only that I died."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then with a brief and earnest prayer his soul to God he gave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beseeching that the sacrifice the lives of all might save.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each looked on each, but not a hand would strike the fatal blow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It was a death pang but to think what hand should lay him low.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sick at heart they turned away their misery to bear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And wrestled once again with God in agony of prayer.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As drops of blood wrung from the heart fell each imploring word,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh, God of Heaven! and can it be such prayer is still unheard?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They strained once more each aching orb out o'er the gloomy main,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wave rolling after wave was all that answered back again.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They waited yet&mdash;they lingered yet&mdash;they searched the horizon round,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No sight of land, no blessed sail, no living thing was found.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They lingered yet&mdash;hope faded fast from out the hearts of all.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They waited yet&mdash;till black Despair sunk o'er them like a pall.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They turned to where Mark Edward stood with his unblenching brow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or he must die their lives to save, or all must perish now.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They lingered yet&mdash;they waited yet&mdash;a sudden shriek rung out&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"A sail! A sail! Oh, blessed Lord!" burst forth one joyful shout.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">New strength those famished men received; fervent their thanks, but brief&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They man their boat, they reach the ship, they ask a swift relief.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Strange faces meet their view, they hear strange words in tongues unknown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And evil eyes with threatening gaze are sternly looking down.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They pause&mdash;for a new terror bids their hearts' warm current freeze,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For they have met a pirate ship, the scourge of all the seas.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But up and out Mark Edward spake, and in the pirates' tongue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And when the pirate captain heard, quick to his side he sprung,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And vowed by all the saints of France&mdash;the living and the dead&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There should not even a hair be harmed upon a single head,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For once, when in a dismal strait, Mark Edward gave him aid,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And now the debt long treasured up should amply be repaid.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He gave them water from his casks, and bread, and all things store,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And showed them how to lay their course to reach the destined shore.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the blessing of those famished men went with him evermore.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Again the favoring gale arose, the barque went bounding on,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And speedily her destined port was now in safety won.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And after, when green Trimount's hills greet their expectant eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">New thanks to Heaven, new hymns of joy unto the Lord arise.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For glory be unto our Lord, and to His name be praise!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon the deep he walketh, in the ocean are his ways.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Tis meet that we should worship him who doeth right always.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<br /><br />
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="SONG_OF_SLEEP" id="SONG_OF_SLEEP"></a>SONG OF SLEEP.</h2>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<h4>BY G. G. FOSTER.</h4>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Oh the dreamy world of sleep for me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With its visions pure and bright,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its fairy throngs in revelry,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Under the pale moonlight!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sleep, sleep, I wait for thy spell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For my eyes are heavy with watching well<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the starry night, and the world of dreams<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That ever in sleep on my spirit beams.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The day, the day, I cannot 'bide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">'Tis dull and dusty and drear&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, owl-like, away from the sun I hide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That in dreams I may wander freer.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sleep, sleep, come to my eyes&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Welcome as blue to the midnight skies&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Faithful as dew to drooping flowers&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I only live in thy dreamy bowers.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The sun is purpling down the west,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Day's death-robes glitter fair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And weary men, agasp for rest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For the solemn night prepare.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sleep, sleep, hasten to me!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The shadows lengthen across the lea;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The birds are weary, and so am I;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tired world and dying day good-bye!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<br /><br />
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_CRUISE_OF_THE_RAKER" id="THE_CRUISE_OF_THE_RAKER"></a>THE CRUISE OF THE RAKER.</h2>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>
+
+<h3>A TALE OF THE WAR OF 1812-15.</h3>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<h4>BY HENRY A. CLARK.</h4>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<h5>(<i>Continued from page</i> 74.)</h5>
+<br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<h4><i>The Chase and the Capture.</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>On the deck of the pirate craft stood a young man
+of powerful frame, and singularly savage features,
+rendered more repulsive by the disposition of the hair
+which was allowed to grow almost over the entire
+mouth, and hung from the chin in heavy masses
+nearly to the waist. With his elbow resting against
+the fore-mast of the vessel, he was gazing through a
+spy-glass upon the brig he had been so long pursuing.
+A burly negro stood at the helm, holding the tiller,
+and steering the brig with an ease which denoted his
+vast strength, scarcely moving his body, but meeting
+the long waves, which washed over the side of the
+vessel, and rushed in torrents through the hawse-holes,
+merely by the power of his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep her more in the wind," shouted the commander,
+with an oath, to the helmsman.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, ay sir," responded the negro gruffly.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't let me hear a sail flap again or I'll score
+your back for you, you son of a sea-cook."</p>
+
+<p>With this pleasant admonition the young man resumed
+his night-glass.</p>
+
+<p>The captain of the pirate brig was an Englishman
+by birth; his history was little known even to his
+own crew, but it was remarkable that though always
+savage and blood-thirsty, he was peculiarly so to his
+own countrymen, evincing a hatred and malignancy
+toward every thing connected with his native land,
+that seemed more than fiendish&mdash;never smiling but
+when his sword was red with the blood of his countrymen,
+and his foot planted upon her conquered
+banner. It was evident that some deep wrong had
+driven him forth to become an outcast and a fiend.
+A close inspection of his features developed the outlines
+of a noble countenance yet remaining, though
+marred and deformed by years of passion and of
+crime. His crew, which numbered nearly fifty, were
+gathered from almost every nation of the civilized
+world, yet were all completely under his command.
+They were now scattered over the vessel in various
+lounging attitudes, apparently careless of every thing
+beyond the ease of the passing moment, leaving the
+management of the brig to the two or three hands
+necessary to control the graceful and obedient craft.</p>
+
+<p>For long hours the captain of the pirate brig stood
+following the motions of the flying merchantman; he
+thought not of sleep or of refreshment, it was enough
+for him that he was in pursuit of an English vessel,
+that his revenge was again to be gratified with English
+blood.</p>
+
+<p>He was roused by a light touch of the arm&mdash;he
+turned impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Florette."</p>
+
+<p>A beautiful girl stood beside him, gazing into his
+face half with fear and half with love. Her dress
+was partly that of a girl and partly of a boy; over a
+pair of white loose sailor's trowsers a short gown
+was thrown, fastened with a blue zone, and her long
+hair fell in thick, luxuriant masses from beneath a
+gracefully shaped little straw hat&mdash;altogether she
+was as lovely in feature and form as Venus herself,
+with an eye blue as the ocean, and a voice soft and
+sweet as the southern breeze.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear William, will you not go below and take
+some rest?"</p>
+
+<p>"I want none, girl; I shall not sleep till every
+man on yonder vessel has gone to rest in the caves
+of ocean."</p>
+
+<p>"But you will eat?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw! Florette, leave me; your place is below."</p>
+
+<p>The girl said no more, but slowly glided to the
+companion-way and disappeared into the little cabin.</p>
+
+<p>The long night at length wore away, and as the
+clear light of morning shone upon the waters the
+merchant vessel was no longer visible from the deck
+of the pirate.</p>
+
+<p>"A thousand devils! has he escaped me. Ho!
+the one of you with the sharpest eyes up to the mast-head.
+Stay, I will go myself."</p>
+
+<p>Thus speaking, the captain mounted the main-mast
+and gazed long and anxiously; he could see nothing
+of the vessel. He mounted still higher, climbing the
+slender top-mast till with his hand resting upon the
+main-truck he once more looked over the horizon.
+Thus far his gaze had been directed to windward, in
+the course where the vanished brig had last been
+seen. At length he turned to leeward, and far in the
+distant horizon his eagle eye caught faint sight of a
+sail, like the white and glancing wing of a bird.
+With wonderful rapidity he slid to the deck, and
+gave orders to set the brig before the wind. The
+beautiful little bark fell off gracefully, and in a moment
+was swiftly retracing the waters it had beaten
+over during the night.</p>
+
+<p>"The revenge will be no less sweet that it is deferred,"
+exclaimed the pirate captain, as he threw
+himself upon the companion-way. "Thirty English<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>
+vessels have I sunk in the deep, and I am not yet
+satisfied&mdash;no, no, curses on her name, curses on her
+laws, they have driven me forth from a lordly heritage
+and an ancient name to die an outcast and a
+pirate."</p>
+
+<p>Pulling his hat over his dark brow, he sat long in
+deep thought, and not one in all his savage crew but
+would have preferred to board a vessel of twice
+their size than to rouse his commander from his
+thoughtful mood.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Horton for some hours after it had become
+dark the preceding night, had kept his vessel on the
+same course, perplexing his mind with some scheme
+by which he might deceive the pirate. At length he
+gave orders to lower away the yawl boat, and fit a
+mast to it, which was speedily done. When all was
+ready, he hung a lantern to the mast, with a light that
+would burn but a short time, and then putting out his
+own ship-light, he fastened the tiller of the yawl and
+set it adrift, knowing that it would keep its course
+until some sudden gust of wind should overcome its
+steerage way. As soon as he had accomplished this,
+he fell off before the wind, and setting his brig on
+the opposite tack, as soon as he had got to a good
+distance from the light of the yawl, took in all sail
+till not a rag was left standing. He kept his brig in
+this position until he had the satisfaction of seeing
+the pirate brig pass to windward in pursuit of his
+boat, whose light he knew would go out before the
+pirate could overtake it. When the light of the
+chase had become faint in the distance, he immediately
+crowded on all sail, and stood off boldly on
+his original course.</p>
+
+<p>None of his crew had gone below to turn in, for
+all were too anxious to sleep, and his passengers still
+stood beside him upon the quarter-deck; John with
+a large bundle under his arm, which, in answer to
+an inquiry from the merchant, he said was merely a
+change of dress.</p>
+
+<p>"I think we have given them the slip this time,
+Mr. Williams," said Captain Horton.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so, captain."</p>
+
+<p>"You can sleep now without danger of being disturbed
+by unwelcome visiters, Miss Julia."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, captain, I am as glad as my father you
+have escaped. I wish we had got near enough to
+see how they looked though."</p>
+
+<p>"We ought rather, my dear girl, to thank God that
+they came no nearer than they did," said her father
+half reproachfully.</p>
+
+<p>"True, father, true," and bidding Captain Horton
+good-night, they retired to the cabin.</p>
+
+<p>"You did fool them nice, didn't you, captin?"
+said John.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, John, it was tolerably well done, I think
+myself," replied the captain, who, like all of mankind,
+was more or less vain, and prided himself peculiarly
+upon his skill in his own avocation.</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't ha' been much afraid on 'em myself
+if they had caught us," said John.</p>
+
+<p>"You wouldn't, ah!"</p>
+
+<p>"No! I should ha' hated to see all the crew walk
+on the plank as they call it, specially Dick Halyard,
+but I thinks I should ha' come it over 'em
+myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, John, I hope you'll never have such occasion
+to try your powers of deceit, for I fear you
+would find yourself wofully mistaken."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not, captin, but I'm confounded sleepy,
+now we've got away from the bloody pirates, so
+I'll just lie down here, captin; I haint learned to
+sleep in a hammock yet. I wish you'd let me have
+a berth, captin, I hate lying in a circle, it cramps a
+fellow plaguily."</p>
+
+<p>John talked himself to sleep upon the companion-way,
+where the good-natured master of the brig
+allowed him to remain unmolested, and soon after
+yielding the helm to one of the mates, himself
+"turned in."</p>
+
+<p>As the morning broke over the sea clear and cloudless,
+while not a sail was visible in any quarter of the
+horizon, the revulsion of feeling occasioned by the
+transition from despair to confidence, and indeed entire
+assurance of safety, was plainly depicted in the
+joyous countenances of all on the Betsy Allen. The
+worthy captain made no endeavor to check the boisterous
+merriment of his crew, but lighting his pipe,
+seated himself upon the companion-way, with a
+complacent smile expanding his sun-browned features,
+which developed itself into a self-satisfied and
+happy laugh as Mr. Williams appeared at the cabin-door,
+leading up his daughter to enjoy the pure morning
+air, fresh from the clear sky and the bounding
+waters.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! ha! Mr. Williams, told you so, not a sail in
+sight, and a fine breeze."</p>
+
+<p>"Our thanks are due to you, Captain Horton, for
+the skillful manner in which you eluded the pirate
+ship."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I was as glad to get out of sight of the rascal
+as you could have been, my dear sir, I assure you;
+now that we are clear of him, I ain't afraid to tell
+Miss Julia that if he had overhauled us we should
+have all gone to Davy Jones' locker, and the Betsy
+Allen would by this time have been burnt to the
+water's edge."</p>
+
+<p>"I was not ignorant of the danger at any time,
+Captain Horton."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you are a brave girl, and deserve to be a
+sailor's wife, but I'm married myself."</p>
+
+<p>"That is unfortunate, captain," said Julia, with a
+merry laugh, so musical in its intonations that the
+rough sailors who heard its sweet cadence could not
+resist the contagion, and a bright smile lit up each
+weather-beaten countenance within the sound of the
+merry music.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I think so myself, though I wouldn't like
+Mrs. Horton to hear me say it, or I should have a
+rougher breeze to encounter than I ever met round
+Cape Horn&mdash;ha! ha! ha! You must excuse me, Miss
+Julia, but I feel in fine spirits this morning, not a sail
+in sight."</p>
+
+<p>"Sail ho!" shouted the look-out from the main
+cross-trees.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!&mdash;where away?"</p>
+
+<p>"Right astern."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Can it be that they have got in our wake again.
+I'll mount to the mast-head and see myself."</p>
+
+<p>Seizing the glass the captain ascended to the cross-trees,
+where he remained for a long time, watching
+the distant sail. At length he returned to the deck.</p>
+
+<p>"They've got our bearings again somehow, confound
+the cunning rascals; and, by the way they
+are overhauling us, I judge they can beat us as well
+afore the wind as on a tack."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Captain Horton, we must be resigned to
+our fate then. It matters not so much for me, but
+it is hard, my daughter, that you should be torn from
+your peaceful home in England to fall a prey to these
+fiends."</p>
+
+<p>"They are a long way from us yet, father; let us
+hope something may happen for our relief, and not
+give up till we are taken."</p>
+
+<p>"That's the right feeling, Miss Julia," said the
+captain. "I will do all I can to prolong the chase,
+and we will trust in God for the result."</p>
+
+<p>Every device which skillful seamanship could
+practice was put in immediate operation to increase
+the speed of the brig. There was but a solitary hope
+remaining, that they might fall in with some national
+vessel able to protect them from the pirate. The
+sails were frequently wet, the halyards drawn taut,
+and the captain himself took the helm. When all this
+was done, each sailor stood gazing upon the pirate
+as if to calculate the speed of his approach by the
+lifting of his sails above the water. The greater
+part of his top-sails were already in sight, and soon
+the heads of her courses appeared above the wave,
+seeming to sweep up like the long, white wings of a
+lazy bird, whose flight clung to the breast of the sea,
+as if seeking a resting-place.</p>
+
+<p>By the middle of the day the pirate was within
+three miles of the merchantman, and had already
+opened upon her with his long gun. Captain Horton
+pressed onward without noticing the balls, which as
+yet had not injured hull or sail. But as the chase
+approached nearer and nearer, the shots began to
+take effect&mdash;a heavy ball made a huge rent in the
+mizzen-topsail&mdash;another dashed in the galley, and
+a third tore up the companion-way, and still another
+cut down the fore-topmast, and materially decreased
+the speed of the vessel.</p>
+
+<p>Noticing this the pirate ceased his fire, and soon
+drew up within hail of the merchantman.</p>
+
+<p>"Ship ahoy&mdash;what ship?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Betsy Allen, London."</p>
+
+<p>"Lay-by till I send a boat aboard."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Horton gave orders to his crew to wait the
+word of command before they altered the vessel's
+course, and then seizing the trumpet, hailed the
+pirate.</p>
+
+<p>"What ship's that?"</p>
+
+<p>"The brig Death&mdash;don't you see the flag?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know the character of your ship, doubtless."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, lay-by, or we'll bring you to with a
+broadside."</p>
+
+<p>Perceiving the inutility of further effort, Captain
+Horton brought-to, and hauled down his flag.</p>
+
+<p>In a short time the jolly-boat of the pirate was
+lowered from the stern, and the commander jumped
+in, followed by a dozen of his crew.</p>
+
+<p>The vigorous arms of the oarsmen soon brought
+the boat to the merchantman, and the pirate stood
+upon the deck of the captured vessel.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir, you have given us some trouble to
+overhaul you," said he, in a manner rather gentlemanly
+than savage.</p>
+
+<p>"We should have been fools if we had not tried
+our best to escape."</p>
+
+<p>"True, true&mdash;will you inform me how you eluded
+our pursuit last night. I ask merely from motives of
+curiosity?"</p>
+
+<p>Captain Horton briefly related the deception of the
+boat.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! ha! very well done. Here Diego," said he
+to one of the sailors who had followed him, "go
+below and bring up the passengers."</p>
+
+<p>The swarthy rascal disappeared with a malignant
+grin through the cabin-door, and speedily escorted
+Mr. Williams to the deck, followed by Julia, and, to
+the surprise of Captain Horton and his crew, another
+female.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, captain," said the pirate, with a fiendish
+smile, "I shall proceed to convey your merchandize
+to my brig, including these two ladies, though, by
+my faith, we shall have little use for one of them.
+After which I will leave you in quiet."</p>
+
+<p>"I could expect no better terms," said Captain
+Horton, resignedly.</p>
+
+<p>"O, you will soon be relieved from my presence."</p>
+
+<p>Julia clung to her father, but was torn from his
+grasp, and the good old man was pushed back by the
+laughing fiends, as he attempted to follow her to the
+boat. The father and daughter parted with a look of
+strong anguish, relieved in the countenance of Julia
+by a deep expression of firmness and resolution.</p>
+
+<p>John was also seized by the pirates, but he had
+overheard the words of their captain that they would
+soon be left in quiet, and had already commenced
+throwing off his woman's dress.</p>
+
+<p>"Hillo! is the old girl going to strip? Bear a hand
+here, Mike," shouted Diego, to one of his comrades,
+"just make fast those tow-lines, and haul up her
+rigging."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Williams, who immediately conceived the
+possible advantage it might be to Julia to have even
+so inefficient a protector with her as John, addressed
+him in a stern tone.</p>
+
+<p>"What, will you desert your mistress?"</p>
+
+<p>John stood in doubt, but he was a kind-hearted
+fellow, and loved Julia better than he did any thing
+else in the world except himself; and without further
+resistance or explanation, allowed himself to be
+conveyed to the boat, though the big tears rolled
+down his cheeks, and nothing even then would have
+prevented his avowing his original sex, but a strong
+feeling of shame at the thought of leaving Julia.</p>
+
+<p>For hours the pirate's jolly-boat passed backward and
+forward between the two brigs; the sea had become
+too rough to allow the vessels to be fastened together
+without injury to the light frame of the pirate bark;
+and night had already set in before all the cargo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
+which the pirates desired had been removed from the
+merchantman; but it was at length accomplished,
+and once more the pirates stood upon the deck of
+their own brig.</p>
+
+<p>In a few words their captain explained his plan of
+destruction to his crew, which was willingly assented
+to, as it was sufficiently cruel and vindictive. Three
+loud cheers burst from their lips, startling the crew
+of the Betsey Allen with its wild cadence, and in another
+moment the pirate-captain leaped into his boat,
+and followed by a number of his crew, returned to
+the merchantman.</p>
+
+<p>Still preserving his suavity of manner, he addressed
+Captain Horton as he stepped upon the deck, after
+first ordering the crew to the bows, and drawing up
+his own men with pointed muskets before the companion-way.</p>
+
+<p>"Captain Horton, as you are, perhaps, aware it is
+our policy to act upon the old saying that 'dead
+men tell no tales,' and after consultation among ourselves,
+we have concluded to set your vessel on fire,
+and then depart in peace, leaving you to the quiet I
+promised you."</p>
+
+<p>"Blood-thirsty villain!" shouted the captain of the
+merchantman, and suddenly drawing a pistol, he
+discharged it full at the pirate's breast. The latter
+was badly wounded, but falling back against the
+main-mast, was able to order his men to pursue their
+original design before he fell fainting in the arms of
+one of his men, who immediately conveyed him
+to the boat.</p>
+
+<p>The savages proceeded then to fire the vessel in
+several different places, meeting with no resistance
+from the crew, as a dozen muskets pointed at their
+heads admonished them that immediate death would
+be the consequence.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the subtle element had so far progressed
+in its work of destruction that the hand of man could
+not stay it, the pirates jumped into their boat, and
+with a fiendish yell, pulled off for their own vessel.</p>
+
+<p>For a very short time the crew of the merchantman
+stood watching the flame and smoke which was
+fast encircling them, then rousing their native energies,
+and perceiving the utter impossibility of conquering
+the fire, they turned their attention to the
+only resource left&mdash;the construction of some sort of
+a raft that would sustain their united weight.</p>
+
+<p>The progress of the flames, however, was so rapid,
+that though a score of busy hands were employed
+with axes and hatchets, the most that could be done
+was to hurl overboard a few spars and boards, cut
+away the bowsprit and part of the bulwarks, before
+the exceeding heat compelled them to leave the brig.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Williams, who had remained in a state of
+stupor since the loss of his daughter, was borne to the
+ship's side, and hurriedly fastened to a spar; and then
+all the crew boldly sprung into the water, and
+pushing the fragments of boards and spars from the
+burning brig, as soon as they attained a safe distance,
+commenced the construction of their raft in the
+water. This was an exceedingly difficult undertaking;
+but they were working with the energies of
+despair, and board after board was made fast by means
+of the rope they had thrown over with themselves;
+and in the light of their burning vessel they managed
+at length to build a raft sufficiently strong to bear
+their weight.</p>
+
+<p>Then seating themselves upon it, they almost gave
+way to despair; they had lost the excitement of
+occupation, and now, in moody silence, watched
+the mounting flames. They were without food, and
+the sea ran high; their condition did, indeed, seem
+hopeless&mdash;and their only refuge, death.</p>
+<br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER IV.</h3>
+
+<h4><i>The Escape.</i></h4>
+
+<p>The fire had made swift work during the time the
+unfortunate crew were occupied in building the
+raft, and the little brig was now almost enveloped in
+smoke and flame. A burst of fire from her main
+hatchway threw a red glare over the turbulent waters,
+and showed the vessel's masts and rigging brightly displayed
+against the dark sky above and beyond them.
+The main-sail by this time caught fire, and was
+blazing away along the yard fiercely; and the flame
+soon reached the loftier sails and running rigging;
+the fire below was raging between decks, and rising
+in successive bursts of flame from the hatchways.
+The vessel had been filled with combustible material,
+and the doomed brig, in a short space of time, was
+one mass of flame.</p>
+
+<p>To a spectator beholding the sight in safety,
+it would have been a magnificent spectacle&mdash;the
+grandest, the most terrific, perhaps, it is possible to
+conceive&mdash;a ship on fire at night in the mid-ocean.
+The hull of the vessel lay flaming like an immense
+furnace on the surface of the deep; her masts, and
+the lower and topsail-yards, with fragments of the
+rigging hanging round them, sparkling, and scattering
+the fire-flakes, rose high above it, while huge volumes
+of smoke ever and anon obscured the whole, then
+borne away by the strong breeze, left the burning
+brig doubly distinct, placed in strong relief against
+the dark vault of heaven behind. The lofty spars, as
+their fastenings were burnt through, fell, one by one,
+into the hissing water, and at length the tall masts,
+no longer supported by the rigging, and nearly burnt
+into below the deck, fell over, one after the other,
+into the deep.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Captain Horton started to his feet,</p>
+
+<p>"It is, it is a sail&mdash;look, do you now see it coming
+up in the light of the brig?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is so, captain," responded his men one after
+the other.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank God we shall yet be saved! If the pirate
+had scuttled the ship we should have had no chance;
+but his cruel course has saved us, for the flame has
+attracted some vessel to our succor."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps the pirate returning," remarked Mr.
+Williams.</p>
+
+<p>"No, that kept on before the wind, and this is
+coming up. God grant it be an English vessel, and
+a swift one, and we may yet save your daughter!"</p>
+
+<p>This remark struck a chord of hope in the heart
+of Mr. Williams, and roused him to his native manliness.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But," said he, "our own vessel has drifted far
+from us, and we shall not be seen by this one."</p>
+
+<p>"I think they will come within hail; they will at
+least sail round the burning vessel, in the hopes of
+picking up somebody. Come, my men, let's make
+some kind of sail of our jackets, a half a mile nearer
+the ship may save us all our lives."</p>
+
+<p>With a cheer as merry as ever broke from their
+lips when on board ship, the reanimated sailors went
+to work, and soon reared a small sail made of their
+clothing, which caught enough wind to move them
+slowly onward.</p>
+
+<p>"Steer in the wake of our own vessel, my men,
+and the strange sail will come right on to us&mdash;get
+between them."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, ay, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>As the approaching vessel drew nearer, the crew
+of the Betsy Allen sent up a cheer from their united
+voices which, to their great joy, was answered from
+the strange sail.</p>
+
+<p>"Ahoy, where away?"</p>
+
+<p>"Three points on your weather bow&mdash;starboard
+your helm, and you'll be on us."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, ay."</p>
+
+<p>In a very short time the shipwrecked crew stood
+on the deck of the privateer Raker, which, attracted
+by the light of their burning brig, had varied somewhat
+from its course, to render assistance if any were
+needed. Captain Greene and his men soon became
+acquainted with the history of the crew of the lost
+brig, and every attention was shown to them.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Horton gave them a brief account of the
+pirate's assault, and the abduction of Julia.</p>
+
+<p>"O Captain Greene, save my child, if possible.
+She is my only one," exclaimed Mr. Williams.</p>
+
+<p>"Which way did she steer, Captain Horton?"</p>
+
+<p>"She went off right before the wind, sir, and is
+not three hours ahead of us."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Williams I will immediately give chase, and
+God grant that I may overtake the scoundrels."</p>
+
+<p>"A father's thanks shall be yours, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind that&mdash;you had all better turn in; I
+will steer the same course with the pirate till morning,
+sir; and if he is then in sight, I think he is ours&mdash;for
+there are few things afloat that can outsail
+the Raker."</p>
+
+<p>The crew of the Betsy Allen, whose anxiety and
+exertions during the last few hours had been excessive,
+gladly accepted the captain's offer, and were
+soon snoring in their hammocks. Captain Horton
+and Mr. Williams remained on the deck of the
+Raker, the one too anxious for revenge upon the
+pirate who had destroyed his brig, to sleep, and the
+other too much afflicted by the loss of his daughter,
+and the painful thoughts which it engendered, to
+think of any thing but her speedy recovery.</p>
+
+<p>The long night at length wore away, and with the
+first beams of the morning sun the mists rolled
+heavily upward from the ocean. To the great joy
+of all on board the Raker, the pirate-brig was in
+sight, though beyond the reach of shot from the
+privateer.</p>
+
+<p>Although the captain of the Raker had sufficient
+confidence in the superior speed of his own vessel,
+yet to avoid the possibility of being deceived, he
+decided to pretend flight, well assured that the pirate
+would give chase. He accordingly bore off, as if
+anxious to avoid speaking him, and displaying every
+sign of fear, had the satisfaction of perceiving the
+pirate change his course, and set all sail in pursuit.</p>
+
+<p>In order to test the relative speed of the two
+vessels he did not at first slacken his own sail, but
+put his brig to its swiftest pace. He had reason to
+congratulate himself upon the wisdom of his man&oelig;uvre
+when he perceived that in spite of every
+exertion the chase gained upon him, and it was evident
+that unless he was crippled by a shot, he might
+yet escape.</p>
+
+<p>As the pirate bore down upon his brig, Captain
+Greene perceived, by aid of his glass, that the number
+of the crew on board was considerably superior
+to his own, even with the addition of the crew of the
+Betsy Allen. In consideration of this fact, he determined
+to fight her at a distance with his long gun.
+This he still kept concealed amidships, under the
+canvas, desiring to impress fully upon his opponent
+the idea of his inferiority.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the vessels thus situated, let us visit the
+pirate again.</p>
+
+<p>Julia, and John in his disguise, were conveyed to
+his deck, where they were speedily separated. Julia
+was conducted below, where, to her surprise and
+joy, she found a companion of her own sex, in the
+person of Florette.</p>
+
+<p>The wounded commander of the pirate was also
+conveyed to his berth, where Florette, with much
+grief, attended to nurse him. It was in her first
+passionate burst of sorrow that Julia discovered her
+love for the pirate, from which circumstance she
+also derived consolation and relief; and having
+already, with the natural firmness of her mind,
+shaken off the deep despondency which had settled
+upon it when first torn from her father, she began to
+resolve upon the course of action she would pursue,
+in every probable event which might befall her.</p>
+
+<p>During the long night the pirate lay groaning and
+helpless; but such was the strength of his will, and
+the all absorbing nature of his hatred, that when informed
+on the succeeding morning that a vessel was
+in sight, he aroused his physical powers sufficiently
+to reach the deck, where, seating himself on the
+companion-way, he watched the strange sail with
+an interest so intense, that he almost forgot his painful
+wounds.</p>
+
+<p>He had hardly taken his position before the captain
+of the Raker uncovered and ran out his long gun,
+and to the surprise of all on board the pirate, a huge
+shot, evidently sent from a gun much larger than
+they had supposed their antagonist to possess, came
+crashing through their main-sail.</p>
+
+<p>Too late the pirates perceived the error into which
+they had fallen; and were aware of the immense
+advantage which the long gun gave their opponent,
+enabling him, in fact, to maintain his own position
+beyond the reach of their fire, and at the same time
+cut every mast and spar on board the pirate-brig to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>
+pieces, unless, indeed, the latter might be fortunate
+enough, by superior sailing, to get beyond the reach
+of shot without suffering material injury.</p>
+
+<p>Perceiving this to be his only resource, orders
+were given on board the pirate again to 'bout ship,
+and instead of pursuing to be themselves in turn
+fugitives. But they were not destined to escape
+without injury. Another shot from the Raker bore
+away their foretop-sail, and sensibly checked their
+speed. To remedy this misfortune, studding-sails
+were set below and aloft, and for a long time the
+chase was continued without the shot from the Raker
+taking serious effect on the pirate; and, indeed, the
+latter in a considerable degree increased the distance
+between the two vessels. But while the captain
+and crew of the Raker were confident of eventually
+overtaking their antagonist, the men in the pirate-brig
+had already become convinced that in such a
+harassing and one-sided mode of warfare, they stood
+no chance whatever, and demanded of their captain
+that he should make the attempt to close with the
+Raker and board. This he sternly refused, and
+pointed out to his men the folly of such a course, as
+upon a nearer approach to the privateer, his rigging
+and masts must necessarily suffer in such a manner
+as to place his brig entirely at the command of the
+Raker. His men admitted the truth of his reasoning,
+but at the same time evinced so much dissatisfaction
+at their present vexatious situation, that their
+captain plainly perceived it was necessary to pursue
+some course of action to appease their turbulent
+spirits.</p>
+
+<p>With a clouded brow he returned to his cabin
+with the assistance of Florette, who had watched
+with a woman's love to take advantage of every
+opportunity to aid him.</p>
+
+<p>Reaching the cabin, his eyes fell upon the form of
+Julia, eagerly bending from the little window as she
+watched the pursuing brig, fervently praying that its
+chase might be successful.</p>
+
+<p>As she turned her eyes in-doors at the noise made
+by the entrance of the pirate, his keen glance noticed
+the light of hope which shone in her beautiful eyes,
+which she strove not and cared not to conceal.</p>
+
+<p>"My fair captive," said he, with a sneering smile,
+"do you see hope of escape in yonder approaching
+vessel?"</p>
+
+<p>"My hope is in God," was the calm reply of the
+lovely girl.</p>
+
+<p>"That trust will fail you now, sweet lady."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe it not; when has He deserted those
+whose trust was in him?"</p>
+
+<p>"So have you been taught, doubtless, so you may
+yet believe; but you have still to learn that if there
+is such a being, he meddles not with the common
+purposes of man. It is his government to punish,
+not prevent; and man here on earth pursues his own
+course, be it dark or bright&mdash;and God's hand is not
+interposed to stay the natural and inevitable workings
+of cause and effect. No, no! here, on this, my own
+good ship, <i>I</i> rule; and there is no hand, human or
+divine, that will interpose between my determination
+and the execution of my purpose."</p>
+
+<p>"Impious man! you may yet learn to fear the
+power you now despise."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! ha! ha!&mdash;do I look like a man to be frightened
+by the words of a weak girl, or by the name of
+a mysterious being, whose agency I have never seen
+in the workings of earthly affairs."</p>
+
+<p>"I have no mercy to expect from one who has
+consigned a whole ship's crew, without remorse, to
+a cruel death."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, were they not Englishmen? I have not
+for years, lady, spared an Englishman in my deep
+hatred, or an Englishwoman in my lust!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yet are they not your own countrymen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Unnatural monster!"</p>
+
+<p>The pirate smiled. "I could relate a history of
+wrong that would justify me even in your eyes. If
+I have proved a viper to my native land, it is because
+her heel has crushed me&mdash;but the tale cannot be told
+now. If yonder vessel overtake us, and escape become
+impossible, my own hand will apply the
+match that shall blow up my brig, and all it contains.
+Before that time you will be a dishonored woman, to
+whom death were a relief. Nothing but this wound
+has preserved you thus long. With this assurance I
+leave you."</p>
+
+<p>The pirate returned to the deck, where, notwithstanding
+the pain of his injuries, he continued to take
+command of the brig.</p>
+
+<p>He had hardly vanished from the cabin before
+Florette stood by the side of Julia.</p>
+
+<p>"Lady," said she, "I overheard your conversation
+with the captain of this brig, and I pity you most
+truly."</p>
+
+<p>"Pity will little avail," replied Julia.</p>
+
+<p>"That is true, yet I would aid you if possible."</p>
+
+<p>"And you&mdash;do not you, too, desire to escape from
+this savage?"</p>
+
+<p>"Alas! lady, I have learned to love him."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Love</i> him!"</p>
+
+<p>"I have now been on this brig more than three
+years. I was taken from a French merchant vessel
+in which I was proceeding to French Guinea, to live
+with a relative there, having lost all my immediate
+kindred in France. While crossing the Bay of
+Biscay, a heavy storm drove us out to sea, and while
+endeavoring to return in shore, we fell in with this
+vessel&mdash;all on board were murdered but myself, so I
+have been told. I was borne to this cabin, which
+has since been my home. I was treated with much
+respect by the captain, and being all alone, I don't
+know why it was, I forgot all his crimes, and at
+length became his willing mistress. You turn from
+me in disgust, and in pity&mdash;yet so it is. And now,
+lady, if you are bold enough to risk your life, you
+may escape."</p>
+
+<p>"I would gladly give my life to save my honor."</p>
+
+<p>Florette gazed with a melancholy smile upon her
+companion; perhaps thoughts of her own former
+purity came over her mind.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a bold plan," said she, "but it is on that
+account that I am more confident of success, as all
+chance of escape will be deemed hopeless."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What is your plan?"</p>
+
+<p>"Night is now approaching, and it is probable the
+pursuing brig will not gain on us before dark. I
+have noticed that the ship's boat hangs at the stern,
+only fastened by the painter. If you have courage
+enough to descend to the boat by the painter, I will
+cut it, and you will then be directly in the course of
+the pursuing brig, and will be easily picked up."</p>
+
+<p>"But how can I get to the vessel's deck without
+being seen?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have thought of that; we will wait till dark,
+when you shall put on a similar dress with mine,
+and then you can go to any part of the vessel you
+choose without being suspected. You must watch
+your time to steal unobserved behind the man at the
+helm, and drop yourself into the boat; I will soon
+after appear on deck, and if you are successful in
+escaping observation, I shall be able then to cut the
+painter without difficulty, as the darkness will conceal
+my movements. Do you understand the plan?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do."</p>
+
+<p>"And you are not afraid to put it into execution?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, no! and I thank you for your kind aid."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not wholly disinterested, lady; you are
+beautiful, and may steal away the captain's heart
+from me."</p>
+
+<p>Julia shuddered.</p>
+
+<p>"Be ready," continued Florette, "and as soon as
+possible after it becomes dark we will make the
+attempt."</p>
+
+<p>It was as Florette had called it, a bold plan, but not
+impracticable, as any one acquainted with the position
+of things will at once acknowledge. Only one
+man would be at the tiller, and he might or might not
+notice the passing of any other person behind him.
+This passage once accomplished, it would be an easy
+undertaking to slide down the strong painter, or rope
+which made fast the boat to the stern of the brig. It
+was a plan in which the chances were decidedly in
+favor of the success of the attempt.</p>
+
+<p>The Raker had for some time ceased firing, and
+set studding-sails in hopes of gaining on the pirate;
+but the most the privateer was able to do, was to still
+preserve the relative positions of the two vessels.</p>
+
+<p>The sun sunk beneath the waters, leaving a cloudless
+sky shedding such a light from its starry orbs,
+that if the pirate had hoped to escape under cover
+of the night, he speedily saw the impossibility of
+such an attempt eluding the watch from the privateer.</p>
+
+<p>The captain of the pirate still kept his position
+upon the companion-way, with his head bent upon
+his breast, either buried in thought, or yielding to the
+weakness of his physical powers, occasioned by the
+loss of blood from his wound.</p>
+
+<p>Florette, who was continually passing up and
+down through the cabin-door, carefully noted the
+state of things upon the quarter-deck, and perceiving
+every thing to be as favorable as could be expected,
+soon had Julia in readiness for her share in the
+undertaking.</p>
+
+<p>"But first," said she, "let me put out the light in
+the binnacle."</p>
+
+<p>The girl stood for a moment in deep thought, when
+her ready wit suggested a way to accomplish this
+feat, sufficiently simple to avoid suspicion. Seizing
+the broad palmetto hat of the pirate, and bidding
+Julia to be in readiness to profit by the moment of
+darkness which would ensue, she returned to the
+deck, and approaching the pirate, exclaimed,</p>
+
+<p>"William, I have brought you your hat."</p>
+
+<p>At the moment of presenting it to him, as it passed
+the binnacle-light, she gave it a swift motion, which
+at once extinguished the flame.</p>
+
+<p>"Curses on the girl!" muttered the man at the
+helm.</p>
+
+<p>"O, I was careless, Diego; I will bring the lantern
+in a moment;" and laying down the hat on the companion-way
+beside the pirate, who paid no attention
+to the movements around him, she glided back to the
+cabin.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, lady," said she, "be quick&mdash;hand this
+lantern to the man at the helm, and then drop silently
+behind him while he is lighting it. I will immediately
+follow and take your place beside him. You
+understand me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, clearly."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, as soon as I begin to speak with him, let
+yourself down into the boat by the painter, which I
+will soon cut apart, and then you will at least be out
+of the hands of your enemies."</p>
+
+<p>Julia took the hand of Florette in her own, and
+warmly thanked her, but the girl impatiently checked
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"Take this pistol with you also."</p>
+
+<p>"But why?" inquired Julia, with a woman's instinctive
+dread of such weapons.</p>
+
+<p>"O, I don't mean you should shoot any body, but
+if the boat drifts a little out of the brig's course, you
+might not be able to make yourself heard on her
+deck."</p>
+
+<p>"True, true."</p>
+
+<p>"The night is so still that a pistol-shot would be
+heard at a good distance."</p>
+
+<p>"O, yes, I see it all now; I was so anxious to
+escape from this terrible ship that I thought of nothing
+else; and there is poor John."</p>
+
+<p>"You must not think of him&mdash;it will be no worse
+for him if you go, no better if you remain. Here,
+take the lantern&mdash;say nothing as you hand it to the
+man at the tiller, but do as I told you."</p>
+
+<p>Pressing the hand of Florette, Julia mounted to
+the deck with a painfully beating heart, but with a
+firm step. She handed the lantern to the steersman,
+who received it surlily, growling some rough oath,
+half to himself, at her delay, and leaning upon the
+tiller, proceeded to relight the binnacle-lamp. Julia
+fell back cautiously, and in another moment the light
+form of Florette filled her place.</p>
+
+<p>"I was very careless, Diego," said she.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied he, gruffly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I will be more careful next time."</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better."</p>
+
+<p>Julia, during the short time of this conversation,
+had disappeared over the stern, and as the vessel
+was sailing before a steady wind, found little difficulty
+in sliding down the painter into the yawl.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>
+She could hardly suppress an exclamation when a
+moment afterward she found the ship rapidly gliding
+away from her, and leaving her alone upon the
+waters in so frail a support. Her situation was,
+indeed, one that might well appall any of her sex.
+To a sailor it would already have been one of entire
+safety, but to her it seemed as if every succeding
+wave would sink the little boat as it gracefully rose and
+fell upon their swell; but seating herself by the tiller,
+she managed to guide its motions, and with a calm
+reliance upon that God whose supporting arm she
+knew to be as much around her, when alone in the
+wide waste of waters, as when beside her own
+hearth-stone, in quiet and happy England, she
+patiently awaited the issue of her bold adventure.</p>
+
+<p>She had but a short time to wait when she perceived
+the dark outlines of the Raker bearing directly
+down upon her. As it approached it seemed as if it
+would run directly over her boat, and excited by the
+fear of the moment, and the anxiety to be heard, she
+gave a louder shriek than she supposed herself capable
+of uttering, and at the same time fired off her
+pistol.</p>
+
+<p>Both were heard on board the Raker.</p>
+
+<p>"Man overboard!" shouted the look-out.</p>
+
+<p>"Woman overboard, you lubber," said a brother
+tar; "didn't you hear that screech?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hard a port!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hard a port 'tis."</p>
+
+<p>"Right under the lee bow."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, pitch over a rope whoever it is. What does
+this mean?" said Lieutenant Morris, as he approached
+the bows.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't say, sir&mdash;some deviltry of the pirates, I
+reckon, to make us lose way."</p>
+
+<p>"By heavens! it is a woman," cried the lieutenant,
+"let me throw that rope, we shall be on the
+boat in a minute. Hard a port!"</p>
+
+<p>The rope, skillfully thrown by the young lieutenant,
+struck directly at the feet of Julia. With
+much presence of mind she gave it several turns
+around one of the oar-locks, and her boat was immediately
+hauled up to the side of the brig, without
+compelling the latter to slacken sail.</p>
+
+<p>In another moment she was lifted to the deck of
+the Raker.</p>
+
+<p>"Julia! thank Heaven!" exclaimed her father.</p>
+
+<p>With a cry of joy she fainted in his arms, and was
+borne below, where she speedily recovered, and
+related the manner of her escape from the pirate.</p>
+
+<p>All admired the courage of the attempt, and Lieutenant
+Morris, as he gazed upon the lovely countenance,
+which returning sensation was restoring to
+all its wonted bloom and beauty, one day of intense
+sorrow having left but slight traces upon it, he felt
+emotions to which he had hitherto been an entire
+stranger, and sought the deck with a flushed brow
+and animated eye, wondering at the vision of beauty
+which had risen, like Cytherea, from the sea.</p>
+
+<p class="right">[<i>To be continued.</i></p>
+<br /><br />
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_PRAYER_OF_THE_DYING_GIRL" id="THE_PRAYER_OF_THE_DYING_GIRL"></a>THE PRAYER OF THE DYING GIRL.</h2>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<h4>BY SAMUEL D. PATTERSON.</h4>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Oh! take me back again, mother, to that home I love so well,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose memory rules my fluttering heart with a mysterious spell:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I think of it when lying on my weary couch of pain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I feel that I am dying, mother&mdash;Oh! take me home again!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">They tell me that this sunny clime strength to the wasted brings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the zephyr's balmy breezes come with healing on their wings;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But to me the sun's rich glow is naught&mdash;the perfumed air is vain&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For I know that I am dying&mdash;Oh! then, take me home again!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I long to find myself once more beside the little stream<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That courses through our valley green, of which I often dream:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I fancy that a cooling draught from that sweet fount I drain&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It stills the fever of my blood&mdash;Oh! take me home again!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And then I lie and ponder, as I feel my life decline,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On the happy days that there I spent when health and strength were mine;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When I climbed the mountain-side, and roved the valley and the plain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And my bosom never knew a pang of sorrow or of pain.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And when the sun was sinking in the far and glowing west,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I came and sat me by thy side, or nestled in thy breast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And heard thy gentle words of love, and listened to the strain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of thy sweet favorite evening hymn&mdash;Oh! take me home again!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">How bright and joyous was my life! Night brought refreshing rest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And morning's dawn awakened naught but rapture in my breast:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now, sad and languid, weak and faint, I seek, but seek in vain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To lay me down in soft repose&mdash;Oh! take me home again!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The hand of death is laid upon thy child's devoted head&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I feel its damp and chilling touch, so cold, so full of dread&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It palsies every nerve of mine&mdash;it freezes every vein&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh! take me then, dear mother&mdash;Oh! take me home again!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There, with my wan brow lying on thy fond and faithful breast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let me calmly wait the summons that calls me to my rest:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And when the struggle's o'er, mother&mdash;the parting throe of pain&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou'lt joy to know thy daughter saw her own loved home again!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<br /><br />
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="A_WRITTEN_LEAF_OF_MEMORY" id="A_WRITTEN_LEAF_OF_MEMORY"></a>A WRITTEN LEAF OF MEMORY.</h2>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<h4>BY FANNY LEE.</h4>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>Poor Fanny Layton! Oh! how well I remember
+the last time I ever saw her! 'Twas in the dear old
+church whither from early childhood my footsteps
+were bent. What feelings of holy awe and reverence
+crept into my heart as I gazed, with eyes in
+which saddened tears were welling, upon the sacred
+spot! How my thoughts reverted to other days&mdash;the
+days of my early youth&mdash;that sweet "spring-time"
+of life, when I trod the blooming pathway before me
+so fetterless and free, with no overshadowing of
+coming ill&mdash;no anxious, fearful gazing into the dim
+future, as in after years, but with the bounding step
+that bespeaks the careless joyousness which Time,
+oh all too soon! brushes from the heart with "rude,
+relentless wing." How eagerly I would strive to
+subdue my impatient footsteps then to the calmer
+pace of more thoughtful years, as I gradually drew
+nearer to the holy sanctuary, although mine eyes
+would oft, despite my utmost endeavors, wander to
+the eaves of that time-worn, low-browed church, to
+watch the flight of the twittering host who came
+forth, I fancied, at my approach to bid me welcome!
+How I would cast one "longing, lingering look" at
+the warm, bright sunshine that irradiated even those
+gray walls, ere I entered the low porch whence it
+was all excluded by the ivy which seemed to delight
+in entwining its slender leaves around the crumbling
+pillars, as if it would fain impart strength and beauty
+to the consecrated building in its declining years.</p>
+
+<p>But a long&mdash;long time had passed since then, and
+I had come to revisit my village-home, and the
+memory-endeared haunts of my girlhood, for the last
+time, ere journeying to a distant land. The place
+was little changed, and every thing around that well-remembered
+spot came laden with so many sweet
+and early associations, that the memory of by-gone
+hours swept thrillingly across my heart-strings, and
+it was not until after I had taken my accustomed
+seat in the old-fashioned high-backed pew, that I was
+roused from my busy wanderings in the "shadowy
+past," by the voice of our pastor&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Years had gone by, and given his honored head<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A <i>diadem of snow</i>&mdash;his eye was dim"&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>his voice grown weak and tremulous with increasing
+years, although there was a something in its tone so
+full of simple-hearted earnestness, that had never
+failed to find its way to the most gay and thoughtless
+spirits of his little flock. And now how reverently
+I gazed upon the silvered locks of him who had been
+mine own faithful guide and counselor along the devious
+pathway of youth&mdash;feeling that his pilgrimage
+was almost ended&mdash;his loving labors well nigh over&mdash;and
+soon he would go down to the grave</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Around him and lies down to peaceful dreams."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>I looked around&mdash;and it was sad to see how few
+there were of all the familiar faces I had left&mdash;and
+those few&mdash;oh, how changed! But there was one to
+whom my glance reverted constantly, nor could I
+account for the strange fascination which seemed to
+fix mine eyes upon her. And yet, as I looked, the
+spring of memory seemed touched, and suddenly
+there appeared before me <i>two</i> faces, which I found
+it impossible to separate in my bewildered rememberings&mdash;although
+so very unlike as they were! The
+one so bright and joyous, with blue laughter-loving
+eyes, in which an unshadowed heart was mirrored&mdash;and
+the other&mdash;the one on which my gaze was now
+fixed so dreamily&mdash;wan and faded, although it must
+once have been singularly beautiful, so delicate and
+fair were the features, and so pure and spiritual was
+the white brow resting beneath those waving masses
+of golden hair&mdash;a temple meet, methought, for all
+high and earnest feeling&mdash;then, too, there was a
+sweet&mdash;yet oh! how sorrow-shaded and subdued&mdash;expression
+flitting around the small mouth, as though
+a world-torn and troubled spirit, yet meek and long-suffering,
+had left its impress there! Her eyes&mdash;those
+large, deep, earnest eyes&mdash;how they haunted
+me with their eager restlessness, wandering to and
+fro with a perturbed, anxious, asking look, and then
+upturned with a fixed and pleading gaze, which
+moved one's very heart to see. Her dress was very
+simple, and yet I could not help thinking it strangely
+contrasted with the sorrow-stricken expression of
+that fair though faded face.</p>
+
+<p>A wreath of orange-blossoms encircled the small
+cottage-bonnet, and a long white veil half concealed
+in its ample folds the fragile form, which, if it had
+lost the roundness of early youth, still retained the
+most delicate symmetry of outline; upon her breast
+lay, half hidden, a withered rose, fit emblem, methought,
+for her who wore it. Oft-times her pale
+thin hands were clasped, and once, when our pastor
+repeated in his own low, fervent tone&mdash;"Come unto
+me, all ye heavy-laden, and I will give you rest"&mdash;her
+lip quivered, and she looked quickly up, with</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"A glance of hurried wildness, fraught<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With some unfathomable thought."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>My sympathies were all out-gushing for her, and
+when the full tones of the organ peeled forth their
+parting strain and we went forth from the sanctuary,
+my busy dreamings of the present and the past all
+were merged in one honest desire to know the poor
+girl's history. I learned it afterward from the lips of
+Aunt Nora Meriwether.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Aunt Nora! If thou <i>wert</i> yclept "spinster,"
+never did a heart more filled with good and pure and
+kindly impulses beat than thine! Indeed, I have ever
+ascribed my deep reverence for the sisterhood in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>
+general to my affectionate remembrances of this
+childhood's friend. The oracle of our village was
+Aunt Nora Meriwether&mdash;and how could "old maid"
+be a stigma upon her name, when it was by virtue
+of this very title that she was enabled to perform all
+those little kindly offices which her heart was ever
+prompting, and which made up the sum of her simple
+daily existence! It was said that Aunt Nora was
+"disappointed" in early life&mdash;but however this may
+have been, certain it was that the tales (and they <i>did</i>
+intimate&mdash;did the good people of our village&mdash;that if
+Aunt Nora had a weakness, it consisted in over-fondness
+for story-telling) she treasured longest, and
+oftenest repeated, were those in which the fair heroine
+was crossed in love.</p>
+
+<p>Many a time have we, a group of gay and happy-hearted
+children, gathered round her feet, as she sat
+in the low doorway of her cottage-home, and listened
+with intense interest to a tale of her youthful days,
+gazing the while with eyes in which the bright drops
+of sympathy oft would glisten, upon the kind face
+bent upon our own in such loveful earnestness. And
+we would hope, in child-like innocence of heart, that
+<i>we</i> might never "fall in love," but grow up and be
+"old maids," just like our own dear Aunt Nora!
+Whether we still continued to hope so, after we had
+grown in years and wisdom, it behoveth me not to
+say! I am quite sure you would rather listen to the
+tale now before thee, dear reader, from the good old
+lady's own lips&mdash;for it is but a simple sketch at best,
+and needeth the charm thrown around it by a heart
+which the frost of many winters had not sealed to
+the tenderest sympathies of our nature&mdash;and the low-toned
+voice, too, that often during her narrative
+would grow tremulous with the emotion it excited.
+But, alas! this may not be! that low voice is hushed&mdash;the
+little wicket-gate now closed&mdash;the path which
+led to her cottage-door untrodden now for many a
+day&mdash;and that kind and gentle heart is laid at rest
+beneath bright flowers, planted there by loving hands,
+in the humble church-yard. But this day is so lovely&mdash;is
+it not? With that soft and shadowy mist hanging
+like a gossamer veil over Nature's face, through
+which the glorious god of day looks with a quiet
+smile, as though he loved to dwell upon a scene so
+replete with home-breathing beauty! And that smile!
+how lovingly it rests upon the lawn and the meadow
+and the brook! How it lingers upon the sweet
+flowerets which have not yet brushed the tears from
+their eyes, until those dewy tear-drops seem&mdash;as if
+touched by a fairy wand&mdash;to change to radiant gems!
+How it peeps into every nook and dell, until the
+silent places of the earth rejoice in the light of that
+glory-beaming smile! The busy hum of countless
+insects&mdash;the soft chime of the distant water-fall&mdash;the
+thrilling notes of the woodland choristers&mdash;the happy
+voice of the streamlet, which hurries on ever murmuring
+the same glad strain&mdash;the gentle zephyr, now
+whispering through the leafy trees with low, mysterious
+tone, and then stealing so gently, noiselessly
+through the shadowy grass, till each tiny blade quivers
+as if trembling to the touch of fairy feet. These
+are Nature's voices, and do they not seem on a day
+like this in the sweet summer-time to unite and swell
+forth in one full anthem of harmony and praise to the
+great Creator of all? And does it not seem, too, as
+we gaze (for thou art sitting now with me, art thou
+not, gentle reader? on the mossy bank beneath the
+noble elm which has for many years stretched out
+its arms protectingly over mine own old homestead,
+while I recount to thee this simple tale of "long ago")
+upon the scene before us, so replete with quiet loveliness
+it is&mdash;that in every heart within the precincts
+of our smiling village there must be a chord attuned
+to echo back in voiceless melody the brightness and
+the beauty around? Yet oh! how many there may
+be, even here, whose sun of happiness hath set on
+earth forever! How many whose tear-dimmed
+glance can descry naught in the far future but a
+weary waste&mdash;whose life-springs all are dried&mdash;whose
+up-springing hopes all withered by the blighting
+touch of Sorrow!</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Dost thou see that little cot nestled so closely beneath
+the hill-side? and covered with the woodland
+vine which hath enfolded its tendrils clingingly
+around it&mdash;peeping in and out at the deserted windows,
+or climbing at will over the latticed porch, or
+trailing on the ground and looking up forlornly, as
+though it wondered where were the careful hands
+which erst nourished it so tenderly. The place seems
+very mournful&mdash;with the long grass growing rankly
+over the once carefully-kept pathway, and a few
+bright flowers, on either side, striving to uprear
+their beauteous heads above the tangled weeds which
+have well nigh supplanted them. Neglect&mdash;desolation
+is engraven on all around, and even the little
+wicket, as it swings slowly to and fro, seems to say,
+"All gone! go-ne!" The wind, how meaningly
+it steals through the deserted rooms, as though breathing
+a funereal dirge over the departed! How "eloquent
+of wo" is that sound! Now swelling forth, as
+it were, in wild and uncontrollable grief, and now
+sinking exhaustedly into a low and touching mournfulness
+which seems almost human! But to our tale.</p>
+
+<p>One bright morning, now many years ago, a lady
+clothed in garb of mourning, accompanied by a little
+bright-eyed girl of perhaps some nine summers, and
+her old nurse, alighted at the village inn. Now this
+seemingly trivial circumstance was in reality quite
+an event in our quiet community, and considerably
+disturbed the good people thereof from the "even
+tenor of their way." Indeed, there were many more
+curious eyes bent upon the new-comers than they
+seemed to be at all aware of, if one might judge
+from the cold and calm features of the lady, or the
+assiduous care which her companion was bestowing
+upon one particular bandbox, which the gruff driver
+of the stage-coach was, to be sure, handling rather
+irreverently, actually seeming to enjoy the ill-concealed
+anxiety of the poor old woman for the safety
+of her goods and chattels, while the child followed
+close beside her mamma, her sparkling eyes glancing
+hither and thither with that eager love of novelty so
+natural to the young. At length, however, the trunks,
+boxes, packages, &amp;c., &amp;c., all were duly deposited,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>
+and duly inspected also, by the several pairs of eyes
+which were peering through the narrowest imaginable
+strips of glass at neighboring window-curtains or
+half-closed shutters. The driver once more mounted
+his box, cracked his whip, and the lumbering coach
+rattled rapidly away, while the travelers, obeyed the
+call of the smiling and curtseying landlady, and disappeared
+within the open door of the inn.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, what whisperings and surmisings were afloat
+throughout our village during the succeeding week!
+"Who <i>can</i> this stranger-lady be? From whence has
+she come, and how long intend remaining here?"
+seemed to be the all-important queries of the day;
+and so gravely were they discussed, each varying
+supposition advanced or withdrawn as best suited
+the charity or credulity of the respective interrogators,
+that one would certainly have thought them questions
+of vital importance to their own immediate interests.
+Strange to say, however, with all this unwonted
+zeal and perseverance, at the end of the nine days,
+(the legitimate time for wonderment,) all that the
+very wisest of the group of gossips could bring forward
+as the fruits of her patient and untiring investigation,
+was the simple fact that the lady's name
+was Layton&mdash;the nurse's Jeffries&mdash;and that the child,
+who soon became the pet of the whole household,
+was always addressed by the servants at the inn as
+"Miss Fanny," and, moreover, that Mrs. L. was
+certainly in mourning for her husband, as she had
+been seen one morning by the chambermaid weeping
+over the miniature of a "very fine-looking man,
+dressed in uniform," and had, in all probability,
+come to take up her residence in our quiet Aberdeen,
+as she had been heard inquiring about the
+small cottage beneath the hill, (the self-same, dear
+reader, the neglect and desertion of which were but
+now lamented.)</p>
+
+<p>Truth to tell, it <i>was</i> shrewdly surmised that the
+landlady at the "Golden Eagle" had gleaned more particular
+information than this, although whenever she
+was questioned concerning the matter, she did only
+reply by a very grave shake of the head, each vibration
+of which (particularly when accompanied by a
+pursing of the mouth, and a mysterious looking
+round) more and more convinced her simple-minded
+auditors (i.e. some of them, for it is not to be denied
+that there were a few incredulous ones who, either
+from former experiences, or natural sagacity, or some
+cause unknown, hesitated not to declare it to be
+their fixed and unalterable opinion that these seeming
+indications of superior knowledge on the part of
+good Mrs. Gordon, were but "a deceitful show,"
+"for their '<i>delusion</i>' given,") that she, Mrs. G., had
+been entrusted either by Mistress Jeffries, the nurse,
+or perhaps by the lady herself, with a weighty and
+important secret, which it would be very dreadful,
+indeed, to disclose. And yet, when such a possibility
+was vaguely hinted to her, she did not, (as one
+would be disposed to do who was really striving to
+deceive the eager questioners around her, by giving
+them an erroneous impression as to the amount of
+her knowledge on the subject,) seize the idea with
+avidity, and seem manifestly anxious to encourage
+such a supposition. On the contrary, it was evidently
+deeply distressing to her that any one should
+cherish such a thought for a moment; and she begged
+them so earnestly, almost with tears in her eyes, not
+to mention it again, and said so much about it, reverting
+to the theme invariably when the conversation
+chanced to turn upon some other topic, as
+though it quite weighed upon her mind, that at
+length her companions inwardly wondered what had
+given rise to the belief in their minds, and yet, as
+one old lady said, looking sagaciously over her
+spectacles, "that belief waxed stronger and
+stronger."</p>
+
+<p>Time passed on&mdash;days merged themselves into
+weeks, and weeks to months, and the harmony and
+quietude of Aberdeen was fully restored. The
+"Widow Layton," (for thus, from that time, was
+she invariably styled,) after all due preliminaries,
+had taken quiet possession of the little vine-clad cot;
+and although she was not as "neighborly" as she
+might have been, and never communicative as to her
+previous history, still might the feeling of pique
+with which they at first received such a rebuff
+to their curiosity, have been a very evanescent
+one in the minds of the villagers, had it not chanced
+that Aberdeen was blessed (?) with two prim sister-spinsters,
+(was it they or Aunt Nora, who formed
+the exception to the general rule? I leave it for thee,
+dear reader, to decide, since with that early-instilled
+reverence before mentioned, I cannot consider my
+humble opinion infallible,) whose hearts, according
+to their <i>own</i> impression on the subject, quite overflowed
+with charity and benevolence, which manifested
+itself in the somewhat singular method of
+making every one around them uncomfortable, and
+in the happy faculty which they possessed in an
+eminent degree, of imparting injurious doubts and
+covert insinuations as to the manners and habits of
+their neighbors, who else might have journeyed
+peacefully adown the vale of life in perfect good
+faith with all the world; moreover, they hated a
+mystery, did these two sister-spinsters, from their
+own innate frankness and openness of disposition,
+they said, and considered themselves so much in
+duty bound to ferret out the solution of any thing
+which bore the semblance to an enigma, that they
+gave themselves no rest, poor, self-sacrificing creatures,
+until they had obtained their object. And well
+were they rewarded for this indefatigable zeal, for
+they had the satisfaction of knowing that they had
+found out more family secrets, destroyed more once-thought
+happy marriages, and embittered more hearts
+than any two persons in all the country round.</p>
+
+<p>They lived in the heart of our village, (and never
+did that heart quicken with one pulsation of excitement
+or surprise, or joy or sorrow, but they were
+the first to search into the why and wherefore,)
+in a large two story house, isolated from the rest,
+which seemed to emulate its occupants in stiffness
+and rigidity, and whose glassy eyes looked out as
+coldly upon the beauteous face of nature, as they
+from their own stern "windows of the soul," upon
+the human face divine. There was no comfort, no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>
+home-look about the place; even the flowers seemed
+not to grow by their own sweet will, but came up
+as they were bidden, tall and straight, and stiff. And
+the glorious rays of the sun glanced off from the
+dazzling whiteness of the forbidding mansion, as
+though they had met with a sudden rebuff, and had
+failed to penetrate an atmosphere where every thing
+seemed to possess an antipathy to the bright and
+the joyous. It was strange to see what a chilliness
+pervaded the spot. The interior of the house (which
+I once saw when a child; and, oh! I never <i>can</i>
+forget the long, long-drawn sigh that escaped my
+lips as I once more found myself without the precincts
+of a place where my buoyant spirits seemed
+suddenly frozen beneath the glance of those two
+spinsters, where even the large, lean cat paced the
+floor with such a prim, stately step, now and then
+pausing to fix her cold, gray eyes upon my face, as
+though to question the cause of my intrusion, and
+also to intimate that she had no sort of sympathy
+with either my feelings, or those of children in
+general.) Every thing bore the same immovable
+look&mdash;the narrow, high-backed chairs seemed as if
+they had grown out of the floor, and were destined
+to remain as stationary as the oaks of the forest;
+the "primeval carpet," over which the Misses Nancy
+and Jerusha Simpkins walked as though mentally
+enumerating the lines that crossed each other in such
+exact squares, never was littered by a single shred;
+and the high, old-fashioned clock still maintained its
+position in the corner from year to year, seeming to
+take a sort of malicious satisfaction in calmly ticking
+the hours away which bore the Misses Simpkins
+nearer and nearer to that <i>certain</i> age (which they, if
+truth must be told, were in nowise desirous to reach)
+when all further endeavors to conceal the foot-marks
+of stern old Father Time would be of no avail.</p>
+
+<p>It was at the close of a chilly evening late in
+autumn&mdash;old Boreas was abroad, and had succeeded,
+it would seem, in working himself into an ungovernable
+fit of rage, for he went about screaming most
+boisterously, now hurrying the poor bewildered
+leaves along, maliciously causing them to perform
+very undignified antics for their <i>time of life</i>, while
+they, poor old withered things, thus suddenly torn
+from the protecting arms of their parental tree, flew
+by, like frightened children, vainly striving to gain
+some place of shelter. Alas! alas! no rest was there
+for them. What infinite delight their inveterate
+persecutor seemed to take in whirling them round
+and round, dodging about, and seeking them in the
+most unheard-of places, where they lay panting from
+very fright and fatigue. And then off he would start
+again, shaking the window-sashes as he passed, with
+wild, though impatient fury, remorselessly tearing
+down the large gilt signs which had from time immemorial
+rejoiced in the respective and respectable
+names of several worthies of our village, and then
+speeding away to the homes of said worthies, to proclaim
+the audacious deed through the key-hole, in
+the most impudent and incomprehensible manner
+possible. It was on such an evening as this, a few
+months after the arrival of the Laytons at Aberdeen,
+that the Misses Simpkins sat in their cheerless
+back-room, hovering over a small fire, busily plying
+their noisy knitting-needles, and meantime indulging
+in their usual dish of scandal, which, however, it
+is but justice to say, was not quite so highly seasoned
+with the spice of envy and malice as was its wont.
+Whether it was that the memory of a bright and
+beaming little face that had intruded upon their
+solitude during the afternoon, had half succeeded in
+awakening the slumbering better nature which had
+slept so long, it was somewhat doubted if any effort
+could resuscitate it again; whether it was that the
+lingering echo of a certain sweet, childish voice that
+had beguiled the weary hours of their dullness and
+monotony, and with its innocent prattle, had, in some
+degree, forced an opening through the firm frost-work
+which had been gradually gathering for years round
+their hearts, I cannot tell; but true it is that as the
+sister spinsters sat there, with the faint and feeble flame
+struggling up from the small fire, and the light from
+the one tall candle flickering and growing unsteady
+as it flashed upon the two thin, sharp faces close
+beside it, while the antique furniture looked more
+grotesque and grim than ever in the deep shadow,
+and the never-wearying clock still ticked calmly on,
+regardless alike of the contending elements without
+and the wordy warfare within; true it is that the conversation
+between the sisters was divested of one
+half its wonted acrimony.</p>
+
+<p>"To be sure," said Miss Simpkins the younger, at
+length, after a pause, in which the half-awakened
+better nature seemed strongly disposed to resume its
+slumbers again, "little civility has the Widow
+Layton to expect from any body with her distant
+bows and uppish airs, when one ventures to express
+an interest in her; and if I hadn't a very forgiving
+disposition, oh! Jerusha! Jerusha! I don't think
+I'd trouble myself to call upon her again. But I
+feel it to be my duty to advise her to put little Fanny
+to school, for she's a good child and winsome-like,
+and running at large so will just be the spoiling
+of her."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Jerusha," responded Miss Nancy, who
+had, perhaps, a little leaven more than her sister, of
+tartness in her disposition, and on whose face an
+habitual expression of acidity was rapidly increasing,
+"you know very well that the widow considers
+herself a little above every body else in Aberdeen,
+and you might as well talk to a stone wall as to her
+about sending the child to school. Why haven't I
+done my best at talking to her? Haven't I told her
+of Miss Birch's school, where the children don't so
+much as turn round without their teacher's leave,
+and where you might hear a pin drop at any time.
+Haven't I told her that she might easily save a good
+deal in the year, by renting one half of that snug little
+cottage&mdash;and what thanks did I get? A reply as
+haughty as if she were the greatest lady in the land,
+instead of being, as she is, a nameless, homeless
+stranger, who cannot be 'any better than she should
+be,' or she would never make such a mighty mystery
+about her past life, that she 'trusted Miss Simpkins
+would allow her to be the best judge as to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>
+proper method of educating her child, and also as to
+the means of retrenching her own expenses if she
+found it needful.'"</p>
+
+<p>Unkind, unjust, unfeeling Nancy Simpkins! and
+has not that settled, ever-present sorrow upon those
+pale features; have not those grief-traced lines around
+the compressed mouth, and across the once smooth
+and polished brow; has not the sad garb of the
+mourner, which speaks of the lone vigil, the weary
+watching, the hope deferred, or it may be the sudden
+stroke of the dread tyrant Death, no appeal to thy
+frozen sympathies? Canst thou suffer thy better
+nature to resume its deep and trance-like sleep again,
+and rob that poor widowed mother of her only hope
+on earth, that bright, glad creature, who carries sunshine
+to her otherwise desolate home, but to pinion
+her free and fetterless spirit beneath the iron rule
+and despotic sway of the village task-mistress?</p>
+
+<p>We will leave the Misses Simpkins, and thou
+pleasest, reader mine, to the enjoyment of their
+envy-tinctured converse, and turn the page of Mrs.
+Layton's life.</p>
+
+<p>An only child of wealthy parents, petted, caressed
+and idolized, she had sprung into womanhood, with
+every wish anticipated, every desire gratified ere
+half expressed, if within the reach of human possibility,
+what wonder, then, that she grew wayward
+and willful, and at length rashly dashed the cup of
+happiness of which she had drank so freely in her
+sunny youth from her lip, by disobeying her too fond
+and doating parents, in committing her life's destiny
+to the keeping of one who they, with the anxious
+foresight of love, too well knew would not hold the
+precious trust as sacred. Brave and handsome and
+gifted he might be, but the seeds of selfishness had
+been too surely sown within his heart; and he had
+won the idol of a worshiping crowd, more, perchance,
+from a feeling of exultation and pride in
+being able to bear away the prize from so many
+eager aspirants, than any deep-rooted affection he
+felt for the fair object of his solicitude. The novelty
+and the charm soon wore away, and then his beautiful
+bride was neglected for his former dissolute
+associates. He afterward entered the navy, and
+somewhat more than ten years after they were
+wedded, fell in a duel provoked by his own rash,
+temper. From the moment that Mrs. Layton recovered
+from the trance-like swoon which followed
+the first sight of her husband's bleeding corpse, she
+seemed utterly, entirely changed. She had truly
+loved him, he who lay before her now, a victim of his
+own rash and selfish folly, and with all a woman's
+earnest devotion would have followed him to the
+remotest extremes of earth; but her feelings had been
+too long trampled upon, her heart too bruised and
+crushed ever to be upraised again. She had leaned
+upon a broken reed, and had awakened to find herself
+widowed, broken-hearted. And she arose, that desolate
+and bereaved one, and folding her child closer
+to her breast, went forth into the cold world friendless&mdash;alone!
+Once would her grief have been loud
+and passionate and wild, but she had passed through
+a weary probation, and had learned "to suffer and
+be still." How, in that dark hour, did her lost
+mother's prayer-breathed words, her father's earnest
+entreaties come back to smite heavily upon her
+sorrow-stricken spirit&mdash;but remorse and repentance
+were now all too late. And yet not too late, she
+murmured inly, for had she not a duty to perform
+toward the little being, her only, and, oh! how
+heaven-hallowed, tie to earth, consigned to her
+guardianship and care. Did she not firmly resolve
+never by ill-judged and injudicious fondness to mark
+out a pathway filled with thorns for her darling. It
+may be that that widowed mother erred even in
+excess of zeal, for she would resist the natural
+promptings of her heart, and check the gushing
+affection which welled from the deepest, purest
+fountain in the human heart, lest its expression
+might prove injurious to the loved one in after years.
+And thus there grew a restraint and a seeming coldness
+on the part of the mother, a constant craving
+for love, which was never satisfied, and a feeling of
+fear on the child's, which shut them out from that
+pure trust and confidence, which are such bright
+links in the chain that binds a mother to her child.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>This, then, was the Widow Layton who with her
+little one and nurse had sought our village, immediately
+after the decease of her husband, as a peaceful
+asylum from the noise and tumult of a world
+where, in happier days, she had played so conspicuous
+a part. It was not so much that she sedulously
+avoided all mention of her past history to the
+eager questioners around her, from a disinclination
+that it should be known, as that she little understood
+the character of the villagers themselves&mdash;ofttimes
+mistaking a really well-meant interest in her welfare
+for an idle and impertinent curiosity. Mrs. Layton
+had been highly born and nurtured, and there seemed
+to her delicate mind a something rude and unfeeling
+in the manner with which her too officious friends
+and neighbors would touch upon the sources of grief
+which were to her so sacred. And therefore, perhaps
+unwisely, she held herself aloof from them, replying
+to their different queries with that calm and
+easy dignity which effectually precluded all approach
+to familiarity, and engendered a dislike in the minds
+of those who were little accustomed to meet one who
+could not enter into all their feelings, plans and projects&mdash;which
+dislike was constantly kept alive and
+fostered by the united exertions of the two sister
+spinsters. Good Mrs. Jeffries, too, the fond old nurse
+who had never left her beloved mistress through all
+her varying fortunes, was all too faithful and true to
+reveal aught that that kind mistress might wish untold;
+and thus it was that the curiosity of the good
+people of Aberdeen was kept continually in check,
+and about the unsuspecting inmates of Woodbine
+Cottage was thrown a mystery that was becoming
+constantly augmented by their incomprehensible
+silence on the subject.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Weeks&mdash;months&mdash;years sped swiftly away, and the
+widow, by her free and unostentatious charities and
+her angel-ministering to the poor, the afflicted and
+the bereaved, had almost eradicated the first unpleas<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>ing
+impression made upon the simple-hearted people
+of Aberdeen; so that, although the Misses Simpkins
+still held their nightly confabulations, they did not
+venture as at first, so openly to propagate their animadversions
+concerning the "mysterious stranger,"
+but on the contrary, always made it a point to preface
+any sudden and amiable suggestion that presented
+itself to their minds with "not that I would
+say any thing against her, but it does seem a little
+singular," &amp;c. But of Miss Fanny&mdash;sweet, witching
+Fanny Layton! who had grown in beauty and
+grace day by day, not one word did they dare to
+speak in her dispraise! For was there one in all
+Aberdeen who would not have resented the slightest
+intimation of disrespect to our lily of the valley&mdash;whose
+joy-inspiring and sorrow-banishing presence
+was welcomed delightedly by young and old, both
+far and near? And oh! was there ever music like
+her sweet, ringing laugh, or melody like the low-toned
+voice which was always eloquent of joyousness.
+Whether she sat in the humble cottage, lending
+kind and ready assistance to the care-worn matron,
+by playfully imprisoning the little hands of the
+children within her own petite palms, while she recounted
+to them some wonderful tale, her brilliant
+fancy, meantime, never soaring above their childish
+comprehension, although she was regarded by her
+little auditors as nothing less than a bright fairy herself,
+who was thus familiar with all that witching
+tribe, and who could with her own magic wand thus
+open to them stores of such strange and delightful
+things as was never before dreamed of in their
+youthful philosophy&mdash;while their patient, painstaking
+mother would now and then glance up from
+her never-ending task, with a smile of such beaming
+pleasure and gratitude as amply repaid the gentle being,
+who seemed in her loveful employ to be the presiding
+angel of that humble dwelling-place. Whether
+she would "happen-in" of a long, warm summer
+afternoon to take a cup of tea with a neighboring
+farmer's wife&mdash;an honor that never failed to
+throw that worthy woman into a perfect fever of
+anxiety and delight&mdash;who would proffer a thousand
+and one apologies for the deficiencies that only existed
+in her own perverse imagination, if, indeed,
+they existed even there, for her bright eyes were
+contradicting a pair of rosy lips all the while, as they
+glanced with a lurking&mdash;yet I am sure laudable&mdash;pride,
+from the "new chany sett" (which was wont
+on great occasions to be brought forward) to the rich
+treasures of her well-kept dairy, that her busy feet
+had been going pat-a-pat from cupboard to cellar, and
+cellar to cupboard, for a whole hour previous collecting,
+to place in all their tempting freshness before
+her beloved guest. Or whether she came with
+her simple offering of fresh flowers&mdash;her word of
+sympathy and comfort&mdash;or some choice dainty, that
+seemed "<i>so</i> nice" to the sick and suffering, who had
+turned away with loathing from every thing before,
+but who could not fail to find <i>this</i> delicious, for was
+it not made and brought by the hands of dear Miss
+Fanny's self? Still did her presence seem to make
+sunlight wherever she went!</p>
+
+<p>Fanny was a young lady now&mdash;although you would
+scarce believe it, for she was a very child at heart,
+with all a child's unworldliness, unsuspecting confidence,
+and winning innocence. And yet there was
+deep, deep down in that loveful, earnest heart, that
+Joy and all Joy's sister spirits seemed to have taken
+captive, a fount whose seal had never been found.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, Fanny, dear, darling Fanny Layton! wo, wo
+for thee the day when first that hidden seal was broken!
+When Hope and Doubt and Fear by turns
+played sentinel to the hidden treasure, the door to
+which, when once flung back, never can be reclosed
+again! When joy and gladness but tarried a little
+while to dispute their prior right to revel undisturbed
+in that buoyant heart of thine, and then went tearfully
+forth, leaving for aye a dreary void, and a deep,
+dark shadow, where all had been but brightness and
+beauty before! Oh, why must the night-time of sorrow
+come to thee, thou gentle and pure-hearted one?
+Thou for whom such fervent and fond prayers have
+ascended, as should, methinks, have warded off from,
+thee each poisoned shaft, and proved an amulet to
+guard thee from all life's ills! Thy sixteenth summer,
+was it not a very, very happy one to thee,
+sweet Fanny Layton? But happiness, alas! in this
+cold world of ours, is never an unfading flower; and
+although so coveted and so sought, still will droop in
+the eager hands which grasped it, and die while yet
+the longing eyes are watching its frail brightness
+with dim and shadowful foreboding!</p>
+
+<p>Just on the outskirts of our village there slept a
+silent, secluded little nook, which the thickly-growing
+trees quite enclosed, only permitting the bright
+sun to glance glimmeringly through their interwoven
+leaves and look upon the blue-eyed violets that held
+their mute confabulations&mdash;each and all perking up
+their pretty heads to receive the diurnal kiss of their
+god-father Sol&mdash;in little lowly knots at their feet.
+Kind reader, I am sure I cannot make you know
+how very lovely it was, unless you yourself have
+peeped into this sheltered spot&mdash;seen the cool, dark
+shadows stretching across the velvet turf, and making
+the bright patches of sunlight look brighter still&mdash;have
+stood by the murmuring brook on which the
+sun-bright leaves overhead are mirrored tremulously,
+and upon whose brink there grows so many a lovely
+"denizen of the wild"&mdash;gazed admiringly upon the
+beautiful white rose Dame Nature hath set in the
+heart of this hidden sanctuary, as a seal of purity and
+innocence&mdash;and more than this, have turned from all
+these to watch the fairy form flitting from flower to
+flower, with so light a step that one might mistake it
+for some bright fay sent on a love-mission to this
+actual world of ours&mdash;if one did not know that this
+was Fanny Layton's dream-dell&mdash;that in this lovely
+spot she would spend hours during the long, warm
+summer days, poring over the pages of some favorite
+author, or twining the sweet wild flowers in fragrant
+wreaths to bedeck her invalid mother's room&mdash;or,
+perchance, staying for awhile those busy fingers, to
+indulge in those dreamy, delicious reveries with
+which the scene and hour so harmonized.</p>
+
+<p>One day&mdash;and that day was an era in poor Fanny's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>
+life which was never afterward to be forgotten&mdash;our
+lovely heroine might have been seen tripping lightly
+over the smooth sward, the green trees rustling musically
+in the summer breeze, and Nature's myriad
+tones "concerting harmonies" on hill and dale. And
+one needed but to see the smiling lip, and those clear,
+laughter-loving eyes peeping from beneath just the
+richest and brightest golden curls in the world, to
+know what a joyous heart was beating to that fairy-light
+and bounding step. Wonder none could be,
+that many an eye brightened as she passed, and many
+a kindly wish&mdash;that was never the less trustful and
+sincere for that it was couched in homely phrase&mdash;sped
+her on her way. Dream-dell was reached at
+length&mdash;the flowering shrubs which formed the rural
+gate-way parted, and Fanny threw herself on the
+waving grass, with a careless grace which not all
+the fashionable female attitudinizers in the world
+could have imitated, so full of unstudied ease and
+naturalness it was&mdash;with her small cottage bonnet
+thrown off that wealth of clustering curls which were
+lifted by the soft summer wind, and fell shadowingly
+over the brightest and most beaming little face upon
+which ever fond lover gazed admiringly&mdash;with eyes
+which seemed to have caught their deep and dewy
+blue from the violets she clasped in one small hand,
+and on which they were bent with a silent glance of
+admiration&mdash;for Fanny was a dear lover of wild-wood
+flowers, as who is not who bears a heart untouched
+by the sullying stains of earth? One tiny
+foot had escaped from the folds of her simple muslin
+dress, and lay half-buried in the green turf&mdash;a wee,
+wee foot it was, so small, indeed, that it seemed just
+the easiest thing possible to encase it within the lost
+slipper of Cinderella, if said slipper could but have
+been produced; at least so said a pair of eyes, as
+plainly as pair of eyes <i>could</i> say it, which peering
+from behind a leafy screen, were now upon it fixed
+in most eager intensity, and now wandered to the
+face of the fair owner thereof, who was still bent
+over the flowers in the small hand, as if seeking some
+hidden spell in their many-colored leaves.</p>
+
+<p>That pair of eyes were the appurtenances belonging
+to a face that might have proved no uninteresting
+study to the physiognomist, albeit it would have
+puzzled one not a little, methinks, to have formed a
+satisfactory conclusion therefrom, so full of contradictions
+did it seem. A mass of waving hair fell
+around a brow high and well-developed, though
+somewhat darkly tinged by the warmth, mayhap, of
+a southern sun, and the eyes were large and lustrous,
+yet there was a something unfathomable in their
+depths, which made one doubt if they were truly the
+index of the soul, and might not be made to assume
+whatever expression the mind within willed. At
+present, however, they were filled only with deep
+admiration mingled with surprise, while around the
+mouth, which, in repose, wore a slightly scornful
+curve, there played a frank and winning smile, as,
+advancing with a quiet courtesy that at once bespoke
+him a man of the world, despite slouched hat and
+hunting-frock, the intruder upon our heroine's solitude
+exclaimed, with half-earnest, half-jesting gallantry,
+"Prithee, fair woodland nymph, suffer a lone
+knight, who has wandered to the confines of a Paradise
+unawares, to bow the knee in thy service, and as atonement
+meet for venturing unbidden into thy hidden
+sanctum, to proffer thee the homage of his loyal heart!"</p>
+
+<p>Fanny was but a simple country maiden, all unskilled
+in the light and graceful nothings which form
+the substance of worldly converse, and so the warm,
+rich crimson crept into her cheek,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The color which his gaze had thrown<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon a cheek else pale and fair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As lilies in the summer air."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and the wee foot forthwith commenced beating a
+tatoo upon the heads of the unoffending flowers
+around, who breathed forth their perfumed sighs in
+mute reproachfulness; but she was still a woman,
+and so with all a woman's ready tact she replied,
+though with the flush deepening on her cheek, and a
+scarce-perceptible tremor in her voice,</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, sir stranger, since thou hast given me
+such unwonted power, I must first use my sceptre
+of command in banishing all intruders into my august
+presence, and invaders of this 'hidden sanctum,'
+which is held sacred to mine own idle feet alone!"</p>
+
+<p>And there was a merry look of mischievous meaning
+stealing in and out of those bright eyes as they
+were for a moment uplifted to the face of the stranger,
+and then again were shadowed by the drooping lid.
+Whether it was that said "intruder" detected a something
+in the tone or the demure glance of the fair girl
+which contradicted the words she spoke, or whether
+that very glance transfixed him to the spot, history
+telleth not, but stay he did; and if his tarrying was very
+<i>heart</i>ily objected to by his companion, if the words
+which fell from his lip in utterance how musical, for the
+space of two fastly-fleeting hours, were not pleasing
+to the ear of the maiden, then, indeed, did that soft,
+bright glow which mantled her fair cheek, and the
+rosy lip, half-parted and eloquent of interest, sadly
+belie the beating heart within, as the twain walked
+lingeringly homeward, the dark shadows lengthening
+on the green grass, and the setting sun flinging a
+flood of golden-tinted light upon the myriad leaves
+which were trembling to the love-voice of the soft
+summer breeze.</p>
+
+<p>Softly was the latch of the wicket lifted, and light
+was the maiden's step upon the stair, as she sought
+her own little chamber. Was she gazing forth from
+the open window to admire the brilliancy of that
+gorgeous sunset? Was it to drink in the beauty and
+brightness of that sweet summer eve, or to feel the
+soft breeze freshly fanning her flushed cheek? Nay,
+none of these. See how earnestly her gaze is bent
+upon the retreating form of the stranger; and now
+that he is lost to view, behold her sitting with head
+resting on one little hand, quite lost in a reverie that
+is not like those of Dream-dell memory, for now
+there comes a tangible shape in place of those ideal
+ones, and the echo of a manly voice, breathing devotion
+and deference in every tone, still is lingering in
+her enchained ear. For the first time she forgets to
+carry her offering of fresh flowers to her mother's
+room. Ah! her busy fingers have been strewing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>
+the bright leaves around unconsciously, and she
+blushingly gathers the few remaining ones, and, with
+a pang of self-reproach, hastens to her mother's side.</p>
+
+<p>It is with a sigh of relief that Fanny beholds her
+invalid parent sleeping sweetly&mdash;a relief that was
+augmented by the question which burst suddenly
+upon her mind, "Can I tell her that I have had a
+stranger-companion in my wanderings?" Wonder
+not at the query, gentle reader, for remember that
+the life of our sweet Fanny had not been blessed with
+that loving confidence which is the tenderest tie in
+the relation of mother and child. Her love was ever
+intermingled with too much fear and restraint from
+earliest youth, for that interchange of counsel and
+trust which might have been a sure safeguard against
+many of earth's ills. And it was perhaps that very
+yearning to fill the only void left in her happy heart
+which prompted her to give the helm of her barque
+of life, so soon and so confidingly into the hands of
+a stranger.</p>
+
+<p>Day succeeded day, and still the lovers, for they
+were lovers now, were found at their sweet trysting
+spot, seeking every pretext for frequent meetings, as
+lovers will, until many were the heads in Aberdeen
+which were shaken in wise prognostication; and the
+Misses Simpkins, to their unspeakable relief, had
+found a new theme whereon to exercise their powers
+conversational, while the children of the village
+mourned the absence of their kind "Fairy," and
+wished with all their little hearts that Miss Fanny
+would send away that "naughty man" who kept
+her from their homes.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Fanny! the hidden seal had been touched at
+length, and on the deep waters beneath was shining
+Love's own meteor-light&mdash;a light that was reflected
+on every thing around.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"It was as her heart's full happiness<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Poured over <i>all</i> its own excess."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>How swiftly the days flew by, "like winged birds,
+as lightly and as free." And, oh! how priceless,
+peerless was the gift she was yielding to the stranger
+in such child-like confidence and trust. There was
+so much up-looking in her love for him; it seemed
+so sweet to recognize the thoughts which had lain
+dormant in her own soul, for want of fitting expression,
+flowing from his lip clothed in such a beauty-breathing
+garmenture. And now Fanny Layton
+was a child no longer. She had crossed the threshold,
+and the "spirit of unrest" had descended upon her,
+albeit as yet she knew it not. Her heart seemed so
+full of sunshine, that when she ventured to peep into
+its depths, she was dazzled by that flood of radiance&mdash;and
+how could she descry the still shadow. Alas!
+that on this earth of ours with the sunlight ever
+comes the shadows, too, which was sleeping there,
+but to widen and grow deeper and darker when
+love's waters should cease to gush and sparkle as at
+the first opening of that sweet fount.</p>
+
+<p>But the day of parting came at length&mdash;how it had
+been dwelt upon with intermingling vows, promises,
+caresses on his part, with trust, and tenderness, and
+tears on hers! A sad, sad day it was for Fanny Layton,
+the first she had ever known that was ever heralded by
+sorrow's messenger. How she strove to dwell upon
+Edward Morton's words, "It will not be for long;" and
+banish from her heart those nameless, undefinable
+fears which <i>would</i> not away at her bidding. The sky
+looked no longer blue&mdash;the green earth no longer
+glad; and traces of tears, the bitterest she had ever
+shed, were on that poor girl's cheek, as she went
+forth to meet her beloved, for the last time.</p>
+
+<p>It matters not to say how each familiar haunt was
+visited that day; how each love-hallowed spot bore
+witness to those low murmured words which are
+earth's dearest music; how time wore on, as time
+will, whether it bears on its resistless tide a freightage
+of joys or sorrows, pleasures, or pains, until at length
+the last word had been said, the last silent embrace
+taken; and now poor Fanny Layton stood alone,
+gazing through blinding tears upon the solitary horseman
+who rode swiftly away, as if another glance at
+the fair creature who stood with straining gaze and
+pallid cheek and drooping form, would all unman
+him. Was it this, or was it that in that hour he felt his
+own unworthiness of the sacred trust reposed in him?</p>
+
+<p>We will believe, dear reader, that whatever after
+influences may have exercised dominion over his
+heart; however he may have been swerved from his
+plighted faith by dreams of worldly ambition, or
+wealth, or power; however cold policy may have
+up-rooted all finer feeling from his soul, we will believe
+that no thoughts of treachery, no meditated
+falsehood mingled with that parting embrace and
+blessing; that although he had bowed at many a
+shrine before, and therefore could not feel all the
+depth and purity of the unworldly affection which he
+had won, still he did not, could not believe it possible
+that that priceless love would be bartered for pomp
+and station, he did mean, when he placed the white
+rose, plucked from the heart of Dream-dell, in the
+little trembling hand which rested on his shoulder,
+and murmured "Fanny, darling, ere this bud hath
+scarce withered, I shall be with you again," that it
+should be even as he said. Alas! alas! for the frailty
+of human nature!</p>
+
+<p>That night poor Fanny pressed the precious rose
+to her quivering lip, and sobbed herself, like a child,
+to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>The next day wore away&mdash;the next&mdash;the next&mdash;still
+no tidings from the absent one; and he had promised
+to write as soon as he arrived "in town!"
+What could it mean?</p>
+
+<p>Oh, that weary watching! The hours moved, oh,
+so leaden-paced and slow! Every day the poor girl
+waited for the coming of the post-man; and every
+day, with a pang at her heart, and tear-dimmed eyes,
+she saw him pass the door. "Edward has been detained;
+he will come yet, I'm sure," a fond inner
+voice whispered; "perhaps he has sent no letter, because
+he'll be here himself so soon!" Poor Fanny!
+another week, and still no letter, no tidings. "Oh! he
+must be ill!" she whispered, anxiously, but never
+thought him false. Oh, no! she was too single-hearted,
+too relying in her trust fora doubt so dreadful;
+but her step grew heavier day by day&mdash;her cheek so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>
+very, very pale, except at the post-man's hour, when
+it would burn with a feverish brightness, and then
+fade to its former pallid hue again; her sweet voice
+was heard no longer trilling forth those thrilling
+melodies which had gladdened the heart of young
+and old to hear. The visits to Dream-dell were less
+and less frequent, for now how each remembrance
+so fondly connected with that spot, came fraught
+with pain; the works of her favorite author's lay
+opened, but unread, upon her knee; and the fastly-falling
+tears half-blotted out the impassioned words
+she had once read with <i>him</i> with so happy a heart-thrill.</p>
+
+<p>The widow saw with anxiety and alarm this
+sudden change; but she was an invalid&mdash;and the poor
+suffering one strove to hide her sickness of the heart,
+and mother though she was, Mrs. Layton discovered
+not the canker-worm which was nipping her bud of
+promise, but would whisper, "You confine yourself
+too much to my room, my child, and must go out
+into the bright sunshine, so that the smile may come
+back to your lip, the roses to your cheek."</p>
+
+<p>One day, now three months after Edward Morton's
+departure, Miss Jerusha Simpkins was seen threading
+her way to Woodbine Cottage. She held a newspaper
+carefully folded in her hand, and on her
+pinched and withered face a mingled expression of
+caution and importance was struggling.</p>
+
+<p>Lifting the latch of the embowered door, the
+spinster walked into the small parlor, where Fanny
+Layton was engaged in feeding her pet canaries;
+poor things! they were looking strangely at the wan
+face beside the cage, as if they wondered if it could
+be the same which used to come with wild warblings
+as sweet and untutored as their own. Fanny turned
+to welcome the intruder, but recognized Miss Simpkins
+with a half-drawn sigh, and a shrinking of the
+heart, for she was ever so minute in her inquiries
+for that "runaway Mr. Morton."</p>
+
+<p>"A beautiful day, Miss Fanny," commenced the
+spinster, looking sharply around, (she always made
+a point of doing two things i.e. entering the houses
+of her neighbors without knocking, and then taking
+in at a glance not only every thing the room contained,
+but the occupation, dress, &amp;c. of the inmates
+for after comment,) and then throwing back her
+bonnet, and commencing to fan herself vigorously
+with the folded paper, "I thought I must run round
+to-day and see how your mother did, and bring her
+to-day's paper. I happened to be standing by the
+window when the penny-post came by, and Nancy
+says to me, 'Jerusha,' says she, 'do run to the door
+and get the Times&mdash;I haven't seen it for an age,' for
+we aint no great readers at our house; so I steps to
+the door and gets one from neighbor Wilkins&mdash;he is
+a very pleasant-spoken man, and often drops in of a
+morning to have a chat with me and Nancy. Well,
+what should I see the first thing (for I always turn to
+the marriages and deaths) but Mr. Edward Morton's
+marriage to the elegant and rich Miss&mdash;Miss&mdash;dear
+me! I've forgot the name now&mdash;do you see if you
+can make it out," handing her the paper; "but,
+bless me! what is the matter, Miss Fanny? I don't
+wonder you're surprised; Nancy and me was&mdash;for we
+did think at one time that he had an attachment to
+Aberdeen; but, la! one can't put any dependence on
+these wild-flys!"</p>
+
+<p>The last part of the cruel sentence was wholly
+lost upon poor Fanny, who sat with fixed and stony
+gaze upon the dreadful announcement, while it
+seemed as if her heart-strings were breaking one by
+one. In vain Miss Simpkins, thoroughly alarmed
+at length, strove to rouse her from this stupor of
+grief. In vain did her dear old nurse, who ran in
+affrighted at the loud ejaculations of the terrified but
+unfeeling creature who had dealt the blow, use every
+epithet of endearment, and strive to win one look
+from the poor sufferer, into whose inmost soul the
+iron had entered, upon whose heart a weight had
+fallen, that could never, never be uplifted again on
+earth. Every effort alike was useless; and for days
+she sat in one spot low murmuring a plaintive strain,
+rocking to and fro, with the white rose, <i>his</i> parting
+gift, tightly clasped in her pale fingers, or gazing
+fixedly and vacantly upon the birds who sang still, unconsciously
+above her head. After a time she became
+more docile, and would retire to rest at night,
+at the earnest entreaties of her poor old nurse&mdash;but
+reason's light, from that fearful moment, was darkened
+evermore. She would suffer herself to be led
+out into the open air, and soon grew fond again of
+being with her old playmates, the children; but her
+words were unintelligible now to them, and she
+would often throw down the wreath she was twining,
+and starting up, would exclaim, in a tone that thrilled
+to one's very heart, "Oh, has he come? Are you sure
+he has not come yet&mdash;<i>my rose</i> is almost <i>withered</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>Poor, poor Fanny Layton! She would go to
+church regularly&mdash;it was there, dear reader, that
+her faded face had brought to me such bewildered
+rememberings of the Fanny Layton of other years&mdash;and
+always dressed in the same mock-bridal attire.
+And there was not an eye in that village-church but
+glistened as it rested upon the poor, weary, stricken
+one, in her mournful spirit-darkness, and no lip but
+murmured brokenly, "Heaven bless her!"</p>
+
+<p>This was the last drop in the cup of the bereaved
+desolate widow. She soon found that rest and peace
+"which the world cannot give or take away." She
+sleeps her last, long, dreamless sleep.</p>
+
+<p>It was not long ere another mound was raised in
+the humble church-yard, on which was ever blooming
+the sweetest and freshest flowers of summer, watered
+by the tears of many who yet weep and lament the
+early perishing of that fairest flower of all. And a
+marble slab, on which is simply graven a dove, with
+an arrow driven to its very heart, marks the last
+earthly resting-place of our Lily of the Valley.</p>
+<br /><br />
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_SPANISH_PRINCESS_TO_THE_MOORISH_KNIGHT" id="THE_SPANISH_PRINCESS_TO_THE_MOORISH_KNIGHT"></a>THE SPANISH PRINCESS TO THE MOORISH KNIGHT.</h2>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<h4>BY GRACE GREENWOOD.</h4>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thou darest not love me!&mdash;thou canst only see<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The great gulf set between us&mdash;had'st thou <i>love</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Twould bear thee o'er it on a wing of fire!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wilt put from thy faint lip the mantling cup,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The draught thou'st prayed for with divinest thirst,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For fear a poison in the chalice lurks?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wilt thou be barred from thy soul's heritage,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The power, the rapture, and the crown of life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By the poor guard of danger set about it?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I tell thee that the richest flowers of heaven<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bloom on the brink of darkness. Thou hast marked<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How sweetly o'er the beetling precipice<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hangs the young June-rose with its crimson heart&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And would'st not sooner peril life to win<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That royal flower, that thou might'st proudly wear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The trophy on thy breast, than idly pluck<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A thousand meek-faced daisies by the way?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How dost thou shudder at Love's gentle tones,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As though a serpent's hiss were in thine ear.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Albeit thy heart throbs echo to each word.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why wilt not rest, oh weary wanderer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon the couch of flowers Love spreads for thee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On banks of sunshine?&mdash;voices silver-toned<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall lull thy soul with strange, wild harmonies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rock thee to sleep upon the waves of song.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hope shall watch o'er thee with her breath of dreams.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Joy hover near, impatient for thy waking,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her quick wing glancing through the fragrant air.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Why dost thou pause hard by the rose-wreathed gate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why turn thee from the paradise of youth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where Love's immortal summer blooms and glows,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And wrap thyself in coldness as a shroud?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Perchance 'tis well for <i>thee</i>&mdash;yet does the flame<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That glows with heat intense and mounts toward heaven.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As fitly emblem holiest purity,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As the still snow-wreath on the mountain's brow.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thou darest not say I love, and yet thou <i>lovest</i>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And think'st to crush the mighty yearning down,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That in thy spirit shall upspring forever!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Twinned with thy soul, it lived in thy first thoughts&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It haunted with strange dreams thy boyish years,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And colored with its deep, empurpled hue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The passionate aspirations of thy youth.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Go, take from June her roses&mdash;from her streams<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The bubbling fountain-springs&mdash;from life, take <i>love</i>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou hast its all of sweetness, bloom and strength.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There is a grandeur in the soul that dares<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To live out all the life God lit within;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That battles with the passions hand to hand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And wears no mail, and hides behind no shield!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That plucks its joy in the shadow of death's wing&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That drains with one deep draught the wine of life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And that with fearless foot and heaven-turned eye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May stand upon a dizzy precipice,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">High o'er the abyss of ruin, and not <i>fall</i>!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<br /><br />
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_LIGHT_OF_OUR_HOME" id="THE_LIGHT_OF_OUR_HOME"></a>THE LIGHT OF OUR HOME.</h2>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<h4>BY THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.</h4>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Oh, thou whose beauty on us beams<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With glimpses of celestial light;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou halo of our waking dreams,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And early star that crown'st our night&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thy light is magic where it falls;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To thee the deepest shadow yields;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou bring'st unto these dreary halls<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The lustre of the summer-fields.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There is a freedom in thy looks<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To make the prisoned heart rejoice;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In thy blue eyes I see the brooks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And hear their music in thy voice.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And every sweetest bird that sings<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Hath poured a charm upon thy tongue;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And where the bee enamored clings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">There surely thou in love hast clung:&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For when I hear thy laughter free,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And see thy morning-lighted hair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As in a dream, at once I see<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Fair upland scopes and valleys fair.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I see thy feet empearled with dews,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The violet's and the lily's loss;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And where the waving woodland woos<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Thou lead'st me over beds of moss;&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And by the busy runnel's side,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Whose waters, like a bird afraid,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dart from their fount, and, flashing, glide<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Athwart the sunshine and the shade.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Or larger streams our steps beguile;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">We see the cascade, broad and fair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dashed headlong down to foam, the while<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Its iris-spirit leaps to air!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Alas! as by a loud alarm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The fancied turmoil of the falls<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hath driven me back and broke the charm<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Which led me from these alien walls:&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Yes, alien, dearest child, are these<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Close city walls to thee and me:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My homestead was embowered with trees,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And such thy heritage should be:&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And shall be;&mdash;I will make for thee<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">A home within my native vale<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where every brook and ancient tree<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Shall whisper some ancestral tale.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Now once again I see thee stand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As down the future years I gaze,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fairest maiden of the land&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The spirit of those sylvan ways.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And in thy looks again I trace<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The light of her who gave thee birth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She who endowed thy form and face<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With glory which is not of Earth.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And as I gaze upon her now,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">My heart sends up a prayer for thee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That thou may'st wear upon thy brow<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The light which now she beams on me.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And thou wilt wear that love and light<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For thou'rt the bud to such a flower:&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh fair the day, how blest and bright,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Which finds thee in thy native bower!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<br /><br />
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="AN_INDIAN-SUMMER_RAMBLE" id="AN_INDIAN-SUMMER_RAMBLE"></a>AN INDIAN-SUMMER RAMBLE.</h2>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<h4>BY ALFRED B. STREET.</h4>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>It was now the middle of October. White frosts
+had for some time been spreading their sheets of
+pearl over the gardens and fields, but the autumn
+rainbows in the forests were wanting. At last, however,
+the stern black frost came and wrought its
+customary magic. For about a week there was a
+gorgeous pageantry exhibited, "beautiful, exceedingly."
+But one morning I awoke, and found that
+the mist had made a common domain both of earth
+and sky. Every thing was merged into a gray dimness.
+I could just discern the tops of trees a few
+feet off, and here and there a chimney. There was
+a small bit of fence visible, bordering "our lane,"
+and I could with difficulty see a glimmering portion
+of the village street. Some gigantic cloud appeared
+to have run against something in the heavens and
+dropped down amongst us. There were various
+outlines a few rods off, belonging to objects we
+scarce knew what. Horses pushed out of the
+fog with the most sudden effect, followed by their
+wagons, and disappeared again in the opposite fleecy
+barrier; pedestrians were first seen like spectres, then
+their whole shapes were exhibited, and finally they
+melted slowly away again, whilst old Shadbolt's
+cow, grazing along the grassy margin of the street,
+loomed up through the vapor almost as large as an
+elephant.</p>
+
+<p>About noon the scene became clearer, so that the
+outline of the village houses, and even the checkered
+splendors of the neighboring woods could be seen;
+so much of Nate's sign, "Hammond's sto&mdash;" became
+visible, and even Hamble's great red stage-coach was
+exhibited, thrusting its tongue out as if in scorn of
+the weather.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon, however, the mist thickened
+again, and the whole village shrunk again within it,
+like a turtle within its shell. The next morning
+dawned without its misty mask, but with it rose a
+gusty wind that commenced howling like a famished
+wolf. Alas! for the glories of the woods! As the
+rude gusts rushed from the slaty clouds, the rich
+leaves came fluttering upon them, blotting the air
+and falling on the earth thick as snow-flakes. Now
+a maple-leaf, like a scalloped ruby, would fly whirling
+over and over; next a birch one would flash
+across the sight, as if a topaz had acquired wings;
+and then a shred of the oak's imperial mantle, flushed
+like a sardonyx, would cut a few convulsive capers
+in the air, like a clown in a circus, and dash itself
+headlong upon the earth. Altogether it was an
+exciting time, this fall of the leaf. Ah! a voice also
+was constantly whispering in my ear, "we all do
+fade as the leaf!"</p>
+
+<p>I took a walk in the woods. What a commotion
+was there! The leaves were absolutely frantic.
+Now they would sweep up far into the air as if they
+never intended to descend again, and then taking
+curvatures, would skim away like birds; others
+would cluster together, and then roll along like a
+great quivering billow; others again would circle
+around in eddies like whirlpools, soaring up now
+and then in the likeness of a water-spout, whilst
+frequently tall columns would march down the broad
+aisles of the forest in the most majestic manner, and
+finally fall to pieces in a violent spasm of whirling
+atoms. Even after the leaves had found their way
+to the earth they were by no means quiet. Some
+skipped uneasily over the surface; some stood on one
+leg, as it were, and pirouetted; some crept further
+and further under banks; some ran merry races over
+the mounds, and some danced up and down in the
+hollows. As for the trees themselves, they were
+cowering and shivering at a tremendous rate, apparently
+from want of the cloaks of which every blast
+was thus stripping them.</p>
+
+<p>A day or two after came the veritable soft-looking,
+sweet-breathing Indian-Summer&mdash;"our thunder."
+No other clime has it. Autumn expires in a rain-storm
+of three months in Italy; and it is choked to
+death with a wet fog in England; but in this new
+world of ours, "our own green forest land," as
+Halleck beautifully says, it swoons away often in a
+delicious trance, during which the sky is filled with
+sleep, and the earth hushes itself into the most peaceful
+and placid repose. There it lies basking away
+until with one growl old Winter springs upon Nature,
+locks her in icy fetters, and covers her bosom with
+a white mantle that generally stays there until Spring
+comes with her soft eye and blue-bird voice to make
+us all glad again.</p>
+
+<p>Well, this beautiful season arrived as aforesaid,
+and a day "turned up" that seemed to be extracted
+from the very core of the season's sweetness. The
+landscape was plunged into a thick mist at sunrise,
+but that gradually dwindled away until naught remained
+but a delicate dreamy film of tremulous
+purple, that seemed every instant as if it would melt
+from the near prospect. Further off, however, the
+film deepened into rich smoke, and at the base of the
+horizon it was decided mist, bearing a tinge, however,
+borrowed from the wood-violet. The mountains
+could be discerned, and that was all, and they
+only by reason of a faint jagged line struggling
+through the veil proclaiming their summits. The
+dome above was a tender mixture of blue and silver;
+and as for the sunshine, it was tempered and shaded
+down into a tint like the blush in the tinted hollow
+of the sea-shell.</p>
+
+<p>It was the very day for a ramble in the woods; so
+Benning, Watson, and I, called at the dwelling of three<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>
+charming sisters, to ask their mamma's consent (and
+their own) to accompany us. These three Graces all
+differed from each other in their styles of beauty.
+The eyes of one were of sparkling ebony, those of
+the other looked as if the "summer heaven's delicious
+blue" had stained them, whilst the third's
+seemed as though they had caught their hue from
+the glittering gray that is sometimes seen just above
+the gold of a cloudless sunset.</p>
+
+<p>We turned down the green lane that led from the
+village street, and were soon in the forests. The
+half-muffled sunlight stole down sweetly and tenderly
+through the chaos of naked branches overhead; and
+there was a light crisp, crackling sound running
+through the dry fallen leaves, as though they had become
+tired of their position, and were striving to
+turn over. So quiet was the air that even this faint
+sound was distinctly audible. Hark! whang!
+whang! there rings the woodman's axe&mdash;crack!
+crash! b-o-o-m!&mdash;Hurrah! what thunder that little
+keen instrument has waked up there, and what
+power it has! Say, ye wild, deep forests, that have
+shrunk into rocky ravines, and retreated to steep
+mountains, what caused ye to flee away from the
+valleys and uplands of your dominion? Answer, fierce
+eagle! what drove thee from thy pine of centuries
+to the desolate and wind-swept peak, where alone
+thou couldst rear thy brood in safety? Tell, thou
+savage panther, what made the daylight flash into
+thy den so suddenly, that thou didst think thy eye-balls
+were extinguished?</p>
+
+<p>And thou, too, busy city, that dost point up thy
+spires where two score years ago the forest stood a
+frown upon the face of Nature&mdash;what mowed the way
+for thee? And, lastly, thou radiant grain-field, what
+prepared the room for thy bright and golden presence?
+Whew! if that isn't a tremendous flight, I
+don't know what is! But the axe, as Uncle Jack
+Lummis says of his brown mare, is "a tarnal great
+critter, any how!"</p>
+
+<p>How Settler Jake's cabin will gleam those approaching
+winter nights from the "sticks" that axe
+of his will give him out of the tree he has just prostrated.
+It is really pleasant to think of it. There
+will be the great fire-place, with a huge block for a
+back-log; then a pile will be built against it large
+enough for a bonfire&mdash;and then such a crackling and
+streaming! why the dark night just around there will
+be all in a blush with it. And the little window will
+glow like a red star to the people of the village; and
+then within, there will be the immense antlers over
+the door, belonging to a moose Jake shot the first
+year he came into the country, all tremulous with
+the light, and the long rifle thrust through it will
+glitter quick and keen; and the scraped powder-horn
+hung by it will be transparent in redness; even the
+row of bullets on the rude shelf near the window
+will give a dull gleam, whilst our old acquaintance,
+the axe, will wink as if a dozen eyes were strewn
+along its sharp, bright edge. And then the brown
+and tortoise-shell cat belonging to the "old woman"
+will partake of the lustre; and the old woman herself&mdash;a
+little, active, bustling body, will be seated
+in one corner of the fire-place, after having swept
+clean the hearth; and "Sport" will have coiled his
+long body on a bear-skin near her. Lastly, the
+settler himself will be sitting upon a stool opposite
+"Betsey," with his elbows on his knees,
+smoking a pipe as black as his face at the "spring
+logging." But stop&mdash;where was I? Oh, in the
+woods!"</p>
+
+<p>"Look! look!" cries Susan, the owner of the
+gray orbs, with an accent of delight, "see that beautiful
+black squirrel eating!"</p>
+
+<p>We all looked, and sure enough, there is the little
+object in a nook of warm bronze light, with his
+paws to his whiskered face, cracking nuts, one
+after another, as fast as possible. But he stops, with
+his paws still uplifted, looks askance for a moment,
+and away he shoots then through the "brush-fence"
+at our side like a dart.</p>
+
+<p>We soon find the tree whence he gathered his fruit.
+It is a noble hickory, with here and there a brown
+leaf clinging to its boughs. A stone or two brings
+the globes that hold the nuts to the earth. They have
+commenced cracking, and with a little exertion we
+uncover the snow-white balls. We are now all determined
+to rob the tree. It has no business to be
+displaying its round wealth so temptingly. And, beside,
+it will, if let alone, most probably entice boys
+from the little black school-house out yonder to
+"play truant." So it is unanimously voted that
+Benning, who is light and active, should climb the
+tree. Up he goes, like one of those little striped
+woodpeckers that are so often seen in the woods
+tapping up the trees, and immediately his hands and
+feet make the branches dance, whilst the green globes
+drop like great hail-stones on the earth. We then
+commence stripping the nuts from their covers, and
+soon the base of the tree is covered with them. We
+then stow the ivories away in our bags, and start for
+new havoc.</p>
+
+<p>We come now to the brush-fence. It is a perfect
+<i>chevau-de-frize</i>. It looks at us with a sort of defying,
+bristling air, as if it said as Wilson, the horse-jockey,
+says when some one endeavors to hoodwink him in
+a bargain, "You can't come it!"</p>
+
+<p>We wont try here, but a little lower down there is
+a gap made by John Huff's cow, that uses her horns
+so adroitly in the attack of a fence, no matter how
+difficult, that I verily believe she could pick a lock.
+We pass through the kindly breach and skirt the
+fence for some little distance to regain the path. The
+fence on this side is densely plumed with blackberry
+vines. What a revel I held there two months ago.
+The fruit hung around in rich masses of ebony, each
+little atom composing the cone having a glittering
+spot upon it like a tiny eye. How the black beauties
+melted on my tongue in their dead-ripe richness.
+One bush in particular was heavy with the clusters.
+After despoiling the edges I opened the heart, and
+there, hidden snugly away, as if for the wood-fairies,
+were quantities of the sable clusters, larger and more
+splendid than any I had seen. I immediately made
+my way into the defences of that fortress. There
+was a merciless sacking there, reader, allow me to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>
+tell you. But that is neither "here nor there" on the
+present occasion.</p>
+
+<p>How beautifully the soft, tender dark light slumbers
+on objects where the great roof of the forest will
+allow it. There is an edge of deep golden lace
+gleaming upon that mound of moss, and here, the
+light, breaking through the overhanging beech, has
+so mottled the tawny surface of the leaves beneath
+as to make it appear as if a leopard-skin had been
+dropped there.</p>
+
+<p>B-o-o-m, b-o-o-m, boom-boom&mdash;whi-r-r-r-r-r&mdash;there
+sounds the drum of the partridge. We'll
+rouse his speckled lordship probably below, causing
+him to give his low, quick thunder-clap so as to send
+the heart on a leaping visit to the throat.</p>
+
+<p>We now descend the ridge upon which we have
+been for some time, to a glade at the foot. The sweet
+haze belonging to the season is shimmering over it.
+It is a broad space surrounded on all sides by the
+forest. The first settler in this part of the country
+had "located" himself here, and this was his little
+clearing. His hut stood on an eminence in one
+corner. He lived there a number of years. He was
+a reserved, unsocial man, making the forest his only
+haunt, and his rifle his only companion. He was at
+last found dead in his cabin. Alone and unattended
+he had died, keeping to the last aloof from human
+society. The hut was next occupied by a singular
+couple&mdash;an old man and his idiot son. The father
+was of a fierce, savage temper, but seemed very fond,
+although capriciously so, of his child. Sometimes
+he would treat him with the greatest tenderness,
+then again, at some wayward action of the idiot, he
+would burst upon him with an awful explosion of
+passion. The old man had evidently been a reckless
+desperado in other days, and many in the village
+suspected strongly that he had once been a pirate.
+He was addicted to drinking, and now and then,
+when bitten by the adder, would talk strangely. He
+would commence narrating some wonderful hurricane
+he had experienced on the Spanish Main, and
+would launch out upon the number of times he had
+headed boarding parties, and once, in a state of great
+intoxication at the village tavern, he rambled off into
+a story about his having made an old man walk the
+plank. He would, however, check himself on all
+these occasions before he went far. He became involved
+in a fight one time with a great lounging
+fellow about the village, whose propensity to bully
+was the only salient point in his character. They
+clinched&mdash;the old man was thrown, and the bystanders
+had just time to pull the bully away, to prevent a
+long keen knife in the grasp of Murdock (for such
+was the old man's name) from being plunged into
+his side.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the idiot-boy disappeared. The passers-by
+had frequently seen him (for he was an industrious
+lad) working in the little patch belonging to the
+cabin, but from a certain time he was seen no more,
+and the old man lived alone in his cabin. A change,
+too, gradually grew over him. He became silent and
+deeply melancholy, and his countenance settled into
+an expression of stern, rigid sorrow. His eye was
+awful. Wild and red, it seemed as if you could look
+through it into a brain on fire.</p>
+
+<p>At last he commenced rubbing his right hand with
+his left. There he would fasten his gaze, and chafe
+with the most determined energy. He would frequently
+stop and hold the hand to his eye for a
+moment, and then recommence his strange work.
+To the inquiries of the village people concerning his
+son, he would give no answer. He would roll upon
+the inquirer for an instant his fierce, mad eye, and
+then prosecute his mysterious chafing more rigorously
+than ever.</p>
+
+<p>Things continued so for about a fortnight after the
+disappearance of the idiot, when one dark night the
+village was alarmed by the appearance of flames
+from the clearing. Hurrying to the spot, they were
+just in time to see the blazing roof of the hut fall in.
+The next morning disclosed, amidst the smouldering
+ashes, a few charred bones. Murdock was not again
+seen or heard of from that night.</p>
+
+<p>The glade is now quiet and lonely as if human
+passions had never been unloosed there in the terrific
+crime of parricide&mdash;the consequent remorse merging
+into madness, and a fiery retributory death. Upon
+the grassy mound, which the frost has not yet blighted,
+a beautiful white rabbit has just glided. The lovely
+creature darts onward, then crouches&mdash;now lays his
+long ears flat upon his shoulders, and now points
+them forward in the most knowing and cunning
+manner. He plays there in his white, pure beauty,
+as if in purposed contrast to the blood-stained and
+guilty wretch who expired on the same spot in his
+flaming torture. But the little shape now points his
+long, rose-tinted ears in our direction, and then he
+does not disappear as much as melt from our sight
+like the vanishing of breath from polished steel.
+We then enter fully into the glade. One of the trees
+at the border is a magnificent chestnut. I remember
+it in June, with its rich green leaves hung over with
+short, braided cords of pale gold. These braided
+blossoms have yielded fruit most plenteously. How
+thickly the chestnuts, with their autumn-colored coats
+and gray caps, are scattered around the tree, whilst
+the large yellow burrs on the branches, gaping wide
+open, are displaying their soft velvet inner lining in
+which the embedded nuts have ripened, and which
+in their maturity they have deserted.</p>
+
+<p>After changing the position of the little glossy
+things from the earth to our satchels, we cross the
+glade, and strike a narrow road that enters the forests
+in that direction. We pass along, our feet sinking
+deep in the dead leaves, until we come to an opening
+where a bridge spans a stream. It is a slight, rude
+structure, such as the emigrating settler would (and
+probably did) make in a brief hour to facilitate his
+passage across. Let us sketch the picture to our
+imagination for a moment. We will suppose it
+about an hour to sunset of a summer's day. There
+is a soft richness amidst the western trees, and the
+little grassy opening here is dappled with light and
+shade. The emigrant's wagon is standing near the
+brink, with its curved canvas top, white as silver,
+in a slanting beam, and the broad tires of its huge<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>
+wheels stained green with the wood-plants and vines
+they have crushed in their passage during the day.
+The patient oxen, which have drawn the wagon so
+far, are chewing their cud, with their honest countenances
+fixed straight forward. Around the wagon
+is hung a multitude of household articles&mdash;pans, pails,
+kettles, brooms, and what not; and on a heap of
+beds, bedding, quilts, striped blankets, &amp;c., is the
+old woman, the daughter, about eighteen, and a perfect
+swarm of white-headed little ones. The father,
+and his two stalwort sons, are busy in the forest
+close at hand. How merrily the echoes ring out at
+each blow of their axes, and how the earth groans
+with the shock of the falling trees. The two largest
+of the woodland giants are cut into logs&mdash;the others
+are also divided into the proper lengths. The logs
+are placed athwart the stream several feet distant
+from each other&mdash;the rest are laid in close rows
+athwart, and lo! the bridge. Over the whole scene
+the warm glow of the setting sun is spread, and a
+black bear, some little distance in the forest, is
+thrusting his great flat head out of a hollow tree,
+overseeing the proceedings with the air of a connoisseur.</p>
+
+<p>The bridge is now old and black, and has decayed
+and been broken into quite a picturesque object.
+One of the platform pieces has been fractured in the
+middle, and the two ends slant upwards, as if to take
+observations of the sky; and there is a great hole in
+the very centre of the bridge. Add to this the moss,
+which has crept over the whole structure, making
+what remains of the platform a perfect cushion, and
+hanging in long flakes of emerald, which fairly dip
+in the water, and the whole object is before you.
+The stream has a slow, still motion, with eddies,
+here coiling up into wrinkles like an old man's face,
+and there dimpling around some stone like the smiling
+cheek of a young maiden, but in no case suffering its
+demureness to break into a broad laugh of ripples.
+In one spot tall bullrushes show their slender shapes
+and brown wigs; in another there is a collection of
+waterflags; in another there are tresses of long grass
+streaming in the light flow of the current, whilst in a
+nook, formed by the roots of an immense elm on
+one side, and a projection of the bank on the other,
+is a thick coat of stagnant green&mdash;a perfect meadow
+for the frogs to hold their mass meetings in, differing
+from ours, however, from the fact of theirs being
+composed of all talkers and no listeners.</p>
+
+<p>Let us look at the stream a little, which has here
+expanded into a broad surface, and view its "goings
+on." There is a water-spider taking most alarming
+leaps, as if afraid of wetting his feet; a dragon-fly
+is darting hither and yon, his long, slender body
+flashing with green, golden and purple hues; a large
+dace has just apparently flattened his nose against
+the dark glass inward, dotting a great and increasing
+period outward. A bright birch-leaf, "the last of its
+clan," has just fallen down, and been snapped at
+most probably by a little spooney of a trout, thinking
+it a yellow butterfly; and on the bottom, which,
+directly under our eyes is shallow, are several
+water-insects crawling along like locomotive spots
+of shadow and reflected through the tremulous medium
+into distorted shapes. However, we have
+lingered here long enough&mdash;let us onward.</p>
+
+<p>What on earth is that uproar which is now striking
+our ear. Such hoarse notes, such rapid flutterings,
+whizzings, deep rumbling sounds, and such a rustle
+of dead leaves surely betoken something. We turn
+an elbow of the road, and a flashing of blue wings,
+and darting of blue shapes in the air, now circling
+round, now shooting up, and now down, with a
+large beech tree for the centre, meet our eyes. The
+tumult is explained. A colony of wild pigeons is
+busy amongst the beech-nuts, which the frost has
+showered upon the earth. The ground for some distance
+around the tree is perfectly blue with the birds
+picking, and fighting, and scrambling. It is ludicrous
+to see them. Here a score or two are busy eating,
+looking like a collection of big-paunched, blue-coated
+aldermen at a city feast; there, all are hurrying and
+jostling, and tumbling over one another like the
+passengers of a steamboat when the bell rings for
+dinner. By the side of yonder bush there is a perfect
+duel transpiring between two pugnacious pigeons
+dashing out their wings fiercely at each other with
+angry tones, their beautiful purple necks all swollen,
+and their red eyes casting devouring looks, whilst
+two others are very quietly, yet swiftly, as if making
+the most of their time, causing all the nuts in sight,
+and which probably induced the quarrel, disappear
+down their own throats. See! here is a pigeon who
+has over-estimated his capacity of swallowing, or
+has encountered a larger nut than usual, for he is
+exhibiting the most alarming symptoms of choking.
+He stretches his neck and opens his bill like a cock
+in the act of crowing, at the same time dancing up
+and down on his pink legs as if his toes had caught
+fire. However, he has mastered the nut at last with
+a vigorous shake of his neck, and bobs industriously
+again at his feast.</p>
+
+<p>Determining to have some of the brown luscious
+mast, we make a foray amongst the gorging host,
+and succeeded in causing a cloud of them to take wing,
+and in securing a quantity of the spoil.</p>
+
+<p>We then start again on our way, but do not advance
+far before&mdash;b-r-r-r-r-r-h&mdash;off bursts a partridge,
+and shoots down the vista of the road, with the dark
+sunshine glancing from his mottled back. If little
+"Spitfire" was here, how he would yelp and dance,
+and dart backward and forward, and shake his tail,
+so as to render it doubtful whether it wouldn't fly
+off in a tangent.</p>
+
+<p>Rattat, tattat, tat&mdash;tat&mdash;t-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r&mdash;there is the
+great red-headed woodpecker, or woodcock, as he
+is called by the country people, looking like a miniature
+man with a crimson turban and sable spear,
+attacking the bark of yon old oak. He is making a
+sounding-board of the seamed mail of the venerable
+monarch, to detect by the startled writhing within
+the grub snugly ensconced, as it thinks, there, in
+order to transfix it with his sharp tongue through the
+hole made by his bill. He ceases his work though as
+we approach&mdash;and now he flies away.</p>
+
+<p>A mile farther, we come to the strawberry-field<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>
+belonging to Deacon Gravespeech, the outlines of
+whose dark, low farm-house are etched on the mist
+which is again slowly spreading over the landscape,
+for it is now near sunset. Having left the
+forest, we see the mild red orb, like an immense
+ruby, just in the act of sinking in the bank of pale
+blue which now thickens the Western horizon. But
+what have we here? A splendid butternut tree,
+with quantities of the oval fruit scattered about
+amidst the brown leaves, in their coats of golden
+green. What a rich lustre is upon them, made
+brighter by the varnish, and how delightful their
+pungent perfume. Let us crack a few of the strong,
+deeply-fluted shells. In their tawny nooks nestle
+the dark, golden-veined meats, which with the most
+delicious sweetness crumble in the mouth.</p>
+
+<p>Of all the fruits of the Northern forests give me
+the butternut; and, speaking of fruits puts me in
+mind of the strawberry field. I was here with a
+small party one day last June. The field was then
+scattered thickly over with the bright crimson spotting
+fruit, and the fingers of all of us were soon dyed
+deeply with the sweet blood. There is great skill in
+picking strawberries, let me tell you, reader, although
+it is a trifle. Go to work systematically, and don't
+get excited. Gather all as you go, indiscriminately.
+Don't turn to the right for two splendid berries, and
+leave the one in front, for it is just as likely, before
+you gather the two, a cluster, with five ripe tempting
+fellows, will cause you to forget the others, and
+in whirling yourself around, and stretching over to
+seize the latest prize, your feet and limbs not only
+destroy the first and second, but a whole collection
+of the blushing beauties hid away in a little hollow
+of buttercups and dandelions.</p>
+
+<p>Well, "as I was saying," I was here with a small
+party, and had fine sport picking, but the next day
+a precept, at the suit of Peter Gravespeech, was
+served upon Hull and myself, (the two gentlemen of
+the party,) issued from "Pettifogger's Delight," as
+the office of Squire Tappit, the justice, was called
+throughout the village: action, trespass. "For the
+fun of the thing" we stood trial. The day came,
+and all the vagabonds of the village,&mdash;those whose
+continual cry is that they "can never get any thing
+to do," and therefore drive a brisk business at doing
+nothing,&mdash;were in attendance. The justice was a
+hot-tempered old fellow, somewhat deaf, and,&mdash;if his
+nose was any evidence,&mdash;fond of the brandy bottle.</p>
+
+<p>The witness of the trespass, who was a "hired
+hand" of Deacon Gravespeech, was present, and
+after the cause had been called in due order, was
+summoned by the deacon (who appeared in proper
+person) to the stand. He was generally very irascible,
+a good deal of a bully, rather stupid, and, on the
+present occasion, particularly drunk.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Mr. Hicks," said the deacon, respectfully,
+(knowing his man,) after he had 'kissed the book,'
+"now, Mr. Hicks (his name was Joe Hicks, but
+universally called 'Saucy Joe,') please tell the justice
+what you know of this transaction."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, squire, I seed 'em!" replied Joe, to this
+appeal, facing the justice.</p>
+
+<p>"Who?" ejaculated the justice, quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Who!" answered Joe, "why, who do you
+spose, but that'ere sour-faced feller, (pointing at Hull,)
+what looks like a cow swelled on clover, and that 'ere
+little nimshi, who isn't bigger than my Poll's knitten
+needle. They was with four female critters."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what were they about?" asked the deacon.</p>
+
+<p>"What was they about!" (a little angrily,) "you
+know as well as I do, deacon, for I telled ye all
+about it at the time."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but you must tell the justice."</p>
+
+<p>"Answer, witness!" exclaimed the justice, somewhat
+sternly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! you needn't be flusterfied, Squire Tappit;
+I knowed ye long afore ye was squire, and drinked
+with ye, too. For that matter, I stood treat last!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's of no consequence now, Mr. Hicks," interposed
+the deacon, throwing at the same time a
+deprecatory glance at the old justice, whose nose
+was growing redder, and whose eye began to twinkle
+in incipient wrath.</p>
+
+<p>"Let the gentleman proceed with his interesting
+developments," said Hull, rising with the most ludicrous
+gravity, and waving his hand in a solemn
+and dignified manner.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Joe, a little mollified at the word
+'gentleman,' "ef I must tell it agin, I must, that's
+all. They was a picken strawberries like Old
+Sanko."</p>
+
+<p>"How long do you think they were there, trampling
+down the grass?" asked the deacon.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I spose from the time I seed 'em"&mdash;here
+he stopped abruptly, glanced out of the window
+toward the tavern, spit thirstily, and then looked at
+the deacon.</p>
+
+<p>"Let the gentleman proceed," again cried Hull,
+half rising, in mock respect.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Pro</i>ceed!" said the justice, angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, as I was a sayen, from the time I seed
+'em&mdash;&mdash; But I say, deacon, I'm monstrous dry.
+You're temp'rance I know; but sposen as how you
+treat me and old Squire Tappit there to some red
+eye. He won't refuse, no how you can fix it, and
+as for me, I am so dry I really can't talk."</p>
+
+<p>"Go on with your story, you scoundrel!" shouted
+the justice, exasperated beyond all bounds, "or I'll
+commit you to prison."</p>
+
+<p>"Commit me to prison, you old brandy-jug!"
+yelled Joe, swinging off his ragged coat at a jerk,
+and throwing it on the floor, "commit <i>me</i>, you mahogany-nosed
+old sarpent!" advancing close to the
+justice, with both of his great fists ready.</p>
+
+<p>"Let the gentleman proceed," here broke in Hull
+again, in an agony of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>And, sure enough, the "gentleman" did proceed.
+Launching out his right fist in the most approved
+fashion at the nose of the justice, Joe was in an
+instant the center of a perfect Pandemonium. The
+constable rushed in to protect the justice, who was
+shouting continually, "I command the peace;" the
+bystanders, ready for a fight at any time, followed his
+example, and, for a few minutes, there was a perfect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>
+chaos of arms, legs, and heads, sticking out in every
+direction.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing Hull and I saw were the heels of
+the justice flourishing in the air, and the last was
+Joe going off to jail in the grasp of the constable one
+way, and the deacon sneaking off another. We
+never heard afterward of the suit, but "Let the
+gentleman proceed," was for a long time a by-word
+amongst us in the village.</p>
+
+<p>After crossing the strawberry field we came to a
+"cross-road" leading to the turnpike. In a few
+minutes we arrived at "Cold Spring," where a little
+streak of water ran through a hollowed log, green
+with moss, from the fountain a short distance in the
+forest, and fell into a pebbly basin at the road-side.
+We here refreshed ourselves with repeated draughts
+of the sweet, limpid element, and then, resuming
+our walk, soon found ourselves upon the broad, gray
+turnpike, with the village upon the summit of the
+hill, about half a mile in front.</p>
+
+<p>The sun had long since plunged into the slate-colored
+haze of the West; the thickening landscape
+looked dull and faded; the mist was glimmering before
+the darkened forests; the cows were wending
+homeward, lowing; the woodsmen passed us with
+axes on their shoulders; and, mounting the hill, we
+saw here and there, a light sparkling in the village,
+following the example of the scattered stars that
+were timidly glancing from the dome of the purpled
+heavens.</p>
+<br /><br />
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_LOST_PET" id="THE_LOST_PET"></a>THE LOST PET</h2>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<h4>BY MRS. LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.</h4>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<h5>[SEE ENGRAVING.]</h5>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When Mary's brother went to sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">He lingered near the door,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beside the old, familiar tree,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">He ne'er had left before,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And though gay boyhood loves to seek<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">New regions where to tread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A pearl-drop glittered on his cheek<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As tenderly he said&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The gentle dove I reared with care,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Sister, I leave to thee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And let it thy protection share<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">When I am far at sea."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Whene'er for Willy's loss she grieved,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">His darling she caressed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That from her hand its food received,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Or nestled in her breast;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And sometimes, at the twilight dim,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">When blossoms bow to sleep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She thought it murmuring asked for him<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Whose home was on the deep.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And if her mother's smile of joy<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Was lost in anxious thought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As memories of her sailor-boy<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Some gathering tempest wrought,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">She showed his pet, the cooing dove,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Perched on her sheltering arm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And felt how innocence and love<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Can rising wo disarm.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When summer decked the leafy bowers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And pranked the russet plain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She bore his cage where breathing flowers<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Inspired a tuneful strain;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And now and then, through open door,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Indulged a wish to roam,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though soon, the brief excursion o'er,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The wanderer sought its home.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">She laughed to see it brush the dew<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">From bough and budding spray.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And deemed its snow-white plumage grew<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">More beauteous, day by day.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The rose of June was in its flush,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And 'neath the fragrant shade<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of her own fullest, fairest bush<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The favorite's house was staid,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">While roving, bird-like, here and there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Amid her flow'rets dear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She culled a nosegay, rich and rare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">A mother's heart to cheer.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A shriek! A flutter! Swift as thought<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Her startled footstep flew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But full of horror was the sight<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That met her eager view&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Her treasure in a murderer's jaws!<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">One of that feline race<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose wily looks and velvet paws<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Conceal their purpose base.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And scarce the victim's gushing breast<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Heaved with one feeble breath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though raised to hers, its glance exprest<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Affection even in death.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Oh, stricken child! though future years<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">May frown with heavier shade,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When woman's lot of love and tears<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Is on thy spirit laid&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Yet never can a wilder cry<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Thy heart-wrung anguish prove<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than when before thy swimming eye<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Expired that wounded dove.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<br /><br />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 656px;">
+<img src="images/illus195.png" width="656" height="800"
+alt="THE LOST PET" title="" /></div>
+<h4>THE LOST PET</h4>
+<h5>Engraved Expressly for Graham's Magazine</h5>
+<h5>Figure from I. M. Wright. Drawn with original scenery &amp; engraved by Ellis.</h5>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="FIEL_A_LA_MUERTE_OR_TRUE_LOVES_DEVOTION"
+id="FIEL_A_LA_MUERTE_OR_TRUE_LOVES_DEVOTION"></a>
+FIEL A LA MUERTE, OR TRUE LOVE'S DEVOTION.</h2>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>
+
+<h3>A TALE OF THE TIMES OF LOUIS QUINZE.</h3>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<h4>BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, AUTHOR OF "THE ROMAN TRAITOR," "MARMADUKE WYVIL," "CROMWELL," ETC.</h4>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<h5>(<i>Concluded from page</i> 91.)</h5>
+
+
+<h3>PART III.</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For there were seen in that dark wall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Two niches, narrow, dark and tall.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who enters by such grisly door,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall ne'er, I ween, find exit more.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Walter Scott.</span><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<br />
+
+<p>It would be wonderful, were it not of daily occurrence,
+and to be observed by all who give attention
+to the characteristics of the human mind, how quickly
+confidence, even when shaken to its very foundations,
+and almost obliterated, springs up again, and
+recovers all its strength in the bosoms of the young
+of either sex.</p>
+
+<p>Let but a few more years pass over the heart, and
+when once broken, if it be only by a slight suspicion,
+or a half unreal cause, it will scarce revive again in
+a life-time; nor then, unless proofs the strongest and
+most unquestionable can be adduced to overpower
+the doubts which have well-nigh annihilated it.</p>
+
+<p>In early youth, however, before long contact with
+the world has blunted the susceptibilities, and hardened
+the sympathies of the soul, before the constant
+experience of the treachery, the coldness, the ingratitude
+of men has given birth to universal doubt and
+general distrust, the shadow vanishes as soon as the
+cloud which cast it is withdrawn, and the sufferer
+again believes, alas! too often, only to be again
+deceived.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it was with St. Renan, who a few minutes
+before had given up even the last hope, who had
+ceased, as he thought, to believe even in the possibility
+of faith or honor among men, of constancy, or
+purity, or truth in women, no sooner saw his Melanie,
+whom he knew to be the wife of another, solitary
+and in tears, no sooner felt her inanimate form reclining
+on his bosom, than he was prepared to believe
+any thing, rather than believe her false.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, her consternation at his appearance, her
+evident dismay, not unnatural in an age wherein
+skepticism and infidelity were marvelously mingled
+with credulity and superstition, her clear conviction
+that it was not himself in mortal blood and being, did
+go far to establish the fact, that she had been deceived
+either casually or&mdash;which was far more probable&mdash;by
+foul artifice, into the belief that her beloved and
+plighted husband was no longer with the living.</p>
+
+<p>The very exclamation which she uttered last, ere
+she sunk senseless into his arms, uttered, as she
+imagined, in the presence of the immortal spirit of
+the injured dead, "I am true, Raoul&mdash;true to the last,
+my beloved!" rang in his ears with a power and a
+meaning which convinced him of her veracity.</p>
+
+<p>"She could not lie!" he muttered to himself, "in
+the presence of the living dead! God be praised!
+she is true, and we shall yet be happy!"</p>
+
+<p>How beautiful she looked, as she lay there, unconscious
+and insensible even of her own existence.
+If time and maturity had improved Raoul's person,
+and added the strength and majesty of manhood to
+the grace and pliability of youth, infinitely more had
+it bestowed on the beauty of his betrothed. He
+had left her a beautiful girl just blooming out of girlhood,
+he found her a mature, full-blown woman,
+with all the flush and flower of complete feminine
+perfection, before one charm has become too luxuriant,
+or one drop of the youthful dew exhaled from
+the new expanded blossom.</p>
+
+<p>She had shot up, indeed, to a height above the
+ordinary stature of women&mdash;straight, erect, and
+graceful as a young poplar, slender, yet full withal,
+exquisitely and voluptuously rounded, and with
+every sinuous line and swelling curve of her soft
+form full of the poetry and beauty both of repose and
+motion.</p>
+
+<p>Her complexion was pale as alabaster; even her
+cheeks, except when some sudden tide of passion, or
+some strong emotion sent the impetuous blood coursing
+thither more wildly than its wont, were colorless,
+but there was nothing sallow or sickly, nothing of
+that which is ordinarily understood by the word
+pallid, in their clear, warm, transparent purity;
+nothing, in a word, of that lividness which the French,
+with more accuracy than we, distinguish from the
+healthful paleness which is so beautiful in southern
+women.</p>
+
+<p>Her hair, profuse almost to redundance, was perfectly
+black, but of that warm and lustrous blackness
+which is probably the hue expressed by the ancient
+Greeks by the term hyacinthine, and which in certain
+lights has a purplish metallic gloss playing over
+it, like the varying reflections on the back of the
+raven. Her strongly defined, and nearly straight
+eyebrows, were dark as night, as were the long,
+silky lashes which were displayed in clear relief
+against the fair, smooth cheek, as the lids lay closed
+languidly over the bright blue eyes.</p>
+
+<p>It was a minute or two before Melanie moved or
+gave any symptoms of recovering from her fainting
+fit, and during those minutes the lips of Raoul had
+been pressed so often and so warmly to those of the
+fair insensible, that had any spark of perception remained
+to her, the fond and lingering pressure could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>
+not have failed to call the "purple light of love," to
+her ingenuous face.</p>
+
+<p>At length a long, slow shiver ran through the
+form of the senseless girl, and thrilled, like the touch
+of the electric wire, every nerve in St. Renan's
+body.</p>
+
+<p>Then the soft rosy lips were unclosed, and forth
+rushed the ambrosial breath in a long, gentle sigh,
+and the beautiful bust heaved and undulated, like
+the bosom of the calm sea, when the first breathings
+of the coming storm steal over it, and wake, as if by
+sympathy, its deep pulsations.</p>
+
+<p>He clasped her closer to his heart, half fearful that
+when life and perfect consciousness should be restored
+to that exquisite frame, it would start from
+his embrace, if not in anger or alarm, at least as if
+from a forbidden and illicit pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually a faint rosy hue, slight as the earliest
+blushes of the morning sky, crept over her white
+cheeks, and deepened into a rich passionate flush;
+and at the same moment the azure-tinctured lids were
+unclosed slowly, and the large, radiant, bright-blue
+eyes beamed up into his own, half languid still, but
+gleaming through their dewy languor, with an expression
+which he must have been, indeed, blind to
+mistake for aught but the strongest of unchanged,
+unchangeable affection.</p>
+
+<p>It was evident that she knew him now; that the
+momentary terror, arising rather, perhaps, from fear
+than from superstition, which had converted the
+young ardent soldier into a visitant from beyond
+those gloomy portals through which no visitant returns,
+had passed from her mind, and that she had
+already recognized, although she spoke not, her
+living lover.</p>
+
+<p>And though she recognized him, she sought not to
+withdraw herself from the enclosure of his sheltering
+arms, but lay there on his bosom, with her head
+reclined on his shoulder, and her eyes drinking long
+draughts of love from his fascinated gaze, as if she
+were his own, and that her appropriate place of refuge
+and protection.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Raoul," she exclaimed, at length, in a low,
+soft whisper, "is it, indeed, you&mdash;you, whom I have
+so long wept as dead&mdash;you, whom I was even now
+weeping as one lost to me forever, when you are
+thus restored to me!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is I, Melanie," he answered mournfully, "it is
+I, alive, and in health; but better far had I been in
+truth dead, as they have told you, rather than thus a
+survivor of all happiness, of all hopes; spared only
+from the grave to know <i>you</i> false, and myself forgotten."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, Raoul, not false!" she cried wildly, as
+she started from his arms, "oh, not forgotten! think
+you," she added, blushing crimson, "that had I loved
+any but you, that had I not loved you with my whole
+heart and being, I had lain thus on your bosom, thus
+endured your caresses? Oh, no, no, never false! nor
+for one moment forgotten?"</p>
+
+<p>"But what avails it, if you do love no other&mdash;what
+profits it, if you do love me? Are you not&mdash;are
+you not, false girl,&mdash;alas! that these lips should
+speak it,&mdash;the wife of another&mdash;the promised mistress
+of the king?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I&mdash;Raoul!" she exclaimed, with such a
+blending of wonder and loathing in her face, such an
+expression of indignation on her tongue, that her
+lover perceived at once, that, whatever might be the
+infamy of her father, of her husband, of this climax
+of falsehood and self-degradation, she, at least, was
+guiltless.</p>
+
+<p>"The mistress of the king! what king? what mean
+you? are you distraught?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! you are ignorant, you are innocent of that,
+then. You are not yet indoctrinated into the noble
+uses for which your honorable lord intends you. It
+is the town's talk, Melanie. How is it you, whom
+it most concerns, alone have not heard it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Raoul," she said, earnestly, imploringly, "I
+know not if there be any meaning in your words,
+except to punish me, to torture me, for what you
+deem my faithlessness, but if there be, I implore
+you, I conjure you, by your father's noble name; by
+your mother's honor, show me the worst; but listen
+to me first, for by the God that made us both, and
+now hears my words, I am not faithless."</p>
+
+<p>"Not faithless? Are you not the wife of another?"</p>
+
+<p>"No!" she replied enthusiastically. "I am not.
+For I am yours, and while you live I cannot wed
+another. Whom God hath joined man cannot put
+asunder."</p>
+
+<p>"I fear me that plea will avail us little," Raoul
+answered. "But say on, dearest Melanie, and believe
+that there is nothing you can ask which I will
+not give you gladly&mdash;even if it were my own life-blood.
+Say on, so shall we best arrive at the truth
+of this intricate and black affair."</p>
+
+<p>"Mark me, then, Raoul, for every word I shall
+speak is as true as the sun in heaven. It is near two
+years now since we heard that you had fallen in
+battle, and that your body had been carried off by the
+barbarians. Long! long I hoped and prayed, but
+prayers and hopes were alike in vain. I wrote to
+you often, as I promised, but no line from you has
+reached me, since the day when you sailed for India,
+and that made me fear that the dread news was true.
+But at the last, to make assurance doubly sure, all
+my own letters were returned to me six months since,
+with their seals unbroken, and an endorsement from
+the authorities in India that the person addressed was
+not to be found. Then hope itself was over; and my
+father, who never from the first had doubted that you
+were no more&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Out on him! out on him! the heartless villain!"
+the young man interrupted her indignantly. "He
+knows, as well as I myself, that I am living; although
+it is no fault of his or his coadjutors that I am so.
+He knows not as yet, however, that I am <i>here</i>; but
+he shall know it ere long to his cost, my Melanie."</p>
+
+<p>"At least," she answered in a faltering voice, "at
+least he <i>swore</i> to me that you were dead; and never
+having ceased to persecute me, since the day that
+fatal tidings reached, to become the wife of La
+Rochederrien, now Marquis de Ploermel, he now
+became doubly urgent&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And you, Melanie! you yielded! I had thought
+you would have died sooner."</p>
+
+<p>"I had no choice but to yield, Raoul. Or at least
+but the choice of that old man's hand, or an eternal
+dungeon. The <i>lettres de cachet</i> were signed, and
+you dead, and on the conditions I extorted from the
+marquis, I became in name, Raoul, only in name, by
+all my hopes of Heaven! the wife of the man whom
+you pronounce, wherefore, I cannot dream, the basest
+of mankind. Now tell me."</p>
+
+<p>"And did it never strike you as being wonderful
+and most unnatural that this Ploermel, who is neither
+absolutely a dotard nor an old woman, should accept
+your hand upon this condition?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was too happy to succeed in extorting it to
+think much of that," she answered.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Extorted!</i>" replied Raoul bitterly, "And how,
+I pray you, is this condition which you extorted
+ratified or made valid?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is signed by himself, and witnessed by my own
+father, that, being I regard myself the wife of the
+dead, he shall ask no more of familiarity from me
+than if I were the bride of heaven!"</p>
+
+<p>"The double villains!"</p>
+
+<p>"But wherefore villains, Raoul?" exclaimed Melanie.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you, girl, it is a compact&mdash;a base, hellish
+compact&mdash;with the foul despot, the disgrace of kings,
+the opprobrium of France, who sits upon the throne,
+dishonoring it daily! A compact such as yet was
+never entered into by a father and a husband, even
+of the lowest of mankind! A compact to deliver
+you a spotless virgin-victim to the vile-hearted and
+luxurious tyrant. Curses! a thousand curses on his
+soul! and on my own soul! who have fought and
+bled for him, and all to meet with this, as my reward
+of service!"</p>
+
+<p>"Great God! can these things be," she exclaimed,
+almost fainting with horror and disgust. "Can these
+things indeed be? But speak, Raoul, speak; how
+can you know all this?"</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you, Melanie, it is the talk, the very daily,
+hourly gossip of the streets, the alleys, nay, even the
+very kennels of Paris. Every one knows it&mdash;every
+one believes it, from the monarch in the Louvre to
+the lowest butcher of the Faubourg St. Antoine!</p>
+
+<p>"And they believe it&mdash;of me, of <i>me</i>, they believe
+this infamy!"</p>
+
+<p>"With this addition, if any addition were needed,
+that you are not a deceived victim, but a willing and
+proud participator in the shame."</p>
+
+<p>"I will&mdash;that is&mdash;" she corrected herself, speaking
+very rapidly and energetically&mdash;"I <i>would</i> die sooner.
+But there is no need now to die. You have come
+back to me, and all will yet go well with us!"</p>
+
+<p>"It never can go well with us again," St. Renan
+answered gloomily. "The king never yields his
+purpose, he is as tenacious in his hold as reckless
+in his promptitude to seize. And they are paid beforehand."</p>
+
+<p>"Paid!" exclaimed the girl, shuddering at the
+word. "What atrocity! How paid?"</p>
+
+<p>"How, think you, did your good father earn his
+title and the rich governorship of Morlaix? What
+great deeds were rewarded to La Rochederrien by
+his marquisate, and this captaincy of mousquetaires.
+You know not yet, young lady, what virtue there is
+nowadays in being the accommodating father, or
+the convenient husband of a beauty!"</p>
+
+<p>"You speak harshly, St. Renan, and bitterly."</p>
+
+<p>"And if I do, have I not cause enough for bitterness
+and harshness?" he replied almost angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"Not against me, Raoul."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not bitter against you, Melanie. And yet&mdash;and
+yet&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And yet <i>what</i>, Raoul?"</p>
+
+<p>"And yet had you resisted three days longer, we
+might have been saved&mdash;you might have been
+mine&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I am yours, Raoul de St. Renan. Yours, ever
+and forever! No one's but only yours."</p>
+
+<p>"You speak but madness&mdash;your vow&mdash;the sacrament!"</p>
+
+<p>"To the winds with my vow&mdash;to the abyss with
+the fraudful sacrament!" she cried, almost fiercely.
+By sin it was obtained and sanctioned&mdash;in sin let it
+perish. I say&mdash;I swear, Raoul, if you will take me,
+I am yours."</p>
+
+<p>"Mine? Mine?" cried the young man, half bewildered.
+"How mine, and when?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thus," she replied, casting herself upon his
+breast, and winding her arms around his neck, and
+kissing his lips passionately and often. "Thus,
+Raoul, thus, and now!"</p>
+
+<p>He returned her embrace fondly once, but the next
+instant he removed her almost forcibly from his
+breast, and held her at arm's length.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" he exclaimed, "not thus, not thus! If
+at all, honestly, openly, holily, in the face of day!
+May my soul perish, ere cause come through me
+why you should ever blush to show your front aloft
+among the purest and the proudest. No, no, not thus,
+my own Melanie!"</p>
+
+<p>The girl burst into a paroxysm of tears and sobbing,
+through which she hardly could contrive to make her
+interrupted and faultering words audible.</p>
+
+<p>"If not now," she said at length, "it will never
+be. For, hear me, Raoul, and pity me, to-morrow
+they are about to drag me to Paris."</p>
+
+<p>The lover mused for several moments very deeply,
+and then replied, "Listen to me, Melanie. If you
+are in earnest, if you are true, and can be firm, there
+may yet be happiness in store for us, and that very
+shortly."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you doubt me, Raoul?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not doubt you, Melanie. But ever as in
+my own wildest rapture, even to gain my own extremest
+bliss, I would not do aught that could possibly
+cast one shadow on your pure renown, so, mark me,
+would I not take you to my heart were there one
+spot, though it were but as a speck in the all-glorious
+sun, upon the brightness of your purity."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you, Raoul. I feel, I know that my
+honor, that my purity is all in all to you.</p>
+
+<p>"I would die a thousand deaths," he made answer,
+"ere even a false report should fall on it, to mar its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>
+virgin whiteness. Marvel not then that I ask as
+much of you."</p>
+
+<p>"Ask anything, St. Renan. It <i>is</i> granted."</p>
+
+<p>"In France we can hope for nothing. But there
+are other lands than France. We must fly; and
+thanks to these documents which you have wrung
+from them, and the proofs which I can easily obtain,
+this cursed marriage can be set aside, and then, in
+honor and in truth you can be mine, mine own Melanie."</p>
+
+<p>"God grant it so, Raoul."</p>
+
+<p>"It shall be so, beloved. Be you but firm, and it
+may be done right speedily. I will sell the estates
+of St. Renan&mdash;by a good chance, supposing me dead,
+the Lord of Yrvilliac was in treaty for it with my
+uncle. That can be arranged forthwith. Conduct
+yourself according to your wont, cool and as distant
+as may be with this villain of Ploermel; avoid above
+all things to let your father see that you are buoyed
+by any hope, or moved by any passion. Treat the
+king with deliberate scorn, if he approach you over
+boldly. Beware how you eat or drink in his company,
+for he is capable of all things, even of drugging
+you into insensibility, and here," he added, taking a
+small poniard, of exquisite workmanship, with a
+gold hilt and scabbard, from his girdle, and giving it
+to her, "wear <i>this</i> at all times, and if he dare attempt
+violence, were he thrice a king, <i>use it</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"I will&mdash;I will&mdash;trust me, Raoul! I <i>will</i> use it, and
+that to his sorrow! My heart is strong, and my hand
+brave <i>now</i>&mdash;now that I know you to be living. Now
+that I have hope to nerve me, I will fear nothing, but
+dare all things."</p>
+
+<p>"Do so, do so, my beloved, and you shall have
+no cause to fear, for I will be ever near you. I will
+tarry here but one day; and ere you reach Paris, I
+will be there, be certain. Within ten days, I doubt
+not I can convert my acres into gold, and ship that
+gold across the narrow straits; and that done, the
+speed of horses, and a swift sailing ship will soon
+have us safe in England; and if that land be not so
+fair, or so dear as our own France, at least there are
+no tyrants there, like this Louis; and there are laws,
+they say, which guard the meanest man as safely and
+as surely as the proudest noble."</p>
+
+<p>"A happy land, Raoul. I would that we were
+there even now."</p>
+
+<p>"We will be there ere long, fear nothing. But
+tell me, whom have you near your person on whom
+we may rely. There must be some one through
+whom we may communicate in Paris. It may be
+that I shall require to see you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! you remember Rose, Raoul&mdash;little Rose
+Faverney, who has lived with me ever since she
+was a child&mdash;a pretty little black-eyed damsel."</p>
+
+<p>"Surely I do remember her. Is she with you yet?
+That will do admirably, then, if she be faithful, as I
+think she is; and unless I forget, what will serve us
+better yet, she loves my page Jules de Marliena.
+He has not forgotten her, I promise you."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! Jules&mdash;we grow selfish, I believe, as we
+grow old, Raoul. I have not thought to ask after one
+of your people. So Jules remembers little Rose,
+and loves her yet; that will, indeed, secure her, even
+had she been doubtful, which she is not. She is as
+true as steel&mdash;truer, I fear, than even I; for she reproached
+me bitterly four evenings since, and swore
+she would be buried alive, much more willingly imprisoned,
+than be married to the Marquis de Ploermel,
+though she was only plighted to the Vicomte Raoul's
+page! Oh! we may trust in her with all certainty."</p>
+
+<p>"Send her, then, on the very same night that you
+reach Paris, so soon as it is dark, to my uncle's
+house in the Place de St. Louis. I think she knows
+it, and let her ask&mdash;not for me&mdash;but for Jules. Ere
+then I will know something definite of our future;
+and fear nothing, love, all shall go well with us.
+Love such as ours, with faith, and right, and honesty
+and honor to support it, cannot fail to win, blow what
+wind may. And now, sweet Melanie, the night
+is wearing onward, and I fear that they may miss
+you. Kiss me, then, once more, sweet girl, and
+farewell."</p>
+
+<p>"Not for the last, Raoul," she cried, with a gay
+smile, casting herself once again into her lover's
+arms, and meeting his lips with a long, rapturous kiss.</p>
+
+<p>"Not by a thousand, and a thousand! But now,
+angel, farewell for a little space. I hate to bid you
+leave me, but I dare not ask you to stay; even now
+I tremble lest you should be missed and they should
+send to seek you. For were they but to suspect that
+I am here and have seen you, it would, at the best,
+double all our difficulties. Fare you well, sweetest
+Melanie."</p>
+
+<p>"Fare you well," she replied; "fare you well,
+my own best beloved Raoul," and she put up the
+glittering dagger, as she spoke, into the bosom of
+her dress; but as she did so, she paused and said, "I
+wish <i>this</i> had not been your first gift to me, Raoul,
+for they say that such gifts are fatal, to love at least,
+if not to life."</p>
+
+<p>"Fear not! fear not!" answered the young man,
+laughing gayly, "our love is immortal. It may defy
+the best steel blade that was ever forged on Milan
+stithy to cut it asunder. Fare you&mdash;but, hush! who
+comes here; it is too late, yet fly&mdash;fly, Melanie!"</p>
+
+<p>But she did not fly, for as he spoke, a tall, gayly
+dressed cavalier burst through the coppice on the
+side next the ch&acirc;teau d'Argenson, exclaiming, "So,
+my fair cousin!&mdash;this is your faith to my good brother
+of Ploermel is it?"</p>
+
+<p>But, before he spoke, she had whispered to Raoul,
+"It is the Chevalier de Pontrein, de Ploermel's half
+brother. Alas! all is lost."</p>
+
+<p>"Not so! not so!" answered her lover, also in a
+whisper, "leave him to me, I will detain him. Fly,
+by the upper pathway and through the orchard to the
+ch&acirc;teau, and remember&mdash;you have not seen this dog.
+So much deceit is pardonable. Fly, I say, Melanie.
+Look not behind for your life, whatever you may
+hear, nor tarry. All rests now on your steadiness
+and courage."</p>
+
+<p>"Then all is safe," she answered firmly and aloud,
+and without casting a glance toward the cavalier,
+who was now within ten paces of her side, or taking
+the smallest notice of his words, she kissed her hand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>
+to St. Renan, and bounded up the steep path, in the
+opposite direction, with so fleet a step as soon carried
+her beyond the sound of all that followed, though
+that was neither silent nor of small interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you not hear me, madam. By Heaven! but
+you carry it off easily!" cried the young cavalier, setting
+off at speed, as if to follow her. "But you must
+run swifter than a roe if you look to 'scape me;"
+and with the words, he attempted to rush past Raoul,
+of whom he affected, although he knew him well, to
+take no notice.</p>
+
+<p>But in that intent he was quickly frustrated, for
+the young count grasped him by the collar as he endeavored
+to pass, with a grasp of iron, and said to
+him in an ironical tone of excessive courtesy,</p>
+
+<p>"Sweet sir, I fear you have forgotten me, that
+you should give me the go-by thus, when it is so long
+a time since we have met, and we such dear friends,
+too,"</p>
+
+<p>But the young man was in earnest, and very angry,
+and struggled to release himself from St. Renan's
+grasp, until, having no strong reasons for forbearance,
+but many for the reverse, Raoul, too, lost his temper.</p>
+
+<p>"By heaven!" he exclaimed, "I believe that you
+do <i>not</i> know me, or you would not dare to suppose
+that I would suffer you to follow a lady who seeks
+not your presence or society."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me go, St. Renan!" returned the other fiercely,
+laying his hand on his dagger's hilt. "Let me go,
+villain, or you shall rue it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Villain!" Raoul repeated, calmly, "villain! It
+is so you call me, hey?" and he did instantly release
+him, drawing his sword as he did so. "Draw, De
+Pontrien&mdash;that word has cost you your life!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, villain!" repeated the other, "villain to
+you teeth! But you lie! it is your life that is forfeit&mdash;forfeit
+to my brother's honor!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! ha!" laughed Raoul, savagely. "Ha-ha-ha-ha!
+your brother's honor! who the devil ever
+heard before of a pandar's honor&mdash;even if he were
+Sir Pandarus to a king? Sa! sa!&mdash;have at you!"</p>
+
+<p>Their blades crossed instantly, and they fought
+fiercely, and with something like equality for some
+ten minutes. The Chevalier de Pontrien was far
+more than an ordinary swordsman, and he was in
+earnest, not angry, but savage and determined, and
+full of bitter hatred, and a fixed resolution to punish
+the familiarity of Raoul with his brother's wife.
+But that was a thing easier proposed than executed;
+for St. Renan, who had left France as a boy already
+a perfect master of fence, had learned the practice
+of the blade against the swordsmen of the East, the
+finest swordsmen of the world, and had added to skill,
+science and experience, the iron nerves, the deep
+breath, and the unwearied strength of a veteran.</p>
+
+<p>If he fought slowly, it was that he fought carefully&mdash;that
+he meant the first wound to be the last. He
+was resolved that De Pontrien never should return
+home again to divulge what he had seen, and he had
+the coolness, the skill, and the power to carry out
+his resolution.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of ten minutes he attacked. Six times
+within as many seconds he might have inflicted a
+severe, perhaps a deadly wound on his antagonist;
+and he, too, perceived it, but it would not have been
+surely mortal.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, come!" cried De Pontrien, at last, growing
+impatient and angry at the idea of being played
+with. "Come, sir, you are my master, it seems.
+Make an end of this."</p>
+
+<p>"Do not be in a hurry," replied St. Renan, with a
+deadly smile, "it will come soon enough. There!
+will that suit you?"</p>
+
+<p>And with the word he made a treble feint and
+lounged home. So true was the thrust that the
+point pierced the very cavity of his heart. So strongly
+was it sent home that the hilt smote heavily on
+his breast-bone. He did not speak or groan, but
+drew one short, broken sigh, and fell dead on the
+instant.</p>
+
+<p>"The fool!" muttered St. Renan. "Wherefore
+did he meddle where he had no business? But what
+the devil shall I do with him? He must not be found,
+or all will out&mdash;and that were ruin."</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke, a distant clap of thunder was heard
+to the eastward, and a few heavy drops of rain began
+to fall, while a heavy mass of black thunder-clouds
+began to rise rapidly against the wind.</p>
+
+<p>"There will be a fierce storm in ten minutes,
+which will soon wash out all this evidence," he said,
+looking down at the trampled and blood-stained
+greensward. "One hour hence, and there will not
+be a sign of this, if I can but dispose of him. Ha!"
+he added, as a quick thought struck him, "The
+Devil's Drinking-Cup! Enough! it is done!"</p>
+
+<p>Within a minute's space he had swathed the corpse
+tightly in the cloak, which had fallen from the
+wretched man's shoulders as the fray began, bound it
+about the waist by the scarf, to which he attached
+firmly an immense block of stone, which lay at the
+brink of the fearful well, which was now&mdash;for the
+tide was up&mdash;brimful of white boiling surf, and
+holding his breath atween resolution and abhorrence,
+hurled it into the abyss.</p>
+
+<p>It sunk instantly, so well was the stone secured to
+it; and the fate of the Chevalier de Pontrien never
+was suspected, for that fatal pool never gave up its
+dead, nor will until the judgment-day.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime the flood-gates of heaven were opened,
+and a mimic torrent, rushing down the dark glen,
+soon obliterated every trace of that stern, short
+affray.</p>
+
+<p>Calmly Raoul strode homeward, and untouched
+by any conscience, for those were hard and ruthless
+times, and he had undergone so much wrong at the
+hands of his victim's nearest relatives, and dearest
+friends, that it was no great marvel if his blood were
+heated, and his heart pitiless.</p>
+
+<p>"I will have masses said for his soul in Paris,"
+he muttered to himself; and therewith, thinking that
+he had more than discharged all a Christian's duty,
+he dismissed all further thoughts of the matter, and
+actually hummed a gay opera tune as he strode
+homeward through the pelting storm, thinking how
+soon he should be blessed by the possession of his
+own Melanie.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>No observation was made on his absence, either
+by the steward or any of the servants, on his return,
+though he was well-nigh drenched with rain, for they
+remembered his old half-boyish, half-romantic habits,
+and it seemed natural to them that on his first return,
+after so many years of wandering, to scenes endeared
+to him by innumerable fond recollections, he should
+wander forth alone to muse with his own soul in
+secret.</p>
+
+<p>There was great joy, however, in the hearts of
+the old servitors and tenants in consequence of his
+return, and on the following morning, and still on
+the third day, that feeling of joy and security continued
+to increase, for it soon got abroad that the
+young lord's grief and gloominess of mood was
+wearing hourly away, and that his lip, and his whole
+countenance were often lighted up with an expression
+which showed, as they fondly augured, that
+days and years of happiness were yet in store for
+him.</p>
+
+<p>It was not long before the tidings reached him that
+the house of D'Argenson was in great distress concerning
+the sudden and unaccountable disappearance
+of the Chevalier de Pontrien, who had walked out,
+it was said, on the preceding afternoon, promising to
+be back at supper-time, and who had not been heard
+of since.</p>
+
+<p>Raoul smiled grimly at the intimation, but said
+nothing, and the narrator judging that St. Renan was
+not likely to take offence at the imputations against
+the family of Ploermel, proceeded to inform him,
+that in the opinion of the neighborhood there was
+nothing very mysterious, after all, in the disappearance
+of the chevalier, since he was known to be
+very heavily in debt, and was threatened with
+deadly feud by the old Sieur de Plouzurde, whose
+fair daughter he had deceived to her undoing.
+Robinet, the smuggler's boat, had been seen off the
+Penmarcks when the moon was setting, and no one
+doubted that the gay gallant was by this time off the
+coast of Spain.</p>
+
+<p>To all this, though he affected to pay little heed to
+it, Raoul inclined an eager and attentive ear, and
+as a reward for his patient listening, was soon informed,
+furthermore, that the bridegroom marquis
+and the beautiful bride, being satisfied, it was supposed,
+of the chevalier's safety, had departed for
+Paris, their journey having been postponed only in
+consequence of the research for the missing gentleman,
+from the morning when it should have taken
+place, to the afternoon of the same day.</p>
+
+<p>For two days longer did Raoul tarry at St. Renan,
+apparently as free from concern or care about the
+fair Melanie de Ploermel, as if he had never heard
+her name. And on this point alone, for all men
+knew that he once loved her, did his conduct excite
+any observation, or call forth comment. His silence,
+however, and external nonchalance were attributed
+at all hands to a proper sense of pride and self-respect;
+and as the territorial vassals of those days
+held themselves in some degree ennobled or disgraced
+by the high bearing or recreancy of their
+lords, it was very soon determined by the men of St.
+Renan that it would have been very disgraceful and
+humiliating had their lord, the Lord of Douarnez
+and St. Renan, condescended to trouble his head
+about the little demoiselle d'Argenson.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile our lover, whose head was in truth occupied
+about no other thing than that very same little
+demoiselle, for whom he was believed to feel a contempt
+so supreme, had thoroughly investigated all
+his affairs, thereby acquiring from his old steward
+the character of an admirable man of business, had
+made himself perfectly master of the real value of
+his estates, droits, dues and all connected with the
+same, and had packed up all his papers, and such of
+his valuables as were movable, so as to be transported
+easily by means of pack-horses.</p>
+
+<p>This done, leaving orders for a retinue of some
+twenty of his best and most trusty servants to follow
+him as soon as the train and relays of horses could
+be prepared, he set off with two followers only to
+return, riding post, as he had come, from Paris.</p>
+
+<p>He was three days behind the lady of his love
+at starting; but the journey from the western extremity
+of Bretagne to the metropolis is at all times
+a long and tedious undertaking; and as the roads
+and means of conveyance were in those days, he
+found it no difficult task to catch up with the carriages
+of the marquis, and to pass them on the road long
+enough before they reached Paris.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, though he had set out three days behind
+them, he succeeded in anticipating their arrival by
+as many, and had succeeded in transacting more than
+half the business on which his heart was bent, before
+he received the promised visit from the pretty Rose
+Faverney, who, prompted by her desire to renew her
+intimacy with the handsome page, came punctual
+to her appointment. He had not, of course, admitted
+the good old churchman, his uncle, into all his
+secrets; he had not even told him that he had seen
+the lady, much less what were his hopes and views
+concerning her.</p>
+
+<p>But he did tell him that he was so deeply mortified
+and wounded by her desertion, that he had determined
+to sell his estates, to leave France forever, and
+to betake himself to the new American colonies on
+the St. Lawrence.</p>
+
+<p>There was not in the state of France in those days
+much to admire, or much to induce wise men to
+exert their influence over the young and noble, to
+induce them to linger in the neighborhood of a court
+which was in itself a very sink of corruption. It
+was with no great difficulty, therefore, that Raoul
+obtained the concurrence of his uncle, who was
+naturally a friend to gallant and adventurous daring.
+The estates of St. Renan, the old castle and the home
+park, with a few hundred acres in its immediate
+vicinity only excepted, were converted into gold
+with almost unexampled rapidity.</p>
+
+<p>A part of the gold was in its turn converted into
+a gallant brigantine of some two hundred tons, which
+was despatched at once along the coast of Douarnez
+bay, there to take in a crew of the hardy fishermen
+and smugglers of that stormy shore, all men well-known
+to Raoul de St. Renan, and well content to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>
+follow their young lord to the world's end, should
+such be his will.</p>
+
+<p>Here, indeed, I have anticipated something the
+progress of events, for hurry it as much as he
+could in those days, St. Renan could not, of course,
+work miracles; and though the brigantine was purchased,
+where she lay ready to sail, at Calais, the
+instant the sale of St. Renan was determined, without
+awaiting the completion of the transfer, or the payment
+of the purchase-money, many days had elapsed
+before the news could be sent from the capital to
+the coast, and the vessel despatched to Britanny.</p>
+
+<p>Every thing was, however, determined; nay,
+every thing was in process of accomplishment before
+the arrival of the fair lady and her nominal
+husband, so that at his first interview with Rose,
+Raoul was enabled to lay all his plans before her,
+and to promise that within a month at the furthest,
+every thing would be ready for their certain and
+safe evasion.</p>
+
+<p>He did not fail, however, on that account to impress
+upon the pretty maiden, who, as Jules was to
+accompany his lord, though not a hint of whither had
+been breathed to any one, was doubly devoted to
+the success of the scheme, that a method must be
+arranged by which he could have daily interviews
+with the lovely Melanie; and this she promised that
+she would use all her powers to induce her mistress
+to permit, saying, with a gay laugh, that her permission
+gained, all the rest was easy.</p>
+
+<p>The next day, the better to avoid suspicion, Raoul
+was presented to the king, in full court, by his uncle,
+on the double event of his return from India, and of
+his approaching departure for the colony of Acadie,
+for which it was his present purpose to sue for his
+majesty's consent and approbation.</p>
+
+<p>The king was in great good humor, and nothing
+could have been more flattering or more gracious
+than Raoul de St. Renan's reception. Louis had
+heard that very morning of the fair Melanie's arrival
+in the city, and nothing could have fallen out more
+<i>apropos</i> than the intention of her quondam lover to
+depart at this very juncture, and that, too, for an
+indefinite period from the land of his birth.</p>
+
+<p>Rejoicing inwardly at his good fortune, and of
+course, ascribing the conduct of the young man to
+pique and disappointment, the king, while he loaded
+him with honors and attentions, did not neglect to
+encourage him in his intention of departing on a
+very early day, and even offered to facilitate his departure
+by making some remissions in his behalf
+from the strict regulations of the Douane.</p>
+
+<p>All this was perfectly comprehensible to Raoul;
+but he was far too wise to suffer any one, even his
+uncle, to perceive that he understood it; and while
+he profited to the utmost by the readiness which he
+found in high places to smooth away all the difficulties
+from his path, he laughed in his sleeve as he
+thought what would be the fury of the licentious
+and despotic sovereign when he should discover that
+the very steps which he had taken to remove a
+dangerous rival, had actually cast the lady into that
+rival's arms.</p>
+
+<p>Nor had this measure of Raoul's been less effectual
+in sparing Melanie much grief and vexation, than it
+had proved in facilitating his own schemes of escape;
+for on that very day, within an hour after his reception
+of St. Renan, the king caused information to be
+conveyed to the Marquis de Ploermel that the presentation
+of Madame should be deferred until such
+time as the Vicomte de St. Renan should have set
+sail for Acadie, which it was expected would take
+place within a month at the furthest.</p>
+
+<p>That evening, when Rose Faverney was admitted
+to the young lord's presence, through the agency of
+the enamored Jules, she brought him permission to
+visit her lady at midnight in her own chamber; and
+she brought with her a plan, sketched by Melanie's
+own hand, of the garden, through which, by the aid
+of a master-key and a rope-ladder, he was to gain
+access to her presence.</p>
+
+<p>"My lady says, Monsieur Raoul," added the
+merry girl, with a light laugh, "that she admits you
+only on the faith that you will keep the word which
+you plighted to her, when last you met, and on the
+condition that I shall be present at all your interviews
+with her."</p>
+
+<p>"Her honor were safe in my hands," replied the
+young man, "without that precaution. But I appreciate
+the motive, and accept the condition."</p>
+
+<p>"You will remember, then, my lord&mdash;at midnight.
+There will be one light burning in the window, when
+that is extinguished, all will be safe, and you may
+enter fearless. Will you remember?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing but death shall prevent me. Nor that,
+if the spirits of the dead may visit what they love
+best on earth. So tell her, Rose. Farewell!"</p>
+
+<p>Four hours afterward St. Renan stood in the
+shadow of a dense trellice in the garden, watching
+the moment when that love-beacon should expire.
+The clock of St. Germain l'Auxerre struck twelve,
+and at the instant all was darkness. Another minute
+and the lofty wall was scaled, and Melanie was in
+the arms of Raoul.</p>
+
+<p>It was a strange, grim, gloomy gothic chamber,
+full of strange niches and recesses of old stone-work.
+The walls were hung with gilded tapestries of
+Spanish leather, but were interrupted in many places
+by the antique stone groinings of alcoves and cup-boards,
+one of which, close beside the mantlepiece,
+was closed by a curiously carved door of heavy
+oak-work, itself sunk above a foot within the embrasure
+of the wall.</p>
+
+<p>Lighted as it was only by the flickering of the
+wood-fire on the hearth, for the thickness of the
+walls, and the damp of the old vaulted room rendered
+a fire acceptable even at midsummer, that antique
+chamber appeared doubly grim and ghostly; but
+little cared the young lovers for its dismal seeming;
+and if they noticed it at all, it was but to jest at
+the contrast of its appearance with the happy hours
+which they passed within it.</p>
+
+<p>Happy, indeed, they were&mdash;almost too happy&mdash;though
+as pure and guiltless as if they had been hours
+spent within a nunnery of the strictest rule, and in
+the presence of a sainted abbess.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Happy, indeed, they were; and although brief, oft
+repeated. For, thenceforth, not a night passed but
+Raoul visited his Melanie, and tarried there enjoying
+her sweet converse, and bearing to her every day
+glad tidings of the process of his schemes, and of the
+certainty of their escape, until the approach of
+morning warned him to make good his retreat ere
+envious eyes should be abroad to make espials.</p>
+
+<p>And ever the page, Jules, kept watch at the ladder-foot
+in the garden; and the true maiden, Rose, who
+ever sate within the chamber with the lovers during
+their stolen interviews, guarded the door, with ears
+as keen as those of Cerberus.</p>
+
+<p>A month had passed, and the last night had come,
+and all was successful&mdash;all was ready. The brigantine
+lay manned and armed, and at all points prepared
+for her brief voyage at an instant's notice at
+Calais. Relays of horses were at each post on the
+road. Raoul had taken formal leave of the delighted
+monarch. His passport was signed&mdash;his treasures
+were on board his good ship&mdash;his pistols were loaded&mdash;his
+horses were harnessed for the journey.</p>
+
+<p>For the last time he scaled the ladder&mdash;for the last
+time he stood within the chamber.</p>
+
+<p>Too happy! ay, they were too happy on that night,
+for all was done, all was won; and nothing but the
+last step remained, and that step so easy. The next
+morning Melanie was to go forth, as if to early mass,
+with Rose and a single valet. The valet was to be
+mastered and overthrown as if in a street broil, the
+lady, with her damsel, was to step into a light caleshe,
+which should await her, with her lover mounted at
+its side, and high for Calais&mdash;England&mdash;without the
+risk&mdash;the possibility of failure.</p>
+
+<p>That night he would not tarry. He told his happy
+tidings, clasped her to his heart, bid her farewell
+till to-morrow, and in another moment would have
+been safe&mdash;a step sounded close to the door. Rose
+sprang to her feet, with her finger to her lip, pointing
+with her left hand to the deep cupboard-door.</p>
+
+<p>She was right&mdash;there was not time to reach the
+window&mdash;at the same instant, as Melanie relighted
+the lamp, not to be taken in mysterious and suspicious
+darkness, the one door closed upon the lover just as
+the other opened to the husband.</p>
+
+<p>But rapid and light as were the motions of Raoul,
+the treacherous door by which he had passed into his
+concealment, trembled still as Ploermel entered.
+And Rose's quick eye saw that he marked it.</p>
+
+<p>But if he saw it, he gave no token, made no allusion
+to the least doubt or suspicion; on the contrary,
+he spoke more gayly and kindly than his wont. He
+apologized for his untimely intrusion, saying that
+her father had come suddenly to speak with them,
+concerning her presentation at court, which the king
+had appointed for the next day, and wished, late as
+it was, to see her in the saloon below.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing doubting the truth of his statement, which
+Raoul's intended departure rendered probable, Melanie
+started from her chair, and telling Rose to wait,
+for she would back in an instant, hurried out of the
+room, and took her way toward the great staircase.</p>
+
+<p>The marquis ordered Rose to light her mistress, for
+the corridor was dark; and as the girl went out to do
+so, a suppressed shriek, and the faint sounds of a
+momentary scuffle followed, and then all was still.</p>
+
+<p>A hideous smile flitted across the face of de Ploermel,
+as he cast himself heavily into an arm-chair,
+opposite to the door of the cupboard in which St.
+Renan was concealed, and taking up a silver bell
+which stood on the table, rung it repeatedly and
+loudly for a servant.</p>
+
+<p>"Bring wine," he said, as the man entered. "And,
+hark you, the masons are at work in the great hall,
+and have left their tools and materials for building.
+Let half a dozen of the grooms come up hither, and
+bring with them brick and mortar. I hate the sight
+of that cupboard, and before I sleep this night, it
+shall be built up solid with a good wall of mason-work;
+and so here's a health to the rats within it,
+and a long life to them!" and he quaffed off the wine
+in fiendish triumph.</p>
+
+<p>He spoke so loud, and that intentionally, that Raoul
+heard every word that he uttered.</p>
+
+<p>But if he hoped thereby to terrify the lover into
+discovering himself, and so convicting his fair and
+innocent wife, the villain was deceived. Raoul heard
+every word&mdash;knew his fate&mdash;knew that one word,
+one motion would have saved him; but that one
+word, one motion would have destroyed the fair
+fame of his Melanie.</p>
+
+<p>The memory of the death of that unhappy Lord
+of Kerguelen came palpably upon his mind in that
+dread moment, and the comments of his dead father.</p>
+
+<p>"I, at least," he muttered, between his hard set
+teeth, "I at least, will not be evidence against her.
+I will die silent&mdash;<i>fiel a la muerte</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>And when the brick and mortar were piled by the
+hands of the unconscious grooms, and when the
+fatal trowels clanged and jarred around him, he spake
+not&mdash;stirred not&mdash;gave no sign.</p>
+
+<p>Even the savage wretch, de Ploermel, unable to
+believe in the existence of such chivalry, such honor,
+half doubted if he were not deceived, and the cupboard
+were not untenanted by the true victim.</p>
+
+<p>Higher and higher rose the wall before the oaken
+door; and by the exclusion of the light of the many
+torches by which the men were working, the victim
+must have marked, inch by inch, the progress of his
+living immersement. The page, Jules, had climbed
+in silence to the window's ledge, and was looking in,
+an unseen spectator, for he had heard all that passed
+from without, and suspected his lord's presence in
+the fatal precinct.</p>
+
+<p>But as he saw the wall rise higher&mdash;higher&mdash;as he
+saw the last brick fastened in its place solid, immovable
+from within, and that without strife or
+opposition, he doubted not but that there was some
+concealed exit by which St. Renan had escaped, and
+he descended hastily and hurried homeward.</p>
+
+<p>Now came the lady's trial&mdash;the trial that shall
+prove to de Ploermel whether his vengeance was
+complete. She was led in with Rose, a prisoner.
+<i>Lettres de cachet</i> had been obtained, when the
+treason of some wretched subordinate had revealed
+the secret of her intended flight with Raoul; and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>
+officers had seized the wife by the connivance of the
+shameless husband.</p>
+
+<p>"See!" he said, as she entered, "see, the fool
+suffered himself to be walled up there in silence.
+There let him die in agony. You, madam, may live
+as long as you please in the Bastille, <i>au secret</i>."</p>
+
+<p>She saw that all was lost&mdash;her lover's sacrifice was
+made&mdash;she could not save him! Should she, by a
+weak divulging of the truth, render his grand devotion
+fruitless? Never!</p>
+
+<p>Her pale cheek did not turn one shade the paler, but
+her keen eye flashed living fire, and her beautiful
+lip writhed with loathing and scorn irrepressible.</p>
+
+<p>"It is thou who art the fool!" she said, "who hast
+made all this coil, to wall up a poor cat in a cupboard,
+as it is thou who art the base knave and
+shameless pandar, who hast attempted to do murther,
+and all to sell thine own wife to a corrupt and loathsome
+tyrant!"</p>
+
+<p>All stood aghast at her fierce words, uttered with
+all the eloquence and vehemence of real passion, but
+none so much as Rose, who had never beheld her
+other than the gentlest of the gentle. Now she wore
+the expression, and spoke with the tone of a young
+Pythoness, full of the fury of the god.</p>
+
+<p>She sprung forward as she uttered the last words,
+extricating herself from the slight hold of the astonished
+officers, and rushed toward her cowed and
+craven husband.</p>
+
+<p>"But in all things, mean wretch," she continued,
+in tones of fiery scorn, "in all things thou art frustrate&mdash;thy
+vengeance is naught, thy vile ambition
+naught, thyself and thy king, fools, knaves, and
+frustrate equally. And now," she added, snatching
+the dagger which Raoul had given her from the
+scabbard, "now die, infamous, accursed pandar!"
+and with the word she buried the keen weapon at
+one quick and steady stroke to the very hilt in his
+base and brutal heart.</p>
+
+<p>Then, ere the corpse had fallen to the earth, or
+one hand of all those that were stretched out to seize
+her had touched her person, she smote herself mortally
+with the same reeking weapon, and only crying
+out in a clear, high voice, "Bear witness, Rose,
+bear witness to my honor! Bear witness all that I
+die spotless!" fell down beside the body of her husband,
+and expired without a struggle or a groan.</p>
+
+<p>Awfully was she tried, and awfully she died. Rest
+to her soul if it be possible.</p>
+
+<p>The caitiff Marquis de Ploermel perished, as she
+had said, in all things frustrated; for though his vengeance
+was in very deed complete, he believed that
+it had failed, and in his very agony that failure was
+his latest and his worst regret.</p>
+
+<p>On the morrow, when St. Renan returned not to
+his home, the page gave the alarm, and the fatal
+wall was torn down, but too late.</p>
+
+<p>The gallant victim of love's honor was no more.
+Doomed to a lingering death he had died speedily,
+though by no act of his own. A blood-vessel had
+burst within, through the violence of his own emotions.
+Ignorant of the fate of his sweet Melanie, he
+had died, as he had lived, the very soul of honor; and
+when they buried him, in the old chapel of his
+Breton castle, beside his famous ancestors, none
+nobler lay around him; and the brief epitaph they
+carved upon his stone was true, at least, if it were
+short and simple, for it ran only thus&mdash;</p>
+<br />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px;">
+<img src="images/illus215.png" width="250" height="86"
+alt="Raoul de St. Renan" title="" /></div>
+<br /><br />
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_POETS_HEART_TO_MISS_O_B" id="THE_POETS_HEART_TO_MISS_O_B">
+</a>THE POET'S HEART.&mdash;TO MISS O. B.</h2>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<h4>BY CHARLES E. TRAIL.</h4>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Like rays of light, divinely bright,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Thy sunny smiles o'er all disperse;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And let the music of thy voice,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">More softly flow than Lesbian verse.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By all the witchery of love,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">By every fascinating art&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The worldly spirit strive to move,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">But spare, O spare, the Poet's heart!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Within its pure recesses, deep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">A fount of tender feeling lies;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose crystal waters, while they sleep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Reflect the light of starry skies.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy voice might prophet-like unclose<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Its bonds, and bid those waters start,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But why disturb their sweet repose?<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Spare, lady, spare the Poet's heart!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">It cannot be that one so fair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The idol of the courtly throng&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Would condescend his lot to share,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And bless the lowly child of song,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Would realize the soul-wrought dreams,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That of his being form a part,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And mingle with his sweetest themes;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Then spare, O spare, the poet's heart!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The poet's heart! ye know it not,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Its hopes, its sympathies, its fears;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The joys that glad its humble lot;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The griefs that melt it into tears.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Tis like some flower, that from the ground<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Scarce dares to lift its petals up,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though honeyed sweets are ever found<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Indwelling in its golden cup.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Love comes to him in sweeter guise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Than he appears to other men&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Heav'n-born, descended from the skies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And longing to return again.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But bid him not with me abide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">If he can no relief impart;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ah, hide those smiles, those glances hide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And spare, O spare, the Poet's heart!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<br /><br />
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_RETURN_TO_SCENES_OF_CHILDHOOD" id="THE_RETURN_TO_SCENES_OF_CHILDHOOD">
+</a>THE RETURN TO SCENES OF CHILDHOOD.</h2>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<h4>BY GRETTA.</h4>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"You have come again," said the dark old trees,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As I entered my childhood's home.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"You have come again," said the whispering breeze,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">"And wherefore have you come?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"When last I played round your youthful brow<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Its morning's light was there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But you bring back a shadow upon it now,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And a saddened look of care.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Have you come, have you left earth's noisy strife,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To seek your favorite flowers?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They are gone, like the hopes which lit your life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Like your childhood's sunny hours.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Have you come to seek for your shady dell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For that spot in the moonlit grove,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where first you were bound by the magic spell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And thrilled to the voice of love?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Has your heart been true to that early vow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And pure as that trickling tear?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Does that voice of music charm you now<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As once it charmed you here?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Years have been short, and few, since last<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As a child you roamed the glen;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But what have you learned since hence you passed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">What have you lost since then?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"You have brought back a woman's ruddier cheek,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">A woman's fuller form,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But where is the look so timid and meek,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The blush so quick and warm?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Have you come to seek for the smiles of yore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For your brief life's faded light?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Do you hope to hear in these shades once more<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The blessing and 'good-night?'<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Do you come again for the kisses sweet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Do you look as you onward pass<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the mingled prints of the tiny feet<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In the fresh and springing grass?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Have you come to sit on a parent's knee<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And gaze on his reverend brow?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or to nestle in love and childish glee<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">On her bosom, that's pulseless now?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Why come you back? We can give you naught,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">No more the past is ours,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thine early scenes with their blessings fraught,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Thy childhood's golden hours."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I have come, I have come, oh haunts of youth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With a worn and weary heart;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I have come to recall the love and truth<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Of my young life's guileless part.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I have come to bend o'er the holy spot<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Where I prayed by a father's knee&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh I am changed&mdash;but I ne'er forgot<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">His look, his smile for me.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I have not been true to my heart's first love<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Here pledged 'neath the moonlit heaven,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But I come to kneel in the lonely grove<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And ask to be forgiven.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I have not brought back the hopes of youth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Or the gentle look so meek,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I mourn o'er my perished faith and truth<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And the quick blush of my cheek.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But, oh ye scenes, that have once beguiled,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In the peaceful days of yore.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I would come again like a little child<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With the trust I knew before.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I would call back every hope and fear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The heart throbs full and high,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The prattling child that rambled here,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And ask if it were <i>I</i>?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And I would recall the murmured prayer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And the dark eyes look of love,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While unseen angels hovered there<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">From the starry worlds above.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And I've come to seek one flower here,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Just one, in its fading bloom,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though it must be culled with a gushing tear<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">From a parent's grassy tomb.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And I'll bear it away on my lonely breast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As a charm 'mid earth's stormy strife,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An amulet, worn to give me rest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">On the billowy waves of life.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I wait not now by the dancing rill<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For the steps of my playmates fair&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They are gone&mdash;but yon heaven is o'er me still,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And I'll seek to meet them there.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Parents, and friends, and hopes are gone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And these memories only given,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But they shall be links, while the heart is lone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In the "chain" that reaches heaven.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<br /><br />
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="SUNSHINE_AND_RAIN" id="SUNSHINE_AND_RAIN"></a>SUNSHINE AND RAIN.</h2>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<h4>BY GEORGE S. BURLEIGH.</h4>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O Blessed sunshine, and thrice-blessed rain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">How ye do warm and melt the rugged soil,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Which else were barren, nathless all my toil<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And summon Beauty from her grave again,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To breathe live odors o'er my scant domain:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">How softly from their parting buds uncoil<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The furl&eacute;d sweets, no more a shriveled spoil<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the loud storm, or canker's silent bane;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were it all sun, the heat would shrink them up;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Were it all shower, then piteous blight were sure;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now hangs the dew in every nodding cup,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Shooting new glories from its orblets pure.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sunshine and shower, I shrink from your extremes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But with delight behold your blended gleams.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<br /><br />
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_CHRISTMAS_GARLAND" id="THE_CHRISTMAS_GARLAND"></a>THE CHRISTMAS GARLAND.</h2>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<h4>BY MISS EMMA WOOD.</h4>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<h4>THE BOARDING-SCHOOL.</h4>
+
+
+<p>Christmas is coming! The glad sound awakes a
+thrill of joy in many a heart. The children clap their
+tiny hands and laugh aloud in the exuberance of their
+mirth as bright visions of varied toys and rich confectionary
+flit before their minds. The sound of
+merry sports&mdash;the gathering of the social band&mdash;the
+banquet&mdash;all are scenes of joy. Shout on bright
+children, for your innocent mirth will rise as incense
+to Him who was even as one of you. The Son of
+God once reposed his head upon a mortal breast and
+wept the tears of infancy. Now risen to His throne
+of glory, his smile is still upon you, bright Blossoms
+of Blessedness.</p>
+
+<p>Christmas is coming! is the cry of the young and
+gay, and with light hearts they prepare for the approaching
+festival. The holyday robes are chosen,
+and the presents selected which shall bring joy to so
+many hearts. The lover studies to determine what
+gift will be acceptable to his mistress, and the maiden
+dreams of love-tokens and honeyed words. Nor is
+the church forgotten amid the gathering of holyday
+array, for that, too, must be robed in beauty. The
+young claim its adornment as their appropriate
+sphere, and rich garlands of evergreen, mingled with
+scarlet berries, are twined around its pillars, or festooned
+along its walls. Swiftly speeds their welcome
+task, and a calm delight fills their hearts, as
+they remember Him who assumed mortality, and
+passed the ordeal of earthly life, that he might be,
+in all things, like unto mankind. Blessed be this
+thought, ye joyous ones, and if after-years shall bring
+sorrow or bitterness, ye may remember that the Holiest
+has trod that path before, and that deeper sorrow
+than mortality can suffer, once rested upon his guiltless
+head.</p>
+
+<p>Christmas is coming! is the thought of the aged,
+and memory goes back to the joys of other years,
+when the pulses of life beat full and free, and their
+keen sensibilities were awake to the perception of
+the beautiful. Now the dim eye can no longer enjoy
+the full realization of beauty, and the ear is deaf to
+the melodies of Nature, but they can drink from the
+fountain of memory, and while looking upon the
+mirth of the youthful, recollect that once they, too,
+were light-hearted and joyous. Blessed to them is
+the approaching festival, and as they celebrate the
+birth of the Redeemer, they may remember that He
+bore the trials of life without a murmur, and laid
+down in the lone grave, to ensure the resurrection of
+the believer, while faith points to the hour when they
+shall inherit the glory prepared for them by His mission
+of suffering.</p>
+
+<p>Christmas is coming! shouted we, the school-girls
+of Monteparaiso Seminary, as we rushed from the
+school-room, in glad anticipation, of the holydays.
+How gladly we laid down the books over which we
+had been poring, vainly endeavoring to fix our
+minds upon their pages, and gathered in various
+groups to plan amusements for the coming festival.
+One week only, and the day would come, the pleasures
+of which we had been anticipating for months.
+Our stockings must be hung up on Christmas Eve,
+though the pleasure was sadly marred because each
+of us must, in our turn, represent the good Santa-Claus,
+and contribute to the stockings of our schoolmates,
+instead of going quietly to bed, and finding
+them filled on Christmas morning by the good saint,
+or some of his representatives. How eagerly we
+watched the Hudson each morning, to see if its
+waves remained unfettered by ice, not only because
+the daily arrival of the steamboat from New York
+was an era in our un-eventful lives, but there were
+many of our number whose parents or friends resided
+in the city, from whom they expected visits or presents.
+We were like a prisoned sisterhood, yet we
+did not pine in our solitude, for there were always
+wild, mirth-loving spirits in our midst, so full of fun
+and frolic that the exuberance of their spirits was
+continually breaking out, much to the discomfort of
+tutors and governesses. When the holydays were
+approaching, and the strict discipline usually maintained
+among the pupils was somewhat relaxed, these
+outbreaks became more numerous, insomuch that
+lessons were carelessly omitted, or left unlearned.
+When study hours were over misrule was triumphant.
+Lizzie Lincoln could not find a seat at the
+table where some of the older girls were manufacturing
+fancy articles for Christmas presents, and
+avenged herself by pinning together the dresses of
+the girls who were seated around the table, and
+afterward fastening each dress to the carpet. Fan
+Selby saw the man&oelig;uvre, and ran to her room,
+where she equipped herself in a frightful looking
+mask, which she had manufactured of brown paper,
+painted in horrid devices. Arrayed in this mask,
+and a long white wrapper, she came stalking in at
+the door of the sitting-room. In their fright the girls
+screamed and tried to rush from the table, when a
+scene of confusion ensued which beggars description.
+The noise reached the ears of the teachers, who
+came from different parts of the house to the scene
+of the riot, but ere they reached it, Fan had deposited
+the mask out of sight in her own room, and was
+again in her place, looking as innocent as if nothing
+had happened. She even aided the teachers in their
+search for the missing "fright." When this fruitless
+search was ended, and a monitress placed in the sit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>ting-room
+to prevent further riots, a new alarm was
+raised. Mary Lee blackened her face with burnt
+cork, and entered the kitchen by the outside door,
+begging for cold victuals, much to the terror of the
+raw Hibernians who were very quietly sitting before
+the fire, and telling tales of the Emerald Isle, for they
+feared a negro as they would some wild beast.
+They ran up stairs to give the alarm, but when they
+returned the bird had flown, and while a fruitless
+search was instituted throughout the basement, Mary
+was in her own room, hastily removing the ebon tinge
+from her face. Such were a few among the many wild
+pranks of the mischief spirits, invented to while away
+the time. Quite different from this was the employment
+of the "sisterhood." A number of the older
+pupils of the school had seated themselves night after
+night around the table which stood in the centre of the
+sitting-room, in nearly the same places, with their
+needle-work, until it was finally suggested, that, after
+the manner of the older people, we should form a regularly
+organized society. Each member should every
+night take her accustomed place, and one should
+read while the others were busy with their needle-work.
+To add a tinge of romance to the whole, we
+gave to each of our members the name of some
+flower as a soubriquet by which we might be
+known, and Lizzie Lincoln (our secretary) kept a
+humorous diary of the "Sayings and Doings of
+Flora's Sisterhood." Anna Lincoln was the presidentess
+of our society, and we gave her the name of
+Rose, because the queen of flowers seemed a fitting
+type of her majestic beauty. But the favorite of all
+was Clara Adams, to whom the name of Violet
+seemed equally appropriate. Her modesty, gentleness,
+and affectionate disposition had won the love
+of all, from Annie Lincoln, the oldest pupil, down to
+little Ella Selby, who lisped her praises of dear Clara
+Adams, and seemed to love her far better than she
+did her own mad-cap sister.</p>
+
+<p>When we celebrated May-day Clara was chosen
+queen of May, though Lizzie Lincoln was more
+beautiful, and Anna seemed more queenly. It was
+the instinctive homage that young hearts will pay to
+goodness and purity, which made us feel as if she
+deserved the brightest crown we could bestow. If
+one of us were ill, Clara could arrange the pillows
+or bathe the throbbing temples more tenderly than
+any other, and bitter medicines seemed less disgusting
+when administered by her. Was there a hard lesson
+to learn, a difficult problem to solve, a rebellious
+drawing that would take any form or shadowing but
+the right one, Clara was the kind assistant, and either
+task seemed equally easy to her. While we sat
+around the table that evening, little Ella Selby was
+leaning on the back of Clara's chair, and telling, in her
+own childish way, of the manifold perfections of one
+Philip Sidney, a classmate of her brother in college,
+who had spent a vacation with him at her home.
+Ella was quite sure that no other gentleman was
+half so handsome, so good, or kind as Mr. Sidney,
+and she added,</p>
+
+<p>"I know he loves Clara, for I have told him a great
+deal about her, and he says that he does."</p>
+
+<p>The girls all laughed at her simple earnestness, and
+bright blushes rose in Clara's face. Many prophecies
+for the future were based on this slight foundation,
+and Clara was raised to the rank of a heroine. It
+needs but slight fuel to feed the flame of romance in
+a school-girl's breast, and these dreamings might long
+have been indulged but for an interruption. A servant
+came, bringing a basket, with a note from the
+ladies engaged in decorating the church, requesting
+the young ladies of the school to prepare the letters
+for a motto on the walls of the church. The letters
+were cut from pasteboard, to be covered with small
+sprigs of box. Pleased with the novelty of our task
+we were soon busily engaged, under the direction
+of Clara and Anna Lincoln. Even the "mischief
+spirits" ceased their revels to watch our progress.
+Thus passed that evening, and as the next day was
+Saturday, and of course a holyday, we completed
+our work. The garlands were not to be hung in the
+church until the Wednesday following, as Friday
+was Christmas day. We employed ourselves after
+study hours the intervening days in finishing the
+presents we had commenced for each other. On
+Wednesday morning Lucy Gray, one of our day-scholars,
+brought a note from her mother, requesting
+that she might be excused from her afternoon lessons,
+and inviting the teachers and young ladies of the
+school to join them in dressing the church. Here
+was a prospect for us of some rare enjoyment; and
+how we plead for permission, and promised diligence
+and good behaviour for the future, those who remember
+their own school-days can easily imagine.
+At length permission was granted that Anna and
+Lizzie Lincoln, Fan Selby, Clara Adams, and I, accompanied
+by one of the teachers, might assist them
+for an hour or two in the afternoon. Never did
+hours seem longer to us than those that passed after
+the permission was given till we were on our way.
+The village was about half a mile from our seminary,
+but the walk was a very pleasant one, and when
+we reached the church our faces glowed with exercise
+in the keen December air. We found a very
+agreeable company assembled there, laughing and
+chatting gayly as they bound the branches of evergreen
+together in rich wreaths. Our letters were
+fastened to the walls, forming a beautiful inscription,
+and little remained to be done, save arranging the
+garlands. Clara and Fan Selby finished the wreaths
+for the altar, and were fastening them in their places,
+when a new arrival caused Fan to drop her wreath,
+and hasten toward the new-comers, exclaiming,</p>
+
+<p>"Brother Charles, I am so glad to see you!"</p>
+
+<p>Then, after cordially greeting his companion, she
+asked eagerly of her brother,</p>
+
+<p>"Have you come to take us home?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, mad-cap," was the laughing reply, "we are
+but too glad to be free for one Christmas from your
+wild pranks. Sidney is spending the Christmas
+holydays with me, and as the day was fine we
+thought we would visit you. When we reached the
+village we learned that several of the young ladies
+of the school were at the church, and called, thinking
+that you might be of the number."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Turning to Sidney, Fan said, playfully,</p>
+
+<p>"Follow me, and I will introduce you to Ella's
+favorite, Clara Adams."</p>
+
+<p>Before Clara had time to recover from her confusion
+caused by their entrance Fan had led Philip Sidney
+to her, and introduced him as the friend of whom
+little Ella had told her so much. The eloquent
+blushes in Clara's face revealed in part the dreams
+that had been excited in her breast, while Philip,
+with self-possessed gallantry, begged leave to assist
+her in her task, and uttered some commonplace expressions,
+till Clara was sufficiently composed to take
+her part in conversation. The teacher who accompanied
+us, alarmed at his attention, placed herself
+near them, but his manner was so respectful that she
+could find no excuse to interrupt their conversation.
+Philip Sidney was eminently handsome, and as his
+dark eye rested admiringly upon her, who will
+wonder that Clara became more than usually animated!
+nor is it strange that the low, musical tones
+of his voice, breathing thoughts of poetry with the
+earnestness of love, should awaken a new train of
+thought in the simple school-girl. She answered in
+few words, but the drooping of her fringed lids and
+the bright color in her cheek replied more eloquently
+than words. The moments flew swiftly, the garlands
+were placed, and the teacher who had watched
+them with an anxious eye, announced that it was
+time to return to the seminary. Philip knew too
+well the strictness of boarding-school rules to hope
+for a longer interview, yet even for the sake of looking
+longer on her graceful figure, and perchance
+stealing another glance from her bright eyes, he insisted
+upon seeing little Ella. Charles Selby objected,
+as it was growing late, and he had an engagement
+for the evening in the city. Reluctantly Philip
+bade Clara farewell, and from the door of the church
+watched her receding figure until she disappeared
+around the turn of the road. From that moment
+Clara was invested by her schoolmates with all the
+dignity of a heroine of romance, and half the giddy
+girls in school teazed her mercilessly, and then laid
+their heads upon their pillows only to dream of
+lovers.</p>
+
+<p>Christmas eve came. The elder ladies of the
+school accompanied our Principal to the church to
+listen to the services of the evening. We were
+scarcely seated when we perceived nearly opposite
+to us, that same Philip Sidney, who was the hero of
+our romance. Poor Clara! I sat by her side, and
+fancied I could hear the throbbing of her heart as
+those dark, expressive eyes were fixed again on hers,
+speaking the language of admiration too plainly to
+be mistaken. Then as the services proceeded, his
+countenance wore a shadow of deeper thought, and
+his eyes were fixed upon the speaker. Thus he remained
+in earnest attention till the services closed.
+When we left the church, a smile, and bow of recognition
+passed between him and Clara, but no word
+was spoken. Our sports that evening had no power
+to move her to mirth, but she remained silent and
+abstracted. The next Saturday Mrs. Selby came to
+see her daughter, and soon after her arrival, Fan laid
+a small package on the table mysteriously, saying to
+Clara, "You must answer it immediately," and left
+the room. Clara broke the seal, and as she removed
+the envelope, a ring, containing a small diamond,
+beautifully set, fell to the floor. I picked it up, and
+looking on the inside, saw the name of Philip Sidney.
+As soon as she had read the note, she gave it
+to me, and placed the ring upon her finger. Then
+severing a small branch from a myrtle plant, which
+we kept in our room as a relic of home, she placed
+it, with a sprig of box, in an envelope, and, after directing
+it to Philip Sidney, gave it to Fan, who enclosed
+it in a letter to her brother. The note which
+Clara gave me was as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive my presumption, dear Clara, in addressing
+you, so lately a stranger. Think not that I am an
+idle flatterer, when I say that your beauty and worth
+have awakened a deep love for you in my heart, and
+this love must be my excuse. I would have sought
+another interview with you, but I know the rules of
+your school would have forbid, and the only alternative
+remaining is to make this avowal, or be forgotten
+by you. I do not ask you now to promise to be
+mine, or even to love me, till I have proved myself
+worthy of your affection. My past life has been one
+of thoughtlessness and inaction, but it shall be my
+endeavor in future to atone for those misspent years.
+Your image will ever be with me as a bright spirit
+from whose presence I cannot flee, and whisper
+hope when my energies would fail. I only ask
+your remembrance till I am worthy to claim your
+love. If you do not see me or hear from me at the
+end of five years, you may believe that I have failed
+to secure the desired position in the world, or am no
+longer living. Will you grant me this favor&mdash;to
+wear the ring enclosed, and sometimes think of me?
+If so, send me some token by Mrs. S., to tell me that
+I may hope."</p>
+
+<p>The evergreens, with their language of love and
+constancy were the token, and the ring sparkled
+upon Clara's finger, so that I knew well that Philip
+Sidney would not soon be forgotten.</p>
+<br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<h4>A GLANCE AT HOME.</h4>
+
+<p>The little village of Willowdale is situated in one
+of those romantic dells which are found here and
+there among the hills of Massachusetts. A small
+stream, tributary to the Connecticut, flows through
+the village, so small that it is barely sufficient to furnish
+the necessary mill-seats for the accommodation
+of a community of farmers, but affording no encouragement
+to manufacturers. It is to this reason, perhaps,
+that we may attribute the fact that a place,
+which was amongst the earliest settlements of Massachusetts,
+should remain to this day so thinly inhabited.
+The rage for manufactures, so prevalent in
+New England, has led speculators to place factories
+on every stream of sufficient power to keep them in
+operation, and a spirit of enterprise and locomotion
+has caused railroads to pass through sections of the
+country hitherto unfrequented by others than tillers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>
+of the soil. Cities have sprung up where before
+were only small villages, and brisk little villages are
+found, where a few years ago were only solitary
+farm-houses. But in spite of all such changes, Willowdale
+has escaped the ravages of these merciless
+innovators. The glassy river still glides on in its
+natural bed, and even the willows on its banks, from
+which the village takes its name, are suffered to
+stand, unscathed by the woodman's axe. The "iron
+horse" has never disturbed the inhabitants by his
+shrill voice, and the rattling of cars has not broken
+upon the stillness of a summer-day. The village is
+not on the direct route from any of the principal
+cities to others, consequently the inhabitants suffer
+little apprehension of having their fine farms cut up
+by rail-road tracks. The village consists of one principal
+street, with houses built on both sides, at sufficient
+distances from the street and each other, to
+admit of those neat yards, with shade-trees, flowers,
+and white fences, which are the pride of New England,
+and scattered among the surrounding fields are
+tasteful farm-houses.</p>
+
+<p>There are two houses of worship in the place: the
+Episcopal church, which was erected by the first
+settlers, before the revolution; and the Congregationalist
+house, more recently built. There is but
+little trade carried on in the place, and one store
+is sufficient to supply the wants of the inhabitants.
+The Episcopal church stands on a slight eminence,
+at a little distance from the main street of the village,
+and a lane extending beyond it leads to the parsonage.
+A little farther down this lane is my father's house,
+and nearly opposite the house of Deacon Lee, the
+home of Clara Adams. Clara was left an orphan at
+an early age. Her father was the son of an early
+friend of the old rector. The latter, having no children,
+adopted Henry Adams, and educated him as his
+own son, in the hope of preparing him for the ministry,
+but with that perversity so common in human
+nature, the youth determined to become an artist.
+The rector, not wishing to force him unwillingly
+into the sacred office, consented that he should pursue
+his favorite art. He placed him under the tuition of
+one of the first painters in a neighboring city, hoping
+that his natural genius, aided by his ambition, might
+enable him to excel. Henry Adams followed his
+new pursuit with all the ardor of an impetuous nature,
+till the bright eyes of Clara Lee won his heart,
+and his thoughts were directed in a new channel,
+until he had persuaded her to share his lot. It proved,
+indeed, a darkened lot to the young bride. Her husband
+was a reckless, unsatisfied being, and though
+he ever loved her with all the affection of which
+such natures are capable, the warm expressions of
+his love, varied by fits of peevishness and ill-humor,
+were so unlike the calm, unchanging devotedness of
+her nature that she felt a bitter disappointment.
+Soon after the birth of their daughter his health
+failed, and he repaired to Italy for the benefit of a
+more genial climate, and in the hope of perfecting
+himself in his art. He lived but a few months after
+his arrival there, and the sad intelligence came like
+a death-blow to his bereaved wife. She lingered a
+year at the parsonage, a saddened mourner, and then
+her wearied spirit found its rest. The old rector
+would gladly have nurtured the little orphan as his own
+child, but he could not resist the entreaties of Deacon
+Lee, her mother's brother, and reluctantly consented
+to have her removed to his house. Yet much of her
+time was spent at the parsonage, and growing up as
+it were in an atmosphere of love, it is not strange
+that gentleness was the ruling trait of her character.
+Deacon Lee was one of that much-scandalized class,
+the Congregationalist deacons of New England, who
+have so often been described with a pen dipped in
+gall, if we may judge from the bitterness of the
+sketches. Scribblers delight in portraying them as
+rum-selling hypocrites, sly topers, lovers of gain,
+and fomenters of dissension, and so far has this been
+carried, that no tale of Yankee cunning or petty
+fraud is complete unless the hero is a deacon. It is
+true there are far too many such instances in real
+life, where eminence in the church is their only high
+standing, and the name of religion is but a cloak for
+selfish vices, but it is equally true that among this
+class of men are the good, the true, and kind, of the
+earth, whose lives are ruled by the same pure principles
+which they profess. Such was Deacon Lee,
+and it were well if there were more like him, to remove
+the stain which others of an opposite character
+have brought upon the office. He was one of those
+whom sorrow purifies, and had bowed in humble
+resignation to heavy afflictions. Of a large family
+only one son had lived to attain the years of manhood.
+The mother of Clara had been very dear to
+him, and he felt that her orphan child would supply,
+in a measure, the place of his own lost ones. His
+wife was his opposite, and theirs was one of those
+unaccountable unions where there is apparently no
+bond of sympathy. Stern and exact in the performance
+of every duty, she wished to enforce the same
+rigid observance upon others. The loss of her children
+had roused in her a zeal for religion, which, in
+one of a warmer temperament, would have been
+fanaticism. While her husband was a worshiper
+from a love of God and his holy laws, she was
+prompted by fears of the wrath to come. He bowed
+in thankfulness, even while he wept their loss, to the
+Power that had borne his little ones to a brighter
+world, while her life gained new austerity from the
+thought that they had been taken from her as a judgment
+on her worldliness and idolatry. She loved to
+dwell upon the sufferings of the Pilgrim Fathers of
+New England, and emulate their rigid lives, forgetting
+that it was the dark persecution of the times in
+which they lived that left this impress upon their
+characters. Her husband loved to commend the
+good deeds of their neighbors, while she was equally
+fond of censuring transgressors. Perhaps the result
+of their efforts was better than it would have been
+had both possessed the disposition of either one of
+them. Her firmness and energy atoned for the negligence
+resulting from his easy temper, and his sunny
+smile and kind words softened the asperity with
+which she would have ruled her household. Their
+son was engaged in mercantile business in a neigh<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>boring
+city, and their home would have been desolate
+but for the presence of little Clara. She was the
+sunshine of the old man's heart, and he forgot toil
+and weariness when he sat down by his own fireside,
+with the merry prattler upon his knee, and her
+little arms were twined about his neck. She was the
+image of his lost sister, and it seemed to him but a
+little while since her mother had sat thus upon his
+knee, and lavished her caresses upon him. In spite
+of the predictions of the worthy dame that she would
+be spoiled, he indulged her every wish, checking
+only the inclination to do wrong. Nor was the good
+lady herself without affection for the little orphan, but
+she wished to engraft a portion of her own sternness
+into her nature, and in her horror of prelacy she did
+not like to have such a connecting link between her
+family and that of the rector. She had never loved
+Clara's father, yet she could not find it in her heart
+to be unkind to the little orphan, so she contented
+herself with laying his faults and follies at the door
+of the church to which he belonged. Clara had been
+my playfellow from infancy, and at the village
+school we had pursued our studies together. When
+my parents decided to place me at a boarding-school
+on the banks of the Hudson, I plead earnestly with
+the deacon that Clara might go with me. Her aunt
+objected strenuously to her acquiring the superficial
+accomplishments of the world, but the old man for
+once in his life was firm, and declared that Clara
+should have as good an education as any one in the
+vicinity. Accordingly we were placed at Monteparaiso
+Seminary, where was laid the scene of the last
+chapter.</p>
+<br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<h4>THE RETURN HOME.</h4>
+
+<p>Our school-days passed, as school-days ever will,
+sometimes happily, and again lingering as if they
+would never be gone. Clara was still the same
+sweet, simple-minded innocent girl, but her mirth
+was subdued by thoughtfulness, though the calm
+tranquillity of her life was unruffled by the new feeling
+that had found a place in her heart. She pursued
+her studies with constant assiduity, and at the close
+of our third year at school, was the first scholar in
+the institution. She was advanced beyond others of
+her age when she entered, and had improved every
+opportunity to the best of her abilities after becoming
+a member of the school. Three years was the period
+assigned for our school-days, and we were to return
+to Willowdale at the close of that time. Though we
+loved our schoolmates dearly, we were happy to
+think of meeting once more with the friends from
+whom we had so long been separated. Anna Lincoln
+had left the year before, and Lizzie had taken her
+place as Presidentess of "the Sisterhood." Fan
+Selby had left off her wild pranks and become quite
+sedate. Mary Lee was less boisterous in her mirth
+than formerly, and the younger members of the
+school seemed ready to take the places of those who
+were about to leave. It was sad for us when we
+bade farewell to the companions of years, though
+we were pleased with the thought of seeing more of
+the world than a school-girl's life would allow. I
+will not attempt to describe our joy when we were
+once more at our homes, nor the warm reception
+of those around our own firesides. Never was
+there a happier man than old Deacon Lee, as he led
+Clara to the window, that he might better see the
+rich bloom on her cheek, and the light of her eye.
+"Thank God!" was his fervent ejaculation, "that
+you have come to us in health. I was afraid that
+so much poring over books would make you look
+pale and delicate, as your poor mother did before she
+died. How much you are like what she was at your
+age." Then with a feeling of childish delight he
+opened the door of their rustic parlor, and showed
+her a small collection of new books, a present from the
+rector, and a neat piano, which he had purchased
+himself in Boston to surprise her on her return.</p>
+
+<p>"You are still the same dear, kind uncle," said
+Clara, as she run her fingers over the keys, and found
+its tone excellent; "you are always thinking of
+something to make me happy. How shall I ever
+repay your kindness?"</p>
+
+<p>"By enjoying it," was his reply. "The old man
+has a right to indulge his darling, and nothing else in
+this world can make him so happy as to see your
+rosy cheeks and bright eyes, and hear your merry
+voice; but let us hear you sing and play."</p>
+
+<p>Tears of delight glistened in the old man's eyes as
+she warbled several simple airs to a graceful accompaniment.
+Mrs. Lee sighed deeply, and would have
+given them a long lecture upon the vanities and
+frivolities of the world, had not Clara changed the
+strain, and sung some of her favorite hymns.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you not tired?" asked her uncle, with his
+usual considerate kindness. "Come, let us go to
+the garden, and see the dahlias I planted, because I
+knew the other flowers would be killed by the frost
+before you came home."</p>
+
+<p>"With pleasure," answered Clara; "but first let
+me sing a song that I have learned on purpose to
+please you."</p>
+
+<p>Then she sung the beautiful words, "He doeth
+all things well." The old man's eyes beamed with
+a holy light as he listened to the exquisite music
+which expressed the sentiments that had pervaded
+his life. As she rose from the piano, he laid his
+hands upon her head caressingly, saying, "Blessed
+be His name, who guards my treasures in Heaven,
+and has still left me this rich possession on earth."
+The old lady, melted by the sight of his emotion, and
+the sentiment expressed, clasped her to her heart,
+and called her her own dear child.</p>
+
+<p>Months glided on with swift wings, and even Mrs.
+Lee was forced to give up her arguments against
+a fashionable education. She had predicted that
+Clara would be a fine lady, and feel above performing
+the common duties of life; but every morning with
+the early dawn she shared the tasks of her aunt, and
+seemed as much at home in the dairy or kitchen as
+when seated at her piano. Her step was as light and
+graceful while tripping over the fields as it had been
+in the dance, and her fingers as skillful in making<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>
+her own and her aunt's dresses, as they had been at
+her embroidery. The good dame had learned to love
+the piano, and more than once admitted that she
+would feel quite lonely without it. So she was fain
+to retreat from her position, by saying that her old
+opinions held good as general rules, though Clara
+was an exception, for no one else was ever like her.
+At length her old feelings revived when a young
+farmer in the neighborhood aspired to the hand of
+Clara, and was kindly, though firmly, refused. She
+was sure that it came of pride, and that the novels
+she had read had filled her head with ideas of high
+life. But her good uncle came to the rescue, and
+declared that her inclinations should not be crossed,
+and he had no wish that she should marry till she
+could be happier with another than she was with
+them. Clara longed to tell him of her acquaintance
+with Philip Sidney, but she feared it would make
+him anxious, and resolved to say nothing till time
+had proved the truth of her lover. From this time
+forth the subject of her marriage was not mentioned,
+and Clara was left free to pursue her own inclinations.
+Her presence was a continual source of happiness
+to her uncle, and her life flowed on like a gentle
+stream, diffusing blessings on all around her, while
+a sense of happiness conferred threw a lustre around
+every hour.</p>
+<br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER IV.</h3>
+
+<h4>CONCLUSION.</h4>
+
+<p>Five years had passed since the commencement
+of our tale, and Clara and I still remained at our
+homes in Willowdale. Life had passed gently with
+us, and the friendship formed in our school-days remained
+unbroken. It was sweet to recall those days;
+and we passed many a pleasant hour in the renewal
+of old memories. Clara had heard nothing from
+Philip Sidney, save once, about a year before, when
+a letter from Fan Selby informed her that he had
+called on them. He had inquired very particularly
+after Clara, and said that he intended to visit Willowdale
+the following year, but where the intervening
+time was to be passed she did not know. It seemed
+very strange to me that Clara should not doubt his
+truth from his long silence, but her faith remained
+unshaken.</p>
+
+<p>It was the day before Christmas, and the young
+people of Willowdale were assembled to finish the
+decorations of the church. The garlands were hung
+in deep festoons along the walls, and twined around
+the pillars. The pulpit and altar were adorned with
+wreaths tastefully woven of branches of box mingled
+with the dark-green leaves and scarlet berries of the
+holly, the latter gathered from trees which the old
+rector had planted in his youth, and carefully preserved
+for this purpose. On the walls over the
+entrance was the inscription, "Glory to God in the
+highest, on earth peace and good-will to men," in
+letters covered with box, after the model of those
+we had seen in our school-days. We surveyed our
+work with pleasure, mingled with anxiety to discover
+any improvement that might be made, for we
+knew that a stranger was that night to address us.
+The growing infirmities of the old rector had for a
+long time rendered the duties of a pastor very
+fatiguing to him, and he had announced to us the
+Sabbath before, that a young relative who had lately
+taken orders, would be with him on Christmas Eve,
+and assist him until his health should be improved.
+The news was unwelcome to the older members of
+the congregation, who had been so long accustomed
+to hear instruction from their aged pastor that the
+thought of seeing another stand in his place was
+fraught with pain to them. He had been truly their
+friend, sharing their joys and sorrows&mdash;and their
+hearts were linked to him as childrens' to a parent.
+At the baptismal font, the marriage altar, and the
+last sad rites of the departed, he had presided, and it
+seemed as if the voice of a stranger must strike
+harshly upon their ears. But to the young there was
+pleasure in the thought of change; and though they
+dearly loved the old man, the charm of novelty was
+thrown around their dreams of his successor. No
+one knew his name, though rumor whispered that
+he had just returned from England, where he had
+spent the last year. No wonder, then, that we looked
+with critic eyes upon our work, eager to know how
+it must appear to one who had traveled abroad, and
+lingered among the rich cathedrals of our fatherland.
+Clara alone seemed indifferent, and was often
+rallied on her want of interest in the young stranger,
+I alone read her secret, as she glanced at the gem
+which sparkled upon her finger, for I knew that her
+thoughts were with the past&mdash;and Philip Sidney.</p>
+
+<p>Christmas Eve arrived, as bright and beautiful as
+the winter nights of the North. A light snow covered
+the ground, and the Frost King had encrusted it
+with thousands of glittering diamonds. The broad
+expanse of the valley was radiant in the moonbeams,
+and the branches of the willows were glittering with
+frosty gems. The church was brilliantly lighted,
+and the blaze from its long windows left a bright
+reflection upon the pure surface of the snow. The
+merry ringing of sleigh-bells were heard in every
+direction, and numerous sleighs deposited their fair
+burden at the door. There was a general gathering
+of the young people from ours and the neighboring
+villages, to witness the services of the evening, and
+brighter eyes than a city assembly could boast, flashed
+in the lamp-light. The garlands were more beautiful
+in this subdued light than they had been in the glare
+of day, and their richness was like a magic spell of
+beauty to enthrall the senses of the beholder. Clara
+and I were seated in one of the pews directly in
+front of the altar, occasionally looking back to see the
+new arrivals, and return the greetings of friends from
+other villages. Suddenly the organ swelled in a rich
+peal of music, and the old pastor entered, followed
+by the youthful stranger. There was no time to
+scrutinize the features of the latter ere he knelt and
+concealed his face, yet there was something in the
+jetty curls that rested upon his snowy surplice, as his
+head laid within his folded hands that looked familiar,
+and Clara involuntarily grasped my hand. As he
+arose and opened the prayer-book to turn to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>
+services of the evening, he took a momentary survey
+of the congregation. That glance was enough to
+tell us that the stranger was Philip Sidney. As his
+eye met Clara's, a crimson flush spread over his
+pale face, his dark eye glowed, and his hand trembled
+slightly as he turned over the leaves. It was
+but a moment ere he was calm and self-possessed
+again, and when he commenced reading the services
+his voice was clear and rich. The deepest silence
+pervaded the assembly, save when the responses
+rose from every part of the house. Then the organ
+peals, and the sweet voices of the choir joined in the
+anthems, and again all was still. The charm of
+eloquence is universally acknowledged, and the
+statesman, the warrior, and votary of science have
+all wielded it as a weapon of might, but we can
+never feel its irresistible power so fully as when
+listening to its richness from the pulpit. The perfect
+wisdom of holy writ, the majesty of thought, and
+purity of sentiment it inspires, will elevate the
+mind of the hearer above surrounding objects, and
+when to this power is added beauty of language and
+a musical voice, the spell is deeper. Such was the
+charm that held all in silent attention while Philip
+Sidney spoke. The scene was one which would
+tend to fix the mind on the event it was designed to
+commemorate, and the sweet music of his words
+might remind one of the angel's song proclaiming
+"Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace and
+good-will to men." Richer seemed its melody, and
+more beautiful his language, as he dwelt upon the
+love and mercy of the Redeemer's mission, and the
+hope of everlasting life it brought to the perishing.
+He led them back to the hour when moral darkness
+enshrouded the world, and mankind were doomed to
+perish under the frown of an offended God. There
+was but one ray to cheer the gloom, the prophetic
+promise of the Messiah who should come to redeem
+the world. To this they looked, and vainly
+dreamed that he should appear in regal splendor, to
+gather his followers and form a temporal kingdom.
+Far from this, the angel's song was breathed to simple
+shepherds, and the star in the East pointed out a
+stable as the lowly birth-place of the Son of God.
+He came, not to rule in splendor in the palaces of
+kings, but to bring the gospel of peace to the lowliest
+habitations, and fix his throne in the hearts of the
+meek and humble-minded. He claimed no tribute
+of this world's wealth as an offering, but the love and
+obedience of those whom he came to save. Earnestly
+the speaker besought his hearers to yield to their
+Saviour the adoration which was his due, and requite
+His all-excelling love with the purest and
+deepest affections of their hearts. Every eye was
+fixed upon the speaker, every ear intently listened
+to catch his words, and tears suffused the eyes so
+lately beaming with gayety. At the close of his
+eloquent appeal, there were few in that congregation
+unmoved. The closing prayers were read, the
+benediction pronounced, and the audience gradually
+left the house. Clara and I were the last to leave
+our seats, and as we followed the crowd that had
+gathered in the aisles before us she did not speak, but
+the hand that rested in mine trembled like a frightened
+bird. Suddenly a voice behind us whispered the
+name of Clara. She turned and met the gaze of
+Philip Sidney. The trusting faith of years had its
+reward, and those so long severed met again. Not
+wishing to intrude upon the joy of that moment, I
+left them, and followed on with the old rector. We
+walked on in the little foot-path that led to our homes;
+and while Clara's hand rested upon his arm, the young
+clergyman told the tale of his life since their parting.</p>
+
+<p>"But how did it come," asked Clara, "that you
+chose the sacred profession of the ministry?"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot fully trace the source of the emotions
+that led me to become a worshiper at the throne of
+the Holiest, unless it is true that the love of the pure
+and good of earth is the first pluming of the soul's
+pinions for heaven. I went to church that Christmas
+eve, urged only by the wish to look upon your face
+once more, yet, when there, the words of the speaker
+won my attention. I had listened to others equally
+eloquent many times before; but that night my heart
+seemed more susceptible to religious impressions. I
+felt a deep sense of the folly and ingratitude of my
+past life, and firmly resolved for the future to live
+more worthily of the immortal treasure that was
+committed to my charge. Prayerfully and earnestly
+I studied the Word of Life, and resolved to devote
+myself to the ministry. I wrote to my worthy relative,
+the rector of Willowdale, for his advice, and
+found, to my great joy, that he was your devoted
+friend. He condemned my rashness in the avowal I
+had made to you, and insisted that there should be no
+communication between us until I had finished my
+studies. I consented, on condition that he should
+write frequently and inform me of your welfare.
+One year ago I had completed my studies, and would
+have hastended to you, but my stern Mentor insisted
+that I should travel abroad, as he said, to give me a
+better knowledge of human nature, and test the truth
+of my early affection. I have passed the ordeal, and
+now, after an absence of five years, returned to you
+unchanged in heart."</p>
+
+<p>The rest of the conversation was lost to me, as I
+reached my home; but that it was satisfactory to
+those engaged in it I know from the fact, that the next
+day I had the pleasure of congratulating Clara upon
+her engagement, with the full consent of her relatives.
+The remainder of the tale is quickly told. The old
+rector resigned his pastoral charge to Philip Sidney,
+with the full approbation of his parishioners; and it
+was arranged that the old rector and his wife should
+remain at the parsonage with the young clergyman
+and his bride. Deacon Lee became warmly attached
+to Philip, and felt a father's interest in the happiness
+of Clara, though he sometimes chid her playfully for
+keeping their early acquaintance a secret from him.
+As for Mrs. Lee, she was so proud of the honor of
+being aunt to a minister, that she almost forgot her
+dislike to prelacy. It is true she was once heard to
+say to one of her gossiping acquaintances, that she
+would have been better pleased if Clara had married
+a good Congregationalist minister, even if he had not
+preached quite so flowery sermons as Philip Sidney.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>One bright day in the month of May following
+was their wedding-day. The bride looked beautiful
+in her pure white dress of muslin, with a wreath of
+May-blossoms in her hair. Blessings were invoked
+on the youthful pair by all, both high and low, and
+sincere good wishes expressed for their future happiness.
+Here I will leave them, with the wish that the
+affection of early years may remain through life undimmed,
+and that the Christmas Garland, so linked
+with the history of their loves, may be their emblem.</p>
+<br /><br />
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="HEADS_OF_THE_POETS" id="HEADS_OF_THE_POETS"></a>HEADS OF THE POETS.</h2>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<h4>BY W. GILMORE SIMMS.</h4>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<h5>I.&mdash;CHAUCER.</h5>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;&mdash;Chaucer's healthy Muse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Did wisely one sweet instrument to choose&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The native reed; which, tutored with rare skill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brought other Muses<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a>
+<a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> down to aid its trill!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A cheerful song that sometimes quaintly masked<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fancy, as the affections sweetly tasked;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And won from England's proud and <i>foreign</i>
+<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a>
+<a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> court,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For native England's <i>tongue</i>, a sweet report&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sympathy&mdash;till in due time it grew<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A permanent voice that proved itself the true,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And rescued the brave language of the land,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From that<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a>
+<a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a>
+ which helped to strength the invader's hand.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus, with great patriot service, making clear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The way to other virtues quite as dear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In English liberty&mdash;which could grow alone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When English speech grew pleasant to be known;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To spell the ears of princes, and to make<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The peasant worthy for his poet's sake.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<br />
+
+<h5>II.&mdash;SHAKSPEARE.</h5>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;&mdash;'T were hard to say,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon what instrument did Shakspeare play&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still harder what he did not! He had all<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The orchestra at service, and could call<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To use, still other implements, unknown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or only valued in his hands alone!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Lyre, whose burning inspiration came<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still darting upward, sudden as the flame;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The murmuring wind-harp, whose melodious sighs<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Seem still from hopefullest heart of love to rise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And gladden even while grieving; the wild strain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That night-winds wake from reeds that breathe in pain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though breathing still in music; and that voice,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which most he did affect&mdash;whose happy choice<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Made sweet flute-accents for humanity<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Out of that living heart which cannot die,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Catholic, born of love, that still controls<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While man is man, the tide in human souls.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<br />
+
+<h5>III.&mdash;THE SAME.</h5>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;&mdash;His universal song<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who sung by Avon, and with purpose strong<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Compelled a voice from native oracles,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That still survive their altars by their spells&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Guarding with might each avenue to fame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where, trophied over all, glows Shakspeare's name!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mighty master-hand in his we trace,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If erring often, never commonplace;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Forever frank and cheerful, even when wo<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Commands the tear to speak, the sigh to flow;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sweet without weakness, without storming, strong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Jest not o'erstrained, nor argument too long;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still true to reason, though intent on sport,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His wit ne'er drives his wisdom out of court;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A brooklet now, a noble stream anon,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Careering in the meadows and the sun;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A mighty ocean next, deep, far and wide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Earth, life and Heaven, all imaged in its tide!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh! when the master bends him to his art,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How the mind follows, how vibrates the heart;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mighty grief o'ercomes us as we hear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the soul hurries, hungering, to the ear;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The willing nature, yielding as he sings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unfolds her secret and bestows her wings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Glad of that best interpreter, whose skill<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brings hosts to worship at her sacred hill!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<br />
+
+<h5>IV.&mdash;SPENSER.</h5>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">It was for Spenser, by his quaint device<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To spiritualize the passionate, and subdue<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The wild, coarse temper of the British Muse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By meet diversion from the absolute:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To lift the fancy, and, where still the song<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Proclaimed a wild humanity, to sway<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Soothingly soft, and by fantastic wiles<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Persuade the passions to a milder clime!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His was the song of chivalry, and wrought<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For like results upon society;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Artful in high degree, with plan obscure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That mystified to lure, and, by its spells,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Making the heart forgetful of itself<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To follow out and trace its labyrinths,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In that forgetfulness made visible!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Such were the uses of his Muse; to say<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How proper and how exquisite his lay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How quaintly rich his masking&mdash;with what art<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He fashioned fairy realms and paints their queen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How purely&mdash;with how delicate a skill&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It needs not, since his song is with us still!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<br />
+
+<h5>V.&mdash;MILTON.</h5>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The master of a single instrument,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But that the Cathedral Organ; Milton sings<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With drooping spheres about him, and his eye<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fixed steadily upward, through its mortal cloud,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Seeing the glories of Eternity!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sense of the invisible and true<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still present to his soul, and in his song;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The consciousness of duration through all time,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of work in each condition, and of hopes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ineffable, that well sustain through life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Encouraging through danger and in death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cheering, as with a promise rich in wings!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A godlike voice that, through cathedral towers<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still rolls, prolonged in echoes, whose deep tones<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Seem born of thunder, that subdued to music<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Soothe when they startle most! A Prophet Bard,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With utt'rance equal to his mission of power,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And harmonies that, not unworthy heaven,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Might well lift earth to equal worthiness.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<br />
+
+<h5>VI.&mdash;BURNS AND SCOTT.</h5>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;&mdash;Not forgotten or denied,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Scott's trumpet-lay, and Burns's violin-song;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The one a call to arms, of action fond;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The other, still discoursing to the heart&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lowly human heart&mdash;of loves and joys&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Such as beseem the cotter's calm fireside&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cheerful and buoyant still amid a sadness&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Such sadness as still couples love with care!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<br />
+
+<h5>VII.&mdash;BYRON.</h5>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;&mdash;For Byron's home and fame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It needed manhood only! Had he known<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How sorrow should be borne, nor sunk in shame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For that his destiny decreed to moan&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His Muse had been triumphant over Time<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As still she is o'er Passion; still sublime&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Having subdued her soul's infirmity<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To aliment; and, with herself o'ercome,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O'ercome the barriers of Eternity,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And lived through all the ages, with a sway<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Complete, and unembarrassed by the doom<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That makes of Nature's porcelain, common clay!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<br />
+
+<h5>VIII.-A GROUP.</h5>
+
+<h5><i>Shelly and Wordsworth,&mdash;Tennyson, Barrett, Horne and
+Browning;&mdash;Baily and Taylor;&mdash;Campbell and Moore.</i></h5>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;&mdash;As one who had been brought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By Fairy hands, and as a changeling left<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In human cradle, the sad substitute<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For a more smiling infant&mdash;Shelly sings<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Vague minstrelsies that speak a foreign birth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Among erratic tribes; yet not in vain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His moral, and the fancies in his flight<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not without profit for another race!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He left his spirit with his voice&mdash;a voice<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Solely spiritual, which will long suffice<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To wing the otherwise earthy of the time,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, with the subtler leaven of the soul,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Inform the impetuous passions!<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">With him came<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Antagonist, yet still with sympathy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wordsworth, the Bard of the contemplative,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A voice of purest thought in sweetest music!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&mdash;These, in themselves unlike, together linked,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Appear in unison in after days,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Making progressive still, the mental births,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That pass successively through rings of time,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each to a several conquest; most unlike<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That of its sire, yet borrowing of its strength,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where needful, and endowing it with new,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To meet the new necessity which still<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Haunts the free progress of each conquering race.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&mdash;Thus, Tennyson and Barrett, Browning, Horne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blend their opposing faculties, and speak<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For that fresh nature, which in daily things<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beholds the immortal, and from common forms<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Extorts the Eternal still! So Baily sings<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In Festus; so, upon a humbler rank,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Testing the worth of social policies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As working through a single human will,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Muse of Taylor argues&mdash;Artevelde,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Being the man who marks a popular growth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And notes the transit of a thought through time,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Growing as still it speeds.....<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">Exquisite<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The ballads of Campbell, and the lays of Moore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Appealing to our tastes, our gentler moods,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The play of the affections, or the thoughts<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That come with national pride; and as we pause<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In our own march, delight the sentiment!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But nothing they make for progress. They perfect<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The language, and diversify its powers&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Please and beguile, and, for the forms of art,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Prove what they are, and may be. But they lift<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">None of our standards; help us not in growth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Compel no prosecution of our search,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And leave us, where they found us&mdash;with the time!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<br /><br />
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="HOPE_ON_HOPE_EVER" id="HOPE_ON_HOPE_EVER"></a>HOPE ON&mdash;HOPE EVER.</h2>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<h4>BY H. CURTISS HINE, U. S. N.</h4>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Poor stricken one! whose toil can gain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And barely gain, the coarsest fare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From bitter thoughts and words refrain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Yield not to dark despair!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The blackest night that e'er was born<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was followed by a radiant morn;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Heed not the world's unfeeling scorn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor think life's brittle thread to sever;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hope on&mdash;hope ever!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Hope, though your sun is hid in gloom,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And o'er your care-worn, wrinkled brow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Grief spreads his shadow&mdash;'tis the doom<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That falls on many now.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Grim Poverty, with icy hand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May bind to earth with ruthless band<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bright gifted ones throughout the land;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But struggle still that band to sever&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hope on&mdash;hope ever!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Sit not and pine that FORTUNE led<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Another on to grasp her wreath;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The same blue sky is o'er thy head,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The same green earth beneath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The same bright angel-eyes look down,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each night upon the humblest clown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That sees the king with jeweled crown;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of these, stern fate can rob thee never&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hope on&mdash;hope ever!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">What though the proud should pass thee by,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And curl their haughty lips with scorn;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like thee, they soon must droop and die,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For all of woman born,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are journeying to a shadowy land,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where each devoid of pride must stand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By hovering wings of angels' fanned;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There sorrow can assail thee never&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hope on&mdash;hope ever!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then plod along with tearless eye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Poor son of toil! and ne'er repine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The road through barren wastes may lie,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And thorns, as oft hath mine;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But there was <span class="smcap">One</span> who came to earth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Star-heralded at hour of birth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Humble, obscure, unknown his worth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose path was thornier far. Weep never!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hope on&mdash;hope ever!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<br /><br />
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="MEXICAN_JEALOUSY" id="MEXICAN_JEALOUSY"></a>MEXICAN JEALOUSY.</h2>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>
+
+<h3>A SKETCH OF THE LATE CAMPAIGN.</h3>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<h4>BY ECOTIER.</h4>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>On the 15th of September, two days after the
+storming of Chapultepec, a small party of soldiers, in
+dark uniforms, were seen to issue from the great
+gate of that castle, and, winding down the Calzada,
+turn towards the City of Mexico. This occurred at
+10 o'clock in the morning. The day was very hot,
+and the sun, glancing vertically upon the flinty rocks
+that paved the causeway, rendered the heat more
+oppressive.</p>
+
+<p>At the foot of the hill the party halted, taking advantage
+of the shade of a huge cypress tree, to set
+down a litera, which four men carried upon their
+shoulders. This they deposited under one of the
+arches of the aqueduct in order the better to protect
+its occupant from the hot rays of the sun.</p>
+
+<p>The occupant of the litera was a wounded man,
+and the pale and bloodless cheek, and fevered eye
+showed that his wound was not a slight one. There
+was nothing around to denote his rank, but the camp
+cloak, of dark blue, and the crimson sash, which lay
+upon the litera, showed that the wounded man was an
+officer. The sash had evidently been saturated with
+blood, which was now dried upon it, leaving parts of
+it shriveled like, and of a darker shade of crimson.
+It had staunched the life-blood of its wearer upon the
+13th. The soldiers stood around the litter, their
+bronzed faces turned upon its occupant, apparently
+attentive to his requests. There was something in
+the gentle care with which these rude men seemed
+to wait upon the young officer, that bespoke the existence
+of a stronger feeling than mere humanity.
+There was that admiration which the brave soldiers
+feel for him who has led them in the field of battle,
+<i>at their head</i>. That small group were among the
+first who braved the frowning muzzles of the cannon
+upon the parapets of Chapultepec. The wounded
+officer had led them to those parapets.</p>
+
+<p>The scene around exhibited the usual indications
+of a recent field of battle. There were batteries
+near, with dismounted cannon, broken carriages,
+fragments of shells, dead horses, whose riders lay by
+them, dead too, and still unburied. Parties were
+strolling about, busied with this sad duty, but heaps
+of mangled carcases still lay above ground, exhibiting
+the swollen limbs and distorted features of
+decomposition. The atmosphere was heavy with
+the disagreeable odor, and the wounded man, turning
+upon his pillow, gently commanded the escort to proceed.
+Four stout soldiers again took up the litera,
+and the party moved slowly along the aqueduct, toward
+the Garita Belen. The little escort halted at
+intervals for rest and to change bearers. The fine
+trees that line the great aqueduct on the Tacubaya
+road, though much torn and mangled by the cannonade
+of the 13th, afforded a fine shelter from the hot
+sun-beams. In two hours after leaving Chapultepec,
+the escort entered the Garita Belen, passed up the
+Paseo Nuevo, and halted in front of the Alameda.</p>
+
+<p>Any one who has visited the City of Mexico will
+recollect, that opposite the Alameda, on its southern
+front, is a row of fine houses, which continue on to
+the Calle San Francisco, and thence to the Great
+Plaza, forming the Calles Correo, Plateros, &amp;c.
+These streets are inhabited principally by foreigners,
+particularly that of Plateros, which is filled with
+Frenchmen. To prevent their houses from being
+entered by the American soldiery upon the 14th, the
+windows were filled with national flags, indicating
+to what nation the respective owners of the houses
+belonged. There were Belgians, French, English,
+Prussians, Spanish, Danes, and Austrians&mdash;in fact,
+every kind of flag. Mexican flags alone were not to
+be seen. Where these should have been, at times,
+the white flag&mdash;the banner of peace&mdash;hung through
+the iron railings, or from the balcony. In front of a
+house that bore this simple ensign, the escort, with
+the litera, had accidentally stopped.</p>
+
+<p>The eye of the wounded officer rested mechanically
+upon the little flag over his head, when his
+attention was arrested by noticing that this consisted
+of a small, white lace handkerchief, handsomely embroidered
+upon the corners, and evidently such as
+belonged to some fair being. Though suffering from
+the agony of his wound, there was something so attractive
+in this discovery, that the eyes of the invalid
+were immediately turned upon the window, or rather
+grating, from which the flag was suspended, and his
+countenance changed at once, from the listless apathy
+of pain to an expression of eager interest. A young
+girl was in the window, leaning her forehead against
+the <i>reja</i>, or grating, and looking down with more of
+painful interest than curiosity upon the pale face
+beneath her. It was the window of the <i>entresol</i>,
+slightly raised above the street, and the young girl
+herself was evidently of that class known to the
+aristocracy of Mexico as the "leperos." She was
+tastefully dressed, however, in the picturesque costume
+of her class and country, and her beautiful
+black hair, her dark Indian eye, the half olive, half
+carmine tinge upon her soft cheek, formed a countenance
+at once strange, and strikingly beautiful. Her
+neck, bosom, and shoulders, seen over the window-stone,
+were of that form which strikes you as possessing
+more of the oval than the rotund, in short
+the model of the perfect woman.</p>
+
+<p>On seeing the gaze of the wounded man so intently
+fixed upon her, the young girl blushed, and drew
+back. The officer felt disappointed and sorry, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>
+one feels when the light, or a beautiful object is suddenly
+removed from his sight; still, however, keeping
+his eyes intently fixed upon the window, as
+though unable to unrivet his gaze. This continued
+for some moments, when a beautiful arm was plunged
+through the iron grating, holding in the most delicate
+little fingers a glass of pi&ntilde;al.</p>
+
+<p>A soldier stepped up, and taking the proffered glass,
+held it to the lips of the wounded officer, who gladly
+drank of the cool and refreshing beverage, without
+being able to thank the fair donor, who had withdrawn
+her hand at parting with the glass. The glass
+was held up to the window, but the hand that clutched
+it was coarse and large, and evidently that of a man.
+A muttered curse, too, in the Spanish language, was
+heard to proceed from within. This was heard but
+indistinctly. The invalid gazed at the window for
+some minutes, expecting the return of the beautiful
+apparition, then as if he had given up all hope, he
+called out a "gracias-adios!" and ordered the escort
+to move on. The soldiers, once more shouldering
+the litera, passed up the Calle Correo, and entered
+the Hotel Compagnon, in the street of Espiritu
+Santo.</p>
+
+<p>For two months the invalid was confined to his
+chamber, but often, during that time, both waking
+and dreaming, the face of the beautiful Mexican girl
+would flit across his fevered fancy. At the end of
+this time his surgeon gave him permission to ride
+out in an easy carriage. He was driven to the Alameda,
+where he ordered the carriage to halt under
+the shade of its beautiful trees, and directly in front
+of the spot where he had rested on entering the city.
+He recognized the little window. The white flag
+was not now there, and he could see nothing of the
+inmates. He remained a considerable time seated
+in the carriage, gazing upon the house, but no face
+appeared at the cold iron grating, no smile to cheer
+his vigil. Tired and disappointed, he ordered his
+carriage to be driven back to the hotel.</p>
+
+<p>Next day he repeated the man&oelig;uvre, and the next,
+and the next, with a like success. Probably he had
+not chosen the proper time of day. It was certainly
+not the hour when the lovely faces of the Mexican
+women appear in their balconies. This reflection
+induced him to change the hour, and, upon the day
+following, he ordered his carriage in the evening.
+Just before twilight, it drew up as usual under the
+tall trees of the Alameda. Imagine the delight of the
+young officer, at seeing the face of the beautiful
+Mexican through the gratings of the <i>reja</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The stir made by the stopping of the carriage had
+attracted her. The uniform of its inmate was the
+next object of her attention, but when her eyes fell
+upon the face of the wearer, a strange expression
+came over her countenance, as if she were struggling
+with some indistinct recollections, and all at once
+that beautiful countenance was suffused with a smile
+of joy. She had recognized the officer. The latter,
+who had been an anxious observer of every change
+of expression, smiled in return, and bowed an acknowledgment,
+then turning to his servant, who was
+a Mexican, he told him, in Spanish, to approach the
+window, and offer his thanks to the young lady for
+her act of kindness upon the 15th of September.</p>
+
+<p>The servant delivered the message, and shortly
+afterward the carriage drove off. For several evenings
+the same carriage might be seen standing under
+the trees of the Alameda. An interesting acquaintance
+had been established between the young officer
+and the Mexican girl. About a week afterward, and
+the carriage appeared no more. The invalid had
+been restored to perfect strength.</p>
+
+<p>December came, and upon the 15th of this month,
+about half an hour before twilight, an American officer,
+wrapped in a light Mexican cloak, passed down
+the Calle San Francisco, and crossed into the Alameda.
+Here he stopped, leaning against a tree, as
+though observing the various groups of citizens, who
+passed in their picturesque dresses. His eye, however,
+was occasionally turned upon the houses upon
+the opposite side of the street, and with a glance of
+stealthy, but eager inquiry. At length the well-known
+form of the beautiful "lepera" appeared at
+the window, who, holding up her hand, adroitly signaled
+the officer with her taper, fan-like fingers.
+The signal was answered. She had scarcely withdrawn
+her hand inside the reja when a dark, scowling
+face made its appearance at her side, her hand
+was rudely seized, and with a scream she disappeared.
+The young officer fancied he saw the bright
+gleaming of a stiletto within the gloomy grating.</p>
+
+<p>He rushed across the street, and in a moment stood
+beneath the window. Grasping the strong iron bars,
+he lifted himself up so as to command a view of the
+inside, which was now in perfect silence. His horror
+may be imagined when, on looking into the
+room, he saw the young girl stretched upon the
+floor, and, to all appearances, dead. A stream of
+blood was running from beneath her clothes, and her
+dress was stained with blood over the waist and
+bosom. With frantic energy the young man clung
+to the bars, and endeavored to wrench them apart.
+It was to no purpose, and letting go his hold, he
+dropped into the street. The large gate of the house
+was open. Into this he rushed, and reached the
+<i>patio</i> just in time to catch a glimpse of a figure
+escaping along the azotea. He rushed up the steep
+stone stairway, and grasping the parapet, raised himself
+on the roof. The fugitive had run along a series
+of platforms of different heights, composed by the
+azoteas of houses, and had reached a low roof, from
+which he was about to leap into an adjoining street,
+where he would, in all probability, have made good
+his escape. He stood upon the edge of the parapet,
+calculating his leap, which was still a fearful plunge.
+It was not left to his choice whether to take or refuse
+it. A pistol flashed behind him, and almost simultaneously
+with the report he fell forward upon his
+head, and lay upon the pavement below, a bruised
+and bleeding corpse. His pursuer approached the
+parapet, and looked over into the street, as if to assure
+himself that his aim had been true, then turned
+with a fearful foreboding, and retraced his way over
+the azoteas. His fears, alas! were but too just. She
+was dead.</p>
+<br /><br />
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="TO_GUADALUPE" id="TO_GUADALUPE"></a>TO GUADALUPE.</h2>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<h4>BY MAYNE REID.</h4>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">Adieu! oh, in the heart's recess how wildly<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Echo those painful accents of despair&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And spite our promise given to bear it mildly;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We little knew how hard it was to bear<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">A destiny so dark: how hard to sever<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hearts linked as ours, hands joined as now I grasp thee<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In trembling touch: oh! e'er we part forever,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Once more unto my heart love's victim let me clasp thee!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">It is my love's last echo&mdash;lone and lonely<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My heart goes forth to seek another shrine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Where it may worship pronely, deeming only<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Such images as thee to be divine&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">It is the echo of the last link breaking,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For still that link held out while lingering near thee&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">A secret joy although with heart-strings aching<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To breathe the air you breathed&mdash;to see, to hear thee.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">And this link now must break&mdash;our paths obliquing<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May never meet again&mdash;oh! say not never&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For while thus speaking, still my soul is seeking<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some hope our parting may not be forever&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And like the drowning straggler on the billow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or he that eager watches for the day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With throbbing brain upon a sleepless pillow&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Tis catching at the faintest feeblest ray.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">Now faint and fainter growing, from thee going,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Seems every hope more vague and undefined&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Oh! as the fiend might suffer when bestowing<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A last look on the heaven he left behind:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Or as earth's first-born children when they parted<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Slowly, despairingly, from Eden's bowers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Looked back with many a sigh&mdash;though broken-hearted,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Less hopeless was their future still than ours.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">If we have loved&mdash;if in our hearts too blindly<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We have enthroned that element divine&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In this, at least, hath fate dealt with us kindly;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our mutual images have found a shrine&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">An altar for our mutual sacrifice:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And spite this destiny that bids us sever,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Within our hearts that fire never dies&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In mine, at least, 'twill burn and worship on forever.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">Thee not upbraiding&mdash;thou has not deceived me&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For from the first I knew <i>thy compromise</i>&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">No, Guadalupe&mdash;this hath never grieved me&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I won thy love&mdash;so spoke thy lips and eyes:&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The consolation of this proud possessing<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Should almost change my sorrow into bliss:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">I have thy heart&mdash;enough for me of blessing&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Another may take all since I am lord of this.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">Why we have torn our hearts and hands asunder&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why we have given o'er those sweet caresses&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The world without will coldly guess and wonder&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let them guess on, what care we for their guesses!<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The secret shall be ours, as ours the pain&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A secret still unheeding friendship's pleading:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">What though th' unfeeling world suspect a stain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But little fears the world a heart with anguish bleeding.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">'Tis better we should never meet again&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our love's renewing were but thy undoing:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">When I am gone, time will subdue thy pain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thou wilt yield thee to another's wooing&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For me, I go to seek a name in story&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To find a future brighter than the past&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Yet 'midst my highest, wildest dreams of glory,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sweet thoughts of thee will mingle to the last.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">And though this widowed heart may love another&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For living without love, it soon would die&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">There will be moments when it cannot smother<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy sweet remembrance with a passing sigh.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Amidst the ashes of its dying embers<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For thee there will be found one deathless thought;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Yes, dearest lady! while this heart remembers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Believe me, thou shall never be forgot.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">Once more farewell! Oh it is hard to yield thee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To lose for life, forever, thing so fair!<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">How bright a destiny it were to shield thee&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet since I am denied the husband's care,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">This grief within my breast here do I smother&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Forego <i>thy</i> painful sacrifice to prove,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That I have been, what never can another,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hero of thy heart, my own sweet victim love.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<br /><br />
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_FADED_ROSE" id="THE_FADED_ROSE"></a>THE FADED ROSE.</h2>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<h4>BY G. G. FOSTER.</h4>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Torn from its stem to bloom awhile<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Upon thy breast, the dazzling flower<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Imbibed new radiance from thy smile&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">But, ah! it faded in an hour.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So thou, from peaceful home betrayed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In beaming beauty floated by;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But ere thy summer had decayed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">We saw thee languish, faint and die.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Extempore. On a Broken Harp-string.</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Too rude the touch&mdash;the broken cord<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No more may utter music-word,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet lives each tone within the air,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its trembling sighs awakened there.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So in my heart the song I sung,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When thou in rapture o'er me hung,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still lives&mdash;yet thine is not the spell<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To lure the music from its shell.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<br /><br />
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_CHILDS_APPEAL" id="THE_CHILDS_APPEAL"></a>THE CHILD'S APPEAL.</h2>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>
+
+<h3>AN INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.</h3>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<h4>BY MRS. MARY G. HORSFORD.</h4>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Day dawned above a city's mart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">But not 'mid peace and prayer;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The shouts of frenzied multitudes<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Were on the thrilling air.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A guiltless man to death was led,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Through crowded streets and wide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a fairy child, with waving curls,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Was clinging to his side.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The father's brow with pride was calm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">But trusting and serene,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The child's was like the Holy One's<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In Raphael's paintings seen.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">She shrank not from the heartless throng,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Nor from the scaffold high;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But now and then with beaming smile<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Addressed her parent's eye.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Athwart the golden flood of morn<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Was poised the wing of Death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As 'neath the fearful guillotine<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The doomed one drew his breath.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then all of fiercest agony<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The human heart can bear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was suffered in the brief caress,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The wild, half-uttered prayer.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But she, the child, beseechingly<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Upraised her eyes of blue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And whispered, while her cheek grew pale,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">"I am to go with you?"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The murmur of impatient fiends<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Rung in her infant ear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And purpose strong woke in her heart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And spoke in accent clear;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"They tore my mother from our side<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In the dark prison's cell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her eyes were filled with tears&mdash;she had<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">No time to say farewell.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And you were all that loved me then,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">But you are pale with care,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And every night a silver thread<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Has mingled with your hair.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"My mother used to tell me of<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">A better land afar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I've seen it through the prison bars<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Where burns the evening star.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Oh! let us find a new home there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">I will be brave and true,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You cannot leave me here alone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Oh! let me die with you."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The gentle tones were drowned by shrill<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And long protracted cries;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The father on his darling gazed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The child looked on the skies.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Anon, far up the cloudless blue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Unseen by mortal eye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">God's angels with two spirits passed<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To purer realms on high.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The one was touched with earthly hues<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And dim with earthly care,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The other, as a lily's cup<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Unutterably fair.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<br /><br />
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_OLD_FARM-HOUSE" id="THE_OLD_FARM-HOUSE"></a>THE OLD FARM-HOUSE.</h2>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<h4>BY MARY L. LAWSON.</h4>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I love these gray and moss-grown walls,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">This ivied porch, and trelliced vine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lattice with its narrow pane,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">A relic of the olden time;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The willow with its waving leaves,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Through which the low winds murmuring glide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The gurgling ripple of the stream<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That whispers softly at its side.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The spring-house in its shady nook,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Like lady's bower shadowed o'er&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With clustering trees&mdash;and creeping plants<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That cling around the rustic door,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The rough hewn steps that lend their aid<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To reach the shady cool recess,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where humble duty spreads a scene<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That hourly comfort learns to bless.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Upland the meadows lie around,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Fair smiling in the suns last beam;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beneath yon solitary tree<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The lazy cattle idly dream;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Afar the reaper's stroke descends,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">While faintly on the listening ear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The teamster's careless whistle floats,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Or distant song or call I hear.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And leaning on a broken stile,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With woods behind and fields before,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I watch the bee who homeward wends<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With laden wing&mdash;his labors o'er;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The happy birds are warbling round,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Or nestle in the rustling trees&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Mid which the blue sky glimmers down,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">When parted by the passing breeze.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And slowly winding up the road<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The wane has reached the old barn-floor,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where plenty's hand has firmly heaped<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The golden grain in richest store.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This 'mid the dream-land of my thoughts<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With smiling lip I own is real,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet fancy's fairest visions blend<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With all I see, and all I feel.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then tell me not of worldly pride<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And wild ambition's hopes of fame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or brilliant halls of wealth and pride,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Where genius sighs to win a name;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Give <i>me</i> this farm-house quaint and old,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">These fields of grain, the birds and flowers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With calm contentment, peace and health,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And memories of my earlier hours.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<br /><br />
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="TIS_HOME_WHERE_THE_HEART_IS" id="TIS_HOME_WHERE_THE_HEART_IS">
+</a>"'TIS HOME WHERE THE HEART IS."</h2>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>
+
+<h4><i>WORDS BY MISS L. M. BROWN</i>.</h4>
+
+<h3>MUSIC COMPOSED BY KARL W. PETERSILIE,</h3>
+
+<h5><i>Professor of Music at the Edgeworth Seminary, N. C.</i></h5>
+
+<h5>Presented by George Willig, No. 171 Chesnut Street, Philad'a. [Copyright secured.]</h5>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 654px;">
+<img src="images/music1.png" width="654" height="800"
+alt="'TIS HOME WHERE THE HEART IS." title="" /></div>
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 571px;">
+<img src="images/music2.png" width="571" height="800"
+alt="second page of music" title="" /></div>
+<br />
+
+<h4>SECOND VERSE.</h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I've courted the breath of a balm southern clime,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where sweetest of flow'rs, soft tendrils entwine;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Have listed the song bird's notes borne on the air,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That wakens and wafts the rich odors elsewhere;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As tones on the ear so the dream of the past,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Softly plays round the heart-green isle of the waste;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yes! 'twas all a life-dream, and still 'tis not gone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh, 'tis home where the heart is, where the heart is 'tis home.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<br />
+
+<h4>THIRD VERSE.</h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I've cross'd the blue sea, I've sought out a home<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the land of the free, freedom beckon'd me come;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And friends of the stranger have sooth'd the sad heart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With kindness and sympathy, sweet balm for the smart;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The light of the soul, doth play round it still,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like the perfume the urn, in which roses distil;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thoughts of affection forbid me to roam,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh, 'tis home where the heart is, where the heart is 'tis home.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<br /><br />
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="REVIEW_OF_NEW_BOOKS" id="REVIEW_OF_NEW_BOOKS"></a>REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.</h2>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Hawkstone: A Tale of and for England in 184-. New
+York: Standford &amp; Swords. 2 vols. 12mo.</i></p></div>
+
+<p>We were attracted to this novel by seeing the words
+"fifth edition" on its title page. After reading it, it is easy
+to account for its popularity. It is at once a most exciting
+romance and a defence of an unpopular religious body.
+The author (said to be Professor Sewall,) belongs to the
+Oxford School of Episcopalians, or to adopt his own view
+of the matter, to the one Catholic church. The object of
+the novel is to present the ideas of Church and State held
+by that class of religionists who are vulgarly called Puseyites.
+This is done partly in the representation of character
+and narration of incident, which constitute the romance
+of the book, and partly by long theological conversations
+which occur between a few of the characters. The interest
+of the work never flags, and it is among the few religious
+novels which are not positive bores to all classes of
+readers. In respect to its theology, it gives the most distinct
+view of the doctrines of the High Church party of
+Oxford which we have seen. The author is as decisive
+and bitter in his condemnation of Romanism as of dissent.
+He considers that the peculiar doctrines and claims which
+distinguish the Roman Catholic church from the Church
+of England are <i>novelties</i>, unknown to the true church of
+the apostles and the fathers. He has no mercy for the
+Romanists, and but little for the young men of his own
+school who favor the Papacy. Those who are accustomed
+to associate Puseyism with a set of sentimentalists, who
+mourn the Reformation, wish for the return of the good
+old times of the feudal ages, and give Rome their hearts
+and Canterbury only their pockets, will find that such doctrines
+and practices find no favor in the present volumes.
+The greatest rascal in the novel is a piece of incarnate malignity
+named Pearce&mdash;a Jesuit, whom the author represents
+as carrying out the principles of Romanism to their
+logical results in practice.</p>
+
+<p>But if the reader will find his common notions of Puseyism
+revolutionized by the present novel, he will be a little
+startled at its real doctrines and intentions. The author
+has the most supreme and avowed contempt for liberal
+ideas in Church and State; and for every good-natured
+axiom about toleration and representative government he
+spurns from his path as a novelty and paradox. There is
+nothing dominant in England which he does not oppose.
+The Whig party he deems the avowed enemies of loyalty,
+order and religion. The Conservatives, with Sir Robert
+Peel and the Duke of Wellington at their head, he conceives
+destitute of principle, and the destroyers of the
+British empire. There is not a concession made to liberal
+ideas within the present century which he does not think
+wicked and foolish. The manufacturing system and free
+trade, indeed the whole doctrines of the political economists
+in the lump, he looks upon alternately with horror
+and disdain. He seems to consider the State and Church
+as an organized body for the education of the people,
+whose duty is obedience, arid who have no right to think
+for themselves in religion or politics, for they would be
+pretty sure to think wrong. All benevolent societies, in
+which persons of different religious views combine for a
+common object, he considers as productive of evil, and as
+an assumption of powers rightly belonging to the church.
+Indeed, in his system, it is wrong for any popular association
+to presume to meddle with ignorance and crime, unless
+they do it under the sanction and control of the church.
+He considers it the duty of a church minister to excommunicate
+every man in his parish who is <i>guilty</i> of schism&mdash;that
+is, who has the wickedness to be a papist or dissenter.
+But it is useless to proceed in the enumeration of
+our author's dogmatisms. If the reader desires to know
+them, let him conceive the exact opposite of every liberal
+principle in politics, political economy and theology, which
+at present obtains in the world, and he will have the system
+of "Hawkstone."</p>
+
+<p>A good deal of the zest of the novel comes from the
+throng of paradoxes in which the author wantons. He
+has a complete system of thought to kill out all the mind
+of the English people, and render them the mere slaves of
+a hierarchy, and all for the most benevolent of purposes.
+In his theory he overlooks the peculiar constitution and
+character of the English people, and also all the monstrous
+abuses to which his system would inevitably lead, in his
+desire to see a practical establishment of the most obnoxious
+and high-toned claims of his church. He is evidently
+half way between an idealist and a sentimentalist,
+with hardly an atom of practical sagacity or knowledge of
+affairs. The cool dogmatism with which he condemns
+the great statesmen of his country, is particularly offensive
+as coming from a man utterly ignorant of the difficulties
+which a statesman has to encounter. It is curious also to
+see how extremes meet; this theory of absoluteism "fraternizes"
+with that of socialism. A person reading, in the
+second volume, the account of Villiers' dealings with his
+tenantry, and his new regulations regarding manufactures,
+would almost think that Louis Blanc had graduated at Oxford,
+and left out in his French schemes the agency of the
+church, from a regard to the prejudices of his countrymen.</p>
+
+<p>With all its peculiarities and heresies, however, the
+novel will well reward the attention of readers of all
+classes. It is exceedingly well written, and contains many
+scenes of uncommon power, pathos and beauty. With
+these advantages it may also claim the honor of being the
+most inimitable specimen of theological impudence and
+pretension which the present age has witnessed.</p>
+<br />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>The Planetary and Stellar Worlds: A Popular Exposition
+of the Great Discoveries and Theories of Modern Astronomy.
+In a Series of Ten Lectures. By O. M. Mitchell,
+A. M. New York: Baker &amp; Scribner. 1 vol. 12mo.</i></p></div>
+
+<p>Mr. Mitchell is not only an accomplished astronomer, in
+every respect qualified to be the interpreter of the mysteries
+of his science to the popular mind, but, if we may
+judge from the style of his book, is a fine, frank, warm-hearted,
+enthusiastic man. On every page he gives evidence
+of really loving his pursuit. By a certain sensitiveness
+of imagination, and quickness of sensibility, every
+thing he contemplates becomes alive in his mind, and an
+object in which he takes a personal interest. This gives
+wonderful distinctness to his exposition of natural laws,
+and his delineation of the characters and pursuits of men
+of science. His Copernicus, Kepler, Gallileo and Newton
+are not dry enumerations of qualities, but vivid portraits of
+persons. He seems in close intellectual fellowship with
+them as individuals, and converses of them in the style of
+a friend, whose accurate knowledge is equalled by his intense
+affection. So it is with his detail of the discovery of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>
+a new law, or fact in science. His mind "lives along the
+line" of observation and reasoning which ended in its detection,
+and he reproduces the hopes, fears, doubts, and
+high enthusiasm of every person connected with the discovery.
+His delineation of Kepler is especially genial
+and striking. By following this method he infuses his own
+enthusiasm into the reader, bears him willingly along
+through the most abstruse processes of science, and at the
+end leaves him without fatigue, and ready for a new start.</p>
+
+<p>In the treatment of scientific discoveries, by minds like
+Mr. Mitchell's, we ever notice an unconscious personification
+of Nature, as a cunning holder of secrets which only
+the master-mind can wrest from her after a patient siege.
+The style of our author glows in the recital of the exploits
+of his band of astronomers, as that of a Frenchman does
+in the narration of Napoleon's campaigns. This is the
+great charm of his book, and will make it extensively
+popular, for by it he can attract any reader capable of being
+interested in a tale of personal adventure, ending in a
+great achievement. We can hardly bring to mind a popular
+lecturer or writer on science, who has this power to
+the extent which Mr. Mitchell possesses it. He himself
+has it by virtue of the mingled simplicity and intensity of
+his nature.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most striking lectures in Mr. Mitchell's volume
+is that on the discoveries of the primitive ages, in
+which he represents the processes of the primitive observer,
+with his unarmed eye, in unfolding some of the laws of
+the heavens; and he indicates with great beauty what
+would be his point of departure, and what would be the
+limit of his discoveries. This lecture is a fine prose poem.
+There is a passage in the introductory lecture which
+grandly represents the continual watch which man keeps
+on the heavens, and the slow, silent and sure acquisitions
+of new truths, from age to age. "The sentinel on the
+watchtower is relieved from duty, but another takes his
+place, and the vigil is unbroken. No&mdash;the astronomer
+never dies. He commences his investigations on the hill-tops
+of Eden&mdash;he studies the stars through the long centuries
+of antedeluvian life. The deluge sweeps from the
+earth its inhabitants, their cities and their mountains&mdash;but
+when the storm is hushed, and the heavens shine forth in
+beauty, from the summit of Mount Arrarat the astronomer
+resumes his endless vigils. In Babylon he keeps his watch,
+and among the Egyptian priests he inspires a thirst for the
+sacred mysteries of the stars. The plains of Shinar&mdash;the
+temples of India&mdash;the pyramids of Egypt, are equally his
+watching places. When science fled to Greece, his home
+was in the schools of her philosophers: and when darkness
+covered the earth for a thousand years, he pursues his
+never-ending task from amidst the burning deserts of Arabia.
+When science dawned on Europe, the astronomer
+was there&mdash;toiling with Copernicus&mdash;watching with Tycho&mdash;suffering
+with Gallileo&mdash;triumphing with Kepler."</p>
+
+<p>We trust that this volume will have an extensive circulation.
+It will not only convey a great deal of knowledge
+to the general reader, but will also inspire a love for the
+science of which it treats.</p>
+<br />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Harold, the last of the Saxon Kings. By Sir Edward Bulwer
+Lytton, Bart. New York: Harper &amp; Brothers.</i></p></div>
+
+<p>This is Bulwer's most successful attempt at writing an
+historical novel, but with all its merits, it is still rather an
+attempt than a performance. Considered as a history of
+the Norman invasion, it contains many more facts than can
+be found in Thierry, at least in that portion of his work
+devoted to Harold and William. Bulwer seems to have
+obtained his knowledge at the original sources, and the
+novel is certainly creditable to his scholarship. But he has
+not managed his materials in an imaginative way, and fact
+and fiction are tied rather than fused together. The consequence
+is that the work is not homogeneous. At times
+it appears like history, but after the mind of the reader has
+settled down to a historical mood, the impression is broken
+by a violent intrusion of fable, or an introduction of modern
+sentiment and thought. It has therefore neither the
+interest of Thierry's exquisite narrative of the same events,
+nor the interest which might have been derived from a
+complete amalgamation of the materials into a consistent
+work of imagination. Considered also as a reproduction
+of ancient men and manners it is strikingly defective.
+With many fine strokes of the pencil, where the author
+confines himself to the literal fact, his portraits, as a whole,
+are overcharged with <i>Bulwerism</i>. His imagination is not
+a mirror. It can reflect nothing without vitiating it. He
+does not possess the power of passing a character through
+his mind and preserving its individuality. It goes in as
+Harold, or Duke William, or Lafranc, but it comes out as
+Sir E. Bulwer Lytton, Bart.</p>
+
+<p>The novel contains much of that seductive sentiment,
+half romantic, half misanthropic, which is the characteristic
+of Bulwer's works, and it is expressed with his usual
+beauty and brilliancy of style. Here and there we perceive
+allusions to his own domestic affairs, which none but
+Lady Bulwer can fully appreciate. Every reader of the
+novel must be struck with its attempt at the moral tone.
+Edith, the heroine, is the bride of Harold's soul, and Platonism
+appears in all its splendor of self-denial and noble
+sentiments in a Saxon thane and his maiden. History pronounces
+this lady to be his mistress, and it certainly is a
+great stretch of the reader's charity to be compelled to
+view her in the capacity of saint. Not only, however, in
+the loves of Harold and Edith, but all over the novel,
+there is a constant intrusion of ethical reflections, which
+will doubtless much edify all young ladies of a tender age.
+These would be well enough if they appeared to have any
+base in solid moral principle, but they are somewhat offensive
+as the mere sentimentality of conscience and religion,
+introduced for the purposes of fine writing. Suspicion,
+also, always attaches to the morality which exhibits itself
+on rhetorical stilts, and the refinement which is always
+proclaiming itself refined. Since the time of Joseph Surface
+there has been a great decline in the market price of
+noble sentiments.</p>
+<br />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>The History of England, from the Invasion of Julius C&aelig;sar
+to the Reign of Victoria. By Mrs. Markham. A New
+Edition. New York: D. Appleton &amp; Co. 1 vol. 12mo.</i></p></div>
+
+<p>This is a new and revised edition of a work which has
+long been used in the education of boys and girls. Its information
+is, of course, milk for babes. We think that
+books of this class should be prepared by persons very different
+from Mrs. Markham. She, good lady, was the
+wife of an English clergyman by the name of Penrose,
+and she wrote English history as such a person might be
+supposed to write it. With every intention to be honest,
+her book has many facts and opinions which boys and girls
+will have to take more time to unlearn than they spent in
+learning, unless they intend to be children their whole
+lives.</p>
+
+<p>There is, however, a story in the volume regarding the
+Duke of Marlborough, which we think few of our readers
+have seen. The duke's command of his temper was almost
+miraculous. Once, at a council of war, Prince Eugene
+advised that an attack on the enemy should be made the
+next day. As his advice was plainly judicious, he was
+much exasperated at the refusal of the duke's consent, and
+immediately called him a coward and challenged him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>
+Marlborough cooly declined the challenge, and the enraged
+prince left the council. Early the following morning he
+was awoke by the duke, who desired him instantly to rise,
+as he was preparing to make the attack, and added, "I
+could not tell you of my determination last night, because
+there was a person present who I knew was in the enemy's
+interest, and would betray us. I have no doubt we shall
+conquer, and when the battle is over I will be ready to accept
+your challenge." The prince, seeing the superior
+sagacity of Marlborough, and ashamed of his own intemperance,
+overwhelmed the duke with apologies, and the
+friendship of the two generals was more strongly cemented
+than ever. The anecdote is of doubtful origin, but it is an
+admirable illustration both of the character of Marlborough
+and Eugene.</p>
+<br />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Letters from Italy: and The Alps and the Rhine. By J. T.
+Headley. New and Revised Edition. New York: Baker
+&amp; Scribner. 1 vol. 12mo.</i></p></div>
+
+<p>We believe that these were Mr. Headley's first productions,
+and were originally published in Wiley &amp; Putnam's
+Library. The present edition has a preface, devoted to the
+consideration of the new aspect Italy has assumed since
+the book was written, and a very judicious flagellation is
+given to that arch traitor and renegade, Charles Albert,
+King of Sardinia, whom events have transformed from a
+trickster and tyrant into a patriot leader. We agree with
+Mr. Headley in thinking that the Italians are more likely
+to be endangered than benefitted by his position at the head
+of their armies.</p>
+
+<p>"The Alps and the Rhine" is, in our opinion, Mr. Headley's
+most agreeable work. The descriptions of scenery
+are singularly vivid and distinct, and are given in a style
+of much energy and richness. The chapters on Suwarrow's
+Passage of the Glarus, Macdonald's Pass of the Splugen,
+and the Battle of Waterloo, are admirably done.
+That on Macdonald is especially interesting. Those who
+doubt Mr. Headley's talents will please read this short extract:
+"The ominous sound grew louder every moment,
+and suddenly the fierce Alpine blast swept in a cloud of
+snow over the mountain, and howled like an unchained
+demon, through the gorge below. In an instant all was
+blindness and confusion and uncertainty. The very heavens
+were blotted out, and the frightened column stood and
+listened to the raving tempest that made the pine trees
+above it sway and groan, as if lifted from their rock-rooted
+places. But suddenly a still more alarming sound was
+heard&mdash;'An avalanche! an avalanche!' shrieked the
+guides, and the next moment <i>an awful white form came
+leaping down the mountain</i>, and striking the column that
+was struggling along the path, passed strait through it into
+the gulf below, carrying thirty dragoons and their horses
+with it in its wild plunge."</p>
+<br />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Principles of Zoology. Touching the Structure, Development,
+Distribution and Natural Arrangement of the Races
+of Animals, Living and Extinct. Part I. Comparative
+Physiology. By Louis Agassiz and Augustus A. Gould
+Boston: Gould, Kendall &amp; Lincoln. 1 vol. 12mo.</i></p></div>
+
+<p>The name of Professor Agassiz, the greatest of living
+naturalists, on the title page of this volume, is of itself a
+guarantee of its excellence. The work is intended for
+schools and colleges, and is admirably fitted for its purpose,
+but its value is not confined to the young. The general
+reader, who desires exact and reliable knowledge of the
+subject, and at the same time is unable to obtain the larger
+works of Professor Agassiz, will find in this little volume
+an invaluable companion. It has all the necessary plates
+and illustrations to enable the reader fully to comprehend
+its matter. The diagram of the crust of the earth, as related
+to zoology, is a most ingenious contrivance to present,
+at one view, the distribution of the principal types of
+animals, and the order of their successive appearance in
+the layers of the earth's crust. The publishers have issued
+the work in a style of great neatness and elegance.</p>
+<br />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>The Writings of Cassius Marcellus Clay, including
+Speeches and Addresses. Edited with a Preface and
+Memoir by Horace Greely, New York: Harper &amp;
+Brothers.</i></p></div>
+
+<p>This is a large and beautiful octavo, and is embellished
+with an admirable likeness of Mr. Clay. The people of
+this country are so well acquainted with the peculiarities
+of Cassius M. Clay's manner, that we will not pause to
+characterize it; and his views upon public subjects are so
+partisan that we leave their discussion to the politicians of
+the country. The eminent abilities of Mr. Greely are
+displayed in the execution of the duties of editor; and
+the memoir which introduces the work does full justice
+to the subject.</p>
+<br />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>The Odd Fellows' Amulet, or the Principles of Odd Fellowship
+Defined; the Objections to the Order Answered, and
+its Advantages Maintained. By Rev. D. W. Bristol.
+Auburn: Derby, Miller &amp; Co.</i></p></div>
+
+<p>This is a beautiful little volume, admirably illustrated.
+It is well written; will be read with interest by the
+general reader, and should be in the possession of every
+member of the great and beneficent order which it advocates
+and vindicates.</p>
+<br />
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>The Baronet's Daughters, and Harry Monk.</i></p></div>
+
+<p>Mrs. Grey, who is recognized as one of the most accomplished
+female novelists of the present day, has recently given to
+the public another interesting volume, bearing the above
+title. There are two stories, both of which are marked
+by the ability which characterizes the whole of Mrs. Grey's
+works, and are well calculated to make a sultry afternoon
+pass agreeably away. The American publisher is Mr. T.
+B. Peterson, who furnishes a neat and uniform edition of
+Mrs. Grey's novels.</p>
+<br /><br />
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>TO OUR READERS.</h2>
+
+<p>The Proprietors of "Graham's Magazine," desirous of
+maintaining for it the high reputation it has secured in the
+estimation of the people of the United States, are determined
+to spare no pains to increase its value, and make it
+universally regarded as the best literary publication in the
+country. To this end they have placed in the hands of
+several of our best engravers a series of plates, which will
+be truly remarkable for their superiority in design and
+execution. As usual, the pens of the best American writers
+will be employed in giving grace and excellence to its
+pages, and in addition to articles which have been secured
+from new contributors of acknowledged ability, they have
+the pleasure of announcing that an engagement has been
+effected with <span class="smcap">J. Bayard Taylor</span>, Esq., whose writings
+are so extensively known and admired, by which his valuable
+assistance will be secured in the editorial department
+of this Magazine exclusively. This arrangement will, we
+are assured, be hailed with pleasure by the host of friends
+which the Magazine possesses throughout the Union, as
+an earnest that no efforts will be omitted to show the sense
+the proprietors entertain of past favors, by rendering their
+work still more attractive and deserving of patronage for
+the future.</p>
+<br /><br />
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4>
+<br />
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The Italian.</p></div>
+<br />
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Norman.</p></div>
+<br />
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> The French.</p></div>
+<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Transcriber's Note:</b></p>
+
+<p>Certain irregularities in spelling and grammar have been left as in the original. Small errors in
+punctuation have been corrected without comment.</p>
+
+<p>1. page 122&mdash;added apostrophe to word 'wont' in phrase '..he wont be my hero...'</p>
+
+<p>2. page 123&mdash;corrected typo 'will' to 'well' in phrase 'They are all very will for rich people.'</p>
+
+<p>3. page 125&mdash;corrected error in text 'almost wondering at first what Angile meant.' to 'almost
+wondering at first what Augusta meant.'</p>
+
+<p>4. page 130&mdash;corrected typo 'spedily' to 'speedily' in phrase '...fit a mast to it, which was
+spedily done.'</p>
+
+<p>5. page 143&mdash;corrected typo 'brightnesss' to 'brightness' in phrase '...the beauty and brightnesss
+of that sweet...'</p>
+
+<p>6. page 153&mdash;corrected typo 'stong' to 'strong' in phrase '...or some stong emotion...'</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3
+September 1848, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRAHAM'S MAGAZINE, SEPT 1848 ***
+
+***** This file should be named 30076-h.htm or 30076-h.zip *****
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+</pre>
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+  </body>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3
+September 1848, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: George R. Graham
+        Robert T. Conrad
+
+Release Date: September 24, 2009 [EBook #30076]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRAHAM'S MAGAZINE, SEPT 1848 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David T. Jones, Juliet Sutherland and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at
+http://www.pgdpcanada.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: J. Addison
+ANGILA MERVALE
+or
+SIX MONTHS BEFORE MARRIAGE.
+_Engraved Expressly for Graham's Magazine_]
+
+
+GRAHAM'S MAGAZINE.
+
+VOL. XXXIII.      PHILADELPHIA, SEPTEMBER, 1848.     No. 3.
+
+
+
+
+ANGILA MERVALE;
+
+OR SIX MONTHS BEFORE MARRIAGE.
+
+BY F. E. F., AUTHOR OF "AARON'S ROD," "TELLING SECRETS," ETC.
+
+
+"They say Miss Morton is engaged to Robert Hazlewood," said Augusta
+Lenox.
+
+"So I hear," replied Angila Mervale, to whom this piece of news had
+been communicated. "How can she?"
+
+"How can she, indeed?" replied Augusta. "He's an ugly fellow."
+
+"Ugly! yes," continued Angila, "and a disagreeable ugliness, too. I
+don't care about a man's being handsome--a plain black ugliness I
+don't object to--but _red_ ugliness, ah!"
+
+"They say he's clever," said Augusta.
+
+"They always say that, my dear, of any one that's so ugly," replied
+Angila. "I don't believe it. He's conceited, and I think disagreeable;
+and I don't believe he's clever."
+
+"I remarked last night that he was very attentive to Mary Morton,"
+continued Augusta. "They waltzed together several times."
+
+"Yes, and how badly he waltzes," said Angila. "Mary Morton is too
+pretty a girl for such an awkward, ugly man. How lovely she looked
+last night. I hope it's not an engagement, for I quite like her."
+
+"Well, perhaps it is not. It's only one of the _on dits_, and probably
+a mere report."
+
+"Who are you discussing, girls?" asked Mrs. Mervale, from the other
+side of the room.
+
+"Robert Hazlewood and Miss Morton," replied Augusta, "they are said to
+be engaged."
+
+"Ah!" said Mrs. Mervale. "Is it a good match for her?"
+
+"Oh, no!" chimed in both the girls at once. "He's neither handsome, nor
+rich, nor any thing."
+
+"Nor any thing!" repeated Mrs. Mervale, laughing. "Well, that's
+comprehensive. A young man may be a very respectable young man, and be
+a very fair match for a girl without being either handsome or rich;
+but if he is positively 'nothing,' why, then, I grant you, it is bad
+indeed."
+
+"Oh, I believe he is respectable enough," replied Augusta, carelessly,
+for, like most young girls, the word "respectable" did not rank very
+high in her vocabulary.
+
+"And if he is not rich, what are they to live on," asked Mrs. Mervale.
+
+"Love and the law, I suppose," replied her daughter, laughing. "He's a
+lawyer, is he not Augusta?"
+
+"Oh!" resumed Mrs. Mervale, "he's a son, then, I suppose, of old John
+Hazlewood."
+
+"Yes," replied Augusta.
+
+"Then he may do very well in his profession," continued Mrs. Mervale,
+"for his father has a large practice I know, and is a very respectable
+man. If this is a clever young man, he may tread in his father's
+footsteps."
+
+This did not convey any very high eulogium to the young ladies' ears.
+That young Robert Hazlewood might be an old John Hazlewood in his turn
+and time, did not strike them as a very brilliant future. In fact they
+did not think more of the old man than they did of the young one.
+
+Old gentlemen, however, were not at quite such a discount with Mrs.
+Mervale as with her daughter and her friend; and she continued to
+descant upon the high standing of Mr. Hazlewood the elder, not one
+word in ten of which the girls heard, for she, like most old ladies,
+once started upon former times, was thinking of the pleasant young
+John Hazlewood of early days, who brought back with him a host of
+reminiscences, with which she indulged herself and the girls, while
+they, their heads full of last night's party and Mary Morton and
+Robert Hazlewood, listened as civilly as they could, quite unable to
+keep the thread of her discourse, confounding in her history Robert
+Hazlewood's mother with his grandmother, and wondering all the while
+when she would stop, that they might resume their gossip.
+
+"You visit his sister, Mrs. Constant, don't you?" asked Augusta.
+
+"Yes, we have always visited the Hazlewoods," replied Angila, "but I
+am not intimate with any of them. They always seemed to me those kind
+of pattern people I dislike."
+
+"Is Mr. Constant well off?" inquired Mrs. Mervale.
+
+"No, I should think not," replied Angila, "from the way in which they
+live. They have a little bit of a two-story house, and keep only a
+waiter girl. How I do hate to see a woman open the door," she
+continued, addressing Augusta.
+
+"So do I," replied her friend. "I would have a man servant--a woman
+looks so shabby."
+
+"Yes," returned Angila. "There's nothing I dislike so much. No woman
+shall ever go to my door."
+
+"If you have a man servant," suggested Mrs. Mervale.
+
+"Of course," said Angila; "and that I will."
+
+"But suppose you cannot afford it," said her mother.
+
+"I don't choose to suppose any thing so disagreeable or improbable,"
+replied her daughter, gayly.
+
+"It may be disagreeable," continued Mrs. Mervale, "but I don't see the
+improbability of the thing, Angila, nor, indeed, the disagreeability
+even. The Constants are young people with a small family, and I think
+a woman is quite sufficient for them. Their house is small, I
+suppose."
+
+"Oh, yes, a little bit of a place."
+
+"Large enough for them," replied Mrs. Mervale, whose ideas were not as
+enlarged as her daughter's.
+
+"Perhaps so," said Angila, "but I do hate low ceilings so. I don't
+care about a large house, but I do like large rooms."
+
+"You can hardly have large rooms in a small house," remarked Mrs.
+Mervale, smiling.
+
+"Why, Mrs. Astley's is only a two-story house, mamma, and her rooms
+are larger than these."
+
+"Yes, my dear, Mrs. Astley's is an expensive house; the lot must be
+thirty feet by--"
+
+But Angila had no time to go into the dimensions of people's "lots."
+She and Augusta were back to the party again; and they discussed
+dresses, and looks, and manners, with great _gout_.
+
+Their criticisms were, like most young people's, always in extremes.
+The girls had either looked "lovely" or "frightful," and the young men
+were either "charming" or "odious;" and they themselves, from their
+own account, had been in a constant state of either delight or terror.
+
+"I was so afraid Robert Hazlewood was going to ask me to waltz," said
+Angila; "and he waltzes so abominably that I did not know what I
+should do. But, to my delight, he asked me only for a cotillion, and I
+fortunately was engaged. I was so glad it was so."
+
+"Then you did not dance with him at all?"
+
+"No--to my great joy, he walked off, angry, I believe."
+
+"Oh, my dear!" remonstrated her mother.
+
+"Why not, mother," replied Angila. "He's my 'favorite aversion.' Well,
+Augusta," she continued, turning to her friend, "and when do you sail
+for New Orleans?"
+
+"On Monday," replied Augusta.
+
+"On Monday!--so soon! Oh, what shall I do without you, Augusta!" said
+Angila, quite pathetically. "And you will be gone six months, you
+think?"
+
+"Yes, so papa says," replied the young lady. "He does not expect to be
+able to return before May."
+
+"Not before May! And its only November now!" said Angila, in prolonged
+accents of grief. "How much may happen in that time!"
+
+"Yes," returned her friend, gaily, "you may be engaged before that."
+
+"Not much danger," replied Angila, laughing.
+
+"But remember, I am to be bridemaid," continued Augusta.
+
+"Certainly," said Angila, in the same tone, "I shall expect you from
+New Orleans on purpose."
+
+"And who will it be to, Angila," said Augusta.
+
+"That's more than I can tell," replied Angila; "but somebody that's
+very charming, I promise you."
+
+"By the way, what is your _beau ideal_, Angila, I never heard you
+say," continued Augusta.
+
+"My _beau ideal_ is as shadowy and indistinct as one of Ossian's
+heroes," replied Angila, laughing; "something very distinguished in
+air and manners, with black eyes and hair, are the only points decided
+on. For the rest, Augusta, I refer you to Futurity," she added, gayly.
+
+"I wonder who you will marry!" said Augusta, with the sudden fervor of
+a young lady on so interesting a topic.
+
+"I don't know, only nobody that I have ever seen yet," replied Angila,
+with animation.
+
+"He must be handsome, I suppose," said Augusta.
+
+"No," replied Angila, "I don't care for beauty. A man should have a
+decided air of the gentleman, with an expression of talent, height,
+and all that--but I don't care about what you call beauty."
+
+"You are very moderate, indeed, in your requirements, my dear," said
+her mother, laughing. "And pray, my love, what have you to offer this
+_rara avis_ in return for such extraordinary charms."
+
+"Love, mamma," replied the gay girl, smiling.
+
+"And suppose, my dear," pursued her mother, "that your hero should set
+as high an estimate upon himself as you do upon yourself. Your tall,
+elegant, talented man, may expect a wife who has fortune, beauty and
+talents, too."
+
+Angila laughed. She was not vain, but she knew she was pretty, and she
+was sufficiently of a belle to be satisfied with her own powers if she
+could only meet with the man, so she said, playfully.
+
+"Well, then, mamma, he won't be _my_ hero, that's all."
+
+And no doubt she answered truly. The possession of such gifts are very
+apt to vary in young ladies' eyes according to the gentleman's
+perception of their charms. And heroes differ from one another,
+according as the pronouns "mine and thine," may be pre-fixed to his
+title.
+
+"And such a bijou of a house as I mean to have," continued Angila,
+with animation. "The back parlor and dining-room shall open into a
+conservatory, where I shall have any quantity of canary-birds--"
+
+"My dear," interrupted her mother, "what nonsense you do talk."
+
+"Why, mamma," said Angila, opening her eyes very wide, "don't you like
+canaries?"
+
+"Yes, my dear," replied her mother, "I don't object to aviaries or
+conservatories, only to your talking of them in this way, as matters
+of course and necessity. They are all very well for rich people."
+
+"Well, then, I mean to be rich," continued Angila, playfully.
+
+"That's the very nonsense I complain of," said her mother. "It's
+barely possible, but certainly very improbable, Angila, that you ever
+should be rich; and considering you have been used to nothing of the
+kind, it really amuses me to hear you talk so. Your father and I have
+lived all our lives very comfortably and happily, Angila, without
+either aviary or conservatory, and I rather think you will do the
+same, my love."
+
+"Your father and I!" What a falling off was there! for although Angila
+loved her father and mother dearly, she could not imagine herself
+intent upon household occupations, an excellent motherly woman some
+thirty years hence, any more than that her _beau ideal_ should wear
+pepper and salt like her father.
+
+"It was all very well for papa and mamma," but to persuade a girl of
+eighteen that she wants no more than her mother, whose heart happens
+to be like Mrs. Mervale, just then full of a new carpet that Mr.
+Mervale is hesitating about affording, is out of the question.
+
+And, unreasonable as it may be, whoever would make a young girl more
+rational, destroys at once the chief charm of her youth--the
+exuberance of her fresh imagination, that gilds not only the future,
+but throws a rosy light upon all surrounding objects. Her visions, I
+grant you, are absurd, but the girl without visions is a clod of the
+valley, for she is without imagination--and without imagination, what
+is life? what is love?
+
+Never fear that her visions will not be fulfilled, and therefore bring
+disappointment--for the power carries the pleasure with it. The same
+gift that traces the outline, fills up the sketch. The girls who dream
+of heroes are those most ready to fall in love with any body--and no
+woman is so hard to interest as she who never had a vision, and
+consequently sees men just as they are; and so if Angila talked
+nonsense, Mrs. Mervale's sense was not much wiser.
+
+Angila was a pretty, playful, romantic girl, rather intolerant of the
+people she did not like, and enthusiastic about those she did; full of
+life and animation, she was a decided belle in the gay circle in
+which she moved.
+
+Miss Lenox was her dearest friend for the time being, and the proposed
+separation for the next six months was looked upon as a cruel
+affliction, only to be softened by the most frequent and confidential
+correspondence.
+
+For the first few weeks of Augusta's absence, the promises exchanged
+on both sides were vehemently fulfilled. Letters were written two or
+three limes a week, detailing every minute circumstance that happened
+to either. But at the end of that time Angila was at a party where she
+met Robert Hazlewood, who talked to her for some time. It was not a
+dancing party, and consequently they conversed together more than they
+had ever done before. He seemed extremely amused with her liveliness,
+and looked at her with unmistakable admiration. Had Augusta Lenox been
+there to see, perhaps Angila would not have received his attentions so
+graciously; but there being nothing to remind her of his being her
+"favorite aversion," she talked with animation, pleased with the
+admiration she excited, without being annoyed by any inconvenient
+reminiscences. And not only was Miss Lenox absent, but Miss Morton was
+present, and Angila thought she looked over at them a little
+anxiously; so that a little spirit of rivalry heightened, if not her
+pleasure, certainly Hazlewood's consequence in her eyes. Girls are
+often much influenced by each other in these matters--and the absence
+of Miss Lenox, who "did not think much of Robert Hazlewood," with the
+presence of Miss Morton who did, had no small influence in Angila's
+future fate.
+
+"Did you have a pleasant party?" asked Mrs. Mervale, who had not been
+with her daughter the evening before.
+
+"Yes, very pleasant," replied Angila; "one of the pleasantest
+'conversation parties' I have ever been at."
+
+And "who was there--and who did you talk to?" were the next questions,
+which launched Angila in a full length description of every thing and
+every body--and among them figured quite conspicuously Robert
+Hazlewood.
+
+"And you found him really clever?" said her mother.
+
+"Oh, decidedly," replied her daughter.
+
+"Who," said her brother, looking up from his breakfast, "Hazlewood?
+Certainly he is. He's considered one of the cleverest among the young
+lawyers. Decidedly a man of talent."
+
+Angila looked pleased.
+
+"His father is a man of talent before him," observed Mrs. Mervale. "As
+a family, the Hazlewoods have always been distinguished for ability.
+This young man is ugly, you say, Angila?"
+
+"Yes--" replied Angila, though with some hesitation. "Yes, he is ugly,
+certainly--but he has a good countenance; and when he converses he is
+better looking than I thought him."
+
+"It's a pity he's conceited," said Mrs. Mervale, innocently; her
+impression of the young man being taken from her daughter's previous
+description of him. "Since he is really clever, it's a pity, for it's
+such a drawback always."
+
+"Conceited! I don't think he's conceited," said Angila, quite
+forgetting her yesterday's opinion.
+
+"Don't you? I thought it was you who said so, my dear," replied her
+mother, quietly.
+
+"Yes, I did once think so," said Angila, slightly blushing at her own
+inconsistency. "I don't know why I took the idea in my head--but in
+fact I talked more to him, and became better acquainted with him last
+evening than I ever have before. When there is dancing, there is so
+little time for conversation; and he really talks very well."
+
+"He is engaged to Miss Morton, you say?" continued Mrs. Mervale.
+
+"Well, I don't know," replied Angila, adding, as she remembered the
+animated looks of admiration he had bestowed upon herself, "I doubt
+it--that is the report, however."
+
+"Hazlewood's no more engaged to Mary Morton than I am," said young
+Mervale, carelessly. "Where did you get that idea?"
+
+"Why every body says so, George," said Angila.
+
+"Pshaw! every body's saying so don't make it so."
+
+"But he's very attentive to her," replied Angila.
+
+"Well, and if he is," retorted Mervale, "it does not follow that he
+must be in love with her. You women do jump to conclusions, and make
+up matches in such a way," he continued, almost angrily.
+
+"I think she likes him," pursued Angila. "I think she would have him."
+
+"Have him! to be sure she would," replied George, in the same tone;
+not that he considered the young lady particularly in love with his
+friend, but as if any girl might be glad to have him--for brothers are
+very apt to view such cases differently from sisters, who refuse young
+gentlemen for their friends without mercy.
+
+"But he's ugly, you say," continued Mrs. Mervale, sorrowfully, who,
+old lady as she was, liked a handsome young man, and always lamented
+when she found mental gifts unaccompanied by personal charms.
+
+"Yes, he's no beauty, that's certain," said Angila, gayly.
+
+"Has he a good air and figure?" pursued Mrs. Mervale, still hoping so
+clever a man might be better looking after all.
+
+"Yes, tolerable--middle height--nothing remarkable one way or the
+other." And then the young lady went off to tell some piece of news,
+that quite put Mr. Hazlewood out of her mother's head for the present.
+
+When Angila next wrote to Augusta, although she spoke of Mrs.
+Carpenter's party, a little consciousness prevented her saying much
+about Robert Hazlewood, and consequently her friend was quite
+unsuspicious of the large share he had in making the party she
+described so pleasant.
+
+Hazlewood had really been pleased by Angila. She was pretty--and he
+found her lively and intelligent. He had always been inclined to
+admire her, but she had turned from him once or twice in what he had
+thought a haughty manner, and consequently he had scarcely known her
+until they met at this little _conversazione_ of Mrs. Carpenter's,
+where accident placed them near each other. The party was so small
+that where people happened to find themselves, there they staid--it
+requiring some courage for a young man to break the charmed ring, and
+deliberately plant himself before any lady, or attempt to talk to any
+one except her beside whom fate had placed him.
+
+Now Angila had the corner seat on a sofa near the fire-place, and
+Hazlewood was standing, leaning against the chimney-piece, so that a
+nicer, more cosy position for a pleasant talk could hardly be
+conceived in so small a circle. Miss Morton was on the other side of
+the fire-place, occupying the corresponding situation to Angila, and
+Angila could see her peeping forward from time to time to see if
+Hazlewood still maintained his place. His back was turned toward her,
+so if she did throw any anxious glances that way, he did not see them.
+
+Angila met him a few evenings after this at the Opera, and found that
+he was a passionate lover of music. They talked again, and he very
+well, for he really was a sensible, well-educated young man. Music is
+a favorite source of inspiration, and Hazlewood was a connoisseur as
+well as amateur. She found that he seldom missed a night at the Opera,
+and "she was surprised she had not seen him there before, as she went
+herself very often."
+
+"He had seen her, however;" and he looked as if it were not easy not
+to see _her_ when she was there.
+
+She blushed and was pleased, for it evidently was not an unmeaning
+compliment.
+
+"Mr. Hazlewood's very clever," she said the next day; "and his tastes
+are so cultivated and refined. He is very different from the usual run
+of young men." (When a girl begins to think a man different from the
+"usual run," you may be sure she herself is off the common track.)
+"There's something very manly in all his sentiments, independent and
+high-toned. He cannot be engaged to Mary Morton, for I alluded to the
+report, and he seemed quite amused at the idea. I can see he thinks
+her very silly, which she is, though pretty--though he was two
+gentlemanly to say so."
+
+"How, then, did you find out that he thought so," asked George,
+smiling.
+
+"Oh, from one or two little things. We were speaking of a German poem
+that I was trying to get the other day, and he said he had it, but had
+lent it to Miss Morton. 'However,' he added, with a peculiar smile,
+'he did not believe she wanted to read it, and at any rate, he would
+bring it to me as soon as she returned it. He doubted whether she was
+much of a German reader.' But it was more the smile and the manner in
+which he said it, than the words, that made me think he had no very
+high opinion of her literary tastes."
+
+"He may not like her any the less for that," said George, carelessly.
+"I think your clever literary men rarely do value a woman less for her
+ignorance."
+
+But there was an expression in Angila's pretty face that seemed to
+contradict this assertion; for, like most pretty women, the was vainer
+of her talents than her beauty--and she thought Hazlewood had been
+quite struck by some of her criticisms the night before.
+
+However this might be, the intimacy seemed to progress at a wonderful
+rate. He called and brought her books; and they had a world to say
+every time they met, which, whether by accident or design, was now
+beginning to be very often.
+
+"You knew old Mr. Hazlewood, mamma, did not you?" said Angila. "And
+who did you say Mrs. Hazlewood was?" And now she listened very
+differently from the last time that her mother had launched forth on
+the topic of old times and friends. Angila was wonderfully interested
+in all the history of the whole race, for Mrs. Mervale began with the
+great grandfathers, maternal and paternal; and she kept the thread of
+the story with surprising distinctness, and made out the family
+pedigree with amazing correctness.
+
+"Then they are an excellent family, mamma," she said.
+
+"To be sure they are," replied Mrs. Mervale, "one of the oldest and
+best in the city."
+
+It was wonderful what a quantity of books Angila read just about this
+time; but Hazlewood was always sending her something, which she seemed
+to take peculiar pleasure in surprising him by having finished before
+they met again. And her bright eyes grew brighter, and occasionally,
+and that not unfrequently, they had an abstracted, dreamy look, as if
+her thoughts were far away, occupied in very pleasant visions--whether
+they were now of Ossian-heroes, dark-eyed and dim, we doubt.
+
+She was rather unpleasantly roused to a waking state, however, by a
+passage in one of Augusta Lenox's last letters, which was,
+
+"What has become of your 'favorite aversion,' Robert Hazlewood? When
+are he and Mary Morton to be married? I give her joy of him--as you
+say, how can she?"
+
+Angila colored scarlet with indignation as she read this, almost
+wondering at first what Augusta meant.
+
+She did not answer the letter; some consciousness, mixed with a good
+deal of vexation, prevented her.
+
+Hazlewood's attentions to Angila began to be talked of a good deal.
+Her mother was congratulated, and she was complimented, for every body
+spoke well of him. "A remarkably clever young man with excellent
+prospects," the old people said. The young girls talked of him
+probably pretty much as Angila and Augusta had done--but she did not
+hear that, and the young men said,
+
+"Hazlewood was a devilish clever fellow, and that Angila Mervale would
+do very well if she could get him."
+
+That the gentleman was desperately in love there was no doubt; and as
+for the young lady--that she was flattered and pleased and interested,
+was hardly less clear. Her bright eyes grew softer and more dreamy
+every day.
+
+Of what was she dreaming? What could her visions be now? Can she by
+any possibility make a hero of Robert Hazlewood? Sober common sense
+would say "No!" but bright-eyed, youthful imagination may boldly
+answer, "Why not?" Time, however, can only decide that point.
+
+Two more letters came from Augusta Lenox about this time, and remained
+unanswered. "Wait till I am engaged," Angila had unconsciously said to
+herself, and then blushed the deepest blush, as she caught the words
+that had risen to her lips.
+
+She did not wait long, however. Bright, beaming, blushing and tearful,
+she soon announced the intelligence to her mother, asking her consent,
+and permission to refer Mr. Hazlewood to her father.
+
+The Mervales were very well pleased with the match, which, in fact,
+was an excellent one, young Hazlewood being in every respect Angila's
+superior, except in appearance, where she, as is the woman's right,
+bore the palm of beauty. Not but that she was quick, intelligent, and
+well cultivated; but there are more such girls by hundreds in our
+community, than there are men of talent, reading, industry and worth
+to merit them; and Angila was amazingly happy to have been one of the
+fortunate few to whose lot such a man falls.
+
+And now, indeed, she wrote a long, long letter to Augusta--so full of
+happiness, describing Hazlewood, as she thought, so distinctly, that
+Augusta must recognize him at once--so she concluded by saying,
+
+"And now I need not name him, as you must know who I mean."
+
+"I must know who she means!" said Augusta, much perplexed. "Why I am
+sure I cannot imagine who she means! Talented, agreeable, with
+cultivated tastes! Who can it be? 'Not handsome, but very
+gentlemanlike-looking.' Well, I have no idea who it is--I certainly
+cannot know the man. But as we sail next week, I shall be at home in
+time for the wedding. How odd that I should be really her bridemaid in
+May after all!"
+
+Miss Lenox arrived about two months after Angila's engagement had been
+announced, and found her friend brilliant with happiness. After the
+first exclamations and greetings, Augusta said with impatient
+curiosity,
+
+"But who is it, Angila--you never told me?"
+
+"But surely you guessed at once," said Angila, incredulously.
+
+"No, indeed," replied her friend, earnestly, "I have not the most
+distant idea."
+
+"Why, Robert Hazlewood, to be sure!"
+
+"Robert Hazlewood! Oh, Angila! You are jesting," exclaimed her friend,
+thrown quite off her guard by astonishment.
+
+"Yes, indeed!" replied Angila, with eager delight, attributing
+Augusta's surprise and incredulous tones to quite another source. "You
+may well be surprised, Augusta. Is it not strange that such a man--one
+of his superior talents--should have fallen in love with such a
+mad-cap as me."
+
+Augusta could hardly believe her ears. But the truth was, that Angila
+had so long since forgotten her prejudice, founded on nothing, against
+Hazlewood, that she was not conscious now that she had ever
+entertained any such feelings. She was not obliged, in common phrase,
+to "eat her own words," for she quite forgot that she had ever uttered
+them. And now, with the utmost enthusiasm, she entered into all her
+plans and prospects--told Augusta, with the greatest interest, as if
+she thought the theme must be equally delightful to her friend--all
+her mother's long story about the old Hazlewoods, and what a "charming
+nice family they were," ("those pattern people that she hated so," as
+Augusta remembered, but all of which was buried in the happiest
+oblivion with Angila,) and the dear little house that was being
+furnished like a bijou next to Mrs. Constant's, (next to Mrs.
+Constant's!--one of those small houses with low ceilings! Augusta
+gasped;) and how many servants she was going to keep; and what a nice
+young girl she had engaged already as waiter.
+
+"You mean, then, to have a woman waiter?" Augusta could not help
+saying.
+
+"Oh, to be sure!" said Angila. "What should I do with a man in such a
+pretty little establishment as I mean to have. And then you know we
+must be economical--Mr. Hazlewood is a young lawyer, and I don't mean
+to let him slave himself to make the two ends meet. You'll see what a
+nice economical little housekeeper I'll be."
+
+And, in short, Augusta found that the same bright, warm imagination
+that had made Angila once dream of Ossian-heroes, now endowed Robert
+Hazlewood with every charm she wanted, and even threw a romantic glow
+over a small house, low ceilings, small economies, and all but turned
+the woman-servant into a man. Cinderella's godmother could hardly have
+done more. Such is the power of love!
+
+"Well," said Augusta, in talking it all over with her brother, "I
+cannot comprehend it yet; Angila, who used to be so fastidious, so
+critical, who expected so much in the man she was to marry!"
+
+"She is not the first young lady who has come down from her pedestal,"
+replied her brother, laughing.
+
+"No, but she has not," returned Augusta, "that's the oddest part of
+the whole--she has only contrived somehow to raise Hazlewood on a
+pedestal, too. You'd think they were the only couple in the world
+going to be married. She's actually in love with him, desperately in
+love with him; and it was only just before I went to New Orleans that
+she said--"
+
+"My dear," interrupted her mother, "there's no subject on which women
+change their minds oftener than on this. Love works wonders--indeed,
+the only miracles left in the world are of his creation."
+
+"But she used to wonder at Mary Morton's liking him, mamma."
+
+"Ah, my dear," replied her mother, "that was when he was attentive to
+Mary Morton and not her. It makes a wonderful difference when the
+thing becomes personal. And if you really love Angila, my dear, you
+will forget, or at least not repeat, what she said six months before
+marriage."
+
+
+
+
+A NEW ENGLAND LEGEND
+
+BY CAROLINE F. ORNE.
+
+[The subject of the following ballad may be found in the "Christus
+Super Aquas" of Mather's Magnalia.]
+
+
+  "God's blessing on the bonny barque!" the gallant seamen cried,
+  As with her snowy sails outspread she cleft the yielding tide--
+  "God's blessing on the bonny barque!" cried the landsmen from the shore,
+  As with a swallow's rapid flight she skimmed the waters o'er.
+  Oh never from the good old Bay, a fairer ship did sail,
+  Or in more trim and brave array did court the favoring gale.
+  Cheerily sung the marinere as he climbed the high, high mast,
+  The mast that was made of the Norway pine, that scorned the mountain-blast.
+  But brave Mark Edward dashed a tear in secret from his eye,
+  As he saw green Trimount dimmer grow against the distant sky,
+  And fast before the gathering breeze his noble vessel fly.
+  Oh, youth will cherish many a hope, and many a fond desire,
+  And nurse in secret in the heart the hidden altar-fire!
+  And though young Mark Edward trode his deck with footstep light and free,
+  Yet a shadow was on his manly brow as his good ship swept the sea;
+  A shadow was on his manly brow as he marked the fading shore,
+  And the faint line of the far green hills where dwelt his loved Lenore.
+  Merrily sailed the bonny barque toward her destined port,
+  And the white waves curled around her prow as if in wanton sport.
+  Merrily sailed the bonny barque till seven days came and past,
+  When her snowy canvas shivered and rent before the northern blast,
+  And out of her course, and away, away, careered she wild and fast.
+  Black lowered the heavens, loud howled the winds, as the gallant barque
+      drove on,
+  "God save her from the stormy seas," prayed the sailors every one,
+  But hither and thither the mad winds bore her, careening wildly on.
+  Oh, a fearful thing is the mighty wind as it raves the land along,
+  And the forests rock beneath the shock of the fierce blasts and the strong,
+  But when the wild and angry waves come rushing on their prey,
+  And to and fro the good ship reels with the wind's savage play,
+  Oh! then it is more fearful far in that frail barque to be,
+  At the mercy of the wind and wave, alone upon the sea.
+  Mark Edward's eye grew stern and calm as day by day went on,
+  And farther from the destined port the gallant barque was borne.
+  From her tall masts the sails were rent, yet fast and far she flew,
+  But whither she drove there knew not one among her gallant crew,
+  Nor the captain, nor the marineres, not one among them knew.
+  Now there had come and past away full many weary days,
+  And each looked in each other's face with sad and blank amaze,
+  For ghastly Famine's bony hand was stretched to clutch his prey,
+  And still the adverse winds blew on as they would blow alway.
+  And dark and fearful whispered words from man to man went past,
+  As of some dread and fatal deed which they must do at last.
+  And night and morn and noon they prayed, oh blessed voice of prayer!
+  That God would bring their trembling souls out of this great despair.
+  And every straining eye was bent out o'er the ocean-wave,
+  But they saw no sail, there came no ship the storm-tost barque to save.
+  The fatal die was cast at length; and tears filled every eye
+  As forth a gentle stripling slept and gave himself to die.
+  They looked upon his pure white brow, and his face so fair to see,
+  And all with one accord cried out, "Oh, God! this must not be!"
+  And brave Mark Edward calmly said, "Let the lot fall on me."
+  "Not so," the generous youth exclaimed, "of little worth am I,
+  But 'twould strike the life from out us all were it thy lot to die."
+  "Let us once more entreat the Lord; he yet our souls may spare,"
+  And kneeling down the gray-haired man sent up a fervent prayer.
+  Oh mighty is the voice of prayer! to him that asks is given,
+  And as to Israel of old was manna sent from heaven,
+  So now their prayer was answered, for, leaping from the sea,
+  A mighty fish fell in their midst, where they astonished be.
+  "Now glory to the Father be, and to the Son be praise!
+  Upon the deep He walketh, in the ocean are His ways,
+  'Tis meet that we should worship Him who doeth right always."
+  And then from all that noble crew a hymn of joy arose--
+  It flowed from grateful hearts as free as running water flows.
+
+  Day after day still passed away, gaunt Famine pressed again,
+  Each turned away from each, as if smit with a sudden pain.
+  They feared to meet each other's eyes and read the secret there,
+  And each his pangs in silence strove a little yet to bear.
+  The eye grew dim with looking out upon the weary main,
+  Wave rolling after wave was all that answered back again.
+  But night and morn and noon they prayed--oh blessed voice of prayer!
+  That God would bring their trembling souls out of this great despair.
+  Again the fatal die was cast; a man of powerful frame
+  Slowly and with reluctant step to the dread summons came.
+  Large drops of anguish on his brow--his lips were white with fear--
+  Oh 'tis a dreadful death to die! Is there no succor near?
+  They looked around on every side, but saw no sight of cheer.
+  "It is not for myself I dread," the sailor murmured low,
+  "But for my wife and little babes, oh what a tale of wo!"
+  "It shall not be," Mark Edward cried, "for their dear sakes go free.
+  I have no wife to mourn my fate, let the lot fall on me."
+  "Not so, oh generous and brave!" the sailor grateful said,
+  "The lot is mine, but cheer thou her and them when I am dead."
+  And turning with a calmer front he bade the waiting crew
+  What not themselves but fate compelled, to haste and quickly do.
+  But who shall do the dismal work? The innocent life who take?
+  One after one each shrunk away, but no word any spake.
+  Still hunger pressed them sore, and pangs too dreadful to be borne.
+  "Be merciful, oh Father, hear! To thee again we turn."
+  Then in their agony they strove, and wrestled long in prayer,
+  Till suddenly they heard a sound come from the upper air,
+  A sound of rushing wings, and lo! oh sight of joy! on high
+  A great bird circles round the masts, and ever draws more nigh.
+  In lightning play of hope and fear one breathless moment passed,
+  The next, the bird has lighted down and settled on the mast.
+  And soon within his grasp secure a seaman holds him fast.
+  "Now glory be unto our God--and to His name be praise!
+  Upon the deep he walketh, in the ocean are his ways,
+  From ghastly fear our suppliant souls he royally hath freed,
+  And sent us succor from the air in this our sorest need."
+
+  But day by day still passed away, and Famine fiercer pressed,
+  And still the adverse winds blew on and knew no change or rest.
+  Yet strove they in their agony to let no murmuring word
+  Against the good and gracious Lord, from out their lips be heard.
+  But with their wildly gleaming eyes they gazed out o'er the main.
+  Wave rolling after wave was all that answered back again.
+  On the horizon's distant verge not even a speck was seen,
+  But the cresting foam of breaking waves still shimmering between.
+  And fiercer yet, as hour by hour went slowly creeping by,
+  The famine wrung their tortured frames till it were bliss to die.
+  And hopes of further aid grew faint, and it did seem that they
+  Out on the waste of waters wide of Heaven forgotten lay.
+  But night and morn and noon they prayed--oh blessed voice of prayer!
+  That God would save their trembling souls out of this great despair.
+  Again the fatal die was cast, and 'mid a general gloom,
+  Mark Edward calmly forward came to meet the appointed doom.
+  But when they saw his noble port, and his manly bearing brave,
+  Each would have given up his life that bold young heart to save.
+  They would have wept, but their hot eyes refused the grateful tear,
+  Yet with sorrowful and suppliant looks they drew themselves more near.
+  Mark Edward turned aside and spoke in accents calm and low,
+  Unto a man with silver hair, whose look was full of wo,
+  And bade him if the Lord should spare, and they should reach the shore,
+  To bear a message from his lips to his beloved Lenore.
+  "Tell her my thoughts were God's and hers," the brave young spirit cried,
+  "Tell her not how it came to pass, say only that I died."
+  Then with a brief and earnest prayer his soul to God he gave,
+  Beseeching that the sacrifice the lives of all might save.
+  Each looked on each, but not a hand would strike the fatal blow,
+  It was a death pang but to think what hand should lay him low.
+  And sick at heart they turned away their misery to bear,
+  And wrestled once again with God in agony of prayer.
+  As drops of blood wrung from the heart fell each imploring word,
+  Oh, God of Heaven! and can it be such prayer is still unheard?
+  They strained once more each aching orb out o'er the gloomy main,
+  Wave rolling after wave was all that answered back again.
+  They waited yet--they lingered yet--they searched the horizon round,
+  No sight of land, no blessed sail, no living thing was found.
+  They lingered yet--hope faded fast from out the hearts of all.
+  They waited yet--till black Despair sunk o'er them like a pall.
+  They turned to where Mark Edward stood with his unblenching brow,
+  Or he must die their lives to save, or all must perish now.
+  They lingered yet--they waited yet--a sudden shriek rung out--
+  "A sail! A sail! Oh, blessed Lord!" burst forth one joyful shout.
+  New strength those famished men received; fervent their thanks, but brief--
+  They man their boat, they reach the ship, they ask a swift relief.
+  Strange faces meet their view, they hear strange words in tongues unknown,
+  And evil eyes with threatening gaze are sternly looking down.
+  They pause--for a new terror bids their hearts' warm current freeze,
+  For they have met a pirate ship, the scourge of all the seas.
+  But up and out Mark Edward spake, and in the pirates' tongue,
+  And when the pirate captain heard, quick to his side he sprung,
+  And vowed by all the saints of France--the living and the dead--
+  There should not even a hair be harmed upon a single head,
+  For once, when in a dismal strait, Mark Edward gave him aid,
+  And now the debt long treasured up should amply be repaid.
+  He gave them water from his casks, and bread, and all things store,
+  And showed them how to lay their course to reach the destined shore.
+  And the blessing of those famished men went with him evermore.
+
+  Again the favoring gale arose, the barque went bounding on,
+  And speedily her destined port was now in safety won.
+  And after, when green Trimount's hills greet their expectant eyes,
+  New thanks to Heaven, new hymns of joy unto the Lord arise.
+  For glory be unto our Lord, and to His name be praise!
+  Upon the deep he walketh, in the ocean are his ways.
+  'Tis meet that we should worship him who doeth right always.
+
+
+
+
+SONG OF SLEEP.
+
+BY G. G. FOSTER.
+
+
+    Oh the dreamy world of sleep for me,
+      With its visions pure and bright,--
+    Its fairy throngs in revelry,
+      Under the pale moonlight!
+    Sleep, sleep, I wait for thy spell,
+    For my eyes are heavy with watching well
+    For the starry night, and the world of dreams
+    That ever in sleep on my spirit beams.
+
+    The day, the day, I cannot 'bide,
+      'Tis dull and dusty and drear--
+    And, owl-like, away from the sun I hide,
+      That in dreams I may wander freer.
+    Sleep, sleep, come to my eyes--
+    Welcome as blue to the midnight skies--
+    Faithful as dew to drooping flowers--
+    I only live in thy dreamy bowers.
+
+    The sun is purpling down the west,
+      Day's death-robes glitter fair,
+    And weary men, agasp for rest,
+      For the solemn night prepare.
+    Sleep, sleep, hasten to me!
+    The shadows lengthen across the lea;
+    The birds are weary, and so am I;
+    Tired world and dying day good-bye!
+
+
+
+
+THE CRUISE OF THE RAKER.
+
+A TALE OF THE WAR OF 1812-15.
+
+BY HENRY A. CLARK.
+
+(_Continued from page_ 74.)
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+_The Chase and the Capture._
+
+On the deck of the pirate craft stood a young man of powerful frame,
+and singularly savage features, rendered more repulsive by the
+disposition of the hair which was allowed to grow almost over the
+entire mouth, and hung from the chin in heavy masses nearly to the
+waist. With his elbow resting against the fore-mast of the vessel, he
+was gazing through a spy-glass upon the brig he had been so long
+pursuing. A burly negro stood at the helm, holding the tiller, and
+steering the brig with an ease which denoted his vast strength,
+scarcely moving his body, but meeting the long waves, which washed
+over the side of the vessel, and rushed in torrents through the
+hawse-holes, merely by the power of his arm.
+
+"Keep her more in the wind," shouted the commander, with an oath, to
+the helmsman.
+
+"Ay, ay sir," responded the negro gruffly.
+
+"Don't let me hear a sail flap again or I'll score your back for you,
+you son of a sea-cook."
+
+With this pleasant admonition the young man resumed his night-glass.
+
+The captain of the pirate brig was an Englishman by birth; his history
+was little known even to his own crew, but it was remarkable that
+though always savage and blood-thirsty, he was peculiarly so to his
+own countrymen, evincing a hatred and malignancy toward every thing
+connected with his native land, that seemed more than fiendish--never
+smiling but when his sword was red with the blood of his countrymen,
+and his foot planted upon her conquered banner. It was evident that
+some deep wrong had driven him forth to become an outcast and a fiend.
+A close inspection of his features developed the outlines of a noble
+countenance yet remaining, though marred and deformed by years of
+passion and of crime. His crew, which numbered nearly fifty, were
+gathered from almost every nation of the civilized world, yet were all
+completely under his command. They were now scattered over the vessel
+in various lounging attitudes, apparently careless of every thing
+beyond the ease of the passing moment, leaving the management of the
+brig to the two or three hands necessary to control the graceful and
+obedient craft.
+
+For long hours the captain of the pirate brig stood following the
+motions of the flying merchantman; he thought not of sleep or of
+refreshment, it was enough for him that he was in pursuit of an
+English vessel, that his revenge was again to be gratified with
+English blood.
+
+He was roused by a light touch of the arm--he turned impatiently.
+
+"Why, Florette."
+
+A beautiful girl stood beside him, gazing into his face half with fear
+and half with love. Her dress was partly that of a girl and partly of
+a boy; over a pair of white loose sailor's trowsers a short gown was
+thrown, fastened with a blue zone, and her long hair fell in thick,
+luxuriant masses from beneath a gracefully shaped little straw
+hat--altogether she was as lovely in feature and form as Venus
+herself, with an eye blue as the ocean, and a voice soft and sweet as
+the southern breeze.
+
+"Dear William, will you not go below and take some rest?"
+
+"I want none, girl; I shall not sleep till every man on yonder vessel
+has gone to rest in the caves of ocean."
+
+"But you will eat?"
+
+"Pshaw! Florette, leave me; your place is below."
+
+The girl said no more, but slowly glided to the companion-way and
+disappeared into the little cabin.
+
+The long night at length wore away, and as the clear light of morning
+shone upon the waters the merchant vessel was no longer visible from
+the deck of the pirate.
+
+"A thousand devils! has he escaped me. Ho! the one of you with the
+sharpest eyes up to the mast-head. Stay, I will go myself."
+
+Thus speaking, the captain mounted the main-mast and gazed long and
+anxiously; he could see nothing of the vessel. He mounted still
+higher, climbing the slender top-mast till with his hand resting upon
+the main-truck he once more looked over the horizon. Thus far his gaze
+had been directed to windward, in the course where the vanished brig
+had last been seen. At length he turned to leeward, and far in the
+distant horizon his eagle eye caught faint sight of a sail, like the
+white and glancing wing of a bird. With wonderful rapidity he slid to
+the deck, and gave orders to set the brig before the wind. The
+beautiful little bark fell off gracefully, and in a moment was swiftly
+retracing the waters it had beaten over during the night.
+
+"The revenge will be no less sweet that it is deferred," exclaimed the
+pirate captain, as he threw himself upon the companion-way. "Thirty
+English vessels have I sunk in the deep, and I am not yet
+satisfied--no, no, curses on her name, curses on her laws, they have
+driven me forth from a lordly heritage and an ancient name to die an
+outcast and a pirate."
+
+Pulling his hat over his dark brow, he sat long in deep thought, and
+not one in all his savage crew but would have preferred to board a
+vessel of twice their size than to rouse his commander from his
+thoughtful mood.
+
+Captain Horton for some hours after it had become dark the preceding
+night, had kept his vessel on the same course, perplexing his mind
+with some scheme by which he might deceive the pirate. At length he
+gave orders to lower away the yawl boat, and fit a mast to it, which
+was speedily done. When all was ready, he hung a lantern to the mast,
+with a light that would burn but a short time, and then putting out
+his own ship-light, he fastened the tiller of the yawl and set it
+adrift, knowing that it would keep its course until some sudden gust
+of wind should overcome its steerage way. As soon as he had
+accomplished this, he fell off before the wind, and setting his brig
+on the opposite tack, as soon as he had got to a good distance from
+the light of the yawl, took in all sail till not a rag was left
+standing. He kept his brig in this position until he had the
+satisfaction of seeing the pirate brig pass to windward in pursuit of
+his boat, whose light he knew would go out before the pirate could
+overtake it. When the light of the chase had become faint in the
+distance, he immediately crowded on all sail, and stood off boldly on
+his original course.
+
+None of his crew had gone below to turn in, for all were too anxious
+to sleep, and his passengers still stood beside him upon the
+quarter-deck; John with a large bundle under his arm, which, in answer
+to an inquiry from the merchant, he said was merely a change of dress.
+
+"I think we have given them the slip this time, Mr. Williams," said
+Captain Horton.
+
+"I hope so, captain."
+
+"You can sleep now without danger of being disturbed by unwelcome
+visiters, Miss Julia."
+
+"Well, captain, I am as glad as my father you have escaped. I wish we
+had got near enough to see how they looked though."
+
+"We ought rather, my dear girl, to thank God that they came no nearer
+than they did," said her father half reproachfully.
+
+"True, father, true," and bidding Captain Horton good-night, they
+retired to the cabin.
+
+"You did fool them nice, didn't you, captin?" said John.
+
+"Yes, John, it was tolerably well done, I think myself," replied the
+captain, who, like all of mankind, was more or less vain, and prided
+himself peculiarly upon his skill in his own avocation.
+
+"I shouldn't ha' been much afraid on 'em myself if they had caught
+us," said John.
+
+"You wouldn't, ah!"
+
+"No! I should ha' hated to see all the crew walk on the plank as they
+call it, specially Dick Halyard, but I thinks I should ha' come it
+over 'em myself."
+
+"Well, John, I hope you'll never have such occasion to try your powers
+of deceit, for I fear you would find yourself wofully mistaken."
+
+"Perhaps not, captin, but I'm confounded sleepy, now we've got away
+from the bloody pirates, so I'll just lie down here, captin; I haint
+learned to sleep in a hammock yet. I wish you'd let me have a berth,
+captin, I hate lying in a circle, it cramps a fellow plaguily."
+
+John talked himself to sleep upon the companion-way, where the
+good-natured master of the brig allowed him to remain unmolested, and
+soon after yielding the helm to one of the mates, himself "turned in."
+
+As the morning broke over the sea clear and cloudless, while not a
+sail was visible in any quarter of the horizon, the revulsion of
+feeling occasioned by the transition from despair to confidence, and
+indeed entire assurance of safety, was plainly depicted in the joyous
+countenances of all on the Betsy Allen. The worthy captain made no
+endeavor to check the boisterous merriment of his crew, but lighting
+his pipe, seated himself upon the companion-way, with a complacent
+smile expanding his sun-browned features, which developed itself into
+a self-satisfied and happy laugh as Mr. Williams appeared at the
+cabin-door, leading up his daughter to enjoy the pure morning air,
+fresh from the clear sky and the bounding waters.
+
+"Ha! ha! Mr. Williams, told you so, not a sail in sight, and a fine
+breeze."
+
+"Our thanks are due to you, Captain Horton, for the skillful manner in
+which you eluded the pirate ship."
+
+"Oh! I was as glad to get out of sight of the rascal as you could have
+been, my dear sir, I assure you; now that we are clear of him, I ain't
+afraid to tell Miss Julia that if he had overhauled us we should have
+all gone to Davy Jones' locker, and the Betsy Allen would by this time
+have been burnt to the water's edge."
+
+"I was not ignorant of the danger at any time, Captain Horton."
+
+"Well, you are a brave girl, and deserve to be a sailor's wife, but
+I'm married myself."
+
+"That is unfortunate, captain," said Julia, with a merry laugh, so
+musical in its intonations that the rough sailors who heard its sweet
+cadence could not resist the contagion, and a bright smile lit up each
+weather-beaten countenance within the sound of the merry music.
+
+"Well, I think so myself, though I wouldn't like Mrs. Horton to hear
+me say it, or I should have a rougher breeze to encounter than I ever
+met round Cape Horn--ha! ha! ha! You must excuse me, Miss Julia, but I
+feel in fine spirits this morning, not a sail in sight."
+
+"Sail ho!" shouted the look-out from the main cross-trees.
+
+"Ah!--where away?"
+
+"Right astern."
+
+"Can it be that they have got in our wake again. I'll mount to the
+mast-head and see myself."
+
+Seizing the glass the captain ascended to the cross-trees, where he
+remained for a long time, watching the distant sail. At length he
+returned to the deck.
+
+"They've got our bearings again somehow, confound the cunning rascals;
+and, by the way they are overhauling us, I judge they can beat us as
+well afore the wind as on a tack."
+
+"Well, Captain Horton, we must be resigned to our fate then. It
+matters not so much for me, but it is hard, my daughter, that you
+should be torn from your peaceful home in England to fall a prey to
+these fiends."
+
+"They are a long way from us yet, father; let us hope something may
+happen for our relief, and not give up till we are taken."
+
+"That's the right feeling, Miss Julia," said the captain. "I will do
+all I can to prolong the chase, and we will trust in God for the
+result."
+
+Every device which skillful seamanship could practice was put in
+immediate operation to increase the speed of the brig. There was but a
+solitary hope remaining, that they might fall in with some national
+vessel able to protect them from the pirate. The sails were frequently
+wet, the halyards drawn taut, and the captain himself took the helm.
+When all this was done, each sailor stood gazing upon the pirate as if
+to calculate the speed of his approach by the lifting of his sails
+above the water. The greater part of his top-sails were already in
+sight, and soon the heads of her courses appeared above the wave,
+seeming to sweep up like the long, white wings of a lazy bird, whose
+flight clung to the breast of the sea, as if seeking a resting-place.
+
+By the middle of the day the pirate was within three miles of the
+merchantman, and had already opened upon her with his long gun.
+Captain Horton pressed onward without noticing the balls, which as yet
+had not injured hull or sail. But as the chase approached nearer and
+nearer, the shots began to take effect--a heavy ball made a huge rent
+in the mizzen-topsail--another dashed in the galley, and a third tore
+up the companion-way, and still another cut down the fore-topmast, and
+materially decreased the speed of the vessel.
+
+Noticing this the pirate ceased his fire, and soon drew up within hail
+of the merchantman.
+
+"Ship ahoy--what ship?"
+
+"The Betsy Allen, London."
+
+"Lay-by till I send a boat aboard."
+
+Captain Horton gave orders to his crew to wait the word of command
+before they altered the vessel's course, and then seizing the trumpet,
+hailed the pirate.
+
+"What ship's that?"
+
+"The brig Death--don't you see the flag?"
+
+"I know the character of your ship, doubtless."
+
+"Well, lay-by, or we'll bring you to with a broadside."
+
+Perceiving the inutility of further effort, Captain Horton brought-to,
+and hauled down his flag.
+
+In a short time the jolly-boat of the pirate was lowered from the
+stern, and the commander jumped in, followed by a dozen of his crew.
+
+The vigorous arms of the oarsmen soon brought the boat to the
+merchantman, and the pirate stood upon the deck of the captured
+vessel.
+
+"Well, sir, you have given us some trouble to overhaul you," said he,
+in a manner rather gentlemanly than savage.
+
+"We should have been fools if we had not tried our best to escape."
+
+"True, true--will you inform me how you eluded our pursuit last night.
+I ask merely from motives of curiosity?"
+
+Captain Horton briefly related the deception of the boat.
+
+"Ah! ha! very well done. Here Diego," said he to one of the sailors
+who had followed him, "go below and bring up the passengers."
+
+The swarthy rascal disappeared with a malignant grin through the
+cabin-door, and speedily escorted Mr. Williams to the deck, followed
+by Julia, and, to the surprise of Captain Horton and his crew, another
+female.
+
+"Now, captain," said the pirate, with a fiendish smile, "I shall
+proceed to convey your merchandize to my brig, including these two
+ladies, though, by my faith, we shall have little use for one of them.
+After which I will leave you in quiet."
+
+"I could expect no better terms," said Captain Horton, resignedly.
+
+"O, you will soon be relieved from my presence."
+
+Julia clung to her father, but was torn from his grasp, and the good
+old man was pushed back by the laughing fiends, as he attempted to
+follow her to the boat. The father and daughter parted with a look of
+strong anguish, relieved in the countenance of Julia by a deep
+expression of firmness and resolution.
+
+John was also seized by the pirates, but he had overheard the words of
+their captain that they would soon be left in quiet, and had already
+commenced throwing off his woman's dress.
+
+"Hillo! is the old girl going to strip? Bear a hand here, Mike,"
+shouted Diego, to one of his comrades, "just make fast those
+tow-lines, and haul up her rigging."
+
+Mr. Williams, who immediately conceived the possible advantage it
+might be to Julia to have even so inefficient a protector with her as
+John, addressed him in a stern tone.
+
+"What, will you desert your mistress?"
+
+John stood in doubt, but he was a kind-hearted fellow, and loved Julia
+better than he did any thing else in the world except himself; and
+without further resistance or explanation, allowed himself to be
+conveyed to the boat, though the big tears rolled down his cheeks, and
+nothing even then would have prevented his avowing his original sex,
+but a strong feeling of shame at the thought of leaving Julia.
+
+For hours the pirate's jolly-boat passed backward and forward between
+the two brigs; the sea had become too rough to allow the vessels to be
+fastened together without injury to the light frame of the pirate
+bark; and night had already set in before all the cargo which the
+pirates desired had been removed from the merchantman; but it was at
+length accomplished, and once more the pirates stood upon the deck of
+their own brig.
+
+In a few words their captain explained his plan of destruction to his
+crew, which was willingly assented to, as it was sufficiently cruel
+and vindictive. Three loud cheers burst from their lips, startling the
+crew of the Betsey Allen with its wild cadence, and in another moment
+the pirate-captain leaped into his boat, and followed by a number of
+his crew, returned to the merchantman.
+
+Still preserving his suavity of manner, he addressed Captain Horton as
+he stepped upon the deck, after first ordering the crew to the bows,
+and drawing up his own men with pointed muskets before the
+companion-way.
+
+"Captain Horton, as you are, perhaps, aware it is our policy to act
+upon the old saying that 'dead men tell no tales,' and after
+consultation among ourselves, we have concluded to set your vessel on
+fire, and then depart in peace, leaving you to the quiet I promised
+you."
+
+"Blood-thirsty villain!" shouted the captain of the merchantman, and
+suddenly drawing a pistol, he discharged it full at the pirate's
+breast. The latter was badly wounded, but falling back against the
+main-mast, was able to order his men to pursue their original design
+before he fell fainting in the arms of one of his men, who immediately
+conveyed him to the boat.
+
+The savages proceeded then to fire the vessel in several different
+places, meeting with no resistance from the crew, as a dozen muskets
+pointed at their heads admonished them that immediate death would be
+the consequence.
+
+As soon as the subtle element had so far progressed in its work of
+destruction that the hand of man could not stay it, the pirates jumped
+into their boat, and with a fiendish yell, pulled off for their own
+vessel.
+
+For a very short time the crew of the merchantman stood watching the
+flame and smoke which was fast encircling them, then rousing their
+native energies, and perceiving the utter impossibility of conquering
+the fire, they turned their attention to the only resource left--the
+construction of some sort of a raft that would sustain their united
+weight.
+
+The progress of the flames, however, was so rapid, that though a score
+of busy hands were employed with axes and hatchets, the most that
+could be done was to hurl overboard a few spars and boards, cut away
+the bowsprit and part of the bulwarks, before the exceeding heat
+compelled them to leave the brig.
+
+Mr. Williams, who had remained in a state of stupor since the loss of
+his daughter, was borne to the ship's side, and hurriedly fastened to
+a spar; and then all the crew boldly sprung into the water, and
+pushing the fragments of boards and spars from the burning brig, as
+soon as they attained a safe distance, commenced the construction of
+their raft in the water. This was an exceedingly difficult
+undertaking; but they were working with the energies of despair, and
+board after board was made fast by means of the rope they had thrown
+over with themselves; and in the light of their burning vessel they
+managed at length to build a raft sufficiently strong to bear their
+weight.
+
+Then seating themselves upon it, they almost gave way to despair; they
+had lost the excitement of occupation, and now, in moody silence,
+watched the mounting flames. They were without food, and the sea ran
+high; their condition did, indeed, seem hopeless--and their only
+refuge, death.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+_The Escape._
+
+The fire had made swift work during the time the unfortunate crew were
+occupied in building the raft, and the little brig was now almost
+enveloped in smoke and flame. A burst of fire from her main hatchway
+threw a red glare over the turbulent waters, and showed the vessel's
+masts and rigging brightly displayed against the dark sky above and
+beyond them. The main-sail by this time caught fire, and was blazing
+away along the yard fiercely; and the flame soon reached the loftier
+sails and running rigging; the fire below was raging between decks,
+and rising in successive bursts of flame from the hatchways. The
+vessel had been filled with combustible material, and the doomed brig,
+in a short space of time, was one mass of flame.
+
+To a spectator beholding the sight in safety, it would have been a
+magnificent spectacle--the grandest, the most terrific, perhaps, it is
+possible to conceive--a ship on fire at night in the mid-ocean. The
+hull of the vessel lay flaming like an immense furnace on the surface
+of the deep; her masts, and the lower and topsail-yards, with
+fragments of the rigging hanging round them, sparkling, and scattering
+the fire-flakes, rose high above it, while huge volumes of smoke ever
+and anon obscured the whole, then borne away by the strong breeze,
+left the burning brig doubly distinct, placed in strong relief against
+the dark vault of heaven behind. The lofty spars, as their fastenings
+were burnt through, fell, one by one, into the hissing water, and at
+length the tall masts, no longer supported by the rigging, and nearly
+burnt into below the deck, fell over, one after the other, into the
+deep.
+
+Suddenly Captain Horton started to his feet,
+
+"It is, it is a sail--look, do you now see it coming up in the light
+of the brig?"
+
+"It is so, captain," responded his men one after the other.
+
+"Thank God we shall yet be saved! If the pirate had scuttled the ship
+we should have had no chance; but his cruel course has saved us, for
+the flame has attracted some vessel to our succor."
+
+"Perhaps the pirate returning," remarked Mr. Williams.
+
+"No, that kept on before the wind, and this is coming up. God grant it
+be an English vessel, and a swift one, and we may yet save your
+daughter!"
+
+This remark struck a chord of hope in the heart of Mr. Williams, and
+roused him to his native manliness.
+
+"But," said he, "our own vessel has drifted far from us, and we shall
+not be seen by this one."
+
+"I think they will come within hail; they will at least sail round the
+burning vessel, in the hopes of picking up somebody. Come, my men,
+let's make some kind of sail of our jackets, a half a mile nearer the
+ship may save us all our lives."
+
+With a cheer as merry as ever broke from their lips when on board
+ship, the reanimated sailors went to work, and soon reared a small
+sail made of their clothing, which caught enough wind to move them
+slowly onward.
+
+"Steer in the wake of our own vessel, my men, and the strange sail
+will come right on to us--get between them."
+
+"Ay, ay, sir!"
+
+As the approaching vessel drew nearer, the crew of the Betsy Allen
+sent up a cheer from their united voices which, to their great joy,
+was answered from the strange sail.
+
+"Ahoy, where away?"
+
+"Three points on your weather bow--starboard your helm, and you'll be
+on us."
+
+"Ay, ay."
+
+In a very short time the shipwrecked crew stood on the deck of the
+privateer Raker, which, attracted by the light of their burning brig,
+had varied somewhat from its course, to render assistance if any were
+needed. Captain Greene and his men soon became acquainted with the
+history of the crew of the lost brig, and every attention was shown to
+them.
+
+Captain Horton gave them a brief account of the pirate's assault, and
+the abduction of Julia.
+
+"O Captain Greene, save my child, if possible. She is my only one,"
+exclaimed Mr. Williams.
+
+"Which way did she steer, Captain Horton?"
+
+"She went off right before the wind, sir, and is not three hours ahead
+of us."
+
+"Mr. Williams I will immediately give chase, and God grant that I may
+overtake the scoundrels."
+
+"A father's thanks shall be yours, sir."
+
+"Never mind that--you had all better turn in; I will steer the same
+course with the pirate till morning, sir; and if he is then in sight,
+I think he is ours--for there are few things afloat that can outsail
+the Raker."
+
+The crew of the Betsy Allen, whose anxiety and exertions during the
+last few hours had been excessive, gladly accepted the captain's
+offer, and were soon snoring in their hammocks. Captain Horton and Mr.
+Williams remained on the deck of the Raker, the one too anxious for
+revenge upon the pirate who had destroyed his brig, to sleep, and the
+other too much afflicted by the loss of his daughter, and the painful
+thoughts which it engendered, to think of any thing but her speedy
+recovery.
+
+The long night at length wore away, and with the first beams of the
+morning sun the mists rolled heavily upward from the ocean. To the
+great joy of all on board the Raker, the pirate-brig was in sight,
+though beyond the reach of shot from the privateer.
+
+Although the captain of the Raker had sufficient confidence in the
+superior speed of his own vessel, yet to avoid the possibility of
+being deceived, he decided to pretend flight, well assured that the
+pirate would give chase. He accordingly bore off, as if anxious to
+avoid speaking him, and displaying every sign of fear, had the
+satisfaction of perceiving the pirate change his course, and set all
+sail in pursuit.
+
+In order to test the relative speed of the two vessels he did not at
+first slacken his own sail, but put his brig to its swiftest pace. He
+had reason to congratulate himself upon the wisdom of his manoeuvre
+when he perceived that in spite of every exertion the chase gained
+upon him, and it was evident that unless he was crippled by a shot, he
+might yet escape.
+
+As the pirate bore down upon his brig, Captain Greene perceived, by
+aid of his glass, that the number of the crew on board was
+considerably superior to his own, even with the addition of the crew
+of the Betsy Allen. In consideration of this fact, he determined to
+fight her at a distance with his long gun. This he still kept
+concealed amidships, under the canvas, desiring to impress fully upon
+his opponent the idea of his inferiority.
+
+Leaving the vessels thus situated, let us visit the pirate again.
+
+Julia, and John in his disguise, were conveyed to his deck, where they
+were speedily separated. Julia was conducted below, where, to her
+surprise and joy, she found a companion of her own sex, in the person
+of Florette.
+
+The wounded commander of the pirate was also conveyed to his berth,
+where Florette, with much grief, attended to nurse him. It was in her
+first passionate burst of sorrow that Julia discovered her love for
+the pirate, from which circumstance she also derived consolation and
+relief; and having already, with the natural firmness of her mind,
+shaken off the deep despondency which had settled upon it when first
+torn from her father, she began to resolve upon the course of action
+she would pursue, in every probable event which might befall her.
+
+During the long night the pirate lay groaning and helpless; but such
+was the strength of his will, and the all absorbing nature of his
+hatred, that when informed on the succeeding morning that a vessel was
+in sight, he aroused his physical powers sufficiently to reach the
+deck, where, seating himself on the companion-way, he watched the
+strange sail with an interest so intense, that he almost forgot his
+painful wounds.
+
+He had hardly taken his position before the captain of the Raker
+uncovered and ran out his long gun, and to the surprise of all on
+board the pirate, a huge shot, evidently sent from a gun much larger
+than they had supposed their antagonist to possess, came crashing
+through their main-sail.
+
+Too late the pirates perceived the error into which they had fallen;
+and were aware of the immense advantage which the long gun gave their
+opponent, enabling him, in fact, to maintain his own position beyond
+the reach of their fire, and at the same time cut every mast and spar
+on board the pirate-brig to pieces, unless, indeed, the latter might
+be fortunate enough, by superior sailing, to get beyond the reach of
+shot without suffering material injury.
+
+Perceiving this to be his only resource, orders were given on board
+the pirate again to 'bout ship, and instead of pursuing to be
+themselves in turn fugitives. But they were not destined to escape
+without injury. Another shot from the Raker bore away their
+foretop-sail, and sensibly checked their speed. To remedy this
+misfortune, studding-sails were set below and aloft, and for a long
+time the chase was continued without the shot from the Raker taking
+serious effect on the pirate; and, indeed, the latter in a
+considerable degree increased the distance between the two vessels.
+But while the captain and crew of the Raker were confident of
+eventually overtaking their antagonist, the men in the pirate-brig had
+already become convinced that in such a harassing and one-sided mode
+of warfare, they stood no chance whatever, and demanded of their
+captain that he should make the attempt to close with the Raker and
+board. This he sternly refused, and pointed out to his men the folly
+of such a course, as upon a nearer approach to the privateer, his
+rigging and masts must necessarily suffer in such a manner as to place
+his brig entirely at the command of the Raker. His men admitted the
+truth of his reasoning, but at the same time evinced so much
+dissatisfaction at their present vexatious situation, that their
+captain plainly perceived it was necessary to pursue some course of
+action to appease their turbulent spirits.
+
+With a clouded brow he returned to his cabin with the assistance of
+Florette, who had watched with a woman's love to take advantage of
+every opportunity to aid him.
+
+Reaching the cabin, his eyes fell upon the form of Julia, eagerly
+bending from the little window as she watched the pursuing brig,
+fervently praying that its chase might be successful.
+
+As she turned her eyes in-doors at the noise made by the entrance of
+the pirate, his keen glance noticed the light of hope which shone in
+her beautiful eyes, which she strove not and cared not to conceal.
+
+"My fair captive," said he, with a sneering smile, "do you see hope of
+escape in yonder approaching vessel?"
+
+"My hope is in God," was the calm reply of the lovely girl.
+
+"That trust will fail you now, sweet lady."
+
+"I believe it not; when has He deserted those whose trust was in him?"
+
+"So have you been taught, doubtless, so you may yet believe; but you
+have still to learn that if there is such a being, he meddles not with
+the common purposes of man. It is his government to punish, not
+prevent; and man here on earth pursues his own course, be it dark or
+bright--and God's hand is not interposed to stay the natural and
+inevitable workings of cause and effect. No, no! here, on this, my own
+good ship, _I_ rule; and there is no hand, human or divine, that will
+interpose between my determination and the execution of my purpose."
+
+"Impious man! you may yet learn to fear the power you now despise."
+
+"Ha! ha! ha!--do I look like a man to be frightened by the words of a
+weak girl, or by the name of a mysterious being, whose agency I have
+never seen in the workings of earthly affairs."
+
+"I have no mercy to expect from one who has consigned a whole ship's
+crew, without remorse, to a cruel death."
+
+"Well, were they not Englishmen? I have not for years, lady, spared an
+Englishman in my deep hatred, or an Englishwoman in my lust!"
+
+"Yet are they not your own countrymen?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Unnatural monster!"
+
+The pirate smiled. "I could relate a history of wrong that would
+justify me even in your eyes. If I have proved a viper to my native
+land, it is because her heel has crushed me--but the tale cannot be
+told now. If yonder vessel overtake us, and escape become impossible,
+my own hand will apply the match that shall blow up my brig, and all
+it contains. Before that time you will be a dishonored woman, to whom
+death were a relief. Nothing but this wound has preserved you thus
+long. With this assurance I leave you."
+
+The pirate returned to the deck, where, notwithstanding the pain of
+his injuries, he continued to take command of the brig.
+
+He had hardly vanished from the cabin before Florette stood by the
+side of Julia.
+
+"Lady," said she, "I overheard your conversation with the captain of
+this brig, and I pity you most truly."
+
+"Pity will little avail," replied Julia.
+
+"That is true, yet I would aid you if possible."
+
+"And you--do not you, too, desire to escape from this savage?"
+
+"Alas! lady, I have learned to love him."
+
+"_Love_ him!"
+
+"I have now been on this brig more than three years. I was taken from
+a French merchant vessel in which I was proceeding to French Guinea,
+to live with a relative there, having lost all my immediate kindred in
+France. While crossing the Bay of Biscay, a heavy storm drove us out
+to sea, and while endeavoring to return in shore, we fell in with this
+vessel--all on board were murdered but myself, so I have been told. I
+was borne to this cabin, which has since been my home. I was treated
+with much respect by the captain, and being all alone, I don't know
+why it was, I forgot all his crimes, and at length became his willing
+mistress. You turn from me in disgust, and in pity--yet so it is. And
+now, lady, if you are bold enough to risk your life, you may escape."
+
+"I would gladly give my life to save my honor."
+
+Florette gazed with a melancholy smile upon her companion; perhaps
+thoughts of her own former purity came over her mind.
+
+"It is a bold plan," said she, "but it is on that account that I am
+more confident of success, as all chance of escape will be deemed
+hopeless."
+
+"What is your plan?"
+
+"Night is now approaching, and it is probable the pursuing brig will
+not gain on us before dark. I have noticed that the ship's boat hangs
+at the stern, only fastened by the painter. If you have courage enough
+to descend to the boat by the painter, I will cut it, and you will
+then be directly in the course of the pursuing brig, and will be
+easily picked up."
+
+"But how can I get to the vessel's deck without being seen?"
+
+"I have thought of that; we will wait till dark, when you shall put on
+a similar dress with mine, and then you can go to any part of the
+vessel you choose without being suspected. You must watch your time to
+steal unobserved behind the man at the helm, and drop yourself into
+the boat; I will soon after appear on deck, and if you are successful
+in escaping observation, I shall be able then to cut the painter
+without difficulty, as the darkness will conceal my movements. Do you
+understand the plan?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"And you are not afraid to put it into execution?"
+
+"Oh, no, no! and I thank you for your kind aid."
+
+"I am not wholly disinterested, lady; you are beautiful, and may steal
+away the captain's heart from me."
+
+Julia shuddered.
+
+"Be ready," continued Florette, "and as soon as possible after it
+becomes dark we will make the attempt."
+
+It was as Florette had called it, a bold plan, but not impracticable,
+as any one acquainted with the position of things will at once
+acknowledge. Only one man would be at the tiller, and he might or
+might not notice the passing of any other person behind him. This
+passage once accomplished, it would be an easy undertaking to slide
+down the strong painter, or rope which made fast the boat to the stern
+of the brig. It was a plan in which the chances were decidedly in
+favor of the success of the attempt.
+
+The Raker had for some time ceased firing, and set studding-sails in
+hopes of gaining on the pirate; but the most the privateer was able to
+do, was to still preserve the relative positions of the two vessels.
+
+The sun sunk beneath the waters, leaving a cloudless sky shedding such
+a light from its starry orbs, that if the pirate had hoped to escape
+under cover of the night, he speedily saw the impossibility of such an
+attempt eluding the watch from the privateer.
+
+The captain of the pirate still kept his position upon the
+companion-way, with his head bent upon his breast, either buried in
+thought, or yielding to the weakness of his physical powers,
+occasioned by the loss of blood from his wound.
+
+Florette, who was continually passing up and down through the
+cabin-door, carefully noted the state of things upon the quarter-deck,
+and perceiving every thing to be as favorable as could be expected,
+soon had Julia in readiness for her share in the undertaking.
+
+"But first," said she, "let me put out the light in the binnacle."
+
+The girl stood for a moment in deep thought, when her ready wit
+suggested a way to accomplish this feat, sufficiently simple to avoid
+suspicion. Seizing the broad palmetto hat of the pirate, and bidding
+Julia to be in readiness to profit by the moment of darkness which
+would ensue, she returned to the deck, and approaching the pirate,
+exclaimed,
+
+"William, I have brought you your hat."
+
+At the moment of presenting it to him, as it passed the
+binnacle-light, she gave it a swift motion, which at once extinguished
+the flame.
+
+"Curses on the girl!" muttered the man at the helm.
+
+"O, I was careless, Diego; I will bring the lantern in a moment;" and
+laying down the hat on the companion-way beside the pirate, who paid
+no attention to the movements around him, she glided back to the
+cabin.
+
+"Here, lady," said she, "be quick--hand this lantern to the man at the
+helm, and then drop silently behind him while he is lighting it. I
+will immediately follow and take your place beside him. You understand
+me?"
+
+"Yes, clearly."
+
+"Well, as soon as I begin to speak with him, let yourself down into
+the boat by the painter, which I will soon cut apart, and then you
+will at least be out of the hands of your enemies."
+
+Julia took the hand of Florette in her own, and warmly thanked her,
+but the girl impatiently checked her.
+
+"Take this pistol with you also."
+
+"But why?" inquired Julia, with a woman's instinctive dread of such
+weapons.
+
+"O, I don't mean you should shoot any body, but if the boat drifts a
+little out of the brig's course, you might not be able to make
+yourself heard on her deck."
+
+"True, true."
+
+"The night is so still that a pistol-shot would be heard at a good
+distance."
+
+"O, yes, I see it all now; I was so anxious to escape from this
+terrible ship that I thought of nothing else; and there is poor John."
+
+"You must not think of him--it will be no worse for him if you go, no
+better if you remain. Here, take the lantern--say nothing as you hand
+it to the man at the tiller, but do as I told you."
+
+Pressing the hand of Florette, Julia mounted to the deck with a
+painfully beating heart, but with a firm step. She handed the lantern
+to the steersman, who received it surlily, growling some rough oath,
+half to himself, at her delay, and leaning upon the tiller, proceeded
+to relight the binnacle-lamp. Julia fell back cautiously, and in
+another moment the light form of Florette filled her place.
+
+"I was very careless, Diego," said she.
+
+"Yes," replied he, gruffly.
+
+"Well, I will be more careful next time."
+
+"You'd better."
+
+Julia, during the short time of this conversation, had disappeared
+over the stern, and as the vessel was sailing before a steady wind,
+found little difficulty in sliding down the painter into the yawl.
+She could hardly suppress an exclamation when a moment afterward she
+found the ship rapidly gliding away from her, and leaving her alone
+upon the waters in so frail a support. Her situation was, indeed, one
+that might well appall any of her sex. To a sailor it would already
+have been one of entire safety, but to her it seemed as if every
+succeding wave would sink the little boat as it gracefully rose and
+fell upon their swell; but seating herself by the tiller, she managed
+to guide its motions, and with a calm reliance upon that God whose
+supporting arm she knew to be as much around her, when alone in the
+wide waste of waters, as when beside her own hearth-stone, in quiet
+and happy England, she patiently awaited the issue of her bold
+adventure.
+
+She had but a short time to wait when she perceived the dark outlines
+of the Raker bearing directly down upon her. As it approached it
+seemed as if it would run directly over her boat, and excited by the
+fear of the moment, and the anxiety to be heard, she gave a louder
+shriek than she supposed herself capable of uttering, and at the same
+time fired off her pistol.
+
+Both were heard on board the Raker.
+
+"Man overboard!" shouted the look-out.
+
+"Woman overboard, you lubber," said a brother tar; "didn't you hear
+that screech?"
+
+"Hard a port!"
+
+"Hard a port 'tis."
+
+"Right under the lee bow."
+
+"Well, pitch over a rope whoever it is. What does this mean?" said
+Lieutenant Morris, as he approached the bows.
+
+"Can't say, sir--some deviltry of the pirates, I reckon, to make us
+lose way."
+
+"By heavens! it is a woman," cried the lieutenant, "let me throw that
+rope, we shall be on the boat in a minute. Hard a port!"
+
+The rope, skillfully thrown by the young lieutenant, struck directly
+at the feet of Julia. With much presence of mind she gave it several
+turns around one of the oar-locks, and her boat was immediately hauled
+up to the side of the brig, without compelling the latter to slacken
+sail.
+
+In another moment she was lifted to the deck of the Raker.
+
+"Julia! thank Heaven!" exclaimed her father.
+
+With a cry of joy she fainted in his arms, and was borne below, where
+she speedily recovered, and related the manner of her escape from the
+pirate.
+
+All admired the courage of the attempt, and Lieutenant Morris, as he
+gazed upon the lovely countenance, which returning sensation was
+restoring to all its wonted bloom and beauty, one day of intense
+sorrow having left but slight traces upon it, he felt emotions to
+which he had hitherto been an entire stranger, and sought the deck
+with a flushed brow and animated eye, wondering at the vision of
+beauty which had risen, like Cytherea, from the sea.
+
+[_To be continued._
+
+
+
+
+THE PRAYER OF THE DYING GIRL.
+
+BY SAMUEL D. PATTERSON.
+
+
+    Oh! take me back again, mother, to that home I love so well,
+    Whose memory rules my fluttering heart with a mysterious spell:
+    I think of it when lying on my weary couch of pain,
+    And I feel that I am dying, mother--Oh! take me home again!
+
+    They tell me that this sunny clime strength to the wasted brings,
+    And the zephyr's balmy breezes come with healing on their wings;
+    But to me the sun's rich glow is naught--the perfumed air is vain--
+    For I know that I am dying--Oh! then, take me home again!
+
+    I long to find myself once more beside the little stream
+    That courses through our valley green, of which I often dream:
+    I fancy that a cooling draught from that sweet fount I drain--
+    It stills the fever of my blood--Oh! take me home again!
+
+    And then I lie and ponder, as I feel my life decline,
+    On the happy days that there I spent when health and strength were mine;
+    When I climbed the mountain-side, and roved the valley and the plain,
+    And my bosom never knew a pang of sorrow or of pain.
+
+    And when the sun was sinking in the far and glowing west,
+    I came and sat me by thy side, or nestled in thy breast,
+    And heard thy gentle words of love, and listened to the strain
+    Of thy sweet favorite evening hymn--Oh! take me home again!
+
+    How bright and joyous was my life! Night brought refreshing rest,
+    And morning's dawn awakened naught but rapture in my breast:
+    Now, sad and languid, weak and faint, I seek, but seek in vain,
+    To lay me down in soft repose--Oh! take me home again!
+
+    The hand of death is laid upon thy child's devoted head--
+    I feel its damp and chilling touch, so cold, so full of dread--
+    It palsies every nerve of mine--it freezes every vein--
+    Oh! take me then, dear mother--Oh! take me home again!
+
+    There, with my wan brow lying on thy fond and faithful breast,
+    Let me calmly wait the summons that calls me to my rest:
+    And when the struggle's o'er, mother--the parting throe of pain--
+    Thou'lt joy to know thy daughter saw her own loved home again!
+
+
+
+
+A WRITTEN LEAF OF MEMORY.
+
+BY FANNY LEE.
+
+
+Poor Fanny Layton! Oh! how well I remember the last time I ever saw
+her! 'Twas in the dear old church whither from early childhood my
+footsteps were bent. What feelings of holy awe and reverence crept
+into my heart as I gazed, with eyes in which saddened tears were
+welling, upon the sacred spot! How my thoughts reverted to other
+days--the days of my early youth--that sweet "spring-time" of life,
+when I trod the blooming pathway before me so fetterless and free,
+with no overshadowing of coming ill--no anxious, fearful gazing into
+the dim future, as in after years, but with the bounding step that
+bespeaks the careless joyousness which Time, oh all too soon! brushes
+from the heart with "rude, relentless wing." How eagerly I would
+strive to subdue my impatient footsteps then to the calmer pace of
+more thoughtful years, as I gradually drew nearer to the holy
+sanctuary, although mine eyes would oft, despite my utmost endeavors,
+wander to the eaves of that time-worn, low-browed church, to watch the
+flight of the twittering host who came forth, I fancied, at my
+approach to bid me welcome! How I would cast one "longing, lingering
+look" at the warm, bright sunshine that irradiated even those gray
+walls, ere I entered the low porch whence it was all excluded by the
+ivy which seemed to delight in entwining its slender leaves around the
+crumbling pillars, as if it would fain impart strength and beauty to
+the consecrated building in its declining years.
+
+But a long--long time had passed since then, and I had come to revisit
+my village-home, and the memory-endeared haunts of my girlhood, for
+the last time, ere journeying to a distant land. The place was little
+changed, and every thing around that well-remembered spot came laden
+with so many sweet and early associations, that the memory of by-gone
+hours swept thrillingly across my heart-strings, and it was not until
+after I had taken my accustomed seat in the old-fashioned high-backed
+pew, that I was roused from my busy wanderings in the "shadowy past,"
+by the voice of our pastor--
+
+    "Years had gone by, and given his honored head
+     A _diadem of snow_--his eye was dim"--
+
+his voice grown weak and tremulous with increasing years, although
+there was a something in its tone so full of simple-hearted
+earnestness, that had never failed to find its way to the most gay and
+thoughtless spirits of his little flock. And now how reverently I
+gazed upon the silvered locks of him who had been mine own faithful
+guide and counselor along the devious pathway of youth--feeling that
+his pilgrimage was almost ended--his loving labors well nigh over--and
+soon he would go down to the grave
+
+    "Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
+     Around him and lies down to peaceful dreams."
+
+I looked around--and it was sad to see how few there were of all the
+familiar faces I had left--and those few--oh, how changed! But there
+was one to whom my glance reverted constantly, nor could I account for
+the strange fascination which seemed to fix mine eyes upon her. And
+yet, as I looked, the spring of memory seemed touched, and suddenly
+there appeared before me _two_ faces, which I found it impossible to
+separate in my bewildered rememberings--although so very unlike as
+they were! The one so bright and joyous, with blue laughter-loving
+eyes, in which an unshadowed heart was mirrored--and the other--the
+one on which my gaze was now fixed so dreamily--wan and faded,
+although it must once have been singularly beautiful, so delicate and
+fair were the features, and so pure and spiritual was the white brow
+resting beneath those waving masses of golden hair--a temple meet,
+methought, for all high and earnest feeling--then, too, there was a
+sweet--yet oh! how sorrow-shaded and subdued--expression flitting
+around the small mouth, as though a world-torn and troubled spirit,
+yet meek and long-suffering, had left its impress there! Her
+eyes--those large, deep, earnest eyes--how they haunted me with their
+eager restlessness, wandering to and fro with a perturbed, anxious,
+asking look, and then upturned with a fixed and pleading gaze, which
+moved one's very heart to see. Her dress was very simple, and yet I
+could not help thinking it strangely contrasted with the
+sorrow-stricken expression of that fair though faded face.
+
+A wreath of orange-blossoms encircled the small cottage-bonnet, and a
+long white veil half concealed in its ample folds the fragile form,
+which, if it had lost the roundness of early youth, still retained the
+most delicate symmetry of outline; upon her breast lay, half hidden, a
+withered rose, fit emblem, methought, for her who wore it. Oft-times
+her pale thin hands were clasped, and once, when our pastor repeated
+in his own low, fervent tone--"Come unto me, all ye heavy-laden, and I
+will give you rest"--her lip quivered, and she looked quickly up, with
+
+    "A glance of hurried wildness, fraught
+     With some unfathomable thought."
+
+My sympathies were all out-gushing for her, and when the full tones of
+the organ peeled forth their parting strain and we went forth from the
+sanctuary, my busy dreamings of the present and the past all were
+merged in one honest desire to know the poor girl's history. I learned
+it afterward from the lips of Aunt Nora Meriwether.
+
+Dear Aunt Nora! If thou _wert_ yclept "spinster," never did a heart
+more filled with good and pure and kindly impulses beat than thine!
+Indeed, I have ever ascribed my deep reverence for the sisterhood in
+general to my affectionate remembrances of this childhood's friend.
+The oracle of our village was Aunt Nora Meriwether--and how could "old
+maid" be a stigma upon her name, when it was by virtue of this very
+title that she was enabled to perform all those little kindly offices
+which her heart was ever prompting, and which made up the sum of her
+simple daily existence! It was said that Aunt Nora was "disappointed"
+in early life--but however this may have been, certain it was that the
+tales (and they _did_ intimate--did the good people of our
+village--that if Aunt Nora had a weakness, it consisted in
+over-fondness for story-telling) she treasured longest, and oftenest
+repeated, were those in which the fair heroine was crossed in love.
+
+Many a time have we, a group of gay and happy-hearted children,
+gathered round her feet, as she sat in the low doorway of her
+cottage-home, and listened with intense interest to a tale of her
+youthful days, gazing the while with eyes in which the bright drops of
+sympathy oft would glisten, upon the kind face bent upon our own in
+such loveful earnestness. And we would hope, in child-like innocence
+of heart, that _we_ might never "fall in love," but grow up and be
+"old maids," just like our own dear Aunt Nora! Whether we still
+continued to hope so, after we had grown in years and wisdom, it
+behoveth me not to say! I am quite sure you would rather listen to the
+tale now before thee, dear reader, from the good old lady's own
+lips--for it is but a simple sketch at best, and needeth the charm
+thrown around it by a heart which the frost of many winters had not
+sealed to the tenderest sympathies of our nature--and the low-toned
+voice, too, that often during her narrative would grow tremulous with
+the emotion it excited. But, alas! this may not be! that low voice is
+hushed--the little wicket-gate now closed--the path which led to her
+cottage-door untrodden now for many a day--and that kind and gentle
+heart is laid at rest beneath bright flowers, planted there by loving
+hands, in the humble church-yard. But this day is so lovely--is it
+not? With that soft and shadowy mist hanging like a gossamer veil over
+Nature's face, through which the glorious god of day looks with a
+quiet smile, as though he loved to dwell upon a scene so replete with
+home-breathing beauty! And that smile! how lovingly it rests upon the
+lawn and the meadow and the brook! How it lingers upon the sweet
+flowerets which have not yet brushed the tears from their eyes, until
+those dewy tear-drops seem--as if touched by a fairy wand--to change
+to radiant gems! How it peeps into every nook and dell, until the
+silent places of the earth rejoice in the light of that glory-beaming
+smile! The busy hum of countless insects--the soft chime of the
+distant water-fall--the thrilling notes of the woodland
+choristers--the happy voice of the streamlet, which hurries on ever
+murmuring the same glad strain--the gentle zephyr, now whispering
+through the leafy trees with low, mysterious tone, and then stealing
+so gently, noiselessly through the shadowy grass, till each tiny blade
+quivers as if trembling to the touch of fairy feet. These are Nature's
+voices, and do they not seem on a day like this in the sweet
+summer-time to unite and swell forth in one full anthem of harmony and
+praise to the great Creator of all? And does it not seem, too, as we
+gaze (for thou art sitting now with me, art thou not, gentle reader?
+on the mossy bank beneath the noble elm which has for many years
+stretched out its arms protectingly over mine own old homestead, while
+I recount to thee this simple tale of "long ago") upon the scene
+before us, so replete with quiet loveliness it is--that in every heart
+within the precincts of our smiling village there must be a chord
+attuned to echo back in voiceless melody the brightness and the beauty
+around? Yet oh! how many there may be, even here, whose sun of
+happiness hath set on earth forever! How many whose tear-dimmed glance
+can descry naught in the far future but a weary waste--whose
+life-springs all are dried--whose up-springing hopes all withered by
+the blighting touch of Sorrow!
+
+    *    *    *    *    *
+
+Dost thou see that little cot nestled so closely beneath the
+hill-side? and covered with the woodland vine which hath enfolded its
+tendrils clingingly around it--peeping in and out at the deserted
+windows, or climbing at will over the latticed porch, or trailing on
+the ground and looking up forlornly, as though it wondered where were
+the careful hands which erst nourished it so tenderly. The place seems
+very mournful--with the long grass growing rankly over the once
+carefully-kept pathway, and a few bright flowers, on either side,
+striving to uprear their beauteous heads above the tangled weeds which
+have well nigh supplanted them. Neglect--desolation is engraven on all
+around, and even the little wicket, as it swings slowly to and fro,
+seems to say, "All gone! go-ne!" The wind, how meaningly it steals
+through the deserted rooms, as though breathing a funereal dirge over
+the departed! How "eloquent of wo" is that sound! Now swelling forth,
+as it were, in wild and uncontrollable grief, and now sinking
+exhaustedly into a low and touching mournfulness which seems almost
+human! But to our tale.
+
+One bright morning, now many years ago, a lady clothed in garb of
+mourning, accompanied by a little bright-eyed girl of perhaps some
+nine summers, and her old nurse, alighted at the village inn. Now this
+seemingly trivial circumstance was in reality quite an event in our
+quiet community, and considerably disturbed the good people thereof
+from the "even tenor of their way." Indeed, there were many more
+curious eyes bent upon the new-comers than they seemed to be at all
+aware of, if one might judge from the cold and calm features of the
+lady, or the assiduous care which her companion was bestowing upon one
+particular bandbox, which the gruff driver of the stage-coach was, to
+be sure, handling rather irreverently, actually seeming to enjoy the
+ill-concealed anxiety of the poor old woman for the safety of her
+goods and chattels, while the child followed close beside her mamma,
+her sparkling eyes glancing hither and thither with that eager love of
+novelty so natural to the young. At length, however, the trunks,
+boxes, packages, &c., &c., all were duly deposited, and duly
+inspected also, by the several pairs of eyes which were peering
+through the narrowest imaginable strips of glass at neighboring
+window-curtains or half-closed shutters. The driver once more mounted
+his box, cracked his whip, and the lumbering coach rattled rapidly
+away, while the travelers, obeyed the call of the smiling and
+curtseying landlady, and disappeared within the open door of the inn.
+
+Oh, what whisperings and surmisings were afloat throughout our village
+during the succeeding week! "Who _can_ this stranger-lady be? From
+whence has she come, and how long intend remaining here?" seemed to be
+the all-important queries of the day; and so gravely were they
+discussed, each varying supposition advanced or withdrawn as best
+suited the charity or credulity of the respective interrogators, that
+one would certainly have thought them questions of vital importance to
+their own immediate interests. Strange to say, however, with all this
+unwonted zeal and perseverance, at the end of the nine days, (the
+legitimate time for wonderment,) all that the very wisest of the group
+of gossips could bring forward as the fruits of her patient and
+untiring investigation, was the simple fact that the lady's name was
+Layton--the nurse's Jeffries--and that the child, who soon became the
+pet of the whole household, was always addressed by the servants at
+the inn as "Miss Fanny," and, moreover, that Mrs. L. was certainly in
+mourning for her husband, as she had been seen one morning by the
+chambermaid weeping over the miniature of a "very fine-looking man,
+dressed in uniform," and had, in all probability, come to take up her
+residence in our quiet Aberdeen, as she had been heard inquiring about
+the small cottage beneath the hill, (the self-same, dear reader, the
+neglect and desertion of which were but now lamented.)
+
+Truth to tell, it _was_ shrewdly surmised that the landlady at the
+"Golden Eagle" had gleaned more particular information than this,
+although whenever she was questioned concerning the matter, she did
+only reply by a very grave shake of the head, each vibration of which
+(particularly when accompanied by a pursing of the mouth, and a
+mysterious looking round) more and more convinced her simple-minded
+auditors (i.e. some of them, for it is not to be denied that there
+were a few incredulous ones who, either from former experiences, or
+natural sagacity, or some cause unknown, hesitated not to declare it
+to be their fixed and unalterable opinion that these seeming
+indications of superior knowledge on the part of good Mrs. Gordon,
+were but "a deceitful show," "for their '_delusion_' given,") that
+she, Mrs. G., had been entrusted either by Mistress Jeffries, the
+nurse, or perhaps by the lady herself, with a weighty and important
+secret, which it would be very dreadful, indeed, to disclose. And yet,
+when such a possibility was vaguely hinted to her, she did not, (as
+one would be disposed to do who was really striving to deceive the
+eager questioners around her, by giving them an erroneous impression
+as to the amount of her knowledge on the subject,) seize the idea with
+avidity, and seem manifestly anxious to encourage such a supposition.
+On the contrary, it was evidently deeply distressing to her that any
+one should cherish such a thought for a moment; and she begged them so
+earnestly, almost with tears in her eyes, not to mention it again, and
+said so much about it, reverting to the theme invariably when the
+conversation chanced to turn upon some other topic, as though it quite
+weighed upon her mind, that at length her companions inwardly wondered
+what had given rise to the belief in their minds, and yet, as one old
+lady said, looking sagaciously over her spectacles, "that belief waxed
+stronger and stronger."
+
+Time passed on--days merged themselves into weeks, and weeks to
+months, and the harmony and quietude of Aberdeen was fully restored.
+The "Widow Layton," (for thus, from that time, was she invariably
+styled,) after all due preliminaries, had taken quiet possession of
+the little vine-clad cot; and although she was not as "neighborly" as
+she might have been, and never communicative as to her previous
+history, still might the feeling of pique with which they at first
+received such a rebuff to their curiosity, have been a very evanescent
+one in the minds of the villagers, had it not chanced that Aberdeen
+was blessed (?) with two prim sister-spinsters, (was it they or Aunt
+Nora, who formed the exception to the general rule? I leave it for
+thee, dear reader, to decide, since with that early-instilled
+reverence before mentioned, I cannot consider my humble opinion
+infallible,) whose hearts, according to their _own_ impression on the
+subject, quite overflowed with charity and benevolence, which
+manifested itself in the somewhat singular method of making every one
+around them uncomfortable, and in the happy faculty which they
+possessed in an eminent degree, of imparting injurious doubts and
+covert insinuations as to the manners and habits of their neighbors,
+who else might have journeyed peacefully adown the vale of life in
+perfect good faith with all the world; moreover, they hated a mystery,
+did these two sister-spinsters, from their own innate frankness and
+openness of disposition, they said, and considered themselves so much
+in duty bound to ferret out the solution of any thing which bore the
+semblance to an enigma, that they gave themselves no rest, poor,
+self-sacrificing creatures, until they had obtained their object. And
+well were they rewarded for this indefatigable zeal, for they had the
+satisfaction of knowing that they had found out more family secrets,
+destroyed more once-thought happy marriages, and embittered more
+hearts than any two persons in all the country round.
+
+They lived in the heart of our village, (and never did that heart
+quicken with one pulsation of excitement or surprise, or joy or
+sorrow, but they were the first to search into the why and wherefore,)
+in a large two story house, isolated from the rest, which seemed to
+emulate its occupants in stiffness and rigidity, and whose glassy eyes
+looked out as coldly upon the beauteous face of nature, as they from
+their own stern "windows of the soul," upon the human face divine.
+There was no comfort, no home-look about the place; even the flowers
+seemed not to grow by their own sweet will, but came up as they were
+bidden, tall and straight, and stiff. And the glorious rays of the sun
+glanced off from the dazzling whiteness of the forbidding mansion, as
+though they had met with a sudden rebuff, and had failed to penetrate
+an atmosphere where every thing seemed to possess an antipathy to the
+bright and the joyous. It was strange to see what a chilliness
+pervaded the spot. The interior of the house (which I once saw when a
+child; and, oh! I never _can_ forget the long, long-drawn sigh that
+escaped my lips as I once more found myself without the precincts of a
+place where my buoyant spirits seemed suddenly frozen beneath the
+glance of those two spinsters, where even the large, lean cat paced
+the floor with such a prim, stately step, now and then pausing to fix
+her cold, gray eyes upon my face, as though to question the cause of
+my intrusion, and also to intimate that she had no sort of sympathy
+with either my feelings, or those of children in general.) Every thing
+bore the same immovable look--the narrow, high-backed chairs seemed as
+if they had grown out of the floor, and were destined to remain as
+stationary as the oaks of the forest; the "primeval carpet," over
+which the Misses Nancy and Jerusha Simpkins walked as though mentally
+enumerating the lines that crossed each other in such exact squares,
+never was littered by a single shred; and the high, old-fashioned
+clock still maintained its position in the corner from year to year,
+seeming to take a sort of malicious satisfaction in calmly ticking the
+hours away which bore the Misses Simpkins nearer and nearer to that
+_certain_ age (which they, if truth must be told, were in nowise
+desirous to reach) when all further endeavors to conceal the
+foot-marks of stern old Father Time would be of no avail.
+
+It was at the close of a chilly evening late in autumn--old Boreas was
+abroad, and had succeeded, it would seem, in working himself into an
+ungovernable fit of rage, for he went about screaming most
+boisterously, now hurrying the poor bewildered leaves along,
+maliciously causing them to perform very undignified antics for their
+_time of life_, while they, poor old withered things, thus suddenly
+torn from the protecting arms of their parental tree, flew by, like
+frightened children, vainly striving to gain some place of shelter.
+Alas! alas! no rest was there for them. What infinite delight their
+inveterate persecutor seemed to take in whirling them round and round,
+dodging about, and seeking them in the most unheard-of places, where
+they lay panting from very fright and fatigue. And then off he would
+start again, shaking the window-sashes as he passed, with wild, though
+impatient fury, remorselessly tearing down the large gilt signs which
+had from time immemorial rejoiced in the respective and respectable
+names of several worthies of our village, and then speeding away to
+the homes of said worthies, to proclaim the audacious deed through the
+key-hole, in the most impudent and incomprehensible manner possible.
+It was on such an evening as this, a few months after the arrival of
+the Laytons at Aberdeen, that the Misses Simpkins sat in their
+cheerless back-room, hovering over a small fire, busily plying their
+noisy knitting-needles, and meantime indulging in their usual dish of
+scandal, which, however, it is but justice to say, was not quite so
+highly seasoned with the spice of envy and malice as was its wont.
+Whether it was that the memory of a bright and beaming little face
+that had intruded upon their solitude during the afternoon, had half
+succeeded in awakening the slumbering better nature which had slept so
+long, it was somewhat doubted if any effort could resuscitate it
+again; whether it was that the lingering echo of a certain sweet,
+childish voice that had beguiled the weary hours of their dullness and
+monotony, and with its innocent prattle, had, in some degree, forced
+an opening through the firm frost-work which had been gradually
+gathering for years round their hearts, I cannot tell; but true it is
+that as the sister spinsters sat there, with the faint and feeble
+flame struggling up from the small fire, and the light from the one
+tall candle flickering and growing unsteady as it flashed upon the two
+thin, sharp faces close beside it, while the antique furniture looked
+more grotesque and grim than ever in the deep shadow, and the
+never-wearying clock still ticked calmly on, regardless alike of the
+contending elements without and the wordy warfare within; true it is
+that the conversation between the sisters was divested of one half its
+wonted acrimony.
+
+"To be sure," said Miss Simpkins the younger, at length, after a
+pause, in which the half-awakened better nature seemed strongly
+disposed to resume its slumbers again, "little civility has the Widow
+Layton to expect from any body with her distant bows and uppish airs,
+when one ventures to express an interest in her; and if I hadn't a
+very forgiving disposition, oh! Jerusha! Jerusha! I don't think I'd
+trouble myself to call upon her again. But I feel it to be my duty to
+advise her to put little Fanny to school, for she's a good child and
+winsome-like, and running at large so will just be the spoiling of
+her."
+
+"Well, Jerusha," responded Miss Nancy, who had, perhaps, a little
+leaven more than her sister, of tartness in her disposition, and on
+whose face an habitual expression of acidity was rapidly increasing,
+"you know very well that the widow considers herself a little above
+every body else in Aberdeen, and you might as well talk to a stone
+wall as to her about sending the child to school. Why haven't I done
+my best at talking to her? Haven't I told her of Miss Birch's school,
+where the children don't so much as turn round without their teacher's
+leave, and where you might hear a pin drop at any time. Haven't I told
+her that she might easily save a good deal in the year, by renting one
+half of that snug little cottage--and what thanks did I get? A reply
+as haughty as if she were the greatest lady in the land, instead of
+being, as she is, a nameless, homeless stranger, who cannot be 'any
+better than she should be,' or she would never make such a mighty
+mystery about her past life, that she 'trusted Miss Simpkins would
+allow her to be the best judge as to the proper method of educating
+her child, and also as to the means of retrenching her own expenses if
+she found it needful.'"
+
+Unkind, unjust, unfeeling Nancy Simpkins! and has not that settled,
+ever-present sorrow upon those pale features; have not those
+grief-traced lines around the compressed mouth, and across the once
+smooth and polished brow; has not the sad garb of the mourner, which
+speaks of the lone vigil, the weary watching, the hope deferred, or it
+may be the sudden stroke of the dread tyrant Death, no appeal to thy
+frozen sympathies? Canst thou suffer thy better nature to resume its
+deep and trance-like sleep again, and rob that poor widowed mother of
+her only hope on earth, that bright, glad creature, who carries
+sunshine to her otherwise desolate home, but to pinion her free and
+fetterless spirit beneath the iron rule and despotic sway of the
+village task-mistress?
+
+We will leave the Misses Simpkins, and thou pleasest, reader mine, to
+the enjoyment of their envy-tinctured converse, and turn the page of
+Mrs. Layton's life.
+
+An only child of wealthy parents, petted, caressed and idolized, she
+had sprung into womanhood, with every wish anticipated, every desire
+gratified ere half expressed, if within the reach of human
+possibility, what wonder, then, that she grew wayward and willful, and
+at length rashly dashed the cup of happiness of which she had drank so
+freely in her sunny youth from her lip, by disobeying her too fond and
+doating parents, in committing her life's destiny to the keeping of
+one who they, with the anxious foresight of love, too well knew would
+not hold the precious trust as sacred. Brave and handsome and gifted
+he might be, but the seeds of selfishness had been too surely sown
+within his heart; and he had won the idol of a worshiping crowd, more,
+perchance, from a feeling of exultation and pride in being able to
+bear away the prize from so many eager aspirants, than any deep-rooted
+affection he felt for the fair object of his solicitude. The novelty
+and the charm soon wore away, and then his beautiful bride was
+neglected for his former dissolute associates. He afterward entered
+the navy, and somewhat more than ten years after they were wedded,
+fell in a duel provoked by his own rash, temper. From the moment that
+Mrs. Layton recovered from the trance-like swoon which followed the
+first sight of her husband's bleeding corpse, she seemed utterly,
+entirely changed. She had truly loved him, he who lay before her now,
+a victim of his own rash and selfish folly, and with all a woman's
+earnest devotion would have followed him to the remotest extremes of
+earth; but her feelings had been too long trampled upon, her heart too
+bruised and crushed ever to be upraised again. She had leaned upon a
+broken reed, and had awakened to find herself widowed, broken-hearted.
+And she arose, that desolate and bereaved one, and folding her child
+closer to her breast, went forth into the cold world
+friendless--alone! Once would her grief have been loud and passionate
+and wild, but she had passed through a weary probation, and had
+learned "to suffer and be still." How, in that dark hour, did her
+lost mother's prayer-breathed words, her father's earnest entreaties
+come back to smite heavily upon her sorrow-stricken spirit--but
+remorse and repentance were now all too late. And yet not too late,
+she murmured inly, for had she not a duty to perform toward the little
+being, her only, and, oh! how heaven-hallowed, tie to earth, consigned
+to her guardianship and care. Did she not firmly resolve never by
+ill-judged and injudicious fondness to mark out a pathway filled with
+thorns for her darling. It may be that that widowed mother erred even
+in excess of zeal, for she would resist the natural promptings of her
+heart, and check the gushing affection which welled from the deepest,
+purest fountain in the human heart, lest its expression might prove
+injurious to the loved one in after years. And thus there grew a
+restraint and a seeming coldness on the part of the mother, a constant
+craving for love, which was never satisfied, and a feeling of fear on
+the child's, which shut them out from that pure trust and confidence,
+which are such bright links in the chain that binds a mother to her
+child.
+
+    *    *    *    *    *
+
+This, then, was the Widow Layton who with her little one and nurse had
+sought our village, immediately after the decease of her husband, as a
+peaceful asylum from the noise and tumult of a world where, in happier
+days, she had played so conspicuous a part. It was not so much that
+she sedulously avoided all mention of her past history to the eager
+questioners around her, from a disinclination that it should be known,
+as that she little understood the character of the villagers
+themselves--ofttimes mistaking a really well-meant interest in her
+welfare for an idle and impertinent curiosity. Mrs. Layton had been
+highly born and nurtured, and there seemed to her delicate mind a
+something rude and unfeeling in the manner with which her too
+officious friends and neighbors would touch upon the sources of grief
+which were to her so sacred. And therefore, perhaps unwisely, she held
+herself aloof from them, replying to their different queries with that
+calm and easy dignity which effectually precluded all approach to
+familiarity, and engendered a dislike in the minds of those who were
+little accustomed to meet one who could not enter into all their
+feelings, plans and projects--which dislike was constantly kept alive
+and fostered by the united exertions of the two sister spinsters. Good
+Mrs. Jeffries, too, the fond old nurse who had never left her beloved
+mistress through all her varying fortunes, was all too faithful and
+true to reveal aught that that kind mistress might wish untold; and
+thus it was that the curiosity of the good people of Aberdeen was kept
+continually in check, and about the unsuspecting inmates of Woodbine
+Cottage was thrown a mystery that was becoming constantly augmented by
+their incomprehensible silence on the subject.
+
+    *    *    *    *    *
+
+Weeks--months--years sped swiftly away, and the widow, by her free and
+unostentatious charities and her angel-ministering to the poor, the
+afflicted and the bereaved, had almost eradicated the first
+unpleasing impression made upon the simple-hearted people of
+Aberdeen; so that, although the Misses Simpkins still held their
+nightly confabulations, they did not venture as at first, so openly to
+propagate their animadversions concerning the "mysterious stranger,"
+but on the contrary, always made it a point to preface any sudden and
+amiable suggestion that presented itself to their minds with "not that
+I would say any thing against her, but it does seem a little
+singular," &c. But of Miss Fanny--sweet, witching Fanny Layton! who
+had grown in beauty and grace day by day, not one word did they dare
+to speak in her dispraise! For was there one in all Aberdeen who would
+not have resented the slightest intimation of disrespect to our lily
+of the valley--whose joy-inspiring and sorrow-banishing presence was
+welcomed delightedly by young and old, both far and near? And oh! was
+there ever music like her sweet, ringing laugh, or melody like the
+low-toned voice which was always eloquent of joyousness. Whether she
+sat in the humble cottage, lending kind and ready assistance to the
+care-worn matron, by playfully imprisoning the little hands of the
+children within her own petite palms, while she recounted to them some
+wonderful tale, her brilliant fancy, meantime, never soaring above
+their childish comprehension, although she was regarded by her little
+auditors as nothing less than a bright fairy herself, who was thus
+familiar with all that witching tribe, and who could with her own
+magic wand thus open to them stores of such strange and delightful
+things as was never before dreamed of in their youthful
+philosophy--while their patient, painstaking mother would now and then
+glance up from her never-ending task, with a smile of such beaming
+pleasure and gratitude as amply repaid the gentle being, who seemed in
+her loveful employ to be the presiding angel of that humble
+dwelling-place. Whether she would "happen-in" of a long, warm summer
+afternoon to take a cup of tea with a neighboring farmer's wife--an
+honor that never failed to throw that worthy woman into a perfect
+fever of anxiety and delight--who would proffer a thousand and one
+apologies for the deficiencies that only existed in her own perverse
+imagination, if, indeed, they existed even there, for her bright eyes
+were contradicting a pair of rosy lips all the while, as they glanced
+with a lurking--yet I am sure laudable--pride, from the "new chany
+sett" (which was wont on great occasions to be brought forward) to the
+rich treasures of her well-kept dairy, that her busy feet had been
+going pat-a-pat from cupboard to cellar, and cellar to cupboard, for a
+whole hour previous collecting, to place in all their tempting
+freshness before her beloved guest. Or whether she came with her
+simple offering of fresh flowers--her word of sympathy and comfort--or
+some choice dainty, that seemed "_so_ nice" to the sick and suffering,
+who had turned away with loathing from every thing before, but who
+could not fail to find _this_ delicious, for was it not made and
+brought by the hands of dear Miss Fanny's self? Still did her presence
+seem to make sunlight wherever she went!
+
+Fanny was a young lady now--although you would scarce believe it, for
+she was a very child at heart, with all a child's unworldliness,
+unsuspecting confidence, and winning innocence. And yet there was
+deep, deep down in that loveful, earnest heart, that Joy and all Joy's
+sister spirits seemed to have taken captive, a fount whose seal had
+never been found.
+
+Oh, Fanny, dear, darling Fanny Layton! wo, wo for thee the day when
+first that hidden seal was broken! When Hope and Doubt and Fear by
+turns played sentinel to the hidden treasure, the door to which, when
+once flung back, never can be reclosed again! When joy and gladness
+but tarried a little while to dispute their prior right to revel
+undisturbed in that buoyant heart of thine, and then went tearfully
+forth, leaving for aye a dreary void, and a deep, dark shadow, where
+all had been but brightness and beauty before! Oh, why must the
+night-time of sorrow come to thee, thou gentle and pure-hearted one?
+Thou for whom such fervent and fond prayers have ascended, as should,
+methinks, have warded off from, thee each poisoned shaft, and proved
+an amulet to guard thee from all life's ills! Thy sixteenth summer,
+was it not a very, very happy one to thee, sweet Fanny Layton? But
+happiness, alas! in this cold world of ours, is never an unfading
+flower; and although so coveted and so sought, still will droop in the
+eager hands which grasped it, and die while yet the longing eyes are
+watching its frail brightness with dim and shadowful foreboding!
+
+Just on the outskirts of our village there slept a silent, secluded
+little nook, which the thickly-growing trees quite enclosed, only
+permitting the bright sun to glance glimmeringly through their
+interwoven leaves and look upon the blue-eyed violets that held their
+mute confabulations--each and all perking up their pretty heads to
+receive the diurnal kiss of their god-father Sol--in little lowly
+knots at their feet. Kind reader, I am sure I cannot make you know how
+very lovely it was, unless you yourself have peeped into this
+sheltered spot--seen the cool, dark shadows stretching across the
+velvet turf, and making the bright patches of sunlight look brighter
+still--have stood by the murmuring brook on which the sun-bright
+leaves overhead are mirrored tremulously, and upon whose brink there
+grows so many a lovely "denizen of the wild"--gazed admiringly upon
+the beautiful white rose Dame Nature hath set in the heart of this
+hidden sanctuary, as a seal of purity and innocence--and more than
+this, have turned from all these to watch the fairy form flitting from
+flower to flower, with so light a step that one might mistake it for
+some bright fay sent on a love-mission to this actual world of
+ours--if one did not know that this was Fanny Layton's dream-dell--that
+in this lovely spot she would spend hours during the long, warm summer
+days, poring over the pages of some favorite author, or twining the
+sweet wild flowers in fragrant wreaths to bedeck her invalid mother's
+room--or, perchance, staying for awhile those busy fingers, to indulge
+in those dreamy, delicious reveries with which the scene and hour so
+harmonized.
+
+One day--and that day was an era in poor Fanny's life which was never
+afterward to be forgotten--our lovely heroine might have been seen
+tripping lightly over the smooth sward, the green trees rustling
+musically in the summer breeze, and Nature's myriad tones "concerting
+harmonies" on hill and dale. And one needed but to see the smiling
+lip, and those clear, laughter-loving eyes peeping from beneath just
+the richest and brightest golden curls in the world, to know what a
+joyous heart was beating to that fairy-light and bounding step. Wonder
+none could be, that many an eye brightened as she passed, and many a
+kindly wish--that was never the less trustful and sincere for that it
+was couched in homely phrase--sped her on her way. Dream-dell was
+reached at length--the flowering shrubs which formed the rural
+gate-way parted, and Fanny threw herself on the waving grass, with a
+careless grace which not all the fashionable female attitudinizers in
+the world could have imitated, so full of unstudied ease and
+naturalness it was--with her small cottage bonnet thrown off that
+wealth of clustering curls which were lifted by the soft summer wind,
+and fell shadowingly over the brightest and most beaming little face
+upon which ever fond lover gazed admiringly--with eyes which seemed to
+have caught their deep and dewy blue from the violets she clasped in
+one small hand, and on which they were bent with a silent glance of
+admiration--for Fanny was a dear lover of wild-wood flowers, as who is
+not who bears a heart untouched by the sullying stains of earth? One
+tiny foot had escaped from the folds of her simple muslin dress, and
+lay half-buried in the green turf--a wee, wee foot it was, so small,
+indeed, that it seemed just the easiest thing possible to encase it
+within the lost slipper of Cinderella, if said slipper could but have
+been produced; at least so said a pair of eyes, as plainly as pair of
+eyes _could_ say it, which peering from behind a leafy screen, were
+now upon it fixed in most eager intensity, and now wandered to the
+face of the fair owner thereof, who was still bent over the flowers in
+the small hand, as if seeking some hidden spell in their many-colored
+leaves.
+
+That pair of eyes were the appurtenances belonging to a face that
+might have proved no uninteresting study to the physiognomist, albeit
+it would have puzzled one not a little, methinks, to have formed a
+satisfactory conclusion therefrom, so full of contradictions did it
+seem. A mass of waving hair fell around a brow high and
+well-developed, though somewhat darkly tinged by the warmth, mayhap,
+of a southern sun, and the eyes were large and lustrous, yet there was
+a something unfathomable in their depths, which made one doubt if they
+were truly the index of the soul, and might not be made to assume
+whatever expression the mind within willed. At present, however, they
+were filled only with deep admiration mingled with surprise, while
+around the mouth, which, in repose, wore a slightly scornful curve,
+there played a frank and winning smile, as, advancing with a quiet
+courtesy that at once bespoke him a man of the world, despite slouched
+hat and hunting-frock, the intruder upon our heroine's solitude
+exclaimed, with half-earnest, half-jesting gallantry, "Prithee, fair
+woodland nymph, suffer a lone knight, who has wandered to the confines
+of a Paradise unawares, to bow the knee in thy service, and as
+atonement meet for venturing unbidden into thy hidden sanctum, to
+proffer thee the homage of his loyal heart!"
+
+Fanny was but a simple country maiden, all unskilled in the light and
+graceful nothings which form the substance of worldly converse, and so
+the warm, rich crimson crept into her cheek,
+
+    "The color which his gaze had thrown
+     Upon a cheek else pale and fair,
+     As lilies in the summer air."
+
+and the wee foot forthwith commenced beating a tatoo upon the heads of
+the unoffending flowers around, who breathed forth their perfumed
+sighs in mute reproachfulness; but she was still a woman, and so with
+all a woman's ready tact she replied, though with the flush deepening
+on her cheek, and a scarce-perceptible tremor in her voice,
+
+"Indeed, sir stranger, since thou hast given me such unwonted power, I
+must first use my sceptre of command in banishing all intruders into
+my august presence, and invaders of this 'hidden sanctum,' which is
+held sacred to mine own idle feet alone!"
+
+And there was a merry look of mischievous meaning stealing in and out
+of those bright eyes as they were for a moment uplifted to the face of
+the stranger, and then again were shadowed by the drooping lid.
+Whether it was that said "intruder" detected a something in the tone
+or the demure glance of the fair girl which contradicted the words she
+spoke, or whether that very glance transfixed him to the spot, history
+telleth not, but stay he did; and if his tarrying was very _heart_ily
+objected to by his companion, if the words which fell from his lip in
+utterance how musical, for the space of two fastly-fleeting hours,
+were not pleasing to the ear of the maiden, then, indeed, did that
+soft, bright glow which mantled her fair cheek, and the rosy lip,
+half-parted and eloquent of interest, sadly belie the beating heart
+within, as the twain walked lingeringly homeward, the dark shadows
+lengthening on the green grass, and the setting sun flinging a flood
+of golden-tinted light upon the myriad leaves which were trembling to
+the love-voice of the soft summer breeze.
+
+Softly was the latch of the wicket lifted, and light was the maiden's
+step upon the stair, as she sought her own little chamber. Was she
+gazing forth from the open window to admire the brilliancy of that
+gorgeous sunset? Was it to drink in the beauty and brightness of that
+sweet summer eve, or to feel the soft breeze freshly fanning her
+flushed cheek? Nay, none of these. See how earnestly her gaze is bent
+upon the retreating form of the stranger; and now that he is lost to
+view, behold her sitting with head resting on one little hand, quite
+lost in a reverie that is not like those of Dream-dell memory, for now
+there comes a tangible shape in place of those ideal ones, and the
+echo of a manly voice, breathing devotion and deference in every tone,
+still is lingering in her enchained ear. For the first time she
+forgets to carry her offering of fresh flowers to her mother's room.
+Ah! her busy fingers have been strewing the bright leaves around
+unconsciously, and she blushingly gathers the few remaining ones, and,
+with a pang of self-reproach, hastens to her mother's side.
+
+It is with a sigh of relief that Fanny beholds her invalid parent
+sleeping sweetly--a relief that was augmented by the question which
+burst suddenly upon her mind, "Can I tell her that I have had a
+stranger-companion in my wanderings?" Wonder not at the query, gentle
+reader, for remember that the life of our sweet Fanny had not been
+blessed with that loving confidence which is the tenderest tie in the
+relation of mother and child. Her love was ever intermingled with too
+much fear and restraint from earliest youth, for that interchange of
+counsel and trust which might have been a sure safeguard against many
+of earth's ills. And it was perhaps that very yearning to fill the
+only void left in her happy heart which prompted her to give the helm
+of her barque of life, so soon and so confidingly into the hands of a
+stranger.
+
+Day succeeded day, and still the lovers, for they were lovers now,
+were found at their sweet trysting spot, seeking every pretext for
+frequent meetings, as lovers will, until many were the heads in
+Aberdeen which were shaken in wise prognostication; and the Misses
+Simpkins, to their unspeakable relief, had found a new theme whereon
+to exercise their powers conversational, while the children of the
+village mourned the absence of their kind "Fairy," and wished with all
+their little hearts that Miss Fanny would send away that "naughty man"
+who kept her from their homes.
+
+Poor Fanny! the hidden seal had been touched at length, and on the
+deep waters beneath was shining Love's own meteor-light--a light that
+was reflected on every thing around.
+
+    "It was as her heart's full happiness
+     Poured over _all_ its own excess."
+
+How swiftly the days flew by, "like winged birds, as lightly and as
+free." And, oh! how priceless, peerless was the gift she was yielding
+to the stranger in such child-like confidence and trust. There was so
+much up-looking in her love for him; it seemed so sweet to recognize
+the thoughts which had lain dormant in her own soul, for want of
+fitting expression, flowing from his lip clothed in such a
+beauty-breathing garmenture. And now Fanny Layton was a child no
+longer. She had crossed the threshold, and the "spirit of unrest" had
+descended upon her, albeit as yet she knew it not. Her heart seemed so
+full of sunshine, that when she ventured to peep into its depths, she
+was dazzled by that flood of radiance--and how could she descry the
+still shadow. Alas! that on this earth of ours with the sunlight ever
+comes the shadows, too, which was sleeping there, but to widen and
+grow deeper and darker when love's waters should cease to gush and
+sparkle as at the first opening of that sweet fount.
+
+But the day of parting came at length--how it had been dwelt upon with
+intermingling vows, promises, caresses on his part, with trust, and
+tenderness, and tears on hers! A sad, sad day it was for Fanny
+Layton, the first she had ever known that was ever heralded by
+sorrow's messenger. How she strove to dwell upon Edward Morton's
+words, "It will not be for long;" and banish from her heart those
+nameless, undefinable fears which _would_ not away at her bidding. The
+sky looked no longer blue--the green earth no longer glad; and traces
+of tears, the bitterest she had ever shed, were on that poor girl's
+cheek, as she went forth to meet her beloved, for the last time.
+
+It matters not to say how each familiar haunt was visited that day;
+how each love-hallowed spot bore witness to those low murmured words
+which are earth's dearest music; how time wore on, as time will,
+whether it bears on its resistless tide a freightage of joys or
+sorrows, pleasures, or pains, until at length the last word had been
+said, the last silent embrace taken; and now poor Fanny Layton stood
+alone, gazing through blinding tears upon the solitary horseman who
+rode swiftly away, as if another glance at the fair creature who stood
+with straining gaze and pallid cheek and drooping form, would all
+unman him. Was it this, or was it that in that hour he felt his own
+unworthiness of the sacred trust reposed in him?
+
+We will believe, dear reader, that whatever after influences may have
+exercised dominion over his heart; however he may have been swerved
+from his plighted faith by dreams of worldly ambition, or wealth, or
+power; however cold policy may have up-rooted all finer feeling from
+his soul, we will believe that no thoughts of treachery, no meditated
+falsehood mingled with that parting embrace and blessing; that
+although he had bowed at many a shrine before, and therefore could not
+feel all the depth and purity of the unworldly affection which he had
+won, still he did not, could not believe it possible that that
+priceless love would be bartered for pomp and station, he did mean,
+when he placed the white rose, plucked from the heart of Dream-dell,
+in the little trembling hand which rested on his shoulder, and
+murmured "Fanny, darling, ere this bud hath scarce withered, I shall
+be with you again," that it should be even as he said. Alas! alas! for
+the frailty of human nature!
+
+That night poor Fanny pressed the precious rose to her quivering lip,
+and sobbed herself, like a child, to sleep.
+
+The next day wore away--the next--the next--still no tidings from the
+absent one; and he had promised to write as soon as he arrived "in
+town!" What could it mean?
+
+Oh, that weary watching! The hours moved, oh, so leaden-paced and
+slow! Every day the poor girl waited for the coming of the post-man;
+and every day, with a pang at her heart, and tear-dimmed eyes, she saw
+him pass the door. "Edward has been detained; he will come yet, I'm
+sure," a fond inner voice whispered; "perhaps he has sent no letter,
+because he'll be here himself so soon!" Poor Fanny! another week, and
+still no letter, no tidings. "Oh! he must be ill!" she whispered,
+anxiously, but never thought him false. Oh, no! she was too
+single-hearted, too relying in her trust fora doubt so dreadful; but
+her step grew heavier day by day--her cheek so very, very pale,
+except at the post-man's hour, when it would burn with a feverish
+brightness, and then fade to its former pallid hue again; her sweet
+voice was heard no longer trilling forth those thrilling melodies
+which had gladdened the heart of young and old to hear. The visits to
+Dream-dell were less and less frequent, for now how each remembrance
+so fondly connected with that spot, came fraught with pain; the works
+of her favorite author's lay opened, but unread, upon her knee; and
+the fastly-falling tears half-blotted out the impassioned words she
+had once read with _him_ with so happy a heart-thrill.
+
+The widow saw with anxiety and alarm this sudden change; but she was
+an invalid--and the poor suffering one strove to hide her sickness of
+the heart, and mother though she was, Mrs. Layton discovered not the
+canker-worm which was nipping her bud of promise, but would whisper,
+"You confine yourself too much to my room, my child, and must go out
+into the bright sunshine, so that the smile may come back to your lip,
+the roses to your cheek."
+
+One day, now three months after Edward Morton's departure, Miss
+Jerusha Simpkins was seen threading her way to Woodbine Cottage. She
+held a newspaper carefully folded in her hand, and on her pinched and
+withered face a mingled expression of caution and importance was
+struggling.
+
+Lifting the latch of the embowered door, the spinster walked into the
+small parlor, where Fanny Layton was engaged in feeding her pet
+canaries; poor things! they were looking strangely at the wan face
+beside the cage, as if they wondered if it could be the same which
+used to come with wild warblings as sweet and untutored as their own.
+Fanny turned to welcome the intruder, but recognized Miss Simpkins
+with a half-drawn sigh, and a shrinking of the heart, for she was ever
+so minute in her inquiries for that "runaway Mr. Morton."
+
+"A beautiful day, Miss Fanny," commenced the spinster, looking sharply
+around, (she always made a point of doing two things i.e. entering the
+houses of her neighbors without knocking, and then taking in at a
+glance not only every thing the room contained, but the occupation,
+dress, &c. of the inmates for after comment,) and then throwing back
+her bonnet, and commencing to fan herself vigorously with the folded
+paper, "I thought I must run round to-day and see how your mother did,
+and bring her to-day's paper. I happened to be standing by the window
+when the penny-post came by, and Nancy says to me, 'Jerusha,' says
+she, 'do run to the door and get the Times--I haven't seen it for an
+age,' for we aint no great readers at our house; so I steps to the
+door and gets one from neighbor Wilkins--he is a very pleasant-spoken
+man, and often drops in of a morning to have a chat with me and Nancy.
+Well, what should I see the first thing (for I always turn to the
+marriages and deaths) but Mr. Edward Morton's marriage to the elegant
+and rich Miss--Miss--dear me! I've forgot the name now--do you see if
+you can make it out," handing her the paper; "but, bless me! what is
+the matter, Miss Fanny? I don't wonder you're surprised; Nancy and me
+was--for we did think at one time that he had an attachment to
+Aberdeen; but, la! one can't put any dependence on these wild-flys!"
+
+The last part of the cruel sentence was wholly lost upon poor Fanny,
+who sat with fixed and stony gaze upon the dreadful announcement,
+while it seemed as if her heart-strings were breaking one by one. In
+vain Miss Simpkins, thoroughly alarmed at length, strove to rouse her
+from this stupor of grief. In vain did her dear old nurse, who ran in
+affrighted at the loud ejaculations of the terrified but unfeeling
+creature who had dealt the blow, use every epithet of endearment, and
+strive to win one look from the poor sufferer, into whose inmost soul
+the iron had entered, upon whose heart a weight had fallen, that could
+never, never be uplifted again on earth. Every effort alike was
+useless; and for days she sat in one spot low murmuring a plaintive
+strain, rocking to and fro, with the white rose, _his_ parting gift,
+tightly clasped in her pale fingers, or gazing fixedly and vacantly
+upon the birds who sang still, unconsciously above her head. After a
+time she became more docile, and would retire to rest at night, at the
+earnest entreaties of her poor old nurse--but reason's light, from
+that fearful moment, was darkened evermore. She would suffer herself
+to be led out into the open air, and soon grew fond again of being
+with her old playmates, the children; but her words were
+unintelligible now to them, and she would often throw down the wreath
+she was twining, and starting up, would exclaim, in a tone that
+thrilled to one's very heart, "Oh, has he come? Are you sure he has
+not come yet--_my rose_ is almost _withered_?"
+
+Poor, poor Fanny Layton! She would go to church regularly--it was
+there, dear reader, that her faded face had brought to me such
+bewildered rememberings of the Fanny Layton of other years--and always
+dressed in the same mock-bridal attire. And there was not an eye in
+that village-church but glistened as it rested upon the poor, weary,
+stricken one, in her mournful spirit-darkness, and no lip but murmured
+brokenly, "Heaven bless her!"
+
+This was the last drop in the cup of the bereaved desolate widow. She
+soon found that rest and peace "which the world cannot give or take
+away." She sleeps her last, long, dreamless sleep.
+
+It was not long ere another mound was raised in the humble
+church-yard, on which was ever blooming the sweetest and freshest
+flowers of summer, watered by the tears of many who yet weep and
+lament the early perishing of that fairest flower of all. And a marble
+slab, on which is simply graven a dove, with an arrow driven to its
+very heart, marks the last earthly resting-place of our Lily of the
+Valley.
+
+
+
+
+THE SPANISH PRINCESS TO THE MOORISH KNIGHT.
+
+BY GRACE GREENWOOD.
+
+
+    Thou darest not love me!--thou canst only see
+    The great gulf set between us--had'st thou _love_
+    'Twould bear thee o'er it on a wing of fire!
+    Wilt put from thy faint lip the mantling cup,
+    The draught thou'st prayed for with divinest thirst,
+    For fear a poison in the chalice lurks?
+    Wilt thou be barred from thy soul's heritage,
+    The power, the rapture, and the crown of life,
+    By the poor guard of danger set about it?
+    I tell thee that the richest flowers of heaven
+    Bloom on the brink of darkness. Thou hast marked
+    How sweetly o'er the beetling precipice
+    Hangs the young June-rose with its crimson heart--
+    And would'st not sooner peril life to win
+    That royal flower, that thou might'st proudly wear
+    The trophy on thy breast, than idly pluck
+    A thousand meek-faced daisies by the way?
+    How dost thou shudder at Love's gentle tones,
+    As though a serpent's hiss were in thine ear.
+    Albeit thy heart throbs echo to each word.
+    Why wilt not rest, oh weary wanderer,
+    Upon the couch of flowers Love spreads for thee,
+    On banks of sunshine?--voices silver-toned
+    Shall lull thy soul with strange, wild harmonies,
+    Rock thee to sleep upon the waves of song.
+    Hope shall watch o'er thee with her breath of dreams.
+    Joy hover near, impatient for thy waking,
+    Her quick wing glancing through the fragrant air.
+
+    Why dost thou pause hard by the rose-wreathed gate,
+    Why turn thee from the paradise of youth,
+    Where Love's immortal summer blooms and glows,
+    And wrap thyself in coldness as a shroud?
+    Perchance 'tis well for _thee_--yet does the flame
+    That glows with heat intense and mounts toward heaven.
+    As fitly emblem holiest purity,
+    As the still snow-wreath on the mountain's brow.
+
+    Thou darest not say I love, and yet thou _lovest_,
+    And think'st to crush the mighty yearning down,
+    That in thy spirit shall upspring forever!
+    Twinned with thy soul, it lived in thy first thoughts--
+    It haunted with strange dreams thy boyish years,
+    And colored with its deep, empurpled hue,
+    The passionate aspirations of thy youth.
+    Go, take from June her roses--from her streams
+    The bubbling fountain-springs--from life, take _love_,
+    Thou hast its all of sweetness, bloom and strength.
+
+    There is a grandeur in the soul that dares
+    To live out all the life God lit within;
+    That battles with the passions hand to hand,
+    And wears no mail, and hides behind no shield!
+    That plucks its joy in the shadow of death's wing--
+    That drains with one deep draught the wine of life,
+    And that with fearless foot and heaven-turned eye,
+    May stand upon a dizzy precipice,
+    High o'er the abyss of ruin, and not _fall_!
+
+
+
+
+THE LIGHT OF OUR HOME.
+
+BY THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.
+
+
+    Oh, thou whose beauty on us beams
+      With glimpses of celestial light;
+    Thou halo of our waking dreams,
+      And early star that crown'st our night--
+
+    Thy light is magic where it falls;
+      To thee the deepest shadow yields;
+    Thou bring'st unto these dreary halls
+      The lustre of the summer-fields.
+
+    There is a freedom in thy looks
+      To make the prisoned heart rejoice;--
+    In thy blue eyes I see the brooks,
+      And hear their music in thy voice.
+
+    And every sweetest bird that sings
+      Hath poured a charm upon thy tongue;
+    And where the bee enamored clings,
+      There surely thou in love hast clung:--
+
+    For when I hear thy laughter free,
+      And see thy morning-lighted hair,
+    As in a dream, at once I see
+      Fair upland scopes and valleys fair.
+
+    I see thy feet empearled with dews,
+      The violet's and the lily's loss;
+    And where the waving woodland woos
+      Thou lead'st me over beds of moss;--
+
+    And by the busy runnel's side,
+      Whose waters, like a bird afraid,
+    Dart from their fount, and, flashing, glide
+      Athwart the sunshine and the shade.
+
+    Or larger streams our steps beguile;--
+      We see the cascade, broad and fair,
+    Dashed headlong down to foam, the while
+      Its iris-spirit leaps to air!
+
+    Alas! as by a loud alarm,
+      The fancied turmoil of the falls
+    Hath driven me back and broke the charm
+      Which led me from these alien walls:--
+
+    Yes, alien, dearest child, are these
+      Close city walls to thee and me:
+    My homestead was embowered with trees,
+      And such thy heritage should be:--
+
+    And shall be;--I will make for thee
+      A home within my native vale
+    Where every brook and ancient tree
+      Shall whisper some ancestral tale.
+
+    Now once again I see thee stand,
+      As down the future years I gaze,
+    The fairest maiden of the land--
+      The spirit of those sylvan ways.
+
+    And in thy looks again I trace
+      The light of her who gave thee birth;
+    She who endowed thy form and face
+      With glory which is not of Earth.
+
+    And as I gaze upon her now,
+      My heart sends up a prayer for thee,
+    That thou may'st wear upon thy brow
+      The light which now she beams on me.
+
+    And thou wilt wear that love and light
+      For thou'rt the bud to such a flower:--
+    Oh fair the day, how blest and bright,
+      Which finds thee in thy native bower!
+
+
+
+
+AN INDIAN-SUMMER RAMBLE.
+
+BY ALFRED B. STREET.
+
+
+It was now the middle of October. White frosts had for some time been
+spreading their sheets of pearl over the gardens and fields, but the
+autumn rainbows in the forests were wanting. At last, however, the
+stern black frost came and wrought its customary magic. For about a
+week there was a gorgeous pageantry exhibited, "beautiful,
+exceedingly." But one morning I awoke, and found that the mist had
+made a common domain both of earth and sky. Every thing was merged
+into a gray dimness. I could just discern the tops of trees a few feet
+off, and here and there a chimney. There was a small bit of fence
+visible, bordering "our lane," and I could with difficulty see a
+glimmering portion of the village street. Some gigantic cloud appeared
+to have run against something in the heavens and dropped down amongst
+us. There were various outlines a few rods off, belonging to objects
+we scarce knew what. Horses pushed out of the fog with the most sudden
+effect, followed by their wagons, and disappeared again in the
+opposite fleecy barrier; pedestrians were first seen like spectres,
+then their whole shapes were exhibited, and finally they melted slowly
+away again, whilst old Shadbolt's cow, grazing along the grassy margin
+of the street, loomed up through the vapor almost as large as an
+elephant.
+
+About noon the scene became clearer, so that the outline of the
+village houses, and even the checkered splendors of the neighboring
+woods could be seen; so much of Nate's sign, "Hammond's sto--" became
+visible, and even Hamble's great red stage-coach was exhibited,
+thrusting its tongue out as if in scorn of the weather.
+
+In the afternoon, however, the mist thickened again, and the whole
+village shrunk again within it, like a turtle within its shell. The
+next morning dawned without its misty mask, but with it rose a gusty
+wind that commenced howling like a famished wolf. Alas! for the
+glories of the woods! As the rude gusts rushed from the slaty clouds,
+the rich leaves came fluttering upon them, blotting the air and
+falling on the earth thick as snow-flakes. Now a maple-leaf, like a
+scalloped ruby, would fly whirling over and over; next a birch one
+would flash across the sight, as if a topaz had acquired wings; and
+then a shred of the oak's imperial mantle, flushed like a sardonyx,
+would cut a few convulsive capers in the air, like a clown in a
+circus, and dash itself headlong upon the earth. Altogether it was an
+exciting time, this fall of the leaf. Ah! a voice also was constantly
+whispering in my ear, "we all do fade as the leaf!"
+
+I took a walk in the woods. What a commotion was there! The leaves
+were absolutely frantic. Now they would sweep up far into the air as
+if they never intended to descend again, and then taking curvatures,
+would skim away like birds; others would cluster together, and then
+roll along like a great quivering billow; others again would circle
+around in eddies like whirlpools, soaring up now and then in the
+likeness of a water-spout, whilst frequently tall columns would march
+down the broad aisles of the forest in the most majestic manner, and
+finally fall to pieces in a violent spasm of whirling atoms. Even
+after the leaves had found their way to the earth they were by no
+means quiet. Some skipped uneasily over the surface; some stood on one
+leg, as it were, and pirouetted; some crept further and further under
+banks; some ran merry races over the mounds, and some danced up and
+down in the hollows. As for the trees themselves, they were cowering
+and shivering at a tremendous rate, apparently from want of the cloaks
+of which every blast was thus stripping them.
+
+A day or two after came the veritable soft-looking, sweet-breathing
+Indian-Summer--"our thunder." No other clime has it. Autumn expires in
+a rain-storm of three months in Italy; and it is choked to death with
+a wet fog in England; but in this new world of ours, "our own green
+forest land," as Halleck beautifully says, it swoons away often in a
+delicious trance, during which the sky is filled with sleep, and the
+earth hushes itself into the most peaceful and placid repose. There it
+lies basking away until with one growl old Winter springs upon Nature,
+locks her in icy fetters, and covers her bosom with a white mantle
+that generally stays there until Spring comes with her soft eye and
+blue-bird voice to make us all glad again.
+
+Well, this beautiful season arrived as aforesaid, and a day "turned
+up" that seemed to be extracted from the very core of the season's
+sweetness. The landscape was plunged into a thick mist at sunrise, but
+that gradually dwindled away until naught remained but a delicate
+dreamy film of tremulous purple, that seemed every instant as if it
+would melt from the near prospect. Further off, however, the film
+deepened into rich smoke, and at the base of the horizon it was
+decided mist, bearing a tinge, however, borrowed from the wood-violet.
+The mountains could be discerned, and that was all, and they only by
+reason of a faint jagged line struggling through the veil proclaiming
+their summits. The dome above was a tender mixture of blue and silver;
+and as for the sunshine, it was tempered and shaded down into a tint
+like the blush in the tinted hollow of the sea-shell.
+
+It was the very day for a ramble in the woods; so Benning, Watson, and
+I, called at the dwelling of three charming sisters, to ask their
+mamma's consent (and their own) to accompany us. These three Graces
+all differed from each other in their styles of beauty. The eyes of
+one were of sparkling ebony, those of the other looked as if the
+"summer heaven's delicious blue" had stained them, whilst the third's
+seemed as though they had caught their hue from the glittering gray
+that is sometimes seen just above the gold of a cloudless sunset.
+
+We turned down the green lane that led from the village street, and
+were soon in the forests. The half-muffled sunlight stole down sweetly
+and tenderly through the chaos of naked branches overhead; and there
+was a light crisp, crackling sound running through the dry fallen
+leaves, as though they had become tired of their position, and were
+striving to turn over. So quiet was the air that even this faint sound
+was distinctly audible. Hark! whang! whang! there rings the woodman's
+axe--crack! crash! b-o-o-m!--Hurrah! what thunder that little keen
+instrument has waked up there, and what power it has! Say, ye wild,
+deep forests, that have shrunk into rocky ravines, and retreated to
+steep mountains, what caused ye to flee away from the valleys and
+uplands of your dominion? Answer, fierce eagle! what drove thee from
+thy pine of centuries to the desolate and wind-swept peak, where alone
+thou couldst rear thy brood in safety? Tell, thou savage panther, what
+made the daylight flash into thy den so suddenly, that thou didst
+think thy eye-balls were extinguished?
+
+And thou, too, busy city, that dost point up thy spires where two
+score years ago the forest stood a frown upon the face of Nature--what
+mowed the way for thee? And, lastly, thou radiant grain-field, what
+prepared the room for thy bright and golden presence? Whew! if that
+isn't a tremendous flight, I don't know what is! But the axe, as Uncle
+Jack Lummis says of his brown mare, is "a tarnal great critter, any
+how!"
+
+How Settler Jake's cabin will gleam those approaching winter nights
+from the "sticks" that axe of his will give him out of the tree he has
+just prostrated. It is really pleasant to think of it. There will be
+the great fire-place, with a huge block for a back-log; then a pile
+will be built against it large enough for a bonfire--and then such a
+crackling and streaming! why the dark night just around there will be
+all in a blush with it. And the little window will glow like a red
+star to the people of the village; and then within, there will be the
+immense antlers over the door, belonging to a moose Jake shot the
+first year he came into the country, all tremulous with the light, and
+the long rifle thrust through it will glitter quick and keen; and the
+scraped powder-horn hung by it will be transparent in redness; even
+the row of bullets on the rude shelf near the window will give a dull
+gleam, whilst our old acquaintance, the axe, will wink as if a dozen
+eyes were strewn along its sharp, bright edge. And then the brown and
+tortoise-shell cat belonging to the "old woman" will partake of the
+lustre; and the old woman herself--a little, active, bustling body,
+will be seated in one corner of the fire-place, after having swept
+clean the hearth; and "Sport" will have coiled his long body on a
+bear-skin near her. Lastly, the settler himself will be sitting upon a
+stool opposite "Betsey," with his elbows on his knees, smoking a pipe
+as black as his face at the "spring logging." But stop--where was I?
+Oh, in the woods!"
+
+"Look! look!" cries Susan, the owner of the gray orbs, with an accent
+of delight, "see that beautiful black squirrel eating!"
+
+We all looked, and sure enough, there is the little object in a nook
+of warm bronze light, with his paws to his whiskered face, cracking
+nuts, one after another, as fast as possible. But he stops, with his
+paws still uplifted, looks askance for a moment, and away he shoots
+then through the "brush-fence" at our side like a dart.
+
+We soon find the tree whence he gathered his fruit. It is a noble
+hickory, with here and there a brown leaf clinging to its boughs. A
+stone or two brings the globes that hold the nuts to the earth. They
+have commenced cracking, and with a little exertion we uncover the
+snow-white balls. We are now all determined to rob the tree. It has no
+business to be displaying its round wealth so temptingly. And, beside,
+it will, if let alone, most probably entice boys from the little black
+school-house out yonder to "play truant." So it is unanimously voted
+that Benning, who is light and active, should climb the tree. Up he
+goes, like one of those little striped woodpeckers that are so often
+seen in the woods tapping up the trees, and immediately his hands and
+feet make the branches dance, whilst the green globes drop like great
+hail-stones on the earth. We then commence stripping the nuts from
+their covers, and soon the base of the tree is covered with them. We
+then stow the ivories away in our bags, and start for new havoc.
+
+We come now to the brush-fence. It is a perfect _chevau-de-frize_. It
+looks at us with a sort of defying, bristling air, as if it said as
+Wilson, the horse-jockey, says when some one endeavors to hoodwink him
+in a bargain, "You can't come it!"
+
+We wont try here, but a little lower down there is a gap made by John
+Huff's cow, that uses her horns so adroitly in the attack of a fence,
+no matter how difficult, that I verily believe she could pick a lock.
+We pass through the kindly breach and skirt the fence for some little
+distance to regain the path. The fence on this side is densely plumed
+with blackberry vines. What a revel I held there two months ago. The
+fruit hung around in rich masses of ebony, each little atom composing
+the cone having a glittering spot upon it like a tiny eye. How the
+black beauties melted on my tongue in their dead-ripe richness. One
+bush in particular was heavy with the clusters. After despoiling the
+edges I opened the heart, and there, hidden snugly away, as if for the
+wood-fairies, were quantities of the sable clusters, larger and more
+splendid than any I had seen. I immediately made my way into the
+defences of that fortress. There was a merciless sacking there,
+reader, allow me to tell you. But that is neither "here nor there" on
+the present occasion.
+
+How beautifully the soft, tender dark light slumbers on objects where
+the great roof of the forest will allow it. There is an edge of deep
+golden lace gleaming upon that mound of moss, and here, the light,
+breaking through the overhanging beech, has so mottled the tawny
+surface of the leaves beneath as to make it appear as if a
+leopard-skin had been dropped there.
+
+B-o-o-m, b-o-o-m, boom-boom--whi-r-r-r-r-r--there sounds the drum of
+the partridge. We'll rouse his speckled lordship probably below,
+causing him to give his low, quick thunder-clap so as to send the
+heart on a leaping visit to the throat.
+
+We now descend the ridge upon which we have been for some time, to a
+glade at the foot. The sweet haze belonging to the season is
+shimmering over it. It is a broad space surrounded on all sides by the
+forest. The first settler in this part of the country had "located"
+himself here, and this was his little clearing. His hut stood on an
+eminence in one corner. He lived there a number of years. He was a
+reserved, unsocial man, making the forest his only haunt, and his
+rifle his only companion. He was at last found dead in his cabin.
+Alone and unattended he had died, keeping to the last aloof from human
+society. The hut was next occupied by a singular couple--an old man
+and his idiot son. The father was of a fierce, savage temper, but
+seemed very fond, although capriciously so, of his child. Sometimes he
+would treat him with the greatest tenderness, then again, at some
+wayward action of the idiot, he would burst upon him with an awful
+explosion of passion. The old man had evidently been a reckless
+desperado in other days, and many in the village suspected strongly
+that he had once been a pirate. He was addicted to drinking, and now
+and then, when bitten by the adder, would talk strangely. He would
+commence narrating some wonderful hurricane he had experienced on the
+Spanish Main, and would launch out upon the number of times he had
+headed boarding parties, and once, in a state of great intoxication at
+the village tavern, he rambled off into a story about his having made
+an old man walk the plank. He would, however, check himself on all
+these occasions before he went far. He became involved in a fight one
+time with a great lounging fellow about the village, whose propensity
+to bully was the only salient point in his character. They
+clinched--the old man was thrown, and the bystanders had just time to
+pull the bully away, to prevent a long keen knife in the grasp of
+Murdock (for such was the old man's name) from being plunged into his
+side.
+
+Suddenly the idiot-boy disappeared. The passers-by had frequently seen
+him (for he was an industrious lad) working in the little patch
+belonging to the cabin, but from a certain time he was seen no more,
+and the old man lived alone in his cabin. A change, too, gradually
+grew over him. He became silent and deeply melancholy, and his
+countenance settled into an expression of stern, rigid sorrow. His eye
+was awful. Wild and red, it seemed as if you could look through it
+into a brain on fire.
+
+At last he commenced rubbing his right hand with his left. There he
+would fasten his gaze, and chafe with the most determined energy. He
+would frequently stop and hold the hand to his eye for a moment, and
+then recommence his strange work. To the inquiries of the village
+people concerning his son, he would give no answer. He would roll upon
+the inquirer for an instant his fierce, mad eye, and then prosecute
+his mysterious chafing more rigorously than ever.
+
+Things continued so for about a fortnight after the disappearance of
+the idiot, when one dark night the village was alarmed by the
+appearance of flames from the clearing. Hurrying to the spot, they
+were just in time to see the blazing roof of the hut fall in. The next
+morning disclosed, amidst the smouldering ashes, a few charred bones.
+Murdock was not again seen or heard of from that night.
+
+The glade is now quiet and lonely as if human passions had never been
+unloosed there in the terrific crime of parricide--the consequent
+remorse merging into madness, and a fiery retributory death. Upon the
+grassy mound, which the frost has not yet blighted, a beautiful white
+rabbit has just glided. The lovely creature darts onward, then
+crouches--now lays his long ears flat upon his shoulders, and now
+points them forward in the most knowing and cunning manner. He plays
+there in his white, pure beauty, as if in purposed contrast to the
+blood-stained and guilty wretch who expired on the same spot in his
+flaming torture. But the little shape now points his long, rose-tinted
+ears in our direction, and then he does not disappear as much as melt
+from our sight like the vanishing of breath from polished steel. We
+then enter fully into the glade. One of the trees at the border is a
+magnificent chestnut. I remember it in June, with its rich green
+leaves hung over with short, braided cords of pale gold. These braided
+blossoms have yielded fruit most plenteously. How thickly the
+chestnuts, with their autumn-colored coats and gray caps, are
+scattered around the tree, whilst the large yellow burrs on the
+branches, gaping wide open, are displaying their soft velvet inner
+lining in which the embedded nuts have ripened, and which in their
+maturity they have deserted.
+
+After changing the position of the little glossy things from the earth
+to our satchels, we cross the glade, and strike a narrow road that
+enters the forests in that direction. We pass along, our feet sinking
+deep in the dead leaves, until we come to an opening where a bridge
+spans a stream. It is a slight, rude structure, such as the emigrating
+settler would (and probably did) make in a brief hour to facilitate
+his passage across. Let us sketch the picture to our imagination for a
+moment. We will suppose it about an hour to sunset of a summer's day.
+There is a soft richness amidst the western trees, and the little
+grassy opening here is dappled with light and shade. The emigrant's
+wagon is standing near the brink, with its curved canvas top, white as
+silver, in a slanting beam, and the broad tires of its huge wheels
+stained green with the wood-plants and vines they have crushed in
+their passage during the day. The patient oxen, which have drawn the
+wagon so far, are chewing their cud, with their honest countenances
+fixed straight forward. Around the wagon is hung a multitude of
+household articles--pans, pails, kettles, brooms, and what not; and on
+a heap of beds, bedding, quilts, striped blankets, &c., is the old
+woman, the daughter, about eighteen, and a perfect swarm of
+white-headed little ones. The father, and his two stalwort sons, are
+busy in the forest close at hand. How merrily the echoes ring out at
+each blow of their axes, and how the earth groans with the shock of
+the falling trees. The two largest of the woodland giants are cut into
+logs--the others are also divided into the proper lengths. The logs
+are placed athwart the stream several feet distant from each
+other--the rest are laid in close rows athwart, and lo! the bridge.
+Over the whole scene the warm glow of the setting sun is spread, and a
+black bear, some little distance in the forest, is thrusting his great
+flat head out of a hollow tree, overseeing the proceedings with the
+air of a connoisseur.
+
+The bridge is now old and black, and has decayed and been broken into
+quite a picturesque object. One of the platform pieces has been
+fractured in the middle, and the two ends slant upwards, as if to take
+observations of the sky; and there is a great hole in the very centre
+of the bridge. Add to this the moss, which has crept over the whole
+structure, making what remains of the platform a perfect cushion, and
+hanging in long flakes of emerald, which fairly dip in the water, and
+the whole object is before you. The stream has a slow, still motion,
+with eddies, here coiling up into wrinkles like an old man's face, and
+there dimpling around some stone like the smiling cheek of a young
+maiden, but in no case suffering its demureness to break into a broad
+laugh of ripples. In one spot tall bullrushes show their slender
+shapes and brown wigs; in another there is a collection of waterflags;
+in another there are tresses of long grass streaming in the light flow
+of the current, whilst in a nook, formed by the roots of an immense
+elm on one side, and a projection of the bank on the other, is a thick
+coat of stagnant green--a perfect meadow for the frogs to hold their
+mass meetings in, differing from ours, however, from the fact of
+theirs being composed of all talkers and no listeners.
+
+Let us look at the stream a little, which has here expanded into a
+broad surface, and view its "goings on." There is a water-spider
+taking most alarming leaps, as if afraid of wetting his feet; a
+dragon-fly is darting hither and yon, his long, slender body flashing
+with green, golden and purple hues; a large dace has just apparently
+flattened his nose against the dark glass inward, dotting a great and
+increasing period outward. A bright birch-leaf, "the last of its
+clan," has just fallen down, and been snapped at most probably by a
+little spooney of a trout, thinking it a yellow butterfly; and on the
+bottom, which, directly under our eyes is shallow, are several
+water-insects crawling along like locomotive spots of shadow and
+reflected through the tremulous medium into distorted shapes. However,
+we have lingered here long enough--let us onward.
+
+What on earth is that uproar which is now striking our ear. Such
+hoarse notes, such rapid flutterings, whizzings, deep rumbling sounds,
+and such a rustle of dead leaves surely betoken something. We turn an
+elbow of the road, and a flashing of blue wings, and darting of blue
+shapes in the air, now circling round, now shooting up, and now down,
+with a large beech tree for the centre, meet our eyes. The tumult is
+explained. A colony of wild pigeons is busy amongst the beech-nuts,
+which the frost has showered upon the earth. The ground for some
+distance around the tree is perfectly blue with the birds picking, and
+fighting, and scrambling. It is ludicrous to see them. Here a score or
+two are busy eating, looking like a collection of big-paunched,
+blue-coated aldermen at a city feast; there, all are hurrying and
+jostling, and tumbling over one another like the passengers of a
+steamboat when the bell rings for dinner. By the side of yonder bush
+there is a perfect duel transpiring between two pugnacious pigeons
+dashing out their wings fiercely at each other with angry tones, their
+beautiful purple necks all swollen, and their red eyes casting
+devouring looks, whilst two others are very quietly, yet swiftly, as
+if making the most of their time, causing all the nuts in sight, and
+which probably induced the quarrel, disappear down their own throats.
+See! here is a pigeon who has over-estimated his capacity of
+swallowing, or has encountered a larger nut than usual, for he is
+exhibiting the most alarming symptoms of choking. He stretches his
+neck and opens his bill like a cock in the act of crowing, at the same
+time dancing up and down on his pink legs as if his toes had caught
+fire. However, he has mastered the nut at last with a vigorous shake
+of his neck, and bobs industriously again at his feast.
+
+Determining to have some of the brown luscious mast, we make a foray
+amongst the gorging host, and succeeded in causing a cloud of them to
+take wing, and in securing a quantity of the spoil.
+
+We then start again on our way, but do not advance far
+before--b-r-r-r-r-r-h--off bursts a partridge, and shoots down the
+vista of the road, with the dark sunshine glancing from his mottled
+back. If little "Spitfire" was here, how he would yelp and dance, and
+dart backward and forward, and shake his tail, so as to render it
+doubtful whether it wouldn't fly off in a tangent.
+
+Rattat, tattat, tat--tat--t-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r--there is the great
+red-headed woodpecker, or woodcock, as he is called by the country
+people, looking like a miniature man with a crimson turban and sable
+spear, attacking the bark of yon old oak. He is making a
+sounding-board of the seamed mail of the venerable monarch, to detect
+by the startled writhing within the grub snugly ensconced, as it
+thinks, there, in order to transfix it with his sharp tongue through
+the hole made by his bill. He ceases his work though as we
+approach--and now he flies away.
+
+A mile farther, we come to the strawberry-field belonging to Deacon
+Gravespeech, the outlines of whose dark, low farm-house are etched on
+the mist which is again slowly spreading over the landscape, for it is
+now near sunset. Having left the forest, we see the mild red orb, like
+an immense ruby, just in the act of sinking in the bank of pale blue
+which now thickens the Western horizon. But what have we here? A
+splendid butternut tree, with quantities of the oval fruit scattered
+about amidst the brown leaves, in their coats of golden green. What a
+rich lustre is upon them, made brighter by the varnish, and how
+delightful their pungent perfume. Let us crack a few of the strong,
+deeply-fluted shells. In their tawny nooks nestle the dark,
+golden-veined meats, which with the most delicious sweetness crumble
+in the mouth.
+
+Of all the fruits of the Northern forests give me the butternut; and,
+speaking of fruits puts me in mind of the strawberry field. I was here
+with a small party one day last June. The field was then scattered
+thickly over with the bright crimson spotting fruit, and the fingers
+of all of us were soon dyed deeply with the sweet blood. There is
+great skill in picking strawberries, let me tell you, reader, although
+it is a trifle. Go to work systematically, and don't get excited.
+Gather all as you go, indiscriminately. Don't turn to the right for
+two splendid berries, and leave the one in front, for it is just as
+likely, before you gather the two, a cluster, with five ripe tempting
+fellows, will cause you to forget the others, and in whirling yourself
+around, and stretching over to seize the latest prize, your feet and
+limbs not only destroy the first and second, but a whole collection of
+the blushing beauties hid away in a little hollow of buttercups and
+dandelions.
+
+Well, "as I was saying," I was here with a small party, and had fine
+sport picking, but the next day a precept, at the suit of Peter
+Gravespeech, was served upon Hull and myself, (the two gentlemen of
+the party,) issued from "Pettifogger's Delight," as the office of
+Squire Tappit, the justice, was called throughout the village: action,
+trespass. "For the fun of the thing" we stood trial. The day came, and
+all the vagabonds of the village,--those whose continual cry is that
+they "can never get any thing to do," and therefore drive a brisk
+business at doing nothing,--were in attendance. The justice was a
+hot-tempered old fellow, somewhat deaf, and,--if his nose was any
+evidence,--fond of the brandy bottle.
+
+The witness of the trespass, who was a "hired hand" of Deacon
+Gravespeech, was present, and after the cause had been called in due
+order, was summoned by the deacon (who appeared in proper person) to
+the stand. He was generally very irascible, a good deal of a bully,
+rather stupid, and, on the present occasion, particularly drunk.
+
+"Now, Mr. Hicks," said the deacon, respectfully, (knowing his man,)
+after he had 'kissed the book,' "now, Mr. Hicks (his name was Joe
+Hicks, but universally called 'Saucy Joe,') please tell the justice
+what you know of this transaction."
+
+"Well, squire, I seed 'em!" replied Joe, to this appeal, facing the
+justice.
+
+"Who?" ejaculated the justice, quickly.
+
+"Who!" answered Joe, "why, who do you spose, but that'ere sour-faced
+feller, (pointing at Hull,) what looks like a cow swelled on clover,
+and that 'ere little nimshi, who isn't bigger than my Poll's knitten
+needle. They was with four female critters."
+
+"Well, what were they about?" asked the deacon.
+
+"What was they about!" (a little angrily,) "you know as well as I do,
+deacon, for I telled ye all about it at the time."
+
+"Yes, but you must tell the justice."
+
+"Answer, witness!" exclaimed the justice, somewhat sternly.
+
+"Oh! you needn't be flusterfied, Squire Tappit; I knowed ye long afore
+ye was squire, and drinked with ye, too. For that matter, I stood
+treat last!"
+
+"That's of no consequence now, Mr. Hicks," interposed the deacon,
+throwing at the same time a deprecatory glance at the old justice,
+whose nose was growing redder, and whose eye began to twinkle in
+incipient wrath.
+
+"Let the gentleman proceed with his interesting developments," said
+Hull, rising with the most ludicrous gravity, and waving his hand in a
+solemn and dignified manner.
+
+"Well," said Joe, a little mollified at the word 'gentleman,' "ef I
+must tell it agin, I must, that's all. They was a picken strawberries
+like Old Sanko."
+
+"How long do you think they were there, trampling down the grass?"
+asked the deacon.
+
+"Why, I spose from the time I seed 'em"--here he stopped abruptly,
+glanced out of the window toward the tavern, spit thirstily, and then
+looked at the deacon.
+
+"Let the gentleman proceed," again cried Hull, half rising, in mock
+respect.
+
+"_Pro_ceed!" said the justice, angrily.
+
+"Well, as I was a sayen, from the time I seed 'em---- But I say,
+deacon, I'm monstrous dry. You're temp'rance I know; but sposen as how
+you treat me and old Squire Tappit there to some red eye. He won't
+refuse, no how you can fix it, and as for me, I am so dry I really
+can't talk."
+
+"Go on with your story, you scoundrel!" shouted the justice,
+exasperated beyond all bounds, "or I'll commit you to prison."
+
+"Commit me to prison, you old brandy-jug!" yelled Joe, swinging off
+his ragged coat at a jerk, and throwing it on the floor, "commit _me_,
+you mahogany-nosed old sarpent!" advancing close to the justice, with
+both of his great fists ready.
+
+"Let the gentleman proceed," here broke in Hull again, in an agony of
+laughter.
+
+And, sure enough, the "gentleman" did proceed. Launching out his right
+fist in the most approved fashion at the nose of the justice, Joe was
+in an instant the center of a perfect Pandemonium. The constable
+rushed in to protect the justice, who was shouting continually, "I
+command the peace;" the bystanders, ready for a fight at any time,
+followed his example, and, for a few minutes, there was a perfect
+chaos of arms, legs, and heads, sticking out in every direction.
+
+The first thing Hull and I saw were the heels of the justice
+flourishing in the air, and the last was Joe going off to jail in the
+grasp of the constable one way, and the deacon sneaking off another.
+We never heard afterward of the suit, but "Let the gentleman proceed,"
+was for a long time a by-word amongst us in the village.
+
+After crossing the strawberry field we came to a "cross-road" leading
+to the turnpike. In a few minutes we arrived at "Cold Spring," where a
+little streak of water ran through a hollowed log, green with moss,
+from the fountain a short distance in the forest, and fell into a
+pebbly basin at the road-side. We here refreshed ourselves with
+repeated draughts of the sweet, limpid element, and then, resuming our
+walk, soon found ourselves upon the broad, gray turnpike, with the
+village upon the summit of the hill, about half a mile in front.
+
+The sun had long since plunged into the slate-colored haze of the
+West; the thickening landscape looked dull and faded; the mist was
+glimmering before the darkened forests; the cows were wending
+homeward, lowing; the woodsmen passed us with axes on their shoulders;
+and, mounting the hill, we saw here and there, a light sparkling in
+the village, following the example of the scattered stars that were
+timidly glancing from the dome of the purpled heavens.
+
+
+
+
+THE LOST PET
+
+BY MRS. LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.
+
+[SEE ENGRAVING.]
+
+
+    When Mary's brother went to sea,
+      He lingered near the door,
+    Beside the old, familiar tree,
+      He ne'er had left before,
+
+    And though gay boyhood loves to seek
+      New regions where to tread,
+    A pearl-drop glittered on his cheek
+      As tenderly he said--
+
+    "The gentle dove I reared with care,
+      Sister, I leave to thee,
+    And let it thy protection share
+      When I am far at sea."
+
+    Whene'er for Willy's loss she grieved,
+      His darling she caressed,
+    That from her hand its food received,
+      Or nestled in her breast;
+
+    And sometimes, at the twilight dim,
+      When blossoms bow to sleep,
+    She thought it murmuring asked for him
+      Whose home was on the deep.
+
+    And if her mother's smile of joy
+      Was lost in anxious thought,
+    As memories of her sailor-boy
+      Some gathering tempest wrought,
+
+    She showed his pet, the cooing dove,
+      Perched on her sheltering arm,
+    And felt how innocence and love
+      Can rising wo disarm.
+
+    When summer decked the leafy bowers,
+      And pranked the russet plain,
+    She bore his cage where breathing flowers
+      Inspired a tuneful strain;
+
+    And now and then, through open door,
+      Indulged a wish to roam,
+    Though soon, the brief excursion o'er,
+      The wanderer sought its home.
+
+    She laughed to see it brush the dew
+      From bough and budding spray.
+    And deemed its snow-white plumage grew
+      More beauteous, day by day.
+
+    The rose of June was in its flush,
+      And 'neath the fragrant shade
+    Of her own fullest, fairest bush
+      The favorite's house was staid,
+
+    While roving, bird-like, here and there,
+      Amid her flow'rets dear,
+    She culled a nosegay, rich and rare,
+      A mother's heart to cheer.
+
+    A shriek! A flutter! Swift as thought
+      Her startled footstep flew,
+    But full of horror was the sight
+      That met her eager view--
+
+    Her treasure in a murderer's jaws!
+      One of that feline race
+    Whose wily looks and velvet paws
+      Conceal their purpose base.
+
+    And scarce the victim's gushing breast
+      Heaved with one feeble breath,
+    Though raised to hers, its glance exprest
+      Affection even in death.
+
+    Oh, stricken child! though future years
+      May frown with heavier shade,
+    When woman's lot of love and tears
+      Is on thy spirit laid--
+
+    Yet never can a wilder cry
+      Thy heart-wrung anguish prove
+    Than when before thy swimming eye
+      Expired that wounded dove.
+
+
+[Illustration: THE LOST PET
+Engraved Expressly for Graham's Magazine
+Figure from I. M. Wright. Drawn with original scenery & engraved by Ellis.]
+
+
+
+
+FIEL A LA MUERTE, OR TRUE LOVE'S DEVOTION.
+
+A TALE OF THE TIMES OF LOUIS QUINZE.
+
+BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, AUTHOR OF "THE ROMAN TRAITOR,"
+"MARMADUKE WYVIL," "CROMWELL," ETC.
+
+(_Concluded from page_ 91.)
+
+
+PART III.
+
+    For there were seen in that dark wall,
+    Two niches, narrow, dark and tall.
+    Who enters by such grisly door,
+    Shall ne'er, I ween, find exit more.--WALTER SCOTT.
+
+It would be wonderful, were it not of daily occurrence, and to be
+observed by all who give attention to the characteristics of the human
+mind, how quickly confidence, even when shaken to its very
+foundations, and almost obliterated, springs up again, and recovers
+all its strength in the bosoms of the young of either sex.
+
+Let but a few more years pass over the heart, and when once broken, if
+it be only by a slight suspicion, or a half unreal cause, it will
+scarce revive again in a life-time; nor then, unless proofs the
+strongest and most unquestionable can be adduced to overpower the
+doubts which have well-nigh annihilated it.
+
+In early youth, however, before long contact with the world has
+blunted the susceptibilities, and hardened the sympathies of the soul,
+before the constant experience of the treachery, the coldness, the
+ingratitude of men has given birth to universal doubt and general
+distrust, the shadow vanishes as soon as the cloud which cast it is
+withdrawn, and the sufferer again believes, alas! too often, only to
+be again deceived.
+
+Thus it was with St. Renan, who a few minutes before had given up even
+the last hope, who had ceased, as he thought, to believe even in the
+possibility of faith or honor among men, of constancy, or purity, or
+truth in women, no sooner saw his Melanie, whom he knew to be the wife
+of another, solitary and in tears, no sooner felt her inanimate form
+reclining on his bosom, than he was prepared to believe any thing,
+rather than believe her false.
+
+Indeed, her consternation at his appearance, her evident dismay, not
+unnatural in an age wherein skepticism and infidelity were marvelously
+mingled with credulity and superstition, her clear conviction that it
+was not himself in mortal blood and being, did go far to establish the
+fact, that she had been deceived either casually or--which was far
+more probable--by foul artifice, into the belief that her beloved and
+plighted husband was no longer with the living.
+
+The very exclamation which she uttered last, ere she sunk senseless
+into his arms, uttered, as she imagined, in the presence of the
+immortal spirit of the injured dead, "I am true, Raoul--true to the
+last, my beloved!" rang in his ears with a power and a meaning which
+convinced him of her veracity.
+
+"She could not lie!" he muttered to himself, "in the presence of the
+living dead! God be praised! she is true, and we shall yet be happy!"
+
+How beautiful she looked, as she lay there, unconscious and insensible
+even of her own existence. If time and maturity had improved Raoul's
+person, and added the strength and majesty of manhood to the grace and
+pliability of youth, infinitely more had it bestowed on the beauty of
+his betrothed. He had left her a beautiful girl just blooming out of
+girlhood, he found her a mature, full-blown woman, with all the flush
+and flower of complete feminine perfection, before one charm has
+become too luxuriant, or one drop of the youthful dew exhaled from the
+new expanded blossom.
+
+She had shot up, indeed, to a height above the ordinary stature of
+women--straight, erect, and graceful as a young poplar, slender, yet
+full withal, exquisitely and voluptuously rounded, and with every
+sinuous line and swelling curve of her soft form full of the poetry
+and beauty both of repose and motion.
+
+Her complexion was pale as alabaster; even her cheeks, except when
+some sudden tide of passion, or some strong emotion sent the impetuous
+blood coursing thither more wildly than its wont, were colorless, but
+there was nothing sallow or sickly, nothing of that which is
+ordinarily understood by the word pallid, in their clear, warm,
+transparent purity; nothing, in a word, of that lividness which the
+French, with more accuracy than we, distinguish from the healthful
+paleness which is so beautiful in southern women.
+
+Her hair, profuse almost to redundance, was perfectly black, but of
+that warm and lustrous blackness which is probably the hue expressed
+by the ancient Greeks by the term hyacinthine, and which in certain
+lights has a purplish metallic gloss playing over it, like the varying
+reflections on the back of the raven. Her strongly defined, and nearly
+straight eyebrows, were dark as night, as were the long, silky lashes
+which were displayed in clear relief against the fair, smooth cheek,
+as the lids lay closed languidly over the bright blue eyes.
+
+It was a minute or two before Melanie moved or gave any symptoms of
+recovering from her fainting fit, and during those minutes the lips of
+Raoul had been pressed so often and so warmly to those of the fair
+insensible, that had any spark of perception remained to her, the fond
+and lingering pressure could not have failed to call the "purple
+light of love," to her ingenuous face.
+
+At length a long, slow shiver ran through the form of the senseless
+girl, and thrilled, like the touch of the electric wire, every nerve
+in St. Renan's body.
+
+Then the soft rosy lips were unclosed, and forth rushed the ambrosial
+breath in a long, gentle sigh, and the beautiful bust heaved and
+undulated, like the bosom of the calm sea, when the first breathings
+of the coming storm steal over it, and wake, as if by sympathy, its
+deep pulsations.
+
+He clasped her closer to his heart, half fearful that when life and
+perfect consciousness should be restored to that exquisite frame, it
+would start from his embrace, if not in anger or alarm, at least as if
+from a forbidden and illicit pleasure.
+
+Gradually a faint rosy hue, slight as the earliest blushes of the
+morning sky, crept over her white cheeks, and deepened into a rich
+passionate flush; and at the same moment the azure-tinctured lids were
+unclosed slowly, and the large, radiant, bright-blue eyes beamed up
+into his own, half languid still, but gleaming through their dewy
+languor, with an expression which he must have been, indeed, blind to
+mistake for aught but the strongest of unchanged, unchangeable
+affection.
+
+It was evident that she knew him now; that the momentary terror,
+arising rather, perhaps, from fear than from superstition, which had
+converted the young ardent soldier into a visitant from beyond those
+gloomy portals through which no visitant returns, had passed from her
+mind, and that she had already recognized, although she spoke not, her
+living lover.
+
+And though she recognized him, she sought not to withdraw herself from
+the enclosure of his sheltering arms, but lay there on his bosom, with
+her head reclined on his shoulder, and her eyes drinking long draughts
+of love from his fascinated gaze, as if she were his own, and that her
+appropriate place of refuge and protection.
+
+"Oh! Raoul," she exclaimed, at length, in a low, soft whisper, "is it,
+indeed, you--you, whom I have so long wept as dead--you, whom I was
+even now weeping as one lost to me forever, when you are thus restored
+to me!"
+
+"It is I, Melanie," he answered mournfully, "it is I, alive, and in
+health; but better far had I been in truth dead, as they have told
+you, rather than thus a survivor of all happiness, of all hopes;
+spared only from the grave to know _you_ false, and myself forgotten."
+
+"Oh, no, Raoul, not false!" she cried wildly, as she started from his
+arms, "oh, not forgotten! think you," she added, blushing crimson,
+"that had I loved any but you, that had I not loved you with my whole
+heart and being, I had lain thus on your bosom, thus endured your
+caresses? Oh, no, no, never false! nor for one moment forgotten?"
+
+"But what avails it, if you do love no other--what profits it, if you
+do love me? Are you not--are you not, false girl,--alas! that these
+lips should speak it,--the wife of another--the promised mistress of
+the king?"
+
+"I--I--Raoul!" she exclaimed, with such a blending of wonder and
+loathing in her face, such an expression of indignation on her tongue,
+that her lover perceived at once, that, whatever might be the infamy
+of her father, of her husband, of this climax of falsehood and
+self-degradation, she, at least, was guiltless.
+
+"The mistress of the king! what king? what mean you? are you
+distraught?"
+
+"Ha! you are ignorant, you are innocent of that, then. You are not yet
+indoctrinated into the noble uses for which your honorable lord
+intends you. It is the town's talk, Melanie. How is it you, whom it
+most concerns, alone have not heard it?"
+
+"Raoul," she said, earnestly, imploringly, "I know not if there be any
+meaning in your words, except to punish me, to torture me, for what
+you deem my faithlessness, but if there be, I implore you, I conjure
+you, by your father's noble name; by your mother's honor, show me the
+worst; but listen to me first, for by the God that made us both, and
+now hears my words, I am not faithless."
+
+"Not faithless? Are you not the wife of another?"
+
+"No!" she replied enthusiastically. "I am not. For I am yours, and
+while you live I cannot wed another. Whom God hath joined man cannot
+put asunder."
+
+"I fear me that plea will avail us little," Raoul answered. "But say
+on, dearest Melanie, and believe that there is nothing you can ask
+which I will not give you gladly--even if it were my own life-blood.
+Say on, so shall we best arrive at the truth of this intricate and
+black affair."
+
+"Mark me, then, Raoul, for every word I shall speak is as true as the
+sun in heaven. It is near two years now since we heard that you had
+fallen in battle, and that your body had been carried off by the
+barbarians. Long! long I hoped and prayed, but prayers and hopes were
+alike in vain. I wrote to you often, as I promised, but no line from
+you has reached me, since the day when you sailed for India, and that
+made me fear that the dread news was true. But at the last, to make
+assurance doubly sure, all my own letters were returned to me six
+months since, with their seals unbroken, and an endorsement from the
+authorities in India that the person addressed was not to be found.
+Then hope itself was over; and my father, who never from the first had
+doubted that you were no more--"
+
+"Out on him! out on him! the heartless villain!" the young man
+interrupted her indignantly. "He knows, as well as I myself, that I am
+living; although it is no fault of his or his coadjutors that I am so.
+He knows not as yet, however, that I am _here_; but he shall know it
+ere long to his cost, my Melanie."
+
+"At least," she answered in a faltering voice, "at least he _swore_ to
+me that you were dead; and never having ceased to persecute me, since
+the day that fatal tidings reached, to become the wife of La
+Rochederrien, now Marquis de Ploermel, he now became doubly urgent--"
+
+"And you, Melanie! you yielded! I had thought you would have died
+sooner."
+
+"I had no choice but to yield, Raoul. Or at least but the choice of
+that old man's hand, or an eternal dungeon. The _lettres de cachet_
+were signed, and you dead, and on the conditions I extorted from the
+marquis, I became in name, Raoul, only in name, by all my hopes of
+Heaven! the wife of the man whom you pronounce, wherefore, I cannot
+dream, the basest of mankind. Now tell me."
+
+"And did it never strike you as being wonderful and most unnatural
+that this Ploermel, who is neither absolutely a dotard nor an old
+woman, should accept your hand upon this condition?"
+
+"I was too happy to succeed in extorting it to think much of that,"
+she answered.
+
+"_Extorted!_" replied Raoul bitterly, "And how, I pray you, is this
+condition which you extorted ratified or made valid?"
+
+"It is signed by himself, and witnessed by my own father, that, being
+I regard myself the wife of the dead, he shall ask no more of
+familiarity from me than if I were the bride of heaven!"
+
+"The double villains!"
+
+"But wherefore villains, Raoul?" exclaimed Melanie.
+
+"I tell you, girl, it is a compact--a base, hellish compact--with the
+foul despot, the disgrace of kings, the opprobrium of France, who sits
+upon the throne, dishonoring it daily! A compact such as yet was never
+entered into by a father and a husband, even of the lowest of mankind!
+A compact to deliver you a spotless virgin-victim to the vile-hearted
+and luxurious tyrant. Curses! a thousand curses on his soul! and on my
+own soul! who have fought and bled for him, and all to meet with this,
+as my reward of service!"
+
+"Great God! can these things be," she exclaimed, almost fainting with
+horror and disgust. "Can these things indeed be? But speak, Raoul,
+speak; how can you know all this?"
+
+"I tell you, Melanie, it is the talk, the very daily, hourly gossip of
+the streets, the alleys, nay, even the very kennels of Paris. Every
+one knows it--every one believes it, from the monarch in the Louvre to
+the lowest butcher of the Faubourg St. Antoine!
+
+"And they believe it--of me, of _me_, they believe this infamy!"
+
+"With this addition, if any addition were needed, that you are not a
+deceived victim, but a willing and proud participator in the shame."
+
+"I will--that is--" she corrected herself, speaking very rapidly and
+energetically--"I _would_ die sooner. But there is no need now to die.
+You have come back to me, and all will yet go well with us!"
+
+"It never can go well with us again," St. Renan answered gloomily.
+"The king never yields his purpose, he is as tenacious in his hold as
+reckless in his promptitude to seize. And they are paid beforehand."
+
+"Paid!" exclaimed the girl, shuddering at the word. "What atrocity!
+How paid?"
+
+"How, think you, did your good father earn his title and the rich
+governorship of Morlaix? What great deeds were rewarded to La
+Rochederrien by his marquisate, and this captaincy of mousquetaires.
+You know not yet, young lady, what virtue there is nowadays in being
+the accommodating father, or the convenient husband of a beauty!"
+
+"You speak harshly, St. Renan, and bitterly."
+
+"And if I do, have I not cause enough for bitterness and harshness?"
+he replied almost angrily.
+
+"Not against me, Raoul."
+
+"I am not bitter against you, Melanie. And yet--and yet--"
+
+"And yet _what_, Raoul?"
+
+"And yet had you resisted three days longer, we might have been
+saved--you might have been mine--"
+
+"I am yours, Raoul de St. Renan. Yours, ever and forever! No one's but
+only yours."
+
+"You speak but madness--your vow--the sacrament!"
+
+"To the winds with my vow--to the abyss with the fraudful sacrament!"
+she cried, almost fiercely. By sin it was obtained and sanctioned--in
+sin let it perish. I say--I swear, Raoul, if you will take me, I am
+yours."
+
+"Mine? Mine?" cried the young man, half bewildered. "How mine, and
+when?"
+
+"Thus," she replied, casting herself upon his breast, and winding her
+arms around his neck, and kissing his lips passionately and often.
+"Thus, Raoul, thus, and now!"
+
+He returned her embrace fondly once, but the next instant he removed
+her almost forcibly from his breast, and held her at arm's length.
+
+"No, no!" he exclaimed, "not thus, not thus! If at all, honestly,
+openly, holily, in the face of day! May my soul perish, ere cause come
+through me why you should ever blush to show your front aloft among
+the purest and the proudest. No, no, not thus, my own Melanie!"
+
+The girl burst into a paroxysm of tears and sobbing, through which she
+hardly could contrive to make her interrupted and faultering words
+audible.
+
+"If not now," she said at length, "it will never be. For, hear me,
+Raoul, and pity me, to-morrow they are about to drag me to Paris."
+
+The lover mused for several moments very deeply, and then replied,
+"Listen to me, Melanie. If you are in earnest, if you are true, and
+can be firm, there may yet be happiness in store for us, and that very
+shortly."
+
+"Do you doubt me, Raoul?"
+
+"I do not doubt you, Melanie. But ever as in my own wildest rapture,
+even to gain my own extremest bliss, I would not do aught that could
+possibly cast one shadow on your pure renown, so, mark me, would I not
+take you to my heart were there one spot, though it were but as a
+speck in the all-glorious sun, upon the brightness of your purity."
+
+"I believe you, Raoul. I feel, I know that my honor, that my purity is
+all in all to you.
+
+"I would die a thousand deaths," he made answer, "ere even a false
+report should fall on it, to mar its virgin whiteness. Marvel not
+then that I ask as much of you."
+
+"Ask anything, St. Renan. It _is_ granted."
+
+"In France we can hope for nothing. But there are other lands than
+France. We must fly; and thanks to these documents which you have
+wrung from them, and the proofs which I can easily obtain, this cursed
+marriage can be set aside, and then, in honor and in truth you can be
+mine, mine own Melanie."
+
+"God grant it so, Raoul."
+
+"It shall be so, beloved. Be you but firm, and it may be done right
+speedily. I will sell the estates of St. Renan--by a good chance,
+supposing me dead, the Lord of Yrvilliac was in treaty for it with my
+uncle. That can be arranged forthwith. Conduct yourself according to
+your wont, cool and as distant as may be with this villain of
+Ploermel; avoid above all things to let your father see that you are
+buoyed by any hope, or moved by any passion. Treat the king with
+deliberate scorn, if he approach you over boldly. Beware how you eat
+or drink in his company, for he is capable of all things, even of
+drugging you into insensibility, and here," he added, taking a small
+poniard, of exquisite workmanship, with a gold hilt and scabbard, from
+his girdle, and giving it to her, "wear _this_ at all times, and if he
+dare attempt violence, were he thrice a king, _use it_!"
+
+"I will--I will--trust me, Raoul! I _will_ use it, and that to his
+sorrow! My heart is strong, and my hand brave _now_--now that I know
+you to be living. Now that I have hope to nerve me, I will fear
+nothing, but dare all things."
+
+"Do so, do so, my beloved, and you shall have no cause to fear, for I
+will be ever near you. I will tarry here but one day; and ere you
+reach Paris, I will be there, be certain. Within ten days, I doubt not
+I can convert my acres into gold, and ship that gold across the narrow
+straits; and that done, the speed of horses, and a swift sailing ship
+will soon have us safe in England; and if that land be not so fair, or
+so dear as our own France, at least there are no tyrants there, like
+this Louis; and there are laws, they say, which guard the meanest man
+as safely and as surely as the proudest noble."
+
+"A happy land, Raoul. I would that we were there even now."
+
+"We will be there ere long, fear nothing. But tell me, whom have you
+near your person on whom we may rely. There must be some one through
+whom we may communicate in Paris. It may be that I shall require to
+see you."
+
+"Oh! you remember Rose, Raoul--little Rose Faverney, who has lived
+with me ever since she was a child--a pretty little black-eyed
+damsel."
+
+"Surely I do remember her. Is she with you yet? That will do
+admirably, then, if she be faithful, as I think she is; and unless I
+forget, what will serve us better yet, she loves my page Jules de
+Marliena. He has not forgotten her, I promise you."
+
+"Ah! Jules--we grow selfish, I believe, as we grow old, Raoul. I have
+not thought to ask after one of your people. So Jules remembers little
+Rose, and loves her yet; that will, indeed, secure her, even had she
+been doubtful, which she is not. She is as true as steel--truer, I
+fear, than even I; for she reproached me bitterly four evenings since,
+and swore she would be buried alive, much more willingly imprisoned,
+than be married to the Marquis de Ploermel, though she was only
+plighted to the Vicomte Raoul's page! Oh! we may trust in her with all
+certainty."
+
+"Send her, then, on the very same night that you reach Paris, so soon
+as it is dark, to my uncle's house in the Place de St. Louis. I think
+she knows it, and let her ask--not for me--but for Jules. Ere then I
+will know something definite of our future; and fear nothing, love,
+all shall go well with us. Love such as ours, with faith, and right,
+and honesty and honor to support it, cannot fail to win, blow what
+wind may. And now, sweet Melanie, the night is wearing onward, and I
+fear that they may miss you. Kiss me, then, once more, sweet girl, and
+farewell."
+
+"Not for the last, Raoul," she cried, with a gay smile, casting
+herself once again into her lover's arms, and meeting his lips with a
+long, rapturous kiss.
+
+"Not by a thousand, and a thousand! But now, angel, farewell for a
+little space. I hate to bid you leave me, but I dare not ask you to
+stay; even now I tremble lest you should be missed and they should
+send to seek you. For were they but to suspect that I am here and have
+seen you, it would, at the best, double all our difficulties. Fare you
+well, sweetest Melanie."
+
+"Fare you well," she replied; "fare you well, my own best beloved
+Raoul," and she put up the glittering dagger, as she spoke, into the
+bosom of her dress; but as she did so, she paused and said, "I wish
+_this_ had not been your first gift to me, Raoul, for they say that
+such gifts are fatal, to love at least, if not to life."
+
+"Fear not! fear not!" answered the young man, laughing gayly, "our
+love is immortal. It may defy the best steel blade that was ever
+forged on Milan stithy to cut it asunder. Fare you--but, hush! who
+comes here; it is too late, yet fly--fly, Melanie!"
+
+But she did not fly, for as he spoke, a tall, gayly dressed cavalier
+burst through the coppice on the side next the chateau d'Argenson,
+exclaiming, "So, my fair cousin!--this is your faith to my good
+brother of Ploermel is it?"
+
+But, before he spoke, she had whispered to Raoul, "It is the Chevalier
+de Pontrein, de Ploermel's half brother. Alas! all is lost."
+
+"Not so! not so!" answered her lover, also in a whisper, "leave him to
+me, I will detain him. Fly, by the upper pathway and through the
+orchard to the chateau, and remember--you have not seen this dog. So
+much deceit is pardonable. Fly, I say, Melanie. Look not behind for
+your life, whatever you may hear, nor tarry. All rests now on your
+steadiness and courage."
+
+"Then all is safe," she answered firmly and aloud, and without casting
+a glance toward the cavalier, who was now within ten paces of her
+side, or taking the smallest notice of his words, she kissed her hand
+to St. Renan, and bounded up the steep path, in the opposite
+direction, with so fleet a step as soon carried her beyond the sound
+of all that followed, though that was neither silent nor of small
+interest.
+
+"Do you not hear me, madam. By Heaven! but you carry it off easily!"
+cried the young cavalier, setting off at speed, as if to follow her.
+"But you must run swifter than a roe if you look to 'scape me;" and
+with the words, he attempted to rush past Raoul, of whom he affected,
+although he knew him well, to take no notice.
+
+But in that intent he was quickly frustrated, for the young count
+grasped him by the collar as he endeavored to pass, with a grasp of
+iron, and said to him in an ironical tone of excessive courtesy,
+
+"Sweet sir, I fear you have forgotten me, that you should give me the
+go-by thus, when it is so long a time since we have met, and we such
+dear friends, too,"
+
+But the young man was in earnest, and very angry, and struggled to
+release himself from St. Renan's grasp, until, having no strong
+reasons for forbearance, but many for the reverse, Raoul, too, lost
+his temper.
+
+"By heaven!" he exclaimed, "I believe that you do _not_ know me, or
+you would not dare to suppose that I would suffer you to follow a lady
+who seeks not your presence or society."
+
+"Let me go, St. Renan!" returned the other fiercely, laying his hand
+on his dagger's hilt. "Let me go, villain, or you shall rue it!"
+
+"Villain!" Raoul repeated, calmly, "villain! It is so you call me,
+hey?" and he did instantly release him, drawing his sword as he did
+so. "Draw, De Pontrien--that word has cost you your life!"
+
+"Yes, villain!" repeated the other, "villain to you teeth! But you
+lie! it is your life that is forfeit--forfeit to my brother's honor!"
+
+"Ha! ha!" laughed Raoul, savagely. "Ha-ha-ha-ha! your brother's honor!
+who the devil ever heard before of a pandar's honor--even if he were
+Sir Pandarus to a king? Sa! sa!--have at you!"
+
+Their blades crossed instantly, and they fought fiercely, and with
+something like equality for some ten minutes. The Chevalier de
+Pontrien was far more than an ordinary swordsman, and he was in
+earnest, not angry, but savage and determined, and full of bitter
+hatred, and a fixed resolution to punish the familiarity of Raoul with
+his brother's wife. But that was a thing easier proposed than
+executed; for St. Renan, who had left France as a boy already a
+perfect master of fence, had learned the practice of the blade against
+the swordsmen of the East, the finest swordsmen of the world, and had
+added to skill, science and experience, the iron nerves, the deep
+breath, and the unwearied strength of a veteran.
+
+If he fought slowly, it was that he fought carefully--that he meant
+the first wound to be the last. He was resolved that De Pontrien never
+should return home again to divulge what he had seen, and he had the
+coolness, the skill, and the power to carry out his resolution.
+
+At the end of ten minutes he attacked. Six times within as many
+seconds he might have inflicted a severe, perhaps a deadly wound on
+his antagonist; and he, too, perceived it, but it would not have been
+surely mortal.
+
+"Come, come!" cried De Pontrien, at last, growing impatient and angry
+at the idea of being played with. "Come, sir, you are my master, it
+seems. Make an end of this."
+
+"Do not be in a hurry," replied St. Renan, with a deadly smile, "it
+will come soon enough. There! will that suit you?"
+
+And with the word he made a treble feint and lounged home. So true was
+the thrust that the point pierced the very cavity of his heart. So
+strongly was it sent home that the hilt smote heavily on his
+breast-bone. He did not speak or groan, but drew one short, broken
+sigh, and fell dead on the instant.
+
+"The fool!" muttered St. Renan. "Wherefore did he meddle where he had
+no business? But what the devil shall I do with him? He must not be
+found, or all will out--and that were ruin."
+
+As he spoke, a distant clap of thunder was heard to the eastward, and
+a few heavy drops of rain began to fall, while a heavy mass of black
+thunder-clouds began to rise rapidly against the wind.
+
+"There will be a fierce storm in ten minutes, which will soon wash out
+all this evidence," he said, looking down at the trampled and
+blood-stained greensward. "One hour hence, and there will not be a
+sign of this, if I can but dispose of him. Ha!" he added, as a quick
+thought struck him, "The Devil's Drinking-Cup! Enough! it is done!"
+
+Within a minute's space he had swathed the corpse tightly in the
+cloak, which had fallen from the wretched man's shoulders as the fray
+began, bound it about the waist by the scarf, to which he attached
+firmly an immense block of stone, which lay at the brink of the
+fearful well, which was now--for the tide was up--brimful of white
+boiling surf, and holding his breath atween resolution and abhorrence,
+hurled it into the abyss.
+
+It sunk instantly, so well was the stone secured to it; and the fate
+of the Chevalier de Pontrien never was suspected, for that fatal pool
+never gave up its dead, nor will until the judgment-day.
+
+Meantime the flood-gates of heaven were opened, and a mimic torrent,
+rushing down the dark glen, soon obliterated every trace of that
+stern, short affray.
+
+Calmly Raoul strode homeward, and untouched by any conscience, for
+those were hard and ruthless times, and he had undergone so much wrong
+at the hands of his victim's nearest relatives, and dearest friends,
+that it was no great marvel if his blood were heated, and his heart
+pitiless.
+
+"I will have masses said for his soul in Paris," he muttered to
+himself; and therewith, thinking that he had more than discharged all
+a Christian's duty, he dismissed all further thoughts of the matter,
+and actually hummed a gay opera tune as he strode homeward through the
+pelting storm, thinking how soon he should be blessed by the
+possession of his own Melanie.
+
+No observation was made on his absence, either by the steward or any
+of the servants, on his return, though he was well-nigh drenched with
+rain, for they remembered his old half-boyish, half-romantic habits,
+and it seemed natural to them that on his first return, after so many
+years of wandering, to scenes endeared to him by innumerable fond
+recollections, he should wander forth alone to muse with his own soul
+in secret.
+
+There was great joy, however, in the hearts of the old servitors and
+tenants in consequence of his return, and on the following morning,
+and still on the third day, that feeling of joy and security continued
+to increase, for it soon got abroad that the young lord's grief and
+gloominess of mood was wearing hourly away, and that his lip, and his
+whole countenance were often lighted up with an expression which
+showed, as they fondly augured, that days and years of happiness were
+yet in store for him.
+
+It was not long before the tidings reached him that the house of
+D'Argenson was in great distress concerning the sudden and
+unaccountable disappearance of the Chevalier de Pontrien, who had
+walked out, it was said, on the preceding afternoon, promising to be
+back at supper-time, and who had not been heard of since.
+
+Raoul smiled grimly at the intimation, but said nothing, and the
+narrator judging that St. Renan was not likely to take offence at the
+imputations against the family of Ploermel, proceeded to inform him,
+that in the opinion of the neighborhood there was nothing very
+mysterious, after all, in the disappearance of the chevalier, since he
+was known to be very heavily in debt, and was threatened with deadly
+feud by the old Sieur de Plouzurde, whose fair daughter he had
+deceived to her undoing. Robinet, the smuggler's boat, had been seen
+off the Penmarcks when the moon was setting, and no one doubted that
+the gay gallant was by this time off the coast of Spain.
+
+To all this, though he affected to pay little heed to it, Raoul
+inclined an eager and attentive ear, and as a reward for his patient
+listening, was soon informed, furthermore, that the bridegroom marquis
+and the beautiful bride, being satisfied, it was supposed, of the
+chevalier's safety, had departed for Paris, their journey having been
+postponed only in consequence of the research for the missing
+gentleman, from the morning when it should have taken place, to the
+afternoon of the same day.
+
+For two days longer did Raoul tarry at St. Renan, apparently as free
+from concern or care about the fair Melanie de Ploermel, as if he had
+never heard her name. And on this point alone, for all men knew that
+he once loved her, did his conduct excite any observation, or call
+forth comment. His silence, however, and external nonchalance were
+attributed at all hands to a proper sense of pride and self-respect;
+and as the territorial vassals of those days held themselves in some
+degree ennobled or disgraced by the high bearing or recreancy of their
+lords, it was very soon determined by the men of St. Renan that it
+would have been very disgraceful and humiliating had their lord, the
+Lord of Douarnez and St. Renan, condescended to trouble his head about
+the little demoiselle d'Argenson.
+
+Meanwhile our lover, whose head was in truth occupied about no other
+thing than that very same little demoiselle, for whom he was believed
+to feel a contempt so supreme, had thoroughly investigated all his
+affairs, thereby acquiring from his old steward the character of an
+admirable man of business, had made himself perfectly master of the
+real value of his estates, droits, dues and all connected with the
+same, and had packed up all his papers, and such of his valuables as
+were movable, so as to be transported easily by means of pack-horses.
+
+This done, leaving orders for a retinue of some twenty of his best and
+most trusty servants to follow him as soon as the train and relays of
+horses could be prepared, he set off with two followers only to
+return, riding post, as he had come, from Paris.
+
+He was three days behind the lady of his love at starting; but the
+journey from the western extremity of Bretagne to the metropolis is at
+all times a long and tedious undertaking; and as the roads and means
+of conveyance were in those days, he found it no difficult task to
+catch up with the carriages of the marquis, and to pass them on the
+road long enough before they reached Paris.
+
+Indeed, though he had set out three days behind them, he succeeded in
+anticipating their arrival by as many, and had succeeded in
+transacting more than half the business on which his heart was bent,
+before he received the promised visit from the pretty Rose Faverney,
+who, prompted by her desire to renew her intimacy with the handsome
+page, came punctual to her appointment. He had not, of course,
+admitted the good old churchman, his uncle, into all his secrets; he
+had not even told him that he had seen the lady, much less what were
+his hopes and views concerning her.
+
+But he did tell him that he was so deeply mortified and wounded by her
+desertion, that he had determined to sell his estates, to leave France
+forever, and to betake himself to the new American colonies on the St.
+Lawrence.
+
+There was not in the state of France in those days much to admire, or
+much to induce wise men to exert their influence over the young and
+noble, to induce them to linger in the neighborhood of a court which
+was in itself a very sink of corruption. It was with no great
+difficulty, therefore, that Raoul obtained the concurrence of his
+uncle, who was naturally a friend to gallant and adventurous daring.
+The estates of St. Renan, the old castle and the home park, with a few
+hundred acres in its immediate vicinity only excepted, were converted
+into gold with almost unexampled rapidity.
+
+A part of the gold was in its turn converted into a gallant brigantine
+of some two hundred tons, which was despatched at once along the coast
+of Douarnez bay, there to take in a crew of the hardy fishermen and
+smugglers of that stormy shore, all men well-known to Raoul de St.
+Renan, and well content to follow their young lord to the world's
+end, should such be his will.
+
+Here, indeed, I have anticipated something the progress of events, for
+hurry it as much as he could in those days, St. Renan could not, of
+course, work miracles; and though the brigantine was purchased, where
+she lay ready to sail, at Calais, the instant the sale of St. Renan
+was determined, without awaiting the completion of the transfer, or
+the payment of the purchase-money, many days had elapsed before the
+news could be sent from the capital to the coast, and the vessel
+despatched to Britanny.
+
+Every thing was, however, determined; nay, every thing was in process
+of accomplishment before the arrival of the fair lady and her nominal
+husband, so that at his first interview with Rose, Raoul was enabled
+to lay all his plans before her, and to promise that within a month at
+the furthest, every thing would be ready for their certain and safe
+evasion.
+
+He did not fail, however, on that account to impress upon the pretty
+maiden, who, as Jules was to accompany his lord, though not a hint of
+whither had been breathed to any one, was doubly devoted to the
+success of the scheme, that a method must be arranged by which he
+could have daily interviews with the lovely Melanie; and this she
+promised that she would use all her powers to induce her mistress to
+permit, saying, with a gay laugh, that her permission gained, all the
+rest was easy.
+
+The next day, the better to avoid suspicion, Raoul was presented to
+the king, in full court, by his uncle, on the double event of his
+return from India, and of his approaching departure for the colony of
+Acadie, for which it was his present purpose to sue for his majesty's
+consent and approbation.
+
+The king was in great good humor, and nothing could have been more
+flattering or more gracious than Raoul de St. Renan's reception. Louis
+had heard that very morning of the fair Melanie's arrival in the city,
+and nothing could have fallen out more _apropos_ than the intention of
+her quondam lover to depart at this very juncture, and that, too, for
+an indefinite period from the land of his birth.
+
+Rejoicing inwardly at his good fortune, and of course, ascribing the
+conduct of the young man to pique and disappointment, the king, while
+he loaded him with honors and attentions, did not neglect to encourage
+him in his intention of departing on a very early day, and even
+offered to facilitate his departure by making some remissions in his
+behalf from the strict regulations of the Douane.
+
+All this was perfectly comprehensible to Raoul; but he was far too
+wise to suffer any one, even his uncle, to perceive that he understood
+it; and while he profited to the utmost by the readiness which he
+found in high places to smooth away all the difficulties from his
+path, he laughed in his sleeve as he thought what would be the fury of
+the licentious and despotic sovereign when he should discover that the
+very steps which he had taken to remove a dangerous rival, had
+actually cast the lady into that rival's arms.
+
+Nor had this measure of Raoul's been less effectual in sparing Melanie
+much grief and vexation, than it had proved in facilitating his own
+schemes of escape; for on that very day, within an hour after his
+reception of St. Renan, the king caused information to be conveyed to
+the Marquis de Ploermel that the presentation of Madame should be
+deferred until such time as the Vicomte de St. Renan should have set
+sail for Acadie, which it was expected would take place within a month
+at the furthest.
+
+That evening, when Rose Faverney was admitted to the young lord's
+presence, through the agency of the enamored Jules, she brought him
+permission to visit her lady at midnight in her own chamber; and she
+brought with her a plan, sketched by Melanie's own hand, of the
+garden, through which, by the aid of a master-key and a rope-ladder,
+he was to gain access to her presence.
+
+"My lady says, Monsieur Raoul," added the merry girl, with a light
+laugh, "that she admits you only on the faith that you will keep the
+word which you plighted to her, when last you met, and on the
+condition that I shall be present at all your interviews with her."
+
+"Her honor were safe in my hands," replied the young man, "without
+that precaution. But I appreciate the motive, and accept the
+condition."
+
+"You will remember, then, my lord--at midnight. There will be one
+light burning in the window, when that is extinguished, all will be
+safe, and you may enter fearless. Will you remember?"
+
+"Nothing but death shall prevent me. Nor that, if the spirits of the
+dead may visit what they love best on earth. So tell her, Rose.
+Farewell!"
+
+Four hours afterward St. Renan stood in the shadow of a dense trellice
+in the garden, watching the moment when that love-beacon should
+expire. The clock of St. Germain l'Auxerre struck twelve, and at the
+instant all was darkness. Another minute and the lofty wall was
+scaled, and Melanie was in the arms of Raoul.
+
+It was a strange, grim, gloomy gothic chamber, full of strange niches
+and recesses of old stone-work. The walls were hung with gilded
+tapestries of Spanish leather, but were interrupted in many places by
+the antique stone groinings of alcoves and cup-boards, one of which,
+close beside the mantlepiece, was closed by a curiously carved door of
+heavy oak-work, itself sunk above a foot within the embrasure of the
+wall.
+
+Lighted as it was only by the flickering of the wood-fire on the
+hearth, for the thickness of the walls, and the damp of the old
+vaulted room rendered a fire acceptable even at midsummer, that
+antique chamber appeared doubly grim and ghostly; but little cared the
+young lovers for its dismal seeming; and if they noticed it at all, it
+was but to jest at the contrast of its appearance with the happy hours
+which they passed within it.
+
+Happy, indeed, they were--almost too happy--though as pure and
+guiltless as if they had been hours spent within a nunnery of the
+strictest rule, and in the presence of a sainted abbess.
+
+Happy, indeed, they were; and although brief, oft repeated. For,
+thenceforth, not a night passed but Raoul visited his Melanie, and
+tarried there enjoying her sweet converse, and bearing to her every
+day glad tidings of the process of his schemes, and of the certainty
+of their escape, until the approach of morning warned him to make good
+his retreat ere envious eyes should be abroad to make espials.
+
+And ever the page, Jules, kept watch at the ladder-foot in the garden;
+and the true maiden, Rose, who ever sate within the chamber with the
+lovers during their stolen interviews, guarded the door, with ears as
+keen as those of Cerberus.
+
+A month had passed, and the last night had come, and all was
+successful--all was ready. The brigantine lay manned and armed, and at
+all points prepared for her brief voyage at an instant's notice at
+Calais. Relays of horses were at each post on the road. Raoul had
+taken formal leave of the delighted monarch. His passport was
+signed--his treasures were on board his good ship--his pistols were
+loaded--his horses were harnessed for the journey.
+
+For the last time he scaled the ladder--for the last time he stood
+within the chamber.
+
+Too happy! ay, they were too happy on that night, for all was done,
+all was won; and nothing but the last step remained, and that step so
+easy. The next morning Melanie was to go forth, as if to early mass,
+with Rose and a single valet. The valet was to be mastered and
+overthrown as if in a street broil, the lady, with her damsel, was to
+step into a light caleshe, which should await her, with her lover
+mounted at its side, and high for Calais--England--without the
+risk--the possibility of failure.
+
+That night he would not tarry. He told his happy tidings, clasped her
+to his heart, bid her farewell till to-morrow, and in another moment
+would have been safe--a step sounded close to the door. Rose sprang to
+her feet, with her finger to her lip, pointing with her left hand to
+the deep cupboard-door.
+
+She was right--there was not time to reach the window--at the same
+instant, as Melanie relighted the lamp, not to be taken in mysterious
+and suspicious darkness, the one door closed upon the lover just as
+the other opened to the husband.
+
+But rapid and light as were the motions of Raoul, the treacherous door
+by which he had passed into his concealment, trembled still as
+Ploermel entered. And Rose's quick eye saw that he marked it.
+
+But if he saw it, he gave no token, made no allusion to the least
+doubt or suspicion; on the contrary, he spoke more gayly and kindly
+than his wont. He apologized for his untimely intrusion, saying that
+her father had come suddenly to speak with them, concerning her
+presentation at court, which the king had appointed for the next day,
+and wished, late as it was, to see her in the saloon below.
+
+Nothing doubting the truth of his statement, which Raoul's intended
+departure rendered probable, Melanie started from her chair, and
+telling Rose to wait, for she would back in an instant, hurried out of
+the room, and took her way toward the great staircase.
+
+The marquis ordered Rose to light her mistress, for the corridor was
+dark; and as the girl went out to do so, a suppressed shriek, and the
+faint sounds of a momentary scuffle followed, and then all was still.
+
+A hideous smile flitted across the face of de Ploermel, as he cast
+himself heavily into an arm-chair, opposite to the door of the
+cupboard in which St. Renan was concealed, and taking up a silver bell
+which stood on the table, rung it repeatedly and loudly for a servant.
+
+"Bring wine," he said, as the man entered. "And, hark you, the masons
+are at work in the great hall, and have left their tools and materials
+for building. Let half a dozen of the grooms come up hither, and bring
+with them brick and mortar. I hate the sight of that cupboard, and
+before I sleep this night, it shall be built up solid with a good wall
+of mason-work; and so here's a health to the rats within it, and a
+long life to them!" and he quaffed off the wine in fiendish triumph.
+
+He spoke so loud, and that intentionally, that Raoul heard every word
+that he uttered.
+
+But if he hoped thereby to terrify the lover into discovering himself,
+and so convicting his fair and innocent wife, the villain was
+deceived. Raoul heard every word--knew his fate--knew that one word,
+one motion would have saved him; but that one word, one motion would
+have destroyed the fair fame of his Melanie.
+
+The memory of the death of that unhappy Lord of Kerguelen came
+palpably upon his mind in that dread moment, and the comments of his
+dead father.
+
+"I, at least," he muttered, between his hard set teeth, "I at least,
+will not be evidence against her. I will die silent--_fiel a la
+muerte_!"
+
+And when the brick and mortar were piled by the hands of the
+unconscious grooms, and when the fatal trowels clanged and jarred
+around him, he spake not--stirred not--gave no sign.
+
+Even the savage wretch, de Ploermel, unable to believe in the
+existence of such chivalry, such honor, half doubted if he were not
+deceived, and the cupboard were not untenanted by the true victim.
+
+Higher and higher rose the wall before the oaken door; and by the
+exclusion of the light of the many torches by which the men were
+working, the victim must have marked, inch by inch, the progress of
+his living immersement. The page, Jules, had climbed in silence to the
+window's ledge, and was looking in, an unseen spectator, for he had
+heard all that passed from without, and suspected his lord's presence
+in the fatal precinct.
+
+But as he saw the wall rise higher--higher--as he saw the last brick
+fastened in its place solid, immovable from within, and that without
+strife or opposition, he doubted not but that there was some concealed
+exit by which St. Renan had escaped, and he descended hastily and
+hurried homeward.
+
+Now came the lady's trial--the trial that shall prove to de Ploermel
+whether his vengeance was complete. She was led in with Rose, a
+prisoner. _Lettres de cachet_ had been obtained, when the treason of
+some wretched subordinate had revealed the secret of her intended
+flight with Raoul; and the officers had seized the wife by the
+connivance of the shameless husband.
+
+"See!" he said, as she entered, "see, the fool suffered himself to be
+walled up there in silence. There let him die in agony. You, madam,
+may live as long as you please in the Bastille, _au secret_."
+
+She saw that all was lost--her lover's sacrifice was made--she could
+not save him! Should she, by a weak divulging of the truth, render his
+grand devotion fruitless? Never!
+
+Her pale cheek did not turn one shade the paler, but her keen eye
+flashed living fire, and her beautiful lip writhed with loathing and
+scorn irrepressible.
+
+"It is thou who art the fool!" she said, "who hast made all this coil,
+to wall up a poor cat in a cupboard, as it is thou who art the base
+knave and shameless pandar, who hast attempted to do murther, and all
+to sell thine own wife to a corrupt and loathsome tyrant!"
+
+All stood aghast at her fierce words, uttered with all the eloquence
+and vehemence of real passion, but none so much as Rose, who had never
+beheld her other than the gentlest of the gentle. Now she wore the
+expression, and spoke with the tone of a young Pythoness, full of the
+fury of the god.
+
+She sprung forward as she uttered the last words, extricating herself
+from the slight hold of the astonished officers, and rushed toward her
+cowed and craven husband.
+
+"But in all things, mean wretch," she continued, in tones of fiery
+scorn, "in all things thou art frustrate--thy vengeance is naught, thy
+vile ambition naught, thyself and thy king, fools, knaves, and
+frustrate equally. And now," she added, snatching the dagger which
+Raoul had given her from the scabbard, "now die, infamous, accursed
+pandar!" and with the word she buried the keen weapon at one quick
+and steady stroke to the very hilt in his base and brutal heart.
+
+Then, ere the corpse had fallen to the earth, or one hand of all those
+that were stretched out to seize her had touched her person, she smote
+herself mortally with the same reeking weapon, and only crying out in
+a clear, high voice, "Bear witness, Rose, bear witness to my honor!
+Bear witness all that I die spotless!" fell down beside the body of
+her husband, and expired without a struggle or a groan.
+
+Awfully was she tried, and awfully she died. Rest to her soul if it be
+possible.
+
+The caitiff Marquis de Ploermel perished, as she had said, in all
+things frustrated; for though his vengeance was in very deed complete,
+he believed that it had failed, and in his very agony that failure was
+his latest and his worst regret.
+
+On the morrow, when St. Renan returned not to his home, the page gave
+the alarm, and the fatal wall was torn down, but too late.
+
+The gallant victim of love's honor was no more. Doomed to a lingering
+death he had died speedily, though by no act of his own. A
+blood-vessel had burst within, through the violence of his own
+emotions. Ignorant of the fate of his sweet Melanie, he had died, as
+he had lived, the very soul of honor; and when they buried him, in the
+old chapel of his Breton castle, beside his famous ancestors, none
+nobler lay around him; and the brief epitaph they carved upon his
+stone was true, at least, if it were short and simple, for it ran only
+thus--
+
+          =Raoul de St. Renan.
+
+           Fiel a la Muerte.=
+
+
+
+
+THE POET'S HEART.--TO MISS O. B.
+
+BY CHARLES E. TRAIL.
+
+
+    Like rays of light, divinely bright,
+      Thy sunny smiles o'er all disperse;
+    And let the music of thy voice,
+      More softly flow than Lesbian verse.
+    By all the witchery of love,
+      By every fascinating art--
+    The worldly spirit strive to move,
+      But spare, O spare, the Poet's heart!
+
+    Within its pure recesses, deep,
+      A fount of tender feeling lies;
+    Whose crystal waters, while they sleep,
+      Reflect the light of starry skies.
+    Thy voice might prophet-like unclose
+      Its bonds, and bid those waters start,
+    But why disturb their sweet repose?
+      Spare, lady, spare the Poet's heart!
+
+    It cannot be that one so fair,
+      The idol of the courtly throng--
+    Would condescend his lot to share,
+      And bless the lowly child of song,
+    Would realize the soul-wrought dreams,
+      That of his being form a part,
+    And mingle with his sweetest themes;
+      Then spare, O spare, the poet's heart!
+
+    The poet's heart! ye know it not,
+      Its hopes, its sympathies, its fears;
+    The joys that glad its humble lot;
+      The griefs that melt it into tears.
+    'Tis like some flower, that from the ground
+      Scarce dares to lift its petals up,
+    Though honeyed sweets are ever found
+      Indwelling in its golden cup.
+
+    Love comes to him in sweeter guise,
+      Than he appears to other men--
+    Heav'n-born, descended from the skies,
+      And longing to return again.
+    But bid him not with me abide,
+      If he can no relief impart;
+    Ah, hide those smiles, those glances hide,
+      And spare, O spare, the Poet's heart!
+
+
+
+
+THE RETURN TO SCENES OF CHILDHOOD.
+
+BY GRETTA.
+
+
+    "You have come again," said the dark old trees,
+       As I entered my childhood's home.
+    "You have come again," said the whispering breeze,
+      "And wherefore have you come?
+
+    "When last I played round your youthful brow
+       Its morning's light was there,
+    But you bring back a shadow upon it now,
+       And a saddened look of care.
+
+    "Have you come, have you left earth's noisy strife,
+       To seek your favorite flowers?
+    They are gone, like the hopes which lit your life,
+       Like your childhood's sunny hours.
+
+    "Have you come to seek for your shady dell,
+       For that spot in the moonlit grove,
+    Where first you were bound by the magic spell,
+       And thrilled to the voice of love?
+
+    "Has your heart been true to that early vow,
+       And pure as that trickling tear?
+    Does that voice of music charm you now
+       As once it charmed you here?
+
+    "Years have been short, and few, since last
+       As a child you roamed the glen;
+    But what have you learned since hence you passed,
+       What have you lost since then?
+
+    "You have brought back a woman's ruddier cheek,
+       A woman's fuller form,
+    But where is the look so timid and meek,
+       The blush so quick and warm?
+
+    "Have you come to seek for the smiles of yore,
+       For your brief life's faded light?
+    Do you hope to hear in these shades once more
+       The blessing and 'good-night?'
+
+    "Do you come again for the kisses sweet,
+       Do you look as you onward pass
+    For the mingled prints of the tiny feet
+       In the fresh and springing grass?
+
+    "Have you come to sit on a parent's knee
+       And gaze on his reverend brow?
+    Or to nestle in love and childish glee
+       On her bosom, that's pulseless now?
+
+    "Why come you back? We can give you naught,
+       No more the past is ours,
+    Thine early scenes with their blessings fraught,
+       Thy childhood's golden hours."
+
+    I have come, I have come, oh haunts of youth,
+      With a worn and weary heart;
+    I have come to recall the love and truth
+      Of my young life's guileless part.
+
+    I have come to bend o'er the holy spot
+      Where I prayed by a father's knee--
+    Oh I am changed--but I ne'er forgot
+      His look, his smile for me.
+
+    I have not been true to my heart's first love
+      Here pledged 'neath the moonlit heaven,
+    But I come to kneel in the lonely grove
+      And ask to be forgiven.
+
+    I have not brought back the hopes of youth,
+      Or the gentle look so meek,
+    I mourn o'er my perished faith and truth
+      And the quick blush of my cheek.
+
+    But, oh ye scenes, that have once beguiled,
+      In the peaceful days of yore.
+    I would come again like a little child
+      With the trust I knew before.
+
+    I would call back every hope and fear,
+      The heart throbs full and high,
+    The prattling child that rambled here,
+      And ask if it were _I_?
+
+    And I would recall the murmured prayer,
+      And the dark eyes look of love,
+    While unseen angels hovered there
+      From the starry worlds above.
+
+    And I've come to seek one flower here,
+      Just one, in its fading bloom,
+    Though it must be culled with a gushing tear
+      From a parent's grassy tomb.
+
+    And I'll bear it away on my lonely breast,
+      As a charm 'mid earth's stormy strife,
+    An amulet, worn to give me rest,
+      On the billowy waves of life.
+
+    I wait not now by the dancing rill
+      For the steps of my playmates fair--
+    They are gone--but yon heaven is o'er me still,
+      And I'll seek to meet them there.
+
+    Parents, and friends, and hopes are gone,
+      And these memories only given,
+    But they shall be links, while the heart is lone,
+      In the "chain" that reaches heaven.
+
+
+
+
+SUNSHINE AND RAIN.
+
+BY GEORGE S. BURLEIGH.
+
+
+    O Blessed sunshine, and thrice-blessed rain,
+      How ye do warm and melt the rugged soil,--
+      Which else were barren, nathless all my toil
+    And summon Beauty from her grave again,
+    To breathe live odors o'er my scant domain:
+      How softly from their parting buds uncoil
+      The furled sweets, no more a shriveled spoil
+    To the loud storm, or canker's silent bane;
+    Were it all sun, the heat would shrink them up;
+      Were it all shower, then piteous blight were sure;
+    Now hangs the dew in every nodding cup,
+      Shooting new glories from its orblets pure.
+    Sunshine and shower, I shrink from your extremes,
+    But with delight behold your blended gleams.
+
+
+
+
+THE CHRISTMAS GARLAND.
+
+BY MISS EMMA WOOD.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE BOARDING-SCHOOL.
+
+
+Christmas is coming! The glad sound awakes a thrill of joy in many a
+heart. The children clap their tiny hands and laugh aloud in the
+exuberance of their mirth as bright visions of varied toys and rich
+confectionary flit before their minds. The sound of merry sports--the
+gathering of the social band--the banquet--all are scenes of joy.
+Shout on bright children, for your innocent mirth will rise as incense
+to Him who was even as one of you. The Son of God once reposed his
+head upon a mortal breast and wept the tears of infancy. Now risen to
+His throne of glory, his smile is still upon you, bright Blossoms of
+Blessedness.
+
+Christmas is coming! is the cry of the young and gay, and with light
+hearts they prepare for the approaching festival. The holyday robes
+are chosen, and the presents selected which shall bring joy to so many
+hearts. The lover studies to determine what gift will be acceptable to
+his mistress, and the maiden dreams of love-tokens and honeyed words.
+Nor is the church forgotten amid the gathering of holyday array, for
+that, too, must be robed in beauty. The young claim its adornment as
+their appropriate sphere, and rich garlands of evergreen, mingled with
+scarlet berries, are twined around its pillars, or festooned along its
+walls. Swiftly speeds their welcome task, and a calm delight fills
+their hearts, as they remember Him who assumed mortality, and passed
+the ordeal of earthly life, that he might be, in all things, like unto
+mankind. Blessed be this thought, ye joyous ones, and if after-years
+shall bring sorrow or bitterness, ye may remember that the Holiest has
+trod that path before, and that deeper sorrow than mortality can
+suffer, once rested upon his guiltless head.
+
+Christmas is coming! is the thought of the aged, and memory goes back
+to the joys of other years, when the pulses of life beat full and
+free, and their keen sensibilities were awake to the perception of the
+beautiful. Now the dim eye can no longer enjoy the full realization of
+beauty, and the ear is deaf to the melodies of Nature, but they can
+drink from the fountain of memory, and while looking upon the mirth of
+the youthful, recollect that once they, too, were light-hearted and
+joyous. Blessed to them is the approaching festival, and as they
+celebrate the birth of the Redeemer, they may remember that He bore
+the trials of life without a murmur, and laid down in the lone grave,
+to ensure the resurrection of the believer, while faith points to the
+hour when they shall inherit the glory prepared for them by His
+mission of suffering.
+
+Christmas is coming! shouted we, the school-girls of Monteparaiso
+Seminary, as we rushed from the school-room, in glad anticipation, of
+the holydays. How gladly we laid down the books over which we had been
+poring, vainly endeavoring to fix our minds upon their pages, and
+gathered in various groups to plan amusements for the coming festival.
+One week only, and the day would come, the pleasures of which we had
+been anticipating for months. Our stockings must be hung up on
+Christmas Eve, though the pleasure was sadly marred because each of us
+must, in our turn, represent the good Santa-Claus, and contribute to
+the stockings of our schoolmates, instead of going quietly to bed, and
+finding them filled on Christmas morning by the good saint, or some of
+his representatives. How eagerly we watched the Hudson each morning,
+to see if its waves remained unfettered by ice, not only because the
+daily arrival of the steamboat from New York was an era in our
+un-eventful lives, but there were many of our number whose parents or
+friends resided in the city, from whom they expected visits or
+presents. We were like a prisoned sisterhood, yet we did not pine in
+our solitude, for there were always wild, mirth-loving spirits in our
+midst, so full of fun and frolic that the exuberance of their spirits
+was continually breaking out, much to the discomfort of tutors and
+governesses. When the holydays were approaching, and the strict
+discipline usually maintained among the pupils was somewhat relaxed,
+these outbreaks became more numerous, insomuch that lessons were
+carelessly omitted, or left unlearned. When study hours were over
+misrule was triumphant. Lizzie Lincoln could not find a seat at the
+table where some of the older girls were manufacturing fancy articles
+for Christmas presents, and avenged herself by pinning together the
+dresses of the girls who were seated around the table, and afterward
+fastening each dress to the carpet. Fan Selby saw the manoeuvre, and
+ran to her room, where she equipped herself in a frightful looking
+mask, which she had manufactured of brown paper, painted in horrid
+devices. Arrayed in this mask, and a long white wrapper, she came
+stalking in at the door of the sitting-room. In their fright the girls
+screamed and tried to rush from the table, when a scene of confusion
+ensued which beggars description. The noise reached the ears of the
+teachers, who came from different parts of the house to the scene of
+the riot, but ere they reached it, Fan had deposited the mask out of
+sight in her own room, and was again in her place, looking as innocent
+as if nothing had happened. She even aided the teachers in their
+search for the missing "fright." When this fruitless search was ended,
+and a monitress placed in the sitting-room to prevent further riots,
+a new alarm was raised. Mary Lee blackened her face with burnt cork,
+and entered the kitchen by the outside door, begging for cold
+victuals, much to the terror of the raw Hibernians who were very
+quietly sitting before the fire, and telling tales of the Emerald
+Isle, for they feared a negro as they would some wild beast. They ran
+up stairs to give the alarm, but when they returned the bird had
+flown, and while a fruitless search was instituted throughout the
+basement, Mary was in her own room, hastily removing the ebon tinge
+from her face. Such were a few among the many wild pranks of the
+mischief spirits, invented to while away the time. Quite different
+from this was the employment of the "sisterhood." A number of the
+older pupils of the school had seated themselves night after night
+around the table which stood in the centre of the sitting-room, in
+nearly the same places, with their needle-work, until it was finally
+suggested, that, after the manner of the older people, we should form
+a regularly organized society. Each member should every night take her
+accustomed place, and one should read while the others were busy with
+their needle-work. To add a tinge of romance to the whole, we gave to
+each of our members the name of some flower as a soubriquet by which
+we might be known, and Lizzie Lincoln (our secretary) kept a humorous
+diary of the "Sayings and Doings of Flora's Sisterhood." Anna Lincoln
+was the presidentess of our society, and we gave her the name of Rose,
+because the queen of flowers seemed a fitting type of her majestic
+beauty. But the favorite of all was Clara Adams, to whom the name of
+Violet seemed equally appropriate. Her modesty, gentleness, and
+affectionate disposition had won the love of all, from Annie Lincoln,
+the oldest pupil, down to little Ella Selby, who lisped her praises of
+dear Clara Adams, and seemed to love her far better than she did her
+own mad-cap sister.
+
+When we celebrated May-day Clara was chosen queen of May, though
+Lizzie Lincoln was more beautiful, and Anna seemed more queenly. It
+was the instinctive homage that young hearts will pay to goodness and
+purity, which made us feel as if she deserved the brightest crown we
+could bestow. If one of us were ill, Clara could arrange the pillows
+or bathe the throbbing temples more tenderly than any other, and
+bitter medicines seemed less disgusting when administered by her. Was
+there a hard lesson to learn, a difficult problem to solve, a
+rebellious drawing that would take any form or shadowing but the right
+one, Clara was the kind assistant, and either task seemed equally easy
+to her. While we sat around the table that evening, little Ella Selby
+was leaning on the back of Clara's chair, and telling, in her own
+childish way, of the manifold perfections of one Philip Sidney, a
+classmate of her brother in college, who had spent a vacation with him
+at her home. Ella was quite sure that no other gentleman was half so
+handsome, so good, or kind as Mr. Sidney, and she added,
+
+"I know he loves Clara, for I have told him a great deal about her,
+and he says that he does."
+
+The girls all laughed at her simple earnestness, and bright blushes
+rose in Clara's face. Many prophecies for the future were based on
+this slight foundation, and Clara was raised to the rank of a heroine.
+It needs but slight fuel to feed the flame of romance in a
+school-girl's breast, and these dreamings might long have been
+indulged but for an interruption. A servant came, bringing a basket,
+with a note from the ladies engaged in decorating the church,
+requesting the young ladies of the school to prepare the letters for a
+motto on the walls of the church. The letters were cut from
+pasteboard, to be covered with small sprigs of box. Pleased with the
+novelty of our task we were soon busily engaged, under the direction
+of Clara and Anna Lincoln. Even the "mischief spirits" ceased their
+revels to watch our progress. Thus passed that evening, and as the
+next day was Saturday, and of course a holyday, we completed our work.
+The garlands were not to be hung in the church until the Wednesday
+following, as Friday was Christmas day. We employed ourselves after
+study hours the intervening days in finishing the presents we had
+commenced for each other. On Wednesday morning Lucy Gray, one of our
+day-scholars, brought a note from her mother, requesting that she
+might be excused from her afternoon lessons, and inviting the teachers
+and young ladies of the school to join them in dressing the church.
+Here was a prospect for us of some rare enjoyment; and how we plead
+for permission, and promised diligence and good behaviour for the
+future, those who remember their own school-days can easily imagine.
+At length permission was granted that Anna and Lizzie Lincoln, Fan
+Selby, Clara Adams, and I, accompanied by one of the teachers, might
+assist them for an hour or two in the afternoon. Never did hours seem
+longer to us than those that passed after the permission was given
+till we were on our way. The village was about half a mile from our
+seminary, but the walk was a very pleasant one, and when we reached
+the church our faces glowed with exercise in the keen December air. We
+found a very agreeable company assembled there, laughing and chatting
+gayly as they bound the branches of evergreen together in rich
+wreaths. Our letters were fastened to the walls, forming a beautiful
+inscription, and little remained to be done, save arranging the
+garlands. Clara and Fan Selby finished the wreaths for the altar, and
+were fastening them in their places, when a new arrival caused Fan to
+drop her wreath, and hasten toward the new-comers, exclaiming,
+
+"Brother Charles, I am so glad to see you!"
+
+Then, after cordially greeting his companion, she asked eagerly of her
+brother,
+
+"Have you come to take us home?"
+
+"No, mad-cap," was the laughing reply, "we are but too glad to be free
+for one Christmas from your wild pranks. Sidney is spending the
+Christmas holydays with me, and as the day was fine we thought we
+would visit you. When we reached the village we learned that several
+of the young ladies of the school were at the church, and called,
+thinking that you might be of the number."
+
+Turning to Sidney, Fan said, playfully,
+
+"Follow me, and I will introduce you to Ella's favorite, Clara Adams."
+
+Before Clara had time to recover from her confusion caused by their
+entrance Fan had led Philip Sidney to her, and introduced him as the
+friend of whom little Ella had told her so much. The eloquent blushes
+in Clara's face revealed in part the dreams that had been excited in
+her breast, while Philip, with self-possessed gallantry, begged leave
+to assist her in her task, and uttered some commonplace expressions,
+till Clara was sufficiently composed to take her part in conversation.
+The teacher who accompanied us, alarmed at his attention, placed
+herself near them, but his manner was so respectful that she could
+find no excuse to interrupt their conversation. Philip Sidney was
+eminently handsome, and as his dark eye rested admiringly upon her,
+who will wonder that Clara became more than usually animated! nor is
+it strange that the low, musical tones of his voice, breathing
+thoughts of poetry with the earnestness of love, should awaken a new
+train of thought in the simple school-girl. She answered in few words,
+but the drooping of her fringed lids and the bright color in her cheek
+replied more eloquently than words. The moments flew swiftly, the
+garlands were placed, and the teacher who had watched them with an
+anxious eye, announced that it was time to return to the seminary.
+Philip knew too well the strictness of boarding-school rules to hope
+for a longer interview, yet even for the sake of looking longer on her
+graceful figure, and perchance stealing another glance from her bright
+eyes, he insisted upon seeing little Ella. Charles Selby objected, as
+it was growing late, and he had an engagement for the evening in the
+city. Reluctantly Philip bade Clara farewell, and from the door of the
+church watched her receding figure until she disappeared around the
+turn of the road. From that moment Clara was invested by her
+schoolmates with all the dignity of a heroine of romance, and half the
+giddy girls in school teazed her mercilessly, and then laid their
+heads upon their pillows only to dream of lovers.
+
+Christmas eve came. The elder ladies of the school accompanied our
+Principal to the church to listen to the services of the evening. We
+were scarcely seated when we perceived nearly opposite to us, that
+same Philip Sidney, who was the hero of our romance. Poor Clara! I sat
+by her side, and fancied I could hear the throbbing of her heart as
+those dark, expressive eyes were fixed again on hers, speaking the
+language of admiration too plainly to be mistaken. Then as the
+services proceeded, his countenance wore a shadow of deeper thought,
+and his eyes were fixed upon the speaker. Thus he remained in earnest
+attention till the services closed. When we left the church, a smile,
+and bow of recognition passed between him and Clara, but no word was
+spoken. Our sports that evening had no power to move her to mirth, but
+she remained silent and abstracted. The next Saturday Mrs. Selby came
+to see her daughter, and soon after her arrival, Fan laid a small
+package on the table mysteriously, saying to Clara, "You must answer
+it immediately," and left the room. Clara broke the seal, and as she
+removed the envelope, a ring, containing a small diamond, beautifully
+set, fell to the floor. I picked it up, and looking on the inside, saw
+the name of Philip Sidney. As soon as she had read the note, she gave
+it to me, and placed the ring upon her finger. Then severing a small
+branch from a myrtle plant, which we kept in our room as a relic of
+home, she placed it, with a sprig of box, in an envelope, and, after
+directing it to Philip Sidney, gave it to Fan, who enclosed it in a
+letter to her brother. The note which Clara gave me was as follows:
+
+"Forgive my presumption, dear Clara, in addressing you, so lately a
+stranger. Think not that I am an idle flatterer, when I say that your
+beauty and worth have awakened a deep love for you in my heart, and
+this love must be my excuse. I would have sought another interview
+with you, but I know the rules of your school would have forbid, and
+the only alternative remaining is to make this avowal, or be forgotten
+by you. I do not ask you now to promise to be mine, or even to love
+me, till I have proved myself worthy of your affection. My past life
+has been one of thoughtlessness and inaction, but it shall be my
+endeavor in future to atone for those misspent years. Your image will
+ever be with me as a bright spirit from whose presence I cannot flee,
+and whisper hope when my energies would fail. I only ask your
+remembrance till I am worthy to claim your love. If you do not see me
+or hear from me at the end of five years, you may believe that I have
+failed to secure the desired position in the world, or am no longer
+living. Will you grant me this favor--to wear the ring enclosed, and
+sometimes think of me? If so, send me some token by Mrs. S., to tell
+me that I may hope."
+
+The evergreens, with their language of love and constancy were the
+token, and the ring sparkled upon Clara's finger, so that I knew well
+that Philip Sidney would not soon be forgotten.
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+A GLANCE AT HOME.
+
+The little village of Willowdale is situated in one of those romantic
+dells which are found here and there among the hills of Massachusetts.
+A small stream, tributary to the Connecticut, flows through the
+village, so small that it is barely sufficient to furnish the
+necessary mill-seats for the accommodation of a community of farmers,
+but affording no encouragement to manufacturers. It is to this reason,
+perhaps, that we may attribute the fact that a place, which was
+amongst the earliest settlements of Massachusetts, should remain to
+this day so thinly inhabited. The rage for manufactures, so prevalent
+in New England, has led speculators to place factories on every stream
+of sufficient power to keep them in operation, and a spirit of
+enterprise and locomotion has caused railroads to pass through
+sections of the country hitherto unfrequented by others than tillers
+of the soil. Cities have sprung up where before were only small
+villages, and brisk little villages are found, where a few years ago
+were only solitary farm-houses. But in spite of all such changes,
+Willowdale has escaped the ravages of these merciless innovators. The
+glassy river still glides on in its natural bed, and even the willows
+on its banks, from which the village takes its name, are suffered to
+stand, unscathed by the woodman's axe. The "iron horse" has never
+disturbed the inhabitants by his shrill voice, and the rattling of
+cars has not broken upon the stillness of a summer-day. The village is
+not on the direct route from any of the principal cities to others,
+consequently the inhabitants suffer little apprehension of having
+their fine farms cut up by rail-road tracks. The village consists of
+one principal street, with houses built on both sides, at sufficient
+distances from the street and each other, to admit of those neat
+yards, with shade-trees, flowers, and white fences, which are the
+pride of New England, and scattered among the surrounding fields are
+tasteful farm-houses.
+
+There are two houses of worship in the place: the Episcopal church,
+which was erected by the first settlers, before the revolution; and
+the Congregationalist house, more recently built. There is but little
+trade carried on in the place, and one store is sufficient to supply
+the wants of the inhabitants. The Episcopal church stands on a slight
+eminence, at a little distance from the main street of the village,
+and a lane extending beyond it leads to the parsonage. A little
+farther down this lane is my father's house, and nearly opposite the
+house of Deacon Lee, the home of Clara Adams. Clara was left an orphan
+at an early age. Her father was the son of an early friend of the old
+rector. The latter, having no children, adopted Henry Adams, and
+educated him as his own son, in the hope of preparing him for the
+ministry, but with that perversity so common in human nature, the
+youth determined to become an artist. The rector, not wishing to force
+him unwillingly into the sacred office, consented that he should
+pursue his favorite art. He placed him under the tuition of one of the
+first painters in a neighboring city, hoping that his natural genius,
+aided by his ambition, might enable him to excel. Henry Adams followed
+his new pursuit with all the ardor of an impetuous nature, till the
+bright eyes of Clara Lee won his heart, and his thoughts were directed
+in a new channel, until he had persuaded her to share his lot. It
+proved, indeed, a darkened lot to the young bride. Her husband was a
+reckless, unsatisfied being, and though he ever loved her with all the
+affection of which such natures are capable, the warm expressions of
+his love, varied by fits of peevishness and ill-humor, were so unlike
+the calm, unchanging devotedness of her nature that she felt a bitter
+disappointment. Soon after the birth of their daughter his health
+failed, and he repaired to Italy for the benefit of a more genial
+climate, and in the hope of perfecting himself in his art. He lived
+but a few months after his arrival there, and the sad intelligence
+came like a death-blow to his bereaved wife. She lingered a year at
+the parsonage, a saddened mourner, and then her wearied spirit found
+its rest. The old rector would gladly have nurtured the little orphan
+as his own child, but he could not resist the entreaties of Deacon
+Lee, her mother's brother, and reluctantly consented to have her
+removed to his house. Yet much of her time was spent at the parsonage,
+and growing up as it were in an atmosphere of love, it is not strange
+that gentleness was the ruling trait of her character. Deacon Lee was
+one of that much-scandalized class, the Congregationalist deacons of
+New England, who have so often been described with a pen dipped in
+gall, if we may judge from the bitterness of the sketches. Scribblers
+delight in portraying them as rum-selling hypocrites, sly topers,
+lovers of gain, and fomenters of dissension, and so far has this been
+carried, that no tale of Yankee cunning or petty fraud is complete
+unless the hero is a deacon. It is true there are far too many such
+instances in real life, where eminence in the church is their only
+high standing, and the name of religion is but a cloak for selfish
+vices, but it is equally true that among this class of men are the
+good, the true, and kind, of the earth, whose lives are ruled by the
+same pure principles which they profess. Such was Deacon Lee, and it
+were well if there were more like him, to remove the stain which
+others of an opposite character have brought upon the office. He was
+one of those whom sorrow purifies, and had bowed in humble resignation
+to heavy afflictions. Of a large family only one son had lived to
+attain the years of manhood. The mother of Clara had been very dear to
+him, and he felt that her orphan child would supply, in a measure, the
+place of his own lost ones. His wife was his opposite, and theirs was
+one of those unaccountable unions where there is apparently no bond of
+sympathy. Stern and exact in the performance of every duty, she wished
+to enforce the same rigid observance upon others. The loss of her
+children had roused in her a zeal for religion, which, in one of a
+warmer temperament, would have been fanaticism. While her husband was
+a worshiper from a love of God and his holy laws, she was prompted by
+fears of the wrath to come. He bowed in thankfulness, even while he
+wept their loss, to the Power that had borne his little ones to a
+brighter world, while her life gained new austerity from the thought
+that they had been taken from her as a judgment on her worldliness and
+idolatry. She loved to dwell upon the sufferings of the Pilgrim
+Fathers of New England, and emulate their rigid lives, forgetting that
+it was the dark persecution of the times in which they lived that left
+this impress upon their characters. Her husband loved to commend the
+good deeds of their neighbors, while she was equally fond of censuring
+transgressors. Perhaps the result of their efforts was better than it
+would have been had both possessed the disposition of either one of
+them. Her firmness and energy atoned for the negligence resulting from
+his easy temper, and his sunny smile and kind words softened the
+asperity with which she would have ruled her household. Their son was
+engaged in mercantile business in a neighboring city, and their home
+would have been desolate but for the presence of little Clara. She was
+the sunshine of the old man's heart, and he forgot toil and weariness
+when he sat down by his own fireside, with the merry prattler upon his
+knee, and her little arms were twined about his neck. She was the
+image of his lost sister, and it seemed to him but a little while
+since her mother had sat thus upon his knee, and lavished her caresses
+upon him. In spite of the predictions of the worthy dame that she
+would be spoiled, he indulged her every wish, checking only the
+inclination to do wrong. Nor was the good lady herself without
+affection for the little orphan, but she wished to engraft a portion
+of her own sternness into her nature, and in her horror of prelacy she
+did not like to have such a connecting link between her family and
+that of the rector. She had never loved Clara's father, yet she could
+not find it in her heart to be unkind to the little orphan, so she
+contented herself with laying his faults and follies at the door of
+the church to which he belonged. Clara had been my playfellow from
+infancy, and at the village school we had pursued our studies
+together. When my parents decided to place me at a boarding-school on
+the banks of the Hudson, I plead earnestly with the deacon that Clara
+might go with me. Her aunt objected strenuously to her acquiring the
+superficial accomplishments of the world, but the old man for once in
+his life was firm, and declared that Clara should have as good an
+education as any one in the vicinity. Accordingly we were placed at
+Monteparaiso Seminary, where was laid the scene of the last chapter.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE RETURN HOME.
+
+Our school-days passed, as school-days ever will, sometimes happily,
+and again lingering as if they would never be gone. Clara was still
+the same sweet, simple-minded innocent girl, but her mirth was subdued
+by thoughtfulness, though the calm tranquillity of her life was
+unruffled by the new feeling that had found a place in her heart. She
+pursued her studies with constant assiduity, and at the close of our
+third year at school, was the first scholar in the institution. She
+was advanced beyond others of her age when she entered, and had
+improved every opportunity to the best of her abilities after becoming
+a member of the school. Three years was the period assigned for our
+school-days, and we were to return to Willowdale at the close of that
+time. Though we loved our schoolmates dearly, we were happy to think
+of meeting once more with the friends from whom we had so long been
+separated. Anna Lincoln had left the year before, and Lizzie had taken
+her place as Presidentess of "the Sisterhood." Fan Selby had left off
+her wild pranks and become quite sedate. Mary Lee was less boisterous
+in her mirth than formerly, and the younger members of the school
+seemed ready to take the places of those who were about to leave. It
+was sad for us when we bade farewell to the companions of years,
+though we were pleased with the thought of seeing more of the world
+than a school-girl's life would allow. I will not attempt to describe
+our joy when we were once more at our homes, nor the warm reception of
+those around our own firesides. Never was there a happier man than old
+Deacon Lee, as he led Clara to the window, that he might better see
+the rich bloom on her cheek, and the light of her eye. "Thank God!"
+was his fervent ejaculation, "that you have come to us in health. I
+was afraid that so much poring over books would make you look pale and
+delicate, as your poor mother did before she died. How much you are
+like what she was at your age." Then with a feeling of childish
+delight he opened the door of their rustic parlor, and showed her a
+small collection of new books, a present from the rector, and a neat
+piano, which he had purchased himself in Boston to surprise her on her
+return.
+
+"You are still the same dear, kind uncle," said Clara, as she run her
+fingers over the keys, and found its tone excellent; "you are always
+thinking of something to make me happy. How shall I ever repay your
+kindness?"
+
+"By enjoying it," was his reply. "The old man has a right to indulge
+his darling, and nothing else in this world can make him so happy as
+to see your rosy cheeks and bright eyes, and hear your merry voice;
+but let us hear you sing and play."
+
+Tears of delight glistened in the old man's eyes as she warbled
+several simple airs to a graceful accompaniment. Mrs. Lee sighed
+deeply, and would have given them a long lecture upon the vanities and
+frivolities of the world, had not Clara changed the strain, and sung
+some of her favorite hymns.
+
+"Are you not tired?" asked her uncle, with his usual considerate
+kindness. "Come, let us go to the garden, and see the dahlias I
+planted, because I knew the other flowers would be killed by the frost
+before you came home."
+
+"With pleasure," answered Clara; "but first let me sing a song that I
+have learned on purpose to please you."
+
+Then she sung the beautiful words, "He doeth all things well." The old
+man's eyes beamed with a holy light as he listened to the exquisite
+music which expressed the sentiments that had pervaded his life. As
+she rose from the piano, he laid his hands upon her head caressingly,
+saying, "Blessed be His name, who guards my treasures in Heaven, and
+has still left me this rich possession on earth." The old lady, melted
+by the sight of his emotion, and the sentiment expressed, clasped her
+to her heart, and called her her own dear child.
+
+Months glided on with swift wings, and even Mrs. Lee was forced to
+give up her arguments against a fashionable education. She had
+predicted that Clara would be a fine lady, and feel above performing
+the common duties of life; but every morning with the early dawn she
+shared the tasks of her aunt, and seemed as much at home in the dairy
+or kitchen as when seated at her piano. Her step was as light and
+graceful while tripping over the fields as it had been in the dance,
+and her fingers as skillful in making her own and her aunt's dresses,
+as they had been at her embroidery. The good dame had learned to love
+the piano, and more than once admitted that she would feel quite
+lonely without it. So she was fain to retreat from her position, by
+saying that her old opinions held good as general rules, though Clara
+was an exception, for no one else was ever like her. At length her old
+feelings revived when a young farmer in the neighborhood aspired to
+the hand of Clara, and was kindly, though firmly, refused. She was
+sure that it came of pride, and that the novels she had read had
+filled her head with ideas of high life. But her good uncle came to
+the rescue, and declared that her inclinations should not be crossed,
+and he had no wish that she should marry till she could be happier
+with another than she was with them. Clara longed to tell him of her
+acquaintance with Philip Sidney, but she feared it would make him
+anxious, and resolved to say nothing till time had proved the truth of
+her lover. From this time forth the subject of her marriage was not
+mentioned, and Clara was left free to pursue her own inclinations. Her
+presence was a continual source of happiness to her uncle, and her
+life flowed on like a gentle stream, diffusing blessings on all around
+her, while a sense of happiness conferred threw a lustre around every
+hour.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+Five years had passed since the commencement of our tale, and Clara
+and I still remained at our homes in Willowdale. Life had passed
+gently with us, and the friendship formed in our school-days remained
+unbroken. It was sweet to recall those days; and we passed many a
+pleasant hour in the renewal of old memories. Clara had heard nothing
+from Philip Sidney, save once, about a year before, when a letter from
+Fan Selby informed her that he had called on them. He had inquired
+very particularly after Clara, and said that he intended to visit
+Willowdale the following year, but where the intervening time was to
+be passed she did not know. It seemed very strange to me that Clara
+should not doubt his truth from his long silence, but her faith
+remained unshaken.
+
+It was the day before Christmas, and the young people of Willowdale
+were assembled to finish the decorations of the church. The garlands
+were hung in deep festoons along the walls, and twined around the
+pillars. The pulpit and altar were adorned with wreaths tastefully
+woven of branches of box mingled with the dark-green leaves and
+scarlet berries of the holly, the latter gathered from trees which the
+old rector had planted in his youth, and carefully preserved for this
+purpose. On the walls over the entrance was the inscription, "Glory to
+God in the highest, on earth peace and good-will to men," in letters
+covered with box, after the model of those we had seen in our
+school-days. We surveyed our work with pleasure, mingled with anxiety
+to discover any improvement that might be made, for we knew that a
+stranger was that night to address us. The growing infirmities of the
+old rector had for a long time rendered the duties of a pastor very
+fatiguing to him, and he had announced to us the Sabbath before, that
+a young relative who had lately taken orders, would be with him on
+Christmas Eve, and assist him until his health should be improved. The
+news was unwelcome to the older members of the congregation, who had
+been so long accustomed to hear instruction from their aged pastor
+that the thought of seeing another stand in his place was fraught with
+pain to them. He had been truly their friend, sharing their joys and
+sorrows--and their hearts were linked to him as childrens' to a
+parent. At the baptismal font, the marriage altar, and the last sad
+rites of the departed, he had presided, and it seemed as if the voice
+of a stranger must strike harshly upon their ears. But to the young
+there was pleasure in the thought of change; and though they dearly
+loved the old man, the charm of novelty was thrown around their dreams
+of his successor. No one knew his name, though rumor whispered that he
+had just returned from England, where he had spent the last year. No
+wonder, then, that we looked with critic eyes upon our work, eager to
+know how it must appear to one who had traveled abroad, and lingered
+among the rich cathedrals of our fatherland. Clara alone seemed
+indifferent, and was often rallied on her want of interest in the
+young stranger, I alone read her secret, as she glanced at the gem
+which sparkled upon her finger, for I knew that her thoughts were with
+the past--and Philip Sidney.
+
+Christmas Eve arrived, as bright and beautiful as the winter nights of
+the North. A light snow covered the ground, and the Frost King had
+encrusted it with thousands of glittering diamonds. The broad expanse
+of the valley was radiant in the moonbeams, and the branches of the
+willows were glittering with frosty gems. The church was brilliantly
+lighted, and the blaze from its long windows left a bright reflection
+upon the pure surface of the snow. The merry ringing of sleigh-bells
+were heard in every direction, and numerous sleighs deposited their
+fair burden at the door. There was a general gathering of the young
+people from ours and the neighboring villages, to witness the services
+of the evening, and brighter eyes than a city assembly could boast,
+flashed in the lamp-light. The garlands were more beautiful in this
+subdued light than they had been in the glare of day, and their
+richness was like a magic spell of beauty to enthrall the senses of
+the beholder. Clara and I were seated in one of the pews directly in
+front of the altar, occasionally looking back to see the new arrivals,
+and return the greetings of friends from other villages. Suddenly the
+organ swelled in a rich peal of music, and the old pastor entered,
+followed by the youthful stranger. There was no time to scrutinize the
+features of the latter ere he knelt and concealed his face, yet there
+was something in the jetty curls that rested upon his snowy surplice,
+as his head laid within his folded hands that looked familiar, and
+Clara involuntarily grasped my hand. As he arose and opened the
+prayer-book to turn to the services of the evening, he took a
+momentary survey of the congregation. That glance was enough to tell
+us that the stranger was Philip Sidney. As his eye met Clara's, a
+crimson flush spread over his pale face, his dark eye glowed, and his
+hand trembled slightly as he turned over the leaves. It was but a
+moment ere he was calm and self-possessed again, and when he commenced
+reading the services his voice was clear and rich. The deepest silence
+pervaded the assembly, save when the responses rose from every part of
+the house. Then the organ peals, and the sweet voices of the choir
+joined in the anthems, and again all was still. The charm of eloquence
+is universally acknowledged, and the statesman, the warrior, and
+votary of science have all wielded it as a weapon of might, but we can
+never feel its irresistible power so fully as when listening to its
+richness from the pulpit. The perfect wisdom of holy writ, the majesty
+of thought, and purity of sentiment it inspires, will elevate the mind
+of the hearer above surrounding objects, and when to this power is
+added beauty of language and a musical voice, the spell is deeper.
+Such was the charm that held all in silent attention while Philip
+Sidney spoke. The scene was one which would tend to fix the mind on
+the event it was designed to commemorate, and the sweet music of his
+words might remind one of the angel's song proclaiming "Glory to God
+in the highest, on earth peace and good-will to men." Richer seemed
+its melody, and more beautiful his language, as he dwelt upon the love
+and mercy of the Redeemer's mission, and the hope of everlasting life
+it brought to the perishing. He led them back to the hour when moral
+darkness enshrouded the world, and mankind were doomed to perish under
+the frown of an offended God. There was but one ray to cheer the
+gloom, the prophetic promise of the Messiah who should come to redeem
+the world. To this they looked, and vainly dreamed that he should
+appear in regal splendor, to gather his followers and form a temporal
+kingdom. Far from this, the angel's song was breathed to simple
+shepherds, and the star in the East pointed out a stable as the lowly
+birth-place of the Son of God. He came, not to rule in splendor in the
+palaces of kings, but to bring the gospel of peace to the lowliest
+habitations, and fix his throne in the hearts of the meek and
+humble-minded. He claimed no tribute of this world's wealth as an
+offering, but the love and obedience of those whom he came to save.
+Earnestly the speaker besought his hearers to yield to their Saviour
+the adoration which was his due, and requite His all-excelling love
+with the purest and deepest affections of their hearts. Every eye was
+fixed upon the speaker, every ear intently listened to catch his
+words, and tears suffused the eyes so lately beaming with gayety. At
+the close of his eloquent appeal, there were few in that congregation
+unmoved. The closing prayers were read, the benediction pronounced,
+and the audience gradually left the house. Clara and I were the last
+to leave our seats, and as we followed the crowd that had gathered in
+the aisles before us she did not speak, but the hand that rested in
+mine trembled like a frightened bird. Suddenly a voice behind us
+whispered the name of Clara. She turned and met the gaze of Philip
+Sidney. The trusting faith of years had its reward, and those so long
+severed met again. Not wishing to intrude upon the joy of that moment,
+I left them, and followed on with the old rector. We walked on in the
+little foot-path that led to our homes; and while Clara's hand rested
+upon his arm, the young clergyman told the tale of his life since
+their parting.
+
+"But how did it come," asked Clara, "that you chose the sacred
+profession of the ministry?"
+
+"I cannot fully trace the source of the emotions that led me to become
+a worshiper at the throne of the Holiest, unless it is true that the
+love of the pure and good of earth is the first pluming of the soul's
+pinions for heaven. I went to church that Christmas eve, urged only by
+the wish to look upon your face once more, yet, when there, the words
+of the speaker won my attention. I had listened to others equally
+eloquent many times before; but that night my heart seemed more
+susceptible to religious impressions. I felt a deep sense of the folly
+and ingratitude of my past life, and firmly resolved for the future to
+live more worthily of the immortal treasure that was committed to my
+charge. Prayerfully and earnestly I studied the Word of Life, and
+resolved to devote myself to the ministry. I wrote to my worthy
+relative, the rector of Willowdale, for his advice, and found, to my
+great joy, that he was your devoted friend. He condemned my rashness
+in the avowal I had made to you, and insisted that there should be no
+communication between us until I had finished my studies. I consented,
+on condition that he should write frequently and inform me of your
+welfare. One year ago I had completed my studies, and would have
+hastended to you, but my stern Mentor insisted that I should travel
+abroad, as he said, to give me a better knowledge of human nature, and
+test the truth of my early affection. I have passed the ordeal, and
+now, after an absence of five years, returned to you unchanged in
+heart."
+
+The rest of the conversation was lost to me, as I reached my home; but
+that it was satisfactory to those engaged in it I know from the fact,
+that the next day I had the pleasure of congratulating Clara upon her
+engagement, with the full consent of her relatives. The remainder of
+the tale is quickly told. The old rector resigned his pastoral charge
+to Philip Sidney, with the full approbation of his parishioners; and
+it was arranged that the old rector and his wife should remain at the
+parsonage with the young clergyman and his bride. Deacon Lee became
+warmly attached to Philip, and felt a father's interest in the
+happiness of Clara, though he sometimes chid her playfully for keeping
+their early acquaintance a secret from him. As for Mrs. Lee, she was
+so proud of the honor of being aunt to a minister, that she almost
+forgot her dislike to prelacy. It is true she was once heard to say to
+one of her gossiping acquaintances, that she would have been better
+pleased if Clara had married a good Congregationalist minister, even
+if he had not preached quite so flowery sermons as Philip Sidney.
+
+One bright day in the month of May following was their wedding-day.
+The bride looked beautiful in her pure white dress of muslin, with a
+wreath of May-blossoms in her hair. Blessings were invoked on the
+youthful pair by all, both high and low, and sincere good wishes
+expressed for their future happiness. Here I will leave them, with the
+wish that the affection of early years may remain through life
+undimmed, and that the Christmas Garland, so linked with the history
+of their loves, may be their emblem.
+
+
+
+
+HEADS OF THE POETS.
+
+BY W. GILMORE SIMMS.
+
+I.--CHAUCER.
+
+        ----Chaucer's healthy Muse,
+    Did wisely one sweet instrument to choose--
+    The native reed; which, tutored with rare skill,
+    Brought other Muses[1] down to aid its trill!
+    A cheerful song that sometimes quaintly masked
+    The fancy, as the affections sweetly tasked;
+    And won from England's proud and _foreign_[2] court,
+    For native England's _tongue_, a sweet report--
+    And sympathy--till in due time it grew
+    A permanent voice that proved itself the true,
+    And rescued the brave language of the land,
+    From that[3] which helped to strength the invader's hand.
+    Thus, with great patriot service, making clear
+    The way to other virtues quite as dear
+    In English liberty--which could grow alone,
+    When English speech grew pleasant to be known;
+    To spell the ears of princes, and to make
+    The peasant worthy for his poet's sake.
+
+
+II.--SHAKSPEARE.
+
+        ----'T were hard to say,
+    Upon what instrument did Shakspeare play--
+    Still harder what he did not! He had all
+    The orchestra at service, and could call
+    To use, still other implements, unknown,
+    Or only valued in his hands alone!
+    The Lyre, whose burning inspiration came
+    Still darting upward, sudden as the flame;
+    The murmuring wind-harp, whose melodious sighs
+    Seem still from hopefullest heart of love to rise,
+    And gladden even while grieving; the wild strain
+    That night-winds wake from reeds that breathe in pain,
+    Though breathing still in music; and that voice,
+    Which most he did affect--whose happy choice
+    Made sweet flute-accents for humanity
+    Out of that living heart which cannot die,
+    The Catholic, born of love, that still controls
+    While man is man, the tide in human souls.
+
+
+III.--THE SAME.
+
+        ----His universal song
+    Who sung by Avon, and with purpose strong
+    Compelled a voice from native oracles,
+    That still survive their altars by their spells--
+    Guarding with might each avenue to fame,
+    Where, trophied over all, glows Shakspeare's name!
+    The mighty master-hand in his we trace,
+    If erring often, never commonplace;
+    Forever frank and cheerful, even when wo
+    Commands the tear to speak, the sigh to flow;
+    Sweet without weakness, without storming, strong,
+    Jest not o'erstrained, nor argument too long;
+    Still true to reason, though intent on sport,
+    His wit ne'er drives his wisdom out of court;
+    A brooklet now, a noble stream anon,
+    Careering in the meadows and the sun;
+    A mighty ocean next, deep, far and wide,
+    Earth, life and Heaven, all imaged in its tide!
+    Oh! when the master bends him to his art,
+    How the mind follows, how vibrates the heart;
+    The mighty grief o'ercomes us as we hear,
+    And the soul hurries, hungering, to the ear;
+    The willing nature, yielding as he sings,
+    Unfolds her secret and bestows her wings,
+    Glad of that best interpreter, whose skill
+    Brings hosts to worship at her sacred hill!
+
+[Footnote 1: The Italian.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Norman.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The French.]
+
+
+IV.--SPENSER.
+
+    It was for Spenser, by his quaint device
+    To spiritualize the passionate, and subdue
+    The wild, coarse temper of the British Muse,
+    By meet diversion from the absolute:
+    To lift the fancy, and, where still the song
+    Proclaimed a wild humanity, to sway
+    Soothingly soft, and by fantastic wiles
+    Persuade the passions to a milder clime!
+    His was the song of chivalry, and wrought
+    For like results upon society;
+    Artful in high degree, with plan obscure,
+    That mystified to lure, and, by its spells,
+    Making the heart forgetful of itself
+    To follow out and trace its labyrinths,
+    In that forgetfulness made visible!
+    Such were the uses of his Muse; to say
+    How proper and how exquisite his lay,
+    How quaintly rich his masking--with what art
+    He fashioned fairy realms and paints their queen,
+    How purely--with how delicate a skill--
+    It needs not, since his song is with us still!
+
+
+V.--MILTON.
+
+    The master of a single instrument,
+    But that the Cathedral Organ; Milton sings
+    With drooping spheres about him, and his eye
+    Fixed steadily upward, through its mortal cloud,
+    Seeing the glories of Eternity!
+    The sense of the invisible and true
+    Still present to his soul, and in his song;
+    The consciousness of duration through all time,
+    Of work in each condition, and of hopes
+    Ineffable, that well sustain through life,
+    Encouraging through danger and in death,
+    Cheering, as with a promise rich in wings!
+    A godlike voice that, through cathedral towers
+    Still rolls, prolonged in echoes, whose deep tones
+    Seem born of thunder, that subdued to music
+    Soothe when they startle most! A Prophet Bard,
+    With utt'rance equal to his mission of power,
+    And harmonies that, not unworthy heaven,
+    Might well lift earth to equal worthiness.
+
+
+VI.--BURNS AND SCOTT.
+
+        ----Not forgotten or denied,
+    Scott's trumpet-lay, and Burns's violin-song;
+    The one a call to arms, of action fond;
+    The other, still discoursing to the heart--
+    The lowly human heart--of loves and joys--
+    Such as beseem the cotter's calm fireside--
+    Cheerful and buoyant still amid a sadness--
+    Such sadness as still couples love with care!
+
+
+VII.--BYRON.
+
+        ----For Byron's home and fame,
+    It needed manhood only! Had he known
+    How sorrow should be borne, nor sunk in shame,
+    For that his destiny decreed to moan--
+    His Muse had been triumphant over Time
+    As still she is o'er Passion; still sublime--
+    Having subdued her soul's infirmity
+    To aliment; and, with herself o'ercome,
+    O'ercome the barriers of Eternity,
+    And lived through all the ages, with a sway
+    Complete, and unembarrassed by the doom
+    That makes of Nature's porcelain, common clay!
+
+
+VIII.-A GROUP.
+
+_Shelly and Wordsworth,--Tennyson, Barrett, Horne and
+Browning;--Baily and Taylor;--Campbell and Moore._
+
+        ----As one who had been brought,
+    By Fairy hands, and as a changeling left
+    In human cradle, the sad substitute
+    For a more smiling infant--Shelly sings
+    Vague minstrelsies that speak a foreign birth,
+    Among erratic tribes; yet not in vain
+    His moral, and the fancies in his flight
+    Not without profit for another race!
+    He left his spirit with his voice--a voice
+    Solely spiritual, which will long suffice
+    To wing the otherwise earthy of the time,
+    And, with the subtler leaven of the soul,
+    Inform the impetuous passions!
+
+            With him came
+    Antagonist, yet still with sympathy,
+    Wordsworth, the Bard of the contemplative,
+    A voice of purest thought in sweetest music!
+    --These, in themselves unlike, together linked,
+    Appear in unison in after days,
+    Making progressive still, the mental births,
+    That pass successively through rings of time,
+    Each to a several conquest; most unlike
+    That of its sire, yet borrowing of its strength,
+    Where needful, and endowing it with new,
+    To meet the new necessity which still
+    Haunts the free progress of each conquering race.
+    --Thus, Tennyson and Barrett, Browning, Horne,
+    Blend their opposing faculties, and speak
+    For that fresh nature, which in daily things
+    Beholds the immortal, and from common forms
+    Extorts the Eternal still! So Baily sings
+    In Festus; so, upon a humbler rank,
+    Testing the worth of social policies,
+    As working through a single human will,
+    The Muse of Taylor argues--Artevelde,
+    Being the man who marks a popular growth,
+    And notes the transit of a thought through time,
+    Growing as still it speeds.....
+
+             Exquisite
+    The ballads of Campbell, and the lays of Moore,
+    Appealing to our tastes, our gentler moods,
+    The play of the affections, or the thoughts
+    That come with national pride; and as we pause
+    In our own march, delight the sentiment!
+    But nothing they make for progress. They perfect
+    The language, and diversify its powers--
+    Please and beguile, and, for the forms of art,
+    Prove what they are, and may be. But they lift
+    None of our standards; help us not in growth;
+    Compel no prosecution of our search,
+    And leave us, where they found us--with the time!
+
+
+
+
+HOPE ON--HOPE EVER.
+
+BY H. CURTISS HINE, U. S. N.
+
+
+    Poor stricken one! whose toil can gain,
+      And barely gain, the coarsest fare,
+    From bitter thoughts and words refrain;
+      Yield not to dark despair!
+    The blackest night that e'er was born
+    Was followed by a radiant morn;
+    Heed not the world's unfeeling scorn,
+    Nor think life's brittle thread to sever;
+    Hope on--hope ever!
+
+    Hope, though your sun is hid in gloom,
+      And o'er your care-worn, wrinkled brow,
+    Grief spreads his shadow--'tis the doom
+      That falls on many now.
+    Grim Poverty, with icy hand,
+    May bind to earth with ruthless band
+    Bright gifted ones throughout the land;
+    But struggle still that band to sever--
+    Hope on--hope ever!
+
+    Sit not and pine that FORTUNE led
+      Another on to grasp her wreath;
+    The same blue sky is o'er thy head,
+      The same green earth beneath,
+    The same bright angel-eyes look down,
+    Each night upon the humblest clown,
+    That sees the king with jeweled crown;
+    Of these, stern fate can rob thee never--
+    Hope on--hope ever!
+
+    What though the proud should pass thee by,
+      And curl their haughty lips with scorn;
+    Like thee, they soon must droop and die,
+      For all of woman born,
+    Are journeying to a shadowy land,
+    Where each devoid of pride must stand,
+    By hovering wings of angels' fanned;
+    There sorrow can assail thee never--
+    Hope on--hope ever!
+
+    Then plod along with tearless eye,
+      Poor son of toil! and ne'er repine,
+    The road through barren wastes may lie,
+      And thorns, as oft hath mine;
+    But there was ONE who came to earth,
+    Star-heralded at hour of birth,
+    Humble, obscure, unknown his worth,
+    Whose path was thornier far. Weep never!
+    Hope on--hope ever!
+
+
+
+
+MEXICAN JEALOUSY.
+
+A SKETCH OF THE LATE CAMPAIGN.
+
+BY ECOTIER.
+
+
+On the 15th of September, two days after the storming of Chapultepec,
+a small party of soldiers, in dark uniforms, were seen to issue from
+the great gate of that castle, and, winding down the Calzada, turn
+towards the City of Mexico. This occurred at 10 o'clock in the
+morning. The day was very hot, and the sun, glancing vertically upon
+the flinty rocks that paved the causeway, rendered the heat more
+oppressive.
+
+At the foot of the hill the party halted, taking advantage of the
+shade of a huge cypress tree, to set down a litera, which four men
+carried upon their shoulders. This they deposited under one of the
+arches of the aqueduct in order the better to protect its occupant
+from the hot rays of the sun.
+
+The occupant of the litera was a wounded man, and the pale and
+bloodless cheek, and fevered eye showed that his wound was not a
+slight one. There was nothing around to denote his rank, but the camp
+cloak, of dark blue, and the crimson sash, which lay upon the litera,
+showed that the wounded man was an officer. The sash had evidently
+been saturated with blood, which was now dried upon it, leaving parts
+of it shriveled like, and of a darker shade of crimson. It had
+staunched the life-blood of its wearer upon the 13th. The soldiers
+stood around the litter, their bronzed faces turned upon its occupant,
+apparently attentive to his requests. There was something in the
+gentle care with which these rude men seemed to wait upon the young
+officer, that bespoke the existence of a stronger feeling than mere
+humanity. There was that admiration which the brave soldiers feel for
+him who has led them in the field of battle, _at their head_. That
+small group were among the first who braved the frowning muzzles of
+the cannon upon the parapets of Chapultepec. The wounded officer had
+led them to those parapets.
+
+The scene around exhibited the usual indications of a recent field of
+battle. There were batteries near, with dismounted cannon, broken
+carriages, fragments of shells, dead horses, whose riders lay by them,
+dead too, and still unburied. Parties were strolling about, busied
+with this sad duty, but heaps of mangled carcases still lay above
+ground, exhibiting the swollen limbs and distorted features of
+decomposition. The atmosphere was heavy with the disagreeable odor,
+and the wounded man, turning upon his pillow, gently commanded the
+escort to proceed. Four stout soldiers again took up the litera, and
+the party moved slowly along the aqueduct, toward the Garita Belen.
+The little escort halted at intervals for rest and to change bearers.
+The fine trees that line the great aqueduct on the Tacubaya road,
+though much torn and mangled by the cannonade of the 13th, afforded a
+fine shelter from the hot sun-beams. In two hours after leaving
+Chapultepec, the escort entered the Garita Belen, passed up the Paseo
+Nuevo, and halted in front of the Alameda.
+
+Any one who has visited the City of Mexico will recollect, that
+opposite the Alameda, on its southern front, is a row of fine houses,
+which continue on to the Calle San Francisco, and thence to the Great
+Plaza, forming the Calles Correo, Plateros, &c. These streets are
+inhabited principally by foreigners, particularly that of Plateros,
+which is filled with Frenchmen. To prevent their houses from being
+entered by the American soldiery upon the 14th, the windows were
+filled with national flags, indicating to what nation the respective
+owners of the houses belonged. There were Belgians, French, English,
+Prussians, Spanish, Danes, and Austrians--in fact, every kind of flag.
+Mexican flags alone were not to be seen. Where these should have been,
+at times, the white flag--the banner of peace--hung through the iron
+railings, or from the balcony. In front of a house that bore this
+simple ensign, the escort, with the litera, had accidentally stopped.
+
+The eye of the wounded officer rested mechanically upon the little
+flag over his head, when his attention was arrested by noticing that
+this consisted of a small, white lace handkerchief, handsomely
+embroidered upon the corners, and evidently such as belonged to some
+fair being. Though suffering from the agony of his wound, there was
+something so attractive in this discovery, that the eyes of the
+invalid were immediately turned upon the window, or rather grating,
+from which the flag was suspended, and his countenance changed at
+once, from the listless apathy of pain to an expression of eager
+interest. A young girl was in the window, leaning her forehead against
+the _reja_, or grating, and looking down with more of painful interest
+than curiosity upon the pale face beneath her. It was the window of
+the _entresol_, slightly raised above the street, and the young girl
+herself was evidently of that class known to the aristocracy of Mexico
+as the "leperos." She was tastefully dressed, however, in the
+picturesque costume of her class and country, and her beautiful black
+hair, her dark Indian eye, the half olive, half carmine tinge upon her
+soft cheek, formed a countenance at once strange, and strikingly
+beautiful. Her neck, bosom, and shoulders, seen over the window-stone,
+were of that form which strikes you as possessing more of the oval
+than the rotund, in short the model of the perfect woman.
+
+On seeing the gaze of the wounded man so intently fixed upon her, the
+young girl blushed, and drew back. The officer felt disappointed and
+sorry, as one feels when the light, or a beautiful object is suddenly
+removed from his sight; still, however, keeping his eyes intently
+fixed upon the window, as though unable to unrivet his gaze. This
+continued for some moments, when a beautiful arm was plunged through
+the iron grating, holding in the most delicate little fingers a glass
+of pi[~n]al.
+
+A soldier stepped up, and taking the proffered glass, held it to the
+lips of the wounded officer, who gladly drank of the cool and
+refreshing beverage, without being able to thank the fair donor, who
+had withdrawn her hand at parting with the glass. The glass was held
+up to the window, but the hand that clutched it was coarse and large,
+and evidently that of a man. A muttered curse, too, in the Spanish
+language, was heard to proceed from within. This was heard but
+indistinctly. The invalid gazed at the window for some minutes,
+expecting the return of the beautiful apparition, then as if he had
+given up all hope, he called out a "gracias-adios!" and ordered the
+escort to move on. The soldiers, once more shouldering the litera,
+passed up the Calle Correo, and entered the Hotel Compagnon, in the
+street of Espiritu Santo.
+
+For two months the invalid was confined to his chamber, but often,
+during that time, both waking and dreaming, the face of the beautiful
+Mexican girl would flit across his fevered fancy. At the end of this
+time his surgeon gave him permission to ride out in an easy carriage.
+He was driven to the Alameda, where he ordered the carriage to halt
+under the shade of its beautiful trees, and directly in front of the
+spot where he had rested on entering the city. He recognized the
+little window. The white flag was not now there, and he could see
+nothing of the inmates. He remained a considerable time seated in the
+carriage, gazing upon the house, but no face appeared at the cold iron
+grating, no smile to cheer his vigil. Tired and disappointed, he
+ordered his carriage to be driven back to the hotel.
+
+Next day he repeated the manoeuvre, and the next, and the next, with a
+like success. Probably he had not chosen the proper time of day. It
+was certainly not the hour when the lovely faces of the Mexican women
+appear in their balconies. This reflection induced him to change the
+hour, and, upon the day following, he ordered his carriage in the
+evening. Just before twilight, it drew up as usual under the tall
+trees of the Alameda. Imagine the delight of the young officer, at
+seeing the face of the beautiful Mexican through the gratings of the
+_reja_.
+
+The stir made by the stopping of the carriage had attracted her. The
+uniform of its inmate was the next object of her attention, but when
+her eyes fell upon the face of the wearer, a strange expression came
+over her countenance, as if she were struggling with some indistinct
+recollections, and all at once that beautiful countenance was suffused
+with a smile of joy. She had recognized the officer. The latter, who
+had been an anxious observer of every change of expression, smiled in
+return, and bowed an acknowledgment, then turning to his servant, who
+was a Mexican, he told him, in Spanish, to approach the window, and
+offer his thanks to the young lady for her act of kindness upon the
+15th of September.
+
+The servant delivered the message, and shortly afterward the carriage
+drove off. For several evenings the same carriage might be seen
+standing under the trees of the Alameda. An interesting acquaintance
+had been established between the young officer and the Mexican girl.
+About a week afterward, and the carriage appeared no more. The invalid
+had been restored to perfect strength.
+
+December came, and upon the 15th of this month, about half an hour
+before twilight, an American officer, wrapped in a light Mexican
+cloak, passed down the Calle San Francisco, and crossed into the
+Alameda. Here he stopped, leaning against a tree, as though observing
+the various groups of citizens, who passed in their picturesque
+dresses. His eye, however, was occasionally turned upon the houses
+upon the opposite side of the street, and with a glance of stealthy,
+but eager inquiry. At length the well-known form of the beautiful
+"lepera" appeared at the window, who, holding up her hand, adroitly
+signaled the officer with her taper, fan-like fingers. The signal was
+answered. She had scarcely withdrawn her hand inside the reja when a
+dark, scowling face made its appearance at her side, her hand was
+rudely seized, and with a scream she disappeared. The young officer
+fancied he saw the bright gleaming of a stiletto within the gloomy
+grating.
+
+He rushed across the street, and in a moment stood beneath the window.
+Grasping the strong iron bars, he lifted himself up so as to command a
+view of the inside, which was now in perfect silence. His horror may
+be imagined when, on looking into the room, he saw the young girl
+stretched upon the floor, and, to all appearances, dead. A stream of
+blood was running from beneath her clothes, and her dress was stained
+with blood over the waist and bosom. With frantic energy the young man
+clung to the bars, and endeavored to wrench them apart. It was to no
+purpose, and letting go his hold, he dropped into the street. The
+large gate of the house was open. Into this he rushed, and reached the
+_patio_ just in time to catch a glimpse of a figure escaping along the
+azotea. He rushed up the steep stone stairway, and grasping the
+parapet, raised himself on the roof. The fugitive had run along a
+series of platforms of different heights, composed by the azoteas of
+houses, and had reached a low roof, from which he was about to leap
+into an adjoining street, where he would, in all probability, have
+made good his escape. He stood upon the edge of the parapet,
+calculating his leap, which was still a fearful plunge. It was not
+left to his choice whether to take or refuse it. A pistol flashed
+behind him, and almost simultaneously with the report he fell forward
+upon his head, and lay upon the pavement below, a bruised and bleeding
+corpse. His pursuer approached the parapet, and looked over into the
+street, as if to assure himself that his aim had been true, then
+turned with a fearful foreboding, and retraced his way over the
+azoteas. His fears, alas! were but too just. She was dead.
+
+
+
+
+TO GUADALUPE.
+
+BY MAYNE REID.
+
+
+      Adieu! oh, in the heart's recess how wildly
+    Echo those painful accents of despair--
+      And spite our promise given to bear it mildly;
+    We little knew how hard it was to bear
+      A destiny so dark: how hard to sever
+    Hearts linked as ours, hands joined as now I grasp thee
+      In trembling touch: oh! e'er we part forever,
+    Once more unto my heart love's victim let me clasp thee!
+
+      It is my love's last echo--lone and lonely
+    My heart goes forth to seek another shrine,
+      Where it may worship pronely, deeming only
+    Such images as thee to be divine--
+      It is the echo of the last link breaking,
+    For still that link held out while lingering near thee--
+      A secret joy although with heart-strings aching
+    To breathe the air you breathed--to see, to hear thee.
+
+      And this link now must break--our paths obliquing
+    May never meet again--oh! say not never--
+      For while thus speaking, still my soul is seeking
+    Some hope our parting may not be forever--
+      And like the drowning straggler on the billow,
+    Or he that eager watches for the day,
+      With throbbing brain upon a sleepless pillow--
+    'Tis catching at the faintest feeblest ray.
+
+      Now faint and fainter growing, from thee going,
+    Seems every hope more vague and undefined--
+      Oh! as the fiend might suffer when bestowing
+    A last look on the heaven he left behind:
+      Or as earth's first-born children when they parted
+    Slowly, despairingly, from Eden's bowers,
+      Looked back with many a sigh--though broken-hearted,
+    Less hopeless was their future still than ours.
+
+      If we have loved--if in our hearts too blindly
+    We have enthroned that element divine--
+      In this, at least, hath fate dealt with us kindly;
+    Our mutual images have found a shrine--
+      An altar for our mutual sacrifice:
+    And spite this destiny that bids us sever,
+      Within our hearts that fire never dies--
+    In mine, at least, 'twill burn and worship on forever.
+
+      Thee not upbraiding--thou has not deceived me--
+    For from the first I knew _thy compromise_--
+      No, Guadalupe--this hath never grieved me--
+    I won thy love--so spoke thy lips and eyes:--
+      The consolation of this proud possessing
+    Should almost change my sorrow into bliss:
+     I have thy heart--enough for me of blessing--
+    Another may take all since I am lord of this.
+
+      Why we have torn our hearts and hands asunder--
+    Why we have given o'er those sweet caresses--
+      The world without will coldly guess and wonder--
+    Let them guess on, what care we for their guesses!
+      The secret shall be ours, as ours the pain--
+    A secret still unheeding friendship's pleading:
+      What though th' unfeeling world suspect a stain,
+    But little fears the world a heart with anguish bleeding.
+
+      'Tis better we should never meet again--
+    Our love's renewing were but thy undoing:
+      When I am gone, time will subdue thy pain,
+    And thou wilt yield thee to another's wooing--
+      For me, I go to seek a name in story--
+    To find a future brighter than the past--
+      Yet 'midst my highest, wildest dreams of glory,
+    Sweet thoughts of thee will mingle to the last.
+
+      And though this widowed heart may love another--
+    For living without love, it soon would die--
+      There will be moments when it cannot smother
+    Thy sweet remembrance with a passing sigh.
+      Amidst the ashes of its dying embers
+    For thee there will be found one deathless thought;
+      Yes, dearest lady! while this heart remembers,
+    Believe me, thou shall never be forgot.
+
+    Once more farewell! Oh it is hard to yield thee,
+      To lose for life, forever, thing so fair!
+    How bright a destiny it were to shield thee--
+      Yet since I am denied the husband's care,
+    This grief within my breast here do I smother--
+      Forego _thy_ painful sacrifice to prove,
+    That I have been, what never can another,
+      The hero of thy heart, my own sweet victim love.
+
+
+
+
+THE FADED ROSE.
+
+BY G. G. FOSTER.
+
+
+    Torn from its stem to bloom awhile
+      Upon thy breast, the dazzling flower
+    Imbibed new radiance from thy smile--
+      But, ah! it faded in an hour.
+    So thou, from peaceful home betrayed,
+      In beaming beauty floated by;
+    But ere thy summer had decayed,
+      We saw thee languish, faint and die.
+
+      _Extempore. On a Broken Harp-string._
+    Too rude the touch--the broken cord
+    No more may utter music-word,
+    Yet lives each tone within the air,
+    Its trembling sighs awakened there.
+    So in my heart the song I sung,
+    When thou in rapture o'er me hung,
+    Still lives--yet thine is not the spell
+    To lure the music from its shell.
+
+
+
+
+THE CHILD'S APPEAL.
+
+AN INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
+
+BY MRS. MARY G. HORSFORD.
+
+
+    Day dawned above a city's mart,
+      But not 'mid peace and prayer;
+    The shouts of frenzied multitudes
+      Were on the thrilling air.
+
+    A guiltless man to death was led,
+      Through crowded streets and wide,
+    And a fairy child, with waving curls,
+      Was clinging to his side.
+
+    The father's brow with pride was calm,
+      But trusting and serene,
+    The child's was like the Holy One's
+      In Raphael's paintings seen.
+
+    She shrank not from the heartless throng,
+      Nor from the scaffold high;
+    But now and then with beaming smile
+      Addressed her parent's eye.
+
+    Athwart the golden flood of morn
+      Was poised the wing of Death,
+    As 'neath the fearful guillotine
+      The doomed one drew his breath.
+
+    Then all of fiercest agony
+      The human heart can bear
+    Was suffered in the brief caress,
+      The wild, half-uttered prayer.
+
+    But she, the child, beseechingly
+      Upraised her eyes of blue,
+    And whispered, while her cheek grew pale,
+      "I am to go with you?"
+
+    The murmur of impatient fiends
+      Rung in her infant ear,
+    And purpose strong woke in her heart,
+      And spoke in accent clear;
+
+    "They tore my mother from our side
+      In the dark prison's cell,
+    Her eyes were filled with tears--she had
+      No time to say farewell.
+
+    "And you were all that loved me then,
+      But you are pale with care,
+    And every night a silver thread
+      Has mingled with your hair.
+
+    "My mother used to tell me of
+      A better land afar,
+    I've seen it through the prison bars
+      Where burns the evening star.
+
+    "Oh! let us find a new home there,
+      I will be brave and true,
+    You cannot leave me here alone,
+      Oh! let me die with you."
+
+    The gentle tones were drowned by shrill
+      And long protracted cries;
+    The father on his darling gazed,
+      The child looked on the skies.
+
+    Anon, far up the cloudless blue,
+      Unseen by mortal eye,
+    God's angels with two spirits passed
+      To purer realms on high.
+
+    The one was touched with earthly hues
+      And dim with earthly care,
+    The other, as a lily's cup
+      Unutterably fair.
+
+
+
+
+THE OLD FARM-HOUSE.
+
+BY MARY L. LAWSON.
+
+
+    I love these gray and moss-grown walls,
+      This ivied porch, and trelliced vine,
+    The lattice with its narrow pane,
+      A relic of the olden time;
+    The willow with its waving leaves,
+      Through which the low winds murmuring glide,
+    The gurgling ripple of the stream
+      That whispers softly at its side.
+
+    The spring-house in its shady nook,
+      Like lady's bower shadowed o'er--
+    With clustering trees--and creeping plants
+      That cling around the rustic door,
+    The rough hewn steps that lend their aid
+      To reach the shady cool recess,
+    Where humble duty spreads a scene
+      That hourly comfort learns to bless.
+
+    Upland the meadows lie around,
+      Fair smiling in the suns last beam;
+    Beneath yon solitary tree
+      The lazy cattle idly dream;
+    Afar the reaper's stroke descends,
+      While faintly on the listening ear
+    The teamster's careless whistle floats,
+      Or distant song or call I hear.
+
+    And leaning on a broken stile,
+    With woods behind and fields before,
+    I watch the bee who homeward wends
+    With laden wing--his labors o'er;
+    The happy birds are warbling round,
+    Or nestle in the rustling trees--
+    'Mid which the blue sky glimmers down,
+    When parted by the passing breeze.
+
+    And slowly winding up the road
+      The wane has reached the old barn-floor,
+    Where plenty's hand has firmly heaped
+      The golden grain in richest store.
+    This 'mid the dream-land of my thoughts
+      With smiling lip I own is real,
+    Yet fancy's fairest visions blend
+      With all I see, and all I feel.
+
+    Then tell me not of worldly pride
+      And wild ambition's hopes of fame,
+    Or brilliant halls of wealth and pride,
+      Where genius sighs to win a name;
+    Give _me_ this farm-house quaint and old,
+     These fields of grain, the birds and flowers,
+    With calm contentment, peace and health,
+      And memories of my earlier hours.
+
+
+
+
+"'TIS HOME WHERE THE HEART IS."
+
+_WORDS BY MISS L. M. BROWN_.
+
+MUSIC COMPOSED BY KARL W. PETERSILIE,
+
+_Professor of Music at the Edgeworth Seminary, N. C._
+
+Presented by George Willig, No. 171 Chesnut Street, Philad'a.
+[Copyright secured.]
+
+_Expressivo_
+
+[Illustration: music]
+
+
+I've wander'd in climes, where the wild chamois
+
+_Con spirito_.
+
+strays, Have gain'd the wild height, Where the fierce
+lightning plays, Seen glory and
+
+_crescendo_
+
+greatness in power and might, And honor and splendor
+sink in darkness of night, I've sought 'mid the crowd,
+pure pleasure, but pain, As the
+
+_dolce_.
+
+_Con Anima._
+
+bee, that sips sweets, the poison too drained;
+Ah! 'twas all delusive, for sorrows would come,
+Oh, 'tis home where the heart is, where the heart is 'tis home.
+
+SECOND VERSE.
+
+    I've courted the breath of a balm southern clime,
+    Where sweetest of flow'rs, soft tendrils entwine;
+    Have listed the song bird's notes borne on the air,
+    That wakens and wafts the rich odors elsewhere;
+    As tones on the ear so the dream of the past,
+    Softly plays round the heart-green isle of the waste;
+    Yes! 'twas all a life-dream, and still 'tis not gone,
+    Oh, 'tis home where the heart is, where the heart is 'tis home.
+
+THIRD VERSE.
+
+    I've cross'd the blue sea, I've sought out a home
+    In the land of the free, freedom beckon'd me come;
+    And friends of the stranger have sooth'd the sad heart,
+    With kindness and sympathy, sweet balm for the smart;
+    The light of the soul, doth play round it still,
+    Like the perfume the urn, in which roses distil;
+    Thoughts of affection forbid me to roam,
+    Oh, 'tis home where the heart is, where the heart is 'tis home.
+
+
+
+
+REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.
+
+     _Hawkstone: A Tale of and for England in 184-. New
+     York: Standford & Swords. 2 vols. 12mo._
+
+We were attracted to this novel by seeing the words "fifth edition" on
+its title page. After reading it, it is easy to account for its
+popularity. It is at once a most exciting romance and a defence of an
+unpopular religious body. The author (said to be Professor Sewall,)
+belongs to the Oxford School of Episcopalians, or to adopt his own
+view of the matter, to the one Catholic church. The object of the
+novel is to present the ideas of Church and State held by that class
+of religionists who are vulgarly called Puseyites. This is done partly
+in the representation of character and narration of incident, which
+constitute the romance of the book, and partly by long theological
+conversations which occur between a few of the characters. The
+interest of the work never flags, and it is among the few religious
+novels which are not positive bores to all classes of readers. In
+respect to its theology, it gives the most distinct view of the
+doctrines of the High Church party of Oxford which we have seen. The
+author is as decisive and bitter in his condemnation of Romanism as of
+dissent. He considers that the peculiar doctrines and claims which
+distinguish the Roman Catholic church from the Church of England are
+_novelties_, unknown to the true church of the apostles and the
+fathers. He has no mercy for the Romanists, and but little for the
+young men of his own school who favor the Papacy. Those who are
+accustomed to associate Puseyism with a set of sentimentalists, who
+mourn the Reformation, wish for the return of the good old times of
+the feudal ages, and give Rome their hearts and Canterbury only their
+pockets, will find that such doctrines and practices find no favor in
+the present volumes. The greatest rascal in the novel is a piece of
+incarnate malignity named Pearce--a Jesuit, whom the author represents
+as carrying out the principles of Romanism to their logical results in
+practice.
+
+But if the reader will find his common notions of Puseyism
+revolutionized by the present novel, he will be a little startled at
+its real doctrines and intentions. The author has the most supreme and
+avowed contempt for liberal ideas in Church and State; and for every
+good-natured axiom about toleration and representative government he
+spurns from his path as a novelty and paradox. There is nothing
+dominant in England which he does not oppose. The Whig party he deems
+the avowed enemies of loyalty, order and religion. The Conservatives,
+with Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington at their head, he
+conceives destitute of principle, and the destroyers of the British
+empire. There is not a concession made to liberal ideas within the
+present century which he does not think wicked and foolish. The
+manufacturing system and free trade, indeed the whole doctrines of the
+political economists in the lump, he looks upon alternately with
+horror and disdain. He seems to consider the State and Church as an
+organized body for the education of the people, whose duty is
+obedience, arid who have no right to think for themselves in religion
+or politics, for they would be pretty sure to think wrong. All
+benevolent societies, in which persons of different religious views
+combine for a common object, he considers as productive of evil, and
+as an assumption of powers rightly belonging to the church. Indeed, in
+his system, it is wrong for any popular association to presume to
+meddle with ignorance and crime, unless they do it under the sanction
+and control of the church. He considers it the duty of a church
+minister to excommunicate every man in his parish who is _guilty_ of
+schism--that is, who has the wickedness to be a papist or dissenter.
+But it is useless to proceed in the enumeration of our author's
+dogmatisms. If the reader desires to know them, let him conceive the
+exact opposite of every liberal principle in politics, political
+economy and theology, which at present obtains in the world, and he
+will have the system of "Hawkstone."
+
+A good deal of the zest of the novel comes from the throng of
+paradoxes in which the author wantons. He has a complete system of
+thought to kill out all the mind of the English people, and render
+them the mere slaves of a hierarchy, and all for the most benevolent
+of purposes. In his theory he overlooks the peculiar constitution and
+character of the English people, and also all the monstrous abuses to
+which his system would inevitably lead, in his desire to see a
+practical establishment of the most obnoxious and high-toned claims of
+his church. He is evidently half way between an idealist and a
+sentimentalist, with hardly an atom of practical sagacity or knowledge
+of affairs. The cool dogmatism with which he condemns the great
+statesmen of his country, is particularly offensive as coming from a
+man utterly ignorant of the difficulties which a statesman has to
+encounter. It is curious also to see how extremes meet; this theory of
+absoluteism "fraternizes" with that of socialism. A person reading, in
+the second volume, the account of Villiers' dealings with his
+tenantry, and his new regulations regarding manufactures, would almost
+think that Louis Blanc had graduated at Oxford, and left out in his
+French schemes the agency of the church, from a regard to the
+prejudices of his countrymen.
+
+With all its peculiarities and heresies, however, the novel will well
+reward the attention of readers of all classes. It is exceedingly well
+written, and contains many scenes of uncommon power, pathos and
+beauty. With these advantages it may also claim the honor of being the
+most inimitable specimen of theological impudence and pretension which
+the present age has witnessed.
+
+
+     _The Planetary and Stellar Worlds: A Popular Exposition
+     of the Great Discoveries and Theories of Modern
+     Astronomy. In a Series of Ten Lectures. By O. M.
+     Mitchell, A. M. New York: Baker & Scribner. 1 vol.
+     12mo._
+
+Mr. Mitchell is not only an accomplished astronomer, in every respect
+qualified to be the interpreter of the mysteries of his science to the
+popular mind, but, if we may judge from the style of his book, is a
+fine, frank, warm-hearted, enthusiastic man. On every page he gives
+evidence of really loving his pursuit. By a certain sensitiveness of
+imagination, and quickness of sensibility, every thing he contemplates
+becomes alive in his mind, and an object in which he takes a personal
+interest. This gives wonderful distinctness to his exposition of
+natural laws, and his delineation of the characters and pursuits of
+men of science. His Copernicus, Kepler, Gallileo and Newton are not
+dry enumerations of qualities, but vivid portraits of persons. He
+seems in close intellectual fellowship with them as individuals, and
+converses of them in the style of a friend, whose accurate knowledge
+is equalled by his intense affection. So it is with his detail of the
+discovery of a new law, or fact in science. His mind "lives along the
+line" of observation and reasoning which ended in its detection, and
+he reproduces the hopes, fears, doubts, and high enthusiasm of every
+person connected with the discovery. His delineation of Kepler is
+especially genial and striking. By following this method he infuses
+his own enthusiasm into the reader, bears him willingly along through
+the most abstruse processes of science, and at the end leaves him
+without fatigue, and ready for a new start.
+
+In the treatment of scientific discoveries, by minds like Mr.
+Mitchell's, we ever notice an unconscious personification of Nature,
+as a cunning holder of secrets which only the master-mind can wrest
+from her after a patient siege. The style of our author glows in the
+recital of the exploits of his band of astronomers, as that of a
+Frenchman does in the narration of Napoleon's campaigns. This is the
+great charm of his book, and will make it extensively popular, for by
+it he can attract any reader capable of being interested in a tale of
+personal adventure, ending in a great achievement. We can hardly bring
+to mind a popular lecturer or writer on science, who has this power to
+the extent which Mr. Mitchell possesses it. He himself has it by
+virtue of the mingled simplicity and intensity of his nature.
+
+One of the most striking lectures in Mr. Mitchell's volume is that on
+the discoveries of the primitive ages, in which he represents the
+processes of the primitive observer, with his unarmed eye, in
+unfolding some of the laws of the heavens; and he indicates with great
+beauty what would be his point of departure, and what would be the
+limit of his discoveries. This lecture is a fine prose poem. There is
+a passage in the introductory lecture which grandly represents the
+continual watch which man keeps on the heavens, and the slow, silent
+and sure acquisitions of new truths, from age to age. "The sentinel on
+the watchtower is relieved from duty, but another takes his place, and
+the vigil is unbroken. No--the astronomer never dies. He commences his
+investigations on the hill-tops of Eden--he studies the stars through
+the long centuries of antedeluvian life. The deluge sweeps from the
+earth its inhabitants, their cities and their mountains--but when the
+storm is hushed, and the heavens shine forth in beauty, from the
+summit of Mount Arrarat the astronomer resumes his endless vigils. In
+Babylon he keeps his watch, and among the Egyptian priests he inspires
+a thirst for the sacred mysteries of the stars. The plains of
+Shinar--the temples of India--the pyramids of Egypt, are equally his
+watching places. When science fled to Greece, his home was in the
+schools of her philosophers: and when darkness covered the earth for a
+thousand years, he pursues his never-ending task from amidst the
+burning deserts of Arabia. When science dawned on Europe, the
+astronomer was there--toiling with Copernicus--watching with
+Tycho--suffering with Gallileo--triumphing with Kepler."
+
+We trust that this volume will have an extensive circulation. It will
+not only convey a great deal of knowledge to the general reader, but
+will also inspire a love for the science of which it treats.
+
+
+     _Harold, the last of the Saxon Kings. By Sir Edward
+     Bulwer Lytton, Bart. New York: Harper & Brothers._
+
+This is Bulwer's most successful attempt at writing an historical
+novel, but with all its merits, it is still rather an attempt than a
+performance. Considered as a history of the Norman invasion, it
+contains many more facts than can be found in Thierry, at least in
+that portion of his work devoted to Harold and William. Bulwer seems
+to have obtained his knowledge at the original sources, and the novel
+is certainly creditable to his scholarship. But he has not managed
+his materials in an imaginative way, and fact and fiction are tied
+rather than fused together. The consequence is that the work is not
+homogeneous. At times it appears like history, but after the mind of
+the reader has settled down to a historical mood, the impression is
+broken by a violent intrusion of fable, or an introduction of modern
+sentiment and thought. It has therefore neither the interest of
+Thierry's exquisite narrative of the same events, nor the interest
+which might have been derived from a complete amalgamation of the
+materials into a consistent work of imagination. Considered also as a
+reproduction of ancient men and manners it is strikingly defective.
+With many fine strokes of the pencil, where the author confines
+himself to the literal fact, his portraits, as a whole, are
+overcharged with _Bulwerism_. His imagination is not a mirror. It can
+reflect nothing without vitiating it. He does not possess the power of
+passing a character through his mind and preserving its individuality.
+It goes in as Harold, or Duke William, or Lafranc, but it comes out as
+Sir E. Bulwer Lytton, Bart.
+
+The novel contains much of that seductive sentiment, half romantic,
+half misanthropic, which is the characteristic of Bulwer's works, and
+it is expressed with his usual beauty and brilliancy of style. Here
+and there we perceive allusions to his own domestic affairs, which
+none but Lady Bulwer can fully appreciate. Every reader of the novel
+must be struck with its attempt at the moral tone. Edith, the heroine,
+is the bride of Harold's soul, and Platonism appears in all its
+splendor of self-denial and noble sentiments in a Saxon thane and his
+maiden. History pronounces this lady to be his mistress, and it
+certainly is a great stretch of the reader's charity to be compelled
+to view her in the capacity of saint. Not only, however, in the loves
+of Harold and Edith, but all over the novel, there is a constant
+intrusion of ethical reflections, which will doubtless much edify all
+young ladies of a tender age. These would be well enough if they
+appeared to have any base in solid moral principle, but they are
+somewhat offensive as the mere sentimentality of conscience and
+religion, introduced for the purposes of fine writing. Suspicion,
+also, always attaches to the morality which exhibits itself on
+rhetorical stilts, and the refinement which is always proclaiming
+itself refined. Since the time of Joseph Surface there has been a
+great decline in the market price of noble sentiments.
+
+
+     _The History of England, from the Invasion of Julius
+     Caesar to the Reign of Victoria. By Mrs. Markham. A New
+     Edition. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 12mo._
+
+This is a new and revised edition of a work which has long been used
+in the education of boys and girls. Its information is, of course,
+milk for babes. We think that books of this class should be prepared
+by persons very different from Mrs. Markham. She, good lady, was the
+wife of an English clergyman by the name of Penrose, and she wrote
+English history as such a person might be supposed to write it. With
+every intention to be honest, her book has many facts and opinions
+which boys and girls will have to take more time to unlearn than they
+spent in learning, unless they intend to be children their whole
+lives.
+
+There is, however, a story in the volume regarding the Duke of
+Marlborough, which we think few of our readers have seen. The duke's
+command of his temper was almost miraculous. Once, at a council of
+war, Prince Eugene advised that an attack on the enemy should be made
+the next day. As his advice was plainly judicious, he was much
+exasperated at the refusal of the duke's consent, and immediately
+called him a coward and challenged him. Marlborough cooly declined
+the challenge, and the enraged prince left the council. Early the
+following morning he was awoke by the duke, who desired him instantly
+to rise, as he was preparing to make the attack, and added, "I could
+not tell you of my determination last night, because there was a
+person present who I knew was in the enemy's interest, and would
+betray us. I have no doubt we shall conquer, and when the battle is
+over I will be ready to accept your challenge." The prince, seeing the
+superior sagacity of Marlborough, and ashamed of his own intemperance,
+overwhelmed the duke with apologies, and the friendship of the two
+generals was more strongly cemented than ever. The anecdote is of
+doubtful origin, but it is an admirable illustration both of the
+character of Marlborough and Eugene.
+
+
+     _Letters from Italy: and The Alps and the Rhine. By J.
+     T. Headley. New and Revised Edition. New York: Baker &
+     Scribner. 1 vol. 12mo._
+
+We believe that these were Mr. Headley's first productions, and were
+originally published in Wiley & Putnam's Library. The present edition
+has a preface, devoted to the consideration of the new aspect Italy
+has assumed since the book was written, and a very judicious
+flagellation is given to that arch traitor and renegade, Charles
+Albert, King of Sardinia, whom events have transformed from a
+trickster and tyrant into a patriot leader. We agree with Mr. Headley
+in thinking that the Italians are more likely to be endangered than
+benefitted by his position at the head of their armies.
+
+"The Alps and the Rhine" is, in our opinion, Mr. Headley's most
+agreeable work. The descriptions of scenery are singularly vivid and
+distinct, and are given in a style of much energy and richness. The
+chapters on Suwarrow's Passage of the Glarus, Macdonald's Pass of the
+Splugen, and the Battle of Waterloo, are admirably done. That on
+Macdonald is especially interesting. Those who doubt Mr. Headley's
+talents will please read this short extract: "The ominous sound grew
+louder every moment, and suddenly the fierce Alpine blast swept in a
+cloud of snow over the mountain, and howled like an unchained demon,
+through the gorge below. In an instant all was blindness and confusion
+and uncertainty. The very heavens were blotted out, and the frightened
+column stood and listened to the raving tempest that made the pine
+trees above it sway and groan, as if lifted from their rock-rooted
+places. But suddenly a still more alarming sound was heard--'An
+avalanche! an avalanche!' shrieked the guides, and the next moment _an
+awful white form came leaping down the mountain_, and striking the
+column that was struggling along the path, passed strait through it
+into the gulf below, carrying thirty dragoons and their horses with it
+in its wild plunge."
+
+
+     _Principles of Zoology. Touching the Structure,
+     Development, Distribution and Natural Arrangement of
+     the Races of Animals, Living and Extinct. Part I.
+     Comparative Physiology. By Louis Agassiz and Augustus
+     A. Gould Boston: Gould, Kendall & Lincoln. 1 vol.
+     12mo._
+
+The name of Professor Agassiz, the greatest of living naturalists, on
+the title page of this volume, is of itself a guarantee of its
+excellence. The work is intended for schools and colleges, and is
+admirably fitted for its purpose, but its value is not confined to the
+young. The general reader, who desires exact and reliable knowledge of
+the subject, and at the same time is unable to obtain the larger works
+of Professor Agassiz, will find in this little volume an invaluable
+companion. It has all the necessary plates and illustrations to
+enable the reader fully to comprehend its matter. The diagram of the
+crust of the earth, as related to zoology, is a most ingenious
+contrivance to present, at one view, the distribution of the principal
+types of animals, and the order of their successive appearance in the
+layers of the earth's crust. The publishers have issued the work in a
+style of great neatness and elegance.
+
+
+     _The Writings of Cassius Marcellus Clay, including
+     Speeches and Addresses. Edited with a Preface and
+     Memoir by Horace Greely, New York: Harper & Brothers._
+
+This is a large and beautiful octavo, and is embellished with an
+admirable likeness of Mr. Clay. The people of this country are so well
+acquainted with the peculiarities of Cassius M. Clay's manner, that we
+will not pause to characterize it; and his views upon public subjects
+are so partisan that we leave their discussion to the politicians of
+the country. The eminent abilities of Mr. Greely are displayed in the
+execution of the duties of editor; and the memoir which introduces the
+work does full justice to the subject.
+
+
+     _The Odd Fellows' Amulet, or the Principles of Odd
+     Fellowship Defined; the Objections to the Order
+     Answered, and its Advantages Maintained. By Rev. D. W.
+     Bristol. Auburn: Derby, Miller & Co._
+
+This is a beautiful little volume, admirably illustrated. It is well
+written; will be read with interest by the general reader, and should
+be in the possession of every member of the great and beneficent order
+which it advocates and vindicates.
+
+
+     _The Baronet's Daughters, and Harry Monk._
+
+Mrs. Grey, who is recognized as one of the most accomplished female
+novelists of the present day, has recently given to the public another
+interesting volume, bearing the above title. There are two stories,
+both of which are marked by the ability which characterizes the whole
+of Mrs. Grey's works, and are well calculated to make a sultry
+afternoon pass agreeably away. The American publisher is Mr. T. B.
+Peterson, who furnishes a neat and uniform edition of Mrs. Grey's
+novels.
+
+
+TO OUR READERS.
+
+The Proprietors of "Graham's Magazine," desirous of maintaining for it
+the high reputation it has secured in the estimation of the people of
+the United States, are determined to spare no pains to increase its
+value, and make it universally regarded as the best literary
+publication in the country. To this end they have placed in the hands
+of several of our best engravers a series of plates, which will be
+truly remarkable for their superiority in design and execution. As
+usual, the pens of the best American writers will be employed in
+giving grace and excellence to its pages, and in addition to articles
+which have been secured from new contributors of acknowledged ability,
+they have the pleasure of announcing that an engagement has been
+effected with J. BAYARD TAYLOR, Esq., whose writings are so
+extensively known and admired, by which his valuable assistance will
+be secured in the editorial department of this Magazine exclusively.
+This arrangement will, we are assured, be hailed with pleasure by the
+host of friends which the Magazine possesses throughout the Union, as
+an earnest that no efforts will be omitted to show the sense the
+proprietors entertain of past favors, by rendering their work still
+more attractive and deserving of patronage for the future.
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+Certain irregularities in spelling and grammar have been left as in
+the original. Small errors in punctuation have been corrected without
+comment.
+
+1. page 122--added apostrophe to word 'wont' in phrase '..he wont be
+my hero...'
+
+2. page 123--corrected typo 'will' to 'well' in phrase 'They are all
+very will for rich people.'
+
+3. page 125--corrected error in text 'almost wondering at first what
+Angile meant.' to 'almost wondering at first what Augusta meant.'
+
+4. page 130--corrected typo 'spedily' to 'speedily' in phrase '...fit
+a mast to it, which was spedily done.'
+
+5. page 143--corrected typo 'brightnesss' to 'brightness' in phrase
+'...the beauty and brightnesss of that sweet...'
+
+6. page 153--corrected typo 'stong' to 'strong' in phrase '...or some
+stong emotion...'
+
+7. the notation [~n] has been used to designate an n with a tilde above it
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3
+September 1848, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRAHAM'S MAGAZINE, SEPT 1848 ***
+
+***** This file should be named 30076.txt or 30076.zip *****
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