Various

At the distance of fifteen miles from the encampment of the Saukies, and on the same stream, was a small post, belonging to the Canadian North-West Company of that day. As was usual in that region, it was surrounded with a stockade, as a protection against any sudden attack of the Indians. The force within consisted principally of voyageurs, trappers, hunters, and, in fine, of men of such avocations as were connected with the fur trade, then in its highest stage of prosperity. The gentleman in charge was a Mr. Hughes, for many years subsequently, and even at this day, one of the British superintendents of Indian affairs. Besides the buildings which composed the post, there was a good deal of spare ground, which had been alloted for the security of horses and cattle, embraced within the picketings. Around this place the ground was denuded of trees, and nothing but a mass of shapeless stumps was to be seen extending for nearly half a mile in every way, except toward the front, which was bounded by the stream which divides it from the woods on the opposite bank.

One evening, late at night, an Indian was seen approaching and driving before him a number of horses, tied by strings of bark, and so disposed as to keep up the order of what is called the Indian file. Three stout Canadians were sitting on a sort of elevated platform, which served as a look-out over the stockade, one cutting with a great clasp knife a piece of fat pork upon his bread, that served him as a substitute for a plate; a second puffing a cloud of smoke from a long handled black stone pipe; and the third lying on his back with his knees drawn up, and singing one of those plaintive boat songs which were peculiar to the Canadian voyageur of the commencement of the present century.

“I say, Baptiste, cease that refrain of yours and listen,” said the man who was eating his supper of pork, and who evidently was at that moment on duty as look-out. “I am sure I hear the tramp of horses—and sure enough it is them. See how they come, in file, like a string of dried peaches. I’ll bet the best beaver I shoot or trap to-morrow, that scoundrel Filou, the Chippewa, has been at his old work again and stolen a lot.”

Baptiste finished his singing, as directed, jumped to his feet, and looked in the direction in which his companions had turned their gaze. There was a mass of something moving, but whether men or horses the night was too dark to enable him to distinguish with accuracy.

“Parbleu!” said the man who was smoking, “we had better tell the master. The Saukies are not over friendly to us, and it may be a party of them stealing upon us, in the hope of catching us napping.”

“Bah! Latour,” returned the man of the watch, “the Saukies don’t make so much noise when they move. It’s horses’ hoofs we hear, and not the feet of men. A bottle of whisky to a blanket it’s Filou with a fresh prize.”

“The odds are certainly long you give,” said Le Marie, after he had delivered himself of a prolonged puff; “but, sure enough, it is a gang of horses, and that’s devilish like the Chippewa, who rides the first and leads the remainder.”

All doubt was soon at rest, by the well-known voice of the Chippewa asking for admission for himself and horses into the stockade.

“Comment!” said Le Marie, “do you take me for a blancbec, to suppose I shall do any thing of the sort? You have stolen those horses, Filou, and no good will ever come to us if we let them in here.”

“Ask captin,” said the Chippewa, in a tone that denoted he expected his application to be made known to that responsible officer.

The moment was a critical one. The Saukie Indians, as has been before stated, had manifested a hostile feeling toward the inmates of the post, and the avoidance of offense had been strictly enjoined, as a matter of policy, upon the people of the establishment. Filou, more than all the others, knew of the position and means of defense of the stockade, and therefore it became particularly a matter of precaution not to offend him.

“Take the rascal’s message to the chief, Baptiste, and know if he is to be admitted or not.”

In a few minutes Captain Hughes, in no very good humor, made his appearance at the look-out, and seeing the large train of horses which the rascal had stolen, told him, decidedly, that he himself might come into the fort if he chose to leave his plunder behind him; but that the latter must remain without.

The Chippewa grumbled a good deal at this decision, told him that he had lost a good horse, and finally decided on remaining without himself and keeping watch over the animals.

The night passed away, and it was about an hour before dawn when the report of a rifle was heard, and soon afterward a second, from a greater distance. Aroused from their slumbers, Captain Hughes and his people instantly rose and repaired to the look-out, where the drowsy sentinel was just awakening from his sleep, and were accosted from without by the Chippewa, who told them, with an alarmed air, that the enemy were stealing upon them, and earnestly craved admittance for himself and horses. This request, after some little hesitation on the part of Captain Hughes, was granted. His people were kept on the alert during the remainder of the night, but nothing was to be seen that could justify an alarm. Toward morning, however, Captain Hughes resolved to go forth with a party and reconnoitre. He insisted that the Chippewa, who was extremely unwilling to move, should accompany them, and point out the direction whence the firing proceeded. In vain he pleaded that he was tired and wanted rest. They compelled him to lead the way.

Until the day began to dawn, every thing was dark in the extreme—so much so, indeed, that the undenuded stumps which, scorched and blackened by fire, had been left to complete their natural decay, were scarcely visible; but as the mists of night cleared away, the opening of the forest, about a mile distant from the stockade, was distinctly seen, and all eyes were turned toward it, as though to a place of danger.

“Hush!” said Le Marie, who the next after the Chippewa headed the party, making a sign for them at the time to stop. “There is no enemy there,” he said, “but one, and him I should very much like to put a bullet into. Look! don’t you see that white bear?”

The whole party looked attentively, and distinctly saw the skin of a white bear, but its actions were so erratic that none could account for the singular attitudes into which it appeared to throw itself.

“I’ll soon stop his dancing,” said Le Marie, as he raised his ride, “and if I don’t finish him, Baptiste, you can follow my shot on the instant.”

“Stop!” said Captain Hughes, striking down the leveled rifle; “pretty eyes for voyageurs and hunters, you have. Don’t you see that it is only the loose skin of a white bear, and that there is some one waving it toward us as a signal?”

“Parbleu, so it is!” said Le Marie, doggedly, for he was annoyed, priding himself, as he did, on his keenness of sight as a hunter, that the captain should have noticed his mistake.

As they drew nearer, they could make out, just within the skirt of the wood, an Indian, reclining against a tree, and waving toward them, as a signal, the skin of a grizzly bear. Close at his side, and leaning her head upon her hands, was a woman.

The party approached, still headed by the Chippewa. When they had arrived within a few yards, the stranger Indian drew up his body, seated as he was, to his full height, and looking indignantly at the Chippewa, said:

“That is the man who shot me. The eye of Wawandah is good, and he can tell his enemy even in the dark.”

“How is this?” asked Captain Hughes, turning to the horse stealer. “You, then, fired the shot which you pretended to me was that of an enemy approaching the fort.”

The Chippewa for a moment was confused, but soon he replied, sullenly:

“He came to steal my horses; he had taken two of them, and was going off when I fired. He fired again, but his ball went into a stump at my side. Was I right?”

“Never come near the fort again,” said Captain Hughes, angrily, for he was interested in the condition of the noble featured youth. “You are a black-hearted villain. You steal horses in droves; and because another deprives you of one or two, you take his life.”

The eye of Wawandah brightened as he listened to the words of Captain Hughes, which were, of course, spoken in Indian. “Wah!” he exclaimed, “I did not steal—I only exchanged horses. Those I left were better than those I was going to take. They were fresher than my own—I wanted them. But,” he added, fiercely, “I am not going to die by his hand—he shall not dance over my scalp. Sunflower,” he asked, after a moment’s pause, “do you love me still, now that I am going to die and leave you without a home?”

Deep sobs came from the bosom of the unhappy and guilty woman. She bent her head over him, and said, gently:

“Oh, should I be here did I not love you, Wawandah?”

“Good!” he answered, pressing her vehemently to his heart. “It is sweet to me to hear the Sunflower say that she loves the dying Wawandah. The white chief will take care of you when I am dead.”

“If Wawandah dies, the Sunflower will die too. She cannot live without him. Her heart is too full to live alone.”

“No, no!” he replied. “The white chief will go with you to the White Bear. He will say that I am very sorry for the wrong I have done him, and that the last prayer of Wawandah, who has been so ungrateful to him, is, that he will take back his wife—the sweetest flower of the Saukie tribe.”

The Sunflower raised her drooping head, and looked Wawandah steadily in the face for some moments. She made no remark, but resumed the same desponding attitude.

Summoning all his remaining strength—for life was fast ebbing away—the Indian now stretched himself to the utmost tension of his body, and, shouting out the war-cry of his tribe, drew his knife and plunged it into his heart—then fell back and expired.

For some moments the Sunflower lay as one unconscious on the bleeding body of the ill fated Wawandah; then raising herself up, she revealed her face, the extreme paleness of which was visible even beneath the dark hue of her skin. She asked the Chippewa to come near her, that she might communicate to him a message for the White Bear, offering her silver arm bands as the price of his service.

The cupidity of the Chippewa, more than any remorse he felt, or desire to assist the Sunflower, induced him to approach and receive the trinkets and the message; but while he was busily engaged in securing that which was on her left arm, the Sunflower suddenly drew the knife from the body of her husband and plunged it into the heart of the Chippewa, to whom she owed all the bitterness of her fate. He fell dead at the feet of Wawandah, and before Captain Hughes, or any of his party, had time to prevent her, or even to understand her intention, she raised herself to her feet with the reeking knife in her hand, and killed herself with a single and unfaltering blow.

Deeply shocked and pained by this lamentable catastrophe, Captain Hughes caused his men to cut litters with their axes and carry the bodies to the fort. No one felt regret for the just punishment of the Chippewa; but the fate of the unhappy lovers created a deep sympathy in the hearts of all—the more so from the surpassing personal beauty of both. Two graves were dug—one inside and the other on the outside of the stockade. In the first was placed a rude coffin, lined with a buffalo skin, which Captain Hughes had substituted for that of the grizzly bear, were placed the bodies of Wawandah and the Sunflower. A sort of mound was then raised over it, and at the head was stuck a short pole, the top of which, for about twelve inches, was painted red. The Chippewa was thrown unceremoniously, and without coffin, into the grave that had been dug for him outside.

Some time afterward Captain Hughes, having occasion to visit the encampment of the Shawnees, on a subject connected with the differences then existing between them and the North-West Company, took the opportunity of communicating to the White Bear all that he knew relating to the flight and death of the unfortunate Sunflower and Wawandah; adding to the detail the account of the sepulchral rites he had caused to be accorded to them.

The chief, a good deal emaciated and of much sterner look than when last introduced to the reader, at first heard him with grave and imperturbable silence. But when he came to that part of his narrative which described the remorse of Wawandah for the injury he had done him, a tear, vainly sought to be hidden by a sudden motion of the head, stole down his cheek.

“Will my brother smoke?” he said abruptly, handing him his pipe, while he, with the disengaged hand, pressed that of Captain Hughes with the utmost cordiality.

“Listen, my brother,” he said, after a pause. “You have done well to the White Bear. His wigwam is empty without the Sunflower, who used to shed light upon his hearth. Joy no more can enter it. The White Bear is alone among the rest of his tribe, like a blasted pine in the midst of a green forest; but it does good to his heart to hear the son of his friend—the broken-hearted one that he took into his lodge to soothe and to heal—was sorry that he stole the flower of his heart, and left but a thorn in its place. The White Bear is sorry for them both; but they were young and foolish, and dearly have they been punished. I forgive them, brother,” again extending his hand, “and I love the white chief, who did not leave their bodies to be devoured by the wolves, but buried them as the White Bear would have them buried. I am glad too that you treated the Chippewa as a dog, without any sign to mark where he lays. I feel that many moons will not pass over me; but while they do, I will live less unhappy at my loss, and ever love the white chief.”

Thus terminated their interview; and Captain Hughes heard, not one month later, of the death of the White Bear.

---

———

BY MRS. JULIA C. R. DORR.

———

In the late Hungarian struggle, Count Batthyany was taken prisoner by the Austrians. He was sentenced to be hung, and his wife sent him a dagger, that, by taking his own life, he might escape the ignominy of such a death.

I send a precious gift to thee,

My own, my honored love—

A gift that well I know thou’lt prize,

All gifts of earth above.

’Tis meet and right that it should be

The rarest—’tis the last!

Alas! how o’er me rushes now

The memory of the past!

Do you remember, love, the time

When first within mine ear

Thy deep voice breathed the earnest words

My soul rejoiced to hear?

I gave thee then my heart’s first love,

Its wealth of tenderness;

But ah! the gift I send thee now

Hath greater power to bless.

And when, with claspÉd hands, we stood

Before the altar-stone,

And tremblingly I vowed to be

Forever thine alone;

Then by the flushing of thy cheek,

And by thy kindling eye—

By the low tones that thrilled my heart,

And by thy bearing high—

I knew, I knew the little hand

So fondly pressed in thine,

Not all the treasures of a world

Would tempt thee to resign.

But, love, upon Affection’s shrine

I lay an offering now,

Can weave a spell more potent far

Than even wifely vow!

Now lift it from the sheltering folds

That hide it from thy sight—

Nay, dearest, start not to behold

This dagger sharp and bright!

Look thou upon it tranquilly—

Without one hurried breath—

’Tis the last token of a love

That cannot yield to death.

Is’t not a precious gift, beloved?—

’Twill break thy heavy chain;

And prison-bolts, and dungeon-walls,

Shall bar thy way in vain!

The felon’s doom thou need’st not fear,

This talisman is thine:

“Freedom” and “Honor” on the blade—

In glowing letters shine!

Oh! would that I might kneel, mine own,

By thy dear side once more,

And hold thy head upon my breast

Till life’s last pang were o’er!

I would not shrink nor falter,

When I saw thy life-blood flow;

But deathless love should give me strength

Calmly to let thee go!

It may not be! A shadow lies

Darkly upon our way;

I may not hear thy last, low sigh,

Nor o’er thy still form pray.

Oh, God of love, and might, and power!

Shall blood be shed in vain?—

Upon our mountains and our vales

It hath been poured like rain;

Our streams are darkened by its flow—

It taints the very air;

What marvel if our spirits sink

In anguish and despair?

Look Thou upon us! Thou, whose word

Can set the prisoner free!—

So shall the tyrant’s sword no more

Hang over Hungary!

---

I DREAMED.

———

BY WM. M. BRIGGS.

———

I had a dream of sunny hours,

That glided fast away;

I had a dream of starry flowers,

Unwet with tears of falling showers,

Untouched by dark decay;

I foolish dreamt of sunset skies

That slept unchanged amid their gorgeous dies.

I dreamt me of a little boat

Went sailing down a stream,

With stray bright leaves and flowers afloat,

And many a sunbeam’s dusty mote

And painted pebble’s gleam—

I dreamt the barque’s bright goal was won

And still the drifting flowers, the stream flowed on.

I dreamed still that I sad awoke

Upon a desert shore;

The cold, gray morning slowly broke,

An unseen sighing came—it spoke—

“Thus is it evermore,

Thus is it with thy hopes and fears—

Flowers fade, skies darken, and the goal is tears!”

---

MINNIE DE LA CROIX:

OR THE CROWN OF JEWELS.

———

BY ANGELE DE V. HULL.

———

In a large, old-fashioned house, at the pleasant country place of ——, dwelt a happy and united family, consisting of a father and five daughters. Through the wide, long hall merry voices were ever heard, and round and round twinkling feet went dancing on the pleasant gallery that ran on all sides, that there might be nothing to stop these light-hearted creatures in their course. Each had her neat, sweet-looking chamber, wherein, at times, she might retire to while away leisure hours with some cherished book, or with rapid pen convey to paper her pure and fresh thoughts—thoughts that were too sacred to be spoken—that wove themselves into dreams of delight, that were never, never to be realized. Happy, happy days! when they could weave these bright fancies, and dared to turn away from reality. The past had but its pleasures—the present its more rational yet constant enjoyment, and the future was hid by the rose-colored cloud that floated over its blessed anticipations.

Mr. de la Croix looked upon his daughters as his crown of jewels, and the homestead as the humble and unworthy casket that contained it. They were a host within themselves to drive away dull care, and left him by the most exemplary of wives to perpetuate her fondly cherished memory. Dearly loved they to dwell upon her virtues, her unfailing benevolence, her undying love for them all, and that holy piety that burned like a precious light throughout her life. Sacred to them were the paths her footsteps trod, the flowers she loved, and the trees her hand had planted; and they strove with all their might of youth and inexperience to supply her place to the husband she had loved and taught them to love.

“Where are you all—Blanche, Lisa, Kate, Rose and Minnie,” cried Mr. de la Croix, one morning, coming out of his room. “Who is ready to sew on a button for me?”

“I, papa,” “and I,” answered the five, hurrying on their dressing-gowns and opening their doors.

“I am first,” said Rose, coming forward with her thimble and needle. “Go back, every one of you!” and she pushed them playfully away.

“And what a shame that papa has to call us up for such a thing. Minnie, this is your week—naughty girl! and you must be scolded for negligence,” said Lisa, shaking her dignified head at the culprit.

Minnie ran behind her father, peeped into his face as she poked hers under his arm, and raised her saucy eyes to his. She was the youngest, and consequently a privileged imp, depending upon every one else to mend and darn when her turn came.

“Go away, you wild girl,” said her father, smiling. “Rose is the most industrious of you all, for she is dressed before any of you.”

“Rose is housekeeper, and had to be up, papa; don’t inflate her with praise she does not deserve. I have been up an hour.”

“An hour! and what were you doing, Miss?”

“Je flanais—there’s French for you, in good earnest; and I heard the first bird that sang this morning,” answered Minnie, with a gay laugh. “I was making reflections of the most profound nature when you disturbed me—and thus the world has lost a lesson.”

“And I have been reading La BruyÈre before my dressing glass,” said Blanche, complacently, as soon as the mirth that followed Minnie’s speech had subsided.

“Well, I have been at work already,” added Lisa, as she drew herself up. Lisa was the tall one, and had the air of a princess.

“Oh, Lisa! you remind one of the old lady who sat in her rocking chair and did nothing,

‘From morning till night,

But darn, darn, darn;’”

and Kate’s merry black eyes danced about from one to the other. “Now, I have been writing verses.”

“Yes, be an authoress—scribbler, and have a mania for dirt, disorder and ink-stands. Pshaw! look at your fingers,” said Lisa, pointing to them.

“I’ll wash them—I’ll wash them!” cried Kate, “without mumbling over ugly spots, like Lady Macbeth. My little nail brush will do more than all her perfumes.”

And running to her room she went to work to verify her word.

Soon they all met at breakfast, and Lisa presided at the cheerful board, like the mother bird, while the rest chatted around her. She was not the eldest but the most thoughtful, and to her all came for assistance and advice. Her long fingers could fashion dresses, collars, ruffs, bonnets, if necessary, and her ingenuity trampled upon impossibilities with every new pattern that appeared. So, while Blanche busied her fine head with metaphysics, piano, harp and guitar, the three others learned from both to be agreeable and useful members of society.

Society they cared little for. Blanche had been a belle par excellence until she became tired and disgusted with admiration and lovers, whose name was legion. Lisa never liked one or the other. She contemplated balls and beaux at a distance, and called them absurdities, though nothing pleased her like dressing her sister, and seeing her courted and flattered, night after night and day after day.

As for Kate, she had a touch of the romantic; she liked to sing and dance at home, loved to laugh and be merry with those of her own age, but thought that home the fairest and best place in the world. So, after a winter of dissipation, she foreswore the beaumonde, and vowed its votaries a heartless set.

Rose’s large, soft, dark eyes never wandered farther than the fences that bounded her father’s enclosures. With something of eccentricity she loved to steal off and enjoy a lonely hour at the close of each day, and her piety became a proverb. Nothing could move her out of the reach of the household gods, and at eighteen she was a child at heart and in manner.

Minnie was the imp! Minnie loved the world, and longed for a debut, as the minor “pants for twenty-one.” For her all hands must work—for her all hands must stop; and thus they were all at home, a bird’s nest of different nestlings, ready to take wing and fly when the parent bird has ceased to control their movements.

“Come, daughters, sing and play,” said Mr. de la Croix, as he sat in his arm chair, at the wide hall door. “What are you all about, eternally sewing and reading? Give the old house some life, will you?”

Blanche rose and seated herself at the piano, running her little white hands skillfully over the keys. Kate pulled the harp out of the corner, and soon a loud, clear voice swelled melodiously through the air. Then came a chorus of fresh young notes, and the soft strains of the piano, with the harp’s wild, sweeping music, mingled together, while the father sat listening to his crown of jewels, full of rapture and pride.

“Give us that trio in Guillaume Tell, sister,” said Rose, when they had finished, and little Minnie glided into Blanche’s seat, while the three grouped around her to comply. Then the chairs were drawn together, and the five tongues rattled like magpies to the half bewildered Mr. de la Croix, until he called for his candle and went to his apartment, followed by Kate, singing,

He called for his fife, he called for his wife,

And he called for his fiddlers three—e-e.

“Minnie!” said Lisa, holding up a dress with a wide rent in it, “is it ‘the weakness of my eyes that shapes this monstrous apparition,’ or is it a reality?”

“There, now!” cried the girl, snatching the dress from her, “you are on one of your poking expeditions. I didn’t intend you should see this, sister Lisa, for Rose promised to mend it for me.”

“And has Rose nothing to do for herself, that she is to waste time on your carelessness?” returned Lisa, gravely. “It is not two weeks since we made this for you, and now it is ruined.”

“Give it to me,” said Rose, quietly; “I did promise to mend it, and would have done so before, but had the house to attend to; and the keeping it and providing for it is any thing but a sinecure. Get me a piece out of the scrap basket, Minnie.”

“That is the way you all combine to spoil Minnie,” said Blanche, raising her head from her book. “She will never be fit for any thing.”

“Ay!” said the other, with an arch look and pointing to the volume, now closed, “and who makes pretty things for Miss Blanche, while she sits in her room poring over dull maxims and writing them off?”

“And how am I to teach you if I do not learn something myself?” asked Blanche, with a serious expression on her fair souvenir-like face.

“Don’t teach me any of your old cynic Rochefoucauld’s scandal. I hate him, for he never says a good thing of the human heart, and places my own motives so often before my eyes that I take him for a reflector of my inward-self, and blush.” And Minnie covered her face in mock confusion.

“So much the better, then,” said Rose; “for St. Paul tells us to know ourselves, and I vote that we treat you to a double dose of ‘les maximes’ every day.”

“Is Daniel come?” said Minnie, bending low and performing a salaam before her sister, who was seized with a fit of laughter that prevented her replying.

“I hope that you will keep your absurd ideas to yourself, Minnie,” observed Lisa, who now began to rip away at the torn skirt. “You are talking treason when you begin to abuse La Rochefoucauld.”

“Treason or no treason, then,” cried she springing out of her seat, “the whole world may come and listen to me, if my head were the penalty. So, I am off to the library. No, I wont go there, either, lest the old gentleman’s ghost jump at me; but I’ll go and practice the ‘Bamboula,’ and sister Blanche may dance a Congo polka to it.”

“Sister Blanche leaves polkas to giddy girls, but is, nevertheless, delighted to hear them speak of practicing. You were as lazy as a sloth over that ‘Sueia’ of Strakosch’s, and do not know it yet.”

“Pshaw! Ça viendra, as papa says when you all talk gravely over Rose and me. I am a perfect pattern of industry with regard to my music, am I not, Lisa?”

“You certainly do pummel away unmercifully at the poor piano,” said Lisa; “but half the practicing consists of imitations of Mrs. this, or Miss that, in style, position or banging.”

“And don’t people go about and give imitations of different lions? I’m sure I only endeavor to carve out a distinguished name for myself.”

“Did this in CÆsar seem ambitious?” quoted Lisa, turning with a smile from the willful thing that would never hear reason.

“Pray, what fame is to arise from your imitation of Mr. Gamut’s elbows? Or from Lucy Grey’s symphonies?” asked Kate.

“Kate! Kate! did you not laugh yesterday when I played for you until the tears rolled down your face? And didn’t you vow that Mr. Gamut himself sat at the piano?” said Minnie.

“Indeed I did. More shame for me!” exclaimed Kate, laughing anew. “But your imitations, as you call them, are more than human risibilities could resist. I call Rose to witness in this case!”

“Don’t call me to witness any more of Minnie’s pranks,” said Rose. “I cannot encourage them.”

“I’ll force you, then,” cried Minnie, seizing Kate around the waist. “Now look at Mr. and Mrs. Dobbs waltz together.” And round she spun, pulling Kate after her, until Lisa and Blanche were adding their peals of laughter to Rose’s hearty amusement. Away they went until Minnie whirled her sister out of the room, and soon after sat down to the Bamboula in sober earnest.

Thus ended all attempts at controlling Minnie, and her task seemed that of creating merriment wherever she went and turning all reproof into a mockery. Indeed, she laughed too constantly, and there were times when Lisa shook her head gravely at this perpetual merriment. A woman’s duties begin so sternly and so positively from the hour she marries—the bridal wreath so quickly withers into one of cares and fears, that the sight of a creature like Minnie, full of thoughtlessness and glee, saddened the heart that knew something of them all; and poor Lisa, with her responsibilities, vainly warned her young sister to laugh less and reflect more.

“I wish that you were married, Blanche,” said she one day, as they sat together. “We see so few strangers at home, and seem so much like equals, that Minnie will fly into the face of every thing and every body without ever being curbed into tranquillity.”

“And what good would my marrying do, in the name of wonder?” said Blanche with a stare.

“A vast deal, particularly if you were to bestow yourself upon a man like Mr. Stuart, for instance.”

Lisa went on with her work, and the deep blush that suffused her sister’s fair face was unperceived.

“Lisa!” said Blanche, after a pause, and her voice faltered; “Lisa! would you wish me marry?”

“Not unless you are confident of being happy, dear Blanche,” was her reply, and she looked up.

Once more the bright color mounted over the cheeks of her companion, and the tears stood in her eyes. She held out her hand, and Lisa pressed it affectionately as she remarked her unusual emotion.

“My dear sister! what is it that affects you thus?”

“Because, Lisa—I have had thoughts of marrying, not for Minnie’s sake—but—for my own.” She covered her face and burst into tears. Lisa rose and clasped her in her arms, soothing her with pet names and kind words.

“Dear Blanche—sweet dove! tell me all about it? Is it really so? and have you promised—”

“I have promised nothing, Lisa,” replied Blanche, raising her head and leading her to a causeuse. “Sit down; and now that I can speak, listen and advise me.” Lisa obeyed, and turned her earnest sympathizing eyes upon her sister with a look that invited confidence, such as Blanche was about to give,—a pure and unrestrained avowal of her feelings.

“You know, Lisa, that I met Mr. Stuart frequently at my aunt’s last winter. He is a great favorite with her, and the only one among her young men acquaintances whose actual intimacy she solicits. Whenever he came we were left together, naturally enough, while my aunt and uncle busied themselves, one with her housekeeping and the other with his papers. There was always a congeniality of tastes between us that led to an absence of any thing like ceremony, and something like confidence arose in our intercourse. There were books discussed that both had read, and many that I had never seen, which I was to like because he did. Wherever we went in the evenings he went. He was always there to draw my arm through his, and offer me the conventional attentions that became so delightful at length. We never spoke of love, Lisa; we never talked sentiment at one another, but it was impossible to deny that—that—”

“You loved one another,” said Lisa, seriously. She put on no arch looks, affected no jests—this was a grave subject to her.

“But we never said so, Lisa,” said Blanche, quickly. “We never said so; it was enough for us to be together. One morning I received a note from Helen Clarke, begging me go to her as she was very ill. My aunt’s carriage took me to Evergreen, and I remained a week absent. On my return I found that he had been summoned to his mother’s dying bed, and had hurried off an hour after the letter came, taking time only to see my aunt and bid her adieu. ‘He asked earnestly after you, Blanche,’ said she, smiling; ‘and your absence grieved him deeply, my love. But he left a message expressive of it all, and ended it with, Tell her, my dear Mrs. Bliss, that I will return as soon as I can, and she must not forget me.’ I could not forget him, Lisa; but I despise a love-sick girl as I do the plague; so I came home, determined to be happy again among you all. I would have been ungrateful, indeed, to mope at home where we all love one another—to pine for a stranger, while I had still all that made life so dear. Of course, he never wrote to me—my aunt heard occasionally from him, and the letter announcing his return, affected me deeply. Would he still be the same, or was there a change?”

“And there was none,” said Lisa, in a low voice. “I know that now, Blanche, though I did not dream of this before. Blind creature that I was, not to have felt that we must part after all!”

“I have read in his looks that there is no change, Lisa,” said her sister, growing pale. “I know that he will tell me so this very day, for he begged me to remain at home this evening to see him. But, Lisa, if you do not like him—if it grieves you too much to have me give up my home for his, say so at once, and I will never leave you.” Her lips quivered and her hand shook, but the voice was steady, and she looked at Lisa with her calm, clear eyes until she felt those fond arms once more thrown around her.

“Dear, generous Blanche!” murmured the sister; “did you think I could be so selfish? Love on, dear girl, and be happy; God knows you deserve it!”

And soon after there was a wedding and a departure. Forth from the bird’s-nest went the first fledgling, and the rest sorrowed at home until Time with its kind hand closed the wound at their hearts. There were gleams of sunshine in the sweet, fond letters that came with their tales of happiness and renewed assurances that Blanche loved her old homestead better than ever; with playful threats of jealousy from Kenneth himself, as he added his postscript now to one, and now to the other.

They were a long time gone, but all was repaid when Blanche returned and placed her first born in his grandsire’s arms. Poor baby! he was well-nigh crushed to death as the four aunts flew at him, but he grew used to the danger in time, and thus spared his mother a world of nursing and petting.

It was impossible not to love Kenneth Stuart—impossible not to admire him. He had all that high integrity, that unflinching honesty that a woman loves to lean on. Nothing could be more gentle in manner or more firm in purpose. He could be grave or gay whenever he was called upon; and his affection for his wife made him court that of her family that he might further minister to her happiness, so they all learned to love as well as reverence him, calling on him for advice or sympathy as on one another. He had none of that childish jealousy of their mutual fondness—none of that selfish longing to have her forget old ties for him. It pleased him to see that same unrestrained intercourse pervade their family meetings, to know that he had not stepped in to shadow the light of “days gone by;” and thus they dared once more to boast of their sunny hours and eternal spring. Mr. de la Croix sat in the old arm-chair, and listened to the pleasant voices of his children as of yore. Lisa went about her household duties with a firmer tread, Rose went from one to the other with her gentle cares, Kate flitted here and there, her merry eyes wandering around to read the wants of each and all, while Minnie skipped about and played tricks as usual, as incorrigible as ever, in spite of Blanche’s matronly admonitions.

“Brother Ken, may I have the dark-haired, dark-eyed cousin that Blanche talks so much about?” said she, seating herself at his feet. “I am thinking very seriously of the married state. I look at you and sister and conjugate the verb, j’aime, tu aimes, nous aimons, etc. I walk about with little Ernest, and practice baby songs, besides helping Lisa to fuss about house, and darned a most unnatural and unfatherly hole in papa’s socks this morning. I am perfectly recommendable, I assure you,” and she turned up her saucy face and looked at him with an attempt at gravity that was, as Kate said, “too absurd.”

“Young ladies of fourteen must not think of marriage,” replied Kenneth, with one of his peculiar smiles. “I have destined Paul to Kate, as Lisa and Rose eschew yokes, etc.”

“To Kate!” exclaimed Minnie, with a pout. “And am I to be sacrificed because I am fourteen? Unhappy me!”

“Don’t rave, Minnie,” cried Kate, with a gay laugh. “I’ll resign in your favor if you say so. My time has not come yet, nor my hero.”

“But he may come with this Louis le Desire, Kate, and in spite of your Arcadian dreams of shepherds and piping swains, you may succumb,” said Minnie, shaking her little hand at her sister.

“Have I lived to be told this?” cried Kate. “Of all people in the world, do I love piping swains?”

“To be sure you do, or you wouldn’t admire all those little china monsters under green trees and reclining on rocks that Miss Bobson crowds upon her tables. I’ve seen you gaze at them with an eye of love and inspiration, ten minutes at a time.”

“Yes, to keep serious while you sympathized with her about the tarnished officer that hangs over the mantle-piece.”

“Unnatural girl!” cried Minnie. “Is it possible that you laugh at the sorrows of others? While I listen with ready tears to the account of his loss at sea, you are making light of this sacred wo. You shall never deceive Miss Bobson again, Kate, for I shall warn her against the deceit of young ladies who have a passion for her porcelain, and draw her in a retired place the very next time she unbosoms the locket containing curls of ancient hair.”

“Minnie! Minnie!” cried Blanche, reproachfully, “is nothing sacred to you?”

“Nothing about Miss Bobson, of course,” was the reply of the heedless girl. “Do you wish to impose on me to pity her mawkishness?”

“To pity her age, Minnie, and her loneliness, if nothing else,” said Kenneth, gravely. “And also to respect her years.”

“Mercy on me! what have I done? Laughed at a ridiculous old maid, and drawn Kate into the snare. This is a mountain and a mole-hill, indeed.”

“Well, leave her out then, Minnie,” said Blanche, “and let us reprove you a little for laughing at everybody and every thing. I heard you this morning crying like Mrs. Simms, and you are too old now—”

“Too old!” cried Minnie, passionately. “Would to God that I might remain a child then, if I am to cease laughing as I grow older.”

“Laugh as long as you can, dear girl, but not so much at others. I want you to think more, Minnie; the world is not a paradise, and you must grow more reasonable to bear a further knowledge of it.”

“Pshaw! you have all thought for me until now, continue to do so until I get Paul, the expected, to do it forever. Come, Rose, for a race down the avenue in this lovely moonlight. I want some animation after these severe lectures.” And off they ran together, while the rest shook their heads in concert.

“She is too volatile,” said Kenneth, gently, “but she will be tamed down in time. You must not scold her for venialities like Miss Bobson again. Now please, dear Lisa, spoil me a little and get my candle, for I must write a letter to this very Cousin Paul of mine, before I sleep.”

And Paul Linden came. He was, as Blanche said, a handsome fellow, with dark eyes, and hair like the raven’s wing, a beautiful mouth and teeth, and the finest whiskers in the world. He was a frank, open, generous-hearted creature, full of kindly impulses, but impetuous and excitable, and much beloved by Mr. and Mrs. Stuart. This visit was one they had long wished for, as more than probably it was preparatory to his permanent settlement near them.

It was impossible not to feel flattered at the welcome extended him on his arrival at Mr. de la Croix’s, and before night, he was as much at home as though he had known them for years.

“I am bewildered with this paradise of houris, Kenneth,” said he, as they paced the long piazza. “Since my poor mother’s death, which took place, as you know, before I left college, I have never felt so completely domesticated among women, and the charm their society affords me is perfectly indescribable. How happy you are to have so pleasant a home.”

“Happy, indeed, Paul! They are a lovely group, and I consider myself peculiarly fortunate in being able to keep my Blanche here and preserve it entire. It would be a shame to break it up.”

“Blanche is a jewel in herself,” said Paul, affectionately. “I had no idea that there could be four more like her. What a lovely girl her sister Kate is! I think she is my favorite, Kenneth, if I may have one.”

And Kenneth thought the preference reciprocal, but kept his counsel until a better time, for Minnie’s voice was heard in the hall singing to the baby, and he smiled as he remembered how she pretended to practice nursery songs.

“Very well done, Minnie,” said he, as they paused at the door, and watched her graceful frolicks with Ernest. “You are really growing quite recommendable.”

“Now, brother Kenneth, if you do tell that!” cried she, blushing, “I never will speak to you again!”

“I shall not tell, then,” was the reply; “but in return for my discretion, you must go and ask Kate if she sewed the tassel on my smoking-cap as she promised.”

“To be sure I did,” said a pleasant voice, and Kate, tripping out of the parlor with the cap in hand, looked prettier than ever.

“Ah, thank you, dear Kate! now do keep Paul in a good humor while I go off to smoke my cigar. It would be ill-mannered to leave him alone.”

Kate smiled, and the walk on the piazza was changed for one down the avenue. It must have been a pleasant one, for the bell rang for tea, and they were still there watching the pale moon rise, and wondering within themselves how often they would enjoy the same exercise with the same pleasure.

They did not wonder long. Every evening there was a challenge from Paul Linden to some one, for a walk, and somehow or other they were all tired but Kate, and all too busy but Kate. It was not very long, then, before the silent leaves were witnesses to a plighting of faith between those two, and heard (if leaves can hear,) what Paul Linden thought, the softest music on earth—the low tones that told him the loss of sweet Kate de la Croix’s heart of hearts.

The leaves saw a strange ring glitter on her fair hand, and they were discreet—but not so the sisters. Minnie spied the little symbol of their united faith, and poor Kate told her secret amid tears and sobs. Even she was unhappy that night, as she remembered the burst of grief that followed its disclosure, and another bird went from the nest almost as soon as the wedding was over.

Mr. de la Croix smoked an unusual number of cigars the evening his daughter left, and the sisters tried to be cheerful; but there was not one that went to bed that night without going into Kate’s empty room to weep afresh. Lisa had to threaten to turn it into a rag-chamber before they could accustom themselves to pass it without entering and mourning its occupant as one never to return.

“Don’t be forever crying over Kate,” she would say; “she is coming back, and you had better wait till then and be happy.”

“But we miss her so, Lisa,” said Rose, as her large eyes filled.

“So do I, but you do not see me going about crying over an old glove or a scrap of writing as you do. And you cannot say that I love her less than the rest of her sisters.”

“Moreover, my dear girls,” said Kenneth, taking his seat among them, and lifting little Ernest on his knee, “your spirits affect your father’s. He feels the loss of his child, and you must all try to speak of her return and not of her departure. I know how much you feel Kate’s absence, but you must begin to look upon your separation as a thing that is to come one day. It is in the course of nature. There are three more to leave their home; how can you expect that all can be as fortunate as Blanche and Kate, who remain with you, as of yore. Paul’s business will probably detain him a year, but he will return to settle here with us, and we must look at the bright side of things as long as we can. I have been saying all this to Blanche who ought to be as reasonable as Lisa; and now I am come to beg you for your own sakes to bear inevitable trials with the fortitude that is so precious when you once attain it. Minnie wants scolding, I am afraid,” continued he, as he stroked her head fondly. “Why do you not play on the piano and sing as usual? The sound of music will enliven us all, and the mechanical exercise of those little fingers will occupy your mind after a while, particularly if you set to work with those Études of Moschelles, of whose difficulty I have heard so much.” And he smiled so encouragingly that Minnie flew off to mind him, and soon after Mr. de la Croix come out of his room, saying he was glad to hear the piano going again. Minnie was rewarded fully when she saw him take his old seat and doze while she played; and she told Kenneth in confidence, that she was much obliged to him for the scolding, but he must not tell Lisa, because she might take advantage of it. And there came that night a long letter from Kate, that helped to comfort them all. Poor Kate! her return was destined to be a sad one, for on the route, her beautiful little girl, her darling Blanche, was taken sick, and drooped so rapidly, that when she reached home, there was no longer any hope.

Silently they folded her in their arms, and noiselessly they bent their steps to her own old room, and placed the little sufferer upon its bed. Its soft eyes turned lovingly to its stricken mother, who sat beside it in mute agony, as once more they all stood together and mourned over her. Poor, wretched mother! so young to be so sorrowed! How full of anguish was the appealing look she cast upon her father, as he gazed with all a parent’s suffering upon his bright, merry-hearted Kate.

All that human skill could do was done—all that tender watchfulness could effect; but the angels had gathered round, and were beckoning that little spirit away. Paler grew the pale cheek—dim the sweet, loving eyes; and the young mother bent over her beautiful child, in misery such as they know only who have laid these treasures in the grave.

“Oh God of heaven!” was her mournful cry, “thou hast taken the sunshine of my life! Darker and darker grows the world to me, as those loved eyes grow dim. Thou hast crushed me to the earth, oh God! raise me with faith in thy unerring wisdom, that I may not doubt thy justice! Oh, my treasured one! Oh, my more than life—what is life to me?”

Her husband turned and placed his hand in hers. She bowed her head upon it, as though to seek forgiveness, and once more raised it to look upon her darling. To the last those eyes had turned to her with a long, lingering look, but now Lisa was closing them in their eternal sleep, and the angels were bearing that pure, sinless one in triumph to their home.

With a loud, piercing cry, the childless mother fell back, and the sisters no longer restraining their grief, filled the house with their cries. Kenneth bore her out of the room, and returned for Paul, who stood gazing at his dead infant as one stupefied.

“Go to your wife, Paul,” said he; “go to poor Kate; your love alone can soften this heavy blow;” and he remained to bend and kiss the now stiffening form of the lovely little creature. “I will send Blanche to you, Lisa; you must not perform the last sad task alone. Alas! poor Kate! how my heart bleeds for you!”

He then sought Mr. de la Croix, who was wildly walking about the garden, muttering to himself in his grief for the grandchild he had never known, and the mother—his darling Kate. Kenneth remained to soothe him, and after persuading him to take some rest, returned to the house.

The little corpse was already in its grave-clothes, looking like sculptured marble as it lay extended on the couch. The long, shining hair was parted on the pure brow, and fell around its head like a shower of gold. Pale tea-roses were on its breast, and in those white, clasped hands, emblems of its purity and fragility. Lisa and Blanche were weeping silently over their lost pet, and Minnie’s screams, mingled with the more subdued cries of Rose, came mournfully through the air. This was the first sorrow of their womanhood, and the old homestead seemed desolate indeed, now that the iron had entered one young, fresh heart with its bleeding wound, its horrid void.

Kate came again to look upon her child. With Paul’s arm around her, she stood once more beside its still cold form. Raising her hands, she uttered a low moan that pierced the hearts of those around her.

“Oh, blessed babe!—my darling, my loved one! I see you for the last time! You that I have borne, that I have watched and cherished with more than a mother’s care; you that have given me so much happiness, so much pride; here is all that is left to me, and that must go into the cold earth to be seen no more! Those little arms that were folded around my neck; those little hands that clasped mine so lovingly, are mine no more! Those lips that never refused to kiss me, will meet mine no more! Oh God, no more! Why, ah why was I thus smitten to the dust? Why was she so surely mine—so tended and so watched? Why is she torn from the mother that idolized her?”

“That she might be spared your trials, my dear child,” said a voice; and they all made room, as a venerable-looking old man came and stood beside her. “That she might wear that crown of glory which even your care could not give her, and which she now treasures as you treasured her.”

Kate bowed her head and wept. In her grief she could not remember this, and she listened in silence as holy words were spoken to her, and promises held out that she might grow strong in faith. Her piety came to her as a blessing, and she leaned, poor, broken reed, upon the cross her Saviour bore, until her spirit, fainting from its weight of wo, could bear to look upward and say, “His will be done.”

The loved and the cherished was laid in her last resting-place, and her mother left to mourn and miss the care of her life. Affection and sympathy were given her, and no one seemed ever impatient with her constant grief. But she made an effort to be cheerful once more, and mingling in the usual pursuits of the family, found it easier than she had expected. Her husband’s unvarying gentleness, his watchful kindness were sources of much comfort to her bruised spirit, and she strove, poor, grieved one! to struggle with her grief. Time passed, though the wound was fresh and often bled, Kate had learned, for the sake of others, to appear happy and composed because she prayed for strength. But who could tell the fierce strife that was working in her heart? Who could dream of the hours passed in silent suffering, when sleep refused to visit her alone of that quiet crowd? When through the darkness she gazed, her spirit beckoning back the child, whose every look was treasured, whose very cry came upon her troubled soul; when she tortured herself into the conviction that it might have been saved; that she herself, poor, devoted creature, had not been the watchful nurse beside its sick bed. Oh! if these bitter thoughts are sent us as temptations—as trials of our faith in the mercy and justice of the Almighty, how often we are tried, how often in danger of falling!

And Kate struggled with a mighty strength against these terrible remembrances, going on as usual with her daily occupations, missing at each moment the beloved object of her care, but walking boldly on, not daring to look behind, lest her courage should fail her.

And thus she toiled and received her reward, as days went by, and she was able to look to Heaven alone as the haven for all who were wrecked upon the world’s wild coast. All seemed grateful to her for her resignation—all were kind and considerate; and she remembered that there was between herself and that “better land” a powerful link that nothing could destroy.

“I do not think that Rose is looking well, father,” said she one day, as she went into his room with her work, and seated herself at his side. “I wish you would observe her.”

Mr. de la Croix laid down his book with a look of alarm. Was another one of his crown of jewels to lose its brightness?

“I do not say that she is positively ill,” said Kate, “but there is a languor about her—an indifference to her usual enjoyments that I do not like. She requires change.”

“But what can be the matter with her, my dear child?” said her father, looking bewildered. “There must be a cause.”

“A cause that she is not probably aware of herself, but we cannot hope that Rose’s health will continue forever in the same perfect state, and as her disposition is different from the rest of us, her life has been a more sedentary one through that very difference. You know she rarely if ever goes out.”

“True, very true, my dear, I am glad you reminded me of this. Rose must have a change, and, strange to tell, this very day I received a letter from your Aunt Bliss, begging that I would let her have one of the girls this summer to accompany her.”

“But she goes to Europe, father!” exclaimed Kate.

“And that is the very thing for Rose, hard as it is to send her so far; but it will improve her in every thing. Send her here, my love, and tell Lisa to come with her.”

What surprised them all was Rose’s willingness to go; and they all agreed that she felt the necessity of being roused from her unusual state, to be thrown more on her own resources. Kate’s clear judgment had found out the evil, and proposed the remedy; and Rose’s eyes filled as she thought of her sister’s watchfulness in the midst of her grief.

The preparations for her departure were of great assistance to Kate, who busied herself diligently, and gave herself no time for thought. She accompanied her father and Rose to meet her Aunt Bliss, and as the steamer was detained a few days, remained to see her off.

It was a sad parting, for Rose had never been from home before; but she, timid bird, must try her wings like the rest, and though her flight was long, it would be a happy one; and when Kate and her father reached home, part of the sisters’ grief for Rose was lost in the delight of seeing her look so well—so much more like her former self.

The old homestead resumed its quiet tone, and its occupants their usual habits, more reconciled to their changes, more fit to play their part in the battle of life. No longer looking upon their hoard of bliss as secure, no longer expecting

Amidst the scene to find,

Some spot to real happiness consigned,

they endeavor to prepare themselves to breast the storm, should sorrow come again upon the little band.

All but Minnie, her grief was violent and willful, refusing all comfort, rejecting the means of softening it while it lasted; but there was no change in her light volatile disposition; and Kate, poor Kate! wise from sad experience, lectured in vain.

“Where is Blanche?” said Lisa, coming in from the garden with her bonnet on. “Do you know Minnie?”

“Do I know? Yes; she’s hid in the moon, if you can’t find her; for that is where Ariosto says every thing is hid that is lost.”

“Pshaw, Minnie! do not be foolish. Where is Blanche?”

“Tell me what you want with her, and I will take a broomstick and ride after her then?” said the wild girl. “I must be paid for so much trouble before I undertake it.”

“I would you could promise to stay in the clouds a while and freeze your spirits into reason. But my wants are no secret or I’d never tell you, madcap Minnie. Go and find Blanche, and ask her for the key of the silver closet.”

“And that is all! I’m sorry I promised now, as the contempt I feel for the errand makes it disgraceful. But here I go, being honor itself about keeping promises.”

“Excepting those you make to become better and wiser,” rejoined Lisa, as she ran off. In an instant she was back.

“Lord bless us! She is in the library listening to Kenneth read Cosmos. I wish he’d put me to sleep sometimes, as I am sure he often does his wife.”

“I wish he would!” said Lisa, “and he would oblige others besides myself. Go and ask Kate to come down in the store-room and help me.”

“And what do you want with Kate in the store-room, Miss Lisa?” said Minnie, as she tied the key she held to the string of her bonnet. “There must be something going on that I cannot guess.”

“I want her to make an Italian cream for dinner, while I busy myself with something else that does not concern you.”

“On the principle of ‘Faut Être deux pour avoir du plaisir,’ I presume,” said Minnie. “How affecting! But something is in the wind, Lisa, or you would not fuss over creams, etc. Is any one expected to dinner?”

“I give you permission to expect as many persons as you like,” replied she, with provoking gravity. “Tell me their names, and I will prepare the banquet.”

“I never saw such a mysterious old oracle as you are! Getting out more plate, more napkins, and steeping gelatin with so much solemnity, as though we never did have company in our lives before, then preserving such a dark cloud of silence on the subject! Kate! who is coming here to-day—tell me, and don’t be foolish about it?” cried Minnie. “Sister is enveloped in mystery and wont let me know.”

“Kate does not know herself,” said Lisa, smiling; “but may be she can guess.”

“This is Rose’s birth-day,” said Kate, after a pause, “and—”

“And I forgot it!” exclaimed Minnie, as she burst into a flood of tears. “The first one she ever passed away from home!”

“And the last, I trust,” said Kate, tenderly. “Poor, dear Rose! I wonder where she is now!”

“Enjoying herself very much, I suppose,” said Lisa, crushing a lump of sugar into her bowl of eggs, “and wishing we were all with her. She would be surprised at the idea of your crying about her, I dare say.”

Minnie made a step forward, and threw down a cup that was too delicate for such rough usage.

“There!” said her sister, “you have your day’s work before you. I never saw such a careless girl.”

“Never mind,” said Minnie, collecting the fragments, and smiling through her tears, “this will do to place among

that you keep on the shelf there. I’ll cement it for you.”

“Thank you! I wish you could mend some of your bad habits as easily as you promise to patch broken china. It would keep you busy for life.”

“Alas, poor Minnie!” said the girl, “how unjust the world is! What can I do?”

“Go and see that Sampson puts the dining-room in extra trim, and fill the finger-bowls,” said Lisa.

“Dear sister! I am not Dalilah, and cannot manage the strong hero of antiquity,” said Minnie, with affected humility. “But I will crown the bowls with orange leaves, and perform any other lowly task with much pleasure.” And she left the room singing a light song, that ever and anon fell sweetly on the ears of that united household as they paused to catch the tones of the young, rich voice.

“Mr. Selby and his nephew dine with us,” said Lisa, as she and Kate compounded their dessert together, “and as the latter is about to sail for Europe, papa has promised him letters for Uncle Bliss and Rose.”

“Indeed!” said Kate. “That will be very pleasant for them to see any one that can give such direct news of us. Do you remember to have seen young Mr. Selby, Lisa?”

“When he was a little boy, I saw him once at his uncle’s, but he has been at college for years past. He is now on a farewell visit, and will not return for some time, of course. I hope he will be like old Mr. Selby, for he is one of the kindest and most agreeable men I ever knew.”

“Yes, he is universally beloved. Paul esteems him highly, and often goes to him for advice.”

And Kate thought Paul’s opinion sufficient to determine the importance of the universe.

Minnie had her own ideas, and very soon found herself in merry conversation with Harry Selby, who devoted himself to his pretty neighbor at dinner with a zeal that made his uncle laugh.

“What is that, Miss Minnie? What did you say then?” asked he across the table.

“I was wondering, sir, if Mr. Selby will return a true hearted American, after seeing all the splendor and beauty of the old world,” replied Minnie, glancing at him with her bright eyes.

“Of course he will,” said the uncle. “Do you think now that any of the English blondes, the French brunettes, or the Italian signoras, will ever drive your saucy face out of his mind?”

Minnie blushed—so did Harry; but she parried the attack.

“Oh, he can easily forget me, for this is our first meeting, and will be the last; but there must be many persons whom he could not under any circumstances so wrong—yourself, for instance.”

Mr. Selby laughed. “And so you think that my ugly phiz will be the one to haunt a young fellow on his travels. Do him justice, Minnie, and give him credit for a dash of sentiment at least. Do you think him insensible to the charm of dark eyes and all that?”

“By no means, sir; but it would be impertinent on so short an acquaintance to attempt to fathom so mysterious a thing as a human heart, such as I suppose belongs to Mr. Selby.” And Minnie blushed again as a pair of large, brown eyes met hers with an unequivocal glance of admiration.

The owner of said orbs began something like a compliment; but there was an unnecessary tinkling of the ice in Minnie’s glass, and she did not appear to hear it. Besides, at that particular moment, Paul leant forward, and asked for some information about a planing machine; and the conversation turning on inch-boards, weather-boards, and thousands of feet of lumber, the ladies rose and left the table to adjourn to the parlor.

Harry soon followed them—what cared he for planing-mills? And Blanche made room for him by Minnie, the place he evidently wanted, for he never left it until his uncle called to her for some music, and a “good old song.”

Unfortunately for him, young ladies play too well now-a-days to require a book before them, and as there were no leaves to be turned, Harry stood at a distance, admiring the rapid little fingers as they flew over the ivory.

“Who taught you?” exclaimed he, as she ended Rosellen’s pretty variations from Don Pasquale, “who taught you?”

She pointed to Kate, who nodded her head with a proud smile.

“Is it possible! When I get to Paris, I shall boast of my countrywoman, Mrs. Linden, for I am confident—”

“But the song of Minnie, the song!” interrupted Mr. Selby senior. “I asked for a song, young lady.”

“I know it, sir, but I will leave that to the rest, as I can only boast of a few notes as yet.” And Minnie rose and gave her place to Blanche.

“Minnie does not like to show off unless she is sure of creating a sensation,” said Mr. Linden, laughing as she took her seat beside him. “If you did but know, Mr. Selby, what a wonderful debut she is prepared to make; all the young ladies will hide their diminished heads next year at her first Mazourka, and never dance again. Wont they, Minnie?”

“You flatter me,” said she, smiling good humoredly. “I only intend to be one of the stars—not the bright particular one, for I have only my wits to help me out.”

“And they will be all sufficient,” said old Mr. Selby, patting her cheek. “I’m sure of my little pet’s entire success in the great world of fashion. How many ball-dresses is Rose to bring across the wide ocean?”

“Oh, she has carte blanche,” returned she, “and I will send for you as soon as they are unpacked, that you may determine my first costume.”

But the evening wore away, and the family separated at an early hour, as the letters must be written to Rose for the next morning. Each had a volume to say, and Minnie’s exceeded the third page, as she had promised such faithful accounts of home to the wanderer, even the dogs were immortalized that night, for an affecting account of Ponto’s regret for his mistress drew tears from the writer’s own eyes.

“Lord bless us! what a correspondence,” exclaimed Mr. de la Croix, as the letters were thrown on the table. “Poor Rose will never get through it.”

“There’s a postscript from Kenneth, and myself, of course,” said Paul, as he threw down a pretty envelope. “An endless communication from Minnie, six pages between Blanche and Kate, two from Lisa, she being too sensible to waste time, and a well filled sheet from you, sir. Rose will have work and instruction for a week when all this reaches her. Did you have a good pen, Minnie?”

“To be sure I did,” replied she, looking up.

“Then I rejoice, for Rose’s sake, your calligraphy being at times very Egyptian. However, Harry Selby will take great pleasure in assisting her to decipher it, I dare say; and I feel much relieved on her account.”

Minnie pulled his hair for him at this declaration, and vowed revenge. Rose could read her writing very well, though others might be dull enough to suspect the contrary.

There was a charm about Minnie that was irresistible—it was her unvarying good humor, her sweet, even temper. Even while asserting her willful but childish dislike of reproof it was impossible to be angry with her. Nothing like an angry retort ever passed her lips; as ineffectual as a reprimand was to her wild spirit, she took it smilingly, and disarmed displeasure with her winning ways. No wonder that her sisters loved her; no wonder they feared for her as years passed, and she was yet untamed. Impulsive, obedient to these impulses, and inconstant in her tastes, Minnie de la Croix, at the age of seventeen, was no wiser than a child of ten. If she offended she was wretched until she had been forgiven, and as ready to pardon as she was averse to wound. Her life had been one of sunshine and love; but she was growing up to womanhood, and dreamed not of its perils and its pains—saw nothing but smiles and fair promises in the world before her.

Rose’s account of young Selby’s arrival in Paris was satisfactory to all parties. “He came to see us,” wrote she, “as soon as he arrived, taking time only, as I suppose, to make himself look remarkably handsome under a French valet’s hands. He greeted me most affectionately, and I verily believe would have kissed me upon slight encouragement. He gave me news of my dear home, of my dearest father and sisters; and if he had been as ugly as a Chinese, I should have thought him an Adonis. He tells me that you are all in perfect health, and describes my Minnie as something very lovely. Very bewitching, he said, and so very pretty. My resemblance to her seemed to delight him; but as I am neither of the two epithets bestowed upon her, I am afraid it will wear off. We were at the Opera last evening, and, of course, he joined us; but there was no time to talk when Jenny Lind was singing, and I could not have heard him if he had attempted it, I was so absorbed; but he had too much taste for such a mistake. We spend this evening at the American Minister’s, where I am to see a whole cage of French lions; and what is better, some of my own dear countrymen. I am delighted with the grace and ease of the Parisian ladies—it is impossible to resist their fascination of manner, the very lifting of their veils is a tableau in itself. Minnie’s numberless dresses for next winter I shall choose under the surveillance of one of our new acquaintances, one of the presiding goddesses of fashion, whose taste is so infallible, that, if she were to have her bonnet bent by accident, bent bonnets would suddenly become the rage.”

We cannot give all Rose’s letter, as it was a long one, but must hurry over her return, and bring her home in time for Minnie’s ball, as the whole house called it. The dear absentee arrived in the midst of the preparations, at the time appointed. Mr. de la Croix wished to celebrate her happy return among them with Minnie’s debut, and there was no end to the joy of the sisters as they all met together once more in the room wherein Rose’s boxes and trunks had been carried. Mr. Linden was there with a hammer, which he swung over their heads, as he called out where he was to begin, and the door opened to admit Mr. de la Croix, Kenneth, and Harry Selby’s uncle. Minnie had promised, he said, that he should choose her costume upon this great occasion, and here he was, to do his duty conscientiously.

He was gladly welcomed, and Paul fell to work on a large caisse, according to Rose’s directions. The lid flew off and revealed a very mysterious covering of white paper, which they proceeded to remove, and Lisa’s nice hands were called upon to take out the beautiful dresses that lay so lightly one upon the other.

“Beautiful!” they cried, as a blue tarlatan of the most delicate shade was held up. “Exquisite! Who is this for?”

“For Lisa,” said Rose, displaying its beauties; “and I have the most unexceptionable bouquets of pink moss roses for the looping of the skirt, sleeves, and one for the bosom. Now that white dress is for Blanche—my Lady Blanche—and the two rose-colored for Minnie and myself. All have flowers to trim alike. You will find Kate’s in the other box—there was no room for it in this one.”

“Here is another white one,” said Minnie, who had danced around the room in a perfect glee. “Whose is it?”

“That is yours also, Minnie,” answered Rose, with an affectionate smile. “You will want more than one ball-dress, my little debutante. Then—here Paul! Paul! to your duty—open this box. Mr. Selby! you have something to do with this, sir.”

All eyes turned to him as he came forward with a queer smile from the window at which he and Mr. de la Croix sat looking on, and enjoying the scene of gayety and confusion that passed before them.

“What have I to do with boxes, my pretty Rose,” inquired he. “I sent for no coats or pantaloons?”

“But you sent for the contents of this box, Mr. Selby,” said she, nodding her head significantly. “What they are, I know not; but Harry asked me to let it come on with my baggage, as it was yours, and to be opened at Oakwood. So here it is, and as I have some curiosity about it, I call upon this self-constituted carpenter to gratify it.”

Down went Paul’s hammer and chisel, and the nails gave way. More white paper—and many little tape-strings running across, busied Lisa’s fingers for some minutes. At length she drew out a dress so beautiful that even Mr. de la Croix came forward. It was of a most delicate texture, white, and embroidered around the skirt in palms of silver. Nothing could be more exquisite, and Lisa drew forth gloves and slippers to correspond. There was still a small box lying within, but as every one was exclaiming over the shining robe, she deferred taking it out until it was time.

“Now, Mr. Selby! Mr. Selby! what did you want with this dress? Tell us quickly—are you going to be married?”

“Not unless Minnie will have me, for it is hers,” said he, covering her with the lovely thing, and looking half ashamed as she uttered a scream of delight.

“I see a letter there for me—hush child! hush! don’t mention it, that’s a good girl—I’m quite rewarded by your pleasure; let us read Mr. Harry’s communication.” He broke the seal and began reading it aloud.

“My dear uncle, Madame de Rosiere went to the modiste’s with me, and chose these articles as you requested; being as perfect in taste and dress as she is in wit, it must be a gem, almost worthy of the fair creature for whom it is destined. (Hem! Harry is eloquent.) As I knew where Miss de la Croix had her dresses made, Madame de R. went with me there, and arranged it all with the ingenuity of a Frenchwoman—that this was to be made and packed with the rest, though in a separate box, and sent to Mr. Bliss’s hotel, when I asked him to take charge of it according to your orders. It gave me the greatest pleasure to attend to your commission, I do assure you, and I must thank you for it. How I long to see your favorite in a costume that seems to my poor eyes, one that will robe her like an angel of light. (Hurrah for the boy! he is really a gone case.) In the small box you will find a—” here Mr. Selby muttered the rest to himself, and ended with “your affectionate nephew, etc.”

The old gentleman then took out of a satin case a fan so superior to any Minnie’s unpracticed eyes had ever seen, that her admiration knew no bounds. On the slender gold ring that passed through the handle was her name in full, and to a chain of fine workmanship was attached a ruby for her taper finger.

“Minnie is a spoiled child,” said her father, taking the costly bauble and examining the pretty painting upon it, an acquisition in itself. It represented a young girl in the first bloom of youth with her arm around the neck of a beautiful greyhound, that looked up wistfully in her face. The attitude was full of grace, not unlike Minnie’s own, and Rose smiled as she remarked that Mr. Selby had chosen an emblem of fidelity for her little sister’s study during ball-room scenes.

“More probably as an example,” said his uncle, with a meaning smile. “Harry can never be classed among that portion of his sex, ‘to one thing constant never,’ and he, in my humble opinion, would love to communicate some of the same spirit to others.” A sly glance at Minnie accompanied these last words; but she was examining her fan very closely, and did not perceive it. At length she went and laid her hand upon his arm, looking up at him with a grateful expression.

“You have been so very kind to me—so thoughtful of my enjoyment in the world, that I cannot thank you in words. Some of these days, like the mouse proved to the lion, I may find a way to serve you, but until then you must believe how deeply I feel all this attention. Now come and choose my costume for to-morrow night—shall I come out in all the splendor of my white and silver?”

“No, my dear,” said Mr. Selby, kindly. “You must be like Rose to-morrow, and wear the other when my sister gets my old-fashioned house in readiness for another party, where you will receive the guests as your own. Now let me kiss that soft cheek, and run away to my business in town.”

“And not see all my presents, Mr. Selby!” exclaimed Rose. “They cannot equal yours, but I have some very choice specimens of porcelain, besides collars, capes, etc. Now look at this transparent lamp-shade, with the angels’ heads; and see these vases. Here is a coffee-cup for papa, one for Paul and Kenneth, with their initials, and here is an inkstand for my darling Kate.”

“And what is for Lisa and Blanche?” asked he, admiring each as she presented them.

“The lamp is for my industrious queen bee, Lisa, the vases for Blanche, and things innumerable for the rest. You do not care about seeing the ‘dry goods,’ I know, but wait until I show you some of my own work. I have embroidered three vests for my three pets—papa and ‘the brothers,’ besides a scarf for my friend, Mr. Selby.”

He was delighted at the idea of being remembered by her while in a distant land, and Rose was forced to send him away to get rid of his thanks.

They hurried over the rest of the unpacking, as many preparations were needed for the next day’s fÊte, and were soon running about from one room to the other, laughing and singing as in days gone by.

[Conclusion in our next.

A BALLAD OF THE WOODS.

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BY GEO. CANNING HILL.

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BY J. M. LEGARE.

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(Continued from page 236.)

After the battle in which De Haye, the maÎtre-de-camp was killed, and the Portuguese ran away to a man, leaving the French to maintain the honor of the day and their ultimate position on a hill near at hand, the Spanish army unbuckled their armor and sat down to stretch their limbs beside the fires at which their suppers were cooking; and if any one in camp lost appetite that evening, it was not because of the numberless gaping wounds witnessing to Heaven against him from the field behind. A mile or so above, a few scattered lights showed where the remnant of De Chaste’s army held ground, and awaited the morrow with little fear but much hunger, sending to perdition the viceroy and entire Portuguese nation the last thing before dropping to sleep: midway between these two rows of fires, was neither life nor light save such as a crescent moon gave, and as much as lingered in some poor wretch with more vitality than was best for him. In which middle space the Damon and Pythias of this story, Hilo and Carlo, prowled about, turning over the stiff carcasses in search of valuables, for nothing of convertible worth came amiss to the pair, whose personal property was staked nightly at dice. Occasionally an apparent corpse tossed about his arms and legs convulsively, or prayed in a husky whisper for a little water, for life and mercy’s sake a single draught; but in either case the Walloon, like a rough angel of mercy as he was, put an end to their anguish promptly, saying with a grin to Hilo—“You know it’s for his good I do it: if he drank any thing it might keep him alive till somebody who aint his friend comes round. It would be a heap harder to die after making up his mind he was to live again, wouldn’t it?”

To which Hilo replied with some contempt: the boy was ferocious, as has been elsewhere said, only on provocation—

“You’re fitter for a hangman than a soldier, serjeant.”

A truth Wolfang took for a compliment.

“Hey?” cried that cidevant free-captain suddenly, “here’s one of our officers, let’s turn him over. A hole in the back of his casque by Lucifer; it served him right for turning his back on the enemy.”

Hilo may have recognized the whereabouts sufficiently to make a tolerably fair guess before the other added:

“Oh—oh—the maÎtre-de-camp, De Haye!” But if he did he held his peace, and assisted in ridding the dead cavalier of a few personals.

The Walloon was thick-skulled, but his long service in villany had increased his cunning as a matter of course, and a duller man than he, acquainted with SeÑor de Ladron’s peculiarities, might have jumped to a like conclusion.

“Bah! he wasn’t a coward after all. The arquebuse that sent this ball was behind him while he faced the Dons. The man you owe a grudge to had better keep awake, Hilo, my lad.”

“You’re a fool,” Hilo returned. “Hold your tongue. Do you wish to bring the Spaniards upon us with your noise?”

To which the other answered sullenly—“You talk as if I wasn’t more than your slave. You’d better mind what you’re about. I aint going to stand it always, even if—here now, what’s to be done with these papers?”

“What is that shining in your hand?”

“A locket, or something of the sort, he had in his breast. Hang it, you want every thing!”

“A locket!” cried his comrade quickly. “Give it here.” Which the other did unwillingly, and the other pocketed after holding it up to the light. Hilo’s mood up to this moment had been none of the sweetest, as the captain could testify, but some virtue existed in the appropriation which was quite irresistible.

“Come, old fellow,” he cried to the serjeant, in high good-humor, “I was rather sharp with you just now, wasn’t I? You know I’m quick and all that, and musn’t mind me. Here’s a handful of ducats for your locket, as you found it; I fancy the thing, and don’t grudge paying for it.”

A gift the captain took with a growl half of resentment, for he had not found a charm for himself, and could not so easily forget an offense as his master.

It was wonderful what a dog to fetch and carry that uncouth animal was to Hilo; how he followed him about, drew dagger in his service, and exposed his life any time rather than suffer the latter to embark alone in a perilous venture, a thing his youthful friend was much given to. It would have been an unanswerable proof of the existence in all men of some good trait, some capacity to love a brother, for a worse rogue than the captain would be difficult to select. But, unhappily, this Netherlandish Damon had sounder, if less sentimental, reasons for sticking by his Pythias. Hilo, a wonderfully precocious youth, had fallen in with the honest captain some three or four years back, and dexterously turned to his personal advantage a comfortable sum brought over from Peru by the other. “I like the boy, he’s full of pluck. I’ll school him into the ways of the world, look ye,” the captain used to say, at the very time his protÉgÉ was scheming to possess his ingots.

“I knew his father in Peru very well, a man of money. He lent me a helping hand once, and I don’t mind turning about and lending the boy any thing I have,” he spoke later. And so, not because of the helping hand, as the captain wished understood—which, to be sure, was Carlo’s beginning in life, the elder De Ladron having taken him into temporary partnership in the matter of a forced repartimiÉnto which turned out golden—but because he had entire reliance in the magnitude of the senior’s estate, he made over to Hilo the bulk of his possessions, on conditions legally witnessed, of a fourfold return immediately on the other’s receiving his own. No doubt Hilo acted in good faith, less from inclination possibly than necessity, his money affairs having become rather intricate about that time, and there could be no question of the repayment of the full amount—the original was no trifle—at the season specified.

But when was that to arrive? A question Carlo asked himself with growing dissatisfaction not long after the last ducat had slipped through his debtor’s fingers. Hilo was in no hurry to marry the girl, and since signing the captain’s bond, had bestowed his affections elsewhere, as people say. A French countess, black-eyed and brisk, took his fancy much more than the blonde his betrothed, and during the stay of the French embassage at Madrid, the young gentleman was on good behavior—ostensibly at least. Of all her gallants none excited his jealousy so much as a cavalier who had accompanied the count unofficially, and stood high in his daughter’s favor.

Don Hilo’s way of removing an obstacle of this sort, was admirably illustrative of his sense of wrong, although sometimes, as in this instance, liable to miscarry. He first picked a quarrel with De Haye, and that gentleman refusing point-blank to fight so disreputable a party, was waylaid and killed by proxy in the person of Villenos, who was of much the same figure, and, as it chanced that night, similarly attired. The eclat of this mistake, added to the departure of the lady, took him to France, where information of De Haye’s joining the commandant induced him to enlist under the same knight’s pennon, in pursuance of his vengeful purpose, and the young blood-hound was of course nothing molified by the remonstrance of his enemy to De Chaste on shipboard, which Carlo repeated with some little exaggeration, to be expected from the mouth of so affectionate a friend.

The heavy, cunning, ex-free-captain was brow-beaten and domineered over by his former protÉgÉ in a truly surprising manner to one not in the secret. It was wonderful how much he bore, how assiduously followed at the heels of his junior when off duty, uneasy at losing sight of the latter. The truth was, the captain having gambled and squandered himself into poverty again, looked to the money to be derived from Hilo’s fortune for a means of reputable living, as he said.

“I was an honest soldier till I met that Hilo!” was his lament years after, while awaiting the hour of his execution. And it was the obduracy of the same young gentleman, aided by his own failure to win the heiress, which had reduced him to the necessity of relying upon Hilo’s attaining his twenty-fifth year and sole right of property; a fib, by the way, of the party interested, which the captain was by this time too near gone not to catch at with proverbial eagerness.

“If I can only keep him in sight,” he used to think fifty times a day with an oath, “until I get back my ducats, I’ll take pay for my dog’s life;” and at nights he would wake muttering the words and feeling the edge of his weapon, when Hilo would exclaim—“Can’t you leave off grinding your tusks in that savage fashion, you Dutch boar!”

The captain saw how a little misadventure in the shape of his dear young friend’s decease, might deprive him of all chance of restoration, and no mother could be more precious of her charge: Hilo might involve himself in difficulties and be slain in a brawl; it was this worthy soul’s chief business to guard against such a mishap, or extricate him when fairly in: or he might fly into an ungovernable rage and harm himself, or tempt the captain into doing so; so the latter eschewed all cause of contention, and humbled himself where humility became a necessity. For Carlo’s phlegmatic temperament was incapable of fear, and nothing would have gratified him more than a bout with the young gentleman—who, seeing his advantage, or from mere recklessness, tried his ability to bear and forbear to the utmost limit.

“Wait till I get my ducats back!” Wolfang consoled himself with muttering under his breath on such occasions, champing his jaws and keeping his fingers stalwortly from his dagger-hilt.

The pair were standing over the body of the maÎtre-de-camp, Carlo with the papers in his hand taken from the breast of the dead lieutenant’s doublet, when Hilo cried:

“Hark! the camp is in motion yonder above. Come, Wolf, stir your clumsy legs before we are missed.”

And Wolfang trotting after his master thrust the crumpled missives into his own doublet—“It’s no use to throw away any thing in the dark,” he said; “I did a note of hand once so, and somebody else got the good of it; one of these days I’ll find time to spell it out”—where they remained many days, now and then taken out and returned, without much progress made in their elucidation, for the warlike captain was not much of a scholar, and found opportunity for only cursory examinations.

A destination very different was the captain’s pocket, it may be remarked, from that designed by the writer, Don Pedro, who, about the time Carlo pocketed the letters, was conversing with SeÑor Inique as to their efficiency in De Haye’s hands.

No man is absolutely penitent at the start; some fear for character, personal safety, or the like, is the prime mover, after which—it may be moments or years after—enters in a godly sorrow for sin committed. Sift your motives, exemplary reader, and satisfy yourself for once, your conscience is not the tender prompter to your most virtuous deeds you imagine: something to the effect, what it, or the world, or the church, or your wife at home will think, has its due influence. Human nature is not to be taken to task on this account; we are all more selfish than we choose to admit even to ourselves, or there would be an end straightway of all murders, thefts and villanies great and small and of every kind; and there is so little native good in us it is best not to cavil at the source of any redeeming trait, whatever it may be.

So Don Augustino after ten years’ penitence of fear, made confession for the first time of the same; not with the best conclusion or purpose in view, it may be objected, but the honest knight’s expressions of opinion were scarcely adapted to producing a better feeling at the beginning. Sir Pedro thought as much himself when he reviewed the conversation, and his after arguments were such as the mild expression of his fine gray eyes lent effect to, a thing they very seldom did when his speech was pointed with sarcasm. The soldier was first molified, then thoroughly subdued, and in the end inclined to adopt the counsel of his ancient companion-in-arms, who now, as always, took the shortest available course to the doing away of a bad deed by substitution of a good. Not that all this ripening of virtue in the veteran sinner’s breast was much hastened by the knight’s eloquence; it was mainly by the inexplicably swift thaw after the ice has been broken through with throes of dissolution, and something the knight’s words may have done at the beginning to aid the breaking up, something at the end to temper the freshet. What he saw when he entered the inner cabin of Inique’s ship, of that blank face and imbecility, I have nothing to relate; let the door remain shut upon him as it was in Inique’s time, and all likeness and constraint of the unhappy inmate be left to the imagination.

Entire restitution of name and property on one side, and public avowal of his paternity on the other, was what the straight-forward adviser urged, and Inique consented ultimately to perform. Avowed penitence strangely humbled the misshapen pride of the man. Once he said:

“You were right, Padilh; I was a coward from first to last. I begin to perceive there are two sorts of courage, one infinitely superior to the other, and God alone knows how much braver than I this poor boy might have proved.”

The main obstacle now to be overcome was the will of the supposititious Hilo, whose rage at finding himself heir to nothing would be likely to exceed all bounds.

“It must be opened gently,” said the knight. “The boy has an ill name for violence, and some gain must be shown as an equivalent for so much pecuniary loss; which last, I fear, will be the chief occasion of regret with him.”

“I have some little property of my own remaining,” answered the other, “and would gladly relinquish it in his favor, but for the claims of my other child. As for me, I am sick of this world’s honors—”

“Pooh!” cried Padilh cheeringly, “is this your new-found bravery? Look how you retreat before the enemy, and hope to shelter yourself behind a wall with monks. And as for your blue-eyed daughter, have no concern at all, for by this time I am sure that motherless countess of mine would stand a siege rather than surrender her unconditionally: we have more than we want in property and less in children, so you and I can each satisfy the other’s need and our own pleasure, which will be stealing a march at the start.”

The man of care and crime was sensibly touched by this offer.

“Many thanks!” was all he said, but he took his associate by the hand with a grasp that would make you or I wince.

“I think with you; he must be appealed to indirectly at first, that his suspicions may not be awakened too soon,” Don Pedro said shortly after, in answer to Inique. “In the French camp is a gentleman whose honor is unquestionable, and who entertains such friendship for me, he would not hesitate to undertake the service. If you do not oppose the design, I will write him a short narrative of the events, leaving the manner and time of communication to his judgment to determine. Until his jealousy of your present purpose is overruled, we may scarcely hope to meet the wretched boy in person, and I can see no better way of gaining our end.”

“Let it be so, I oppose nothing honorable,” replied the maÎtre-de-camp.

“I am not referring to my old scale of honor,” he added presently, with something like a blush. There is hope for the man, thought Padilh thereupon; which was true enough.

The knight wrote the letter in accordance with this agreement, a brief recapitulation of the events of Inique’s life and his own, many of which De Haye already knew, urging that cavalier to use his discretion in acquainting the false Hilo de Ladron with so much of the truth as would suffice to induce an interview, by assuring him of no harm being plotted against his person, but rather some gain intended. Which letter Don Pedro contrived to have placed in De Haye’s hands the night before the battle in which the latter fell by the arquebuse of the boy whose cause he had at heart; for very nearly the last thought of this generous fellow, forgetting the enmity of Hilo, and perhaps rather careless of his rivalry even when disencumbered of the SeÑorita Inique, was that, after the day’s work was over, he would play the ambassador to what purpose he might: but it was Capt. Carlo that returned to camp with the letter instead.

The gallant captain hurrying back with his gay companion, found preparations making for a night attack, which were, however, countermanded before the column began the descent. The men had had their fill of fighting for the day, and turned in again wondering and grumbling at the useless disturbance. Meanwhile the commandant and the viceroy were discoursing of what had best be done, in the former’s tent. Senhor de Torrevedros, after the battle, had arrived with about a thousand of his countrymen, and one fourth or so the number of cows.

“The viceroy has brought milk for his babies at last,” the French soldiers said sarcastically; and the officer on duty who announced the arrival to De Chaste, prefixed an epithet to the count’s title by no means delicate or complimentary.

“In the devil’s name, sir count,” the commander exclaimed, with a red spot in either sallow cheek, “do you fetch these cattle to mount your cuirassiers or feed our troops?”

“Neither, at present, Senhor Commander,” the unabashed viceroy replied; “for in neither way could they so much benefit you as in their present condition.”

“Speak your mind freely, we are friends here, sir count,” the commandant answered coldly.

“Our valor is too well known to be questioned—second only to that of the French nation,” the count said braggartly, lifting his plumed cap by way of salute; “and I bring you, Senhor Commander, what no man may cavil at, a thousand men brave as lions and pledged to fall in defense of their king’s honor.”

At which speech a sarcastic smile passed round the group of attentive officers.

“Bah!” cried one to his comrade, “the fellow’s talk sickens me. Let’s go to sleep again, there will be nothing but gabble to-night.” And the two strode away. “Stay,” whispered the more curious, “we must hear the end of this bull story.”

Regardless of all which the viceroy continued.

“Yet, sir, on the word of a knight, these long-horned cows you affect to despise are more to be relied on as allies than twice the number of men I bring.”

“Doubtless,” the veteran rejoined, stroking his grizzled beard.

“I understand your double meaning, Senhor de Chaste,” Torrevedros said, slightly disconcerted. “But had you been present at a former descent of the Spaniards, when we routed five hundred infantry by driving half the number of wild cows upon them, you would not scoff at my design.”

“What! prove ourselves boors, and go to battle behind a herd of cattle with goads for lances!” here broke in the commandant with great indignation. “By St. Dennis and the devil, sir count, sir viceroy, you make my old blood boil to hear you talk. And I tell you once for all before these gentlemen here present, whose scornful laughter, as you may see, is only restrained by their good-breeding, that your offer in no respect suits the style of warfare practiced by knights and Frenchmen, although it may serve the purpose of cowards and Portuguese.”

“Take care! sir commandant,” cried the governor threateningly, stung to anger; “take care what you say in the hearing of a knight of that nation.”

“I have said my say,” the sturdy soldier answered shortly, turning his back on the speaker and stalking into his tent, where the other followed him after some consideration.

There the two commanders conversed at length, and with rather more harmony than the beginning promised; for De Chaste was not apt to bear a grudge long, and the smooth Portuguese would have kissed the other’s shoes if no other way offered for saving his precious life and limbs. The former, apart from his chivalric prejudices, and weighing the proposal simply as an expediency, refused to permit the employment of the horned reinforcement.

“They might as readily be turned against our battalions,” he justly remarked, “as Philip of Macedon’s elephants were, in some battle I’ve forgotten the name of.”

The commandant probably meant Pyrrhus, but his vocation being arms, not letters, he need not be undervalued by recent graduates who know better. One thing was now clear, the French had only themselves to look to, since the long expected recruits of the viceroy turned out to be a herd of cows, and a night attack was secretly ordered, which recalled the captain and Hilo to camp, but which the return of the count and his expostulations caused to be abandoned.

“You can learn nothing of the force and real position of the enemy, what obstacles lie between, nor who can guide you,” urged the alarmed governor plausibly; “and as for my men, I know not one who will be bribed or forced into a position so perilous.” Which appeared so truthful that the fiery Frenchman, with as bad a grace as any of his subordinates, betook himself to bed again after personally making the round of the Portuguese camp. All these swore by all the saints to stand to their posts. They were terrible fellows, fire-eaters and the like, at their own showing; but the commander was scarce asleep when Torrevedros reappeared with a confused air and the information that the entire division had stolen off and dispersed. Where the French general consigned his allies need not be repeated to polite ears, and I think his confessor, if he had one, should by no means have ordered a severe penance for what he said under provocation so grievous. A council of the chief cavaliers was immediately called. Alas! the most chivalric of them all lay at the foot of the hill without a word to offer.

The count spoke first, and strongly advised retreat to a higher mountain, by which the approaches to the interior might be readily defended, and an abundance of ammunition and provisions could be carried there, with cannon enough to maintain the position.

“Rather let us throw ourselves into the fortress of Angra,” cried Duvick, “Where, with our handful of Frenchmen, we can defy the whole Spanish army, backed by every Portuguese in the Azores.”

This speech drew a murmur of assent from the council, but the viceroy answered with his usual treacherous suavity.

“There is nothing to fear from my countrymen on that score, Messires.”

“No, by the Mass!” cried half a dozen voices, with some sardonic laughter; and the count turned to the commandant again, biting his lip with suppressed rage.

“Do as you please, Senhor de Chaste,” he said, with as much calmness as he could assume. “You are all masters here, I perceive, but I warn you fairly beforehand, that the walls of Angra are no better than a nut-shell, and the cannon of the marquis will bring them down upon your hot heads in less than twelve hours. Moreover, the place can contain not more than two hundred soldiers, as Heaven is my witness.”

Which was as great a fib as ever knight told, but quite as excusable as many, you ladies, are in the habit of telling by proxy at all hours of the day and at your front doors. I cannot see, for my part, how the Count de Torrevedros could possibly have acted otherwise under the circumstances, which approached as nearly as any military predicament may a civil, the not at home of mesdames out of toilette. In short, the count had that same night sent the keys of Angra by a trusty messenger to the Marquis of Santa Cruz, with his complimentary offer of services; an errand which the astute ambassador acquitted himself of to admiration, by leaving out the count and assuming the credit: and at the same moment the viceroy was giving his disinterested advice, no less a personage than Don Augustino Inique was marching in with five hundred men through the wide-open gates of the fortress.

This the commandant learned by daybreak the next morning, at which early hour he was pushing for the mountains in accordance with the advice of Torrevedros, who had gone ahead, as people say taking French leave. At the village of Nostre Dame Dager de Loup, they heard further that the governor had put off in a boat from the coast; and the French army, debarred from the sea on one side and Angra on the other, and now openly deserted by the Portuguese, occupied the little town and began immediately to throw up intrenchments before the arrival of the Spaniards.

“We must not think longer how best to live, but most honorably to die,” De Chaste answered a few of his young officers who grumbled at the want of necessary stores. A fine, heroic answer, which stopped the mouths of those high-spirited gentlemen, but was less efficient in the case of the soldiery. It must be confessed the estimable pair Hilo and the serjeant were not a little responsible for this discontent; hard work agreed with neither of their constitutions, and before nightfall they had found opportunity to exchange their views on the subject.

“I’d as lief be a galley-slave and be done with it,” the serjeant muttered to Hilo, who was helping him lift a load of sand out of the ditch.

“Captain,” returned the other, “you speak my mind; and things are getting in such a state here the sooner we draw our necks out of the noose the better.”

“Good,” replied Carlo, “but how is that to be done, look you? The marquis will hang us up for spies if we go over to them, and the count they say has gone off in the last boat on this coast.”

“But what if most of these Frenchmen went out with us?”

“That alters the case,” cried the captain with his old grin.

And somewhere about midnight the commandant was roused by an uproar round the officers’ quarters, which shewed what willing soil the ringleaders had found to sow sedition in.

“Kill your captains! I’ll begin with mine,” the serjeant was roaring with a volley of oaths, and menacing Captain Curzon with his halbert. The fellow had found drink somewhere, and was raging like a worried bull, his prominent bloodshot eyes sustaining the resemblance.

Curzon parried the thrust and would have cut him down, when the voice of the commandant overtopped the clamor.

“What!” he exclaimed, “do you plot to follow our Portuguese allies! Go, every man of you who chooses; we want none but brave men here, and will bear with no others.”

“That may do for you to prate about, general mine,” answered SeÑor de Ladron scoffingly, the seditious talents of that young gentleman causing him to be chosen captain of the insurgents, “but it wont deceive men with their eyes open, hark ye! We all know you’re only waiting a chance to escape with your brave officers, and leave us to pull an oar apiece in the Spanish galleys. Ha, ha! M. de Chaste! Begone while you’re allowed, for you see you’re outwitted.”

“Insolent dog, to your quarters!” the knight cried, advancing upon the speaker and striking him with his sheathed sword.

But Hilo, instead of falling back, foaming with rage, seized a halbert with both hands, and was as promptly fastened on by a dozen embracing arms.

“No, by St. Dennis! the general shan’t be harmed!” as many more voices exclaimed. “Only we’ll be ahead of him and go first.”

“Friends,” answered De Chaste, with some indignation in his voice, “you hurt me more by your suspicions than if you ran a sword through my body; and I take Heaven to witness, I will be the last man to quit this island, and will die rather than abandon any of you to the mercy of the marquis, whose countrymen gave such instance of their treatment of the French last year in the Floridas. Let fifty or a hundred of you surround my house yonder, and insure my stay: it will be time enough to dishonor yourselves and nation when I set the example.”

Which the mutineers did for the present, despite the taunts of their leader-elect, who, struggling furiously with his captors, had all the while been calling to the others to fall upon the officers, or loose him and he would give them example. The commandant was a favorite with the troops.

“We will wait until to-morrow,” they agreed among themselves, “and general or no general, he is a dead man if he lifts a finger to betray us.”

SeÑor Hilo de Ladron, for his part, came to the conclusion, after this failure, that the French camp was no place for him, and communicated his views to his faithful Damon.

“I’d like to have split his head open, he hadn’t so much as a cap on to save it,” he said to Wolfang, “and then we might have done as we pleased with the rest. But, hang it, you’re such a liar, the men only half believed the story from the first, and letting him talk upset their resolution altogether. It’s his turn now, and we must get out of this hornet’s nest before daylight.”

“Where to go?” the captain asked.

“If you are born to be drowned, you can stay behind, you wont be safe otherwise,” Hilo answered indifferently. “I’m for the mountains at first, and who knows but I may find it to my interest in the end to visit the marquis with the count for sponsor.”

“Oh, if you keep such good company,” the captain returned, with a grotesque bow and grin showing his comprehension of Hilo’s plans, “I’m your excellency’s humble servant!” And in an hour’s time these fast friends had slipped through the line of sentries, scaled the breast-work, and sat down to wait for light a mile or two from camp.

The impossibility of hearing ordinary discourse at that distance will cause the finale of this story to be very different from what it might have been under more favorable circumstances. For a herald, or courier, or valet, had just then arrived from the camp of the marquis, at the intrenchments, bringing a letter to the Commandant de Chaste, who presently sent through the village to find Don Hilo, as we all know now, without success.

[To be continued.

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BY MRS. ELIZABETH J. EAMES.

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TO ARABELLA, SLEEPING.

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BY R. T. CONRAD.

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BY R. PENN SMITH.

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Strolling through a cemetery, I beheld within one of the enclosures a widow who had buried her only child there, some two years before. I accosted her, and tendered my assistance. “Thank you,” she replied, “my task is done. I have been pulling up the nettles and thistles that have overgrown little Willie’s grave, and have planted mnemonies, heart’s ease, and early spring flowers in their place, as more fitting emblems of my child; and though they may fail to delight him, they will remind me that there is a spring time even in the grave, and that Willie will not be neglected by Him who bids these simple flowers revive. But is it not strange how rank nettles and all offensive weeds grow over the human grave—even a child’s grave?”

“I remember you mourned grievously at losing him, but trust time has assuaged affliction.”

“Its poignancy is blunted, but memory is constantly hovering around my child. Duty and reason have taught me resignation; still I seldom behold a boy of his age, but fancy pictures to me how he would have appeared in the various stages of his progress toward manhood. And then again I see him like his father—and myself a proud and happy mother in old age. True, you may call it an idle, baseless dream; and so it is, but I cannot help indulging in it.”

“Dream on! the best of life is a dream.”

We walked a few steps, and paused before an inclosure where reposed the remains of a worthy man, with nothing more than his unobtrusive name inscribed upon a marble slab to designate his resting-place. He was respected for his integrity and energy; beloved for his utility and benevolence. Here was no lying inscription, making the grave gorgeous, as if monumental mendacity might deceive Divinity. His record was elsewhere, traced by unseen fingers.

“There are no nettles on that good man’s grave,” said the widow. “I knew him well; weeds would wither there; nothing but flowers should cover his ashes.”

A few young men at the time were idly passing. They paused, when one tearing a weed from the pathway, hurled it among the flowers, exclaiming, “Let him rot there with weeds for his covering.” The slumbering dust thus spurned had long sustained the ingrate who now voided his venom upon the benefactor who had fed him until there was no longer faith in hope. The widow sighed; “And this is on the grave of the good and just!”

“Had Willie lived, he might have been such a man, and such would have been his harvest.”

In the next tomb a brave soldier mingled his ashes with the red earth of Adam. In his early career he was placed in a position where daring energies alone could command success. He succeeded, and was rewarded by a nation’s approbation. No subsequent opportunity occurred to acquire peculiar distinction; and when he died, a shaft was erected commemorating the most remarkable action of his life. His tomb attracted the attention of some visiters who read his epitaph. “Characteristic of the age!” exclaimed one, throwing a pebble at the inscription, “to swell a corporal to the dimensions of a CÆsar. It was the only action of a protracted life, worthy of record, and here it is emblazoned for the pride of posterity.” Had the thoughtless scoffer of the unconscious dead occupied his position, which gained renown, history possibly might have perpetuated disgrace, instead of a tombstone record of gallant services—the patriot’s sole reward.

“You knew the soldier?”

“For years, and well. A brave and worthy man. The current of his useful life flowed smoothly on, without being ruffled by the breath of calumny.”

“And yet nettles cover his grave already!”

“Such might have been your child’s destiny—but that matters little; praise or scorn are now alike to the old soldier.”

We passed to a spot where a gay party was leaning on a railing. A young woman had plucked some of the gayest flowers from the enclosure, and was laughing with her merry companions. As we approached, she threw the bouquet already soiled and torn, on the grave; and they went their way with some idle jest upon their lips. The widow paused, and struggled to suppress her emotion.

“Did you know the tenant of this grave?”

“From his childhood. He loved that woman, and struggled to acquire wealth to make her happy. He succeeded, and when she discovered that he was completely within her toils, she deceived and left him hopeless. There are men whose hearts retain the simplicity of childhood through life; and such was his. Without reproaching her, or breathing her name to any one, he suddenly shrunk as a blighted plant, and withered day by day, until he died. Like the fabled statuary, he was enamored of the creature his own mind had fashioned, and in the credulity of his nature, he made her wealthy, trusting that time would infuse truth and vitality into the unreal vision of his youthful imagination. The world of love is a paradise of shadows! The man beside her is now her husband; the wealth they revel in, this grave bequeathed them.”

“The fool! to die heart-broken—for a dream. But great men have at times died broken-hearted. I should not call him fool. It is a common death among good men.”

“Great men! But women, sir, have pined away to death.”

“In poetry, the bill of mortality is a long one; in real life the patients seldom die, unless they chance to be both vain and poor. Did a rich widow ever grieve to death for the loss of the noblest husband? Wealth is a potent antidote to the malady, and teaches resignation; while poverty, with the first blow of his iron sledge, will make his cold anvil smoke with the heart’s blood, for he is buried who for years had withstood the blow.”

“That woman did not cast nettles on his grave.”

“No nettles, but faded roses which she tore from it—blooming when she came there. Better cast stones and nettles than those withered flowers. Your boy has escaped this poor man’s destiny—the worst of deaths! His was the happiest! he died—smiling—on his fond mother’s bosom! But there is a grave around which weeds grow more luxuriantly, than about the sepulchre where mortal dust reposes. Daily watchfulness is required to prevent the bright creations therein buried, from being so over-run until nothing is seen to designate the beautiful tomb, where we had carefully embalmed them, as if in amber.”

“What grave, sir, do you refer to?”

“The human mind. A mighty grave wherein we daily bury crushed hopes and brilliant ephemerons, too fragile to survive the chill atmosphere of a solitary day. Keep the weeds from growing there and smothering their memories. They are the progeny of the soul, and should not be allowed to perish. Shall the joyous and beautiful creations of childhood be forgotten in age; must the noble aspirations of the vigor of manhood pass away without even an epitaph, because crushed in their vigor! Rather contemplate them hourly; plant flowers beside them, though they bloom but briefly and fade, they will send forth perfume even in decay, and inevitably revive in due season, bearing refreshing fruit; and old age, with palsied hand, will readily gather up the long account of his stewardship, and as he glances over the lengthened scroll that must become a record in the archives of eternity, may rejoice that he hath not been an ingrate and idler in the heat of the harvest-field, but hath diligently labored to make the entrusted talent yield the expected usage. Tear up the weeds that are incessantly growing there, ere he who was placed little lower than the angels, becomes an empty cenotaph—a stranger’s grave—mouldering and mingling with his mother earth unheeded and unknown.”

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BY A STUDENT.

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Many of our readers have undoubtedly been asked during the past month for information touching the whereabouts of some trite quotation, the locality of which the whole neighborhood has not been able accurately to decide. We have often thought it would be a commendable service if some industrious student would make a complete collection of the every day sayings, and print them side by side with the author’s names. As no one, however, has seen fit to pioneer in the attempt, we here make a beginning, confident that the plan is worthy to be carried out more fully. At some future period, if no one else seems willing to continue the undertaking, we hope to find leisure and opportunity for other specimens in “Graham.” Meantime, here are a few of the more common lines in “everybody’s mouth.”

It stands thus in the original:

And wretches hang that jurymen may dine.

Ditto.

FROM LIFE STUDIES.

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BY ENNA DUVAL.

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