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GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

A VISION.

BY JAMES K. PAULDING, AUTHOR OF “THE DUTCHMAN’S FIRE-SIDE,” “WESTWARD HO!” ETC.

Happening, the other day, to meet with an account of a mighty gathering of the disciples of a certain great prophet, who, I believe, has, in spite of the proverb, rather more honor in his own country than any other, I fell upon a train of reflections on the probability of this world coming to an end the first of April next, as predicted by that venerable seer. That it will come to an end, some time or other, is certain, for nothing created can last forever; and that this event may happen to-morrow, is, for aught we know, just as likely as that it will take place an hundred or a thousand years hence. The precise hour is, however, wisely hidden from all but the eyes of our inspired prophet, and the first of April is quite as probable as any other, although, for the credit of the prediction, I could wish it had been fixed for some other day than that so specially consecrated to making fools.

It appeared to me, however, on due consideration, that there were many startling indications that this world of ours was pretty well worn thread-bare, and that it was high time to lay it aside, or get rid of it altogether, by a summary process, like the Bankrupt Law. Nor am I alone, among very discreet reflecting persons, in this opinion. I was lately conversing with an old gentleman, of great experience and sagacity, who has predicted several hard winters, and who assured me he did not see how it was possible for this world to last much longer. “In the first place,” said he, “it has grown a great deal too wise to be honest, and common sense, like a specie currency, become the most uncommon of all commodities. Now, I maintain that, without the ballast of common sense, the world must inevitably turn upside down, or, at least, fall on its beam-ends, and all the passengers tumble overboard. In the second place, it is perfectly apparent that the balance-wheel which regulates the machine, and keeps all its functions in equilibrium, is almost worn out, if not entirely destroyed. There is now no medium in any thing. The love of money has become a raging passion, a mania equally destructive to morals end happiness. So with every other pursuit and passion of our nature. Every man is ‘like a beggar on horseback,’ and the old proverb will tell where he rides. All spur away, until they break down, ride over a precipice, or tumble into the mire. If a man, as every man does now-a-days, pines for riches, instead of seeking them in the good old-fashioned way of industry, prudence and economy, he plunges heels over head in mad, extravagant and visionary schemes, that lead inevitably, not only to his own ruin, but that of others, and in all probability, in the end, leave him as destitute of character as of fortune. Or, if he is smitten with a desire to benefit his fellow creatures, he carries his philanthropy into the camp of the enemy, that is, to the opposite extreme of vice. His sympathies for one class of human suffering entirely shut his eyes and his heart to the claims and rights of others, and he would sacrifice the world to an atom. His pity for the guilty degenerates into the encouragement of crime, and instead of an avenger, he becomes an accomplice. No man, it would seem, in this most enlightened of all ages, appears to be aware of what is irrefragably true, that an honest abhorrence of guilt is one of the most powerful preservatives of human virtue; and that one of the most effectual modes of engendering vice in our own hearts, is to accustom ourselves to view it merely as an object of pity and forgiveness. It seems to be a growing opinion, that the punishment of crime is an usurpation of society, a despotic exercise of power over individuals, and, in short, ‘a relic of the dark ages.’ ”

My excellent old friend is a great talker, when he gets on a favorite subject—though he rails by the hour at members of Congress for their long speeches—and proceeded, after stopping to take breath, as follows:—“There are other pregnant indications of this world being on its last legs, in the fashionable cant”—so my friend called it, most irreverently—“of ascribing almost all the great conservative principles of the social state to ‘the dark ages.’ The laws, indispensable to the security of property, the restraint of imprudence and extravagance, the safety of persons, and the punishment of their transgressors—those laws, in short, that constitute the great pillars of society, and without which barbarity and violence would again overrun the world, are, forsooth, traced by the advocates of ‘progress’ to those very dark ages, whose ignorance and barbarism they contributed more than all other causes to dissipate and destroy. An honest man who resorts to those laws which are founded in the first principles of justice, for the recovery of that which is necessary to his comfort, perhaps his very existence, or for the purpose of punishing some profligate spendthrift for defrauding him, is now denounced by philanthropic legislators, and mawkish moralists, as a dealer in human flesh, a Shylock demanding his pound of flesh, and whetting his knife for performing the sacrifice. The murderer—the cool, premeditated murderer—is delicately denominated ‘an unfortunate man,’ lest we should hurt his fine feelings. Our sympathies are invoked when he is called upon to pay the penalty of his crime, while the poor victims, living and dead, are left, the one without pity, the other without relief.

“Not only this,” continued the worthy old gentleman, who gradually waxed warmer and warmer as he proceeded—“not only this, but as if to give the last most unequivocal evidence of dotage, we have become pulled up with the idea of this being the most enlightened of all the ages of the world, for no other reason, that I can perceive, than that we are become very great mechanics, and have, in consequence of the wonderful perfection to which machinery has been brought, depreciated the value of human labor, until it has become insufficient for human support, and beggared ourselves and our posterity, in making canals for frogs to spawn in, and railroads from interminable forests to flourishing towns that never had existence. It is perfectly evident to me, that matters are speedily coming to a crisis, and that a world, in which there is no other pursuit but money, where all sympathy is monopolized by guilt, and where common sense and common honesty are considered as relics of the dark ages, cannot last much longer, unless,” added he, with a peculiar expression of his eye, “unless Congress takes it in hand, and brings about a radical reform, by speechification. The truth is, it owes so much more than it can pay, that the sooner it winds up its concerns the better.”

Saying this, my worthy and excellent friend, after predicting a hard winter, left me to cogitate alone in my old arm chair, very much inclined to a nap, as I generally am after listening to a long harangue. It was in a quiet back room, where I could see nothing but the smoke of my opposite neighbor’s chimney; nothing disturbed me but a fly, which, notwithstanding the world was wide enough for us both, I should have utterly exterminated, if I could; and I continued to ponder over the subject, till, by degrees, sleep overpowered me, and the following vision passed over my bewildered brain.

Methought the eve of the first of April had come, and with it every indication that the prediction of the prophet was about to be fulfilled. The waters of the rivers, brooks and springs became gradually warmer and warmer, until some of them began to boil; hot currents of air issued from the fissures of the earth, whose surface became heated so that the bare-footed urchins rather danced than walked upon it; a thick, dun-colored vapor, by degrees, involved the world from the horizon to the skies, and there prevailed a dead, oppressive calm, without a single stirring breath of air. The earth became, as it were, one vast heated oven. The air was dry and parching; the turkeys lay sprawling on their breasts, with expanded wings; the dogs strolled wistfully around, seeking some cool retreat, panting and lolling out their tongues; the little birds hid themselves in the recesses of the woods, and ceased to sing; the leaves of the trees and flowers wilted and shriveled up under the excessive heat of the burning sun—and the world ceased to revolve, either from a suspension of the laws of nature, or for fear of dissolving in a profuse perspiration.

Other fearful auguries proclaimed that the hour had come. The sun was like a red ball of living fire; the whole firmament rocked and trembled, as if panting with the throes of suffocation; ever and anon, long flashes of zigzag lightning shot athwart the heavens in dead silence, for no thunder followed; and all nature, rational and irrational, animate and inanimate, seemed awaiting in death-like silence the hour of their final dissolution, as predicted by the prophet.

Methought I wandered about in that unhappy and distracted state of mind which generally ensues when we are haunted by some dim, half visible spectre of undefined misery, whose presence we feel, but whose persecutions we cannot avoid. It seemed that I strolled to the river side, in the hope of inhaling the cool, refreshing breezes from its bosom, but it sent forth nothing but a scalding vapor, like that from a steam-engine. The fishes lay sprawling and panting, and dying on its surface; and a hungry hawk, that had plunged down for his prey, being exhausted by the consuming heat, lay stuttering helplessly on the waters. From the mountains of the opposite shore, columns of blood-red smoke and flashes of sulphurous fire issued with an angry roaring vehemency; and in some of the deep fissures of the rocks, methought I could see the raging fires, as through the bars of a furnace. Then came rolling out of the bowels of the earth torrents of liquid flame; then came on the dread struggle of the rebel elements, released from the guiding hand of their Great Master. The dissolving earth rushed into the waters; a noise, like the hissing of millions of serpents, succeeded, and when I looked again the river was dry.

I fled from the appalling spectacle, and sought the city, where all was dismay and confusion. Some were shrieking and tearing their hair, in guilty apprehension of the horrors of death, and the sufferings of the world to come. Others sat in mute despair, awaiting in numb insensibility the fate of all the rest of their race; while others, impelled by the instinct of self-preservation, and forgetful of the inevitable doom that awaited them, were devising various expedients for escaping, and securing their most valuable articles about their persons. A little love-sick maiden had hung the picture of her lover about her snowy neck; an anxious mother sat weeping and wringing her hands by the side of a cradle, where lay a little laughing cherub playing with a kitten; while another was rushing madly about, with a child in her arms, which she had squeezed to death in her convulsive writhings. Thousands of scenes like these occurred all around, but I delight not to dwell on horrors, and will proceed to state what I saw of the exhibitions of the various modes of grief, disappointment and despair, which served to convince me that the ruling passion will struggle in the last agonies of existence, and triumph at the moment of the dissolution of nature herself.

In the course of my wanderings, methought I encountered the celebrated Fire-King, who was sitting at home, quietly smoking his cigar, and calculating that being the destined survivor of all his race, he would succeed to an immense landed estate, and become lord proprietor of the whole earth. Having agreed upon the terms, he furnished me with an antidote against the heat of the most raging anthracite furnace, and being now assured of safety, I made my observations with more coolness and precision. Being of rather a prying disposition, I conceived that as every thing was in a state of utter confusion, the doors and windows all open, and no police officers on duty, there was no occasion to stand upon ceremony.

I accordingly made my way into the most private recesses of various habitations, where I saw many things which I would not disclose, were it not that all this is nothing but a dream. Entering a handsome house, rather splendidly furnished, I saw an old man of upwards of fourscore, who was bitterly complaining of being thus suddenly cut off, without time to make his will, and repent of his sins; while an elderly woman, whom I took to be one of Job’s comforters, was upbraiding him for not taking her advice, and attending to these matters long ago. In another miserable house, without furniture, and destitute of every comfort of life, I discovered a shriveled, cadaverous spectre, hugging a bag of gold, and lamenting the hardship of being called away just the day before the interest became payable on his bank stocks. I met in another place a speculator, with the perspiration rolling down his face in torrents, who was calculating the immense profits he might have made if he had only foreseen this sudden catastrophe. A little farther on, I saw a glutton devouring a pair of canvass backs, and heard him at intervals mumbling to himself—“They shan’t cheat me of my dinner.” The next person I particularly noticed, was a stanch believer in “progress,” who was terribly out of humor that the world should be destroyed just as it was on the high-road to perfectibility. He had an essay in his hand, which he was rolling up to enclose in a bottle, hermetically sealed, in the hope that it might float down to posterity, and make him immortal, forgetting, as I supposed, that the world was now about to perish by fire, and not by water. In the course of my farther peregrinations, I fell in with a father, very busy in making a will, dividing his property among his children; and another disinheriting his son for marrying against his wishes. A usurer was lamenting that he was not aware of what was coming, as he would certainly have borrowed a good round sum, and thus escaped paying the interest. A worthy dealer in political haberdashery, who had been seeking office, I believe, ever since the flood, was exclaiming against fate for casting him off, now that he had actually received a promise of succeeding a gentleman who was only five years younger than himself, immediately on his death. This example, by the way, brought to my recollection a circumstance that actually happened in real life, and within my own knowledge, where an old man of upwards of three-score and ten actually hanged himself on the marriage of his daughter, to whose fortune he looked forward to becoming heir, provided she died without issue. It is somewhat singular that people always calculate on outliving those by whose deaths they expect to be benefitted.

In the course of my peregrinations, I encountered some of the disciples of the prophet, who, one might have supposed, would have been prepared for the event they had so long confidently anticipated. But it seemed they were as much taken by surprise as their unbelieving neighbors, and were running to and fro in great consternation, or preparing in all haste for what they had been expecting at leisure, according to the ways of the wise people of this world, who see farther into futurity than their neighbors. Entering the chamber of a middled-aged widow, a stanch follower of the prophet, who had retreated somewhere, I found an open letter, not quite finished, which purported to be an answer to a proposal of marriage from another disciple, and in which the prudent dame very judiciously postponed her final decision until after the first of April. I own I proceeded to other unwarrantable indulgences of curiosity, only pardonable in a person fast asleep, in the course of which I made certain discoveries, which, now that I am awake, I scorn to disclose to the world. All I will venture to say is, that I saw enough to convince me that if the widow really believed in the approaching dissolution of the world, she had determined to make the most of it while it lasted. It is impossible to say what other discoveries I might have achieved if I had not heard footsteps approaching; and apprehending it might be the lady herself, I retreated with considerable precipitation, in doing which I encountered, and overthrew, a fat cook maid, who was coming up in great haste to apprize her mistress that the kitchen was so hot she could not breathe in it any longer, and who, notwithstanding the solemnity of the occasion, gave me a most awful benediction.

The next house I entered was that of a notorious usurer, who was never known to do a kindness to any human being. He had accumulated millions by a rigid, inflexible system of preying upon the wants of his fellow creatures, and denying himself the common necessaries of life, except on rare occasions, when his vanity got the better of his avarice; and he would give some great party, or ostentatious feast, in order to excite the envy of his neighbors, and get puffed in the newspapers, always making himself amends for this prodigality by squeezing additional sums out of his unfortunate clients. I found him busily employed in making his will, and talking to himself by fits and starts, from which I gathered there was a great contest going on between the ruling passion and the fear of the future, which prompted him to make reparation, as far as possible, for his past transgressions. From what I could gather, he had come to a determination to restore the principal of all the money he had screwed from his debtors by his usurious practices, but could not bring himself to give back the interest on these exactions, which he said would utterly ruin him. As the heat became more intense, he seemed gradually to relax; but the moment it subsided a little, relapsed again. This happened several times, until at length the old man quieted his conscience by leaving his whole estate for the purpose of erecting a hospital for the reception of the families of all those he had reduced to beggary by his frauds and inhumanity, at the same time saying to himself, “I shall go down to posterity as a great public benefactor.” As I looked over his shoulder, I, however, observed that the bequest was conditional on the fulfillment of the prophecy.

Leaving the house of this repentant sinner, I proceeded on my way without any definite object, and met a fellow in irons, who had taken advantage of the confusion which reigned every where around, to make his escape from prison. He had committed a wanton and atrocious murder; and his execution was fixed for the next day. He seemed so elated at his escape, that I could not forbear reminding him that he had only got out of the frying-pan into the fire. He briskly replied, “O, but you forget I have escaped the disgrace of hanging.” On my reminding him that the disgrace was in the crime, not the punishment, he answered, “I differ with you entirely in this matter,” and proceeded on, rattling his chains as if in triumph.

My next encounter was with a person who had distinguished himself in several controversies on questions which, admitting of no demonstration either of facts or arguments, afford the finest scope for interminable discussion. He had written more than one dissertation to prove that the prophet knew nothing about what he had predicted, and gone nigh to convince his readers that he was in the same predicament. I was proceeding to converse with him on the unexpected catastrophe so rapidly approaching, when he impatiently interrupted me: “Unexpected, indeed!” said he, “I have been so busy in proving it to be all humbug, that I am sorry to say I am altogether unprepared. But that is not the worst. The most provoking part of the business is, that this old blockhead should be right, and I wrong. My reputation is entirely ruined; and I shall go down to posterity as a teacher of false doctrines, and a bad reasoner.” “Don’t be uneasy on that score,” I replied, “posterity will know nothing of the matter.” Upon which he left me in a great passion, affirming that I had reflected on himself and his works, which, upon my honor, was not my intention.

The philosopher had scarcely left me, when there approached an old man of rather venerable appearance, who seemed an exception to the rest of the world—being evidently elated at what filled all others with horror and dismay. He was rubbing his hands in great glee, ever and anon exclaiming, “I told them so; I predicted all this years ago, but the blockheads wouldn’t believe me. They have got it now, and may laugh as much as they please.” Anxious to know the meaning of all this, I ventured to ask an explanation: “What!” said he, “don’t you know I am the prophet who foretold the destruction of the world by fire, the first of April, 1843? The clergy preached against me in their pulpits; the philosophers laughed; and the would-be wise ones hooted at me as a fool, or an impostor. But they have got it now—they have got it now—ha! ha! ha!” and the worthy old prophet went his way delighted at the fulfillment of his prediction. He had not proceeded far, however, when he came in sight of the bed of the river, which was now one vast volcano of consuming fires, and encountered such a scorching blast from that quarter, that he turned round and approached me again with great precipitation. On inquiring where he was going in such a hurry, he replied, “Going? why to make preparation for this awful catastrophe, which, to tell you the truth, I have entirely neglected, being altogether taken up with predicting it. Bless my soul! I had no idea it would be so hot!” At that moment it seemed that he took fire, and in a few minutes was consumed to ashes, exclaiming to the last, “Well, well! it matters not, I shall go down to posterity as the last of the prophets!”

The last person I recollect meeting, was the worthy old gentleman who railed against the world so copiously at the commencement of this vision. He was puffing and blowing, and fanning himself with his hat at a prodigious rate. “Well, my friend,” said I, very coolly and quietly, “well, my friend, you were quite right in your opinion that the world was pretty well worn out, and on its last legs. It is, in truth, an old, superannuated concern, not worth mending; and as you truly stated, so over head and ears in debt, that the sooner it winds up its affairs, and calls its creditors together, the better.” The old gentleman, however, did not seem altogether to agree with me in this opinion. He hesitated, wiped his brow, and at length replied: “Why, ay—yes—to be sure! I confess, I thought so yesterday, but had no idea it was going to happen so soon; and, besides, really when one comes to consider the matter coolly,” and then he puffed and panted as if almost roasted to death; “when one, I say, considers the matter coolly, this world, after all is said and done, is not so bad but that an honest man might have made up his mind to live in it a little longer. It might have been mended so as to be tolerable; and considering the pains every body is taking to make it better, I don’t think the case was altogether desperate. Really, it has scarcely had a fair trial, and with a few scores of years more, what with the great improvements in machinery; the wonderful facilities in traveling; and the exertions of a comprehensive philanthropy, I see no reason to despair of the millennium. But it is all over now; the advocates of ‘progress,’ will never know whether they were dreaming or awake; and I shall die without ever predicting another hard winter.”

How much farther my good old friend would have carried his recantation, can never be known; for just at this critical moment, methought he blew up with a prodigious explosion; a glare of light, so intensely brilliant as to be beyond endurance, flashed before my eyes, and a sense of suffocation came over me, with such overwhelming force, that I struggled myself awake; and the first sounds I heard in the street, were those of the little boys crying out “April fool! April fool!”

BY ALFRED B. STREET.

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “A NEW HOME,” “FOREST LIFE,” ETC.

Introductions are awkward things enough—necessary evils sometimes, it is true; but always to be dispensed with if possible. It would not, perhaps, be civil to thrust a mirror before a gentleman’s eyes without a preliminary—“By your leave, sir!” But if we are able to place it so that he can catch a glimpse of himself in passing, and thus afford him an opportunity of reforming some trifling inaccuracy of costume, he will be content to avail himself of the advantage without adverting to the obscurity which may envelop his benefactor. Did it sort with my humor to grope like a mole through the earth that covers an hundred generations, I could make out an authentic pedigree that would rival any in the Sporting Calendar; but besides that this deliberate method is entirely foreign to my nature and habits, I cannot but see that there would be about as much propriety in such a mode of introducing one’s self to the reader, as there would be in engraving a genealogical tree upon our visiting cards.

I shall, therefore, forbear to gratify my pride of ancestry, by enumerating the various generations of the Hasty family, that flourished beyond the flood (of the Atlantic, I mean) and commence with my first American ancestor, Mr. Wildrake Hasty, who, after a headlong quarrel with his guardians concerning the amount of his allowance while under age, scampered over with Sir Walter Raleigh, and falling head over heels in love the very first day after he landed, was married in a month, and became the founder of our family on this side the water. Skipping several of his successors, who were not remarkable, for any thing that ever I could learn, beyond an unusual facility in getting rid of money, I shall mention only Mr. Solomon Hasty (the only Solomon of the name) who happily achieved an heiress, and thus in some measure retrieved the rather drooping fortunes of the race, and enabled my immediate ancestors to transmit to me a goodly inheritance, which was considerably augmented by a long (and oh! how tedious!) minority.

So much by way of introduction. I should have preferred omitting even this short specimen of the art of prosing. I love the stirring, abrupt style, where the narrator bounds on in the middle of a scene, brandishing his wooden sword, and shaking his cap and bells, and calling “Presto! Presto!” for a continual change of scene; but this sort of commencement supposes the story or chit-chat which follows, to be, if not as sparkling as champagne, at least as brisk as bottled ale. I have no wit, and scarcely a wonder in store; and I am far too honest to lure the reader on by a promise of turtle, and then set him down to hasty-pudding. So I prose at the outset, meaning to be rather better than worse than my promises.

When I had reached the independent age and my guardians had resigned their control over my person and fortune, they very considerately advised me to marry and settle in life, thinking, perhaps, that so mercurial a character required a wife by way of ballast. But I had other matters on hand. I could not think of “settling” until I had, by a long flight, prepared myself to relish repose. So I dashed over Europe, feeing conducteurs to extra diligence, and overturning ciceroni, and laming valets de place, in the impetuosity of my sight-seeing efforts. Like all the rest of the world, I talked large and felt small at St. Peter’s; I leaned over the Leaning Towers; I paced and repaced the gallery of the Louvre, and threaded the intricacies of the Palais Royal; I dived under the Thames, peeped from the top of St. Paul’s, and said and did all that is proper in the hallowed atmosphere of Poet’s Corner; and then came home as fast as winds and waves would carry me, in a violent hurry to “settle.” And here began my difficulties. If men could live like albatrosses, forever on the wing, I should have settled at once, in imitation of that sensible bird; but being resolved to clip my roving wing, and seek a gentle mate, it became necessary to provide a nest fit for the keeping of so dear a charge. Fortunately for me, a tract of forest land, which had been purchased by my grandfather, as a sort of land-in-the-moon speculation, afforded just the site I wanted for my dwelling, and I was soon involved in all the delightful bustle of building. Plans crowded upon me; elevations without limit exalted my imagination. All and each seemed to promise all that need be promised; yet every new projector found a flaw in the ideas of his predecessor. At length, to cut the matter short, I decided by lot; and, dismissing my theorists, set myself seriously at work to realize “a romance in stone and lime.”

This proved the first great lesson of my life. To build in the country! Words fail me, and I pass on.

My house was finished, my shrubberies planted, my garden under skillful hands, and now I set about falling in love, with all my heart and soul, as I am said to do every thing. Nothing could equal the rapidity with which I lost my heart, save the celerity with which I found it again; and after this process had been repeated some two or three times, I began to fear that my friends had been correct in prophesying that I should never be of one mind long enough to be married. But my time had not yet come. Love had his revenge at last, and when I least expected it.

I had taken my gun, and was popping away in the grounds of a cynical old bachelor, my very good neighbor, within whose walls I had never beheld the shadow of a petticoat, when I came very near shooting a lady who sat reading in a summer-house. She was pale with fright, and I thought her scarcely pretty; but as I poured forth my apologies, rich blushes rose to her cheek, and enhanced the radiance of her dove-like eyes, till my charmed sense confessed her the perfection of feminine loveliness. The fair Serena was doubtless my destiny, and after a few faint struggles I yielded myself her captive, rescue or no rescue.

Of all the wonders Master Cupid ever performed, certainly this feat was the most wonderful. My fair enslaver was in every thing my opposite, or at least the prominent parts of our characters were altogether and strikingly dissimilar; and it was the consciousness of this difference that alone induced my attempts at resistance. Serena was lovely and well-connected—what reasonable mortal could ask more? I was not a reasonable mortal. I sighed for a perfect similarity of taste and temperament, of habits and opinions; and I expected some evidence of a reciprocal passion, which though female delicacy and reserve might restrain, they should not, I thought, be able wholly to conceal. I sighed in vain for any thing of this kind. She was won after an age of wooing, and I ought to have felt assured that she would not have accepted me unless she had preferred me to all the world. I did at first believe so, when, having once rejected my suit on the score of her fears for the stability of my attachment, she was induced to revise her sentence after I had endured a year’s probation, and at length acknowledged herself satisfied by my perseverance. But doubts, once planted, continued to torment me at intervals. Unskilled in the female heart, I expected the most powerful of all sentiments to exhibit itself in nearly the same manner in all characters, at least in married life; and it was hard for me to learn to read in my wife’s mild eyes and unimpassioned gentleness of manner, the tranquillity of happy love.

A chilling doubt of Serena’s affection caused me to quarrel with her unchanging placidity of temper. I fancied that I should be happier if she were angry, or even jealous, since I should then have some proof of my influence over her feelings. No husband ever took half the pains to soothe the angry passions of his termagant spouse, that I tried in endeavoring to discover whether my wife had any passions. I sought occasions to thwart her wishes; I pretended at times an indifference I never felt, and even affected to flirt with other pretty women—yet never could succeed in ruffling her temper. Perhaps her nicer tact enabled her to read, through the mists in which I strove to envelop it, the almost idolatrous devotion with which I regarded her. At any rate, there must have been a preservative power somewhere, since my waywardness did not estrange her from me. I must often have seemed to her cruelly unobservant of her feelings; yet the same unvarying gentleness, the same cloudless smile was ever ready to welcome me. Her complexion, indeed, would change, and be pale or glowing, according to my mood, and her eyes withdraw themselves from any expression in mine which harmonized not with their own natural dewy tenderness; but never, under any provocation, did I detect a harsh tone in her sweet voice, or mark in those eyes a single look that spoke resentment.

Another difference between us gave me some, though far less, uneasiness. I had accustomed myself to doing every thing with great rapidity. Let me read, write, ride, drive, play or hunt, I was content with nothing short of racing pace. My wife, on the contrary, was habitually deliberate, and there was a delicate finish about her most trivial actions which often put to shame my more slovenly performances. But my impetuosity was not satisfied with perfection. I fretted myself with the reflection that love—true love—love such as I was conscious of feeling, would have induced Serena to assimilate her habits to mine, forgetting that this very love had never prompted the slightest change on my part. This was one of my cultivated troubles.

If I were not writing behind an alias, I should shrink from any detail of the expedients to which I was driven by my worthy resolve of transforming my seraph to a mere mortal. Covered by that friendly screen from the indignant flashing of bright eyes, I shall venture upon a few specimens, leaving the intelligent reader to gather, from these, a general idea of the life which my wife had the happiness of leading with the man whom she had married for love.

I had been shooting in excessively dirty weather, and brought home almost as much mud on my boots as game in my pouch, every step making a mark that would have done for Gog or Magog, when, as I was passing the front door to reach a side entrance, of which I was accustomed to avail myself at such times, I saw Serena descending the stairs, dressed for an evening party. On perceiving me, she approached the door to remind me that we had invited company, and also to make her usual kind queries as to the day’s sport. I blush to acknowledge that even while drinking in those gracious tones, and meeting those gentle glances, I was devising an unkind return, which I proceeded forthwith to put in execution.

My bolts had hitherto fallen powerless from her armor of proof, but might I not find some joint or crevice pervious to a lesser weapon—one which she would scarce think it worth while to guard against? It is often more difficult to possess one’s soul in patience under a small provocation than under a great one. Our philosophy is apt to walk on stilts that raise it above our petty needs. The man who can face a shower of bullets without flinching, will be miserable if he be caught in the rain without his umbrella.

My wife, like most married ladies who have no children, was excessively particular—neat to a fault; making a sacred temple of her house, and worshiping its stocks and stones (at least, so I said) in the absence of those living idols which are so apt to engross the thoughts of those who enjoy the name of mother. On this occasion I had observed her, as she descended the stairs, pass her handkerchief over the balustrade, to ascertain whether the duster had done its duty; and this suggested the idea of my ungracious experiment. Instead of seeking a place of less sanctity to cast my slough in, I mounted the steps between a double row of my wife’s geraniums and oleanders, proceeded deliberately along the glossy floor cloth, and with one foot on the stair-carpet, and the other on the snowy floor beside it, had ascended half the first flight before my wife spoke. With scarce a glance at the huge black tracks that marked my progress, she only asked, in her usual calm way—“Hadn’t you better change your boots, dear?”

I made a rapid toilet, and descended to the drawing-room, with confession on my lips. There I found Serena engaged with a visiter—not one of the expected, but a neighbor, who had “dropt in,” as the phrase is, sociably. If, however, her coming was a drop, her conversation was a continued stream; and, to pursue the figure, it seemed to have flowed through caverns sulphurous, or marshy bed of roots and herbs medicinal. Her visit was certainly any thing but welcome; but the closest scrutiny could not have detected, in my wife’s manner, any symptom of this truth. She was even more attentive than usual, lest her guest should be pained by a suspicion that her coming was mal-apropos.

I must confess I was far from following this amiable example; and if Mrs. Peewit did not discover that I wished her at the antipodes, it was only because she had not found time to bestow a glance upon my countenance, and took my statue-like silence as a compliment to her conversational powers.

Serena’s polite inquiries after the husband (poor fellow!) and children of this “weariful woman,” unlocked, it would seem, the fountains of her soul. O, Esculapius! what a burst was there! Mrs. Peewit needed no pitch-pipe. Her voice, her practiced voice, struck at once upon the key best calculated to implore—nay, to compel commiseration. She described, as having occurred in her own family, diseases enough to have filled every ward of a metropolitan hospital; and enumerated, in the history of their cure, an inventory of drugs that would have set up in trade a village apothecary, and made him the envy of all his cotemporaries. Imagine me, O, compassionate reader, listening to a detailed account of every pang that had attended the dentition of Malvina; the scarlet fever of Lucius Junius Brutus; and the chin-cough of Saccharissa Celestina, with their various symptoms, mode of treatment, and progress of cure.

I had gathered, in the course of the infliction, that these three were all her store, and supposed, of course, that we had come to the end of the chapter; but, alas! she turned a new leaf, and without the smallest appearance of compunction, fairly laid the whole family down with the measles, and bated us not a jot of all the nauseating details that belong to a sick chamber.

While my wife, with compassionate kindness, murmured, “What a world of fatigue and anxiety you must have suffered!” I, in any thing but an amiable mood, listened only for the bell, hoping for the arrival of relief in the form of other guests; but, ah! less fortunate than “sister Anne,” I could descry in the moonlight no “cloud of dust,” announcing the wished approach, though I leaned out of the window so far as to be in danger of tumbling headlong among the shrubbery below. Our case was harder yet than that of Fatima. Her distress was the punishment of her curiosity; but our Bluebeardess had forced upon us the secrets of the fatal chamber, against the stomach of our sense.

Once, and once only, Serena was able adroitly to avail herself of a moment’s pause to attempt a diversion in my favor, by inquiring after some gay, agreeable acquaintances of our Niobe neighbor; but she only stopped one sluice of bitter waters to open the floodgates of another. Mrs. Peewit had been unable to see these pleasant people when last they called, because—but I spare you, O, fortunate reader! (fortunate in having so considerate a caterer,) I spare you the repetition of that under which I groaned for an endless half hour—a drawling detail of the outrageous doings and misdoings of Mrs. Peewit’s “hired help.” This continued until the expected company had arrived, by which time I was in a towering passion with Serena for not being angry.

Never did I welcome a bevy of guests with half the cordiality that I displayed toward those who now came to my rescue. Men with whom I had never touched palms before, winced at the fervor of my grasp, while the ladies, I am certain, would have voted me, nem. con., the most agreeable of men, had the question been called that evening. I think it not unlikely that I owe no small portion of the popularity, which resulted in my election to Congress the next year, to the animation which attended the rebound of my spirits on that memorable night. My complacency included even Serena and her provoking patience.

I had brought from the city, not long before, a pair of porcelain vases of exquisite mould, selected with express reference to my wife’s delicate taste. They were not only ornamented with beautiful paintings, but the skill of the artist had been still farther displayed in the addition of wreaths of flowers modeled in the China itself, to a degree of transparency and accuracy which I had never seen equaled. They were, indeed, the perfection of elegance, and such pets with Serena, that she took the sole charge of them herself, and permitted not the touch of hands profane. Both the specimen and the species were new to most of our guests, and these gems of the plastic art were much admired. Our chronicler of ague-fits, the lugubrious Mrs. Peewit, nervous, no doubt, from the freshened recollection of her various woes, in attempting to replace one of these vases upon the mantel-piece, let it fall upon the hearth, where the roses and violets, and trees and castles, which she had just been admiring, cut a sorry figure enough; not to mention the oil from a small lamp, which had been placed within, to give effect to the transparent painting. Serena’s cheek showed a passing flush; but she treated the accident as a thing of small moment, which was all very right and lady-like; but when we were alone, will any one believe she could be so vexatious as to say,

“Poor Mrs. Peewit! how I felt for her!”

Not a single word of my vexation, or her own regret at the loss of my beautiful gift. All swallowed up in the consideration that that intolerable woman must have felt doubly embarrassed, because she was an uninvited and rather humble guest. Was it not too much—too much for any man, especially one of the hasty race?

Even on the subject of dress, that weak point of woman, I had never yet been able to throw Serena off her guard; when we were one evening preparing for a grand gala, during a visit to the city—an occasion when I was particularly desirous she should be looking her best, as the hour for the fête approached, I went to Serena’s dressing-room to satisfy myself as to the result of the toilet, and found her arrayed in green velvet, with sleeves of “woven air,” or to speak more intelligibly, some perfectly transparent material, under which her white arms lost none of their rounded beauty. A necklace, composed of several strands of pearl, rested its tassels on the emerald bodice, and was clasped midway by a diamond rose. The same brilliant gems supported her abundant tresses; and a single white feather, most tastefully disposed, completed the picture, which I did not hesitate to pronounce perfect. I remember every particular of it as if I had seen it but yesterday.

My wife smiled at the vehemence of my encomiums, yet “smiled in such a sort,” as showed her not wholly insensible to the advantages which she derived from the simple elegance of her dress. Indeed, her heightened color, and sparkling eyes, betrayed a consciousness of beauty altogether unusual in my meek Serena. As I clasped the last bracelet, a cup of coffee was brought, which I must needs present myself; and being a little pre-occupied with the dress and its wearer, I most awkwardly overset the cup, and sent full half of its contents trickling down the front of the green velvet.

The maid filled the air with her bewailings, and I stood aghast at the mischief I had done.

“Wipe it quickly, Elinor,” said Serena.

I looked at her as the thought struck me that she spoke in a hurried tone. Had I found at last the key note?

“It will not do,” she said; “you cannot make it fit for this evening’s wear. But fortunately the injury is confined to a narrow space, and can easily be repaired.”

“But not to-night!” I exclaimed, in a tone of vexation—for I was much disappointed.

“No, not to-night, certainly,” she replied; “but I have another dress ready for immediate use—for it was doubtful until a late hour whether this would be sent in time. The other will do just as well.”

“How can you say so!” I replied, pettishly, “when you know how much I liked this? Nothing was ever half so becoming to you.”

“How ungallant!” she said, smiling; “are you not bound, as a courteous knight, to believe that your lady-love will be charming in any thing? Take a book for a quarter of an hour, and see if I do not make you forget the green velvet.”

And the fair stoic proceeded with unclouded brow to substitute paltry blond and white satin, frills, flowers, and frippery, for her rich and becoming costume.

While I awaited the re-robing, in no very amiable mood, I must confess—for what man likes to see his wife too sensible? it occurred to me that the present was an opportunity to try Serena’s temper in a way which might not offer itself again. It was too good to be lost; and I quieted some qualms of conscience by resolving, in case this should be as unsuccessful as former ones had been, never to make another. Serena’s temper should henceforth be considered a Gibraltar, unassailable either by sap or storm.

When I was summoned again to the toilet, my wife gaily demanded sentence.

“Charming, charming!” I replied; “you know you look well in every thing; and if nobody were to see you but myself, I should think nothing could be more beautiful. But two thirds of the women to-night will be dressed just so and I confess I would rather stay at home than see you make one of forty or fifty transparencies over white satin, like a row of dolls dressed to order for transportation, or a dancing-master’s pupils in uniform for a ballet.”

“Are you in earnest?”

“Never more so, I assure you.”

“Well, then,” she said, drawing off her gloves, “I challenge you to a game at chess; and I shall beat you with all possible pleasure.”

I certainly ought to have been very unhappy, for the next few hours at least; for I had not only acted like a——, (hard name,) in depriving my wife of her brilliant evening, but had failed in producing the effect I had intended. But justice yet delayed its stroke, and I do not know when I have spent the hours more happily—thanks to the sunny temper which I so tyrannically strove to render more like my own.

We had been about three years married, when I was chosen delegate to a convention that was called to meet in a southern city; and as my wife had several friends in that place, she consented to accompany me. Our journey was delayed by a variety of vexatious accidents. It was late in autumn, and bad roads and various hindrances of travel conspired to render it very doubtful whether I should be present at the opening of the convention. I was in a perfect fever at the thought. I fretted—I scolded—and, in short, made myself very uncomfortable.

“Why will you distress yourself, Frederick,” said Serena; “your colleague being on the spot, it is not possible that any serious injury to the cause can result from your detention.”

Now was not that a provoking observation? I will appeal to the whole corps of husbands, ought not a wife to have believed that nobody could accomplish the purpose for which we were sent, so well as her own lord and master? I had a short fit of the sullens at this; but my good resolutions were strong, and the evil hour did not last long. I recalled many proofs of devoted interest in Serena; and on the strength of these recollections I confided to her my intention to make a speech, for which I had been at some trouble to prepare myself, and my fears that I should find the arena pre-occupied. Her reply was like oil upon the smothered fire of my feelings.

“I have heard you say, love, that no converts are to be expected from the eloquence poured forth on such occasions—all minds being made up beforehand. You will therefore have the less to regret if you should be too late.”

I turned from her, muttering between my teeth, “Who could ever expect to move such a dish of skimmed milk!”

This vexation, like all others of the same kind, resolved itself into the old conclusion—Serena could not feel the pride of affection in her husband’s talents and reputation, or she could never be thus indifferent to his opportunities of distinguishing himself. Such an impression made me, I fear, any thing but an agreeable companion for the rest of the journey, though I must own that my wife tried, by every gentle art, every soothing attention, to calm my ruffled spirits.

Thanks to the rapidity of travel on the latter part of our route, it so happened, after all, that I was just in time; so that naught of my purpose failed. My wife’s kind inquiries, however, were very coolly answered. I had made up my mind to show her that my happiness was not dependent upon her sympathy; and as our time was filled, even to overflowing, with business and pleasure, I had ample opportunities to show off my indifference. Yet unfrequent as were our tête-à-têtes, compared with our home life, Serena must, I was certain, have observed the change in my manner; yet she never commented upon it, nor complained of our continual separation. Her manner to me was as usual, except, perhaps, an additional tinge of softness.

“It is plain enough!” thought I, “she loves me not. If she were not indifferent to my affection, would she not have murmured at this seeming alienation? If she prized my society, would she not express uneasiness at seeing me so seldom? It is not in human nature (judging by my own) to bear thus calmly the loss of what we value.”

Determined to conceal my ill-humor from every eye, and most of all from that of her who caused it, I assumed an appearance of extravagant gaiety; was the life of every party; the roisterer of each convivial meeting; and always the devoted admirer of the prettiest woman present, my wife alone excepted—to her I was only scrupulously polite.

Among the most conspicuous of the gay circle in which we were thus temporarily moving was a lady who was known to be living apart from her husband, in consequence of mutual dissatisfaction—in short, one who was divorced in fact, though not in law. This lady, whom I may call Mrs. Beresford, was a beauty and a wit; off-hand and dashing in her manners, free in her conversation, and famous for brilliant sallies and good things that would bear repeating. It is, to be sure, cheap to be witty when we allow ourselves to throw aside the various restraints which curb the wit of others; but Mrs. Beresford’s wit was such as often passes current in what is called good society, and she was voted “a privileged person”—“a good creature, and so unfortunate!”—in fine, a splendid woman. She was of course the centre of attraction to a group of idlers who were ever ready to echo her witticisms, and offer incense to her vanity, in return for the amusement she afforded them, and the advantage of sharing in some degree her éclat.

Into this set I was most graciously admitted, and I found myself not a little gratified by the distinction with which I was at once treated by Mrs. Beresford. Whether by the power of sympathy or the magical influence of some mesmeric contact, I know not, but I found myself suddenly transformed into a wit, at least one whose lively nothings were sure to command applause, which in society does as well. Mrs. Beresford found my most trivial observation worthy of attention, and in matters of taste my opinion very soon became her law. If I praised blue, blue was the only wear until I happened to admire something pink, when Mrs. Beresford’s ribbons and roses began to blush as if under the spell of an enchanter. The fair ungovernable, who treated her beaux with so little ceremony that they sometimes rebelled, spite of wit and beauty, would endure from me even the intimation that some of her extravagances were neither delicate nor feminine—what could lady more?

My attentions to this dashing dame, prompted originally by the amiable desire of exciting my wife’s jealousy, were continued for my own amusement until I began to be alarmed for their effect upon the lady herself, as evinced in her manner toward me. The confidential tone of her conversation when we chanced to be alone, and her reproaches when I failed in my attendance, became extremely embarrassing, and I began revolving in my altered mind the practicability of retreating with a good grace. Perhaps these reflections would not have come so early to my aid, if Mrs. Beresford’s deportment had been more to my taste. In a neglected wife, one known not to be on good terms with her husband, far greater circumspection would have been more respectable, and some appearance of sensibility under such unhappy circumstances far more amiable than the extravagant gaiety which she had seen fit to adopt. The retiring delicacy of my wife’s manners had especially unfitted me to be long pleased with the society of one who was never known to sacrifice a witticism to decorum, or to suppress a brilliant or piquant thought because it might wound the feelings of others. My vanity had at first made me overlook or soften these faults, so odious in woman, but when flattery had lost the gloss of novelty I began to discern the coarse materials of which it was composed; and became sensible that neither wit nor beauty could compensate for the lack of delicacy of feeling and propriety of conduct.

Mrs. Beresford had brought to the matrimonial partnership a moderate fortune and an immoderate fondness for expense. The first was soon exhausted; the latter seemed to grow by use, and, like the giant in the story, soon became too mighty to share its habitation with another. This produced reproaches, and reproaches recriminations. Domestic comfort walked out at the door, and love (an old trick of his) flew out of the window. The husband, after submitting to be nearly ruined, cut short the supplies which fed the extravagance of his fair dame; and she, in return, revenged herself for what she called his parsimony, by the most unsparing ridicule of his tastes, habits and manners—conduct little likely, one would think, to gain admirers, or to retain those whom her charms had attracted. I, for one, began to be heartily tired of my flirtation, and fully aware of the difficulty of retracing my steps; and yet, as if this vexation were not enough, I tormented myself with contrasting Mrs. Beresford’s now open partiality with what I called my wife’s indifference, and resolving that the lack of empressement (I know of no corresponding English word) in Serena’s manner would always remain a chilling barrier between us.

One morning when my cogitations had, I suppose, somewhat affected my appearance, Serena as she entered the breakfast-room, instead of taking her place at the table, came to me, and, after a moment’s pause, said—

“Frederic! you are either ill or unhappy, yet you say nothing to me! How have I forfeited your confidence? You deny me one of my dearest privileges when you are ill or ill at ease and shut me out from all participation in what affects you. Say—tell me—what is it? Has any thing occurred to trouble you?”

Her beautiful eyes, upturned to mine, were almost irresistible, but I called pride to the field.

“Me! not at all! nothing whatever! I am perfectly well, I thank you! How do you find yourself this morning? Ready for breakfast, I trust! I am famously hungry!”

And I sat down and fell upon the toast as if I had eaten nothing for a week. I could not look full at Serena, but us I stole a glance I thought her eyes were full of tears. They were downcast, however, and when she spoke, it was in her usual manner. That morning I found in the Shakspeare she had been reading a geranium leaf laid at that pretty speech of Portia’s, beginning

And a few lines further down, I could discern a very light pencil mark at these lines—

I fixed my eyes upon the passage and fell into a long and most unpleasant reverie.

We had been engaged out that evening, but Serena declined, on plea of indisposition; and I, not sorry for an opportunity to come down a little from my ungracious altitude, offered to stay and read to her. She thanked me, with lips and eyes both, and, if I could have freed myself from the consciousness of wrong, I should have had a taste of my former happiness as I sat in her dressing-room, reading from that very play in whose touching lines she seemed to have observed something applicable to her own feelings. As she lay back in her chair with her eyes closed I could not but observe that she looked paler and thinner than usual, and my awakened conscience and my softened feelings alike urged me to seize this moment for acknowledgement and explanation, when the servant announced a lady, and added, that the visiter wished to see me alone. I went down stairs, expecting to discover that my wife was the person inquired for, and standing before the parlor I found Mrs. Beresford. She turned round as I entered, and advancing with a somewhat theatrical air she broke out into a declaration that she had quarreled irrevocably with her husband, and had come to throw herself upon my protection. My reply or my manner not satisfying her, she burst into a passion of tears and hysterical sobs, so violent that I became alarmed, and rang for a glass of water.

“Yes! ring, and expose me to the house, if you will! You shall neither persuade nor force me again to put myself in the power of Beresford. In vain do you give me this cold and cruel advice. If it is an idea that I shall be induced to return to him, that causes you to refuse me your protection, hear me declare—swear—”

Here she was interrupted by the return of the servant, and the entrance of my wife, who, hearing sounds of distress, had hastened down stairs. Serena supposing, in the innocence of her heart, that this passionate appeal was intended as much for her as for me, hastened to interpose her kind offices, trying with her gentle tones to soothe Mrs. Beresford’s agitation, and to prevent her from completing her vow of eternal separation from the man to whom she had promised a life-long affection and duty.

The appearance of my wife just at this juncture had been at first sufficiently embarrassing, but her simplicity afforded me unlooked-for relief. Echoing her advice, I declared my resolution to avoid all interference which should tend to widen the unhappy differences between Mrs. Beresford and her husband. I begged her to return home at once, before her absence should have been noticed, and put my hand to the bell to order the carriage.

If I had coveted excitement and admired impetuosity of feeling, I had now good reason to be satisfied. A violent fit of hysterics, with all the usual accompaniments of that interesting complaint, was the reply to our urgency. Serena, affrighted, left the room in search of restoratives, and Mrs. Beresford observing her absence (spite of her hysterics) took the opportunity to overwhelm we with reproaches for having won her affections by the most devoted attention, and then dishonorably failed her when she had cast herself upon my love and my generosity. Bitter was the torrent which now pierced my unwilling ears, and ere I could collect words to reply to the charge—too well deserved, indeed; for though I had never talked of love, I had followed her like her shadow ever since our first acquaintance—I beheld, close at my side, the face of my wife—pale, ghastly, corpse-like; and I had but just time to receive her in my arms to prevent her falling prone at my feet.

I should in vain attempt any description of my sensations at this moment. Mrs. Beresford’s conduct was, perhaps, such as might have been expected from her—but what man ever counts upon utter shamelessness in a woman? That my present distress was no more than I richly deserved, the reader will probably have concluded; but I felt at the time as if the punishment were too heavy for the offence. I never had for a moment contemplated any serious wrong to my wife, and Mrs. Beresford was not a woman whose sensibilities were likely to suffer severely through the medium of the affections; but how was I to make Serena understand all this? How tell her that the whole was the result of a deliberate plan of playing upon her affection, and revenging on her unoffending gentleness the wounds which my vanity had received?

I carried Serena to her room, and now it remained to get rid of Mrs. Beresford. And who can tell the humiliation to which a man is reduced who has wilfully put himself in the power of a wicked woman? The very recollection, even at this distant day, makes my cheeks tingle. And I am sure my reader will believe that my blushes are not all for my own shame, when I confess that it was only upon the promise of a large sum of money that I persuaded the wretched woman to allow me to hand her to the carriage, and relieve myself of her presence.

To tell Serena all—to implore her forgiveness for the wretchedness which I had caused her, and to promise that this last, worst instance should prove the finish of my follies, and then to bear her at once and forever from the scene of my disgrace—these were the resolutions which occupied my thoughts, and contributed to moderate the whirl of my brain as I ascended the stairs to my wife’s room. But before I could open the door, I was met by her maid, shrieking and wringing her hands, and calling for help, with the one terrible word prevailing over all, “She is dead! She is dead!”

I rushed to the bed-side, and for a moment thought it was indeed so; but as I raised her frantically in my arms, calling upon the beloved name, and beseeching her to look once more upon me, I perceived that her heart was still beating. Redoubled efforts recalled her to life, but not to consciousness. She opened her eyes, but their wandering gaze recognized no one, and in less than half an hour she was in a raging fever, which the physician declared to proceed from a sudden inflammation of the brain.

What a change now came over my ever gentle Serena! How did her eye’s fierce glances appal me, and the strained tones of that once silver voice agonize my wretched soul! For ten days and nights did she rave almost without intermission, and her whole theme was misery—disappointment—despair; while my name mingled incessantly with her incoherent complaints and supplications. Through the whole course of the disease she never once recognized me, though I watched constantly by her side; and when she did show symptoms of returning reason, I was obliged to absent myself, lest the sight of me should recall the distress which had brought her to this condition. I think I know something of the feelings of a murderer. At least, I fancy my agony could scarcely have been more intense if I had been conscious of having stubbed her body, than it was under the recollection that I had wilfully wounded her mind, and brought her to the verge of the grave by sheer, deliberate unkindness.

After I had had ample opportunity for self-abasement and repentance, I was once more suffered to present myself before Serena. She received me with her own sweet smile, and held out her trembling hand, but could not speak; and I, obliged to keep down my bursting heart, could only turn away and weep, inly renewing, in that moment of mingled joy and anguish, the vows of amendment which I had made during the sad night watches and long days of almost despairing anxiety.

When at length I ventured to begin the confession which I had been longing to pour out before my injured wife, her generosity would not allow me to proceed.

“It is enough, Frederick,” she said, “I understand it all. We have both been faulty; I in adhering too closely to the extreme self-command which I had prescribed to myself as necessary on account of the impetuosity of your temper—you, in suffering yourself to doubt the affection of a woman whose only possible motive in uniting herself to you was—must have been—love, founded on a well-tried confidence in your worth; and whose only fault (in your eyes, love, I mean) was that she would keep her temper when you lost yours.”

“You are too good, Serena—”

“No—no—no! any thing but that! I shall take especial care never to be too good again. I will be naughty enough after this, especially if you forget your promise to be reasonable.”

And we were once more happy (spite of repentant recollections on my part) and were preparing to return to our own dear home, when I received a hostile summons from Mr. Beresford. He had only waited to hear of Serena’s recovery, and then, with the usual philosophy of men of the world, sought relief to his wounded pride in an attempt at murder—and all for the sake of a woman whom he detested.

Such a message on the eve of my wedding day would not have broke in more cruelly upon my dream of bliss. My principles forbade me to lift my hand against the life of another, yet how could this be reconciled with a reputed attempt at seduction? Seduction and duelling are natural allies; they belong to each other, as cause and effect; and since the world believed me capable of the one, would it put any faith in my alleged reason for declining the other? Must I incur either the guilt of murder, or the stain of cowardice? Was this the dread choice? Oh! how my soul loathed the recollection of my criminal folly! I had before considered my punishment severe, though just; here was another consequence—a natural consequence—of my conduct, now hanging over me, with tenfold horror in its aspect, because of its certain effect upon my wife, and my vivid appreciation of our new-found happiness.

I was closeted with a friend, whose counsel I had sought in these unhappy circumstances, when a knock at the door interrupted our conference. I opened it to dismiss the intruder, when Serena, pale and trembling, and supported in the arms of her maid, presented herself before me.

“Why are you here, my love, so far from your own room?” I said, as composedly as I was able, taking her at the same time from the woman, and leading her to the sofa.

“Frederick,” she said, in tones which pierced my heart, “do not seek to deceive me by an assumed calmness. I more than suspected the errand of Colonel Foster this morning; and when I learned that Mr. Hartley was with you, I was convinced that the forebodings which had tormented me were about to be realized. Can it be that you are going to raise your daring hand against life? You! with thanksgivings for my safely yet warm upon your lips? You will not be so inconsistent! You will not make me regret the grave which seemed opening for me a little while since. Oh, my husband! be true to yourself, and do not madly attempt to wipe out one wrong by the commission of another!”

She threw herself weeping upon my breast, regardless of the presence of Mr. Hartley, who was much moved by her appearance. I strove to reassure her, but she would accept of nothing short of an absolute promise that I would decline the meeting with Beresford.

“Serena!” I exclaimed, “would you see me disgraced before the world? branded as a coward? despised as one who is not afraid to attempt injury, yet dare not face its consequences? I will give you my word that I will not fire at Mr. Beresford, but I dare not promise to avoid the meeting.”

“That would be only exchanging one sort of guilt for another,” she said; “murder for suicide; as well as the yet more dread consequence of adding the sanction of your example to a Heaven-daring sin. Oh, Frederick! if you would wish me ever again to confide in your principles—if you would have me put faith in one of your late resolutions of self-government—make this one sacrifice to your sense of right. Be called a coward, if that must be, but retain the approbation of your own conscience! Fear not man, but God!”

She slopped, exhausted, and her head dropped faintly on my shoulder. Mr. Hartley considerately withdrew, giving me a sign that he would return after some little interval. I tried to argue, to persuade, to assure Serena; but she would listen to none of the sophistries prompted by my pride, and I was on the point of yielding to her arguments or her entreaties, when Mr. Hartley returned, and put a paper into my hand.

Mrs. Beresford had that very afternoon eloped with a young man whose fortune gave him a place in society, though his intellect was scarcely above imbecility. The note contained two lines from Mr. Beresford, saying that he renounced all claims upon me, and should concern himself no further with Mrs. Beresford’s affairs.

Many years have flown by us since this crisis in our destiny. Sons and daughters have grown up around us, and now form the blessing of our declining years; and I cannot but ascribe much of the excellence which is allowed to distinguish them, to the peculiarly placid temper and perfect self-control which I once madly condemned as a fault in their dear mother.

BY W. H. BURLEIGH.

BY J. F. COOPER, AUTHOR OF “THE RED ROVER,” “LE FEU-POLLET,” ETC.

(Continued from page 108.)

When I found myself once more in the possession of Bobbinet & Co., I fancied that I might anticipate a long residence in their drawers, my freshness, as an article, having been somewhat tarnished by the appearance at Mrs. Trotter’s ball. In this I was mistaken, the next day bringing about a release, and a restoration to my proper place in society.

The very morning after I was again in the drawer, a female voice was heard asking for “worked French pocket-handkerchiefs.” As I clearly came within this category—alas, poor Adrienne!—in half a minute I found myself, along with fifty fellows or fellowesses, lying on the counter. The instant I heard the voice, I knew that the speaker was not “mamma,” but “my child,” and I now saw that she was fair. Julia Monson was not as brilliantly handsome as my late owner, but she had more feeling and refinement in the expression of her countenance. Still there was an uneasy worldly glancing of the eye, that denoted how much she lived out of herself, in the less favorable understanding of the term; an expression of countenance that I have had occasion to remark in most of those who think a very expensive handkerchief necessary to their happiness. It is, in fact, the natural indication that the mind dwells more on show than on substantial things, and a proof that the possessor of this quality is not content to rely altogether on the higher moral feelings and attainments for her claims to deference. In a word, it is some such trait as that which distinguishes the beautiful plumage of the peacock, from the motive that incites the bird to display his feathers.

In company with Miss Monson was another young lady of about her own age, and of a very similar appearance as to dress and station. Still, a first glance discovered an essential difference in character. This companion, who was addressed as Mary, and whose family name was Warren, had none of the uneasiness of demeanor that belonged to her friend, and obviously cared less what others thought of everything she said or did. When the handkerchiefs were laid on the counter, Julia Monson seized on one with avidity, while Mary Warren regarded us all with a look of cold indifference, if not of downright displeasure.

“What beauties!” exclaimed the first, the clerk at that moment quitting them to hand some gloves to another customer—“What delightful needle-work! Mary, do you purchase one to keep me in countenance, and I will purchase another. I know your mother gave you the money this very morning.”

“Not for that object, Julia. My dear mother little thinks I shall do any such thing.”

“And why not? A rich pocket-handkerchief is a stylish thing!”

“I question if style, as you call it, is just the thing for a young woman, under any circumstances; but, to confess the truth, I think a pocket-handkerchief that is to be looked at, and which is not to be used, vulgar.”

“Not in Sir Walter Scott’s signification, my dear,” answered Julia laughing, “for it is not so very common. Every body cannot have a worked French, pocket-handkerchief.”

“Sir Waller Scott’s definition of what is vulgar is open to criticism, I fancy. The word comes from the common mind, or common practices, beyond a question, but it now means what is common as opposed to what is cultivated and refined. It is an absurdity, too, to make a thing respectable because it is common. A fib is one of the commonest things in the world, and yet it is scarcely respectable.”

“Oh! every one says you ere a philosopheress, Mary, and I ought to have expected some such answer. But a handkerchief I am determined to have, and it shall be the very handsomest I can find.”

“And the dearest? Well, you will have a very lady-like wardrobe with one pocket-handkerchief in it! I wonder you do not purchase a single shoe.”

“Because I have two feet,” replied Julia with spirit, though she laughed good-naturedly—“but here is the clerk, and he must not hear our quarrels. Have the goodness, sir, to show me the handsomest pocket-handkerchief in your shop.”

I was drawn from beneath the pile and laid before the bright black eyes of Julia, with an air of solemn dignity, by the young dealer in finery.

“That, ma’am,” he said, “is the very finest and most elegant article not only that we have, but which is to be found in America. It was brought out by ‘our Mr. Silky,’ the last voyage; he says Paris cannot produce its equal.”

“This is beautiful, sir, one must admit! What is the price?”

“Why, ma’am, we ought in justice to ourselves to have $120 for that article; but, to our regular customers I believe Mr. Bobbinet has determined to ask only $100.”

This sounded exceedingly liberal—to ask only $100 for that for which there was a sort of moral obligation to ask $120!—and Julia having come out with the intent to throw away a hundred-dollar note that her mother had given her that morning, the bargain was concluded. I was wrapped up carefully in paper, put into Miss Monson’s muff, and once more took my departure from the empire of Col. Silky. I no longer occupied a false position.

“Now, I hope you are happy, Julia,” quietly observed Mary Warren, as the two girls took their seats side by side in Mrs. Monson’s chariot. “The surprise to me is, that you forgot to purchase this ne plus ultra of elegance while in Paris last summer.”

“My father said he could not afford it: we spent a great deal of money, as you may suppose, in running about, seeing sights, and laying in curiosities, and when I hinted the matter to my mother, she said we must wait until another half year’s rents had come round. After all, Mary, there is one person at home to whom I shall be ashamed to show this purchase.”

“At home!—is there, indeed? Had you merely said ‘in town’ I could have understood you. Your father and mother approving of what you have done, I do not see who there is at home to alarm you.”

Julia blushed when her friend said “in town,” and her conscious feelings immediately conjured up the image of a certain Belts Shoreham, as the person in her companion’s mind’s eye. I detected it all easily enough, being actually within six inches of her throbbing heart at that very moment, though concealed in the muff.

“It is not what you suppose, Mary, nor whom you suppose,” answered my mistress; “I mean Mademoiselle Hennequin—I confess I do dread the glance of her reproving eye.”

“It is odd enough that you should dread reproval from the governess of your sisters, when you do not dread it from your own mother! But, Mademoiselle Hennequin has nothing to do with you. You were educated and out before she entered your family, and it is singular that a person not older than yourself, who was engaged in Paris so recently, should have obtained so much influence over the mind of one who never was her pupil.”

“I am not afraid of her in most things,” rejoined Julia, “but I confess I am in all that relates to taste; particularly in what relates to extravagance.”

“I have greatly misunderstood the character of Mademoiselle Hennequin if she has ventured to interfere with you in either! A governess ought not to push her control beyond her proper duties.”

“Nor has Mademoiselle Hennequin,” answered Julia honestly. “Still I cannot but hear the lessons she gives my sisters, and—yes—to own the truth, I dread the glance she cannot avoid throwing on my purchase. It will say, ‘of what use are all my excellent lessons in taste and prudence, if an elder sister’s example is to counteract them?’ It is that I dread.”

Mary was silent for fully a minute; then she smiled archly, as girls will smile when certain thoughts cross their playful imaginations, and continued the discourse.

“And Betts Shoreham has nothing to do with all this dread?”

“What is Betts Shoreham to me, or what am I to Betts Shoreham? I am sure the circumstances that we happened to come from Europe in the same packet, and that he continues to visit us now we are at home, do not entitle him to have a veto, as they call it, on my wardrobe.”

“Not yet, certainly, my dear. Still they may entitle him to have this veto, in petto.”

I thought a shade passed over the features off the pretty Julia Monson as she answered her friend, with a seriousness to show that she was now in earnest, and with a propriety that proved she had great good sense at bottom, as well as strong womanly feeling.

“If I have learned nothing else by visiting Europe,” she said, “I have learned to see how inconsiderate we girls are in America, in talking so much, openly, of this sort of thing. A woman’s delicacy is like that of a tender flower, and it must suffer by having her name coupled with that of any man, except him that she is to marry.”

“Julia, dear, I will never speak of Mr. Shoreham again. I should not have done it now had I not thought his attentions were acceptable to you, as I am sure they are to your parents. Certainly, they are very marked—at least, so others think as well as myself.”

“I know it seems so to the world,” answered Julia in a subdued, thoughtful tone, “but it scarcely seems so to me. Betts Shoreham is very agreeable, every way a suitable connection for any of us, and that is the reason people are so ready to fancy him in earnest.”

“In earnest! If Mr. Shoreham pays attentions that are pointed, and is not in earnest, he is a very different person from what I took him to be.”

Julia’s voice grew still more gentle, and it was easy enough to see that her feelings were enlisted in the subject.

“It is no more than justice to Betts Shoreham,” she continued, “to say that he has not been pointed in his attentions to me. We females are said to be quick in discovering such matters, and I am not more blind than the rest of our sex. He is a young man of good family, and has some fortune, and that makes him welcome in most houses in town, while he is agreeable, well-looking, and thoroughly amiable. He met us abroad, and it is natural for him to keep up an intimacy that recalls pleasant recollections. You will remember, Mary, that before he can be accused of trifling, he must trifle. I think him far more attentive to my mother, my father—nay, to my two little sisters—than he is to me. Even Mademoiselle Hennequin is quite as much, if not more at a favorite than I am!”

As Mary Warren saw that her friend was serious she changed the subject; soon after, we were set down at Mr. Monson’s door. Here the friends parted, Mary Warren preferring to walk home, while Julia and I entered the house together.

“Well, mother,” cried Julia, as she entered Mrs. Monson’s room, “I have found the most beautiful thing you ever beheld, and have bought it. Here it is; what do you think of my choice?”

Mrs. Monson was a kind-hearted, easy, indulgent parent, who had brought her husband a good fortune, and who had married rich in the bargain. Accustomed all her life to a free use of money, and of her own money, too, (for this is a country in which very many persons cast the substance of others right and left,) and when her eldest daughter expressed a wish to possess an elaborate specimen of our race, she had consented from a pure disinclination to deny her child any gratification that might be deemed innocent. Still, she knew that prudence was a virtue, and that Julia had thrown away money that might have been much better employed.

“This is certainly a very beautiful handkerchief,” observed the mother, after examining me carefully, and with somewhat of the manner of a connoisseur, “surprisingly beautiful; and yet I almost wish, my child, you had not purchased it. A hundred dollars sounds frightfully en prince for us poor simple people, who live in nutshells of houses, five and twenty feet front, and fifty-six deep, to pay for a pocket-handkerchief. The jewel-box of a young lady who has such handkerchiefs ought to cost thousands, to be in keeping.”

“But, mother, I have only one, you will remember, and so my jewels may be limited to hundreds.”

“One pocket-handkerchief has a mean sound, too. Even one hat is not very superfluous.”

“That is so like Mary Warren, mother. If you did not wish me to make the purchase, you had only to say it; I am sure your wish would have been my law.”

“I know it, love; and I am afraid it is your dutiful behavior that has made me careless, in this instance. Your happiness and interests are ever uppermost in my mind, and sometimes they seem to conflict. What young men will dare to choose a wife from among young ladies who expend so much money on their pocket-handkerchiefs?”

This was said smilingly, but there was a touch of tenderness and natural concern in the voice and manner of the speaker that made an impression on the daughter.

“I am afraid now, mother, you are thinking of Betts Shoreham,” said Julia, blushing, though she struggled powerfully to appear unconcerned. “I do not know why it is, but both you and Mary Warren appear to be always thinking of Mr. Shoreham.”

The mother smiled; and she was not quite ingenuous when she said in answer to the remark,

“Shoreham was not in my mouth; and you ought not to suppose he was in my mind. Nevertheless, I do not believe he would admire you, or any one else, the more for being the owner of so expensive an article of dress. He is wealthy, but very prudent in his opinions and habits.”

“Betts Shoreham was born to an estate, and his father before him,” said Julia, firmly; “and such men know how to distinguish between the cant of economy, and those elegancies of life that become people of refinement.”

“No one can better understand the difference between cant in economy as well as cant in some other things, and true taste as well as true morals, than young Shoreham; but there are indulgences that become persons of no class.”

“After all, mother, we are making a trifle a very serious matter. It is but a pocket-handkerchief.”

“Very true, my love; and it cost only one hundred dollars, and so we’ll say no more about it; bien entendu, that you are not to purchase six dozen at the same price.”

This terminated the dialogue, Julia retiring to her own room, carrying me with her. I was thrown upon the bed, and soon after my mistress opened a door, and summoned her two younger sisters, who were studying on the same floor, to join her. I shall not repeat all the delightful exclamations, and other signs of approbation, that so naturally escaped the two pretty little creatures, to whom I may be said to have now been introduced, when my beauty came under examination. I do not thus speak of myself out of any weakness, for pocket-handkerchiefs are wholly without vanity, but simply because I am impelled to utter nothing but truth. Julia had too much consideration to let her young sisters into the secret of my price—for this would have been teaching a premature lesson in extravagance; but, having permitted them to gratify their curiosity, she exacted of them both promises not to speak of me to their governess.

“But why not, Julia?” asked the inquisitive little Jane, “Mademoiselle Hennequin is so good, and so kind, that she would be glad to hear of your good fortune.”

Julia had an indistinct view of her own motive, but she could not avow it to any one, not even to herself. Jealousy would be too strong, perhaps too indelicate a word, but she alone had detected Betts Shoreham’s admiration of the governess; and it was painful to her to permit one who stood in this relation to her own weakness in favor of the young man, to be a witness of an act of extravagance to which she had only half consented in committing it, and of which she already more than half repented. From the first, therefore, she determined that Mademoiselle Hennequin should never see me.

And now comes an exhibition of my mesmeritic powers, always “handkerchiefly speaking,” that may surprise those who have not attended to the modern science of invisible fluids. It is by this means, however, that I am enabled to perceive a great deal of that which passes under the roof where I may happen to be, without absolutely seeing it. Much escapes me, of course—for even a pocket-handkerchief cannot hear or see every thing; but enough is learned to enable me to furnish a very clear outline of that which occurs near me; more especially if it happen to be within walls of brick. In wooden edifices I find my powers much diminished—the fluids, doubtless, escaping through the pores of the material.

That evening, then, at the usual hour, and while I lay snugly ensconced in a most fragrant and convenient drawer, among various other beings of my species, though not of my family, alas! the inmates of the house assembled in the front drawing-room to take a few cups of tea. Mr. and Mrs. Monson, with their only son, John Monson, their three daughters, the governess, and Betts Shoreham, were all present; the latter having dropped in with a new novel for the ladies.

“I do really wish one could see a little advance in the way of real refinement and true elegance among all the vast improvements we are making in frippery nod follies,” cried Mr. Monson, throwing down an evening paper in a pettish manner, that sufficiently denoted discontent. “We are always puffing our own progress in America, without exactly knowing whether a good deal of the road is not to be traveled over again, by way of undoing much that we have done. Here, now, is a specimen of our march in folly, in an advertisement of Bobbinett’s, who has pocket-handkerchiefs at $75.”

“By the dozen, or by the gross, sir?” demanded Betts Shoreham, quickly.

“Oh, singly—seventy-five dollars each.”

“Nay, that must be a mistake, sir! who, even in this extravagant and reckless country, could be found to pay such a price? One can fancy such a thing in a princess, with hundreds of thousands of income, but scarcely of any one else. How could such a thing be used, for instance?”

“Oh,” cried John Monson, “to hide the blushes of the simpleton who had thrown away her money on it. I heard a story this very afternoon, of some person of the name of Halfacre’s having failed yesterday, and whose daughter purchased even a higher priced handkerchief than that the very same day.”

“His failure is not surprising, then,” put in Betts Shoreham. “For myself, I do think that I—”

“Well, what do you think, Mr. Shoreham?” asked Mrs. Monson, smiling, for she saw that Julia was too much mortified to speak, and who assumed more than half the blame of her own daughter’s extravagance. “You were about to favor us with some very magnificent resolution.”

“I was about to utter an impertinence, I confess, ma’am, but recollected in time, that young men’s protestations of what they would do by way of reforming the world, is not of half the importance to others that they so often fancy; so I shall spare you the infliction. Seventy-five dollars, Mademoiselle Hennequin, would be a high price for such a thing, even in Paris, I fancy.”

The answer was given in imperfect English, a circumstance that rendered the sweet round tones of the speaker very agreeable to the ear, and lent the charm of piquancy to what she said. I could not distinguish countenances from the drawer, but I fancied young Shoreham to be a handsome youth, the governess to be pale and slightly ugly, though very agreeable in manner, and Julia excessively embarrassed, but determined to defend her purchase, should it become necessary.

“Seventy-five dollars sound like a high price, monsieur,” answered Mademoiselle Hennequin, “but the ladies of Paris do not grudge their gold for ornaments to decorate their persons.”

“Ay,” put in John Monson, “but they are consistent. Now I’ll engage this Mrs. Hundredacres, or Halfacre, or whatever her name may be, overlooked her own household work, kept no housekeeper, higgled about flour and butter, and lived half her time in her basement. Think of such a woman’s giving her daughter a hundred-dollar pocket-handkerchief.”

Now Mrs. Monson did keep a housekeeper; she was not a mere upper-servant in her own family, and Julia was gratified that, in this instance, her fastidious brother could not reproach her at least.

“Well, Jack, that is a queer reason of yours,” cried the father, “for not indulging in a luxury; because the good woman is careful in some things, she is not to be a little extravagant in others. What do you say to such logic, Mr. Shoreham?”

“To own the truth, sir, I am much of Monson’s way of thinking. It is as necessary to begin at the bottom in constructing a scheme of domestic refinement, as in building a house. Fitness is entitled to a place in every thing that relates to taste, at all events; and as a laced and embroidered pocket-handkerchief is altogether for appearance, it becomes necessary that other things should be in keeping. If the ladies will excuse me, I will say that I never yet saw a woman in America, in a sufficiently high dress to justify such an appendage as that which Monson has just mentioned. The handkerchief ought not to cost more than the rest of the toilette.”

“It is true, Mr. Shoreham,” put in Julia, with vivacity, if not with spirit, “that our women do not dress as women of rank sometimes dress in Europe; but, on the whole, I do not know that we are so much behind them in appearance.”

“Very far from it, my dear Miss Monson—as far as possible—I am the last man to decry my beautiful countrywomen, who are second to no others in appearance, certainly; if they do not dress as richly, it is because they do not need it. Mademoiselle Hennequin has no reason to deprecate comparison—and—but—”

“Certainly,” answered the governess, when she found the young man hesitated about proceeding, “certainly; I am not so bigoted, or so blind, as to wish to deny that the American ladies are very handsome—handsomer, as a whole, than those of my own country. It would be idle to deny it—so are those of England and Italy.”

“This is being very liberal, Mademoiselle Hennequin, and more than you are required to admit,” observed Mrs. Monson, in the kindest possible tone of voice, and I make no manner of doubt with a most benevolent smile, though I could not see her. “Some of the most brilliantly beautiful women I have ever seen, have been French—perhaps the most brilliantly beautiful.”

“That is true, also, madame; but such is not the rule, I think. Both the English and Americans seem to me handsomer, as a whole, than my own countrywomen.”

Now, nothing could be sweeter, or softer, or gentler, than the voice that made this great concession—for great it certainly was, as coming from a woman. It appeared to me that the admission, too, was more than commonly generous, from the circumstance that the governess was not particularly pretty in her own person. It is true, I had not yet seen her, but my mesmeritic impulses induced me to fancy as much.

“What say the young gentlemen to this?” asked Mr. Monson, laughing. “This is a question not be settled altogether by ladies, old or young.”

“Betts Shoreham has substantially told you what he thinks; and now I claim a right to give my opinion,” cried John Monson. “Like Betts, I will not decry my countrywomen, but I shall protest against the doctrine of their having all the beauty in the world. By Jove! I have seen in one opera-house at Rome, more beautiful women than I ever saw together, before or since, in any other place. Broadway never equals the corso, of a carnival.”

“This is not sticking to the subject,” observed Mrs. Monson. “Pocket-handkerchiefs and housekeepers are our themes, and not pretty women. Mademoiselle Hennequin, you are French enough, I am sure, to like more sugar in your tea.”

This changed the subject, which became a desultory discourse on the news of the day. I could not understand half that was said, laboring under the disadvantage of being shut up in a close drawer, on another floor; and that, too, with six dozen of chattering French gloves lying within a foot of me. Still I saw plainly enough, that Mademoiselle Hennequin, notwithstanding she was a governess, was n favorite in the family; and, I may add, out of it also—Betts Shoreham being no sort of a connection of the Monsons. I thought, moreover, that I discovered signs of cross-purposes, as between the young people, though I think a pocket-handkerchief subject to those general laws, concerning secrets, that are recognized among all honorable persons. Not having been actually present on this occasion, should I proceed to relate all that passed, or that I fancied passed, it would be degrading myself to the level of those newspapers which are in the habit of retailing private conversations, and which, like most small dealers in such things, never retail fairly.

I saw no more of my mistress for a week. I have reason to think that she had determined never to use me; but female resolutions, in matters of dress, are not of the most inflexible nature. There was a certain Mrs. Leamington, in New York, who gave a great ball about this time, and being in the same set as the Monsons, the family was invited as a matter of course. It would have surpassed the powers of self-denial to keep me in the back-ground on such an occasion; and Julia, having first cleared the way by owning her folly to a very indulgent father, and a very tormenting brother, determined nobly to bring me out, let the effect on Betts Shoreham be what it might. As the father had no female friends to trouble him, he was asked to join the Monsons—the intimacy fully warranting the step.

Julia never looked more lovely than she did that night. She anticipated much pleasure, and her smiles were in proportion to her anticipations. When all was ready, she took me from the drawer, let a single drop of lavender fall in my bosom, and tripped downstairs toward the drawing-room; Betts Shoreham and Mademoiselle Hennequin were together, and, for a novelty, alone. I say, for a novelty, because the governess had few opportunities to see any one without the presence of third persons, and because her habits, as an unmarried and well educated French woman, indisposed her to tête-à-têtes with the other sex. My mistress was lynx-eyed in all that related to Betts Shoreham and the governess. A single glance told her that their recent conversation had been more than usually interesting; nor could I help seeing it myself—the face of the governess being red, or in that condition which, were she aught but a governess, would be called suffused with blushes. Julia fell uncomfortable—she felt herself to be de trop; and making an incoherent excuse, she had scarcely taken a seat on a sofa, before she arose, left the room, and ran up stairs again. In doing so, however, the poor girl left me inadvertently on the sofa she had so suddenly quitted herself.

Betts Shoreham manifested no concern at this movement, though mademoiselle Hennequin precipitately changed her seat, which had been quite near—approximatively near, as one might say—to the chair occupied by the gentleman. This new evolution placed the governess close at my side. Now whatever might have been the subject of discourse between these two young persons—for Mademoiselle Hennequin was quite as youthful as my mistress, let her beauty be as it might—it was not continued in my presence; on the contrary, the young lady turned her eyes on me, instead of looking at her companion, and then she raised me in her hand, and commenced a critical examination of my person.

“That is a very beautiful handkerchief, Mademoiselle Hennequin,” said Betts Shoreham, making the remark an excuse for following the young lady to the sofa. “Had we heard of its existence, our remarks the other night, on such a luxury, might have been more guarded.”

No answer was given. The governess gazed on me intently, and tears began to course down her cheeks, notwithstanding it was evident she wished to conceal them. Ashamed of her weakness, she endeavored to smile them away, and to appear cheerful.

“What is there in that pocket-handkerchief, dear Mademoiselle Hennequin,” asked Belts Shoreham, who had a pernicious habit of calling young ladies with whom he was on terms of tolerable intimacy, “dear,”—a habit that sometimes misled persons as to the degree of interest he felt in his companions—“what can there be in that pocket-handkerchief to excite tears from a mind and a heart like yours?”

“My mind and heart, Mr. Shoreham, are not as faultless, perhaps, as your goodness would make them out to be. Envy is a very natural feeling for a woman in matters of dress, they say; and, certainly, I am not the owner of so beautiful a pocket-handkerchief—pardon me, Mr. Shoreham; I cannot command myself, and must be guilty of the rudeness of leaving you alone, if—”

Mademoiselle Hennequin uttered no more, but rushed from the room, with an impetuosity of manner and feeling that I have often had occasion to remark in young French women. As a matter of course, I was left alone with Betts Shoreham.

I shall conceal nothing that ought to be told. Betts Shoreham, notwithstanding her dependent situation, and his own better fortunes, loved the governess, and the governess loved Betts Shoreham. These were facts that I discovered at a later day, though I began to suspect the truth from that moment. Neither, however, knew of the other’s passion, though each hoped as an innocent and youthful love will hope, and each trembled as each hoped. Nothing explicit had been said that evening; but much, very much, in the way of sympathy and feeling had been revealed, and but for the inopportune entrance of Julia and myself, all might have been told.

There is no moment in the life of man, when he is so keenly sensitive on the subject of the perfection of his mistress, as that in which he completely admits her power. All his jealousy is actively alive to the smallest shade of fault, although his feelings so much indispose him to see any blemish. Betts Shoreham felt an unpleasant pang, even—yes, it amounted to a pang—for in a few moments he would have offered his hand—and men cannot receive any drawback with indifference at such an instant—he felt an unpleasant pang, then, as the idea crossed his mind that Mademoiselle Hennequin could be so violently affected by a feeling as unworthy as that of envy. He had passed several years abroad, and had got the common notion about the selfishness of the French, and more particularly their women, and his prejudices took the alarm. But his love was much the strongest, and soon looked down the distrust, however reasonable, under the circumstances, the latter might have appeared to a disinterested and cool-headed observer. He had seen so much meek and pure-spirited self-denial; so much high principle in the conduct of Mademoiselle Hennequin, during an intimacy which had now lasted six months, that no passing feeling of doubt, like the one just felt, could unsettle the confidence created by her virtues. I know it may take more credit than belongs to most pocket-handkerchiefs, to maintain the problem of the virtues of a French governess—a class of unfortunate persons that seem doomed to condemnation by all the sages of our modern imaginative literature. An English governess, or even an American governess, if, indeed, there be such a being in nature, may be every thing that is respectable, and prudent, and wise, and good; but the French governess has a sort of ex officio moral taint about her, that throws her without the pale of literary charities. Nevertheless, one or two of the most excellent women I have ever known, have been French governesses, though I do not choose to reveal what this particular individual of the class turned out to be in the end, until the moment for the dénouement of her character shall regularly arrive.

There was not much time for Betts Shoreham to philosophize, and speculate on female caprices and motives, John Monson making his appearance in as high evening dress as well comported with what is called “republican simplicity.” John was a fine looking fellow, six feet and an inch, with large whiskers, a bushy head of hair, and particularly white teeth. His friend was two inches shorter, of much less showy appearance, but of a more intellectual countenance, and of juster proportions. Most persons, at first sight, would praise John Monson’s person and face, but all would feel the superiority of Betts Shoreham’s, on an acquaintance. The smile of the latter, in particular, was as winning and amiable as that of a girl. It was that smile, on the one hand, and his active, never dormant sympathy for her situation, on the other, which, united, had made such an inroad on the young governess’s affections.

“It’s deuced cold, Betts,” said John, as he came near the fire; “this delightful country of ours has some confounded hard winters. I wonder if it be patriotic to say, our winters?”

“It’s all common property, Monson—but, what have become of your sister and Mademoiselle Hennequin? They were both here a minute since, and have vanished like—”

“What?—ghosts!—no, you dare not call them that, lest their spirits take it in dudgeon. Julie is no ghost, though she is sometimes so delicate and ethereal, and as for Henny—”

“Who?” exclaimed Betts, doubting if his ears were true.

“Henny, Tote and Moll’s governess. Whom do you think I could mean, else? I always call her Henny, en famille, and I look upon you as almost one of us since our travels.”

“I’m sure I can scarcely be grateful enough, my dear fellow—but, you do not call her so to her face?”

“Why—no—perhaps not exactly in her very teeth—and beautiful teeth she has, Betts—Julie’s won’t compare with them.”

“Miss Monson has fine teeth, notwithstanding. Perhaps Mademoiselle Hennequin—”

“Yes, Henny has the best teeth of any girl I know. They are none of your pearls—some pearls are yellowish, you know—but they are teeth; just what ought to be in a handsome girl’s mouth. I have no objection to pearls in a necklace, or in the pockets, but teeth are what are wanted in a mouth, and Henny has just the finest set I know of.”

Betts Shoreham fidgetted at the “Henny,” and he had the weakness, at the moment, to wish the young governess were not in a situation to be spoken of so unceremoniously. He had not time to express this feeling, before John Monson got a glimpse of me, and had me under examination beneath the light of a very powerful lamp. I declare that, knowing his aversion to our species, I felt a glow in all my system at the liberties he was taking.

“What have we here?” exclaimed John Monson, in surprise; “has Miss Flowergarden made a call, and is this her card?”

“I believe that pocket-handkerchief belongs to your sister,” answered Betts, drily, “if that be what you mean.”

“Jule! well, I am sorry to hear it. I did hope that no sister of mine would run into any such foolish extravagance—do you own it, Jule?” who entered the room at that instant—“is this bit of a rag yours, or is it not more likely to be Henny’s?”

“Bit of a rag!” cried the sister, snatching me dexterously out of the spoiler’s hands; “and ‘Henny,’ too! This is not a bit of a rag, sir, but a very pretty pocket-handkerchief, and you must very well know that Mademoiselle Hennequin is not likely to be the owner of any thing as costly.”

“And what did it cost, pray? At least tell me that, if nothing else.”

“I shall not gratify your curiosity, sir—a lady’s wardrobe is not to be dissected in this manner.”

“Pray, sir, may I ask,” Mr. Monson now coming in, “did you pay for Jule’s handkerchief? Hang me, if I ever saw a more vulgar thing in my life.”

“The opinion is not likely to induce me to say yes,” answered the father, half-laughing, and yet half-angry at his son’s making such allusions before Betts—“never mind him, my dear; the handkerchief is not half as expensive as his own cigars.”

“It shall be as thoroughly smoked, nevertheless,” rejoined John, who was as near being spoilt, and escaping, as was at all necessary. “Ah, Julie, Julie, I’m ashamed of thee.”

This was an inauspicious commencement for an evening from which so much happiness had been anticipated, but Miss Monson coming down, and the carriages driving to the door, Mademoiselle Hennequin was summoned, and the whole party left the house.

As a matter of course, it was a little out of the common way that the governess was asked to make one, in the invitations given to the Monsons. But Mademoiselle Hennequin was a person of such perfect bon ton, had so thoroughly the manners of a lady, and was generally reputed so accomplished, that most of the friends of the family felt themselves bound to notice her. There was another reason, too, which justice requires I should relate, though it is not so creditable to the young lady as those already given. From some quarter, or other, a rumor had got abroad that Miss Monson’s governess was of a noble family, a circumstance that I soon discovered had great influence in New York, doubtless by way of expiation for the rigid democratical notions that so universally pervade its society. And here I may remark, en passant, that while nothing is considered so disreputable in America as to be “aristocratic,” a word of very extensive signification, as it embraces the tastes, the opinions, the habits, the virtues, and sometimes the religion of the offending party—on the other hand, nothing is so certain to attract attention as nobility. How many poor Poles have I seen dragged about and made lions of, merely because they were reputed noble, though the distinction in that country is pretty much the same as that which exists in one portion of this great republic, where one half the population is white, and the other black; the former making the noble, and the latter the serf.

“What an exceedingly aristocratic pocket-handkerchief Miss Monson has this evening,” observed Mrs. G. to Mr. W., as we passed into Mrs. Leamington’s rooms, that evening; “I don’t know when I’ve seen any thing so aristocratic in society.”

“The Monsons are very aristocratic in all things; I understand they dine at six.”

“Yes,” put in Miss F., “and use finger bowls every day.”

“How aristocratic!”

“Very—they even say that since they have come back from Europe, the last time, matters are pushed farther than ever. The ladies insist on kneeling at prayers, instead of inclining, like all the rest of the world.”

“Did one ever hear of any thing so aristocratic!”

“They do say, but I will not vouch for its truth, that Mr. and Mrs. Monson insist on all their children calling them ‘father’ and ‘mother,’ instead of ‘pa’ and ‘ma.’ ”

“Why, Mr. W., that is downright monarchical, is it not?”

“It’s difficult to say what is, and what is not monarchical, now-a-days; though I think one is pretty safe in pronouncing it anti-republican.”

“It is patriarchal, rather,” observed a wit, who belonged to the group.

Into this “aristocratical” set I was now regularly introduced. Many longing and curious eyes were drawn toward me, though the company in this house was generally too well bred to criticise articles of dress very closely. Still, in every country, aristocracy, monarchy, or democracy, there are privileged classes, and in all companies privileged persons. One of the latter took the liberty of asking Julia to leave me in her keeping, while the other danced, and I was thus temporarily transferred to a circle, in which several other pocket-handkerchiefs had been collected, with a view to compare our several merits and demerits. The reader will judge of my surprise, when, the examination being ended, and the judgment being rendered altogether in my favor, I found myself familiarly addressed by the name that I bore in the family circle, or, as No. 7; for pocket-handkerchiefs never speak to each other except on the principle of decimals. It was No. 12, or my relative of the extreme côté gauche, who had strangely enough found his way into this very room, and was now lying cheek by jowl with me again, in old Mrs. Eyelet’s lap. Family affection made us glad to meet, and we had a hundred questions to put to each other in a breath.

No. 12 had commenced life a violent republican, and this simply because he heard nothing read but republican newspapers; a sufficiently simple reason, as all know who have heard both sides of any question. Shortly after I was purchased by poor, dear Adrienne, a young American traveler had stepped into the magasin, and with the recklessness that distinguishes the expenditures of his countrymen, swept off half a dozen of the family at one purchase. Accident gave him the liberal end of the piece, a circumstance to which he never would have assented had he known the fact, far being an attaché of the legation of his own country, he was ex officio aristocratic. My brother amused me exceedingly with his account of the indignation he felt at finding himself in a very hot-bed of monarchical opinions, in the set at the American legation. What rendered these diplomates so much the more aristocratic, was the novelty of the thing, scarcely one of them having been accustomed to society at home. After passing a few months in such company, my brother’s boss, who was a mere traveling diplomatist, came home and began to run a brilliant career in the circles of New York, on the faith of a European reputation. Alas! there is in pocket-handkerchief nature a disposition to act by contraries. The “more you call, the more I won’t come” principle was active in poor No. 12’s mind, and he had not been a month in New York society, before he came out an ultra monarchist. New York society has more than one of these sudden political conversions to answer for. It is such a thorough development of the democratic principle, that the faith of few believers is found strong enough to withstand it. Every body knows how much a prospect varies by position. Thus, you shall stand on the aristocratic side of a room filled with company, and every thing will present a vulgar and democratic appearance; or, vice versa, you shall occupy a place among the oi polloi, and all is aristocratic, exclusive, and offensive. So it had proved with my unfortunate kinsman. All his notions had changed; instead of finding the perfection he had preached and extolled so long, he found nothing to admire, and every thing to condemn. In a word, never was a pocket-handkerchief so miserable, and that, too, on grounds so philosophical and profound, met with, on its entrance into active life. I do believe, if my brother could have got back to France, he would have written a book on America, which, while it overlooked many vices and foibles that deserve to be cut up without mercy, would have thrown even de Tocqueville into the shade in the way of political blunders. But I forbear; this latter writer being unanswerable among those neophytes who having never thought of their own system, unless as Englishmen, are overwhelmed with admiration at finding any thing of another character advanced about it. At least, such are the sentiments entertained by a very high priced pocket-handkerchief.

Mademoiselle Hennequin, I took occasion to remark, occupied much of the attention of Betts Shoreham, at Mrs. Leamington’s ball. They understood each other perfectly, though the young man could not get over the feeling created by the governess’s manner when she first met with me. Throughout the evening, indeed, her eye seemed studiously averted from me, as if she struggled to suppress certain sentiments or sensations, that she was unwilling to betray. Now, these sentiments, if sentiments they were, or sensations as they were beyond all dispute, might be envy—repinings at another’s better fortunes—or they might be excited by philosophical and commendable reflections touching those follies which so often lead the young and thoughtless into extravagance. Betts tried hard to believe them the last, though, in his inmost heart, he would a thousand times rather that the woman he loved should smile on a weakness of this sort, in a girl of her own age, than that she should show herself to be prematurely wise, if it was wisdom purchased at the expense of the light-heartedness and sympathies of her years and sex. On a diminished scale, I had awakened in his bosom some such uneasy distrust as the pocket-handkerchief of Desdemona is known to have aroused in that of the Moor.

Nor can I say that Julia Monson enjoyed herself as much as she had anticipated. Love she did not Betts Shoreham; for that was a passion her temperament and training induced her to wait for some pretty unequivocal demonstrations on the part of the gentleman before she yielded to it; but she liked him vastly, and nothing would have been easier than to have blown this smouldering preference into a flame. She was too young, and, to say the truth, too natural and uncalculating, to be always remembering that Betts owned a good old-fashioned landed estate that was said to produce twenty, and which did actually produce eleven thousand a year, nett; and that his house in the country was generally said to be one of the very best in the state. For all this she cared absolutely nothing, or nothing worth mentioning. There were enough young men of as good estates, and there were a vast many of no estates at all, ready and willing to take their chances in the “cutting up” of “old Monson,” but there were few who were as agreeable, as well mannered, as handsome, or who had seen as much of the world, as Betts Shoreham. Of course, she had never fancied the young man in love with herself, but, previously to the impression she had quite recently imbibed of his attachment to her mother’s governess, she had been accustomed to think such a thing might come to pass, and that she should not be sorry if it did.

I very well understand this is not the fashionable, or possibly the polite way of describing those incipient sentiments which form the germ of love in the virgin affections of young ladies, and that a skillful and refined poet would use very different language on the occasion; but I began this history to represent things as they are, and such is the manner in which “Love’s Young Dream” appears to a pocket-handkerchief.

Among other things that were unpleasant, Miss Monson was compelled to overhear sundry remarks of Betts’s devotion to the governess, as she stood in the dance, some of which reached me, also.

“Who is the Indy to whom Mr. Shoreham is so dévoué, this evening?” asked Miss N. of Miss T. “ ’Tis quite a new face, and, if one might be so presuming, quite a new manner.”

“That is Mademoiselle Henny, the governess of Mrs. Monson’s children, my dear. They say she is all accomplishments, and quite a miracle of propriety. It is also rumored that she is, some way, a very distinguished person, reduced by those horrid revolutions of which they have so many in Europe.”

“Noble, I dare say!”

“Oh! that at least. Some persons affirm that she is semi-royal. The country is full of broken-down royalty and nobility. Do you think she has an aristocratic air?”

“Not in the least—her ears are too small.”

“Why, my dear, that is the very symbol of nobility! When my Aunt Harding was in Naples, she knew the Duke of Montecarbana, intimately; and she says he had the smallest ears she ever beheld on a human being. The Montecarbanas are a family as old as the ruins of Pæstum, they say.”

“Well, to my notion, nobility and teaching little girls French and Italian, and their gammes, have very little in common. I had thought Mr. Shoreham an admirer of Miss Monson’s.”

Now, unfortunately, my mistress overheard this remark. Her feelings were just in that agitated state to take the alarm, and she determined to flirt with a young man of the name of Thurston, with a view to awaken Betts’s jealousy, if he had any, and to give vent to her own spleen. This Tom Thurston was one of those tall, good-looking young fellows who come from, nobody knows where, get into society, nobody knows how, and live on, nobody knows what. It was pretty generally understood that he was on the look-out for a rich wife, and encouragement from Julia Monson was not likely to be disregarded by such a person. To own the truth, my mistress carried matters much too far—so far, indeed, as to attract attention from every body but those most concerned; viz. her own mother and Betts Shoreham. Although elderly ladies play cards very little, just now, in American society, or, indeed, in any other, they have their inducements for rendering the well-known office of matron, at a ball, a mere sinecure. Mrs. Monson, too, was an indulgent mother, and seldom saw any thing very wrong in her own children. Julia, in the main, had sufficient retenue, and a suspicion of her want of discretion on this point, was one of the last things that would cross the fond parent’s mind at Mrs. Leamington’s ball. Others, however, were less confiding.

“Your daughter is in high spirits to-night,” observed a single lady of a certain age, who was sitting near Mrs. Monson; “I do not remember to have ever seen her so gay.”

“Yes, dear girl, she is happy,”—poor Julia was any thing but that, just then—“but youth is the time for happiness, if it is ever to come in this life.”

“Is Miss Monson addicted to such very high spirits?” continued one, who was resolute to torment, and vexed that the mother could not be sufficiently alarmed to look around.

“Always—when in agreeable company. I think it a great happiness, ma’am, to possess good spirits.”

“No doubt—yet one needn’t be always fifteen, as Lady Mary Wortley Montague said,” muttered the other, giving up the point, and changing her seat, in order that she might speak her mind more freely into the ear of a congenial spirit.

Half an hour later we were all in the carriages, again, on our way home; all, but Betts Shoreham, I should say, for having seen the ladies cloaked, he had taken his leave at Mrs. Leamington’s door, as uncertain as ever whether or not to impute envy to a being who, in all other respects, seemed to him to be faultless. He had to retire to an uneasy pillow, undetermined whether to pursue his original intention of making the poor friendless French girl independent, by an offer of his hand, or whether to decide that her amiable and gentle qualities were all seeming, and that she was not what she appeared to be. Betts Shoreham owed his distrust to national prejudice, and well was he paid for entertaining so vile a companion. Had Mademoiselle Hennequin been an American girl, he would not have thought a second time of the emotion she had betrayed in regarding my beauties; but he had been taught to believe all French women managing and hypocritical; a notion that the experience of a young man in Paris would not be very likely to destroy.

“Well,” cried John Monson, as the carriage drew from Mrs. Leamington’s door, “this is the last ball I shall go to in New York;” which declaration he repeated twenty times that season, and as often broke.

“What is the matter now, Jack?” demanded the father. “I found it very pleasant—six or seven of us old fellows made a very agreeable evening of it.”

“Yes, I dare say, sir; but you were not compelled to dance in a room eighteen by twenty-four, with a hundred people treading on your toes, or brushing their beads in your face.”

“Jack can find no room for dancing since the great ball of the Salle de l’Opera, at Paris,” observed the mother smiling. “I hope you enjoyed yourself better, Julia?”

My mistress started; then she answered with a sort of hysterical glee—

“Oh! I have found the evening delightful, ma’am. I could have remained two hours longer.”

“And you, Mademoiselle Hennequin; I hope you, too, were agreeably entertained?”

The governess answered meekly, and with a slight tremor in her voice.

“Certainly, madame,” she said, “I have enjoyed myself; though dancing always seems an amusement I have no right to share in.”

There was some little embarrassment, and I could perceive an impulse in Julia to press nearer to her rival, as if impelled by a generous wish to manifest her sympathy. But Toni’s protests soon silenced every thing else, and we alighted, and soon went to rest.

The next morning Julia sent for me down to be exhibited to one or two friends, my fame having spread in consequence of my late appearance. I was praised, kissed, called a pretty dear, and extolled like a spoiled child, though Miss W. did not fail to carry the intelligence, far and near, that Miss Monson’s much-talked-of pocket-handkerchief was nothing after all but the thing Miss Halfacre had brought out the night of the day her father had stopped payment. Some even began to nick-name me the insolvent pocket-handkerchief.

I thought Julia sad, after her friends had all left her. I lay neglected on a sofa, and the pretty girl’s brow became thoughtful. Of a sudden she was aroused from a brown study—reflective mood, perhaps, would be a more select phrase—by the unexpected appearance of young Thurston. There was a sort of “ah! have I caught you alone” expression about this adventurer’s eye, even while he was making his bow, that struck me. I looked for great events, nor was I altogether disappointed. In one minute he was seated at Julia’s side, on the same sofa, and within two feet of her; in two more he had brought in play his usual tricks of flattery. My mistress listened languidly, and yet not altogether without interest. She was piqued at Betts Shoreham’s indifference, had known her present admirer several months, if dancing in the same set can be called knowing, and had never been made love to before, at least in a manner so direct and unequivocal. The young man had tact enough to discover that he had an advantage, and fearful that some one might come in and interrupt the tête-à-tête, he magnanimously resolved to throw all on a single cast, and come to the point at once.

“I think, Miss Monson,” he continued, after a very beautiful specimen of rigmarole in the way of love-making, a rigmarole that might have very fairly figured in an editor’s law and logic, after he had been beaten in a libel suit, “I think, Miss Monson, you cannot have overlooked the very particular attentions I have endeavored to pay you, ever since I have been so fortunate as to have made your acquaintance?”

“I!—Upon my word, Mr. Thurston, I am not at all conscious of having been the object of any such attentions!”

“No?—That is ever the way with the innocent and single-minded! This is what we sincere and diffident men have to contend with in affairs of the heart. Our bosoms may be torn with ten thousand distracting cares, and yet the modesty of a truly virtuous female heart shall be so absorbed in its own placid serenity as to be indifferent to the pangs it is unconsciously inflicting!”

“Mr. Thurston, your language is strong—and—a little—a little unintelligible.”

“I dare say—ma’am—I never expect to be intelligible again. When the ‘heart is oppressed with unutterable anguish, condemned to conceal that passion which is at once the torment and delight of life’—when ‘his lip, the ruby harbinger of joy, lies pale and cold, the miserable appendage of a mang—’ that is, Miss Monson, I mean to say, when all our faculties are engrossed by one dear object we are often incoherent and mysterious, as a matter of course.”

Tom Thurston came very near wrecking himself on the quicksands of the romantic school. He had begun to quote from a speech delivered by Gouverneur Morris, on the subject of the right of deposit at New Orleans, and which he had spoken at college, and was near getting into a part of the subject that might not have been so apposite, but retreated in time. By way of climax, the lover laid his hand on me, and raised me to his eyes in an abstracted manner, as if unconscious of what he was doing, and wanted to brush away a tear.

“What a confounded rich old fellow the father must be,” thought Tom, “to give her such pocket-handkerchiefs!”

I felt like a wren that escapes from the hawk when the rogue laid me down.

Alas! Poor Julia was the dupe of all this acting. Totally unpracticed herself, abandoned by the usages of the society in which she had been educated very much to the artifices of any fortune-hunter, and vexed with Betts Shoreham, she was in the worst possible frame of mind to resist such eloquence and love. She had seen Tom at all the balls in the best houses, found no fault with his exterior and manners, both of which were fashionable and showy, and now discovered that he had a most sympathetic heart, over which, unknown to herself, she had obtained a very unlimited control.

“You do not answer me, Miss Monson,” continued Tom, peeping out at one side of me, for I was still at his eyes—“you do not answer me, cruel, inexorable girl!”

“What would you have me say, Mr. Thurston?”

“Say yes, dearest, loveliest, most perfect being of the whole human family.”

“Yes, then; if that will relieve your mind, it is a relief very easily bestowed.”

Now, Tom Thurston was as skilled in a fortune-hunter’s wiles as Napoleon was in military strategy. He saw he had obtained an immense advantage for the future, and he forbore to press the matter any further at the moment. The “yes” had been uttered more in pleasantry than with any other feeling, but, by holding it in reserve, presuming on it gradually, and using it in a crisis, it might be worth—“let me see,” calculated Tom, as he went whistling down Broadway, “that ‘yes’ may be made to yield at least a cool $100,000. There are John, this girl, and two little ones. Old Monson is worth every dollar of $700,000—none of your skyrockets, but a known, old fortune, in substantial houses and lands—let us suppose the old woman outlive him, and that she gets her full thirds; that will leave $466,660. Perhaps John may get a couple of hundred thousand, and even then each of the girls will have $88,888. If one of the little things should happen to die, and there’s lots of scarlet fever about, why that would fetch it up at once to a round hundred thousand. I don’t think the old woman would be likely to marry again at her time of life. One mustn’t calculate too confidently on that, however, as I would have her myself for half of such thirds.” [To be concluded in our next.

BY MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS.

Nonsense! I only wish the writer of those lines had been at our cottage by the old bridge on washing-days, it would have made him sing other words to the same lively air, or I am sadly mistaken.

Washing-day! why it was the happiest twelve hours of the week to “us children.” We could scarcely sleep all the night before from fervent anticipations of the frolic which it brought. It was astonishing how our intellects were sharpened, and our ingenuity brought in force to devise ways and means for escaping school on that particular morning. How resolutely we compelled a healthy appetite to refuse breakfast; what feverish cheeks we borrowed from the rude oak-leaves that lay concealed beneath our pillows; what headaches we pleaded—and how very desperate all our symptoms were just before the tones of that academy bell came sweeping down from school hill. It was a new bell, and the man always rang it uncommonly long and loud on Monday morning, to begin the week with a flourish, he said, but to us it seemed an instance of cruel, personal spite toward three innocent little girls that had never done him the least harm in the world.

Though determined invalids, we were always out of bed immediately after daylight on a washing-day; and one face at least might always be seen peeping eagerly through our low chamber window. We had secretly pushed back the old honeysuckle vine just far enough to leave a single pane of glass uncovered, and that commanded a view of the foot-path where our washerwoman was always first seen coming through the pine woods—a blessing on her short scarlet cloak, she always wore it, summer and winter. It had been her grandmother’s; but in form and material would be the height of fashion in Broadway this very winter. Bless the old cardinal once again! It has made my heart leap many a fine summer morning to see its first brilliant gleam through the pine boughs. A nice tidy old creature was our washerwoman, one that an artist would have sketched in spite of himself, had he seen her wending along that shady path, in the cool morning, with a kerchief of brilliant cotton passed neatly over her cap, and tied beneath the chin. Gray or Page would have taken a fancy to the old woman, even before her sad, mild face came in view. There was something picturesque about her raiment, and her movements were in fine keeping with the dewy quietude reposing among the dark green foliage through which she was wholly revealed, or seen only by glimpses, as she came toward the cottage.

But there was sometimes another object which almost every young man of taste, even though not an artist, would have fancied—for Lida was possessed of a beauty so soft and delicate, that it seemed natural to the green woods, almost as the flowers that spring to life and perish there. Lida—sweet, pretty Lida—as we always called her, was a girl of some ten years old, when I could remember her coming to the house with her mother—and she is almost the first object that I can remember—for she was just the creature to fasten herself on the mind of a child whose instinct it was to love the beautiful, and be grateful for kindness. Lida came with her mother every week for many a year; and it was to her that our washing-day owed half its cheerfulness. The old woman brought her girl to “take care of the children,” she said; and such care as she took to make us happy, was never so successfully exerted by mortal being before or since.

First she would go to our mother with her sweet coaxing smile, and plead for a day at home. “We should be no trouble,” she said, none in the world; she would keep us out in the pine woods, or down by the river side, with her mother, all daylong. We should certainly wear our sun-bonnets, and keep our shoes on; should never go down to the water unless she were with us, nor climb the rocks to tear our dresses, nor carry turf in our aprons to dam up the spring, as we had done once when company was expected. In short, she promised all sorts of good behavior for us; and to do ourselves justice, we seldom brought her into disgrace by very glaring misconduct. In truth, we found the young girl so much more agreeable than mischief—so womanly in her control over our wild spirits, and yet so joyously child-like, that we had little desire to go beyond her presence.

Lida usually prevailed, and always, as our mother insisted, for the last time. The next week we should certainly go to school. No matter, we were very willing to let the morrow provide for itself; besides, we had heard that same old promise so often before, that consent would have seemed unnatural without it.

Half-way between our house and the falls, which our readers will find described in the story of “Malina Gray,” was a little green hollow; a brooklet ran through it in the spring season, and even when there was no water, a thousand blue-eyed violets shed an azure tinge along the moist and rich grass which formed its bed; while in July and August the upper curve of the bank was covered with golden buttercups; and a few strawberries might be found where the sunshine came most frequently, embedded like rubies in the velvet grass. One extremity of this hollow sloped gently down to the river’s brink, while the upper end was guarded by a singular old buttonwood tree. The rude trunk rose upward four or five feet, when it made a sudden bend, like the elbow of a man’s arm, ran parallel with the earth, perhaps three feet more, and then shot toward the sky, straight as an arrow, and its smooth, white stem, and fantastic boughs, which loomed high up in the air, seemed the more picturesque because it was the only tree of that species in the neighborhood. It was beneath this old tree that our washerwoman performed her duty, from the first starting of the grass in spring till the frost of an Indian summer rendered it crisp beneath her feet. In a tiny hollow, just below the roots, she built her fire, an iron grapple secured her hook to that portion of the trunk which formed a line above it, and a huge brass-kettle swung all day long over the cheerful blaze, with the smoke curling round it and forming fantastic wreaths among the broad leaves and tassel-like balls overhead.

The droll-looking old tree would have formed a scanty shadow to protect our kind old woman from the sun; but just beyond it, on the level ground, stood a huge white pine and a hemlock, with the branches interlaced and covered with foliage so thick that it seemed impossible for the sunshine ever to reach the moss which grew underneath. It was a pleasant sight when that nice old woman took her stand at the wash-tub, within the shadow flung from this group of trees. The red cloak lay folded on the moss near by; the sleeves of her striped short-gown were carefully rolled up; and the snow-white border of her cap rose and fell with the motion of her head, while her hands passed with a constant, but sometimes feeble motion, up and down her wash-board.

There the old woman was, in the quiet shade, all day long hard at work, and with a tranquil melancholy hanging about her which must have originated in the more tearful sorrow of her early life. How kind and patient she was—always smiling indulgently at our mischievous pranks, and thanking us every time we brought her a stick of driftwood or a cup of water from the spring, like a broken-down gentle-woman as she was; how good-naturedly she prepared the smallest sized tub of her set that we might wash out the pocket-handkerchiefs and muslins. She would smile to see how busy we became, how earnestly we scattered the while foam about, and with what desperate energy we wrung the bits of muslin and tiny ruffles in imitation of herself when she prepared a sheet or tablecloth for the boiling-kettle.

It was seldom that our industry outlived the thousand tiny bubbles that rose and broke with a rainbow tinge amid the snowy foam which filled our tub; before we could get a fair view of the water underneath some new freak always carried us off into the woods in search of birds’ nests, or young wintergreen. We became very thirsty and wanted drink, or had taken a decided fancy to search for strawberries on the knoll, or gather peppermint from the hollow. But the old woman did not scold us, though we tired of our usefulness ever so soon; she was always ready to indulge us over again, and if we insisted on spreading her clothes on the grass, toward sunset, she never made any objection, though it always gave her additional trouble when she was worn out with labor. But we loved the poor washerwoman, and would run to the house after luncheon for her half a dozen times in the day. We always kept her fire ablaze from the driftwood which lodged on the river brink; and when nightfall came, and her task was done, there was always a spirited run from the grassy slope, where the clothes were dried, to the pine shade; and she who carried the washerwoman’s cloak back, was a happy girl, indeed. Then came the buttered muffin, and strong tea, which was provided for her comfort in the house. How we loved to climb up the back of her chair, and study the tea-grounds in the bottom of her cup. Such castles, and serpents, and rings, to say nothing of the birds and wild animals as we saw there, was a perfect miracle. The fortunes always came true; we were to get all the “credit marks” during the week; be very good children, and not say a single angry or naughty word for a long time; she saw that in the cup—with presents and all sorts of pretty things—and the words wrought out their own prophecy with us.

There was always a parcel, containing various small papers of tea, sugar, and other groceries, laid on a corner of the table just before the washerwoman went home. And when our mother gave her the money due for her work, and pointed to the parcel, she would drop a curtsy, fold the gift under her cloak, and depart without speaking a word; but some time in the week Lida always came with a basket of wild fruit, a bouquet of flowers, or, perhaps, a quantity of young wintergreen and sassafras bark, just enough to exhibit a grateful feeling, and an honest desire to relieve herself from obligation.

A change fell upon our washing-days; the old woman came as usual, but, alas! Lida, dear Lida, no longer helped us to gather sticks from the drift heaps, or allowed her ringing laugh to set the birds a chirping, from sympathy, in the pine woods. Lida was an apprentice now—learning a milliner’s trade on Falls Hill. It was a sad loss to us. We went down to the hollow two or three days after her desertion, with a desperate resolution to be happy in spite of her absence. We laughed louder than ever; ran races like so many greyhounds; frightened the pin-fishes with pebble-stones; and tried every expedient to make the day seem natural; but it was like dancing without music, or a green flower with the sunshine excluded.

It was a disappointment to us that Lida never came through the pine woods to her work. She lived in a little one-story house close behind Castle Rock. It was a solitary and beautiful spot, far from any highway; and Lida went to Falls Hill through a foot-path which ran across the pasture lots, spreading away from the high banks which formed our valley. But sometimes the young girl would start early, and come with her mother for a few moments Monday mornings; but she seemed more thoughtful than formerly, and there was something peculiarly sweet in her smile, which was more beautiful even than her pure, bird-like laugh. Her complexion settled into that clear pearly white which carries the idea of mental purity with it, while it indicates perfect health quite as truly as the richest bloom. Her eyes were very changeable, and shaded by the longest and most jetty lashes you ever saw; while her little mouth was bright and red as a ripe strawberry. When she smiled much, a dimple settled on her cheek and round her mouth, like the shadow of a honey-bee when hovering around a lily; and when Lida was seventeen, and had begun her apprenticeship, it was pleasant to observe how lovely the child had become as she approached the threshold of womanhood.

The milliner’s shop where Lida worked, was in the second story of a dry-goods store, near the Episcopal church. There were two rooms in front, separated by a narrow entry; and as Miss Smith, the milliner, always took a remarkable fancy for fresh air whenever lawyer Gilbert was in the opposite room, and insisted that the door should be left open, Lida was sometimes hours together that she could not lift her eyes without knowing that a young man, rather handsome, and with singularly fine eyes, sat within the adjoining room; though she never looked directly at him, or could see the least indication that he took any advantage of Miss Smith’s liberality regarding the door.

Miss Smith was a town-bred, dashing milliner, rather social, and ready to impart information regarding former conquests in town, even to her apprentice girls, so long as they were content to admire and wonder at a respectful distance; but amid all her condescension she never once allowed “our Lida” to forget the immeasurable distance that existed between a bleach-box and a wash-tub. She sat before her two apprentice girls, with one foot resting on the top of a bonnet-block, twisting up little bows of ribbon, and admiring the effect, like Calypso among her nymphs—that is, supposing the goddess had ever condescended to become useful without the least shadow of necessity, as Miss Smith affirmed was the case with herself. Sometimes the lady would quietly steal a glance through her black ringlets to observe if the lawyer were remarking the elegance of her position; and as the girls seldom lifted their eyes in that direction, it was easy to indicate the force of her charms by exclamations of “Dear me! I wonder why Mr. Gilbert is always looking this way! What can he find so interesting? I really wish he would not sit so exactly against the door!”

Had the girls looked toward the lawyer’s office at such times, they would have seen him tranquilly poring over a very new volume in paper binding, with his back toward the door, his chair balanced on two legs, and his feet resting on the edge of a table covered with law books in sheepskin backs, perfectly untarnished, a pair of boxing-gloves, a flute, quantities of writing-paper, and pens without number. If Mr. Gilbert really was attracted by the bold, black eyes which were so often bent upon him, or the beauty of a neck more than usually exposed when the weather was warm enough for doors to be left open, he was enough of a lawyer to avoid the observation of witnesses to his delinquencies; and though Miss Smith’s evidence passed very well before her elder apprentice, and dear, unsophisticated Lida, it was good for nothing in a court of law, and no damages were likely to follow.

It would have been a very unprincipled thing in the young lawyer, had the deep flounces and pretty caps, which Miss Smith set for him, taken effect—for he was already engaged to a young lady who had just returned from boarding-school in New Haven; and the fine old homestead, which stood a little back from the church, embowered in a grove of oaks, and with an old-fashioned flower-garden attached, was at that very moment tumultuous with the noise of workmen who were preparing it for the reception of a bride—lawyer Gilbert’s bride.

Once or twice Mr. Gilbert did actually lift his eyes from the paper-bound volume, when his position admitted of the effort without too much trouble, and looked earnestly into the milliner’s room; but as Miss Smith leaned her head, and cast a side glance through the interstice thus made between two of her longest curls, she saw that his eyes were fixed, not on her, but on the drooping lids and dark lashes of Lida, the washerwoman’s daughter.

He might well gaze on the innocent picture of that young girl, as she sat on a low stool, bending over her work with her dark hair twisted in a single massive braid around her finely moulded head, her tiny foot creeping out from the folds of her calico dress, and her small hand fluttering about the rose-colored silk she was sewing, like a bird coquetting with a flower. And the milliner might, indeed, experience an uncomfortable sensation as she turned her kindling eyes on the unconscious possessor of so much loveliness—especially as lawyer Gilbert never turned a page that afternoon without stealing a look at the gentle girl from over the top of his volume.

The next morning Lida was banished to a front window directly out of range with the door. The prettiest prospect imaginable lay before it; and the poor girl was delighted with the change. Bred to the fields as she had been, it was so pleasant to look up from her work now and then, and rest her aching eyes with a glance at the green trees, and the cool blue sky beyond. She was very grateful for the change in her position, and thanked the milliner so sweetly again and again, that the lady really began to applaud herself for having done a kind action—a sensation which, from its extreme novelty, must have been exceedingly agreeable.

Directly before Lida’s window was a closely trampled greensward, divided by the highway as it curved up from the valley. Opposite stood a huge willow tree, with a profusion of delicate foliage dropping over its heavy branches to the ground. Behind this tree was a two-story house, while as a snowdrift, and surrounded by rose thickets; a light portico was over the front door, and around one of its slender pillars a single honeysuckle vine had twisted itself like a wreath. The house was so near that Lida could almost count the crimson blossoms from her seat by the window; and when a young girl would come into the portico with a book, which she never read, or an embroidery-frame, which she never used, Lida would ply her needle with great diligence, and blush to be so earnestly regarded by the most accomplished and haughty girl in our village. She knew that this young lady was the intended bride of Mr. Gilbert, but never dreamed that it was his presence near a window, with his flute, that drew Miss Warner’s attention to the building. Poor Lida! in the innocence of her heart, she was beginning to think that the boarding-school graduate had taken a fancy to her, and was desirous of an acquaintance.

In order to interest lawyer Gilbert, Miss Smith had already exhausted all positive means of attack. She had sent to his room for a volume of Byron, she doted on his poetry, it was so soft, and would be so obliged if Mr. Gilbert favored her by the loan of Childe Harold, or Manfred, or any of his comedies.

Mr. Gilbert returned answer that his copy of Byron was sent to Miss Warner, across the way.

Miss Smith’s compliments again—“Would Mr. Gilbert oblige her by playing that lovely air once more—Miss Smith was so delighted with it.”

Mr. Gilbert unscrewed his flute, laid it on the table, and then returned his most respectful compliments to Miss Smith, but the physician had forbidden him to practice more than fifteen minutes at a time, under any circumstances.

The milliner could hit on no other device, so she gave an additional flounce to her dress, let down a ringlet of more subduing length from her hair, moved her work-table decidedly opposite the door, and had resolved on a siege, the success of which must depend on her own personal attractions; when Lida became an apprentice, and was banished to the window.

During the four days that followed the punishment intended for Lida, Miss Smith was in fine spirits. Mr. Gilbert not only looked toward her more than twenty times a day, but on one instance he paused in the entry passage, and took a step toward the door, as if tempted to enter. But he changed his mind, and in a few minutes Lida saw him cross the highway, enter the while portico opposite, and sit down by the young lady who was loitering away the morning in its shade.

The next day it rained, and every thing looked dull and miserable. The water-drops pattered ceaselessly against the windows, and the old willow stood on the green with its branches drooping to the earth, like the plumage of a great bird that could find no shelter. The work-room was cold and cheerless. Miss Smith sat by her table, disappointed and cross. The moist air, which swept in from the entry, took the stiffening from her silks, and if she closed the door, all hopes of seeing the lawyer were at an end for the day. She would have submitted to the faded lustre of her goods, but when the damp had taken her ringlets out of curl, and began to chill her neck, she flung a shawl over her shoulders, tore up a bonnet pattern to roll her hair in, and putting on the worst of tempers with her altered looks, ordered the doors closed, and determined to make a miserable day of it.

A knock at the door.

“Come in,” said Miss Smith; “Lida, go and get the black crape bonnet you altered yesterday, the boy has come after it, I suppose.”

Lida had scarcely time to lay down her work, when the door opened and Mr. Gilbert walked quietly into the room.

Miss Smith blushed crimson, dropped her shawl, and seemed tempted to commence depredations on the curl-papers forthwith. Lida took up her work again, and Mr. Gilbert sat down amid a torrent of compliments from Miss Smith, and began to turn over a volume of Byron, which he had brought in his hand.

He had done himself the pleasure of bringing the book which Miss Smith desired.

Miss Smith was delighted—would Mr. Gilbert oblige her by reading a few pages, if he was not too much engaged—she had been informed that he read beautifully.

Mr. Gilbert would be too happy, but the light was so dim that he must sit by the window—so moving his chair with the self-possession of a man accustomed to having his own way—he sat down within a few paces of Lida. She did not look up, but the most delicate of all blushes broke into her cheek, and the young man saw that her fingers were a little tremulous, as she bent diligently over her work. He seemed busy searching for a favorite poem, and Miss Smith took advantage of the opportunity to let down a quantity of black hair, which the mutilated pattern had failed to render more than wavy, and giving her flounces a light shake, she drew her chair to the window, ordered Lida to place a bonnet block for her feet, and folding her hands with a graceful languor, composed herself to listen.

It would be quite superfluous to say how many times the sensitive Miss Smith lifted her hands, and exclaimed—“Beautiful! Exquisite! Oh! how sweet!” while the reading of Childe Harold went on; or to give any description of the color which glowed and deepened in the cheek of our Lida, and the pleasure which filled those soft eyes till they sparkled like gems beneath her drooping lashes. But it is quite necessary to inform the reader that after this rainy day, Mr. Gilbert was a constant visiter at the milliner’s shop—that he read Childe Harold quite through, and when Miss Smith solicited some of the shorter poems, he looked at Lida and answered no—he would read them to Miss Smith, but not there. Miss Smith was delighted with this indication that her neighbor desired a tête-à-tête, and Lida, who had heard Byron for the first time—though she had read more than most girls of her age—was quite unconscious of the compliment paid to her purity of character in the denial. The lawyer had a large library, and there was no lack of books for perusal. Lida seldom spoke while he was reading, but it was pleasant for an indolent and refined man like Gilbert to study the changes of her sweet face. It was like a volume of “unwritten poetry,” which no one could read but himself. In less than a week his easy chair was wheeled into the milliner’s room every day, and he was quite domesticated among the straw trimmings, scraps of satin, and pasteboard chips, that littered the floor.

A sense of aristocratic distinction is a remarkable pleasant feeling, but in order to enjoy it perfectly, there must be some companionship. It was very pleasant and agreeable for Miss Warner to return from a four years’ residence at school, to be the richest and most accomplished belle of a country village. It was pleasant to be engaged to a wealthy and handsome young man like Gilbert, but as she did not care for books, had no one but a widowed mother to bestow the flattery which schoolmates barter one with the other, as she detested all useful employment, it was to be expected that her time must pass somewhat heavily, especially after the first objects that presented themselves when she went to lounge away her mornings in the portico, were the sweet face of our Lida, bent over her work, by the opposite window, and, just beyond, the dark locks and white forehead of her own affianced husband. Miss Warner was not absolutely jealous, but she was very idle, and so, naturally enough, began to think it just possible that the country milliner might have received something worth looking at from town. One morning, she was seen crossing the highway, elaborately dressed, with delicate peach blossom gloves on her pretty hands, and a deeply fringed parasol guarding her face from the sun. There was a great deal of artificial grace in her step as she glided over the green sward, and the little affected knock which she gave to the milliner’s door was eloquent of high breeding. Then there was the patronizing bend to Miss Smith, the gracefully extended hand to Gilbert, and the quiet stare at poor Lida, who sat blushing like a guilty thing by the window. Gilbert touched his lips to the peach blossom glove, but when he saw the supercilious look fixed on Lida, he dropped it again, and a dash of color swept over his forehead. Miss Smith was full of delight, exhibited all her finery, and distilled more flattery into a conversation of fifteen minutes, about blue ribbons and leghorn flats, than was ever bestowed in the same time on those ladies who purchase it by the year, in the form of “a humble companion.”

Miss Warner’s dignity was not of an order to withstand this incense to her vanity, and even if her affianced husband had not been a constant visiter, it is doubtful if the honeysuckle portico would not soon have been abandoned for the milliner’s room and its gossiping freedom.

In less than a fortnight, the peach blossom gloves were soiled by constant use, and if Gilbert was a feature in the milliner’s shop, his lady-love haunted it almost as regularly as he did. She thought Miss Smith “such a nice creature—such a dear, good soul—so capable of appreciating true elegance of manner—so very tasteful in her bonnets and fancy caps!” It was beautiful to see how condescending the sated Miss became, how useful she made herself in snipping up little bits of satin, and how prettily she would ask Gilbert if he did not think she would make a good milliner, if she should not learn the trade, and other important questions, which must have diversified the passages of Milton and Young, which he wan reading, with an agreeable variety.

The jealousy which springs from affection painfully aroused, cannot be divested of generosity; but that which arises from mortified vanity, is bitter and implacable. It was not long before Miss Smith became convinced that the gentle girl who sat listening with such intense interest to every word that dropped from the eloquent lips of lawyer Gilbert, was his sole attraction to the room, and a few adroit words to his affianced bride were enough to arouse her attention to the damask color that came and went in the poor girl’s cheek whenever young Gilbert addressed her.

“Artful wretch!” muttered the future bride, setting her pearl white teeth passionately together as she spoke; “she think of attracting him!” and with a slight scornful laugh, in which the milliner joined, she begun practicing her steps in a distant corner of the room.

Gilbert went home that night with his affianced bride, and the next day he sent in a book for Lida, but avoided the milliner’s room altogether. The young apprentice only saw him as he crossed the green toward the building—his countenance was very serious, and he seemed to avoid looking toward the window.

Just at night Miss Warner came in. She took the milliner into a distant part of the room, and as they conversed in low voices, a scornful laugh now and then reached the apprentice, who had become nervous and sensitive, she scarcely knew why. Miss Smith followed her visiter into the entry.

“It is well I mentioned it in time,” she said, in a confidential whisper.

Miss Warner tore her glove as she attempted to draw it on.

“A pretty speculation for a washerwoman’s daughter!” she said, with a curling lip.

“But he cared nothing about her?” rejoined Miss Smith, a little anxiously.

“No, indeed; he was quite angry at the charge, and consented to stay from your room forever, if I desired it.”

“She would have made a splendid mistress for the homestead up yonder,” rejoined Miss Smith, with another low, disagreeable laugh; “it is almost a pity she failed in her aim upon it.”

“Splendid!” exclaimed the bride, with a light mocking laugh; “but no, no—I should not so much regard seeing him the son-in-law of a washerwoman, but it would break my heart to know that any one but myself was mistress of the homestead and property.”

“Hark! did you not hear some one moving in his office?” said the milliner, listening apprehensively.

Miss Warner listened a moment, and then answered, in a faint voice—

“No—it cannot be. I saw him going toward the house just as I came in.”

“Let us move away from his door—there is no harm in that,” whispered Miss Smith, and they walked dawn the entry conversing together. After a little, the sound of their but half-suppressed laughter filled the little apartment.

“It would be a capital joke!” said the milliner.

“Just the punishment she deserves, presumptuous creature!” was the reply.

“But can you persuade him to join us?” was the next question.

“He shall!”

Gilbert was standing that night in the little portico of his bride’s dwelling. It was a lovely evening—every thing was deluged with a flood of pearly moonlight, and the dew lay like rain-drops among the crimson flowers which shed a rich fragrance from the honeysuckle vine. She was by his side, his arm had been around her waist, and but a few moments before his eyes had been bent with tender and affectionate earnestness on her face, but now his arms were folded, and he looked almost sternly upon her.

“Do you really desire this, Louisa?” he said, in a deep, constrained voice; “would you ever respect me again, if I could do so cruel, so unmanly an act?”

“I will never love you again, if you do not!” was the petulant reply.

An expression almost of disgust swept over the young man’s face, and his lips trembled as he spoke.

“Tell me, have you been to Miss Smith’s room to-day?” he inquired.

“Yes—I was there just at sunset. But why do you ask?”

“No matter! Have you thought all this over; are you resolute to deceive this poor girl?”

“Resolute!”

“And you are willing that I devote myself to win her affections?”

“They are already given, without the trouble of asking.”

Gilbert’s brow contracted in the moonlight, and the word “Unwomanly!” was smothered between his compressed lips.

“And you will assist me—will tell her that you resign all claims on my hand—on the homestead and property?” he added, with a slight and bitter emphasis on the last words.

She did not observe it, but answered eagerly—

“Yes—yes; I will do my part to perfection—how mortifying the truth will be when she thinks herself Mrs. Gilbert and finds that it is all a joke.”

“But think of the shock it will give her pride and delicacy—”

“Add refinement—prey, add refinement!” said the young girl, scornfully; “pride, delicacy and refinement are such common attributes to the daughters of our washerwomen!”

“You are only doing this to annoy me,” said the young man; “so good night, you will throw off the cruel wish before morning.”

“Shall I?” replied the girl, with a slow bend of the head.

Gilbert turned away, and taking up his hat, was about to leave the house, but she laid her hand on his arm, and looked smilingly in his face.

“They tell me the house is finished—will you take me to look at it in the morning?”

“If you desire it,” was the cold and abstracted reply.

“Well—I shall be ready at ten. Good night!” and gaily kissing her hand, the young creature glided into the house.

“It was her voice then, and she was planning this design with that infamous milliner. I would not believe my own senses, till she confirmed them. But she will not persist in any thing so cruel—it is absurd to suppose so. If she does—if she does—I will obey her.”

As he muttered these words, the young man walked slowly from the house.

How melancholy poor Lida had been all the previous day—how many strange conjectures had passed through her brain regarding the remarkable absence of Mr. Gilbert. They haunted her all night, and in the morning, when she came along the foot-path through the fields, tears stood in her eyes more than half the way. She had cast many a sad, earnest gaze through the shop-window, before she saw Gilbert and Miss Warner coming through the opposite portico. The sight made the heart struggle with a throb of pain in Lida’s bosom, and a mist came over her eyes till they could scarcely discern the needle with which she seemed occupied. They were coming toward the shop, and the sound of their footsteps in the entry made the young girl tremble in her seat.

“Come,” said Miss Warner, addressing the milliner, “put on your bonnet. We are going up to the house, and want your opinion.”

Miss Smith ran for her bonnet, and, for the first time in her life, the young lady addressed the apprentice.

“Get your sun-bonnet,” she said; “you can go with us.”

The blood rushed over Lida’s face, and she would have refused; but Miss Warner whispered a word to her lover, and he pressed Lida to go with such respectful earnestness, that she arose, tied on her little straw cottage, and was ready to attend them long before Miss Smith made her appearance.

The homestead was a large and superior old mansion for a country village. Its material was heavy, and touched with the brown tinge of age; the trees around it were majestic, and its shrubbery luxuriant; its furniture was that of another century, old fashioned and massive, but Gilbert had interspersed it with chairs and tables of lighter and more recent model; and the gloom which low ceilings give to an apartment was relieved by tall mirrors and modern windows, which were cut from ceiling to floor. Altogether, it was the dwelling which a domestic and studious person would have preferred above all others.

Lida had never seen any thing half so splendid before, but there was a heavy feeling at her heart which mere novelty could not dispel. She followed her conductors up the broad stairs, heard them admire the balusters of dark mahogany, and walked through the chambers like one in a dream. She was pale, bewildered, and sick at heart, almost for the first time in her life.

There was one room on the first floor which Gilbert had fitted up exclusively for his bride. It had but one bay window, which opened upon the most verdant nook of the old-fashioned garden; and this window required no drapery, for an immense white rose-tree was trained along the casement, till a profusion of thick green leaves and snowy blossoms drooped like a curtain over the upper part, and when the sash was open a storm of fragrant leaves fell like snow-flakes all over the rich old easy chairs and moss-like carpet which decorated the room. On a curious little table, with legs carved and twisted together like a knot of serpents, lay a guitar, with an azure ribbon just attached, and as yet unused; a superb old book-case, crowded with neatly bound volumes, stood opposite the bay window, and a little French work-table, perfectly new, occupied a corner close by.

Miss Warner flung herself on a seat, and taking up the guitar, began to trifle with the strings, as she turned with an unpleasant smile toward Lida.

“How would you like this room for your own?” she said.

“Me?” said Lida, faintly; “I have never dreamed of living in such a place as this.”

“But you can live here if you like,” replied the milliner.

“My mother was well off once, and she would not let me ‘live out’ for any thing,” said the apprentice, for she could only imagine that Miss Warner wished to engage her for “help,” when she should take possession of the homestead; “besides, I am not strong enough for very hard work!”

“Oh, we didn’t mean that,” replied the milliner; “Mr. Gilbert wants a wife, and as this lady here has taken a fancy that he likes you rather better than he does her, she is quite willing that he makes you mistress of the homestead, instead of herself.”

“Don’t say so—it is cruel to joke in this manner!” said the bewildered girl, turning very pale; “I am sure, quite sure that Mr. Gilbert never thought of me!” Lida spoke hastily, but in a faint voice, and she had a look of troubled doubt in her eyes, as if she almost hoped they would contradict her.

“But he does think of you—he told me so last night!” said Miss Warner; “and if I am willing to give him up, what harm can come of it?”

“And could you give him up?” said Lida, clasping her small hands with an energy which bespoke her astonishment that any one could resign, of her own free will, a being so perfect.

“Oh, Mr. Gilbert is not the only agreeable man on earth,” replied the young lady, removing the azure ribbon from her neck, and laying down the guitar; “I am perfectly willing to resign him at any moment—so prepare for the wedding to-morrow, if you like!”

As she spoke, Miss Warner and her companion glided from the room. Lida had no power to follow, she was confused and strengthless, a mist came over her sight, and sinking to a seat she covered her face with both hands, and remained in a state of mental bewilderment, almost unconscious of the solitude which surrounded her.

Miss Warner and the milliner met Gilbert in the hall, and both were laughing as they moved toward him.

“We have broken the ice for you,” said Miss Warner; “she is in the little room yonder, quite prepared for a proposal.”

“And you are really determined to carry this hoax to an end?” inquired the young lawyer, gravely.

“Oh! by all means,” was the reply; “it really is ridiculous, the idea of her believing us. I wish you had seen her clasp those hands, and wonder how I could give you up. Go—go! before she takes it into her head to follow us. But I say, Gilbert, do remove that horrid little table with the twisted legs—it is such a fright.”

“It was my mother’s,” replied the lawyer, quietly.

“Well—well; it can be put in the garret, and kept quite safe. But go along—your lady-love is waiting.”

Mr. Gilbert stood motionless in the hall till his affianced bride and her companion disappeared amid the oaks; he then turned with a calm face and resolute step toward the little room where Lida had been left. She was still sitting in the easy chair, sobbing like a child, and tears were breaking, like half-confined jewels, through the slender fingers that concealed her face.

Gilbert approached with a noiseless tread, and gently taking one of the hands from her face, pressed it to his lips. She started up, and tried to conceal her tears with the remaining hand, while her brow and face and neck were deluged with crimson.

His voice was strangely tender and musical for the cruel plot he was acting.

“They have told you no falsehood, Lida,” he said, “I do indeed love you—very, very much. Will you come and live with me here in this pleasant old house where my parents were so happy? Can you love me, and study for my sake, when we are married?—for if you can answer yes, to what I have said, with your whole heart, in three days you shall be my own sweet wife!”

The poor girl could not answer—she was perfectly overcome by the sensation of exquisite happiness that thrilled every nerve.

“Why do you weep so, Lida? Am I annoying you by these questions?”

“No—no,” said the young girl, half lifting her eyes to his face, “it is not that! I am so surprised, so shocked—so very, very happy—” she broke off in confusion, turned her head away an instant, and then looked him earnestly in the face.

“You are sincere with me?” she said; “I half suspected that Miss Warner guessed how much—I mean how well I thought of you—and so was trying to punish me with false thoughts; but you, Mr. Gilbert, you could not have the heart to trifle with me so dreadfully—it would kill me, it would indeed!”

Gilbert tried to look in the soft eyes, lifted so full of eloquence to his face, but he felt the hot blood rush up to his forehead, and answered hurriedly that he was most sincere, most earnest to make her his wife. He kissed her forehead as the words were uttered, and when she became suddenly conscious that they were alone in the house, and wished to leave it, he drew her arm respectfully through his, and conducting her to the hall, went in search of Miss Warner and her companion. They were in the garden, chatting in high spirits, and full of laughter at the success of their scheme.

“And how did you succeed? did she suspect? how did she act?” they exclaimed together, running eagerly toward him.

“As you predicted,” replied the lawyer, with a grave smile; “your pleasant little hoax will be carried out three evenings from this.”

“But I have just been thinking—who can we find that will play the minister?” exclaimed Miss Warner.

“Here is a dilemma!” chimed in the milliner.

“Not in the least,” replied Gilbert; “I have thought of that already. My friend Morris, who graduated with me at Yale last year, is just the man. He looks as much like a parson as if bred to the cloth—I will ride to town in the morning, and let him into our frolic.”

“There—now all is arranged. We must give her a wedding-dress, Gilbert, and that will console her for your loss,” said Miss Warner.

They walked toward the house, and found Lida standing in the hall. She advanced to the milliner, as she came in.

“I am not well enough to work this afternoon—can I go home?”

“Oh, certainly! We cannot expect you to think of a trade now,” said the milliner, casting a glance of sly ridicule at Miss Warner. “Mr. Gilbert, of course, will see you home.”

The blood burned in Lida’s cheek, but she answered, with quiet dignity, that she wished to see her mother alone.

“Then she is not out washing to-day?” inquired the milliner, with another covert look at Gilbert and his companion.

Lida could not understand the low malice of the question, so she answered quietly that her mother was at home, and left the party, when they went toward the milliner’s work-room.

The next morning the washerwoman was at our house very early—she wished to consult with those who had been kind friends to her, regarding the strange proposal which her daughter had received. Mr. Gilbert had been at her house the night before, she said, and every thing was settled for a wedding on the next evening but one. Of course, no opinion could be given after affairs had gone so far; so consenting that “the children” might come to see Lida on her wedding day, our mother allowed the kind woman to depart without expressing any of the misgivings that beset her own mind.

Mr. Gilbert drove by our house during the afternoon, and took the New Haven road. The second day from that we were permitted to visit the washerwoman’s house, behind Castle Rock.

It was a bright day, and the little house looked neat and cheerful as we approached it, through a foot-path cut across a meadow, golden with buttercups and mottled lilies. Lida was gathering flowers from a little yard which surrounded the only door in her dwelling, and in a few moments we were busy as herself gathering daisies from the meadow, and wild honeysuckle from the rocks, which we brought down in armsful, and heaped on the door-step, ready for use.

Before sunset the widow’s house might have been mistaken for a sylvan lodge, it was so fragrant with blossoms. The whole dwelling contained but three apartments, a kitchen and two small sleeping rooms; but these were as neat as human hands could make them. The pine floors and splint chairs were scoured white as it was possible for wood to become; the little old-fashioned looking glasses were crowned with asparagus branches, where the red berries hung thick and bright as coral drops along the delicate green spray; the scant window-curtains, of coarse but snow-white muslin, were festooned with wild blossoms and ground-pine woven together—while that in “the spare bed-room” was looped up by a single wreath of wild roses and sweet brier, which filled the window with a delicious fragrance. On the little table, in this apartment, stood a japan waiter, with a decanter of wine in the middle, surrounded by slender wine-glasses; and a fine napkin was spread over a loaf of cake close by. A dress of the purest muslin lay upon a counterpane of old-fashioned dimity, that covered the bed like a sheet of snow.

We stood by while the old woman arrayed her child for the bridal, and wondered why her hands should tremble so, and why the tears should fill our Lida’s eyes so constantly, when she observed her mother’s agitation.

It was scarcely dark when we saw a party of two ladies, and as many gentlemen, coming along the foot-path toward the house. The washerwoman closed the bed-room door, and went out to receive her guests, leaving us with the bride. How beautiful and pure she looked in the simple dress, that had exhausted all the money which her mother had hoarded for winter in the purchase. The black hair which she usually wore twisted in one heavy woof over her head, was now divided into three rich braids, and knotted together on one side, just back of the ear, by a single white rose. Another bud, with the blush leaves just bursting asunder, lay within the folds of sheer muslin that covered her bosom. When she placed it there, Lida’s cheek grew pale, and her hands began to tremble, for that moment she heard Gilbert’s step in the next room. It was instantly drowned by the voices of Miss Warner and the milliner, both in high and cheerful conversation. That sound only caused our friend to tremble the more. But when her mother came into the room, folded her in a kind embrace, and led her toward the young man, who came forward to receive her, a soft blush broke over her cheek, and her fingers wove themselves in his, confidingly, as if she had nothing to fear then, yet could not help trembling all the time.

“Be kind to my child,” said the washerwoman, gently; “when I was married to her father, he was prosperous, happy, and proud as you are. He died, and left me in poverty. His child has never heard a harsh word beneath this humble roof—be gentle to her, as I have been.”

The old woman sat down, and bending her head, begun to smooth the folds of her faded silk dress, and thus she tried to conceal the tears that her own words had unlocked.

Gilbert did not answer, but his cheek turned a shade paler, and he bent his eyes almost sternly on the two females who had urged him into his present embarrassing position.

The young student arose. He had been wisely chosen by the plotters, for never was clerical dignity more thoroughly put on. He looked serious and earnest enough to have deceived more suspicious persons than Lida and her honest-hearted mother. He pronounced the ceremony with impressive solemnity—so impressive that Miss Warner and her companion could hardly suppress their laughter at his successful acting.

The young couple sat down. Lida, pale, confused and trembling—but Gilbert sat motionless, and with his eyes bent steadfastly on the two females who were a little nearer the door. They were whispering together. Miss Warner seemed striving to suppress her inclination to mirth till the proper time, and a slight giggle now and then broke from the milliner at the exquisite success of their joke.

The washerwoman arose and brought forth the tray of cake and wine. Lida could not taste a drop, but she touched her lips to the glass, while Gilbert drained his to the bottom. The milliner was compelled to set her wine on a table, to conceal the laughter which shook her hand—while Miss Warner gracefully drank to the bride.

“And now,” said the young lady, setting down her glass, and dusting the crumbs of cake from her white gloves, “as our amusement is over for the evening, we will return home, if you are ready, Mr. Gilbert.”

Lida lifted her eyes almost in terror to the man whom she believed to be her husband, while the washerwoman arose from her seat and looked Miss Warner keenly in the face.

“You need not look at me so voraciously, good woman,” said the unfeeling girl; “if I have lent Mr. Gilbert to Miss Lida here, it was for our mutual amusement; but play cannot last forever, and as it is getting dark, we must go home again.”

“Very much delighted with our little party,” chimed in Miss Smith; “if you ever get up a wedding in earnest, this would be a delicate pattern. I trust the bride will not feel so much exalted that she cannot come to her work in the morning.”

The washerwoman was deadly pale—she lifted her hand as if to enforce silence on the flippant mockery with which she was insulted, and stepping a pace forward, was about to address the man who had violated the peace of her home—but Lida had risen to her feet, and in trying to reach her mother, staggered, and would have fallen, but Gilbert reached forth his arm, and drawing her to his bosom, kissed her forehead and her pale lips, while he trembled from head to foot.

“What means this?” exclaimed Miss Warner, grasping his arm in passionate amazement; “what means this, in my presence, sir?”

“It means,” said Gilbert, who lifted his head, and looked firmly around, “it means that she is my wife, my own beloved and wedded wife, before God and in the sight of man! Weak, wicked girl—did you believe me so base—so utterly devoid of all manhood, that I could lend myself to a plot so atrocious? I loved you, Louisa—at least, I thought so—and when I was flung into the dangerous society of a creature so good and lovely as this young girl, who is my wife, I felt that your fears were well founded, that my allegiance to yourself was in danger. I consented, as an honorable man should, to see her no more. You were not satisfied with this submission to a just demand—but would have made me a villain—and after that would have married the dastard for the sake of his property and the homestead!”

Before the last words were fairly uttered, Miss Warner had dropped to the floor in violent hysterics, and some two hours after she undertook rather an unpleasant walk home through the damp grass, between the crest-fallen milliner, and the young clergyman.

The next day she had the satisfaction of seeing Gilbert drive toward the homestead in a barouche which had been purchased for another occasion, and in the back seat was the washerwoman, in a new straw bonnet and that identical red cloak—by her side sat our Lida, looking as pretty as a snow-drop, a sight which made the village aristocrat rather out of concern with the “mock marriage;” but we were perfectly satisfied—true, we were obliged to look out for new help—but the homestead gained a capital housekeeper in the washerwoman, and the most lovely, joyous, and warm-hearted little mistress you ever saw, when it received “our Lida.”

BY GEORGE HILL.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE BROTHERS,” “CROMWELL,” ETC.

(Concluded from page 73.)

But, was it indeed Rose, on whom, as Hunter had insinuated, Sir Edward Hale turned that quick glance, which had so nearly cost him a heavy fall from his horse? Reader, it was—for like most youths of hot, impetuous dispositions, he was a passionate admirer of female beauty, and Rose’s loveliness was, indeed, of so high an order, that it might well have attracted the eyes of a colder and far less inflammable nature. She was, indeed, in face and figure, a paragon, more fitted for the sphere of courts, than for the simple and somewhat hard realities of a plain country life. Her beauty was not the mere animal beauty, consisting chiefly in fresh coloring and vigorous health, which marks so frequently the country maiden—it was of a far higher and more delicate order. Had she been robed in unison, she might have moved, her birth and rank unquestioned, among the most magnificent array of England’s aristocracy—for she was very tall, and, though her swelling bust and ample shoulders and all her lower limbs were exquisitely rounded and developed to the most voluptuous symmetry, her waist was small and tapering, and the whole contour of her person slender and graceful. Her arms were rounded ivory—her hands, small, delicate and fair, as if they had been little used to any hard or menial labor—her ancles trim and shapely, and her feet singularly little for so full formed and tall a figure. Her face, however, was yet more striking than her person—it was that of a clear brunette, with but the palest flush of the most delicate rose, tinging the lustrous darkness of her cheek—her features approached nearly to the classic model, but there was a trifling upward inclination in the outlines of the well shaped thin nose, which added a charm of archness that regularity too often will be found to lack—her pouting lips were, if such a thing can be, almost too deeply crimson; for to nothing that exists of warm and soft and sentient, could the hue of that balmy mouth be possibly compared. It was the eyes, however, the large deep lustrous eyes of the darkest hazel, that caught most suddenly the observation of all who looked upon her, if it were but for a passing moment—there was an indescribable fascination in those eyes, an inexplicable mixture of wild out-flashing light, and soft voluptuous languor, half amorous, half melancholy, such as is rarely, indeed, seen at all, and never but in orbs of that clear translucent brown, that is so far more beautiful than the dull bead-like black, or the more shallow glitter of the blue. Her hair of a dark sunny brown, shining with many an auburn gloss where the light fell strong upon its heavy masses, was singularly and luxuriantly abundant; falling off on each side of her high polished forehead in a maze of thick clustering ringlets, and flowing down her neck and over her sloping shoulders, in large and natural curls. The dress of this fair girl was simple as it could be, yet, perhaps, no magnificence of garb would have so well displayed her wondrous charms, as that undecorated garment. A low necked frock of plain white muslin, sitting quite close to her bust and slender waist, with tight sleeves reaching to the elbow, and terminating there in ample plaited ruffles, and a long flowing skirt—a little cottage bonnet of home-made straw, with a pink ribbon to match her silken neckkerchief and sash, a cluster of violets in the bosom of her frock, and a nosegay in her hand, the gift—much prized that morning—of the now half rejected lover. Such was the choicest finery of the village belle; and, as I have already said, it would have been hard, indeed, to deck her comely person in any thing that could have displayed her beauties with more advantage. Those were the days, in courts, of whalebone stomachers and hoops five fathoms in circumference, of stiff brocaded stuffs, and powdered head-dresses, of art, and most ungraceful art, against any touch of nature; grace and simplicity were discarded, and every native movement, so beautiful in its natural ease, was hampered and confined by every species of ligature and bandage that the most depraved and artificial taste could by any means imagine or suggest. What wonder then that Edward Hale, a passionate admirer as he was of female beauty, accustomed only to the stiff airs and affected minauderies of starched fine ladies, should have been momentarily struck by the natural and simple loveliness of that fair being, whose every movement was full of poetry, and instinct with easy life. What wonder that, when he crossed the hill and lost sight of the gay concourse, he should have called the keeper up to his side and asked him quite abruptly—“Tell me, Mark Eversly,” for the ill-looking guardian of the chase was in truth son of the good steward, “tell me,” he said, not without a slight shade of embarrassment appearing in his manner, “who was that fine old silver-headed farmer who stood close to me on the left-hand side, when my horse reared so suddenly? There stood a tall young fellow by his elbow with a quarter-staff—Frank Hunter, I believe, if I have not forgotten more than I think have—I used to ferret rabbits with him, if it is the same, many a year ago in the Monks’ coppice. But who was the old farmer, Mark? I can’t remember him.”

“Oh, that was Master Castleton, I think, Sir Edward,” answered the fellow, with a cunning grin, clearly perceiving the drift of his master’s question; “there was a very pretty lass upon his arm, wasn’t there, sir?”

The hot blood rushed to the brow—the ingenuous brow—of the young gentleman; and vexed at the bare idea that his thoughts should be read, his secret penetrated by a menial, he answered hastily, “Was there? I did not notice; I hardly think there was, though, for I suppose I should have observed her if there had—seeing I am a great admirer of pretty faces.”

“I’m sure that you’d admire Rose’s,” answered the wily keeper, “for it’s the prettiest eye, and the handsomest face, too, in all the village; and then her shape is not behind her face neither. But I’m a thinking it couldn’t have been Master Castleton, else, as you say, you must have noticed Rose. It might have been old Andrew Bell, or Simon Carter, or John Hall—they were all gathered thereabout; and they are all gray-headed men, too.”

“No, no!” replied the landlord, “it was not any one of these; I recollect them all right well. It must have been old Castleton; what did you call him?—Harry?”

“No! James, so please your honor; but I don’t think it could have been him anyhow. Sir Edward, least ways I don’t see how you could have missed observing Rose; why bless you, she is the beauty of the village; there is not a girl like her for twenty miles around. I don’t believe, Sir Edward, you ever saw a handsomer in London.”

“Well, now I think on it, I believe there was a girl—a very tall girl—on his arm, dressed all in while, was she? but Oliver reared up just then, and that prevented me from taking notice, I suppose. What is she? daughter to old Castleton?”

“Yes, sir; and troth-plighted to that Frank Hunter, d—n him; but I don’t reckon much of that—for she’s an arrant jilt, is pretty Rose. Why she kept company with me, Sir Edward, six months and better, and then flew off as if she was meant for a king, when I asked her to be my wife. I warrant me, she’d fly from Frank there just as sudden, so be she could ’light on a higher or a richer sweetheart.”

“Well, well!” said Hale, half angrily, perhaps, at feeling that his servant was tampering with thoughts that were even then, though faintly and uncertainly, at work in his own bosom, and not being yet prepared to be hurried on his way—“Well, all that’s nothing to me, Mark; but why did you damn the young fellow, Eversly? He used to be as fine a lad as any in the country; and if he did win your sweetheart, I dare say that he won her fairly. You should not bear a grudge, man; all goes by luck in love and liking.”

“Oh, it’s not that, Sir Edward, it is not that at all. I would not have the girl now if I could; I’m very glad he took her off my hands, and grateful to him for it. I would not have her now, I’m sure, unless it was for a mistress—and that she is not like to be for a poor fellow, whatever she might for a born gentleman. It is not that at all that made me damn him—but, bless you, he’s the biggest poacher in the country.”

“Ha! is he—is he? that’s bad; we must see to that. Have you got any proof against him?”

“Not clear—not clear, Sir Edward; but I keep a tight watch on him always, and I’ll be nabbing him, I warrant me, one of these times.”

“Do so—do so!” returned the other, forming, almost unconsciously, a secret feeling of dislike to the young man who was known as the accepted suitor of Rose Castleton. “Do so; and if we can catch him tripping badly, we can send him across the seas; and then you can get the pretty Rose, you know.”

“Oh, I don’t want her, sir, not I,” returned the keeper. “I would not marry her at all, unless I was to be well paid for it; and then I’d marry the foul fiend if need were.”

“Fie! fie, Mark!” answered Hale, “don’t talk in that manner, I beg of you. But tell me, where does old Castleton live now? Your father was saying something to me about his lease, I think, this morning. It has run out, I fancy, and he wants it renewed.”

“Yes, yes, Sir Edward,” the other interrupted, eagerly, “it has run out, and he does want it renewed. But then, Sir Edward, it’s the home-farm, like, between Monks’ coppice and Raywood; and the spring-brook trout-pond lies in the very middle of it—all the best ground for game in the whole manor, and the best water, too, for fishing. Now I’ve been thinking that it will make bad work if Hunter marries Rose, and Castleton gets a new lease. Why, bless you, sir, Frank would not leave a feather in the woods, or a fin in the waters, after he’d lived in the home-farm a fortnight; beside, the kennels lie so handy, it always seemed to me the keeper should live there. I was a going to speak to you about that myself. I should like well to rent it; and my two brothers could look after it, so that I would not be kept from my duties neither.”

“I’m afraid, Mark, that can’t well be; for you see, I promised not to remove any tenant; and beside, old Castleton lived there under my grandfather, if I remember rightly, and has been a good tenant, too. But I won’t forget you, Mark—never fear, for I wont forget you. But now we must make haste, or we’ll be late at Barnsley;” and with the words he again put spurs to his horse, and rode on as fast as he could gallop, until he reached the little post town, where he drew bridle at the door of the neat country inn, and called aloud to the hostler, who was running across the court-yard toward him, asking whether “Lord Henry St. Maur and Captain Spencer had arrived from London.” But before the man had time to answer, a loud burst of laughter from within replied, and then a gay voice cried,

“Here we are, Ned—here we are, and have been these two hours. Come in—come in here, quick, man, or that rogue, Percy Harbottle, will finish the cool tankard before you get a taste of it. Our horses will be ready in a minute—come, make haste; you must be athirst this hot day!”

Edward Hale leaped down at the jovial summons, and flinging his rein to the keeper, ran up the steps, and entered the small clean parlor to the left of the entrance, where he found his three friends—gay youths, dressed in the height of fashion, employed in circulating rapidly a mighty silver flagon, filled with the generous compound of ale and sherry, with toast, and store of spices. For a few minutes the young men conversed merrily and gaily of fifty trivial incidents which had occurred since their last meeting; and light jokes called forth lighter laughter, as for the most part is the case, when the gay-hearted and the cheerful, over whose heads time has not shed a single sorrow, meet, after passing absence. But, by and by, the tankard was exhausted; and the young comrades now began to lack some newer and brisker excitement.

“Come, come,” cried Edward Hale, “let us get all of us to horse, and ride as quickly as we may back to the manor. There is a kind of merry-making of the villagers—a Mayday frolic on the green; and as it is my birth-day, too, I was obliged to promise the good people there that I would join their sports, and, what is more, to ask them all to dine with me, at noon, under a tent. I am afraid it will be but a tedious sort of merriment to you, my boys, after the gayeties of London. But we must make the best of it; and to make up for it, we’ll sup at eight, when all is over, and try my father’s choice old Burgundy.”

“Ods life!” cried St. Maur, “there will be nothing tedious in it, so far as I’m concerned; for I doubt not you have store of pretty lasses here among your tenantry; and if we are to pass the summer here with you, you know we must look out for something in the shape of bona robas to while away the time before the shooting season.”

“Well, well, Lord Harry, you shall see all of them, I promise,” answered the baronet, with a quick, meaning smile; “but then it must be honor bright. You shall have every help from me in your amours, but then you must not interfere with mine, hey, St. Maur?”

“Hark to him—hark to him, Spencer! hark to him, Harbottle!” cried the young lord, laughing, “did you, in all your lives, did you ever hear such a Turk? Why he only came down here last night, for the first time these sixteen years, and the dog has cut out an intrigue already!”

“Oh, I don’t wonder at it—not I in the least,” Spencer replied, “the fellow always had the eye of a hawk for a pretty wench, and the devil’s own luck in winning them, too. Don’t you remember, Harbottle, how he tricked Neville out of his black-browed Julia, after two days’ acquaintance, when Neville had been better than six months in bringing her to reason?”

“And Neville, such a lady-killer too!” lisped Harbottle; “but I suppose we had better promise him.”

“To be sure—to be sure we had!” answered the others in a breath; “for if he has got the least start in the world with the girl, we have no more chance of her than the merest bumpkins in the country. So it’s a bargain, Hale,” continued St. Maur; “you will give each of us the best of your countenance and assistance, provided we keep all due distance from your own dulcinea.”

“A bargain!” answered the young baronet; and “A bargain! a bargain!” chimed in his gay, licentious comrades.

“And now, Sir Edward,” inquired Spencer, gravely, after they had mounted, and galloped a few hundred yards from the inn door, “what is your wench’s name, that we may have no mistakes here? and what does she look like?”

“Her name’s Rose Castleton,” answered Sir Edward Hale, the hot blood rushing hurriedly to his brow and cheek, as he named her against whose peace and honor the wild words of his reckless and unprincipled companions had almost simultaneously matured his vague thoughts into violent designs. “Her name’s Rose Castleton; and she is like, simply, the most beautiful woman it ever was my luck to gaze upon. The finest and most voluptuous figure; the brightest and most sparkling face; the most luxuriant hair; the softest and most passionate eye; by Heaven, the loveliest girl I ever have yet looked upon were but a foil to her transcendant beauties. But let us hurry on our way, or we shall be too late.”

No farther words were spoken; for, indeed, the fiery rate at which the cavaliers spurred on toward the manor precluded any conversation—the thick clang of their hoofs on the country road drowning all words pitched in tones lower than a shout. It was not long, however, before the headlong pace at which they rode brought them to the summit of the hill commanding the scene which has been heretofore described; and so extraordinary was the beauty of that scene that the three guests of the young lord of the manor pulled up, as it were by a common impulse, their hot horses, and uttered a simultaneous expression of surprise and admiration.

“Is that your place? By Heaven! you are a luckier fellow than I fancied, Ned.”

“Give us your hand, old boy; long may you live to enjoy this fair manor!”

“By the Lord! what a lovely picture. A Poussin in the distance, and a Teniers’ merry-making in the foreground.”

“It is a fine old place,” Hale answered, gratified much by the pleasure of his college-mates; “but come along, and you shall see the deity whom I propose to enshrine in the temple.”

And, with the words, he again touched his horse with the spur and galloped lightly down the slope, and across the greensward of the common, toward a large and gayly decorated tent, with several flags and streamers fluttering in the summer air above it, which had been erected during his temporary absence at a short distance from the May-pole. About the entrance of this grand marquee a dozen or more of Sir Edward’s servitors were clustered, and flinging his rein to the foremost of them, as he alighted, he bade the others look to the horses of his friends, and lead them to the stables of the manor. Loud rang the plaudits of the tenantry as the young master of their destinies, accompanied by his distinguished-looking friends—for they were all finely made and handsome men, superbly dressed in the rich mode of the day, with gold embroideries and rich lace, and fluttering shoulder-knots, and waving feathers—walked through the merry throng; now pausing for a moment to shake hands with some sturdy yeoman whom he remembered as his playfellow of yore; now listening to the tedious—but not for that insincere or unwelcome—gratulations of some hoary-headed farmer; now giving brief directions to his steward or serving-men concerning the ale buts to be broached, and the ox to be roasted whole by noon; now chucking some bright-cheeked demure-looking damsel under the chin with a light laugh; till all pronounced him the most affable and kind-hearted landlord in the county, and augured years of peace and comfort under his patriarchal sway.

But it was acting all—sheer acting—natural acting, indeed, and such as might have imposed on the shrewdest judge of human nature, and for this reason—that Edward but enacted at that time what would have been his own instinctive, natural conduct at another, had his mind been at ease and his thoughts disengaged; and even while he was thus acting, he was almost if not entirely unconscious of the fact; for he was not a hypocrite—not even a dissembler—and though full many a gay licentious vice might have been laid with justice to his charge, he never had committed any serious or premeditated wrong—was not a hardened or habitual sinner. But now all the worse portions of his nature were aroused within him. Voluptuous by nature, and not, perhaps, disinclined to sensuality, his attention had been struck by the singular beauty of Rose Castleton, and a keen although vague desire of possessing her had occupied his mind for the moment. A little thought, however, had quickly brought him back to his better senses, and while he was thus fluctuating between the influences of his good and evil genii, a single admonition from a wise and sincere friend had drawn the black drop from his heart; but in the place of the sage adviser Edward had met the tempter. The question which he had asked of his ill-disposed gamekeeper, in curiosity and from the want of any other interesting topic, had been so answered by that artful man as to inflame the nascent passions of his master, and by creating a doubt of Rose’s purity to palliate to his mind the offence which he soon began to meditate against her. Twofold was the design of Eversly; first, and most prominent, by basely pandering to the evil qualities of the young baronet, to gain such an ascendancy over his mind as might contribute to his own advancement—second, to wreak his vengeance on a girl who had rejected his addresses, and on the man who had won the love of her whom he once courted. With his heart burning yet at the hints and instigations of that bad servant, he had been thrown into the whirl and vortex of licentious merriment which characterized the conversation of his companions, and there his passions were excited, his dormant vanity aroused, till he had worked himself into a resolute determination to make Rose Castleton his victim and his mistress. It was on this account that he walked with an absent mind among his shouting peasantry, uneasy that he could not discover the object of his burning passion, unwilling to inquire her whereabouts, lest he should prematurely wake suspicion.

Suddenly, as he passed the May-pole and neared the hawthorn bush and pastoral throne beneath it, his glad eye fell upon the rustic beauty. She had been chosen Queen of the May, and sat on high, surrounded by the prettiest of the village maidens, upon the grassy seat—her bright eye sparkling even more brightly than its wont with gratified ambition—her dark cheek flushed with the quick lustre of successful vanity. A crown of gorgeous flowers had now supplanted the meek cottage bonnet, and many a dewy bud was mingled with her long curled tresses; the modest kerchief that had veiled her falling shoulders and fair neck was gone, and insufficiently replaced by a gay wreath which crossed her bosom, like a baldric, and twined around her waist; a tall white lily, meet sceptre for so beautiful a queen, graced her right hand, as with young, artless mirth she issued her commands to the blithe crowd around her. Why does her cheek so suddenly turn pale—why flush to so hot crimson? Alas! poor maid! her eye met Edward Hale’s, as he drew nigh, and noted the strong passionate expression of delighted admiration which it had noted once before. And yet she loved Frank Hunter—ardently, truly loved him! And yet—and yet—oh woman! woman! well said the great Magician of the North, noting thy changeful mood, well did he paint thee

Well wrote the Roman bard, himself no mean judge of thy quick, capricious humor, well wrote he

For thou, Rose Castleton, loving, most truly and most singly loving, Frank Hunter, and caring nothing for Sir Edward, all for a poor brief triumph of thy sex’s passion, and therewithal to punish Frank for his short jealous fit that morning, didst meet the eye of the young baronet with that half bold, half bashful glance of thine—half innocent, half conscious, that made him fancy thee half won already, made him strain every nerve to win thee. Fair face, and graceful form, and eloquence so warm and wily as never peasant maiden listened to without dread peril, and rare skill in the mazes of the dance, and sumptuous garb, and dignity and rank—beware! beware! Rose Castleton. All day he danced with her upon the green, his gay companions selecting for their partners the prettiest four of her attendant nymphs, and, like Sir Edward, monopolizing them the live-long day—and at the noonday feast she sat beside him, her little heart high fluttering with vanity, and pleasure, and ambition. She had listened to his vows of love, how delicately syllabled to her fond ear—his arm had been about her waist—his lips had snatched a kiss before they parted—and she had promised, too—promised to meet him in the Monks’ coppice ere the moon set that evening—and yet, weak fool! she dreamed she did no wrong, and laid the flattering unction to her soul, that she would forgive Frank soon, when she had made him soundly jealous. Beware! Rose Castleton, beware! Heaven succor thee, or thou art but a lost one!

The lighted hall succeeded—the sumptuous supper, the rich Burgundy, the mirth, the revelry, the boasting. The hour drew nigh for his appointment; and easily excused, Sir Edward went his way to the lone coppice. That night, although they revelled long and late, his friends saw nothing of their host, and when—two hours past midnight—they adjourned, they learned that he had been abed these three hours.

“Why this,” cried Henry St. Maur, as they met at breakfast, “this is the very insolence of conquest—was not the lovely Rose worth even an hour’s attention?”

“Tush!” answered Edward Hale, with a sharp voice and moody brow, “tush! she came not to the appointment—they would not let her come—and her old dotard of a father has been here these three hours ago, begging my sanction for her marriage with Frank Hunter on to-morrow morning, lest scandal come of her dancing with a gallant such as I. By all the powers of hell! she is lost to me altogether.”

“Nonsense, man—nonsense!” interrupted Spencer, “we will arrange it for you in a twinkling—only it will not do that you be seen in it. My ship lies on the coast, not fifteen miles from Barnsley; I’ll ride across and get a press-gang up, and lay this Master Hunter by the heels, if we can only lure him out of doors to-night—and Harry St. Maur must have a carriage ready at midnight, somewhere by the park wall, and must break into the girl’s chamber and carry her off for you. The only difficulty that I see, will be to get Frank Hunter out of doors at night, for we must do that part of the business quietly.”

“There is no difficulty in that,” said Sir Edward, his face brightening up in a moment; “Hunter was here with the old man, and told me he should ride to Stapleford this afternoon on business, and return home ere midnight by the coppice road—Mark Eversley will show you where to lay in ambush; and he will show you, St. Maur, where the girl lives—he is a trusty knave, and will keep counsel—by Heaven! this is well thought of. I will go straight away, and feign some business summoning me to London, and will ride on with Spencer as far as to the inn at Barnsley—there I will tarry until all is over, and meeting St. Maur at the cross-road on the London turnpike by the old battle pillar, enact the rescuer of the girl, and carry her off to the coast, or any where until the scandal shall blow over—she is right willing, I am certain. Good friends—by Heaven! you are good friends to me!”

In a few minutes, Eversley was called in to council, and the dark plot was laid, and all made ready—and Spencer and Sir Edward rode away for Barnsley, leaving Lord Henry St. Maur and Percy Harbottle behind them at the manor, to finish the arrangements of the night.

The night was far advanced, and in all respects suited to the purposes of the conspirators. It had been a dim, gray, misty evening, with every now and then a violent burst of cold and wintry rain; the wind howled fearfully about the tree tops and the chimneys of the manor, and it was withal so black and dark that before midnight a man could not have seen his hand a yard before his face. Twelve o’clock was already striking, and all things were prepared for action—a carriage, one of the lightest of the ponderous vehicles of that day, with four strong horses harnessed to it, stood in a hollow way close to the postern gate in the park wall, sheltered from observation by a dense screen of overhanging coppice, ready to bear Rose off to London, so soon as she should be seized by the ruffians appointed for the task under the orders of Lord Henry St. Maur. Meantime, the gang of sailors, well armed with bludgeons, pistols and cutlasses, lay hid in the dark Monks’ wood coppice, with Captain Spencer and his first lieutenant, who had been summoned for the purpose from the frigate at Portsdown; and at a small hedge ale-house, scarcely a mile distant, a light taxed cart, with two swift horses attached to it, tandem fashion, was in waiting to bear the captured yeoman to his floating prison.

The times had been calculated closely, and all so far had gone successfully. Frank Hunter was even now jogging home, as the press-gang had anticipated, with a full purse and happy heart, from the distant market; and now Lord Henry, with his ruffians, was actually planting firm the ladder against the chamber window of the innocent girl, who slept, all unsuspicious and unconscious, the calm soft sleep of modesty and youthful happiness.

Sir Edward Hale, however, who, as it had been previously arranged, was to be absent from the spot, that no suspicion should rest on his fair fame as having been connected with either of these outrages—Sir Edward was ill at ease and anxious—he was too young in evil—he had too much of actual goodness in his composition—was too unhardened in the road of sin—not to feel many a twinge of conscience, many a keen compunctious visitation. He, too, was now in action—he had already supped at the small market town, where he had met his evil counsellors only three days before, and was now mounted and riding onward rapidly toward the point on the great London road, where, at some three hours later, he was to meet the carriage bearing his destined mistress from her terrified and grieving family. He had, as we have said already, felt full many a prick of conscience, full many a touch of half repentant sorrow, but still, whenever he made up his mind, as he did many times that night, a dread—that false dread which so often drives frail men to crime and sorrow—the dread of the mockery and laughter of his more hardened comrades prevailed, and hindered him from turning his head homeward, and stopping those base outrages. Still, though he dared not halt in the career of sin, (though he felt that he could not, even though he would, repent,) he was sad, moody and reluctant, and he rode onward slowly, guiding his horse with an irresolute and feeble hand through the blind darkness. He was now eight or nine miles only distant from the bridge which had been fixed upon as the spot where he was to overtake the carriage, and enact the part of Rose’s rescuer from St. Maur and his myrmidons—and was just in the act of crossing the road which led from the market town, whence Hunter was returning, past the Monks’ coppice, where the press-gang was patiently awaiting the young yeoman. The London road, after it crossed the narrow track in question, mounted the brow of a short bold hill, and dived at once into a deep and shadowy dingle, with a large brook, which had been swollen by that night’s rain into a wild and foamy torrent, threading the bottom of the dell. The brook, which lay deep between rocky banks, was spanned at this place by a rude wooden bridge, which had, for some time past, been gradually falling into ruin, and scarce two hours before the time of which we write, the whole of the weak fabric had been swept away by the swollen torrent. At the cross-road, the youthful baronet paused even longer than before, and doubted—yes, greatly doubted, whether he should not alter even now his purpose; but as he did so, the distant clatter of a hoof came down the horse-road from the direction of the town, and instantly suspecting that the traveler could be no other than Frank Hunter, he dashed his spurs into his horse’s side, and galloped furiously across the hill, and down the steep descent toward the yawning chasm, fearful of being seen under the circumstances by the man to whom he was engaged in plotting so fearful an injury. Down the steep track he drove—furiously—headlong—spurring his noble hunter—On! on! as if he were careering in full flight—flight from that fearful fury—a self-tormenting conscience—which, to borrow the glowing image of the Latin lyrist—“Climbs to the deck of the brazen galley, and mounts on the croup of the flying horseman!” On! he came on!—now he is on the brink of the dread precipice—one other bound would have precipitated horse and man together into the dark abysm—but the horse bounded not—he saw almost too late the frightful space, and stood with his feet rooted to the verge, stock still, even as a sculptured image—stock still from his furious gallop, even at the chasm’s brink. Headlong was Edward Hale launched by the shock into the wheeling stream, and well was it for him that the stream was so wildly flooded, for had he fallen on the rocks he had been dashed to atoms. Deep! deep! he sunk into the wheeling stream—but he rose instantly to the surface, and struck out lightly for his life, for he was both a bold and active swimmer. At the same instant he shouted loudly—wildly—so as no man can shout who is not in such desperate extremity—again—and again, for succor. Just at this moment the moon came out bright from the scattering clouds, and showed him all the perils of his state, but showed him no way to escape them—so steeply did the rocks tower above his head, so wildly did the torrent whirl him upon its mad and foaming waters. Again he shouted—and again—and once he thought his shout was answered—fainter he waxed and fainter—he sunk—rose—sunk and rose again—a deadlier and more desperate struggle—a wilder yell for help—and the water rushed into his mouth, and a flash glanced across his eyes, and he floated helplessly, hopelessly down the gulf, when a strong arm seized hold of him and dragged him to the bank, for he had drifted through the gorge, and the stream flowed here through low and level meadows. A little space he lay there senseless, and then by the kind and attentive energies of his rescuer, he was brought back to life, and his first glance, as his soul returned to him, fell on the frank face of the man who had preserved him—that man Frank Hunter! All Edward Hale’s best feelings rushed back in a flood upon him—he started to his knee.

“I thank thee,” he cried fervently, “with all my soul I thank thee—mighty, all-mighty Lord, that thou hast saved me—not from death alone—but from this deadly sin!”

And seeing Hunter’s hand, he poured into his half incredulous and all bewildered ear, the story—the confession of his dark, meditated crime.

“But there is time—there is yet time,” he cried; “the horses—where are the horses?”

“Here! here! Sir Edward,” cried the stout yeoman; “I caught your hunter as I came along, and tied him with my hackney to this tree.”

A moment, and they were both in the saddle, furiously spurring toward the place where we have seen the carriage. They reached it—reached it in time—reached it just as Rose Castleton, fainting betwixt surprise and terror, was thrust into it by the hand of Henry St. Maur.

“St. Maur!” cried Edward, “St. Maur, you are a villain—you forced me into this—but God be praised, who has given me grace to turn before more ill is done. Here, take her, Hunter—take her, I give her to you—take her—God bless you, and be happy!”

“Sir Edward Hale, you answer me for this, by Heaven!” cried St. Maur, furiously.

“When you will, my lord—when you will!”

“Now, then—now!” shouted St. Maur, unsheathing with the word his rapier. Sir Edward followed his example—their blades crossed instantly, but the young baronet fought only on the defensive. St. Maur thrust fiercely, furiously, madly—but he was too enraged to keep his wonted skill in fence, and at the third pass he fell headlong, breaking his small sword as he did so.

“Take your life—take your life, my lord, and mend it!”

Sullenly, slowly the young nobleman arose, and shook the hilt of his broken blade at his victor.

“You will repent of this,” he said, and disappeared in the swart darkness.

But Sir Edward Hale never did repent that hour—from that night never more had sin dominion over him. He lived, and married, and became the father of a family—happy among his happy tenants—and when he died, the country people mourned him as “The Good Lord of the Manor.”

BY REV. WALTER COLTON, U.S.N.

BY MARY L. LAWSON.

—Bulmer.

A GLANCE AT THE PAST.

BY MISS JANE T. LOMAX.

The brilliant sun of an Eastern sky looked down in cloudless splendor on the thronged courts and magnificent palaces of the fair city of Palmyra. Men of every nation were there assembled; the proud Roman, the swarthy Egyptian, the stately Persian, and the polished Greek, mingled in the crowded streets. In a small and simply furnished apartment of one of the most majestic dwellings, sat a man scarcely past the early summer of life, and habited in a costume whose graceful simplicity was rarely seen among the luxurious nobles of the East. On a table made of dark and curiously wrought wood were scattered scrolls in various languages, and implements for writing, while an unfinished manuscript lay before the occupant of the studio. With the exception of a few couches and some antique statues, the room had no other furniture nor ornament, and presented a singular contrast in its unpretending decorations to the sumptuous chambers of many of the city’s mansions. The occupant of this apartment was Longinus, the minister and secretary of Zenobia, the powerful queen of the East. As a writer and scholar, the minister’s name had from his youth been an honored one; and as the favorite of his sovereign, he was the most influential among the multitude of courtiers. With an eccentricity which, whether the result of philosophical tastes, or worldly affectation, was at least wise in one seeking popularity with the crowd, Longinus shunned the splendid style of the nobility, and lived a life of peculiar severity. His palace, though magnificent in itself, was unadorned, except by ancient curiosities and learned volumes; and this singular freedom from luxury among a people with whom it was the alpha and omega of existence, gained him the reverence of the mass, and won the respect even of those whose habits he avoided, and on whose costly pleasures his own simple pursuits were a silent but eloquent sarcasm. Though still young, intense reflection and long devotion to study had given the author an air of meditation almost amounting to gloom; and the intellectual forehead, shaded by dark, waving hair, was already pressed with the signet of earnest thought. His face was not regularly handsome, but his smile changed the mournful expression of his features to winning softness; and his eyes were shadowy and lustrous as if they looked dreams. Possessing much of that high ambition which is at once the companion and the shadow of genius, Longinus spared neither time nor application in increasing his vast store of learning which even now was wonderful; and, except when fulfilling public duties, he rarely joined the pomp and gayety of the court. Fame was his idol, and more gracious to him than to many of her worshipers, she gave him the crown of celebrity so often sought in vain. The wish for distinction taught him to toil for the admiration of futurity; and like the god-given pillar of old, it was at the same time a column of light luring him onward, and a mass of cloud shutting out the temptations of the world. The scholar seemed now in an idle mood; and he carelessly put aside the illumined scroll he was reading, and threw himself on a couch. The hopes which gilded his life floated before him—visions of glory, long, bright day-dreams of a future, brilliant with the shining jewels of universal praise. He fancied the approbation to be bestowed by following ages, when the generation which first wreathed his deeds with laurel should have passed away. He pictured the homage of other lands, and the reverential wonder of those who, through the dust and dimness of the past, would hereafter trace out the records of his life. Perhaps, even in his wildest wishes, the dreamer could not portray the length of celebrity he was fated to gain; he little thought that when Zenobia’s history should be far off, and indistinct as some fairy legend; when the very name of Palmyra should become a doubtful memory; and the sand-clouds of the desert have buried the last vestige of a mighty people, his fame would glitter still; and the unknown thousands of a new world would dwell on his greatness as a scholar, and ponder on the mighty mind whose works should live on, while monarchs died, and empires passed away to be forgotten. The knowledge of all this would have cheered many a moment of depression, and stolen from his path much of its roughness; but the veil which hides the doom of the lowly, falls alike over that of the lofty in wisdom; and the mist which shuts from us our coming joys and sorrows, clung also around the proud pyramid of that student’s destiny.

The sound of approaching steps roused the visionary; and Longinus, unwilling to be seen indulging in such indolence, and with that regard to appearances which had gained many a high reputation, hastily took a volume from the table, and appeared absorbed in its pages. An attendant, in the garb of an Egyptian, entered the room, and presenting a roll of parchment, silently withdrew. A shade of anger flitted over the minister’s countenance, as he glanced at the characters traced on the scroll.

“These Romans cannot forget old feuds!” he muttered; “each day brings new demands, and creates stronger jealousies; but we will crush them yet, and Palmyra shall not bear their yoke while Zenobia will be ruled by me!” And, as if resolved to banish thoughts which were unpleasant, he placed the manuscript in a secret drawer, and quitted the apartment.

Life is made up of contrasts and contradictions—the lofty and the lowly—the gifted and the simple—the brilliant with joy and the bowed down by sorrow—mingle, side by side, in the world. The sunshine that gladdens the palace, illumines the hovel; the stars that gaze on the splendors of royalty, look also on the wretchedness of the poor and lonely; and the sky spreading above us, is the same that watched over the wonders and miracles of old. The human heart, too, with all its changes, is yet the same, and beats now with the like passions and affections that throbbed in the bosoms of those whose names have come down to us through the darkness of antiquity. The stream of time that rushes onward to the ocean of eternity, glides at once by all the glory and all the misery of the earth; unvaried in itself, it alters all things; and the same billow that leaves a pearl on the sea-shore, sweeps away the flowers blooming on the banks.

CHAPTER II.

In a room widely different from the student’s, and furnished with all the luxury of Eastern lands, reposed a maiden of proud stature, whose face was haughtily beautiful. She wore the purple drapery which distinguished the nobility of Zenobia’s court, and the rich hue of her dress harmonized well with the style of features, which, though regular and classic, were too stern to be lovely. Her eyes were half closed, as she reclined on soft cushions, and listened to the low, ringing sound of her attendant’s music.

“Cease those dull love ballads, I pray you,” said the lady, in a languid tone of authority; “you are strangely fanciful to imagine such gloomy verses suit my taste. Lay aside your lute, Merea, ere you make me as sad as your songs.”

The Persian girl silently obeyed, and then returned to her seat on a low ottoman at her mistress’s feet.

“Tell me one of the stories of your land,” continued the lady; “but I am weary to day, so let it be brief, and not too sorrowful.”

After a moment’s thought the Persian commenced her story, and her voice was deep and thrilling as the echo of a lover’s farewell.

“Far away, beyond the blue mountains, is a valley where the roses are us fresh as young hopes, and the air is fraught with the fragrance of undying spring. The streams are brighter than liquid jewels, and the flowers that bend over them are sweeter than any that open here. The stars love to look on such beauty; and the birds that once find a resting there, never leave it for another. It is a spot of matchless loveliness, lady; and though I cannot picture it to you, its image is graven on my heart. In this fair valley was a happy home, where childhood’s laugh mocked the murmuring of clear fountains; and the tender tones of love were more musical than the low whispers of the long grasses, as they tell their secrets to the summer wind. The bulbul’s song was the night’s unceasing melody; and the moon that shone on that peaceful dwelling was brighter than the one that looks on Palmyra——”

“Listen, Merea!” said the auditor, interrupting the description which, with tearful eyes, the Persian was giving, “listen! that is surely his step!” and as she spoke, the silk curtains were drawn aside, and Longinus entered. “I knew I could not be mistaken,” said the lady, as she eagerly rose to welcome, the visiter; “but you are later to-day than usual—why is it?”

“Because, even the dictates of thou heart, sweet sister, must bend to those of duty,” was the answer, as with his winning, eloquent smile Longinus returned her greeting. “I have little time now to spare from public duties, but that little, Beatrice, is always given to you.”

“I do not doubt it,” she replied, and her warm look of love lent her face an expression of high and earnest tenderness; “but you are pale and sad, my brother—tell me what is passing in the city to depress you thus?”

“My intelligence is gloomy, indeed,” said Longinus, sadly; “the demands of Rome are ever increasing, and I this morning received tidings of an approaching army to subdue the queen. If war cannot be avoided, the city might be long defended, though there is slight prospect of our final success.”

“The gulf of jealous hatred between Rome and Palmyra seems ever widening,” said Beatrice; “who can foretell the ruin its waves may work.”

“Nay, dear one, we must hope for the best,” said the scholar, in a lighter tone; “but let us now forget the tumult around us, and be happy while we are together. Will you strike your lute, Beatrice, and drown sad thoughts in music?”

“Bring me a lute, Merea,” said the lady, turning to the window, where, shaded by heavy drapery, the Persian girl was standing. Beatrice spoke in the cold, imperative manner she always assumed to her inferiors; and her countenance lost the sweet light of love which had welcomed her brother. With a step falling noiselessly on the Turkish carpet which covered the floor, the attendant brought the instrument, and Longinus, attracted by her wonderful loveliness, gazed at her with an earnestness that called to her cheek a tinge like the faint roseate hue of an ocean shell. The tears summoned up by the description of her childhood’s home, yet glittered on her lashes; for the recollections of the young exile were always mournful, and memory to her was the Marah whose bitterness could never depart.

“I cannot tune this lute,” said Beatrice, petulantly, as one of the wires broke; “take it, Merea, and string it better in future.”

Calmly replacing the wire, Merea again presented the instrument; but Beatrice, with the capriciousness which marked her character, now refused to play, and rudely rejected it.

“Since you will not cheer me with music, Beatrice,” said Longinus, as he cast a glance of compassion on the meek attendant of so haughty a mistress, “at least let this maiden strike the chords.”

“As you will,” replied the lady, carelessly, “as you will; but the girl has wearied me so often with her love-sick ballads, that I would fain be spared a repetition of them now.”

Again a vivid color flushed the Persian’s cheek, and again it died away, as in her low, touching voice she said,

“I am grieved, lady, that my music should have wearied you; but I will remember hereafter, that to tell of love, and to gain it, are both denied me.”

“Nay, Merea, Beatrice meant not what she said!” exclaimed Longinus, softened by the hopeless tone of the girl’s reply; “do not believe her heart is chill as her words.”

Merea made no answer, but her dark eyes were full of gratitude as they met the student’s gaze of sympathy; and the time came when she deemed that look a recompense for the harshness she had borne for years. O, if there be a sorrow on this earth that breaks the spirit, that the lapse of days heals not; a sorrow that sears the soul it darkens, it is the wearisome lot of one, exiled from the home and the friends to which love clings closest, and living in that worst of solitude, the pining, yearning loneliness of the heart. Such a lot was Merea’s; and sad enough were the dreams of home, and friends, and freedom, that came back as if in mockery; bitter, indeed, was the slave’s remembrance of old ties, dear and broken—of old hopes, bright and blighted.

CHAPTER III.

The streets of the city were crowded with passengers of various nations, and on the countenances of all rested a look of care and anxiety. Groups of men met at the corners, and spoke together in low, mysterious whispers; while others, bolder, or less prudent, talked loudly of ending present suffering, even at a fearful cost. The few weeks which had passed since the scenes of the last chapter, had wrought mighty changes in Palmyra; and war, with its myriad hosts of evil, had descended like a tempest on the doomed people. The Roman army, under Aurelian himself, had gained a victory in the field, and was now besieging the city. For many days the immense force of the enemy had been fiercely and proudly resisted; but the defenders had become dispirited; famine threatened to prostrate their ranks; and their opposition, though still held out, was less unanimous, and each hour waxed fainter. The Romans dwelling within the walls fought neither for their countrymen nor their fellow-citizens, and though few in number, their wealth and rank gave them great influence over the lower order. Their counsels to surrender, which were at first vehemently rejected, now found calmer listeners; and the tumult of an impatient and divided populace was added to the horrors that hovered round Palmyra. Harassed by troubles on all sides, yet still aspiring and determined, the queen summoned Longinus to a final consultation regarding her future course. The minister’s brow was shadowed, and his face was wan and care-worn as he entered the sovereign’s palace. Proceeding through a long gallery, adorned with paintings and statues, Longinus reached the room where the queen awaited his coming. It was a large hall, paved in curious mosaic, with flat circular pebbles of various hues; and its vaulted ceiling was supported by Corinthian pillars of black marble, between which hung flowing crimson drapery, looped up with golden cords. A single immense arched casement, at the extremity of the apartment, and round windows of stained glass in the roof, admitted a mellow light, that fell brightest on the throne of crimson and gold where Zenobia was seated. Her costume was the imperial purple she delighted to wear; and as her conference with the minister was a private and informal one, she wore no crown. But even the anxiety of the sovereign could not banish the vanity of the woman; and though surrounded by danger, and threatened with treachery, Zenobia had not forgotten to deck her brow with gems. Her hair fell in long, glossy braids, and the rich colored light gleamed full on a face, the records of whose marvelous beauty have lasted for centuries. The minister’s look of gloom was reflected in his companion’s countenance, as she listened to his detail of rebellion and discontent among the people. But even while fearing that resistance would be vain, the student advised its continuance; and Zenobia resolved to follow a counsel suiting so well her own haughty pride. The terms which Aurelian had proposed she spurned with disdain; and, at her command, Longinus wrote that arrogant letter of defiance, which afterwards cost him so dear.

“We shall see how this will suit the conqueror’s taste,” she said, with a proud smile, as she read over the bold and lofty eloquence of the scholar’s letter; “we will show these Romans that, with all their success, they have not learned to bend Zenobia’s spirit.”

But the counsellor’s answer was not encouraging, for his hopes were faint; and as he returned to his home, the increased excitement of the populace told him the prospect of long resistance was fleeting rapidly.

The evening of that day closed without a cloud, and the full moon gleamed radiantly on the high minarets and majestic columns of the mighty city, while loftiest above a wilderness of palaces, rose the splendid dome of the magnificent Temple of the Sun. It was near midnight; the confused hum of human voices was hushed, and no sound was audible save the occasional clash of armor in the Roman ranks. The curtains of Beatrice’s apartment were drawn aside, and she stood by a window that looked beyond the city walls. Before her, on one side, towered the mountains, which seemed to guard Palmyra, and below them spread the vast desert, now sprinkled with the snow-white tents of the besieging army. The lady’s face lost its common air of sternness as she gazed—for Longinus’ gloomy anticipations and faint hopes depressed her mind—and breathing one earnest prayer for her brother’s safety, she retired to dream of a glory that never rose again on the fairest city of the East.

As soon as her mistress slept, Merea, wrapping a mantle around her, descended with noiseless steps to the street. No sound was now heard, and the long shadows rested on the marble pavement. Rapidly, but silently, the Persian traversed, one after another, the most splendid squares, till she reached a remote quarter, where the mansions were less noble and less numerous. Pausing at last before a low dwelling, consisting of a single apartment, and built of rough fragments of stone, the girl knocked gently on the closed door. It opened immediately, and Merea entered the cell of the famous Persian astrologer. A feeling of awe crept over her as she glanced at the mysterious instruments and various charms lying on the granite block that formed the magician’s table. The astrologer was by birth a Persian, but a member of the Essene Philosophers—a Jewish sect, of singular opinions, and practicing great austerities. The old man’s face was mild and benevolent; he wore the flowing white robe of his order, and his dwelling was destitute of luxuries, and even of comforts. Merea’s cheeks grew pale as the door shut, and she found herself alone with the sage, whose strange deeds and miracles had long been the wonder of Palmyra.

“What wouldst thou, maiden?” said her companion, in a gentle tone; “Ask my aid without fear; it is given to all who seek it, and will not be refused one from my own land.” But Merea was still silent, and her heart beat quicker as she listened. “It is of that land you would speak,” the philosopher continued; “you would ask of a home long left, of friends far away; you would know if they love you yet.”

“Father, you have said rightly,” she answered, reassured by the kind tone of one she deemed apart from all sympathy with the world; “Oh, for a single look at my home to bring back the past!”

“Your wish shall be granted,” said the magician; “gaze in this mirror, and tell me what is there.”

A clear, golden light suddenly filled the room, and gradually leaving the rest of the apartment in deep shadow, was concentrated on a plate of polished steel, which gave the image of a fair scene. A dwelling, wreathed with the vines and flowers of a sunny land, stood beside a bright stream, and blossoms of every hue grew around. The sun looked on that valley with a brilliant eye, and the dimpled waters seemed smiling in sympathy.

“It is my own home!” said the girl, as her fascinated gaze rested on the picture, “the sweet spot I dreamed I should never see again.”

“It is never well, maiden, to anticipate sorrow, for hope is the gift of Heaven. Would you see the faces you love as they shone on you last? Look again.”

The scene changed. The mirror gave back a group of mourners, and one of them bowed in prayer.

“My mother!” said the gazer, and her eyes were dimmed with burning tears. Her companion paused till her passionate burst of grief passed away, and then said,

“View your home as it is now, maiden, and read the sad lesson of forgetfulness, which sooner or later all must learn.”

The lovely dwelling once more appeared, and smiling faces looked from its balcony; her mother was not there, but she saw the loved companions of other years. Their brows were glad, and their lips were smiling; she was not missed; her place at home was filled. Beside a fair girl, crowned with a garland of roses, a youth knelt with earnest and kindled eyes. Merea remembered him well—for even thus he once had knelt to her. With a shudder she turned away, as she murmured,

“I can look no longer—they have all forgotten me!”

“Merea,” said the magician, “such is the destiny of all; the flower blooms, withers, and is gone; the star shines and falls—we miss them not. I tell you that ere many days have passed, the lot you mourn shall come even to this proud city, and hereafter the name of Palmyra shall mark only ruin and decay. Silence shall follow the strife of war; and the sand-billows of the desert shall roll above the loftiest towers that now rise here to heaven. Repine not that the fate of all the earth hath dawned so early on you. What matters it whether the leaf die by itself in the springtime, or lives to be swept away by the autumn wind which bows the forest?”

Merea hesitated for a moment, and a slight color flushed her cheek as she said, falteringly,

“Father, in the book of wisdom which predicts the sorrow of this city, have you read the fate of Longinus?”

“He must die!” was the answer. “Alas, for Palmyra! The tempest hath gathered above her, and fearful will be its wrath.”

“Once more, father,” said the girl, “the cloud darkens before the lightning strikes; will there be no sign given to this people?”

“Is there a voice in the whirlwind to tell the ruin it will work?” replied the astrologer, “or does the oak listen to the warning of the storm? The proud are rarely wise. Merea, the wisdom that foretells and prepares, is the meed of the lowly—for humility is the perfection of our knowledge. Predictions have been given and mocked; signs shall be seen, yet heeded not. Mark you yon bright star, whose lustre dims the orbs around it? while that star shines, Palmyra will not be lost. Ask no more, maiden, but return to thy gloomy dwelling. The harshness which has clouded it will soon be punished; and the haughtiness that has made thy lot so sad, will be laid low. Depart in peace, and my blessing be with thee.”

He placed his hand on the young girl’s head, and murmuring a farewell, she left him to his solitude.

With rapid steps Merea retraced her way, and soon reached the apartment where Beatrice still slept. Raising the drapery of the window, the Persian looked on the Roman tents that stretched far out toward the moonlit desert. The astrologer’s prophecies came back to her memory, and she anxiously sought the star whose radiance was now an omen. It shone still, and Merea murmured—

“Hope cannot yet be lost, or that light would gleam less brightly!”

And even as she spoke, the star fell from heaven!

CHAPTER IV.

The loud shouts of the crowd broke Beatrice’s slumbers, and she looked on a scene of wild and startling confusion. A dense throng of men swept on to the gates of the city, and their weapons were thrown aside. Suddenly, strange stillness rested on the mass—it lasted but a moment—the next instant the ponderous gates were flung open by the populace, and, with a deafening peal of triumph, the Roman troops filled the streets. With mingled shame and sorrow, Longinus learned that Zenobia, overcome by fear, had deserted her people, and with only her immediate attendants, had fled from the city. Her escape he knew was impossible, for the enemy’s vigilance could not long be eluded; and the proud soul of the scholar was crushed by a degradation so unexpected and so useless. The rage of the besiegers, on discovering the queen’s departure, knew no bounds; parties were sent in pursuit, and Longinus, who was her acknowledged counsellor, was consigned to a dungeon. The sun went down that night on many changes; Zenobia, overtaken in her flight, was a captive in her own palace, and her favorite follower slept in a prisoner’s cell.

The queen was alone in her splendid apartment, guarded by Roman soldiers, and with no trace remaining of her former fearlessness. She was weeping bitterly. All that she had lived to win was gone, and she looked back on her eventful career with the wildness of unavailing sorrow. She dwelt on the calm days spent in the Arab tent, which was her first home; she recalled the glory of her conquests, the splendor of her court, the faithfulness of her friends. These she had forsaken, and with the depth of her despair mingled the reproaches of her own conscience.

“Lady,” said a low voice, near her—and roused by the sound, Zenobia saw a young girl kneeling before her; “can you forgive the boldness that brought me here?” continued the suppliant, “and grant me one boon?”

“You forget, maiden,” said Zenobia, “that my power is gone. I cannot now bestow the simplest gift.”

“I do not forget,” returned Merea, “that Zenobia’s wishes have never been denied. It is no personal advantage I would ask, lady; I sue for one whose arm has ever been the first to aid his queen, and whose mind has poured forth for her its mightiest treasures. He is a lonely captive, condemned to die. You can no longer command, lady, but will you not deign to ask as a favor the life of Longinus?”

“It is impossible, maiden,” said the queen, sadly, while a tear glittered in her eye; “the request would not be granted were it made, and the condescension would be in vain. I also am a captive, and those who have shared my glory must bear my sorrow too.”

“He has done both,” returned Merea, warmly; “his only crime is zeal in your service. Oh, do not refuse to save him—remember his faithfulness, and let it plead for him.”

“Thou art strangely earnest, maiden,” said the sovereign, looking with surprise on the enthusiastic bearing of the girl; “thy garb bespeaks thee of a foreign clime—why hath the fate of Longinus such powerful interest with a stranger?”

“Lady,” was the reply, “I am of another land; and here I have lived a life of slavery and grief. No word of softness greeted me, no look of kindness answered mine for long years. His pity was the first that brightened my weary exile; and slight and transient though it was, I would fain repay his sympathy. His claims on his queen cannot be forgotten, and they are above reward. Aurelian is gracious, and he would not deny thee the life of a friend.”

“Again I tell you the request is impossible. I have confessed Longinus to have been the writer of the defiance which has so greatly incensed the Romans. They will not pardon that offence, and I cannot demand its forgiveness.”

“Then your own acknowledgment has wrought his ruin!” exclaimed the Persian; “let him not die at the instigation of the mistress he has spent his whole existence to aid.”

“Urge me no more,” returned the sovereign, haughtily; “though conquered and a captive, I am still a queen, and Zenobia is not yet so fallen as to become a suppliant of Rome.”

Silently Merea rose from her lowly posture, and after a long look at the proud face before her, she said, calmly—

“Then be it thus! I had deemed that gratitude was a virtue of the great, but I find it is felt only by the slave. The time may come, lady, when the memory of this vain prayer will be to you a sorrow, when you will mourn the empty pride that prompted the sacrifice of your most faithful counsellor. Believe me, not all your conquests, not all your splendor, can alone for this most base ingratitude. The name of Zenobia will hereafter be named with scornful pity, as one who lived only for herself, and was apart from those higher and holier impulses that are better than the glory of princes.”

And ere Zenobia could reply, the curtains had closed on the Persian, and she was gone.

The light of morning broke dimly and faintly through the barred window of the minister’s cell, and no sound from the busy world without entered the gloomy chamber, save when the heavy step of a sentinel passed the door, or a loud shout from the troops in the city announced another triumph.

A rough stone couch was the only furniture of the room, and on this Longinus was seated. He bore no fetters, for he had made no resistance to his fate, and Aurelian, with the generosity of a conqueror, had granted this last privilege to one whose fame extended through all the known world. The philosophy the student had so long inculcated in his writings supported him now; and on his intellectual forehead were no lines more mournful than those traced by a scholar’s midnight vigils. But, perhaps, with all his resignation, the thoughts which contrasted his destiny with his hopes, were thoughts of bitterness. It was no common trial, to end thus a life devoted to honor, to have won by years of care and toil only a prisoner’s cell and a rebel’s death. And with these stern meditations blended soft memories of his youth, and tender dreams of a sweet face, too well beloved, and too early lost. Few dreams outlive so much of the world’s strife, and shine so dearly to the last, as the sad, hallowed remembrance of first and blighted love. It brightens with the changes of time, it is the fairest vision of life, a gleam from the spirit world of old times, a spell recalling and concentrating all the pleasant memories that shine like gems in the dark, shadowy coronet worn by the past. There is religion in such chastened recollections, and their holy stillness was over the captive now. The harsh voice of the soldier who guarded the cell’s entrance interrupted the student’s reflections, and after a few moments the iron-studded door opened, end admitted a figure enveloped in a large mantle. The bolts were again drawn, and the stranger was left in the dungeon.

“Beatrice!” exclaimed Longinus, hastily approaching the visiter, as sudden hope brightened his eyes. The cloak fell from her form, and the scholar met—not the proud look of his sister—but the eloquent gaze of the Persian girl. Disappointed, he half turned away, and a quick flush mantled the maiden’s cheek, as she said—

“It is from Beatrice I come; she has left Palmyra to attend the queen to Rome, and was forbidden to visit you. I bear you her last and sorrowful farewell.”

The listener made no answer, but bowed his face on his hands. After a long pause, which Merea did not break, Longinus murmured—

“Then hope is indeed lost. Beatrice departed, and Zenobia gone, I have nothing to live for! My warmest thanks are due to you, maiden, for the kindness which has prompted you to remember one whom all the world hath forsaken; your reward will be bestowed hereafter.”

“It is gained already in your gratitude,” answered Merea; “but is there nought I can do to serve you?”

“Nothing, maiden, my lot is fixed!” was the reply.

“Will you charge me with no farewell words to friends you love? I will give them faithfully.”

“I doubt it not, Merea; but my friends would value such tokens little, since even Zenobia has deserted me. I had rather be forgotten, than recollected with indifference.”

His voice trembled, and he spoke with the sudden despair of one who had hitherto hoped unconsciously.

“Then farewell,” said Merea, “since I cannot aid thee, though I would do it with my life! May peace rest with thee!”

“You have given it, Merea, by your gentle kindness,” he answered, “and its blessing will be yours forever.”

Merea pressed her lips to the hand he extended, and gave one earnest look at the proud, mournful face, so eloquent with thought. The next instant the iron door had closed on the Persian, and Longinus had parted with his last friend.

CHAPTER V.

Night descended darkly, and fraught with clouds on the devoted city. The clash of armor, and the confused sound of many voices, broke loudly on the midnight. Since Zenobia’s departure for Rome, the tumult in Palmyra had increased, for Aurelian had accompanied the queen, and the troops left to guard the city were opposed by the populace whenever they attempted any act of authority. Conflict succeeded conflict in rapid succession, but at last, conquered, disarmed and broken spirited, the people submitted, and a calm brooded over the city, as treacherous as the stillness of the sea. Suddenly, from various quarters, rose bright, lurid flames, darting like fiery serpents upward to the sky. Faster and faster rushed this new foe to its victory; palaces of marble fell crashing in its path, and the wild agony of human despair made its music of triumph. Fear settled on every heart, and spirits that never yielded to mortal power shrunk trembling and aghast before the mighty conqueror. Prompted by one impulse of hope, a dense body of people, composed alike of Roman soldiers and their desperate opposers, fled toward the gates. To escape from the falling city was the only prospect of safety, and with the speed of dread the mass swept onward. A wild cry of horror burst from those who were foremost, and was sent back with frightful distinctness by the mountain echoes. The gates of the city were closed, and fastened on the outside; the sentinels that had guarded them lay dead, and the immense massive doors of iron which had resisted the Roman army for weeks, were now shut between them and their last hope! To scale the lofty walls was impossible, for all means facilitating such departure had been destroyed to prevent the escape of the populace. The fire, too, was rapidly spreading, and as the certainty of a fearful end inevitable fate sunk deep on each soul, every voice was hushed, and every eye turned horror-stricken, yet fascinated, on the glorious spectacle of the burning city. One after another, monuments, palaces and temples crumbled to dust; and at length, the flames reaching the walls, they also mingled their tottering mass with the overwhelming ocean of ruin. In the madness of desperation, many attempted to climb the smoking parapets, and perished in the attempt. A few only succeeded, and of these, the greater part, exhausted by the struggle, lived only to avoid one doom, and die by another.

The day was dawning—the last day that ever dawned on Palmyra as a city—when the band of wretched survivors gathered at a distance, to gaze on the destruction of their homes. The famous Temple of the Sun, whose splendor was the boast and pride of Zenobia, bore up longest against the victor, and a moan of sorrow burst from the lips of the spectators, as the lurid shroud enwrapped the gorgeous turrets which had reared their gilded summits so proudly to the skies. The magnificent building fell with a mighty crash, and the miserable pilgrims turned away in agony from the funeral pyre of all their hopes.

The morning’s sun rose gloriously to light the wreck of the fairest city of the world, a city whose corner stone was laid by Solomon, and whose peerless beauty was the marvel of its age. No token lingers now to tell of glory gone, and never since hath sunlight shone there, save on the dust and ashes that cover with their dark pall the mouldering relics of the might of Palmyra.

BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

BY N. P. WILLIS.

A grisette is something else beside a “mean girl” or a “gray gown,” the French dictionary to the contrary notwithstanding. Bless me! you should see the grisettes of Rochepot! And if you wished to take a lesson in political compacts, you should understand the grisette confederacy of Rochepot! They were working-girls, it is true—dress-makers, milliners, shoe-binders, tailoresses, flower-makers, embroideresses—and they never expected to be any thing more aristocratic. And in that content lay their power.

The grisettes of Rochepot were a good fourth of the female population. They had their jealousies, and little scandals, and heart-burnings, and plottings, and counterplottings (for they were women) among themselves. But they made common cause against the enemy. They would bear no disparagement. They knew exactly what was due to them, and what was due to their superiors, and they paid and gave credit in the coin of good manners, as cannot be done in countries of “liberty and equality.” Still there were little shades of difference in the attention shown them by their employers, and they worked twice as much in a day when sewing for Madame Durozel, who took her dinner with them, sans façon in the work-room, as for old Madame Chiquette, who dined all alone in her grand saloon, and left them to eat by themselves among their shreds and scissors. But these were not slights which they seriously resented. Wo only to the incautious dame who dared to scandalize one of their number, or dispute her dues, or encroach upon her privileges! They would make Rochepot as uncomfortable for her, parbleu! as a kettle to a slow-boiled lobster.

But the prettiest grisette of Rochepot was not often permitted to join her companions in their self-chaperoned excursions on the holidays. Old Dame Pomponney was the sexton’s widow, and she had the care of the great clock of St. Roch, and of one only daughter; and excellent care she took of both her charges. They lived all three in the belfry—dame, clock and daughter—and it was a bright day for Thénais when she got out of hearing of that “tick, tick, tick,” and of the thumping of her mother’s cane on the long staircase, which always kept time with it.

Not that old Dame Pomponney had any objection to have her daughter convenably married. She had been deceived in her youth (or so it was whispered) by a lover above her condition, and she vowed, by the cross on her cane, that her daughter should have no sweetheart above a journeyman mechanic. Now the romance of the grisettes (parlons bas!) was to have one charming little flirtation with a gentleman before they married the leather-apron—just to show that, had they by chance been born ladies, they could have played their part to the taste of their lords. But it was at this game that Dame Pomponney had burnt her fingers, and she had this one subject for the exercise of her powers of mortal aversion.

When I have added that, four miles from Rochepot, stood the château de Brevanne, and that the old Count de Brevanne was a proud aristocrat of the ancien régime, with one son, the young Count Felix, whom he had educated at Paris, I think I have prepared you tolerably for the little romance I have to tell you.

It was a fine Sunday morning that a mounted hussar appeared in the street of Rochepot. The grisettes were all abroad in their holiday parure, and the gay soldier soon made an acquaintance with one of them at the door of the inn, and informed her that he had been sent on to prepare the old barracks for his troop. The hussars were to be quartered a month at Rochepot. Ah! what a joyous bit of news! And six officers beside the colonel! And the trumpeters were miracles at playing quadrilles and waltzes! And not a plain man in the regiment—except always the speaker. And none, except the old colonel, had ever been in love in his life. But as this last fact required to be sworn to, of course he was ready to kiss the book—or, in the absence of the book, the next most sacred object of his adoration.

“Finissez donc, Monsieur!” exclaimed his pretty listener, and away she ran to spread the welcome intelligence with its delightful particulars.

The next day the troop rode into Rochepot, and formed in the great square in front of St. Roch; and by the time the trumpeters had played themselves red in the face, the hussars were all appropriated, to a man—for the grisettes knew enough of a marching regiment to lose no time. They all found leisure to pity poor Thénais, however, for there she stood in one of the high windows of the belfry, looking down on the gay crowd below, and they knew very well that old Dame Pomponney had declared all soldiers to be gay deceivers, and forbidden her daughter to stir into the street while they were quartered at Rochepot.

Of course the grisettes managed to agree as to each other’s selection of a sweetheart from the troop, and of course each hussar thankfully accepted the pair of eyes that fell to him. For, aside from the limited duration of their stay, soldiers are philosophers, and know that “life is short,” and it is better to “take the goods the gods provide.” But “after every body was helped,” as they say at a feast, there appeared another short jacket and foraging cap, very much to the relief of red-headed Susette, the shoe-binder, who had been left out in the previous allotment. And Susette made the amiable accordingly, but to no purpose, for the lad seemed an idiot with but one idea—looking forever at St. Roch’s clock to know the time of day! The grisettes laughed and asked their sweethearts his name, but they significantly pointed to their foreheads and whispered something about poor Robertin’s being a privileged follower of the regiment and a protegé of the colonel.

Well, the grisettes flirted, and the old clock of St. Roch ticked on, and Susette and Thénais, the plainest and the prettiest girl in the village, seemed the only two who were left out in this extra dispensation of lovers. And poor Robertin still persisted in occupying most of his leisure with watching the time of day.

It was on the Sunday morning after the arrival of the troop that old Dame Pomponney went up, as usual, to do her Sunday’s duty in winding up the clock. She had previously locked the belfry door to be sure that no one entered below while she was above; but—the Virgin help us!—on the top stair, gazing into the machinery of the clock with absorbed attention, sat one of those devils of hussars! “Thief,” “vagabond,” and “house-breaker,” were the most moderate epithets with which Dame Pomponney accompanied the enraged beating of her stick on the resounding platform. She was almost beside herself with rage. And Thénais had been up to dust the wheels of the clock! And how did she know that that scélérat of a trooper was not there all the time!

But the intruder, whose face had been concealed till now, turned suddenly round and began to gibber and grin like a possessed monkey. He pointed at the clock, imitated the “tick, tick, tick,” laughed till the big bell gave out an echo like a groan, and then suddenly jumped over the old dame’s stick and ran down stairs.

“Eh, Sainte Vierge!” exclaimed the old dame, “it’s a poor idiot after all! And he has stolen up to see what made the clock tick! Ha! ha! ha! Well!—well! I cannot come up these weary stairs twice a day, and I must wind up the clock before I go down to let him out. Tick, tick, tick!—poor lad! poor lad! They must have dressed him up to make fun of him—those vicious troopers! Well—well!”

And with pity in her heart, Dame Pomponney hobbled down, stair after stair, to her chamber in the square turret of the belfry, and there she found the poor idiot on his knees before Thénais, and Thénais was just preparing to put a skein of thread over his thumbs, for she thought she might make him useful and amuse him with the winding of it till her mother came down. But as the thread got vexatiously entangled, and the poor lad sat as patiently as a wooden reel, and it was time to go below to mass, the dame thought she might as well leave him there till she came back, and down she stumped, locking the door very safely behind her.

Poor Thénais was very lonely in the belfry, and Dame Pomponney, who had a tender heart where her duty was not involved, rather rejoiced when she returned, to find an unusual glow of delight on her daughter’s cheek; and if Thénais could find so much pleasure in the society of a poor idiot lad, it was a sign, too, that her heart was not gone altogether after those abominable troopers. It was time to send the innocent youth about his business, however, so she gave him a holiday cake and led him down stairs and dismissed him with a pat on his back and a strict injunction never to venture again up to the “tick, tick, tick.” But as she had had a lesson as to the accessibility of her bird’s nest, she determined thenceforth to lock the door invariably and carry the key in her pocket.

While poor Robertin was occupied with his researches into the “tick, tick, tick,” never absent a day from the neighborhood of the tower, the more fortunate hussars were planning to give the grisettes a fête champétre. One of the saints’ days was coming round, and, the weather permitting, all the vehicles of the village were to be levied, and, with the troop-horses in harness, they were to drive to a small wooded valley in the neighborhood of the château de Brevanne, where seclusion and a mossy carpet of grass were combined in a little paradise for such enjoyment.

The morning of this merry day dawned, at last, and the grisettes and their admirers were stirring betimes, for they were to breakfast sur l’herbe, and they were not the people to turn breakfast into dinner. The sky was clear, and the dew was not very heavy on the grass, and merrily the vehicles rattled about the town, picking up their fair freights from its obscurest corners. But poor Thénais looked out, a sad prisoner, from her high window in the belfry.

It was a half hour after sunrise and Dame Pomponney was creeping up stairs after her matins, thanking Heaven that she had been firm in her refusals—at least twenty of the grisettes having gathered about her, and pleaded for a day’s freedom for her imprisoned daughter. She rested on the last landing but one to take a little breath—but hark!—a man’s voice talking in the belfry! She listened again, and quietly slipped her feet out of her high-heeled shoes. The voice was again audible—yet how could it be! She knew that no one could have passed up the stair, for the key had been kept in her pocket more carefully than usual, and, save by the wings of one of her own pigeons, the belfry window was inaccessible, she was sure. Still the voice went on in a kind of pleading murmur, and the dame stole softly up in her stockings, and noiselessly opened the door. There stood Thénais at the window, but she was alone in the room. At the same instant the voice was heard again, and sure now that one of those desperate hussars had climbed the tower, and unable to control her rage at the audacity of the attempt, Dame Pomponney clutched her cane and rushed forward to aim a blow at the military cap now visible at the sill of the window. But at the same instant, the head of the intruder was thrown back, and the gibbering and idiotic smile of poor Robertin checked her blow in its descent, and turned all her anger into pity. Poor, silly lad! he had contrived to draw up the garden ladder and place it upon the roof of the stone porch below, to climb and offer a flower to Thénais! Not unwilling to have her daughter’s mind occupied with some other thought than the forbidden excursion, the dame offered her hand to Robertin and drew him gently in at the window. And as it was now market time she bid Thénais be kind to the poor boy, and locking the door behind her, trudged contentedly off with her stick and basket.

I am sorry to be obliged to record an act of filial disobedience in the heroine of my story. An hour after, Thénais was welcomed with acclamations as she suddenly appeared with Robertin in the midst of the merry party of grisettes. With Robertin—not as he had hitherto been seen, his cap on the back of his head and his under lip hanging loose like an idiot’s—but with Robertin, gallant, spirited and gay, the handsomest of hussars, and the most joyous of companions. And Thénais, spite of her hasty toilet and the cloud of conscious disobedience which now and then shaded her sweet smile, was, by many degrees, the belle of the hour; and the palm of beauty, for once in the world at least, was yielded without envy. The grisettes dearly love a bit of romance, too, and the circumventing of old Dame Pomponney by his ruse of idiocy, and the safe extrication of the prettiest girl of the village from that gloomy old tower, was quite enough to make Robertin a hero, and his sweetheart Thénais more interesting than a persecuted princess.

And, seated on the ground while their glittering cavaliers served them with breakfast, the light-hearted grisettes of Rochepot were happy enough to be envied by their betters. But suddenly the sky darkened, and a slight gust murmuring among the trees, announced the coming up of a summer storm. Sauve qui peut! The soldiers were used to emergencies, and they had packed up and re-loaded their cars and were under way for shelter almost as soon as the grisettes, and away they all fled toward the nearest grange—one of the dependencies of the château de Brevanne.

But Robertin, now, had suddenly become the director and ruling spirit of the festivities. The soldiers treated him with instinctive deference, the old farmer of the grange hurried out with his keys and unlocked the great store-house, and deposed of the horses under shelter; and by the time the big drops begun to fall, the party were dancing gayly and securely on the dry and smooth threshing-door, and the merry harmony of the martial trumpets and horns rang out far and wide through the gathering tempest.

The rain began to come down very heavily, and the clatter of a horse’s feet in a rapid gallop was heard in one of the pauses in the waltz. Some one seeking shelter, no doubt. On went the bewitching music again, and at this moment two or three couples ceased waltzing, and the floor was left to Robertin and Thénais, whose graceful motions drew all eyes upon them in admiration. Smiling in each other’s faces, and wholly unconscious of any other presence than their own, they whirled blissfully around—but there was now another spectator. The horseman who had been heard to approach, had silently joined the party, and making a courteous gesture to signify that the dancing was not to be interrupted, he smiled back the curtseys of the pretty grisettes—for, aristocratic as he was, he was a polite man to the sex, was the Count de Brevanne.

“Felix!” he suddenly cried out, in a tone of surprise and anger.

The music stopped at that imperative call, and Robertin turned his eyes, astonished, in the direction from which it came.

The name was repeated from lip to lip among the grisettes, “Felix!” “Count Felix de Brevanne!”

But without deigning another word, the old man pointed with his riding-whip to the farm-house. The disguised count respectfully bowed his head, but held Thénais by the hand and drew her gently with him.

“Leave her! disobedient boy!” exclaimed the father.

But as Count Felix tightened his hold upon the small hand he held, and Thénais tried to shrink back from the advancing old man, old Dame Pomponney, streaming with rain, broke in unexpectedly upon the scene.

“Disgrace not your blood,” said the Count de Brevanne at that moment.

The offending couple stood alone in the centre of the floor, and the dame comprehended that her daughter was disparaged.

“And who is disgraced by dancing with my daughter?” she screamed with furious gesticulation.

The old noble made no answer, but the grisettes, in an under tone, murmured the name of Count Felix!

“Is it he—the changeling! the son of a poor gardener, that is disgraced by the touch of my daughter?”

A dead silence followed this astounding exclamation. The old dame had forgotten herself in her rage, and she looked about with a terrified bewilderment—but the mischief was done. The old man stood aghast. Count Felix clung still closer to Thénais, but his face expressed the most eager inquisitiveness. The grisettes gathered around Dame Pomponney, and the old count, left standing and alone, suddenly drew his cloak about him and stepped forth into the rain; and in another moment his horse’s feet were heard cluttering away in the direction of the château de Brevanne.

We have but to tell the sequel.

The incautious revelation of the old dame turned out to be true. The dying infant daughter of the Marchioness de Brevanne had been changed for the healthy son of the count’s gardener, to secure an heir to the name and estates of the nearly extinct family of de Brevanne. Dame Pomponney had assisted in this secret, and but for her heart full of rage at the moment, to which the old count’s taunt was but the last drop, the secret would probably have never been revealed. Count Felix, who had played truant from his college at Paris, to come and hunt up some of his childish playfellows, in disguise, had remembered and disclosed himself to the little Thénais, who was not sorry to recognize him, while he played the idiot in the belfry. But of course there was now no obstacle to their union, and united they were. The old count pardoned him, and gave the new couple a portion of his estate, and they named their first child Robertin, as was natural enough.

BY ROBERT MORRIS.

BY MRS. FRANCES S. OSGOOD.

NO. I.—FLACCUS.

BY EDGAR A. POE.

The poet now comprehended in the cognomen Flaccus, is by no means our ancient friend Quintus Horatius, nor even his ghost, but merely a Mr.—— Ward, of Gotham, once a contributor to the New York “American,” and to the New York “Knickerbocker” Magazine. He is characterized by Mr. Griswold, in his “Poets and Poetry of America,” as a gentleman of elegant leisure.

What there is in “elegant leisure” so much at war with the divine afflatus, it is not very difficult, but quite unnecessary, to say. The fact has been long apparent. Never sing the Nine so well as when penniless. The mens divinior is one thing, and the otium cum dignitate quite another.

Of course Mr. Ward is not, as a poet, altogether destitute of merit. If so, the public had been spared these paragraphs. But the sum of his deserts has been footed up by a clique who are in the habit of reckoning units as tens in all cases where champagne and “elegant leisure” are concerned. We do not consider him, at all points, a Pop Emmons, but, with deference to the more matured opinions of the “Knickerbocker,” we may be permitted to entertain a doubt whether he is either Jupiter Tonans or Phœbus Apollo.

Justice is not, at all times, to all persons, the most desirable thing in the world, but then there is the old adage about the tumbling of the heavens, and simple justice is all that we propose in the case of Mr. Ward. We have no design to be bitter. We notice his book at all, only because it is an unusually large one of its kind, because it is here lying upon our table, and because, whether justly or unjustly, whether for good reason or for none, it has attracted some portion of the attention of the public.

The volume is entitled, somewhat affectedly, “Passaic, a Group of Poems touching that river: with Other Musings, by Flaccus,” and embodies, we believe, all the previously published effusions of its author. It commences with a very pretty “Sonnet to Passaic,” and from the second poem, “Introductory Musings on Rivers,” we are happy in being able to quote an entire page of even remarkable beauty.

There is nothing very original in all this; the general idea is, perhaps, the most absolutely trite in poetical literature; but the theme is not the less just on this account, while we must confess that it is admirably handled. The picture embodied in the whole of the concluding paragraph is perfect. The seven final lines convey not only a novel but a highly appropriate and beautiful image.

What follows, of this poem, however, is by no means worthy so fine a beginning. Instead of confining himself to the true poetical thesis, the Beauty or the Sublimity of river scenery, he descends into mere meteorology—into the uses and general philosophy of rain, &c.—matters which should be left to Mr. Espy, who knows something about them, as we are sorry to say Mr. Flaccus does not.

The second and chief poem in the volume, is entitled “The Great Descender.” We emphasize the “poem” merely by way of suggesting that the “Great Descender” is any thing else. We never could understand what pleasure men of talent can take in concocting elaborate doggerel of this order. Least of all can we comprehend why, having perpetrated the atrocity, they should place it at the door of the Muse. We are at a loss to know by what right, human or divine, twattle of this character is intruded into a collection of what professes to be Poetry. We put it to Mr. Ward, in all earnestness, if the “Great Descender,” which is a history of Sam Patch, has a single attribute, beyond that of mere versification, in common with what even Sam Patch himself would have had the hardihood to denominate a poem.

Let us call this thing a rhymed jeu d’esprit, a burlesque, or what not?—and, even so called, and judged by its new name, we must still regard it as a failure. Even in the loosest compositions we demand a certain degree of keeping. But in the “Great Descender” none is apparent. The tone is unsteady—fluctuating between the grave and the gay—and never being precisely either. Thus there is a failure in both. The intention being never rightly taken, we are, of course, never exactly in condition either to weep or to laugh.

We do not pretend to be the Oracles of Dodona, but it does really appear to us that Mr. Flaccus intended the whole matter, in the first instance, as a solemnly serious thing; and that, having composed it in a grave vein, he became apprehensive of its exciting derision, and so interwove sundry touches of the burlesque, behind whose equivocal aspect he might shelter himself at need. In no other supposition can we reconcile the spotty appearance of the whole with a belief in the sanity of the author. It is difficult, also, in any other view of the case, to appreciate the air of positive gravity with which he descants upon the advantages to Science which have accrued from a man’s making a frog of himself. Mr. Ward is frequently pleased to denominate Mr. Patch “a martyr of science,” and appears very doggedly in earnest in all passages such as the following:

That Mr. Patch was a genius we do not doubt; so is Mr. Ward; but the science displayed in jumping down the Falls, is a point above us. There might have been some science in jumping up.

“The Worth of Beauty: or a Lover’s Journal,” is the title of the poem next in place and importance. Of this composition Mr. W. thus speaks in a Note: “The individual to whom the present poem relates, and who had suffered severely all the pains and penalties which arise from the want of those personal charms so much admired by him in others, gave the author, many years since, some fragments of a journal kept in his early days, in which he had bared his heart and set down all his thoughts and feelings. This prose journal has here been transplanted into the richer soil of verse.”

The narrative of the friend of Mr. Flaccus must, originally, have been a very good thing. By “originally,” we mean before it had the misfortune to be “transplanted into the richer soil of verse”—which has by no means agreed with its constitution. But, even through the dense fog of our author’s rhythm, we can get an occasional glimpse of its merit. It must have been the work of a heart on fire with passion, and the utter abandon of the details, reminds us even of Jean Jacques. But alas for this “richer soil!” Can we venture to present our readers with a specimen?

All this by way of exalting the subject. The moon is made a painter and the rainbow a palette. And the moon has a pencil (that pencil!) which she dips, by way of a brush, in the liquid radiance, (the colors on a palette are not liquid,) and then draws (not paints) a likeness of the sun; but, in the attempt, plasters him too “pearly,” puts it on too thick; the consequence of which is that some of the paint is spilt, and “runs astray” and besmears the milky way, and “spatters” the rest of the sky with stars! We can only say that a very singular picture was spoilt in the making.

The versification of the “Worth of Beauty” proceeds much after this fashion: we select a fair example of the whole from page 43.

Nor do we regard any portion of it (so far as rhythm is concerned) as at all comparable to some of the better ditties of William Slater. Here, for example, from his Psalms, published in 1642:

And here, again, are lines from the edition of the same Psalms, by Archbishop Parker, which we most decidedly prefer:

“The Martyr” and the “Retreat of Seventy-Six” are merely Revolutionary incidents “done into verse,” and spoilt in the doing. “The Retreat” begins with the remarkable line,

which is elsewhere introduced into the poem. We look in vain, here, for any thing worth even qualified commendation.

“The Diary” is a record of events occurring to the author during a voyage from New York to Havre. Of these events a fit of sea-sickness is the chief. Mr. Ward, we believe, is the first of the genus irritabile who has ventured to treat so delicate a subject with that grave dignity which is its due:

But the “horror,” and indeed all that ensues, we must leave to the fancy of the poetical.

Some pieces entitled “Humorous” next succeed, and one or two of them (for example, “The Graham System” and “The Bachelor’s Lament”) are not so very contemptible in their way, but the way itself is beneath even contempt.

“To an Infant in Heaven” embodies some striking thoughts, and, although feeble as a whole, and terminating lamely, may be cited as the best composition in the volume. We quote two or three of the opening stanzas:

There are several other pieces in the book—but it is needless to speak of them in detail. Among them we note one or two political effusions, and one or two which are (satirically?) termed satirical. All are worthless.

Mr. Ward’s imagery, at detached points, has occasional vigor and appropriateness; we may go so far as to say that, at times, it is strikingly beautiful—by accident of course. Let us cite a few instances. At page 53 we read—

At page 91—

At page 92—

And again, at page 234, speaking of a slight shock of an earthquake, the earth is said to tremble

This latter passage, however, is, perhaps, not altogether original with Mr. Ward. In a poem now lying before us, entitled “Al Aaraaf,” the composition of a gentleman of Philadelphia, we find what follows:

But if Mr. Ward’s imagery is, indeed, at rare intervals, good, it must be granted, on the other hand, that, in general, it is atrociously inappropriate, or low. For example:

Here the mind wavers between gems, and stars, and taffety—between footmen and flowers. Again, at page 46—

The idea of “thornless flowers,” etc. leaping “ready-armed” could have entered few brains except those of Mr. Ward.

Of the most ineffable bad taste we have instances without number. For example—page 183—

And here, very gravely, at page 25,

Here again, at page 33,

But we doubt if the whole world of literature, poetical or prosaic, can afford a picture more utterly disgusting than the following, which we quote from page 177:

This passage alone should damn the book—aye, damn a dozen such.

Of what may be termed the niaiseries—the sillinesses—of the volume, there is no end. Under this head we might quote two thirds of the work. For example:

All seriously urged, at different points of page 66. Again, on the very next page—

And here, at page 129—

And here, page 109—

And here, page 111—

And here, page 170—

And here, page 214—

Mr. Ward, also, is constantly talking about “thunder-guns,” “thunder-trumpets,” and “thunder-shrieks.” He has a bad habit, too, of styling an eye “a weeper,” as for example, at page 208—

Somewhere else he calls two tears “two sparklers”—very much in the style of Mr. Richard Swiveller, who was fond of denominating Madeira “the rosy.” “In the nick,” meaning in the height, or fulness, is likewise a pet expression of the author of “The Great Descender.” Speaking of American forests, at page 286, for instance, he says, “let the doubter walk through them in the nick of their glory.” A phrase which may be considered as in the very nick of good taste.

We cannot pause to comment upon Mr. Ward’s most extraordinary system of versification. Is it his own? He has quite an original way of conglomerating consonants, and seems to have been experimenting whether it were not possible to do altogether without vowels. Sometimes he strings together quite a chain of impossibilities. The line, for example, at page 51,

Or, only such as sea-shells flash,

puts us much in mind of the schoolboy stumbling-block, beginning, “The cat ran up the ladder with a lump of raw liver in her mouth,” and we defy Sam Patch himself to pronounce it twice in succession without tumbling into a blunder.

But we are fairly wearied with this absurd theme. Who calls Mr. Ward a poet? He is a second-rate, or a third-rate, or perhaps a ninety-ninth-rate poetaster. He is a gentleman of “elegant leisure,” and gentlemen of elegant leisure are, for the most part, neither men, women, nor Harriet Martineaus. Similar opinions, we believe, were expressed by somebody else—was it Mr. Benjamin?—no very long while ago. But neither Mr. Ward nor “The Knickerbocker” would be convinced. The latter, by way of defence, went into a treatise upon Sam Patch, and Mr. Ward, “in the nick of his glory,” wrote another poem against criticism in general, in which he called Mr. Benjamin “a wasp” and “an owl,” and endeavored to prove him an ass. An owl is a wise bird—especially in spectacles—still, we do not look upon Mr. Benjamin as an owl. If all are owls who disbelieve in this book (which we now throw to the pigs) then the world at large cuts a pretty figure, indeed, and should be burnt up in April, as Mr. Miller desires—for it is only one immense aviary of owls.

[A ROMANTIC AND LOVELY SPOT NEAR ABERGAVENNY IN ENGLAND.]

BY WALTER HAWTHORNE.

The frugal breakfast at the village inn was over; and the widow of the unfortunate Guy Stacey, with her daughter and youthful son, sought the house of the younger brother of her dead lord, to claim, as a messenger from the presence of death, that justice which had been vainly sought in the life time of the rightful owner of the noble estate now gleaming before her in the sun of a glorious September morning. Guy Stacey had married at an early age one of the most beautiful women of England, but too poor to suit the aspiring wishes of his father; and a slight prejudice thus engendered had been so increased by the management of a younger and unprincipled son, that when the old man suddenly died, Henry Stacey was found to be the only inheritor of his wealth. It was known indeed that he had relented, and determined to receive Guy once more to favor, and there were suspicions of the destruction of a later will than that proved before the magistrates; but if one had existed the evidences of its existence had also disappeared, and Henry was left in quiet possession of his fortune. In time, both the brothers found themselves in the province of Virginia, where, for many years, Guy commanded the regard of the better classes by his abilities and virtues, and Henry the applause of the multitude by his splendid manner of living, and his patronage of the sports of the ring and field, which even a hundred years ago were cherished in the Old Dominion. At length Guy died—poor as he had lived—and his widow, as a last resort, and bearing a letter written by her husband on his death bed to his brother, came to Stacey Lodge to solicit enough from his coffers to enable her to return in her declining years to her father land.

The doors were opened by a menial in livery, who needed not a second bidding from one of so noble a presence to conduct Madeline Stacey to his master.

“So, so-o-o-o, old lady! you tell me Guy’s done for at last! Fore George, I’m sorry to hear it!” He lifted his eyes slowly from the pages of Rivington’s last Gazette—listened a moment to his familiar, in waiting, and resumed—“though, to say truth, it is not quite the thing for people of our condition to have such relations about us.” He paused—sipped his coffee—read a paragraph from Rivington—turned with an inquiring glance to the lady of the Lodge, and continued—“After all, Guy never troubled us much,”—and in his customary haughty tone went on, “and probably his wife has sufficient regard for his memory to follow his example!” The spaniels snarled in sympathy with their master, and “Follow his example!” was echoed by the parrot from the screen beside Madame. Glances sufficed for the rest. The letter was undelivered, and the widow and her family were soon on their way to the parish where the husband had died.

Long after the next midnight Madeline Stacey sat alone in her silent chamber—now thanking Heaven that he was removed from this sorrowing and changing world—now, remembering her utter desolation, preying that by his return or her own death they might be reunited—and then, as her thoughts for a moment wandered to her children, sinking in hopeless agony under the pressure of contending passions. True love grows deeper with advancing age, and by misfortunes some natures are so blended that when wife or husband dies both hearts are buried in the same dark chamber, however long the living form may walk the world. There is indeed no wo like widowhood. “Call me not Naomi—call me Marah,” is still the cry of many a veiled soul, doomed to unrest until that perfect day when the true-hearted will meet to part no more.

In a few years the relative positions of Henry and Madeline Stacey were changed. The widow, by the death of a distant relation, became inheritor of a large estate in “merrie England,” and her brother-in-law was driven by the Revolution back to his native country with scarcely enough to pay the passages of his family and hounds—friends who were so like him in their sympathies that he could not yield them willingly even in his death hour. Madeline Stacey’s baronial home became the scene of such festivities and splendors as ever attend on wealth, but to young Guy and Emily the widow surrendered all control, while, in her quiet chamber, with the simple furniture used in his time in their cottage in Virginia, she waited patiently that reunion for which she looked with confidence, in another and a better world.

Not always in this life are seen the results of that unerring providence which dooms guilt to suffering—but however joyous or sad men may seem to the common eye, they who sow of the wind reap the whirlwind even here. Some seem indeed to live prosperously, to gather together great fortune, and to be cheered onward in their career by the applauses of the multitude—but the doors of their secret chambers are closed, and we see not the workings of their passions, their fear, their hatred, their remorse. Henry Stacey was one of those men who are incapable of most kinds of mental suffering; he knew no pleasures but those conferred by riches, and his last days were passed in want. Madeline is still remembered by the tenants of her son, as the friend of all who were in sorrow, for many miles around her residence. She lived to see her children—“his children,” as she delighted ever to call them—approach old age with the unfading laurels of virtue upon their brows, and is now but the happier for the transitory griefs which flowed from a too early widowhood.

WRITTEN AND COMPOSED BY T. HAYNES BAYLEY, ESQ.

This is a very remarkable work, and one which unquestionably merits a far larger share of attention than it has hitherto received. The cause of this apparent neglect is to us indeed inexplicable, as the subject is one possessing great interest to all lovers of things pertaining to literature, and the treatment of it masterly. The patient industry with which Mr. Wilde has collected his materials cannot be too highly commended, and is surpassed only by the clear and luminous manner in which he lays the whole evidence before the eye of the reader, and by the ingenuity with which he makes his deductions. Nothing indeed can be more lawyer-like than the conduct of the whole case; not, we would be understood to say, that there is any thing technical in the style; still less that there is any thing of wire-drawn argument or forced construction; but simply that the arrangement of the facts is evidently the result of practice in the art of collecting and exhibiting evidence in the most direct and intelligible form, and that the method of arriving at the end is as distinctly that which could be applied only by a clear reasoning mind not unaccustomed to such pursuits. The title of the work is—what is not generally the case—perfectly accurate and consonant to the contents; for starting with no theory, assuming nothing, nor seeking to convince his reader of any preconceived opinion, Mr. Wilde has been content to bring together all the facts bearing on the point at issue, to indicate very ably all the different deductions that may be made from these facts, and there to leave the student, put fairly in possession of the case, to judge for himself, and form his own opinion. This we are stating merely as a matter of fact, not at present in praise or dispraise; for although the plan has the advantage of novelty, and proves beyond question the honesty and candor of the writer, we confess ourselves not altogether satisfied of its practical utility. But of this hereafter.

To come directly at the merits of the work, we find in the first place that the whole subject has long been involved not only in exceeding mystery, but in intentional mystification; that but few positive facts had been established; and that no two persons agreed as to the conclusions to be drawn from the very little that could be ascertained. To make a statement of the few known truths of the life of one so famous as Torquato Tasso, may at this time appear almost absurd, every one who reads any thing being presumed to be acquainted with the common history of that admirable but most unhappy poet. We shall, however, for the sake of clearness, and to show what Mr. Wilde has effected for the subject of his memoir, incur the risk of being somewhat tedious to the better informed of our readers. It is known then that Torquato Tasso was born at Naples, of a noble but impoverished family, on the eleventh of March, 1544, that after studying at Padua he was taken into the service of the Cardinal Louis of Este, and by him introduced to the court of Alphonso, Duke of Este, at Ferrara, in 1584, having already acquired a high reputation throughout Italy by the publication of his Rinaldo in 1561—that in this court he was for a time honored and caressed, and admitted to the closest intimacy with all the members of the duke’s illustrious family—that he composed here his Gierusalemme, and a vast number of amatory sonnets to the honor of a certain Leonora—that some time about the year 1577 rumors began to circulate concerning his madness, countenanced by some extraordinary circumstances in his conduct—that in the commencement of his afflictions the duke, as admitted by Tasso himself, treated him kindly—that in the same year he was arrested for drawing a knife on one of the servants of the Duchess of Urbino, and for a time imprisoned, but very shortly after liberated, although still placed under the surveillance of physicians—that he escaped from Ferrara and journeyed on foot to his sister’s house in Sorrento, but, repenting, solicited permission to return, and actually did return in the spring of the following year, 1576—that he was at first cordially and courteously received, but being subsequently slighted and his residence rendered insupportable to him, he again in the same year fled from Ferrara and took refuge at Turin—that he once more solicited permission to return, and did so in 1579—that in the spring of that year he was confined as a maniac in the hospital of Sant’ Anna and there kept in close custody for seven years,—that in 1586 he was given in wardship to the Duke of Mantua, on the guarantee that he should not quit his dominions—and returned no more to the court of Alphonso of Este.

The doubts and questions hence arising are almost innumerable. In the first place did Tasso love at all? That is to say, are the amatory sonnets addressed to Leonora to be considered as the effusions of a mind imbued with real love for a real object? If so, was the real name of that object Leonora? And if so, was that Leonora, Leonora of Este? Again, if love actually existed, was it Platonic or of a more ardent character? Then comes the greater question, Was Tasso mad, or did he feign madness? If not mad, what could have induced him to feign being so, when the result of that feigning was hard treatment and imprisonment? And lastly, if he was neither mad, nor yet feigned madness, what could have induced the duke to imprison him as mad?

The hypotheses put forth in answer to these queries have been numerous, wild, contradictory and most unsatisfactory. Indeed, so conflicting are the evidences, and so prejudiced many of the older biographers of Tasso, that it has been very difficult to arrive at any just conclusion. Many writers have insisted that there was no real Leonora at all, and that the whole chain of sonnets were addressed to a mere ideal being. Others contend that there were three ladies to whom he wrote, all Leonoras, namely, the Princess Leonora of Este, the Countess Leonora San Vitale, and a lady of the Duchess of Ferrara. The general opinion, however, appears to have settled down to the belief that the princess was the object to whom the sonnets were addressed, and that his love was real, and by no means Platonic in its nature. On the greater question, was Tasso mad? still greater doubt has existed, many persons believing that he was so, and adducing as satisfactory arguments on that point the strange inconsistencies of his own letters and statements; his dread of assassination or poisoning at the court of Alphonso; his fancies concerning persecutions of the Inquisition, which appear to have had but little real foundation; his strange doubts and fancies on religious and doctrinal points; and at a later period, while imprisoned, his idea that he was bewitched, and haunted by a malicious spirit; and still more, his belief that he saw and conversed with a spirit after his liberation. Others have asserted that he was not mad at all; that he was in real risk of assassination; actually persecuted by the Inquisition; and that tricks were played off upon him which led him, not unnaturally in a superstitious age, to fancy himself bewitched. Many others appear to have satisfied themselves that, sane at first, he was driven mad by persecution; and a few have imagined they could perceive decided proofs that his madness was feigned. Some have believed his imprisonment, supposing him to have been sane, the result of the duke’s rage at discovering his affection for Leonora. This, however, is positively derided by one of the older historians of Tasso, who attributes his confinement and the anger of the duke to various other trivial and unimportant causes. And here we have arrived at the most perplexing portion of the controversy, all the alleged causes proving insufficient to account for the apparent barbarity of the duke. Now what has Mr. Wilde done in the matter? In the first place he has convinced us: and, reversing his method, we shall explain the theory which we deduce from his facts—believing that we have arrived at nearly if not exactly the same conclusion with the ingenious author, for he nowhere distinctly states his opinion—and then briefly demonstrate the truth of that theory from the facts adduced by Mr. Wilde.

In the first place Tasso was really and passionately in love with Leonora of Este, and to her were addressed, with a few exceptions, the amatory sonnets written in the celebration of that name. Secondly, she returned that affection, yielded to her passions, and granted to him all that virtue should have denied. Thirdly, he wrote private pieces of poetry, proclaiming this fact. Fourthly, some of his private papers were stolen by a traitorous friend, and how far this theft extended he knew not, but he imagined it had revealed the whole of his amour to the duke. This led to his fears of assassination, poison, and persecution, and, (the duke being utterly ignorant of the whole matter,) to the real belief for a time on the part of that prince that the poet was mad, and to his first imprisonment. When released from prison, his guilty conscience suggesting the same terrors still, he fled to Sorrento; but his passion for the princess overpowering his fears, he returned the first time to Ferrara. During his absence the duke had really discovered all; had been put in possession of the secret amatory boasts of the poet, and fully believed their truth. Desiring to conceal his belief, and to retrieve his sister’s reputation, he conceived the idea of compelling Tasso to feign the madness which he had once believed to be real—nor can any more effectual mode be conceived for effecting his purpose. With this view he received Tasso kindly, but gave him to understand by signs and tokens on what conditions he pardoned him; namely, that he should abstain from all display of his wonderful genius, that he should lead a debauched and dissolute life, and feign aberration of mind. To these most base conditions, partly through fear of instant death, partly through hope of being able still to carry on his amour, he for a time consented; but after some months had elapsed, he found such a life insupportable, was disappointed in his expectation of carrying forward his intrigue, and again made his escape, this time to Turin. Once more, urged by his extreme passion, and trusting that the purpose of Alphonso might be considered as gained, by the belief which he had succeeded in disseminating throughout Italy of Tasso’s temporary insanity, he obtained permission again to return to Ferrara, professing himself cured of his distemper, and hoping to be allowed to live at large, shackled by no conditions, and in the exercise of all his talents. He was, however, coldly received, his manuscripts were detained from him, the princess would not see him, and ultimately, on his bursting out into some public paroxysm of rage and reproof, he was cast into prison and there detained seven wearisome and woful years. Whether his mind might here have been partially affected is not so certain as the other facts, and is comparatively unimportant. That some tricks were played upon him, that his papers were disarranged and abstracted in a manner to him so incomprehensible as to induce a suspicion of supernatural agency, appears certain; and it is most unquestionably true that he did suspect it. We must however remember that to entertain such a suspicion, or even to hold such an opinion firmly, in the year 1680, and in Italy too, is so far from being a proof of madness, that nearly a century later persons were put to death both in England and America for the imputed crime of witchcraft; and that at a much later period to doubt the existence of witches and the possibility of the black art was a high crime, and as such punished by the Inquisition. His belief that he saw apparitions may be considered as a circumstance casting much doubt on his perfect sanity. It must still be recollected, however, that modern science has discovered that the seeing phantoms is a disease, probably of the brain and optic nerves, induced by various causes and perfectly consistent with entire sanity, so much so that several persons who have been afflicted with this terrible disorder have been completely aware, from the first moment, that the apparitions they beheld were unreal, and to be accounted for by natural causes. Thus much we admit, that after the latter half of his confinement it is doubtful whether he was or was not partially deranged, so far at least as to be affected by a species of monomania, in no wise detracting from his other mental qualities.

These conclusions we consider certainly proved. We do not mean that they are capable of actual demonstration; but only that the evidence before us leads us irresistibly to this theory, as the only one by which the conduct of all the parties, under the circumstances actually proven, can be consistently explained, and because by this they are explained. That we can within our limits demonstrate that which Mr. Wilde has only done in two volumes cannot be expected; but we pledge our reputation that whoever will examine the subject will come to precisely the same conclusion with ourselves, unless perhaps he waver as to the guilt of Leonora; a point on which Mr. Wilde appears to entertain some doubt, although we cannot perceive the reason why or wherefore. Briefly, the mode of proof is this: By a close comparison of Tasso’s own writings, his sonnets especially and canzone, and a searching cross-examination of their hidden meanings, Mr. Wilde positively proves that Leonora of Este was the person to whom the poems were addressed, and further, that the passion was ardent and by no means Platonic. By a collation of all authorities, and a similar comparison of evidence, he shows irresistibly that, though some circumstances do appear to favor the idea of the poet’s insanity, a vast majority contradict it; and therefore that it is far easier to believe him sane than mad. In this part of his argument, however, we think he has laid too much stress on the poetical abilities of Tasso as proving his sanity; for although we are millions of leagues aloof from the vulgar and contemptible notion that insanity is a necessary concomitant or proof of genius, we cannot but perceive that in more than one remarkable instance men certainly insane have written admirable poetry, and that not during the occurrence of lucid intervals, but while under the full dominion of the malady. It is almost unnecessary to instance Cowper and Collins, both incurably and absolutely mad; and the more striking and original Shelley, and the unhappy Chatterton, neither of whom can be said at any time to have had the full possession of the mental faculties. This notwithstanding, we think that after reading all the cumulative evidence on this point, it is impossible to believe that Tasso’s senses were at all impaired, until—if even then—after the middle of his last imprisonment. Now, to suppose that he feigned madness, for his own amusement, when by so doing he subjected himself to detention and persecution, is absurd; and not less so to suppose that Alphonso really, the second time, imagined him to be mad, when all the causes which had led him once to believe so were explained, and the adverse proofs were convincing. It is moreover actually proved that amatory poems did exist, written by Tasso, boasting and recounting in rapturous strains the complete possession of Leonora. Hence a cause did exist which in that age would have been held sufficient to justify the immediate execution of the guilty parties; and which would of course justify the milder course of imprisonment in a madhouse. Had Tasso been believed to be really mad, compassion alone would have been the consequence in the minds of Alphonso and his sisters, who unquestionably at a former period both honored and esteemed him; and he would of course have been confined in apartments, and with attendants suitable to his rank and distinguished genius, not in a squalid cell, deprived of clothes and medical assistance. All this becomes at once and easily explicable, when we believe Alphonso to have acted under the joint influence of policy and vengeance. Again, it cannot be imagined that Alphonso who, as is clearly demonstrated, once really loved Tasso, should have resorted to such incredible barbarity, or to punish a sane man thus, for merely writing amatory verses in honor of his sister, or even of aspiring to her hand, (if guiltless of her seduction, or of boasting of it,) although he might have deemed it prudent to remove him, if he had dreaded his success, by banishment or even by assassination,—the doom which he did inflict on him being utterly disproportionate as a punishment, and quite inoperative as a preventive, keeping, as it must have done, the interest ever warm in the breast of the lady. Still less can we suppose that he would have so tormented him for the other causes alleged—angry and rude expressions—or a desire to change his patronage for that of another sovereign. But seeing that Tasso actually did write verses boasting of Leonora’s favors, and that some of his papers were put into the hands of the duke, in consequence of which he dreaded assassination, what doubt can there be that these verses were the papers so betrayed; and admitting all this, what doubt that the duke would only hesitate between the pleasure of vengeance and the policy of concealment?

Mr. Wilde seems half inclined to agree that Leonora was innocent, and that Tasso belied her in his boastings, from the fact that the duke did not at once punish both with death; and he cites several cotemporaneous executions of guilty wives, as throwing credit on the supposition that had he believed them guilty he would have summarily slain them. It must be observed, however, that there was no overt proof of guilt; nothing, in short, but Tasso’s own boasting; that these boastings were known to but two or three persons; and that, could they be discredited, suspicion even on the subject would be quelled. Leonora, moreover, was not his wife, so that no jealousy or furious disappointed love would have operated to point his vengeance against her; but only family shame and a sense of wounded honor. It is therefore not only improbable, but almost impossible, that he should have blazoned the dishonor of his house by the execution of either of the guilty parties. Had he entirely disbelieved it, and had there been no corroborative circumstances, he might have treated it as the mere ravings of vanity and poetic folly; believing it true, he could not afford to pardon; and knowing herself a woman seduced, and her shame published by the lips of her seducer, Leonora would naturally—necessarily we had almost said—have been unrelenting. Under any other possible conjecture, her obduracy, which is well proved, is incomprehensible; and her brother’s cruelty almost as much so. Under this view the conduct of each is perfectly consistent, natural and probable; that of the brother exhibiting the deepest worldly wisdom, and being the only possible way by which he could have concealed the scandal, which he did contrive to render unsuspected even, for the greater part of two centuries, and which can probably be never now proved to a demonstration, however nearly we approximate to certainty on the subject. It only now remains to show a possibility that Tasso should have feigned madness under the circumstances; but Mr. Wilde has shown that he himself asserted that he was requested to do so, and actually did so; and the joint fear of death, and the hope of so appeasing the duke and propitiating the lady, render the supposition that he did so perfectly easy of belief.

We have extended our observations to so great a length, that we cannot say half as much as we could wish to any on this interesting topic. We must, however, declare our regret that Mr. Wilde did not more clearly express his own opinion, and that he did not start by stating briefly what he wished to prove, and go on step by step to prove it. This would, we think, have rendered the book more popular with general readers, and perhaps more clear and satisfactory to all. The style is throughout chaste, classical, and spirited. The numerous translations of the sonnets and canzone, which are interspersed, may be pronounced eminently beautiful, poetical, and fraught with the spirit of the original, though perhaps in several cases rather too wide of the letter. We marked a few passages wherein the deviation from the text is more objectionable, because it seems to favor the writer’s particular theory; as in page 24, vol. 1, where cangiato is translated scarce-changed, whereas its sense is exactly the reverse, changed. In page 31, same volume, Quanto divien maggior, tanto à piu bella, is rendered, “With years still gaining grace and beauty new,”—the English words implying the advanced age of the party—the Italian merely growth to maturity; and in page 179, vol. 2, godermi is translated to renew instead of to enjoy, the change supporting Mr. Wilde’s opinion. We are far from intending to imply intentional falsification of the text, which it is impossible to suspect—the Italian being given in juxtaposition with the English—but are desirous of pointing out an error easy of correction to the accomplished author. In the same spirit we shall proceed to mention three other slight offences—two against grammar and one against prosody—which we should not notice in a less perfect work. But it is desirous that there should be no blot in so admirable a book as the one before us. Page 72, vol. 1, for “But him,” read “But he.” Page 229, same volume, Megara is used as the name of the fury. Megæra, Μγοηρη from Μγοςμν, to envy. The a is also long according to its rhythmical position in the Italian sonnet. And, to conclude, in page 4 of vol. 2, we must insert whether between or and ingratitude in order to render the sentence either grammatical or easily intelligible. Candor compels us to add that although the book is got up in good taste throughout, with handsome type, on excellent paper, the Italian is so very ill printed, and so full of typographical errors, as to be sometimes incomprehensible. This said, we take leave of the book with regret; and, commending it most warmly and sincerely to all our readers, take this last opportunity of expressing our high respect for the talents, scholarship and industry of its ingenious author.

These interesting volumes reached us at too late a day to be noticed as they deserve in our present number. It will be remembered by those who rend the “Incidents of Travel in Central America,” etc., that Mr. Stephens intimated in that work his intention to make a more thorough exploration of Yucatan. He has since carried his intention into effect, making, as he believes, the most extensive journey ever made by a stranger in that peninsula; in which he examined the remains of more than forty cities, few of which had ever before been visited. His descriptions of these ruins are accompanied by one hundred and twenty daguerreotype views and drawings, made on the spot by Mr. Catherwood, under whose superintendence they have since been engraved. The previous works of Mr. Stephens have been universally popular. His discrimination and enthusiasm, and a style at once familiar, spirited and graphic, combine to enchain the attention of the ordinary reader to his pages, while the intrinsic interest and importance of his discoveries commend them to the gravest students. We shall probably recur to the “Incidents of Travel in Yucatan,” on some future occasion.

The author of these very agreeable volumes is the wife of the Chevalier Calderon de la Barca, for a long time Spanish Minister at Washington, and subsequently the first Envoy from Spain to the Republic of Mexico. Señor Calderon left New York in the autumn of 1839, and on reaching the ancient capital of the Montezumas, was greeted with an enthusiasm which attested the joy of the inhabitants at the re-establishment of a friendly intercourse with the mother country. While residing there he was on terms of familiar intimacy with the most refined and aristocratic families, and enjoyed favorable opportunities for every kind of observation. The letters of Madame Calderon, written in this period to her friends in the United States present spirited and accurate delineations of manners, customs and feelings in Mexican society, and much curious information in regard to the political, religious and moral condition of the country, its institutions, public men, etc., etc. The work has about it altogether an air of freshness and originality that will strongly commend it to the popular favor. It has been published in a very elegant manner under the superintendence of Mr. Prescott, the historian.

This is a history, written with much candor, ability and research; and beside the chronicle of events, from the earliest ages, it embraces illustrations of the natural history, etc. of the countries, with engravings and maps. Mr. Frazer is well known by his work on Persia, forming an earlier number of the same excellent series.

This is a publication of great value and interest, not only on account of the intrinsic excellence of the papers it contains, but because it furnishes an authentic record of the Progress of Science in America. It establishes the fact that we have among us scientific men who would confer honor upon any country, and whose labors are calculated to extend the boundaries and perfect the theories of science over all the world. Voluntary associations of men devoted to scientific investigations, such as the society under whose auspices this work is issued, are the only means for extending and rendering vigorous that spirit of research and that intellectual enthusiasm upon which these studies rely for prosperous and beneficent cultivation; for, in the United States, unhappily, such men can look with slight confidence to the local or federal governments for aid and encouragement. In the old world, both in Great Britain and on the Continent, similar societies have existed for many years, and have enlisted and called forth the highest scientific talent, and given rise to some of the most important discoveries that have ever been made. We are glad to perceive that the same instrumentality finds favor among the scholars of our own land; and especially are we rejoiced at the evidence of their success and zeal which the “Transactions” before us furnish.

The First Part of the current volume contains eleven papers, all upon scientific subjects. The most important and interesting are those upon Electricity, Magnetism, and Meteors. Dr. Joseph Henry, of Princeton, New Jersey, contributes a very valuable account of numerous experiments made by himself, principally with reference to the induction produced at the beginning and end of the galvanic current; and appended to the notices of these experiments are some important theoretical considerations which they have suggested to his mind. Mr. Walker presents, in a long and elaborate paper, an account of his researches concerning the periodical meteors of August and November, in which valuable data are given concerning the relative velocities and the relative directions of meteors, and their anniversary displays in different parts of the world. From others are drawn theoretical conclusions concerning their law, which are further supported by certain analogies in the solar system and sidereal heavens. There are also two valuable articles on the Mastodon; one by Mr. Redfield, of New York, giving an account of the storm of December 15, 1839, and several others of scarcely less interest and value.

The Second Part is occupied entirely by the contributions of Mr. Isaac Lea, of Philadelphia, one of the most eminent conchologists of the age, who in the papers before us gives scientific descriptions of fifty-seven newly discovered species of fresh-water and land shells, which, with the sixty species described by the zoologists, make the large number of one hundred and seventeen species of the genus Melania known to exist in the United States. The descriptions are full and exact, and are illustrated by a great number of finely lithographed illustrations. These papers by Mr. Lea are the most valuable contributions to American Conchology, which have been made for many years.

With this hasty and imperfect notice of these “Transactions,” we commend the entire work of which they form a portion to the attention and patronage of men of scientific tastes and studies throughout the country, as one of the most learned and valuable now in course of publication in the world. The most splendidly executed scientific publications of Paris and London do not surpass it in excellence of typography or illustrations.

Mis-spelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.

Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.

Some photographs have been enhanced to be more legible.

A Table of Contents has been added for reader convenience.

[The end of Graham's Magazine Vol. XXII No. 3 March 1843 edited by George Rex Graham]