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BY HENRY B. HIRST.

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BY RICHARD COE, JR.

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BY PROFESSOR ALDEN.

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“Uncle, have you a fowling-piece to lend me?” said Henry Deforest, on the morning after his arrival at Beech Grove, whither he had come to enjoy a brief interval of rest from his professional studies.

“Yes,” replied Mr. Woolcott, “as fine a one as you ever handled.”

“What do you want to do with it, pray?” said Aunt Martha, Mr. Woolcott’s maiden sister and housekeeper, who, like a sensible woman, believed that guns and gunpowder were infernal inventions, and dangerous in every possible shape and shade of combination.

“I have some thoughts of taking a gunning excursion,” said Henry.

“Are you a good shot?” said Mr. Woolcott.

“About equal to Mr. Winkle.”

“I don’t know him—where does he live?”

Henry was happily relieved from the necessity of replying to the question of his matter-of-fact uncle, by Aunt Martha, who declared her somewhat exulting belief that the gun was lent.

“No, it is at home—it came home last night. Here it is,” said Mr. W., bringing it forth from a secure hiding-place constructed under Aunt Martha’s sole direction and authority.

“Is it loaded?” said Henry.

“No, I guess not,” said his uncle.

“I’ll warrant it is,” said Aunt Martha.

“What is there to shoot in these parts?” said Henry.

“Boys,” replied Aunt M., rather sharply. “Mr. Johns shot one last week.”

“Boys are not good to eat, my dear aunt, and I cannot in conscience shoot any thing not good to eat.”

Aunt Martha uttered an inarticulate aspiration which signified that she should lose her temper if she said any thing more.

Mr. Woolcott, who had been quite a rustic sportsman in his younger days, furnished his nephew with a liberal allowance of powder, shot and wadding, and the said nephew sallied forth with murderous intentions toward all feathered bipeds possessing the attribute of being good to eat.

It was early in June. The sweet breath of the morning spoke so lovingly of peace and gentleness, that he began to question the propriety of his savage purposes. His conscience, or his good sense, or his humanity, or something else, suggested, that to pollute the flower-laden breeze with sulphurous vapors, and to hush the sweet music of God’s innocent creatures, was not the most fitting employment for one proud of his immortality. He had not a very definite idea of the pleasures of bird-murder—in fact, that it might be a source of pleasure to him at all, it would be necessary for him to “make believe” with as much intensity as did “the small servant,” when she used orange-peel water for wine.

He soon reached a beautiful meadow. In consequence of his admiration of the lilies and daisies which adorned it, he failed to observe the meadow-larks that frequently rose before him, and uttered their notes of gladness to the mounting sun. At length one rose from his very feet. In an instant his finger was upon the trigger; but the sweet note of his intended victim charmed him. While he listened, the bird passed beyond the range of his weapon. Perhaps he mentally compared the pleasure of listening to its song with that of witnessing its dying gaspings.

The murmuring of a streamlet fell upon his ear. In a moment he was bending over its pure, bright waters. A large, smooth stone, shaded by a clump of willows, invited him to a seat. He laid aside his weapon, and sat down, baring his forehead to the breeze, and fixing his eyes upon the tiny inhabitants of the rivulet, his thoughts took the peaceful hue of the objects around him. It was not till the changing shadows of the willows exposed him to the rays of the sun, that he became conscious of the flight of time. He then rose and went to a small grove which clothed the summit of a gentle elevation in the vicinity. The grove was composed of saplings, about twenty feet in height. As he entered it, a false step led him to cast his eye downward. He had planted his foot in the hollow of a sunken grave. On looking around him, he found he was in the midst of an ancient grave-yard. The headstones which marked the resting places of the sleepers, had apparently been taken from a neighboring ledge. Only one bore an inscription, or had received the impress of the chisel. He looked in vain for a new-made grave. It was long since the funeral-train had entered that grave-yard—long since the mourner had come thither to weep.

Deforest had visited cemeteries in which wealth had lavished its treasures, and art exhausted its resources in order to disrobe death of his gloom. No splendid mausoleum, no carefully penned epitaph, so disposed him to reflection, as did the leaf-filled hollows and rude stones of that neglected grave-yard. He spent an hour in serious thought, and was about to leave the place, when the sound of approaching footsteps arrested his attention. He turned and saw an aged man entering the grove. The stranger approached the grave near which Deforest was standing. He appeared slightly embarrassed when he perceived that he was not alone. He returned the courteous salutation of Deforest, and seemed disposed to converse with him.

“You do not live in these parts?” said he.

“I am on a visit to my uncle, Mr. Woolcott. I reside in the city,” said Deforest.

“Your uncle came into the place after I left it. I was born here, in a house that stood on the knoll yonder. That cluster of bushes stands where the hearth-stone used to lie.”

“I noticed, as I passed the spot this morning, that a building once stood there. It must have been a long time ago.”

“Sixty-nine years ago, last March, I was born in that house, or rather in the house which stood there then. This country then was a wilderness. There was one log-house where the village now stands, and one between this and the river. I have not lived here for more than forty years. Latterly I go through the place once a year, as I go for my pension, and I always come to this spot. My father lies here, and—another friend. I always come and look upon the place of their rest. They do not know it. It does not do them any good, but it does me good. This is the grave of my father,” laying his hand on the stone noticed above as being the only one which bore an inscription. The inscription was as follows: “James Hampton, died July 16, 1777, aged forty-five years.”

The old man uncovered his head as he laid his hand upon the stone, and gazed in silence upon the earth which lay above the remains of his parent. Deforest felt that he was an intruder, and was about to retire.

“Do not go,” said the stranger. “I never met any one here before. It seems like meeting with a friend. That is a feeling which persons as old as I am seldom experience.”

Deforest, whose warm heart was strongly interested in the aged stranger, gladly accepted his invitation to remain.

“You were young when your father died,” said he, looking again at the inscription.

“I was in my fourteenth year. He was killed by a rifle-ball, in an attack made upon the house by a party of Indians. I have no doubt they were led by a tory who lived in a house which stood behind the ridge yonder, to the east. My friends wished to have it put on the tombstone that he was shot by the Indians. I believed that the shot which killed him was fired by a neighbor. I would not have the stone tell an untruth; so nothing is said about the manner of his death.”

“I should be greatly interested in hearing an account of the matter, if it be not painful to you to relate it.”

“Come and sit down on this rock and I will tell you all about it. It happened more than fifty years ago, yet it is as fresh in my mind as if it had happened yesterday.”

He led the way to a large moss-covered rock, which afforded them a comfortable seat under the shade of a thicket of young chestnuts. Near it was a grave on which the old man’s eyes were fastened. He did not seem disposed to resume the conversation. A tear ran down his furrowed cheek. Deforest sympathized with him in silence.

“You must ask me questions, my young friend,” said he, somewhat abruptly, “or my mind will wander away from the things you wish me to speak of.”

“Did your father build the house in which you were born?” said Deforest.

“Yes, he came here about ten years before the war, when, as I said before, there was only one house between this and the river. I was born the year after the house was built. I was but a little over ten years old when the troubles with England came on. My father and mother had many consultations upon the question, whether it was best for them to return to the east or not. There were no Indians near, and there was nothing to call them—for nearly all the people along the river were friends to the king. My father was from Massachusetts, and of course, liberty was natural to him; but he had said little or nothing about matters in dispute, for the very good reason that there were but very few persons to converge with. So he concluded to remain here. I could see that my mother did not feel easy. She grew thin and pale, and seemed unwilling to have us out of her sight.

“Once in a while, a rumor of what was going on reached us, though the accounts were always in favor of the king’s troops.

“In June of the year ’77, one day, as my father was in the cornfield, he saw an Indian skulking behind a large tree in the woods, that then stood where those oats are now growing. He continued at his hoeing for an hour or two, and was careful not to indicate by his appearance that he had seen any thing unusual.”

“Was he not afraid that the Indian’s bullet might put an end to his work?” said Deforest.

“No, he reasoned in this way. If the object of the Indian had been to kill him on the spot, he would have done so before he was seen. When my father came to the house, he was not disposed to say any thing about what had occurred, for he was not willing to give unnecessary alarm to his family. His anxious countenance led to inquiries which revealed the true state of the case. He began at once to make preparation to resist an attack, which he anticipated would be made in the night. I was employed in casting bullets, while he was busy in barricading the windows, and in making openings between the logs to serve as port-holes. Night at length drew near, and we sat down to supper, sad and silent, feeling that in all probability it was the last meat we should ever take together. The night passed slowly on. None of us were disposed to sleep. About midnight my father persuaded my mother to lie down, with my sister, who was sleeping unconscious of danger. Very soon there was a gentle knocking at the door. We had no light burning. My father had his rifle in his hand, while I held a musket, ready to exchange with him as soon as he had fired. He crept silently to the port-hole that commanded the door. He saw an Indian, with a rifle, standing before the door. The moonbeams fell full on his face, the expression of which left no doubt on my father’s mind respecting the object of the visit. The knocking was repeated. The answer was the discharge of the rifle from the port-hole. The Indian bounded high in the air, and fell to the earth a corpse. A yell from about half a dozen voices in the vicinity revealed the probable number of our foes. We were greatly encouraged, for it seemed well-nigh certain that their numbers would be so far diminished ere they could effect an entrance, as to render the result of the conflict by no means doubtful. The opening from which the shot was fired did not command the approach to the door. This was probably observed by our enemies, and after some time, apparently spent in consultation, two of them took a long, heavy pole from the fence, and drew near with the evident purpose of using it as a battering-ram to force the door. My father placed himself before an opening which he had made for the purpose of commanding the approach to the door, and when they were near enough to make the aim sure, he fired, and the hindmost man fell, never to rise again. I instantly gave my father the musket, and he fired at the other man, who had made a brief halt before he commenced his retreat. Either because the smoke prevented a good aim, or the musket carried ball less accurately than the rifle, the Indian did not fall, but from the blood that marked his retreat, it appeared that he was severely wounded.

“We could see a group of four or five persons in the distance. They were not quite near enough to make a sure shot, and my father thought it of the utmost importance that every ball should tell. While our attention was fixed upon them, a light shone in from a crevice on the side of the house opposite to the door. On that side there was neither door nor window. The enemy had sent one of their number, who had procured a bundle of straw from the barn, and placed it against the side of the logs, and set fire to it. It was their object to burn us alive, or to shoot us down when attempting to extinguish the flames. From the crevice which revealed the fire, my father saw an Indian grinning like a demon as he watched the progress of the flames. The good rifle soon put him out of the way of doing any more mischief. He then seized a pail of water, and ran to the chamber, and removed a board from the roof, and poured the water upon the fire. He had loosened the board in the course of his preparations for defense, thinking it possible that the opening might afford a means of escape. Fortunately the opening was immediately over the spot where the fire was kindled. Three of our foes had now been killed, and one of them wounded, (though we did not know it till the next day,) and we hoped they would become discouraged and retire. We heard nor saw nothing of them for an hour or more, though we kept watch in every direction.

“A new danger revealed itself. The fire had not been wholly extinguished; it had caught in the logs, and now began to blaze. My father took a bucket of water and went to the roof as before, but the moment his head appeared, three or four rifles were discharged from the grove near by. One of the balls slightly grazed his cheek. He had the presence of mind to make immediate application of the water before they had time to reload, but he did not succeed in applying it to the spot where it was most needed. Before another pailfull could be procured, they had loaded their pieces. He raised his hat above the opening in the roof, in hopes that they would all fire, that he might then extinguish the flames before they could reload. Only one shot, however, was fired. It pierced the hat, which fell. A savage yell of triumph caused our blood to curdle. The hat was raised again, and another shot fired, and another, both of which missed it. The water was then poured on the fire; but just as he was descending the stairs, a ball, apparently fired at random, passed through the clay between the logs, and entered his neck. He told us that he should bleed to death in a few minutes, but encouraged us to hope that the enemy would retire without any further efforts. He told me to keep a vigilant watch, and to shoot down those that came near the house. ‘Take care of your mother and sister,’ said he, ‘take them to the east if—’ he never finished the sentence. He bled to death in spite of all we could do.”

The old man paused in his narrative, and again fixed his eyes upon the grave noticed above.

“Was the attack renewed?”

“No, they went off before daylight, leaving their dead unburied. I dug a grave in the cellar, and buried my father. We then took our horses, and were on the other side of the river before night.”

“Were you not afraid of being waylaid and murdered?”

“We were, chiefly from the fact that so many of the Indians had been killed. We felt safe when we had crossed the river. We went to my mother’s native place, and remained there till the war was over, when we returned here. I was in the army during the last year of the war.”

“I should hardly have thought that your mother would have been willing to return here.”

“We had a good farm here, and several families from her native place concluded to come with us and settle here. By cultivating the farm I could fulfill my father’s command to take care of my mother and sister, and I did not see how I could do it in any other way. The first thing I did was to bury my father in this place. Several years afterward this stone, which marks his grave, was brought on from the east.”

“You told me you thought the shot which killed your father was fired by a neighbor.”

“We had no suspicion of any such thing at the time. As was natural, I kept the ball that caused the death-wound. It was of a peculiar size, and had a singular mark upon it. After my return, I happened one day to be present where there were a number of persons shooting at a mark. Alter they had finished their sport, the boys began to cut the balls out of the tree on which the mark had been placed. I was standing near and happened to hear one say, ‘that was Sawyer’s ball. I can always tell his ball by this mark.’ I looked at the ball, and saw that it bore the same mark as the one that was taken from my father’s neck. I put it into my pocket, and went home and compared it with the ball I had preserved. The size and marks corresponded perfectly. I then went to the boy and found that all Sawyer’s balls had the same mark. There was something in the bore of the rifle that made a peculiar crease in the ball as it was forced out. I then got a neighbor to inquire of Sawyer how long he had owned his rifle, and I found that it was in his possession before the war came on. My suspicions were then strongly excited. It was not probable that there were two rifles that would make the same impression upon the ball discharged from them. I remembered, too, that Sawyer had expressed great surprise at our return, and had appeared somewhat embarrassed when he met me. I met him in the street one day, and took the ball out of my pocket and held it before him, and fixing my eye fully upon his, asked him if he had ever seen it? He turned very red, and then came near fainting. I laid my hand upon him. He trembled like a leaf. I repeated the question in a louder tone, for I was sure that the murderer of my father was before me. His lips moved, but he could not speak. ‘Do you think,’ said I, ‘that it is safe for you to stay in this country?’ I flung him from me, and went on my way. The next day he left for the west, and some time afterward sent for his family.”

“How long did you live here after your return?”

“Nearly ten years; I lived here till my mother died.”

“Is she buried here?”

“No, she died while we were on a visit to the east. She was buried among her kindred. After her death, I returned here and remained till I helped fill up that grave,” pointing to the one which he had gazed at so earnestly when he took his seat upon the rock. “Then I felt there was nothing more to keep me here—in fact, I felt that I could not live here. My sister was married at the East; so I sold the farm and became a wanderer. I did not visit the place for nearly twenty years. When the pension-law was passed, I had occasion to come here, for one who was in the same company with me lived here. Since then, I have commonly passed through the place once a year, and I always visit this spot. This is the first time I ever met any one here. I once thought of having the bushes cut down; but on the whole, I concluded to let it grow up to wood. It will shield the graves from the gaze of the careless passer-by; and I like, too, the idea of having the birds sing over her grave. Farewell,” said he, rising and extending his hand. Henry returned the warm pressure of his hand, and was retiring, that he might be left alone by the sepulchre of his parent. The stranger, however, kept by his side till he reached the stone wall which separated the grove from the meadow. He seemed unwilling to part with his new acquaintance. Henry laid his hand upon his shoulder, and said, “Will you not tell me about her?”

After a moment’s silence the stranger replied, “Young man, I will, though it is many a year since I have pronounced her name aloud, unless I have done so in my dreams. They say I often talk in my sleep. I often dream of her, and sometimes it seems so much like reality, that I cannot help weeping when I awake, and find it nothing but a dream. She lived in a house which stood beyond the hill yonder. I have never seen it since the day she was carried out of it, and I shall never see it again.”

“Her name?” whispered Henry.

“Mary Everson lies in that stoneless grave—I wanted no stone to keep her in my memory, and I wanted nothing to call strangers to her resting-place. The world never contained a purer and warmer heart. She came here with her uncle about a year before my mother’s death. Her father had been wealthy, and had taken great pains with her education. He lost his property in time of the war, and died soon afterward. His wife soon followed him, and Mary became dependent upon her uncle, who removed here, as I said, about a year before my mother died. I saw her, for the first time, at a meeting in a log school-house. She was seated opposite me, and I thought I never set eyes on so fair an object. I have seen countenances which would form better subjects for description, but I never saw one which spoke to the soul like hers. It was transparent. It seemed as though you could see the flow of her pure thoughts and the beatings of her warm heart.

“It so happened that on the next day I had occasion to see her uncle on business. As I drew near the house, I heard the loud and angry voice of a female. I soon saw Mary coming down the foot-path. She was sobbing. ‘O, mother,’ said she, ‘I am glad that you do not know what your poor child has to suffer.’ She looked up and saw me with tears in my eyes—the words she had spoken brought them there—and felt, as she afterward told me, that I sympathized with her. I passed her without speaking, transacted my business with her uncle, and took my leave as speedily as possible, hoping to meet with her on my return. But I was disappointed. She had gone into a retired thicket to unburthen her grief by prayer. The truth was, her aunt treated her with great cruelty. Her uncle had little power to protect her. I made an errand there the next day, and found Mary alone. We sped rapidly in our acquaintance, and our parting was like that of old familiar friends. I became a frequent visiter at Mr. E.’s house. He received me cordially, but his wife, I could see plainly, disapproved my visits, and the more as it became evident that Mary and I were attached to each other. When it was known to her that we were engaged to be married, she became outrageous in her treatment of the poor orphan. She caused her many days of bitterness, and many nights of weeping.

“We were to be married on my return from a visit with my mother to the east. My mother never returned. As soon as she was buried I hastened here, and found Mary ill of an inflammation of the lungs. The disease was brought on by exposure occasioned by the cruelty of Mrs. E.

“I watched by her bedside till she died. When she was laid in the grave, I felt that there was a void in my heart that could never be filled. Nearly half a century has passed—the shadow of no earthly attachment has ever fallen for a moment on the place in my heart which belongs to her. The grave, as you see, is no longer a hillock—the coffin has fallen in—the heart that loved me so truly has mouldered, but her memory is as fresh as when I felt the last feeble pressure of her hand, or when I passed the whole night on her grave before I left the place. Men have called me indolent, irresolute, weak; but they knew not of the shadow which rested upon my path.

“Of late, I trust, I have known something of the higher life which her dying lips entreated me to live. I am waiting for my appointed time, when I shall meet her in a world where affection is never blighted, and separation is unknown.

“I have never said as much as I have now to any mortal; you seem to be capable of sympathizing with one. May your young heart find one whom it may love as entirely as I loved her; and may she be spared to you, that your life may not, like mine, be wasted. Farewell!”

He turned and walked into the grove. Henry set out on his return to his uncle’s house. On his way, he thought of his gun with which he was to do such execution. He returned to the place where he had left it. It had fallen into the water, and was apparently an object of great curiosity to the shiners who surrounded the lock in great numbers. A frog sat resting on his elbows on the opposite bank, surveying the examination. When the gun was lifted from the water, he disappeared with a sound rather indicative of contempt either for the gun or its possessor.

Aunt Martha received Henry with smiles, when she was assured that he had not silenced any innocent songsters, and her complacency was positive when she learned the manner in which the gun had been disposed of during the morning. She suggested that it would be an improvement if it were kept under water all the time.

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BY ENNA DUVAL.

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BY JOSEPH R. CHANDLER.

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[SEE ENGRAVING.]

How little can we of this latitude, or rather of this country, for latitude seems not to rule in all cases with regard to temperature; on one side of a continent, that parallel which gives agreeable winters and dry, healthful summers, is marked on the other side with cold, snowy winters and most unhealthful summers; what the variant circumstances are which produce this difference it is not easy to tell; the difference does exist, and ingenious theories have been constructed to suit those results; we say then again, how little can we of this latitude, or this country, judge of the enjoyments which others at a distance from us, but with the same shadows, have in the dry coolness of their evenings, or lassitude to which they are subject by the peculiar warmth which prevails during most of their summer days. The habits and customs among us are soon made conformable to the circumstances of our climate; though it must be confessed that people will always pertinaciously insist on a warm day on the first of May, and a stinging cold one on the 25th of December, while actual experience has shown that the thin floral garb adopted for the first has often led to consumption, and the winter furs and the great Yule-log that have distinguished the latter, have been considered rather seasonable than pleasant. So much for a poetical conformity, but in the every-day business of life things are better disposed of; people do not think in this country of sitting under their own vine till mid-summer, and then they look out for spiders; and as to their fig-trees, nobody gets under them unless it be the house-cat for a summer siesta. While eastward of the shores of the Mediterranean, people stretch themselves out upon the house-top for a comfortable night’s sleep, and spend a warm summer’s day beneath the cording shadow of the fig or the olive, and make life itself a blessing, not the means of enjoyment, but enjoyment itself; life and its accidents, the gratification of simple appetites—eating, drinking, and sleeping. Leaving to others the profitless toils that accumulate heaps of gold, only a portion of which can ever be used, and that portion will buy little more than what may be had and enjoyed without it. In this country we retreat away from an oppressive heat or a stinging cold, and make the absence of either an excuse for our merriment. In that other land to which we have referred, positive enjoyment is had in the uses of the evening air, and the contemplation of the heavenly hosts. Stars and planets twinkling in the clear blue ether above, not larger than seen from this continent, but far, far more intensely brilliant in the atmosphere, which allows of little refraction, and whose purity makes an upward gaze like the contemplation of some sanctified enclosure.

Sitting on a bank that faced westward were observable two human figures in the closing twilight of an autumn day. They were gazing out upon the gorgeous west, and marking the successful struggles of the starry host to obtain visibility above. In all the rich flush that marked the pathway of the sun, and hung a glory around his place of exit, only one light had strength enough to be visible; and so pure was the atmosphere, that when the flush in the heavens retired, the splendid planet Venus seemed a delicate crescent—a diminutive moon, sinking downward to the western waters.

“How beautiful, dear Reuben,” said the young female, as she pressed closely the hand of her companion; “how beautiful the heavens above us are to-night. It seems as if a peculiar brilliancy were observable; and I hope it is not sinful for me to say that the glorious array of stars seems to have communicated to my bosom something of their own transparent light; an unusual serenity seems to descend from them to me, and I feel now as if I owed to them sensations of inexpressible delight—quiet, gentle, but full. Whence is this, Reuben?”

“May you not, my dear Miriam, have mistaken a cause for an effect? Is it not the quiet, peaceful delight of your heart that makes all outward objects more lovely to you? And, as the stars are the most brilliant and the most distant objects at the present moment, your feelings have connected themselves with those ministers of Him, and allowed that deep, mysterious connection of the planetary world with ours to work upon your imagination, as if the stars had a direct influence upon your condition.”

“Perhaps so; but I alluded to my feelings and not my condition. How beautifully did our Prophet King refer his own elevated sensations to the planetary world, ‘The moon and the stars which Thou hast ordained.’”

“True, true, my dearest Miriam; but you will recollect that while he made himself, and man generally, small in his contemplation of the heavens, it was not in comparison with them, it was comparing or contrasting man with Him who garnished the heavens, and wrote ‘all our members in a book.’ But are not your feelings, like mine, elevated with a hope, nay, with almost a certainty, that the elders will persuade my mother that the rights of our family can be retained, even though I marry you, or rather that the argument against our union was as unsustained by our laws as the attempt to give you to Salathiel was a violation of your affection and my rights.”

“I know not but that may be the case. I feel it, Reuben, warmly at my heart. Let me say it without violating the delicacy of a maiden’s feelings, that such was my love for you, that even the alternative to which I consented, though of no moment, gave me a severe pang.”

“What was that alternative?” asked the young man, with importunity.

“Simply, that if you should not live to marry me, then Salathiel might take me to wife.”

“I would haunt him with terrible bodings,” said Reuben, “even as Samuel frightened the falling Saul.”

“And I, dear Reuben,” said the maiden, with a smile, “should, I suppose, be the Witch of Endor to call up your wandering and jealous spirit.”

“And it is settled, then,” said Reuben, “and you are to be mine with the consent of our families. And the next new moon shall see us one.”

“It shall be thus if your mother consents. I have none to consent or refuse, save my aunt. But let it not wound your feeling or excite suspicion in your mind, Reuben, that I ask you not to cherish feelings of unkindness against Salathiel. He is my kinsman and my early friend.”

“Has he not sought to supplant me in your possession?”

“Have you not supplanted him in my heart? Is it so much, my dear Reuben, for you to fear to lose me, and is it nothing for him to see me given to another?”

“He tried for your possessions, Miriam, for your wealth only.”

“Does not my wealth, little as it is, go with my hand—and why may not he have designs honorable as well as others?”

“Because he would not leave it to your decision, to the arbitration of your affections. He could not love you and be willing to do violence to your love.”

“May he not, dear Reuben, say the same of you?”

“Of me! Miriam, you plead the cause of Salathiel. You wish the alternative—you would be free.”

“Reuben, you may wound my pride by your injustice, but you cannot make me cease to love you. You may hereafter learn that woman may esteem a man for his virtues without loving him as a husband; and that for me to wish that you were less unkind to Salathiel, is no evidence that I love you less. I have heard within a few weeks such lessons of forgiveness, such preaching of high virtues—high, though always practical—that I desire to conform in some measure to them, and to have him whom I love and respect, augment my affection, not by any new love on his part, but by a new exhibition of greatness of mind. Reuben, though protracted maidenhood is a reproach in Israel, be assured that my love is stronger than death—as I feel that your jealousy is more cruel than the grave.”

“I will not be jealous. I will forget what I have deemed the wrongs of Salathiel. I will learn of you to respect myself. But, Miriam, what teaching is that to which you allude—what lessons of forgiveness have you received, and from whom? Is not the law of Moses sufficient for the daughters of Israel?”

“I suppose the laws of Moses are not sufficient, else why have kings and prophets written and preached? But you know that several times within a year the teacher from Nazareth hath been in the synagogues of Nain, and has, indeed, spoken in the houses of our relatives, whither he hath come and broken bread.”

“I have heard of his visits, and that his teaching had been eminently attractive—how instructive,” continued Reuben, with a sneer, “how instructive may be inferred from the proportion of women among his immediate followers.”

“There were more women than men, undoubtedly, at his household instruction, because more women had leisure to listen. But let me tell the truth, Reuben. There are many women among his followers, for he speaks to the heart of woman. He recognizes woman as the equal of man in the necessity for salvation, and he appeals to her affections, her experience, her wrongs and her neglect. What other prophet has come among us, that has thought it needful to recognize even his descent from woman, while He of Nazareth soothes our sorrows, elevates our hopes, and sanctifies our human relations? As I listened of late to him when he reproved but encouraged our sex, my heart said ‘this teacher’s doctrines may save man,’ but how they elevate and purify woman. And then the lessons of love, of forbearance, of forgiveness, that he inculcates, belong to what I have deemed woman’s nature and man’s necessity.”

“You have followed the teacher, then, Miriam?”

“He is a prophet, Reuben, and he attests his divine mission by miracles. He has healed the sick, he has cured the lame, and made the blind see and the deaf hear.”

“Has he raised the dead, as did the bones of Elisha?”

“I have heard that he has wrought that miracle, but do not know it, though I have such faith in his mission as to believe he might.”

“If he would raise me from the dead when I come to die, I would have faith too!”

“I should think, Reuben, that this act would be the consequence rather than the cause of faith. Though many others believed, in Jerusalem, as my Cousin Jacob says, in consequence of the restoration of blind Bartemus to his sight, yet the Master said, ‘Thy faith hath made thee whole!’”

“I have, nevertheless, no faith in this teacher as a prophet—why, whose son is he, Miriam?”

“He is of the house of David, Reuben, and even though his parents are poor, are they much poorer than David’s parents? May there not be something in the great truths which he teaches, that is not dependent upon the parentage of the teacher?”

“These things are important, Miriam, I confess, and we will confer of them together, but not now. We are about to part, let us mark the separation by a recurrence to a subject on which we both agree. The next new moon sees us united, and my joy at the anticipation is doubled by the belief that you share with me in the pleasure.”

Miriam pressed the hand of her lover as they rose to descend the hill; and as they entered the gate of Nain, the rising moon poured its strong light through the gorges of the mountain, the pair wended their way through the broken streets of the city to the residence of Miriam, blessed in their mutual affection, and refreshed by the dry, cool breeze of evening, which had fanned them on the elevated seat which they had just left.

Reuben turned toward home with a resolution to discuss the doctrine which he had heard imputed to the new teacher. Miriam, with woman’s humility, “kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.”

Miriam and Reuben met daily as espoused people; and frequent allusions were made to the doctrines of the teacher; and the pride of a Hebrew man was a little touched at the evidences of the elevating effect of a doctrine upon women, which Miriam’s language and conduct presented. Yet Reuben loved her too well to regret any circumstance which pleased and benefited Miriam. The customs of the country were too well fixed to lead him to fear the assumption of any inappropriate position by his future wife; indeed, it is believed that men do not begin to grow jealous of the authority of women until after marriage.

“I do not find in the teaching of the new master,” said Reuben, one day as they were conversing on the subject now so important to her, and so generally interesting to him, “I do not discover any denunciations of our creed or our system and form of worship—why may not his doctrines prevail without danger to the Hierarchy?”

“I cannot guess of that, Reuben; but certainly the teacher, while he refers to particular virtues and special sins, seems to desire a purification of the motives. He has conformed to all the requirements of our religion, but seems at times to be above it. I wish I understood him better. And yet how simple, how comprehensible are all his teachings. Why should I seek to know more? Why should I desire aught but that which shall make me better—happier—more hopeful? How the poor, the afflicted in body and in mind seek him out, and sit in joy at his teaching.”

“Miriam, I will hear him—I will hear him soon,” said Reuben.

It was only a few days before the new moon that Miriam had from the widow mother of Reuben an intimation that her only son and heir was prostrated by sudden and very severe sickness. The young woman hastened across the town to be in attendance upon Reuben, and to cheer him into health by her presence. But when she reached the house, she learned rather by the appearance than the words of the widow, that the sickness of Reuben was not of a kind to yield to such remedies as she had to offer.

The attention of Miriam to Reuben was all that her feelings would permit her to give. She sat by his side and bathed his temples, and moistened his feverish hands, and listened with painful satisfaction to his unconscious utterance of her name.

On the seventh day of Reuben’s sickness all awaited the crisis, and a few hours before sunset he awakened from a protracted sleep, and turned his eyes on the hopeful countenance of Miriam. The members of the family present saw with inexpressible pleasure that his consciousness had returned, and they hoped.

But the physician pronounced against them. It was but a restoration of mental light before the darkness of death should set in.

“Miriam,” said Reuben, “let me speak to thee alone one moment”—and the family retired.

“I am dying, and the truths which you announced to me as we sat upon the hill-side some nights since—truths which the new teacher uttered, come home with strange distinctness to my heart. But is he, as his disciples would have us believe—is he the Messiah?”

“Do you believe it, dear Reuben?”

“I do not know, but I forgive all who have injured me, and I ask pardon of all whom I have injured.”

“Surely that is the spirit of the Master’s teaching, Reuben, and what can you more.”

“But, oh, Miriam, where are the blessings which I had promised myself in thy love? Where the years of happiness in thy possession—when thou shouldst have been only mine?”

“Are these regrets, my beloved, suited to one who leans upon the verge of the grave? Oh, look forward, Reuben, and look upward. In heaven we can meet again—meet without fear of separation, without doubt of love.”

“But in heaven, where, oh, where shalt thou be, Miriam?”

“Reuben, dear Reuben?”

“Nay, my beloved, let me show my affection for you and my sense of duty to God at this last moment. I know, my Miriam, that by the customs of our people you should have been the wife of Salathiel, and I feel that next to me, (I do your love no injustice, my betrothed,) next to me, Salathiel has your affection. Hear me out. When I am gone, it must be your duty. Oh, then, let it be your pleasure to receive him. Who better than he can be your protector? He is your nearest kinsman, and the laws and customs of our people are in his favor—promise me.”

“Reuben, shall I call in your mother?”

Reuben turned his eyes again toward the west, and the sun was sinking with all his evening glory into the great sea. A gentle breeze swept into the window, and blew the hair of the kneeling maid upon the pale face of her lover.

“Turn my face, Miriam, to the east, let me pray thitherward. Let me hold you thus, ‘though the sorrows of death compass me about?—’”

When the widowed mother entered the room the dead form of her son was resting in the arms of the unconscious Miriam.

Stricken with grief, and with a sense of her utter loneliness, the widow lifted up her voice and wept.

Miriam was conveyed away—to be purified from the legal uncleanness that results from contact with the dead.

---

It was the morning of the third day from the death of Reuben, and Miriam was sitting lonely in her chamber.

“And this,” said she, as she looked forth from her darkened room, “this was the day appointed for our marriage; and to-day they will take my beloved and carry him forth from the city, and lay him in the earth with his fathers; and his beautiful form shall moulder into the dust, and the worms shall feed sweetly on him. Yes, he shall return to the dust again, and his spirit to God who gave it.”

“Oh, Father,” said the anguished maiden, as she kneeled with folded hands and upturned, streaming eyes, “oh, Father, receive his spirit!” And she poured out her soul in prayer for the dead, “after the custom that is among the Jews, even unto this day.”

Shortly afterward the relatives of Miriam came in to comfort her before they went to assist in the funeral of Reuben. They respected her grief too much to make open allusion to a subject which was occupying their minds.

One of the elders of the family, before going out, took aside the afflicted girl and attempted to console her with those cold arguments that interest suggests, and a want of respect for woman’s position warrants.

“Still, Miriam,” continued the old man, after disregarding her requests to be left alone, “still the possessions of your father’s family remain with you; and these may now, as they ought to have been before, be, with you, the property of our Cousin Salathiel.”

“Nay, my Uncle Achan, you trouble me, indeed; spare me that, let the possessions of our house go whither you list, to yourself or to Salathiel, but let me remain as I am. Give me peace—give me peace and time for my tears, and I will endure the reproach of maiden-widowhood, and let my name be lost from the family of our fathers.”

Achan and his friends departed to meet at the house of the widow, and to be of the company of those who should assist in the funeral of her son.

Miriam sat in her chamber, looking forth from the closed lattice to mark the first approach of the funeral-train which would pass her aunt’s dwelling on its way to the burying-place that lay beyond the walls of the city.

The solemn train at length approached, and the cold, insensible form of her lover lay upon a bier, wrapped round with grave-clothes, and borne forth by men.

As she gazed down upon the appalling sight, her heart seemed ready to burst with the grief that had no utterance, and she fell insensible to the floor.

When Miriam opened her eyes, they rested upon the forms of her aunt and of Salathiel bending over her.

“Was this well, Salathiel? Could you not have spared me one day for grief, must my affections for another be outraged, even in the presence of his passing remains?”

“Miriam, my cousin,” said Salathiel, “I came in hither only to assist your aunt. No selfish feeling brought me into your presence. I know where your affections are, I know how deep-seated is your grief. Let me rather, my Miriam, be to you a means of consolation, than an occasion of offence, since my love to your person is less than my sympathy in your grief.”

Miriam placed her hand in that of Salathiel, and a gentle pressure signified her appreciation of his feelings—and such a sign, at such a moment, too, told him how hopeless would be his love. He obeyed the sign.

“The funeral has passed on,” said she.

“It is now near the gate of the city,” said Salathiel.

“We shall see it once more,” said Miriam, “as it ascends the hill that overlooks the valley of tombs.”

“What is that faith, Miriam,” asked her aunt, “of which you spoke to me yesterday?”

“It is but confidence in the promises and power of the teacher.”

“Confidence that he will grant your wishes?”

“Yes, if they be right, or that if he grant them not, then confidence that the refusal is best.”

“Have you that confidence, Miriam?”

“Oh aunt, oh my mother, do not tempt me. I would believe; my heart tells me that miracles such as his, could only be performed to attest a momentous truth. But do not tempt me, the body of Reuben is scarcely passed, in him my heart, my affections, my hope were centered—and he is taken from me. Why? is it good for me to be afflicted?”

“Could the Master have saved his life, my child?”

“Did he not yesterday save the life of the Centurion’s servant at Capernaum,” answered Salathiel, struck with the coincidence of the woman’s question with the recent fact.

“Did you ask him, Miriam?”

“I saw him not, and if I had seen him, what am I to him?”

“If you had asked him, might he not have done it?”

“I believe, aunt; I believe, Salathiel, that he could have saved the life of Reuben.”

“Would he not, then, raise him now?”

“I do believe he could—I have faith in his power. But I would not be presumptuous. Yet, yet—oh, that Reuben might be restored to me?”

“Amen!” said Salathiel, “Amen!” and the deep tone of voice, and the upward turn of his eyes, told how truly his heart responded to the prayer of his cousin.

Two hearts were then united in solemn petition. There was faith, but none thought of hope.

After a few minutes of solemn silence, the eyes of Miriam were turned mournfully, and yet eagerly, toward the hill beyond the city’s wall.

“They are passing upward,” said Deborah to her; “the procession moves toward the brow of the hill, but, alas! the dust of the road conceals the train.”

They all looked forth to follow with their eyes as long as possible the mournful procession.

“But what is there?” exclaimed Deborah, pointing to a column of dust which denoted a crowd of people descending the hill toward the funeral.

“The procession has passed,” said Miriam.

“Both parties have stopped,” exclaimed Deborah.

Salathiel looked earnestly out and said, in a low voice, but with much feeling, “Do the Romans come to insult us even when we bury our dead? We are a conquered people, but we are not slaves.”

“Hush!” said Miriam, “hush, my brother! let us not at this moment forget the teaching of the Master.”

Salathiel leaned forward and kissed the brow of Miriam.

“I thank you, I thank you, Miriam, for the monition, and I bless you for the term, brother; henceforth, my sister, know me for such. But let me go forth to learn what hath turned our people from their sepulchral rites.”

Salathiel went forth, and Miriam, kneeling, buried her face in the lap of her aunt, and poured out her soul in prayer—deep, anguished, heart-engendered, heart-and-heaven-moving prayer.

It was some time before the low voice of Miriam ceased. But her feelings had been overwrought, and at length she lay silent yet suffering, with her head still on Deborah’s knees.

The quiet of the street and even of the chamber was at length disturbed by the confused footfall of a multitude who seemed to press onward with few words, and those uttered in a subdued tone. The multitude at length paused in front of the dwelling of Miriam, and the opening of the front door intimated that the procession of the people had some connection with the inmates of the house.

The door of Miriam’s chamber at length opened, and Salathiel stood before the two women pale and agitated.

“My sister, praise the Lord! A miracle has been wrought.”

The agitated maiden shrunk into the arms of her aunt as she gazed toward Salathiel.

“What,” exclaimed the aunt, “what is it, Salathiel? Speak?”

“Reuben—”

“Reuben!” exclaimed Miriam.

“Reuben lives!”

“Where—where is he?”

“He has been borne back to the house of his mother.”

“How has this been wrought?” asked Deborah.

“There is our Cousin Asher, who was a witness of the whole. Shall he come in and tell you all?”

Asher was admitted with one or two others of the family, and briefly stated the facts.

“The rear of the very long procession that followed the corpse of Reuben had scarcely left the gate of the city, when I, who was assisting to bear the bier upon which rested the beloved remains, discovered a vast crowd of people coming down the hill. I soon, however, perceived that there was no intention on the part of the approaching mass to offer any offence or discourtesy to the funeral party; and, indeed, the expressions of grief by our widowed and bereaved kinswoman were so loud, that it was difficult to hear whether any word was uttered by the descending party. I have never seen a Hebrew woman so distressed; and though few have had such cause for grief, few have been more deeply wounded, yet I had hoped that she would have been able to repress her feelings. But as we grew nearer the grave, her lamentations were increased, and it was heart-rending to hear her exclamations. The whole procession seemed to have lost their own sense of bereavement in the presence of one the utterance of whose anguish was so impressive. To me it seemed almost an arraignment of Providence by our kinswoman. I cannot tell you how every one was affected; each seemed to wish silently but heartily that some event might occur to soothe the sorrows of the widow.

“At length the descending party, which was very large, met our procession; and almost every member of that company manifested deep sympathy for the suffering of the chief mourner. In a moment the principal of the company stepped forward and took our kinswoman by the hand, and whispered to her words of comfort. What they were I could not hear, but the effect was instantaneous—the clamor of grief was hushed—and our kinswoman walked quietly on, gazing with a sort of rapt awe upon the comforter, whose countenance though marked with sympathy for her suffering was yet majestic and dignified.

“The mother’s eyes for a moment wandered from the face of the visiter, and fell upon the form of her son stretched out before her, and again her agony found vent—again the mother was heard, again the mountain seemed to echo with her lamentation.

“He who was walking at her side did not rebuke the mourner, but a new and more intent feeling of compassion was evident in his look and manner, and taking the hand of the afflicted one, he said in a tone of deep consolation, ‘Weep not.’

“Almost immediately afterward he left the widow standing where she was, and approaching us ‘came and touched the bier,’ and we who were carrying it stopped; for there was a sort of authority in the air and movement of this person, or let me say the effect rather than the assumption of authority. When the eyes of all were turned toward the dead body, and toward him that stood by it, the person with a mild tone, with no ceremony, with a simple utterance of the words, said,

“‘Young man, I say unto thee, Arise!’”

“And Reuben, dear Asher, Reuben!” exclaimed Miriam.

“And Reuben sat up on the bier, and began to speak of the sensations which crowded upon him.

“But He who had restored him to life, seemed to comprehend that the mother’s feelings should be first consulted, her rights first respected, and so ‘He delivered him to his mother.’”

“And he lives now?”

“Yes now, and with his mother. But what an awe came upon those who witnessed that august scene. There was no shouting at the success of the effort, no cheering that human life had been restored. But with an overpowering sense of divine visitation, the people, in devout fear, kneeled, and ‘glorified God,’ saying ‘a prophet has risen up among us.’”

It was not deemed safe to the convalescent Reuben that Miriam should visit him immediately. His life not his health had been restored. And the effect of a too early interview, might be too much for both. A few days afterward Salathiel conducted Miriam to the house of Reuben, and as they proceeded thither he cautioned her against the indulgence of too much feeling, lest her own frame should yield. Leading her to the door of the chamber, the young man felt that his presence would be too much of a restraint, so knocking lightly he heard a voice from within bidding them enter, and he turned and went to the mother in another part of the house.

What was said by the young lovers, separated as they had been by death, and thus restored this side the grave, we shall not now repeat. It was a sublime colloquy, for it included the experience of a heart in which hope had contended against hope—and the awful experience of a soul that had been freed from the trammels of flesh. But it was still Reuben and Miriam. Death had not destroyed the identity, for the same love that had animated them in his former life was felt and reciprocated now.

“I did fear, Reuben; indeed, for a moment I feared, when I heard of your restoration, that the love which had been a part of our lives, would have been quenched in you by death, or sublimated beyond the uses and comprehension of earth.”

“Oh, Miriam love is the immortal part of our affections—it is the soul of the mind—it is stronger than death—and that which is pure and rightly placed on earth is indestructible, and thousands of years, my beloved, passed in separation would work no change. We should at our renewed communion find the same love that had existed in past centuries in full and satisfactory operation. You know that the seeds which our travelers bring from the mummies of Egypt are as fruitful as those which are sown from the last year’s harvest, so, my beloved one, is the love that is worthy the soul’s cherishing.”

“But, Reuben, has it struck you that you have received the testimony which you almost impiously challenged as a ground of faith?”

“It has, it has, and while I have been struck with shame at the impiety of such a thought, I have yielded the faith which I promised, and am henceforth a follower of the teachings of Him of Nazareth.”

“Oh, my prayers, dear Reuben?—”

“They were pure, and effective to your good, Miriam, undoubtedly, but it was from compassion for my widowed, childless mother that the miracle was wrought.”

“Who shall tell the motives of Him that can work miracles? What we call ends, dear Reuben, may be means with him, and the babe that is sent in answer to the Hebrew mother’s prayer, may be the saviour or the destroyer of his people.”

Salathiel then knocked for admittance. He entered and kissing both of his cousins he wept with joy—“And this, this is the consummation of my highest earthly wish,” said he.

“Is it indeed? Can you rejoice, Salathiel, that I am come to take Miriam from you; is it indeed thus, my cousin?”

“I have loved Miriam as dearly as you could love her, Reuben. I will yield in that to none. I will not affect to conceal that. But the miracle that has raised you to life has shown me that I have a higher duty to perform, a more glorious mission to fulfill. Be yours, my cousin, the enjoyment of domestic love and peace and happiness, which virtue ensures; and let your home and your lives illustrate the power of the Master’s doctrine to purify and multiply home affections. Henceforth, if permitted, I will sit at the feet of the teacher and learn; and when sent I will go, and offer his doctrines and my life for the good of our people.”

---

The new moon had again come, and the house of the aunt of Miriam was filled with her kinspeople, who had come to the marriage; and when the feast was over, and parties had formed in different rooms, and some, with the bride and bridegroom, were on the housetop enjoying the delightful air of evening, as it swept down the hills loaded with the scents of roses and acacia, some drew the attention of the party to the brilliancy of the slender moon in the west, and the stars that were scattered through the heavens.

“It is a good omen,” said Asher, “when the planet that is so near the moon assumes with her the crescent shape at a marriage, or when at this season the Pleiads and Orion are peculiarly brilliant.”

The newly married ones looked up smilingly toward the heavens, as if they recognized the doctrine of stellar influences.

Salathiel, who had been looking upon the pair with deep interest, then stepped forward, and taking a hand of each, he said, “My cousins, I am called away—not again to mingle in this delightful scene—called to a higher duty; pray that it may be as delightful—it cannot be more dangerous. Keep the faith—mark the signs of the times in the conduct of man and in the instigations of your passions, but look not to the stars for your instruction. Oh, my beloved one,” and he stooped and kissed the lips of Miriam, “oh, my dear brother,” and he pressed his lips to the forehead of her husband; “oh, Reuben and Miriam, ‘seek Him that maketh the Seven Stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into morning, and maketh the day dark with night,’—the Lord is his name.”

---

———

BY A. J. REQUIER.

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ABOUT GRACE GERMAIN’S LIFE-ROMANCE.

———

BY CAROLINE C——.

———

The school was dismissed, and a multitude of boys and girls came rushing out from the old frame building, and tore pell-mell down the streets of a country village, just like merry, care-naught mad-caps as they were. Of all ages and sizes were these little folks—they were the life and the care of a great many homes; some heirs of poverty, and some, but these were few, heirs of wealth—but each and all had brought with them into the world enough of love to secure for themselves a welcome place at the board, and by the hearth. They resembled very much any other congregation of children in the world—some of them remarkable for their stupidity, and presenting always to their teachers the same thick skulls, which it appeared nothing could penetrate—others again, quick at learning, to whom it was a relief for the weary Mentors to turn, and to whose mental wants they attended with a glad alacrity.

But I am not going to generalize any more at this time; and shall only add to the foregoing remarks, that this school was a marvel in its way—the teachers prodigies in learning, and all the parents thought their young children’s acquirements actually verging on to the miraculous—which state of things, I will add as a P. S., is remarkably pleasant for all parties concerned. Is it not teachers, and parents, and you poor little scholars?

Several girls, from nine to twelve years of age, were walking homeward leisurely, and talking loudly and earnestly on some important topic, as school-girls sometimes will, when a young boy, also one of the scholars, passed by them. With singular boldness he turned his handsome face full toward the little party as he passed, and one of the girls, whose name was Grace Germain, must have seen something remarkably expressive of somewhat in the boy’s black eyes, for very suddenly she seemed to have lost all interest in the conversation, in which, by the way, she had been one of the chief participators the moment before—and the little girl’s step grew slower and slower. Finally, taking one of her school-books from under her arm, Grace seemed all at once to be seized with a decidedly studious fit, (for the first time that week,) and then her shoe-strings must needs unloosen, and she must stop to fasten them, till at last, as might be expected, her companions were far beyond her in the homeward way, and she was left quite alone. When the child passed by a little lane her face became quite suddenly and unaccountably flushed, and Grace grew decidedly nervous in her movements, and she turned away her head, as though it were forbidden, and a sin for her to look down that narrow by-way where Dame Corkins and the little lame child lived.

But these mysterious movements were all explained when, a moment after, some one came marching, to a tune of double-quick time, up the lane, and when he appeared on the main-street again, lo and behold! it was that same black-eyed urchin Hugh Willson, who had a few moments previous passed by her, and he called out,

“Grace, Grace Germain, wait a moment; I want to tell you something!”

Grace of course blushed, and looked sideways, and down, and finally at the boy, but for the life of her she could not summon up a look of astonishment at his appearance, finally she said,

“Well, what do you want, Hugh?”

“I’m going home, Grace, to-morrow, and—and—I wanted to see you just to give you this; perhaps you’ll think I’m a fool for my pains. I wish though it was worth its weight in gold!”

Oh! you would have certainly thought that the poor girl’s face was on the point of blazing instantly, could you have seen it, and Hugh thought there were really tears in her eyes too, as she put out her hand for the little package he had brought her. For some distance they walked on together, and neither spoke.

At length, as she drew near home, Grace found courage to look up and say, “Hugh, what are you going home for?”

“Father has sent for me, I am to go to an academy, but—” Hugh did not finish the sentence, and after waiting an unconscionable time, and speaking at last as though a “drag” were fastened to every word, Grace said,

“You will come to see us again sometime, wont you, Hugh?”

“Yes, if I ever can. I can’t bear to go away now, Grace, but, as father says, I am getting old. I’m almost fifteen, and it’s a fact I ought to know more than I do. Perhaps I’ve staid in the country too long already; but I hate a city, and I shall come back here just as often as I can, for I love this place better than all the world.”

And that, reader, was rather a strange confession to be made by a spirit so active and stirring as was Hugh Willson’s, for of all country villages on the face of the earth, “Romulus” was certainly the dullest, and least attractive.

“I’m coming down by here to-night, Grace,” said the lad, as he opened the gate for the child, “if you would like to see me, come out here—I cannot bid you good-bye now—will you be here?”

“Yes, Hugh,” was the reply given sadly—and this time it was a great deal more than she could do to keep back or hide her tears—for Grace Germain thought Hugh Willson the handsomest and kindest boy she ever knew, and she could not bear to think of his going away. So she left him with little ceremony, and went into the house. And the boy saw her grief, and he could have wept also—he loved Grace Germain!

Well, what do you think made up that unpretending package—the parting gift? First and foremost, there was a little box, and it contained—not a gem, not a book, but—a fresh, beautiful rose-bud; and Grace did not laugh when she saw it, neither did she smile as she unwound the strip of paper from the stem, and read thereon,

She did not laugh, I say, for sorrow was in her heart, the first deep sorrow she had ever known. Hugh was going away—and how much better she liked him than all other boys she had ever known in her life! But the rose-bud was not all the contents of the box; there was beside it a magnificent sheet of blue paper, gilt edged, and “superfine,” and on it Hugh had copied the “Parting Song,” by Mrs. Hemans; and perhaps, good reader, though you be not fresh from Yankee land, you may guess how the child’s heart beat faster than ever it had before, as she read the words—

And what had Grace to give to Hugh? What had she among her few treasured possessions a boy would care for? The dolls maimed for life—the broken china—the picture-books—the bits of lace and ribbons, what were they to him? Grace never realized her poverty before that day—and then the very thought was humiliating. If she could only buy a knife, or a pocket-book, or a pencil-case; but the child had no purse, and, unfortunately, no money either, so that thought was speedily abandoned. It grew quite dark while she stood in her little room, still before the opened drawer which held all her keepsakes and treasures, but no good fairy was nigh at hand to lay before her the thing she wished, and at last, quite in despair, she went and stood by the parlor window, and lo, there was Hugh already passing by, whistling, and looking for all the world as though the inmates of that particular house were nothing in the least to him.

In a few moments, side by side, the boy and girl were walking in the garden.

“I have read your note, Hugh,” said Grace, for the “shades of evening” creeping over them, gave her a wonderful and unnatural boldness to speak, “but what shall I give you for a keepsake? I haven’t a book in the world you would give a fig for.”

“Don’t talk about books,” replied he, hastily, “there is something that wouldn’t cost you much, I’d give more for than for all the books in Christendom!”

“What is it, Hugh, tell me quick?”

“Just that curl on your forehead! Give me that, Grace, and I never will part with it.”

In a moment it was separated from the thick curls that adorned her head, and stooping down, Grace laid a forget-me-not in it, and gave it to Hugh. He—what? kissed it, and kissed Grace, and then put the curls safely in his vest-pocket, and told the child she was the prettiest and best girl he ever knew, and that he should miss her more than all the boys and girls of the village together.

But while the lad was in the very midst of his ardent protestations, a voice from the house called to Grace, and the children parted—to meet again, how and when you shall not be so long learning as they were.

Hugh went to his city home, Grace to her school. He dreaming of Grace Germain as a woman, and wondering if she would not then be his wife—she to resume her studies with no great interest, to wish day after day that Hugh would only come back again, and to wonder if he would be so handsome when he was a man as he was then.

Years passed, Grace was no longer a child but a beautiful girl—a bride; and yet Hugh Willson was not her bridegroom.

A rich young merchant of a neighboring town, captivated by her loveliness and charming manners, had “wooed an won,” and a nine days’ wonder in the village of Romulus, was the wonderful good fortune of the orphan—for of late years Grace had been dependent on her relatives, her parents having died while she was yet very young.

Grace had never seen or heard of the boy of rose-bud memory since their first parting, but her thoughts of him had always been those we have for a pleasant unforgotten dream. And she kept the little gift that Hugh had given her most religiously. The very night before her bridal, though she had wept happy tears over the noble, tender note that Clarence Lovering sent her with a splendid ornament—a wedding-gift—still she had it in her heart even then, to look with no ordinary interest on the little pasteboard box that held the withered flower, and to read, not carelessly, the verses Hugh had written her in a large, boyish hand so long ago.

Yet it was not faithlessness to later vows that prompted her to kiss the rose-bud, and to preserve still longer the blue note and the little box, for Grace with all her heart respected Clarence Lovering, and she loved him well, too. She was a lofty, true-spirited girl, and when she married the young merchant, for better or for worse, as it might prove, she did it with a true and loyal heart; and it was in all respects a union in which might well be asked, and without doubt or fear, the blessing of Heaven.

But there were bitterer tears to be shed, and deeper griefs to be borne than Grace Lovering had yet known; six months after her marriage she followed her young husband to the grave, and there was none on earth that could sustain or uphold her in that day of terrible visitation. Voices and forms with which she was scarcely familiar came to comfort her, but the friend whose companionship would have made any place in the wide world a pleasant home for her, was dead; and the bereaved woman longed to return once again to her early home—the village where all her early life was passed—to bury her husband and lover beside her parents, under the willow-tree in the old burial-ground, and then to mourn in quietness, and alone, away from the scenes of the bustling, noisy town.

And all her desires were speedily complied with—her old guardian and uncle from the little village came to her to assist, and conduct her back to Romulus; and before the year was passed, Grace was again at home in the old house where she was born, and in the grave-yard near by, on which she could daily, hourly look, her husband slept.

Kindly and tenderly the old neighbors welcomed back the mourner to their midst; and there, where in her childish heart love had first awakened, there, where in later years she had watched in agony the dear ones of the household “passing away” silently into the “silent land;” there, in the old dwelling, which, during the few past years had stood tenantless, and looking so broken-hearted; there, in her early womanhood, Grace Lovering, the desolate and stricken, came back to make it her abiding-place, her lonely home. She felt that to her a cold twilight of existence only was remaining, that the sunshine which rests so richly and revivingly on the young and the beloved, would be henceforth faint and weak as her own heart. But it was not wholly so, time the great soother, as well as destroyer and chastener, took the sting and the poignancy from her grief, and, like the dove with its olive branch, there spread through her soul that trust in Heaven’s infinite goodness, that makes the wilderness even to blossom.

Placed far above the reach of poverty, the miseries and cares of want did not mingle their bitterness with her heart-sorrow. And in all, save those few natural but dread experiences, Grace bade fair to be a “babe at seventy,” in that unwelcome wisdom which continued misfortunes only can impart.

It was her thirtieth birth-day, and the anniversary of her marriage. The widow sat alone in the pleasant parlor of her cottage; she had remained alone that day, and with tears dedicated it to her heart’s sacred memories. Every thing about the room and the house, was pleasantly indicative of a refined and peaceful way of living, and of cheerfulness, too, save and except the sorrowing woman, who, at nightfall paced the room, and looked so sadly into the past. The curtains of the windows were drawn and the door closed; Grace had been looking again over the treasures of her casket. It was in that very room, twenty years before, she had laid down on that night of their parting, to dream about Hugh Willson, and to pray for his happiness; and now she stood there a widow, sad and desolate, in her prime of life, thinking of the love of her later life—and weeping as she thought—for Clarence Lovering was worthy to be so remembered and loved.

In the beautiful casket, his gift, were laid the bridal ornaments which he had given; she had never worn them since his death, but kept them where no eye but her own could gaze upon them, and think of his loving kindness, but with them was preserved still a withered flower whose fragrance had fled quite away, and never with a heart quite calm, had Grace been able to look upon it; neither had she ever been able to think with indifference, or a mere idle curiosity of thought, on the probable worth of Hugh Willson’s manhood.

At length, as the night came on, the letters, and the jewels, and the rose, were laid away, but the miniature of her lost husband was lying next her heart then—for the love of the woman was vaster and deeper than that of the child; and Grace had dried her tears, for the hope that consoles the Christian mourner had conquered the agony of spirit that for a time overwhelmed her.

The evening proved dark and stormy, the pattering of the rain upon the window-sill, and the still softer and more dream-like sound with which it falls upon the grass, which is so pleasant to hear when all within the house is bright and cheerful, was a melancholy sound to the lonely woman, for it fell upon the graves in the burial-ground, where the damp earth was the only shelter of her beloved ones, and its echo fell upon that grave in her heart where lay buried the hopes of her youth—she might have, and I know not but she did, draw from it a hope and a promise of resurrection and of life both for her lamented dead, and for her vanished joy in life.

The quiet of the chamber was for a moment broken, a servant entered, a letter laid upon the table, and then the door was closed, the post-boy gone, and all was still again.

Mechanically the widow tore off the envelope, and opened the epistle. Let us read it with her, for Grace Lovering is born to a new life when those contents are made known to her—she dwells no longer in the so lonely present, or the sad past. For her also the future is alive again. She did not look for a resurrection so sudden and so strange—did you?

And had Hugh Willson, indeed, committed an unpardonable trespass in writing thus, after the lapse of so many years, to his old schoolmate? No, no! bear witness the sudden flashings of color, and the as sudden paleness which swept over the lady’s face as she read on; bear witness the occasional smiles, and the long and passionate weeping in which the lonely woman indulged, when her eyes rested so tenderly and sadly on the name affixed to the strange epistle. They were not tears of anger that she shed; it was not a smile of derision and mockery, at the sudden betrayal of affection the man had given, after a silence of years; they were not words of scorn which escaped her lips when she laid down to rest that night; ah, no! he had powerfully touched a chord in her soul, that from her childhood had ever vibrated even at the mention of his name.

There were eyes that were not closed in sleep during the hours of that night—but it was not grief that caused the widow’s wakefulness. There was one who listened till the morning to the heavy falling rain—but not in sadness; there was a lady who arose when the sunlight streamed once more through her chamber, who looked out on the blue heavens whence all the clouds had vanished, and hailed then a new era in her life-history.

From that day there was a marked change in the existence of Grace Lovering. That message of love which had come to her from the desert, at a time when life pressed heavily upon her, and death seemed the only hope of relief; that message aroused and cheered her, and made her to look more thankfully on the life yet vouchsafed to her, and the blessings which had been given along with the sorrows. Though the hope, and the thought even, seemed a wild one, that Hugh Willson would ever again return, the idea that he even remembered her, and thought still with interest on their childish years was grateful to her heart, and made her feel that neither for her nor for any one in the wide world is life utterly lonely and worthless.

True, the widowed and orphaned woman never forgot that she had buried her dead, that all her nearest of kin slept the long and quiet death-sleep; but a serenity and cheerfulness quite usurped the past frequent melancholy, and smiles were oftener seen upon her lovely face than tears. And not only in herself was the change visible; her household, and the little cottage seemed to share in the awakened happiness; and then, too, the poor and the needy had oftener cause to bless the widowed woman. The sick and suffering shared her loving care; and they blessed her—well might they—when she stood so often like a ministering angel beside them. The old and the weary mingled her name in their thanksgiving, for she failed not to make their downward path easy, and her voice was the voice of a comforter to them.

And this, as it were, instantaneous rousing up to active life, was a blessed thing for Grace. Time, after that great change, sped on no leaden wing; the clouds began to break, and stars came out, even when she had thought nothing but midnight darkness was forever her portion. The heart of the widow grew strong then, for she knew that when those stars were set, or hid again as they had been from her eyes, that the great sun itself would arise, and the never-ending daylight would break for her.

Ten years thus passed away. The shadows of forty winters had crept over the wife of Clarence Lovering; and still she wore the garments of mourning, in remembrance of the husband of her youth; but it was not a repining, murmuring spirit that dwelt beneath those doleful robes.

“Her faith had strengthened in Him whose love

No change or time can ever shock;”