GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XXXVI. June, 1850. No. 6.

Table of Contents

Fiction, Literature and Articles

Poetry and Music

[Transcriber’s Notes] can be found at the end of this eBook.

GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XXXVI. PHILADELPHIA, June, 1850. No. 6.

DANTE’S DIVINA COMMEDIA.

FROM THE GERMAN OF SCHELLING.

———

BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

———

[In the following elaborate specimen of literary criticism there are many passages which will be very obscure, not to say unintelligible, to those who are not familiar with the philosophic phraseology of the Germans. The student of Dante, however, will find in it many hints and suggestions worthy his consideration. It cannot be otherwise than interesting to see two such minds as those of Schelling and Dante brought into contact; and to hear what the German philosopher has to say of the Italian poet.]

In the sanctuary where Religion

“is married to immortal Verse,”

stands Dante as high-priest, and consecrates all modern Art for its vocation. Not as a solitary poem, but representing the whole class of the New Poetry, and itself a separate class, stands the “Divine Comedy,” so entirely unique, that any theory drawn from peculiar forms is quite inadequate to it;—a world by itself, it demands its own peculiar theory. The predicate of Divine was given it by its author, because it treats of theology and things divine; Comedy he called it, after the simplest notion of this and its opposite kind,—on account of its fearful beginning and its happy ending, and because the mixed nature of the poem, whose material is now lofty and now lowly, rendered a mixed kind of style necessary.

One readily perceives, however, that according to the common notion it cannot be called Dramatic, because it represents no circumscribed action. So far as Dante himself may be looked upon as the hero, who serves only as a thread for the measureless series of visions and pictures, and remains rather passive than active,—the poem seems to approach nearer to a Romance; yet this definition does not completely exhaust it; nor can we call it Epic, in the usual acceptation of the word, since there is no regular sequence in the events represented. To look upon it as a Didactic poem is likewise impossible, because it is written in a far less restricted form and aim, than those of teaching. It belongs therefore to none of these classes in particular, nor is it merely a compound of them; but an entirely unique, and as it were organic mixture of all their elements, not to be reproduced by any arbitrary rules of art,—an absolute individuality, comparable with itself alone and with naught else.

The material of the poem, is, in general terms, the express identity of the Poet’s age;—the interpenetration of the events thereof with the ideas of Religion, Science and Poetry in the loftiest genius of that century. Our intention is not to consider it in its immediate reference to its age; but rather in its universal application and as the archetype of all modern Poetry.

The necessary law of this poetry, down to the still indefinitely distant point where the great Epic of modern times, which hitherto has announced itself only rhapsodically and in broken glimpses, shall present itself as a perfect whole, is this:—that the individual gives shape and unity to that portion of the world which is revealed to him, and out of the materials of his time, its History and its Science, creates his own Mythology. For as the ancient world is, in general, the world of classes, so the modern is that of Individuals. In the former the Universal is in truth the particular, the race acts as an individual; in the latter, the Individual is the point of departure, and becomes the Universal. For this reason, in the former all things are permanent and imperishable: Number likewise is of no account, since the Universal idea coincides with that of the Individual;—in the latter, constant mutation is the fixed law; no narrow circle limits its ends, but one which through Individuality widens itself to infinitude. And since Universality belongs to the essence of Poetry, it is a necessary condition that the Individual through the highest peculiarity should again become universal, and by his complete speciality become again absolute. Thus through the perfect individuality and uniqueness of his Poem, Dante is the Creator of modern art, which without this arbitrary necessity, and necessary arbitrariness, cannot be imagined.

From the very beginning of Greek Poetry, we see it clearly separated from Science and Philosophy, as in Homer, and this process of separation continued until the Poets and the Philosophers became the antipodes of each other. They in vain by allegorical interpretations of the Homeric Poems sought artificially to create a harmony between the two. In modern times Science has preceded Poetry and Mythology, which cannot be Mythology, without being universal and drawing into its circle all the elements of the then existing culture, Science, Religion and even Art, and joining in a perfect unity the material not only of the present but of the past. Into this struggle, (since Art demands something definite and limited, while the spirit of the world rushes towards the unlimited, and with ceaseless power sweeps down all barriers,) must the Individual enter, but with absolute freedom, seek to rescue permanent shapes from the fluctuations of time, and within arbitrarily assumed forms to give to the structure of his poem, by its absolute peculiarity, internal necessity and external universality.

This Dante has done. He had before him, as material, the history of the present as well as of the Past. He could not elaborate this into a pure Epos, partly on account of its nature, partly because, in doing this, he would have excluded other elements of the culture of his time. To its completeness belonged also the Astronomy, the Theology and Philosophy of the time. To these he could not give expression in a Didactic poem, for by so doing he would again have limited himself. Consequently, in order to make his Poem universal, he was obliged to make it historical. An invention, entirely uncontrolled, and proceeding from his own individuality, was necessary, to unite these materials and form them into an organic whole. To represent the ideas of Philosophy and Theology in symbols was impossible, for there then existed no symbolic Mythology. He could quite as little make his Poem purely allegorical, for then again it could not be historical. It was necessary therefore to make it an entirely unique mixture of Allegory and History. In the emblematic poetry of the ancients no clue of this kind was possible. The Individual only could lay hold of it, and only an uncontrolled invention follow it.

The poem of Dante is not allegorical in the sense that its figures only signified something else, without having any separate existence independent of the thing signified. On the other hand, none of them is independent of the thing signified in such a way as to be at once the Idea itself and more than an allegory of it. There is therefore in his Poem an entirely unique mean between Allegory and symbolic-objective Form. There is no doubt, and the Poet has himself elsewhere declared it, that Beatrice, for example, is an Allegory, namely, of Theology. So her companions; so many other characters. But at the same time they count for themselves, and appear on the scene as historic personages, without on that account being symbols.

In this respect Dante is archetypal, since he has proclaimed what the modern poet has to do, in order to embody into a poetic whole, the entire history and culture of his age—the only mythological material which lies before him. He must from absolute arbitrariness join together the allegorical and historical: he must be allegorical, (and he is so, too, against his will,) because he cannot be symbolical; and he must be historical because he wishes to be poetical. In this respect his invention is always peculiar, a world by itself, and altogether characteristic.

The only German poem of universal plan, unites together in a similar manner the outermost extremes in the aspirations of the times, by a very peculiar invention of a subordinate mythology, in the character of Faust: although in the Aristophanic meaning of the word it may far better be called a Comedy, and is another and more poetic sense Divine, than the Poem of Dante.

The energy with which the individual embodies the singular mixture of the materials which lie before him in his age and his life determines the measure in which he possesses mythological power. Dante’s personages possess a kind of eternity from the position in which he places them, and which is eternal: but not only the actual which he draws from his own time, as the story of Ugolino and the like, but also what is pure invention, as the death of Ulysses and his companions, has in the connection of his poem a real mythological truth.

It would be of but subordinate interest to represent by itself, the Philosophy, Physics and Astronomy of Dante, since his true peculiarity lies only in his manner of fusing them with his poetry. The Ptolemaic system, which to a certain degree is the foundation of his poetic structure, has already in itself a mythological coloring. If however his philosophy is to be characterized in general as Aristotelian, we must not understand by this the pure Peripatetic philosophy, but a peculiar union of the same with the ideas of the Platonic, then entertained, as may be proved by many passages of his poem.

We will not dwell upon the power and solidity of separate passages, the simplicity and endless naiveté of separate pictures, in which he expresses his philosophical views, as the well known description of the soul which comes from the hand of God as a little girl “weeping and laughing in its childish sport,” a guileless soul, which knows nothing, save that, moved by its joyful Creator, “willingly it turns to that which gives it pleasure:”—we speak only of the general symbolic form of the whole, in whose absoluteness, more than in any thing else, the universal value and immortality of this Poem is recognized.

If the union of Philosophy and Poetry even in their most subordinate synthesis is understood as making a didactic poem, it becomes necessary, since the poem must be without any external end and aim, that the intention (of instructing) should lose itself in it and be changed into an absoluteness (in eine Absolutheit verwandelt), so that the poem may seem to exist for its own sake. And this is only conceivable, when Science (considered as a picture of the Universe, and in perfect harmony therewith, as the most original and beautiful Poetry) is in itself already poetical. Dante’s Poem is a much higher interpenetration of Science and Poetry, and so much the more must its form, even in its freer self-existence, be adapted to the universal type of the world’s aspect (Weltanschauung).

The division of the Universe and the arrangement of the materials according to the three kingdoms of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, independently of the peculiar meaning of these ideas in Christian theology, are also a general symbolic form, so that one does not see why under the same form every remarkable age should not have its own Divine Comedy. As in the Modern Drama the form of five acts is assumed as the usual one, because every event may be regarded in its Beginning, its Progress, its Culmination, its Dénouement, and its final Consummation, so this Trichotomy, or threefold division of Dante in the higher prophetic poetry, which is to be the expression of a whole age, is conceivable as a general form, which in its filling-up may be infinitely varied, as by the power of original invention it can always be quickened into new life. Not alone however as an external form, but as an emblematical expression of the internal type of all Science and Poetry is that form eternal and capable of embracing in itself the three great objects of Science and culture,—Nature, History and Art. Nature, as the birth of all things, is the eternal Night; and as that unity through which these are in themselves, it is the aphelion of the universe, the point of farthest removal from God, the true centre. Life and History, whose nature is gradual progress, are only a process of clarification, a transition to an absolute condition. This can nowhere be found save in Art, which anticipates eternity, is the Paradise of life, and is truly in the centre.

Dante’s Poem, therefore, viewed from all sides, is not an isolated work of a particular age, a particular stage of culture; but it is archetypal, by the universal interest which it unites with the most absolute Individuality,—by its universality, in virtue of which it excludes no side of life and culture,—and finally by its form, which is not a peculiar type, but the type of the theory of the Universe, in general.

The peculiar internal arrangement of the Poem certainly cannot possess this universal interest, since it is formed upon the ideas of the time, and the peculiar views of the poet. On the other hand, as is to be expected from a work so artistic and full of purpose, the general inner type is again externally imaged forth, through the form, color, sound of the three great Divisions of the Poem.

From the extraordinary nature of his material, Dante needed for the form of his creations in detail, some kind of credentials which only the Science of his time could give, and which for him are, so to speak, the Mythology and the general basis, which supports the daring edifice of his inventions. But even in the details he remains trite to his design of being allegorical, without ceasing to be historical and poetical. Hell, Purgatory and Paradise are, as it were, only his system of Theology in its concrete and architectural development. The proportion, number and relations which he observes in their internal structure were prescribed by this science, and herein he renounced intentionally the freedom of invention, in order to give, by means of form, necessity and limitation to his poem, which in its materials was unlimited. The universal sanctity and significancy of numbers is another external form upon which his poetry rests. So in general the entire logical and syllogistic lore of that age, is for him only form, which must be granted to him, in order to attain to that region in which his poetry moves.

And yet in this adherence to religious and philosophical notions, as the most universally interesting thing which his age offered, Dante never seeks an ordinary kind of poetic probability; but rather renounces all intention of flattering the baser senses. His first entrance into Hell takes place, as it should take place, without any unpoetical attempt to assign a motive for it or to make it intelligible, in a condition like that of a Vision, without however any intention of making it appear such. His being drawn up by Beatrice’s eyes, through which the divine power is communicated to him, he expresses in a single line: what is wonderful in his own adventures he immediately changes to a likeness of the mysteries of religion, and gives it credibility by a yet higher mystery, as when he makes his entrance into the moon, which he compares to that of light into the unbroken surface of water, an image of God’s incarnation.

To show the perfection of art, and the depth of purpose which was carried even into the minor details of the inner structure of the three worlds, would be a science in itself. This was recognized shortly after the poet’s death by his nation, in their appointing a distinct Lectureship upon Dante, which was first filled by Boccaccio.

But not only do the several incidents in each of the three parts of the Poem allow the universal character of the first form to shine through them, but the law thereof expresses itself yet more definitely in the inner and spiritual rhythm, by which they are contradistinguished from each other. The Inferno, as it is the most fearful in its objects, is likewise the strongest in expression, the severest in diction, and in its very words dark and awful. In one portion of the Purgatorio deep silence reigns, for the lamentations of the lower world grow mute: upon its summits, the forecourts of Heaven, all becomes Color: the Paradiso is the true music of the spheres.

The variety and difference of the punishments in the Inferno are conceived with almost unexampled invention. Between the crime and the punishment there is never any other than a poetic relation. Dante’s spirit is not daunted by what is terrible; nay, he goes to its extreme limits. But it could be shown in every case, that he never ceases to be sublime and in consequence truly beautiful. For that which men, who are not capable of comprehending the whole, have sometimes pointed out as low, is not so in their sense of the term, but is a necessary element of the mixed nature of the Poem, on account of which Dante himself called it a Comedy. The hatred of evil, the scorn of a godlike spirit, which are expressed in Dante’s fearful composition, are not the inheritance of common souls. It is indeed very doubtful still, though quite generally believed, whether his banishment from Florence, after he had previously dedicated his Poetry to Love, first spurred on his spirit, naturally inclined to whatever was earnest and extraordinary, to the highest Invention, in which he breathed forth the whole of his life, of the destiny of his heart and of his country, together with his indignation thereat. But the vengeance which he takes in the Inferno, he takes in the name of the Day of Judgment, as the elected Judge with prophetic power, not from personal hate, but with a pious soul roused by the abominations of the times, and a love of his native land long dead in others, as he has himself represented in a passage in the Paradiso where he says

“If e’er it happen that the Poem sacred

To which both Earth and Heaven have lent their hand,

Till it hath made me meagre many a year,

Conquer the cruelty that shuts me out

Of the fair sheep-fold, where a lamb I slumbered,

An enemy to the wolves that war upon it,

With other voice forthwith, with other fleece

The Poet shall return, and at the font

Baptismal, shall he take the crown of laurel.”

He tempers the horror of the torments of the damned, by his own feeling for them, which at the end of so much suffering so overwhelms him that he is ready to weep, and Virgil says to him “Wherefore then art thou troubled?”

It has already been remarked that the greater part of the punishments of the Inferno are symbolical of the crimes for which they are inflicted, but many of them are so in a far more general relation. Of this kind is, in particular, the representation of a metamorphosis, in which two natures are mutually interchanged and their substance transmuted. No metamorphosis of Antiquity can compare with this for invention, and if a naturalist or a didactic poet were able to sketch with such power, emblems of the eternal metamorphoses of nature, he might congratulate himself upon it.

As we have already remarked, the Inferno is not only distinguished from the other parts by the external form of its representation, but also by the circumstance that it is peculiarly the realm of forms and consequently the plastic part of the Poem. The Purgatorio must be recognized as the picturesque part. Not only are the penances here imposed upon sinners at times pictorially treated even to brightness of coloring; but the journey up the holy mountain of Purgatory presents in detail a rapid succession of shifting landscapes, scenes and manifold play of light; until upon its outermost boundary, when the Poet has reached the waters of Lethe, the highest pomp of Painting and Color displays itself;—in the picturing of the divine primeval forest of this region, of the celestial clearness of the water, overcast with its eternal shadow, of the maiden whom he meets upon its banks and the descent of Beatrice in a cloud of flowers, beneath a white veil, crowned with olive, wrapped in a green mantle, and “vested in colors of the living flame.”

The Poet has urged his way to light through the very heart of the earth: in the darkness of the lower world forms alone could be distinguished: in Purgatory light is kindled, but still in connection with earthly matter and becomes color. In Paradise there remains nothing but the pure music of the light; reflection ceases, and the Poet rises gradually to behold the colorless pure essence of Deity itself.

The astronomical system which the age of the poet invested with a mythological value; the nature of the stars and of the measure of their motion, are the ground upon which his inventions, in this part of the poem, rest. And if he in this sphere of the unconditioned, still suffers degrees and differences to exist, he again removes them by the glorious word which he puts into the mouth of one of the sister-souls whom he meets in the moon, that “every Where in heaven is Paradise.”

The plan of the Poem renders it natural that on the very ascent through Paradise the loftiest speculations of Theology should be discussed. His deep reverence for this science is symbolized by his love of Beatrice. In proportion as the field of vision enlarges itself into the purely Universal, it is necessary that Poetry should become Music, form vanish, and that, in this point of view, the Inferno should appear the most poetic part of the work. But in this work it is absolutely impossible to take things separately; and the peculiar excellence of each separate part is authenticated and recognized only through its harmony with the whole. If the relation of the three parts to the whole is perceived, we shall necessarily recognize the Paradiso as the purely musical and lyrical portion, even in the design of the poet, who expresses this in the external form, by the frequent use of the Latin words of Church Hymns.

The marvelous grandeur of the Poem, which gleams forth in the mingling of all the elements of poetry and art, reaches in this way a perfect manifestation. This divine work is not plastic, not picturesque, not musical, but all of these at once and in accordant harmony. It is not dramatic, not epic, not lyric, but a peculiar, unique, and unexampled mingling of all these.

I think I have shown, at the same time, that it is prophetic, and typical of all the Modern Poetry. It embraces all its characteristics, and springs out of the intricately mingled materials of the same, as the first growth, stretching itself above the earth and toward the heavens—the first fruit of transfiguration. Those who would become acquainted with the poetry of modern times, not superficially, but at its fountain head, may train themselves by this great and mighty spirit, in order to know by what means the whole of the modern time may be embraced in its entireness, and that it is not held together by a loosely woven band. They who have no vocation for this, can apply to themselves the words at the beginning of the first part:

“Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch’ entrate.”

THE GOLD-SEEKER.

———

BY GRACE GREENWOOD.

———

’Twas upon a southern desert, and beneath a burning sky,

That a pilgrim to the gold-clime sunk, o’erwearied, down to die!

He was young, and fair, and slender, but he bore a gallant heart —

Through the march so long and toilsome he had bravely held his part.

His companions round him gathered, with kind word and pitying look,

As in fever-thirst he panted, like “the hart for the water brook;”

While their last cool drops outpouring on his brow and parched lips,

Sorrowed they to mark his glances growing dim with death’s eclipse.

Turning then, and onward passing, left they there the dying man,

For a weary way to westward still the promised river ran.

One there was, a comrade faithful, who the longest lingered there,

While he wrung his hand in parting, bidding him not yet despair;

For they would return at morning, from the river banks, he said —

And a silken scarf unfolding, laid it o’er the sufferer’s head —

Then full often backward glancing, took the weary march again,

Onward pressing toward the waters, gleaming far across the plain.

Silent lies the one forsaken, in this hour of pain and fear,

While their farewells and their footsteps die upon his failing ear;

With the withered turf his death-couch, ’neath the burning heat of day,

All unhearing and unheeding, for his soul is far away!

In the dear home of his childhood, in a pleasant northern land,

He beholds about him smiling the familiar household band;

Sees, perchance, his father coming homeward, through the twilight gray —

Listens to his merry brothers, laughing in their childish play —

Feels the fond arms of his mother, as of old, about him thrown,

And the fair cheek of his sister pressing soft against his own!

Or he strays amid the moonlight, in a cool and shadowy grove,

Looking down with earnest glances into eyes that look back love!

All beloved tones are calling sweetly through his heart again,

And its dying pulse is quickened by the phantoms of his brain!

And belovéd names he murmurs, while his bosom heaves and swells,

For in dreams again he liveth through his partings and farewells!

Slowly sinks the sun—night’s shadows round the lonely pilgrim spread —

While the rising night-winds gently lift the light scarf from his head,

And the soft and pitying moonbeams glance upon his forehead fair,

And the dews of night descending damp the dark locks of his hair;

Cool upon his brow they’re falling—but its fever-throbs are o’er —

And his parched lips they moisten, but those lips shall thirst no more!

His companions come at morning—come to look on his dead face,

Come to lay him to his grave-rest, in that dreary desert place;

Where the tropic sun glares fiercely on the wide, unsheltered plain,

And where pour, from darkest heavens, rushing floods of winter rain!

Where shall come the wild-bird’s screaming, and the whirlwind’s sounding sweep,

And the tramp of herded bisons shall go thundering o’er his sleep.

There are piteous sounds of mourning in a far off northern home,

Where o’er childhood’s kindling dawn-light sudden clouds of darkness come —

There are heard a father’s groanings, and a mother’s broken sighs —

There a voiceless sorrow troubleth the clear deeps of maiden eyes.

In their fearful dreams, at midnight, they behold him left to die,

With the hard, hot ground beneath him, and above a brazen sky —

In his fainting, in his thirsting, in his pain and wild despair,

Vainly calling on his dear ones, through the heavy desert-air!

Oh, the bitter self-reproaches mingled in the cup they drain!

Oh, their poor hearts, pierced and tortured by a sharp, remorseful pain —

That they sent their best and dearest from his home-love’s sheltering fold,

In the madness of adventure, on that pilgrimage of gold.

CLIFDON.

———

BY ANNE DRINKER.

———

CHAPTER I.

“Father! my father! in mercy!”

“Curse you!”

“My God!”

“Ay, curse you. For have you not turned to poison the life whose blessing you were? Have you not dragged down my pride to the depths of shame? Have you not made your father’s name a by-word for the lips of the idle? Then curse you, Mabel Clifdon.”

And Philip Mordaunt paused, exhausted by his own violence; paused, with lips trembling, with the hot blood mounting even to the white hairs brushed from his massive forehead, with his strong form shattered as a reed by the tempest of passion.

“Has not my agony washed out the blot of my transgression? Do I not grovel at your feet, not for the aid I dare not hope, but for the pardon God gives the vilest? Have I not suffered till my life has been to me a torture and a curse, and a long remorse? Is it not enough, my father?”

“May your lips wither when you speak the word, ‘Father.’ Out upon you!”

“Merciful God!”

“Away! away! Out of the home you have forsaken! Away from the threshold you pollute! May the memory of the mother murdered by your ingratitude, of the childless and wifeless old man whose love you have turned to hate, ever cling around your heart; ever poison, like a million of curses, the well-spring of your life! away!”

But she lay there, buried in the long folds of her hair, the raven masses that he had so often smoothed and played with, lay there like a thing without sense or motion, save for the prolonged and bitter sobs that burst forth at intervals, as though the very heart was cleft asunder and breathing out its life.

And before her stood the stern old man, with his arms crossed upon his broad chest, his pale lip compressed, and rigid as though cast in iron, and his eye turned immovably on that prostrate form.

Around him were the evidences of his wealth. The marble fountain that tossed its white spray, and rang forth its silver peel amid the rare and tropical plants, whose perfume stole through the open blinds of the conservatory; the rich drapery of the massive windows; the crimson of the gilded and carved coaches; the deep and glowing dyes of the thick carpets; the soft light of the crystal lamp that swung to and fro from the frescoed ceiling, and the only child of the rich man crouched amid the luxuries that had once been hers, in her mean and faded garb, dusty and toil-worn, unmantled, save for the dark glory of those redundant tresses.

Philip Mordaunt gazed, and for a moment his brow relaxed, and his voice softened as he spoke again,

“Mabel.”

Eagerly she looked up; eagerly upon his stern care-worn face those wild eyes turned, with a half hopeful, half doubting expression, that might have softened a harder heart; but his was steeled against her.

“When you left my home and heart for a villain, I cursed you, Mabel Clifdon. But I will unsay my curse; I will drag you from the shame into which you have fallen. See, my arms are opened to receive you.”

“But Clifdon,” she murmured gaspingly, still crouching to the earth.

“Perdition seize him!”

She shuddered but spoke not.

“See,” murmured the old man, raising her slight form from the ground and speaking kindly, but with a strange gleam in his eye, that mocked the softness of his tones, “See how I woo you back again. I press you to my heart; I smooth back these bright waves that I may kiss your cheek and forehead as I did of old. Come back to the lone old man, who is dying in the midst of his luxury, and all for lack of one dear heart to lean upon. Sweet Mabel! darling! my own, my only child! hark how your mother from her grave implores you. Return, forsake the villain who has wrought us all this anguish.”

“Ah! no! no!”

“Then perish!” he said fiercely, dashing her violently to the earth, “Go perish, fool, with all that you would cling to!”

Again she lay prostrate and half insensible, but with her breath coming in short quick gasps, and the large tears working their way slowly and painfully from beneath the broad white lids that closed above them.

For some minutes Mordaunt paced the room with rapid and impatient steps; now, with a glance turned upon that shaken form, now, lost in thought. Suddenly he paused, and that same cruel smile played within his cold blue eye, though the lines about his mouth softened and his voice was calm.

“You refuse to give me the surest evidence of your repentance,” he said. “Prayers, tears, promises—empty air! I sicken of them. Yet, another proof of your truth remains. You have a child, a son—,” he paused.

With a low cry she sprung to her feet, and stood gazing at him, with lips slightly parted, and head bent forward in silent eagerness.

“I will rescue him from yon den of vice and pollution. I will take him to my bosom as I would have taken the mother who bore him. But that mother he must never know. Swear that his name shall never pass your lips; swear that he shall be to you as the child of a stranger; that your eyes shall never rest again upon his face. Swear this, and even he, even the fruit of your transgression shall be forgiven.” He paused, and bent his gaze upon her, as the torturer may look upon the victim whose agonies his malice would prolong.

But she sprung to his feet, and, kneeling there, pressed her eager and passionate kisses rapidly upon his garment, his hands, nay, even upon the hem of his furred and silken robe.

“Said I in my heart that you were cruel? Take him, my beautiful, my bright boy! Take him now in his purity! Wo! that guilt should reach him even on his mother’s bosom! Take him, and I will bless you though you trample me to the earth! I will pray for you as never lip prayed, though your every word be a scorning and a curse. Speak those dear words again! Say, ere my brain fails, that they deceived me not.”

He stood looking down upon her with a surprised and troubled expression.

“Do you yield him so readily?”

“Ay, and thank Heaven that I may.”

“Remember! never to reclaim him. Never to hear him call you mother; never to look upon his baby face or to feel the clinging of his arms, and the pressure of his lips upon yours.”

“In mercy—in mercy—ah! spare me!”

He was touched, even he, the cruel and unforgiving, by the helpless agony of that clinging form, those faint and gasping words, but he was silent, and an expression of doubt and irresolution crossed his face.

His offer, cold and cruel as it was, had been made in scorn, and he was unprepared for acceptance. At last he spoke.

“Send the boy to me,” he said, pointing at the same time to the door. “Send him, but look that you cross no more his path or mine. Go!” and as he motioned her imperiously away, the suppliant arose and gathering up again her long tresses, and shrouding her face beneath her hood, departed, with the red spot burning on her cheek, and the smile of the martyred within her eye and upon her lip.

“It is Mrs. Clifdon, pretty Mrs. Clifdon,” said one of a group of gentlemen gathered near, as she passed down the marble steps and left forever the door now closed upon her.

“What takes her to Mordaunt’s?” inquired another, staring after her with a rude curiosity, that quickened her steps and made her heart beat with apprehension.

“Don’t you remember? It is an old story. The disinherited child of Philip Mordaunt, who ran off with a circus-rider some four or five years ago. Clifdon, you know, handsome Ned Clifdon.”

“And has never been forgiven?”

“By yon piece of breathing marble? Never. And she was but a giddy spoiled child, too, at the time; only sixteen, more to be pitied than blamed, poor thing.”

On she hurried, with faltering steps; avoiding the bright and crowded thoroughfares, to seek the more gloomy and deserted streets; thus, until she paused before a large and gayly ornamented building and opening a side-door, entered, and closed it behind her. Passing up the dark and winding stair-case with a hasty tread, she paused, breathless, before a small room, and through its half open door stood for a few minutes gazing silently.

It was a strange scene that she looked upon. The apartment, with its dusky walls and discolored floor, the rude form made to serve the purpose of a chair, the rough table, upon which flared the dim and misshapen lamp—all seemed to speak the abode of neglect and poverty. But tossed upon the floor, the table, and upon the form beside the cracked mirror, lay white and crimson plumes, mock jewels, that flashed with a false glitter beneath the lamp-light, gaudy and bespangled dresses, and lastly, the figure of the actor arrayed in his fanciful yet not unbecoming attire.

He was tall, yet somewhat lightly built, and the close jacket of blue and silver, with its fringed and spangled tunic, the buck-skin fitted tightly around his lower limbs, the sandals donned in lieu of the heavy boot, and laced around the slender and well-turned ankle, exhibited to the utmost advantage a wonderful union of strength and beauty. A light-blue cap, with its waving plumes and sparkling ornaments, lay upon the table beside him, but his head was uncovered, and over the hands, upon which his face was bowed, fell the raven and glossy curls, in almost feminine profusion.

“Ned!”

He started to his feet, and clasped in his own the little hand that had fallen so tremulously upon his shoulder.

“Dear Mabel!”

She smiled in his face and strove to speak, but in vain, and bowing her face upon the hand she held, she wept, long and bitterly.

He looked upon her with a changing countenance, now with an expression of strange, half-womanish tenderness within his deep-blue eye, now, with the deadly white of agony settling around his lips, and the sharp glance of fear wandering to the door and out, as though it would penetrate the dark, still, passage, and when he spoke it was in a voice tremulous with emotion.

“Speak Mabel. Did you succeed? Is there hope left? For God’s sake speak!” and clinging to his arm for support, she did speak, briefly, rapidly, as though every word were a pang she sought to spare him.

He listened to the whole in silence, with his eyes fixed upon her colorless face.

“I looked for nothing more,” he said at last. “Hope did not delay me.”

“Delay you, Edward.”

“I mean that I never built upon it,” he said hurriedly, and averting his eyes, “I meant but that.”

She looked upon him with a troubled face, as he paced the floor of the little apartment, and spoke again, but hesitatingly.

“You will give up the boy, Edward?”

“I have no right to give him a prison roof when a better offers,” said Clifdon bitterly. “He has the Mordaunt face, and more of the Mordaunt blood than mine. Ay, send him, he might curse me for the love that would keep him.”

“Hush! hush! dearest: never talk so wildly. I will go to Brendon, I will kneel again and pray for mercy, for delay. I will walk the very streets a beggar till the debt is paid. Only speak not so. Is there not hope?”

He tossed back the bright dark hair as though an insufferable weight were pressing upon his temples, and flinging open a window, leaned out and gasped for breath. When he again drew back his face was calm, but his voice sounded with unnatural hollowness.

“If Mark Brendon sees to-morrow’s light, Mabel, your husband lies in a debtor’s prison, without the means to work for his freedom. And he will be there forever.”

“Not so, Clifdon, I shall be alone—” her voice faltered despite her efforts, “unburthened, and I can work.”

“You,” he said, abruptly pausing before her; and taking in his own her white, small hands, he gazed upon them with a smile of bitter mockery. “You would have starved—you would starve, Mabel, without a friend or a hope in this wide world. You would die unheeded at the threshold of him you have forsaken for—your husband.”

She shuddered; not at his words, but at the strange expression within his eye and upon his lip.

“When I took you from your palace-home, Mabel, it was with the love of a man young in the world, and young in sorrow. Now would I give my right hand to place you there again. To part from you Mabel, never more to look upon your face, or to rest upon your bosom and listen to your sweet voice, when my head is throbbing with the weariness and tumult of yon accursed buffoonery. Will you leave me? I bid you go.”

“Leave you?”

“Hark, Mabel, hark! Suppose the hand you clasp and wet with your tears, were double dyed in guilt; that it were red even with the blood of murder, (ay, shudder and grow pale and blench away!) If I told you this, that I was a demon walking hand in hand through earth with an angel, that I had sinned too deeply even to meet your eye or to hear your voice, would I drive you from me?”

“If I could believe.”

“You would cling to me in sorrow, but not in guilt, Mabel,” he said, regarding her with a look of jealous suspicion.

“Through the darkest deeps of shame and misery. I will forsake thee only with death! Yet, oh! my husband, wherefore torture me thus?”

“Because I would drive you from me,” he said, with violence the more exaggerated because unreal; “Go, woman, I love you not! Go! back to your home! Away from one you burthen and weary!”

She looked at him for an instant doubtingly, but his brows were gathered into a heavy frown, and his eyes from beneath their long lashes flashed fire upon her. With a low moan she sunk fainting at his feet.

“I have done my duty,” he murmured, as he raised her tenderly in his arms and kissed, again and again, her damp cheek and forehead, “she would not leave me—God is my witness there. Dear Mabel! my own sweet wife! hark how I unsay those cruel words.”

She replied not, but raised her eyes to his, and in that one look of unutterable affection he read how futile had been his effort, how mighty a thing is love.

A bell rang below, and at the same moment a footstep was heard in the passage, and a child sprung into the room, and to Mabel’s side.

“I must go,” said Clifdon, starting. “Lock the door, and remain here until I return to take you home. Phil, stay with your mother.”

“Let me go,” said the boy, pressing to his side, and playing with the silver fringe of his tunic. “Let me see you ride White Fleeta once more around the ring—only once. Ah, mamma, it is so beautiful!”

“No, no!” said Clifdon, impatiently. “It is no place for you. Come, come, I must go.”

“Bring me down, then, where Mark is on the swing,” persisted the little one, coaxingly. “Let me see Mark swing.”

A dark cloud swept over his father’s face, and extricating his dress with a smothered imprecation, he turned toward the door.

“Lend me your knife, then,” said Philip, springing forward and again grasping his dress; and throwing it hastily to the petitioner, Clifdon hurried down stairs.

He flung open the door of an apartment in the lower passage, and striding through without a glance at the gayly-bedizened throng there assembled, led forward a powerful white mare that stood saddled and bridled, and appeared to busy himself with its glittering trappings.

“How now, Captain Ned, gallant Captain Ned,” said one, advancing from the group with a jeering smile and a grotesque bow. “I looked to White Fleeta myself, and you are pulling to pieces my work without mercy.”

“Her throat-latch is too tight,” said Clifdon, bending over the animal till the long plumes of his cap swept its glossy mane.

But the clown, for such was the post the first speaker held in the company, pressed yet closer, and attempted to touch the small ears that were now laid angrily back.

“You fret her,” said Clifdon, impatiently; “stand aside.”

The man winced in affected terror, and springing back, crouched, panting and fanning himself with his large hat, twisting his features meanwhile into a grimace that elicited shouts of laughter from his companions.

Placed above the mass of his profession by education, and somewhat by birth, Clifdon was, of course, to many, an object of jealousy; and although none dared to come forward singly, all willingly encouraged and sided with their comrade.

“We look sad to-night, gallant Captain Ned,” he said, advancing again with an affected shuffle and a sidelong movement. “Are we in love, or in debt; or has the pretty bird that we lock up so carefully flown off to a golden cage?”

“Peace,” said Clifdon, turning toward his tormentor with so black a frown that he started and changed countenance. “Peace, fool!”

“You have given me my title,” said the other, with a mock bow and a smile where rage and malice badly counterfeited mirth. “I am not ashamed of my profession, handsome Captain Ned.”

“Come, come,” said a third, advancing slowly, “stand back Tom,” to the clown, “the captain and I have some business matters to arrange.”

“Ay, ay,” said the person addressed, with a significant wink; and crossing the room by a succession of somersets, he disappeared through the opposite door.

The last comer was a short and slightly-built man, clad from head to foot in buck-skin, save for the scarlet and gold garment that girded around his waist, was fastened at each knee by a garter and clasp of some brilliant material. His hair, instead of flowing in the long, loose curls affected by most of his companions, had been shorn close to the head, leaving exposed the low and sensual formation of the forehead, and the large ears, that, flapping and shapeless, hung forward like those of an animal. The flat nose, the high cheek-bones; the thick and habitually up-curved lips, the small, gray eye lurking beneath its over-hanging brow, and, above all, the extraordinary length of the arms, gave to this remarkable person more the appearance of a species of the monkey tribe than of a human being.

“The money, Ned; I swear I will wait no longer.”

“To-morrow,” said Clifdon, hoarsely, and bending as if to tighten the saddle-girth.

“On your word?” repeated Brendon, for it was he, with a glance of incredulity.

“Ay—begone!”

The other turned upon his heel with a prolonged whistle, and Clifdon, vaulting into the saddle, awaited the signal for his appearance.

——

CHAPTER II.

Once, twice, thrice around the ring on the flying steed, with foot scarce resting on the gilded saddle, and hand from which the silken rein hung slack and unguiding. And with clapping and shouts of admiration the people hailed their favorite, who bowed, and raised his plumed cap, and smiled as though no breath of care or passion had ever dimmed the lustre of his sparkling beauty.

Again, again around the ring, and with a bound over the light barrier, White Fleeta and her rider disappeared amid the vociferous plaudits of the crowd; and springing from the saddle, Clifdon flung himself upon a chair, panting and exhausted, with his lips working, and his hands clasped upon his closed eyes.

A laugh at some gay witticism, and a roar of applause from the multitude as Mark Brendon entered. Clifdon started from his seat, and partially drawing the red curtain, stood and looked out quivering, and yet gazing as if fixed by some horrid fascination.

At some distance from the ground, and secured by strong iron hooks to the ceiling hung a thick rope-swing, into which, mounting on his companion’s shoulders, Brendon was about to vault. When, supported by the herculean strength of the clown, he shook it, as if to prove the fidelity of that to which his life was to be intrusted, the form of that unseen watcher swayed like a reed, and the moisture gathered and rolled in thick drops from his brow and lip.

A vault, a shout from the crowd, and Brendon was fixed securely in the swing, that already moved slowly to and fro. And with eyes of horrible eagerness, with grinding teeth, and hands so madly clinched that the nails, unheeded, were driven into the flesh, Clifdon bent forward his head and gazed.

It was as though a species of insanity possessed him.

Lazily the rope swung to and fro.

Suddenly its motion quickened. Then faster and faster, until with frightful velocity the swinger dashed from the opposite extremities of the room with a force that brought him almost in contact with the lofty ceiling. Stimulated alternately by the deafening plaudits, the silent terror of the gazers, his efforts became each moment more tremendous.

Now he swung, supported only by one clinging hand; now suddenly suspended by his feet, while a shriek of horror mimicked by the grinning clown, rang from some quarter of the wide apartment.

“Frightful!” exclaimed a bystander.

And as she spoke, with the hideous speed of a ball dashed from the cannon’s mouth, the body of the actor was hurled, once against the gilded chandelier, once against the painted walls of the saloon, and then, with a dull rebound to the earth, where it lay still and breathless, while the rope to which it yet hung fell, severed, beside it.

No one spoke, no one moved. Each seemed transfixed with unutterable horror. Then from the awful silence, as if to break its spell, arose a shriek, shrill and piercing.

And leaping hurriedly from the boxes, and over the surrounding barriers, with exclamations and bursts of smothered horror, the multitude pressed around the prostrate form.

They raised it and looked upon it. A ghastly sight! From the glaring and upturned eye; from the distorted form, life seemed to have departed; but through the blue lips oozed slowly a purple foam, and across the brow a single vein grew black and knotted, and worked like a reptile in its death-agony.

“It is all over,” whispered a bystander, as even this lothesome motion ceased; and his words were passed from mouth to mouth in murmurs that scarcely broke the silence into which the crowd again had hushed.

There, from his lurking place, still gazed the husband of Mabel Clifdon; but his form no longer swayed and quivered, and his face was like marble. Only from beneath his bent brows shot a strange and terrible fire.

It was as though a demon had entered the sculptured form of an angel, and concealed beneath its beauty, betrayed only through the insensible eyes, the baleful hideousness of his presence.

The crowd began to disperse, at first singly, and then in whispering groups, but he stirred not; some one even shouted his name, but he stood without the power to move.

Something brushed against his shoulder, and a low neigh sounded thrillingly in his ear. He turned, and with her large, dark, half human eyes fixed upon him, White Fleeta stood beside her master.

It seemed as if that gentle and tender gaze had suddenly broken the fearful spell that bound him, for flinging himself to the earth with a burst of passion, Clifdon lay there, convulsed and agonized, while the animal that his hands had ever fed, and that loved him as it is in the nature of its generous kind to love, knelt by his side, and with a soft moan, rubbed her glossy head against his shoulder.

Again his name was shouted, and springing to his feet, he stood for a few minutes struggling with mighty efforts to regain his composure; and then, deadly pale, but calm, drew back the curtain, and once more entered the saloon.

The crowd had utterly dispersed, but the body of the dead man had been stretched upon a form which several of the company were bearing to the door.

“Lend us a hand, Clifdon,” said the voice that had before summoned him, “you are the strongest of us.”

“Not I,” said Clifdon, turning away to conceal the spasm that distorted his features. “I saw the whole—I am shaken with horror.”

There was something in his voice that silenced them, for, without further remonstrance, they passed on, leaving him standing alone with the clown.

“It is horrible!” said Clifdon, in a low tone, and with a shudder.

“Horrible!” echoed the jester. Then, after a pause, raising his eyes with a steady gaze, he continued. “The rope broke, it seems. This strong rope—incredible!”

The other replied not.

“You are freed from your debt, Captain Ned,” resumed the clown, playing carelessly, as he spoke, with the broken rope. “You are safe now.”

“Name it not,” said Clifdon hoarsely, and turning away.

An exclamation from his companion called him back.

“It is strange,” said the clown intently examining the ragged piece of rope. “Here is a drop of blood—a single drop of blood; just where it was broken off near the ceiling. How came it here?”

“It fell from the body,” whispered Clifdon.

“The body did not bleed, except at the mouth, where the blood was mixed with froth, and could not leave so dark a stain.”

“You are swelling a trifle into importance,” said Clifdon, impatiently. “The spot may be accounted for in a thousand ways; it may not even be blood.”

His companion did not reply, but threw aside the rope as if convinced. Suddenly he stooped and raised from the ground some glittering substance that had apparently fallen from it.

“What is it?” asked Clifdon.

“Nothing; a silver fringe, or a spangle, I believe,” said the other, calmly. Then, with a rapid glance, “You have cut your finger, gallant Captain Ned.”

“A trifle,” said Clifdon, hastily, but coloring as he spoke. “I cut it with some of White Fleeta’s showy trappings, and it bleeds afresh.” And turning upon his heel, he strode from the saloon.

——

CHAPTER III.

Fifteen years had elapsed since the occurrence of the incidents recorded in my last chapter, when a company of circus-riders took up their abode for the night in a village of one of our northern states. It was late in the autumn, and after having satisfactorily disposed of their baggage and horses, most of the travelers were glad to find refuge in the spacious bar-room of the village tavern, where the blaze that roared and crackled up the wide chimney, seemed in its cheerfulness almost a sufficient recompense for the day’s journey. Chilled by the evening air, wearied by their dreary march, and little inclined at any time to be regardful of ceremony, each of the party had chosen the position most conducive to his own comfort; and while some occupied the settees and arm-chairs dispersed around the apartment, their companions stretched themselves upon the floor and round the glowing hearth.

Apart from them, and reading, or affecting to read, for, although he had held the volume for many minutes, the page remained unturned, sat one who by word nor look took part in their merriment. With his arm resting on the little table beside him, and his eyes shaded by the hand, over which had fallen a profusion of dark silvered curls, he kept his eye immovably upon his book, and neither looked up nor stirred.

“Look at Clifdon,” said one of the company, to his companions, “he is in his dark mood to-night.”

“He is ever gloomy,” said the person addressed.

“True,” returned the first speaker, “he has never been the same since the death of his pretty wife. Let me see, that was fifteen years ago, soon after Mark Brendon was killed.”

“Ned was one of the same company?”

“Ay, ay. You should have seen us then. I was clown, with limbs a trifle lighter than now; and Clifdon—as I said, he has never been the same since her death.”

“She left but one child?”

“You mistake, she died in giving birth to pretty Lilia; but there was a son, who was sent to old Mordaunt. Little Phil; he must almost be of age now.”

The noise made by a vehicle dashing rapidly up to the tavern-door arrested their attention, and the conversation was suspended.

There was a sound of heavy boots ringing upon the stone pavements as the travelers sprung to the ground, a loud barking, and then a voice, whose deep bass was like the reverberation of distant thunder, was heard exclaiming, “Down, Pedro! Ho, there! Down close! Back to! Unbuckle the leash, Philip.”

Then the voice of the host, like the yelp of a puppy after the growl of a mastiff. “Fire, gentlemen? Yes, fire in the bar-room. This way, this way.”

The door was flung open, and a man advanced in life, but of almost gigantic height and proportions, entered the room. A heavy furred over-coat was tightly buttoned across his broad chest, and the black hunting-cap, which he had disdained to remove, shaded a brow, white and massive as a slab of marble. Upon his shoulder rested a superbly finished rifle, and from the flaps of his surcoat-pocket protruded the silver handle of his hunting-knife. He was followed by a handsome youth of about twenty, who, as he entered, shook the moisture from his over-coat, and lifting his cap, brushed off the snow that had powdered the shining sable of his hair. Two powerful hounds, of a rare and foreign breed, sprung before him and secured their places by the hearth, shaking vigorously as they passed, the water from their chilled limbs upon those around them.

“Room here!” said the elder stranger, imperiously; and they whom he addressed, intimidated, though resentful, moved back, while the new comers drew their chairs before the fire.

A dead silence had succeeded their boisterous mirth, and while the elder of the sportsmen sat wrapped in thought, his young companion, with a countenance expressive of the most extreme ennui, occupied himself alternately by pushing with his boot the logs that, when disturbed, sent a torrent of bright sparks crackling up the chimney, and by teasing the drowsy hounds stretched beside him.

Still apparently intent upon his book, but gazing earnestly upon the twain through his parted fingers, sat Edward Clifdon.

At last the elder stranger spoke, but in German, to his companion. “I have decided, Philip,” he said, abruptly. “You are young—too young; yet I leave you your own master. I give my consent to your marriage some few years hence, with the woman you have chosen, and chosen, I trust, wisely.”

“A thousand, thousand thanks, my dear father,” began the youth, with animation; but Mordaunt, for it was he, checked him.

“Thanks! yes, that I have decided in accordance with your wishes,” he said, bitterly; “but had it been otherwise—how then, Philip?”

His companion spoke not, but looked deeply hurt.

“I have seen enough of filial disobedience,” said Mordaunt, rising as he spoke, “to be doubtful with regard to the result; but we will let that pass. Nay, no thanks, if you please; I am weary, and you know how I detest a scene. Good night!” And striding hastily across the room, he retired.

His grandson, or, as Philip Clifdon had been taught to believe himself, his son, did not follow, but falling back in his chair, and planting his feet upon the broad hearth, abandoned himself to vague and delicious revery.

The constraint which the presence of Mordaunt had imposed, wore off with his disappearance, until Philip, disturbed by the loud voices and ringing laughter of those around, roused himself, and addressed a few words to him who has been announced as the former clown of the little company.

Clifdon had disappeared.

In the course of conversation with this man, young Clifdon, or rather Mordaunt, for he bore the name of his supposed parent, had occasion to draw forth and open his pen-knife. A singular dilation of the eye, a sudden flush upon the countenance of his companion, arrested his attention, but was forgotten, as the ex-clown, recovering his composure, quietly observed,

“That is a curious blade—will you let me examine it?”

Young Mordaunt resigned it carelessly into his hands, remarking, “It is a knife I seldom use, but having lost that I ordinarily carry, I have been obliged to bring it forward.”

“It is an old-fashioned piece of work,” said Garvin, for such was his name, earnestly examining it. “I think I have seen it before.”

“I value it as one that has been in my possession from my childhood,” returned Philip. “It has served me trustily.”

“Here is a broken point,” said Garvin, opening a second blade. “What a pity!”

“It has been broken ever since my remembrance,” returned the other.

As he spoke, his companion rising, either accidentally, or, as Philip afterward suspected, from design, managed to catch with his foot the leg of a table upon which a group of his companions had arranged their smoking glasses. It was overthrown; and after the confusion this created had in a measure subsided, Mordaunt looked in vain for the author of the mischief. He had vanished, and with him the borrowed knife.

“So much for my confounded carelessness,” said the youth, internally, as half vexed, half amused, he left the bar-room. “I will see to this to-morrow; but not to-night, not to-night.” And why “not to-night” might have been explained by the dreams that floated through his brain, as beneath the moon that shone brightly in the now cloudless sky, he paced to and fro upon the broad piazza of the inn.

——

CHAPTER IV.

Upon a couch, in one corner of a mean apartment, with folded arms and a countenance livid with despair, sat Edward Clifdon; and before him, with an exulting smile, stood the man who had so dexterously escaped during the confusion in the bar-room.

“It is as I tell you, Clifdon,” he said, “the proofs are in my possession. See you now. The drop of blood and your wounded finger; the broken point which fell from the twist of the rope, and which tallies exactly with the knife found in the possession of your own son—the knife I have seen you use a hundred times; the money due from you to the murdered man; your previous quarrel. Truly as that I now stand before you, Edward Clifdon, it was your hand that tampered with the swing from which Mark Brendon fell to meet his death.”

Huge drops gathered upon the brow of the wretched man, but no words fell from his blanched and quivering lips.

“It was the horror of that thought that killed your wife,” pursued his tormentor. “I knew it; I needed no further proof. But you are in my power now, mine enemy.”

“Do as you will,” said Clifdon, gradually recovering from the shock inflicted by this sudden and terrific accusation, and speaking with a remnant of his ancient pride. “If years of anguish and remorse, and the loss of her who was dearer than life’s self, be not sufficient punishment, death has none darker.”

“Brave words!” said Garvin, sneering. “Will you stand up in the open court, to be branded as a murderer? Will you receive the penalty the law awards your crime?”

“Man!” said Edward Clifdon, sternly, and raising his shaken form from the couch upon which he had fallen, “I tell you that in one moment of remorse, one glance to the dark past, there may be more horror than in all the shame and agony of the hangman’s rope; and if by my death I may expiate before human eyes the sin that I have repented before my God, I tell thee, I will meet it, and never tremble.”

“And your children?” returned the other, with a sardonic smile. “Your little Lilia, and your boy, with his haughty brow and curling lip? Think you they will not die for shame? A goodly heritage would you leave them!”

Clifdon bowed his face upon his hands and groaned aloud.

“Revenge for me!” pursued his companion, tauntingly. “Revenge, to heap ashes upon the head of the old man who looked scorn upon me to-night! Revenge, to humble the gay youth who has already learned his pride! Revenge, to see the beauty I covet cast friendless upon the world, and perchance within my reach!”

With a wild cry Clifdon threw himself at his feet.

“Spare me!” he said; “spare them! By the heaven above us, I swear, that from this moment I will be your slave! See, I kneel to you, mine enemy! I will crouch beneath your feet; I will beg for you, toil for you; I will bind myself to you, body and soul—only spare them!”

“No!—never! never!”

“Hark, man! If you have a human soul, listen to me! When I did the deed, it was to save my wife, my child from starvation, from madness. I thought not of myself, Garvin; by the great God, I did not! And by the loss of the child I loved, of the wife for whom I had periled my soul; by years of lone remorse and agony I was punished. Pity me! Pity them—the boy with her sweet eyes and her smiling lips; the child she left me on her death-bed—my little Lilia! Oh, mercy! mercy!”

Like the shriek of a damned spirit thrilled those last words.

“Give me Lilia,” said Garvin, eagerly, and bending forward.

“Monster!” shouted Clifdon, springing to his feet. “Name her not, lest, tempted to a second crime, I strangle thee on the spot! To thee—thee? My pure, my pretty Lilia? Sooner let her lie before me, with her winding sheet about her! To thee? Off, monster! Off, hell-hound—off!”

Intimidated, Garvin retreated, but with outstretched arms his victim followed. One moment more, and with the blood gushing from his mouth and distended nostril, he had fallen to the floor. The tempest of passion had proved too much for a frame already long shaken by fear and anguish; and as Garvin, horror-stricken, raised him to the couch, life seemed almost extinct.

A physician was called in, whose remedies stopped the immediate flow of blood, but who attempted to give no hope of recovery. Ere he left the room, however, the senses of his patient returned.

“Clear the room,” he said, in a low voice to Garvin, “and call them both. If you are not fiend, do this.”

His orders were obeyed, and marveling at the summons, young Mordaunt shortly after followed his grandfather to the room of the dying man.

A single lamp cast its dull rays through the deserted apartment upon the deathly face of him who, with livid and muttering lips, and glassy, upturned eyes, seemed uttering his last prayer to the unknown God, unto whose throne his spirit was fleeting. But rarely beautiful amid the gloom and horror of that desolate chamber, radiantly fair as a single star shining through the hideous rack of the tempest, knelt by the bedside, a girl—a child of fifteen summers; and with her hands clasped, and the braids and curls of pale-brown hair showering from her upraised face, upon the folds of her white night-robe, she looked up fearlessly, as though through the dark-stained roof, she gazed, amid the blue above, up into the mercy-seat of heaven.

And ever and anon the dying man tossed upon his bed, muttering with ghastly lips, “Pray for me, Lilia; thy lips are pure—pray!” and the child prayed earnestly.

A slight movement of those without attracted his attention, and raising himself in his bed with reviving strength, he beckoned the elder Mordaunt to his side.

“This is death,” he murmured, “terrible, terrible death! Look upon it, old man, and refuse, if you can, the mercy my God will not deny me!”

“What would you with me?” said Mordaunt, moving restlessly. “What would you, Edward Clifdon, for I know you now?”

“Mercy, mercy!” said the dying man. “You cursed her that she clung to me, and I pray for your forgiveness. Let me bear your pardon to her whither I go.”

“Is she then dead?” said Mordaunt, quickly.

“Thank God that I may say it! Thank God, save for Lilia’s sake!”

“And Lilia,” said Mordaunt, after a deep pause.

“Her child, her last-born, who is even now at my side. And for her, and for her only, would I supplicate!” As he spoke, he would have thrown himself from his bed, but his companion forcibly withheld him.

“Kneel not to me!” he said, sternly. “My forgiveness is yours; but I have sworn, and my oath may not be broken. Kneel not to me.” But as he spoke, his eye wandered toward his grandson.

“It shall never pass my lips,” said Clifdon, eagerly, and catching that roving glance. “He shall never hear from me, and Lilia knows it not.”

Mordaunt understood him. “Call him,” he said, turning away. “I forbid you not.” And Philip, summoned, advanced, wondering, to the bedside.

But as Clifdon gazed upon the face of him he yearned to clasp to his bosom and call his son, speech utterly deserted him, and with a face of anguish and wringing hands, he could only point to the crouching form beside him, and the bright head that was now buried amid the drapery of the couch.

And over the soul of the young man there seemed to come a vague and singular remembrance; and pressing his hand upon his brow, he stood like one who strives to recall a bygone thought that ever, despite his efforts, eludes his grasp.

Clifdon was the first to break this dangerous silence.

“Lilia!” he said, and she raised her face, no longer rapt and beaming, but pallid as his own, and deluged with her flowing tears.

“We are strangers,” said Clifdon, turning to Philip, and speaking with difficulty, “nevertheless, as the ear of God is open alike to all, so may one of his creatures in the extremity of need, call upon his fellow. I call upon you now, as you value the mercy of that God, to be merciful.”

“Speak on,” said Philip, with emotion, and bending over the lowly couch.

“Look at my child!” said Clifdon, with a cry of anguish; “on the child I have kept pure as the spirit of her mother! Look upon her. Shall she be cast upon the wide world to eat the bread of shame or starve?”

With a quivering lip the youth averted his eyes.

“Take her, oh, take her!” murmured the dying man. “She is yours! be unto her as a brother! Save her, I pray you! Snatch my lamb from the jaws of the wolf!”

Still hesitating, Philip raised his eyes to his grandfather’s face.

“I leave you free,” said Mordaunt, in a voice hoarse with emotion; “be it as you will.”

With a sudden impulse, the young man bent down and raised in his arms the light and childish form. But she struggled for freedom.

“Ah! no, no!” she shrieked, “I will go with thee, my father!”

“Lilia—child—in mercy!—you harrow my soul!”

Instantly she was motionless, but her face became like death, as it rested on the bosom of her supporter, and from beneath her delicate lids the large tears stole silently.

Deeper and more labored became the respiration of the dying man; and as the agony of death wrung the drops from his working brow, he murmured unconsciously her name.

In a moment she was at his side, with her small arms clasped across his heaving chest, and her eyes turned eagerly upon his face.

“Lilia! my precious one—my child! her blessing, not mine, rest upon thee!”

“Thine! thine, my father!—Leave me thine!”

He raised himself in his bed, and with her little hands clasped in his own, spoke solemnly, and in a firm voice.

“Not with the lips of purity, not with the heart of the upright man may I invoke a blessing on thee, my Lilia. But if love, perfect love, that has never known chill or change; that has kept thee inviolate in the midst of guilt, and lovely, though surrounded by corruption—if such can win a smile from Heaven, it is thine.”

His head sunk lower and lower, until it rested upon her innocent brow, and upon her shining curls. Suddenly she started with a piteous cry.

“He is cold! he is dead! Leave me not yet, oh, my father!” and lifeless as the corse beside her, the orphan fell to the ground.

Yet a few days, and Philip Mordaunt, strong in the hopes of youth and love, passed forever from the house of death. Unconscious that the little being, whose fair head rested upon his bosom, and whose welfare he had sworn to guard with a brother’s love, possessed indeed a sister’s claim; unconscious that his presence had soothed the dying hour of a parent; unconscious how nearly he had been sent forth branded as the son of a felon. Thus tread we ever blindly amid the precipices of our fate.

BIRD-NOTES.

———

BY WM. H. C. HOSMER.

———

Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle, and the crane and the swallow, observe the time of their coming. Jer. c. vii. v. 7.

The stork in heaven knoweth

Her own appointed time,

And like an arrow goeth

Back to our colder clime:

The turtle, crane and swallow

Come, on unerring wing,

When northern hill and hollow

Bask in the light of Spring.

But we, endowed with reason,

Cannot foreknow the hour—

The sweet, appointed season

For bursting of Hope’s flower;

When near the glad fruition

Of toil that worked annoy—

When sorrow’s drear condition

Gives place to heart-felt joy.

Lo! blighting frost encroaches

On Autumn’s sad domain,

And Winter wild approaches

To end his feeble reign:

The birds of passage gather

And fly across the wave,

Their guide a Heavenly Father,

Omnipotent to save;

But man, with reason gifted,

Cannot the hour foreknow

When Hope’s bright curtain lifted

Reveals a waste of wo;

When clouds send lightning flashes

Our idols to consume,

And dreams, resolved to ashes,

Are scattered on his tomb.

THE DAWN OF THE HUNDRED DAYS.

———

BY R. J. DE CORDOVA.

———

The evening of a cold and stormy day in February had just set in, when a traveling carriage of rather a better order than usual arrived at the gates of the large and populous town of L——, in the south of France. The horses were covered with foam, and hung their heads with that jaded appearance of fatigue which tells of the labors of a long and hasty journey. The postillion presented the anomalous appearance of a dispirited Frenchman. Drenched to the skin, and bespattered with mud, he descended from his seat on the near horse, and ejaculating with considerable fervor that pithy monosyllable “peste!” which Sterne has rendered famous, he opened the door of the vehicle for the travelers to alight.

The interior of the carriage was occupied by two men, of whom this elder might be five-and-thirty years of age, and the younger nineteen. The one was a handsome, bold-looking, tall man, with rather large black moustaches, and eyes of the same color; the younger had soft and delicate features, much more effeminate than manly, but prepossessing and attractive, with blue eyes, delicate brown moustaches and whiskers, and dark brown hair. The younger of the travelers awoke as the carriage stopped, and called to the other in a delicate and musical voice, which quite accorded with his juvenile appearance, “Rouse up, Pierre; we are already at L.” The sleeper awoke at the summons, and motioning his companion to be silent, bade the postillion call the sergeant of the guard, and request him to attend at the door of the carriage, in order to viser the passports, as the travelers were invalids whom it would be dangerous to remove. The boy did as he was desired, and in a few moments returned with the officer of the guard, who bore a huge sword in one hand and a lantern in the other.

“Bon soir, Monsieur l’officier,” said the elder traveler.

“Bon soir, Monsieur le voyageur,” returned the other drily.

“Do you know the reason, M. l’officier, why I have come to L.?” asked M. Pierre.

“Dame!” replied the officer, “how should I know why you have come to L.? My business is to see that your passports are correct, if you please, and I will trouble you to show them to me as early as you can make it convenient to do so, for standing in the rain does not benefit the constitution.”

“I am sorry,” returned the traveler, “that you have so little curiosity, my friend; but as you will not ask me the question, I will give you the reason of my own accord. I came here because I knew that Jacques Lapin would be the officer on guard to-night, and would allow me to pass even if he suspected my disguise.”

“Diable!” shouted the other—“Eh! pardieu! no man knows me by that name except my former colonel, Monsieur Desart,” and he looked up in the face of his visiter by the light of the lantern which he held in his hand. “Ventrebleu! it is indeed he, and the other must be —”

“Silence!” interrupted the colonel. “Here are the passports, let them be visées directly.”

The alacrity with which the order was obeyed manifested some authority on the one hand, and no small amount of obedience on the other. In considerably less time than usual the passports were returned to the travelers, the gloomy postillion mounted to his former perch, and the carriage slowly rumbled through the ill-paved, ill-lighted, and otherwise ill-appointed town of L.

Until they reached the hotel neither of the travelers could trust himself to speak. The victory over impending danger and the present sense of security were too much for words. But as soon as the door of the double-bedded room which they had ordered had closed upon them, they threw themselves into each other’s arms, and sunk on their knees together in gratitude for their deliverance.

Colonel Desart had risen from a very humble rank in a foot regiment to be its colonel. He in a great measure owed his promotion to courage, excellent military judgment, and that admirable savoir-faire which is peculiarly characteristic of an educated Frenchman. He was, nevertheless, indebted for much of the signal good fortune which attended his rise to the partiality of the emperor. Napoleon, who was a profound believer in physiognomy, and who moreover prided himself on being an almost infallible physiognomist, imagined that he could discover marks of great fidelity in the lineaments of Desart’s visage, and trusted him accordingly. Nor was he mistaken; for Desart was ever grateful for the patronage bestowed, and the kindness which was manifested toward him.

It was owing to this partiality that Desart had been able to intercede successfully with the emperor for the life of Jacques Lapin, who had once been condemned to be shot, for a frolick which might have been attended with serious consequences. Nothing would please M. Jacques Lapin, private of the —th foot, on the evening before Jena, when it was absolutely necessary that the position of the army should be kept as much as possible from the knowledge of the enemy, but to adorn two stuffed images of the Emperor of Austria and his imperial spouse with heavy cartridges, and display the same by the aid of fire before the eyes of his delighted countrymen. The reflection of Lapin’s pyrotechnic pleasantry shone even in the tent of Napoleon. The offender was dragged forth and ordered for instant execution. But Desart seized the moment when the emperor’s anger had somewhat abated, ridiculed the exhibition of the unfortunate artiste, proved to demonstration that he had been incited thereto only by his hatred of the enemies of France, got the emperor into good temper and secured a pardon for Lapin, who, as we have seen, did not omit to be grateful in the hour of need.

After basking for so long a period in the sunshine of the emperor’s favor it was with sincere grief that Desart learned, on his return from Moscow, after a long and tedious illness which afflicted him on his way, that his patron and benefactor had quitted France and was then in the island of Elba. His first impulse was to disregard his own feelings as a husband, to leave, for his young and amiable wife, the still ample remnant of his once considerable fortune, and to follow his illustrious patron to his place of exile. But the formation of those wild but heroic clubs of “Buonapartists” led him to change his determination. He felt that he could do more good to the cause of the emperor by assisting it with his counsel, and, if necessary, with his sword, than if he were to retire to the presence of Napoleon for the purpose of sharing an exile which, to say the least, was inactive and useless. He therefore resolved to remain in France. He joined one of the most powerful of these clubs, and became so enthusiastic in his desire for an immediate counter revolution that he was unable, in public, sufficiently to conceal his political bias. He soon fell under the suspicion of the suspicious court, and was fortunate enough to receive, from a devoted brother officer, information of an arrest having been signed, within a minute or two after that document had passed under the hands of the minister. He had scarcely time to effect the necessary disguise of his person, and to pass through one of the gates of Paris, before the alarm was given generally, and ordered to be disseminated throughout the provinces. With the aid of an old passport, however, the date of which had been ingeniously altered, he contrived to evade all the posts on the route, until he arrived at L., where his confidence in his disguise failed him, and he resolved rather to trust to the fidelity and gratitude of his former subordinate soldier.

Le Chevalier Pierre Babat de la Bonbonnerie, and his brother Monsieur Louis Babat soon became extremely fashionable in L. Everybody thought it a duty to call on so accomplished a nobleman who, there was no doubt, had much influence at court; and the chevalier’s table soon “groaned,” as the fashionable novelists of the day term it, “under the weight of visiters’ cards.” The papas of all the respectable families in the town called on the new comers, and not a few mammas of unmarried daughters waited with impatience the visit of the fashionable brothers, to whose credit a vast deal of interest with the king was immediately set down.

It was far from being the interest of the colonel to keep himself secluded from society. Retirement would have created mystery, and mystery would have set all the officious mischief-mongers of L. writing voluminous dispatches to the minister of police in Paris; by which means his retreat would have been discovered, and his plans frustrated. He accordingly returned all the visits which were paid at his hotel, sometimes accompanied by his brother, but most frequently alone. In the meanwhile, the younger ladies of L. had, individually and collectively, lost their hearts to the young Monsieur Louis Babat. He was considered “charming, piquant, so delicate a figure, so sweet a voice, so elegant an every thing in fact.” The strangers were duly fêted, and amused in every variety of way which the ingenuity of the inhabitants could invent. The gentlemen became jealous as fast as the young ladies grew enamored of Monsieur L., and the peace and quiet of the town of L. was more disturbed by the arrival of monsieur le chevalier and his brother, than Paris had been by his departure.

Madame la Comtesse de Demibête, in particular, was very desirous to bring about a match between her daughter and Monsieur Louis. This young lady was, to say the truth, much superior to the generality of the lady butterflies who were so much attracted by the new light; but as she was enamored of a young merchant, on whose birth the proud mamma looked down with considerable disdain, and who was then on a voyage to the Indies, she was not likely to fall very readily into the plan of captivation which her mamma designed for the young nouveau venu. Between Mademoiselle Mathilde and Monsieur Louis, however, there appeared to grow up a sort of feeling which no one could understand. It was not love, for it seemed to be entirely divested of every thing like passion; it was not indifference, for there really seemed to exist a sort of affection between the two young people. All therefore that the scandal-mongers of L. could discover, was that they knew nothing about it, and that it was impossible to fathom the nature of the partiality which was so palpably evinced on both sides. Immediately, however, it was ascertained that there was a penchant on the part of Monsieur Louis for one of the young ladies, all the rest broke out into bitter enmity against the offending “boy,” (a great deal was meant to be conveyed by the use of this word) who could dare to choose one particular young lady from among so many who voluntarily offered. “And she, too,” as they one and all remarked, “by no means either pretty or witty, or even tolerably sensible.” It was at a large evening party given by M. Bassecour, a converted Buonapartist, (people were converted most miraculously after the abdication,) who preserved a sort of middle place between the aristocracy and the people, and whose company, consequently, consisted of a strange mêlée of both classes, that the first positive outbreak took place.

The chevalier and his brother had arrived late; and, in spite of all their attempts to appear at ease and cheerful, there was an evident disquiet and an unusual degree of thoughtfulness unwillingly expressed on their countenances. The rooms were filled when they arrived, and several dancers were enjoying their favorite exercise in excellent spirits. Such of the young ladies as were not dancing, immediately separated and repaired to unoccupied sofas, where they might leave spare seats beside them—a manœuvre which is often performed by young ladies when a favorite enters the room—for what reason, of course, they best know.

Monsieur Louis Babat looked rather wearily round the room for his friend Mathilde. She was dancing with the brother of the young merchant, much to the rage and chagrin of her aristocratic mamma. Shunning the too lively clatter of the ladies, Louis seated himself near two dowagers, who were warmly discussing the correct pattern of the new court-sleeve for evening dresses, hoping that they would be too much engrossed by their wordy combat to attend to him. He was doomed to disappointment. Madame Nezrouge no sooner discovered who her neighbor was than she immediately turned to the attack.

“Ah! Monsieur Louis, I am charmed to see you. You are late this evening—but you seem ill. Is any thing the matter?”

“Yes, madame,” answered Louis, “I have not been well to-day.”

“Ah!” returned the old lady, “I see how it is. You young men dissipate too much. You should marry, Monsieur Louis. You should look out to settle yourself in life: all young men should. But I do not wonder, indeed I cannot, at young men remaining single. The young ladies of the present day are not what they were when my lamented husband had the honor of carrying Louis the Sixteenth’s snuff-box. They are too bold, Monsieur Louis—much too bold. I am sure I preach enough to my girls. Many and many’s the time I say to them, ‘continue, my dear children, in your present course. Do not imitate the follies and vanities of your companions. The great aim of a woman’s life should be to make her husband happy.’ Thank Heaven my girls listen to my advice. They are not like the rest. I’m sure, my poor lamented husband, who had the honor of carrying the king’s snuffbox used often to say —”

“Who knows what to-morrow may bring forth!” murmured Louis, between his teeth, carried away from the babble of his neighbor by the intensity of his own feelings.

“Why, yes, Monsieur Louis,” continued the old lady, “he did say that, too, sometimes, though how you ever came to know it, I am sure I can’t tell—but what I was going to say —”

“Pardon me, madam, but Mademoiselle Mathilde is about to sing. Would you permit me to join her at the piano?”

“Oh! certainly, if you wish it,” returned Madame Nezrouge, bridling up. “Of course: oh! certainly.”

In fact, Mathilde had already taken her place at the piano. She had one of those sweet, dear, yet mellow voices which belong only to southern countries, and she sang with deep feeling, as well as artistic correctness. As Louis walked to the piano, his brother whispered in his ear, “Be firm, for God’s sake; he is here.”

The lip of Louis quivered as he prepared to turn the leaves of the page before Mathilde, and he was so excited that he did not hear one syllable of the following song.

THE MEMORY OF LOVE.

Though boundless seas between us roll

And keep our lips and eyes apart,

Thou art not absent! for my soul

Treasures thine image; and my heart

In every throb thy name repeats.

Ah! Mem’ry’s spell

Awakes too well

Its echoes as it beats.

Thou art not absent! every thought

Is thine alone! Thou art still with me;

For my mind’s eye, by mem’ry taught,

Looks back into my mind—ON THEE.

In sleep, a voice, ah! not unknown

My pillow seeks:

’Tis mem’ry speaks;

That voice! ’tis all thine own.

Before the song was concluded, a group of ladies had been formed in the centre of the room wondering what could possibly cause the singular agitation of Monsieur Louis. Some whispered that it was love—others that it was wine—and one or two audibly expressed a pious wish that it might not “prove something worse,” which many persons are ever ready to do whenever they happen to be profoundly ignorant.

As Louis gave his arm to Mathilde to lead her from the piano, his brother whispered in his ear, “Courage for one hour more—It is all right; Lapin has returned.”

A ray of joy shone over the pallid features of the youth, as he heard these words; yet he seemed to tremble. He had advanced as far as the group of ladies, with his brother on one arm and Mathilde on the other, when a sinister looking individual was seen to approach from the other end of the room. There appeared, for the moment, to be considerable excitement among the company, but every thing was as silent as the grave while the strange man marched slowly up to the chevalier.

“Du par le Roi,” said he, as he approached, “I arrest you, Colonel Desart, on a charge of treason against the king.”

“Colonel Desart, the Buonapartist!” shrieked the horrified ladies, in discordant chorus.

“The same, ladies, at your service,” replied the colonel, with that look of quiet and sarcastic disdain which annihilates impertinence.

“Du par le Roi,” continued the savage-looking individual, addressing Louis, “I arrest you Madame Louise Desart, née Plestours—”

The storm of voices here interrupted the officer.

“What! Madame Desart! a woman!”

“Yes, ladies,” returned the soft, sweet voice of the abashed lady, “I could not leave my husband in his danger.” She turned as she spoke, and fell fainting in the arms of the affectionate Mathilde, whose penetration had long since discovered the secret of her sex but whose prudence and good breeding had put a seal upon her lips on that subject.

“You are my prisoners,” said the dark man, turning towards the colonel, who was quietly putting his whiskers and black wig into the fire; “you will, if you please, prepare for instant departure to Paris.”

“Indeed,” coolly replied the colonel, “I shall not go to Paris to-night, nor yet to-morrow.”

“Monsieur, the colonel,” said his captor, “will forgive me if I remind him that I have with me an armed force, to sustain the authority of the king’s command.”

“Oh! do not disturb yourself at all on my account,” replied the colonel, “I dare say you have an armed force—so have I—what then?”

“Monsieur is jesting,” answered the officer. “You must really depart at once for Paris.”

“For what purpose, my good friend?” asked the colonel, with enviable naiveté.

“Parbleu! it is the king’s pleasure,” returned the other—who began to feel that he was being quizzed.

“But the king will not be in Paris when I arrive, Monsieur l’Officier. How then?”

“Oh! diable! you must wait till his majesty comes back—that’s all.”

“But he will never come back, Monsieur l’Officier.”

“Mille tonnéres! and why not?” thundered the officer, who was waxing wroth, in proportion as his prisoner become cooler. “And why will not the king come back?”

“Oh, I will tell you why, with all my heart,” replied the colonel, “and when you go back to Paris, which you will do by yourself all alone, presently, and even without your soldiers, you can retail the information in every quartier and faubourg. Here! stoop down and I’ll tell you quietly.”

The officer stooped as he was bidden, with a heart full of misgiving, while the colonel shouted with the voice of an officer commanding a regiment,

“Because THE EMPEROR is in France, and will be in L. in a few moments; and further, because his avant-garde is now passing through these streets on the way to the Tuilleries.”

He had scarcely concluded the last sentence, before a tremendous shout of “Vive l’Empereur,” was heard from the street. The officer turned and fled, as Lapin sprang into the room, threw up the window which overhung the street, and joined, with all his might, in the loud viva of joy which marked the unhappy return of Napoleon Buonaparte to the land which his valor had twice won for him.

Colonel and Madame Desart started for Paris early next morning, in the train of the emperor.

SYMBOLS.

———

BY THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.

———

I looked all abroad for a symbol of thee,

And a thousand bright symbols replied,

They bloomed on the land, they shone on the sea —

There were flowers and stars that likened might be

To thy beautiful spirit, so nearly allied

To all that is brightest on land or on sea.

The brooks on the hills in their crystaline flow,

Singing out of their mystical springs,

The heralds of joy to the valleys below,

Making all things more lovely wherever they go,

Are the types of thy spirit, whose beautiful wings

Make gladness and music wherever they go.

The birds, the sybiline birds of the grove,

Entempled in shadowy bloom,

Or clothed in a luminous vesture above

Of sunshine and azure and music and love,

Are the types of thy soul, that in brightness or gloom

Is clothed in a luminous vesture of love.

All things are thy symbols—thou sheddest on all

The lustre and sweetness of Song,

Like the angels whose star-loving pinions let fall

A glory that holdeth true poets in thrall: —

To thee all things lovely as symbols belong.

And thou art the beautiful symbol of all.

SONNET. TO SHIRLEY.

———

BY WM. P. BRANNAN.

———

Like a delicious dream that fades away

When morning zephyr breathes into the room,

Bearing from unknown blossoms their perfume —

Though thou art gone, still round my spirit play

The radiant memories of thy maiden bloom;

Delightful fancies riot in my brain,

A painful gladness thrills my throbbing heart,

And I would live forever thus apart,

Deeming such bliss may never come again.

Enchanting vision! hast thou fled for aye?

Thy seeming presence haunts me with a spell,

That musing on thy image thus alway,

The world would smile again an Eden-dell

Where all things lovely should delight to dwell.

THE FIRST LOVE OF ADA SOMERS.

———

BY A NEW CONTRIBUTOR.

———

Poca favilla gran Fiamma seconda. Dante.

When Ada Somers was a romp of twelve years, she chanced one day, in too bold a search for some water-lilies, to fall headlong into the stream from whose blue depths they lifted their pretty heads.

Truth alone compels us to relate this mishap of Ada’s: for although the quasi drowning of heroines has been a popular tableau of romance ever since streams and heroines were; still, this is the era of investigation; and we who on our railroads outstrip the speed of the bronze horse—we for whom the delicate and trembling wires of the telegraph do the office of a thousand Ariels—we who have called upon the sun to be our portrait-painter, and upon the moon to yield up her secrets that our lecture-rooms may be crowed; surely we have some right to think for ourselves! and we boldly proclaim that nothing can be less sublime and more ridiculous than the loss of one’s equilibrium—a plunge head-foremost—and the spectacle of two inverted feet without any apparent body.

Perhaps that sometime race of heroines, who wandered up hill and down dale in satin slippers—unsoiled—undraggled—and unscratched—and wept without the concomitants of red eyes and swelled noses; perhaps a race of such curious physiological construction possessed also the secret of losing their balance without losing their grace. But our poor Ada was not of this race: she was only a little American girl, subject to the laws of gravitation, so she fell into the river in the manner above described. Poor little thing! she might have floated off to keep company with Glendower’s spirits in the vasty deep, but for the timely interposition of a certain youth, by name James Darrington. James was taking his afternoon ride along the river-bank, when he heard a sudden splash, and turned his eyes just in time to catch a view of the two little feet above-mentioned. He was not, like the Countess Hahn-Hahn, versed in the physiognomy of feet, so without venturing a guess as to the ownership of the pair in question, he sprung from his horse and plunged into the river.

The spot where Ada had fallen was deep, and its bed was a mass of treacherous slime; but James was a bold swimmer, and after some moments of struggle, ay, and of danger too, he succeeded in bearing his prize to the shore.

Now, as Ada was no heroine, she did not emerge from the river like a water-nymph: her faithful chronicler is fain to say that her dress was a net-work of slimy weeds; that her hair was tangled, and her face dirty. Nevertheless, she was a pretty little thing in spite of her draggled condition, and when James went home and thought over the matter, he felt bound by the chivalry of fifteen to fall in love with her, and he did so. To be sure, he had passed Ada Somers a hundred times, in his father’s house and at hers, without bestowing a thought upon her—but now that Destiny had thrown her into his arms, he saw that her hazel eyes were starry with brightness—that her rosy mouth was the nest of all the loves—and he resolved to keep her where she was.

Up to the day of her mishap, Ada had never thought of any thing more sentimental than skipping-ropes, pet fawns and ponies—but she suddenly became addicted to solitary walking, wild-flowers and moonlight. (N. B. These tastes lasted for about a week.) And instead of scampering over the country with a servant behind her, her pony Lightfoot roamed his paddock in lazy leisure, unless James Darrington was at liberty to accompany Lightfoot’s mistress in her ride.

James, though only fifteen, was so accomplished a horseman that Ada’s parents had no hesitation in committing her to his care. They were often joined in their rides by Ada’s favorite playmate, Catharine Ashton; but sometimes they rode alone, and although these rides were generally silent ones, still James thought them pleasanter when Catharine’s merry voice was not constantly challenging them to some childish feat, or making the woods ring with its bursts of glee.

“I hope I shall have her to myself to-day,” thought he, as he rode up the oak avenue to Mr. Somers’ house. Yes, there was Lightfoot pawing the ground alone—and no Catharine trying Fenella feats—cracking her riding-whip, and breaking the luxurious silence of his reveries with her ceaseless mirth.

James threw himself from his horse, rushed up the steps of the portico, and just as he was stammering an apology to Mrs. Somers for nearly upsetting her as she advanced to greet him, Ada came out equipped for her ride.

How sweetly the little gipsy looked, with her habit of dark green, her tiny while collar, and her black velvet hat and plume. Before James could present his hand, she sprung into her saddle, and cantered off with such speed that he put spurs to his horse to overtake her. The woods were gorgeous with beauty. Summer still lingered in the tender green of some trees, while others, tinted by the bold hand of autumn, towered in all the pomp of scarlet and yellow foliage. The crisp leaves rustled to the tread of their horses’ hoofs, and the soft breeze that swept over golden meadow and sunny hill, came laden to their young hearts with those sweet, vague reveries that visit the soul but once—but once!—in that untried season of youth when the earth seems starred with flowers, the sea mirrors naught but heaven, and the very consciousness of animal life is happiness. For some time the youthful pair rode on in silence, till at length emerging from the shady woods they came suddenly to an opening, where a grassy slope led down to the river, and to the spot which some months before had been the scene of Ada’s misfortune.

“Oh, how beautiful!” exclaimed she, as she drew in her rein to look around. The turf was still bright with sunshine—the waters sparkled as if they had stolen the golden bed of the Pactolus—and above them, forever changing shape and hue, floated the silver clouds that hide from mortal gaze the home of Immortality!

“Beautiful!” was the response of her companion.

“Did you ever see such a bright sky!” continued the delighted child of nature. “And such a soft green turf, which, by the bye, Lightfoot is enjoying in his way—see, James, how nicely he crops the grass in a circle. Do you remember the story of the Dervise and the stray Camel? How he not only knew him to be astray, but found out that he was blind of one eye, lame in one leg, had lost a tooth, and was loaded with corn and honey, and all without having seen him? What a curious observer he must have been, that dervise!”

No answer was vouchsafed to this piece of Oriental lore, whose connection with Lightfoot’s skill in cropping grass was somewhat unintelligible to one who had not read the story; so Ada broke into new raptures over the beauty of the river.

This time James looked up, and gazed earnestly at her varying and animated countenance. “That stream had nearly wedded us, Ada.”

Ada tossed her pretty little head as she replied, “I am glad that I escaped such an ugly bridal.”

“Pshaw!” thought James, “she is but a child, and does not understand me.”

And he was quite right; for while he was perfectly aware of his being “in love,” Ada was utterly ignorant of the meaning of the phrase. All she knew was that James Darrington’s presence materially increased her happiness; but she would not have confessed to the very reeds and rushes that she liked him even more than she did her dear Catharine. Her wise and gentle mother, aware that her little daughter was in an Eden of ignorant bliss, prudently forbore to tender her the fruit of precocious wisdom. She knew that Ada was as childish as became her years, and she judged it best to leave that little heart undisturbed by knowledge of the good and evil of artificial life.

James, on the contrary, though he ventured no more declarations to the lady of his thoughts, indemnified himself for the same, by pouring out his ecstasies into his mother’s ear. Mrs. Darrington was something more than amused with this juvenile courtship; she was delighted to be the recipient of her son’s confessions: too well skilled in the human heart to repulse his confidence by ridicule, she contented herself with reminding him that to win Ada he must deserve her. So, the course of Mr. James Darrington’s true love ran on, for a while, without a ripple.

——

CHAPTER II.

Oh! how this Spring of Love resembleth

The uncertain glory of an April day.

Two Gentlemen of Verona.

Some months again passed away, when, one morning, as James was about to leave the breakfast-room, he saw his mother suddenly put down an open letter, which she had been reading, and turn to his father with an exclamation—“Minister to France, William! Is this a stroke of Fortune or of Misfortune?”

“Such a question,” replied Mr. Darrington, “requires no answer. Whatever my appointment be to me, to you, I see that it is misfortune. But you are a woman, and therefore a stranger to the pleasures of ambition.”

“And to its pains,” said the wife quietly.

“Then from you,” resumed Mr. D., with a shade of vexation in his tone—“from you I may expect no congratulation. Have you no pride in such a mark of confidence to me from my country?”

“If by ‘your country’ you mean, as I suppose you do, your government, I fear that I am not to be any more elated by its confidence than depressed by its distrust. And besides,” continued she fondly, “my pride in you, William, is of too old a date to be increased by political success.”

The husband smiled, as what husband would not, to so flattering a declaration.

“Whether I be worthy of such praise or not, Julia, you must be right, as you always are, for your flattery has driven politics out of my head. See how the magic of a few kind words has transformed his Excellency the Minister into William Darrington, the most devoted of his wife’s vassals.”

“ ‘Ambition should be made of sterner stuff,’ William.”

“So it should, dearest, and therefore you need never fear her as a rival. The fact is, that I have been at my distaff so long as to love my very servitude. But here is a fellow smiling saucily to hear us talking of love. He thinks we should leave such things to Quixotic young gentlemen of sixteen, who go about the world rescuing hapless damsels from watery graves. Well, my boy,” continued he, rising, “since you are so precocious a gallant, what think you of exchanging pretty little Ada Somers for some black-eyed nymph, who traces her pedigree to the crusades, and calls herself Montmorency or De Longueville?”

James said nothing to this treasonable discourse; but like the silent parrot, “il n’enpensait pas moins;” and his thoughts were by no means flattering to the Ladies de Montmorency and de Longueville.

“What!” exclaimed his father, at the sight of his lugubrious countenance—“at your age not enchanted to see the world! Your little Omphale must have strong spells indeed if she can chain the roving spirit of sixteen to her feet! But come! I hear my phaeton at the door—I am going to town, and I want you to drive those little gray ponies for me to-day.”

At any other time the gray ponies would have divided James’ heart with Omphale herself, but just then love was in the ascendant, and he could only stammer out —

“I would—if you would—please to excuse me this morning, sir.”

But his father knew better than to excuse him, and after some persuasion they drove off together. At first, the discomfited lover held his reins in dejected silence, but by and bye the infection of his father’s cheerfulness spread over his young heart, his reins grew tighter, and his horses went faster, and by the time they reached the city, as he dashed along the streets at full speed, his brain was a kaleidoscope in which love, horses, Ada Somers and boyish curiosity tumbled about in glorious confusion.

Meanwhile Mrs. Darrington ordered her carriage and drove over to acquaint Mrs. Somers with her intended departure. For a series of years the families had been united in such close friendship that it was natural the movements of one should sufficiently interest the other to be made the object of a special visit.

Mrs. Somers, though her acquaintance in town was numerous, could hope, in none of her idle visiters, to find a substitute for her old friend; and she was sincerely distressed at this separation. They sat together for some hours, talking of the prospects of their children—their fears and hopes—the one trembling as she spoke of the dangerous career of her boy—the other, as she remembered that her child, as a woman, was to receive her fate from the hands of others. They then naturally fell upon the subject of their children’s mutual inclination, and wondered whether their destinies would ever be united.

“Ada is very near to my heart,” said Mrs. Darrington; “but it would be too much to expect any serious results from this childish freak.”

“We must leave them to themselves,” replied Ada’s mother. “In such cases, it is sacrilegious to lay a hand upon the web of the Fates; but I confess, I should be glad to know that Ada would ever marry your son.”

“Here she comes,” interrupted Mrs. Darrington; “I am curious to know what she will think of Mr. Darrington’s appointment.”

Ada ran up the steps, followed by her shadow, Catharine Ashton, who, guiltless of admirers, was addicted to romping of every kind. Not but what Miss Ada heartily enjoyed a romp herself, but of late she had become ashamed of being caught climbing fences and running races. At that moment, however, she had entirely forgotten that she ever braided her hair, or tied her sash “avec intention;” for the said sash streamed like a pennant to the wind, while the hair followed the same direction. Catharine, behind her, in much the same guise, was trying not to make too great a clatter upon the marble pavement of the hall; but Ada dashed on like a young Bacchante, and never stopped till she reached the lawn behind the house, where she threw herself full length on the grass, and screamed to Catharine to do the same.

“She is something of a romp, my Ada,” said Mrs. Somers, smiling. “Not yet a lady, certainly.”

“So much the better,” replied her friend. “Who would wish to stretch those free young limbs upon a Procrustean bed of propriety?”

“Not I, certainly,” said the mother. “But I am sometimes afraid that in my dread of making Ada artificial, I give too much sway to—Nature.”

“Not to such a nature as hers. Were there any tendency to coarseness in Ada’s mirth, you might be right to moderate it; but where nature is graceful in her wildness, no art can compete with her in loveliness.”

Another shout of mirth was heard, and Ada and Catharine burst into the parlor.

“What descent of wild Indians is this, Ada?” asked her mother, doubting the grace or refinement of this last movement. Ada started back, coloring with shame, and Catharine sneaked behind the nearest causeuse that offered concealment.

Mrs. Darrington easily divined that Ada’s embarrassment had special reference to her presence; so she smilingly extended her hand, and as Ada advanced with sheepish mien and awkward gait, she kissed her and said,

“I am glad to find you so merry, Ada. What a nice romp you must have had under those shady trees.”

At so gracious an opening, Catharine’s head appeared above the frame of the causeuse, but seeing Mrs. Darrington look toward her, down it popped again.

Mrs. Darrington saw her plainly enough; but she resisted her inclination to laugh, and went on.

“I want you to come and spend to-morrow with me, and I shall stop on my way home at Mrs. Ashton’s to ask if Catharine may come with you.” In her joy, Catharine nearly upset the causeuse, which rocked as if a little earthquake were taking place under it. “But I came this morning especially to tell you a piece of news.” At this, Catharine could hold out no longer; not only her curly head, but her entire self, emerged from concealment, and she slided, as she imagined, unobserved, into a seat.

“We are going away for awhile, Ada,” resumed Mrs. Darrington, “and I have various commissions to intrust to you. Will you do them?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I want you to take care of Hector and Fleeta,” continued Mrs. Darrington.

Hector and Fleeta! Then James was going too! Ada longed to ask where, and for how long, but she dared not; and Mrs. Darrington, seeing her large eyes ready to overflow, merely added that they would speak more on that subject on the morrow. She then spoke a few words to Catharine, repeated her invitation, and drove off.

“Where are they going, mamma?” asked poor Ada, the moment Mrs. Darrington left the room.

“To France, my love.”

“To France?” gasped Ada, to whom a voyage to Europe, or a voyage to the North Pole, was equally terrific.

“Yes, dear,” said her mother, “and I am not surprised that you are sorry to part with Mrs. Darrington and James, who are so kind to you.”

This at once relieved Ada from any obligation to contend with her grief; and using her mother’s sympathy as a carte blanche for any amount of tears, she burst into a violent fit of crying, in which she was joined by the sympathising Catharine. Mrs. Somers, not feeling disposed to make a third in this jérémiade, left them to weep in concert, which they did for some time à qui mieux mieux.

At length Ada dried her eyes, whereupon Catharine, who for some minutes had been squeezing hers to little purpose, quickly did the same; and after both had drawn a long breath, and had held up their handkerchiefs to see how much they had cried, Catharine thought it time to administer consolation.

“Never mind, Ada, when James is gone, brother George will ride with us. He is coming home next month.”

Conceive this, ye who have loved! The audacity of one’s bosom friend proposing some uninteresting brother as a substitute for one’s lover!

Ada was indignant, and forgetting the proof of friendship exhibited in Catharine’s exceedingly wet handkerchief, she gave such strong vent to her abhorrence of George, that a quarrel seemed unavoidable. At that moment, however, a servant came to call them to dinner, where decency forbade that Ada should be rude to her guest. At first the friends were quite formal, but with each course disappeared one layer of reserve, till the dessert was put on the table, when the desire to eat Philapænas together was irresistible, and the first twin-almond found in Ada’s plate restored peace.

The next day was spent with Mrs. Darrington. It passed in mingled joy and grief; but it must be confessed that the former predominated. Late in the afternoon, a procession, composed of James, Ada and Catharine, escorted Hector and Fleeta to their new home.

At length came the parting-hour. The Darrington family spent their last evening at Somerton; and Ada, though her father deposed that she had spent the entire day in the cave of Trophonius, was somewhat revived by the sight of Mrs. Darrington’s parting present. This was a beautiful writing-desk of ebony, dainty enough to have served Seneca or Sir Philip Sydney; for the inkstand, pen, pencil, and sand-box were, as Ada triumphantly pointed out to Catharine, of “real gold.”

As for James’ gift, what could it be but a ring set in the form of a Forget-me-not? And as he was a student of the classics, and had heard of the ring of Polycrates, he chose an emerald. He attempted an explanation of the resemblance between these two rings, which poor Ada vainly endeavored to comprehend; and no wonder, as King Polycrates threw his emerald to the sea, and James gave his to his sweetheart—but never mind! an emerald was in question, and Ada had been picked up out of a river; and as for the rest, why—the genius of sixteen is highly imaginative.

That night Ada went to bed with her ring on her finger, and cried herself to sleep. The next day the Darringtons sailed for Europe, and she heard nothing of her friends until three years afterward, when tidings arrived of the death of the American Minister at Paris, and the removal of his widow and son to England. After that, the mention of their names became less and less frequent; and when Hector and Fleeta were gathered to their fathers, so little remained to remind Ada of her lost playfellow, that she threw his ring into a box with old jewels, and by and bye threw his memory to the winds.

And so ended the first love of Ada Somers.

THE SECOND LOVE OF ADA SOMERS.

——

CHAPTER I.

——Hasset noch weil sie nicht liebt.

Schiller.

Ten years have glided away since we left Ada in tears and pantalets, and she has reached the mature age of twenty-three, “in maiden meditation fancy free.” Not that she ever bestowed a thought upon her childhood’s love—not that she lacked suitors either; for beautiful as one of Domenichino’s dark-eyed sybils, and with too many of the incidental endowments of fortune not to be worshiped for her wealth, if not for her worth, Ada might have had admirers as many as she had thousands. But she chose not to have them; and they might as well have “loved a bright particular star and hoped to wed it;” for Galatea would step from her pedestal for none of them. Always graceful and high-bred, the only charge brought against Ada by the sex who begin life by expecting to bag women’s hearts as they bag pheasants, was, that she returned their assiduities and their flattery with the utmost consummate indifference. “Favors to none, to all she smiles” extended; but beyond that, no word, look, or action ever gave evidence that the beautiful heiress regarded men in any other than in the light of so many monads, representing certain qualities of mind and soul, good or evil.

The men of —— were in amazement at such powers of resistance, when they reflected upon the amount of fascination and worth resisted; and Ada became as remarkable as the Rock of Gibraltar, not only in the eyes of the baffled enemy, but in those of certain of her female acquaintances, who, rather than die under the ban of old maidenhood, would have married Bluebeard himself, and therefore looked upon mankind as a race of husbands, “to be or not to be”—theirs.

But Ada was no Lydia Languish, and had no horror of being called a spinster; neither saw she any thing so attractive in marriage that all the world must go mad for it. Early in life, she had learned, as do all little girls, her lesson of inferiority to a greater sex, and she grew up with a vague idea of the sublimity and wisdom of man, and the folly and ignorance of woman; but by and bye, as faith gave way to reason, she discovered that the lords of the creation were, generally speaking, none the wiser for their usurpation of the glorious privilege of praising God with their intellects, but that three-fourths of this boasting race were as frivolous as if, like woman, they had been all their lives shut out from the Paradise of knowledge, and had not had possession of all the learning of the earth for thousands of years. Moreover, Ada took an exalted view of the condition of old maids; she considered it a position which gave scope for the exercise of a wider philanthropy than is safe or consistent with the duties of a wife and mother; and she wrought up her enthusiasm for the vocation of the sisterhood to such a pitch, that she made up her mind to become one of them. But,

“Varium et mutabile semper

Fæmina——”

So thought Catharine Ashton, when she heard of these resolves; for she had grown up with very different opinions; and faithful to her convictions, she was on the eve of being married, and wished for nothing in the world so much as that her friend should be as happy as herself. Catharine had spent two years in Europe, and although her lover, Charles Ingleby, had always resided in ——, they met for the first time in Germany, where Ingleby was spending the summer with a friend, whom Catharine never wearied of lauding; for, like a true woman, she was ready to take to her breast any thing and every thing that loved her Charles; and between him and Mr. Stanley, there existed so warm a friendship, that the latter had greatly hurried some business transaction which detained him in Europe, to return in company with his friend and his pretty fiancée.

Mr. Stanley was daily expected to perform the part of groomsman to the lovers, and Ada Somers had been chosen to bear him company as bridemaid.

Ada and Mr. Ingleby were the best friends imaginable; and they had, from their first interview, seemed so pleased with each other, as to cause Catharine to hope that all was not yet lost for her poor friend. If she had made so signal an exception in favor of her (Catharine’s) lover, as to grant him the boon of her friendship, what might not be accomplished by a high-minded and estimable man who offered more than friendship? Mr. Stanley, for instance.

——

CHAPTER II.

’Twas throwing words away, for still

The little maid would have her will.

Wordsworth.

A week before the wedding Mr. Stanley arrived, and as Ada had been invited to join a family party at the house of Charles Ingleby’s sister, Catharine took the liberty of inviting Mr. Stanley on her own account, for she was determined to begin operations at once. She had deliberated for some time whether or not to apprize Ada of the important arrival; at last, it was decided in the negative, and as the decision had cost the impetuous Catharine a fearful exercise of self-denial, she repaid herself by hurrying off her mother, lover, and protégé, half an hour before the time appointed. She might as well have spared herself the trouble, as no Ada made her appearance, and it was not until the evening had almost passed away that Catharine learned from their hostess, Mrs. Howard, that Ada had excused herself early that morning, upon plea of a pre-engagement.

This was too impertinent of Ada, and Catharine resolved, early the next morning to go over and tell her so. The Somerses always spent their winters in town, and as a few squares only separated the friends, Catharine was soon at the door of Mr. Somers’ house, ringing the bell with the vehemence of a postman. The well-bred servant who opened the door, looked surprised when he found that it was Miss Ashton who had nearly broken his bell-wire; but as Miss Ashton was a privileged belle herself, and had been running tame about Mr. Somers’ house ever since he could remember, he stepped back respectfully, while she passed unannounced into the sitting-room.

“Good morning, Mrs. Somers, where is Ada?” asked she, taking off her bonnet.

“You will find her in the library, my dear,” replied Mrs. Somers, and away flew Catharine, with the easy familiarity of one whose welcome is unquestionable. She was prepared to heap abuse upon the head of the offending Ada, but when she flung open the door, she had not the heart to find fault with any thing so pretty.

Her blouse of rich Cashmere was fastened around the waist by a cord and tassel, its loose sleeves lined with crimson silk, were looped back so as to contrast with the snow-white cambric of the under sleeve; and the dainty little collar that encircled her white throat was fastened by a very small cameo brooch. Her dark hair was drawn over her ears à la comtesse, and the edge of its large twisted coronal, was just visible above one of the prettiest heads in the world. Ada had been poring, with rapture, over Jean Paul’s apostrophe to an old maid. She had found an advocate, and her large orbs were luminous with the enthusiasm of a mind that has just found, mirrored in another, the image of its own thoughts; and she looked so fair, so fresh, so any thing but like a student, that Catharine forgot her offences, and could only exclaim:

“Ada, you are radiant with beauty this morning. So should a woman look who has just parted from her lover. But you! you might as well be a mummy three thousand years old, as the beautiful girl you are.”

“Thank you,” said Ada quietly, while Catharine rattled on.

“Pray, whose is the spell that has brought such brilliancy to your eye?”

“Jean Paul’s.”

“Jean Paul’s!” echoed Catharine, disdainfully, “Only think of giving one’s best feelings to an author! Literally falling in love with a set of abstractions!”

“Falling in love!” returned Ada, laughing. “Who but you would have applied such a term to such a passionless recreation as reading? Ah, my poor Kate, you are far gone, indeed, and there is no method in your madness!”

“Well, don’t preach, but shut your book, and listen to me. I am very angry with you. Why were you not at Julia’s last night?”

“Why, because I was engaged to go and hear Mr. —— lecture on Shakspeare.”

“How absurd! These lecturers are a nuisance to society, and ought to be suppressed. I wonder the ghost of Shakspeare has not risen long ago, to beg that they will leave his ashes in peace.”

“He ought to be much obliged to them, for unfolding his beauties to the million who have a comprehension, but no perception of the beautiful, and are quite capable both of seeing and admiring, when they have been told what to see and admire.”

“You are very wise and eloquent, no doubt, Ada, but I am not able this morning to take part in a discussion on literary acumen,” said her lively friend, “I am here for something less profound, and more important, Julia’s soirée.”

“Well, what had you to offer, that could weigh in the balance with Mr. ——’s eloquence?”

“Mr. Stanley.”

“Who is Mr. Stanley? A rival lecturer?”

A rival lecturer! This was too provoking of Ada to forget the name of Charles’ friend, and Catharine looked up to see if the forgetfulness might not possibly be assumed. Alas! it was but too real, and she gave full vent to her indignation, as she recalled to Ada, who and what Mr. Stanley was.

“True, I had forgotten,” quietly rejoined the offender. “But surely, Kate, there is no occasion for so much warmth. How should I remember him, when I have never even seen him?”

“That is just the reason why I am provoked—I wanted to present him to you last evening.”

“Another time will do just as well.”

“But there is no time to be lost,” replied Catharine, vehemently.

“Why we have no preliminaries to settle about the wedding ceremony, have we?” asked Ada, ingenuously.

The question recalled Catharine to a sense of the blunder she had been about to commit, and she answered carelessly:

“Oh, no! but it would be pleasanter for both, had you met before the wedding. By the bye, Ada,” added she, to change the subject, “you should have seen how handsome Charles was last night.”

“I dare say! Had he chosen to deck himself with an ass’s head, Titania would have found him so.”

“Poor Charles! That I should live to hear him likened to Bottom, the weaver. But I ought to know better than to expect you to appreciate him; you, who waste your love upon books and music, and —”

“Saucy girls like yourself, Kate. But when you begin to wander over your ‘Carte du pays tendre,’ pray don’t expect me to keep you company, for I have never explored it. I will acknowledge, at the same time, that Charles is handsome—nay, the handsomest man of my acquaintance.”

“Ah, you will!” said Catharine, with a bright smile. “Then I forgive you, but I predict that the day will come, when you will be punished for despising this ‘Carte du pays tendre,’ for mark me, Ada! yours is the very nature for une grande passion, and when you love—angels and ministers of grace defend me!—it will be Ætna poured into Vesuvius.”

Ada laughed heartily, and a very sweet laugh was hers—low and musical, as the chime of fairy bells.

“Pray, Kate,” asked she, “when did the mantle of divination fall upon those pretty shoulders?”

“Oh, I became wise like Cassandra. Love has made me a prophetess.”

“And like Cassandra, a prophetess whom nobody heeds.”

“Right, Ada,” exclaimed Catharine, exultingly, “and to complete the resemblance, a true prophetess, notwithstanding.”

“You are clever at repartee, my Kate, but you have mistaken your vocation. If at the mature age of twenty-three I have never loved —”

“You forget James Darrington.”

“Pshaw,” said Ada, slightly coloring, “as if that deserved a name.”

“It does—for it proves that the object, not the feeling, is wanting.”

“It proves no such thing, so stop weaving romances for me, and make up your mind, like a good girl, to see me live the life, and die the death of an old maid.”

“The death of an old maid!” Catharine lifted up her hands in horror.

“I could not die in better company, Catharine, and I am surprised to hear any thing so missish from one who was once a rational being.”

“Thank you, Ada. But if I err, I have the comfort of erring with the whole world; and as I am no Briareus, I cannot lift my single arm to do battle with its errors. Besides, the prejudice against old maids is not one of yesterday; remember the lament of Jeptha’s daughter.”

“Do not quote the Jews to me for any thing!” cried Ada. “A wicked and idolatrous race, who, in the very desert where heaven rained manna for their food, and the rocks gushed forth water for their drink, could turn from the visible presence of the living God, and bow down before a golden calf! The heathens, for their opportunities, were both wiser and better than the children of Israel; and among them, the priestesses of the temples, the most honored of their women, were virgins. But stay! we do not need their sanction. The most perfect of created beings, she who was chosen to be the mother of the Saviour, is she not called ‘the blessed Virgin?’ ”

“Ay, dear Ada,” said Catharine, dropping her levity, “but she was a mother, and so fulfilled woman’s highest and dearest mission.”

“In her case it was both; and in all cases, the vocation of the wife and mother is a beautiful and joyous one; but precisely because in the eyes of the world it is so graceful and honorable, does it seem to me less noble than that of the lonely woman, who, first in the heart of none, devotes herself to all, for the love of heaven. The sister of charity, whose gentle hand smoothes the pillow of the dying outcast, the pensive nun, who sits at the Redeemer’s feet, are they not the Marys, ‘who have chosen the better part;’ and the busy wife, with her thousand cares, is she not that Martha troubled about many things?”

Catharine was touched by the eloquent earnestness of her friend’s manner, but it was not in her nature to be serious; she could only pause, to get over the embarrassment of feeling solemn, and then answer:

“Ada, your ideal of an old maid is charming, but unluckily, it is but an ideal. Who that saw the faultless picture you have just drawn, would recognize as its original Miss Trott, who, instead of sitting at anybody’s feet, spends her days pattering about town as a fetcher and carrier of scandal, or Miss Dolly Wiggin, whose religion is made up of pious detestation of her neighbors’ faults, and whose life is an epitome of the Pharisee’s prayer?”

Dearly as she loved Catharine, Ada felt sometimes that she deserved chiding for her levity; but as in all her attempts at reproof, Catharine invariably got the better of her, through her drollery and good-humor, Ada merely shook her head as she answered:

“Trifler! trifler! will nothing be sacred from your indomitable spirit of fun?”

“Certainly not old maids—and if you persist in being one, expect no bounds to my contempt.”

“My nature will steel me against it,” replied Ada, “for you well know that I am not one to be turned from any purpose by ridicule; and as argument on this subject, is about as unavailing as a homily on the virtues to a staring idiot, you had better leave me to my unhappy fate, and confine your exertions to the shaping of your own destiny. Marry if you will, dear Kate,” continued she, rising, “and swear by the simplicity of Venus’ doves; but don’t expect all your friends to go philandering over the world after your example. And now, come with me to my room, and tell me whether my dress for your wedding shall be of Organdie or Tarlatane.”

“I will, with pleasure,” exclaimed Catharine, gayly, “for I was just beginning to fear that you were:

‘A creature far too bright and good,

For human nature’s daily food,’

but, thank Folly! you remind me that you are nothing but a woman after all!”

The next morning Ada ordered the carriage early; for besides having various purchases to make, she wished to deliver to Catharine Ashton, in person, a dressing-case, which she had ordered as a wedding-present for her friend.

Ada was ushered into Catharine’s own room, where on a centre-table lay scattered the countless pretty offerings, which, at such a period, never fail a bride, (I mean a bride rich enough to buy them for herself,) for it is a remarkable fact in the physiology of present making, that gifts are carefully disproportioned to the need of the donees; to the rich, much, to the poor, little is invariably given. Miss Ashton was wealthy, and, therefore, her friends had spent a great deal of money in her honor; and many a rich bauble calling itself “Friendship’s offering,” had it been labeled “Gift of ostentation,” would have worn the livery of the motive that sent it.

Over the glittering heap that dazzled Ada’s eyes, as she entered the room, was flung the scarf of delicate Brussels, no longer the veil but the ornament of brides; and Kate herself was standing before a Cheval-glass, adjusting the folds of a bright Cashmere, which fell, soft as silk, around her slight figure.

“Beautiful!” exclaimed Ada, herself an exquisite judge of dress: “and how becoming.”

“Which is more to the purpose,” replied Catharine, laughing; and she threw her shawl upon the bed, thereby disturbing the flounces of six silk dresses, which flew up like so many peacocks’ tails. The next moment she was snapping asunder the cords that bound up Ada’s package, and her busy fingers had soon torn off the papers that enveloped it.

“Beautiful! beautiful!” cried she, delighted, “the very, the only thing I wanted. Oh,” cried she, opening it, “this is really prettier than Mrs. Darrington’s gift to you in days of yore, Ada. Do you remember your exultation, and my envy on that memorable evening? And the ring—poor James’ emerald! Suppose he were to return with another ring, do you think your heart could be made to beat to the tune of ‘Auld lang syne’?”

“I should not know him if I met him,” replied Ada; but she was so busy fastening her glove that Catharine could not see whether her saucy question had made an impression. She knew that Ada disliked the least allusion to her early love, a symptom which, as Catharine was “herself and not Œdipus,” puzzled her exceedingly.

“What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba?” said she, carelessly, and after replacing all the boxes and flacons she had taken out of her dressing-case, she continued: “Well! I suppose I must give you up. George wouldn’t do, would he?” asked she, with a saucy smile, and then shaking her head: “No—No—I see you resent my old offer of him as successor to the unfortunate James, whose memory now lies ‘five fathom deep under the blade waters of Lethe.’ ”

Ada leaned her head upon her hand, and her fancy wandered back to the days of her childish love, and the spell of memory was so potent that her heart beat as if the black waters of Lethe had not engulfed all remembrance. Catharine looked at her in some surprise, and then snatching from the table a little Cupid of bronze artistique, whose quiver was filled with harmless lamplighters, she placed it before Ada, saying:

“ ‘Qui que tu sois, voici ton maître

Il est, le fut, ou le doit être.’

After all, Ada, there is nothing but the difference of a tense between you and me. I am, and you have been in love, and if ‘Il a bu boira,’ I think I may venture to hope that ‘Elle a aimée, aimera.’ ”

Ada shook her head. “Bad taste and false reasoning, Kate. The false reasoning I pass over, for there is often poetry, if seldom justice in comparisons between things tangible and immaterial, but for the crime of sinking love to a level with intemperance, you deserve ‘La peine forte et dure.’ ” And having enlisted Catharine in a defense of her taste and judgment, Ada took advantage of the first pause that ensued, to take her leave.

She threw herself back into her carriage, and her reveries were of auld lang syne. Her rescue—(it had been no jest!) her subsequent love for the noble boy who had risked something to save her—his departure—her childish grief—one by one, in the twilight of memory, rose the phantoms of the past; and then, as Ada’s fancy sketched its ideal of James Darrington’s present self, she wondered whether —

But just at that moment she felt the carriage violently thrown back, and heard a tumult of voices, giving token that something unusual had happened.

A child had just been rescued from under her horses’ feet.

“Is he killed?” exclaimed the shuddering girl; but no answer was vouchsafed to her terrified inquiries; for the crowd was like all other crowds, and a fine lady was of less consequence than a mangled child—for a mangled child was a spectacle!

There was much pushing—many oaths—much angry contention; for every man in the crowd was determined to see the child himself, and was fiercely engaged in forcing his way, and in abusing the curiosity of his fellows.

Ada shuddered again—but it was with disgust.

At length the dense mass before her began to thin—and the oaths to cease. The child was not mangled, and there had been nothing to see.

There was now room for her to act. She dared not alight, but she called her footman. “Quick! Quick, Grey, go bring me news of that poor child, and say that I will take it in my carriage to the nearest physician.”

The footman disappeared, and Ada counted five minutes of intense anxiety. At length he returned. The gentleman who had rescued the child, accepted her offer, for no physician resided any where near, and this was the best plan that as yet had been proposed.

“Then fetch him, Grey, and let us begone,” said his trembling mistress.

Grey pointed to an opening, where a gentleman was seen advancing with the child in his arms. He then opened the door, and Ada leaned forward to receive the little plebian, but his preserver drew back.

“Nay,” said he, respectfully, “that would be repaying benevolence with imposition. The child is heavy and unfit for such hands as yours. If you will not deem me impertinent then,” added he, slightly coloring, “I will carry him myself.”

Ada comprehended the implied request, and permission was as frankly given as it had been asked.

The stranger had foreseen every exigency. The first object was to consult a physician, and then the child would be conveyed home. Ada thought only of the speediest means of relieving its suffering; she therefore approved of every thing, and the carriage rolled away from the gaping crowd.

This was rather a perplexing position for two young people who had never met before, but strange to say, neither of them felt it. They were too much engrossed with benevolence, to remember convention.

Meanwhile, the carriage drew up before the door of the physician, and as, contrary to the custom of the faculty, he was sometimes to be found at his own house, no delay ensued. To Ada’s infinite joy, he pronounced the child sound in limb. There was nothing, he said, to prevent its immediate removal; and if the lady and gentleman would allow him, he would accompany, instead of following them; it would be safer than to wait for his own phæton.

“Lady and gentleman!” These were the first words that awakened Ada to the fact of her having allowed a handsome young man, a perfect stranger, to enter her carriage. She blushed, and inwardly blessing the doctor for his proposal, she soon found herself going, she knew not whither, in the company of, she knew not whom.

Dr. B. was an eminent surgeon, and a very humane man, and to prevent any offer of remuneration for his services, he expressed his pleasure to his new acquaintances, at the opportunity they had afforded him, of being included in a deed of charity. Something more he added, which would have been all very admissible, had he rightly conjectured the relation, or rather the non-relation of the parties addressed; but as he mistook them for husband and wife, his words not only brought a glow of burning shame upon the cheek of our poor Ada, thoughtless, through excess of thoughtfulness for another, but they somewhat heightened the complexion of her guest also.

With a delicacy and tact, for which the young girl thanked him from her heart, he explained the accident which had brought them together; and while the disturbed Ada was beginning to accuse herself of culpable imprudence, the doctor scarcely knew whether most to admire her for her disinterestedness or to pity her for confusion.

Ada was sensibly relieved, when, having restored the child to its mother, and promised to call again on the morrow, she was once more alone on her way home.

The stranger watched her till she was out of sight, and then went home with the doctor.

As they walked together, the doctor thought that if so remarkable a meeting between two such interesting persons came to nothing, it would be a great waste of romance in real life.

The next day Ada begged her mother to accompany her on her visit to little Johnny Wilson; she had some scruples about going alone. But when the hour came, Mrs. Somers was indisposed, and Ada was forced to go unaccompanied. The first person she saw on entering Mrs. Wilson’s little parlor, was the stranger; and not even the sight of his arm in a sling had power to soften Ada’s displeasure at his appearance. Good Mrs. Wilson, however, was in high spirits; Johnny was better; the gentleman had brought him some toys, and she attributed entirely to the said Johnny’s attractions, the two hours which her guest had been spending at her front window. When in the height of her volubility, Mrs. Wilson deposed that he had spent the whole morning with Johnny, the culprit had once more recourse to the window, to hide his embarrassment; and while he was wondering what he should do next, Ada, after a few brief inquiries as to Johnny’s wants, bowed coldly, and took her leave in serious displeasure; for she felt that this interview had all the appearance of a rendezvous.

Just as she opened the street door, she was met by Doctor B., the sight of whom by no means contributed to diminish her vexation or confusion. The doctor saw that she seemed uneasy, and a glance at the person looking out of the parlor window accounted to him for it; he therefore checked the greetings he was about to offer, and gracefully bidding Ada good morning, he entered the house.

Doctor B. comprehended the whole matter, without help or hint—for he was in the habit of studying the mental as well as the bodily ailments of mankind.

“Foolish fellow!” said the kind-hearted physician, to himself. “No wonder that pretty creature is offended. I must really tell him that there is no tact in his proceedings. What a magnificent creature she is!” continued he, musing, “with her wide brow and intellectual eye. I must find out her name, and give my friend here a hint not to dog her steps, as if she were a vain and silly miss of every-day mould.”

Meanwhile the subject of his musings walked home in no serene state of mind. If she had been disturbed yesterday, to-day she was cruelly mortified. But it was all owing to her own misconduct. How could she so far forget herself as to share her carriage with an entire stranger! Why had she not resigned it to him, and walked home? But what indiscretion—what utter absence of delicacy to go with him! She could never forgive herself. And poor Ada’s cheek burned with the stinging shame of delicacy compromised. And then she colored, and asked herself “what right she had to suppose herself an object in a visit so natural? Perhaps he had not thought of her at all;” and she began to breathe more freely, when she suddenly remembered his conscious look, when Mrs. Wilson had expatiated upon his kindness in sitting with them so long. Back, then, came thronging confusion and shame; so that by the time Ada reached home, she had tortured herself into a headache, and was obliged to send an apology to Catharine, with whom she had promised to spend that evening.

Early the next morning came Catharine on a visit of inquiry. Mr. Stanley (whom she had invited expressly to meet Ada) had been so stupid and so unlike himself that she had been several times on the point of going to sleep; and she had half forgiven him, in the belief that he was stupid with disappointment, when he suddenly interrupted a long pause by relating an adventure which had befallen him the day before. There was a beautiful girl in question, and she it was, and not Ada, who had made Mr. Stanley “duller than the fat weed of Lethe.”

Ada then heard his version of their meeting, and Catharine, in the fullness of her indignation, grew so red and angry as she dwelt on the marks of his visible infatuation, that Ada laughed outright. Still she was sufficiently ashamed of the whole affair to have kept it quietly to herself, had the hero thereof been any one but Mr. Stanley. This she now saw was not possible, for in four days the wedding was to take place, and for her own sake the confession must not be withheld.

It was made as briefly as possible, and Catharine was so overjoyed that she scarcely marked the cold and discouraging tone of Ada’s recital. “Just like him,” exclaimed she, “to sprain his wrist in saving the life of a little ragged democrat—it is not the first time he has risked himself for others.” And she was now as loud in praise as she had just been in condemnation.

Ada never doubted for a moment, that Catharine, whose impetuous nature converted life into a series of telegraphic dispatches, would fly off and relate what she had just heard to Charles, Mr. Stanley, and the whole world. She implored her therefore to confine her disclosures to the two former, and to be as sparing as possible of raptures. Catharine promised every thing, for she had just been seized with the humorous idea of saying nothing at all about it, and so of witnessing the effect of Ada’s unexpected appearance upon Mr. Stanley.

Four days are not long in passing, even to lovers—and the wedding-evening came at last. Catharine was as free in step, as joyous in heart as ever. She laughed and talked of her happiness, as she twined her fingers around her glossy curls; and she spoke gayly of her love for Charles, as she gathered up the folds of her veil, and requested Ada to fasten in her hair, so as to make it becoming, as well as emblematic.

Catharine was more than ever an enigma to her friend, for Ada could not comprehend that happiness which wears the form of so much gayety. To the one, happiness was a deep and subdued feeling; to the other she came

“With nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles.”

But the two girls were as dissimilar—as friends usually are.

At length, with heightened color, and eyes dewy with emotion, (for she dearly loved Catharine,) Ada followed the bride; and perhaps she had never looked so lovely as she did to the astonished eyes of Mr. Stanley, when, scarcely believing the evidence of his senses, he recognized the face which for one whole week had visited him in dreams.

His surprise was not to be mistaken, and Ada, overwhelmed with confusion, turned upon Catharine a glance so reproachful, that the glaring impropriety of what she had done instantly flashed upon her. She remembered that Stanley knew her too well, not to be assured that she had poured the history of his adventure into Ada’s ears; and now it seemed as if both had been conspiring to enjoy his surprise—as if poor Ada had been accessary to a joke—a thing for which she had the greatest aversion. Catharine was so displeased with her heedless conduct, that she was unable to detest herself sufficiently; and not possessing Ada’s habitual self-control, her penitence and apologies only made the matter ten times worse.

Ada’s humiliation is not to be described. The mistake of Dr. B.—the visit to Johnny Wilson were bad enough—but this was a positive indelicacy, a thing for which Mr. Stanley must justly despise her. But she was mistaken. Mr. Stanley knew Catharine well enough to recognize her as sole author of the plot, and his behaviour on the occasion testified his conviction of the same. Ada felt his kindness, but her wounds bled none the less; and with bitter reluctance she placed her arm within his, and descended to the parlor.

What a dangerous thing it is to interfere with the inclinations of others. If there is anything in the world calculated to disgust two people with one another, it is the discovery that their friends are laboring “to make a match between them.”

Ada had just made this discovery.

The ceremony over, etiquette required that for a time at least she should endure the attentions of her luckless admirer. He really was in a position of some difficulty, but he acquitted himself therein with such perfect tact and good-breeding, that Ada felt bound to hate him less. But as soon as an excuse presented itself, she crossed the room, to join another group, and left Mr. Stanley to the civilities of a young lady, who seemed disposed to pay him every attention in her power. He, poor fellow, almost sighed, as he followed her graceful figure; but he resolved not to distress her with pursuit; so he addressed himself to the young lady beside him—talked a variety of elegant nonsense to half the company, and finally took his seat by Catharine.

“What have you done?” said he, reproachfully.

“Enough to mar the pleasure of my bridal day,” replied the penitent bride; “but how could I dream—it was all a jest springing from my unbounded delight, when I found that, like Romeo, you had fallen in love with her at first sight.”

Mr. Stanley shook his head and smiled.

“It might as well have been,” answered she, and then lowering her voice, she added, “How strange! how very strange! and how delightful!”

“Delightful for you, perhaps,” said her companion, in a serious tone; “but first from my own, and now from your blunder, Catharine, I fear that the day on which I first met her, will be an inauspicious one for me.” He then related to Catharine all that Ada had omitted—blamed himself for the indiscretion of his visit to Mrs. Wilson; “and now, my dear Catharine,” said he, “have you and I together not done enough to make her hate me?”

“Hate you! Heaven forbid! for then I shall have held my tongue to no purpose, and shall have wasted a great deal of good feeling in your service.”

“Your feelings are just what they ought to be, ardent and affectionate, but your judgment, I fear,” added he, with a smile, “is no better—than my own.”

“Then what shall I do?” asked Catharine, despairingly.

“Do, my dear Catharine? Do—nothing.”

“Well, this is sentence of death, indeed, upon my talents for meddling; but never mind, I am so much more anxious to serve you than to distinguish myself, that I will—try.”

She kept her promise; and for a month at least, Ada was suffered to like or dislike Mr. Stanley in peace. During this time, many parties were given to the popular bride; and though Ada was not fond of balls, still, as bridemaid, she was forced not only to attend them, but to accept as much attention as the enemy chose to offer. He was careful that this attention should be no more than etiquette required of him; and it was so unobtrusive, that at length Ada felt less and less embarrassed in his presence, and ceased to think of his acquaintance as the greatest misfortune of her life.

——

CHAPTER IV.

“Noch seh’ ich sie

Die herrlichste von allen, stand sie da.”

At length, to Ada’s infinite relief, came the last of Catharine’s bridal parties. This was one of the largest and gayest of the season; and the throng was so great that the two friends were separated soon after entering the room, and saw nothing of each other till the evening was more than half over.

The music had been so inviting that Catharine danced on until, thoroughly exhausted, she made her way to another room, and sunk into the depths of a Louis Quatorze, which, despised by the dancers, had been tending its cushioned-arms for hours in vain. When she was sufficiently rested, she began to look around her, and perceived that at last accident had brought her so near to Ada, that the light folds of her crape dress almost touched Catharine as the air from the open windows swayed it to and fro.

Ada was talking with Mr. Stanley, and listening to his animated and brilliant conversation with an interest which spoke in her smiling lips and sparkling eyes. As for the gentleman, he was perfectly happy; he would have asked nothing better than to look into those eyes for ever; and, elated with the conviction that he had conquered her growing aversion for him, he was now cherishing the hope that time might win for him her regard. He already judged too correctly of her character, to fancy it subject to sudden changes or hasty attachments; but he thought it something to have brought her to a state of amiable indifference—to have “smoothed the raven down of darkness till it smiled.”

“If you like the sentiment, Miss Somers,” were the first words Catharine overheard, “I am sure you will be pleased with the whole book. The author of Lacon, though he has borrowed largely from La Rochefoucauld and La Bruyère, has some claims to originality. His style, moreover, is epigrammatic, and his subjects will interest one like you, whose cast of mind is metaphysical.”

“Humph!” said Catharine to herself, “you have been studying its nature, con amore, I perceive;” while Mr. Stanley, unconscious of listeners, went on.

“Will you allow me to bring it to you to-morrow, together with Picciola?”

Ada gave a gracious assent, while Catharine pursued the current of her remarks.

“Picciola! Lacon! Upon my word, he is advising a course of reading.” And the demon of mischief strongly tempted her to break her promise—but this time she resisted, or rather mischief was stifled by curiosity; for, just at that moment, Charles advanced toward Ada with a middle-aged and gentlemanly-looking man, whom he begged to present to Miss Somers as Doctor B., a gentleman who, for some time, had been anxious for the honor of her acquaintance.

“Doctor B.!” exclaimed Catharine, almost audibly. Why that is the celebrated surgeon. What interest can he have in Ada, so particularly to desire her acquaintance? And, gracious heavens! how Ada blushes! What can there be in the appearance of a respectable-looking elderly gentleman to cause such a fluttering? And he and Stanley appear to be such excellent friends, too. Oh, I can stand this no longer. “Charles! Charles!” cried she, as Ada was led off to the dance, and Doctor B. and Stanley moved away together; “Come quickly and tell me why you took such special pains to make Ada acquainted with Doctor B. I was not aware that you knew him personally.”

“I did not until this evening,” replied Charles, “and I introduced him to Ada by Stanley’s request.”

“Why that is singular. I never knew they were intimate before. But why, then, did he not introduce him himself?”

“He would not take the liberty,” said Charles, with a smile.

Catharine understood and returned the smile; then observed, “Stanley ought to go on the stage. He has great talents for playing ‘The Stranger.’ ”

Charles nodded his head, and then explained the origin of the intimacy between Dr. B. and Stanley, and left Catharine traveling in seven-league boots, till she ended her journey with Ada’s marriage.

Catharine had seen and heard too much that evening not to be primed for mischief; and an opportunity soon occurred which put to flight all her promises of neutrality. The dance was ended, and she had just comfortably married Ada, when she once more spied the object of her thoughts. She was alone, for her partner had gone in search of an ice for her; and her attitude was that of complete meditation. Slowly and deliberately she was tearing to pieces the prettiest flowers in her bouquet, without seeming to know what she did. Catharine had just seen Mr. Stanley leaning against the mantel-piece, gazing at Ada as if his whole soul had been in his eyes; she instantly converted what she saw into cause and effect; and delighted with her own penetration, she could not resist so favorable an occasion for displaying it.

Catharine was right as to the object, mistaken as to the cause of her friend’s meditation. Ada was thinking with genuine satisfaction of the very agreeable person whom she had just escaped hating; and though, like all generous minds, she liked him the better for her former injustice, her thoughts were neither of rapture nor of love; they wore the sober hue of justice; and if she was thinking of Mr. Stanley without prejudice, she was also thinking of him without enthusiasm, and she was unconscious of his gaze until Catharine called her attention to it.

“Where’s your bouquet, Ada?” said Catharine, pointing to the carnations and geraniums that strewed the floor; and looking so intensely mischievous, that Ada, innocent though she was, felt guilty.

“Really—I—it was so heavy,” stammered she, scarcely knowing what to say.

“Indeed!” said Catharine, significantly; “then do let me ask Mr. Stanley to come and hold it for you; it is the least he can do after causing its destruction—shall I call him?”

Ada followed the direction of Catharine’s eyes, and one glance at Mr. Stanley, gazing at her with an expression of intense admiration, explained what was passing in Catharine’s mind. Ada was not pleased with such public homage; moreover she had an aversion to what is commonly called “being teazed about a gentleman;” but this was no place to remonstrate with Catharine, and she resigned herself.

“Oh, no!” said she, smiling, “he has probably some object in view. Perhaps he is practicing for a tableau vivant, designed to represent Lara, or the leaning tower of Pisa. I have no desire to interfere with so rational an amusement.”

“In other words,” replied Catharine, intent upon tormenting, “I am politely requested to mind my business, and let Mr. Stanley look at Miss Somers as long as he pleases. Well, all I have to beg is, that you will keep out of my green-house whenever you indulge him in this ‘rational amusement,’ at least till you have read Picciola, and have learned the value of a flower.”

“Picciola!” echoed Ada, looking surprised, but by no means confused, as Catharine had anticipated. “So, Kate, you have been playing Hephæstion to-night! What a waste of conscience for a parcel of ballroom nonsense!”

“Oh, no! not Hephæstion,” exclaimed Catharine, “I am not so ambitious. I am a mere snapper up of inconsidered trifles.”

“Well! considering the way in which you collect them,” said Ada, good-humoredly, “I think you might be more scrupulous as to the way you use them; and though you disclaim the resemblance, let me tell you that you are quite as much in need of a seal to your lips as Hephæstion himself.”

At this moment appeared Ada’s partner with an iced peach, and many apologies for not bringing it sooner. He then offered to procure another for Mrs. Ingleby—and she, to rid herself of his presence, accepted the offer.

“Upon my word, he is staring at you yet!” exclaimed she.

This time Ada thought Catharine was jesting; and she looked up to prove her indifference. But no! Once more her eye met his, and blushing with displeasure, she replied to Catharine’s exclamation of triumph,

“I should never have suspected any gentleman of trying to stare a lady out of countenance; but you know Mr. Stanley better than I do, Catharine, and since you have constituted yourself his protectress, you would do well to teach him the rudiments of politeness.”

“He will be delighted with such a proof of your interest,” replied she, “and as I am just about to challenge him to a walk on yonder balcony, I’ll not fail to tell him what you have said. And if Charles inquires for me, tell him, that at your special request, I am undertaking the education of his friend; and pray be particular on that point, for I remember some ten years ago, when gray eyes were in the ascendency with us, and Charles might think that such a pair as Mr. Stanley’s, and given to staring, too, might be dangerous. And now thank me, Ada, for I am going to take him away;” and off she flew, delighted with having achieved the difficult task of vexing Ada, and convinced that because she was vexed, she must be in love.

A few moments after, Catharine was pacing the balcony on Mr. Stanley’s arm, and actually repeating to him Ada’s very words.

“No wonder,” sighed her mortified companion, “you have never any peace till you vex her with me in some way or other. She, so gentle—why should you provoke her to speak harshly?”

“Oh, I could not help it!” said Catharine. “I was sorry for the poor flowers—anxious that your admiring glances should not be thrown away, and—in short, the fit was upon me.”

“What a reason, Catharine, for wounding the feelings of your dearest friend, and enlisting her womanly pride against one whom you profess—nay, I will be just, whom you really like.”

Catharine looked penitent, while he continued, “If I had not made that foolish promise, she would not think me so presumptuous as she does; and but for your interference, Catharine, I might perhaps have no cause to regret it. But —”

“But remember that I am going away to-morrow, and you will then have the entire management of your love affairs in your own hands.”

“True,” said he, smiling; “and you are such a mischievous Puck, that I shall certainly mark the day of your departure with a white stone.”

“Saucy, are you, sir? Well! I shall punish you on my return. But hist! no more of Ada, for she comes this way. The traitress! she has been flirting with my husband, while I have been tormenting her lover.”

“My dear Catharine,” said Ada, advancing, “I defended you to Mr. Ingleby to the best of my abilities, but he insisted upon testing my sincerity by confronting us.”

“Mr. Ingleby is pleased to play the Othello,” returned Catharine; “I demand, therefore, that you give him up to my vengeance.” And Catharine would have taken her husband’s arm, but seeing that Ada had no mind to relinquish it, she whispered, “For shame! to bear malice so long; his eyes are not basalisks.” But Ada went on quietly talking to Ingleby’s sister, Mrs. Howard, who had joined them; and the conversation became general, and turned upon the expected departure of the newly-married pair. Not long after, they took their leave, and Ada, to atone for her unkind remarks, accepted Mr. Stanley’s arm to the carriage, and bade him a cordial good-night.

Early the next morning Catharine started on her bridal tour, to be absent the entire summer. She wished Mr. Stanley much happiness, and he, bowing with mock gravity, assured her that he looked upon her disappearance as the first step thereunto. And he was really as glad to have her gone, as he professed to be; for Catharine, with a warm heart, a generous nature, and a thousand good qualities, lacked seriousness of character—and she was too apt to lay the sacrilegious hand of mirth, upon the heart’s sacred altar, and to jest of what to Stanley seemed matters of deep and serious import.

He therefore went home light of heart; for he was not only relieved from the presence of his tormentor, but he was glad that the gay season was now over. He felt that the regard of Ada Somers was not to be won at balls and parties, and he longed to know her where she would seem loveliest—in the tranquil intercourse of a refined and happy home.

——

CHAPTER V.

“Love rules the camp, the court, the grove,

And men below, and gods above.”

The month of May saw the Somers family once more settled at Somerton; and twice a week did Mr. Stanley’s curricle make its appearance there also, until the month of September; when suddenly his visits doubled, not only in number, but in length; and as Miss Somers never complained of the same, it is to be presumed that he had made all the improvement she could desire in politeness, and all the progress he could have wished in her esteem.

Early in October, on a day as bright as herself, came Catharine—the wild, merry, but affectionate Catharine. She kissed Ada o’er and o’er, vowed she was prettier than ever, though she had never written her a line for the last two months, and was just about to ask what had become of Mr. Stanley, when her attention was called off by the sight of a diamond ring which glittered like a star on Ada’s third finger. In her admiration of its brilliancy, she quite forgot Mr. Stanley.

“What a beautiful solitaire!” exclaimed she; “what a pure water!—where did you get this, Ada?”

Ada’s cheeks were crimsoned in a moment. She fastened her eyes upon the ring, as if to gain courage from the sight, and in a low voice she replied:

“It was a gift.”

“And the giver,” quickly replied Catharine.

The color deepened—the eyes were raised with an expression which Catharine had never seen before, and she guessed rather than heard, the scarcely audible name of “Mr. Stanley.”

She gave a cry of delight, threw her arms around Ada’s neck, and gave vent to her joy in broken sentences:

“Oh, I am so happy!—I knew it would be so!—my dear Ada, did I not predict it, and am I not indeed Cassandra? To think of every thing ending so charmingly when the beginning was so inauspicious. And I—oh, Ada, do forgive me my heedless impertinences; I have often thought of them with contrition. Why is not Charles here to have a hornpipe with me for joy?—But never mind—now I remember, he went to see Stanley, and perhaps he is hearing it all from him! You in love, Ada! Ah! confess that the word is a sweet one! And now come and tell me all about it! But stay,” said she, relapsing into her own saucy vein, “what have you to say for your high-flown opinions of last winter, on celibacy?”

“They remain unchanged,” replied Ada.

“But your feelings. Defend them if you dare from inconsistency.”

“I will not attempt it,” said Ada, smiling. “Like Rousseau, ‘Je serais bien fâché d’être du nombre de ceux qui savent répondre à tout.’ ”

“Ah! there is nothing like wit to silence just accusation,” began Catharine, but just then she felt the little hand which she still held, tremble, and her ear soon after, caught the sound of carriage-wheels. “Ah, that must be he!” cried she. “Commend me to the acuteness of lovers’ ears! Why, Ada, your heart has almost the gift of prescience!” and away bounded Catharine to greet her favorite.

“And so, Stanley, the sun has at last risen on Memnon’s statue,” were almost the first words she uttered.

“Yes,” answered Charles Ingleby, emerging from the carriage, “and very much elated he seems to be with his new achievement.”

“Why, Charles, are you there too?” said his wife. “See,” exclaimed she to Stanley, “how marriage blunts the sensibilities. There was Ada who had an electric presentiment of your coming; while I, though I have been a wife but seven months, stood as dumb as an effigy, while Charles was near.”

“Encouraging for you, Stanley,” observed Ingleby, and he passed into the parlor where Ada was sitting. Stanley looked wistfully after him, and having caught the first sound of Ada’s sweet voice, he took Catharine’s arm within his, and they walked to the opposite end of the piazza, where they talked together for some time, in a low voice.

Catharine was the first to break out into an audible tone. “Arrived to-day,” exclaimed she, with evident delight, “when will she be here?”

“In an hour, I think,” replied he, “and I must now go and prepare Ada to receive her. I really begin to tremble as the time draws nigh; and I owe it all to you, for scaring me with the spectre of my own name.”

“Then pray, modest youth, let me do it for you. I long to take this dénouement in my own hands. I have always had a talent for comedy, and this is probably the only opportunity I shall ever have of making my appearance on any stage.”

“Now, Catharine! none of your plots. I have a shuddering recollection of your talents for comedy, last winter, and I beg that you will not lay your wicked little hand upon the web of my destiny.”

Catharine held up a hand as white as snow. “Does this look like a thing having power to harm your great clumsy destiny? I scorn to meddle with any thing so weighty. I am intent upon pleasure only—a scene—a surprise—dramatic effect—tears—joy, &c., and when that is over, the curtain may fall on you and your ladye love, while I shall go home, like a good Griselda, and mend Charles’ clothes.”

Who could help laughing when Catharine chose it? Not Mr. Stanley, so he yielded the point; and she had soon arranged her scene, and taken to herself the lion’s share of prominence therein.

“And now,” said she, “go and tell Ada, for the thousandth time, that she is ‘dearer to you than the ruddy drops that visit your sad,’—Oh, no! not sad, I must alter Shakspeare a little—‘your joyful heart;’ send Charles to me, and—Oh! there comes Mrs. Somers, and I must speak with her directly,” and away darted Catharine through the shrubbery to meet Mrs. Somers, who had just returned from a walk. As she bounded lightly down the walk, Stanley could not help confessing that she was graceful as a nymph, but there was one still more graceful in his eyes, whom he had not yet seen; and with a quick step he entered the house. His first act was, faithfully to deliver Catharine’s message, and send Ingleby away. He then took a seat by Ada, and paraphrased the words “I love,” with commendable ingenuity, for nearly half an hour. He then suddenly remembered that he had another mission to perform, and after a pause, during which he wondered how he should begin:

“Ada,” said he, “you have not yet asked me any questions relative to my family. Have you no curiosity to know who I am?”

“On all subjects connected with you,” replied Ada, “I feel an interest too strong to be called curiosity; but in matters relating to your family, your communications, to give me pleasure, must be voluntary. I expect to be told without the asking,” added she, smiling, “who you are.”

“So you shall, my Ada, and you are about to receive the astounding information.”

“Must it be astounding?” laughed Ada, “for if so, I am bound to conclude that I have been over hasty in my acceptance of your attentions. I hope you are not Jupiter Tonnans, for I have no ambition to be dazzled to death. But perhaps you are only an earthly prince in disguise, or, perchance, The Wandering Jew. If the last of these, I must be permitted to decline the honor of becoming ‘The Wandering Jewess.’ ”

Stanley laughed, and shook his head. “I am the son of one of those princes, who govern in America under the name of ‘The sovereign people,’ but for further particulars I refer you to your friend, Mrs. Ingleby, for—”

“Parlez du diable,” said a voice at the door, and in walked Catharine herself, followed by Ingleby, who having been forbidden to say a word, crossed the room, and meekly seated himself in a corner. “May I be allowed,” continued Catharine, “to ask what use was being made of my name, as I entered this room?”

“Certainly,” replied Stanley. “Miss Somers has been affecting to doubt the respectability of my parentage—”

“I!” exclaimed Ada, who scarcely knew whether he was in jest or earnest.

“Can you deny it! when you began by accusing me of being a heathen, and ended by kindly suggesting that I might possibly be The Wandering Jew?”

“To the point, Mr. Stanley, if you please,” said Catharine, with mock dignity.

Stanley bowed submissively. “I was about to say then, that however well I may be known to your husband, your knowledge of my name and station is, I believe, anterior even to his; I beg that you will now declare the same to this young lady, together with any incidents of my life which it may please you to reveal; and in the presence of her who is to be my judge, I fearlessly request that of my past deeds you will ‘nothing extenuate.’ ”

Here was a beginning after Catharine’s own heart, but its effect was somewhat spoiled by Charles Ingleby, who called out familiarly from his corner: “Faith, Stanley, you run far more risk in Kate’s hands of having ‘much set down in malice.’ ”

“Silence in the court, Mr. Ingleby!” cried his wife, trying very hard not to smile.

“Oh! I am the court, am I?” persisted Charles, “then I can almost say with Louis the Fourteenth, ‘L’état c’est moi.’ ”

“Oh, Charles! I wish you would not interrupt me to show off your learning,” cried Catharine, who began to feel her comedy fast degenerating into farce; but determined to make a certain speech which she had prepared for the occasion, she quickly composed her features—compressed her lips, and thus began:

“James Stanley! I do accuse you, in presence of these witnesses here assembled,” (here Charles muttered something about its being quite true that he was a host within himself, but Catharine went steadily on,) “I do accuse you of having basely insinuated yourself into the affections of this damsel, (Ada, be quiet) insomuch that she hath eyes for no one else—and this you have done under false colors and a false name. Therefore, I here pronounce you traitor and impostor, and denounce you to the said damsel by the name you blush to bear—the infamous name of James Darrington!”

“James Darrington!” exclaimed Ada, in a tone of the deepest emotion. “Yes, yes,” murmured she, “my heart spoke truly—from its depths I heard his name, even before—before—” she paused and timidly raised her eyes to her lover’s countenance. That smile! she had seen it in her dreams—those eyes, so tenderly riveted upon her! how often had their glance awakened in her soul vague recollections of something loved and forgotten. Her heart beat violently, and pressing her hands to her eyes, her over-wrought feelings found relief in tears.

But they were tears of joy, and while they flow undisturbed, we must defend James Darrington from the serious charges preferred against him by Mrs. Ingleby.

It will be remembered that at the time of Mr. Darrington’s death, he resided in Paris. Partly by the expenses entailed upon him by his position as American minister, partly by the failure of banks at home, he became so involved, that at his death, a mere pittance remained for the support of his widow and son. Mrs. Darrington decided upon an immediate return to America, but her plans were changed by the reception of a letter from a near relative, then residing in England. The letter was not simply one of condolence—Mr. Stanley offered a home to his impoverished niece, and before she had time to accept or refuse his proposal, it was followed by himself in person.

The parties were mutually pleased. Mrs. Darrington was prepossessed in favor of her uncle, by his resemblance to her father, and he, without ties, seemed anxious to find an object for his tenderness in the person of his brother’s only child.

Thenceforward Julia, and Julia’s son, became the first objects in his heart. To minister to the happiness of the mother, and to shower every advantage of education that wealth can confer upon the child, seemed the aims of his existence.

James so richly repaid these benefits, that in time he became the idol of his uncle, and the old gentlemen often sighed when he remembered that his nephew was not a Stanley. After reaping, in the devotion of his niece and the respectful affection of his nephew, the rich reward of his generous conduct toward them, Mr. Stanley died, and, without condition of any kind, bequeathed his large fortune to Mrs. Darrington and her son. Attached to the will was a letter, in which he made it his last request that James should add to his own the name of Stanley. The old gentleman knew James too well to make it a stipulation; he was aware that his fortune would be rejected on such terms, and he gave it to his adopted son, bore he the name of Stanley or Darrington. But this request—couched in terms of so much tenderness—made in such an unassuming way, seemed binding to the grateful James; and what he might have refused to his uncle’s pride he granted to his affection. Moreover, Stanley was his mother’s name, and James had always loved it for her sake.

Their hearts now yearned for home; but a year’s delay ensued, from some tedious formalities of the law, and that year they passed in roaming over the Continent. In Italy they were joined by Charles Ingleby, and after spending some months in that beautiful land—beautiful, though but the whitened sepulchre of departed greatness—they decided upon passing the summer at Baden-Baden. There they met with the Ashtons.

James soon found that the pretty American girl, whose lively manners made her the toast of the “hoch-begoine” visiters of Baden, was his old friend Kate. Except that she was older and prettier, she had not much changed since the days when they had gone berrying together; and James, whose republican heart had withstood not only the heraldic charms of the De Longuevilles and De Montmorencies, but had refused to surrender itself to “all the blood of all the Howards,” hung with breathless interest upon Catharine’s words, as by turns she dwelt upon the beauty, the talent or the thousand virtues of his once cherished Ada. His old passion awoke from its long slumber, and he was now as much in love with the ideal as he had once been with the reality. Catharine was ready to worship him for his romantic fidelity, but his conviction that he would know Ada again, after ten years’ separation, she laughed to scorn.

Meanwhile, Charles Ingleby’s heart had strayed, or been stolen, and after some months’ endurance of the loss, he announced the same to Miss Ashton, accused her of the theft, and modestly professed himself willing to compromise the matter, by accepting hers in exchange. Catharine had no alternative but to submit, and the matter went no further.

James became now so restless to return home that his mother offered to wind up his affairs for him, and proposed that he should sail with the Ashton family. James knew that his mother was quite as capable of managing business as she was of managing servants, and he accepted her offer with many thanks. It was then arranged that he should act as groomsman to Ingleby, while Ada should be bridemaid to Catharine, and it was on that occasion that Catharine imagined a plan for testing their remembrance of one another.

If neither recognized the other, James was to be punished for his audacity, by keeping his secret till his mother’s arrival; all of which, in the height of his presumption, he promised, with no more expectation of being called upon to fulfill his bond than had the Merchant of Venice.

He met Ada, and the impression she made was such as to occasion certain doubts in his mind of his boasted constancy. This unknown looked as he would have had Ada look; and he felt that if her mind at all resembled her person, he was in danger. When he discovered who she was, he was so transported with joy that he forgot to be humiliated for not knowing her at once. But we have seen how severely he was punished in the sequel by Ada’s cold reception of his advances, and his own inability to claim her regard by the slightest appeal to the past.

“And now,” said he, “I ask you, Charles, whether I have not been unjustly bound to secrecy? I contend that I did recognize her, for my heart knew her and loved her at once.”

“So you did,” replied Charles. “ ‘What’s in a name?’ Ada Somers or la belle Inconnue, James Stanley or James Darrington, were one and the same person, and both were constant to the object; how that object was called is of no importance.”

“Mere sophistry,” said Catharine disdainfully, but James appealed to Ada, and she reversed the decision.

Whilst they were still debating the matter, a carriage drew up before the door, and Catharine darted out of the room with the speed of an arrow. In a moment she returned, followed by Mrs. Somers, and a lady whom Ada recognized in an instant, and starting from her seat, she found herself in the arms of Mrs. Darrington.

——

CHAPTER VI.

“Et l’on revient toujours à ses premiers amours.”

(This is the veriest nonsense ever penned. It chimes in with our story and we use it, but without endorsing it the least in the world.)

That night Ada relieved her full heart, by talking over the events of the last six months to her mother, who listened, as only a mother can listen, till midnight. Mrs. Somers had scarcely kissed her daughter’s cheek and left the room, when Ada rose, unlocked one of her bureau drawers, and took thence an antiquated-looking rose-wood box. Under heaps of broken chains and old fashioned jewels lay a dingy little emerald ring; she seized upon it, and uttered an exclamation of pleasure, as she found that it fitted her third finger. She then replaced her box, kissed the ring, and murmured a “good-night” to the giver.

Some weeks after, Ada, her diamond and her emerald, became, one and all, the property of James. Dr. B. was at the wedding, and Catharine related to him every circumstance connected with what she styled “Ada’s pompous apostasy from the faith of her girlhood;” beginning with the drowning, and ending with the resumption of the emerald ring. Dr. B. evinced such lively interest in her story, that she proclaimed him to be the best listener she had ever met with in her life.

The day after the wedding, Johnny Wilson was favored with a large consignment of wedding-cake; and in after life, when, through Ada’s means, he had risen in station and fortune, he was heard to declare that he had marked with a white stone the day on which he had been nearly crushed to death by the horses of Mrs. James Darrington Stanley.

NARCISSOS.

———

BY HENRY B. HIRST.

———

There is a flower which haunts the banks of streams,

That blossoms only in the path of Spring,

Lovingly bending where the water gleams.

Its fragrant perfumes fill the azure air,

As, gazing always in the limpid brook,

It seems to watch the Naiades braid their hair,

Or sport, in naked beauty, caroling hymns

Of siren sweetness to poetic Spring,

While gliding, here and there, on milky limbs.

All day it gazes: day by day its eye

Searches the stainless crystal of the stream,

Watching those faultless, fairy forms float by.

Day after day it watches, hour on hour,

Like love above the grave of that it loved —

More like a mortal than a simple flower.

When night descends—when darkness, like the grave’s,

Falls on the stream—when moss and fern and grass

Are lost in gloom—when naught is heard but waves

That roll and ripple through the restless reeds,

It droops its head and sinks in dreamless sleep,

Couched, like a jewel, among worthless weeds.

But sometimes, when the argent moon awakes

The Naiades to midnight mirth and song,

The blossom from its mournful slumber breaks,

And breathes again its sweet, unanswered sighs;

And all the stars that gild the glassy stream

Shine on its heavy gloom like pitying eyes.

Day after day it watches—hour on hour —

Love weeping by the grave of what it loved,

More like a mortal than a simple flower.

And day by day it pales and wanes away

Until it lays its form along the stream,

And slowly sinks to silence and decay.

. . . . . . .

There is a legend told in classic Greece —

A myth, so musical of the olden time,

That none who hears can bid the singer “Peace!”

Pausanius tells it! In its rhythmic flow

We find how fair Narcissos, young in years,

Passionate beyond his age, so long ago

As when the gods came down and walked with men,

Had a sweet sister—would that sister’s name

Had ever have fallen within the poet’s ken —

A young, twin sister, lovely as the light

Of twilight in her own delicious land —

Lovely as Venus was at birth of Night.

Narcissos was as fair, albeit his mould

Had all the attributes that mark his sex;

And men were deities in the Age of Gold.

The sympathies of twin existence ran

So warm in both, their being grew like one,

Though she was feeble woman; he, strong man.

Hand locked in hand, they haunted hill and plain,

Passing in peace their simple innocent lives,

Both singing, so it seemed, the same refrain.

Or angling in the stream, or through the groves

Hunting the deer, they owned one only rule —

One gentle rule, and that was rosy Love’s.

One day—the air was swooning with the heat —

The maiden sought the border of a stream

And stood and laved and cooled her burning feet.

The loving water breathed an amorous tale;

The maiden gave herself to its embrace,

And in its passionate clasp grew deathly pale.

Narcissos was afar: he could not hear

His sister’s piteous murmur of his name:

Alas! that poor Narcissos was not near!

He came at night, and on the river’s shore

Beheld her garments; but her faultless form,

Save in his maniac dreams, he saw no more!

And from that night, and from that hour, he lay,

Swelling the stream with little brooks of tears,

Sighing his soul away day after day.

And gazing in its depths in search of her,

He saw his image, which was so like hers,

He grew to be his own sad worshiper.

The gods, who saw him act this piteous part,

Wept at the sight, and made his pallid form

A snowy blossom with a crimson heart.

There, by the stream, it watches, hour on hour,

Love mourning by the tomb of what it loved,

More like a mortal than a simple flower.

TO ARCTURUS.

———

BY SARAH HELEN WHITMAN.

———

——Nec morti esse locum, sed viva volare

Sideris in numerum atque alto succedere cælo.

Virgil, Geor. IV.

“Star of resplendent front!” thy glorious eye

Again shines out from yonder sapphire sky,

Piercing the blue depths of the vernal night

With opal shafts and flames of rubient light;

Till the pale Serpent gliding round thy path

Hides in dim shades his ineffectual wrath,

Pining with envy at thy dazzling ray,

Deep-hued and damasked like the orb of day

When in the purple west he slowly sinks away.

Hast thou not stooped from heaven, fair star, to be

Through Night’s wide, pathless realm of phantasie

So near—so bright—so glorious—that I seem

To lie entranced as in some wondrous dream,

All earthly joys forgot—all earthly fear

Purged in the light of thy resplendent sphere: —

Gazing upon thee till thy flaming eye

Dilates and kindles through the stormy sky,

While, in its depths withdrawn, far, far away,

I see the dawn of a diviner day,

And hear celestial harmonies that come

Burdened with love from thine elysian home.

For in that gorgeous world, I fondly deem,

Dwells the freed soul of one whose earthly dream

Was full of beauty, majesty and wo —

One who, in that pure realm of thine, doth grow

Into a power serene—a solemn joy,

Undimmed by earthly sorrow or alloy;

Sphered far above the dread phantasmal gloom

That made his poet-heart a living tomb,

Tortured by fires that death alone could quell

Fierce as the flames of Farinati’s hell.

“Was it not Fate, whose earthly name is Sorrow,”

That bade him with prophetic soul to borrow

From all the stars that fleck night’s purple dome,

Thee, bright Arcturus! for our spirit home —

Our trysting star, where, while on earth’s cold clime,

Our mingling souls might meet in dreams sublime?

Was it not Fate, whose name in Heaven above

Is Truth and Goodness and unchanging Love —

Was it not Fate that bade him turn to thee

As the bright regent of his destiny? —

For when thine orb passed from the lengthening gloom

Of autumn nights a morning star to bloom

Beside Aurora’s eastern gates of pearl,

He passed from earth his weary wings to furl

In “the cool vales of Heaven”—thence through yon sea

Of starry isles to hold his course to thee.[^[1]]