Various

The Parting.

Addio Teresa, Teresa addio.

No pianger, bella, no pianger, no.

Quando To ritorno

Ti rivedro.

After scenes of great excitement there ever follows a sort of listless languor; and, as in natural commotions the fiercest elemental strife is oftentimes succeeded by the stillest calms, so in the agitations of the human breast, the most tumultuous passions are followed frequently, if not invariably, by a sort of quiet which resembles, though it is not, indifference.

Thus it was, that day, in the household of William Allan. Tranquil and peaceful at all times, in consequence of the reserved and studious habits of the master of the house, and the deep sympathy with his feelings and wishes which ruled the conduct of his children—for Durzil was in all respects, save birth, the old man’s son—that house was not usually without its own peculiar cheerfulness, and its subdued hilarity, arising from the gentle yet mirthful disposition of the young girl, and the high spirits of Durzil, attuned to the sobriety of the place.

But during the whole of that day its quietude was so very still as to be almost oppressive, and to be felt so by its inmates. Allan himself was still enveloped in one of those mysterious moods of darkness, which at times clouded his strong and powerful intellect, as marsh exhalations will obscure the sunshine of an autumn day. Durzil was silent, reserved, thoughtful, not gloomy or even melancholy, but—very unusually for him—disposed to muse and ponder, rather than to converse or to act. Theresa was evidently agitated and perturbed; and although she compelled herself to be busy about her domestic duties, to attend to the comforts of the strange guests whom accident had thrown upon their hospitality, though she strove to be cheerful, and to assume a lightness of heart which she was far from feeling, she was too poor a dissembler to succeed in imposing either on herself or on those about her, and there was no one person in the cottage, from the old cavalier down to the single female servant, with the exception of her father, who did not perceive that something had occurred to throw an unwonted shadow over her mind.

Jasper, alone perhaps of all the persons so singularly thrown together, was himself. His age, his character, his temperament, all combined to render him the last to be affected seriously by any thing which did not touch himself very nearly. And yet he was not altogether what is called selfish; though recklessness, and natural audacity, and undue indulgence, and, above all, the evil habits which had grown out of his being too soon his own master, and the master of others, had rendered him thoughtless, if not regardless, of the feelings of those around him.

All the consequences of his accident, except the stiffness and pain remaining from his contusions, had passed away; and though he was confined to his bed, and unable to move a limb without a pang, his mind was as clear, and his spirit as untamed as ever.

His father, who had been aroused from the state of indolence and sedentary torpor, which was habitual rather than natural to him, by the accident which had startled him into excitement and activity, had not yet subsided into his careless self-indulgence; for the subsequent events of the past evening, and his conversation with Durzil on that morning, had moved and interested him deeply; had set him to thinking much about the past, and thence to ruminating on the future, if perchance he could read it.

He by no means lacked clear-sightedness, or that sort of worldly wisdom, which arises from much intercourse with the world in all its various phases. He was far from deficient in energy when aught occurred to stimulate him into action, whether bodily or mental. And now he was interested enough to induce him so far to exert himself, as to think about what was passing, and to endeavor to discover its causes.

It was not, therefore, long before he satisfied himself, and that without asking a question, or giving utterance to a surmise, that an explanation had taken place between the young seaman and Theresa, and that the explanation had terminated in the disappointment of Durzil’s hopes. Still he was puzzled, for there was an air of tranquil satisfaction—it could not be called resignation, for it had no particle of humility in its constituents—about the young man, and an affectionate attention to his pretty cousin, which did not comport with what he supposed to be his character, under such circumstances as those in which he believed him to stand toward her.

He would have looked for irritability, perhaps for impetuosity bordering on violence, perhaps for sullen moodiness—the present disposition of the man was to him incomprehensible. And if so, not less he was unable to understand the depression of the young girl, who was frequently, in the course of the day, so much agitated, as to be on the point of bursting into tears, and avoided it only by making her escape suddenly from the room.

Once or twice, indeed, he caught her eyes, when she did not know that she was observed, fixed with an expression, to which he could affix no meaning, upon the varying and intelligent countenance of his son—an expression half melancholy, half wistful, conveying no impression to the spectator’s mind, of the existence in hers either of love or liking, but rather of some sort of hidden interest, some earnest curiosity coupled almost with fear, something, in a word, if such things can be, that resembled painful fascination. Once too he noticed, that not he only, but Durzil Bras-de-fer likewise, perceived the glance, and was struck by its peculiarity. And then the old cavalier was alarmed; for a spirit, that was positively fearful, informed the dark face and gleaming eyes of the free-trader—a spirit of malevolence and hate, mingled with iron resolve and animal fierceness, which rendered the handsome features, while it lasted, perfectly revolting.

That aspect was transient, however, as the short-lived illumination of a lightning flash, when it reveals the terrors of a midnight ocean. It was there; it was gone—and, almost before you could read it, the face was again inscrutable as blank darkness.

The thought arose, several times, that day in the mind of Miles St. Aubyn, that he would give much that neither he nor his son had ever crossed the threshhold of that house; or that now, being within it, it were within his power to depart. But carriages, in those days, were luxuries of comparatively rare occurrence even in the streets of the metropolis; and in the remote rural counties, the state of society, the character of the roads, and the limited means of the resident landed proprietors rendered them almost unknown.

There were not probably, within fifty miles of Widecomb, two vehicles of higher pretension than the rough carts of the peasantry and farmers; all journeys being still performed on horseback, if necessary by relays; even the fair sex traveling, according to their nerves and capability to endure fatigue, either on the side-saddle, or on pillions behind a relative or a trusty servant.

Until Jasper should be sufficiently recovered either to set foot in stirrup, or to walk the distance between the fords of Widecomb and the House in the Woods, there was therefore no alternative but to make the best of it, and to remain where they were, relying on the hospitality of their entertainers.

Durzil’s manner, it is true, partook in no degree of the coloring which that transient expression seemed to imply in his feelings; for, though unwontedly silent, when he did speak he spoke frankly and friendly to the young invalid; and more than once, warming to his subject, as field-sports, or bold adventures, of this kind or that, came into mention, he displayed interest and animation; and even related some personal experiences, and striking anecdotes, of the Spanish Main and of the Indian islands, with so much spirit and liveliness, as to show that he not only wished to amuse, but was amused himself.

While he was in this mood, he suffered it to escape him, or to be elicited from him by some indistinct question of the old cavalier, that he intended ere long to set forth again on another voyage of adventure to those far climes which were still invested with something of the romance of earlier ages.

It was at this hint, especially, that Miles St. Aubyn observed Theresa’s beautiful blue eyes fill with unbidden tears, and her bosom throb with agitation so tumultuous, that she had no choice but to retire from the company, in order to conceal her emotion.

And at this, likewise, for the first time did William Allan manifest any interest in the conversation.

“What,” he said, “what is that thou sayest, Durzil, that thou art again about to leave us? Methought it was thy resolve to tarry with us until after the autumnal solstice.”

“It was my resolve, uncle,” replied the young man quietly, “but something has occurred since, which has caused me to alter my determination. My mates, moreover, are very anxious to profit by the fine weather of this season, and so soon as I can ship a cargo, and get some brisk bold hands, I shall set sail.”

“I like not such quick and sudden changes,” replied the old man; “nor admire the mind which cannot hold to a steady purpose.”

The dark complexion of Durzil fired for a moment at the rebuke, and his nether lip quivered, as though he had difficulty in repressing a retort. He did repress it, however, and answered, apparently without emotion:

“You are a wise man, uncle, and must know that circumstances will arise which must needs alter all plans that are merely human. L’homme propose, as the Frenchman has it, mais Dieu dispose. So it is with me, just now. The changed determination which I have just announced does not arise from any change in my desires, but from a contingency on which I did not calculate.”

“It were better not to determine until one had made sure of all contingencies,” said William Allan, sententiously.

“Then, I think, one never would determine at all. For, if I have learned aright, mutability is a condition unavoidable in human affairs. But be this as it may, the only change, I can imagine, which will hinder me from sailing on the Virginia voyage, so soon as I can ship a crew and stow a cargo, will be a change of the wind. It blows fair now, if it will only hold a week. One other change there is,” he added, as his fair cousin entered the room with a basket of fresh gathered roses, “which might detain, but that change will not come to pass, do you think it will, Theresa?”

“I think not, cousin Durzil,” she replied with a slight blush, “if you allude to that concerning which we spoke this morning.”

The old knight looked from one to the other of the young people in bewilderment. Their perfect understanding, and extreme control of their feelings was beyond his comprehension, and yet he could not believe that he had mistaken.

“What, are you too against me, girl?” said her father quickly. “Have you given your consent to his going?”

“My consent!” she replied, “I do not imagine that my consent is very necessary, or that Durzil would wait long for it. But I do think it is quite as well he should go now, if he must go at all, particularly as he intends, if I understand rightly, that it shall be his last voyage.”

“I did not promise that, Theresa,” said the sailor, with a faint smile—“although”—

“Did you not”—she interrupted him quickly—“I thought you had; but it must be as you will, and certainly it does not much concern me.”

And with the words, she left the room hastily, and not as it appeared very well pleased.

“There! see’st thou that?” cried her father—“see’st thou that, Durzil?”

“Ay! do I.”—replied the young man with a good deal of bitterness. “But I do not need to see that to teach me that women are capricious and selfish in their exigency of services.”

There was a dead pause. A silence, which in itself was painful, and which seemed like to give birth to words more painful yet, for William Allan knit his brow darkly, and compressed his lower lip, and fixed his eye upon vacancy.

But at this moment Jasper, whose natural recklessness had rendered him unobservant of the feelings which had been displayed during that short conversation, raised himself on his elbow, and looking eagerly at Durzil exclaimed:

“Oh, the Virginia voyage! To the New World! My God! how I should love to go with you. Do you carry guns? How many do you muster of your crew?”

The interruption, although the speaker had no such intention, was well timed, for it turned the thoughts and feelings of all present into a new channel. The two old men looked into each other’s faces, and smiled as their eyes met, and Allan whispered, though quite loud enough to be audible to all present:

“The same spirit, Miles, the same spirit. As crows the old game cock, so crows the young game chicken!”

“And why not?” answered Durzil, with a ready smile, for there was something that whispered at his heart, though indeed he knew not wherefore, that it were not so ill done to remove Jasper from that neighborhood for a while. “If Sir Miles judge it well that you should see something of the world, in these piping times of peace, it is never too soon to begin. You shall have a berth in mine own cabin, and I will put you in the way of seeing swords flash, and smelling villainous saltpetre, in a right good cause, I’ll warrant you.”

“A right good cause, Durzil? and what cause may that be?” asked his uncle in a caustic tone.

“The cause of England’s maritime supremacy,” answered the young man proudly. “That is cause good enough for me. For what saith bully Blake in the old song—

And he caroled the words in a fine deep bass voice, to a stirring air, and then added—“That, sir, is the cause we fight for, on the Line and beyond it—and that we will fight for, here and every where, when it shall be needful to fight for it. And now, young friend, to answer your question. I do carry guns, eighteen as lively brass twelve-pounders as ever spoke good English to a Don or a Monsieur, or a Mynheer either, for that matter; and then for crew, men and officers, I generally contrive to pack on board eighty or ninety as brisk boys as ever pulled upon a brace, or handled a cutlas.”

“Why you must reckon on high profits to venture such an outlay,” said Sir Miles, avoiding the question of his son’s participation in the cruise.

“Ay!” answered Durzil, “if no gold is to be had for picking up in Eldorado, there is some to be gained there yet by free-trading—and once in a while one may have the luck to pick up a handful on the sea.”

“On the sea, ay! how so?”

“Once I was going quietly along before the trades, with my goods under hatches as peaceable and lawful a trader, as need be, when we fell in with a tall galleon careering. Having no cause to shun or fear her, I lay my own course with English colors flying, when what does she but up helm and after us. In half an hour she was within range and opened with her bow guns, in ten minutes more she was alongside, and?—”

“Alongside, in ten minutes, from long cannon range!” exclaimed Miles St. Aubyn—“what were you doing then, that she overhauled you so fast?”

“Running down to meet her, Sir Miles, with every stitch of canvas set that would draw, when I saw that she was bent on having it; and—as I was about to say when you interrupted me—in twenty more she had changed owners.”

“Indeed! indeed! that was a daring blow,” said the old soldier, rousing at the tale, like a superannuated war-horse to the trumpet, “and what was she?”

“A treasure galleon, sir; a Spaniard homeward bound, with twenty-six guns, and two hundred men.”

“And what did you with your prize, in peace time? You hardly brought her into Plymouth, I should fancy.”

“Nor into Cadiz, either,” he replied with a smile. “Her crew, or what was left of them, were put on board a coaster bound for St. Salvador, her bars and ingots on board the good ship ‘Royal Oak,’ of Bristol, and she—oh! she, I think, was sent to the bottom!”

“A daring deed!” said Sir Miles, shaking his head gravely—“a daring deed truly, which might well cost you all your lives, were it complained of by the Most Christian King!”

“And yet his supreme Christianity fired on us the first!”

“And yet, that plea, I fear, would hardly save you in these days, but you would hang for it.”

“Amen!” replied the young man. “Better be hanged, ‘his country crying he hath played an English part,’ than creep to a quiet grave a coward from his cradle. And now, what say you, young sir, would you still wish to adventure it with us, knowing what risks we run?”

“Ay, by my soul!” answered the brave boy, with a flashing eye, and quivering lip, “and the rather, that I do know it. What do you say, father? May I go with him? In God’s name, will you not let me go with him?”

“Indeed, will I not, Jasper,” said Sir Miles, with an accent of resolve so steady, that the boy saw at once it was useless to waste another word on it. “Beside, he is only laughing at you. Why! what in heaven’s name should he make with such a cockerel as thou, crowing or ere thy spurs have sprouted!”

“Laughing at me, is he!” exclaimed the boy, raising himself up in his bed actively, without exhibiting the least sign of the pain, which racked him, as he moved. “If I thought he were, he’d scarce sail so quickly as he counts on doing.”

Here Durzil would have spoken, but the old cavalier cut in before him, saying with a sneer,

“It is like thou could’st hinder him, my boy, at any time; most of all when thou art lying there bed-ridden.”

“The very reason wherefore I could hinder him the easier,” replied Jasper, who saw by Durzil’s grave and calm expression that the meaning his father had attached to his speech, was not his meaning.

“And how so, I prithee.”

“Had he, as you say he did, intended to mock me, or insult me otherwise, I would have prayed him courteously to delay his sailing until such time as my hurts would permit to draw triggers, or cross swords with him; and he would have delayed at my request, being a gentleman of courage and of honor.”

“Assuredly I should,” replied Durzil Bras-de-fer, “and you would have done very rightly to call on me in that case. But let me assure you, nothing was further from my intention than to laugh at you. I sailed myself, and smelt gunpowder in earnest, before I was old as you are by several years; and I was perfectly in earnest when I spoke, although I can now well see that my offer, though assuredly intended, could not be accepted.”

Before Jasper had time to reply to these words, his father said to him with a look of approbation,

“You have answered very well, my son; and I am glad that you have reflected, and seen so well what becomes a gentleman to ask, and to grant in such cases. For the rest, you ought to see that Master Durzil Olifaunt is perfectly in the right; and, that having offered you courteously what you asked rashly, he now perceives clearly the impossibility of your accepting his offer.”

“I do not, however, see that at all,” answered the boy moodily. “You carried a stand of colors, I have heard you say, before you were fifteen, and you deny me the only chance of winning honor that ever may be offered to me, in these degenerate times, and under this peaceful king.”

“I do not think that it would minister very much to your honor, or add to the renown of our name, that you should get yourself hanged on some sand key in the Caribbean sea, or knocked on the head in some scuffle with the Spanish guarda costas—no imputation, I pray you believe me, Master Olifaunt, on your choice of a career, the gallantry and justice of which I will not dispute, though I may not wish my son to adopt it.”

“I know not what you would have me do,” said the boy, “unless you intend to keep me here all my life, fishing for salmon and shooting black-cock for an occupation, and making love to country girls for an amusement.”

“I was not aware, Jasper,” answered his father more seriously than he had ever before heard him speak, “that this latter was one of your amusements. If it be so, I shall certainly take the earliest means of bringing it to a conclusion, for while it is not very creditable to yourself, it is ruinous to those with whom you think fit to amuse yourself as you call it.”

“I did not say that I ever had amused myself so,” replied Jasper, somewhat crest-fallen by the rebuke of his father—“though if I am kept moping here much longer, heaven only knows what I may do.”

“Well, sir, no more of this!” said the old man sharply. “You are not yet a man, whatever you may think of yourself; neither, I believe, are you at all profligate or vicious, although, as boys at your age are apt enough to do, you may think it manly to affect vices of which you are ignorant. But to quit this subject, when do you think you shall sail, Master Olifaunt?”

“I cannot answer you that, Sir Miles, certainly. I purpose to set off hence for Plymouth to-morrow afternoon, and, as I shall ride post, it will not take me long ere I am on board. When I arrive, I shall be able to fix upon a day for sailing.”

“But you will return hither, will you not, before you go to sea?”

“Assuredly I will, Sir Miles, to say farewell to my kind uncle here, who has been as a father to me, and to my little Theresa.”

“And you will pass one day I trust, if you may not give us more, with Jasper at the Manor. We can show you a heron or two on the moor, and let you see how our long-winged falcons fly, if you are fond of hawking. It shall be my fault, if hereafter, after so long an interruption, I suffer old friendship, and recent kindness also, to pass away and be forgotten.”

“I will come gladly to see my young friend here, who will ere then be quite recovered from this misadventure; and who, if he rides as venturesomely as he fishes, will surely leave me far behind in the hot hawking gallop, for though I can ride, I am, sailor-like, not over excellent at horsemanship.”

[To be continued.

———

BY MRS. AGNES S. COLEMAN.

———

NO. II.—THE LAST SACRAMENT.

———

BY GIFTIE.

———

Even from his fairy-like and laughing boyhood, George Atherton had been a dreamer. His soul seemed like a harp whose chords were tuned in heaven, and from which the rough winds of earth could draw forth at best but a sad and broken melody. The spirit of the Beautiful was given him at his birth, to be his constant companion and unfailing friend. It walked with him in his solitary rambles, it talked with him in his lonely hours, it filled his dreams with high thoughts and splendid imaginings. It led him to the solitude of nature, and opened his eyes to behold the beauties of this glorious creation, which even in rains bears the stamp of the Divinity. And there, as his mind gradually expanded, Religion came to him in the stillness of life’s morning, and taught his fresh and unworn spirit of the Highest and Holiest, by whom are all things, and in whom all exist. To his child-like faith the Deity was not a far off and incomprehensible mystery, but an ever present all pervading spirit. In the thousand voices that resound through this wide spread universe, he heard an undertone—a low solemn voice, that said—“be not afraid—it is I.”

And then as the youth grew to manhood, wrapt in these high and glorious communings with Nature and his God, the love which had hitherto filled his soul with an unuttered melody sprang like lightning to his lips, and he stood up before the world to tell what the spirit of God should whisper him of Christ and his love to the lost and guilty—of heaven and its inconceivable glories. But even into the holy religion which he preached he carried the ever-present spirit of Poetry, while he neglected not to expound in a simple manner the truths of the gospel, it was plain that he loved better to soar upward into the regions of the vast and terrible unknown where sits the Omnipotent clothed in his own infinity. He roamed the vast field opened by revelation, and culled the fairest flowers and the richest treasures that he might lay them with his heart’s devotion a willing offering upon the altar of the Almighty.

Time went on, and a new class of emotions was awakened in his breast. The love which before was lavished on every thing beautiful in heaven or earth, was turned into a new channel, centered upon one object; and within his heart was a secret image that was worshiped as second to naught save his God. The moment that Emma came before him with her delicate and ethereal loveliness, the spirit within him whispered that that pale sweet face should be his destiny. He listened to her voice and the echo of its melody was thenceforth around him night and day, and the very circumstance, that in a more worldly mind would have quenched the first risings of affection by a sense of its utter hopelessness, only served to draw him more closely to her.

In the brightness and in the gloom, in the sunshine and beneath the radiance of the pale-browed queen of night, since the gates of Eden closed on guilty man, there has walked an angel over the earth. Amid the green glades and flowery meads, beneath the mighty forest trees and over the barren wastes, over the tossing billows and within the crowded city, up the majestic rivers and in the wild solitudes whence ariseth the song of Nature untremulous and clear, has her footstep passed and the light of her starry eye been seen. In that “better land” she is the angel who waits without the gate of the celestial city and opens it to the holy and blessed ones who crowd thither. To them she seems bright and beautiful, and her voice hath an echo of the songs of heaven, but on earth she wears a more sombre garb, and her eye hath a shade of gloom far in its misty depths, and men call her the angel of Death. This angel had for months been walking with Emma, step for step, along the path of life, and sealing with her icy touch the springs of existence. Before George saw her, consumption had marked her for the tomb. He knew it by the strange brightness of her eyes and the hectic flush upon her cheek, and yet the young pastor loved her

They stood together beneath the free blue sunny sky. His high brow was flushed, and his whole frame quivered with the impetuous emotions that would no longer be controlled, and even in their hopelessness had uttered the words that might never be recalled.

She listened silently, and when at length she raised her dark blue eyes to his they were filled with tears.

“Have you thought well ere you told me this?” she said in a low tremulous tone. “Know you that if you would unite your fate with mine you must turn from the glad pathway of life, and tread a dark lone valley that leads to a shadowy bourne where we must part? Know you that the radiance of youth and health has long since faded from my path, and of all my expectations there remains but one—that one is Death—and of all my hopes, only the hope of heaven. However dearly you may love me, I can never be wholly yours—even now I am wedded to another—I am the bride of the Grave.”

“I have known it all—I have felt it all. I know that love’s highest boon may be but to catch the last look, the last sigh—yet even with this certainty that love is dearer to me than ought else on earth. I ask for nothing but to hear you say that I am beloved—I dare expect nothing but to watch with you the fleeting of the few months that remain to you on earth, and as you stand beneath the portals of the grave to receive one last assurance of undying affection as they close between us—one promise that you will be mine—mine still, in heaven.”

“Yet I would not have it so,” said she musingly. “Why should I throw the shadow of the tomb over your path? Why should I chill your blood with the cold touch of death? No, no, George, leave me, and since you cannot forget, think of me but as an angel in heaven.”

But even as she spoke her voice grew fainter and fainter, and when she ceased she sunk upon his breast exhausted by the struggle of feelings too strong for a form so frail. He bent over her—

“Once, only once, thou only beloved—only once say that thou art mine,” he murmured in low thrilling tones.

She raised her face, and their eyes met in a long earnest gaze. Then slowly and tremblingly her white lips opened—

“Thine, thine forever.”

He knew that she was dying day by day, and yet he talked to his own heart of life and hope, as if he deemed in the madness of his devotion that such love as theirs would ward off death. And as time passed on we saw his form grow thin, and his pale face yet paler, and his dark eyes were dimmed as if he had looked too long and earnestly into the darkness and tears that overhang the grave. But she—there was a fierce and unnatural glow upon her cheek that told of the deadly fire within, and her step became slow and faltering, but the clear light of her eloquent eyes grew brighter and brighter as if she had looked through the gloomy clouds of death upon the unspeakable glory of God, and in gazing had forgotten how to weep. Thus in that hour did the fair and fragile become the support of the strong-hearted ones who, for her sake, were bowed to the earth with sorrow. Her love was no summer flower to wither beneath the shadows of the dark valley—and they who wondered at its strength knew not that it was fed with dews from the river of Life, and nourished with the sunshine of the world beyond the tomb.

It was the day for the celebration of the sacrament in our church at C?——, and at her earnest request Emma was permitted to be with us on this occasion—perchance the last for her on earth. For some time she had been failing rapidly, and it was now evident to all that her pilgrimage was nearly finished. She entered when the afternoon service was over, walking slowly between her aged and heart-stricken parents. The young pastor did not lift his head, but sat with his face buried in his hands till all was still again. He was gathering strength to appear before the people of his charge as became a minister of God, that he might not appear to preach to them of a sustaining grace that had failed to help him in his hour of need.

When he arose his face was very pale, but all trace of emotion had vanished. All human affection incompatible with the Divine will seemed to have died within him, and he stood calmly and firmly up, and clasped his hands to pray. Long and earnest was that petition, and its burden was the cry of a suffering heart, “Not my will, oh God, but thine.” When it was ended, then were distributed the emblems of the sacred body that was broken, and the blood that was shed for man’s salvation, and again the pastor rose.

At first he spoke in low tones of the Lamb of God who gave himself to die for man, and of the efficacy of that death; but his voice rose with the theme, his eyes kindled, and his cheeks flushed as he proceeded.

“Since I sat here, beloved friends, I have had communion with the Father of Spirits. I seem to see the blessed Redeemer on the night in which he was betrayed, when he took the bread and brake it among his disciples. I see his glorious yet mournful face as he bade them keep this holy festival in memory of him. He knew that before the next evening the Son of God would have been laid, a bound and bleeding victim, upon the altar of man’s transgressions. Ay! before the morrow he must have offered up the atoning sacrifice that was to take away the sins of the whole world—to open the healing fountain whose waters should mingle with the stream of Death and take away its bitterness. He knew all the terrors of that fearful night in the garden—the bloody sweat, the buffeting, the ignominy, the agonizing death, were all before him. Conceive his feelings as he sat among that chosen band, as he met the earnest gaze of the loved one who lay in his bosom, and heard the eager, tremulous question, ‘Lord is it I?’

“I see him when the betrayer had left the disciples, lead them forth into the garden, where even they who had sworn to die for him could not watch with him one hour—when as he knelt alone beneath the olive trees he heard from afar the clash of arms and the shoutings of the mob that came to take him. I hear the thrilling agony of his mighty heart, as sinking beneath the weight of a world’s iniquity, he cries—‘If this cup may not pass from me, thy will be done.’

“The scene is changed. Behold I see the clouds parted and the veil which hides the awful future is withdrawn. I see heaven opened, and he who agonized in the garden and bled upon the cross, cometh in the clouds, and with him those faithful ones who in all ages of the world have feared not to follow him, even unto death. The brightness of his Father’s glory is around him, and the affrighted earth shrinks away from his presence—‘Behold he cometh in the clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also who pierced him, and they shall wail because of him. And the heavens shall depart as a scroll, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat—the sun shall be darkened and the moon shall not give her light,’ and the whole earth shall be offered as a burnt sacrifice to the terrible glory of God.

“Shout then, ye little flock!—ye chosen ones from the foundation of the world! Lift up your eyes to the celestial city, and lo! the pearly gates are unbarred—enter into Paradise, and join the choral hymn that is chanted before the throne, for worthy is He who hath redeemed you, to receive glory and endless praise.

“The vision hath passed, but the voice of God within me answereth, ‘He that overcometh shall inherit the kingdom.’

“And oh! my brethren, what entire sacrifice of ourselves should we give to him who for our sakes condescended to become incarnate. What obstacle should hinder us when we remember that such is our reward. We journey on through this valley of sunshine and tears, our hearts are fettered with the strong ties of earthly love, and we joy and sorrow, hope and fear, as do those who have no support but their own strength—that broken reed that pierces the breast that leans on it. But to our vision there is one bright spot, though earth may be dim around us; there is one hope when all other hopes fail, one refuge when tempests assail us, one friend who will never die.”

The pastor paused and gazed mournfully on the group before him. Emma was sitting with her bright beautiful eyes raised upward, while the smile on her parted lips, and the rapt expression of her face, showed that borne on the wings of faith, and the hope of that unutterable glory, she had forgotten this mortal existence, and was communing with her kindred angels. When he spoke again, it was in a lower tone, and his voice trembled slightly for he was but a man, and now that the excitement had passed, his heart filled with a boundless affection for that pale young creature.

“And should not this hope comfort you, oh ye who have so often been sorely tried, and who must now again be called to look through tears up to your Father’s throne, while she who leaves you tears the tendrils of your hearts from earth, that she may fix them with the grasp of an all-conquering faith upon the altar of God. Mourn yet not, as comfortless—‘whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.’ Lift up your eyes from this earthly dust to that celestial home where ye shall dwell forever—‘in your Father’s house are many mansions,’ and your Redeemer has said, ‘I go to prepare a place for you.’”

As he spoke these last words a long, deep, thrilling sigh, that seemed to bear upon it the anguish of a breaking heart, broke from the mother’s lips, and drawing nearer to Emma, she clasped her arms around her as if she feared she would go even then from her embrace. The action and the sigh drew Emma from the height to which her sublime thoughts had soared. She turned suddenly, and a change passed over her beaming face as she looked upon her parents. Her father had bowed his head upon his hands, and his aged frame shook with suppressed sobs. Both had forgotten time, place, every thing but that she was their last, their only one, and the thought that came more than ever to their hearts, that she must leave them. Emma wiped the tears from her mother’s face and strove to speak, but the reaction of feeling was too great for her feeble frame to endure; she became violently agitated, a faintness came over her, and starting from her seat, she fell forward into her mother’s arms gasping for breath.

Night, solemn and holy! How infinite was the mercy that gave thee to spread thy star-spangled mantle over the tired earth, hushing to repose its misery, and hiding its crime. Night, pure and beautiful! The fitting time for the soul of the innocent to ascend to a better land.

Midnight had chimed on the old church clock, and the whole world seemed sleeping as if bound by a spell. The stars were looking down from the far off heavens, and the large moon was sinking behind the long low clouds in the west, gilding leaf and fountain with its brightness, and shedding a holy radiance on the face of the dying girl. Emma was reclining on a low couch by the open window, and save the low sighing of the wind all was still in that room of death. The agony of suffering that all day had racked her frame, was now passed away, and she lay in a calm slumber, with her head upon her mother’s bosom. George Atherton knelt beside the couch with her hands clasped in his, and her father stood near, silent beneath the pressure of a wo too deep for tears. The last hour had come—they knew that she was dying.

Is it not ever thus? The loveliest, the most utterly beloved are ever the first to leave us. Those on whom we most leaned for support and comfort during this earth-pilgrimage are ever the first victims to the unerring shaft of death. And it is well. Fondly as I have loved and deeply as I have mourned for the dead, I feel that it is well. “The branches are lopped off that the tree may fail the easier.” The prop to which we clung is torn away that the bleeding tendrils of these wrung hearts may wind themselves more closely around the Rock of Ages. The cords that bound the spirit to earth are severed, that its flight may be unimpeded toward that heavenly city, that New Jerusalem, where God shall wipe away all tears.

How shall I tell of the parting—the final parting. How shall mortal language describe the triumph of stern relentless Death over the love of human hearts. He who sitteth in his calm glory above the reach of earthly sorrow—He to whose bosom that cherished one is now departed—He alone can tell the anguish of that trial.

She left them. She who had been the sunlight of their existence, turned from them, and meekly and cheerfully trod the lone valley of Death. But she had listened to “the spoken words,” she had caught a glimpse of the glories of her heavenly home, she had heard a faint echo of the harpings of an immortal hymn, and she raised her eyes with glad faith to the throne of the Eternal, and leaning on the arm of her beloved she entered into her rest.

When morning came over the laughing earth, the light looked into that still chamber tremblingly, as if it feared to break the solemn gloom. Still they remained there—those pale watchers beside the dead—and with her head yet leaning on her mother’s breast, and a faint smile upon her parted lips, lay the cold lifeless form of the beautiful one who had gone from them forever. That dying smile—it beamed upon their hearts like sunlight from heaven. It was the seal of Love’s triumph, of the soul’s immortality, and told of a reunion beyond the grave.

Not long did those aged and lonely parents survive her. Gently and easily they were called unto their celestial home. And for him who had so loved her—still he wanders on the earth, working his Master’s will, lonely yet not desolate. He shut his heart above that deep and quiet sorrow, as above a shrine whose lifeless ashes might never be rekindled by the fire of earthly love. Of Emma and of her early death, few ever heard him speak, but all who saw him, knew that the hopes and affections which engross the heart of man had been forever torn from his, and that amid the changes of his career his calm soul lifted its thoughts upward to the heaven of heavens where she now dwells, with an eager and imploring cry—“how long, oh Lord—how long.”

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BY MRS. S. ANNA LEWIS.

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OF THE INTRODUCTION OF DEATH, AND ORIGIN OF THE MEDICINE WORSHIP AMONG THE OGIBWAS.

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BY KAH-GE-GA-GAH-BOWH.

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The period of time which preceded the introduction of death and evil into the country of the Indians, is represented to have been one which the most fanciful imagination might suggest.

At this late day the son of the forest speaks of it with deep feeling, and sighs for its return.

The following was related to me in a wigwam in which I spent about fifteen years of my early life. It constituted a part of a lecture I received during the ceremony of initiation into the order of the Mysterious Worship of the Medicine Lodge.

When Keshamoradoo made the red men, he made them happy. The men were larger, were fleeter on foot, were more dexterous in games, and lived to an older age than now.

The forest abounded with game, the trees were loaded with fruit, and birds who have now a black plumage were dressed with pure white. The birds and the fowls ate no flesh, for the wide prairies were covered with fruits and vegetables. The fish in the waters were large. The Moredoo from heaven watched the blaze of the wigwams’ fires, and these were as countless as the stars in the sky.

Strange visitants from heaven descended every few days, and inquired of the Indians whether any thing was wrong. Finding them happy and contented, they returned to their high homes.

These were tutelar gods, and they consulted with the sages of the different villages, and advised all not to climb a vine which grew on the earth, and whose top reached the sky, as it was the ladder on which the spirits descended from heaven to earth, to bless the red men.

One of these errand-spirits became intimate with one of the young braves, who dwelt in a cabin with his grandmother, and favored him with invitations to stroll with it among the various villages around.

The favor shown by this god to the young man produced a jealousy among his brethren, and during the absence of his distinguished friend, the favored one was much troubled by his neighbors, who envied him his situation.

On one occasion when this persecution became intolerable, he determined to leave his country, and, if possible, accompany the spirit to the skies.

The chief men had enjoined on all the duty to refrain from any desire or any attempt to ascend the vine whose branches reached the heavens, telling them that to do so would bring upon them severe penalties.

The spirit finding the young man quite sad, inquired, learned the true cause of his sorrow, and taking him, reascended.

The old woman cried for his return, “Noo-sis, be-ge-wain, be-ge-wain.” “My child, come back, come back!” He would not come home, and the woman having adjusted all her matters in the lodge, after the nightfall repaired to the vine and began to ascend it.

In the morning the Indians found the lodge she had inhabited empty, and soon espied her climbing the vine. They shouted to her, “Hoision shay! ah-wos be-ge-wain, mah-je-me-di—moo-ga-yiesh!” “Holloa, come back, you old witch you.”

But she continued ascending, up, up, up.

A council was held to determine what inducement could be made to her to return. They could hear her sobbing for her grandson. “Ne-gah-wah-bah-mah nos-sis.” “I will yet see my child.”

Consternation and fear filled the hearts of the nation, for one of their number was disobeying the Great Spirit. Indignation and fury were seen in the acts of the warriors, and the light of the transgressor’s burning wigwam shed its lurid rays around.

The woman was just nearing the top of the vine which was entwined around one of the stars of heaven, and about entering that place, when the vine broke, and down she came, with the broken vine which had before been the ladder of communication between heaven and earth.

The nations, as they passed by her, as she sat in the midst of the ruin she had wrought, pushed her declining head, saying, “Whah, ke nah mah dah bee mage men di moo ya yilsh.” “There you sit, you wicked old witch.”

Some kicked her, others dragged her by her hair, and thus expressed their disapprobation. All who shall live after thee, shall call thee Equa (woman).

The news of the disaster spread rapidly from village to village. Soon numbers of men, women, and children were singularly affected. Some complained of pains in their heads, and others of pains in various parts of their bodies. Some were unable to walk, and others equally unable to speak.

They thought some of these fell asleep, for they knew not what death was. They had never seen its presence.

A deep solemnity began its reign in all the villages. There was no more hunting, no more games, and no song was sung to soothe the sun to its evening rest.

Ah, it was then a penalty followed transgression. Disease was the consequence of the breaking of the vine. Death followed.

One day, in the midst of their distresses, they consulted each other to determine what could be done. None knew.

They watched carefully for the descent of those beings who used to visit them—and at length they came. Eagerly each strove to tell his story. They soon found that the strangers were silent and sad. They asked the natives what words they wished to tell the Great Spirit in their distress. One said that the vine might be replaced. Another that the Great Spirit might cause the disease to leave them. Another wanted to kill the old woman. Another desired plenty of game; and another wished the Great Spirit to send them something that would cure.

After this the strangers left, telling the Indians to wait, and they should know what the Great Spirit should say.

Each day of their absence seemed a month; at length they came, and gathering around, the eager people said to them that they must all die, as the vine that connected earth to the skies was broken, but the Great Spirit has sent us to relieve you, and to tell you what you must do hereafter.

The strangers then gathered all the wild flowers from the plains, and after drying them on their hands, blew the leaves with their breath, and they were scattered all over the earth; wherever they fell they sprung up and became herbs to cure all disease.

The Indians instituted a dance, and with it a mode of worship. These few were the first who composed the Great Medicine Lodge, and they did so from the hands of the Great Spirit.

There is not a flower that buds that is not for some wise purpose, however small. There is not one blade of grass that the Indian requires not. Learning this, and acting in view of it, will be for your good, and will please the Great Spirit.

A BALLAD.

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BY GRETTA.

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BY MRS. H. MARION STEPHENS.

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BY T. S. ARTHUR.

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[SEE ENGRAVINGS.]

The eve of All Saint’s Day is memorable in Scotland as a time when the fairies hold a grand anniversary, and when witches and evil beings are abroad on errands of mischief. This superstition, modified in various ways, finds a place also among the peasantry of other nations. In the United States, Halloween used to be observed by country maidens as a time for trying sweethearts, and gaining such an intelligible peep into futurity as would enable them to find out whether they would be married or not; and if that happy event was to crown their lives, who would be the man of their choice. And even at this time, “Hallow-Eve,” as it is called, is not suffered to come and go without the effort of some loving maidens to penetrate the mystery of their matrimonial future. The modes of trying sweethearts, and the various love tests applied, are curious enough. Burning nuts, the love-candle, eating an apple before the looking-glass at midnight, the salt egg, and dropping melted lead through a key into a basin of water, are a few of them, and all must be accompanied by particular ceremonies or incantations, in order that they may have the desired power to lift the veil of futurity.

A few years ago we spent Halloween in the family of a friend who resides fifty miles away from any large town in the interior of Pennsylvania. He had three marriageable daughters, who, it may be presumed, felt as much interest in the great question of matrimony as is usual in girls of their ages; and, on the occasion referred to, something of what they thought and felt was clearly enough displayed. One member of this family was an old aunt, whose kind, gentle character and cheerful disposition, made her a favorite with all. She was a widow. Twenty years had gone by since the grass became green over the grave of her husband. She often referred to the past, but not in a spirit of sadness or regret. And when she spoke of her husband, the allusion seemed more to one who was living than dead. And living, in fact, he was to her. The deep affection that was in her heart, made him ever present to her thoughts, and she lived in full confidence of a re-union when she, too, should lay off the mortal robes that enveloped her spirit, and rise into a true and substantial life.

To be with Aunt Edith for half an hour, was to feel toward her as toward an old friend. In less than that time, on our first meeting, I was as much at home with her as if we had been acquainted for years. For her young nieces, Aunt Edith entertained the warmest affection. It is doubtful if she could have loved her own children more tenderly. She was ever ready to take an interest in what interested them; and entered into all their pleasures with a heartiness that made them her own. On the evening to which I have referred, as we sat pleasantly conversing before a bright fire in the parlor, almost the first of the season, Aunt Edith said, as if the thought had just occurred to her, addressing, as she spoke, the oldest of her nieces,

“Why, Maggy, dear, this is Hallow-Eve. Have you forgotten?”

“So it is!” cried Maggy, in return, clapping her hands together with girlish enthusiasm.

“Hallow-Eve!” chimed in Kate, the youngest of the three. “Oh, we must try sweethearts to-night!”

“Sweethearts!” said Mr. Wilmot, the father of the girls, in a grave voice. “Nonsense! Nonsense, child! What do you want to know about sweethearts?”

Kate slightly blushed, but her smile was so radiant, that it quickly extinguished the deeper hue that had come over her bright, young countenance. She did not, however, reply to her father’s question, but looked into the face of Aunt Edith for encouragement.

“Wait awhile, dear,” said Aunt Edith, “your father don’t understand these matters. But I was a young girl once, and know all about them.”

“Trying sweethearts! Why I thought that custom was peculiar only to the Scotch and Irish peasantry.”

Aunt Edith looked at me and smiled.

“In cities,” she replied, “these customs are hardly known, but here they have always prevailed among portions of the people. Halloween, though not kept with the formality attending the occasion in the rural districts of Ireland or Scotland, is yet remembered by hundreds of young maidens who live far away from the great towns, and who improve the occasion to get, if possible, a peep into futurity, and read therein an answer to their heart’s eager questions.”

“Can it really be,” said I, in return, “that superstition like this prevails in an age and among a people so enlightened. Fortune-tellers would find a rich harvest in these regions.”

“Not richer, I presume,” returned Aunt Edith, “than among your more enlightened dwellers in cities.”

“True, we have fortune-tellers and astrologers in abundance, and they appear to find enough silly people to encourage and support them. But what is the nature of these love tests that so many of your country maidens apply on Hallow-Eve?”

Aunt Edith smiled as she answered,

“They are of various kinds. Among the most common is burning nuts on the hearth. A young maiden will take two nuts, and naming one for the man who is, or whom she would like to have for her sweetheart, and the other for herself, she puts them in the fire, and accordingly as they burn quietly together, or start from beside one another, will be the future relation toward each other by the lad and lassie. Don’t you remember these verses in Burns’ “Halloween”:

The girls were all listening with fixed attention, and even Mr. Wilmot was interested.

“This, as I remarked,” continued Aunt Edith, “is one of the commonest modes of trying sweethearts. There are many others, and some of them involve ordeals that would make the stoutest nerves quiver.”

“Did you ever try any of them?” I inquired, half forgetting myself in asking so pointed a question.

“Perhaps I have,” replied Aunt Edith, smilingly. “A young maiden will go through a great deal, in order to get some kind of an answer to a question that so deeply involves her happiness. But you mus’n’t expect me to make any confessions.”

“Oh no, we wont ask that,” said I, “but you will not object to relating some experiments of this kind that you have known others make?”

“Certainly not. When I was a young girl, a great deal more attention was paid to the Eve of All Saints’ Day than at present, and love-stricken lasses would look forward for months for its arrival, in order to try their sweethearts. You remember Lizzie Wells, afterward Mrs. Jackson?”

“Oh, very well,” replied Mr. Wilmot, to whom the question was addressed.

“I shall never forget one of her attempts to raise the spirit of her future spouse. Poor girl! It turned out rather a serious matter for the time. She was a timid, bashful thing, and was particularly sensitive when any one jested with her about a sweetheart. It is usually the case, that love charms are tried by at least two, and sometimes three or four girls, in order that they may brace up each other’s courage. But Lizzie had no sister as a confidante, and there was no maiden of her acquaintance to whom she would betray the anxiety she felt on the momentous subject of love. So, on Hallow-Eve she must try her sweetheart all alone, or still remain in doubt. But doubt had pressed upon her bosom until it could be borne no longer. As the day that closed the month of October began to fade into twilight, Lizzie’s resolution in regard to a certain experiment, which had been strong when the bright sun looked down from the sky, began to waver. Clouds had heaved themselves up in the west, and the cold autumn wind began to moan among the old forest trees. The young girl felt a creeping shudder pass through her frame, as her imagination pictured the weird hour of midnight, and herself, alone, seeking by strange rites to conjure up the spirit of her lover. But the thought of one who, of all others she had yet seen, embodied in her eyes the highest human perfections, and the uncertainty that accompanied this thought, brought her mind back again to its first resolution. To have some sure knowledge on this subject, was worth almost any trial, and the strong desire she felt for its possession, nerved her heart for the task she had laid upon herself.

“As night closed in, the air became tempestuous. The wind rushed and moaned through the trees that were near and around her father’s dwelling. Every window rattled, and the shutters and gates seemed as if moved by some spirit-hands, for they were still scarcely a moment at a time. Lizzie saw in all this disturbance of the elements a sign that weird ones were abroad, and you may well suppose that her heart trembled when she thought of the experiment she was about to make. When Hallow-Eve occurred just one year before, she had tried one of the ordinary love charms; but its indications were not satisfactory to her mind.”

“What was it?” asked Kate.

“The salt egg,” replied Aunt Edith.

“Oh!”

“The salt egg?—what is that?” I inquired.

“One or two, or more young girls, as the case may happen to be,” said Aunt Edith, “sit up until the witching hour of midnight. Then in the ashes they roast each an egg, from which, after it is done, the hard yolk is taken, and the cavity made in the egg by this removal, filled with salt. Precisely at twelve o’clock at night, the white of the egg is to be eaten with this salt, and then, without drinking, the parties go to bed. Of course, they get very dry in the night and dream of water, and, it is averred that, in the dream, the spirit of the lover presents a cup of water. If the damsel dream that she takes the water and drinks it, the one by whom it is presented will be her future husband; but if she refuse to take it, she will not marry the man, and there are chances in favor of her dying a maid.”

“Did you ever try the salt egg, aunty?” inquired Kate, with an arch look.

“Nonsense, child! Don’t ask your aunt such a question,” said Mr. Wilmot, laughing.

“Yes, dear,” was the good-humored reply. “I’ve tried that charm.”

“And how did it come out?” asked Maggy, and Jane both at once.

“All right,” returned Aunt Edith, while a beautiful smile played about her features. “Well,” she continued, “as I was saying, Lizzie had tried the salt egg, but it had not proved so satisfactory as she had desired, and she resolved to work out a deeper charm, and to interrogate the future by a more earnest rite. What this should be, had for many days been a subject of debate in her mind. The most certain spell was that of the south running spring or rivulet. But not within half a mile was there such a stream in the right location. To make this trial of sweethearts a sure one, the person must go after dark, to a stream running south, and just where three estates meet, dip the left sleeve in the water. She must then sleep in a room where there is a fire, and on going to bed, hang the garment with the wet sleeve to dry. Of course, she must lie awake until midnight, at which time the spirit of the future husband will enter the room, go up to the fire, turn the sleeve as if to dry the other side, and then go away again. But, as I said, this ceremony was out of the question, for Lizzie, even if her nerves would have been strong enough for the trial, there being no southward running spring within a convenient distance. Other plans were next debated, and the final conclusion was to eat an apple before a looking-glass, just as the clock struck twelve, in the hope of seeing the apparition of her spouse to be, looking at her over her shoulder. At first thought this may seem but a little matter, but let any one try it, and she will find her courage put to a severe test.

“A dozen times, as the lonely evening passed away and Lizzie hearkened to the troubled roar of the storm without—for the rain had begun to fall—did her heart fail her. But the intense desire she felt to know something certain in regard to her lover, brought back her wavering resolution. There was no one at home but her father and mother, and they retired to bed, as was their usual custom, about nine o’clock. Three hours yet remained before the all-potent love test could be tried, and there was full time for Lizzie’s already weakened nerves to become sensitive to the utmost degree. In order to make the time pass less wearily, she took up some work and tried to sew. But her hand was so tremulous that she could not hold the needle, and after a few trials, she was forced to abandon the attempt. She next tried to read, but with no better success. Her eyes passed from word to word over the open page, but there was not the slightest connection between the words in the book and the ideas that were passing through her mind. Half an hour was spent in this way, and then, startled by a noise as of some one trying to open the outside door, she looked up and listened intently, while her heart throbbed so heavily that she could distinctly hear every pulsation, and feel them as strokes upon her bosom. As she listened, other sounds became apparent. There was the noise, as of feet, walking around the house; voices were heard in the moaning wind, and cries from the distant forest. Now, there seemed to be a knocking at the window-pane, and she half turned herself to look, her heart shrinking lest some fearful apparition should meet her eyes. Even in the room the deep silence was broken by strange sounds—something rustled in one corner, and rattled in another; and even the fire blazed on the hearth with an unearthly murmur, while the sparks flew suddenly out, and darted across the room as if instinct with some living purpose.

“Thus it was that the hours crept slowly on. But still firm to her purpose, Lizzie, though her heart was almost paralyzed with superstitious fear, kept her lonely vigil. At length the clock, which had ticked with a louder and louder noise as time wore on toward midnight, pointed to the minute mark before twelve. Up to this tone the storm without had been steadily increasing. But now there came a sudden lull in the tempest, and the roar of the wind sunk into a low, sobbing moan, that sounded strangely human.

“The hour had come. Upon the table by which Lizzie sat, stood the candle, and near it the apple which must be eaten as a part of the spell that was to raise the spirit of her lover. Strongly tempted was Lizzie, at this crisis, to rush from the room and abandon the bold experiment. Both hands of the clock would be on the point that marked the close of Halloween in a few seconds, and if she did not act now, the secret she so ardently desired to penetrate would still be hidden from her eyes. She felt awful in that moment of deep suspense. Her heart ceased for an instant to beat, and then bounded on again in troubled throbbings. Then, with a kind of desperate energy, she caught up the candle and apple, and turned to the glass that hung against the wall. As she did so, the brief lull in the tempest expired, and the wind, as if it had gained new power, rushed past with a wilder sound, and shook the house to its very foundation.

“One glance into the mirror, as the hammer of the clock began to fall sufficed. A wild scream, thrilling through the house, accompanied by a noise as of some one falling heavily, aroused the sleeping parents. When they descended to the room below, they found Lizzie prostrate on the floor in a state of total insensibility.”

“Why, aunt!” exclaimed Kate, in a husky voice.

“What did she see?” asked Maggy, who had been listening with breathless attention.

“It was many hours before the frightened girl came back to consciousness,” said Aunt Edith. “I saw her on the day afterward, and she looked as if she had been sick for a month. We were intimate, and on my asking her some questions, she told me what she had done, and avowed that, as she looked into the glass, she distinctly saw the face of a man peering over her shoulder.”

“But you didn’t believe her,” said Mr. Wilmot.

“Did she know the person whom she saw?” asked Maggy.

“Yes. She told me who it was; and they were afterward married.”

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Mr. Wilmot. “I’m really surprised at you, sister! You will turn these silly girls’ heads. You surely don’t believe that she saw any face in the glass besides her own.”

“In imagination she did, without doubt. The fact of her fainting from alarm shows that.”

“But you say, Aunt Edith, that she afterward married the person she saw?”

“Yes, dear. But that is no very strange part of the story. Young ladies are not famous for keeping secrets, you know. I told a young friend, in confidence, of course, what Lizzie had told me. She, though bound to secrecy, very naturally confided the story to her particular friend and confidante, and so it went, until the young man came to hear of it. It so happened that both he and Lizzie were rather modest sort of young people, and, though mutually in love with each other, shrunk from letting any signs thereof become manifest. At a distance the young man worshiped, scarcely hoping that he would ever be, in the eyes of the maiden, more than a friend or acquaintance. But, when he heard of the love test, and was told that his face had appeared to the maiden, he took courage. The next time he met Lizzie, he drew to her side as naturally as iron draws to the magnet; and as he looked into her mild blue eyes, he saw that they were full of tenderness. The course of true love ran smoothly enough after that. On next Halloween they were made one, in the very room where, a year before, the never-to-be-forgotten love charm was tried.”

On the next morning neither of the sisters were very bright. Maggy was pale; Jane did not make her appearance at the breakfast table, and Kate looked so thoughtful as she sipped her coffee with a spoon, and only pretended to eat, that her mother inquired seriously as to the cause.

Kate blushed, and seemed a little confused, but said nothing was the matter.

“I hope you have not been so silly as to try sweethearts,” remarked Mr. Wilmot.

Instantly the tell-tale blood mounted to the brow of Kate. Maggy, likewise, found her color, and rather more of it than her cheeks were wont to bear.

“Why girls!” exclaimed the father, who had spoken more in jest than in earnest. “Can it be possible?—”

But, before he could finish the sentence, both Kate and Maggy had risen from the table—their faces like scarlet—and were hastily leaving the room.

“Really,” said Mr. Wilmot, “I thought better of them girls! What nonsense! This is all your fault, sister. I shouldn’t at all wonder if you were up with them trying your sweetheart.”

Aunt Edith smiled, in her quiet, self-possessed way, as she replied—

“I hardly think, brother, you will find it any thing more serious than eating a salt egg on going to bed, or some trifling affair like that; for which I can readily excuse a young maiden.”

“To think they should be so weak as to believe in nonsense of this kind!” said the father. “I hoped that my daughters had better sense.”

“Don’t take the matter so seriously, brother,” replied Aunt Edith to this. “It has only been a little frolick.”

“It has been rather a serious one, I should think, to judge from the effects produced. Jane, I presume, is too much indisposed to get up; and I am sure both Maggy and Kate look as if they had been sick for a week.”

“They’ll all come out bright enough before noon. Don’t fear for that.”

The girls, however, were not themselves again during the whole day. Jane’s absence from the breakfast table was in consequence of a nervous headache, from which she suffered nearly all day. And Kate and Maggy continued to look thoughtful, and to keep as much away from the rest of the family as possible.

It out, before night, that each of the girls, on retiring at twelve o’clock, had eaten a “salt egg.” The consequence to Jane was a sick headache; and the others did not feel much better. As to their dreams, they wisely kept their own counsel. That these had some effect upon their spirits, was, no doubt correctly, inferred.

“That a young girl, after sitting up until twelve o’clock at night, thinking of a certain nice young man, and then eating half a cupfull of salt, should dream that she was thirsty, and that this certain young man came and offered her water to drink, is not a very wonderful occurrence, and might be accounted for on very natural principles.”

“Of course,” replied Aunt Edith, to whom the remark was made, as we sat, all but the girls, conversing before the parlor fire on the evening of that day. “And yet I have known of cases where the dreams that came were singularly prophetic. As for instance. A young friend of mine, when I was a girl, tried, though under engagement of marriage, this experiment. She dreamed that her lover came and offered her water, and that she declined taking it, which is considered an unfavorable omen. In a month afterward, although the time for the wedding was fixed, the young man deserted her for another.”

“All that may have occurred,” said Mr. Wilmot, “without there being any connection between the dream and the after event.”

“Oh, certainly. Yet you must own that the coincidence was a little singular,” returned Aunt Edith.

“There are hundreds of coincidences occurring daily that are far more remarkable.”

“Very true. But will you say positively that indications of things about to occur are never given? That no shadow of a coming event is ever projected upon our pathway as we move through life?”

“As I do not know, positively, any thing on the subject, I will assert nothing. But, as a general principle, we are aware that Providence wisely withholds from us a knowledge of the future, in order that we may remain in perfect freedom. If the knowledge of future events was given, our freedom would be destroyed, for the certainty of approaching calamity, or favorable fortune, would destroy our ability to act efficiently in the present. And as, for so good a reason, our Creator draws a veil over the future, I think it wrong for us to use any means for the removal of that veil.”

“To any one,” replied Aunt Edith, “whose mind is as clear on this subject as yours, all seeking after future knowledge would be wrong. But all are not so enlightened. All have not the intelligence or ability to think wisely on Providence and its operations with men. To such, in their weakness, the kind Providence that withholds as a general good, may grant particular glimpses into the future, as the result of certain forms which may determine spiritual influences; as was the case in ancient times, when oracles gave their mysterious answers.”

“I’m afraid, sister,” said Mr. Wilmot, “that you have a vein of superstition in your character.”

“No,” returned Aunt Edith. “I believe I am as free from superstition as one need wish to be. But I look upon the operations of Providence with man as designed for his spiritual good, and as coming down to meet him even in his lowest and most ignorant state, in order to elevate him. There may be a condition of the human mind that needs, for its aid, some sign from the world of spirits; and wherever that state exists, such signs will be given. In the barbarous times of any nation, we find a belief in supernatural agencies—in signs, tokens, and oracles—a prominent characteristic. This is not so much an accidental circumstance as a Providential arrangement, by which to keep alive in the mind the idea of a spiritual world. The same is true among the unenlightened classes at the present day; and the reason is of a similar character. To people who know no better than to seek, by certain forms, to penetrate the future, true answers may be permitted sometimes to their inquiries; and this for a higher good than the one they are seeking.”

At this point in the conversation the young ladies came into the room, and the subject was changed. During the evening allusion was again made to the topic upon which so much had already been said, when, in answer to some question asked of Aunt Edith, she related the following:

“Before I was married,” said she, “there was a certain young man who paid me many attentions, but whom, from some cause or other, I did not particularly fancy. He was an excellent young man, of a good family, and, as sober and industrious as any one in the neighborhood. Still, for all this, I felt more like repulsing than giving him encouragement. He saw that I avoided him when I could do so without appearing rude, and this made him more distant; yet I could see that his mind was on me. I would often meet his eyes when we were in company; and he would come to my side whenever he could do so without appearing to be intrusive. His many excellent qualities, and the manliness of character for which he was distinguished, prevented me from treating him otherwise than respectfully. As a friend, I liked him, but when he approached, as was evidently the case, in the character of a lover, I could not be otherwise than cold and reserved. There were two or three other young men who appeared fond of my company, any one of whom I would have accepted, had he offered himself, in preference to this one.

“Such was the state of my love affairs, when Halloween came round. A cousin, a young girl about my own age, was spending a few weeks in our family, and she and I talked over the matter of trying sweethearts. After looking at the subject in its various lights and shades, we finally determined to summon up the requisite courage, and burn a love-candle. So, after all the family were in bed, which was not until after eleven o’clock, we began to make preparations for this ceremony. Burning the love-candle is done in this way. A table is set with bread, cakes and fruit; or any other articles of food that may be selected. Plates for as many guests as are expected are also put upon the table; but no knives or forks, lest the guests should, by any accident, harm themselves. A little before midnight a candle, in which a row of nine new pins have been placed just below the wick, is lighted and set upon the table. The distance between the row of pins and the burning end of the candle must not be greater than will melt away by the time the hour of twelve strikes. When the candle burns down to the pins, they drop one after the other, and just as the last one falls, the apparitions of the future husbands of those who try the charm will enter, it is said, sit down to the table and eat, and then rise up and go away.

“Well, Lydia and I determined that we would try this love charm; so we arranged our table, placed upon it the candle in which were stuck the row of nine new pins, and sat down to await the arrival of the hour that was to open for us a page of the future. I shall never forget the deathlike stillness that reigned for a time through the room; nor how I started when the old house-dog suddenly raised, almost under the window, a long, low, melancholy howl. My heart seemed to beat all over my body, and I could feel the hair rising on my head. After a quarter of an hour had elapsed, we lit the candle and returned to our seats on the opposite side of the room to that in which the table was standing, almost crouching down in our chairs. As we did so, one of the shutters, which was merely drawn to without being fastened, flew open suddenly, and was slammed back against the side of the house, at the same time the wind began rushing and moaning through the trees. I felt awful. Spirits seemed all around me, and I looked every moment for some fearful apparition to blast our sight with its presence.

Engraved Expressly for Graham’s Magazine.
THE LOVE TESTS OF HALLOWE’EN.—No. 2.

THE ODALISQUE.