Various

Tuesday night, June.—Well, ’tis over. To-day I arrived in my new home; and setting aside my longing after a home-feeling, which I have ever felt since the death of my dear, dear mother, there is no place that promises more domestic enjoyments than Alton; especially if Clare, my cousin, will love me and let me love her. She is a pretty girl, not beautiful, I admit, but sufficiently comely. My good, kind uncle, too! I can love him, I know; for how careful—how very, very tender was he of my feelings on our road hither. My room, also, is very nicely arranged; and as I glance around, I think I may again be happy, even, though I am dependent on my uncle’s bounty. I must to sleep now, for I am too sleepy now for aught else.

Monday.—Several days have elapsed since I last wrote; and I begin to love my old uncle in reality. There is yet another member of our small family circle, whom I did not see the first day of my arrival. It is an old lady, claiming cousinship with my Uncle Alton, and carrying herself with quite an “air” to myself. Very strict, too, she seems in her religious views; and yet sadly lacking in herself that charity for others which, in my eyes, is the light, “pure and undefiled.” Ah, me! I must stop, or I shall be wanting in that which I am so lauding. How lonely—how very lonely do I yet feel! no nearer my home of the heart yet, I fear me. My uncle I love; but—my Cousin Clare is so strange. Can she love, or is she like one of those incomprehensible characters of whom I have read, who keep all those feelings hidden deep within their heart of hearts, until they die away of themselves, leaving them in reality as callous as she now seems to me. I have tried to settle myself to my usual employments. I sew, I read, and tune my guitar occasionally; and often wander out, with my books, into those grand old woods around Alton, and sitting there under their deep, dark shadows, find companionship in my thoughts. My Cousin Clare I did ask once to accompany me, but was refused, on account of household duties; and Mrs. Dudley added, with an expression of countenance, to emphasize her speech, “Clare, Miss Walton, thinks of others besides herself. For my part, I never admired those tramps through the woods, of which some young ladies are so fond.” And her mouth was settled into that self-complacent expression, as if perfectly satisfied of the effect produced on me—imagining that poor I must be abashed into utter prostration before the majesty of her disapproval. Nevertheless, I still walk, and will continue doing so, with or without approval, which I neither value nor seek.

Thursday night, July.—What a difference will the arrival of an agreeable person make in a country-house. Now, yesterday and to-day are so rapid, compared with the preceding weeks. There has been an arrival at Alton. No less a personage than Col. Dudley, a nephew, by marriage, to my old plague. His health, it seems, is not very good—and he passes the summer here to re-establish it. He lives in the “sunny South,” and gives me some glowing descriptions of it. I have some one now who is in reality a companion; but, although this seems equally agreeable to me, and to himself, it does not seem to be relished as well by Mrs. Dudley.

Sunday, September.—Many weeks have elapsed since I have written in my journal. I have been so happy, that I took no note of time. Col. Dudley has been my constant companion; and Mrs. Dudley, his aunt, though always making little plans and plots to draw him into her own and Clare’s society—from which I am as much excluded by my own choice, as their habitual reserve—has not succeeded as yet. I am sure to find him at my side, whether in a walk or ride. And these same glorious woods—so old, so grand—how beautiful they are becoming now, as the “melancholy days” draw nigh. What made the poet say the autumn days were the “saddest of the year.” I am sure he must have been indulging in a poetical license, for to me they are infinitely joyous and gladsome. I know—I feel that Hugh Dudley loves me; and yet why does he not ask me to be his. Perhaps he waits for a manifestation of my feelings for him; but that I shall never evince, dearly as I love him. I know that he is proud—so much so, that much as I love a proud man, it becomes almost a fault in him. But I am also proud; and where I most love, there am I always the most reserved. I wish him to know “I would be wooed, and not unsought be won.”

Wednesday night.—How happy! how immeasurably happy am I! I can hardly realize these joyous feelings! I have just entered my chamber, too excited for sleep; and seeing my journal lying close to the writing-desk, have opened it to put in words, my joy. It appears unaccountable to me, how, for one moment, I could have imagined myself happy before, when I compare my present ecstatic feelings to what I can remember of ever experiencing. It seems that my heart is opening in love, to the whole world. I could even take Mrs. Dudley with the kindest affection to it, if she would allow me; but why or wherefore she dislikes me, and will manifest that feeling for me. Even my perceptions of the beautiful have grown so much the more lively; and the meanest thing of earth—the mossy trunk—the cloudlet—the sky—the stream—the wild-flower—are all floating in an atmosphere of light and beauty. And why is all this? Oh! my proud heart, you are now satisfied; and you can answer, why this ecstatic feeling. I love and I am loved! Hugh Dudley—my own Hugh—has told me this in words—so wondrously eloquent—and has, at last, sued me to become his wife. He wished our marriage to take place at once; but for all sufficient reasons, I have begged him to defer it till next summer. Then I will go forth with him among strangers—with him who is my world. I have found at last my home of the heart. ’Tis in his love—his ardent, disinterested love. And why did I not marry him at once, and go with him to his own sunny home? I could not, proud heart that I am, bear to owe the very dress in which I should be decked at the altar, to the bounty of my uncle—how much less to Col. Dudley. Though I have a home with them—that is, shelter and food—yet my right hand should be cut off, ere I would take pecuniary aid from any. They all look cold upon me now, even my uncle. I have ever conducted myself respectfully—nay, even affectionately toward him; but, for some reason or other, he has altered toward me, and I have drawn myself again into my reserve. I have undoubtedly thwarted some cherished plan of his, with respect to Clare and Dudley; but even my dependence on him—gratitude will not be forced—will not allow me to regret what has happened. Oh! so contented—so blest am I—that cold looks from the world are unregarded, so long as I am conscious of his love. I had been sick, and sad, for two days and more; my heart and head seemed bursting, for I could hear, in my chamber (where sickness kept me prisoner) the sound of mirth and enjoyment going on below. Even the unwonted laugh of Clare was echoing merrily, as if my absence kindled a fire of joy in her bosom of ice; and my jealous heart told me she was happy, because of the attentions of Col. Dudley. I could not endure the thought of his wasting upon her one smile—one word beyond those of common civility. Very, very wicked was I on that bed of sickness; for every time I could hear the voice of Mrs. Dudley calling upon my cousin, in a gladdened tone, I would half utter aloud, “Yes! that vile old woman is satisfied now. She thinks he will love that icicle—that automaton.” Yes, wicked I was, indeed; but then, sick and suffering, I should have been treated with more sympathy by those under whose roof I then was eating the bread of dependence, it would have made it less bitter—not near so choking. One ceremonious visit for the day from Clare—one message of inquiry from my uncle, was the sole interest that was bestowed upon me. How can it be wondered at, then, if my heart grew bitter toward them; ay, even to him, for if he inquired, it was never told me. But the bitterness I felt toward him was different from that which I felt toward my uncle and cousin. When I reflected on their conduct, there was a mingling of anger and revenge; when on him, the tears would rush to my eyes, an aching feeling to my heart, and I would say, “Could I only die now, would he shed one tear, or be saddened by the cold, pale face of her whom he must have known felt something for him beside mere friendship.” And then I would hide my eyes in the pillow, and weep in pity over the sad fate of myself which I thus pictured.

As these bitter, bitter thoughts careered through my brain—increasing its ache—how did I sigh for the rest of the grave. “For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.” I snatched my journal—in my longing to unburthen myself of my weight of wo—and scribbled what I here transcribe, but which from shame I have since torn out:

“Why, oh Father! didst thou see fit to throw me here in this bitter world, to suffer and to struggle alone! Alone must I suffer—alone am I in my love—alone in my despair—and when dying solitary, and I am bore to the rest of the grave, I shall be unwept, unthought of. Well! be it so; only, Father, teach me to bow in submission and to drink without murmuring of the bitter cup. I already look upon the tomb, as the storm-tossed mariner to his haven of safety, ‘where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest.’ Ah! how few care what the motherless one, cut off from the world by poverty and other adverse circumstances, must endure. My wishes and my hopes are mine, and mine alone. I feel, as I imagine the deaf and dumb one does, whose heart is full of love, and bright, warm, beautiful fancies, and who cannot give them words. To whom can I utter them? All, all these feelings must be forever buried in the depths of mine own sad heart, and nothing but the froth, the foam, and the weeds, be thrown on the surface for the world’s gaze. Oh! how I envy those who have fond parents—a dear brother—a loving sister. How I long for a sympathy—a resting-place for my affections, which I despair of ever finding on earth, but which I hope I may realize with Him, the Father, who has given me this capability of loving.”

This was written after hearing what my imagination—heated with fever and jealousy—construed into a light laugh from Dudley, immediately under my window. I knew it was him, for I heard the crashing sound of his boot-heel on the gravel, and the mingling tones of his aunt and Clare. They had all been walking—for I sprang from the bed to ascertain the fact. Yes, walking! For Clare was leaning on his arm; her sun-bonnet dangling by the string from her hand, and to my jealous eye she had never looked so near to beautiful. Her cheeks were flushed, and a smile almost loving parted her lips as she looked up into his face. They had stopped to admire a flower, over which Mrs. Dudley still leaned, and he—apparently—was describing some of the same kind he possessed. How I hated Clare, at the moment, there standing with her hand upon his arm, when there was no necessity for the support; loving him, too, as I knew she must—though in what manner I could not picture to myself—for I had ever thought from her impassable nature it was the blood of fishes which filled her veins. As I looked upon the group my dejection became intensified into agony. I felt utterly alone, and I wished for some kind Samaritan to pour the oil of sympathy into my bleeding wounds. It was then I wrote, and in the despair of my soul I felt that all was vanity and bitterness, and that I had deceived myself entirely—yes, blindly deceived myself. He cared not for me—whilst I was writhing in pain, he was merrily and gleefully laughing with those whom he knew, as well as I did, loved me not.

How changed my feelings now from those penned above, wrung from me by jealousy and despair! ’Tis as if I had been groping in some dark, noisome cave alone—ay, alone and fearful—and had suddenly entered an inner chamber, before unknown, where a thousand lights are dancing and reflecting against its brilliant columns and gem-like stalactites pendent from its illuminated sides and dome—so beautiful—so sudden has been the change. To begin at the beginning and tell how came this change.

For three days had I kept my room. On the afternoon of the third I stole out unobserved, as I thought, and made my way to the old, sombre-looking forest—my favorite haunt—where, under its dark, umbrageous trees, amid its gloom and solitude, I sought for companionship for my own sad thoughts. Seated on a fallen tree, turning with my foot the dry leaves listlessly, and hearing the moaning and sighing of the breeze through the tree tops. No other sound reached me; but I started up wildly—for sickness had made me nervous—as a hand was laid upon my arm, and scarcely heard his loved voice, softened into tenderness, for the loud beating of my own poor heart.

“I hope that I have not frightened you much, dear Florence. Have you, at last, got well?”

“Not entirely; but I am better, Colonel Dudley, though still I have some remains of my headache.” And I closed my eyes, which were rapidly filling with tears, and turned from him my face, that he might not observe them.

“Your illness has been a sad, sad trial to me, Florence,” said he, softly. “I missed you more than I can tell you. My nights have been sleepless from anticipation and from disappointment at not seeing you, as I hoped each day to do, when I arose. How I sighed for your companionship. Even after I went to my chamber last night, I again left it when the whole house seemed to be quiet, and wandered here to your favorite spot where so oft I have listened to you. I have inquired each day concerning you till I am fearful I tired the patience of both your cousin and uncle. They said you were only slightly unwell, but that it was your custom to keep your room when annoyed by companionship not pleasing to your taste, made fastidious by a long residence in the city and by novel-reading! You see how candid I am, but I have my reasons for being thus explicit. I thought them unkind—I began to think if I were the one who had wearied you, and memory, faithful to your charming ways, said at once ‘no’—for I could see that my company was more welcome than that of my aunt and your cousin. Nay, start not from me, dear Florence, I mean nothing to injure the most sensitive delicacy, but to show you the meditations to which I have been led by your sickness, and let you decide for me whether my future is to be happiness, almost too great for reality, or entire wretchedness. I blame you not for not seeking the society of either your cousin or my aunt, for neither are, or could be congenial; and who, I am sure, from some cause or other, are not friendly to you. Tell me now, why did you not send me even one word, formal though it might have been, to my bouquet—arranged with as much skill as I possessed, and bearing its Oriental meaning for your eye to read?”

“Your bouquet!” And in my surprise I turned to him my face, forgetful of my tears. “When did you send it—and by whom?”

“Tears, dearest Florence! Did you not receive it? But say that, and a load will have been lifted from my heart. Did not Miss Clare bring you one from me yesterday morning?”

“Never; nor even the simplest inquiry has reached me from you.” And my eyes looked the reproach I did not utter.

“Strange, very strange! What could have been their motives for this conduct? Yesterday, dear Florence, I sent a bouquet, hoping that it would commence what I have so long wished but feared to tell you. I sent you a rose-bud and other flowers, of which you yourself told me the language when we sat by the window, one rainy afternoon, longing to be out for this same walk. You laughingly did as I requested you, instructed me into their meaning, and I said that when I sent a bouquet so arranged, the lady who might receive it must think it uttered what I feared to say. Ah! Florence, I was sure that you knew I was speaking in serious earnestness, for your face colored brightly, and I could see the trembling of the little fingers as you began to untie the flowers, though you carefully kept your face averted. Will you be angry with me when I say, that I began then to hope what I so earnestly wish to ask from you? Do you not understand me, Florence?”

I answered not, but sat with face averted, and head bowed, to hide the emotions his words caused.

“Your answer is needless, for I know that you long ago have understood my heart. Yes; last night in this your favorite spot I sat me down to think upon you, and your winning, artless character. I felt that with you I should be content to exclaim,

‘Oh! that the desert were my dwelling-place,

With one fair spirit for my minister,

That I might all forget the human race,

And, hating no one, love but only her.’

And that fair spirit you are conscious, sweet Florence, must be yourself. Say, will you be willing, dear one, to minister to me through life?”

I could hardly repress the low cry of joy which sprung from my heart to my lips, yet I did so, and sat apparently calm at his side, whilst he continued still more passionately—

“Yes; you, dearest Florence, are the fair spirit whom I devotedly love. Tell me, can you—will you be mine? And, though a desert be not our dwelling-place, make with your love a paradise of my earthly habitation. Say—answer me now, Florence, dear one—will you be my wife?”

I did not answer—I could not; but I leaned my face against his shoulder, and, as his arm encircled me, he bent down his head and whispered what answer he wished me to make. We left our favorite walk engaged—with one hope—one love—one joy. As if in charming coincidence with our happiness, how gloriously beautiful was the aspect worn by surrounding objects. And we asked one another, in sympathy, could any thing in England, France, or Italy—in the way of trees—be equal to our forests, as they then appeared? So many kinds—so many shades—so differing in foliage: now dense and rich in living green—now sparse, showing the satiny boughs of the elm, or the rich brown trunk of oak, or its mossy covering—now the light, feathery foliage waving as in spring—all so varying, yet commingling, and from their very contrasts making the effect more striking, and forming a whole of harmony, like unto some gorgeous picture. And then the sunset, as we stood on a rising hill to gaze upon his setting, on this our happy evening! ’Twas as glorious as ever Italia’s sky could boast. Little cloudlets of burnished gold, whose upper edge wore a pale violet hue, were floating in a sea of rose; whilst above and around was the pure azure canopy. And all these were changing in form and tint, as lower, and still more low, sunk the sun—like the fabled changes of the dying dolphin—till the whole sobered down into the soft gray of twilight. Then we turned for our walk home. How tenderly did he fold my shawl around me, and whisper lovingly as he drew my hand under his arm, that I must be careful now of my health for his sake, if I would not for my own!

As we turned into the graveled walk leading directly to the house, we met Clare and Mrs. Dudley. I saw them before he was aware they were approaching, for his head was bent toward me as he uttered words of joy which thrilled my heart, so long aching for sympathy and his love, with a happiness almost amounting to agony. How red grew my face as their eyes looked full upon us! How surprised the stare, how cold their passing salutation to us both! But little either of us recked now. Every thing with me was forgotten but the certainty of his loving me, and my promise to become his wife. When he has gone—ah! here comes the gloomy shadow in my picture of light. I will form some plan to make sufficient money, that I may not be dependent on any one for my simple outfit, and then we will marry, as I said, next summer. Now, I can only think of my happiness, which is too ecstatic for me yet to realize.

Tuesday, Oct.—A fortnight has dragged on—ah! yes: how truly is it described when I say dragged since his departure, and I wonder to myself how was it possible that I ever should endure this place without him—my sunlight!—my joy! In one of the literary papers which my uncle takes is a notice of premiums, to be awarded to the successful competitors, for tales, essays, etc. I have determined to become one. I have often written—may I not succeed? I will succeed. I have a good plan, too, for a story, founded upon an incident in the life of my old hero-like grandfather. So, adieu my old friend, my journal, for awhile; for I must bend all my existent energies on my prize story—as I will it to be. In doing that and answering Hugh’s letters, the time at my disposal will be entirely taken up. The prizes will be awarded before Christmas. I am beginning to think Mrs. Dudley and Clare suspect my engagement to Hugh.

November 28th.—Joy! joy! and now for the details—to confide to you, my journal, in what that joy consists! My uncle opened the mail-bag, as usual, this morning whilst we sat at breakfast. There were two gentlemen present, beside our family circle, and one of them, a wealthy gentleman from a neighboring city, and who has always shown himself peculiarly polite and attentive, at the same time an interesting and intellectual companion. Mrs. Dudley and Clare—I forever couple them together, for it seems to me they have only one mind for their two bodies, and of course, but a small portion for each—imagine I am “setting my cap” for him; and according to their general custom, endeavor to set me in the worst possible light in his eyes. Well! revenons À nos moutons, my uncle placed two letters before me as my share of the precious bag, remarking as he did so:

“One from your punctual correspondent at the South, and one from Philadelphia. What beau in that city, Floy, do you write to?”

“Why, Miss Walton”—in a most insulting tone, said Mrs. Dudley—“is not this foolish correspondence with my nephew dropped by him yet? If it were not for its improbability, I should begin to fear there was something serious in it; but, then your encouragement of his attentions was so very open, that Clare and I said it could only have been for your amusement and his, to make the time pass to two idlers. But, once for all, pray inform me as his aunt, did you ever dream of any reality in your game?”

How the hot blood rushed to my temples as I convulsively grasped the letters to place in my pocket. Yet my pride came to the rescue at this wanton insult, and at which her assistant in her schemes, Clare, sat smiling, triumphantly rejoicing in this vulgar attack—so turning to her, with a light laugh of scorn, I replied:

“Your nephew! Humph! Yes; your supposition does credit to your ever rightly judging and far-seeing mind. My flirtation with your kinsman could, of course, be only for one’s amusement in the country!”

I had paid her back, certainly, for the poor, wicked old creature’s face colored up in anger as she said:

“Oh! very well, very well, indeed, Miss Walton. That is a nice speech for a coquette to make about an absent gentleman in the presence of another.”

I made her no further answer, but finishing my coffee, left the room to read my letters. I could not help making this answer to her at the time; yet, I sincerely regret it now. It seems like treason against my love to utter such a thing about him, even to retaliate upon her. The first letter I opened was from Hugh Dudley—breathing the most devoted love—begging me to shorten his term of exile, and let him come, at once, to claim me for his own. The other was from the editor of the ——, and contained a check for one hundred dollars! My story had obtained the second prize. Now, I can think about what Hugh has written, I will write to him to-morrow, and tell him I will consider his proposition. I must not grant it at once, for I am ashamed to let him see how much I love him.

December 18th.—How busy they are preparing for Christmas; yet I cannot enter into their feelings of mirth. A presentiment is haunting me—a shadow, like the gloom of the grave, is around me. I cannot answer why this is so. Foolish that I am! I have gone forth to my favorite walk; I have recalled the words—the vows of love—his tender looks, as he offered them; and yet the cold, dead feeling at my heart will not be driven forth. As I entered the parlor yesterday, in the dim twilight, softly—for I was thinking sadly, as I am wont now—I heard Mrs. Dudley say to Clare, “Depend on it, Hugh Dudley will not marry HER at least.” I do not think she saw me; but Clare’s cold eyes rested on me with a most malignant glance, as I quickly drew back, ere they should be aware of my entrance. I know, oh, heart of mine! how foolish ’tis for me to grieve. Is this the confidence I have in his love—his vows—his honor—to be thus shaken for one moment by the assertions of an evil-minded and plotting old woman, who manifestly hates me. I will tear this feeling from me. I will not despond—I will trust in you, my own noble-hearted Hugh.

January.—’Tis strange! no letters from Col. Dudley. Can he be ill? Oh! this sickening suspense—this living death! I fancy, too, that my enemies—for so I must call Mrs. Dudley and Clare—watch me narrowly—triumphantly. What can it mean? Oh, Father! in thy mercy, spare me this anticipated misery! Let the bitter cup pass from me, if thou wilt; for I feel my utter weakness and inability to bear up under these harrowing thoughts. Impossible! I will not pen any thing against his truth. He must be sick. Not even to this mute witness of my love will I own, that even in thought I suspect him. I will show him this one of these days yet to come, when the happiness I then shall feel will repay me for all my sorrows—and then he will know how much he was loved. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” says the song—and it is true with me, at least, I wonder, is it the case with him. I will go down now—for everybody is away to-day, shopping in the neighboring town—and play all his favorites, and cheat myself with the belief that he is beside me—that I feel his warm breath play among my curls—that, on the lifting of my eye, I shall meet his glance, so full of love and trust, as to shame me in my inmost heart for ever thinking he could prove false.

February.—Oh, God! how unspeakably miserable am I. And you, old friend, that has been the record of my joy—my short dream of happiness—be also the page upon which I chronicle my grief—my deep despair. I am calmer now; I did think that I should have crazed under the blow; but the Father has strengthened and borne me up. I had been expecting an answer to my last letter from Hugh, (oh! how anxiously, for ’twas past the usual time,) when one day my Uncle Alton sent for me.

“Florence,”—as I entered—“I have a package for you, sent under cover to myself. I am afraid that this will prove a sad trial to you; but as you have your own self to thank for it, I am in hopes, for your sake, it will not occasion you much heart-grief. I am playing the part of Job’s comforters; but I cannot help saying to you, that you should remember how you speak of the absent, for sooner or later, they always are informed of bad speeches by some injudicious friend.”

“What does this long preface lead to, Uncle Alton,” said I, with a smile, though my heart felt heavy as lead, and as cold. “Surely I am not mixed up in any of the neighborhood slander, I hope. I always thought that you did me the justice to imagine that I care little, and talk less, of the worthies who compose the society attainable at Alton.”

My uncle, by this time, had handed me the package which he had been separating from its envelop; and he now coldly, I may say sternly, addressed me,

“Hugh Dudley, Florence, has written me that you and himself were engaged—solemnly pledged to each other to wed the coming summer. From your speech, made in public, in the presence of his friends and relative, from whom he has received the information, he now releases you from your chains, that he thinks must have been galling, to call forth from you, in public, so unprovoked, so cruel a speech. What renders it still more stinging, was the fact, that Mr. Hilton, one of the gentlemen present, has ever been an enemy of Dudley’s, and on his return home (for he lives not very far from him) repeated it among a certain set. After Dudley heard of this he gave the more ready credence to his aunt’s letter, which came whilst the subject was in agitation in his thoughts. He wrote to me, as your nearest friend and protector, explaining his conduct, and requesting me to hand you your letters. It has grieved me to hear of this conduct, heartless as I must call it, from my sister’s child.”

I felt like throwing myself at my uncle’s feet, and begging him to plead for me with Hugh in my great misery; but, at this moment I looked up, and saw Mrs. Dudley standing near the entrance, and peering on me with such a smile of malicious triumph, that crushing back my real feelings of agony with my al-conquering pride, I said lightly, though it seemed as if my heart were weeping blood the while—

“Do not trouble yourself, uncle, about my incapacity for bearing this, especially as you say it was brought on me by my own means. Inform Col. Dudley when you write, that I accept my release with thanks, and never have, nor could ever claim relationship with some of his kin, but with the same feelings of loathing and disgust I experience when some hideous and dangerous reptile crosses my path.”

I was nerved by my anger against Mrs. Dudley to say this, and to act the part I assumed, of carelessness, for I took up the package with a light laugh, thanked my uncle, and dropped a very lowly reverence to her as I approached the door, saying, “I hope, my dear madam, that your truly Christian heart is now at rest, having seen the end of our game, begun to relieve the tedium or worse of a country-house, blessed with such an inmate as your venerable self.”

I have a dim recollection of seeing her eyes open wide and still wider with perfect amaze, and the words “heartless flirt,” fell from her lips. I reached my room, though my pride was fast ebbing, and locked myself in. I opened the bundle—my own letters came tumbling therefrom, and one from him. I put it here, that with the record of my willful error, its punishment may also be seen.

It was over! and I sat long silent and motionless with the letters before me. I then determined to bear uncomplainingly my fate, and never let him know the agony which his thus breaking our engagement had caused me. “Did I die from it,” was my proud resolution, “I will die in silence. He, to believe so quickly, so readily, an assertion made against me, by an enemy of his, and proved by an enemy of mine. Did he ask me, ‘Was it so—and wherefore?’ No: but acted on the information, careless of my pain—oh! well he knew that I loved him—and exulted in it from revenge. Had he asked me, oh! how humbly would I have acknowledged my fault, and throwing myself more trustingly on his love, how would I have prayed for forgiveness, till the proud man, in his strength, would have been softened by my tears, and taken me again in love to his bosom.” But it was over, and she who had caused this misery should not triumph. I jumped from my seat, bathed my eyes, curled my hair elaborately, decked myself in a most becoming dress, and on seeing my ashy cheeks, in the glance I gave into the glass, for the first time painted them with carmine. I then descended into the drawing-room. Mr. Harold, the wealthy merchant from the city, whom I have spoken of, had returned the day before, on a visit to my uncle, and for him, and to him, I played and sung. I was in my wildest spirits. I kept up this farce for weeks whenever the eyes of the household were upon me, till I thought in the struggle my mind must give way. At this crisis a letter came from a cousin of my mother, to whom I had written to ask for an asylum, gladly welcoming me to her home—for she was aged and infirm, and wanted companionship. I accepted at once; received a cold acquiescence from my uncle—a still more indifferent one from my cousin—and set out for my new home in Kentucky, determined to hide myself forever from the eyes of those whose triumph was built on the ruins of my happiness. Oh! Hugh, could you have known how deeply I have repented of that speech, wrung from my wounded pride, even you would have forgiven me and loved me still—but you never, never loved as I did you. But it is, as I said, all, all past; my dream is ended, and I now walk sadly my allotted time on earth, a sorrower and a sojourner in a vale of tears.

Here ended this sketch from her journal; and Cora Norton sat at first meditating, with her head still leaning on her arm. Turning at last to her aunt, who was dozing across the room, she said—

“What has become of Col. Dudley, Aunt Mary?”

“Ech! what!” exclaimed the old lady; and then being thoroughly roused, she took her knitting from the floor, where it had slipped during her nap, received from Cora her spectacles, and upon her niece repeating her inquiry—

“He is now,” said Aunt Mary, gaping and rubbing her eyes, “the husband of Clare Alton, and lives in his far distant home—at least so I heard about five years since, the only time I ever heard of him. It is said that the match was made up for him entirely by his aunt, and that Clare is an excellent housekeeper—raises more chickens and turkies than any lady in the neighborhood. She, as my informant told me, is quite the model housewife of her neighbors, and has finished a hexagon bed-quilt, of I don’t know how many thousand patches. As to herself and the colonel, they get along very politely I believe—

And now, Cora love, it is bedtime. Need I ‘point a moral’ to the journal you have read? Ah! no, you say. Well! when that little rattling tongue of yours seems disposed to laugh and say flippant things about your lovers, think of my girl-friend, Florence Walton, and profit by her dear-bought experience.”

———

BY REV. H. HASTINGS WELD.

———

———

FROM THE GERMAN.

———

“‘Does thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee.’ That is in the Bible, to be sure, but it is no remedy for this terrible pain,” sighed the suffering Pastor Seidelman, “for if it goes from my hands I have it in my feet, and if I were to cut off all my limbs what would become of his reverence?”

“Ah, Conrad,” said his faithful nurse and wife, and smiled through her tears, “you are always so cheerful in the midst of your sufferings.”

“And why not, Catharine? Am I master of this pain, or its slave? And can I not always imagine that these limbs belong to some one else, and that I have nothing to do with them? But the hardest to bear is, that the miserable things keep me here in this arm-chair, whilst every thing without there is so blooming and beautiful; the wall-flowers and harebells are just as fine, or finer in my garden than in Herman & HÜbner’s—that I cannot on this glorious evening feast upon strawberries with you all in the arbor, and that you, dear Catharine—this is the worst—must be confined here to nurse me. Has the spring-time of our life all vanished?”

“Ah, Conrad,” said his wife cheeringly, and stroked his pale cheeks, “we have so many blessings left—our love and our children. Let us thank God for all—for our joys, and for our sorrows too. Ah, if you could only go to the springs at A——.”

“Yes, yes,” said the pastor, “but never mind. The springs are distant and dear. I have given it up long ago. Sometimes, indeed, it seems as if it would be a little thing for my lord count up on the hill to treat his old pastor to the journey. But he must need all his money for the gay life he leads at the capital—oh, no! he is not to be thought of, nor the springs either.”

This had been the conclusion for the last ten years of every conversation between the worthy people, whenever the subject was the health of the good pastor. What availed him his duties so faithfully performed, the love and veneration of his flock, his gay world of flowers just outside the door, and his circle of blooming children? There he sat in the great arm-chair, while without the birds were singing, the lindens in full leaf, the little six-years-old Paul was exercising a troop of wooden soldiers, the gentle Hermine dancing merrily, and in a distant part of the garden the beautiful Theodora was walking with her youngest brother, the little pet, Ernst. Indeed, the worthy Seidelman might well be happy, surrounded by all these treasures. But he was bowed down by disease, not of mind, but of body; and he was very poor, though that was no one’s fault but his own. For how in the world was any one with such a soft heart ever to grow rich. His house was always open to the needy, and not rarely to the wolf even in sheep’s clothing, and often when on his return from some wedding, his wife would search anxiously in his pockets for the fee, he would say, with a look of shame and contrition, “Don’t be vexed, Catharine, I have given it to Gottlieb, he has broken his leg;” then both would smile through their tears, and the orders to the butcher for the next week would be countermanded.

But one other grief burdened the worthy people. Anxiety on account of their favorite child Theodora, just eighteen years old, and so gentle, who became every day more and more estranged from them. In his sleepless nights of pain, she left the care of her father entirely to her mother and her sister Hermine, and shut herself up in her room, where they saw her candle burning until long after midnight, and to their anxious questionings she gave only confused, unsatisfactory replies. But now, when the roses in her cheeks had begun to fade, her father and mother had determined that, when twilight came, when she always went to walk in the large garden, they would penetrate into her securely-locked apartment, and solve, if possible, the sad riddle. And they had selected this evening for the attempt.

There she strolled through the dark linden walks on this lovely summer evening, with her little brother. But there was even more joy in her heart than in the glad singing of Ernst, and the setting sun mirrored itself in her eyes, sparkling with delight. “Sink into thy golden cradle, thou friendly light; with thy setting arises a holyday for us all, thy Easter morning, oh, dear father.” Thus she exulted, all unconscious of the treachery meditated against her by the anxious love of her parents. And just at this moment, when, full of happiness, she bent down over a hedge of roses, suddenly the fate of her future life stood before her, a youth of most prepossessing appearance. He started at the sight of the fair girl, and greeted her with evident embarrassment. Theodora, too, was confused, she knew not why, and her handkerchief dropped from her trembling hand while she turned hastily away. He picked it up, hastened after her, and in a gentle voice, but with a foreign accent, begged pardon if his sudden appearance had alarmed her, and hoped that on so beautiful an evening he might not be the cause of shortening her walk. But her walk was interrupted, and she turned toward home much sooner than she had intended, just in time to frustrate, for this evening at least, the design of her parents, who were just upon the point of ascending the stairs to her room.

And now, when supper was finished, and the pastor was lighting his evening pipe, with the children playing around him, what heavy parcel does Theodora bring in, and what drops are those shining upon her cheek? “My dear father,” she said, “I bring you here the money—a hundred dollars—which I have earned for you. It is little, but it is enough to carry you to the springs. Now you will be well once more,” and she sunk into his arms.

Imagine the happiness of this moment. The children left their play and gathered round their parents; the father weighed the gold incredulously in his hand, and the whole secret was disclosed amid thanks and kisses. Upon the altar of filial love Theodora had laid the hard earnings of her needle. For two long years she had sewed and embroidered with unremitting industry, while every one else was sleeping. Her cheeks indeed were pale, and she had been for a while estranged from those who were dearer to her than all the world beside, but she had gained the reward that she had striven for so long.

“Present arms!” cried Paul to his soldiers; “don’t you see, you rogues, in whose presence you are standing?”

“Yes, dear one,” said her father, “you have worked hard indeed for me, for us all, and thy days shall be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”

More brightly than the star-spangled heaven without, shone the heaven glittering with new hopes and joys within the little parsonage. “You will be well again,” cried the children, “you will be able to dance just like us.”

“Yes,” answered their father, “to dance, and ride, and—but only think, Catharine, of my really going to the springs! I can hardly believe it.”

They all talked over the journey with the comforting conviction that it was no longer a mere vision, and it was unalterably determined that Theodora should accompany her father. The council sat until far into the night, that every thing might be discussed—what they should carry with them, and through what towns and villages they should pass on their journey. But when the village watchman called “Twelve o’clock,” the father knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and said, “Children, it is late, we shall have a whole day to-morrow.” Paul shut up his soldiers in their barracks made by some old folios on the lowest shelf of the book-case, and certainly the god of slumber never embraced happier people than the inhabitants of that little cottage.

Theodora alone could not sleep. Her mind was too much excited to be quickly composed to rest. As the moon shining on drops of dew causes them to emit sparkles in the dark night, which vanish again suddenly, so dreams and fancies sprung up in Theodora’s mind, and she hardly suspected that the stranger in the park was the chief cause of her excitement. Without any distinct thoughts of him, and without the remembrance of a word that he had said, his image was, in the confusion of her mind, like the foundation color in a landscape, like the thema in one of Beethoven’s symphonies. Only in her short morning slumber did his image present itself, as he handed her the handkerchief. But the dream vanished before the clear light of the morning sun, and the day with its busy plans and thousand occupations dissipated the half-formed visions of the night. Again, however, twilight came with its shadows, its cool breezes, and its memories, and as she again strolled down the garden with her little brother, her heart fluttered with feelings of alarm and anxiety. She feared that the young stranger would suddenly stand before her again, as he had done upon the preceding evening, and yet she could not keep away from the dangerous spot. But no stranger appeared; she glanced timidly down the dark walk, but nothing was to be seen.

At last, lost in thought, she stood before the very rose-bush where she had first seen him the day before. But her reverie was suddenly interrupted, for Ernst sprung from behind a large lilac-bush, dragging the stranger with him, and crying, “I have you, you rogue; you want to play hide and seek with Dora, do you? Away with you!” With a frank smile the young man, yielding to the child, approached the blushing girl, who would fain have turned away. “Hold him fast,” cried Ernst, “or he will run away, and before I can get my horsemen out to follow him he will be beyond the mountains.”

“That will he not, my little fellow,” said the stranger, and then turning to Theodora, he frankly confessed that only the hope of seeing her again had prevented his continuing his journey with his father. He told her—but who can tell with pen and ink what a youth, only twenty years old, who has at first sight fallen head over ears in love, says to a beautiful girl, at such a romantic hour and on such a lovely spot?

Theodora herself hardly knew what he had said, but only (when two hours afterward she slowly walked toward her dear home) that he had poured out the most ardent protestations of love, and that, although obliged to leave on the morrow for, she knew not what part of the country, he had promised to return. Whence had come that sparkling ring upon her finger, and whither had gone the rose that she had worn all day long in her bosom? His name she knew was Robert, but all else that he had said about himself and his family had vanished from her mind. He was going away on the morrow with his father, whither, she had not the remotest idea, and to inquire about him was out of the question. The vision had vanished, but the diamond on her finger sparkled consolingly, and she drew it off, to keep it carefully until it should be redeemed by the donor.

The next day was consumed in preparations for the journey, and on the following morning, after all had been refreshed by the hot coffee, and the father had prayed, “May God bless our goings out and our comings in,” he was warmly packed in the neat traveling-carriage, with Theodora at his side; leave was taken of the dear ones who must stay behind, and they drove off. As the tall tops of the trees seemed to nod a kindly farewell in the fresh morning air, Theodora thought longingly of the last few days, and shrunk from the unknown future. She determined to lock up her hopes and fears in her own breast—for how could she speak of them to her father. An accidental meeting with a young stranger was, as she would fain persuade herself, such a commonplace occurrence; and her father, too, was so occupied with the journey, with thoughts of the old friends whom he should see, and, above all, with the flowers which, whenever they passed a garden, threw him into ecstasies, that a fit opportunity never presented itself.

As they approached A——, through a beautiful landscape, they met glittering equipages and horsemen, and gayly-dressed parties of pedestrians. Music sounded from the lighted saloons, and a new world opened itself around the young girl. But anxious emotions filled her heart, and she longed for the quiet home-circle of mother, brothers and sisters.

Still she breathed more freely as she entered her quiet little room in their lodging-house, where every thing was so neat and convenient; even the piano had not been forgotten, and the window opened upon the pretty little garden belonging to the house, where were green lindens, fragrant lilies, and an arbor of woodbine, like the one in dear R——. “Oh heavens!” cried her enraptured father, “there is the double lychnis chalcedonia, blooming in greater perfection than my single one; and there (it can be no dream) there, Theodora, is the white Georgina, which I have never seen before, growing among those pinks and carnations.”

Every thing was delightful. Their domestic arrangements were soon made, and, on the following morning, the spring which was to give health to the invalid was tried, while Theodora sat at home in the garden and worked.

Many parties of fashionable promenaders passed by, and troops of horsemen galloped past; but Theodora heeded them not; and when her father returned, she was ready to receive him; they partook of their frugal meal, and then came singing and the piano. But early one morning, as she sat at work—heavens! who was that who flew by upon his foaming English steed? She dropped her work in her agitation, but the stranger, no less surprised, reined in his horse, sprang off, rushed up the little garden, and greeted her with the warmest expressions of his surprise and pleasure.

Scarcely capable of replying, Theodora returned his greeting, but instantly her confusion overcame her, and she asked, with a deep blush, how he, whom she had thought so distant, came to be just here.

“O, this place,” was his reply, “is the destination of my poor father’s journey.”

“Then you are here for the same purpose that we are?” asked she. “What is your father’s disease?”

“Ah! let me be silent upon that point,” sighed Robert; “I am very unhappy. But I trust in God that these clouds will clear off; and now that I see you, all seems brighter and more hopeful. And,” continued he, gazing searchingly into her clear, calm eyes, “I am very vain; but your looks tells me, Theodora, that you still remember those happy meetings in R——. You shall learn to know me; you shall not find me unworthy of your love; and then I will place the decision of our fate in your father’s hands, and my father, too—why can I not lead you to him now, and say, ‘See, father, the happiness of your only son.’”

“And why do you fear him?” said Theodora, “does he know me?”

“I must not say,” sighed Robert; “the hand of fate is heavy upon me now; but here and there I can discern through the clouds the clear blue of heaven. O, trust in me, Theodora, if I am an outcast now, trust my heart, full of love, if there is in yours one spark of interest in me.”

The thorns in this declaration pressed deep into the heart of the poor girl. Confidence, love, and doubt raised a wild warfare in her breast; she saw the heaven of her pure first love so overclouded, and she saw Robert depart with a heavier heart than she had ever known before. The next day, and the next, while her father was bathing, Robert was with her; and although her confidence in him grew continually, the riddle grew more dark and mysterious.

“Say not a word even to your father of our love,” said Robert; “I plead only for a little time, and I myself will open my heart to him.”

As long as he was with her, she felt consoled, but with his departure, her peace fled.

The happy father, in the meantime, did not perceive his daughter’s increasing melancholy. Two weeks had done wonders for him; every day he grew stronger. The reviving air breathed new life into the worthy man. “O, my child,” said he, joyfully, throwing open the gate one day, at the commencement of the third week, “what do you think I have seen? You will scarcely believe it; but it is really so—a Banksia serrata, in full bloom, stands in the castle garden. O, Dora! the exquisite contrast, such heavenly blue and gorgeous yellow! I—but you must see it; and, only think, the gardener has promised me a shoot! God has blessed our goings out and our comings in; only see how well I can move my arm; in another week I shall be as well—better than ever. But there is so much misery here—if I were only rich; and there is one man so wretched, who, dressed in a miserable old gray coat, walks about all day amongst the gay and happy—if I only had a little money for him, he should find his health, too, in these glorious baths.”

Thus spoke the old man out of his grateful, child-like soul, and never noticed how little part Dora took in his joy and kind wishes, or how pale she had grown. But the next morning, deeds followed the good pastor’s words. On his return from the bath, he hastened to the garden, and there stood the flower that he so dearly loved, with its magnificent leaves and petals upon which the sun shone, making the dew-drops glitter with a thousand rainbow tints, and on every side bloomed the rarest plants. “Great, indeed, are the works of the Lord,” said the enthusiast, taking off his cap reverently. Just at this moment the old man in the gray coat, his head bent down, and his hands behind him, as usual, passed by. “Ah! Banksia serrata,” murmured the pastor to himself, “no misery should exist where you bloom in such beauty;” and half unconsciously he put his hand into his pocket, drew out his purse, slipped it in the old man’s hand, and then vanished in the crowd. “Now you will have a happy day,” cried he, in his innocent joy; “perhaps it may cure you—who knows.” But now, like the book of the Evangelist, which was first honey and then bitterness, a serious consideration rushed on the mind of the pastor. He had sacrificed upon the altar of humanity far more than half the pittance which was supporting him at the baths, and had barely enough remaining to pay for the journey back to R——. “Theodora,” he said, as he entered their little room, “you must pack up every thing; I have done a foolish thing—my heart ran away with my head; I have given away the twenty dollars that were in the purse, and the purse besides. We must go home in two days at the furthest, if we do not wish to beg our way back.”

“Oh yes,” cried Theodora, bursting into tears, “let us go to-day—as soon as possible!”

“What is the matter, my child?” asked her father, terrified and amazed at her tears.

Ah! unconscious father, while you stood before your beloved flower, and returned thanks to Heaven for its beauty, the heart of your poor child was broken, and the rose of her pure love crushed.

Theodora had been working all the morning in the garden, as usual; but not as usual did Robert appear at the appointed time. In her anxiety at his non-appearance she was not even allowed the blessing of retirement and silence—for the talkative landlady brought a friend to the garden, whom she wished to introduce to the pretty stranger from R——. Now if Robert came, he would have to retreat—for the departure of these gossips was not to be thought of. But he came not; and she was listening in despair to the last stroke of ten o’clock, when a dashing barouche whirled by, containing upon the back seat two gaudily-dressed ladies, between whom sat—Robert.

He boldly threw a kiss to poor Dora, and the ladies, lifting their eye-glasses, honored her with a long stare, followed by a burst of laughter. Theodora grew pale.

“Do you know that man?” asked the landlady; “he is the most dissipated fellow here, and a gambler by profession.”

“And his companions,” added the friend, “are low people from the capital.”

Poor Theodora! with difficulty she kept from falling, but the paleness which overspread her face alarmed the good landlady, who hurried her into the house and administered all kinds of restoratives. When she was alone tears came to her relief—“Ah!” sobbed she, “how could such fair, earnest words come from a heart so vile. But I will pluck this love from my heart, and then farewell peace and hope in this life.”

“Yes, let us go from this dreadful place,” said she to her father when she had told him all; “you are quite well again. And this ring—he gave it to me as a pledge of his truth; take the glowing jewel from me, father dear, it burns into my soul.”

“My poor child,” said her father, “you will indeed be happier in our quiet home; as for this ring, it could only have been given to you by one to whom thousands are as nothing; only by some wretched gambler. And all this mystery that he has preserved. Oh, yes! I see it all. Thank God, my child, that he has delivered you from a gambler, that he has separated your lot from his, for whom there is no love, no home, who can live only in the heated air of the saloon, amidst the despairing cries of the losers and the greedy exclamations of the few whom chance favors! Pack up every thing; the day after to-morrow we will set out for dear, quiet R——, where Heaven will rain down peace upon thy heart, as it has already poured its blessing of health upon me.”

Thus with affectionate words did the father drown, at least, the voice of sorrow in his poor child’s heart, and for the first time, at the approach of evening, she accompanied him into his sanctum, the garden. But the brilliant colors of the flowers pained her with the contrast between them and her own heart. Red is the color of happy love, and ah! Theodora, these are not for thee—there under the weeping-willow blooms thy flower, its leaves are the color of the blue above, and although the faithless waves at its foot are always flowing on, its image is always mirrored in them; so, Theodora, will thy love remain while the river of thy life flows on, and faith will ever repeal in thy heart—“Forget me not.”

“Banksia serrata,” cried her father joyfully, and led her to the beautiful plant. She gazed enchanted. Here was no gaudy mixture of colors, no dazzling brilliancy. Gentleness seemed to breathe in the fragrance wafted from the flower, that heavenly blue—it was her own forget-me-not exalted to honor. Her eyes filled with tears, the sight had comforted her, and she loitered quietly back through the long promenade with her father; outshining in her simple beauty the crowd of fashionables collected there at that hour.

“There he is,” said her father, trying to elude the recipient of his morning’s bounty.

But the old man had seen him, and stepping up to him, growled out—“Sir, a word with you.”

“Go, wait for me there, upon that bench, Dora,” said her father. And she went timidly.

“What,” said the stranger, “is that your daughter? I suppose she is good-for-nothing, but she is a pretty creature, certainly.

“As concerns yourself,” he continued, in broken German, “it would, I suppose, be impolite if I should say, ‘My friend, are you a knave or a fool?’ so I will restrain my curiosity, and only ask how you know me?”

“Sir,” replied the pastor, “I do not know you.”

“Oh, don’t deny it,” said the other; “was it not you who slipped the purse into my hands this morning? You think to plant your grain in fruitful ground. Few here look as ragged as I, but how came you to know of the gold under the rags? But this stupid speculation of yours will never succeed.”

“Sir,” interrupted the pastor, with dignity, “what do you think of your fellow men?”

“The worst,” said the old man; “they are all as good-for-nothing as I am. But you have thrown your money away, which you seem to need yourself.”

“No, I have not thrown it away,” replied the pastor; “you are sick, my friend.”

“I am not your friend; I have no friend.”

“O, wretched indeed are you if you have no friend; then indeed you have nothing. Yes, you are really ill in body and mind. What I could do to cure the disease of the first I have done, and it is not worth speaking of, but to relieve the last I can bring to my aid, though I am very poor, the consolation of sympathy and—religion. I am the Pastor Seidelman, from R——.”

“What! the Pastor Seidelman!” cried the old man; “and that beautiful girl is your daughter?”

“She is,” replied the pastor; “you know nothing of us, but let me know enough of you to afford you all the consolation in my power.”

So saying, he drew the old man to a seat under the lindens, and sat down. His heart, overflowing with gratitude for the blessing of his renewed health, poured itself out toward the stranger in words so full of sympathy that they seemed half to provoke a spark of kindliness in the stranger’s breast.

“By heaven!” he cried, “you are the most endurable man I have yet met with in my wretched life, and ten times better than I. Is it so? Can I find such a thing as a friend?”

“It is certain,” said Seidelman; “I am your friend.”

“But I am a wretched beggar, crazed by the ingratitude with which my native country, England, has sent me helpless out into the world. I can never reward your kindness—I can give you nothing but my misery. Will you still be my friend?”

“Come with us to R——,” cried the pastor, “we are poor, too, but you shall not want loving care, and Theodora shall nurse you.”

“Ah, call the girl here,” said the stranger; and Theodora modestly approached.

The countenance of the old man grew more and more cheerful as he talked with the honest pastor and his lovely daughter. But suddenly he started up, grasped the pastor’s shoulder with trembling hands, and stammered—“I am ill—I must go home.” Then, refusing their offers of assistance, he promised to meet them on the same spot the next day, and was quickly lost in the crowd.

The pastor and his daughter returned to their lodgings, thinking and speaking of nothing but the strange old man.

“We sent him away,” cried the landlady, as she met them at the garden-gate, “he has been here twice; quite pale with terror, but it is good for him.”

“Who?” asked the father.

“Why the gambler, to be sure.” And poor Theodora shrunk into a dark corner of the room.

Her father inquired his name and direction of the landlady, and immediately inclosed the costly ring to him in a note which ran thus:

“Sir—Commissioned by my daughter, Theodora, and with her full countenance, I return to you this ring, of which we have as little need as the honor of your society.”

The next day they hoped again to meet the old man, but he was no where to be found, and even their gossiping landlady knew nothing of him—so they were obliged to give up all hope of seeing him again.

Early on the following morning they set out for their dear home, and as the carriage drove through the avenue of trees before the house, and Theodora in vain endeavored to conceal her fast falling tears, which came so fast at the remembrance of the happiness now fled forever, some one behind them panted out—

“Hold—for Heaven’s sake, stop!”

“Robert!” cried Theodora, and sunk back, almost fainting.

“Drive on,” said her father; and the driver cracked his whip, and the light carriage flew swiftly from its pursuer, whose exclamations were soon lost in the distance.

But just as they reached the extreme end of the village, a dashing vehicle from the opposite direction rattled by. Heavens! there on the back seat, between the two bold, gaudy ladies, sat—the gambler. As the lightning illumines the dark night, did the truth flash upon Theodora’s mind. The faithful lover who had pursued her carriage, and from whom she had so unrelentingly fled, could not be identical with the man whom they had just seen apparently returning from some nightly revel. The resemblance was indeed wonderful, but it was only a resemblance.

“Oh, Robert, Robert!” sobbed the unhappy girl, “how wretched I am.”

“Trust in God, dear child,” said her father; “all is for the best. His ways are not as our ways.”

“Ah! all hope has gone, and I—I alone am guilty!”

Three weeks ago how much happiness the little carriage had contained, but now how dark every thing seemed. Still as they approached the dear home, their sorrow grew milder, and when on the fifth day they were greeted by the patois of their native province, thoughts of their return were uppermost in Theodora’s mind. Her father brought back what he had scarcely dared to hope for in this life, health, and she had some little token for each member of the dear circle. A warm shawl for her mother, the embroidered kerchief for Hermine, a book for Ernst, and a sabre for the young soldier.

And now the white tower of the castle of R—— gleamed in the twilight, and on every side dear familiar objects greeted them. There the pine wood, and now over the forget-me-not brook under the hanging-boughs of the willows around the mill, and they were in the village. And what a joyful welcome awaited them here. “It is our dear pastor,” resounded from all sides, caps were waved, and hands thrust into the carriage windows. The pastor bowed right and left with emotion, but as the carriage drove by the church he uncovered his venerable head, and a grateful prayer gushed from his overflowing heart.

As they turned the corner, and the peaceful parsonage embowered in its magnificent trees stood before them, mother and children came hastening to meet them with cries of joy. “Children,” cried the pastor, “it has all gone!—you need no longer creep round so quietly, and try not to touch me. Come here! and pinch me, I am really well again, and we must thank the dear Lord and Theodora for it.”

“Oh dear sister! O father! mother! brother!” sounded on all sides, and there was no end to the joyful welcome. And the noise and glee all began anew when the trunks were unpacked, and the presents produced. And the questions and answers! Paul wished particularly to know how many lions and tigers his father had seen on the journey. Hermine, how the ladies in A—— were dressed, and the mother what they had for dinner. All were satisfied, and went happy to bed.

But the morning came, the day passed, and in the evening there wandered in the park unhappy love. But Theodora suffered no longer in secret, her mother’s heart and her father’s kind words offered healing to her wounded soul, although she felt that for her there was no happiness left. On the sixth day the post brought a letter for Theodora. She handed it tremblingly to her father, and sank upon a seat, while her father read aloud to her, as follows—

“Theodora, my Theodora, I am the happiest of mortals! Wherever I turn I see nothing but happiness and joy. The sky is clear and blue above me, and you love me and will always love me. You have repelled me, but indeed you knew me not. You have left my ring in the hands of vice, but how could you know it? Did I not myself doubt my own identity when I first saw him? Is not that vile fellow, Rodel, my perfect double? But all is right again, and I have your ring upon my finger. Hear how it all came about. The day after you left, I went to the promenade overwhelmed with agony at your departure, and your manner toward me. There I saw the detestable gambler, Rodel, and a ray of light from his finger caught my eye. I looked at it more attentively—it was the very ring that I had given you. I felt that I must instantly know how he came by it, and perhaps it would unravel the mystery.

“‘Sir,’ said I, turning to him, ‘you have a fine stone there.’

“‘Do you like it?’ said the fellow with assumed nonchalance, ‘ma foi, it does not look amiss, and from a fair one too.’

“‘I controlled myself, followed him to his room, and stepping up to him, said coldly and seriously—

“‘Mr. Rodel, be pleased to tell me upon this spot how you came by that ring.’

“‘En vÉritÉ mon enfant,’ laughed he, ‘you are very amusing, but I am not in a joking humor, what do you want of me?’

“‘The ring,’ replied I, ‘and an open confession of how you came by it.’

“‘I can easily tell you that, the more readily as I think you already guess the truth. I received it from my lady fair, Miss Theodora S——. Ah! my dear fellow, she is un morceau de prince.’

“Your name, dear love, sounded to my heart like a thunderclap, but only because such lips dared to pronounce it, for I never for an instant supposed that he owed the ring to any thing but some miserable fraud. Without allowing myself to be outwardly disturbed by the man’s impudence, ‘no more of this,’ I said, ‘give me the ring this moment, or I will immediately inform Gen. B—— of the ingenious trick by which he lost his two thousand louis d’ors yesterday. You may have seen me before? I have also seen you, and although yesterday it was none of my business, and I did not feel myself called upon to act as guardian to your dupes, to-day the office suits me exactly. So choose—the ring, and an explanation, or the general’s whip, and my pistols.’ Pale and trembling, the wretch drew the ring from his finger and handed it to me with your father’s note. I hastened away with my heart filled with happiness. All was clear to me—only your grief in being so deceived troubled me. No, my Theodora, I am not unworthy of you. Tell every thing to your father, and commend me to his love. I would write to him but I cannot. Yes, Theodora, there is mystery still, the time for explanation is not yet arrived, but I can see nothing but joy in store for us. Trust in my fervent eternal love as I trusted in yours. It is impossible for you to answer this, for you do not know where I am; I, myself do not know where I may be to-morrow. But soon I shall be with you, never to leave you but to be always your own,

Robert.”

Theodora’s eyes now sparkled with love and joy, but her father silently folded the letter again and gave it to her.

“How, father?” she asked, “you say nothing!”

“What can I say?” replied her father. “He has acted nobly, and that he really loves you is clear to me. But, beware my child, the tempter goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.”

But a new life had begun for Theodora. She soon knew the dear letter by heart, and thought only of his return. Thus a week passed away, and another, when the post again brought a letter for her father, marked private.

“From my dear friend, Dr. S——, of the springs at A——, said he, as he locked himself into his study, and seating himself in his arm-chair, read the following—

It was long before the worthy pastor became convinced that all this was no dream, but when the reality burst upon him, he folded his hands, and his heart was filled with love and gratitude to God. “But,” said he to himself, “how can I keep all this from my dear Catharine? Heaven grant that that for the first time in my life I may keep my tongue between my teeth, and not betray every thing as my old friend here has done.”

“Father,” said his wife at supper, “your face shines like Moses, when he came down from the mount. What did the doctor write about?”

“Oh!—he—why of course about every thing that is going on at the springs, about the flowers, and my Banksia serrata.”

“And nothing,” asked Theodora, “of the old man and—and—”

“Why, what should he know of them?” said her father. “Doubtless the young fellow has forgotten our existence, dear Dora, but don’t be troubled, we are so happy here.” And then he bit his lips, and swallowed the secret as best he could, and as he was obliged to do fifty times a day.

Thus the autumn passed, the winter came, and with it that joyous time, which, for the sake of the dear child born long ago in Bethlehem, makes children of us all. But no news of the absent ones; only the intelligence from the capital that the count had sold his castle of R——, and that the new lord would take possession at Christmas.

“Well, well,” said the pastor, “the new lord can hardly be worse than the old one, and very easily better and more generous, so we may in future have a merrier Christmas than this will be, for this time, children, affairs look rather gloomy.”

“Ah! we know, father,” cried the joyous children. “You always say so—you always try to frighten us with the idea of no Christmas, but it always turns out well. Didn’t Ursula slip in yesterday evening, at the back-door, with a splendid Christmas tree? We didn’t see it, to be sure, but we heard it. And didn’t mother and Dora gild the apples and nuts, and cut out the stars yesterday evening? You thought we were in bed, but we peeped.”

“Well, well,” laughed their father; “to-morrow will be Christmas-eve, and of course you will go to bed bright and early, that you may be up in time the next morning.”

“No, no,” shouted the children; “to-morrow evening is just the time when the Christ-child comes to us. Have we not just seen Ursula making our Christmas-cake? Oh, dear, angel of a father, we will be so good.”

The next day all without was dreary and stormy; the heavy snow-flakes fell all day long, but within it was bright and cheerful. Ursula had swept and dusted every nook and corner of the house, and the fires all burned brightly. In the study the father and mother were busy all the morning; the children, meanwhile, looked wisely at one another, and tried to keep back the smiles that would dimple out every moment.

At three o’clock, according to the custom of the house, the holyday began. The fragrance of the fresh Christmas-cake was wafted through the house, mother and children were all dressed in their holyday attire, and the father, easy and happy that the morrow’s sermon was prepared, sat and smoked in his arm-chair. At four o’clock Theodora came in from the gardener’s, where she had been in all the storm to carry a slice of the Christmas-cake, with the intelligence that strangers had arrived at the village inn.

This news made the good pastor restless, and after pacing up and down the room, he went to the window, and rubbing the moisture from the pane, looked out. And there, just round the corner, crept the old man in the gray coat, with his hands behind him, as formerly, and he walked up the steps and knocked at the door. “Courage,” said the pastor to himself, and hastened out to meet him.

“Here I am,” said the old man, in a hollow voice, his looks bent on the ground, “I have fortunately arrived here at last, but I am weary and ill, and I have no one to pity me. Do you remember your kind words; will you take me in? What! No reply?”

The honest pastor could not reply. This was what he had so long looked forward to, and now he was really grieved that the kind heart of the old man could not enjoy the brief pleasure of his little surprise. But as he stood silently there, the old man raised his eyes, met that look of love and sorrow, and threw himself into his arms.

“No,” cried he, “no longer bent with age, but erect and strong—away with dissimulation! O my benefactor, I am—”

“Stay!” interrupted the pastor, “there shall indeed be no dissembling in this happy moment. Sir William C——, I know you. The doctor wrote me all about you.”

“Take me, then, to your wife and children; they are mine, you are mine, but you must take me for payment, and keep me for the rest of my life.”

“Hush!” said the pastor, “my wife and children know nothing of the secret, now see what they will say. Come in, dear guest, come in.”

“Ah!” cried Theodora, joyfully, “our old man from A——.”

The children gathered round, the mother welcomed him cordially, and seated him in the arm-chair by the bright fire.

Speechless he looked round upon them all, but kept Theodora’s hand in his while his gaze rested with evident satisfaction upon her lovely face.

“Light the colored Christmas candles, Catharine,” said the father, “and seat yourselves all round the table.”

Then he opened his desk, took from it the doctor’s letter, stroked his wife’s cheek, and said—

“Ah, Catharine, all this has weighed upon me like a mountain, but now all that I know, you, dear ones, shall know, too, and our guest here shall tell us whether it be true or no.”

And then he read the doctor’s letter. Let whoever can, imagine the variety of emotions that overcame all the listeners; the astonishment of the mother, the gentle emotion of the guest, the alternate red and white that overspread Theodora’s cheek, and the delight of the little ones.

“Here I am, dear ones,” said the old man, at the end of the reading, “and here I shall stay, in dear, cheerful Germany.”

“Where then is—is—” stammered Theodora.

But just then the door was flung open, and there stood Robert, his eyes beaming with love and joy.

“Oh, Robert! my Robert!” she cried, and would have rushed toward him, but overcome by her happiness, she sank into her mother’s arms. The old man took his son’s hand, and turning to the pastor, said,

“May I woo your daughter for my noble son?”

“May I,” continued Robert, “be your son, O, dear friend?”

“And may I say,” interrupted his father, “that I have bought the castle yonder, and that I beg your daughter’s acceptance of it as a bridal gift?”

“My son! my daughter!” cried the weeping parents, and embraced the lovers, while the children crowded round the old man.

“But now for supper!” cried the pastor, “if there is any one here who can ever eat again; and, mamma, pray see that it is a real Christmas feast.”

And then they seated themselves round the table, and the old man, looking round upon the happy faces about him, told how he had finished the tour of Italy, and had determined to live for the rest of his life in beautiful Germany. Then raising his glass, he drank a heartfelt toast to them all. “And I have ordered every thing for your comfort at the castle at Lee & Hammersmith’s, London; and for you, dear friend,” turning to the pastor, “the choicest collection of plants will arrive shortly.”

“Oh, heaven!” sighed the pastor, “How have I deserved this—the Banksia serrata, Plumeria, and divine Strelitzia.”

“How?” said his guest, holding up the purse which Seidelman had slipped into his hand at the springs; “see your twenty dollars here—the purse shall always remain in the family, and our posterity shall read what is embroidered upon it—‘Charity brings interest.’ But what makes the little ones so restless?”

“Ah!” said their father, “they want to go to bed;” and he and his wife quietly left the room.

“No, no!” cried the children, “now the holy child is coming, wait until we hear his little bell, and then we shall go, and you, brother Robert, and all.”

And soon the longed-for bell sounded, the children rushed into the study, and bore along the older ones with them.

There was the Christmas heaven before them, with its shining lights and stars. Theodora sprang forward to take from the table her new white dress, and forgot her castle. Hermine danced round her new work-box, Ernst round his tool-chest, and Paul was immediately absorbed with his terrific cannon, and new troops of soldiers.

The mother, coming behind the pastor, slipped on him his new dressing-gown, and he uncovered the corner of the table, where were her pretty slippers and muff.

“O, ye happy ones,” said Sir William, with tears of real feeling, “how easy would it be for me to cover this table with gold, and say, ‘Take it—it is all yours,’ but could it give you one moment of the happiness that these simple gifts of love afford you. O let me be a child with you!”

“Yes, yes, we will all be children,” cried they, and embraced each other, while the pastor raised his eyes to heaven, and blessed them, saying, “Of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

———

BY A. J. REQUIER.

———

———

BY ERASTUS W. ELLSWORTH.

———

WORDS BY

GEORGE LINLEY.

COMPOSED BY

W. V. WALLACE.

SUNG BY

MISS CATHARINE HAYES.

Published by permission of Lee & Walker, 162 Chestnut Street,

Publishers and Importers of Music and Musical Instruments.

It would be easy to select many more illustrations of this unconscious imitation, proving, not that Mr. Stoddard is a borrower, but that he is not on his guard against the magnetic power of other minds, exercised as it is through the most subtile avenues of mental influence. It should be his ambition not to differ in degree from the poets he loves, but to differ in kind. It is better to be Stoddard than to be a Tennysonian, especially, as in the present case, when Stoddard contains within himself the elements of a new individuality in letters, with a force and flavor and fragrance of his own.

We have been thus prolix and minute in characterizing some of the peculiarities of this volume, because we are convinced that the author is a man of genius, and has a right to be tried by laws of criticism severer than those which apply to the common run of versifiers. But we are not insensible to the excellencies of the poems; willingly plead guilty to the charge of having read the volume with delight, and trust that we shall entice many of our readers into the same pleasant employment. They evince thought, sentiment, fancy, imagination, delicacy and depth of nature; every thing but directing will and a broad perception of the true poetical relations of the ideal and the actual; and these will come with the growth of his mind, and a larger and more genial experience of life. We had marked many passages to illustrate our idea both of his merits and his defects, but we have no space at present to quote them. The gorgeous “Castle in the Air,” the leading poem in the volume, would furnish many a splendid example of the fluency and fertility of his genius. “The Witch’s Whelp” is an original conception of a different kind. The Songs and Sonnets, toward the close of the volume, are perhaps, the most individual and essentially original poems of the collection, and some of them display uncommon subtilty and sharpness of mental vision.

Bayard Taylor’s peculiarities as a poet are the same which have won him so much popularity as a man, and refer to his character as well as his mind. Fine, however as is the impression conveyed by his numerous prose works, we think that no reader can carefully peruse the present volume without feeling that the best embodiment of the man is in these poems. They are thoroughly genuine, recording the thoughts and aspirations nearest and dearest to the author’s heart and brain, and o’erinformed with the life of a thoughtful, imaginative and genial nature. Some of them are darkened by a recent affliction, and to those friends who know how deep and acute that affliction was, they can hardly be read without tears. But the majority of the poems express the essential happiness of the author’s spirit, and communicate happiness to the reader. That descriptive power, which has made him one of the most fascinating of modern writers of travels, is of course active in the present volume in its most exquisite form. Indeed, as a poet, he does not so much describe as represent scenery, picturing it forth to the imagination in words and images which seem the mental counterparts of the objects before his eye. As a descriptive poet alone, he would rank high among contemporary authors, but he is also a close and subtle observer of the operations of thought and passion, as modified by individual character, and numerous pieces in this volume indicate intensity and concentration of thought, exercised on some of the most elusive and etherial laws and facts of the spiritual nature. In addition to all this, his style of expression is pure, energetic and picturesque, and varies readily with his themes. The best poem in the volume, and one which we think has good pretensions to be ranked with American classics, is “Man-da-Min, or the Romance of the Maize,” an Indian legend of great beauty, and, in Taylor’s version, exquisite in idea and masterly in execution. “Hylas,” “Taurus,” “The Summer Camp,” “The Odalisque,” “The Pine Forest of Monterey,” and “The Waves,” are likewise of great merit, and exhibit the variety as well as power of the author’s mind. Cordially do we wish success to this volume, and trust that Taylor will live to write, and we to welcome many like it.

The American public have become so accustomed to Mr. Putnam’s enterprise, that they may not be surprised even by this splendid example of it—a volume essentially American, yet in engravings, letter-press, and general execution equal to the best English annuals, and in the merits of its literary matter far superior to them. The cost and trouble of getting up the book may be conceived, when we mention that the pictures from which the exquisite illustrations of the volume are engraved, are scattered among many collectors, and that the execution of the plates exhibits the utmost skill and finish which the art of engraving has reached in America. The essays which accompany the engravings are by what old Jacob Tonson called “eminent hands.” Irving contributes a paper on the “Catskill Mountains,” which seems like an essay accidently left out of the “Sketch Book,” and is certainly worthy of a place among the most charming productions of his genius. Cooper’s article on “American and European Scenery,” is a carefully meditated and attractive disquisition on a subject which has occasioned endless discussion, but which was never treated so thoroughly and temperately before. Tuckerman’s “Over the Mountains” is an admirable essay. “Scenery and Mind,” by Magoun, is the most eloquent, thoughtful, scholarly and tasteful of his productions. Willis contributes a brilliant and sensible paper on “The Highland Terrace,” in his most fascinating style. The artists whose landscapes make the beauty of the volume, are Durand, Huntington, Beekwith, Talbot, Kensett, Cropsey, Richards, Church, Weir, Cole and Gignoux.

Altogether, the volume is the best exhibition of American art in connection with American literature we have ever seen, and must take the lead among the gift-books of the season.

The author of this curious and attractive volume is well-known as the English editor of Swedenborg’s works, and the writer of Swedenborg’s life, and, in the opinion of Emerson, is “a philosophic critic, with a co-equal vigor of understanding and imagination comparable only to Lord Bacon’s.” Without attempting to discuss the accuracy of this opinion, which is at least the result of a study of Mr. Wilkinson’s whole works, it is sufficient to say here that the author of this volume is one of the most vivid, pointed and striking writers of the century; and that, however solid or doubtful may be his pretensions to great scientific merits, there can be no doubt of the brilliancy of his rhetoric and the fertility of his intellect in original thoughts. A review of the present work we do not intend to give, but simply recommend it to all readers as a powerful, independent, suggestive and stimulating book, lifting the study of anatomy and physiology into a fine art, and abounding with new views both of the body and the mind. The chief peculiarity of Mr. Wilkinson seems to us to be a singular vigor and audacity of will, in some cases running into offensive dogmatism, but generally exercised in freeing his intellect from the trammels both of accredited skepticisms and authorities, and in stamping his own opinions with such force upon the mind of the reader, as to create himself into a kind of authority. There is muscular health and strength in every sentence of his remarkable book, and a seeming gladness in the exercise of his faculties which is wonderfully inspiring to the reader.

Hawthorne may have written more powerful stories than those contained in this volume, but none so truly delightful. The spirit of the book is so essentially sunny and happy, that it creates a jubilee in the brain as we read. It is intended for children, but let not the intention cheat men and women out of the pleasure they will find in its sparkling and genial pages. The stories are told by a certain Eustice Bright to a mob of children, whose real names the author suppresses, but whom he re-baptizes with the fairy appellation of Primrose, Periwinkle, Sweet Fern, Dandelion, Blue-Eye, Clover, Huckleberry, Cowslip, Squash-blossom, Milk-weed, Plantain and Butter-cup. The individuality of these little creatures is happily preserved, especially in the criticisms and applications they make after each story is told; and the reader parts with them unwillingly, and with the hope (which the author should not disappoint) of resuming their acquaintance in another volume. The stories, six in number, are classical myths, re-cast to suit the author’s purpose, and told with exquisite grace, simplicity and playfulness. The book will become the children’s classic, and, to our taste, is fairly the best of its kind in English literature. It is a child’s story-book informed with the finest genius.

This volume is all alive and glowing with the fiery characteristics of Mr. Herbert’s genius, while it has at the same time the best results of his earnest, independent thinking, and profound and accurate scholarship. The title sufficiently declares its purpose, and its execution is worthy of the theme. It gives a most animated account of the Greek and Roman tactics and military organization, and of the lives of the great ancient commanders, commencing with Miltiades and ending, for the present, with Hannibal. Themistocles, Pausanius, Xenophon, Epaminondas and Alexander, are learnedly and eloquently sketched, and parallels are drawn between them and the celebrated captains of modern times, in which the author shows a knowledge of military science as well as his usual power of vivid painting. The work is dedicated to Professor Felton, of Harvard University. It cannot fail to have that wide circulation which it so eminently merits, for it happily combines elements of interest which will recommend it equally to scholars and the mass of readers.

This is one of the most powerful of Carlyle’s many productions, and, as a biography, is to be ranked among the best in English literature. It bristles as usual with the author’s harsh scorn of every thing he is pleased to call cant, falsehood, and moonshine; but there are glimpses in it of deep and genuine tenderness, and, of all his works, it best indicates the humanity of the man. The mental characteristics of Sterling himself, are drawn with a loving and friendly yet discriminating pencil, and the few events of his life are narrated with singular skill. The sketches of Sterling’s friends and contemporaries, especially the portrait of Coleridge, add much to the interest of the volume. There are specimens also of a sort of savage humor equal to Carlyle’s best efforts in that kind. The style, though full of vigor and flashing with imagery, is as craggy and uneven as ever; exhibiting, in the constant recurrence of a few slang words, how formal after all is this inveigher against formulas, and how his hatred of affectation becomes itself a sort of cant. But the soul of the book is sound and manly; and no one can read it without feeling that he has been in communion with a deep and great, if somewhat embittered nature.

These volumes belong to a series of six, each complete in itself, under the general title of “Putnam’s Home Cyclopedia.” They will be found very useful and valuable to all classes of readers, containing a vast amount of classified information in the most compact form. The Hand-Book of the Useful Arts should be in the possession of every mechanic in the country. The Universal Biography, by Parke Godwin, is based on Maunder’s book on the same subject, but re-written, extended, corrected, and in every way improved. The whole series will make an invaluable library of reference. Each volume contains some eight or nine hundred closely printed pages.

The idea of this valuable volume is taken from a remark of Hallam on Charles Martel’s victory over the invading Saracens, which he calls one of “those few battles, of which a contrary event would have essentially varied the drama of the world in all its subsequent scenes.” Mr. Creasy is Professor of History in University College, London, and is well fitted to do justice to his great theme. The battles described are Marathon, Syracuse, Arbela, and Metaurus; the victory of Arminius over the Roman legions under Varus; the battles of Chalons, Tours, and Hastings; Joan of Arc’s victory at Orleans, the defeat of the Spanish Armada, and the battles of Blenheim, Pultowa, Saratoga, Valmy, and Waterloo. The execution of the work is excellent. The liberality of the author’s mind is indicated by his lofty conception of the power and the mission of the United States, given in the introductory remarks to his description of the battle of Saratoga.

These beautiful little volumes are designed for children, and are admirably adapted for their purpose of delighting the young. The stories display ingenuity of invention, and a talent for reaching the minds of children of no ordinary character. The engravings are uncommonly well executed. Those in Ticknor & Co.’s books are from designs by Billings.

A capital volume, designed chiefly for academies and schools, but containing matter more important to readers in general than even to school-boys. It is a work in which the leading principles of chemistry are familiarly explained, and applied to the arts, agriculture, physiology, dietetics, ventilation, and the phenomena of nature. The writer is well qualified for his task, for he seems perfectly to comprehend the ignorance of the majority of readers on the subjects he explains, and accordingly directs his explanations primarily to exactly those principles which require illustration, before the mind is fitted to take in their applications.

This volume contains the lives of Mary of Lorraine, the second queen of James V., and Lady Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lenox. These biographies are quite able and interesting, giving vivid pictures of Scottish feuds, life, and manners in the sixteenth century, and exhibiting considerable research into the interior history of the time. The next volume will, we presume, be devoted to Mary, Queen of Scots.

Addison’s Sir Roger is as universally known and appreciated as any creation of the comic genius of England; but the papers in the Spectator which refer to him have never before been collected in a volume by themselves. This is done in the present delightful work, and we commend it to our readers as a gem both of typography and genius.

This work abounds with the finest touches of the author’s satirical pencil, and for close observation of life, is worthy of the fame of the author of “Vanity Fair.” The accompanying illustrations are from drawings made upon the spot by the author, and are, some of them, ludicrous enough.

Crosby and Nichols, of Boston, have sent us some eight or ten delightful little story-books for children, to which we call the attention of parents in these holyday times.

Dentistry.—Our attention has recently been called to the very superior mechanical execution of full sets of teeth, manufactured by a young townsman of ours—J. Sothoron Gilliams, Esq.—which in all respects surpass any thing of the kind we have elsewhere observed. Doctor Gilliams, however, brings to the practice of his profession, not only the nice observation of years of the superior skill of his father, but also a thorough medical education and assiduous attention to the mechanical arrangement and finish of his labors. It is a mistaken notion—but one that is common—to suppose, that a poor shoemaker or an indifferent tailor may make a very tolerable dentist, and we are sure that a few more examples of thorough education for the practice of the profession, such as Dr. Gilliams has secured, will do much to send adrift the vast army of pretenders and quacks who now torture and fleece humanity as surgeon dentists. It is strange, that while no man would thoughtlessly put a horse into the hands of one of these fellows, yet people are to be found who will allow them to afflict and disfigure the mouths of their daughters with perfect indifference. We trust, however, that among the many thousands who read “Graham” none will hereafter suffer themselves to be duped by ignorant pretenders, with high-sounding titles, while gentlemen of education and superior skill—but who modestly keep silent—are in the midst of us.

The Volume for 1852.—Our readers will see from the style in which the January number is put forth, that we are in earnest for 1852 in our efforts to render “Graham” superior as a work of literature and art. The plan marked out and indicated in our prospectus of greatly increasing the literary matter of each number, we shall resolutely adhere to, and as we claim the merit of first suggesting and adopting the change, we trust that those who partially follow us in January, will not grow weary in well-doing as soon as the subscriptions have been made up for the year.

How far our readers may have opportunities of observing the practice of some publishers, who fill sheets with promises which are never thought of after the January number is issued, we cannot say—but we now ask some little attention to the matter for 1852.

Transcriber’s Notes:

Table of Contents has been added for reader convenience. Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Obvious typesetting and punctuation errors have been corrected without note. Other errors have been corrected as noted below. For illustrations, some caption text may be missing or incomplete due to condition of the originals available for preparation of the eBook.

[End of Graham’s Magazine, Vol. XL, No. 1, January 1852]