The color went and came in Jessie’s cheek, as she read the deliberate insult the writer evidently intended.

“What is it, Jessie?” said Emilie, whose electrical sympathy was instantly roused, “any thing more from those abominable Tylers? Pray let me see?” Mrs. Tower looked over Emilie’s shoulder as she read. “What insolence! Jessie Lincoln, if I were only a man, I am sure I should avenge your insult in single combat! Why, brother, are you a man, and will you see a lady treated like that?” she continued with thrilling emphasis, throwing the note disdainfully out of her hands.

“Yes, sister, I hope I am a man,” replied the young naval officer, “but not quite so hot-headed and reckless a man as you would have made. If you were on board our vessel, I fear we might have our hands full to keep you out of ‘affairs of honor!’ Miss Lincoln, I presume,” he continued, laying down the note, while a flush slowly crept to his forehead, “has wisdom enough to manage with the contempt it deserves, so very contemptible an assault!”

“I will reply to it, Jessie,” said Mrs. Tower, as she sat down before her writing-table and wrote:?—

Jessie begged that any thing so like retaliation, might not be sent, as Miss Tyler was unquestionably instigated by the Varleys, who were too cowardly to assail her only through a tool.

“It becomes me, Jessie, to vindicate the honor of my family, and I feel justified in checking such effrontery, and foiling it with its own weapons,” insisted Mrs. Tower.

“Yes, yes indeed!” said Emilie. “I’m glad of it, Mrs. Tower, and I only wish I had the inditing of the reply. It would scorch like a flame, I’m sure it would, every word of it. Do, please charge me with the delivery of the missive, Mrs. Tower! my fingers ache for the commission, and I’ll add an oral appendix on my own hook!”

“O, no, Emilie,” replied Mrs. Tower, smiling; “I appreciate your generous intention, but I fear your enthusiasm and indignation might spoil your embassy.”

Meantime the whole Varley family were indulging in boisterous exultation over Elizabeth’s “capital trick, to show a mantuamaker girl that she was out of her reckoning when she sailed into their latitude—she did not belong with them, no how you could fix it;” for it must be humiliating, indeed, to be ordered to such paltry service after deceiving such wealthy and important people into showing her some distinguished civilities. Charlotte said she “guessed it would convince Mr. Style that there was something to choose between an heiress and a servant!” Mrs. Tyler simpered from behind her porcelain, that “it would learn people to know their places—and one might lose some custom by such a fraud on society—the matter would not stop in a corner!” Annette declared it was “too good.” Mrs. Varley echoed, as usual, the respective opinions, as they came from the mint, and Adelaide gleefully suggested that it “might taste a little bitter to Mrs. Tower’s palate, as she made such a prodigious favorite of the girl. For her part, she expected Mrs. Tower would import a colony of chimney-sweeps, to give brilliancy to society there, she was so much the patron of the ‘lower classes!’”

But the reply came far sooner than it was looked for, and exultation speedily changed hands with consternation. What could it mean? “Change in her circumstances and prospects!” What possible interpretation could be applied to that? Charlotte fell into hysterics, and screamed she “knew it could mean nothing less than that Jessie Lincoln was engaged to Mr. Style!” and to complete the excitement, she actually fainted away.

“Good gracious me!” stormed Miss Tyler, almost choking with passion, “I should like to know what ‘change of circumstances and prospects,’ can license an impertinent, presuming, poverty-pinched hussy of a dress-maker to withdraw her acquaintance from a lady of my position in the fashionable world! Mother, did we tear ourselves from the importunities of our city friends, and patronize these Varleys, for such insulting treatment as this? Mrs. Varley, we did not know you lived among Hottentots, or we should have refused to come here, in the face of all your urgency, every soul of you!”

Mrs. Varley and her four conscious daughters, vituperated, apologized, and appeased, as well as their own choler would permit, the excited and wrathful visiters, who declared “they would leave the house and the town immediately, and spread the story as far as the newspapers would carry it, and that was everywhere!” But it was finally suggested by the daring Adelaide, that her mother should go to Mrs. Tower, clothed with all the terror of their united resentment, and demand a satisfactory explanation. Especially was she commissioned to discover if possible what sudden “change in circumstances and prospects,” had set Jessie Lincoln upon such a pinnacle over the heads of everybody.

“I declare, girls,” said Mrs. Varley to her daughters, in secret session, before she started on her errand, “I do feel like pizon about this affair! I am half skart out of my wits at such a breeze between us and Mrs. Tower! I wish to the mercy we had never seen these mischief-making Tylers! As if them that touches porcupines mustn’t expect the quills! Or them that insults, to be insulted back again. I don’t believe they are half so rich and uppercrust as they pretend—and then they make such a sight of trouble! Besides, you know what I told you I surmised about Mrs. Tower. If it is so, she will be sure to let me and other people know it, if she hasn’t already!”

The girls all looked doubtfully at each other.

“I wish in my heart these Tylers would go,” said Annette, “for of all the conceited trumpery old sights that ever I saw, Mrs. Tyler is the foremost.”

“I cannot express my detestation of Liz,” interrupted Adelaide. “She is as false and cunning as the very old snake himself, and bad as I am, I do think she is worse!”

Charlotte had come to life enough by this time to mention Miss Tyler’s flirtation with Mr. Style, when she was checked by Adelaide with,

“Hush! she is coming—it’s said somebody is always at hand when you are talking about him!”

“O, do go quick, Mrs. Varley! Havn’t you got ready yet? I’m terribly impatient for that woman’s apology;” said Miss Tyler, as she unceremoniously opened the door and thrust in her face. “But what are you talking about with closed doors? Us, I presume! You look caught, every one of you,” and Miss Tyler turned up her disdainful nose, as if there would be no further amity till she heard a disclaimer of that offence.

“O, no, no, Lizzie, my dear!” supplicated Mrs. Varley, in her blandest and most conciliatory tone. “Pray come right in, love, and cheer up these poor disconsolate creatures while I am gone. Bring my hat and parasol, Adelaide. Shameful, isn’t it, to drag a body out in this briling sunshine, on such business?”

“We were saying,” remarked Adelaide, as she handed the bonnet and parasol to her mother, “how much we do despise these deceitful kind of upstarts, who pretend to be so much more than they really are!”

“It is the tendency of our American institootions,” replied Elizabeth, in a tone more pacific, but very affectedly sage, as she settled herself indolently into a rocking-chair. “They encourage upstarts! You don’t see nothing of this kind in England. For my part, I think it devolves on the higher classes to—to—hem—” she found herself unexpectedly wading beyond her depth, and unfortunately afloat in the high flown piece of wisdom she had started to express. Charlotte hastened to the rescue, in a very luminous climax to Miss Tyler’s halting proposition.

“To let them know,” she interposed.

“Yes, to let them know!” replied Elizabeth, with clinching emphasis.

Meanwhile Mrs. Varley was sailing majestically along the street toward Mrs. Tower’s residence. Her face was very brazen, but there was a trembling and apprehension in her heart, which communicated itself to her body, and her hand shook nervously as she twitched the door-bell.

“Is Mrs. Tower in?” she said to the servant who opened the door, in a very sharp and insolent voice—and before he had time to reply, she added, “go and tell her that Mrs. Varley wishes to speak with her alone.”

In a few minutes Mrs. Tower entered the drawing-room, her countenance and carriage as placid as if never a breath had disturbed her. A cold and haughty bow was the response she received to her polite and polished greeting. Mrs. Varley seemed entirely at a loss for her next measure—she was confused—exceedingly confused, but the sternness of her coarse features softened not a shadow. Mrs. Tower inquired for the health of her family.

“Yes, ma’am! it becomes you to ask, I should think,” retorted Mrs. Varley, very bitterly. “Did you write this note, ma’am?” and she advanced toward Mrs. Tower with the offending document.

“I did, indeed, Mrs. Varley,” replied Mrs. Tower, as she just glanced at the note, and gave it back to Mrs. Varley.

“Ah, you did! and you seem very cool and indifferent about it, too, as if it was a small matter to insult a genteel family like mine, just because we wont have any thing to do with the lower clashes, nor uphold you in it,” said Mrs. Varley, losing all control of herself, and swelling her tones as she grew angrier and angrier, to the keen and wiry pitch peculiar to the voice of an excited woman. “I’ll thank you to tell me what it means?”

“Precisely what it says,” replied Mrs. Tower, in a low, calm voice; “but what do you mean by the ‘lower classes?’”

“I mean all mantymakers, and servants, and tradespeople, and everybody that works for a livin’,” quickly responded Mrs. Varley—she was fortified on that point. “I’d have you to know that my family is too rich and high up in the world to have any thing at all to do with them sort of folks, whatever yours may be, Mrs. Tower! But I know one’s bringing up has a great deal to do with one’s genteelety—it don’t set easy on everybody!”

“A very pertinent remark, Mrs. Varley,” replied Mrs. Tower, with an effort to repress a smile. “I conclude you do not embrace your visiters in your catalogue of the ‘lower classes?’”

“No, indeed! that’s what I don’t! they are very wealthy, and fashionable, and high-bred people, and know all the richest and fashionablest people in the city of New York; and what’s more, they know how to resent an affront as well as some other folks—I guess you will find out.”

“I must take the liberty to correct one of your statements, madam,” replied Mrs. Tower. “Mr. Tyler, the husband and father of your visiters, rents his hardware store in New York of the business agent of my adopted daughter and heiress, Miss Jessie Lincoln, to whom I have given my estates in that city. And, moreover, he is so deeply indebted for borrowed capital, to support the extravagance of his wife and daughter, that every farthing he possesses would not liquidate his debt. So much for the wealth and independence of the tradesman’s family. As to the fashionable part of the story, without any arrogance I may assert that my acquaintance for years has included the first and wealthiest families in New York, and I venture to affirm that in those circles Mrs. Tyler and her designing daughter were never so much as heard of!”

Mrs. Varley began to look crestfallen.

“Well,” she rejoined, “I don’t know but it may be so, but I have no reason to think it is. At any rate, they don’t hug up mantymakers, and take ’em out visiting with them!”

“Mrs. Varley,” replied Mrs. Tower, rising from her chair and assuming a moral majesty before which her narrow-souled assailant quailed, “I acknowledge it is exasperation which prompts to the disclosure of another truth, which may sound rather painfully to your pride. I deplore the occasion, but you have really driven me to it, in order to vindicate the dignity of my family, which you have willfully wounded. Mrs. Varley, you were a servant in my father’s house—you contracted a vicious and disgraceful marriage with a servant in a large gambling establishment in the city of Baltimore, where we then resided, and when you ran away with your husband—my casket of jewels went with you! I saw you take it, but I forebore to expose you to my father, because I pitied your sin and folly, and I knew the severity of his sense of justice and injury would pursue you without mercy, so he died in ignorance of your crime. You lived in degradation and poverty for years and years, and I have seen those fastidious daughters of yours, now so sensitive lest they should be contaminated by contact with what you are pleased to call the “lower classes,” ragged and hungry in the streets of C., while I lived in that city with my departed husband. And more than once have I carried food and clothing to the miserable abode you called your home. Do you remember your own almost mortal illness when the cholera scourged that city? Some fortunate stakes at the gaming-table subsequently put Mr. Varley in possession of considerable sums of money, and the diligent pursuit of the same vicious business for many successful years, has put you and your family in possession of an independent fortune. For these facts I can refer you to authorities if you will. Now, have I read this chapter of your private history correctly?”

Mrs. Varley turned every imaginable color as the relation proceeded—pale, red, speckled and spotted. She was utterly confounded for a moment, and then she exclaimed, as she seized Mrs. Tower’s passive hand in both her own.

“Josepha Gordon! I have sometimes thought it must be the same!”

“Josepha Gordon was my maiden name,” replied Mrs. Tower, calmly yet sorrowfully watching the whirlwind in poor Mrs. Varley’s soul. “Twenty years, and bitter sorrows, have wrought more changes in me than fortune has in you, Cynthia Varley. But have I spoken truly?”

Mrs. Varley could scarcely reply; she sunk down upon the sofa completely overcome. Mortification and deep humiliation seemed to paralyze her faculties. Tears, and sobs, and groans, right pitiful to witness followed. One moment a storm of furious passion rose in her bosom, and the next a torrent of tears poured over her cheeks.

“It is all true,” she stammered at length; “but O don’t, for mercy’s sake, don’t expose us! It would be our ruin, our utter ruin, and I am sure I have suffered enough already. I will restore your jewels fourfold,” and she began nervously working at a magnificent diamond that sparkled on her bosom.

“Keep the jewels, Mrs. Varley. I do not need them, neither will I accept what you have so long called your own,” said Mrs. Tower mildly. “I know not what remorseful visitings have struggled in your heart, but if they had wrought a moral renovation there, I would have left this painful story in oblivion, and spared you so much humiliation. Believe me, Mrs. Varley, money is not the true criterion in estimating respectability or character, as you seem to judge. That man is poor indeed who only possesses heaps of shining gold, though so great he cannot count their value—but the wealth garnered in the heart, the gems of virtue set around the immortal soul, are the only imperishable riches, which are the legitimate and justifiable ambition of an imperishable nature. I will keep your secret sacredly, as I have kept it these many years that we have been neighbors and acquaintances. I will only exhort you to remember, madam, that there is nothing dishonorable in honest, laborious, physical industry—the working with one’s hands. The fact that my beloved Jessie toiled to provide for the comfort of her sick and indigent parents, and discharged with her own noble efforts all their pecuniary obligations, only renders her more admirable in my estimation, and worthier to receive the inheritance I feel honored to bestow upon her. Hereafter she will be recognized as my own daughter.”

Mrs. Varley was perfectly subdued. The character of the lady she had come armed to annihilate, stood out sublimely before her, in contrast with her own conscious duplicity and assumption—humbled and silenced she rose to go, with very much the feeling of an arrogant general vanquished and routed, and forced into a disgraceful and disordered retreat.

My pen is unequal to the description of the scene at Mrs. Varley’s own house, when she at length reached home, and detailed to her daughters the whole story, and relieved the suspense of her guests, by so much of it as related to themselves. Mrs. Tyler and Elizabeth decided to leave in the first train the next morning, bearing with them any thing but the cordiality and good wishes of their hostess and her five daughters, who gave the “metropolitan friends” definitely to understand that they regarded themselves most scandalously imposed upon, by the shabbiest of pretenders, and that any further acquaintance would be unthought of, which complimentary farewells the guests fiercely retorted.

Mrs. Varley very shortly concluded that the health of her family, which, in truth, had suffered somewhat by their unexpected defeats, required journeying; and in a few days the house was closed, the servants discharged, and the household had departed, rumor said to spend the winter in Cuba. And not long after the citizens of N. were very much astonished by an advertisement in the papers, stating that “the entire establishment lately occupied by Mrs. Cynthia Varley, deceased, would be sold at public auction on such a day—house, grounds, furniture, plate, horses and carriages, etc., and that the sale must be positive, for cash.” Subsequently the melancholy report was confirmed, that Mrs. Varley and her fair and beautiful Charlotte were taken with violent fever on their journey southward, and had both died. The fate of the survivors remained in mystery, as the administrator of the estate had no liberty to communicate their place of residence, or their future intentions. No doubt they chose some fashionable resort, and I fear became the prey of fortune-hunters.

Mrs. Tyler, on her return to New York, found not only that her husband was bankrupt, and his affairs in a state of irretrievable ruin, but his mind also was a perfect wreck, fluctuating between idiocy and insanity, but its coloring always that of the most hopeless depression. Jessie Lincoln’s bounty long supported him at a lunatic asylum, while his wife and Elizabeth managed to support themselves by the proceeds of a small millinery shop.

The revolution of a few years brought some interesting changes over the society of N. Jessie Lincoln, the faithful and dutiful daughter, became the beloved and lovely wife of—“The Rev. Mr. Style of course!” cries my hasty reader. “Who ever read a story where the hero and heroine were not finally married? it is an event to be fully anticipated.” Then, indeed, is my tale a novel one. Be not too confident in coming to conclusions, because precedents happen to be in their favor.

Jessie Lincoln became the beloved and lovely wife of Lieutenant George Jones! I do not know but she would have married Mr. Style, if, like too many others, he had not lingered in the vestibule of the temple of Hymen till another hand lighted the torch, and proudly stood beside her at the altar. The heart of Jessie Lincoln was irrevocably given, with all its wealth of love to the young naval officer, and the minister was left to regret his too confident and presumptuous delay when regrets were unavailing. But Jessie was a “mourning bride”—for only a few weeks after her marriage, her noble and beloved patroness sickened and died, leaving Jessie and her husband the proprietors of her tasteful and elegant mansion, and the principal heirs to her estate.

“But did Mr. Style—such a fine young man, and so royally gifted, consign himself to a gloomy celibacy, and live and die a bachelor—‘which being interpreted,’ is half a man?”

Nay, reader, I’ll hasten to tell you that Emilie Jones, that wild, hair-brained, passionate, but truly generous and high-minded Emilie, learned lessons of gentleness and piety, and married—because they mutually and earnestly loved—the young clergyman of the church of N.; and by bequest of Mrs. Tower, the beautiful residence of the Varleys became the village manse, and their lovely home!

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BY S. D. ANDERSON.

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BY ELVIRA JONES.

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FROM BECHSTEIN.

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[SEE ENGRAVING.]

This is one of the indigenous tame birds which is a favorite with the rich and noble. Its body is thick and short. Its whole length is six inches and three-quarters, of which the tail measures two and three-quarters; the beak is only six lines in length, short, thick, and black; the iris is chestnut-colored; the shanks eight lines high, and black; the top of the head, the circle of the beak, the chin, and beginning of the throat, are of a beautiful velvet black; the upper part of the neck, the back and shoulders, deep gray; the rump white; the under part of the neck, the wide breast, and to the centre of the belly, are of a fine vermilion, less bright, however, in the young than old; the blackish pen-feathers become darker toward the body; the secondaries have the outer edge of an iron blue, which in the hinder ones is reddish. The tail is rather forked, and of a brilliant black, tinged with iron-blue.

The female is easily distinguished from the male, for what is red on him is reddish-gray on her, while her back is of a brownish-gray, and her feet are not so black; she is also smaller.

This species has some singular varieties; the principal are:?—

1. The White Bullfinch, which is of an ashy-white, or wholly white, with dark spots on the back.

2. The Black Bullfinch. These are most generally females, which become black, either with age, when they are only fed on hemp seed, or with having been kept when young in a totally dark place. Some resume at their moulting their natural colors, others remain black; but this black is not the same in all; some are of a brilliant raven black, others dull, and not so dark on the belly; in some the head only is of a raven black, the rest of the body being duller; in others the black is mixed with red spots on the belly, or the latter is entirely red. I have seen one in which the head and breast, as well as the upper and under parts of the body, were of a raven black, every other part of a dull black, with the wings and tail white; it was a very handsome bird, rather larger than a redbreast.

3. The Speckled Bullfinch. It is thus called, for, besides its natural colors, it is spotted with black and white, or white and ash color.

4. The Mongrel Bullfinch. It is the offspring of a female reared in the house from the nest, and of a male canary. Its shape and color partake of those of the parent birds; its note is very agreeable, and softer than that of the canary; but it is very scarce. This union rarely succeeds; but when tried, a very ardent and spirited canary should be chosen.^[5]

5. The other varieties are: the Large Bullfinch, about the size of a thrush, and the Middling, or Common. As to dwarf birds, which are not as large as a chaffinch, it is a bird-catcher’s story, for this difference in size is observed in all kinds of birds. I can affirm it with the more certainty, having had opportunities every year of seeing hundreds of these birds, both wild and tame. I have even in the same nest found some as small as redbreasts, and others as large as a crossbill.

Habitation.—When wild, bullfinches are found over Europe and Russia. They are particularly common in the mountainous forests of Germany. The male and female never separate during the whole year. In winter they wander about everywhere in search of buds.

Food.—When wild the bullfinch does not often suffer from the failure of its food; for it eats pine and fir seeds, the fruit of the ash and maple, corn, all kinds of berries, the buds of the oak, beech, and pear trees, and even linseed, millet, rape, and nettle seed.

In the house those which run about may be fed on the universal paste, and, for a change, rape seed may be added; those which are taught must be fed only on poppy seed, with a little hemp seed, and now and then a little biscuit without spice. It has been remarked that those which are fed entirely on rape seed soaked in water live much longer, and are more healthy. The hemp seed is too heating, sooner or later blinds them, and always brings on a decline. A little green food, such as lettuce, endive, chickweed, water-cresses, a little apple, particularly the kernels, the berries of the service tree, and the like, is agreeable and salutary to them.

Breeding.—These tenderly affectionate birds can hardly live when separated from one another. They incessantly repeat their call with a languishing note, and continually caress. They can sometimes be made to breed in the house, like the canary, but their eggs are rarely fruitful. In the wild state they breed twice every year, each time laying from three to six eggs, of a bluish white, spotted with violet and brown at the large end. Their nest, which they build in the most retired part of a wood, or in a solitary quickset hedge, is constructed with little skill, of twigs which are covered with moss. The young ones are hatched in fifteen days. Those which are to be taught must be taken from the nest when the feathers of the tail begin to grow; and must be fed only on rape seed soaked in water and mixed with white bread; eggs would kill them or make them blind. Their plumage is then of a dark ash-color, with the wings and tail blackish-brown; the males may be known at first by their reddish breast; so that when these only are wished to be reared they may be chosen in the nest, for the females are not so beautiful, nor so easily taught.

Although they do not warble before they can feed themselves, one need not wait for this to begin their instruction,^[6] for it will succeed better, if one may say so, when infused with their food; since experience proves that they learn those airs more quickly, and remember them better, which they have been taught just after eating. It has been observed several times, that these birds, like the parrots, are never more attentive than during digestion. Nine months of regular and continued instruction are necessary before the bird acquires what amateurs call firmness, for if one ceases before this time, they spoil the air, by suppressing or displacing the different parts, and they often forget it entirely at their first moulting. In general it is a good thing to separate them from the other birds, even after they are perfect; because, owing to their great quickness in learning, they would spoil the air entirely by introducing wrong passages; they must be helped to continue the song when they stop, and the lesson must always be repeated whilst they are moulting, otherwise they will become mere chatterers, which would be doubly vexatious after having had much trouble in teaching them.

Diseases.—Those bullfinches which are caught in a snare or net are rarely ill, and may be preserved for eight years or more; but those reared from the nest are subject to many diseases, caused by their not having their natural food, or by those injurious delicacies which are always lavished on favorite birds; they rarely live more than six years. The surest means of preserving them healthy for a long time, is to give them neither sweets nor tit-bits of any kind, scrupulously to confine their food to rape seed, adding now and then a very little hemp seed to please them, and a good deal of the green food before mentioned. The bottom of their cages should be covered with river sand, as the bird there finds some stones which aid the functions of the stomach. Their most frequent diseases are moulting, costiveness, diarrhoea, epilepsy, grief, and melancholy, in which case they are quite silent, and remain immovable, unless the cause can be discovered. They must not be given any delicacy, and must be fed entirely on soaked rape seed. A clove in their water, proper food, and particularly a good deal of refreshing green food, enables them to pass the moulting time in good health.

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BY ISAAC GRAY BLANCHARD.

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FOR JULIA.

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BY REV. RUFUS HENRY BACON.

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BY MRS. LYDIA JANE PEIRSON.

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We had been out since early morning, rambling amid the rough romance of the Scottish Highlands, in the vicinity of the far-famed Loch Katrine. With Sir Walter’s picture of that “burnished sheet of living gold,” with its surrounding hills broken by trossach, dell and valley, in my mind’s eye, I own that I felt disappointed, as I stood upon an isolated rock at the foot of “huge Ben-Venue,” and looked up to the feathered crests of the eternal mountains, (by courtesy,) and then gazed where Katrine

The scene was grand, and very beautiful, and no soul can be more susceptible than mine to the beauties of Nature in her solitudes of mountain, lake and woodland; but I had expected too much. It needed the love light of Sir Walter’s Scottish heart to give the scenery, in my eyes, the loveliness it wore for him. To me the rough hill, with its shingly bosom, its tufts of heather, and ravines fringed with yellow broom, and feathery fern—the precipitous rocks and wooded slopes—the pebbly beach and abrupt headland—the cloud-checkered heaven above—and the deep, clear lake that mirrored all these in its trembling bosom, were but as the multitudes of hills and lakes, which every where diversify the surface of our earth. I was disappointed, and of course inclined to underrate the real beauty and sublimity of the grand theatre by which we were surrounded. The enthusiastic admiration which burst in ejaculatory phrases from my companions became distasteful to me; and partly to relieve my own peevishness, and partly to escape from the distasteful demonstrations of the company, I struck into a narrow path that wound spirally along up the precipitous rocky tower at the base of which I had been standing. Higher and higher I ascended, botanizing amongst the plants and lichens, until a stone on which I placed my foot gave way beneath the effort I made to spring higher, and alas for my excelsior—after a rapid but very rough descent, I found myself prostrate on the pebbly beach—half buried in rubbish, and the faithless stone that betrayed my unwary foot lying very uncomfortably upon what should have been my lower limbs, though at that time they were elevated considerably above my head, fixed, as in a vice, between a hillock of pebbles and the fallen mass of rock. Great was my fright, greater my pain, and greatest the consternation and alarm of my companions, who soon extricated the fallen greatness from its perilous position, and discovered that one of my legs was badly fractured, and both severely crushed, while several serious bruises, in other parts of my person, rendered me quite helpless, and apparently in great danger. What now was to be done? There was a real tempest of sighs, groans, and lamentations, and no small shower of tears; a goodly number of which fell from the dark eyes of dear little Charlotte M’Lane, a perfect highland fairy, who had been the joy beam of the party, through the day; ever moving, and never weary, glad herself, and gladdening all around her. Now she sat amid the cloaks which were spread for my accommodation, on a heap of gathered fern, and supported my head in her lap, soothing, condoling, and weeping by turns—or all together. And I, notwithstanding my sorry plight, felt a queer kind of pleasure in being the object of such care and solicitude, to one so young, so lovely, and so joyous-hearted. But what was to be done? Night was gathering her shadows in the dells—and though the day had been fine, we began to feel that

There seemed no means of conveying my poor mangled carcass along the rugged paths of that broken district, and despair seemed gathering with the gloom of the evening.

Just at this juncture, a young man who stood above me on a crag burst out with a tremendous hallo-o!! and continued to shout boisterously, and wave his square yard of perfumed linen, with a grotesque earnestness. It was soon apparent that he was signaling a boat, which appeared to be crossing the lake, half a mile above us, and which was rendered visible by

She returns my signal, cried Harry, jumping from his eminence, and immediately roaring out that he had sprained his ankle most unmercifully. Our comrades drew off his boot, and using it in place of a pitcher, commenced pouring water on the injured limb. Meantime the boat approached us, a commodious yacht built craft, carrying two oarsmen and a young highlander, who realized my idea of Sir William Wallace, for he was at once the most beautiful, noble and unconscious creature that my eyes ever rested on. Addressing us with a lofty and yet gentle courtesy, he inquired in what way he could be of service to us. Our forlorn condition was soon explained to him, and it was speedily settled that he should convey Harry, myself, and fairy Charlotte, to his mountain home, while one of his boatmen should pilot the residue of the party to the main road, where we had left our carriages. The young Scotsman, whose name was Malcomb Douglas, assured us that we should receive both medical and surgical attendance at his father’s house, where we should be welcome until we were recovered of our injuries, or until we were pleased to leave. My couch was speedily transferred to the bow of the boat, and dear, lovely Charlotte was soon again burdened with my languid head, for by this time I was both dispirited and faint. I took no note of the voyage, except that our benefactor took the place at the oar of him whom he had sent as guide to our party; and long before we landed the night was dark, for the young moon, which shed a trembling radiance on the opposite mountain shore, left our side of the deep, dark water in a blacker shadow.

At length we landed, and I had become so stiff and sore, from my undrest injuries, that I lost my consciousness as they lifted me from the boat, and on the ninth day after, awoke to find myself in a magnificently furnished room, lying in a bed which might have beseemed a monarch, while near my pillow, in an antique velvet-cushioned easy-chair, reclined my fairy Charlotte, in a deep but apparently troubled sleep. I soon recollected all that had befallen me, except the lapse of time since the memorable night, and thinking that we had recently arrived, did not wonder that Charlotte had sunk under her fatigue. So I composed myself to sleep and kept her company in the land of dreams.

I awoke again. It was still night, at least it seemed so in that darkened apartment, but I could distinguish the rich and heavy ornaments of the walls and ceiling, and the sumptuous embroidery of the heavy tapestries, which swept from the lofty cornice to the floor; the antique chair also stood by the bedside, but its late occupant was not there. I moved, and raised my head somewhat from the pillow, when from the concealment of my bed-curtain came forward a stately lady, apparently fifty years of age, wearing a rich dress of black satin, and holding a small golden night-lamp in her hand. She looked earnestly into my eyes a moment, and then with a gentle grace, which betrayed no surprise or other emotion, she inquired how I had rested, and if I found myself better of my wounds. I replied that I felt quite well, when she shook her head, bade me be quiet, and took her seat in the vacant chair. Presently Charlotte stole softly into the room from a curtained recess, and meeting my smile of recognition, uttered a cry of joy, laughed, danced, wrung her hands, and finally wept like an infant, despite all the efforts of the dark-robed lady to quiet her transports. I now discovered that I had been a week delirious, and considered in a very precarious condition; that Harry was nearly well, and that he and Charlotte had been my constant attendants, aided by the lady present, and other members of her household. Soon after a silvery haired old man, came to my bedside, and being introduced as my physician, congratulated me with courteous politeness on the favorable change in my condition, adding that with proper care my recovery would be certain and speedy.

Did you ever enjoy the luxury of an easy convalescence, surrounded by every comfort, and attended by a smiling beauty, and jovial young companion? What Elysium-like dreams employ the languid fancy—and what a world of impossibilities gather around us, like tangible and familiar things. I dreamed of a life of love and joy with fairy Charlotte. I would win her, and bear her like a rich trophy to my transatlantic home. Oh! we would be so happy. How would her buoyancy of spirit enhance all my joys; and her ready sympathy, how it would soothe my sorrows; and then what a nurse she would be, whenever I was ill. She liked me, that was certain; of course I could win her love, and then my happiness was secure. And I indulged in all the passionate vagaries of love dreaming, until I felt that unconnected with Charlotte there was for me no futurity. Thus passed one week more, and then I was permitted to occupy the cushioned chair, and sit by the open window. It was singular that I had felt so little curiosity respecting my host, and the singularity of surrounding objects, but my love fancies had fully occupied my mind.

Now, as I sat at the casement, which extended from floor to ceiling, and had no other protection for the crystal crown-glass than the clinging vines without, and the embroidered tapestries within, and looked out upon the wild scenery, apparently uninvaded by the hand of cultivation, which substitutes the useful for the beautiful, the production of Art for the sublimity of Nature, I felt the awakening of a thousand wonders, as to where I was, and with whom, and how the wealth of that chamber found its way to that singularly hidden spot; and who was the stately lady who occasionally came to my bedside; and how such a man as Malcomb Douglas came to be an inhabitant of those mountain wilds? I had seen him but seldom, since I regained my consciousness, but his manners were perfect, and his conversation displayed unconsciously the treasures of a rare and richly cultivated intellect. He seemed a being altogether above the level of mankind. It would have seemed absurd to fancy him talking nonsense, discussing fashions, or inquiring what he would get for dinner. Yet he was not ignorant or unmindful of the courtesies, and little conventionalities of life—but he seemed to hold them of no moment, and give no thought to such trifles—which came to him intuitively, and as belonging to daily intercourse.

As I thus mused, gazing down upon the lake, and away to the opposite hills, I observed, shooting out from behind an abrupt headland, a beautiful little sail-boat, in which stood Malcomb Douglas, and which, coming round the point, ran into a white pebbled bay, just in front of and beneath my window; and then from a clump of hazels emerged my idol, Charlotte, supported by no other than Harry Heath, who, it then occurred to me, had mentioned in the morning that he should take my gentle nurse out for a little exercise, as she was suffering from her close attendance upon me. She was beautiful in the distance, but as she clung to Harry’s arm, and looked up familiarly into his face, I felt a pang of jealousy, the first that had ever wrung my bosom. They stepped into the boat, and sat down together, and the little craft, as if proud of her freight, put off gallantly along the shining water. And Charlotte would be by Harry’s side—how long?

“I fear you are in great pain,” came in anxious, inquiring tone upon my ear.

I started—my jealous feelings were living on my face. “Just a little twinge,” I said, “occasioned by shifting my position indiscreetly.”

“You should be very careful,” returned the good man who had been my surgeon and doctor from the first, and who now advanced, examined the position of my fractured limb, and took a seat beside me at the window. “How gallantly yon little boat holds her way, with her living freight of beauty, love and happiness,” he murmured, as if communing with himself; “and yet a single blast of the mountain storm may whelm her, with all her warm young hopeful heart, deep down in the cold weltering waves.” He finished with a deep sigh, and a cold shudder ran through my frame, in response to his fearful words. “Do not let me make you melancholy,” he said, after a pause; “but I am an old man, and have endured many sorrows, and have grown distrustful of the promises of happiness. Reverses come so unexpectedly.”

“I think,” said I, timidly, “that the owners of this mansion must have known some strange reverse of fortune. It seems so singular to find the manners of a court, and the luxury of a palace, in a rough stone mountain dwelling.”

The old gentleman looked earnestly in my face a moment. “I have never spoken of these things to any one,” he said, “but if you feel interested, I will tell you a tale, to beguile the time until the return of your companions. Fifty years ago—for I am now seventy-eight—the lady whom you have seen in this chamber was the loveliest creature that ever existed out of heaven.”

“Fifty years!” I exclaimed, “why she is not more than fifty years old.”

“So any stranger would suppose,” was the quiet reply; “but she is near seventy. But fifty years ago she was young, and lovely, and joyous; more, she was the only and idolized daughter of a princess of the realm, whose foreign lord fell in battle, having never seen his infant child. The widowed princess lived in seclusion, though in the neighborhood of a court; and though her daughter, the Lady Anna, received every advantage in the way of education, she was never presented at court, or allowed to mingle with courtly society. And, indeed, she seemed to feel no desire for ostentatious display or admiration, but rather delighted in the quiet of domestic life, and the unceremonious intercourse of confiding friendship. I will not tell you whose son I am, but I was not deemed an unsuitable companion for the royally-descended Lady Anna. My sister was the friend and confident of the princess, and I was a privileged visiter at her palace-home, and much in the society of her daughter from her childhood. I am an old man now, but then I was a boy, and had a young, ardent heart. I cannot tell when I first loved the Lady Anna. It seems that I loved her from eternity. She was always perfect in my estimation. Her actions were precisely what I would have dictated, and her words, the expression of my heartfelt sentiments. And then she was so beautiful—so truly beautiful. Not pretty; any young girl may be so dressed and ornamented as to appear pretty—and we frequently hear of styles of beauty; but true beauty is independent of dress or adornment; you adore it, not because it is tastefully arrayed, but because it is of itself adorable. I have seen ladies receiving homage as belles and beauties, who, in homely attire, and engaged in household toils, would have been really repulsive; but Lady Anna would have been entrancingly beautiful in any dress, or at any occupation; and notwithstanding her royal descent and superior attainment, she was gentle, unassuming, and of a loving and confiding nature. To me she was always frank and like a loving sister; and, oh, I was happy, perfectly happy in the possession of her pure regards. I had not thought of a change in our relations, of an interruption of our intercourse, of a separation—never! I felt as if we should live on, for and with each other forever. Every place where she had been was hallowed; every thing that she had touched, sacred in my estimation; and whatsoever she had looked upon was dear to my eye, and I felt that the light of her glance rested upon it. All my thoughts, and words, and deeds, had reference to her, and her approval was the whole aim of my life; and yet the selfish thought of appropriating her to myself, of making her mine, was no part of my soul’s worship. To be near her, to see her, and to hear her voice, was enough for my young heart.

“She was fifteen, and I three-and-twenty, when my guardians resolved to send me as confidential secretary to the minister to Sweden. I ought to have felt myself honored by this appointment, but I felt only an agony of grief. To go away from Lady Anna, and all the places where we had been together, was a trial which almost made me frantic. But I could not decline the appointment—I must depart. The affair was so sudden, and I had so little time for preparation, that I found no opportunity for a private interview with Lady Anna. She expressed deep regret at our approaching separation, but I felt, and keenly, that her sorrow was not like mine, not the desolation of soul that made the day dark and the night sleepless to me. Then I longed to tell her all my love—then I felt that I would have her all my own; and then I doubted for the first time the existence in her bosom of a love answering to my own. And in this state of mind the day of departure found me.

“‘You will write by every opportunity,’ she said, as I held her hand in my tremulous grasp. Her voice was low and sad, and as she looked into my face, tears gushed over her long eyelashes and fell large and bright upon her bosom. My soul was a whirlwind. I prest her hand to my lips, and hastened with unsteady steps from her presence.

“Three years—only three years—and yet they seemed three ages, was I a wanderer in stranger lands. I did write whenever I found opportunity—but opportunities were not so frequent fifty years ago as they are at present. So my missives were few, and only twice in those three years was my heart delighted by the receipt of a letter from Lady Anna.

“Sweet and gentle were her words, like those of a loving sister, and yet they did not satisfy my spirit. I longed for one passionate regret, one ardent expression of hope for our reunion, one sentence that evidently gushed involuntarily from a devoted heart. These were not in her letters.

“When it was announced to me that we were speedily to turn us homeward, my heart leaped up with a great bound, and then seemed to sink, pulseless, in my bosom. It was an agony like death; and from that hour until we landed on our native shore, my mind was a perfect chaos, or rather a tumult of opposite and contending emotions. Joy was fettered by apprehension; hope was throttled by deadly fear, and doubt, like a strong giant armed, beat back every ray of gladness, every beam of joyous anticipation, every spirit that dared to whisper of happiness to come. I thought of every event that might have occurred during the three years of my absence—of death—change—misfortune—and I almost wished for death, rather than the knowledge that awaited me; and yet I knew not what was in store.

“I arrived. The white cliffs—the silver beach—the green shore of my native land, were all unchanged. The majestic Thames was all the same as when last I passed adown its tide; the mighty city, with its towers and palaces, gleamed in the sunlight, as it had done since my boyhood. There was no change. My soul became calm, and as I traced the old familiar streets, and looked up to the well known buildings and paused in the shadow of the well-remembered trees, my heart became joyous, and I sped on to the abode of my dear and only sister. I should hear of Lady Anna there.

“I did hear. The princess had fallen into a decline. A sojourn in Italy had been named as her only chance of recovery, and to Italy she had gone, accompanied, certainly, by her only child, the Lady Anna. They had been gone nearly a year, and I need not tell you, that as soon as I could make arrangements, I followed them to that far-famed lovely land.

“They were at Pisa. I found them there. Our meeting was full of gladness—but they were changed. The princess was wholly subdued by pain and weakness. She was attenuated in person, and the lofty expression of her face was softened by a look of meek endurance. Her voice was low, and her smile—it came seldom—was sad, exceedingly.

“And Lady Anna, anxiety and watching had taken away the buoyancy of her person, and the sunlight of her spirit. She received me joyfully; but ere the first interview was over, I detected a restlessness, a sort of watching and insecurity in her eye and manner which had no reference to me, and for which I accounted by referring to the precarious state of her only parent’s health. Several times that day I observed her eyes fixed on her mother’s face, and dimmed with gathering tears.

“I discovered that here, as at home, she lived in seclusion, never mingling with the gay world, and I sought to draw her into society, with a view to divert her mind from its sadness. ‘I cannot join the dance, or listen to sweet music,’ she replied, ‘while my dear mother is suffering at home.’ I however persuaded her to go with me to some of the public exhibitions of the beautiful in art. We had visited several galleries, cabinets and churches; we had stood side by side, wrapt in awe or admiration; we had walked together amongst the sweet breathed flowers, and beneath the shadowy trees; we had stood upon the sea-coast, when the stars looked down upon their trembling images in the deep mirroring waters; we had looked together on many entrancing beauties of Nature as well as of Art; and I had felt my soul struggling to pour out before her the treasures of the inner temple of its love, but a something in her manner restrained me—I could not tell her of a passionate love. Now she was unto me as a loving sister—a declaration would change the relation between us, I knew not if for joy or sorrow.

“A mournful day arrived. The princess, who was forgotten by her country, fell unexpectedly asleep to awaken no more till the heavens pass away.

“Lady Anna arose from the heavy blow, and assumed a calm melancholy of demeanor. Yet, to my surprise, she spoke not of returning home. Months passed, and we were still at Pisa. Lady Anna suffering from an uneasiness which she could not conceal, and which at times broke forth in fits of passionate weeping, and again showed itself in almost sullen silence, or something akin to peevishness. The balance of her fine mind was evidently disturbed. She had a sorrow which she had not confided to my love.

“We were walking pensively along one of those glorious avenues, shadowed by tall, dark leaved trees, one fine June morning, when we saw a gay party, in open carriages, advancing from the country. Lady Anna, as usual, drew her veil over her lovely face, and walked on without evincing any curiosity, but I recognised some of the party, whom I had seen abroad, and directing her attention to a particular vehicle, the most magnificent in the cortÈge, I whispered, ‘there is a lady whom I have heard you wish to see—the Princess L——. Is she not lovely? And her husband is a noble looking man. Did you ever see his equal?’ I turned to Lady Anna, expecting her reply. She stood still, and as I touched her hand I started—it was cold and rigid as the hand of a corpse. I lifted her veil, and my heart grew cold with fear and wonder. Her face was white as death, and the features were fixed in an expression of the most intense agony. The carriages had all passed by, and there she stood, apparently changed to marble. I spoke to her, I entreated her to speak or move, and at length the tension of her nerves gave way, and she sunk powerless in my arms. A vehicle chanced that way, and I lifted her in, and bore her to her hotel. Sixteen hours she lay with no sign of life, except an almost imperceptible breathing, and then she rallied, lifted her head from the pillow, and looked wildly round the room, then clenching her hands together, she burst into a passion of lamentation and bitter weeping. I never witnessed distress equal to hers. She cried aloud, and her tears came not in drops, but flowed in continuous streams, and every sob seemed as if it had torn her heart asunder. I dreaded that she would suffocate in that tempest of agony. But she turned from my attempts to soothe, and wept on until her strength was utterly exhausted. She did not rise from her bed until several weeks were past, and then she was more like a corpse than a living woman. The bloom never came back to her cheek, the smile to her lip, or the lustre to her eye. She spoke not of the day, or the cause to the commencement of her illness—and I did not presume to ask any explanation. On the commencement of her illness I had taken rooms adjoining hers, and now I frequently heard her walking to and fro in her chamber a great portion of the night. It was a clear, starry midnight, one of those holy seasons when the earth is dark, and the atmosphere too transparent to be luminous, when we look away into the clear ether, and almost comprehend the immense distances to the bright distant disc of the innumerable stars. I was sleepless, and stood at my casement looking out upon earth and heaven. There was a knock at my door. I turned and admitted the Lady Anna. Pale she was, as usual, but she seemed unusually agitated. I besought her to be seated, and to honor me with her commands.

“‘Godolphin,’ she said, solemnly, ‘tell me the name and title of the man whom we saw seated beside the Princess L?——?’

“‘Surely his name is no secret,’ I said; ‘all Europe knows him—he is king of ——.’

“‘Swear this to me,’ she said.

“‘Poor lady,’ I ejaculated mentally, ‘she is deranged’—but I swore the oath prescribed.

“‘Now listen,’ she continued; ‘this king, under an assumed name, sought me in my seclusion, won my love—my love, I say,—and we were privately married, more than two years ago. I need not repeat the sophistries by which he persuaded me that he had imperious reasons for a temporary concealment, reasons which I should one day know, and which I must approve. My mother’s illness rendered it easy to elude her suspicion, and when you came, we still kept our secret. He was generally absent from Pisa, on pretence of business—but I saw him frequently. I was expecting a visit from him daily when we met him on that fatal walk. I have not seen him since, though he has implored an interview, if but for five minutes. I will never see him more.’ And a wail of anguish, which no words could utter, struggled up from her broken heart. I essayed to speak. ‘No, no,’ she said, ‘I have not finished. I am dead to the world. Let it be understood that I lie with my mother. Would to God it were so, indeed. You will serve me. I know you will. Provide for me, then, a retreat, where none who ever knew me may hear of me again. I have contemplated death—suicide; but I will live to weep, and pray, and suffer.’

“Oh, what words for my ear were these. I felt to thank heaven that the darkness enabled me to hide my emotions from her, for my suffering was terrible. I felt light and hope, earth and heaven, at once annihilated. When she declared that she had loved another, my heart died within my bosom. It has never since throbbed as it was wont to throb at every thought of her. I no longer loved, but existence had become a void. The fair temple of my youth, with its idol, and all its beautiful treasures, was at once swept away, and the dark flood rolled sluggishly where my joys had been. I felt, not agony, but desolation; not regret, but cold despair. But I would live for her sake—she was miserable, and I could assist her.

“Then I bethought me of this ancient castle, which had been a stronghold of my ancestors, and had fallen greatly to decay. I offered to repair it, and bring her hither. She thanked me warmly, and I came and commenced my repairs. I had always loved this glorious Highland scenery, where the mountains lie forever watching the reflection of their magnificent features in the mirroring lake below, as if watching the lights and shadows on their rugged brows, and the graceful floating of the tresses of yellow broom, bound and crowned with the dark wreathing heather, shining with sunlight, or gemmed with drops of dew, or the diamonds of the summer shower. And when the summer is old, and like a forsaken woman, casts her ornaments from her with showers of tears and heavy sighing; the mountains seem to watch the fall of the verdure on the bosom of the waters, until they see the splendor of the wintry stars forming a diadem around their snow-crested heads. These scenes of sublime beauty, I judged, were well calculated to soothe the tumult in both our spirits; and here, where the breezes whisper to each other across the deep, narrow dell, I formed a little paradise of fruit trees and glowing shrubs, and furnished these rough halls with the sumptuousness of a palace; and then I brought Lady Anna and her infant daughter home. To my household I presented her as my sister, and a widow; and their Scottish hearts received her with a ready sympathy, and respected a sorrow which seemed to them so natural and commendable. To those who had known her, I said the Lady Anna is no more. The loss of her mother broke her gentle heart. My heart was dead, yet I regarded her as a dear sister; and to this day she knows not that I ever felt more for her than a brother’s love. And now that we were all the world to each other, I enjoyed a calm that seemed very like happiness. Her child, the little Lady Adela, soon engrossed our warmest affections; she was a sweet and lovely child, but no way like her mother. She had clear blue eyes, fair curling hair in rich abundance, a complexion of transparent pink and white, and though delicately formed, she was plump and exquisitely moulded. Her intellect was wonderful, yet she was a simple-minded, loving and confiding child. She grew to be a part of my being. Her mother hardly loved her more than I. Her education was our delight—she was so docile, so quick to receive instruction. Earth hath been graced with very few like her. The beautiful bud became a flower, yet she seemed more pure and spiritual than in her childhood.

“‘If I might ask one boon for my child,’ said Lady Anna, one evening, as we were speaking of Lady Adela’s future prospects. ‘If I might obtain one boon for her, I would pray that she might never feel the pulse of human love.’

“Poor Lady Anna, her experience had been bitter—and mine, I could have answered, Amen, to her prayer. But a lone traveler craved hospitality at our postern. He was handsome, noble, and virtuous. Adela learned to reply to the love which grew up in his heart for her. It was a dreadful trial to our doating hearts, but we gave her, with our blessing, to her beloved, and put bonds upon our feelings, when she bade a sobbing farewell, and left her own dear home for a splendid station in the queenly city of Edinburgh.

“The knowledge that she was happy in her new home, was a sweet solace to our loneliness; and when, in less than two years, she came with her fine young boy to spend the time of the summer heat with us, we were supremely happy. Womanhood had not dimmed the gladness of her heart, or withered the flowers of her childish glee and affection. Wisdom had come to her, unaccompanied by sadness.

“Toward autumn her young husband arrived, to spend a few days and take her with him home. There was a gay party assembled in these old halls, and for days there was feasting, and mirth, and music, excursions on the hills, and parties on the water. It was a lovely afternoon in the fitful September. The two boats were manned, and the barge provided with implements and tackle for fishing, took the gentlemen on board, while the ladies accompanied them in the lighter and more elegant sail-boat. They shoved out from the shore, with music and shouts and laughter. We wished them a joyful sail, and turned to our avocations of preparation for the evening meal and entertainment of the party. We sighed as we thought how soon we should be left to the old silence and loneliness. Our preparations were completed—the day was drawing to a close. I found Lady Anna at this very casement, looking out upon the lake, watching for the return of our beloved. I took the station I now occupy, but my eyes rested on my silent companion’s face. She did not look at me, and I gazed unchecked until the past, with all its shadows rose up around me. I trembled in every nerve, and felt the waters of the swollen heart rise tingling to my eye-lids. I knew not what possessed me, but I felt as if I must kneel before her, and confess all the passion, the presumption of my youth.

“‘Look! look!’ she cried, ‘they come!’ and far up at the point of yonder noble bluff, I beheld the boats heading toward home. Just at that moment came a low growl upon a fitful gust, and instinctively we turned our eyes toward the west. Black, billowy clouds were surging and heaving above the mountain crest like a stormy ocean, and down that rugged gorge the dusky masses of mist came turmoiling like giants wrestling in the death-struggle, and the winds groaned and shrieked adown the defile.

“Lady Anna grew white—I had seen her so once before; my own heart grew heavy with a pain like death.

“‘Oh, God! Oh, merciful God!’ came from Lady Anna’s still lips, in accents of heart-piercing agony. If they could but outstrip the storm; if they could but near the coast before it leapt upon the lake. It was evident that they knew the danger, and exerted all their powers; the boats glided swiftly over the smooth, black surface of the water, which lay as if concentrating itself to meet the onset of the aerial force. Our eyes turned from the boats to the upheaving storm; our souls were aghast in the horrible suspense—fear—dread—extreme terror—held hope in a throttling grasp; more than our lives were at stake, and we were powerless—utterly powerless to retard the danger or aid the souls in peril. We could only stand here, and gaze with wide-open, glazed eyes upon the scene. Oh, I think I see it now re-enacting before me. The light sail-boat led in the race, and with our telescope we could distinguish our child standing upright in the bow, her face raised, as if watching the portentous clouds, and her white hands clasped over the black mantle that covered her bosom. At the tiller of the barge stood her husband, while the sturdy rowers strove to keep pace with the flight of the sail-boat; and so they sped on to escape, if possible, the tornado which lay growling like a couchant lion, ready to leap in its irresistible fury upon them. The dark billows of the cloud lay high above yon mountain wall, but for a time they seemed to make no progress, or rather to sink back upon themselves. How our hearts panted and stretched toward our treasures, as if we would draw them from the peril. As they were coming from that point, and the storm rising over that eminence, you will perceive that the wind would take them broadside, and thus greatly increase their danger. You see that all along the opposite shore there is no safe landing place, and they were far out on the lake when they first perceived the clouds rising above the heights. Then there was no time for thought or reflection, and they seemed to imagine that their only chance was to reach the shelter of these heights before the wind should intercept them.

“During the temporary lull of the storm, a trembling angel, almost hope, hovered over us. Our souls went out toward the mariners, every dip of their oars fell upon our distended hearts, striking thence a quick gasp, and a pulse of pain—and thus we stood, the gathering darkness falling like a mountain veil between us and the objects of our anguished solicitude.

“Oh, God! what a blaze of lightning rent the gloom, and pierced, like a shower of flashing poniards, soul and sense; while a clang, as of the rending to atoms of an iron mountain, stunned our ears. Then the storm spread its black wings, and sprang like a fierce vulture from the heights, leaving a line of lurid red between it and the horizon. The crisis was at hand. Were the boats within the shelter of the land? They were nearing our side of the lake rapidly. We could not breathe. At that moment our Adela, who had not moved since we first descried her, lifted her hands to heaven with an expression of the most agonized despair—and now the doom fell. With the rush and roar of a cataract the wind came down upon the lake. It met the water between us and the boats. The spray went up to heaven. Lady Anna sunk back with a shuddering groan. The lake was a tumult of warring elements. Fierce winds, waters, thunder and wrestling flames contending in a horrid turmoil. I turned away and sunk upon my knees beside the mother, whose heart felt upon its quivering chords the death-agony of the dear one who was perishing in the boiling waves. My soul was benumbed with horror; I had no word of hope for her, and there was no consolation. I lifted her form and held her to my heart, with only one wish, that then and there we might die together.”

The tremulous voice of the old man ceased, and for a while he wept like a stricken woman. At length he resumed.

“They were lost—all lost. A few fragments of the boats was all we ever found. That storm made many mourners beside ourselves. Widows and orphans, young girls and aged parents, wept the buried in the water. We all sought to sustain each other; and Lady Anna and myself were sustained not merely by a submissive dependence upon Jehovah, but by the sense of a responsibility toward our lost Adela’s infant son. He has been our care, our hope, our pride. You can testify that there are few equals for Malcomb Douglas—that is his baptismal name. His father’s name and title may one day be borne by him, and receive more honor than, noble as they are, they can confer.

“I know not why I have told you these things, except it be that our identity may not perish. I will give you on this card our real names, and, as in the revolutions of nations, the forgotten are remembered, and the lost found, you may sometime hear of us honorably, or read our story on the half fabulous page of national history. But I thought not of these things. When I saw the gay young party put off an hour ago, it brought the past so vividly to my mind, that I felt constrained to tell you how the pure may be deceived—how the virtuous may suffer, how the noble may shrink into obscurity, how the world’s idols may be forgotten; and, most of all, that nobility, education, moral greatness and purity, with all gentle virtues and all lofty aspirations, may exist in retirement, unknown and unregarded by a world that should be proud to wear them as jewels upon its bosom. But He that doeth all things well, will reward every man according to his works. So let it be.”

I thanked the old gentleman amid the tears that I could not restrain; and he expressed his gratitude for my sympathy.

I knew not what effect his story wrought upon me, but I forgot both my love and my jealously; and heard the announcement of Charlotte M’Lane’s engagement to Harry Heath with real pleasure. I left the hospitable mansion of my illustrious host and hostess with deep regret, impressed with the dignity of virtue, and the importance of a firm trust in the goodness and wisdom of the Ruler of the Universe. I have since heard the name of young Malcomb heralded by the voice of fame, and trust that his career will be one of unparalleled usefulness and splendor.

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BY MRS. MARY B. HORTON.

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The Lord of all things planted a garden at the foot of the hill of life. It was like a flowered plain. The heavens wore a gentle smile, and the earth was fresh and green, with no deadness of stalk or stem upon flowers or trees. The shout of glad, young voices made its music as birds made the music of the air, and merry troops danced with a lightness peculiar to that garden of joy, over the soft yielding turf from which no serpent’s sting ever came forth.

Sweet fountains gushed up in shady places, where the happy ones rested from their play, and beautiful vistas opened on every side, formed of bright garlands, which fell on the brows of the childish throng like crowns. Through the clustering branches of ever-budding trees the bright light glanced, excepting when a transient cloud passed over, leaving dew-jewels sparkling in the sun.

This was the garden of infancy—those clouds the fleeting sorrows of childish hearts which leaves the tear upon the smiling cheek. The fountains in the shady places were those of sinless memory—the vistas were Hope’s.

Angels on busy wings swept over the beautiful place, watching, as messengers of the Great Throne, the doings of these young creatures, who in the garden of love and peace knew not the roughness of the road which lay beyond its mossy boundaries. From time to time these angels caught a sweet one from the dancing crowd, and bore it tenderly to the bosom of the “Well Beloved.” And such were blessed; for they had only known the joy of their garden home—their feet had never toiled through the dust of that hilly way rising beyond the plain. A line of glistening wings was thus kept up between the garden and the Throne, by the passing up of angels with their beautiful gifts; and the groups thus broken in upon were taught to grieve not for sweet companions so well beloved of Heaven, so that their sunny sports went on with but a momentary shadow.

The gentle lamb and heavenly dove nestled against the breast of fondling little ones, or answered to their call as if their mate’s. With Hope’s garlands on their brows, and their feet sandaled with flowers, the dancers counted not time, as those on the outer hill counted it, by hours, but let it make its annual rounds unnoticed, until the period arrived for them to leave the pure retreat. Time was to them no gray-haired tyrant with a warning hour-glass, but a kind friend laden ever with roses and smiles. It beckoned them to play, it beckoned them to rest, and they saw not the different face and burden it sometimes bore until they had gone out beyond the gates.

Upon a mossy bank in this garden of infancy lay an infant boy. Its chubby, dimpled hands played with the flowers of innocence and joy that grew luxuriantly in that pure atmosphere. The light of that blessed place danced in his eyes, and its sweet music was succeeded by his tiny shout. While he thus lay, a little girl stole out from a playful group, and gliding to his side threw her fond arms around him and kissed his beaming face with the quick love of a warm heart. The baby pressed his face against his sister’s with an answering lovingness, and passed his fingers through her curling hair with a low laugh of happiness, echoed with the maturity of two summer’s longer life, by the little one bending over him. How holy a thing was the love they bore each other, and how stainless were their souls as each answered to the other in purity and joy. The angels rested on their clear wings to write upon their foreheads “of such is the kingdom of heaven,” and rejoiced that they were appointed guardians over them, to whisper good when evil tempted them upon the outer hill.

Some of the older ones even in that peaceful place looked out upon the hill with longing for the journey. They saw the continuous band of youths and maidens going out from the garden gates, and longed to reach the age which was to free them from the gentle laws of their garden nursery. Oh, how sad was the reasoning which had led to this desire—how sure the pleasures of that sweet place they dwelt in—how bitter might be the anticipated delights of the Hill of Life. The gay crowds hurrying up the hilly way seemed in the distance like a merry company with no care or pain. Their shouts and songs came on the breeze like the gushings of sunny hearts knowing no cloud. The listening ears of the waiting ones inside the gates heard not the sighs which broke from gifted spirits, they caught not the silent prayer of the weary and broken-hearted.

The baby boy had grown to take his place in the line of youths who were to leave forever the home of childhood and its innocent delights. His sister was by his side, and on their dear young heads an invisible hand was laid blessingly, as they stepped out upon the dusty way. They had left their home of joy, they were to walk evermore upward, upward, through unknown snares and by the borders of dreadful depths. Yet their hearts beat hopefully and strong, and the first day’s travel was so easy and so new, that they mourned not for the childish sports of the garden left behind, and gayly looked forward to their life-long pilgrimage.

Flowers they found in their way somewhat resembling those their infant hands had plucked, and sweet voices fell upon their ears which sounded quite as holy as those in their first home. They talked together of the teachings they had so often listened to, of the warnings they had been impressed with, as the time drew near for them to leave the garden gates. In their young wisdom they believed their guardian teachers had looked with perverted eyes upon the travelers of the hill, and with over earnest zeal had given them too dark a character. They had spoken of serpents hidden beneath the grass—of snares like a mine laid out under flowery beds. They had painted false smiles, and spoken of honeyed words spoken to deceive. They had prayed that the guileless travelers would allow themselves no chain which might seem to be of flowers, but would prove to be of iron, eating deep wounds into the soul. What could they have meant by all these pictures and all these prayers? The way had been as yet but short, yet surely as they looked up, the same appearance of ease and joy broke on them. They still walked hand in hand, still loved such flowers as they loved in the plain beneath, still looked toward the Throne at morning and at night as their eyes had ever been led to do. Their ministering angels still followed them on wings of joy, because they walked so pure and lovingly, and would have spread their brightness round them to have kept off evil forever, if their Lord had not given to these travelers of the hill a work for their own hearts, which, if “well done,” would meet with a most bountiful reward. Prayer, in time of danger from a false step or slippery way, would bring their willing aid, but prayer must first be warmly breathed to show a holy faith.

On, on they went, guarding their days by morning adoration, and bringing by their evening supplication sweet rest to their feet and beautiful visions to their hearts. They had been told that at a certain point two ways met, of which they must choose the right or left. And soon they found themselves surrounded by a hesitating crowd at the entrance of the paths. The narrow one had for its guide-post the holy book of their Lord, with opened page, from which, in golden characters, spoke forth—“The way to Heaven.” At the entrance of the other was a figure, the body concealed with flowers, but the face exposed. The eyes were of ravishing delight, and the mouth dropped musical and melting tones, which to that company of inexperienced youth seemed like the sweet promises of heavenly joy. She told of beautiful and social scenes, prepared in lovely places all along the roomy and cheerful way she would lead them through. She spoke with smiling lightness of the dull routine of duties and unexciting pleasures of the path which so few choose, and pointed gayly with tempting finger to the laughing crowds treading the broad way of which she was the queen—and what a queen! So fair of face, so full of joyousness, so innocent of speech. She spoke of the Great Father who was the lord of all upon that hill, and with delicious earnestness pleaded for the hearts of that young company, because their lord would not condemn their feet for dancing on the flowers she would strew along their path. He would not be so cruel-hearted as to frown upon His children’s joy. Oh! how the company of angels, who hovered round, watched for the decisive step of the young creatures they had followed from the garden walls. Some had hid their faces in their bright wings for grief, when they had seen the cherished beings of the innocent home choose the left hand path which their heavenly natures knew would lead to Death. Yet, with faces veiled, they followed the deluded ones, in hopes to win them back before they strayed too far.

And what was our brother’s and sister’s choice? The boy looked wistfully toward the glittering throng, which danced and laughed amid the wreaths and brilliant artificial light of the broad way, but followed his sister’s guidance toward the path whose light was from the Throne. The angels, whose care they were, rejoiced, and followed with a low song of triumph the holy travelers.

The boy, through love for his dear friend, murmured not for a time at the calm and peaceful way they trod. But his imagination, naturally so vivid and bright, had nothing to revel in as they walked upward side by side with holy men and pure, who sung the praises of the Good King as they rose toward the crown. This crown glittered upon the summit of the hill as a promise of eternal rest and joy for the unmurmuring and patient traveler.

But the heart of the young man became listless; and his eyes became dull to see the lustre of the crown as it shone fast by the Lord’s high throne. From discontent he went to murmuring. His sister and his angel whispered loving words to the clouded heart, and sought earnestly to win it back to feel the beauty of the journey they had commenced so joyfully. But no! the distant sound of mirth, the distant glitter of fine sights, and spectacles appearing so ingenious and rare, caught his wandering senses at every turn. His quiet journey became a burden to him. His sister’s face became a sad reproach. The crown looked dim upon the summit. To his changed eye the holy men and women walked like monks and nuns in solemn company. His excited fancy would make it seem injustice that the Lord who made the way, should have had its pavement so hard and rough, when the broader path was carpeted with flowers, which could yield to the bounding foot so gently, and ever be so fresh.

More and more the prospect changed to his changed eyes. The ascent now was steep and wearisome, and oh! how the sad, sweet face of his garden friend, the sister of his childhood passed on the mossy banks, how it looked upon him longingly, as if the pilgrimage even in the narrow way would be half sorrowful if he went not up with her to the end. His angel shone from her eyes its look of pleading, but all were lost upon the evil-awakened youth, who saw no stars in that pure heaven, no guide in that pleasant way worth following. More and more as his heart gave up the treasures of its infancy, the revel of the other path broke on his ear. His eyes gazed oftener on the distant groups than on his sister’s face, or the high crown. That sister prayed, besought with tears that he would let his guardian spirit guide him, that he would call upon the messengers of the Throne to disarm the tempters who were changing his heart. And yet he, the object of that fond one’s watching thus far upon the road, he who in sweet babyhood had been her pride and hope even in her own young years, he turned and left her! Turned and fled, not daring to look back and catch another glimpse of her pale face! he fled, and how short was now the way to Pleasure’s arms; the gain of long year’s travels how quickly lost. He stood once more where the two paths met, and looked a moment on the plain below, where yet was green the home of his childhood’s innocence. For a moment came the memory of the spirits he had carried from it as inmates of his soul. He gazed upon its quiet loveliness, and sighed in his bewilderment and guilt, for the season of his infancy, that he might be again a child and play amongst those garden flowers.

It could not be! And sealing his brow with the stamp of determined hardihood, he turned from the retrospect of his boyhood’s purity, and gave his hand to the fair-faced queen, who welcomed him more gladly that he came from the rival path.

How wildly did he enter now into all the scenes of that gay place! He sought to drown his angel’s whisperings in revels, and at first he succeeded well, for the parties he joined were of those, who, like himself, were neophytes to the reigning queen, and were not yet quite slaves to the hideous form so shrouded in flowers. But the innocent joyfulness grew more evil at every step, for in this gay kingdom there was no restraining power, and the poor misguided youth who had left the quiet walk where every onward step induced to purity, now saw the ruin which came by unsuspected agencies upon the hearts and forms of these thoughtless travelers. Guilt grew more familiar at every turn. He could see that his companions grew old before their time, and almost imperceptibly changed their careless mirth and slight indulgences to wicked merriment and love for evil practices, which they would have once despised.

Palaces rose up on every side, filled with sparkling drinks, which drowned the voices of grieved angels, and gave exulting life to the dread demon of Human Will. The laughter which had come faintly to his ears when he was by his lost sister’s side, like the sound of a joyful stream, now was like a raging river, wild and ruinous. Gay women fluttered on with “Vanity” written in jewels upon their foreheads, and the beauty of their girlhood lost under the weight of fashion’s charms. How the heart of that lost wanderer turned to his sister’s memory, and read there how chaste, how simple, how lovely she walked, unmindful of the garments her body wore if her spirit shone in the garb of holiness.

He looked toward the path she was now treading alone, and could tell her untiring step, and see the light of her high brow as it was at times uplifted to the throne—praying for him! Those gay women looked like painted sepulchres as he turned back; and though they shook their jeweled fingers at him playfully, and tried to win his admiration by outward charms, his heart compared them with the gentle presence of his sister in the heavenly path, and it learned to lothe the beings whose souls were unadorned and dark. They had been beautiful, but had lost the roses of their cheeks, the jewels of their eyes, the sweet sign of modesty upon their brow, and now owed Art a debt which grew with every year.

As he went on he found corners of the road darkened by groups of human forms with faces of spirits from the cave of darkness where the fire burns. They watched with starting eyes the ivory balls they rolled, or painted characters they handled, as if they were the chances of Heaven; and when their gold was lost would start up furious, and commit some dreadful deed upon themselves or their companions. Disgusting pictures of indulgence and debauchery in every shape, now met the almost frenzied eye of the regretful wanderer. Carelessly besotted feet trod the uncertain borders of the frightful precipice, or with uneven step stalked on toward the gulf of hopelessness. The light, which had been so dazzling at the commencement of the way, had been put out, and darkness would have been over all that crowd, if the mercy of the Throne had not let its light fall upon the guilty ones, that, if they would, they might see their passage back to the holy way.

Oh! had that wanderer tasted all the joy he fancied could be drunk of in that broad path? Had the glittering scenes been real? Had the promises of the syren been fulfilled? Had his heart been satisfied with the friendship, his feet with the flowers of that fair-seeming place? Oh, no! His brain was reeling with the discordant sounds, his senses were confused, his heart was agonized by the cries of rage, and complaints breathed bitterly against the Throne. Oh! could he dare brave the sneers of his companions and turn back: Could he, distressed and weakened, run the gauntlet of that deriding crowd! Oh no he had no courage left for such a trial. He knew the purity of his brow was gone, the freshness of his heart; and how, if he ever should escape from that dreadful way, would his sister’s eye rest on him?

As he thought of this, he turned toward the path of her calm pilgrimage, and saw a greater light as a halo round her pale brow, and her pleading eye still turned upward toward the Throne! His angel gently whispered “fly!” And as he stopped upon his course to listen, he felt the pressure of the hand which had been laid upon his head as he went out from the garden-gates, and his strong heart came back! His feet forgot their weariness, his eye grew large with hope, his spirit threw off its cowardice, and with a loud, clear voice, which his sister caught as a joyful answer to her prayers, he declared himself a prodigal, and entreated all that graceless company to follow him to peace and happiness.

Oh! how many accents there were in the answering shouts that filled the echoing way. Despair sent up its dreadful note—shame and defiance added their discordant tones. From the deep caves of guilty sorrow came a wail, and from lone places where the body diseased with crime lay suffering, a cry arose which chilled even the polluted blood of those who wandered in guilt so near.

None answered the returning one with like repentance, although from the heavy eyes of some a faint desire for a moment gleamed, to flee with him from misery. But the laugh which rung so loud, and with such a mocking echo of contempt, put out the spark which might have kindled to such a glorious blaze, and he turned alone upon his backward way. And now fingers were pointed at him, laughter followed him—his garments were laid hold of to arrest his steps. Many who sighed for his courage, and envied him the way his face was turned, laid stumbling-blocks before his feet, to turn them back—to gain a triumph over him would make their own depravity seem less dark. But they could not conquer him. His angel strengthened him, and he kept the name of the Great Lord upon his lips and in his heart, and so he made his way free from the striving hands and tempting wiles of his companions, and joyfully reached once more the side of his sister in the upward path.

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BY T. A. SWAN.

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BY PROFESSOR FROST.

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