Do not draw upon you a person’s enmity, for enmity is never appeased—injury returns upon him who injures—and sharp words recoil against him who says them.

Chinese Proverb.

On the green and flowery banks of the beautiful Lake Tai-hoo, whose surface bears a thousand isles, resting like emeralds amid translucent pearl, dwelt Whanki the mother of Lí. The mother of Lí! Ah happy distinction—ah envied title! For where, far or near, was the name could rank with Lí on the scroll of learning—receiving even in childhood the title of the “Exiled Immortal,” from his skill in classic and historical lore!

Moreover, he was of a most beautiful countenance, while the antelope that fed among the hills was not more swift of foot. Who like Lí could draw such music from the seven silken strings of the Kin! or when with graceful touch his fingers swept the lute, adding thereto the well-skilled melody of his voice, youths and maidens opened their ears to listen, for wonderful was the ravishing harmony.

Yet although the gods of learning smiled upon this youthful disciple of Confucius, poverty came also with her iron hand, and although she could not crush the active mind of Lí, with a strong grip, she held him back from testing his skill with the ambitious literati, both old and young, who annually flocked to the capital to present their themes before the examiners. For even in those days as the present, money was required to purchase the smiles of these severe judges. They must read with golden spectacles—or wo to the unhappy youth who, buoyant with hope and—empty pockets, comes before them! With what contempt is his essay cast aside, not worth the reading!

Sorely vexed, therefore, was poor Lí—and what wonder—to know that he might safely cope with any candidate in the “Scientific Halls,” yet dare not for the lack of sycee (silver) enter their gates, lest disgrace might fall upon him.

Yet Lí was of a merry heart—and, as all the world knows, there is no better panacea for the ills of fortune than the spirit of cheerfulness. Thus, although poverty barred the way to promotion, it could not materially affect his happiness—no more than the passing wind which for a moment ruffled the surface of the lake, yet had no power to move its depths.

Now it happened that one day taking his nets Lí went down to the lake, and as he cast them within the waters, not knowing any one was near, he broke forth into a merry song, which sent its glad burthen far off to the lips of mocking Echo, like Ariel, seeming to “ride on the curled clouds.” Now it also chanced, that within a grove of the graceful bamboo, which skirted the path down which Lí had passed on his way, walked the great Mandarin Hok-wan.

“Hi! by the head of Confucius the fellow sings well!” he exclaimed, as the song met his ear, (for, as we have said, Lí had a voice of rare melody,) and forthwith issuing from his concealment, Hok-wan seated himself upon the bank and entered into conversation with the young fisherman.

If the mere melody of the voice had so charmed the mandarin, how much more was he captivated by the wit and learning of the youth, who, thus poorly appareled, and humbly employed, seemed to share wisdom with the gods! Hok-wan stroked his eye-brows in astonishment, and then bidding Lí leave his nets, he bore him off as a rare prize to his own house, where he that day feasted a numerous company.

First conducting Lí to an inner apartment, he presented him with a magnificent robe richly embroidered, together with every article necessary to complete the toilet of a person of distinction, and when thus appareled, introduced him into the presence of his guests. And truly Lí walked in among them with all the stateliness and hauteur of a man who feels that he is conferring an honor, instead of being honored, as no doubt Lí should have considered himself, in such an august assemblage of grave mandarins. With what an air he seated himself at the sumptuously loaded table! where, according to Chinese custom of the higher classes, the various dishes of meats, soups, fish, preserves, etc., were all nearly hidden by large bouquets of beautiful flowers, and pyramids of green leaves.

And now no sooner had Hok-wan delivered with all customary formality the speech of welcome, and drained to the health of his guests the tiny goblet of crystal, embossed with gold, than rising to his feet, and joining his hands before his breast, in token of respect to his host, Lí called a servant, and bidding him take a part from all the good things spread before him, said:

“Carry these to the dwelling of Whanki, the mother of Lí. Say to her that as the sands on the lake shore, countless are the blessings of the gods, who have this day smiled upon her son. Bid her eat—for although from hunger he should gnaw his flesh, and from thirst drink his blood, yet not one morsel of this banquet shall pass the lips of Lí unless his aged mother be also sustained by the same delicacies.”

At hearing which, all the mandarins, and Hok-wan himself, loudly expressed their admiration. Such is the esteem which the Chinese entertain for filial piety.

This duty discharged, Lí attacked the dainties before him like a hungry soldier, yet seasoning all he said and did with so much wit and humor, that the guests laid down their chop-sticks and listened with wonder. With the wine, Li grew still more merry—his wit cut like hail-stones wheresoe’er it lighted, and at his jovial songs the grave dignitaries forgetting their rank, (somewhat washed away by copious draughts of sam-shu,[^[1]]) snapped their fingers, wagged their shorn heads, and even rising from the table embraced him familiarly. At length, when after an interval of a few hours their hilarity was somewhat abated, during which the guests walked in the beautiful gardens, or reclining upon luxuriant cushions, regaled themselves with their pipes, or in masticating their favorite betel-nut, Lí made bare his bosom before them, and to their astonishment they found it was only a needy scholar whose praises they had been shouting.

A needy scholar!

How firmly they clutched their fobs, lest a candareen [^[2]] might jump into the pocket of the needy scholar. But of advice they were as profuse as grass-hoppers in August.

“Go to the capital—go to Kiang-fu,” (Nankin the ancient capital of the empire,) “thou wilt perplex the learned—thou wilt bewilder the ignorant!” said one.

“Hi! this fellow Lí will yet stand with honor before the emperor,” cried another.

“Appear boldly in the ‘Scientific Halls’ before the Examiners,” said a third, “and never fear but thy name shall be cried at midnight from the highest tower in the city,[^[3]] as the successful Lí, with whom no other candidate can compete!”

“When the wind blows over the fields does not the grass bend before it!” said Hok-wan. “When the great Ho speaks will not inferiors obey! the learned academician Ho is my brother—to him then you shall go—one word from him, and even the judges themselves shall cry your name.”

“Ivory does not come from a rat’s mouth, or gold from brass clippings,” thought Lí, as he listened to these remarks—“a few candareens now would be better for me than all this fine talk—truly I must be a fool not to know all this stuff before. Yet by the sacred manes of my ancestors, I will go to the capital, and that, too, ere another sun ripens the rice-fields—furnished with a letter to the illustrious Ho, I may dare admittance.”

Giddy with wine, and with the excitement of high hopes for the future, at a late hour Lí was borne in a sumptuous palankeen to the humble dwelling of Whanki.

The poor old soul at first knew not the gay gallant who stood before her, so much had the gift-robes of the mandarin changed his appearance.

“Heigh-yah! but, Lí, thou art as fine as a magpie,” quoth she, raising her head from the pan of charcoal, over which she seemed to be simmering something in a small dish—“Heigh—and now I look at you again, I see you have drank of that cursed sam-shu—forever abhorred be the name of I-tih![^[4]] with all thy wit dost thou not know the wise saying of Mencius—‘Like a crane among hens is a man of parts among fools.’ (It may be inferred, I think, that the good old Whanki was something of a scold.) And while thou hast been guzzling, see what I have prepared for thee—what had I to do with birds-nest soup, and with shark’s fins, and with pigeon’s eggs from the table of Hok-wan! My poor Lí will be too modest to eat with the great company, I said to myself, and I will not eat them, but warm them up to comfort him when he comes back—look, here they are,” (lifting the dish from the fire) “and yet thou comest home like a well-fed, stupid swine!”

“Now tu-h, mother,” answered Lí, “if thy son has been drinking with fools, they wore fine feathers—and now embrace me, for I am going to the capital.”

“Lí, thou art drunk—go to bed—the capital indeed! Ah cursed, cursed I-tih!” exclaimed the old woman.

But when at length Lí convinced her that he was neither drunk nor crazy, but in reality about to start for Nankin, as a candidate for honors in the Scientific Halls, and with a letter to the great Ho in his pouch, Whanki knocked her head reverently before the shrine of the household gods in token of gratitude.

The remainder of the night was passed in preparations for the journey, and just as the golden ripples of the lake danced in the rays of the rising sun, Lí tenderly embraced his aged parent, and set forth on foot for Nankin, more than a hundred miles distant.

“Ah, the blessed bug,” quoth the old woman, gazing after him so long as she could catch a glimpse of his large bamboo hat, “he will not want for rice any day—no sycee has he in his pockets, but such a tongue in his head, as will bring him food and honors.”

Whanki was right. In every hamlet he passed through—in every cottage by the wayside, Lí found a shelter and a welcome—the good people considering themselves amply repaid for their hospitality if the young stranger would but touch the strings of the pipa, or recite to them odes from the Shoo-king.

In this manner he reached the capital, and crossing the marble bridge over the great canal, upon the eastern side, entered the city at the Gate of Extensive Peace. Going into the first barber’s shop which offered, Lí carefully plucked out his beard, (hear this, ye exquisites of modern days!) shaved his head anew to the crown, and plaited his long black hair with red ribbons. Then entering an adjoining tavern, he exchanged his dusty, travel-worn garments for the rich dress presented him by Hok-wan, which he had preserved with great care for the occasion, and holding up his fan, to shield his eyes from the sun, stepped forth into the busy streets, to look for the dwelling of the illustrious Ho.

And next, within the Hall of Ceremony, in the elegant mansion of Ho, behold Lí in the presence of the great man himself—for with the same audacity which marked his behavior at the dinner of Hok-wan, had Lí given the door-keeper a vermilion card, leading Ho to expect a visiter of rank. Advancing three steps to meet him, Ho bows low to his stranger guest—then with graceful ease Lí also advances three step, and bows still lower—Ho again gravely steps forward and makes another salutation—upon which Lí again does the same—with a still lower bending of the body, Ho once more advances—whereupon Lí, nearly touching the marble pavements with his forehead, steps forward yet another three steps! By this time their united and solemn paces had brought them near the couch upon which visiters are expected to repose themselves. And here again the same formalities were gone through with, as to who should first be seated thereon. But being seated, Lí at once burst forth with such a flow of wit and fancy, that Ho was completely captivated ere he knew the name or business of the daring youth!

Now this was a capital stroke of Lí. For the academician cared not so much for any dignitary under the Emperor Supreme, as he did for a man of learning, or even for one who could tickle the moments as they flew with witty jests, provoking laughter. Ho saw at once that Lí not only possessed this recommendation, but that his knowledge could also ring on as many topics as there were bells to the Porcelain Tower. When, therefore, he had perused the letter of Hok-wan, which, after securing his ground, Lí put into his hand, and after having listened to the history which the youth gave of his hard struggles, of his poverty, and earnest desire to come before the judges on the day of examination, than Ho, embracing him, bade him be of good cheer.

“Now, by the sacred Budha!” he exclaimed, “learning like thine shall win its crown without the aid of propitiatory gifts, save to the gods themselves. Know, O Lí, that Yang and Kau, who enjoy the smiles of the great emperor, are this year the examiners. To them shalt thou go, with no favor but my name—humble as it is, it shall cause thine to be enrolled among the literati of the Imperial Academy!”

No doubt Ho manifested great vanity in this, in so much as hinting that his “humble” name could balance with gold in the scales of avarice! Nevertheless Lí was delighted, and immediately set about piling up such a cloud castle as spread over his whole heaven of glory.

And now the day of examination approached, and confident of success, Lí boldly presented himself for admission.

Offering the memorial of Ho, which was to insure him, as he supposed, the favor of the judges, he was much surprised to see those great men, Yang and Kau, after turning over the missive with elevated noses, expressive of their contempt, cast it from them with scorn.

“Heigh! the academician Ho thinks to cheat us with bubbles! He sends us a scrawl devoid of meaning, to bespeak our favor for an upstart without degree or title! Yes—we will remember the name of Lí!” Saying which, they cast looks of bitter disdain upon the needy scholar.

Then commenced the tedious formula of the examination. The candidates, hundreds in number, were all obliged to undergo the strict search of the officers in attendance. Their robes, pockets, shoes, and even their nicely plaited queues were examined, to see they had not secreted some essay or composition of some kind, which they might substitute for one written on the spot without preparation, when the examiners should command them. This done, they were all seated on long benches with their paper and pencils ready for the trial—the doors and windows in the meanwhile being closely barred and guarded, that no one from without should have the power of smuggling any written paper into the hands of the students.

At a signal-gun the theme for composition was given out, and, like the velvet feet of butterflies, the pencils of the rival candidates glided smoothly and fleetly over the tinted paper. With perfect composure and ease, Lí wrote off his essay in the most beautiful characters, without a single erasure or omission—handling the subject with great skill and judgment, and gave it into the hands of Yang.

“Heigh!” said Yang, without giving himself even the trouble to glance over it, but drawing his pencil derisively over the fair and beautiful characters, “I remember the name of Lí! What stuff is here—why the fellow is only fit to grind my ink!”

“To grind your ink!” quoth Kau, “say rather he is only fit to lace my buskins!”

And laughing loudly at their own wit, the great judges Yang and Kau turned their backs upon the unfortunate Lí.

Overwhelmed with mortification and rage, he rushed to the lower end of the hall, and there was obliged to remain until evening, as not until then could the doors be thrown open to give egress to any one. Here he had the vexation of listening to the jibes and sneers of those around him, and of seeing others promoted to honors, who were as far inferior to him as owls to eagles! What a bitter day for poor Lí! and when at length dismissed with renewed contumely from the Scientific Halls, he rushed into the presence of Ho, swearing loudly that he would one day ride over the necks of the proud Yang and Kau, “and by the head of Confucius when I do—Yang shall grind my ink, and Kau lace up my buskins!” he cried with bitterness.

Ho was terribly indignant at the treatment of his protégé, as well as incensed for the insult he imagined his own dignity had received. But, although he was himself high in favor with the emperor, Yang and Kau stood still higher, therefore he dissembled his anger, lest his head might pay the forfeit, should those two powerful courtiers incense the emperor against him.

When he found Lí preparing to return home, he embraced him kindly, and bade him tarry yet another year in the capital.

“In the end thou wilt surely succeed, O Lí. The next year the examiners will not be the same, and thou may’st then be certain of success,” said Ho. “Remain with me until the time comes round—thy days and nights shall roll off bright and rosy as morning clouds—wine, wit, and music, yes, and the smiles of women, shall make thee forget the insults thou hast received.”

But Lí remembered his aged mother, sitting solitary in her humble home by the side of the lake, and his resolution strengthened.

“Know, O Ho, that an old mother waits for Lí afar off. Summer and harvest will come, but Whanki has no one to sow her rice, and desolation will sit in her dwelling. The fish sport and gambol amid the waters of the lake—Whanki has no strength to draw them forth, therefore hunger and death will await her! What profit, O wise Ho, should I gain if my aged parent suffered! Would not the gods curse the race of Lí!”

“Noble youth, take this purse—it is heavy,” exclaimed Ho—“hasten to relieve the necessities of thy mother—a happy mother in so dutiful a son—then return without delay and await the examination. I promise thee, thou shalt not this time lack a present for the greedy judges—though, by Budha, I would like to give it them at the dagger’s point!”

Accordingly Lí bade farewell to his generous friend, promising to return as speedily as possible.

[1]	A deleterious liquor distilled from rice.

[2]	A Chinese coin.

[3]	The custom of announcing the names of the successful candidates at the examination.

[4]	The god of intoxicating liquors.

PART II.

A man who has a tongue may go to Rome.

Chin. Prov’b.

Within the “Tranquil Palace of Heaven,” Hwant-sung sat upon the Dragon’s Throne, with all his court prostrate before him.

There was evidently “something rotten in the state of Denmark,” for the clouds which veiled the august features of the Celestial Monarch were black as night—thunder might soon be expected, and low in the dust his humble courtiers awaited the outpouring of his terrible wrath.

Before his footstool knelt the Premier Yang, bearing in his hand an official document inscribed with curious hieroglyphics.

“By my ancestors,” exclaimed the emperor, with a wrathful look from one to the other of his trembling courtiers, “a wise court is sustained by the bounty of Hwant-sung! say rather a pack of idiots, asses, dolts, fatted dogs! What! shall we become a jibe in the mouths of foreign nations! Shall barbarian kings mock the court of Nankin! Hi! Is there not one then of my learned counsellors—not one of my renowned warriors can decipher me this scroll! Tremble, then, ye hounds! Yang, I command thee to make known to us the purport of the missive which the foreign ambassadors have brought to our court.”

At this order well might Yang turn pale—for there was no more meaning to him in the characters on which his eyes were fixed, than in the slimy trail which the green lizard draws upon the sand. Over and over he turned it—now on this side, now on that—watched narrowly and jealously meanwhile by all around—for when was one high in favor with princes also the favorite with the mass! At length, nine times reverently knocking his head before Hwant-sung, Yang said:

“Let not the displeasure of Earth’s Glory, before whose frown the whole world stands affrighted, annihilate his slave that the gods have not granted him power to do the will of his majesty in this thing. He cannot read.”

Then did Hwant-sung call up one after another of those whose scholastic lore was famed throughout the empire. In vain. Not one could understand the mysterious scroll. At which, becoming exceeding wroth, Hwant-sung swore that unless within three days his ministers could make known to him the signification of the embassy, their offices and salaries should all be taken from them—and if in six days they were still in ignorance, their death should release the empire from so many stupid owls!

Then did the academician Ho humbly present himself at the foot of the throne.

“Will the emperor deign to open the ears of graciousness while the humblest of his slaves speaks? Know then, O mighty sovereign, there arrived last night at my house a man in whom all knowledge seems to centre. His mind, keen as the lightning, penetrates the most hidden mysteries—there is no science, no art, which he hath not already mastered. Command then that he appear before thee to make plain that which doth perplex thy majesty’s servants.”

Hwant-sung rejoiced greatly at this information, and bade Ho bring the learned scholar at once into his presence.

But when Ho, eager with joy, related to Lí the good fortune he had secured him, that audacious youth positively refused compliance with the commands of the emperor! offering as an excuse, that as he was but a poor scholar, without title or degree, he dared not presume to appear before so much majesty.

With this answer then the unhappy Ho returned to the palace, not doubting but the rage of Hwant-sung would vent itself not only upon Lí, but also upon himself.

Kneeling before the monarch, Ho exclaimed reverently—

“Will your majesty once more graciously listen. At the last examination, this man of whom I have spoken was turned from the Scientific Halls in disgrace—his essay rejected by the Premier Yang and the General Kau. Will it then please thee to bestow some favor upon Lí, that he may with more propriety come into this august presence?”

“It shall be done,” exclaimed the emperor. “We confer upon Lí the title of Doctor of the first degree, together with the purple robe and yellow girdle. Go bring him before us.”

With this mark of royal patronage, Ho retraced his steps with all the alacrity of a lover, and made known to Lí the gracious favors of the emperor, supposing, doubtless, that the student would rejoice as one long blind now suddenly restored to light, or as a famished man at a feast. But lo! coolly putting on the robes of office, as if he had but just cast them aside, with the air of a prince, Lí signified to the great academician Ho his readiness now to obey the mandate of the emperor.

Entering the hall of audience with all the grace and ease of a man bred in courts, Lí advanced to the throne, and after paying the customary homage, rose to his feet and looked proudly around upon the assembly of grave men and gallant courtiers.

The knees of the Premier Yang smote each other, as he recognized the youth he had treated with so much contumely now suddenly brought into notice—and well did Kau now remember the name of Lí—and it seemed as if hot pins tore his flesh, into such agitation did that name now throw him.

Hwant-sung received the new doctor with condescension, and placed in his hand the document which he was required to make plain.

But Lí, casting a meaning glance upon Yang and Kau, said:

“Can an indifferent scholar like myself presume to know more than these learned men! Know, O mighty emperor, thy servant was deemed unworthy of favor by thy commissioners Yang and Kau—surely, then, they must be more wise than Lí.”

Charmed with the boldness of the youth, the emperor graciously smiled upon him, and motioned the two mortified examiners to withdraw.

Then standing erect, his head thrown back, yet in an attitude of careless ease, Lí opened the important missive, and without even glancing his eye over it to understand more fully its nature, read it aloud from beginning to end, in a clear, melodious voice.

It proved to be a demand from the king of Po-Hai, couched in the most insulting language, requiring the emperor to restore a part of Corea, consisting of no less than a hundred and eighty towns, and also demanding tribute from the time of its “usurpation” (as the memorial expressed it) by the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty. Thus, but for the skill of Lí, the empire would have been plunged in irretrievable disgrace through the ignorance of its ministers.

The countenance of Hwant-sung grew black as midnight as he listened to this insulting claim, and but for the bold remonstrance of Lí, he would have ordered the bearers of the embassy to instant death.

“May it please your majesty to summon the boorish ambassadors before us,” cried Lí boldly, “I will myself confer with them, and teach them how to respect the mighty Emperor Hwant-sung.”

Immediately, therefore, the ambassadors were brought before Lí, who conversed with them in their own language with the same haughty bearing as if he himself were emperor, interpreting as he did so to the indignant Hwant-sung. At length Lí dismissed them, saying:

“To-morrow his sovereign majesty, to whom your prince is but an earth-worm, will indite an answer to your insulting embassy. Retire—and tremble as ye walk! Thank the gods that the gracious emperor deigns ye to live.”

The audience chamber rang with acclamation, as the ambassadors obsequiously withdrew in compliance to the orders of Lí, and all the courtiers pressed forward to compliment the young doctor—while the emperor, embracing him, conferred upon him at once the rank of academician, and ordered apartments to be prepared for him in the palace of the Golden Bell.

With continued graciousness, he also directed a sumptuous banquet to be got in readiness, and at which all the learned men and wits of the court were expected to appear. Wine was poured for the guests by beautiful young girls of the “golden lilies”[^[5]]—ravishing music swept around them, while at intervals of the feast, the emperor sent from his own apartments a choice theatrical corps for their entertainment.

Now did it seem that all the trials of Lí were over, his poverty but a dream long past, and that now upon the pinnacle to which his ambition had pointed from early youth, he stood ready to hurl back in the teeth of his enemies the disgrace which, only a few months before, they had heaped upon the name of Lí.

The feast wore on even into the night—the wine circulated freely, and in the same breath the courtiers exalted the name of the emperor and of the young academician. What wonder that under the attendance of such charming cup-bearers Lí should have drank more freely than was consistent with his new dignity! How from such hands could he resist the tempting goblet!

The result was, that when the next morning the emperor repaired to the Hall of Audience to treat with the embassy from Po-Hai, the academician Lí was not in attendance—nay, did not make his appearance until after being twice summoned by royal mandate!

The courtiers with whom Lí had feasted the night previous, shook their heads and looked significant. The Premier Yang and the General Kau resumed their usual boldness of demeanor, for no doubt this upstart, this vagabond Lí, would find the anger of their Celestial Monarch more than his head was worth—decapitation would certainly follow such contempt of royalty!

To be twice summoned—what audacity!

At length Li walked carelessly into the hall—his dress somewhat disordered, and his feet thrust negligently into slippers. But for those who were hoping his ruin, what rage to see the emperor not only extend his own royal hand in signification that he would raise him from the ground, but also condescend to inquire after his health!

“I think, learned doctor, the wine was to thy fancy, yet methinks the fumes are still troubling thee! Ere we proceed to our public duties I would have thy wits clearer.”

Saying which, Hwant-sung ordered a plate of hot-spiced fish-broth to be brought from the royal kitchens, that its effects might dissipate the evils of last night’s debauch.

And when with unprecedented condescension their sovereign even took the chop-sticks, and himself cooled it for the palate of Lí, amazement almost turned them to marble.

When his majesty deemed the senses of his new favorite sufficiently restored, the ambassadors were summoned into the hall.

Upon the top of the platform, near the foot of the “Dragon’s Throne,” was placed, by the order of Hwant-sung, a cushion or divan of the Imperial Yellow, embroidered with gold and silver, and upon a tablet formed of mother-of-pearl, and richly set in a band of emeralds, was a cake of perfumed ink—a sheet of flowery paper—a hair-pencil set in a gold tube, together with a small jade stone, with which to rub the ink.

Waving his hand condescendingly to Lí, the emperor spoke: “Ascend the platform, learned doctor, and repose thyself upon the cushions at my feet, while I indite to thee our answer to these slaves.”

“May it please your majesty,” replied Lí, “my feet are not in proper dress to approach so near the ‘Glory of the Earth.’ Will it please thee to command new buskins to be brought thy servant, that he may with decency ascend the platform.”

This bold request was no sooner proffered than it was granted. And then, with a significant glance to the spot where stood Yang and Kau, pale with rage and envy, the audacious Lí again addressed the emperor:

“The humblest of thy slaves would not be officious—but he has one more request to lay at the feet of his gracious sovereign. At the examination this year, thy servant was repulsed by Yang, and turned from the Scientific Halls in disgrace by Kau! Will it therefore please thee to command the Premier Yang to grind my ink, and the General Kau to lace my buskins!”

Never, perhaps, was an audience-chamber so insulted! Even the awe which, in the presence of the Celestial Monarch, rendered the courtiers less men than jackals, failed in this case to suppress a murmur of indignation which passed from one end of the hall to the other.

But Hwant-sung, well pleased to punish the injustice of his commissioners, immediately ordered them both to approach and do the bidding of Lí!

To disobey was death. They wanted courage to die, therefore preferring disgrace, they obsequiously advanced. Kneeling, Kau laced the buskins of Lí, who then ascended the platform, and while reclining at his ease upon the soft cushion at the feet of the emperor, Yang stood at his side assiduously rubbing his ink!

Thus did Lí accomplish his revenge, and triumph over his enemies!

Taking the pencil, he now, with rapid and easy strokes, proceeded to indite the answer, which the emperor vouchsafed to the Po-Hai embassy, and while he did so, Hwant-sung bent over him in astonishment, beholding the characters which he traced with so much rapidity to be identical with those which had so perplexed his court.

Then standing erect upon the right hand of the “Dragon’s Throne,” in clear distinct tones, Lí read aloud the imperial answer—the ambassadors trembling with fear as they listened.

“And now return,” exclaimed Lí, “and teach your king that foxes may not war with lions, nor the cuckoo steal into the eagle’s nest! He is like a vexed grasshopper striving to combat the mighty chariot about to crush him, or like a fly in the jaws of the dragon! When the mighty Hwant-sung, at whose name fear sits in the hearts of all nations, shall send a handful of men to seize upon the petty territory of Po-Hai, blood shall flow a thousand li!”[^[6]]

Kneeling reverently before the throne, and knocking their heads in token of submission, the ambassadors then withdrew to relate to their king that the “Celestial Empire was upheld by an Immortal from the skies!” who stood ever by the throne of the Dragon, and to whom all men did reverence.

From that day the star of Lí was in the ascendent, and for many years he enjoyed the undivided confidence of the emperor, and attained a rank in the scale of letters, which renders the name of Lí celebrated in Chinese literature. Many volumes of his beautiful poems and other works are still preserved in the Imperial Libraries.

[5]	Small feet.

[6]

Leagues.

THE NAVAL OFFICER.

———

BY WM. F. LYNCH.

———

(Continued from page 164.)

Mr. Gillespie and his daughter had retired below when the sweeps were gotten out, and had now returned to the deck. Unconscious of danger, they looked admiringly upon the shining and beautiful scene. Nearly abreast the island of Porto Rico, in full view, lay basking in the beams of the setting sun, the dark, rich green of its luxuriant growth of cane, here and there varied by groves of the cotton-tree, amid which were seen clustering the settlements of the planters. Astern, but farther distant, Cape Engano stretched far to seaward, while inland, ridge over ridge, wooded to their summits, rose the picturesque mountains of St. Domingo. The numerous vessels in sight, mostly running before the wind, varying in size, in rig, and in the color of their canvas, enlivened the view, while nearer, the frigate in her towering proportions was borne majestically toward them.

“Oh, Edward! what a glorious sight!” said the maiden to her lover, who had stepped to her side, as she gained the deck. “Look, father! look at that splendid ship, doesn’t she cleave the waters ‘like a thing of life?’ But what is the matter, Edward? You are silent, and seem dejected, do tell me?”

“In a moment, dearest,” he whispered, as he left her to approach the captain, who had beckoned to him.

“Mr. Talbot,” said the last, “my little craft is in great peril, and less than an hour must decide her fate. The Spaniard will not be silent much longer, and I advise you to get the passengers below.”

“I was about to propose it,” replied Talbot, and returning to Miss Gillespie’s side, said, “summon your fortitude, Mary, the ship which you admire so much, is a Spanish frigate, and is endeavoring to capture the vessel we are in.”

“Oh, how unfortunate! and will they harm us? Can they hurt you and father and Frank? Good God! what is that?” and she shrieked as the ship luffed to the wind, and fired a shot, which went plunging across the bows of the schooner.

“Come below, dearest! come quickly! Help me, Mr. Gillespie, for she has nearly fainted.”

The maiden and her father were conducted to the most secure place below, when, resisting the entreaties of his mistress, Talbot returned to the deck, which Frank had refused to leave.

At the first report of the frigate’s gun, the captain had called out, “Edge her away, quarter-master, keep her off a point; let the guns alone,” he added, addressing some of the crew, “let them be, it would be worse than useless to fire them—the ‘Bird’ must now trust to her wings alone.”

The little vessel was in fact at the very crisis of her fate. The last shot had told that they were within reach of the guns of the enemy; they felt that their only avenue of escape was through a gauntlet of fire, and that the loss of a single spar would certainly insure their capture. It seemed perfect madness for such a wee thing to abide the wrath of the huge leviathan, panoplied in thunder, and possessing almost the power of annihilation. But, in the forlorn and desperate hope of sustaining the enemy’s fire for a few moments, without material injury her captain steadily pursued his way, but cut his anchors from the bow, and threw four of his guns overboard. If the wind had been light, the schooner’s chance would have been a fair one; but the breeze instead of lulling, seemed to freshen as the sun went down. As it was, however, there was a bare possibility of escape, for already the little vessel, lightened of so much weight, began to increase her velocity—still there was an abiding, a stunning fear of being sunk or disabled by the broadside of the frigate. The latter had already opened her fire, and near the chase, the fierce, iron hail had fairly lashed the water into foam, but the schooner was yet materially unharmed, when a voice more potent than that of gunpowder, hushed the loud artillery.

Unobserved by either, a light and fleecy speck, more like a wift of smoke than a fragment of a cloud, had risen over the land, and swift as a meteor shot across the sky. It was what sailors term a “white squall,” and it had caught the chaser and the chased wholly unprepared. Almost simultaneously it struck them both. The frigate's fore-mast and main-topmast went by the board, and every sail that was set, was blown into perfect shreds. The “Humming Bird,” light and resistless, felt the blast but to succumb before it—she was whirled over and capsized in an instant. A number of the crew, entangled in the sails and rigging were immediately drowned. The remainder clambered to the upper-rail, to which they clung with the tenacity that endangered life. In a paroxysm of anguish, Talbot had thrown himself down the cabin-hatchway as he felt the vessel going over, and at imminent hazard had rescued Miss Gillespie, but her father and the servant-maid perished. Frank had been saved by one of the seamen, who held him firmly with one hand, while with the other he clung to the shrouds.

As soon as the survivors were assured of their immediate safety, they looked around to see if there were any hopes of being rescued from their position before the night set in. The frigate had driven past them, and under a single after-sail was hove-to, clearing her hull of the wreck. To the westward, distinct in the reflected light of the sun, which had descended, were several vessels again unfolding to the breeze the canvas which they had wisely furled to the passing gust. Some of the larger ones were again standing boldly out to seaward, while the others like affrighted wild-fowl, were hovering toward the shore. They were all too distant, and the air was fast becoming too obscure for them to see the wreck, or the unfortunate beings who were perched upon it.

On the first recovery from her swoon, the grief of Miss Gillespie for the loss of her father was almost inconsolable. It required all the endearment and entreaties of her lover and her brother to prevail on her to struggle against the spasms which threatened her very existence.

The survivors strove to cheer each other, but the indiscreet cry of one that he saw the fin of a shark cleaving the surface of the water, led them to fear that they were environed by yet greater peril. In about two hours the moon arose, and her clear, chaste light silvered the crests of the waves, as they curled to the now gentle breeze. She had risen scarce more than her diameter, when the watchers on the wreck discovered two or three dark objects which seemed to creep upon the water. Their hopes and their fears were equally excited, but presently they heard the splash of oars, and they knew them to be boats from the frigate. As eager now to be taken as before to escape from capture, by shouts and cries they attracted the notice of those who sought them. They were soon removed to the frigate; the lady and her brother being led to the cabin, and the remainder, including Talbot, promiscuously confined on the lower deck.

Under jury-foremast and new main-topmast, the frigate was the next morning standing under easy sail, along the southern side of St. Domingo.

Repeatedly but ineffectually Talbot had endeavored to convey a message to Miss Gillespie, and spent the night in sleepless anxiety on her account. He knew not into whose hands she had fallen, and whether her youth and beauty might not, in the hands of unprincipled men, tempt to ruffianly treatment. Her brother was with her, it was true, but although spirited, he was young and feeble compared to the strong men around him.

Early in the morning, Talbot had asked to see the officer of the watch. He was told that he could not communicate with any one but through the officer of the marine guard, who would not make the rounds for three or four hours. Talbot impatiently waited for him, and it seemed an age before he made his appearance. When he did so, and was told that Talbot wished to speak to him, he superciliously asked, “Well, sir, what do you want?”

“I wish,” replied Talbot, “to communicate through you to the commander of this ship, that I hold a commission as lieutenant in the navy of the United States, and that with the family of Mr. Gillespie, I was a passenger on board of the privateer.”

“This is a singular tale,” remarked the other, incredulously; “have you any proofs of your identity—where is your commission?”

“I haven’t it; with all my baggage, it was, unhappily, lost in the schooner.”

“This seems incredible,” said the officer, “your dress, too, does not indicate the position you claim.”

“I am aware of it,” replied Talbot, “for I scrupulously avoided wearing any part of my uniform, that in appearance even, I might not be classed among the complement of that unfortunate vessel. But here is her commander, who, as well as his crew, will bear testimony to what I say.”

“Let them answer for themselves,” was the abrupt reply. “If they escape being hung as pirates, they will fare well.” After a moment’s hesitation, he added, “I will state what you say to Count Ureña, our commander, although I do not myself believe it; but let me advise you not to rely upon the evidence of these wretches,” pointing to the prisoners, “if you have no other proof you will fare badly.” As he said this, he turned upon his heel and walked away, Talbot with difficulty restraining himself from throttling him for his coarse, unfeeling rudeness.

Again, hour after hour passed away in fruitless anxiety. Every step upon the ladder which led from above, exciting a thrill of hope, only the instant after to be crushed in bitter disappointment. At length, about 2 P.M., an orderly, with a file of marines came to conduct him to the commander. With alacrity he obeyed the summons, and when he reached the gun-deck, from habits of association, he felt cheered at the sight of the long lines of massive artillery, the stacks of muskets here and there, surmounted with their bristling bayonets, and the bright sheen of the sharpened cutlases. As the cabin-door was thrown open by the sentry stationed there, he cast a quick and searching glance around the apartment, in the hope of seeing his betrothed. She was not there, and but for the guns projecting from either side, he could not have realized that he stood in the cabin of a man-of-war, so rich was its furniture and so gorgeous its decorations. Gracefully festooned across its entire width, and partially concealing the white and highly polished lattice-work of the after-cabin, was a deep curtain of crimson embroidered and fringed with gold. On either side, in the recesses between the guns, were magnificent couches canopied and covered with the same material, intertwined with white. Between the forward and the after gun, on each side, were collections of flowers and fragrant plants. A large mirror in an arabesque frame, was inclined over a rose-wood sideboard, laden with massive plate and a profusion of crystal. A richly chased silver lamp was suspended over a table, the cover of which was of white cloth, like the curtain, fringed with gold. Around were a few rose-wood chairs, and from several cages were heard the cheerful and melodious notes of canary-birds. The deck was covered with the finest matting. On the couch, in the recess to the left, was seated a man of middle age and rather delicate features, except the chin and under lip, which were massive and sensual, and a peculiar glance of the eye, which gave a sinister aspect to an otherwise singularly handsome countenance. He was spare in figure, and to a casual observer, even as he sat, it was perceptible that he stooped, and his whole appearance indicated a frequent participant in the orgies of dissipation. Before him stood the officer of marines, who had just made his official report. At a signal from the latter, Talbot advanced toward the count, who said, “I understand, sir, from the officer of the guard, that you declare yourself to be a lieutenant in the navy of the United States, but that you have no evidence to sustain you. How can you expect me to credit the assertion of a stranger under such suspicious circumstances as you must admit your present position to be?”

“You have a lady on board, sir, my affianced bride, who, with her brother, is here under the same circumstances with myself, they will tell you that I am not an impostor.”

“Your affianced bride,” said the count, not heeding what he had last said, “you are then the friend for whom she has been so restless and uneasy?”

“I knew that she would be so,” replied Talbot; “may I ask now to see her, that she may corroborate what I have said?”

“Not so fast,” exclaimed the count, “that you have gained the affections of the young lady is no proof of your being what you profess, indeed, you may have won them under an assumed name and character.”

“It ill becomes you, sir,” cried Talbot, highly incensed, “it ill becomes you to insult a man who for the time being is in your power; but I warn you that if I, or those with me, are unnecessarily detained or harshly treated, you will be held to a severe accountability.”

“And by whom, sir,” exclaimed the count, turning pale with rage, “by a man who has no other vouchers to a most improbable tale, than a horde of pirates, a mere boy, and a love-sick maiden?”

“The proofs are sufficient, sir, for any impartial mind, but I see plainly that you have some purpose in seeming to disbelieve them—what that purpose is your conscience best can tell.”

“What mean you, sir, by this insolence; but I know how to curb and to punish it!”

“Insolence! and punish!” contemptuously answered Talbot, “those are words used by cowards when addressing slaves. I defy alike your malice and your power. You may maltreat me, but a day of reckoning will surely come. I demand to see Miss Gillespie and her brother,” he added, as his ear caught the sound of stifled sobs in the after cabin.

The count pulled a bell-rope by his hand, and at the summons, the sentry who had admitted him, opened the door and looked in, while from another door, the steward entered and stood obsequiously by his master. The latter, pointing to the door, said,

“Mr. Manuel, take out your prisoner and confine him apart from the rest; sentry, let them pass.”

Talbot hesitated a moment, and then said, “I am unarmed and helpless, and it would therefore be madness to resist you—but, in the name of humanity, I ask you, can you listen unmoved to the distress of the unhappy lady within there; as a man, an officer, and a nobleman, I appeal to you in her behalf. She has recently lost her father, as you know, and, save myself, her young brother is now her only protector.”

“She will be sufficiently protected, sir, without your interference—take out the prisoner, Mr. Manuel.”

The above conversation had taken place in Spanish, which Talbot spoke fluently, but when he found that for some sinister purpose, he was not to be permitted to see Miss Gillespie, he advanced toward the lattice-work and called out in English, “Mary, dear Mary, be upon your guard! Frank, do not leave your sister for a moment; I fear that she is in the hands of a villain.”

“That I will not,” cried the boy, who vainly tried to force the door, while his sister sobbed convulsively.

The count, who, although not understanding the language, comprehended the import of the words, with a gesture of frantic impatience, motioned the officer to lead his prisoner away.

Talbot, satisfied that the danger was lessened by the timely warning he had given, without resistance, submitted to be led from the apartment.

When left alone, the count remained for some time in a thoughtful attitude. “If I could but speak their horrid language,” he said, soliloquizing with himself, “or if she understood mine, I should certainly succeed, for as to this would-be bridegroom, I can easily get rid of him, and of the brother also, if he prove intractable. Let me see! can I trust Gonzalez? From the expression of his eye sometimes, as well as from his never speaking of her, I fear that he knows all about his unhappy sister; and yet I must trust him, or abandon all, for he is the only interpreter we have. There is no help for it; I cannot give up the game so freshly started—but I will be wary and watch him closely.” He slightly touched the bell, “Send Gonzalez to me,” he said to the attendant, who obeyed the summons. A few moments after, a young man of 23 or 24 years of age entered the apartment, and bowing to the count, awaited his commands in silence. From his spare figure, he looked taller than he really was. His hair and moustaches were glossy black, curling in their rich luxuriance. His eye-brows, thick and bushy, formed one continuous arch, and the eye beneath, black and lustrous, was soft and subdued in its ordinary expression, but at times, in a single glance, would convey a startling idea of latent but indomitable energy. His features were almost femininely regular, and his voice musically clear and sweet. The count’s fears were not without foundation; his secretary, for such was the position of Gonzalez, knew his sister’s wrongs, and like a true Spaniard, thirsted for an opportunity to revenge them. His commander scanned him closely where he stood for some minutes, the young man at first returning his gaze with a look neither too humble, nor yet audacious, and then deferentially turned his eyes in another direction.

“What is the matter, Gonzalez? You seem of late unusually taciturn and moody.”

“I think, señor, that my health is suffering from long confinement to the ship. I need recreation on shore.”

“What mean you by long confinement—were you not on shore repeatedly last month in Havana?”

“No, señor! If you will recollect, I applied several times to go, but on each occasion you had important letters or despatches to write.”

“Did you hear from home before we sailed?” and the count’s look became intensely riveted upon him.

The young man slightly colored, “I heard indirectly, señor, that all were well.”

“From whom?”

“From a muleteer who resides in the adjoining village.”

“Did he give you any particulars?”

“None, señor, worth relating.”

The count paused. He was dissatisfied, yet feared that by further questioning he might excite the very suspicions he wished to repress. Assuming a bland and conciliatory tone, he said, “I have been to blame, Gonzalez, and will make amends. When we reach port, you shall have ample opportunities to recruit on shore. Should you need funds, consider my purse at your service.”

“Thanks, señor! my salary is more than sufficient for all my wants.”

“Well, should you be in need, remember my offer; but come nearer, I have now something confidential to impart. You are aware that the lady brought on board last night is now in the after-cabin.”

“I am, señor.”

“One of the prisoners, doubtless an impostor, assumes that she is his betrothed. I wish you to see her and ascertain how she is affected toward him.”

“It is needless, señor. At the invitation of Lieutenant Flores, I accompanied him in his boat last night, and in rescuing the prisoners from the wreck, witnessed how tenderly that lady clung to the man you speak of.”

“It may have been the convulsiveness of fear!”

“If so, señor, it would have subsided with the occasion that gave it birth; but it continued to the last, and while she evinced for the lad the solicitude of an elder sister, she seemed to regard the American as her chosen and sole protector.”

“How were they separated?”

“I understood, señor, by your orders,” replied the youth with an air of surprise.

“I mean,” said the count, somewhat confused, “how did they bear it?”

“He was at first disposed to resist, but a moment after submitted with an air of stern resignation.”

“And she?”

“She at first seemed bewildered, and could not comprehend the purport of the order; when she did so, she implored her lover, for such he must be, not to desert her, but after he had whispered a few words to her, she too submitted, and with such meek gentleness as moved the hardest hearts to sympathy.”

“Sympathy,” exclaimed the count, reddening; “where there is no real distress, there can be no occasion for its exercise. In common humanity, I am bound to protect her from the acts of an impostor.” There was a slight twitch of the secretary’s upper lip, but he said nothing.

“At all events, I wish you to converse with her, Gonzalez. Try if you cannot reconcile her to a short separation from her lover, and assure her that as soon as I am satisfied that he is what he represents himself, he shall be free.”

The secretary bowed in acquiescence, and the count rising, led the way into the after-cabin. It was fit for the boudoir of a queen. A carpet of the richest Persian dyes and softest texture was under foot. Except in front, the whole apartment was lined with fawn-colored tapestries; the windows framed into the after ports had party-colored curtains of fawn and cherry colors. An ottoman and several chairs were covered with embroidered damask corresponding to the tapestry; a small, richly-carved book-case was filled with handsomely bound books. There was a pair of globes upon stands, and a harp, a guitar, mirrors and candelabra, with a few small but exquisite paintings completed the equipment of this cell of a Sybarite.

With disheveled hair, and eyes inflamed with weeping, in all the abandonment of grief, Miss Gillespie lay with her head upon her brother’s breast, who, as the door was opened, threw his arms around, as if more perfectly to protect her. With a courteous air, and all the finished breeding of an artificial gentleman, the count advanced and paid his respects through the medium of the interpreter. “Had she sustained no injury from the accident of the night before? Had she recovered from her alarm? Had she slept well? Could he do any thing for her?”

The three first questions she answered in monosyllables. At the fourth, she made an effort to speak, but maiden bashfulness overcame her, and she looked imploringly to her brother. The youth construed her feelings rightly, and said,

“We wish, sir, to see our friend, Mr. Talbot, who was, with us, a passenger in the schooner.”

“At present it cannot be,” answered the count, “but when we reach Havana, he will doubtless prove his character, and then you can be again united, but,” addressing her, “so much beauty should not be marred by untimely grief. A few days more and your friend will be restored to liberty. Here I cannot make any distinction between him and the other prisoners. Let me therefore entreat you, Miss, to dry up your tears, and let a smile once more wreath itself upon your lovely cheek.”

“Say to him,” asked Miss G., of the interpreter, “that I am in deep affliction. Yesterday I lost my father, and now, when I am most helpless, I am by his act,” (she looked toward the count) “separated from the friend whom that father had chosen as my protector through life. I am therefore in no mood to listen to compliments, which would be ill-timed from any one, most of all from him.”

The count stifled his vexation and said, “I beg pardon for this intrusion. I will await a more seasonable time to express my sympathy and make a proffer of my services;” so saying, he withdrew, desiring Gonzalez to remain and gather the particulars of their history.

An unprincipled man, in his sphere possessing almost unlimited power, he felt himself baffled by an unarmed prisoner and a helpless maid. “Till now,” he said to himself, “I thought Dolores beautiful, but her features want the intellectual grace and harmony of this northern houri. At all hazards, she must be mine. If all else fails, the drug must be resorted to. It is certainly the speediest and I know not but that it is the best; but I am neglecting my first precaution.” He rung the bell for the steward, a dark, swarthy Italian, with the body of a man surmounted on the legs of a dwarf.

“Domingo,” said his master, “go into the secret passage and watch Gonzalez, who is now with the lady. Note every thing that he does, and try to gather the meaning of what he says.”

The steward obeying, disappeared through a panel that opened with a spring.

In about half an hour, Gonzalez came forth from the inner cabin, and stated what he had learned of the prisoners, which, as there was no concealment, is precisely what is known to the reader. When he had retired, at a peculiar signal from the count, the panel noiselessly flew open, and the steward reappeared before his master. His account was any thing but satisfactory, and the count’s brow was darkened with deep mistrust, as he listened to the recital.

About sunset, Miss Gillespie, aroused by some incentive, sent to ask if her brother and herself might be permitted to walk on the upper deck. Assent was most graciously given, and the count himself escorted her. Finding that she would not converse, and that his presence was evidently irksome to her, he smothered his chagrin, and after a few turns, left the orphans to themselves.

It was an hour and a scene fitted to captivate the eye and refresh the soul; and such was its soothing influences, that Miss G. frequently found her mind wandering from the contemplation of the perils which environed her. The night previous, the ship, driven before the blast, was whirled with resistless velocity along a bed of seething foam. Now, the gentle wind borne from the land, wafted fragrance on its wing, and the sea, slightly ruffled, seemed to enjoy the refreshing embrace of its sister element; the ship, too, under a cloud of canvas, snow-white and full distended, pressed majestically on, the spray, like fairy fret-work curling and combing beneath the bow and the rippling wake sparkled in the rays of the setting-sun. The gorgeous western sky was tinged with the hues of crimson and gold; the south was a boundless expanse of blue, the island of St. Domingo, lofty, picturesque and beautiful, bounded the northern and eastern horizon. The land, but little cultivated, seemed fertile in the extreme, and was covered with lofty and umbrageous trees, the tangled and luxuriant undergrowth seeming so interlaced as even at high noon to intercept the light of the sun. The near mountains were covered to their very summits with verdure, not the tawny verdure of a northern clime, but the brilliant green of the tropics, while the loftier mountains wreathed their bald and craggy tops with the clouds that floated in the distance.

The sun had gone down and the moon was up: still Miss Gillespie paced the deck with her brother. It was evident that she had some purpose in view, and by those who watched her, she was observed to cast frequent and furtive glances around. At length a figure that had been stealthily gliding along under the shadow of the bulwarks to leeward, suddenly stepped beside her, and whispered, “Lady, I have endeavored to see him, but failed. Some time tonight I will surely succeed. In the meantime there is but one resource. Take this powder, and when you go below, dissolve it, and take a part yourself, giving the remainder to your brother. If you would be safe, neither of you should sleep a wink to-night. Be careful of what you eat or drink. But, hush! there is a man’s head raised above the rail—he has been observing us. I must away—but do not forget this.” He handed a small folded paper as he spoke, and immediately disappeared.

Miss Gillespie had brought a book on deck with her, and by occasionally seeming to read it, had at first given a pretext for remaining. Into this book she inserted the paper, and soon after turned to leave the deck, when some one brushed rudely against her, and the book fell. The person, who, in her confusion she did not recognize, instantly picked it up, and in seeming eagerness to return it, let it fall a second time. Frightened almost beside herself, Miss G. now snatched it up and hurried below. Unfortunately, the paper was not to be found. So dreadful seemed the fate before her, that with difficulty she restrained herself from shrieking aloud. Frank cheered her all he could, although he had but a faint conception of the danger. They determined to deny themselves food and liquids of every description, hoping thereby to avoid the administration of an opiate. Alas! they knew not the infernal arts of the demon in human shape, who had them in his power.

That evening, as was his wont once a week, the count supped with his officers in the ward-room, and he remained until near midnight; but in the meantime his diabolical agent had not been idle.

About 11 o’clock Frank and his sister were sensible that they were inhaling an aromatic and fragrant vapor. At first they enjoyed it; but it soon occurred to them that they were fast becoming drowsy. With desperate exertions they endeavored to force the doors, or to obtain assistance by their loud and vociferous outcries. The breeze had unfortunately freshened on deck, and there was much tramping and running overhead, so that they were unheard, or if heard, unheeded. One would suppose that this agitation and fear would have proved an antidote to the insidious effects of the drug; but no! gently, imperceptibly, they felt their systems relax; they soon began to wonder at their alarm; a delicious langour enthralled them, and as volume after volume of the scented vapor rolled into the apartment, they surrendered themselves to its influence, and pressed in each other’s arms, were soon wrapped in a profound and insensible sleep.

About an hour before, Talbot, to whom the night previous had been a sleepless one, although racked with anxiety, had fallen into a light and fitful slumber, when he was instantly aroused by a hand being laid upon his chest, and a voice whispering in his ear, “Do not speak, but follow; imitate my motions as exactly as you can. For God’s sake be cautious, you know not how much is at stake.”

The speaker, who was lying beside him on the deck, then rolled over toward the hatchway; but when the sentry turned in his round, he remained perfectly still. This he repeated, slowly and cautiously; Talbot followed his example, until they reached what sailor’s term the combings of the main-hatch, i.e. the elevated pieces around it, to prevent the water from running into the hold. He there waited for some time until he saw the sentry loiter at the furthest end of his round, when he quickly threw himself down the hatch, and crept on one side out of sight. As soon as Talbot had done the same, he led the way among the casks and barrels. When they had proceeded a little distance, he whispered, “The master’s-mate of the hold, who is a fellow-townsman of mine, had this passage opened for me to-day. Had he refused, and he hesitated for a long time, that villain in the cabin would inevitably succeed in his plans.”

“What plans?” eagerly asked Talbot. “I know not who you are, or whither you are leading me—explain.”

“You will soon know me; but let it content you now that I lead you to save your mistress. But that I feared the interference of that ruffian, the steward, I would have gone alone.”

“Lead on, then! lead quickly!” said Talbot, his fears strongly excited.

They resumed their way, groping along in the dark, and taking every step with the greatest caution. In a short while they distinguished the faint light admitted from the deck above through the fore-hatch. As soon as they had gained this opening, Gonzalez, for it was he, taking the opportunity when the sentry was furthest off, and had his back toward him, sprung quickly up, and blowing out the light in a lantern which hung to an upright timber, immediately returned to Talbot’s side. As was anticipated, the sentry, supposing the light to have been extinguished by a flurry of wind, took the lantern down, and proceeded to the main-hatch, to relight the lamp. As he did so, they both, unperceived, succeeded in gaining first the gun and then the upper-deck. Then separating, each one quietly and undetected reached the quarter-deck, and again rejoining each other, they slipped through a port-hole to a narrow platform outside, called the main-chains, and there, in intense anxiety, concerted their future movements, for the most perilous part of their enterprise was yet before them.

——

CHAPTER III.

The convivial party in the ward-room had been broken up by a squall, and with the other sea-officers, the count had repaired to the quarter-deck. For a short time the wind blew with violence, and was succeeded by a heavy fall of rain. In less than an hour there was a perfect calm, and the sails flapped sluggishly against the masts as the ship moved with the undulations of a light ground-swell.

In the cabin, the solitary lamp, suspended from a beam, through the gauze-like vapor shed its soft light upon the rich and costly furniture, and revealed the forms of the sleepers, whose deep breathing alone proclaimed their existence, so immovable was their position—so much deprived did their bodies seem of the watchful guardianship of the spirits within them. The faint and silvery light, the attenuated vapor, the fragrant odors wafted from the flowers in front, the boy, with his noble brow undimmed by sin or sorrow, the lovely maiden, one arm upon her breast, and one clasped around her brother, formed an atmosphere and a group in and around which angels might love to linger. But a serpent had stealthily glided in, and the count, with maddening pulse and gloating eye, looked upon his unconscious victim. Incapable of any feeling but that of a hardened libertine, no thought of the dire ruin he was about to inflict for one instant stayed his purpose. As the spider, after weaving its web, contemplates the struggles of the entangled fly, before clutching to devour it, so he stood, reveling in anticipation on the sensual feast before him. At length he approached, he gently touched, then breathed upon, and called them by their names, and then more rudely shook them. As he anticipated, they neither heard nor heeded him. The stillness was death-like and profound. He removed the boy from the girl's embrace, and she lay resistless at his mercy. For an instant longer he paused; he fondled her hand, he played with her tresses; he stooped to kiss her moist and parted lip.

The fiend-like purpose was frustrated: a crashing blow descended upon his head, and he rolled over and fell senseless on the deck. With one foot upon the prostrate form, and the massive bar again uplifted, Talbot stood over him, while from the doorway Gonzales looked on.

“Hold!” said the last, as Talbot was about to repeat the blow, “Hold! another stroke may finish him, and that is a task reserved for me alone.” He advanced as he spoke, and proceeded to examine the wound. “It is a very severe contusion,” he added a moment after, “and if it had fallen a little more direct, the blow would have been a fatal one. He is now wholly insensible, and unless my skill in surgery fails me, he will remain, for some days at least, in a perfect stupor. It is most fortunate. We need not now attempt an escape, for no one can suspect us, and before he recovers, we shall probably be in Havana. Let us place him in his room and retire; the vile, pandering steward will not dare to enter during the night, and in the morning, I will be hovering near. It is useless, no human efforts can awake them now,” he added, as he saw Talbot endeavoring to arouse the maiden: “but they are safe, and that they may continue so, we must not lose a moment.”

With a sigh, Talbot relinquished the hand of his mistress, which he had clasped within his own, and, pressing his lips to her fair forehead, turned to assist Gonzalez in removing the wounded man. They then effaced all traces of their presence, and retired as they had come, through the window of the quarter-gallery.

The next morning the table in the forward cabin was spread for breakfast; the steward, in passing to and fro, grinned leeringly as from time to time he looked toward the after cabin. One of the midshipmen of the watch came to report 8 o’clock. The steward tapped lightly at the state-room door, but receiving no reply, and not presuming to disturb his master, took it upon himself to report to the officers that the count said “Very well”—the usual reply. By 9 o’clock, he began to be uneasy, not that he apprehended any thing to have happened to his master, but that the lady might awake before the count had left her apartment. At the lattice-work, and to the key-hole of his master’s door, he alternately placed his ear. At the last he thought that he distinguished a deep and smothered breathing; at the first he could hear no sound whatever. Satisfied that his master was in his state-room, he felt more easy.

At 10 o’clock, the wonted hour, the drum beat to quarters for inspection. When the first lieutenant came to make his report, the steward intimated that the count was indisposed.

“Has he directed that he should not be disturbed?” asked the officer.

The steward admitted that he had not.

“Have you been summoned to him in the night?”

“No, sir!”

“Then I must make my report.” He advanced to the door and knocked, at first gently, and then louder and more loudly still. There was no reply; and the officer, turning the bolt, to the surprise of the steward, the door yielded to his push, and flew open. (That their mode of entrance might not be suspected, Gonzalez had unlocked it before retiring.) The count was found with his wrapper on, lying in a profound stupor, the blood clotted thickly over the wound he had received. The orphans were buried in a sleep which the surgeon pronounced unnatural; and the steward was suspected of having drugged them, and afterward attempted the life of his master. This miserable wretch was thrown in irons as the supposed murderer of the man in whose contemplated villainy he had been a willing and a free participant.

Light and baffling winds detained the frigate, and on the evening of the fourth day after the incident above related, she had just cleared the windward passage, and with Cape la Mole astern, was standing along the northern shore of Cuba, for the port of Havana. The count had laid in a comatose state since his accident, and his constant heavy breathing and frequent moans, showed how much pressure there was upon the brain, and how much he suffered. In the course of this day his respiration had become more regular and less oppressive, and about 3 o’clock in the afternoon, he awoke to consciousness and a sense of pain. By degrees his recollection returned, and after making a few inquiries, to the surprise of every one, he ordered the steward to be released, and again summoned in attendance upon him. These two, the master, just rescued from the grave, and the servant who would have found an ignominious one had his master died, conferred for a long time together. After questioning his steward closely, the count said, “I am satisfied, Domingo, that it was not from your hand that I received the blow. I left you in the forward cabin, you could only have entered on the starboard side, and in that direction my head was turned, and I must have seen you. The blow was on the other side—probably from some one secreted there. Were you at any time absent from the cabin, after I went to the ward-room?”

“Not an instant, señor!”

“It is strange! Could he have entered by the quarter-gallery?”

“It must have been so, señor, although I can discover no marks.”

“I suspect Gonzalez,” said the count; “indeed, I am sure that he has been concerned, but then he had not the vigor to deal such a blow. That hateful American must have been the man. I will be deeply revenged!”

Late that afternoon, as Talbot, sitting aloof from the other prisoners, was grieving that Mary’s persecutor had recovered his faculties before the arrival of the ship in port, and from which he feared the most serious consequences, he was accosted by the master’s-mate, who said, in passing, “Courage, my friend, you will soon be at liberty—take a cigar to cheer you.”

Talbot thanked him, and was about to decline, when he caught the eye of the officer, and noticed that he pushed a particular one out from the small bundle he held in his hand; Talbot took it, and watching his opportunity, opened his cigar unobserved. It contained a small slip of paper within its folds with these words. “We are strongly suspected, if not discovered; I know it from the searching examination I have undergone. We must fly and reach Havana before the ship if possible. Be on the alert for any opportunity that may present to slip up the main-hatch ladder, near which I will be hovering. Do not hesitate! Here you are absolutely within the power of the tyrant. He will throw you into the Moro Castle as soon as we arrive, and before your case can be investigated, months must elapse, and in the meantime, the lady will be lost to you forever.”

This note agitated Talbot exceedingly. It was agonizing to think of leaving Mary and her brother in the hands of their unprincipled captor; and yet, from his own experience thus far, he felt sure, that if he remained, he would be kept separated from her, and most probably confined in a dungeon until her ruin was completed. His only consolation was, that the count could not recover sufficiently to renew his nefarious designs before the ship had reached her port of destination. This consideration determined him to make his escape if possible.

There had been some water heated in the coppers, (anglice—boiler,) for the purpose of giving the count a prescribed bath. It so happened that while the cook’s attention was drawn another way, a piece of meat was thrown in, which rendered the water greasy and unfit for its destined use. The master’s-mate was therefore directed to have more drawn from the hold. Accordingly he came upon the lower or birth-deck, and as he stepped from the ladder, said, sufficiently loud for Talbot to hear, who was reclined beside it, “Look out!” and passed immediately on. The latter, taking the hint, but uncertain how to apply it, remained for a few moments in great suspense, when the master’s-mate called the sentry forward to hold the light for him. As the latter moved forward, Talbot availed himself of the opportunity, and instantly hurried up the ladder, although yet uncertain if such were the plan concerted by his friends. He was very soon assured, however, for nearly abreast of him, from the shadow between two of the guns, a figure advanced a few steps and immediately retired again. It proved to be Gonzalez, and together they clambered out over one of the guns, and found themselves by the small skiff of the privateer, which had been saved and hoisted up immediately under the anchor in the waist. Fortunately, the wind had hauled nearly ahead, and with the yards sharp-braced up, the ship was sailing sluggishly along, with her head rather diagonally inclined toward the shore.

“We must remain quiet here,” whispered Gonzalez, “until some movement be made on deck, in the noise of which we can lower the skiff undetected.”

The wind was gradually freshening, and the ship began to plunge with the increasing swell. After a while the topgallant-sails were taken in, but it was an operation so quickly performed, that before the boat was lowered half the distance it was suspended from the water, the noise ceased, and they were obliged to hold on. In about half an hour after, which seemed to them an almost interminable space of time, they were cheered with the welcome order,

“Man the main clew-garnets and buntlines,” preparatory to hauling up the mainsail. As the men ran away with the ropes, and clued and gathered the large and loudly flapping sail to the yard, Talbot and Gonzalez lowered the boat, and casting her loose, the ship passed by without any one observing them and was soon lost to view in the obscurity of the night. They had exchanged apprehended evils from human malignity for instant and appalling danger. The moon, struggling through a bank of clouds and shorn of her brilliancy by the opposing mist, cast her furtive beams upon the fretted sea. Instead of the prolonged and easy swell of the mid-ocean, the gulf, as if moved by adverse tides, whirled its waves about like some huge Briareus, tossing his hundred arms in the wildest and most furious contortions. The skiff was so light, so frail, and so difficult of trim, that they were every moment in danger of upsetting. The swell rapidly increased, and as they sunk into the trough of the sea, and shut out the faint horizon, the succeeding wave overshadowed, and its crest seemed to curl in anger above them. Sometimes a wave, like some monster rising from the deep, looked down black and threatening upon the tiny boat, and then rolling its seething foam along the sides, it rushed ahead, and gathering into a mass, seemed to await her coming. Thinly clad, and soon wet to the skin, as they rode upon the tops of the waves, they suffered bitterly from the coldness of the wind. In the hollow of the sea, they were sheltered one moment only to be more exposed the next. Sometimes riding upon the broken crest of a wave, they felt upon their bed of foam, as insignificant and far more helpless than the gulls which, disturbed in their slumber, screamed around them. The oars were of little service, save to steady the boat in the dreadful pitchings and careerings to which it was every instant subjected. One managed the oars, or sculls rather, while the other steered and occasionally bailed. There could be no transfer of labor, for it was certain death to attempt a change of position. Although the current set along the land, the wind and the heave of the sea, drove them indirectly toward it. After five hours incessant fatigue, cold, cramped and wearied to exhaustion, they reached the near vicinity of the shore, and running along it for about a mile, in increased danger, for the boat was now nearly broadside to the sea, they made the mouth of a small harbor, into which, as their frames thrilled with gratitude, they pulled with all their might. As the peace and the joys of heaven are to the wrangling and contumelies of this world, so was the placid stillness of that sheltered nook to the fierce wind and troubled sea without. The transition was as sudden as it was delightful, and with uncovered heads and upturned gaze, each paid his heartfelt tribute of thankfulness.

On one side of the sequestered little bay, through the dim and uncertain light, they discovered two or three huts, embowered and almost concealed by groves of the umbrageous and productive banana, whose large pendent-leaves waving in the wind, seemed at one time to beckon them on, and at another to warn them from approaching. It was evidently a fishing settlement, for there were some boats hauled up on the shore, and a long seine was hung upon a number of upright poles. Pulling toward what seemed the usual landing, their light skiff grated upon the pebbly beach, and they leaped, overjoyed, upon the silent shore—silent and mute in all that pertains to human action or the human voice, but eloquent, most eloquent, in the outpourings of a rich and teeming earth, and the gushing emotions of thankfulness it awakened in the bosoms of those two weary and persecuted men.

[To be continued.

VICTORY AND DEFEAT.

To-day, with loud acclaim the welkin rings

In praise of deeds the shout of Victory brings:

To-morrow, not e’en Echo will repeat

The praise of deeds then canceled by Defeat.

TO MOTHER.

———

BY ANNIE GREY.

———

Oh! wake, my mother! wake! and hail

With me this dawning day;

Oh wake, my mother! wake and list

Thy daughter’s fervent lay.

She comes to seek thy blessing,

And to whisper in thine ear—

That warmer glows her love for thee

With every added year.

Wake, mother! wake! while faintly steal

The sunbeams pure and bright,

And playful throw around thy couch

Their most bewitching light.

For this is a hallowed day, mother!

A hallowed day to me;

’Twas at its dawn, four years ago,

That first I greeted thee.

We love the sunbeams, mother,

And wheresoe’er they rest,

We feel their sacred influence,

As though some angel guest

Concealed itself ’mid golden rays,

That from God’s holy shrine

Fall as night-dews or summer-showers,

Refreshing and divine.

We love the sunbeams, mother!

What beauties they awake,

When first from the clear eastern sky

All gloriously they break.

Oh! how the flowers delight to feel

Their warm kiss from above,

And brighten ’neath it as the heart

Beneath a kiss of love;

And merrier dance the waters,

When every ripple shows

A sparkling crown like diamond gems,

As carelessly it flows.

But wake, my mother! wake and list

The strain I have to sing;

’Tis not of these glad sunbeams,

Though joy around they fling,

But of a sunbeam brighter,

That cheers me all the while,

And never knoweth change, mother!

The sunbeam of thy smile.

How often, oh! how often,

When my heart feels lone and drear,

Its thrilling presence banishes

All thoughts of grief or fear.

How often, often, mother!

When I’ve mourned, but scarce knew why,

I’ve hailed its light, and soon forgot

The tear-drop and the sigh.

For thoughts of sadness will intrude

Upon my soul oft times;

They come and bid me ne’er forget

That there are purer climes.

And still I trust its radiance

May fall upon my soul

Through all my future hours and days,

As onward still they roll.

And, mother! oh, my mother!

When this dream of life is o’er,

When God calls back his wandering child

To Heaven’s unclouded shore,

Amid the pure and golden beams

That fall around me there,

The gentle stir of angel wings

And harp-strings softly fair,

I’ll not forget thee, mother!

Though fleeting years have flown,

But come sometimes and watch o’er thee

When thou art all alone.

Thou wilt not see me, but I’ll come

Upon the summer breeze,

Or hidden lay amid the shade

Of young, green summer leaves,

And whisper in thine ear, mother,

Of what I feel too well,

But words of mortal dialect

Can never, never tell.

I’ll whisper of my fervent love,

And breathe low thanks to thee

For all the tenderness and care

Thou hast bestowed on me.

And I shall hope to meet thee

In the sinless land on high,

Where we can lisp in tones of love

The language of the sky.

Oh! I shall be waiting, mother dear!

And watching all the while,

To greet again, with happy heart,

The sunbeam of thy smile.

ON A DIAMOND RING.

———

BY CHARLES E. TRAIL.

———

Rare is the diamond’s lustre, and the mine

No richer treasure hath than yellow gold;

Yet were its jewels of a price untold,

Still dearer charms this little ring doth shrine.

Circling thy taper finger, how divine

Its lot; oft to thy fair cheek prest,

And by such contact past expression blest,

Or sparkling ’mid those sunny locks of thine!

Oh! these are uses which might consecrate

The basest metal, or the dull, vile earth;

Enhance the diamond’s price, or elevate

The clod to an inestimable worth.

Would that so dear a gem, which thus hath shone

Upon thy snowy hand, might ever bless my own!

THE RECLUSE. NO. I.

———

BY PARK BENJAMIN.

———

In the series of papers (and they will have the rare merit of being short) which I am about to offer to the reader, I shall not so far follow the ill fashion of the day as to strive to be “original.” I do not mean by this remark to signify that I shall not give my own thoughts in my own way. But I shall not twist the English language out of all shape and comeliness; I shall not Germanize and Frenchize and Italianize; I shall express my ideas in the simplest possible words; I shall always choose the Saxon rather than the Norman; I shall endeavor to write so that “he who runs may read.” Were I a teacher of youth, I should recommend as the best models of style Swift and Southey, Addison, Steele, Channing, Sir James Macintosh, Irving, not Carlyle, Gibbon, Johnson, Emerson. I set plain Nature above gorgeous Art. The epithet “natural” conveys to my mind the highest praise of verse or prose. A style may indeed be eminently artistic, but still appear to be natural.

I have said enough to show the manner in which I shall try to convey my ideas. Fewer words will set forth the character of my matter.

I have no subject. I think, in my solitude, of many things. As thoughts occur to me I put them down. Though a Recluse, and having but little society except that of woods and fields, rocks and waters, I am fond of contemplating the events of the hour. Many of my topics will therefore be of immediate interest. They will at least have the charm of variety, and my “mode of treatment,” to use an expression of physicians, the merit of brevity.

This is sufficient introduction. Courteous reader, I salute you.

——

I.—THE CROTON CELEBRATION.

Of all public displays, that which affected me most deeply was the celebration of the opening of the Croton river into the great city of New York. A day had been appointed by the powers in being. Arrangements were made for a mighty civic procession. It was a jubilee of Cold Water. The Temperance Societies figured chiefly on the occasion. Those trades which best flourish by the practice of temperance were numerously represented, bearing before them their symbols and instruments. I remember a printing-press on a platform, borne triumphantly along, working as it went, throwing off handbills, on which odes were printed, to the eager and amused crowd on both sides of the way. By the side of that printing-press sat, in smiling dignity, Colonel Stone, as everybody called him, then editor of the Commercial Advertiser. Kind-hearted, conscientious, hospitable, credulous, verbose gentleman! thou art sleeping as silently as those aboriginal lords of the soil whose lives thou commemoratedst!

I have seen a great many multitudes, but never so quiet, so orderly, so well-dressed, so happy a concourse as that which filled the windows and balconies and doorsteps, and absolutely covered the sidewalks, on the morning of the Croton celebration. Throngs of gayly clad women and children moved merrily about; for there was not a solitary drunkard that day in all the streets of the city to molest or make them afraid. An individual under the influence of any liquor more potent than that which was gushing from a thousand fountains, would have been an anomaly too hideous to be borne. Braver than Julius Cæsar or Zachary Taylor must he have been who dared to took upon wine red in the cup on such a day as that.

I well remember the reflections which passed through my mind as I stood gazing on that happy and soul-comforting scene. The treaty of peace, as it might well have been called, establishing the North-Eastern boundary of the United States, settling a questio vexata of long continuance, which had again and again threatened war, had just been concluded between this country and Great Britain—thanks to the pacific dispositions and noble talents of the negotiators. Thinking of this, as I looked at the mighty civic array, at the procession, which was like an endless chain of human beings, the head of it, after having traveled through six miles of streets, meeting the tail of it, which had not yet drawn an inch of its slow length along, below the Park—as I looked at the smiling faces and the sporting fountains—I exclaimed to myself, How glorious a scene is this! How much worthier of a free people than the martial triumphs of old! A great good has been done. Energy and Skill have effected a stupendous work. Thousands and thousands are met together on an appointed day, to commemorate an achievement which shall prove a blessing to many generations yet unborn. Indeed, indeed this is more to be desired than the most complete of victories.

I went on thus with my cogitations. Let me suppose that these negotiations between two nations, strong in men and the resources of warfare, negotiations skillfully conducted to a most fortunate issue, and the establishment of a peace in which all the world is interested, had proved to be unsuccessful. Suppose that war had been declared, that we had no longer ago than yesterday received intelligence of a conquest on the sea, that a fierce battle had been fought, and that our ships had come into port laden with spoils and crowded with prisoners. How different to-day would have been our rejoicings! The outward demonstrations might, in some respects, have been the same. The streets would have been filled with multitudes of men; the bells of the churches (oh sacrilege!) would have pealed long and loudly; the flag of our country would have waved from many a house-top and “liberty-pole”—yet, in the midst of all this, there would have been distinguished the trophies of wo and of disaster. The cannon, which had dealed death to the brave, would have been borne through the streets, and the banners of the conquered trailed in the dust. Execrations would have mingled with shouts, and frowns of hatred with smiles of joy. Sorrow and anguish would have been comates with exultation and delight, and the hilarity of all hearts deeply subdued by the sad faces of many mourners.

And how different would have been our inward emotions! Instead of “calm thoughts regular as infant’s breath,” we should have experienced a tumultuous rapture, a demoniac triumph, an uneasy and restless joy, a trembling pride, a satisfaction with the present embittered by fears for the future. Now we rejoice with cheerful consciences. No “coming events cast their shadows before” to cloud the horizon of hope. We look upon a cloudless firmament above us and around us. We are indeed proud of the task which has been accomplished; but ours is a pride unmixed with any baser emotion—a pride honorable to humanity. Ah, how much more glorious is this than a victory! It is a sight to make the old young—a sight worthy of perpetual commemoration. It will be always recollected. We shall tell it to our children’s children. From time to time our authors shall write of it—so that it may always live in the memory of the age.

——

II.—ON A BIBLE.

Could this outside beholden be

To cost and cunning equally,

Or were it such as might suffice

The luxury of curious eyes—

Yet would I have my dearest look

Not on the cover, but the Book.

If thou art merry, here are airs;

If melancholy, here are prayers;

If studious, here are those things writ

Which may deserve thy ablest wit;

If hungry, here is food divine;

If thirsty, Nectar, Heavenly wine.

Read then, but first thyself prepare

To read with zeal and mark with care;

And when thou read’st what here is writ,

Let thy best practice second it;

So twice each precept read shall be,

First in the Book, and next in thee.

Much reading may thy spirits wrong,

Refresh them therefore with a song;

And, that thy music praise may merit,

Sing David’s Psalms with David’s spirit,

That, as thy voice doth pierce men’s ears,

So shall thy prayers and vows the spheres.

Thus read, thus sing, and then to thee

The very earth a Heaven shall be;

If thus thou readest, thou shalt find

A private Heaven within thy mind,

And, singing thus, before thou die

Thou sing’st thy part to those on high.

I have modernized the orthography of the foregoing quaint and beautiful stanzas, from the dress in which they are clothed in the second part of the Diary of Lady Willoughby, just published by John Wiley, bookseller, in New York. They are happily imitative of the style of the poets of olden time. They remind one of George Herbert—that “sweet singer in the Israel” of the English church, of Donne, of Wotton, and of other lyrists, who chanted the praises of our God. To my ear, much dearer are such simple, tuneful verses than the grandiloquent outpourings of the more modern muse. They come home, as it were, to one’s child-like sympathies. They awaken the thoughts of “youthly years;” they freshen the withered feelings of the heart, as heaven’s dew freshens the dried leaves in summer.

Let me recommend this most tender, most soul-touching of “late works”—these passages from the Diary of Lady Willoughby. It is not a real “aunciente booke,” but an imitation; yet, like certain copies of a picture by an old master, it may boast some touches better than the original. Chatterton’s forgeries were not more perfect in their way, though this be no forgery, but what it pretends to be—namely, an invention. I feared, when I took up the second part of this remarkable production, that it would deteriorate in interest, that the hand of the artist would become manifest. But it is not so. Here, throughout, is the ars celare artem in perfection.

How touching a lesson do the feigned sorrows the Lady Willoughby present to her sex. What absence of repining! What reliance on the justice and mercy of God! What trust in the merits of her Redeemer! Her faith is never shaken. Her soul is never dismayed. With an expression holier than Raphael has imparted to his pictures of the Madonna, she looks upward and is comforted. Ever into the troubled waters of her soul descends the angel of peace. Perfect pattern is she for wives and mothers. Excellent example of a Christian woman.

——

III.

Are not some of the prophecies being fulfilled in these latter days? Trace we not in the decay of old empires the tempest of God’s wrath? Is not the arm of the Lord stretched out over the people and over the nations of the earth? Breaks he not thrones to pieces as if they were potter’s vessels? Where are the kings and princes who were born and chosen to rule over men? “How are the mighty fallen!” Even now, as by the mouth of his holy prophet, Isaiah, may the Lord say, “Is not this the fast that I have chosen. To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdened, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?”

Truly has my mind, shut out as I am from commune with the busy world—truly has my mind been deeply, solemnly affected by the wondrous events which are passing in those realms, the pages of whose history are printed in blood. I see the hand of God in all. I trace the fulfillment of prophecies contained in the Book of books. I am oppressed by a sensation of awe as I read the words of inspiration and discern their truth in these latter days.

Was not the heart of Louis Philippe before his sudden and terrible overthrow as stout as the heart of the King of Assyria? Did not he, too, say of his monarchy, his rule and his riches—not only to himself, but even to the stranger in his land—

“By the strength of my hand I have done it and by my wisdom; for I am prudent; and I have removed the bounds of the people, and have robbed their treasures, and I have put down the inhabitants like a valiant man; and my hand hath found as a nest the riches of the people.”

And was he not likewise cast down? Was not a burning kindled under his glory like the burning of a fire? “And behold at evening-tide, trouble, and before the morning he was not.”

“This is the portion of them that spoil us,” shouted the people of France at the overthrow of the family of Orleans. “This is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us.”

ROME.

———

BY R. H. STODDARD.

———

In the heart of Rome eternal, the Coliseum stands sublime,

Lofty in the midst of ruins, like a temple built to Time.

Vast, colossal, ’tis with piles of broken arches reared on high,

But the dome is gone, and nothing roofs it but the summer sky.

And the walls are rent, and gaping wide, and crumbling fast away,

And the columns waste, but moss and grasses cover their decay.

When the sky of June was bluest, melting as the eye of love,

And the breezes from Campagnia bore the city’s hum above;

Poring o’er the rich and classic authors of the Age of Gold,

Virgil, Horace, Terence, Plautus, Livy and historians old,

I imagined Rome restored as in the glorious days of yore,

Peopled by the great and mighty, as it shall be nevermore.

I beheld the Past before me, and the fallen circus rose,

And the leaning columns righted, and the ruins seemed to close;

Flags were streaming on the lofty walls, and standards of renown,

Plucked from out some hostile army, or some sacked and burning town;

Proud patricians filled the boxes, judges, senators, in white,

Consuls from remotest provinces, and hosts of ladies bright;

And the emperor sat among them, in his regal purple proud,

And below a countless sea of heads, the common plebeian crowd;

Wrestlers struggled in the ring, and athlete and equestrians bold,

And the steeds and dashing chariots raised a cloud of dusty gold;

Troops of sworded gladiators, Dacian captives, fought and bled,

And the lists were strewn with wretches lying on their bucklers dead;

And in the arena Christian saints and martyrs, old and gray,

Were trampled in the dust, and torn by savage beasts of prey.

Sick of this, I turned and looking out the arches in the street,

I beheld a mighty multitude, a crowd with hurrying feet;

Nobles with their flowing togas, simple artisans bedight

In their holyday attire and badges, maids with eyes of light,

Waving hands to lovers distant, and the little children clung

To their mother’s gowns, and nurses held aloft their infants young,

And afar and pouring through the city gates a long array,

And in front, in his triumphal car, the hero of the day;

And his coursers champed their frosted bits and pranced, but all in vain,

Braced he stood, with streaming robe, and checked them with a tightened rein;

And a mournful group of kingly captives, dusty, drooping low,

Followed, fettered to his chariot, gracing his triumphal show;

Augurs and soothsayers, flamen, tribunes, lictors bearing rods,

And gray-bearded priests, with olive boughs and statues of the gods,

Shaking from their brazen censers clouds of incense to the skies,

Leading lowing steers, in wreaths and garlands decked, to sacrifice.

Sacred nymphs from temples near, in spotless white, and vestal throngs

Followed solemn, dancing mystic dances, singing choral songs.

Cohorts of the Roman soldiers conquering legions marched behind,

With their burnished armor shining and their banners on the wind;

And, with distance faint, the brattling drums, the trumpet’s mighty blast,

And the clarion rung and sounded like an echo from the Past.

All at once the glorious vision melted, faded in the air,

Like a desert exhalation, leaving all its ruin bare.

And, in place of glory and the beauty of the olden day,

I beheld the Queen of Cities wasted, fallen in decay.

THE MISSIONARY, SUNLIGHT.

———

BY CAROLINE C——.

———

“Her presence makes thick darkness light—

Hope’s rainbow spreadeth o’er her path;

Through her, weak souls are filled with might,

And Mercy triumphs over Wrath.”

A sweet Sister of Charity, a faithful, never-wearying missionary, is the beautiful Sunlight, daughter of the proud monarch who reigns supremely over the broad dominions of the “upper blue!”

Six long, tedious months in her father’s gorgeous palace, had the lovely maiden been constrained to mingle in the festal scenes which enlivened the monarch’s dwelling during that dreary time when the poor earth lay helplessly beneath the iron hand of winter. How often from the palace-windows had she looked with eyes dimmed with tears, and most melancholy glances on the world that was subject during all those months to a natural kind of heathenish slavery! Despoiled of their rich garments the old princes of the forests stretched forth their naked arms toward her in supplication of her presence and charitable aid. A voice, to no ear audible save her own, crept up from beneath the winding-sheets which envelopes streamlet and river; and a wail that broke forth from the poor in their agony and want, reached her gentle heart, and her tears fell afresh. And even the children of gayety and fashion felt an irresistable yearning in their hearts to listen once more to her soft and gentle teachings!

But “’tis always the darkest the hour before day;” and while Sunlight was half-despairingly revolving in her mind all possible means by which she might again, without the utmost danger of sudden death, be enabled freely to wander over earth to beautify and bless it, the discerning old king, her father, saw how pale her cheek was growing, and how dimness was creeping over her bright eyes. He knew she wearied of, and longed heartily to escape from the heartless pomp and magnificence which surrounded her; so he resolved to carry into immediate execution a plan he had long been contemplating. He would make a sudden and strong attack on his old foe who was lording it so magnificently over earth! He would teach the rough, boorish chieftain, in a way he could not mistake, that there were other and mightier powers in existence than his own.

So he fought long and valiantly, and won the victory—a glorious one it was, too. In a few days many sharp, fierce conflicts had taken place, the glittering crown of winter was broken, his staff of office taken from him, and the disagreeable old gray-beard was forced to skulk away in silence and shame and confusion of face, to his bleak and fitting home at the North Pole.

(Would he were wise enough not to attempt again another short-lived triumph! But he is so Napoleon-ish in his nature, we may well have our fears on this point.)

When the king had returned to his palace the night of the last decisive victory—after he had thrown aside his golden armor, though weary from the conflict, he paused not a moment to rest till he had summoned his young daughter to his presence, and thus made known to her his will.

“To-morrow, my child, put on thy most beautiful and radiant garments, and let the bright smile come back once more to thy face, for I have work for thee to do. I have subdued the army of King Winter, and now it shall be thine to make joy in the place where he has sown desolation. It is thine, to restore order and comfort and happiness and beauty in the dwelling place where he reigned in such a rude, uncivilized, mobocrastic manner. Ah! that light in thine eye tells me it is no ungrateful task I set for thee! it is very plain now, the cause of all thy sighing and tears for so long back; the old bloom will revisit thy cheek again I see. But remember, thy mission is one all-important. Do all things well, and nothing hastily—and now to rest! This shall be no gala-night, thou needest all thy strength for thy work; so haste to thy couch, and be stirring early in the morn.”

When the maiden was thus assured of the fulfillment of her greatest hope, she bended down at the king’s feet and said, joyfully, “Oh, my father, I bless thee for thy goodness. The dear earth, she shall swiftly know thy mercy, and array herself in glorious garments in which to honor her deliverer! To-morrow, to-morrow shall see that if thou, my father, art strong to make free, thy daughter is loving, and patient, and full of good-will to help and adorn the miserable captives thou hast delivered from bondage.”

And early the next morning the lovely princess went forth alone, rejecting all offers of a body-guard, a most devout and devoted missionary, whose end and aim was to make glad the waste-places, and to cause the wilderness to blossom.

There were as yet, here and there, stubborn patches of snow on the ground, and a vindictive, sharp-voiced wind, a wounded straggler belonging to the white king’s retreating army, and his chief object seemed to be to exhaust the patience of all who were within hearing wherever he moved, by his rude insulting speeches. But totally unmindful of him, and maintaining a most dignified silence, Sunlight passed by him, well knowing that he too would speedily be compelled to follow whither his master had gone.

Sometimes dark, threatening clouds would flit before her eyes, for a moment totally obstructing her vision, but a brave heart was that maiden’s, and when these petty annoyances were passed, she continued on her way patiently and hopefully as before. An apparently hopeless and endless task was that Sunlight had undertaken. She must, as it were, perform the part of resurrectionist. She must breathe life into a breathless body, and call the seemingly dead forth from their graves. The labor seemed too vast for her gentle hand, it appeared almost impossible that she should accomplish it. She was alone, too, in a strange, unpleasant kind of silence. There was not the voice of even a bird to cheer her on, and stiff and mute the brooklets lay in their coffins of ice.

But she is very far from despairing. And her strength is, indeed, perfectly wonderful. Stealing with quiet steps along the banks of the little streams, she speaks to them some words apparently powerful as the “open sesame,” for the waters begin to open their eyes, faintly the pulse begins to throb, and the heart to beat, and ere long they have wholly thrown off that cold shroud which enveloped them, while it in turn becomes part and parcel of their own rejoicing life. Then they set forth rejoicing in their strength, and glorying in their newly-gained liberty, careering through the just awakening fields, and astonishing them by the beautiful soft songs of thanksgiving they unremittingly sing. The princess is not alone then—one class of prisoners she has released, and their glad voices cheer and encourage her in her work of love.

Day after day she returns unweariedly to the great field of her pleasant labor, and day by day perfects the evidence of her progress. A most efficient co-worker whom she arouses and entices to join her in her work, is the gentle spirit of the summer wind. Encouraged and excited by her smile, he takes the oath of fealty, and heartily strives to aid his mistress. From the brow of earth he wipes away the tears the stars have wept, and multitudinous are his kind unceasing offices, for she has promised him a dominion which shall spread over many rejuvenated forests, and freshly garmented fields!

In the old woods she lays her hand upon the myriad branches, and on the softening ground beneath which lie the buried roots. From every bough she calleth forth the tender buds, and ere long she spreads with kindly hands a rich, green mantle over all the forests. And in those “leafy-pavilions,” the returning birds she has summoned from the south, build their nests, and sing merrily through the long, happy days.

Quickened into life by her presence and word, over all the barren fields the soft and tender grass springs up; the moss becomes aspiring, too, even the humble moss, and disowning its gray garments, it dons the more beautiful and universal green livery. A thousand thousand insects spring into sudden existence—the voice of the croaking frog is once more found in tune. Violets bud and blossom, the air grows increasingly more mild; even the wind learns a sweeter song; the heavens finding it impossible to resist the general rejoicing which follows the most successful labor of the missionary, put on a brighter and a more resplendant garment, and the dear Sunlight is filled with unfeigned rejoicing when she sees how speedily the regenerating influences of her glance are recognized.

It is spring-time then!

Weeks pass on, but Sunlight does not tarry in her work; the grand commencement she has made, but the work of perfecting is yet to be done.

Gradually she spreads a richer green over all the meadows; all along the banks of streams and lakes the grass grows long and soft—the leaves hang heavier and fuller on the forest boughs—a softer voice whispers through the day-time and the night—flowers blossom more richly and abundantly, and the air is filled with their fragrance. Sunlight has spread the perfection of beauty over earth, and filled with unutterable affection for the world she has beautified, more warm and tender grow her embracings—and in return the voices of all the earth go up in a fervent declaration of love and gratitude to the fair missionary who has so generously, so gloriously labored for them. The good, beautiful Sunlight! no wonder all creation loves her, and blesses her; no wonder that innumerable objects, on all other subjects dull and voiceless, discover a way in which to sing her praises!

It were idle to attempt a detail of all the homes and hearts that even in one day she blesses and enlivens by her presence; but let us for a few moments follow her in her wanderings, perhaps thereby we may gain a proper appreciation of the labors of this good angel.

It is morning, and she has just alighted on the earth; and see now where her light feet are first directed. On yonder hill there stands a lofty building—secure as a fortress, made of stone, and brick, and iron. It is a gloomy, comfortless looking place; the windows, though it is a warm summer morning, are fast closed, and bars of iron stretch over them! It is a prison-house; but, though its inmates are guilty criminals, the pure and high-born Sunlight does not disdain to visit them. She is looking through all those grated windows fronting us—will you also look in?

There is a criminal condemned to death—a hardened villain, whose unbridled passions have worked his ruin. He is yet far from old, not a gray hair is there in all that thick black mass which crowns his head! From his youth up his life has been a life of sin, and little remorse. Heaven has at last overtaken him, and he will soon fearfully expiate, in part, his guilt.

Yesterday, justice delivered to him the sentence; he listened to it as though he heard it in a trance, and ever since they brought him from the presence of the excited court, he has sat on that hard pallet, immoveable as now. His food is untouched—he has no time to feel the wants of nature; his arms are closely, convulsively folded upon his breast; the black, large eyes, have a fixed and stony glare, in which it would seem few tears had ever gathered; firmly compressed are the pale lips; no prayer or sigh, or moan shall issue from them! He knows there is no way of escape for him—that on such a day, at such an hour, he will perish by the executioner’s hand; and that dreadful fact it is which is constantly staring in his face, and writing such a record of shame and terror in his heart.

He feels no penitence—nothing but anger, that he has stupidly suffered himself to be overtaken by the hand of the law—that his crimes have been detected. It is not the fear of God that is before his eyes; it is not dread of the hereafter which so overpowers him, but hatred of his fellow men, and a desire to wreak his vengeance on them who have brought to light his guilt!

Through all the long, dark hours he has rested on his hard bed, listening to the “voices of the night,” and not one softening thought has entered his heart, not one repentant sigh has he breathed. It seemed then as though nothing could arouse him as he so coldly beheld the reality, death staring him in the face. But now see, there is a faint glow on the narrow window-pane, and it grows brighter and brighter. Creeping slowly along the wall it reaches him at last—it falls upon his breast—it glances over his hard face, where sin has written her signature with a pen, as of iron—it looks into his stern eyes—that light arouses him, and while he returns the piercing gaze of the sunbeam, human feelings are aroused in his breast once more. He rises from the place where in his rage he had flung himself—he gazes round the contracted, miserable cell in which he is secured! Alas! and he has fallen so far that humanity acknowledges the justice of immuring him in a prison! and as he gazes on the gentle spirit whose presence fills his cell with light, the recollections of his far-off, innocent childhood—of his early home, from whence not a great many years ago he went with the blessing of his old mother sounding in his ears, steals over him—his heart is softening—his lips tremble—the stolid, hardened look has passed from his countenance—he is human again—he weeps! Blessed Sunlight! Fairest and holiest of the missionaries, who come from the halls of heaven to purify the earth, she has subdued him! Oh, we will hope that now, since the heart of stone has been changed to one of flesh, the good, redeeming work may not stop there; we will hope that when he is standing in his last hour upon the scaffold, when she comes to him again, it may be with a faith-supported heart that he will behold in her brightness a token of the blissful rest which awaits his repentant, pardoned spirit!

Close adjoining this cell there is another which likewise has its guilty inmate—a miserable, abandoned woman. She is sleeping. For her violation of the laws both of God and man she is now imprisoned.

She is sleeping, but hers is a troubled slumber, for conscience is at work night and day in the mind of that woman, accusing and condemning—yet she sleeps. She is dreaming of the husband of her early years—of the child in whom, when she was young and innocent, and of contented mind, her hope and joy centered; she is dreaming of her maiden home—of her bridal morning. The voices of her former, youthful friends are ringing in her ears; the innocent thoughts and hopes of girlhood fill her heart again. She wakens weeping—for in imagination she is standing once more beside the death-bed of her mother, listening to the words of warning and counsel that mother forces herself to speak when she beholds with all a parent’s agony that the girl of her hopes is treading in the wild paths of shame and sin.

She wakens in tears, with a strange feeling of contrition that she has seldom or never felt before agitating her bosom, to see the Sunlight looking down with pitying glance upon her—to see the good spirit whose mission it is to make glad and bright the earth, deigning to creep through those prison-bars to speak a word of counsel and hope to her. Thoughts of her husband, on whose honest name she has cast such dishonor, and of her deserted, innocent child, come to her full of most sorrowful reproach. A longing for the restoration of her lost virtue—a conviction of the peacefulness and happiness and exceeding reward attending goodness, ever make her unsealed tears flow more freely. Beside that narrow bed, on the stone floor of her cell, she kneels down in her sorrow and contrition, and on her knees she breathes forth such a prayer as never before went from her heart. And the dear Sunlight is witness of that prayer! She looks upon the kneeling penitent with joy—and from that now hallowed place she does not steal forth hastily, leaving the cell dreary and comfortless as before; she is there when the woman rises from her supplication, as though to assure of the smile of Heavenly forgiveness, which may yet await her. She remains to give encouragement to the hope that the corroding stains now resting on her soul may be ere long effectually wiped away—that reconcilement and love and peace, are yet for her on earth.

Near this woman’s cell there is another where a youth, unjustly accused, singularly blameless and innocent in his life, is singing a morning hymn of praise and adoration. Hemmed in as he is by the prison-wall, deprived of that freedom which is the good man’s best possession, confined with guilty men, and bearing himself the heavy imputation of crime, yet is he supported by the comforting knowledge of his innocence, and by the assurance that the eye which is strong to pierce the secrets of the heart, knows his innocence. The dreariness of his confinement does not fill his soul with terror; his faith is strong in the power and goodness of his Maker, and so it is with patience he performs the labor apportioned him, looking confidently for the hour of his release, and the honorable conviction of his uprightness in the minds of all honest men.

And when the kindly Sunlight appears before him, her presence but serves to foster these hopes. It is a sweet message of patience and faith she whispers to him, and after she has departed, through all the long day its remembrance strengthens and cheers him. Blessed be the good spirit who remembers to visit these sad, afflicted, guilty ones in the hour when they are well-nigh forgotten of all the world, and by their own kin!

Beyond the prison, on the same range of elevated grounds, just without the city, there is a cemetery—a quiet place where the dead sleep in peace. And thither Sunlight bends her golden, sandaled feet. How brightly her shadow lies on the white monuments, and on the grass and flowers. How quiet and holy is this place, there is no sound of the tread of living feet to disturb the rest of the slumberers; no human form at this early hour is treading in this solitary place to muse on the “vanity of all earthly things,” or to weep over the departed! Oh, yes! there, by that newly-made grave, where the sod has been placed so recently, there, where the print of the feet of the funeral-train is yet fresh on the loosened ground, there stands a child with flowers in her hand; she has come to lay them on the grave of her mother! The Sunlight knew that she would meet her there, for every morning since the day the funeral-train paused there, and laid the loving mother in the dark, cold, “narrow house,” the little girl has visited that grave, bringing with her to beautify it, and make it seem a rest more sweet and cheerful, the flowers from her little garden, which early in the spring her mother planted there. When the child goes back to the city, the vast crowds of life will have awakened, and the rush, and jar, and strife, will have begun; happy were it for all those multitudes, if a voice, gentle and holy in its teaching as has spoken to that young girl, whispered also to them, ere they mingled in the whirlpools of business and pleasure!

Then amid the dwellings of the city Sunlight wanders next. And by no means is she sure to honor first with her presence the mansions of the rich; for at such an early hour she would hardly receive a welcome there; perhaps, however, this is not the sole reason why the very first place which she chooses to enter is the cot of the humble laborer. Gently does she lay her fair hand on his rude, weather-worn frame, and tenderly she kisses his hard-browned face, as a loving mother embraces her infant. And if the man does not at once awaken at the call of her royal highness, she does not go away and leave him in humanly anger, but yet more lovingly does she caress him, thinking meanwhile to herself, “poor man, he was worn out by his hard work yesterday.” And so at last by her patient gentleness she succeeds in awakening him—and when he rubs his eyes, and sees her waiting for him there, with her soft hand, on which the regal ring is glistening, resting so lovingly upon him, how he reproaches himself that he has dared to sleep while she was honoring his poor roof by her presence! and how fervent is the blessing with which his heart blesses her, as he hastens away to his labor with a light heart and renewed courage.

Later in the day, peeping into the small windows of the unpretending school-room, she beckons to the little children to come out and ramble with her among the fields, to hunt for the ripe strawberries in the grass, and to gather the violets, and lilies, and wild-geranium flowers which grow in the shady woods. A beautiful song she sings to the merry youngsters—a song whose burden has more of wisdom in it than many gather from their books in the coarse of years—a lesson of reverence of freedom, and of innocent love for nature.

Sunlight is not content with merely resting like a visible blessing on the head of the gentle girl whose breast is throbbing with a “love for all things pure and holy,” she steals into her guileless heart, and makes that glorious by her smiling there; and the little one laughs while she lingers, because she fancies that all the future to which she looks forward, will prove as bright and joyous as the unclouded present. And as for the king’s daughter, she knows when she hears that joyous ringing laugh which always welcomes her presence, that it is indeed more blessed to give than to receive!

The bright-eyed maiden loves children, with all the earnestness of her soft, true heart, and how earnestly they return her love, let every man and woman and child answer! She is, indeed, like a kind and gentle elder friend to them—like a friend whose heart has not grown cold or hard from much mingling with the world, who knows how to sympathize with them in their simple joys, who listens to their merry voices with a tender interest, which time has not been enabled to make cold or false.

Well may the children love her, whose smile is the grand main-spring of their joy—the constant inspirer of their never-ceasing hope!

Look for a moment into this alms-house. Poor people, the wretchedly poor, who were rendered at last, by long destitution utterly unable to work with the rude elements of life, which lay like broken useless tools around them, are gathered here for rest, that they may gain strength for a renewal of their conflict! For a few weeks, and perhaps a longer time, they may dwell in this comfortable shelter, and partake of food, not gathered from the refuse of rich men’s tables—they may partially rest from their hard, unsatisfactory, unproductive labor. Let us hope that Sunlight may not speak vainly to them now, as every day she livens up their new home, let us hope they may understand the cheering messages she brings to them, and as they learn more of the goodness and justice of their Creator than they have ever yet had time to learn, perhaps with more of hope and resignation they will endure their burden. It were well to go through necessity to a poor-house, even if we can find no other school in which to learn the grand lesson of endurance and continuance in well-doing; there, perhaps, it would not be impossible to understand the messages dear Sunlight delivers every day to our unappreciating, slow-hearing minds.

Notwithstanding all our boasted democracy, there is scarcely a being on the face of the earth who embraces with quite such heartiness its principles, and so understands its precepts as—Sunlight. How graciously her hand is laid on the matted locks of those children of want; how lovingly and earnestly is her kiss imprinted on their toil-grimmed faces—how radiantly her smile envelops them. Ah! well-a-day! would there were in human hearts as much of genuine love! No sham-tenderness, nor aristocratic, cold-blooded, repelling fondness, is there in her embracing, stronger than a human heart’s beating is that which proclaims the life that is in her!

See now in this other place, where helpless orphans are collected and cared for, children whose parents have died and left them helpless and dependent on the bounty of the world; Sunlight has not forgotten them either. Kindly hands and charitable hearts have gathered these little ones from hovels of sin, and sorrow, and shame, and nurtured by the good and the wise, in early manhood and womanhood they will be prepared to struggle for themselves, and to bear their own life-burden.

Day after day the affectionate Sunlight visits these assembled little ones, and adds her cheerful blessing to that which God has already pronounced on them, whose love has prompted them out of their abundance to support and comfort the destitute and friendless.

And there is another place teeming with human life, where this good friend of earth and her children comes daily, but where there are very few who may welcome her smiling approach, but few to know certainly of her departure when she is gone. This is the home for the blind.

How many are the fair young faces and graceful, gentle forms and innocent hearts, how frequent are the kindly words in that place; and yet, alas! how small the power to see and know the beauty of the world; how few the eyes to behold the approaching of the fair daughter of the sun! The blind live there, but Sunlight does not shun them! When she enters their dwelling-place unsummoned, and only attended by that glory with which God has adorned her, they may, it is a fact they often do, know that something blessed and heavenly is nigh, because they feel it in their enlivening senses, in the warmth of her caressing. But they may not touch her hand; and when they speak to her she does not answer them; and so they know she is not a mortal, but a spirit who may not speak with an audible voice to them—a spirit though which loves and blesses them!

Let us follow on further in her path, where polished doors are fastened against the intruding world. It is a home of fashion, but from the parlor windows no token of life are seen. The blinds are closed—the dwelling looks uninhabited. But there is life within, ay, and death, too! Around the silver door-knob, and circling the door-bell handle, where the hands of the wealthy and gay have so often rested, (but very rarely those of the poor and needy,) there is wound a scarf of crape, and mournfully the death-token flutters in the morning air. For two days scarcely a form has entered those doors; the sufferers within, however much they may have rejoiced in display in former days, have no wish that there may be spectators to their sorrow.

Yet there is one—a not often heeded guest, though a seldom failing one—who comes to them now they cannot shut her out; she longs to utter some soothing and consoling word. She penetrates to the very scene of their grief. She looks into the silent chamber where the father and mother are weeping over their only child—the child of whom they had made an idol, whom God, who hath said “thou shalt have no gods but me,” hath taken away from them. They have with their own hands laid their child in her coffin, ere long they will see her borne away from them forever; so it is with unutterable sorrow they stand beside that little one and gaze on her pale face. The blinds are closed, and the curtains partly drawn, but through an open shutter the Sunlight enters the darkened room, and drawing near to the bereaved parents, she lays her hand, oh, so gently on the forehead of the child!

The clustering curls which fall upon that brow seem almost illuminate beneath the pressure of that hand—and the mother’s tears fall faster as she looks on the beautiful little one that will be so soon hidden away from the pleasant day-light and the hopes of life. But as the father looks, his sorrow is abated, his voice is lifted up, there is hope in its tone, he says, “Mary, let us weep no longer over our child, her spirit has already won a brighter crown than that the sunlight lays upon her head.”

And the mother’s grief becomes less wild, and humble is the voice with which she makes answer,

“God help us, it was his to take away who gave.”

And now with more of submission under their affliction, with much of hope that cheered even in the midst of their bereavement, they will see their child laid in the funeral-vault to meet their eyes no more until the resurrection morning—and with chastened hearts, and more thoughtfully they will tread the path set before them, feeling convinced and thankful that sorrow has taught them a lesson of wisdom they never could have learned in a life like that they had lived.

Through the opened Gothic windows of the old church she is speeding, for what? To make beautiful by her presence the temple of the Lord. See! before the altar there is gathered a little group, and a maiden and a youth are answering the binding, “I will,” to a question than which none more fraught with deep and solemn meaning was ever propounded to mortal man and woman.

The bridegroom has placed upon his companion’s finger the uniting ring—she is his wife. You see she has arrayed herself gayly; it is the great festival of her life—may it not prove the adornment has been for the ceremony of the sacrifice of all the dearest and best hopes of her trusting young heart! Around these happy ones are gathered their most familiar, dearest friends; before them the “solemn priest,” and, hark! with mingled words of warning, and of counsel, and of blessing, he pronounces them now man and wife. And upon the newly-wedded ones is resting the congratulatory smile of Sunlight! She bids them joy in their love, and gives the bridegroom the comforting assurance that his will not prove a cross and turbulent bride, for his wedding-day is calm and bright, and over all the sky there is not one speck of cloud!

But why does the Sunlight linger when the bridal party has gone forth? She is about the altar and chancel, as though there were others yet who would need her presence and her blessing there.

Ah! there are steps—another group is approaching the awaiting “holy man of God.” A woman comes, bearing in her arms a child for baptism. The font containing the regenerating waters is there in readiness. Troops of invisible angels are nigh to listen to and make record of the solemn vows now to be made, and the spirit of the living God is there also, a witness, merciful in his omnipotence.

There are but few who accompany the woman—she comes in no pomp and state to dedicate her child to God in baptism; neither is the offering she brings adorned with the pride of wealth. The mother is poor—the child an heir of poverty. But will He therefore spurn the gift? “He that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”

The father of the child, the husband of the mother is dead—and her widow’s weeds but “faintly tell the sorrow of her heart.” Therefore it is with so much the more trustful confidence she has come with her child to the altar, she will give him into the watchful care of the Almighty Father of the fatherless! With what a solemn earnest voice she takes upon herself, for the child, the vow of renouncement of the world and its sinful desires; and when the sign of the cross is laid upon the brow of her infant, and the holy waters which typify its regeneration are poured upon his head, it is with heartfelt gratitude she lifts her heart to heaven, with heartfelt confidence she implores his watchful love and care. And all the while on the uncovered head of the child the glance of the sunlight has rested, as if in token of the acceptance of the offering the mother has made, in token that the blessing and mercy of God would be upon that child for whom a holy vow was registered in heaven, which he must one day redeem, or else pay the fearful penalty.

And now the mother with her child and friends have left the church, and a sacred quiet reigns there once more; yet the priest lingers by the altar, still arrayed in his robes of office, and Sunlight also remains.

And, hark! once more the “deep-toned bell” is ringing now—tolling mournfully—no wedding-peal of joy is that, from out the heart of the strong iron is rung the stern tale that another mortal hath put on immortality! Now they come, a long and silent train, and foremost move the bearers treading heavily; “it is a man they bear”—an aged man, the measure of whose cup of life was well filled, reaching even the brim; and following after them are the children, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of the deceased, and the procession is closed by his many friends and neighbors. Of all that lengthened train there is not one who set out on the path of life with the dead man. One by one his early companions passed away, there are none who retain a recollection of that aged face when it was smooth, and of those locks now so very white and thin, as they were in earlier years; not one who shared the hopes of his childhood with him—few who mingled with him in the scenes remembered now as of the old, old time. Yet the mourners weep, and the bells toll mournfully.

The old man has finished his course with honor and with joy. Reverenced and loved, he has gone down to the grave—no, I must not say that, he has gone upward to rest on the bosom of his Father! In boyhood he was wild, and fearless, and reckless—his manhood, generous and upright, nobly redeemed his early days—and happy, and peaceful, and honorable, was his “green old age.” And now he has “gone to his reward”—his race well run, his labor all fulfilled, it seems strange that any should weep. They have laid back the coffin-lid that the assembled people may once more look on their venerated friend. Oh, how peacefully he sleeps, and lovingly, as on the unconscious infant, the Sunlight, that messenger of consolation, looks upon the calm, cold face, and the mourner’s grief is stayed as they behold the brightness which once more illuminates those lifeless features.

Upon the infant, dedicated to God in the days when he lies helplessly at the portal of life, on the maiden and the youth, entering on a state of existence, either supremely blessed or supremely cursed in its eventuation, and on the dead old man, whose race so long, and of mingled pleasure and hardship, is over at last; on these the faithful Sunlight has pronounced her blessing within the walls of the old church. But now all the human beings have gone away, the minister with the funeral train to the burial, and the sexton has fastened the church-doors and gone too; but still the Sunlight remains, and it seems as though she were kneeling before the altar now, craving God’s blessing on all those who have this day stood within His courts, and before His altar, brought there by joy or sorrow to rejoice or to weep.

Not, however, within the sanctity of walls alone does the Sunlight make herself visible. Through byways, and in the open street, where the stream of life goes rushing on violently, does she tread, brightening up by her presence dark and dismal corners, and enlivening the gloomiest and dreariest places.

In the intervening places between the high brick dwellings and stores she stations herself; there, like a priestess, she stands to pronounce a benediction on all who pass by her. On the blind old beggar, led by a little child, who pause a moment to rest in the sunshiny place, for they have walked on wearily amid a heartless crowd, that had but little feeling for the poverty-stricken old man, whom Heaven deprived of sight; and on the gaudily decked form of the shameless woman, as a reproach and condemnation; on the proud, hard man, whose haughty head and iron heart care little for the Sunlight or for Sorrow, whose honorable name has safely borne him through the committal of sins and crimes, which, had he been poor and friendless, would have long ago secured for him a safe place among convicts and outlaws! Little recks he of Sunlight. A blessing so freely bestowed on all, as is her smile, is not what he covets; so through shade and light he hastens, and soon enough he will arrive at the bourne. What bourne?

There go by the wandering minstrels, men from Scotland with their bagpipes—Italians with hurdy-gurdy—girls with tamborines, and boys with violins and banjoes—there are professors of almost all kinds of instrumental music, and vocal too, a great many of them there are, but sure, almost all of them, of winning coppers from some who would bribe them into a state of quietude, and from other some, harmony-loving souls, who delight in the dulcet sounds such minstrels ever awaken and give utterance to! And Sunlight blesses them!

And here comes an humble, tired-looking woman—a school teacher she is, whose days are one continued round of wearying, and most monotonous action. You would scarcely err in your first guess as to her vocation—it speaks forth in her “dress a little faded,” but so very neat, but more loudly still in that penetrating glance of her eye, and in the patient expression of her features. Though she is evidently hurried, for she has been proceeding at a most rapid pace along the streets, you could tell she has some appreciation of the glory of Sunlight, for how she lingers whenever she comes near the places enlivened by her presence! Her feet, too, press less heavily the pavement, perhaps she feels as though she were treading on sacred ground!

Then, there comes another, a little, frail, youthful creature, with bright, black eyes, (which have obviously a quick recognization power for “every thing pretty,”) a person of quick and nervous movement, a seamstress. She has not time often to pause and take note of the beautiful. Her weeks have in their long train of hours only twelve of daylight she may call her own! She, too, steps slowly, almost reverently, over the flags where the princess is stationed, and with an irresistible sigh thinks of earlier and happier days, when a merry country child she rejoiced in her delightful freedom, though clad she was then in most unfashionable garments, and almost she regretted the day that sent her into the great, selfish city to fashion dresses for the rich and gay. Poor girl! before she has half passed over the shady place which succeeds the glimpse of Sunlight, she has forgotten the hope which for a moment found refuge in her breast, wild as it was, that one day she might indeed go into the country again, and find there a welcome and a home; for must not Miss Seraphina’s and Miss Victoria’s dresses be finished that very night in time for the grand party; and the flounces are not nearly trimmed, and numberless are the “finishing touches” yet to be executed.

Alas! before night comes again, when she will go alone, and in the darkness, through the noisy street, in her weariness and stupidity, (for continued labor, you know very well, reader, will make the brightest mind stupid and weak,) she will hurry to her bed, forgetful of her bright dream of the morning, unmindful of her prayers, in the haste to close her weak and tired eyes. But in the morning, perhaps, the Sunlight will give to the overworked girl another gleam of hope, another blessing.

And now goes by an interesting, white-gloved youth, fresh from “the bandbox,” as you perceive. Let him pass on; for there is but little chance that Sunlight will be recognized by him, and so we will not waste our comments, for could he even see where lies the brightness, I cannot say but the inevitable eye-glass might be raised, and such a glance of idiocy and impudence be directed toward the gentle daughter of the mighty king, as would warrant her in annihilating him at once with a powerful sunstroke!

Here comes another, a benevolent, but solemn-featured, portly gentleman, who seems in musing mood, for he goes slowly along with head bent down. He is a judge, proceeding toward the scene of his trying duties, feeling the responsibility which rests upon him, and nerving himself to meet the solemn and affecting scenes and circumstances which may await him. Oh may it be that as he passes by those small illuminated places, that a stronger voice than he has ever heard before may find utterance in his heart, charging him to remember that the highest attributes of the Heavenly Judge are mercy and love, and that only as he employs them in his decisions, can he justly imitate his Divine prototype!

And now there is another going by, whose disappointment is legibly written on his face. Either of two doleful things has happened to him. His prayers have been unheard by his “lady-love,” and she looks coldly upon him, or—scarcely less to be dreaded climax—his first attempt at literature has met with unqualified failure. Let him but bear in mind that “faint heart never won fair lady,” or honor in the “literary world;” let him take one intelligent look at the sweet Sunlight, as so patiently she stands there before him, and small will be the danger of his ultimate defeat.

But—but how fast the crowd increases—it is growing late, and between the increasing crowd of fashionables, and of people of all sorts and conditions, we are really in danger of being soon unable to distinguish who of all the host stop for the blessing of Sunlight, and who unmindful pass by her. And indeed it were an endless task to impose on one’s self the attempt to speak, or even to think, of the myriads who in their hours of sorrow, despondency, tribulation or joy, have had occasion to be thankful for the cheerful smile of glorious Sunlight!

Her mission—ay, never was there one so blest—and never was there so faithful a missionary! She comes with a message of love for the whole world! How perfectly she has learned that lesson taught her by our own, as well as her Almighty Father! How nobly has she obeyed his sublime precepts, how truly is she the joy-diffuser of the human race!

And now what remaineth to be said? But one thing only.

In a necessarily more contracted sphere of action may there not from our faces, and our hearts, go forth a beam of light that shall be powerful to cheer up a desponding spirit, or to encourage a drooping heart, or to give comfort to a sorrowing soul, or to increase the faith and courage of a lonely life?

Cannot the sunshine of a human face, in the dark forest of a sad heart, have power to make the old trees bud, and the birds to sing, and the violets to spring up and bloom, and the ice-bound streamlets to go free? From many a love-lit eye, from many a brow from which tender hands have erased the record of care, from many a rejoicing heart lightened of its dread burden, there comes to me an answer, “Yes—oh yes!”

Blessed forever be the sweet Sister of Charity, the angelic, untiring Missionary, the lovely princess—daughter of the Sun!—and, also, blessed forever be that human heart which doth not disdain to learn the heavenly lesson Sunlight teaches, ay, twice blessed of God, and of man!

THERMOPYLÆ.

———

BY MRS. MARY G. HORSFORD.

———

’Twas night; the gleaming starlight fell

On helmets flashing high;

The glancing spears and torrent swell

Of armed men sweeping by.

No clarion’s voice was on the breeze,

No trumpet’s stormy blast;

The hollow moan of distant seas

Was echoed as they past.

With measured step and stealthy tread,

In stern and proud array,

They sought the camp in silence dread

Where the slumb’ring Persian lay.

Then long and loud the battle-shout

Rung on the startled air,

There was fitful torch-light flashing out

And sudden arming there.

The shriek of death and wild despair,

And hasting to and fro,

When like the lion from his lair

The Spartan charged the foe.

Then hand to hand and spear to spear

The hostile armies stood;

The tempest’s note rung loud and clear

And shook the solitude.

And ’mid the fearful tide of fight,

Where thousands met to die,

The lances gleamed athwart the night

Like lightning in the sky.

On! on they swept their land to bless,

And fast around their way

The Persians gathered numberless

As leaves in summer’s day.

Morn dawned upon that battle-field,

And shivered spear and lance,

And banner torn and broken shield

Reflected every glance.

But where were they—those patriots bold,

Of bright and fearless eye?

Each noble heart in death was cold,

Each spirit in the sky.

Fair Greece! of glorious deeds the clime

By dauntless valor wrought;

Of daring minds, and souls sublime,

The pioneers of thought!

No marvel that thy skies should boast

A fairer, sunnier blue—

Departed day illumes the west

With many a radiant hue.

LOST TREASURES.

———

BY P. D. T.

———

I am coming, I am coming, when this fitful dream is o’er,

To meet you, my beloved ones, on that immortal shore,

Where pain and parting are unknown, and where the ransomed blest

Shall welcome treasures left on earth, to Heaven’s eternal rest.

I am with you, I am with you, in the visions of the night,

I feel each warm hand pressing mine, I meet each eye of light.

Oh these are precious seasons! they bring you back to me,

But morning dawns, and with it comes the sad reality.

I dare not trust my thoughts to dwell on blessings that were mine,

Or, “hoping against hope,” believe one ray of joy can shine

Across my path, so dreary now, that late was bright and gay,

But, meteor-like, hath left more dark the track which marked its way.

Yet I feel that thou art near me! my guardian angels thou,

Who fain would chase all sorrow and sadness from my brow.

For thou hadst strewn my pathway so thick with thornless flowers,

I quite forgot that Death could come to revel in our bowers.

But now, I’m oh so lonely! my “household gods” are gone,

And though my path’s a dreary one, I still must journey on.

Yet Faith steps forth and whispers—Time flies, look up and see,

For in his wake swift follows on a blessed eternity.

THE BROTHER’S TEMPTATION.

———

BY SYBIL SUTHERLAND.

———

CHAPTER I.

“You look sad to-night, Alice,” was the remark of Mr. Colman as his young wife entered the sitting-room, and took a seat beside him with a countenance expressive of unusual dejection; “and where is Maggie this evening that you have been obliged to take upon yourself the duty of nursery-maid to our little ones?”

“Maggie has gone upon an errand of mercy—to watch over a sick and suffering fellow creature,” replied Mrs. Colman. “It is a long story,” she added, in answer to the look of inquiry which her husband cast upon her, “but I will endeavor to relate it if you will listen to it patiently. This morning, Harry, after you had left home, I resolved to set forth in search of a seamstress who was making some dresses for our little girl. She had failed to bring them home at the time appointed, and as I had never employed her before, and knew nothing of her character, I felt rather anxious concerning the safety of the materials I had given her to work upon, and determined to go to the dwelling which she had described as her residence and learn the cause of her disappointing me. The house was in a miserable street some distance from here, and I hurried along till I came to it. It was a wretched-looking dwelling, such as none but the very poorest class would have chosen. The door stood open, and several ragged little Irish children were playing upon the steps. I inquired of them if Mrs. Benson, the seamstress lived there? They did not seem to recognize the name—but they told me that a young woman who took in sewing hired the back rooms of the third-story. Following their direction, I ascended three flights of stairs and found myself at the door of the apartment, where I knocked, and a faint voice bidding me enter, I unclosed the door and stood upon the threshold. What a strange and unexpected sight now met my gaze! Upon the floor, almost at my feet as I entered, lay a young and very beautiful girl apparently bereft of all consciousness. She looked so thin and pale that at first I thought her dead, and starting back in horror I was about to leave the place, when a feeble voice, the same which told me to come in, besought me to stay. Looking round to discover whence it proceeded, I saw the emaciated form of a man reclining upon a couch in a distant part of the room. Hastily I approached him, for I felt it to be my duty to render what aid I could. As I drew nearer to his bedside, I read the tale of confirmed disease in that pallid face and in the wild sunken eyes whose gaze met my own. In a few words he informed me that the maiden who lay there senseless was his daughter. While busily engaged at her work about an hour previously, she had fallen from her seat and remained thus in a state of unconsciousness. He said that his limbs being palsied he was unable to help her, and so he had lain upon his couch agonized by the thought that his child was dead, or that she might die for want of proper assistance. And he now besought me to endeavor to discover if there were any signs of life, and if possible to restore her to her senses. The appeal was not in vain. I turned from him to his inanimate daughter, and raising that light and fragile form in my arms, placed her upon a couch in a small closet-like apartment adjoining the one I had first entered. For a long time every means of restoration were vainly tried—but at length my strenuous efforts were rewarded, and the young girl once more unclosed her eyes. But she evidently recognized nothing about her—those dark and strangely beautiful orbs glared wildly around, while a few broken, incoherent sentences burst from her lips, and as she sunk again upon the pillow the bright fever flushes rushed to her cheek, and I knew that her brain was suffering. Great was her parent’s joy that she once more breathed—but my heart was full of sadness, for I could not help feeling that her life was in jeopardy. It was my wish to have a physician summoned, but I knew not how this was to be done, for I dared not leave my charge, and there was no one near to help me. At this moment I heard footsteps in the hall, and quickly opening the door, beheld a boy ascending the stairs. The promise of a piece of silver easily procured his assent to go for the nearest doctor, and accordingly he set off, while re-entering the room I resumed my station by the sick girl’s bedside. In a few minutes the physician arrived and my suspicions of the nature of the young girl’s disorder were confirmed, for he pronounced it to be a fever of the brain, and said that his patient would require constant watching and careful nursing. The father listened anxiously and attentively to the doctor’s words. His countenance fell as he caught the last sentences, though he said not a word. It was not till after giving his prescription, the physician left, promising to call early on the morrow, that he spoke what was passing in his mind.

“‘Julie must die!’ he said, bowing his head upon his hands, while bitter, hopeless anguish was depicted upon his face, ‘for I have no means of obtaining for her the care she needs.’ It was all that passed his lips, but it spoke volumes to my heart, and my resolution was instantly taken. I told him that I would not desert his child, that I would continue with her part of the day, and when I was obliged to leave that I would send some one to take my place. Oh, Harry! if you could only have seen how grateful that poor invalid looked! Most amply repaid was I by that glance for whatever I had undertaken. I remained with the sick girl several hours longer, and in the intervals when she slumbered, I had time to observe the appearance of things around me. The furniture was mean and scanty. There were but two chairs in the room, and the carpet was worn almost threadbare. Every thing betokened extreme poverty—but neatness was plainly perceptible in the arrangements of the apartment, and I felt from the appearance of its occupants that they had seen more prosperous days. A book lay upon a table close at hand, I took it up, and discovered it to be a volume of Bryant’s poems. On looking over the pages, I found several of the most beautiful passages marked. Upon one of the fly-leaves was written, ‘To Julie—from her father.’ The book was evidently the young girl’s property. There was also a small portfolio of drawings upon the table, which evinced signs of both talent and cultivation. For an hour after the physician’s departure the parent of Julie—for by her name I may as well call her—showed little disposition to converse. He seemed exhausted by the emotions of the day—but I knew that though he said nothing, his gaze was often upon me when he imagined that I did not observe him. At last he roused himself to answer some inquiries which I thought it necessary to make. He told me that he was very poor, and that for more than a year, during which his infirmity had appeared and increased, his daughter had maintained him by the proceeds of her needle. He said also that two years previously he had resided at Baltimore as one of its wealthiest merchants—but having failed under circumstances that cast a cloud upon his character, though he was in reality innocent of intentional wrong, he had left the city of his birth and hastened with Julie, his only child, to New York, where he would be sure of never more meeting the scornful gaze of those who had been his friends ere misfortune overlook him. Here he hoped to procure employment—but fate seemed against him. Shortly after his arrival in this city, he was seized with a dangerous illness which left him in his present helpless condition, and his lovely and accomplished child found herself very unexpectedly thrown upon her own resources for her support and that of her invalid parent. Bravely for many months had she borne the burden, but continued anxiety concerning the means of obtaining life’s necessaries had at last done its work—and in the delirium of fever, the fair and noble girl now tossed restlessly upon her bed, a mere wreck of what she had once been.

“This brief sketch of their history, as you may imagine, dear Harry, interested me greatly. And when, at its conclusion, the speaker again expressed his fears for the future and his doubts as to the recovery of his child, for whom he had no power to provide necessary attendance, I again assured him that I would watch over her until she became quite well, and that after this I would endeavor to find some more healthy and suitable employment for her than that in which she had latterly been engaged.

“Toward the close of the afternoon, being desirous of going home for awhile, I dispatched the boy whom I have once before mentioned, for Maggie, that she might supply my place as attendant upon the sick Julie, until evening, when I proposed to bear her company and resume my post at the bedside. She came, and her sympathies were soon all enlisted by the tale which I hurriedly repeated to her. But she decidedly opposed my wish to return—reminded me of my late indisposition, and declaring that I was not strong enough to bear the fatigue of sitting up all night, insisted upon being allowed to exercise her skill as nurse without any other assistance. I thanked her for her consideration, while I felt that she was right. So I left her and proceeded home, where, as you may suppose, I was welcomed most joyfully by little Willie and his sister, who had mourned incessantly over mamma’s protracted absence.

“And now, Harry, that I have finished my somewhat lengthy narrative, tell me whether you approve of what I have done and promised to do?”

“Certainly, dearest Alice,” replied Mr. Colman, affectionately pressing the little hand that rested within his own, “while you continue to follow, as you have hitherto done, the dictates of your own pure, loving heart, I can never do aught but applaud you. The present objects of your benevolence, are I am sure from the account, well worthy of whatever you may do for them, and I would advise you to persevere in your efforts for their welfare. But you quite forgot to tell me, my dear, if you discovered in your protégé the seamstress for whom you were searching.”

“No, indeed,” she replied, while her countenance wore a look of vexation, “my seamstress was a very different sort of a being from this beautiful Julie. Nor do I think that I shall ever discover her, for just before I returned home I made inquiries as to whether a person answering her description lived in that house, and was assured that no one of that name had ever dwelt there. How foolish I was to trust those dresses to an entire stranger.”

“And pray what may be the name of the family whose history has interested you so deeply?” asked Mr. Colman.

“The father’s name is Malcolm—Walter Malcolm, as he informed me. With the daughter’s I believe that I have already acquainted you.”

“Walter Malcolm! Julie Malcolm! And you say they are from Baltimore?” As he spoke Mr. Colman’s cheek grew suddenly pale, and rising from his seat he paced the apartment with a hasty and agitated step.

“Why, what is the matter, Harry?” exclaimed his wife in a tone of the deepest solicitude, as she sprung to his side, “pray tell me what has moved you thus?” But it was some moments ere he seemed able to reply. At length with emotion he said—

“Alice, what if I were to tell you that this man—this Walter Malcolm is my brother—the brother who in my early youth drove me away from his luxurious home, an orphan and unprotected, to seek my fortune in the wide, wide world?” Alice Colman started and raised her eyes wonderingly to her husband’s face, and after a brief silence he resumed with a sternness unusual to him—

“In that hour, Alice—in that hour of utter desolation, when lonely and uncared for I left my brother’s roof forever, a fierce, burning desire for revenge took possession of my soul. In the first bitterness of despair I called upon Heaven to avenge my wrongs. I wished that Walter’s wealth might take to itself wings—that one day he might come to me for bread; and I resolved were this ever the case, to give him—a stone! My desire has been fulfilled, and my proud and unfeeling brother is now a beggar at my door!”

He paused—while his wife shuddered and looked appealingly up into his face.

“Harry!” she exclaimed in a low, earnest tone, “you surely do not mean that you will not forgive the sorrow your brother’s conduct once caused you—that you will now look exultingly upon his woes, and turn a deaf ear to the wants of his sweet and suffering child?”

The reproving expression of the dear face now anxiously upturned to his, at once recalled the husband to a sense of error, and drawing the form of the beloved one closer to his side, he said—

“Oh! how fervently should I thank Heaven who has given to me such a monitor in the hour of temptation! Pardon me, my Alice, if by giving way to impulse I have wounded your sensitive spirit, and that in the moment when passion held its sway, I slighted the divine lesson of forgiveness, through your influence first impressed upon my soul. Nay, dearest, look not thus surprised, for it was really by your means that the wish to quell the thirst for revenge upon my brother, entered my heart; and if you will listen a few seconds I can explain to you the words that at present may well seem mysterious. You will doubtless remember, Alice, that some months before our marriage, I experienced a severe fit of illness. One pleasant Sabbath evening shortly after I was declared convalescent, I was reclining upon a sofa in the sitting-room at your uncle’s residence. My spirits were just then very much depressed—I felt inwardly fretful and uneasy—and as is not uncommon at such a time, many little circumstances which before had been almost forgotten, rose up in my mind, and woke anew in my bosom sensations according to their nature, of pain, anxiety, or indignation. Among other things came forcibly to view the memory of the grievous wrong I had received at the hands of him who should have been a parent to me; and a feeling of the deepest hatred toward my brother stole to my heart, together with a hope that at some future time a chance might be mine of returning him measure for measure of the unkindness which he had so unsparingly dealt out to me.

“At that instant, Alice, you re-entered the room from which you had been a few minutes absent, and at the request of your uncle, opened the family Bible and began your usual Sabbath-evening duty of reading a series of chapters from the holy book. There was a passage in the first which you read that affected me strangely—for it came as a reproof from Heaven delivered to me through the medium of one of earth’s angels. It was the following—‘Avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath, for it is written, vengeance is mine; I will repay saith the Lord. Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink; for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.’ The sentences awed me, coming upon my ear as they did at a period when my spirit needed the precious warning and rebuke contained in them, and I breathed a silent prayer to Heaven for strength to enable me to heed it. The hour of my trial has arrived, and to-day have I again felt the promptings of the tempter. You cannot imagine with what force these old feelings have been driven back upon my soul, but, Alice, your voice has once more stilled the tempest, and I know that I have passed the ordeal in safety.”

Harry Colman ceased, and this time as his gaze met that of his companion he saw that her eyes were full of tears—but they were tears of grateful joy. For a little while there was silence between them, but at length Mr. Colman continued:

“Let me recount to you, Alice, as briefly as possible, a few circumstances connected with my early history. I have never done so before, because the effort was a painful one, and there was no exact necessity for the repetition. As you are aware, I was so unfortunate as to lose my father when I was a mere infant, and my mother lived only till I had attained my twelfth year. I was the child of her second marriage, and she had one son by a previous union who was many years my senior. At the period of my mother’s death, my brother, Walter Malcolm, had been married nearly five years, and was now a widower and the father of one little girl, who had just reached her third summer. Upon her death-bed my parent left me beneath his care, desiring Walter to attend to my wants and to be kind and gentle to me when she was no more. As soon as the funeral was over, my brother took me with him to his own dwelling. I was now entirely dependent upon him for maintenance. Walter Malcolm was wealthy, for a large estate had descended to him from his father, who had also left my mother a life-annuity, which while she lived had supported us. At her death I was of course unprovided for, for my own father had possessed no worldly goods to bequeath me. My new home seemed very different to me from the hearth of my early, sunny childhood. I was lonely and desolate—for between Walter and myself brotherly love had never existed. Not that I would have denied him his meed—but I was too proud to award the gift that I was confident would never be valued, for my memory could not boast a single instance wherein he had evinced for me the slightest regard. Nay, I even felt that I was an object of dislike to him, though I knew not the cause. During my mother’s life I had been greatly indulged, and it was scarcely to be wondered at that I was frequently very wayward. Upon such occasions, a word of love had always been sufficient to control my passionate nature; but when the sweet affectionate tones that ever had power to calm me, were hushed in the tomb, my faults were met by my new guardian with harshness and contempt, and this never failed to rouse a spirit of continued opposition. There was but one voice in my brother’s household that ever spoke lovingly to me. It was that of his child—the little Julie. From the first hour of my residence beneath Walter’s roof, the little creature had conceived a passionate attachment to me, preferring my presence to that of her nurse or even her father. And, as you may imagine, Alice, I did not slight her proffered affection, and during the three years that we dwelt together the little one was the sole sunbeam upon my shadowed life-path. How gladly did I greet her graceful bounding step! How dear was the sound of her clear ringing laughter as I joined in her sports!—and more precious still were the moments when weary of play, she would steal to my side, and twining her tiny arms about my neck, murmur forth, in lisping accents, her sweet child-like terms of endearment.

“I had reached my fifteenth year when the incident occurred that separated me from my brother. An error was laid to my charge of which I was really guiltless—and as I proudly refused to acknowledge and repair the fault—Walter Malcolm turned me from his dwelling, declaring that thenceforth and forever he disowned me! Time was merely given me to collect a few little articles that I could really call my own—I was not allowed to bid farewell to the child whom I yearned to look upon once more before I went—and so, an outcast, I passed from that stately mansion. Alice, I dare not linger over a description of my sensations in that hour of anguish—for it might perhaps arouse them again within my soul. You know the rest of my history—the circumstance of my adoption by your uncle who was then visiting Baltimore, and first beheld me in a store where I had entered in quest of employment. To him I confided the facts relating to my former life; he pitied and sympathized with me, and bore me with him to his own home in this city, and from that day was in every respect to the lonely orphan all that a kind and generous parent could be to his only son.”

——

CHAPTER II.

The morning succeeding the events last recorded, at an early hour, Mrs. Colman was on her way to the dwelling of the now destitute and infirm Walter Malcolm. She had new motives for the advancement of her charitable purposes, and her interest in the sick girl had deepened since she knew her to be the one whose infant steps her own husband had guided. Hastening up the stairs she knocked at the door, which was soon opened by Maggie, who looked weary enough with the fatigue of the past night. The young girl had been very restless, she said, and she believed that the fever was rapidly progressing. “But is she not a beautiful creature?” remarked Maggie to her mistress, as she bent over the couch and parted the rich curls from the fevered brow, “ah, ma’am, I have nursed many a one before this in sickness—but never a person whose appearance so won upon me as hers has.”

Alice Colman did not wonder at the observation—but as she now glanced round the room she met the gaze of Julie’s father, and her morning salutation to him was full of gentleness and sympathy.

Through the whole of that day Mrs. Colman maintained her station in the chamber of sickness and poverty. The physician came at the appointed hour, and gave it as his opinion that Julie was growing rapidly worse and that there were even doubts whether in any case her life would be spared. Oh! how the thought of her dying affected Mrs. Colman.

“Let every thing be done that may be of benefit to her,” she said anxiously to the doctor, “spare no expense whatever if you think you can by any means preserve her from the grasp of death. I will be answerable for whatever remuneration you may require.”

And not even content with his advice, she sent for her own family physician determined to try all the means she could for the preservation of the life of her husband’s niece. She noticed that Walter Malcolm looked very pale all day, but attributed it to anxiety for his daughter. He seemed too languid to converse—but once, as she handed him a glass of water, he said—“Lady, Heaven will reward your kindness to the suffering.”

That evening when Alice Colman returned home, her husband surprised her with the intelligence that Walter Malcolm was aware of her relationship to him. Before she went there in the morning, Mr. Colman had advised her on no account to allow his brother to suspect from whom he received the needful aid, for he feared that Walter still entertained against him the old feeling of hatred, and that it would awaken unpleasant emotions in his heart if he knew that the brother he had deserted was now destined to be his chief reliance. But the caution to his wife was unnecessary. Walter Malcolm had made inquiries of Maggie concerning the family to whom he was indebted, and from their minuteness Harry Colman was confident that he had been recognised. And that his brother had not forgotten his former aversion to him he deemed evident from the fact that he had said nothing of his discovery, during the day, to Mrs. Colman. The latter however thought differently. Julie’s father had spoken his thanks for that draught of water too earnestly for her to join in her husband’s belief, and she expressed her conviction that he repented his past conduct, and that he merely wanted courage to confess his penitence.

But day after day passed on, and yet there was no allusion to the subject on the part of Walter Malcolm. Meanwhile his daughter had passed the crisis of the fever and was declared convalescent. If the appearance of Julie Malcolm in the hour of delirium had attracted the fancy of Alice Colman and her nurse, how much more were they drawn toward her when her mind was freed from the chains that bound it—for gentle and loving-hearted, her grateful spirit manifested itself in various little touching ways toward those who had watched over her during her dangerous illness. When she grew stronger and was able to enter into conversation, a perfect understanding arose between Mrs. Colman and herself that they were always to be friends. Alice Colman felt that she already loved Julie dearly—and the latter was not slow in returning the affection of one whose timely succor had saved her life. Still the young girl suspected not that they were kindred by law as in heart.

It was soon settled that when Julie became entirely recovered, she should undertake the duties of governess to Mrs. Colman’s children, and this new office was to afford her the means of support. A more suitable residence had been sought by Alice Colman for Julie and her father, and they were to remove into it as soon as the former had gained sufficient strength to bear the fatigue. Two more weeks elapsed ere this last project was effected—and they were then comfortably settled in their new abode.

And still there was no sign from Walter Malcolm that he knew of his brother’s agency in the change wrought in his affairs. He was now generally reserved when Mrs. Colman was near, and his countenance often wore a deep shade of gloom.

——

CHAPTER III.

The first day that Julie Malcolm felt equal to the exertion was spent at the house of her new friend, and then it was that for the first time since her childhood, Harry Colman beheld his niece. So strongly impressed upon his mind was the recollection of her early fondness for him, and the soothing influence which her winning, affectionate ways had possessed over his spirit, that had he now obeyed the voice of impulse he would fain have clasped Julie once more to his heart; for though he now looked upon a beautiful and graceful maiden of eighteen, he could scarcely view her in any other light than as the darling child whose caresses had so often comforted him when greeted by every other voice with coldness. Yet recalling the fact that their relationship could not be breathed to her by himself, he was obliged to meet her with the reserve of a perfect stranger. But all formality between them soon vanished, and an hour after their introduction found them conversing together with the ease of old acquaintanceship. Nor had Julie forgotten, in her own frank earnest manner, to thank him again and again for the services his family had rendered her father and herself—while her soft dark eyes filled with tears as she spoke of the debt which by gratitude only she could repay. Harry Colman longed to tell her that he was the debtor—and that by his wife’s attention to her, Julie had but been rewarded for the love she had accorded him when all other hearts were steeled against him.

Mrs. Colman saw with delight her husband’s increasing predeliction for his niece—for by renewing his former affection for Julie, she hoped to make the young girl at some future day, the instrument of reconciliation between the estranged brothers.

The day of Julie’s visit to the Colmans was a happy one to all parties. Even little Effie Colman and her brother Willie, though at first rather shy of the lady, who, as they were told, was to initiate them into the mysteries of the primer, had become very fond of her, and were exceedingly loath to let her go when the time appointed for her return home arrived. Then, with her arms entwined about Julie’s neck, little Effie besought her to say when she was coming to them daily—and the following week was accordingly named for the commencement of her career as preceptress to the children.

——

CHAPTER IV.

The morning agreed upon by Julie and Mrs. Colman for the beginning of the former’s labors arrived, but the young girl did not appear. Knowing well her eagerness to enter upon her new duties—the eagerness of a noble spirit to throw off the yoke of dependence—Alice Colman might well feel anxious at Julie’s non-fulfillment of her promise. For the first time a thought crossed her mind that the suspicions of her husband concerning his brother’s continued ill-feeling toward him, might be just, and that Walter Malcolm had resolved to oppose his daughter’s constant association with them. But not long would she allow herself to imagine thus. Perhaps Julie was ill again—or some unforeseen circumstances had prevented her coming. So Mrs. Colman determined to wait till the following day, when if the object of her solicitude was still absent, and she received no message from her, she felt that she would then be more capable of judging the matter.

It was not until near the close of the afternoon that she was relieved of uncertainty upon the subject by the reception of a note from Julie. The latter stated that her father was very ill of a dangerous fever, brought on, as the physician averred, by distress of mind—and that it was doubtful whether in his enfeebled condition he could live a week longer. She added that only a few hours previously he had informed her that their benefactress was the wife of his brother, and also of the unfeeling treatment which that brother had received from him. And Julie said that from the hour when he had learned the circumstance of their relationship, remorse and the knowledge of his unworthiness to accept assistance from the one whom he had injured, preyed upon her father’s spirits, and at last caused the fever that threatened soon to terminate his existence. His last earthly wish now was to see his brother and ask forgiveness of the past—and Julie concluded by begging Mrs. Colman to use all her influence in order to bring her uncle to her parent’s couch, if it were possible, that very evening.

And that evening Mr. Colman, accompanied his wife to the abode of Walter Malcolm. The meeting between the brothers was a painful one. There was mingled shame and penitential sorrow on the part of the elder, while the countenance of the younger was expressive of the deepest agitation as he stood by the bedside of him who had cast so dark a cloud upon his youth. Harry Colman had yielded to the entreaties of Alice for this interview, while he felt that it would have been wrong to have denied it—but it was not until he looked upon Walter’s pallid face, and heard that once stern and familiar voice supplicating forgiveness, even with the humble avowal that it was undeserved, that the lingering spark of resentment was entirely extinguished within his breast—and when he breathed the much-desired word of pardon they were truly heart-felt.

And by returning good for evil he had indeed “heaped coals of fire” upon the head of his brother.

“From your birth, Harry, you were the object of my bitterest envy and hatred,” was the confession of Walter Malcolm, “for upon you was freely lavished the love of that mother whose affection I had never possessed. She had been forced by her family into a union with my father while her heart was another’s—and when her husband died and she was free to wed again, she married the one who had first gained her regard. This was the key to your superior claim upon our mother’s love. I will not now blame her for the wrong of partiality, though it was the basis of my demeanor toward yourself. I should have had sufficient strength of mind to have resisted its influence—but in this I was sadly deficient. To the last hour of her life my mother’s chief thought was of you. Yes, even in her dying moments her principal anxiety was for your future happiness, while there was but little reference to the welfare of her eldest child. When she was no more, and you came to dwell beneath my roof, I scrupled not openly to show the sentiments which during our parent’s life-time I was obliged to conceal. And I had now an additional cause of dislike. I secretly accused you of robbing me of the affection of my little girl, who, as you will perhaps remember, always manifested a decided preference for your society. I did not reflect that my manner toward her was often cold and distant, and widely different from your own; and with such feelings of jealousy concerning you in my heart, it was scarcely to be wondered that I seized the first opportunity of ridding myself of your presence. Though I knew you to be guiltless of the fault for which I blamed you, I drove you from my dwelling, refusing from that moment to own you as a brother. Nor did I then experience the least remorse for the act—and during the years that followed I strove to forget that you had ever existed.

“It was only within the past twelvemonth, when surrounded by poverty, and the victim of an incurable malady, that as I lay restlessly upon my bed, the memory of my cruel conduct toward my innocent brother has pressed heavily upon my mind. Often have I busied my brain with vain conjectures respecting your fate—whether you still lived—and if you had escaped the whirlpool of crime and sin within which the young and unadvised are but too frequently engulfed. When I thought, as I sometimes did, that you might have fallen—my sensations were those of the most acute anguish, for I felt that the sin would all be mine, and that at the judgment day I should be called to the throne of God to hear him pronounce the fearful penalty for the murder of a brother’s soul.

“At length, through the illness of my daughter, who was very unexpectedly thrown upon the benevolence of your wife, I obtained from your servant some information concerning the family to whom I owed so much, and discovered in the hand stretched forth to aid my child, the wife of my discarded brother. It would be vain to attempt a description of my emotions as I learned this fact. Joy that you were not forever lost, predominated—and then was added shame, and a consciousness of my own unworthiness to receive the benefits which henceforth you daily conferred upon me, as I felt that you must have recognized me—for I had given to your wife an account of my previous life. Each successive service lavished upon my family by your own, sunk like a weight of lead upon my heart, while as I saw how generously you repaid me for the evil I had committed against you, I longed to cast myself at your feet and supplicate forgiveness. But one thought deterred me. It was the fear that you might deem me actuated by interested motives—by the desire to leave my daughter at my death under the care of her now wealthy uncle. And so, for a time, I set aside the yearning for a reconciliation. But it returned with double force when this, which I know will be my last illness, came upon me, and I felt that I could not die happily without hearing from your lips a pardon for my misdeed.”

The weeping Julie had stood by the bedside listening attentively as her father spoke, one hand resting affectionately in her uncle’s, while the other was clasped in that of his wife. Though scarcely six years old when Harry Colman was dismissed from his brother’s house, she had ever retained a vivid recollection of the event. She remembered how passionately she had wept when told by her nurse that she would probably never again behold her favorite, and how indignant she had felt when they said that it was owing to his own naughty conduct he had been sent away—while her ignorance of the fact that her uncle’s name was not the same as her father’s prevented a recognition of him when they again met.

Walter Malcolm survived a week after the scene just described. Having made his peace with earthly objects, his last hours were devoted to solemn preparations for a future state, looking trustfully for the mercy of Him who listens kindly to the prayer of the penitent. His brother was constantly with him till his eyes were forever closed in the death-slumber; and from the day when the remains of her father were borne to their last resting-place, the orphan Julie found a home with her uncle, to whose pleasant hearth she was lovingly welcomed, while by every kind and sympathizing attention her relatives strove to alleviate the sorrow for a parent’s loss, which at first seemed almost insupportable.

THE UNSEPULCHRED RELICS.

———

BY MRS. L. S. GOODWIN.

———

“Far out of the usual course of vessels crossing that ocean, they discovered an unknown island, covered with majestic trees. The captain, with a portion of the crew, went on shore, and after traversing its entire circumference without seeing a solitary representative of the animal kingdom, were about to return to their ship, when the skeleton of a man was found upon the beach, and beside it lay a partially constructed boat.”

Bleaching upon the sands that pave

An unknown islet strand,

Where surges bear from mermaid cave

The music of her band,

A clayey temple’s ruin lies—

Of that grand pile a part

Whereon the Architect Divine

Displayed His wondrous art;

Its tenant long since hath obeyed

The summons to depart.

Mysterious, as dire, the doom

That cast a death-scene where

Deep solitude converts to gloom

What else were brightly fair:

Perchance wild waves that made a wreck

Of some ill-fated bark,

Giving his valiant comrades all

To feast the rav’nous shark,

Swept hither this lone mariner,

For misery a mark.

Yon half-completed boat his lot

In mournful tones doth tell;

With what assiduous zeal he wrought

Upon that tiny cell,

Which promised o’er the billows broad

The worn one to convey

Within compassion’s genial realm,

Where woes find sweet allay;

’Twere better e’en the sea should whelm

Than thus with want hold fray.

Believe you not that in his pain,

His agony of soul,

Flew o’er the dark engirding main

The thoughts which spurn control?

Abiding with the cherished ones

Who blest a far-off home;

O how his sinking spirit yearned

To view once more that dome;

To hear young voices gayly shout

For joy that he had come.

He mused how love with pining frame

Her grief-fount would exhaust,

As on time’s laggard wing there came

No tidings of the lost.

Ah! who may speak the bitter pangs

That exile’s bosom knew.

As, day by day, and hour by hour,

Faint, and yet fainter, grew

The hope that erst had nerved him on

His labor to pursue.

To ply their wonted task, at length,

Refused his weary hands;

His form was stretched, bereft of strength.

Upon the burning sands.

Haply his latest wish besought

’Mong kindred dead to lie;

But fate denied the boon, and death

Seized him ’neath stranger sky;

While mercy drew a mystic veil

’Twixt him and friendship’s eye.

REMINISCENCES OF A READER.

———

BY THE LATE WALTER HERRIES, ESQ.

———

Oh! the times will never be again

As they were when we were young,

When Scott was writing “Waverlies,”

And Moore and Byron sung;

When “Harolds,” “Giaours” and “Corsairs” came

To charm us every year,

And “Loves” of “Angels” kissed Tom’s cup,

While Wordsworth sipped small beer.

When Campbell drank of Helicon,

And didn’t mix his liquor;

When Wilson’s strong and steady light

Had not begun to flicker;

When Southey, climbing piles of books,

Mouthed “Curses of Kehama;”

And Coleridge, in his opium dreams,

Strange oracles would stammer;

When Rodgers sent his “Memory,”

Thus hoping to delight all,

Before he learned his mission was

To give “feeds” and invite all;

When James Montgomery’s “weak tea” strains

Enchanted pious people,

Who didn’t mind poetic haze,

If through it loomed a steeple.

When first reviewers teamed to show

Their judgment without mercy;

When Blackwood was as young and lithe

As now he’s old and pursy;

When Gifford, Jeffrey, and their clan,

Could fix an author’s doom,

And Keats was taught how well they knew

To kill à coup de plume.

Few womenfolk were rushing then

To the Parnassian mount,

And seldom was a teacup dipped

In the Castalian fount;

Apollo kept no pursuivant,

To cry out “Place aux Dames:”

In life’s round game they held GOOD hands,

And didn’t strive for palms.

Oh! the world will never be again

What it was when we were young,

And shattered are the idols now

To which our boyhood clung;

Gone are the giants of those days,

For whom our wreaths we twined,

And pigmies now kick up a dust

To show the march of mind.

THE GIPSY QUEEN.

———

BY JOSEPH R. CHANDLER.

———

[SEE ENGRAVING.]

Power, consequence, importance, greatness, are relative terms; they denote position or attainment, comparable with some other. And hence a queen is a queen at the head of a band of gipsies as much as if she sat upon a throne, at the head of a nation whose morning drum beats an eternal reveille. It was therefore, and for another cause yet to be told, that I lifted my hat with particular deference when I opened suddenly upon the head woman of a gipsy tribe, as I was passing through a small piece of woodland. Though, truth to say, I had been looking at her for some time, an hour previous, as she was giving some directions to one or two of her ragged and dirty train. Now I had known that woman in other circumstances. I had seen her in the family, had heard her commended by the men for her graceful movements, and berated by the women for exhibiting those movements to the men, and being as free with her tongue in presence of her female superiors as she had been with her feet before her male admirers. But neither the admiration of the men nor the rebuke of the women produced any effect. All that this woman received from a long sojourn with the people of the village, was a little loss of the darkness of the skin, and a pretty good understanding of the wants and weaknesses of society. Everybody knew that she had been left in exchange for a healthful child—and some years before it had been discovered that the healthful child would be worth nothing to the gipsies, and the gipsy girl would, at the first opportunity, return to her “brethren and kindred according to the flesh.” And such was the skill which she manifested on her return, such her ability to direct, such her knowledge of the wants of the villagers, and her power to take advantage of these wants, that she became the head of the tribe with which she was associated, and might have directed numerous tribes, could they have been collected for her guidance.

I could not learn that there was much of a story connected with the life of the queen, much indeed that would interest the general reader. But she was a woman—and her heart, a mystery to the uninitiated, would, if exposed, have been worth a world’s perusal. A woman’s heart—alas! how few are admitted to loose the seals and open that secret volume! How very few could understand the revelation if it were made. I could not, I confess; and it is only when a peculiar light is thrown upon here and there a pace, that I can acquire even a partial knowledge of what is manifested. The Queen of the Gipsies, though elevated by right, and sustained by knowledge, was no less a woman than a queen. She could and did command male and female, old and young. She was treated with all that marked distinction which, even among her rude people, continues to be paid to preeminence. And while she sought to do the best for all, she received all this homage with that ease, and that apparent absence of wonder, which denote the right to distinction—this was a part of her queenly character admirably sustained, natural, easy, dignified. But the queen was a woman. I had heard her give orders, which sent certain of the most active of the young, male and female, to the other side of the village, and then she gave employment to the old and the young in the moving hamlet, and seeing the first depart, and the last busy, she left the camp, and took her way through the wood. I followed her and traced her rapid steps to the burying-ground of the town, which stood a distance from any dwelling.

Seating myself out of view, I saw the queen walk directly to a recently sodded grave, upon which she looked down for a moment, and then clasping her hands wildly above her head she threw herself with a subdued cry upon the grave. I was too far from her to distinguish all the words of her lament, but they were wild and agonizing.

After a short time the woman arose, and said with a distinct, clear voice, “With thee and for thee I could have endured the mockery of their boasted civilization, and suffered the ceremonies of their tame creed. With thee and for thee I would have foregone my native tribe and my hereditary rights. So persuasive was thy affection that I could have forgotten—or at least would not have boasted—that I was of the glorious race that knows no manacles of body or of mind, but what it chooses to impose. But thou art gone, and with thee all my attraction to the idle, wearisome life of thy race. I have returned to my people, and I may lead them, and power and activity may for a time weaken my agony. I need no longer sacrifice my love for my race—but yet one sacrifice I will make, and thy grave shall be the altar. With thee my heart is buried. To thee do I here swear an eternal fidelity—and year by year will I lead my tribe hither, that I may pour out my anguish upon the sod that rises above thee. And I may hope that such devotion may lead the spirit that made our race for future happiness as for present freedom, to give thee back to me when I enter on my world of changeless love and glorious recompense.”

Kneeling again, the Gipsy Queen kissed the grave, and gathered a few blades of grass and one or two flowers, shook away the tears which she had let fall upon them, and placing them in her bosom turned and left the burying-place, and proceeded toward the camp. I left my position by the other route, and passing through the wood I met her. Her face was cleared from every cloud, no trace of a tear was evident; she had prepared herself to meet her party in a way to excite no inquiry.

THE GIPSEY QUEEN.
Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine

The little that I knew of the Gipsy Queen previous to that day, and what was told me by one who had lived in the village very long, I have set down. I never saw her after I passed her in the woods. But she made an impression on my mind that will not be easily removed. And she bore in her heart motives for action which few but herself and me will ever know.

THE BROTHER’S LAMENT.

———

BY MRS. AMELIA B. WELBY.

———

One moment more, beneath the old elm, Mary,

Where last we parted in the flowing dell—

One moment more through twilight tints that vary,

To gaze upon thy grave, and then, farewell!

Ere from this spot, and these loved scenes I sever,

Where still thy lovely spirit seems to stray—

One look—to fix them on my soul forever—

And then away!

Mary, I know my steps should now be shrinking

From this sad spot—but on my mournful gaze

A scene floats up that sets my soul to thinking

On all the dear delights of other days!

I’m gazing on the little foot-bridge yonder

Thrown o’er the stream whose waters purl below,

Where I so oft have seen thee pause and ponder,

Leaning thy white brow on thy hand of snow.

I’m standing on the spot where last we parted,

Where, as I left thee in the fragrant dell,

I saw thee turn so oft—half broken-hearted—

Waving thy hand in token of farewell.

I start to meet thy footstep light and airy—

But—the cold grass waves o’er thy sweet young head;

Would that the shroud that wraps thy fair form, Mary,

Wrapped mine instead!

In vain my heart its bitter thoughts would parry,

An adder’s grasp about its chords seem curled,

For you were all I ever thought of, Mary—

Were all I doted on in this wide world!

And yet, I’d sigh not while thy fate I ponder,

Did memory only bring thee to my eyes

Pale as thou sleepest in the church-yard yonder—

Or as an angel dazzling from the skies!

I then at least could treasure each sweet token

Of thy pure love—and in life’s mad’ning whirl

Steel my crushed heart—had not thine own been broken,

Poor hapless girl!

But, Mary—Mary, when I think upon thee,

As when I last beheld thee in thy pride—

And on the fate—oh God!—to which he won thee—

I curse the hour that sent me from your side!

Oh why wert thou so richly, strangely gifted

With mortal loveliness beyond compare?

The look of love beneath thy lashes lifted—

Its fatal sweetness was to thee a snare!

Yet sleep, my sister—I will not upbraid thee—

Thou wert too sweet—too innocently dear;

But he—the exulting demon who betrayed thee—

He lives, he lives, and I am loitering here!

Even now some happier fair one’s chains may bind him

In dalliance sweet—but I’ll avenge thee well!

Avenge thee?—Yes! a brother’s curse will find him,

Though he should dive into the deeps of hell!

I swear it, sister—as thou art forgiven—

By all our wrongs—by all our severed ties,

And by the blessedness of yon blue heaven,

That gives its world of azure to mine eyes!

By all my love—by every sacred duty

A brother owes—and by yon heaving sod,

Thine early grave—and by thy blighted beauty,

Thou sweetest angel in the realms of God!

I swear it, by the bursting groans I smother,

And call on Heaven and thee to nerve me now.

Mary, look down!—behold thy wretched brother,

And bless the vow!

Sister, my soul its last farewell is taking,

And I for this had thought it nerved to-night,

But every chord about my heart seems breaking,

And blinding tears shut out the glimmering sight.

One look—one last long look to hill and meadow—

To the old foot-bridge and the murmuring mill,

And to the church-yard sleeping in the shadow—

Cease tears—and let these fond eyes look their fill!

One look—and now farewell ye scenes that vary

Beneath the twilight shades that round me flow!

The charm that bound my wild heart here, was Mary—

And she lies low!

SONNET TO MACHIAVELLI.

———

FROM THE ITALIAN OF MAMIANI.

———

Thou mighty one, whose winged words of yore

Have spread on history’s page Italia’s wars,

The sad mischances of intestine jars,

Like beacons blazing where the breakers roar.

Still canst thou glance out civil discords o’er?

Some solace for us canst thou not divine?

Canst thou not oil on troubled waters pour,

And soothe each petty tyrants ruthless mind?

Why else unveil the falsehood of our land,

Which sees not why its tale thou deign’st to tell?

Why else didst thou with an unsparing hand

Make bare the wounds whose angry scars will tell

The lasting shame of ignomy’s brand,

All petrified at history’s command?

THE DARSIES.

———

BY EMMA C. EMBURY.

———

Don Pedro. I pray you, hold me not responsible for all these travelers’ tales. I am but the mouthpiece of others: therefore, if I question the infallibility of the Pope, summon me not before the Inquisition; if I speak treason against the king, clap me not up in the Tower; and if I utter heresy against the ladies, let me not be flayed alive by the nails of enraged damsels. Old Play.

Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXIV, No. 4, April 1849

THE POET LI.

PART I.

PART II.

THE NAVAL OFFICER.

CHAPTER III.

VICTORY AND DEFEAT.

TO MOTHER.

ON A DIAMOND RING.

THE RECLUSE. NO. I.

I.—THE CROTON CELEBRATION.

II.—ON A BIBLE.

III.

ROME.

THE MISSIONARY, SUNLIGHT.

THERMOPYLÆ.

LOST TREASURES.

THE BROTHER’S TEMPTATION.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

THE UNSEPULCHRED RELICS.

REMINISCENCES OF A READER.

THE GIPSY QUEEN.

THE BROTHER’S LAMENT.

SONNET TO MACHIAVELLI.

THE DARSIES.