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GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

BY T. C. GRATTAN.

CHAPTER I.

It was on one of the highest of the mountains overlooking the valley of Chamouny, and while I marked, far below me, its pigmy population moving in scarcely discernible groups, that the thought struck me that there certainly existed among them, if one could but find them out, some traditions of suffering or sentiment, or other materials common to mankind elsewhere, and out of which the webs of story-tellers are spun. No sooner was the thought conceived than I turned to Pierre Payot, my intelligent guide, and cautiously repressing the eagerness of authorship, I remarked to him that in a place so remote from the busy world, events doubtless occurred, from time to time, of an out-of-the-way kind.

“Why, as for that, sir,” said he, “there is a good deal of honesty in our valley; and they say that is not very common in the world you speak of. I could tell you some true instances. And it is odd enough that I see a woman going along the road there, this moment, who is a living proof of it.”

“You cannot distinguish any particular individual at this great distance, can you?” asked I.

“Easily, sir,” replied Payot; “custom gives to us guides great sharpness of vision. What is it that enables the eagle to see objects from such a height, but the habit of looking after their prey?”

“As you watch for a stray traveler, is it not, my good friend?”

“No, no, sir, we are not so bad as that,” returned he, with a good-natured smile; “I assure you that some of us are almost as honest as Marie Cachat, there below—and probably we are as little the better of it as she was on a memorable occasion.”

“A memorable occasion?” said I, concealing as much as possible the pleasure which rose up, in anticipation of some very interesting recital.

“Yes, indeed, it was so, sir; for it rarely falls to the lot of a poor woman, with four helpless children, to find a portfolio containing bank notes to the value of five thousand francs.”

“And she has had this good luck?”

“She had, sir; there, on the very road; and probably not a hundred yards from the spot where she is now walking. I am sure I shouldn’t wonder if the devil rose up every time she passes the place, and laughed at her for her fruitless honesty.”

“Honesty is its own reward, my friend,” said I, in all the commonplace of proverbial quotation.

“So is avarice, sir; and the vice being better paid than the virtue, no wonder it is the most à la mode.”

Loathing argument, when I am enjoying nature, and fearful of clogging with metaphysics the story I anticipated, I forebore making any rejoinder, and merely begged my guide to tell me the one in question.

“Bless you, sir,” said he—and it was quite an original answer, though a wonderful coincidence—“Bless you, sir, I have no story to tell; but only that poor and honest Marie Cachat, having picked up the portfolio and ascertained its value, ran three leagues on the road to Sallenches before she could overtake its owner, a rich milord; and when she gave it to him—”

“Well, what then?” said I impatiently.

“Why, then he thanked her, sir, and that was all she got for her pains.”

“The devil take him, whoever he was!” exclaimed I, bouncing up from the granite seat on which I had been resting—“and is that all?”

“All! why it was nothing, sir.”

“And your story is finished?”

“I told you I had no story, sir; but it would not be hard to invent one here. It was on that mountain yonder, by the side of a little spring which feeds that puny cascade, that the celebrated Monsieur Florian commenced his—”

“Trashy tale of Claudine—all the guide books vouch for it,” said I, interrupting Payot rather uncivilly. “But, as you say, any one might invent a story here. But invention wont satisfy me just now. I want truth, my friend, for ‘Truth is strange, stranger than fiction,’ let me tell you.”

As Payot could not see the inverted commas, he no doubt thought my observation bran’ new. I did not deceive him—but I muttered between my teeth, “and much more so to most people—but I must not waste my sarcasm on the winds. And so, Payot,” continued I aloud, “you really have nothing extraordinary to tell me. Nothing in the way of crimes, or misdemeanors, or the like?”

“Alas! nothing, sir. People here are, after all, very much the same, I believe, as in other places; neither very good nor very bad. They are often guilty of petty vices, but rarely commit great crimes.”

“Well, it can’t be helped, but it is very unfortunate,” said I, in a melancholy and disappointed tone. And I wandered over the huge hills for the rest of the day; hoping, in vain, to fall in with some flesh and blood adventure, that might break the monotony of my admiration at the wonders of inanimate nature.

Next morning we were early on the road toward Martigny, Payot carrying my light portmanteau; and, the weather being splendid, I was in good heart, reconciled to the dull virtues of Chamouny, and quite in tune for the enjoyment of the enchanting scenery. It was the 7th of June, Friday, a glorious season, and with me a lucky day for setting out on a voyage, either by land or water; for I love to patronize (in ever so small a way) almost all things against which men have a prejudice, founded merely on superstition or on pride. I forgot all my previous anxiety and disappointment on the score of story-telling. I was never in a mood of more thorough enjoyment. So we stepped along merrily; and I marked the beams playing round the peaks of “the monarch,” and telling me that the sun had risen, though he was far hidden from my ken by the giant mountains, which he had yet some hours to climb before he could overlook the valley where I and my guide trudged on.

We had not proceeded half a league, when Payot said to me,

“I am really glad, sir, to find you in better humor than you were yesterday. I have been worrying myself all night to recollect some gloomy anecdote to put you in good temper, but I could not succeed. However, my wife—you know women are better hands than we are, sir, at remembering romance—told me that I should be sure, as we went along the road this morning, to strike on something to suit your fancy. Don’t you remember, says she, the bloody mill and the skeleton hand?”

“The what!” exclaimed I, abruptly and joyously, for the words sounded cheeringly.

“The bloody mill and the skeleton hand,” returned my guide; “so you like the title, sir?”

“Amazingly—very much, indeed”—answered I, scarcely able to keep in due bounds my gratification at this unlooked-for sunburst of horrors.

“Then, if that’s the case, look there, sir, at those ruined walls close by the river,” (I cast my eyes to the right, and saw the crumbling remains of a house,) “that is the bloody mill, sir.”

“And the skeleton hand?” asked I, with the insatiate gluttony of a legend hunter.

“Oh, you shall have that, too, all in good time, sir,” replied Payot, smiling—“but you must have a little patience, and let things come on gradually and in due succession.”

“Certainly, certainly—I am not in the least hurry—not the slightest—only you know the words are enough to excite a little curiosity.”

“Well then, sir, you shall not be kept in suspense,” said my considerate guide—for he saw through my assumed indifference—and after drawing my attention to another mill, about a quarter of a mile farther up the valley, but one which formed a most flourishing and wealthy looking contrast to the desolate ruin of the other, he related, pretty nearly as follows, his anecdote, sketch, or story—to which I have not ventured to affix the name he gave it, leaving the reader to adopt or reject that, according to his peculiar taste in titles.

THE STORY.

In the latest years of the last century, two millers had established themselves in that unfortunately close neighborhood above described, which, with a rivalry of pursuits and similarity of interests, was almost sure to produce envy, hatred and malice. On one side at least these results were decided and violent. Gabriel Balmat, the occupant of the dwelling whose ruins are now the only visible records of his existence, was a man of dark and direful character. Unmated and solitary in the world, he had no check in domestic associations to the baneful passions of an ill-regulated mind. He was poor, and had from early youth maintained a hard struggle against fate. But there was neither dignity nor virtue in the contest. He worked his way through life in bitterness and gloom, finding congenial associations in the desolate rocks and glaciers, and seeking none with any of his own species, beyond what was prescribed by the actual necessities of his calling.

The evil disposition of this unhappy man was chiefly excited against his rival in trade, Paul Corryeur, who was, even earlier than he, established in the mill that was his father’s before him; so that Balmat had really no excuse, much less a justification for his enmity. The man he hated so much was simple and honest in his manners and dealings; a fair competitor in a business which afforded ample employment for two persons, and a fair chance of respectable provision for at least two families.

It was not, however, wonderful that the amiable and conciliatory ways of Corryeur made him the favorite with the small farmers and smaller peasantry. Nothing “brings grist to the mill,” literally or by analogy, so much as an easy temper and a kindly bearing. The consequence, in the present instance, was that the possessor of these happy qualities had generally more corn to grind than his hopper could accommodate, that his wife and children were well dressed, and his little household in a state of great comfort; while his unpopular neighbor got but little employment, and was continually forced to expend his indifferent profits in lawsuits with those customers whom he was so much in the habit of ill-treating and quarreling with. The vexations and injuries he, on many occasions, caused to poor Corryeur and his property were considerable. But the latter never would follow the example of others, by retaliating or going to law, trusting to his own industry to repair the mischief, and benevolently hoping for a change of character in his disagreeable and dangerous neighbor.

The wisdom of this conduct was in some measure justified by the result. For in the course of time a feeling did accidentally rise up in the breast of Gabriel, which, if it did not altogether change his disposition, at least modified it in some measure, in respect to its injurious effects upon the interests of the Corryeur family.

It happened one morning early that “the repulsive personage” who is the hero of this story was taking a solitary walk up that side of the Arve (the little river that waters the valley of Chamouny) on which his own mill and dwelling-house were situate, his mind fixed, as usual, on some project of ill, or occupied with some reflection of discomfort, when his attention was suddenly attracted to a group of children on the opposite bank, whom he at once recognized as the junior branches of the Corryeur family. He had never before been so near those young creatures, for they had such an extreme dread of him that they on all possible occasions avoided his neighborhood. He now stood gazing at them with folded arms and scowling aspect; and at sight of those living reproaches to his misanthropy and malice, his bad feelings were still more excited, and they at length arose to absolute fury, on observing that as soon as the children saw him they fled toward their home, uttering piercing screams and throwing behind them looks of terror. The first impulse of his passion made him also run in the same direction, shouting and uttering imprecations, so as to increase their fright; and at last one of the little urchins—a mere infant—was tripped up by a stone on the path, and it fell headlong from the bank into the stream. Shallow as it was there was quite water enough to drown a child of that helpless age; and such might have been the fate of the little victim had Balmat left it to itself. But urged by his impetuous temper, and acting from impulse more than design, he rushed into the river, over the rocky impediments, and was just within arms-length of the struggling innocent, and on the point of either plunging it deeper into the water, and so suffocating it, or raising it up to dash it to certain death against the granite blocks around, when he was arrested in time to save him from the commission of this ferocious and cowardly crime.

It was no stalwart arm which seized on his—no powerful man who threw himself, shield-like, before the helpless object of his rage. It was only a little girl of about twelve years old, the eldest sister of the child, who, while her two younger brothers continued their flight toward home, had intrepidly stopped on her path, and immediately ran into the water, to interpose between the double death which seemed to menace her little sister, heedless of the risk she herself ran of sharing her fate.

“Oh, sir, kill me, kill me! but not little Josephine; that would break my mother’s heart,” cried the pale and agitated girl, piteously looking toward Balmat’s terrible countenance, while her hands were employed in raising the child from its perilous position.

Almost every mind does homage to the quality of courage. None more so than those in which it degenerates into ferocity. If all people knew this well, in many trying scenes, all would seem to be brave, even if they were not so. In the instance now before us, the cruel Balmat was struck with astonishment and admiration, little common to one so generally insensible to sudden emotions. The boldness of this girl, herself a mere child, in rushing to what she evidently believed a self-sacrifice, to save her sister’s life and her mother’s feelings, appeared to him an act of such sublimity, that even the callous heart of Gabriel the cruel, as he was usually called, was touched by it in a way unknown to him before.

“No, I’ll not kill either you or her,” said he, with a grim smile, as he took the children, one in each hand, and helped them out of the water. And as he lifted them up the bank he asked the eldest what was her name.

“Julie Corryeur,” replied she firmly, yet turning toward home, as though unwilling to trust herself longer in such doubtful company.

“You are afraid of me?” said Balmat.

“Not for myself, but for my little sister, sir,” answered Julie.

“You know me, then? Who am I?”

“The wicked miller of Chamouny, sir.”

Balmat could not help laughing at the candor and the civility combined in this rough answer. But before he could continue the conversation, his attention was attracted to the approach of a group from the rival mill, consisting of Corryeur, his wife and two men servants, who had hastened, on hearing the screams of the runaway children, and now rapidly approached with menacing air. Balmat, having quite recovered his calmness, proceeded to ascend the broken and rocky bank, helping up his dripping companions; and as he reached the level ground the hostile group arrived on the spot. The children immediately disengaged themselves from his hold, and rushed into the open arms of their parents, both of whom anxiously gazed to see that all was safe and well; and the father being the soonest satisfied, he stepped close up to Balmat, and exclaimed in an angry tone,

“What does all this mean, neighbor Gabriel? What have you been doing to my children?”

On hearing this, Julie turned again quickly; and, taking hold of her father’s hand, she said with much earnestness,

“Oh, nothing, nothing, father, but what was very good and very kind to us. Little Josephine fell into the river, and Monsieur Balmat ran in, to save her from being drowned.”

“Indeed!” exclaimed Corryeur, “then I am more obliged to him, than I should have been to any man in the district. One expects a good turn from a friend, and no thanks; but when an enemy does it, he deserves our gratitude. Come, Gabriel, give me your hand, and let us be good neighbors henceforward.”

“Not so fast, Paul Corryeur,” replied Balmat, with a tone more serious than sullen, and folding his arms across his breast, “I cannot give my hand to a man who has not some share of my heart. I am an open enemy, at any rate. But I have no objection to be friends with little Julie there. Will you let her embrace me?”

“To be sure I will, if she likes it. It would be hard to refuse that to him who saved her sister’s life.”

“Tut, tut, man! I didn’t save the child’s life, and had no notion of doing it—and Julie knows that. But she is a brave and a good-hearted girl; and there’s something about her that has struck a new light into my mind altogether—and so, will you give me a kiss, Julie?”

Half reluctant, half willing, and blushing deeply, the little girl received the proffered embrace.

“Thank you, thank you, and God bless you! You are a good child,” said Balmat abruptly; and he then turned away and walked rapidly down the river’s side, till he came to the rustic bridge of planks just opposite the source of the Aveyron, at the foot of the glacier des Bois, and which led close up to his own house.

The Corryeurs looked after him for some time, and then turned toward their home again, being anxious to get the children quickly relieved from their wet garments. While they walked along the mother questioned Julie as to the recent adventure, Paul being deep in reflection on the strange character of his neighbor; and one of the men, turning to his companion, remarked that it was the first time that cruel Gabriel was known to do a good action, embrace a fellow creature, or say “God bless you!”

CHAPTER II.

The effect produced by this occurrence on the wayward mind of Balmat was immense. It was like that caused by some heavy substance flung into a dark and stagnant lake. It seemed to heave it up in wild convulsion from its very depths, without purifying its nature or changing its hue. The color of Balmat’s character was the same as ever, but one beam shone upon and trembled in it, like the reflection of a single star in the water’s gloom. Unloving and unloved, he felt suddenly as though it were possible for him to feel and to inspire regard. The courage shown by Julie in braving his rage, her goodness in interposing between him and her father, the fine expression of her countenance as she received his embrace, were all stirring in his memory during the whole of that day, and without his knowing it they had sunk deep and softly into his heart.

The first actual proof which spoke to him in conviction of this effect was a wish that he had happened to marry young, like Paul Corryeur, and that, like him, he had had such a daughter as little Julie. Balmat was then about thirty years of age, Corryeur only a few years older, so that the wish, which thus took the form of a regret, was only extravagant as being unattainable.

His next notion was that he would immediately marry, on the chance of having a child that he could love and who might love him. But the impossibility of this without also having a wife, and the repugnance with which he had ever considered such an encumbrance on his freedom, soon removed that thought; a hundred other cogitations, one wilder and more complicated than another, occupied him for hours on this eventful day, and as it closed in he was himself convinced that he had never passed one so free from evil thoughts or unkindly feelings. His workmen and his old woman servant could not imagine what had come over him. He neither cursed, nor swore, nor frowned, nor looked vicious, from morning till night; and on retiring to bed he actually muttered “bon soir, Jeannette!” He even dreamed pleasantly—he confessed it to the old woman as she gave him his coffee the next morning—and that was even a greater proof than the tenor of his waking thoughts that his mind was imbued with a happy influence, which shone through its most shadowy mysteries.

But as he awoke to a full sense of all that had been passing in his brain, another change came rapidly through it, forcing him back to almost his original state of feeling. Pride flashed fiercely upon his relaxing violence of character, and he felt as though degraded by the incipient tenderness which had been stealing on him. The reaction was desperate. His ferocity wholly returned against all mankind, with one exception. Little Julie came in for no share of it. Had his resentment fixed upon her, as the object which had caused the weakness he now revolted from—had she attracted the heat of his angry self-contempt—he had been completely lost. But happily her gentle influence remained unbroken, to humanize him, and give him, at least, a chance among his fellow men.

Some weeks passed by, without any outward change being evident in Gabriel Balmat. An overture toward a better acquaintanceship had been made to him on the part of Paul Corryeur, by one of the farmers with whom they both had dealings. It was peremptorily rejected; and, as the report of his having saved a child from drowning spread in the neighborhood, Balmat seemed resolved to give it the lie by every practical contradiction. He showed all his usual symptoms of cruelty to animals, and moroseness to human beings. He mercilessly shot, or stoned to death, every intruding dog or cat which prowled into his premises; he severely beat two or three boys who in some way excited his ire, and he even struck one of the mothers—a poor widow—who ventured a remonstrance. Private quarrels, prosecutions before the village magistrate, and threatened lawsuits were the consequences, but these had no terrors for Gabriel, to whom they were the familiar circumstances of his uneasy life.

Yet still, mixed with all this odious perversity, and now perhaps by some possible caprice of nature exciting to it, was the extraordinary sentiment of affection—or something like it—toward Julie Corryeur. There was no positive evidence of this beyond Gabriel’s own consciousness, for he made no open attempt to see the child; but negative presumption was afforded, in his abstinence from all acts of arrogance toward the father of the little peace maker, whose mill stream was now unobstructed, the banks unbroken, and the wheel left free from those nightly assaults which had, on many occasions, disturbed its machinery, and caused cost and loss of time, besides manifold feelings of vexation to the honest owner.

Balmat several times took a solitary stroll up the river’s side, early in the morning, at noontide, or in the evening; but if he sought for Julie, or hoped to meet her again, he was disappointed, for her mother, blessing the Virgin for her children’s late providential escape, strictly watched their movements now, that they might not again encounter such a risk. But from another point of view, often reached in the course of his wanderings, he frequently saw the happy little girl. It was one of the elevations near the glacier des Bois, and from which travelers sometimes are indulged with an imperfect view of the mer de glace, that Balmat used, unobserved himself, to gaze down upon Julie, sporting about with her young brothers and sister, and the goats, which it was part of her duty to attend in their pasturage, close to the precincts of her father’s mill. And it was in the solitude of this isolated spot that Gabriel resolved on the execution of a plan, which was to combine with his own gratification the sure infliction of much misery on Paul Corryeur, his hatred for whom seemed to increase in proportion with the intense but unaccountable fancy he had taken for his daughter.

It would seem that, before putting the plan alluded to into execution, he considered it necessary to have, at least, the sanction of a recognition, a look of regard, a negative acceptance of his proffered friendship, from the innocent object so unconsciously implicated in his project. It was therefore that one Sunday morning—that which was fixed on for Julie going through the ceremony of her “first communion”—five or six weeks after the river adventure, Balmat was seen—a most unwonted circumstance—lounging in the close neighborhood of the village church, as the congregation were pouring out after the conclusion of the service. The rigid figure and sullen look of “the wicked miller” formed no pleasant object for the rustics, who, after piously praying, were now going forth to their day’s enjoyment, with light hearts and quiet consciences. Several of the females muttered an incantation, or cautiously made the sign of the cross on their breast, as a preservative against evil. But when the Corryeur family appeared, more indications were shown of their abhorrence and alarm. One of the little boys, who first perceived Gabriel, ran screaming back to his mother, who, catching a sight of this cause of terror, immediately clasped the child closely with one arm, at the same time snatching little Julie toward her, and calling for protection to her husband who followed her. The latter, also perceiving Balmat at the same instant, stepped forward between him and the beloved group, and stood without speaking, but with a look expressive of his determination to defend them against any attempt at ill-treatment.

Balmat regarded all these symptoms with a smile of deadly contempt, but it vanished in a moment from his countenance to give way to an earnest and insinuating look fixed on Julie, who, contrary to the absurd custom general in continental countries of disfiguring children with an unseemly display of tawdry finery, was dressed with modest simplicity. Balmat’s look, fixed on the handsome and interesting child, spoke almost as plainly as words could have done—“Do you remember me? You do not hate me, in spite of all this hostility?” Julie certainly caught the spirit of the look, if not quite the letter of its meaning; and she answered by a smile full of sweetness, sensibility, and good feeling.

“Enough!” said Balmat, aloud; “now good morning to you, neighbor Paul! you and your wife may keep your angry looks until there is occasion for them.”

With these words he turned away, and poor Corryeur and his wife, alarmed more at the tone and look of the speaker than at the words themselves, walked silently home to the mill, keeping the children within arms-length all the way, and throwing many a wistful glance around, apprehensive of some hidden treachery at every turn of the road. And deeply did they bewail, during that Sunday evening, the chance which had given them for a neighbor so ill-disposed a man as Balmat; one who had not even a cause for his vindictiveness and spite; who returned evil for good, and seemed to hang like some black cloud, darkening their path of life.

A month more passed by. This untoward rencontre was almost forgotten. The continued absence of local annoyance gave hopes to the Corryeurs that Balmat’s hostile feelings were, after all, subsiding; and honest Paul, and even his less confiding wife, relaxed their strict measures of precaution, and began to think that they had judged too hastily, and probably looked too harshly on the memorable day, which now began to be distinguished in the recollection and the conversation of the villagers as “Gabriel’s Sunday,” from the uncommon circumstance of his having been then seen at the church door.

CHAPTER III.

It was now summer. The snows had melted from the mountain pasturages, and the flocks and herds resumed their wonted station, driven carefully up the hilly paths at dawn, and down again at sunset, to the cadenced monotony of the Ranz des Vaches, or the other common gathering calls of deep sounding horn. Gabriel Balmat, being a mountaineer as well as a miller, followed, in the summer season especially, the idle and rambling pursuits that he was born to, in a more absolute degree than the steady and regular habits of the calling to which he was brought up. He often took his rifle and joined the chamois hunters of the Breven or the Buet, or straggled alone to the glaciers, or wandered off to the mines of Toully, and wasted precious hours in looking listlessly at the operations of the workmen. His long absences from home were therefore nothing remarkable, and nobody wondered, just at the epoch now in question, that the business of the mill was almost completely neglected by its wayward master; nor did any one trouble themselves with conjectures as to the particular motives which led him thus away. But a faint light soon broke on the darkness of his recent doings.

One morning, soon after sunrise, Balmat returned to his solitary and unsocial home, and found the old woman fatigued with her night’s watching, and wondering at the unusual circumstance of his having slept abroad.

“Slept,” echoed Gabriel, in a tone of savage jocularity. “Did the sun sleep, old Jeannette, before it rose up into heaven erewhile, and lit the mountain tops? So much did I, and no more. Sleep! no, no! I am not the man to sleep, when an enemy is to be injured, or a service rendered to myself, old girl.”

“Holy Mary! you have not done any harm to Paul Corryeur?” asked Jeannette, in alarm.

“Make your mind easy, my good old friend, I have not seen him.”

“Nor done him a mischief in the dark?”

“Humph! You question me too closely, Jeannette, but nothing can make me angry to-day, so give me a cup of coffee, I must prepare for business.”

“For bed you mean, my master; you want repose, even more than I do, it seems.”

“Repose! not I, Jeannette! I am as light and refreshed as though I had slept since sunset—more so than neighbor Paul will be perhaps when he rises bye-and-bye.”

“Well, that is strange!” exclaimed the old woman, looking out of the open window. “The old saying holds good—no sooner do we talk of old Master Corryeur than he appears!”

“The devil he does!” cried Balmat; “is he here so soon? Let me to bed now in earnest—prudence, prudence, Jeannette, as you value your own place, and dread my anger!”

So saying, he hurried into an inner room, threw off his clothes, and flung himself on the bed. In a moment more Paul Corryeur had reached the house, walked round to the front door, and struck loudly at it for admission. The old woman hobbled toward it, and slowly let him in.

“Where is your master?” asked Corryeur, with a voice almost choked from agitation.

“Good morning, Master Corryeur! It is indeed as strange to see you in Gabriel Balmat’s mill as it would be if the Buet had paid a visit to the Breven. Ha, ha, ha!”

“Crone! torture me not with your nonsense—where is Gabriel Balmat? I must speak to him.”

“Lord love you, neighbor, he doesn’t talk in his sleep! He is in his bed, to be sure. What’s the matter?”

“The matter, old woman? You know that, methinks,” answered Corryeur, with a scrutinizing glance.

“In good troth, I do not—and I hope from my heart that no evil has happened to you, Master Corryeur.”

“It is very odd, if you speak truly, and yet there is a tone of truth about you. Tell me then, Jeannette, and, as you love God and hope for mercy, tell me truly, where is what I seek for this cruel morning?”

“As I hope for heaven, I know not what you mean, nor what brings you here,” replied the old woman.

“Ah, Jeannette, have you then known me so long and to so little purpose; and does your experience of life not tell you that nothing could bring an injured man into his enemy’s den, short of a search after his dearest treasure? Jeannette, I have lost my child!”

“Gracious powers!”

“My eldest girl—my Julie—she whom her mother and myself love better than all the rest—God forgive us if it be a sin—perhaps this is for punishment. You know nothing of her—she is not here?” uttered the father in rapid agitation.

“No, so help me Heaven!”

“Then I must instantly have speech with Gabriel—let him arise immediately—tell him I am here.”

“Assuredly, good Master Corryeur, that would not be the most likely way to make him rise quickly, for you can have no welcome to expect from him.”

“Woman, it is my child I expect from him—aye, and that I will have, or his life’s blood!”

“Hush, hush, Paul Corryeur! you are rash in this violent talk. If he hears it, this will end badly for one or both of ye. What can he know of your little girl? I tell you she isn’t here.”

“And I tell you that no one knows of her but him, and I will tell him so, too; and I will not be baffled by your cunning, nor brow-beat by his brutality. I am sure that Julie is concealed here. Julie! Julie! speak out, my child! Don’t be afraid to answer me. It is your father that calls you—Julie! Julie! Julie!”

As Corryeur cried forth in this wild manner for his lost daughter, he stalked up and down the little hall, striking his stick against the doors and presses. The old woman clasped her hands, gazed at the half distracted father, and burst into tears of honest sympathy.

“Halloa! Furies and hell! what does all this mean!” roared Balmat, from an inner room; and, at the noise of his leaping out of bed, Jeannette screamed nervously, fearing the consequence of some terrible collision between the men. The parlor door was dashed open, and Balmat plunged into the passage undressed, his blue cotton night-cap on his head, and a drawn cutlass—his constant weapon—in his raised arm. As he appeared he exclaimed,

“What, robbers in the house! ha! It is you, neighbor Corryeur? How’s this? Is Mont Blanc turned upside down? Is this really you, and to what do I owe the honor of this early and unlooked-for visit?”

“Gabriel Balmat,” said Corryeur, stopping, leaning on his walking stick, and looking sternly in the face of him he addressed, “those sarcastic words, and that sneering smile come from a bad heart. You know well what brings me here. It needs no miracle to make a half maddened father seek his child in the place where he is convinced she is hidden. Give her back to me instantly.”

“Pray, Monsieur Corryeur, do me the favor to sit down,” said Balmat, coolly, and at the same time offering a chair to his angry visiter, who had followed him into the parlor; “I will be ready to receive you in a fitting dress presently; but really you broke my dreams so suddenly that I know not what to think of all this—I don’t quite understand you.”

As Balmat retreated into the inner room, Corryeur mechanically sat down, overcome with astonishment, and shocked by his air of sullen indifference, which the unhappy parent could not suppose coupled with the monstrous guilt of which he suspected and accused him.

“Oh, God, where is she then!” exclaimed Corryeur, starting up again. “What has become of her!” and he was on the point of rushing out of the house, when the well-intentioned but timorous old woman interposed between him and the doorway, saying significantly,

“Don’t be so hasty, good Master Paul; don’t throw away a chance of finding what you seek.”

“She is here then, after all? Gabriel has hidden her?” sternly whispered the father.

“No, she is not here; nor do I say he has hidden her,” replied Jeannette, in a muttering under voice; “but,” added she, aloud, “the counsel of a neighbor is worth having in such a case, and it is better to take my master’s advice than provoke his resentment. You have accused him rashly—he is not a man to bear a wrong tamely.”

“Well, well, I’ll wait till he is ready,” said Corryeur, a gleam of hope dashing across his mind, which grew dark or bright in equally rapid shifts. He returned into the parlor, and was immediately joined by Balmat, wrapped up in his coarse morning costume. “Now, neighbor Paul,” said the latter, both seating themselves, “let me hear what you have to say to me, and remember that a drowsy man, roused suddenly out of his sleep, is rarely in a temper to bear hard words, particularly from an enemy. What has happened?”

“Gabriel,” replied Corryeur, “we have no need to be enemies. Our fathers were friends before we were born; and God knows I have done nothing to provoke your hatred. Have I?”

“Never mind—that has nothing to do with what you are now come about.”

“I think it has, a great deal, Gabriel. And if you would but answer me according to your conscience, my visit would not be for nothing. But I will forgive you every thing, freely, amply—all the evil you have done me for years past, if you will now give me——”

“What?” asked Balmat, fiercely.

“Your advice, as to the best means of recovering my poor child,” sobbed the unhappy father, held in check by the warning of the old woman, and by Balmat’s ferocious tone and look.

“Why, what do you take me for, neighbor Corryeur? a conjuror is it, or a gipsy fortune-teller? What should I know of your children any more than I do of yourself? Which of them have you lost?”

“Which! she that is worth all the rest—my own darling pet, and her mother’s too—little Julie.”

“Julie? Which is that?”

“Not the one you saved from drowning, Gabriel, but the eldest; she whom you kissed, and who spoke so well of you. She with the black eyes and long plaited hair. Oh, Balmat, if you have the feelings of a man, think what I suffer; and, for the love of Heaven, and in mercy to my poor heart, tell me—what would you recommend me to do?”

“What put it into your head that she was here?”

“What? Why—because—really I cannot well answer that question—but I suppose it was because I thought you had taken a fancy to her—and—”

“Did you suppose I kidnapped her?”

“Oh, no, no—not at all—but I thought she might have straggled here from the mill, and just that you kept her out of a frolic—that’s all, that’s all,” said Corryeur, with a forced smile, and scarcely able to restrain his tears.

“I am such a frolicsome fellow? eh, Paul? Now, did you ever know me to play a funny trick in your life?” asked Balmat, with a diabolical grin.

“Why I cannot say I ever did—before. But this time you have done so—confess that you have. Oh, Gabriel, put me out of pain! Do, like an honest, good-hearted fellow, as I am sure you are, after all. Come, come, she is here—you have her safe for me—call her forth, Gabriel, do, do!”

But Balmat never winced under the touch of poor Corryeur’s palm, which lay on his shoulder entreatingly; nor did he shrink from the brimful look of supplication sent from the agitated father’s eyes. On the contrary, he stared him full in the face, and coolly asked him,

“What does your wife say to all this?”

“Oh! thank God, she knows nothing of it—she would be distracted if she did. But she was asleep when I left the mill, for she has been up nearly all night, nursing the youngest boy, who is sore ailing. No, no, my good Christine knows nothing of it.”

“Perhaps she will be able to put you on the right scent—for you are grievously out of it here, friend Paul.”

“You don’t really say so, Balmat—you don’t in earnest deny that Julie is here! I shall go stark mad under this suspense!”

“Bah, bah! that would do you no good whatever. Go home quietly to your work, neighbor, and laugh over this little affair with your wife. The stray lamb will no doubt come back of itself.”

Poor Corryeur did not know what to think of this bantering tone, accompanied by a fiendish sneer which made him shudder. What could he do or say? It was useless to break out into reproach or menace. He had probably gone too far already in that way. He had no proof. Balmat was not a man to be bullied into any thing, right or wrong. Nor was it possible to affect his feelings on the score of compassion. What was the poor father to do? How could he face toward home, and tell the sad tidings to his wife?

Such were the thoughts that passed through Paul Corryeur’s mind, as he rocked himself to and fro on his chair, moaning heavily the while; and, as Balmat sat, with his arms folded, calmly studying, and deeply enjoying this picture of intense distress, they were interrupted by old Jeannette, who exclaimed, as she entered the room,

“Well, well, here’s a pretty business! May I die if Christine Corryeur with two of her children are not coming straight into the house.”

“Two! oh, which, which? Is Julie one of them?” cried Corryeur, starting up and rushing forth.

“Very well, Jeannette,” said Balmat; “so much the better—let Madame Corryeur come in, and as many of the family as she chooses to bring to my hospitable door. Ha, ha, ha! I shall be glad to see how she bears this business.”

The old woman gazed in wonder—turned aside, and blessed herself. She never before had known Gabriel Balmat to laugh aloud.

Paul met his wife at the threshold of the house. She rushed sobbing into his arms; while he, on seeing that she whom he sought was not in the group, turned deadly pale and faint.

“God help us!” said he, “I thought she had been found.”

“Oh, Paul, oh, my husband, where is our dear child? When they told me just now that she had disappeared in the night, and that you had gone forth to seek her, I made sure I should find you here, and she with you, but that pale face, those haggard looks, tell me you have not found her. She is not, then, with Gabriel Balmat?”

“He says not—he will not give me any real answer—God knows what I ought to think or believe.”

“Oh, let me speak to him. He will not be deaf to the prayer of a mother, with her weeping children,” exclaimed the wife, quickly seizing the half frightened boy and girl, one in each hand, and passing into the house. She went on through the open door into the parlor, where Balmat still sat, with a dogged and imperturbable air, the old woman bustling about, to restrain the emotion she could not quite repress, and was afraid to betray.

“Oh, Monsieur Balmat, will you not tell me the truth about my dear Julie?” was her first question.

“To be sure I will, Madame Corryeur,” was the reply.

“I told you he would—I knew it,” exclaimed the delighted woman to her husband, who was now by her side. “Well, Monsieur Balmat?”

“Well! she is lost, and it seems you have small chance of finding her—that is the real truth.”

“Good God, what a mockery! How can you smile so at our wretchedness? How can you sport so unfeelingly with us? Have you a notion of what we suffer?”

“How should I?—I am not a parent.”

“But you are a human being—you cannot be quite dead to all feeling for others.”

“Very true; and to prove it, let me tell you you are now really losing a great deal of precious time. Have you looked well into the mill stream and the river?” said Balmat, as if to work upon the unhappy parents to the greatest excess of fear. With the mother he succeeded; but on the father his words and look had the contrary effect.

“You may be satisfied, Christine, that all is right,” said Corryeur to his wife; “nothing short of a demon could have uttered that sentence, if he was not sure of the child’s safety.”

“And how do you know that I am not a demon?” said Balmat, in his most savage manner, furious at having failed to agonize his victim more completely. “How do you dare to attribute any feelings to me but what I choose to express? or deceive yourself with hopes of my knowing any thing about your girl? You may be sure of one thing—that if I did know any thing about her I would not tell it you—so you may now leave me to my business, and go about yours.”

So saying, he rose from his chair and attempted to leave the room; but Madame Corryeur threw herself between him and the door, and, dropping on her knees, caught him by the coat skirts so fast that he could not disengage himself. The two children, full of terror at the scene, clung to their mother and wept aloud, while she broke out into a burst of supplication, the eloquence of which was in her looks and gestures.

“Gabriel! Gabriel! as you have a soul to be saved, tell me the truth—do not sport with me thus—look at these little ones—on this one whose life you saved—on me, a distracted mother—oh take pity on me! think of your own mother, Gabriel—think what she would have suffered in my place, had she lost you as I have lost my child. Oh, what have you done to her? Have you murdered her?”

“Mu-r-der-ed her!” repeated Balmat, slowly drawling out the terrible word, while his scowling look, and the livid hue which suddenly overspread his visage, made his aspect altogether frightful. The children hid their faces in their mother’s dress. Corryeur turned his aside. Even the accustomed old woman shrunk away. But the mother quailed not.

“Aye, murdered her! on my oath and on my conscience I believe you have—I read the truth in your guilty looks.”

These words, uttered with the fierce emphasis of conviction, were followed by a hoarse scream, as the mother started on her feet, and pushed Balmat from beside her.

“Yes, yes!” she continued, in frantic accents, “you have murdered my child—villain, I see the truth! Murder, murder! Justice on the murderer! Husband, hasten to the magistrate—denounce the monster—bring the gendarmes to seize him—he shall not escape—I will cling to him and hold him fast—oh, my child, my child! my poor Julie! Fly, Paul, fly! It is too late to save our daughter, but not too late for revenge.”

As she spoke, she attempted to seize Balmat, who calmly kept her off, and only answered this rhapsody by a look of diabolical contempt. The husband endeavored to calm her. Old Jeannette interfered for the same purpose. The result of her overstrained agitation was a flood of tears and violent hysterics. While Corryeur strained her fondly in his arms, old Jeannette, more accustomed, and with more presence of mind, loosened her dress, unlaced her stays, and called out to Balmat,

“Water, water! oh, my good master, you won’t refuse so small a service to the unfortunate woman?”

“Refuse it! no, Jeannette; she may have the whole mill stream, if you will but fling her into it.”

So saying, he left the room, and the house immediately afterward, and was seen no more at the mill till nightfall. Paul Corryeur did not observe him going out, so occupied was he with his suffering wife; and, on her recovering from the fit, he led her and his children to their now distracted home, thence to proceed on other inquiries, which he felt, by anticipation, to be as vain as those we have just recorded.

CHAPTER IV.

We must now go back for a month or more, and account for what may appear doubtful in the circumstances of this case.

The very day after the Sunday on which Julie made her première communion, Balmat began a series of operations, all intended to lead to the result which produced the painful scenes just recorded. He took his way to the mountains, and wandered far up into the recesses of that mighty series of ravine and rock which lies beyond Montarvest, and between the mer de glace and the stupendous basis of granite pyramid called the Aiguille de Charmoz. Accustomed from early life to those intricate paths, he went quickly on, and soon surmounted the first slight obstacles which seem so formidable to lowland travelers. In a little more he was in a region of romantic savagery, of which description can give but a faint notion; and to the glorious enjoyment of which few have the curiosity or the energy to penetrate. After a two hours’ walk, he arrived at the spot previously fixed on for the scene of the labors which he now commenced in earnest.

It was in a small deep glen, ramparted with huge piles of granite, so sequestered and so nearly inaccessible that no cowherd ever led his troop to feed in its rich pasturage; and it was rare indeed that even an adventurous botanist rifled it of the alpine plants which profusely covered its sides. The ruins of a small châlet, which had, with its inmates, been destroyed by an avalanche several years before, was the only mark of man in this wild spot. That catastrophe, and the superstitious belief attached to it, kept the native mountaineers away; and even the guides, who led strangers to view more beaten, but less beautiful scenes, carefully avoided a descent into “the haunted gorge,” the name by which this oasis was known.

Gabriel Balmat, with the prompt vigor which characterizes men like him, when they have one important object in view, fell to work, on his first visit, to clear away the interior obstructions which made the ruined châlet quite uninhabitable. After a whole day’s labor he found he had done almost nothing; and he was moreover convinced that small progress could be made until he was provided with sufficient instruments to effect his purpose. A pick-axe, hatchet, spade and shovel were absolutely necessary, and these he procured in the valley, and conveyed, at intervals, to the scene of his secret doings. By constant application he, in a few days, succeeded in making the dilapidated hut assume a habitable look; and he brought up, from time to time, unobserved and unsuspected, various articles of domestic use, and a few even of ornament, somewhat incongruous with the aspect of the place. A table, and a bench, just large enough for two persons, were roughly hewn out of some recovered planks; a couch, of dimensions suited to one, and that one but of small growth, was constructed of the same materials, and covered with moss and leaves, over which was spread a coverlet, white as the snowy mantle of the eternal peaks that threw their long shadows down the glen. A few books, meant for the capacity of a child, some well daubed prints, just fit for rustic taste, lay on the table, or were nailed against the walls. Branches of pine wood, ready for firing, were placed in the chimney of the one room thus made habitable. A few cooking utensils and eating necessaries, were ranged on a couple of shelves. The roof was repaired with care and skill; and, from the light sods which covered the branches forming each patch, tufts of many colored flowers sent forth odors which the scented saloons of a palace could not rival. To complete the internal comforts of the place, a soft thick carpet of the same materials as the couch, concealed the inequalities and the hardness of the floor; and a web of printed cotton was fastened in gay festoons across the window space, which, be it mentioned, was without glass or frame, but defended by cross bars of vine branches, so closely and so firmly nailed together that the light was admitted through spaces scarcely wide enough to allow the passage of a clenched hand; and it must have been the arm of a Hercules that could have wrenched those defences away. Two old boxes, dug out of the ruins, cleaned, lined and differently filled, lay ready for the use of the intended occupant. The door was renewed, placed on its hinges once more, and provided with a solid lock. And thus did Gabriel Balmat finish the construction for this mountain prison, this romantic cage, to which he meant to commit, in pursuance of his strange experiment, a being of as innocent, as virtuous, and as original a mind as ever rioted in the wild freedom of the Alps.

Having actually completed his laborious task of preparation, he looked around the little chamber thus snatched into a renewed existence, as he sat one evening on the moss covered bench, shone upon by the beams of the setting sun, which streamed gloriously between the wooden bars of the window.

“Well, the work is done,” soliloquized Balmat, “and a hard job it was. How odd it is that I should have made so light of all this labor, for the sake of a simple child, that I would not have undertaken for all the finest women in the world—nor for the proudest men, neither. Men! and women! No, by the glorious sun, and the bright heavens he shines in, I would not do a day’s work to save the created world,—except little Julie!—for I am resolved to make her an exception, and something tells me that she will love me, after all. I wonder if she will like all this—if she will take a fancy to this home, this house of houses—if she will be satisfied with what I have done for her—if she will love me, in short!

“Well, this is a curious world we live in, and men and women are curious things, that’s certain. Here am I now, alone, like the first man, looking out, as it were, for the creation of a being who can be a second self to me—who can, at least, sympathize with, and let me love her. What an odd thing it is that this little girl is the only person that I ever took the least fancy to, and that I should have felt a repugnance to every other being I ever knew—aye, even old Jeannette is disagreeable to me, if I don’t actually hate her, and I suppose I should hate her like the rest if I didn’t find her absolutely necessary to me.

“Well, it is not my fault that nature formed my mind after this fashion. I suppose I would have been like my fellow creatures if I could. But, after all, I doubt if I differ much from the others. I firmly believe they detest each other quite as much as I abhor them; only just that they have more cunning in hiding their feelings, and I more courage in acting on mine. Are they not all filled with hatred and malice and uncharitableness? Out on them! Mankind is, after all, an odious combination. It is a great point gained for me to have fallen accidentally on one living thing that I can love without envying, and wish well to without selfishness. Such I verily believe is little Julie to me—but what shall I be to her? Aye, there’s the rub! We shall see, we shall see—and quickly.”

These and the like train of reflections constantly passed through the wayward mind of this strange hero of ours. There are probably few people who have not at times had flitting notions like those shooting across their brain. But whether it is the “cunning” that Gabriel thought of, or a higher feeling of conscientious indulgence for that unworthiness of which every one feels himself to be a part, it is lucky for the world that individuals who despise their fellows, quite as much as he did his, most frequently make a tacit compromise with them, in consideration of their own imperfections. This is the great instinct of conservatism which keeps civilized men on decent terms with each other. Without it, we should all be Gabriel Balmats, deprived perhaps of even the one redeeming trait of tenderness which led him to his solitary work, and me to this digression.

Gabriel had never in his life felt so proud and buoyant as during the three weeks of laborious secrecy just described; and, when all was over, he proceeded with a bold, light step down toward Chamouny. After the soliloquy above recorded, he enjoyed all the excitement of one who feels that he has laid a foundation on which to build a fabric of fortune, fame, or happiness. Yet he had, as has been seen, some misgivings as to what Julie might feel toward him and his doings; but he never had a qualm as to the suffering he was about to inflict on her parents. He had, therefore, just enough of uncertainty to give a zest to his hopes, and none of the anticipated remorse which might have turned them into pain.

It must be here remarked that Balmat had followed up the momentary church door glance of acquaintanceship, by two or three stolen peeps at Julie, observed only by her, while she sported about her father’s mill of an evening, with the little herd of goats and children under her care. On one of these occasions, he even spoke to her, from behind a rock, to which he had crept, quite unperceived by her human play fellows. A very few words passed between him and her on this occasion. But a great advance was made in their intercourse by two or three sentences. He asked her if she would walk with him one evening up the mountain. She cheerfully assented.

“And you will not be afraid to trust yourself with me?” said Balmat.

“I am not afraid of anything,” said Julie.

And such was the positive truth. She was a child of most intrepid spirit. There was a dash of adventurous courage in her character that would have been almost unfeminine had it not been tempered by a generous and gentle spirit, essentially and wholly womanly.

CHAPTER V.

It was about a week after this snatched conversation that Balmat finished his work, and it was on the very evening that her prison was prepared for her that he had the particular luck of meeting her alone, on a little path leading toward the glacier des Bois, and down which he was coming, in that elastic mood a little while ago described. It seemed as if she met him purposely, or as if fate had thrown her in his way.

“Why, Julie! how is this?” asked he, stopping short from sheer surprise, so strong as to check for a moment the current of pleasant feeling which this sudden meeting might have been thought to have confirmed. But such is human nature—the very presence of the object we long for, or the coming of the moment we expect with panting impatience, instantly—but for an instant—paralyzing the sense of enjoyment. But the compensation soon follows. Before Julie could reply, Balmat had more than recovered his previous tone. He glowed with one of the purest and finest feelings of which man is susceptible. He was, for the first time in his life, unrestrictedly alone with the only human living for whom he ever knew a sentiment of kindness. Brothers who grow up, or fathers who (alas!) grow down with this every-day indulgence, can know little of the hearty rapture which our rude and ruffian hero now reveled in. He was too uncivilized to refine or fritter it away. He spoke not a word. But, holding little Julie by the two hands, he looked down on her face, which beamed brightly in the twilight mist, and, unconscious of what was working within him, he felt the warm drops chasing each other on his checks, as he strove to wink away the dimming bubbles from his eyes. Imagine the intense luxury of a first flood of tears, in mature manhood, and from excess of pleasure in such a mind as Balmat’s. The prophet’s wand did not work a greater miracle, nor touch so pure a source.

“What makes you weep, Monsieur Balmat? Are you unhappy, then?” asked Julie, with a compassionate voice.

“No, indeed, I am not,” said he, quickly; “far from it, my little friend, and I know not why I shed those foolish tears—the first I ever shed. But do tell me how it happens that I meet you here, so late in the evening, and alone?”

“Oh, I’ll tell you that. My father is gone to Martigny, not to be home till morning, mamma is watching beside poor little Florent, the other children are in bed, fast asleep, and Madelon, the servant girl, is gone to Chamouny, to see her sick aunt. So I thought I would walk out a little farther than usual, for ever since you spoke to me about it I am longing to go high up into the mountains.”

“And you are really not afraid—not of being alone?”

“No.”

“Nor of being with me?”

“Oh, no, no. I like to be with you.”

“How very extraordinary that is!” exclaimed Balmat, half aloud and half to himself; for he could scarcely believe it possible that an exception existed to the repugnance and dread he knew himself to inspire.

“Did no one see you leaving the house?” was his next question.

“No one. They think I am asleep by this time.”

“Then, since you are not afraid of me, shall we now take the walk we talked of?”

“Yes, if you like. But will you bring me back home again?”

Balmat paused a moment, then answered,

“Yes, certainly.”

“Because, you know, papa and mamma might be uneasy about me.”

“To be sure they might,” said Balmat; but Julie did not see the devilish smile that accompanied the words.

And so they walked along back, on that path which was perfectly new to Julie, and which her companion had little expected to retread so soon. Nothing could exceed the affectionate manner in which he conversed with her. It seemed as though the long prisoned kindliness, which exists in the roughest natures, like honey drops in some coarse weed, had been hitherto garnered up to sweeten that mountain tête à tête. Julie, on her part, was still more animated than he. Happily for her, she had not yet reached the age when sensibility is purchased at the price of anxiety and pain. But all enjoyments must be paid for one way or another, and that, like the rest, is worth its price. Our little heroine seemed to have taken a new step in life. The monotony of her former existence was broken, and she had reached one of those epochs so important in the career of every one, but which so many pass heedlessly over at the time, and lose the sight, and almost the memory of at more advanced periods. From this evening, if Julie reckoned rightly in after life, she might calculate a whole host of sentiments that sprung at that moment into being.

As they wound their way up the rugged path, old Time seemed to fly to the mountain tops. They knew nothing of his presence. Daylight was entirely gone, but the moon streamed out its radiance, and the grass and the wild flowers glittered like liquid diamonds in the dew. The awful rocks piled perpendicularly up, the sloping glaciers, and the deep masses of snow that crowned the hills, tinted with shades of violet-colored light, wore a hue of supernal brilliancy. Frothy cascades floated here and there down the sides of the gray granite, and the murmur they sent out suited with the fairy aspect of the scene. The magnificent desolation, the mighty solitude through which she wandered, filled Julie’s mind with a holy wonderment. She seemed to have reached another, a loftier, a more ethereal world. She felt like a being of the clouds. Her soul was wrapped in folds of enchantment. But she attempted to give no expression to her delight. Young as she was, she had tact enough to perceive that her companion had no sympathy with her vague rapture, and that any talk about it would have been but a check, and an intrusion.

Balmat, the while, talked on; and Julie answered frankly and fearlessly every question which he put, and every remark he made. She was quite at her ease, and as familiar as he could desire with him. But she was too much impressed with awe at those far hidden depths of romance, to breathe even a word of the wonder with which she gazed around. Such was the double state of feeling, inspired by this her first acquaintanceship with the ways of man, and the mysteries of nature.

They reached the rebuilded hut. Balmat opened the door. Julie unhesitatingly entered. And, when he struck a light from his tinder-box, and illumed the lamp, which he had left ready trimmed upon the table, she, for whom his elaborate preparations were made, looked round with a pleasant astonishment, which repaid him amply for all.

“Julie,” said Balmat, “every thing that you see here is yours—your own—the house and all that it contains.”

What an announcement for an ambitious and an independent minded child! Julie, in her turn, wept plentiful tears of joy.

“Yes, Julie, every thing—you are not only tenant, but proprietor, just as much as your father is of his mill, or I of mine. And look here,” continued Balmat, opening one of the boxes, and taking out two or three dresses which he had bought at random in a neighboring village; “and, see, here are needles and thread, and other materials ready, to alter them if they do not fit you quite—for I know what a good workwoman you are, and how you make all your own clothes, and your brother’s as well. And see here, and here, and here,” as, at each new word, he produced shoes, stockings, and a silk handkerchief, and other little articles of finery, which he laid out on the table with the air of a shopman tempting a purchaser.

“And have you bought all those beautiful things for me?” asked Julie, through sobs and smiles.

“Yes, I have bought them for you, my little friend, and I am glad, very glad, to see you so pleased with them.”

“Oh, it is not with them I am so pleased—though they are all very beautiful—but with you, Monsieur Balmat. How good you are! Ah, I wish my father and mother were here to see all this, and they would think very differently of you from what they do think.”

“Well, well! Let us not talk of them now,” and a frown—a slight one—passed over Gabriel’s brow as he spoke.

“No, not now, but another time, many another time we must talk of them, for I am resolved to make you like each other.”

“Very well, very well, we shall see that, Julie.”

“We shall see it, certainly,” echoed the child, with her own emphasis; and it was strange that Balmat listened rather pleasedly than the contrary to a tone of decision completely averse to his wishes and opinions.

The second box contained a slight store of provisions—bread, cheese, dried meats, eggs and the like. A delicious spring ran, as in most Alpine châlets, close to the house, and was turned into it and through it, enclosed in a wooden frame, forming a constant stream for the purpose of keeping the milk pails cool, and their contents fresh and sweet. The little rivulet had trickled and gurgled on for years, as though it mocked the desolation through which it took its course, but it was not furnished with the wonted contents of former times. Julie had not yet obtained the luxury of fresh milk in her retreat.

After every separate treasure had been carefully examined by the new “proprietor,” the pictures and the books particularly, Julie, as if struck by a sudden thought, fixed her eyes on her companion, and asked him,

“And what am I to do with all these things, Monsieur Balmat? For what purpose have you fitted up this place so nicely?”

“Why, for your comfort and convenience, my dear little Julie—you are to enjoy yourself here, and make use of all these things to amuse and occupy you.”

“But you are going to take me back home?—you told me so.”

“And I will keep my word—but not to-night, Julie.”

“I thought as much,” said she, with a reflective, but by no means a reproachful or frightened air.

“Will you be afraid to pass the night here, Julie?”

“Not in the least, provided you will let my parents know in the morning that I am safe and well.”

“Are you sure that you can be content to sleep here alone?”

“Quite sure—and I shall like it beyond every thing, if you promise me that you will remove my father’s uneasiness at my absence from home.”

“You shall do that yourself,” said Gabriel, producing pen, ink and paper; and Julie wrote, at his dictation, two lines, in her girlish and rude but bold and original hand, just to say that she was perfectly safe, and very happy. Gabriel folded and wafered the missive, and promised the writer that it should be safely delivered at the mill the next morning.

“And now, Julie,” said he, “it is time for supper;” and, she perfectly agreeing with him, they set about preparing their homely repast, with appetites sharpened by the new and wild excitement they respectively enjoyed.

This will be admitted to have been an original and romantic situation, with as striking an effect of personal contrast as any two individuals could well offer. Never was supper eaten with more zest, and the running spring, in temperate draughts of which they pledged each others’ health, was not more animated than her feelings, nor more pure than his. The business of the table over, an increasing degree of spirits entered into the conversation which flowed uninterrupted, except once or twice when the loud crash of an avalanche echoed like thunder through the moonlit glen. The sound was familiar to Julie’s ears, for the frequent fall of the ice blocks of the mer de glace was within close hearing of her paternal home.

“Not sleepy yet, Julie?” said Balmat, after full two hours’ chat on many subjects of local and domestic tendency, and perceiving through the open door that the moon had shifted its position far to the westward, as if to make room for the sunbeams that were ere long to follow its track.

“Sleepy! no indeed, it would be a shame for me to get tired talking with you, who have done so much to make me happy.”

“You must go to rest, notwithstanding, to enable you to enjoy all this the better. Tell me then, before I leave you for the night, what is there you wish for besides?”

“Oh, nothing—except that black spotted goat, for I am sure she will miss me at sunrise, and be very unhappy.”

Balmat smiled.

“Now then, I must wish you good night, my little propriétaire,” said he, rising; “I hope you will sleep well and have nice dreams, and that I shall find you refreshed and in good spirits in the morning. I shall be with you early.”

“And you will not forget the letter for papa?”

“No, no. You may depend on that.”

“Well now, before you leave me, will you answer me one question, my good Monsieur Balmat?” asked Julie, with an arch and earnest air.

“Let me hear it first.”

“Then why did you take all this wonderful trouble with this beautiful little place, and for what purpose have you brought me here?”

“That makes two questions, Julie,” said Balmat, kissing her forehead and smiling; “and, if you are a good girl, I will answer them both together, to-morrow morning at breakfast.”

A few words more of advice to her, not to be alarmed at any unusual sounds she might hear during the night, and assurances of perfect safety from any intrusion, with some replies of security and satisfaction on her part, closed the colloquy; and the two friends separated—she to stretch herself on her romantic couch, and he, after carefully locking the door outside, and carrying off the key, to wend his way once more along the oft trodden path toward Chamouny.

But this was not the last time of his tracing the same road that night. Buoyed up by the intense fancy that had taken possession of his mind, and making light of trouble or fatigue when the pleasure of his object was in question, he proceeded to the outhouse in Paul Corryeur’s farm-yard, where the goats were tethered, and carefully selecting the favorite mentioned by Julie, he muzzled it with his handkerchief, so as to prevent an alarm, and at intervals carrying, leading it by a piece of cord, brought with him for the purpose, and driving it along, he retraced every step of the two hours road till he reached the châlet again, and he fastened the abducted animal to one of the window bars, with sufficient length of cord to enable it to browse plenteously on the abounding herbage that grew close up to the walls. Gabriel was, perhaps, in a great measure, induced to this enterprise, as well by the wish to astonish and delight his little favorite, as by having a good excuse for coming up again to see how she had become reconciled to her prison. He accordingly peeped in through the window bars (for it was now clear daylight) and he had the pleasure of seeing her fast asleep on the little couch. He was soon again on the road; and on gaining the valley he first went to the village, where not a soul was yet stirring, and popping Julie’s letter into the receiving box at the postoffice, he sought his home, with a free conscience and a light heart. What followed is already known to the reader.

[To be continued.

BY HENRY THEODORE TUCKERMAN.

BY WILLIAM H. BURLEIGH.

BY C. P. CRANCH.

PART I.

PART II.

BY J. B. LOWELL.

A TALE OF THE LAST CENTURY, FOUNDED ON FACT.

BY MRS. FRANCES S. OSGOOD.

CHAPTER I.

FORM AND FEELING.

They were twin sisters, and so alike in form and feature that at a first glance you could not tell them apart; but you had only to watch them for five minutes to be quite sure that Lizzie was Lizzie and nobody else but her own sweet self, and that Priscilla was Priscilla—for in mind, in heart, in expression, they were as different as sunshine and moonlight, or a statue and painting, and with the same sort of difference too; both beautiful—but the one cold, calm, pale and still—the other glowing with life, full of spirit, genius and sensibility: Priscilla stately, formal, reserved, apathetic—Lizzie wild, loving, trustful, playful and frank; and as soon as you detected this difference in their natures, you would begin also to perceive that in person, too, they differed slightly: Lizzie had a fuller, richer lip, a deeper, darker eye, a cheek more warmly tinged, and ever changing with her changing mood, a lighter and more yielding form, a step of more aerial grace, a sunnier smile, a sweeter voice, a softer, yet a merrier laugh; even her hair had an expression about it that did not belong to Priscilla’s; both were deep brown in hue; but Lizzie’s had a natural wave that caught the light and changed with it to gold. Every body loved Lizzie and petted her; that is, every body whose love was worth having. She was welcome and refreshing to their hearts as a sunbeam, or a flower, or a singing-bird, or a balmy breeze, or a shower at noon in midsummer, and Lizzie loved her friends warmly and faithfully, without stopping to ask herself why. She did not blind herself to their faults, but she loved them faults and all. She was a rare, sweet child; yes! still a child at heart, though fifteen summers had somewhat subdued and softened her too impetuous temperament.

They lived with their mother—a widow of moderate means—in a picturesque village of England, and at the time my story commences were in hourly expectation of a visit from an uncle, by the father’s side, supposed to be rich, and known to be cross, gouty and disagreeable.

“Elizabeth,” said Mrs. Lincoln, seating herself at a window to watch for his arrival, “I must once more enjoin upon you, that policy, as well as duty, requires of us to humor your uncle in every whim, to agree with him in all things.”

“But, mother!” said Lizzie, with a pleading look, “I never can act from policy, and as to pretending to agree with him when I don’t, that would be an absolute impossibility to me. I will promise to do all that is right to please him.”

“I do not choose to argue the matter, Miss. Remember that I insist upon obedience. I only wish you were as precise in other matters as you are in your absurd notions of right and wrong. You, my dear Priscilla, will, I am sure, obey me without a question.”

“Certainly, mamma!” replied the demure young lady in a placid voice.

The tears sprung to Lizzy’s lovely eyes; but she smiled them away, and going to the piano-forte, began to play and sing in a soft, soothing voice, her mother’s favorite song—

Two young and distinguished-looking men, passing at the time, involuntarily glanced in through the open window, and as Lizzie raised her head at the rustling of the vine leaves, which they brushed in going by, she encountered from a pair of dark gray eyes a momentary glance of earnest admiration, which she never afterward forgot. For almost the first time in her life, Lizzie Lincoln fell into a deep reverie; but it was soon broken by the arrival of a carriage, from which alighted a bundle of shawls, flannel, ugliness, gout and grumbling, which was introduced by Mrs. Lincoln to her daughters as their invalid uncle.

Lizzie, before he entered, had silently placed the easiest chair, with a stool before it, in the pleasantest corner of the room; but she allowed her mother and sister to assist him into it without offering her aid.

“My dear sir,” said Mrs. Lincoln, “you are looking ten years younger than when I last saw you, and so like my poor, dear husband!”—her husband by the way had been considered a remarkably handsome man—“Doesn’t he, Priscilla? Doesn’t he Lizzie?”

“Very much,” said Priscilla. And nothing said Lizzie; but walked quietly out of the room.

“That is a singular young person—that daughter of yours ma’am”—grumbled the old gentleman, “don’t think she takes much pains to please her rich uncle.”

“Oh! my dear sir, you must forgive her; she is timid to a fault. Is she not, Priscilla?”

“Yes, mamma,” said echo.

And where did Lizzie go? My youthful readers, if you have not kind and warm hearts like hers, you will never guess; but I dare say you have, and that you would have done the same thing. She went straight to the spare chamber appropriated to her uncle, to see that every thing was arranged for his comfort, then into the garden, whence she brought fresh flowers to adorn the room, then to her own little chamber, from which she took a bible to lay on the table by his bed, and then into the kitchen to oversee the preparations for his supper.

Meanwhile, the two young men pursued their walk and their conversation.

“Yes, my dear Howard,” said he who had attracted Lizzie’s notice, “I tell you the simple truth; I am weary of my rank, my wealth, and the insufferable attentions which they bring upon me from ambitious daughters and manœuvering mammas. How delicious it would be to settle quietly down in this charming village with such a wife as that bright, beautiful, artless-looking girl whom we saw just now through the window! But I fear I shall never marry, for I shall always be haunted by the idea that my wealth is the object of attraction. Unless—Howard! I have it! Glorious!”—and, with his fine, manly face kindling and glowing with enthusiasm, the young earl passed on in earnest conversation with his friend. Perhaps he will reappear ere the close of the story; but in the mean time we must introduce our readers to a new chapter and a new schoolmaster.

CHAPTER II.

At twenty-two years of age Charles Welford came to the village of S——, poor and unknown, but his mild dignity of manner, his prepossessing appearance, his youthful and handsome countenance, gained him a host of friends, and the small number of pupils to which he had limited himself was soon made up. Mrs. Lincoln sent Lizzie and Priscilla to be perfected in French and Italian—and the former made wonderfully rapid progress—if not in the languages, at least in the affections of her teacher.

“Miss Lincoln,” the master would say, endeavoring, but in vain, to look stern, “I shall be obliged to detain you after school hours, if you persist in talking and laughing;” and Lizzie would blush and maintain a demure composure for the next three minutes and a half—then he would hear the little gipsy buzzing away again, for the least sound of her sweet voice always attracted his notice, and calling her to him with a grave face, but inward delight, he would point silently to a little chair at his side.

Poor Lizzie, half pouting, half pleased, “with a smile on her lip, and a tear in her eye,” would quietly obey. I rather think Lizzy liked the punishment upon the whole; for his dark eyes had talked to her soul a language more pleasant than French or Italian—and after looking earnestly up to them for a moment to discover if he were really offended—reassured by the glance of affectionate interest which he returned to her inquiring gaze, she would study for hours by his side, happy, and tranquil, and silent, as a dove in its woodland nest.

Now and then, when she had been more than usually wild and uncontrollable, Mr. Welford would feel it his duty to detain her after the other pupils had left, in order to give her a serious lecture upon the lightness of her conduct; but the serious lecture generally ended in a long ramble through the woods, after flowers to assist their botanical studies. And during these rambles, they would confide to each other’s sympathizing hearts their memories, their hopes, their tastes and preferences. Lizzie with all the simple, trustful tenderness of a child, and Charles with the frankness natural to a spirit still fresh, pure and untrammeled.

“Do you know, Mr. Welford,” said Lizzie one day, “I would give a great deal that my uncle was poor?”

“Poor! Lizzie—what a strange wish! Why?”

“Oh, because—he is so ill, and cross, and unhappy that I pity him from my heart, and I would be so very, very kind to him if he were not rich; but as it is, mother makes me treat him coldly.”

“How? I do not understand you. I thought she was all attention to him and wished you to be so too.”

“Yes! that is the very reason I can’t be. She keeps telling me he will leave us all his money if we indulge his whims and agree with him in his queer opinions—and so I make it a rule to be inattentive to him, except in his absence, and then I do all I can for his comfort; but that is not much. I should so like to soothe his pain, by reading to him, or singing, or caressing him. I am afraid he won’t live long, and he seems to suffer a great deal at times—oh! don’t you wish he were poor?”

Lizzie was right. Ill in mind and body, the unhappy old man was daily wasting away. Of all his relations, of all the world, Lizzie Lincoln was the only one he loved; and she alone of all apparently neglected him. Yes! in spite of her neglect, he loved her. He struggled against the preference, but in vain; he could not help it—she was so frank, so sweet, so frolicsome, and, above all, so like his favorite brother. Importuned, beset, followed, fawned upon for his wealth alone, he had become disgusted with life, and his naturally kind heart embittered by suspicion.

CHAPTER III.

MUFFINS AND MYSTIFICATION.

“Mrs. Lincoln, don’t you prefer cold muffins to hot ones?” asked the uncle at breakfast one day, with a look of dogged determination that rather mystified his auditors. Mrs. Lincoln changed an involuntary wry face into an acquiescent one—if there was any thing she preferred hot rather than cold it was a muffin—and replied, “Oh! decidedly, my dear sir! They are infinitely more palatable cold. I only ordered hot ones to please you. We will have some cold ones immediately. John, bring some cold muffins.”

A sardonic smile flickered on the old gentleman’s furrowed face as he turned to Priscilla—

“And which do you prefer?”

Priscilla, as usual, glanced at her mother and then replied—

“Cold ones, sir, of course.”

“Of course,” he repeated sarcastically—“And you, Miss Lizzie?”

Lizzie looked up frankly in his face—“Uncle, you know I like hot ones best, and I think your taste a very singular one if you prefer them cold.”

“Who said I preferred them cold? Not I. Come, Lizzie, we will share this nice one together, and here comes John with the cold for your mother and Priscilla. Hand them to your mistress, John. I am sorry, ladies, you have been eating hot muffins merely on my account.” And he glanced at Lizzie so comically while her mother reluctantly helped herself to the unpalatable bread, that she could scarcely restrain a smile.

CHAPTER IV.

DEATH AND DISAPPOINTMENT.

A few weeks after the conversation alluded to in the last chapter, the old man sent for the family to his bedside, which he had not left for several days, and with a half repressed chuckle of satisfaction, informed them that he had an important secret to reveal. Mrs. Lincoln bent eagerly over him, Priscilla sealed herself with her usual quiet composure, and Lizzie half drew back.

“You have repeatedly told me, madam, that it was for my own sake, you valued me so highly—for my own superior qualities of mind and heart, for my striking resemblance to your deceased husband, not for my wealth—that wealth was nothing in the eyes of affection, etc. I thank you as you deserve for this assurance. I will not insult you by a moment’s doubt of its sincerity.” Mrs. Lincoln smiled benignly, and Lizzie turned impatiently to the window. “I have taken you at your word, and fully trusting to its truth, have made my will accordingly. It is in the hands of my solicitor. I have left the whole of my vast property, in specie and landed estate—with the exception of a trifling gift to one who is very dear to me—to a distant relative, the only one who has never troubled me with his company, his attentions, or his flattery, a poor apprentice at a dry-goods store in America.”

Unable to conceal her disappointment and vexation, Mrs. Lincoln hurried from the room. Priscilla followed with a still statelier step than usual, and Lizzie, springing from the window, clasped her uncle’s hand, exclaiming, “I am so glad! I am so glad! Now I can nurse you with pleasure, and love you as much as I choose!”

The old man was speechless at first with surprise and joy, at length he exclaimed—“Is it possible you really care for me?”

“Dear, dear uncle, were you not kind to my poor father in trouble? Did you not assist him with your purse and your influence? and do you think I can ever forget it?”

The invalid sunk back on his pillow with closed eyes, through which tears, the first he had shed for long years, stole over his withered cheeks, and murmuring, “Thank God!” fell into a tranquil sleep, still holding Lizzie’s hand fast locked in his. From that time until his death, which happened in a few days, she nursed him with the tenderness and attention of an affectionate daughter.

Mrs. Lincoln was agreeably surprised to find on the opening of the will, that the “trifling gift to one very dear to him,” was no less than a sum of £2000, bequeathed to her daughter Elizabeth.

The latter generously, or as she said justly, shared this sum with her mother and sister, and affairs went on as before, excepting that somehow the rambles after flowers in the woods grew longer and more frequent.

“We are trying to find the little blue ‘Forget-me-not,’ which Mr. Welford is sure grows in these woods somewhere,” said poor Lizzie, blushing and smiling, when one day a friend questioned her rather too closely upon the subject.

CHAPTER V.

LIZZIE AND A LOVER.

Autumn had come, with its cheerful fires, its picnic fêtes and evening dances, and with it came to the village of S—— a young and wealthy nobleman, who fell desperately in love with Lizzie at a party, and one afternoon when she came into her mother’s little parlor, looking particularly bewitching in her simple straw bonnet and graceful mantilla, and found him there alone, he suddenly offered her his hand and heart. But Lizzie laughed the matter off, by telling him she could not possibly stop to accept it, as she was in a great hurry to go into the woods, in search of a certain little blue flower called the “Forget-me-not.” Away she tripped, and when she returned an hour after sunset the youth had vanished, and the village “that had known him, knew him no more.”

CHAPTER VI.

A TABLEAU VIVANT.

A flood of warm golden light from the setting sun poured in through a vista of the woods, and lighted up a picture there well worthy of such an illumination.

A young and graceful girl was leaning against the trunk of a noble tree. Her straw bonnet lay on the mossy rock beside her. Her soft curls fell showering round her face as she bent over a flower which she held in her hand. It was the little blue “Forget-me-not,” from whose mystic petals many a romantic village maid has learned her destiny. Leaf after leaf the blushing girl pulled off, murmuring as she did so, in a low and trembling tone, half sportive, half in earnest, “He love’s me—he loves me not—he loves me—he loves me not”—only one leaf remained—“He loves”—the flower was gently withdrawn, and the hand that held it pressed passionately to the lips of a noble looking youth who had stolen unperceived around the tree. “Let me speak for the last leaf, Lizzie,” he whispered, “He loves thee more than life! Dear one, may he believe his love returned?” Lizzie smiled through her tears—he drew her to his heart!

For a moment the lingering sunshine rested softly on the fair tableau, then passed and left it to the holier light of love.

CHAPTER VII.

“Have you found the blue ‘Forget-me-not’ yet?” said the good old rector of S——, with a meaning smile, to a fair and white-robed maiden at his side, as they sat with others at the bridal feast about a year after the performance of the forest-tableau. Lizzie Welford looked up in her husband’s eyes, which were bent fondly upon her, and smiled, but did not reply.

Pleasant and comfortable, but simply furnished, was the cottage in which the schoolmaster and his beautiful and happy wife passed the first few months of their marriage. But Charles grew restless then, and he persuaded Lizzie—who never could resist his persuasions—to take a little journey with him.

In their own humble chaise, they traveled through the delightful and richly cultivated country, and Lizzie was enchanted with almost all she saw. There was but one drawback on her happiness; and that had always been her chief trouble from childhood—her sympathies were too powerful to allow her to behold poverty or misery in any shape without a pang of pity and an ardent wish to relieve it; and this her humble means would not always allow her to do. As she passed some beggars on the road, to whom she had thrown some silver, she turned to her husband with tears in her eyes and said—

“Oh, Charles! I never care for wealth for my own sake, but would it not be a divine happiness to possess the power of relieving others?”

Charles smiled, rather too gaily she thought, but he pressed her hand so tenderly that she could not chide him. At the close of the second day’s journey, they came to a beautiful and extensive park, through the vistas of which, they could catch now and then a glimpse of a magnificent mansion. Lizzie thought it must be a palace. Her eyes flashed with delight, and then filled with tears. She was excited and nervous she knew not why. She had read of such places, but she had never seen one, and she begged Charles to stop the chaise for a few moments, that she might gaze her fill. “We will drive through the park,” said her husband, “I know the owner well.” She thought his voice trembled, and looking up in his face she saw that it was lighted up with a glow of lofty exultation, which so well became his refined and aristocratic beauty that she involuntarily raised his hand to her lips and kissed it fondly, yet with a vague fear for which she could not account. They drove through the park to the principal entrance of the house; as they approached it was flung wide open! and from a train of liveried servants stepped forth an old man, who smiled an earnest welcome as he respectfully assisted Charles to alight. Lizzie was dumb with wonder.

“Come!” said her husband holding out his hand.

“Where are you taking me, Charles?”

“To my home! dear Lizzie,” he exclaimed, pressing her fondly to his bosom, as he bore her half fainting into the library, where a pleasant fire was kindled. “Welcome to my home—to the home of my fathers! my own, my precious wife!”

“And who then are you, my husband?” asked the bewildered and half frightened Lizzie, sinking on a sofa by his side.

“My dear Howard,” said he laughing, to a young man who at this moment hastily entered the room, “before you welcome me introduce me to my wife!”

“The Earl of E——, dear madam,” said his friend, coming forward with a smile.

“The Earl of E——, sweet countess,” echoed Charles, “think you that dear forehead will ache beneath this toy?” And taking from a casket a coronet of diamonds, he placed it on her head and kissed her tearful eyes. And what did the youthful countess do? Forgive her Etiquette! Forgive her, Mr. Howard! She was weary—almost exhausted with excitement and fatigue—and closing her lashes, still wet with tears, upon her husband’s shoulder, she murmured a blessing upon his name, and fell fast asleep, like a tired child, as she was! Courteous reader! if you have not already followed her example you may do so now—for my story is ended.

BY C. E. DA PONTE.

BY N. P. WILLIS.

I once had a long conversation with a fellow traveler in the coupé of a French diligence. It was a bright moonlight night, early in June—not at all the scene or season for talking long on very dry topics—and with a mutual abandon which must be explained by some theory of the silent sympathies, we fell to chatting rather confidentially on the subject of love. He gave me some hints as to a passage in his life which seemed to me, when he told it, a definite and interesting story; but in recalling it to mind afterward, I was surprised to find how little he really said, and how much, from seeing the man and hearing his voice, I was enabled without effort to supply. To save roundabout, I’ll tell the story in the first person, as it was told to me, begging the reader to take my place in the coupé and listen to a very gentlemanly man, of very lovable voice and manners; supplying also, as I did, by the imagination, much more than is told in the narration.

“I am inclined to think that we are sometimes best loved by those whom we least suspect of being interested in us; and while a sudden laying open of hearts would give the lie to many a love professed, it would, here and there, disclose a passion which, in the ordinary course of things, would never have been betrayed. I was once a little surprised with a circumstance of the kind I allude to.

“I had become completely domesticated in a family living in the neighborhood of London—I can scarce tell you how, even if it were worth while. A chance introduction, as a stranger in the country, first made me acquainted with them, and we had gone on, from one degree of friendship to another, till I was as much at home at Lilybank as any one of the children. It was one of those little English paradises, rural and luxurious, where love, confidence, simplicity and refinement seem natural to the atmosphere, and I thought, when I was there, that I was probably as near to perfect happiness as I was likely to be in the course of my life. But I had my annoyance even there.

“Mr. Fleming (the name is fictitious of course) was a man of sufficient fortune, living, without a profession, on his means. He was avowedly of the middle class, but his wife, a very beautiful specimen of the young English mother, was very highly connected, and might have moved in what society she pleased. She chose to find her happiness at home, and leave society to come to her by its own natural impulse and affinity—a sensible choice, which shows you at once the simple and rational character of the woman. Fleming and his wife were very fond of each other, but, at the same time, very fond of the companionship of those who were under their roof, and between them and their three or four lovely children I could have been almost contented to have been a prisoner at Lilybank, and to have seen nobody but its charming inmates for years together.

“I had become acquainted with the Flemings, however, during the absence of one of the members of the family. Without being at all aware of any new arrival in the course of the morning, I went late to dinner after a long and solitary ride on horseback, and was presented to Lady Rachel ——, a tall and reserved looking person, sitting on Fleming’s right hand. Seeing no reason to abate any of my outward show of happiness, or to put any restraint on the natural impulse of my attentions, I took my accustomed seat by the sweet mistress of the house, wrapped up my entire heart, as usual, in every word and look that I sent toward her, and played the schoolboy that I felt myself, uncloudedly frank and happy. Fleming laughed and mingled in our chat occasionally, as he was wont to do, but a glance now and then at his stately right hand neighbor made me aware that I was looked upon with some coldness, if not with a marked disapproval. I tried the usual peace-offerings of deference and marked courtesy, and lessened somewhat the outward show of my happiness, but Lady Rachel was apparently not propitiated. You know what it is to have one link cold in the chain of sympathy around a table.

“The next morning I announced my intention of returning to town. I had hitherto come and gone at my pleasure. This time the Flemings showed a determined opposition to my departure. They seemed aware that my enjoyment under their roof had been, for the first time, clouded over, and they were not willing I should leave till the accustomed sunshine was restored. I felt that I owed them too much to resist any persuasion of theirs against my own feelings merely, and I remained.

“But I determined to overcome Lady Rachel’s aversion—a little from pique, I may as well confess, but mostly for the gratification I knew it would give to my sweet friends and entertainers. The saddle is my favorite thinking-place. I mounted a beautiful hunter which Fleming always put at my disposal while I stayed with them, and went off for a long gallop. I dismounted at an inn, some miles off, called for black wax, and writing myself a letter, despatched it to Lilybank. To play my part well, you will easily conceive, it was necessary that my kind friends should not be in the secret.

“The short road to the heart of a proud woman, I well knew, was pity. I came to dinner that day a changed man. It was known through the family, of course, that a letter sealed with black had arrived for me, during my ride, and it gave me the apology I needed for a sudden alteration of manner. Delicacy would prevent any one except Mrs. Fleming from alluding to it, and she would reserve the inquiry till we were alone. I had the evening before me, of course.

“Lady Rachel, I had remarked, showed her superiority by habitually pitching her voice a note or two below that of the persons around her—as if the repose of her calm mind was beyond the plummet of their superficial gayety. I had also observed, however, that if she succeeded in rebuking now and then the high spirits of her friends, and lowered the general diapason till it harmonized with her own voice, she was more gratified than by any direct compliment or attention. I ate my soup in silence, and, while the children, and a chance guest or two, were carrying on some agreeable banter in a merry key, I waited for the first opening of Lady Rachel’s lips, and, when she spoke, look her tone like an echo. Without looking at her, I commenced a subdued and pensive description of my morning’s ride, like a man unconsciously awakened from his reverie by a sympathetic voice, and betraying, by the tone in which he spoke, the chord to which he responded. A newer guest had taken my place, next to Mrs. Fleming, and I was opposite Lady Rachel. I could feel her eyes suddenly fixed on me as I spoke. For the first time, she addressed a remark to me, in a pause of my description. I raised my eyes to her with as much earnestness and deference as I could summon into them, and, when I had listened lo her and answered her observation, kept them fastened on her lips, as if I hoped she would speak to me again—yet without a smile, and with an expression that I meant should be that of sadness, forgetful of usages, and intent only on an eager longing for sympathy. Lady Rachel showed her woman’s heart, by an almost immediate change of countenance and manner. She leaned slightly over the table toward me, with her brows lifted from her large dark eyes, and the conversation between us became continuous and exclusive. After a little while, my kind host, finding that he was cut off from his other guests by the fear of interrupting us, proposed to give me the head of the table, and I took his place, at the left hand of Lady Rachel. Her dinner was forgotten. She introduced topics of conversation such as she thought harmonized with my feelings, and while I listened, with my eyes alternately cast down or raised timidly to hers, she opened her heart to me on the subject of death, the loss of friends, the vanity of the world, and the charm, to herself, of sadness and melancholy. She seemed unconscious of the presence of others as she talked. The tears suffused her fine eyes and her lips quivered, and I found, to my surprise, that she was a woman, under that mask of haughtiness, of the keenest sensibility and feeling. When Mrs. Fleming left the table, Lady Rachel pressed my hand, and, instead of following into the drawing-room, went out by the low window upon the lawn. I had laid up some little food for reflection as you may conceive, and I sat the next hour looking into my wine-glass, wondering at the success of my manœuvre, but a little out of humor with my own hypocrisy, notwithstanding.

“Mrs. Fleming’s tender kindness to me when I joined her at the tea-table, made me again regret the sacred feelings upon which I had drawn for my experiment. But there was no retreat. I excused myself hastily, and went out in search of Lady Rachel, meeting her ladyship, as I expected, slowly pacing the dark avenues of the garden. The dimness of the starlight relieved me from the effort of keeping sadness in my countenance, and I easily played out my part till midnight, listening to an outpouring of mingled kindness and melancholy, for the waste of which I felt some need to be forgiven.

“Another day of this, however, was all that I could bring my mind to support. Fleming and his wife had entirely lost sight—in sympathy with my presumed affliction—of the object of detaining me at Lilybank, and I look my leave, hating myself for the tender pressure of the hand, and the sad and sympathizing farewells which I was obliged to receive from them. I did not dare to tell them of my unworthy ruse. Lady Rachel parted from me as kindly as the rest, and I had gained my point with the loss of my self-esteem. With a prayer that, notwithstanding this deceit and misuse, I might find pity when I should indeed stand in need of it, I drove from the door.

“A month passed away, and I wrote, once more, to my friends, at Lilybank, that I would pass a week with them. An occurrence in the course of that month, however, had thrown another mask over my face, and I went there again with a part to play—and, as if by a retributive Providence, it was now my need of sympathy that I was most forced to conceal. An affair which I saw no possibility of compromising, had compelled me to call out a man who was well known as a practical duelist. The particulars would not interest you. In accepting the challenge, my antagonist asked a week’s delay, to complete some important business from which he could not withdraw his attention. And that week I passed with the Flemings.

“The gayety of Lilybank was resumed with the smile I brought back, and chat and occupation took their natural course. Lady Rachel, though kind and courteous, seemed to have relapsed into her reserve, and, finding society an effort, I rode out daily alone, seeing my friends only at dinner and in the evening. They took it to be an indulgence of some remainder of my former grief, and left me consequently to the disposition of my own time.

“The last evening before the duel arrived, and I bade my friends good night as usual, though with some suppressed emotion. My second, who was to come from town and take me up at Lilybank on his way to the ground, had written to me that, from what he could gather, my best way was to be prepared for the worst, and, looking upon it as very probably the last night of my life, I determined to pass it waking, and writing to my friends at a distance. I sat down to it, accordingly, without undressing.

“It was toward three in the morning that I sealed up my last letter. My bed-room was on the ground floor, with a long window opening into the garden; and, as I lifted my head up from leaning over the seal, I saw a white object standing just before the casement, but at some little distance, and half buried in the darkness. My mind was in a fit mood for a superstitious feeling, and my blood crept cold for a moment; I passed my hand across my eyes—looked again. The figure moved slowly away.

“To direct my thoughts, I took up a book and read. But, on looking up, the figure was there again, and, with an irresistible impulse, I rushed out to the garden. The figure came toward me, but, with its first movement, I recognized the stately step of Lady Rachel.

“Confused at having intruded on her privacy, for I presumed that she was abroad for solitude, and with no thought of being disturbed, I turned to retire. She called to me, however, and, sinking upon a garden-seat, covered her face with her hands. I stood before her, for a moment, in embarrassed silence.

“ ‘You keep late hours,’ she said, at last, with a tremulous voice, but rising at the same time and, with her arm put in through mine, leading me to the thickly shaded walk.

“ ‘To-night I do,’ I replied; ‘letters I could not well defer——’

“ ‘Listen to me!’ interrupted Lady Rachel. ‘I know your business for the morning—’

“I involuntarily released my arm and started back. The chance of an interruption that would seem dishonorable flashed across my mind.

“ ‘Stay!’ she continued; ‘I am the only one in the family who knows of it, and my errand with you is not to hinder this dreadful meeting. The circumstances are such, that, with society as it is, you could not avoid it with honor.’

“I pressed her arm with a feeling of gratified justification which quite overcame, for the moment, my curiosity as to the source of her knowledge of the affair.

“ ‘You must forgive me,’ she said, ‘that I come to you like a bird of ill omen. I cannot spare the precious moments to tell you how I came by my information as to your design. I have walked the night away, before your window, not daring to interrupt you in what was probably the performance of sacred duties. But I know your antagonist—I know his demoniac nature, and—pardon me!—I dread the worst!’

“I still walked by her side in silence. She resumed, though strongly agitated.

“ ‘I have said that I justify you in an intention which will probably cost you your life. Yet, but for a feeling which I am about to disclose to you, I should lose no time and spare no pains in preventing this meeting. Under such circumstances, your honor would be less dear to me than now, and I should be acting as one of my sex who had but her share of interest in resisting and striving to correct this murderous exaction of public opinion. I would condemn dueling in argument—avoid the duelist in society—make any sacrifice with others to suppress it in the abstract—but, till the feeling changes in reference to it, I could not bring myself to sacrifice, in the honor of a man I loved, my world of happiness for my share only.’

“ ‘And mean you to say——’ I began, but, as the light broke upon my mind, amazement stopped my utterance.

“ ‘Yes—that I love you!—that I love you!’ murmured Lady Rachel, throwing herself into my arms, and fastening her lips to mine in a long and passionate kiss—‘that I love you, and, in this last hour of your life, must breathe to you what I never before breathed to mortal!’

“She sank to the ground, and, with handsful of dew, swept up from the grass of the lawn, I bathed her temples, as she leaned senseless against my knee. The moon had risen above the trees, and poured its full radiance on her pale face and closed eyes. Her hair loosened and fell in heavy masses over her shoulders and bosom, and, for the first time, I realized Lady Rachel’s extraordinary beauty. Her features were without a fault, her skin was of marble fairness and paleness, and her abandonment to passionate feeling had removed, for the instant, a hateful cloud of pride and superciliousness that, at all other times, had obscured her loveliness. With a new-born emotion in my heart, I seized the first instant of returning consciousness, and pressed her, with a convulsive eagerness, to my bosom.

“The sound of wheels aroused me from this delirious dream, and, looking up, I saw the gray of the dawn struggling with the moonlight. I tore myself from her arms, and the moment after was whirling away to the appointed place of meeting.”

“I was in my room, at Lilybank, dressing, at eleven of that same day. My honor was safe, and the affair was over, and now my whole soul was bent on this new and unexpected vision of love. True—I was but twenty-five, and Lady Rachel probably twenty years older—but she loved me—she was highborn and beautiful—and love is not so often brought to the lip in this world, that we can cavil at the cup which holds it. With these thoughts and feelings wrangling tumultuously in my healed blood, I took the following note from a servant at my door.”

“ ‘Lady Rachel —— buries in entire oblivion the last night past. Feelings over which she has full control in ordinary circumstances, have found utterance under the conviction that they were words to the dying. They would never have been betrayed without impending death, and they will never, till death be near to one of us, find voice, or give token of existence, again. Delicacy and honor will prompt you to visit Lilybank no more.’

“Lady Rachel kept her room till I left, and I have never visited Lilybank, nor seen her, since.”

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF THEODORE WELL.

BY W. W. STORY.

OR THE TWO PICTURES OF LIFE.

BY EZRA HOLDEN.

“No, Henry, you are altogether wrong.”

“How so, Elizabeth?”

“Because you are too extensively in business to hesitate now.”

“But I sometimes fear the consequences.”

“That is a foolish fear. How do others manage? Don’t they make one debt with which to pay another? You must do the same.”

“Would you advise me then to buy the block of stores which Mr. Whitwell seems so anxious to sell?”

“Certainly—he asks but little cash down, and it will keep up your credit.”

“That, thank fortune, has never been doubted; but these heavy operations oppress me. I was far more happy in the little store in Congress street, and even when I worked at my honest trade—”

“Yes, you are forever harping about your mechanic trade. I hate it, Harry. I don’t see the necessity when people have risen in the world to be eternally talking about their origin.”

“Perhaps it may check us, wife, from going too fast in our new career.”

“There is far more fear of it serving to keep us down in the world. You know Julia is to be brought out at our great party on Wednesday evening, and the Whitneys, Parleys and Gardiners would not be of the jam if they knew her father started life in a smutty and filthy machine shop.”

“But, Elizabeth, it was an honorable business and gave me a start in the world.”

“What if it did? You’re a merchant and capitalist now, and should deport yourself accordingly.”

“Well, well, it is of no use to discuss this point with you. Besides, the hour has nearly arrived when I was to meet Mr. Whitwell and say yes or no about the block of buildings.”

“Say yes, husband, for it was only last week that Whitman Johnson made his great purchase in Bowdoin Place; and I am sure, at the party of the Shaws, every body was saying how rich he is becoming.”

“But Whitman has been a bold operator and a most fortunate one also.”

“Yet he started life when you did, Harry, and has done all by courage in great speculations.”

“And I shall not deny that I have entered into many heavy operations in real estate from the daring example he has set.”

“That was right, Harry. Were I a man, I would not let my old school-fellows run away from me in the race of fortune, if adventure and courage would prevent it.”

Harry Wildredge was an enterprising young man. Commencing life with nothing but his own hands, he had, after a few years of very successful business, married Elizabeth Woodbridge, the daughter of one who had been a wealthy merchant ere reverses somewhat changed his business condition. To live in a style corresponding with the expectancy of the family into which he had been received as a son-in-law, required him to set up a very expensive establishment; and the new associates he formed, with the dazzling whirlpool of society into which he was thrown, soon caused him to lose sight of the prudential habits of trade, which had, by dint of devotion to business, placed him, at the period of his marriage, in the possession of a fortune which was regarded as most ample. Legitimate trade was now abandoned for what was regarded as a shorter road to an enormous fortune.

His young wife, ambitious to eclipse others, was ever his counsellor to push forward in the career of rapid fortune-making; and when he went to the counting-house to meet Mr. Whitwell, for the purpose of giving an answer in regard to the block of buildings, his mind was not a little swayed by what she had that morning urged. “Yes,” he said to himself, “what she says is all true. I must not hesitate now. My career must be onward. I must keep pace with the bold adventures of my friends. A few more great operations and fortune may so smile upon me that I shall be able to retire altogether from active pursuits. I will purchase the block of buildings in Summer Place, and any others which may offer under such favorable auspices.”

The purchase was accordingly made; and it appeared as if this were a new starting point in the adventurous career of Henry Wildredge. There was evidently a powerful impulse at work in his mind. He never looked back again. The heaviest operators were eclipsed; and for years he was regarded as one of the greatest as well as one of the boldest adventurers who appeared on ’change.

Elizabeth Wildredge was in her glory. The greatest splendor prevailed both at her town and country house, and when she appeared upon the fashionable drive in her magnificent carriage, it cannot be denied that she was not unfrequently the envy of those who had to content themselves with a less costly turn out. As a devotee of fashion, none were more ardent than Mrs. Wildredge; and, as a consequence, she could find but little time to devote to the guidance of Julia’s mind. Indeed, her daughter had been completely turned over to the care of others, and she was educated only as one who would become the heiress of an immense estate, and have about her, all her lifetime, others to attend to her most trifling wants.

Her father, completely lost in the extent, bewilderments and distractions of an enormous business, had neither time nor thoughts to bestow in the counsel or guidance even of his only daughter; and thus, at a period when, above all others, she most needed parental sympathy, watchfulness and control, the expectant heiress was literally left to her own will. She was surrounded constantly with a train of suitors, from among the gay, unoccupied and thoughtless gallants of society; and among all a young nobleman from abroad, Count Delande, was most frequently her attendant whenever she appeared in the public promenades.

It was the custom of Mrs. Wildredge, every Summer, to commence the fashionable season at the watering places, by spending a few weeks at the White Sulphur, in Virginia, and then to proceed, as the warmer season advanced, to the thronged resorts of the North. But as several families of their acquaintance were, in two weeks, to proceed to Niagara, Julia, who was always permitted to do as she pleased, expressed a desire not to accompany her mother to the White Sulphur, but went with the friends of the family directly to the Falls. It was six weeks before Mrs. Wildredge reached Niagara, and then she met the surprising intelligence that Julia was not there. Count Delande had arrived the week previously, and the last that had been seen of either, they went out in the family carriage to ride. A letter was despatched to Mr. Wildredge, who made immediate preparations to go in pursuit of the runaways; but the evening before he was ready to start, he received another letter, couched in the usual terms of pretended repentance, asking forgiveness for the elopement, and a parent’s pardon that Julia had become the Countess Delande.

This mortifying event at once put an end to Mrs. Wildredge’s season at the watering places.

On the evening of her return home, she was seated in the parlor with her husband. It was evident enough that he was deeply affected by the elopement of Julia. There was, too, a shade of momentary depression on the countenance of Mrs. Wildredge, but rallying herself, she endeavored to rally her husband also.

“We must write at once to have them return home. If the Count has run through with his whole fortune, we are told he is of good family, and we must provide them an establishment suitable to the rank his extraction will give him in society.”

“Well, Elizabeth, there does not now appear any other course to pursue; but, to me, this is the most painful occurrence of my life.”

The runaways were accordingly written for. They returned at once; and, so soon as convenient, proper steps were taken to settle them in a costly and elegantly furnished house, in Beekman Square. Agreeably to the wishes of the mother, there was nothing neglected to set them out in magnificence, splendor and show, and they started life with nothing to do but to participate in all the luxuries which wealth could purchase, and indulge in whatsoever their caprice might dictate.

With such a start, the Count felt he had nothing to care for but to go forward in a career of extravagant leisure, and this was so perfectly in coincidence with his taste and disposition, the future soon showed that he was not to be eclipsed in brilliancy of expenditure, even by the most extravagant of the city.

For several years, Mr. Wildredge continued to extend his business. He had become largely concerned in manufactures, and was also extensively engaged in commerce. Indeed, there were few vast adventures, even at the adventurous period in which he was operating, wherein he did not have an interest. It appears to be a law of hazard that the more great risks are taken the more anxious and willing to strike boldly and widely becomes the hazardous adventurer. From dealing in thousands, men come to deal in hundreds of thousands, and millions, with as little consideration as they at first made contracts for a few hundred. It was truly so with Mr. Wildredge. Urged on, as we have seen he constantly was, by the great ambition of his wife, the condition of the business in which he was now so unboundedly involved did not allow him to look back or stand still in his adventurous and exciting career.

A few years previous to the period of which we are speaking, Whitney Farnsworth, an intimate acquaintance, departed this life, appointing Mr. Wildredge the executor of his last will and testament. He left a large estate, bequeathed to his estimable widow and two children, a little girl and boy.

The property, with the exception of what was necessary to the support of the widow and her children, remained in the care of Mr. Wildredge. It was the wish of Mrs. Farnsworth that it should do so, and, at each annual exhibit, he had shown a very prosperous advance, which increased the already unlimited confidence she had in his management of the estate. Such was the relation which Mr. Wildredge bore to the family of his deceased friend, when Mrs. Farnsworth was taken suddenly and seriously ill. It was but a few weeks from the commencement of her indisposition, when her physician gave up all hopes of her recovery. She accordingly made every preparation for so solemn an event, and, confirming the selection of her departed husband, she solicited Mr. Wildredge to become the guardian of her dear children. He accepted the sacred trust, and, in a few days afterward, standing at the death-bed of the devoted mother, as he raised little Mary and Edward in his arms to receive the last kiss of affection from her trembling lips, he gave her the most solemn promise that he would be as a father unto them. She raised her eyes to heaven, and, with a smile of angelic delight, said, with her last breath, “Then I die in peace.”

Acting on his own devoted feelings, at the time of their mother’s decease, it would have been the wish of his heart if he could have received the orphan children to the bosom of his own family. But he had his fears that his wife was so engrossed in the fashionable world, such an arrangement would be wholly repugnant to her wishes; and this he found was the case when, a few evenings afterward, he suggested it to her. The only alternative now left was to place them under the care of the nearest relative, Mrs. Susannah Sprague, a young widowed cousin of their deceased mother, and whose circumstances were such that the receipt of a salary for devoting herself to the orphan children would not be unacceptable.

This arrangement was accordingly made, and, for two years after the death of widow Farnsworth, both the devoted guardian and the kind-hearted widow, under whose immediate care they were placed, seemed only to rival each other in kindness and attention to the orphan children.

It was the first week in August, during the third year after the decease of Mrs. Farnsworth, that Mr. Wildredge was sitting in the back parlor of their country house, which overlooked the beautiful parterre, from which there seemed a rivalry among the fruits and flowers of almost every clime, to delight the senses of every recipient. But they seemed to have no charms for the master of that delightful mansion. It was obvious that some painful event was weighing heavily upon him. Mrs. Wildredge, who had just returned in her carriage from the country house of the Kitterages, even entered unperceived. She could not fail to observe the altered appearance of her husband, and, with the utmost gayety of her feelings, she remarked,

“Well, by your looks, husband, one would fear you were utterly ruined.”

“I fear that my looks are but the index of the fatal truth I must tell you. Draw your chair nearer, Elizabeth—Delande is a forger! I have this day been compelled to draw upon the funds of the orphan children, and pay sixty-eight thousand dollars of their money to save Julia from disgrace by the world’s knowing that her husband is a forger and a gambler.”

“Gracious heavens, you astound me!”

“But how shall I tell you all? During the last year and a half, I have been compelled to pay such vast sums for the extravagance of Delande, that, coupled with the great losses I have experienced in business, it will be impossible for me longer to meet my payments. I have passed a year of the most unparalleled misery. But I can endure it no longer. I must make immediate provision to repay the money of the orphan children, and then failure is inevitable.”

It would be useless to attempt to picture the emotions with which both husband and wife passed that night.

In the morning, Mr. Wildredge drove to the city at the usual business hour, bent upon one all-absorbing determination to provide means to replace the trust funds of the orphans, ere the final wreck of his fortunes should place it beyond his power to do so. But it seemed as if the fates were against him. Delande had taken a packet which sailed that morning for France. And it had been discovered on ’Change that forgeries, to the amount of forty or fifty thousand dollars more, had been perpetrated by him. As is ever the case in such an emergency, rumor had been busy with her thousand tongues. It was immediately known that Mr. Wildredge had drawn upon the trust fund of the orphans to pay former forgeries. Many of the enormous sums he had previously paid for Delande’s defalcations were circulated about with all the exaggeration and coloring such an excited curiosity is ever sure to produce. To add to the agony of his misfortunes, Mr. Wildredge had large sums to pay that day, to meet bills; but, with the tide of exaggerated rumor which was rushing through Lite city, it was utterly impossible for him to do so; and he was compelled to submit to the dishonor of his paper, without being able to make any previous provision for the replacement of the funds belonging to the orphan children.

It was now at a period of commercial depression, and too soon was it ascertained that the failure brought utter ruin to the fortunes of the Wildredges. It was a sad fall. Who can paint the touching reverse of such a picture? It seemed as if their former high standing, and the troops of world-admirers who had attended their glittering career, were the most ardent of the causes now that pointed out the shortest route to escape the fallen family, in their utter ruin and desolation.

It has been truly said that woman has more fortitude than man, under the most trying emergencies. Not much over a year elapsed, after the failure, when this truth began its illustration in the wife of the ruined merchant. We have seen Elizabeth Wildredge as the gay, thoughtless, fashion-seeking and ambitious member of the world of show, glitter and mistaken rivalry. But how changed now! At first, the unexpected failure of her husband struck her with consternation. But soon she began to be aroused. She looked back upon the past. Oh, what a history was it for her! Upon its every page, she saw the bitter rebukings of her own career, and the true woman was inspired. She saw that there was nothing left to them now. False friends had all flown away. Her husband was dispirited. In his career of prudential business, she had ever urged him to push forward, to rival the most dazzling adventurers, and now she felt certain she had been deeply to blame. Her father, who had been, of late years, overburthened with an expensive and extravagant family, brought up to do nothing, was now wholly unable to assist to recover her fallen fortunes.

For the first time in her life, she saw the world as it really was. It had been a most bitter experience to come to it, but she felt convicted they had been entirely upon a wrong route. From that hour, she was a resolved woman—stimulated with the true pride of making all the amends, for her great fault, which any womanly effort would in an honorable way permit her to achieve.

A half year more had passed away. Mr. Wildredge was now offered a situation as book-keeper in the mercantile house of Mr. Gray. He was glad to accept it; the salary was not large, to be sure, but it was most acceptable in the present condition of the fallen family.

They had taken a neat little cottage, in the suburbs of the city, for the purpose of squaring their expenditures to their scanty income. Mr. Wildredge was more cheerful, now that he had regular employment. He began to feel, too, the happy change that had come over the wife of his bosom. Besides, Julia was with them, and had been ever since the sad developments in regard to her worthless husband. She had been a deep sufferer from the disgrace, mortification and awful change which had followed the profligate and wicked career of Delande. But her mother was now a real mother to her. By her example of resignation, affection and devotion, Julia gradually became a changed being. With a good heart naturally—a pernicious and false system of education—the neglect of parental counsel in early life, and an almost total abandonment to her own wishes and will, had permitted Julia to grow up a thoughtless, untrained and unreflecting aspirant, in the false and delirious ways of the most artificial society even of the great metropolis itself. She had never been, in former days, the companion or confidante of her own mother. But that mother had seen the great error she had committed, and, yielding to no persuasion but that of the most fixed determination to repair, if possible, the deficiency of the past, she clung to her only daughter, with that warmth of zeal and purity of devotion which the true mother is alone capable of displaying. They were inseparable friends and companions now, and both had come to know that there is an inexhaustible mine of unalloyed happiness springing from the true relations of the mother and her daughter, and which unfolds its richest jewels only where there is an unceasing correspondence to develop the productive and priceless treasures of reciprocal affections.

It was now most obviously the single purpose of the mother not only to implant correct views of life in the mind of Julia, but, what was best of all, to carry out those principles into practical life, by her own example.

The labors of Mr. Wildredge were, likewise, most cheerfully yielded to, but, with his small salary, it was soon seen that they had no prospect of bettering their pecuniary situation. One evening, about a year after he had taken his situation as the book-keeper of Mr. Gray, they were sitting in the parlor of the sweet little cottage, which had now become the abode of real happiness. The conversation turned upon the excessive application which the observant and affectionate wife declared was too severe for her husband to perform.

“Now, Harry,” she quickly added, “I hope you will not oppose us, for Julia and her mother have, for some time, been forming a plan to see what they can do toward earning their own pin-money.”

“And what, pray, do you propose to do more than you now so faithfully accomplish?”

“Why, husband, we are going to set up a school; and we have already the daughters of six of our friends engaged to commence with.”

“That you would find far more confining than is my situation as book-keeper, and I——”

“No, no, father, you cannot vote against us now, it is altogether too late for that. We are to be inaugurated next Monday, to begin our seminary in due form, and shall expect you to make the opening address on the occasion. You must make a virtue of necessity, therefore, and cast your vote in the affirmative.”

The school was accordingly opened. Small as it was in the beginning, its successful progress soon proved what the determination of a persevering wife and her devoted daughter can accomplish. Their hearts were in it—and that is always the way to victory in any thing.

After the close of the first year, “Rose Hill School” progressed rapidly to fame. The acquaintances of the Wildredges, seeing the consecrated energy of Julia and her mother, were proud to aid forward their worthy and useful exertions. They appeared to join their daughters to the seminary as a privilege to themselves; and not six months of the second year passed away before Mrs. Wildredge was delighted that the number of her pupils required her to rent an adjacent and much more spacious dwelling to accommodate the school. From that time forward, it went gradually upward with wide-spread success, usefulness and fame, until it was but comparatively a few years more, when, in point of profit and respectability, there were few young ladies’ seminaries in the country that would at all compare with it; and that was a proud moment for the active mother and her daughter.

It is a source of true happiness to win success in any worthy enterprise in which we feel that our talents are usefully and advantageously employed. If this truth was ever fully developed in any two individuals, their friends felt it was most triumphant in the felicity which reigned at “Rose Hill Cottage.” By the gains of the successful seminary, they had this year purchased the abode in which they first commenced trying their womanly energies—and, by a judicious expenditure in architectural ornaments and taste, it was justly regarded now as one of the sweetest cottages which the delightful suburbs of the city afforded. The grounds were delightfully laid out, and ornamented; and if there was not so much richness, splendor and show as were to be seen at the magnificent country residence in which they resided in former days, there was incomparably more happiness. They had true and devoted friends now—those who loved, cherished and admired. There was no false show or artificial pride; but there were reality, simplicity, honest hearts and smiling faces. Few, indeed, are the fathers and husbands who are not made most happy by the proper devotion of their wives and daughters; and, as for Harry Wildredge, he was the happiest man living.

“We have taken two new scholars to-day, husband,” remarked Mrs. Wildredge, as they were sitting under the balcony, one delightful summer’s eve, inhaling the sweet perfume given out by the clustering honey suckles that had entwined themselves around and above.

“Come, father,” added Julia, “can you guess who they are—when I tell you that in our young ladies’ seminary, by especial privilege of the school, one of our new scholars is a boy—and we are determined to keep him permanently, too?”

“I think I shall not be able to conjecture, in that dilemma, my daughter, and so I will wait till your school assembles in the morning to ascertain.”

“No, husband,” said Mrs. Wildredge, as she came forward, leading in either hand a sweet little girl and boy; “I think your curiosity must not be so long postponed, and so may I introduce the orphan children of your deceased friend, as our future pupils?”

“God bless you, my wife and daughter!” exclaimed Mr. Wildredge, as a tear of gratitude stole down his happy face. “In this, you have indeed filled up my cup of human felicity.”

“Yes, my husband, with God’s blessing, if devotion can do it, will we endeavor to educate aright the widow’s children—we will be a father and mother to them. From the first hour we commenced our school, we had the determination to receive them into it, the moment they should be old enough to come. That period has arrived—and it is, indeed, one of the happiest moments of my life.”

Years rolled away, and most faithfully did they fulfill the pledge of that night.

The seminary continued to progress most prosperously, until it had again become indispensable to extend the dimension of its edifices, and multiply the number of assistant teachers, in almost every department.

To the fortunes of Mr. Wildredge there had come, likewise, an unexpected flood of success. Mr. Gray had for many years been pursuing commercial operations with unprecedented advantage. His business had greatly widened this year upon his hands, and, loving Mr. Wildredge as he would a brother, he proposed to receive him as a partner in his concern, giving a third of the profits of the entire business.

We have not named before that Mr. Gray was a bachelor, but it is far more gratifying to write it now, especially as we have a right to suppose the reader has become not a little interested in the fortunes of the devoted Julia. Almost from the time they removed to the neat little villa at “Rose Hill,” Mr. Gray was a constant and intimate visiter there. The maker of his own fortunes, by prudence, straight-forwardness and commercial integrity, he had, from the outset, taken a deep interest in beholding the delightful revolution which had come over the family of his early associate. But none had conjectured—not even the ancient maidens of their acquaintance—that his purpose was to propose for Julia; and in this, acting like the prudent merchant that he had ever shown himself, he kept his own secret of intended negotiation until the proper moment arrived. Then he first asked the consent of his partner in business—the next day, that of the principal of “Rose Hill Seminary,” and last, “though not least,” the same evening, that of her confidential adviser and associate. Julia said, “I have no objections, Mr. G., to the matrimonial copartnership, provided my dear parents, this time, approve the choice;” and to this the straight-forward merchant was prepared promptly to reply. “Then we may as well seal the contract at as early a day as will suit your convenience, for I first obtained the approval of your father and mother.”

The following morning, the whole family assembled to consult upon so important a change as the removal from office of the vice-presidentess of “Rose Hill School.”

“I have only one objection, Mr. Gray, to the proposed change,” said Mrs. Wildredge, “and that is, I hardly know how I am to submit to a separation of my children, for to me the departed widow’s children are the same as my own. To them I owe a debt which I feel I never can repay, but, with such means as Providence has blessed me with, I shall, through my whole lifetime, do all in my power to make amends.”

“Oh, my dear mother, I cannot find words to tell you, but this pestering old bachelor has anticipated us all. Would you believe it, last evening he insisted upon it—as a codicil to our marriage settlement, I suppose—that I was to become the mother of the orphan children, and they shall live with us as our children.”

“That can never be, my dearest Julia, unless you take your mother with them—for, in my natural life, I shall never be separated from the orphan children.”

“Nor shall you, my mother,” quickly retorted Mr. Gray, “because I am never going to be separated from you. We are to live together. So be kind enough to make arrangements, as quickly as may be, to surrender your authority as presidentess of ‘Rose Hill Seminary,’ for you are henceforth to live with us, and act as the presidentess only of our household.”

Never was there a family more united than the one which grew out of this propitious marriage. In ten years from the wedding-day, Mr. Wildredge had deposited with Mr. Gray the funds of the orphans, which he had expended in an hour of wild speculation and commercial embarrassment; and that night, as he gathered the whole family around him, in the sweet cottage of “Rose Hill,” which had never been deserted, he kneeled before the altar of his God in devout thankfulness, feeling and acknowledging that this was indeed the happiest moment of his earthly existence.

BY C. F. HOFFMAN.

BY ERNEST HELFENSTEIN.

OR THE YOUNG BELLE AND THE BEL ESPRIT.

BY F. E. F., AUTHOR OF “A MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE.”

“Well, Lucy,” said Frank Tucker, “I think you and Charles Sullivan have flirted pretty well for one evening. In fact I do not know whether I am not called upon to offer you my congratulations. Is it a settled thing?”

“I cannot compliment you on your penetration, Frank,” replied his cousin gaily, “or you would have seen that Sullivan’s attentions are more than equally divided between Annette and myself.”

“Nonsense!” rejoined he, “there can be no rivalship between you and Annette with such a man as Sullivan.”

“And why not, pray?”

“Why not? Because Sullivan is a man of very superior mind; and although he may laugh and trifle with a girl like Annette, he is not seriously to be caught by such childish attractions as hers. A man of sense wants a companion, a woman who is capable of appreciating his powers, of entering into his views, of—”

“Pshaw! a man of talents wants no such thing. An ordinary man may, but an extraordinary one don’t. What is the mind of the cleverest woman he knows to such a man as Sullivan, accustomed to come in collision daily with the acutest intellects of the bar? He wants a wife who admires and adores him, and that’s what he calls ‘appreciation.’ He is tired of talent, sick of learning, wearied with mental exertions, and there is a repose in Annette’s sweet, unthinking face that is perfectly refreshing to him.”

“You may talk as you please, Lucy, but I am not blind, though you would fain make me think so. Don’t I see Sullivan turn to you when his eye sparkles with a new idea? When he becomes excited or interested in speaking of any of the public topics of the day, does he not involuntarily turn to you, no matter with whom he commenced the subject? Does he ever address such conversation to Annette?”

“Never, I admit,” replied Lucy. “His witticisms, his brilliant thoughts are, as you say, all mine; but, if you observe a little more closely, you will also see that his compliments are all Annette’s. In short, his head is mine, but his heart is hers. Her innocence, her naïveté, nay, even her ignorance, are charms to him, from the contrast to the hard-headed, clever men with whom he has been in contact all day. And very naturally. Clever men don’t want clever women. Your ordinary man who can’t amuse himself requires a woman who can. And your rather clever men like those who excite and rub up their intellects, and bring out and admire their witticisms. But men of real talent, who throw off their brilliancy as unconsciously as the sun does light and heat, because they can’t help it, don’t want women’s wits to brighten them. Their imaginations are caught by novelty. They like women as we like children, for their beauty, grace and playfulness. What is the charm that renders childhood so captivating? Not its intelligence, surely, for there is no greater bore in the world than what is called an ‘intelligent child,’ with its ‘sensible questions’ and ‘inquisitive mind.’ No, its inarticulate accents, its prattling nonsense, its pretty ways, and newness to all that surrounds it. A woman has no business with talent.”

“When I hear you misuse yours as I do, I am tempted to agree with you,” rejoined Frank. “And so folly is a charm, is it?”

“When joined to a pretty face, most certainly,” replied Lucy laughing; “and you know it as well as I.”

“No such thing. A pretty face without intelligence is like a flower without perfume.”

“Exactly,” exclaimed Lucy. “Camelias, which bring the highest price of any flower in the conservatory. You could not have hit upon a better comparison, Frank. But to return to Sullivan and Annette. Now, mark my words, and give me credit hereafter for my penetration when the event fulfills my prophecy. It will be a match. I know, to careless observers, I would appear to be his object. He comes here after the day’s business is ended, wearied and exhausted. He has been speaking perhaps all day in court, listened to with respect and attention by the judge, with admiration (in spite of themselves) by the opposite counsel, and delight by his own party. He has had a crowded court room for the arena, and been complimented by the first men of the day. He comes here wearied with excitement, fatigued in mind and exhausted in body. I, having been shut up all day, am fresh and bright, (modesty, avaunt!) longing for amusement, enter with spirit in the conversation which, as you say, produces flash upon flash from Sullivan; but he soon turns to Annette, as to ‘tired nature’s sweet restorer,’ sure that she will never controvert his positions, never say ‘I don’t agree with you,’ nor draw him into argument, nor force him into brilliancy.”

“You think then that a man of sense chooses his wife as he chooses a flower, for her silent beauty, and never asks himself how she is fitted to pass through the trials and fulfill the duties of a long life. How she is calculated to take the head of his household, train up his children—”

“Heavens! Frank, how you preach! one would think you were in the pulpit already. Trials and duties! If men and women considered half they were to go through, I doubt whether there ever would be any marriages at all. And, besides, let me tell you, if people’s hearts don’t teach them their duties, and enable them to support their trials, their heads never will. A warm-hearted woman bears with vicissitudes cheerfully, for the sake of the husband she loves, and would fain chase the cloud from his brow, because it pains her to see it darkened with suffering; not because her understanding tells her that that is the wisest course to pursue. In fact, I think the weak woman has in this case decidedly the advantage over the sensible one, for she questions his embarrassments, sees into his difficulties, and consequently participates in his despondency; whereas she who blindly rests in ignorant confidence on her husband’s ability to meet all things, reposes tranquilly in his responsibility, and half beguiles him of his anxieties by her sanguine trust in the future.”

“And the children. Is their mother’s folly to prove a blessing to them also?”

“Certainly,” said Lucy smiling, “nature never does her work by halves. The same loving heart that leads her to think her husband the greatest man on earth, tells her that her children are her greatest happiness. She nurses them in sickness and watches them in health, making their home cheerful and their young lives happy, without torturing their childish brains with what they do not comprehend, nor anticipating in every infant fault the germ of future sin and sorrow. Give me, beyond every gift under heaven, a cheerful temper that confides in the future, and never sees an inch beyond its nose.”

“And this is the training you would give immortal beings?”

“Yes; the best education of all others, that of example, worth all the precepts in the world.”

“Capital special pleading in the cause of Folly, Lucy. Then, if I understand you rightly, you deem talent a misfortune, and that Providence mistakes in sometimes so endowing women. In short, that you would gladly yield that portion which has been too liberally bestowed upon yourself?”

“No, Frank,” replied his cousin laughing; “you are very far now from rightly understanding me. Was not Rasselas ‘consoled for the miseries of life, from a consciousness of the delicacy with which he felt, and the eloquence with which he bewailed them,’ and am I to be more wise and less vain than the wisest of Eastern princes? But, jesting apart, I do think that intellectual superiority lessens a woman’s chance in marriage, though, as Charles Lamb charmingly expresses it, ‘it makes an incomparable old maid.’ ”

The conversation was here interrupted by the entrance of Annette, and, after a little desultory chat, Frank took his leave, slowly retracing his steps to the seminary, pondering over his conversation with Lucy, with an excited mind and troubled heart. There had been much in that conversation that had both soothed and wounded his feelings in a manner his cousin had no conception of. She had proclaimed her conviction of Sullivan’s preference of Annette with a sincerity and calmness that avouched her indifference toward him, and his jealous heart had caught the assurance with delight; but then, at the same time, she had expressed an admiration of his talents, a pleasure in his society, that told him that the indifference proceeded from that conviction alone. Might she, too, not be mistaken in that belief? was a question he asked himself again and again. Could it be possible that the being he so idolized could be thus carelessly passed by by one who might have won her if he would, for to that fact he could not blind himself. If she was heart-whole it was only because she was clear-headed, as he saw, felt and knew that Charles Sullivan was of all others, the man most calculated to win her enthusiastic affections. Even were it as she had stated, what hope could there be for him. Had she not spoken with careless contempt of the admiration of “ordinary men,” of those inferior minds that “required women’s wit to brighten them?” Had she not shown that she only valued that devotion which she believed was beyond her reach? And yet could it be? Annette preferred to Lucy? To his excited imagination the thought seemed incredible, and he was in no state of mind calmly to review the different positions of Sullivan and himself, and feel that the charms which to his taste were insipid and vapid, were to the other refreshing and delightful. He passed his days in poring over musty tomes on solemn subjects in the seclusion of a student’s chamber, and came in contact but with those whose lives were spent in the same round of monotonous duties and unexciting studies. When, therefore, he passed from this tranquil atmosphere to his uncle’s house, the life, the music, the animation of the scene was almost dazzling to him. More than all, the playful wit, the fire-fly allusions, scarce caught ere vanished, the varied information and sparkling grace of his lively cousin cast a charm over the whole that the heart of the poor student had no power to repel. The youthful graces and childlike naïveté of Annette, so captivating to the world-worn Sullivan, had no spell for one so fresh and untutored as Frank Tucker, and he could scarce believe, much less comprehend, the charm that led the acute lawyer and brilliant orator to prefer the “flower to the gem,” when that jewel, too, so prized, was within his reach. But such is the force of contrast. To the eye of the careless observer, the youthful beauty, simple tastes, and tranquil character of the one would have seemed more naturally to attract the retired student than the more brilliant but less gentle graces of the other. While the man of talent would have been expected to turn to her who could appreciate his powers, sympathize in his tastes, and glory in his reputation.

Men, however, do not choose for themselves as others would choose for them; and hence arises the never failing wonder and exclamations that every third marriage gives rise to.

CHAPTER II.

“How handsome Sullivan looked last night, Annette,” said Lucy to her cousin.

“Handsome,” said Annette, looking up in astonishment. “Do you think him handsome?”

“Certainly,” replied Lucy. “I consider him as one of the handsomest men I know. I never saw eyes that light with such brilliancy, or a countenance that changes with such a variety of ever-shifting expression as his when he is animated. His pale forehead and black hair—”

“Black,” said Annette laughing, “I rather think you mean gray—”

“Is he gray?” asked her cousin with some surprise. “I never noticed that. But what though ‘middle age has slightly pressed her sygnet sage’ upon his locks and brow, surely his countenance retains all the fire of youth with the thought of maturer years. That is one of the charms and advantages of a gifted and cultivated intellect. It keeps a man always young.”

“May be,” rejoined Annette, “but they look as old as others, for all that.”

“Then,” continued Lucy, “Sullivan has such a pleasant smile, and his teeth are brilliantly white.”

“Yes!” answered Annette, “his teeth are white, though his mouth is large,” and she added with more earnestness, “he dresses most shabbily.”

Lucy here laughed outright. “Well, no matter for his dress, Annette; you can reform all that after you are married, for to that end I see you will come at last.”

Annette blushed deeply at this, while she looked gratified. In a few minutes she began again with great simplicity and frankness—

“I wonder, Lucy, he does not prefer you to me. You take an interest in all those sensible subjects that he is engaged in, and that tire me to death so. I should think—”

“But surely, Annette,” interrupted Lucy, “you do not tire of him?”

“Oh no,” she replied with animation, “he amuses me excessively—”

At this moment the door opened, and before Lucy had more than time for a passing thought of surprise at the epithet “amusing” only being bestowed upon one so superior by her he evidently preferred, when she was called upon to receive the subject of their discussion. And while he was occupied in some trifling conversation, addressed to Annette, Lucy had time to verify the justness of her cousin’s criticisms on his person, and to notice, for the first time, that his hair was slightly tinged with silver, and his mouth large. Moreover, there were lines of care and thought upon his brow, not usually traced before middle age, and she could not but smile to herself to find how much more accurate were the observations of one who, though not so quick witted as herself, was neither carried away by enthusiasm nor misled by imagination. But are we not wrong? Does imagination mislead? Is it not rather a quickener of the perceptions to what the more obtuse are blind, a clairvoyant rather than a mistifying faculty?

Be that as it may. Sullivan talked on, unconscious of the scrutiny he was undergoing by Lucy, who, for the first time, directed her attention to a subject that had given rise to some grave and anxious thoughts in the mind of the more youthful beauty to whom he was now addressing his conversation. As she turned her eyes from him to Annette, and saw the confiding and artless air with which she gazed into his face, the softened and gratified expression with which she listened to what Lucy knew she did not comprehend, she did not wonder at his infatuation, although she sighed as she said to herself, “an inferior man would have done for her just as well.”

There was a pause just then, and Annette told him that she had finished a work he had lent her a few days before, (the memoirs of one of the reigning sovereigns of Europe,) which she now returned him.

“You must have been pleased with it, as you have read it so rapidly,” he said.

“Oh!” she replied with the utmost naïveté, “I skipped all the politics, and you know the rest is not long.”

“You skipped all the politics!” said Sullivan, with infinite amusement. “Well, you were right. I wish I could skip the world’s politics as easily,” and he laughed heartily.

Lucy now joined in the conversation, and they had some badinage and chat upon the news of the day and the ordinary subjects of fireside conversation; but whenever it waxed at all serious, or touched a higher theme, Sullivan would laughingly exclaim, “But let us follow Miss Dashwood’s example, and skip politics,” and then he would look at her with such an expression of mingled merriment and tenderness, as if he fairly delighted in her nonsense, that Lucy began almost to think in her heart that the man was a fool. Mrs. Dashwood now called upon her daughter to take the head of the tea-table, and other company dropping in afterward, Lucy had no farther conversation with Sullivan, who now wholly devoted himself to Annette, with an earnestness there was no mistaking, and Lucy felt that in a few weeks it would probably be a declared engagement. She could not acknowledge it to herself without some regret, for she felt that he was perhaps the only man she had ever seen who would have suited her entirely. One whom she could have looked up to—been proud of—loved. She was not, however, a woman to sigh for one who did not care for her, being no heroine, but a clever, spirited girl, and when, in the course of a few weeks, Annette with blushes and smiles called upon her for her congratulations, she could give them frankly and cordially.

“You have every reason to be a proud and happy woman, dear Annette, and most earnestly do I hope you may both be as happy as you deserve to be.”

“I will do all I can to make him so,” said Annette, fervently. “I am sure it was very good in him to choose me when he might have had——” You, she was going to say, but something whispered even to her simplicity that she had better finish her sentence otherwise; “when,” she added, “he might have had almost any body he pleased.”

“But I hope it is not that alone that induces you to accept him, Annette. You love him, I trust. Don’t you?”

“Some,” she replied, blushing as she smiled, and Lucy saw that it was truly only “some.” She was flattered, gratified, grateful, but could scarcely be said to be in love. There was none of the enthusiasm of attachment one would have expected such a man to call forth, and which he would have excited in one of more congenial mind and suitable character. But on that score Lucy felt no uneasiness. She knew Annette to be a sweet tempered, affectionate creature, who must love those around her, and that the kindness of her husband would win a degree of devotion her imagination could never call up for a lover.

“You have heard of the engagement,” said Lucy, a few evenings after, to Frank Tucker, as she glanced at Annette and Sullivan on the opposite side of the room. “You remember I told you some time since how it would end.”

“Is it indeed declared?” said Frank, eagerly, and he gazed earnestly in her face, with an inquiring, half joyous expression that somewhat puzzled Lucy, but she answered,

“Yes; she referred him to papa, for you know she is an orphan, and, of course, he joyfully gave his consent. Charles Sullivan is a man to whom any woman may safely trust her happiness, and we can commit Annette to his care with full and perfect confidence.”

The animation and frankness with which she spoke perfectly reassured Frank, and his countenance lit up with such a look of unspeakable relief, and so peculiar was the expression that sparkled in his eyes, that a suspicion which had never crossed her mind before now flashed upon Lucy with all the certainty of truth. “I’ll quickly put that idea out of his head,” was her mental ejaculation, as she changed the conversation to a more indifferent subject.

In the course of the evening, Lucy caught the epithet “old maid” from Annette’s lips, and, without having attended to what it had reference in the previous discussion, said, gaily,

“Take care, Annette. Speak with more respect of the sisterhood, if you please.”

“Why?” said Annette. “Surely,” she added, with that tone of horror and contempt peculiar to young girls when speaking of that much despised class; “surely you have no idea of being an old maid, Lucy?”

“Indeed I have, Annette. I have a strong sympathy and great respect for them, individually and collectively. ‘An old maid’ signifies, to my ears, a woman who has been either too romantic or too refined to accept any body rather than have nobody. For I suppose you will admit, Annette, that any one can get some one, if it is a matter their hearts are very much set on.”

Annette looked, however, as if she was very doubtful about assenting to that proposition, and Lucy continued,

“For my part, I think old maidism truly a state of single blessedness, and have no idea of changing my present estate for any body I have ever yet seen. Don’t be frightened, Annette, for if any phœnix falls in love with me, I don’t say I am armed at all points against him, only that, at present, I think the prospect very small.”

Frank saw her object, for she spoke without coquetry, and though playfully yet earnestly, and his heart sunk within him, his manner became grave and sad, and Lucy seemed inattentive and unobservant. He did not visit there for some time after that, and when he came again, though received kindly, she never questioned his unusual absence, and he felt that it were wiser not to come again.

And now the preparations for the marriage were beginning, and Annette’s young heart was as happy as finery, consequence and a lover could make it. Sullivan longed for the time when it would all be over, and he had his pretty little wife in his own quiet home, and wondered why a woman could not get married without a host of new dresses, as if she had never been in possession of more than two at a time before; but, nevertheless, he submitted with a good grace to all the necessary delays, and unnecessary consultations, and playfully gave his decision for the white bonnet over the pink, when seriously referred to for his opinion by Annette. At last, the important day did arrive, and a lovelier bride nor happier bridegroom are rarely seen. Some said there was rather a disparity in their ages, and others thought more of the dissimilarity of minds, but all admitted that she was beautiful and he clever, and most people were perfectly satisfied with the match, which is a great matter on such occasions, as the public, generally taking a lively interest in what don’t concern them, are apt to make their disapprobation heard when felt.

The wedding over, the bride was soon settled in all the consequence of a first-rate establishment, and visiters flocked in crowds to call on the young girl who, as the orphan niece of Mr. Dashwood, they had called “a pretty little creature,” without farther attention. But now, as the wife of one of the first lawyers at the bar and most distinguished members of the community, she was caressed and courted; and invitation followed invitation with a rapidity that delighted the young beauty, and even gratified her more sober husband. Sure of his own standing, and conscious of his own powers, he had no vanity for himself; but when he saw his consequence reflected back upon him, in the attentions bestowed upon his young and lovely wife, the dignity of man yielded, and he was flattered. Night after night did he follow her to crowded assemblies, and stand wedged in door-ways for the pleasure of seeing her the fairest, best dressed and most courted of those gay throngs. But the season ended, she willingly returned to quiet domestic life, loving her husband with her whole heart for his generous pride and kind indulgence for all her little whims.

The first months of Annette’s marriage passed somewhat slowly with Lucy, for she missed her ever cheerful spirits and sweet temper, and, moreover, there was now no brilliant Sullivan forming a part of their evening circle, with whom to have occasionally a skirmish of wits, and she sometimes sighed to see a clever man, and longed for a little more excitement than the daily routine of city life affords. But gradually things subsided to their former quiet, and she almost forgot the time when it had been otherwise. Frank Tucker continued to visit there, from time to time, but if he entertained any “hopes they were hopeless,” for even Annette was convinced that Lucy would die an “old maid” rather than marry cousin Frank.

After the first few months of the marriage, time again flew rapidly on; and the first year had gone, and the second was half through, when one evening, as Frank was at his uncle’s, Lucy said,

“Frank, if you have no engagements, will you walk with me to Sullivan’s—I am going there to tea?”

“I will with pleasure,” he replied; and, as she took his arm, he said,

“How does that experiment succeed? for, do you know, I always felt as if Sullivan was running a fearful risk. It appeared to me that he must one day awake from his infatuation, and tremble for the result.”

“You were very much mistaken then, for Sullivan loves his wife as well as when he married her, and she loves him a thousand times better; for then she was only pleased and flattered, but now her whole heart and soul is her husband’s.”

As they entered Sullivan’s, they found Annette sitting by the fire-light, with her baby in her arms, while her husband was asleep on one of the sofas. Lights were rung for, and the master of the house quickly roused himself, apologizing to his guests, saying he had been in court all day, and was much fatigued.

“Ah,” said Lucy; “I heard you made a great speech this morning, and,” turning to Annette; “it was in the great Will case, was it not?”

“Indeed, I do not know,” she said, looking with equal pride and affection at her husband. “Yes, I suppose it was, for I heard him say he was engaged in that cause.”

“On which side is he?” continued Lucy.

“That is more than I know,” rejoined the wife, as she held her rosy infant to receive its father’s kiss, ere she dismissed it for the evening, when he playfully said,

“No, she neither knows nor cares. Thank Heaven, when I come home I leave my law behind me. Annette don’t insist on my fighting my battles over again.”

“That is too bad,” exclaimed Lucy, “to marry a man of talents and have none of the benefit of his brilliancy. It is the old story of buying punch over again,” she added, laughing.

As she looked around, the bright tea-table and the general air of comfort announced that Mrs. Sullivan was a good housekeeper, and her joyous and beaming face told that she was a happy wife. Could her husband be otherwise than satisfied? No, even Frank saw content and affection marked in every feature of his speaking face.

“Are you satisfied now,” said Lucy, as they walked home. “A comfortable, well-ordered house, a pretty, cheerful wife, and a lovely child—what can the heart of man desire more.”

Frank looked as if he would have liked to give his views upon the subject, but meeting no answering look of encouragement, he found himself constrained lo agree “that a clever man did not want a clever wife.”

FROM THE GERMAN OF UHLAND.

BY ELIZABETH OKES SMITH, AUTHOR OF “THE SINLESS CHILD,” ETC.

A woman may pardon many errors in manhood, but she will never pardon those that spring from vanity nor conceitedness; any modification of these is, in her eyes, the “unpardonable sin” of a man, the “great gulf” lying between him and love, the “black flag” upon the high seas of society, which is entitled to no quarter.

We will not go into analysis, such being the fact; but it may be that she has an innate consciousness that vanity is her own especial foible; the right and prerogative of her own sex; the little woman weakness half bordering upon a grace; the cloud that gives birth to the rainbow, so flexible, so amiable, so nearly engaging are the lighter manifestations of the fault.

But conceitedness, that quality of combined self-love and vanity by which a man believes himself to be just the thing, killing, irresistible, the not-to-be-withstood subduer of hearts, not only excites her contempt, but harmless spirit of revenge. Her pride of sex is aroused; she becomes a champion, the penalty she inflicts, however absurd or spiteful it may be, is administered in behalf of, and in the pride of womanhood.

A man may be a worshiper of the sex; he may pour out his devotions before one, even till his best manhood, the majesty of his nature be half subverted, and he is yet a subject of interest; but let this idolatry become introversive, let a woman detect a complacent self-gratulation, a conceited fondness, and he may

and it is all the same to him, no woman will “listen to the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely.”

This conceitedness is altogether opposed to that nobler self-reliance, that manly egotism which wins so much upon the admiration of a woman. Indeed, she may tyrannize, she may be petulant and unreasonable, but she is inwardly gratified when a man is tolerant of her whimsies, but unmoved thereby. There is something in her nature, a beautiful sentiment of reverence, it may be, that makes her half willing to be wooed in the style of the Vikings of old; her love well nigh challenged; her troth demanded, not only as her glory, but his right. It is as the eagle taking the dove to its nest, and spreading its broad wing to protect; for in this doth she recognize power, and willingly, like the vine, doth she meekly, yet confidingly, send forth her tendrils of affection in the strong shadow of the oak. All this implies the absence of self; the possession of power, exercised to sustain; of power that becomes stronger, even that the true and the beautiful rely thereon.

Spite of the cruelty, the cool malice of Shakspeare’s Maria, every woman enters heartily into the real spirit of the saucy waiting woman, whereby she promises to make the steward “a common recreation,” to “gull him into a nay-word,” all because, in the fullness of his conceit, he has whispered,

Ah, foolish Malvolio,

Maria is beholding thee, and already plotting to mortify thy self-love with which the gentle Olivia hath heretofore reproached thee.

We forget the redeeming traits of the poor steward, his honest zeal in behalf of his mistress, his indignant rebuke of her uproarious kinsman—

and only remember Malvolio, the coxcomb, assured in his own mind of the favor of the ready-witted maid, and now presuming to look higher.

Maria bethinks herself of all the courteous speeches she may have uttered that have been thus wrested from their intention; all the saucy witticisms devoured as the gravest truths; all the absurd nonsense demurely expressed; in short, all the mockery of female attractiveness that served but to swell the self-love of the conceited Malvolio; exulting in fun and mischief, confident of success, and full of resources, she exclaims,

Here is example for it;

On this hint, Maria writes a letter, and leaves it in the pathway of the credulous steward, whereby the penmanship of her mistress is aptly imitated, and many ambiguous hints thrown out, as to his being beloved by one of superior estate. A course of conduct is recommended, and hints as to dress, all of which the deluded Malvolio obeys to the letter.

Olivia is mourning the death of her brother, at the same time that her grief is not too absorbing to render her invulnerable to new wounds, coming in the shape of a pretty youth of her own sex, disguised in doublet and hose. She says—

Then cometh this sad and civil steward, “smiling more lines than are in the new map, with the augmentation of the Indies,” accoutred in “yellow stockings,” and “cross-gartered.” Olivia is amazed, and readily adopts the hint of the mischievous waiting maid, that

Malvolio replies, with much feeling,

Malvolio is, at length, righted, but not till Maria has had him well punished for his foolish conceit and presumption.

Love is always arbitrary; like the wind, it bloweth where it listeth.

Thousands barter manhood, fame, glory, all the true and the beautiful that should appertain to humanity, and yet win but the semblance of love, perhaps not even that. Let the sex regard it as an axiom, that no man wins upon the regard of a true woman, by compromising his own manly self-respect; by adapting himself to her fancies, or, as Shakspeare hath it, by wearing “yellow stockings,” and going “cross-gartered,” in the hope to please.

BY MRS. M. T. W. CHANDLER.

BY T. B. READ.

CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN.

WITH A PORTRAIT.

The Dublin University Magazine, for August, in a review of “The Poets and Poetry of America,” published by one of us last year, speaks correctly of Hoffman as the best song writer of the United States. In the styles of Suckling, or Moore, or Beranger, no one excels him, to say nothing of the style of our contributor himself. “He is a true disciple of Christopher North, in his sporting propensities,” says our over-the-water contemporary, “and we are half inclined to like the fellow better than the whole Yankee crew of them. There runs through his dashing numbers an aristocracy of soul and sentiment, pleasing from its rareness: the cavalier’s feather waves so gaily among the roundhead multitude that we hail the wearer as nearer our old world sympathies, by a ‘gentleman-like distance.’ ” Ditto to all but the transatlantic affinities. Had the author of “Charles O’Malley” been the poet’s college chum and afterlife associate, he could not have read him in the main more correctly.

Charles Fenno Hoffman is now about thirty-seven, though from his appearance one would think him younger by some dozen years. Inman’s portrait—admirably copied by Dick—presents him to the life, in his sporting trim, as he returned a few years ago from the forests and the prairies. The name Fenno he derives from his maternal grandfather, a distinguished politician of the federal party in this city, during the administration of Washington. His father’s family came to New York from Holland, before the days of Peter Stuyvesant, and have ever held an honorable position in the state. His father, in his younger days, was often the successful competitor of Hamilton, Burr, Pinckney, and other professional giants, for the highest honors of the legal forum, and his brother, the Hon. Ogden Hoffman, still maintains the family reputation at the bar.

When six years old, young Hoffman was sent to a Latin grammar school in New York, from which, at the age of nine, he was transferred to the Poughkeepsie Academy, a seminary upon the Hudson, about eighty miles from the city, which at that time enjoyed great reputation. The harsh treatment he received here induced him to run away, and his father, finding that he had not improved under a course of severity, did not insist upon his return, but placed him under the care of an accomplished Scottish gentleman in one of the rural villages of New Jersey. During a visit home from this place, when about twelve years of age, he met with an injury which involved the necessity of the immediate amputation of his right leg, above the knee. The painful circumstances are minutely detailed in the New York “Evening Post,” of the 25th of October, 1817, from which it appears, that while, with other lads, attempting the dangerous feat of leaping aboard a steamer as she passed a pier, under full way, he was caught between the vessel and the wharf. The steamer swept by, and left him clinging by his hands to the pier, crushed in a manner too frightful for description. This deprivation, instead of acting as a disqualification for the manly sports of youth, and thus turning the subject of it into a retired student, seems rather to have given young Hoffman an especial ambition to excel in swimming, riding, etc., to the still further neglect of perhaps more useful acquirements. At fifteen he entered Columbia College, and here, as at preparatory schools, was noted rather for success in gymnastic exercises than in those of a more intellectual character. His reputation, judging from his low position in his class, contrasted with the honors that were awarded him by the college societies at their anniversary exhibitions, was greater with the students than with the faculty, though the honorary degree of Master of Arts, conferred upon him under peculiarly gratifying circumstances, after leaving the institution in his third or junior year, without having graduated, clearly implies that he was still a favorite with his alma mater.

Immediately after leaving college—being then eighteen years old—he commenced the study of the law with Harmanus Bleecker, of Albany, now Charge d’Affaires of the United Slates at the Hague. When twenty-one, he was admitted to the bar, and in the succeeding three years he practiced in the courts of the city of New York. During this period he wrote anonymously for the New York American—having made his first essay as a writer for the gazettes while in Albany—and soon after we believe became associated with Charles King in the editorship of that paper. Certainly he gave up the legal profession, for the successful prosecution of which he appears to have been unfitted by his love of books, society and the rod and gun, and since that time has devoted his attention almost constantly to literature. In 1833, for the benefit of his health, he left New York on a traveling tour for the “far west,” and his letters, written during his absence and first published in the American, were afterward included in his “Winter in the West,” of which the first impression appeared in New York in 1834, and the second soon after in London. This work has passed through many editions, and it will continue to be popular so long as graphic descriptions of scenery and character, and richness and purity of style, are admired. His next work, “Wild Scenes in the Forest and the Prairie,” was first printed in 1837, and, like its predecessor, it contains many admirable pictures of scenery, inwoven with legends of the western country, and descriptive poetry. A new American edition of this popular book has recently been published in New York. It was followed by a romance entitled “Greyslaer,” founded upon the famous criminal trial of Beauchamp, for the murder of Colonel Sharpe, the Solicitor-General of Kentucky—the particulars of which, softened away in the novel, are minutely detailed in the appendix to his “Winter in the West.” “Greyslaer” was a successful work—two editions having appeared in New York, one in Philadelphia, and a fourth in London, in the same year. It placed the author in the front rank of American novelists. He describes in it, with remarkable felicity, American forest-life, and savage warfare, and gives a truer idea of the border contests of the Revolution than any formal history of the period that has been published.

The Knickerbocker Magazine was first issued under his editorial auspices, and he subsequently became the proprietor of the American Monthly Magazine, (one of the ablest literary periodicals ever published in this country;) and during the long term of which he was the chief editor of this journal, he also for one year conducted the New York Mirror, and wrote a series of zealous papers in favor of international copyright, for the New Yorker, the Corsair and other journals.

The last volume which Mr. Hoffman gave to the public is “The Vigil of Faith and other Poems,” published about a year ago. His other recent compositions have all appeared in the pages of this magazine. The “Vigil of Faith” is a thrilling story of Indian life, the scene of which is among the Adirondack mountains, and it is related in rapid octosyllabic verse, of all kinds best adapted to the stirring border legend. A more complete and elegant edition of his poetical writings we understand will be published during the present autumn.

How it happened we could never imagine—since public offices are in these days so invariably the reward of partisan service, and our contributor has as little to do with politics as demagogues have usually to do with letters—but he holds an important position in the Custom House, where he sits, day by day, as patiently as sat Charles Lamb at his desk in the India House.

The following most graphic and truthful description of Hoffman is from a private letter addressed by a common friend of our contributor and ourselves to a gentleman in Boston, and being shown to us during a recent visit in that city, we obtained permission to print it in this connection. It is one of the cleverest pieces of character-writing we have seen in a long time, and will make our readers as familiar with the man as they already are with the author.

“So you want to know all about C. F. H.? Well, I’ll try to give you an idea of him, while, all unconscious of my limning, he is sitting at the receipt of customs, remitting certain duties, but not one, I’ll be bound, claimed by ‘fair woman or brave man.’ I must premise, however, that you’ll be sadly disappointed. It is evident, from your letter, that the author, and not the man, is the prominent idea in your mind. From sympathizing in the vein of my friend’s verses and enjoying his graphic descriptions of scenery, you have amused yourself by drawing an intellectual portrait, the fidelity of which you would have me acknowledge. Now, grieved as I am to mar your complacency, I shall do no such thing, for the very outline of your sketch is unjust to the original. He is not one to be so ‘perked up.’ It would be, indeed, a ‘golden sorrow’ to him to wear even a laurel crown. He is not one of your one-sided, self-absorbed beings who manage to thrust an incidental attribute between their manhood and the world. No; he pretends to nothing but humanity. He is content to be a man, and you can pay him no more equivocal compliment than by betraying any witless consciousness of his pen-craft. A lance would be quite as native to his hand as that little instrument of a tribe ‘whose badge is sufferance.’ He hath as cordial a preference for the living tree over the ‘dead wood of the deck’ as Elia himself. No lines (not even Moore’s) are more to his fancy than the angler’s. The rustling of forest leaves is quite as beguiling to him as that of quartos; and the beaming of a woman’s eye far more winsome than the light of science. You have mistaken your man, my good friend. He looks not on life through the spectacles of an author, but according to the dictates of sympathy. His relish for nature, to one accustomed to observe character, gives a key to many other traits. It is a disposition usually found in combination with frankness and a certain noble enthusiasm of character. Whoever takes true delight in the outward world, and passes not unheeded the picturesque oak-clump or the sunny upland—whoever follows, with a glance of interest, the spring-bird’s flight, or echoes with plaintive whistle his autumnal note, will generally be found superior to selfish art and conventional thraldom. Some recent phrenologist recognized an organ of rural taste. It must be large in Hoffman. Mark the pleasant detail with which his sketches of travel abound. Whether at the sources of the Hudson, in the far West, on lake or prairie, amid woodland or moor, observe how he dwells upon every feature and makes you see the verdant knoll and tangled brushwood—scent the crushed pine-leaves as you tramp the forest, and hear the plash of the startled deer as he gains the water. The beauties of the North River have found no more ardent chronicler, and a more cheerful loiterer never dreamed upon its banks. Were he monarch of the Empire state, like the Goth of old, he would choose a last resting-place in the bed of that noble stream. I confess it is delightful to me to find an American capable of genuine local attachment. The author of ‘Greyslaer’ was evidently inspired by the scene of his story; and the same Knickerbocker instinct doubtless led him, during the past winter, to rescue, in an able lecture, the memory of Jacob Leisler—one of New York’s bravest and most calumniated patriots—from unmerited forgetfulness. It is this sympathy for native subjects which rendered ‘A Winter in the Far West’ and ‘Wild Scenes in the Forest and Prairie’ so acceptable in England. They not only give true pictures, but are, for the most part, written con amore. Many of the peculiarities of our landscape and border life are mirrored with remarkable fidelity in their pages. It is always charming to be with an earnest companion—one whose heart is in his work. This is the true secret of successful authorship. Without it there can be no glow or life-like touches; and, for one, give me Charles Lamb to muse with over old English authors and actors—Bryant as an interpreter in the meditative air of twilight, when the ‘Evening Wind’ arises, and the lone ‘Waterfowl’ skims along the horizon—Byron and Rogers for cicerones in Italy; but, to cheer my way and guide my eye in a morning walk by my native groves and streamlets, I ask no more genial comrade than Hoffman.

“Recognition is perhaps the rarest of blessings. Yet how ardently is it craved by the man of true feeling! To be known and felt as we are, to call forth a legitimate echo, to secure a hearty response—this it is which alike incites the lover and the bard. A great German writer says, but very few readers are capable of understanding ‘the law of a production.’ In the laudatory notices bestowed upon our own authors, the indiscriminate terms employed too plainly indicate how seldom it is deemed interesting ‘to pluck out the heart of their mystery.’ I have seen but one review of ‘Greyslaer,’ and that in a foreign journal, which recognizes the principle it illustrates in common with many of the author’s prose writings—I mean that

It is true, however, that we instinctively demur at the hero’s destiny in closing the romance, feeling that one so devoted to a lofty and absorbing sentiment richly deserved a better reward than the late and almost accidental possession of a bride, in loyalty to whom his deepest sentiment was so bravely expended. The union of manly faith with a gentle spirit, the intellectual with the genial, the fortiter in re with the suaviter in modo, strikes me as the prevailing idea which is variously manifested throughout the best production of Hoffman, and, I may add, the most individual phases of his character.

“Now, don’t begin your usual homily upon my partial temper. I have a reason, if forsooth you must have one, for this preference. I sympathize chiefly with the spontaneous. None of your worked-up moral processes for me. I leave them all to men of creeds and systems. Let me repose beside the gushing spring, and you are welcome to vegetate in the formal neighborhood of any canal you like. The ‘good creature I present to you’ is spontaneous in mind, manner and feeling. Thence the greater part of his poetry consists of songs—some of them the best written in America. Has your blood never been stirred by the ‘Myrtle and Steel,’ or your heart won by ‘Rosalie Clare?’ There is a lyrical flow about the man. From the abundance of his heart he speaks,—a kind of language growing daily more rare. You unfortunately enjoy not his discourse, which, I do assure you, is very limpid and cordial. His rhymes, however, are in the same direct and glowing vein. You have, for instance, in the course of your life, met a being who awakened your interest profoundly. You have yielded to the entrancing, yet fearful sentiment. It has borne your soul far from the domain of ordinary and self-possessed existence—in a word, you have loved, and a change of feeling in the object of your regard, or the intervention of some hopeless ‘second thoughts,’ has cast you, like an ocean-weed, from the wild sea of dreamy joy to the still, barren shore of cold reality. Awhile, desperation has swayed your thoughts, but time, reflection—‘the star of the unconquered will’—have gradually induced a quiet mood. You learned to acquiesce and bear yourself nobly, like one descending a mount of sacrifice. Does not this strain echo the feeling at that hour?

“You have sat in glad fellowship at the festive board. The storm raved without; the fire blazed within. Then was a lapse in the routine of care. Long and pleasant converse and kindly greetings made you forget awhile your disappointments and perplexities. The serious pressure of life was lifted. You were a boy once more. Does not this familiar song embalm the blithesome moment?

“ ‘Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.’ Probably my friend thinks her the most trustworthy mistress he can woo, for he is still a buoyant celibate; though even her charms he sometimes chides, with lover-like caprice, as in the following

“If perchance a temporary fit of domesticity stir thoughts of another complexion, more than one fireside grows brighter at his coming, and the wives and children of his old classmates greet him with so familiar a pleasure, that a stranger would swear he was an essential instead of an adjunct of the group. Besides, his unappropriated tenderness finds scope in the thousand social graces born of ‘a heart of courtesy.’ He hath a knightly spirit, and finds in generous sympathies what narrower men can only realize in selfish enjoyment. I saw him once arrayed in a suit of old armor, nay, was happy to buckle it on the only man of my acquaintance in whose soul seemed to linger a genuine chivalric humor. He stalked about quite at home, and I could not but lament that

“Now, if you are of my temper, you’ll think all the better and love all the more this knight, because, as Coleridge says, ‘literature is an honorable augmentation to his arms, but does not constitute the coat or form the escutcheon.’ And if you blame him, after the fashion of certain sapient counsellors, because he has not hived more literary honey, I can tell you that the flowers of life are not made only to be sucked dry. It is graceful and fitting to imitate their example occasionally and ‘neither toil nor spin.’ It is some merit, in this over-busy land, to point them out to unobservant eyes, and it is a beautiful distinction, in this shadowy world, (and one I boldly claim for the friend thus hastily delineated,) like them to keep a bosom ever open to the dews of love, and waft a cheering fragrance on the passing breeze.”

BY ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

BY MRS. FRANCES KEMBLE BUTLER.

BY THEODORE S. FAY.

It is very curious, and I have never seen any attempt made to account for it, that, while the German nation has entered completely into the spirit of Shakspeare, and pretend, not without some grounds, to have understood him the first, and to have taught his own countrymen to appreciate him, the French appear almost destitute of the power of comprehending him. Voltaire likened him to a “drunken savage,” and La Harpe, in his “Cours de littérature,” whenever he speaks of him does it in a way which would really arouse a feeling of indignation, if anger were not drowned in humorous astonishment. In his Review of Aristotle he has the following:

“Reprenous les autres parties de la définition. La tragédie est l’imitation d’une action grave. Oui, sans doute. Il n’y a que les modernes qui se soient écartés de ce principe. C’est ce mélange du sérieuse et du bouffon, du grave et du burlesque, qui défigure si grossièrement les pièces Anglaises et Espagnoles; et c’est un reste de barbarie. Aristote ajoute que cette action doit être entière et d’une certaine étendue. Il s’explique:

“ ‘J’appelle entier, dit-il, ce qui a un commencement, un milieu, et une fin.’

“Quant à l’étendue, voici ses idées, qui sont d’un grand sens:

“ ‘Tout composé, pour mériter le nom de beau, soit animal, soit artificiel, doit être ordonné dans ses parties, et avoir une étendue convenable à leur proportion; car la beauté réunit les idées de grandeur et d’ordre. Un animal très petit ne peut être beau, parce qu’il faut le voir de près, et que les parties trop réunis se confondent. D’un autre côte, un objet trop vaste, un animal qui serait, je suppose, de mille stades de longueur, ne pourrait être vu que par parties: on ne pourrait en saisir la proportion ni l’ensemble: il ne serait donc pas beau. De même donc que, dans les animaux et dans les autre corps naturels, ou vent une certaine grandeur qui puisse être saisir d’un coup d’œil, de même dans l’action du poème ou vent une certaine étendue qui puisse être embrasseé tout à la fois, et faire un tableau dans l’esprit. Mais quelle sera la mesure de cette étendue? c’est ce que l’art ne saurait déterminer rigoureusement. Il suffit qu’il y ait l’étendue nécessaire pour que les incidents naissent les uns des autres vraisemblablement, amènent la révolution du bonheur au malheur, ou du malheur au honheur.’

“Plus ou réfléchira sur ces principes, plus ou sentira combien ils sont fondés sur la connaissance de la nature. Qui peut douter, par example, que les pièces de Lopez de Vega et de Shakspeare, qui contiennent tant d’événements que la meilleure mémoire pourrait à peine s’en rendre compte après la représentation, qui peut douter que de pareilles pièces ne soient hors de la mesure convenable, et qu’en violant le précepte d’Aristote, ou n’ait blessé le bon sens? Par enfin nous ne sommes susceptibles que d’un certain degré d’attention, d’une certaine durée d’amusement, d’instruction, de plaisir. Le goût consiste donc à saisir cette mesure just et nécessaire, et là-dessus le législateur s’en rapporte aux poètes. Combien, d’ailleurs, ce qu’il dit sur l’essence du beau, sur la nécessité de n’offrir à l’esprit que ce qu’il peut embrasser quand ou vent inspirer l’intérêt et l’admiration, est profond et lumineux! Avouons-le: éblouir un moment la multitude par des pensées hardies, qui ne paraissent nouvelles que parce qu’elles sont hazardées et paradoxales, c’est ce qui est donné à beaucoup d’hommes; mais instruire la postérité par des vues sûres et universelles, trouvées toujours plus vraies à mesure qu’elles sont plus souvent appliquées; devancer par le jugement l’expérience des siècles, c’est ce qui n’est donné qu’aux hommes supérieurs!!”

The English is as follows:

“Let us resume the other parts of the definition. Tragedy is an imitation of a grave action. Yes, without doubt! It is only the moderns who have deviated from this principle. It is this mixture of the serious and of the buffon, of the grave and of the burlesque, which so grossly disfigures the English and Spanish pieces, and it is a relic of barbarism. Aristotle adds that this action ought to be complete and of a certain extent. He explains:

“ ‘I call complete,’ says he, ‘that which has a commencement, a middle, and an end.’

“As to the extent, here are his ideas, which are very profound.

“ ‘Every composition, to merit the name of beautiful, should be arranged in its parts, and should have an extent corresponding to their proportion, for beauty unites the ideas of grandeur and order. A very small animal cannot be beautiful, because it is necessary to see it near, and because parts too united confound themselves. On the other hand, an object too vast, an animal who should be, I suppose, a thousand stades in length, could only be seen by parts: we could never seize the proportion nor the ensemble: it could not then be beautiful. In the same manner, then, as in animals and in other natural bodies, we require a certain grandeur which may be seized at a glance, in the action of a poem we require a certain extent which may be embraced all at once, and which may form a picture in the mind. But what shall be the measure of this extent? This is what art cannot rigorously determine. It is enough that there be the extent necessary for the incidents to spring the one from the other with probability; that they lead the plot from happiness to misery and from misery to happiness.’

“The more we reflect on these principles the more we shall feel how they are founded on a knowledge of nature. Who can doubt, for example, that the pieces of Lopez de Vega and of Shakspeare, which contain so many events that the best memory can scarcely retain them after the representation, who can doubt that such pieces are beyond the limits of propriety, and that in violating the rule of Aristotle they have violated common sense? For, after all, we are susceptible only of a certain degree of attention, of a certain duration of amusement, instruction and pleasure. Taste consists, then, in seizing this just and necessary measure; in that respect the maker of rules trusts to the poet. In addition, how luminous and profound is that which he says on the essence of the beautiful, on the necessity of offering to the mind only that which it can seize, when we would inspire interest and admiration. Let us acknowledge it: to dazzle a moment the multitude by bold thoughts, which appear new only because they are adventurous and paradoxical, is a gift bestowed on many men; but to instruct posterity by sure and universal views, always found more true in proportion as they are more frequently applied; to pass by judgment, in advance of the experience of ages, this is what is bestowed only on superior men!”

The distinguished French critic here speaks of Shakspeare in the spirit which appears generally to inspire the writers of his nation when they have occasion to compare our poet with any of their (in their opinion immensely superior) authors; but in the extract below he goes still farther, and the reader will scarcely be able to restrain a smile of pity for the critic who has been able to enjoy so little of the happiness the great English dramatist was formed to bestow.

“Shakspeare a trouvé des effets dramatiques et produit des beautés, et n’a jamais suivi au cune règle. Vous vous trompez. Quand il a bien fait, il a suivi la nature, la vraisemblance et la raison, qui sont les fondements de toutes les règles; et s’il eût connu celles d’Aristote, comme notre Corneille, s’il eût suivi l’exemple des Grecs, comme notre Racine, je me suis pas sûr qu’il les eût égalés (car cela dépend du plus ou du moins de génie;) mais je suis sûr qu’il aurait fait de meilleures pièces.”

This extraordinary piece of criticism, which I copy and translate below as a curiosity, may serve to show how much misunderstood an author may be by a very learned and distinguished person; how much in a reader depends upon sympathy and feeling, and how little upon learning and rules. La Harpe’s mind was very richly stored with knowledge. He was intimately acquainted with the whole range of literature, ancient and modern, and his great work is full of eloquence and knowledge—of just discrimination and impartial observation. But his mind—like all others belonging to mortals—is weak and blind, out of its own sphere, and may serve to show how careful we should be in trusting too far to mere human reason, when such men as he are capable of making such mistakes as that here alluded to, on subjects before their faces.

Here is the translation:

“Shakspeare has found dramatic effects and produced beauties, and never followed any rule. You are mistaken. When he has done well he has followed nature, probability and reason, which are the foundations of all rules; and, if he had known those of Aristotle, like our Corneille, if he had followed the example of the Greeks, like our Racine, I am not sure that he would have equaled them, (for that depends, more or less, on genius!) but I am sure that he would have produced better pieces!!!”

This come very well from a nation which has produced a translator (although I confess I have not seen the production) who renders

into

Thinking that perhaps some of your readers might be interested by it, I have given a specimen, verbatim, of the manner in which the celebrated scene of Lady Macbeth is translated into the German, by Schiller.

BY MRS. JANE T. WORTHINGTON.

Superiority in epistolary composition has long been, by common consent, conceded to women, and there is certainly justice in the established compliment. Like the savoir parler, the facility is natural to the sex, it calls into exercise that faculty they almost universally possess, of turning all things to the best advantage. They grasp intuitively the daily trifles which make the sum of life, but which graver observation passes by unheeded. Girls rarely experience the manly failing of “having nothing to say,” that apology for remissness so often and petulantly pleaded, and the letter-writing perplexities numerously recorded by a writer in Blackwood, could scarcely, under any circumstances, have befallen one of the gentler sex. We doubt if female sympathy can enter into the hesitation of the boy whose epistolary griefs are there feelingly commemorated, and who, after being confined to one room during a whole day for the purpose of inditing a dutiful and loving epistle to his respected relative, was found, when released at night from his captivity, to have proceeded no farther than the extremely gratifying address of “My dear Ant.” Such sorrows, it must be admitted, are exclusively masculine; women always find something to write, and perhaps a familiar letter is one of the few instances where nonsense is preferable to nothing.

And gratefully should we acknowledge a faculty, which, like the low, sweet voice the poet praises, is “an excellent thing in woman.” Many a weary hour has it soothed from suffering to forgetfulness, many a friend long parted with has it recalled, almost like a reality, bringing the smiles of remembered happiness to lips where smiles had grown strangers, and reviving, in hearts the world had withered, the dewy freshness of life’s better days.

Among those particularly distinguished for their epistolary talents, there are none more celebrated, in their respective lands, than Madame de Sevigné, and Madame Rahel. Both, though in their peculiar and totally different styles, extensively exercised the power, bestowing pleasure alike on the giver and the receiver. Perhaps no one ever wandered more unconsciously into the straight and narrow path leading to celebrity, than did Madame Sevigné. Her emotions were entirely impulsive and aimless; she appears to have experienced nothing of those kindling anticipations, foretelling the light to come, those restless and onward-urging convictions usually the early portion of those on whom the blessing of distinction is finally to fall.

Nor was that blessing, attained apparently so involuntarily, the reward of any rare excellence in mental endowments, for Madame de Sevigné could claim little meriting the name of genius. We seek in vain among her writings for the strong, self-relying ability which bespeaks the presence of inspiration, and the intuitive knowledge of its own resources. The character of her compositions, the tendency of her talent, was purely womanly, and her fame is the reverential tribute of the world to those genuine recordings of a loving heart, which even the most worldly feel to be holy. The general leniency of criticism toward the outpouring of fervent and enthusiastic affection, is one of the few instances of circumstantial evidence in favor of the lost character of human nature, and chronicles more in commendation of its better feelings than the united testimony of the innumerable dedications which so earnestly misname mankind the Gentle Public. Alas! far enough from gentle have many found it, whose names, triumphing over injustice, are now written imperishably, and wo to the trusting scribbler who relies too undoubtingly on a kindness, fickle and treacherous as the sea!

There are many writers far more dazzling than Madame de Sevigné, on the long list of her intellectual countrywomen, but there is not one more deservedly free from that harsh and blackening censure, which usually follows the footsteps of the gifted, and corrodes the reputation it touches. The nature of her literary productions in a manner shielded her from this; there is nothing in them to provoke severe criticism, nothing to stimulate the bitterness of rivalry; she appealed to the approval of a few affectionate natures, and the general distinction she acquired was the result of a sympathy as unasked as it was unexpected. She never entered the arena of competition, she never waged the war of pens, nor dared that mental strife, ever degrading a woman’s mind, and imprinting, with dark footsteps, the snow of her lovelier thoughts.

Her style is flowing and graceful, rather than brilliant, fascinating more than profound. She is no dealer in sparkling aphorisms, and she is not prone to follow the common fashion of robing old established truths in new and glittering garbs; she only paints the glow of purest tenderness in the bright eloquence of sincerity; she but displays in their holy earnestness the depth of emotions that all can appreciate, and many have experienced. Yet we realize while reading her compositions that in this vein lay her richest talent; we feel that had she attempted any graver and more thoughtful course she must have been in a measure unsuccessful. Even fiction would have been a less fitting field for feelings so impetuous as hers, for in their truthfulness rests their charm. It was well for her permanent popularity that no prophecy of distinction was present with her, that she wrote solely from the rapidly flowing dictation of spontaneous affection, without one flattering vision of the reward to be gained, or one reference to the public approval hereafter to be lavished on her unstudied pages. A single glimpse of such a futurity would have been fatal to her brightest beauties; the rare magic of insouciance would have passed away, the attraction of careless, but always amiable vivacity must necessarily have departed, and there were no reserved powers in Madame de Sevigné’s mind to have compensated for their loss. She was tender, pure hearted, spirituelle, not intellectual, not philosophic. Sentiment was her inspiration, her genius sprung from the heart.

How delightful must have been the reception of letters like hers! We can imagine the daughter’s eager welcoming of the familiar writing, the fresh upspringing of love with the perusal of every line of graphic tenderness, the fond and vivid remembrance of the writer coming with every word more fondly, more vividly, the sweet conviction that from the fullness of the heart the pen had written, that not a moment’s doubt of its sincerity could mingle with the recorded loveliness of that devotion. And, as the final avowal of solicitude, the farewell expression of affectionate interest, were read again and again, then, it may be, arose the involuntary and painful consciousness of divided ties, and the passionate thought “Why must our souls thus love, yet thus be riven?”

There exists, too, in Madame de Sevigné’s letters, the perfection of entire reliance on the kind, uncriticising approbation of her reader. Without this, a familiar epistle loses half its spell, for there must be confidence or there cannot be earnestness. This trust is not common, even among those who love each other best; we hesitate to write much we would unshrinkingly speak, and we should endeavor to forget, while corresponding carelessly, the undeniable truism that “l’homme qui lit n’est pas aussi indulgent que celui qui écoute.”

There are persons to whom something of sadness is imparted by even a cheerful letter from one held dear; its very reception proves the reality of separation, the absence of the voice wont to speak as never pen may write, though inscribing “thoughts that breathe.” Ah! too full of sorrow in a life so brief as ours, is this severing, however slight, of natures that should have lived and endured and died together! There is a weary knowledge of such grief in every bosom; it has been mournfully experienced by all whose lips have ever uttered “farewell.” We may trace its presence in the solitary wanderer’s tearful thoughts of brighter times and earlier friends, in the irrepressible maladie du pays of the banished one, whose native clime is henceforth to be but a haunting land of bewildering dreams; it comes to sadden the parting hour of the young bride, whose onward pathway wends afar, and it speaks in the universal sympathy springing alike from old and young, and prompting to greet with gentler kindness, and a warmer welcome, the stranger and the exile, whose home and heart are beyond the seas.

Rahel, like Madame de Sevigné, never composed expressly for publication, and she, also, has bequeathed only her letters to tell the story of her genius. These were collected and published by her husband, after her death, and they afford a few transient, but interesting glimpses of a mind of singular and masculine character. They are accompanied by a memoir written also by her husband, who was himself an author of high standing, and fully capable of appreciating an intellect firm and lofty, but almost too bold to be womanly. She was undoubtedly a person of great and remarkable endowments, and the brief examples she has left of her talents are sufficient to awaken regret that a nature so noble and peculiar in its gifts should have died and given us no other sign. She has few equals in her particular style, even in her own country, where mind is wont to wander under strange and whimsical disguises, wrapt in the dim drapery of quaint conceits. Rahel in the tendency of her reflections and in her selection of language is essentially national; she stands before us in all respects a German, robed in the shadowy cloud-drapery the genius of her land loves to wear, even on working-day occasions. A veil of mystery rests even on the truths she expresses, truths fraught with deep knowledge of the world, and frequently proclaimed with sarcastic bitterness. There is sometimes too much of this; we grow weary of a sagacity ever displaying the follies and failings of humanity, and which seems striving to perplex by an assumption of originality. But, with her many defects, Rahel is never commonplace; her letters would be far more natural, and consequently more agreeable, if she would occasionally condescend to every-day views of men and things, and forget the metaphysician in the realist. She lacks the inimitable grace of Sevigné, her simplicity, her feminine softness; she reasons where others would feel, and even her sentiment is mystified philosophy. Yet the sorrows of her career were neither few nor faint, and she had tested the power inseparable from woman’s being, la faculté de souffrir. She evidently considered herself a martyr to sensibility, and often alluded to her afflictions as terrible to bear. It is when speaking of her griefs that she interests us most, and she sometimes writes with the earnestness of one who had felt the iron in her soul, who had learned only too painfully life’s saddest and sublimest lesson, “to suffer and be strong.”

But for sentiment, regarded as a “thing apart,” she appears to have entertained neither sympathy nor patience; her experience and her wisdom were of the world, worldly. She perhaps believed the proverb, “Traüme sind Shaüme,” without remembering that the trifles in existence make up its loveliness, that dreams bestow a passing lustre on actual events, even as the foam forms the momentary brightness and beauty of the wave. An intellectual woman parts with a powerful attraction when she ceases to be sentimental; she necessarily becomes in a measure artificial, and the wild flower enchantment of her purer and fresher enthusiasm finds no fitting compensation in the cold calculations of calm philosophizing. It is the imperceptible blending of mental vigor with the faculty of feeling keenly, and of appreciating emotion, which constitutes the beautiful harmony of female genius, and, however ably she may think and reason, we never realize the perfection of her endowments till they reflect the heart, and we read there, in characters of “light ineffable,” how noble and holy a thing is the unperverted purity of woman’s nature.

Rahel’s greatest fault is the incessant pretension to an originality which does not exist; she is not satisfied with natural ideas, however unhackneyed, but is ever seeking too evidently the new, the strange, the perplexing, till the effort becomes tiresome to the reader. We are easily fatigued by these constant and uncalled-for forced marches of mind, these ceaseless strivings of the intellect to reach beyond itself. It is decidedly pleasanter to be merely even with the age than to be thus puzzled in following a writer always endeavoring to be before it, and, after all, there are few exertions more wearisome than those required to keep pace with an improvement so rapid, that, according to Balzac, several ideas have grown old and commonplace while the work containing them was going through the press.

Probably nothing conveys so accurate a conception of the truer and better portion of character as a familiar letter, and our regular correspondents are the only persons we really and thoroughly know. They are with us in sincerity, heart to heart, and we view them in even a clearer light than when united in daily intercourse, for letters reveal the prevailing current of thought, and contain little or nothing of that intuitive hypocrisy which often summons the smile to the lip when the soul is sorrowful. Fortunate, indeed, are the favored few who, by the pleasant exercise of epistolary talents, have easily obtained the celebrity for which many gifted lives have been pined away in vain, and lightly must rest the wreath on brows unfurrowed by a care, and never touched by the pale, sad light of the author’s midnight lamp!

ILLUSTRATION OF A PICTURE.

Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine

Highland Sport

Decidedly the best annual ever published in America is the Gift for 1844; and, take it all in all, we do not remember that we have seen any gift book from abroad that surpassed it in pictorial embellishment, or equaled it in a literary point of view. The illustrations of the annuals are usually deemed their chief attraction, and, to say truth, very rightly. In the Gift, though they are exquisitely beautiful, they are of secondary importance, and we shall speak first therefore of the literary contents of the book. These, with few and for the most part unimportant exceptions, are by the contributors to Graham’s Magazine, and, we must say, are quite as good as they write for our own pages. Indeed, “Mary Clavers” has never produced any thing better than “Ambuscades and Sorties,” and her “Half Lengths from Life” are as good as the best things in “New Home.” Rare Tom Oliver, in the first, is a character whom one might travel as far to see as Tom did to find his cousin, and be as well rewarded. “A Requiem,” by James Russell Lowell, is full of the tenderness of genuine feeling. We however dislike the last line of the following stanza:

Now we do not believe that grief is ever passionless; we do not credit a word of that old story of Herodotus about Cambyses and Psammenitus, nor the tale in Montaigne of Rasciac. Where there is cause and yet no sign of wo, be sure that you will find concealed a stony heart. C. F. Hoffman’s “Mumble the Peg” and “Heart Augury” are both very excellent. Of “Beware of Dogs and Waltzing,” it is only necessary to say that it is a story of English life, by Willis—decidedly the best writer of that particular description of tales and sketches which he furnishes for the periodicals, now living, or who has ever written in the English language. We have not space for allusions even to all the good papers in the volume, and must be content with the simple statement that, in addition to what we have mentioned, it contains excellent prose and verse by W. G. Simms, H. T. Tuckerman, Alfred B. Street, Epes Sargent, C. P. Cranch, Mr. and Mrs. Seba Smith, Mrs. Ellet, Mrs. Sigourney, and some half dozen others, whose names to articles are as good brands to Hock, Burgundy or Champaigne. The pictures are engraved by Cheney, Pease and Humphries, from paintings by Huntington, Sully, Page, Mount, and S. W. Cheney. The Beatrice of Huntington is a magnificent work, and Cheney has copied it most perfectly—

“The Early Days of Washington” is from Inman, and is one of the many recent works of that great artist which show his ability to excel in the group us well as in the portrait. How admirably the “father of the man” is exhibited in the boy hero! We saw the picture in the painter’s rooms just after it was finished, and recollect the criticism of a southern gentleman, then and there present, who pointed out what he contended was an “historical error.” Master George is represented in the act of parting two juvenile belligerents—one of plebeian, the other of patrician stock. Said our critic, “There never could have been such a scene in old Virginia without the presence and interference of a young ‘snow ball.’ ” Possible. But if the absence of the negro is a fault, the picture has but one. “The Fair Student” is, however, the gem of the book. It is engraved by J. Cheney, from a painting by S. W. Cheney, and if there be a face like it, of “breathing flesh,” we would walk a hundred miles to behold it. We have in the hands of one of our engravers a portrait very nearly equal to it, which all our readers will look upon one of these days; but they or we will not see it surpassed unless we see the works of the next generation of artists. Having said so much of praise, we may be permitted to express our opinion that the subject of the vignette in the title-page is very badly chosen. A head by Sully, engraved by Cheney, is of course a good picture, but not necessarily pleasing or beautiful. The “Disagreeable Surprise,” by Mount, has merit, but it reminds one a little too much of “The Village School in an Uproar” to be commended for originality.

The Chevalier d’Aubigné was a distinguished Huguenot leader and a favorite companion of Henry the Fourth. Though celebrated in his own age as a soldier, he is best known in ours by his Universal History, written by express command of the king. He was the direct lineal ancestor of Dr. Merle d’Aubigné, author of the popular History of the Great Reformation, and was the grandfather of that Madame de Maintenon by whose influence over Louis the Fourteenth the revocation of the edict of Nantes—to obtain which D’Aubigné and his brave companions “poured out their blood like water, on all the fields of France”—was brought about. The work possesses all the interest which attaches to the personal memoirs of that romantic period. The gallantry of Henri Quatre, the bigotry of his successor, the horrors of the night of St. Bartholomew, the intrigues of Catherine de Medicis, the fierce frivolity of the princes of the League, and the gayeties and dissipations of the court, are all sketched with a graphic pencil. The life of D’Aubigné is published as one of the volumes of Messrs. Campbell & Co.’s Select Library of Religious Literature.

Mrs. Davidson is the mother of those remarkable girls, Lucretia and Maria Davidson, with the story of whose precocious genius and early deaths every reader may be presumed to be acquainted. Miss Sedgwick, in the preface to the present volume, remarks that “the mother’s life has been in companionship with her children,” and that “she is now tempted from her seclusion that she may still be associated with them—go forth with them on their mental pilgrimage, and for their sakes, it may be, be welcomed to many kindred hearts.” The specimens of her prose and verse are “respectable commonplace” only.

Othello Relating His Adventures.—One of the illustrations of our present number is a spirited engraving by Dick, of Cowper’s Othello in the house of Brabantio. It is in all respects a noble picture, and does full justice to the subject. It is strange that no great painter has devoted himself to the illustration of the characters of Shakspeare. A series of scenes from any one of his plays, as large as life, would be of great, universal, and permanent interest. There is enough of real life to attract the sympathy of every body, and enough of the poetic and ideal to awaken the highest curiosity. From Macbeth and Othello, perhaps the most magnificent subjects might be chosen, and the object might be a higher one than that of mere illustration. The field would be immense for depicting historic costume and human passion. In Macbeth—the sublimest of all tragedies—the gradual changes in the character of the hero’s mind might be portrayed in his countenance, from the moment when courage and victory and honor and hope could alone be discerned there—when guilty thoughts began to darken it and bloody crime to stamp its impress on it—to the time when care and remorse and horror and desperation at length render it haggard and brutal—so following its progress and its fall from innocence and happiness to wickedness and despair. The history of the noble Moor and the gentle Desdemona abounds no less in striking and impressive scenes. A series of paintings commencing with that so excellently copied by Mr. Dick, and ending with one of that moment in which the hero exclaims in his death agony—

would present life’s master passion in its every conceivable manifestation—from the first more rapid movement of the maiden’s heart to that terrible madness of love which brings the tragedy to its end. What a life’s labor for a man of genius! The picture which our engraver has copied is one of singular merit, and all of the characters are most admirably drawn. The scene is described by Othello to the duke, in the council chamber—

“Copyright Secured According to [the Moral] Law.”—Mr. Martin Farquahr Tupper published a year or two since, in London, the first series of “Proverbial Philosophy,” and has since completed the work in a second series, which, like the first, has been extremely and deservedly popular, and has already we believe reached a sixth edition. It will in a few days be reprinted in this city by Mr. Hooker, who has received from the author the following

“In the absence of any copyright law, international, between Great Britain and the United States of North America; and with a view at once to protect my rights as an author, to save from the imputation of piratical dealings the honor of my transatlantic publisher, and to ensure for American readers an accurate edition of a work already well known in both hemispheres, I, the undersigned, being both author and proprietor of the work in question, hereby grant to Herman Hooker, publisher, of Philadelphia, my exclusive permission and authority to print and publish within the United States both series of my ‘Proverbial Philosophy,’—Provided that Herman Hooker furnishes an accurate reprint from the last London edition of the two volumes, without omission or addition. [Here follow the terms of remuneration.] And although from the want of positive law, this grant and authority may fail of having more than a merely moral sanction, it is still believed and expected, that the respectable booksellers of the United States will abstain from infringing the right thus bestowed on Herman Hooker, and that no fraudulent competition will arise to deprive him of the exclusive benefit of this my IMPRIMATUR.

“Martin Farquahr Tupper.”

There is little prospect of the stoppage of literary piracies by act of Congress, and we shall look with some interest for the effect of this new mode of protection, which we understand many of the principal writers of England have determined to adopt. We shall see whether there is more integrity among the people than in the government—whether the grass will not grow over the threshold of the bookseller who dares reprint for his exclusive benefits work issued by another house with the author’s imprimatur. It is worthy of remark, as an illustration of the vexations to which foreign authors are subjected in this country, that the first series of the “Proverbial Philosophy” was republished in Boston, by some person ambitious of issuing a cheap book, in the form of prose, though the work is a succession of metrical essays!

Mr. Griswold, who during the publication of the last three volumes of Graham’s Magazine has been united with the proprietor in its management, withdraws after the present number from his editorial connection, but will continue to be an occasional contributor to its pages. Mr. Griswold devotes hereafter, until its completion, his exclusive attention to the Biographia Americana, mentioned elsewhere in this number as in the press.

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Misspelled 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 XXIII No. 4 October 1843 by George R. Graham (editor)]