The Project Gutenberg eBook of Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXI, No. 6, December 1842, by Various

Title: Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXI, No. 6, December 1842

Author: Various

Editors: George Rex Graham

Rufus W. Griswold

Release Date: May 8, 2022 [eBook #68027]
[Most recently updated: November 24, 2022]

Language: English

Produced by: Mardi Desjardins & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net from page images generously made available by the Internet Archive

GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XXI.      December, 1842      No. 6.

Contents

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

Painted by E. Prentice           Engraved by H.S. Sadd

Awaiting the Husband’s Return

Engraved Expressly for Graham’s Magazine.

GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XXI.    PHILADELPHIA: DECEMBER, 1842.    No. 6.

———

BY J. FENIMORE COOPER, AUTHOR OF “THE SPY,” “THE PIONEERS,” ETC.

———

Among the many brave men who early contributed to render the navy of the republic popular and respectable, the gallant seaman whose name is placed at the head of this article is entitled to a conspicuous place; equally on account of his services, his professional skill, and his personal merit. Although his connection with the marine, created under the constitution of 1789, was of short continuance, it left a durable impression on the service; and, if we look back to the dark period of the Revolution, we find him contending in some of the fiercest combats of the period, always with heroism, and not unfrequently with success. Circumstances, too, have connected his renown with one of the most remarkable naval battles on record; a distinction of itself which fully entitles him to a high place among those who have fought and bled for the independence of their country, in stations of subordinate authority.

Richard Dale was born in the colony of Virginia, on the 6th November, 1756. His birthplace was in the county of Norfolk, and not distant from the well known port of the same name. His parents were native Americans, of respectable standing, though of rather reduced circumstances. His father, dying early, left a widow with five children, of whom the subject of this memoir was the eldest. Some time after the death of his father, his mother contracted a second marriage with a gentleman of the name of Cooper, among the issue of which were two well known ship-masters of Philadelphia.

Young Dale manifested an inclination for the sea at a very early period of life. The distrust of a parental control that has no foundation in nature, and which is apt to be regarded with jealousy, stimulated if it did not quicken this desire, and we find him at the tender age of twelve, or in 1768, making a voyage between Norfolk and Liverpool, in a vessel commanded by one of his own uncles. On his return home, he appears to have passed nearly a twelve-month on shore; but his desire to become a sailor still continuing, in the spring of 1770 he was regularly apprenticed to a respectable merchant and ship-owner, of the borough of Norfolk, named Newton. From this moment his fortune in life was cast, and he continued devotedly employed in the profession until his enterprise, prudence and gallantry enabled him finally to retire with credit, an unblemished name, and a competency.

During his apprenticeship, Dale appears to have been, most of the time, employed in the West India trade. Every sailor has his chances and hair-breadth escapes, and our young mariner met with two, at that period of his life, which may be thought worthy of notice. On one occasion he fell from the spars stowed on the belfry into the vessel’s hold, hitting the kelson, a distance of near twenty feet; escaping, however, without material injury. A much greater risk was incurred on another. While the vessel to which he belonged was running off the wind, with a stiff breeze, Dale was accidentally knocked overboard by the jib sheets, and was not picked up without great difficulty. He was an hour in the water, sustaining himself by swimming, and he ever spoke of the incident as one of more peril than any other in a perilous career.

When nineteen, or in 1775, Dale had risen to the station of chief mate on board a large brig belonging to his owner. In this situation he appears to have remained industriously engaged during the few first months of the struggle for independence; the active warfare not having yet extended itself as far south as his part of the country. Early in 1776, however, the aspect of things began to change, and it is probable that the interruption to commerce rendered him the master of his own movements.

Virginia, in common with most of the larger and more maritime colonies, had a sort of marine of its own; more especially anterior to the Declaration of Independence. It consisted principally of bay craft, and was employed in the extensive estuaries and rivers of that commonwealth. On board of one of these light cruisers Dale was entered as a lieutenant, in the early part of the memorable year 1776. While in this service, he was sent a short distance for some guns, in a river craft; but falling in with a tender of the Liverpool frigate, which ship was then cruising on the Cape Henry station, he was captured and carried into Norfolk. These tenders were usually smart little cruisers, another, belonging to the same frigate, having been taken shortly before, by the U. S. brig Lexington, after a sharp and bloody conflict. Resistance in the case of Dale was consequently out of the question, his capture having been altogether a matter of course.

On reaching Norfolk, our young officer was thrown on board a prison-ship. Here he found himself in the midst of those whom it was the fashion to call “loyal subjects.” Many of them were his old school-mates and friends. Among the latter was a young man of the name of Bridges Gutteridge, a sailor like himself, and one who possessed his entire confidence. Mr. Gutteridge, who it is believed subsequently took part with his countrymen himself, was then employed by the British, in the waters of the Chesapeake, actually commanding a tender in their service. The quarrel was still recent; and honorable, as well as honest men, under the opinions which prevailed in that day, might well be divided as to its merits. Mr. Gutteridge had persuaded himself he was pursuing the proper course. Entertaining such opinions, he earnestly set about the attempt of making a convert of his captured friend. The usual arguments, touching the sacred rights of the king—himself merely a legalized usurper, by the way, if any validity is to be given to the claims of hereditary right to the crown—and the desperate nature of the “rebel cause,” were freely and strenuously used, until Dale began to waver in his faith. In the end, he yielded and consented to accompany his friend in a cruise against the vessels of the state. This occurred in the month of May, and, hostilities beginning now to be active, the tender soon fell in with a party of Americans, in some pilot boats, that were employed in the Rappahannock. A warm engagement ensued, in which the tender was compelled to run, after meeting with a heavy loss. It was a rude initiation into the mysteries of war, the fighting being of a desperate, and almost of a personal character. This was one of those combats that often occurred about this period, and in those waters, most of them being close and sanguinary.

In this affair, Dale received a severe wound, having been hit in the head by a musket ball; with this wound he was confined several weeks at Norfolk, during which time he had abundance of leisure to reflect on the false step into which he had been persuaded, and to form certain healthful resolutions for the future. To use his own words, in speaking of this error of his early life, he determined “never again to put himself in the way of the bullets of his own country.” This resolution, however, it was necessary to conceal, if he would escape the horrors of a prison-ship, and he “bided his time,” fully determined to take service again under the American flag, at the first fitting opportunity.

In the peculiar state of the two countries at the time, and with the doubtful and contested morality of the misunderstanding, there was nothing extraordinary in this incident. Similar circumstances occurred to many men, who, with the best intentions and purest motives, saw, or fancied they saw, reasons for changing sides in what, in their eyes, was strictly a family quarrel. In the case of Dale, however, the feature most worthy of comment was the singleness of mind and simple integrity with which he used to confess his own error, together with the manner in which he finally became a convert to the true political faith. No narrative of the life of this respectable seaman would be complete, without including this temporary wavering of purpose; nor would any delineation of his character be just, that did not point out the candor and sincerity with which he, in after life, admitted his fault.

Dale was only in his twentieth year when he received this instructive lesson from the “bullets of his countrymen.” From that time, he took good care not to place himself again in their way, going, in June or July, to Bermuda, on a more peaceable expedition, in company with William Gutteridge, a relative of his beguiling friend. On the return passage, the vessel was captured by the Lexington, the brig just mentioned, then a successful cruiser, under the orders of Capt. John Barry; an officer who subsequently died at the head of the service. This occurred just after the Declaration of Independence, and Dale immediately offered himself as a volunteer under the national flag. He was received and rated as a midshipman within a few hours of his capture. This was the commencement of Dale’s service in the regular navy of his native country. It was also the commencement of his acquaintance with the distinguished commander of the Lexington, whose friendship and respect he enjoyed down to the day of the latter’s death. While the brig was out, our midshipman had another narrow escape from death, having, together with several others, been struck senseless by lightning during a severe thunder storm.

Barry made the capture just mentioned near the end of his cruise, and he soon after went into Philadelphia, which place Dale now saw for the first time. Here Barry left the Lexington to take command of the Effingham 28, a ship that never got to sea, leaving our new midshipman in the brig. Capt. Hallock was Barry’s successor, and he soon rated Dale, by this time an active and skilful seaman, a master’s mate. Early in the autumn, the Lexington sailed for Cape François, on special duty. On her return, in the month of December, she fell in with the Pearl frigate,^[1] and was captured without resistance, carrying an armament of only a few fours.

As it was blowing very fresh at the moment this capture was made, the Pearl took out of the prize four or five officers, threw a small crew on board, and directed the brig to follow her. By some accounts Dale was left in the Lexington, while by others he was not. A succinct history of the events of his life, written by a connection under his own eye, and which is now before us, gives the latter version of the affair, and is probably the true one. At all events, the remaining officers and crew of the Lexington rose upon the captors in the course of the night, retook the brig, and carried her into Baltimore.^[2]

The English landed several of their prisoners on Cape Henlopen, in January, 1777, under some arrangement that cannot now be explained, though probably it was connected with an exchange for the men taken and carried away in the prize. Among these was Dale, who made the best of his way to Philadelphia, when he received orders to proceed to Baltimore; which he obeyed, and rejoined his brig, the command of which had now been transferred to Capt. Henry Johnston.

The next service on which the Lexington was employed was in the European seas. In March, she sailed from Baltimore for Bordeaux, with despatches. On her arrival, this brig was attached to a small squadron under the orders of Capt. Lambert Wickes, who was in the Reprisal 16, having under his command also the Dolphin 10, Capt. Samuel Nicholson. This force of little vessels accomplished a bold and destructive cruise, making the entire circuit of Ireland, though it was eventually chased into a French port by a line-of-battle ship. Its object was the interception of certain linen-ships, which it missed; its success, however, in the main, was such as to excite great alarm among the English merchants, and to produce warm remonstrances to France, from their government.

At this time France was not at war with England, although she secretly favored and aided the cause of the revolted colonies. The appearance of American cruisers in the narrow seas, however, gave rise to so many complaints, as to induce the French government, in preference to pushing matters to extremities, temporarily to sequester the vessels. The Lexington was included in this measure, having been detained in port more than two months; or, until security was given that she would quit the European seas. This was done, and the brig got to sea again on the 18th September, 1777.^[3]

It is probable that the recent difficulties had some effect on the amount of the military stores on board all three of the American vessels. At all events, it is certain that the Lexington sailed with a short supply of both powder and shot, particularly of the latter. The very next day she made an English cutter lying-to, which was approached with a confidence that could only have proceeded from a mistake as to her character. This cutter proved to be a man-of-war, called the Alert, commanded by Lieutenant, afterward Admiral Bazely, having a strong crew on board, and an armament of ten sixes.

In the action that ensued, and which was particularly well fought on the part of the enemy, the Americans were, in a measure, taken by surprise. So little were the latter prepared for the conflict, that not a match was ready when the engagement commenced, and several broadsides were fired by discharging muskets at the vents of the guns. The firing killed the wind, and there being considerable sea on, the engagement became very protracted, during which the Lexington expended most of her ammunition.

After a cannonading of two hours, believing his antagonist to be too much crippled to follow, and aware of his own inability to continue the action much longer, Capt. Johnston made sail, and left the cutter, under favor of a breeze that just then sprung up. The Lexington left the Alert rapidly at first, but the latter having bent new sails, and being the faster vessel, in the course of three or four hours succeeded in getting alongside again, and of renewing the engagement. This second struggle lasted an hour, the fighting being principally on one side. After the Lexington had thrown her last shot, had broken up and used all the iron that could be made available as substitutes, and had three of her officers and several of her men slain, besides many wounded, Capt. Johnston struck his colors. The first lieutenant, marine officer, and master of the Lexington were among the slain.

By this accident Dale became a prisoner for the third time. This occurred when he wanted just fifty days of being twenty-one years old. On this occasion, however, he escaped unhurt, though the combat had been both fierce and sanguinary. The prize was taken into Plymouth, and her officers, after undergoing a severe examination, in order to ascertain their birthplaces, were all thrown into Mill Prison, on a charge of high treason. Here they found the common men; the whole being doomed to a rigorous and painful confinement.

Either from policy or cupidity, the treatment received by the Americans, in this particular prison, was of a cruel and oppressive character. There is no apology for excessive rigor, or, indeed, for any constraint beyond that which is necessary to security, toward an uncondemned man. Viewed as mere prisoners of war, the Americans might claim the usual indulgence; viewed as subjects still to be tried, they were rightfully included in that healthful maxim of the law, which assumes that all are innocent until they are proved to be guilty. So severe were the privations of the Americans on this occasion, however, that, in pure hunger, they caught a stray dog one day, skinned, cooked and ate him, to satisfy their cravings for food. Their situation at length attracted the attention of the liberal; statements of their wants were laid before the public, and an appeal was made to the humanity of the English nation. This is always an efficient mode of obtaining assistance, and the large sum of sixteen thousand pounds was soon raised; thereby relieving the wants of the sufferers, and effectually effacing the stain from the national escutcheon; by demonstrating that the sufferers found a generous sympathy in the breasts of the public. But man requires more than food and warmth. Although suffering no longer from actual want and brutal maltreatment, Dale and his companions pined for liberty—to be once more fighting the battles of their country. Seeing no hopes of an exchange, a large party of the prisoners determined to make an attempt at escape. A suitable place was selected, and a hole under a wall was commenced. The work required secrecy and time. The earth was removed, little by little, in the pockets of the captives, care being had to conceal the place, until a hole of sufficient size was made to permit the body of a man to pass through. It was a tedious process, for the only opportunity which occurred to empty their pockets, was while the Americans were exercising on the walls of their prison, for a short period of each day. By patience and perseverance they accomplished their purpose, however, every hour dreading exposure and defeat.

When all was ready, Capt. Johnston, most of his officers, and several of his crew, or, as many as were in the secret, passed through the hole, and escaped. This was in February, 1778. The party wandered about the country in company, and by night, for more than a week; suffering all sorts of privations, until it was resolved to take the wiser course of separating. Dale, accompanied by one other, found his way to London, hotly pursued. At one time the two lay concealed under some straw in an out-house, while the premises were searched by those who were in quest of them. On reaching London, Dale and his companion immediately got on board a vessel about to sail for Dunkirk. A press-gang unluckily took this craft in its rounds, and suspecting the true objects of the fugitives, they were arrested, and, their characters being ascertained, they were sent back to Mill Prison in disgrace.

This was the commencement of a captivity far more tedious than the former. In the first place they were condemned to forty days’ confinement in the black hole, as the punishment for the late escape; and, released from this durance, they were deprived of many of their former indulgences. Dale himself took his revenge in singing “rebel songs,” and paid a second visit to the black hole, as the penalty. This state of things, with alternations of favor and punishment, continued quite a year, when Dale, singly, succeeded in again effecting his great object of getting free.

The mode in which this second escape was made is known, but the manner by which he procured the means he refused to his dying day to disclose. At all events, he obtained a full suit of British uniform, attired in which, and seizing a favorable moment, he boldly walked past all the sentinels, and got off. That some one was connected with his escape who might suffer by his revelations is almost certain; and it is a trait in his character worthy of notice, that he kept this secret, with scrupulous fidelity, for forty-seven years. It is not known that he ever divulged it even to any individual of his own family.

Rendered wary by experience, Dale now proceeded with great address and caution. He probably had money, as well as clothes. At all events, he went to London, found means to procure a passport, and left the country for France, unsuspected and undetected. On reaching a friendly soil, he hastened to l’Orient, and joined the force then equipping under Paul Jones, in his old rank of a master’s mate. Here he was actively employed for some months, affording the commodore an opportunity to ascertain his true merits, when they met with something like their just reward. As Dale was now near twenty-three, and an accomplished seaman, Jones, after trying several less competent persons, procured a commission for him from the commissioners, and made him the first lieutenant of his own ship, the justly celebrated Bon Homme Richard.

It is not our intention, in this article, to enter any farther into the incidents of this well known cruise, than is necessary to complete the present subject. Dale does not appear in any prominent situation, though always discharging the duties of his responsible station, with skill and credit, until the squadron appeared off Leith, with the intention of seizing that town—the port of Edinburgh—and of laying it under contribution. On this occasion, our lieutenant was selected to command the boats that were to land, a high compliment to so young a man, as coming from one of the character of Paul Jones. Every thing was ready, Dale had received his final orders, and was in the very act of proceeding to the ship’s side to enter his boat, when a heavy squall struck the vessels, and induced an order for the men to come on deck, and assist in shortening sail. The vessels were compelled to bear up before it, to save their spars; this carried them out of the firth; and, a gale succeeding, the enterprise was necessarily abandoned. This gale proved so heavy, that one of the prizes actually foundered.

This attempt of Jones, while it is admitted to have greatly alarmed the coast, has often been pronounced rash and inconsiderate. Such was not the opinion of Dale. A man of singular moderation in his modes of thinking, and totally without bravado, it was his conviction that the effort would have been crowned with success. He assured the writer, years after the occurrence, that he was about to embark in the expedition with feelings of high confidence, and that he believed nothing but the inopportune intervention of the squall stood between Jones and a triumphant coup de main.

A few days later, Jones made a secret proposal to his officers, which some affirm was to burn the shipping at North Shields, but which the commanders of two of his vessels strenuously opposed, in consequence of which the project was abandoned. The commodore himself, in speaking of the manner in which this and other similar propositions were received by his subordinates, extolled the ardor invariably manifested by the young men, among whom Dale was one of the foremost. Had it rested with them, the attempts at least would all have been made.

On the 19th September occurred the celebrated battle between the Serapis and the Bon Homme Richard. As the proper place to enter fully into the details of that murderous combat will be in the biography of Jones, we shall confine ourselves at present to incidents with which the subject of this memoir was more immediately connected.

The Bon Homme Richard had finally sailed on this cruise with only two proper sea-lieutenants on board her. There was a third officer of the name of Lunt, who has been indifferently called a lieutenant and the sailing-master, but who properly filled the latter station. This gentleman had separated from the ship in a fog, on the coast of Ireland, while in the pursuit of some deserters, and never rejoined the squadron. Another person of the same name, and believed to be the brother of the master, was the second lieutenant. He was sent in a pilot-boat, accompanied by a midshipman and several men, to capture a vessel in sight, before Jones made the Baltic fleet coming round Flamborough Head. This party was not able to return to the Bon Homme Richard, until after the battle had terminated. In consequence of these two circumstances, each so novel in itself, the American frigate fought this bloody and arduous combat with only one officer on board her, of the rank of a sea-lieutenant, who was Dale. This is the reason why the latter is so often mentioned as the lieutenant of the Bon Homme Richard, during that memorable fight. The fact rendered his duties more arduous and diversified, and entitles him to the greater credit for their proper performance.

Dale was stationed on the gun-deck, where of course he commanded in chief, though it appears that his proper personal division was the forward guns. Until the ships got foul of each other, this brought him particularly into the hottest of the work; the Serapis keeping much on the bows, or ahead of the Bon Homme Richard. It is known that Jones was much pleased with his deportment, which, in truth, was every way worthy of his own. When the alarm was given that the ship was sinking, Dale went below himself to ascertain the real state of the water, and his confident and fearless report cheered the men to renewed exertions. Shortly after, the supply of powder was stopped, when our lieutenant again quitted his quarters to inquire into the cause. On reaching the magazine passage he was told by the sentinels that they had closed the ingress, on account of a great number of strange and foreign faces that they saw around them. On further inquiry, Dale discovered that the master at arms, of his own head, had let loose all the prisoners—more than a hundred in number—under the belief that the ship was sinking. Dale soon saw the danger which might ensue, but finding the English much alarmed at the supposed condition of the ship, he succeeded in mustering them, and setting them at work at the pumps, where, by their exertions, they probably prevented the apprehended calamity. For some time, at the close of the action, all his guns being rendered useless, Dale was employed principally in this important service. There is no question that without some such succor, the Richard would have gone down much earlier than she did. It is a singular feature of this every-way extraordinary battle, that here were Englishmen, zealously employed in aiding the efforts of their enemies, under the cool control of a collected and observant officer.

At length the cheerful intelligence was received that the enemy had struck. Dale went on deck, and immediately demanded Jones’ permission to take possession of the prize. It was granted, and had he never manifested any other act of personal intrepidity, his promptitude on this occasion, and the manner in which he went to work, to attain his purpose, would have shown him to be a man above personal considerations, when duty or honor pointed out his course. The main-yard of the Serapis was hanging a-cock-bill, over the side of the American ship. The brace was shot away, and the pendant hung within reach. Seizing the latter, Dale literally swung himself off, and alighted alone on the quarter-deck of the Serapis. Here he found no one but the brave Pierson, who had struck his own flag; but the men below were still ignorant of the act. We may form an opinion of the risk that the young man ran, in thus boarding his enemy at night, and in the confusion of such a combat, for the English were still firing below, by the fact that Mr. Mayrant, a young man of South Carolina, and a midshipman of the Bon Homme Richard, who led a party after the lieutenant, was actually run through the thigh by a boarding pike, and by the hands of a man in the waist below.

The first act of Dale, on getting on the quarter deck of the Serapis, was to direct her captain to go on board the American ship. While thus employed, the English first lieutenant came up from below, and finding that the Americans had ceased their fire, he demanded if they had struck. “No, sir,” answered Dale, “it is this ship that has struck, and you are my prisoner.” An appeal to Capt. Pierson confirming this, the English lieutenant offered to go below and silence the remaining guns of the Serapis. To this Dale objected, and had both the officers passed on board the Bon Homme Richard. In a short time, the English below were sent from their guns, and full possession was obtained of the prize.

As more men were soon sent from the Bon Homme Richard, the two ships were now separated, the Richard making sail, and Jones ordering Dale to follow with the prize. A sense of fatigue had come over the latter, in consequence of the reaction of so much excitement and so great exertions, and he took a seat on the binnacle. Here he issued an order to brace the head yards aback, and to put the helm down. Wondering that the ship did not pay off, he directed that the wheel-ropes should be examined. It was reported that they were not injured, and that the helm was hard down. Astonished to find the ship immovable under such circumstances, there being a light breeze, Dale sprang upon his feet, and then discovered, for the first time, that he had been severely wounded, by a splinter, in the foot and ankle. The hurt, now that he was no longer sustained by the excitement of battle, deprived him of the use of his leg, and he fell. Just at this moment, Mr. Lunt, the officer who had been absent in the pilot-boat, reached the Richard, and Dale was forced to give up to him the command of the prize. The cause of the Serapis’ not minding her helm was the fact that Capt. Pierson had dropped an anchor under foot when the two ships got foul; a circumstance of which the Americans were ignorant until this moment.

Dale was some time laid up with his wound, but he remained with Jones in his old station of first lieutenant, accompanying that officer, in the Alliance, from the Texel to l’Orient. In the controversy which ensued between the commodore and Landais, our lieutenant took sides warmly with the first, and even offered to head a party to recover the Alliance, by force. This measure not being resorted to, he remained with Jones, and finally sailed with him for America, as his first lieutenant, in the Ariel 20, a ship lent to the Americans, by the King of France.

The Ariel quitted port in October, 1780, but encountered a tremendous gale of wind off the Penmarks. Losing her masts, she was compelled to return to refit. On this occasion Dale, in his responsible situation of first lieutenant, showed all the coolness of his character, and the resources of a thorough seaman. The tempest was almost a hurricane, and of extraordinary violence. The Ariel sailed a second time about the commencement of the year 1781, and reached Philadelphia on the 18th February. During the passage home, she had a short action, in the night, with a heavy British letter-of-marque, that gave her name as the Triumph; and which ship is said to have struck, but to have made her escape by treachery. Jones, who was greedy of glory, even fancied that his enemy was a vessel of war, and that he had captured a vessel of at least equal force. This was not Dale’s impression. He spoke of the affair to the writer of this article, as one of no great moment, even questioning whether their antagonist struck at all; giving it as his belief she was a quick-working and fast-sailing letter-of-marque. He distinctly stated that she got off by out-manœuvring the Ariel, which vessel was badly manned, and had an exceedingly mixed and disaffected crew. It is worthy of remark that, while two articles, enumerating the services of Dale, have been written by gentlemen connected with himself, and possessing his confidence, neither mentions this affair; a proof, in itself, that Dale considered it one of little moment.

The account which Dale always gave of the meeting between the Ariel and Triumph—admitting such to have been the name of the English ship—so different from that which has found its way into various publications, on the representation of other actors in that affair, is illustrative of the character of the man. Simple of mind, totally without exaggeration, and a lover, as well as a practicer, of severe truth, he was a man whose representations might be fully relied on. Even in his account of the extraordinary combat between the Richard and Serapis, he stripped the affair of all its romance, and of every thing that was wonderful; rendering the whole clear, simple and intelligible as his own thoughts. The only narratives of that battle, worthy of a seaman, have been written rigidly after his explanations, which leave it a bloody and murderous fight, but one wholly without the marvelous.

On his arrival at Philadelphia, after an absence of four years, more than one of which had been spent in prison, Dale was just twenty-four years and two months old. He was now regularly put on the list of lieutenants, by the marine committee of Congress; his former authority proceeding from the agents of the government in Europe. It is owing to this circumstance that the register of government places him so low as a lieutenant. Dale now parted from Paul Jones, with whom he had served near two years; and that, too, in some of the most trying scenes of the latter’s life. The commodore was anxious to take his favorite lieutenant with him to the America 74; but the latter declined the service, under the impression it would be a long time before the ship got to sea. He judged right, the America being transferred to the French in the end, and Jones himself never again sailing under the American flag.

The name of Dale will inseparably be connected with the battle of the Richard and Serapis. His prominent position and excellent conduct entitle him to this mark of distinction, and it says much for the superior, when it confers fame to have been “Paul Jones’ first lieutenant.” We smile, however, at the legends of the day, when we recall the account of the “Lieutenants Grubb” and other heroes of romance, who have been made to figure in the histories of that renowned combat, and place them in contrast with the truth-loving, sincere, moral and respectable subject of this memoir. The sword which Louis XVI. bestowed on Jones, for this victory, passed into the hands of Dale, and is now the property of a gallant son, a fitting mark of the services of the father, on the glorious occasion it commemorates.^[4]

Dale was employed on board a schooner that was manned from the Ariel, after reaching Philadelphia, and sent down the Delaware to convoy certain public stores. The following June, he joined the Trumbull 28, Captain Nicholson, as her first lieutenant. The Trumbull left the capes of the Delaware on the 8th August, 1781, being chased off the land by three of the enemy’s cruisers. The weather was squally and night set in dark. In endeavoring to avoid her pursuers, the Trumbull found herself alongside of the largest, a frigate of thirty-two guns, and an action was fought under the most unfavorable circumstances. The Trumbull’s fore-topmast was hanging over, or rather through her forecastle, her crew was disorganized, and the vessel herself in a state of no preparation for a conflict with an equal force; much less with that actually opposed to her. The officers made great exertions, and maintained an action of more than an hour, when the colors of the American ship were struck to the Iris 32, and Monk 18. The former of these vessels had been the American frigate Hancock, and the latter was subsequently captured in the Delaware, by Barney in the Hyder Ally.

This was the fourth serious affair in which Dale had been engaged that war, and the fourth time he had been captured. As he was hurt also in this battle, it made the third of his wounds. His confinement, however, was short, and the treatment not a subject of complaint. He was taken into New York, paroled on Long Island, and exchanged in November.

No new service offering in a marine which, by this time, had lost most of its ships, Dale obtained a furlough, and joined a large letter-of-marque called the Queen of France, that carried twelve guns, as her first officer. Soon after he was appointed to the command of the same vessel. In the spring of 1782, this ship, in company with several other letters-of-marque, sailed for France, making many captures by the way. The ship of Dale, however, parted from the fleet, and, falling in with an English privateer of fourteen guns, a severe engagement followed, in which both parties were much cut up; they parted by mutual consent. Dale did not get back to Philadelphia until February of the succeeding year, or until about the time that peace was made.

In common with most of the officers of the navy, Lieutenant Dale was disbanded, as soon as the war ceased. He was now in the twenty-seventh year of his age, with a perfect knowledge of his profession, in which he had passed more than half his life, a high reputation for his rank, a courage that had often been tried, a body well scarred, a character beyond reproach, and not altogether without “money in his purse.” Under the circumstances, he naturally determined to follow up his fortunes in the line in which he had commenced his career. He became part owner of a large ship, and sailed in her for London, December, 1783, in the station of master. After this, he embarked successfully in the East India trade, in the same character, commanding several of the finest ships out of the country. In this manner he accumulated a respectable fortune, and began to take his place among the worthies of the land in a new character.

In September, 1791, Mr. Dale was married to Dorothy Crathorne, the daughter of another respectable ship-master of Philadelphia, and then a ward of Barry’s. With this lady he passed the remainder of his days, she surviving him as his widow, and dying some years later than himself. No change in his pursuits occurred until 1794, when the new government commenced the organization of another marine, which has resulted in that which the country now possesses.

Dale was one of the six captains appointed under the law of 1794, that directed the construction of as many frigates, with a view to resist the aggressions of Algiers. Each of the new captains was ordered to superintend the construction of one of the frigates, and Dale, who was fifth in rank, was directed to assume the superintendence of the one laid down at Norfolk, virtually the place of his nativity. This ship was intended to be a frigate of the first class, but, by some mistake in her moulds, she proved in the end to be the smallest of the six vessels then built. It was the unfortunate Chesapeake, a vessel that never was in a situation to reflect much credit on the service. Her construction, however, was deferred, in consequence of an arrangement with Algiers, and her captain was put on furlough.

Dale now returned to the China trade, in which he continued until the spring of 1798. The last vessel he commanded was called the Ganges. She was a fine, fast ship, and the state of our relations with France requiring a hurried armament, the government bought this vessel, in common with several others, put an armament of suitable guns in her, with a full crew, gave her to Dale, and ordered her on the coast as a regular cruiser.

In consequence of this arrangement, Capt. Dale was the first officer who ever got to sea under the pennant of the present navy. He sailed in May, 1798, and was followed by the Constellation and Delaware in a few days. The service of Dale in his new capacity was short, however, in consequence of some questions relating to rank. The captains appointed in 1794 claimed their old places, and, it being uncertain what might be the final decision of the government, as there were many aspirants, Dale declined serving until the matter was determined. In May, 1799, he sailed for Canton again, in command of a strong letter-of-marque, under a furlough. On his return from this voyage he found his place on the list settled according to his own views of justice and honor, and reported himself for service. Nothing offered, however, until the difficulties with France were arranged; but, in May, 1801, he was ordered to take command of a squadron of observation about to be sent to the Mediterranean.

Dale now hoisted his broad pennant, for the first and only time, and assumed the title by which he was known for the rest of his days. He was in the prime of life, being in his forty-fifth year, of an active, manly frame, and had every prospect before him of a long and honorable service. The ships put under his orders were the President 44, Capt. James Barron; Philadelphia 38, Capt. Samuel Barron; Essex 32, Capt. William Bainbridge; and Enterprise 12, Lieut. Com. Sterrett. A better appointed, or a better commanded force, probably never sailed from America. But there was little to do, under the timid policy and defective laws of the day. War was not supposed to exist, although hostilities did; and vessels were sent into foreign seas with crews shipped for a period that would scarcely allow of a vessel’s being got into proper order.

The squadron sailed June 1st, 1801, and reached Gibraltar July 1st. The Philadelphia blockaded the Tripolitan admiral, with two cruisers, in Gibraltar, while the other vessels went aloft. A sharp action occurred between the Enterprise and a Tripolitan of equal force, in which the latter was compelled to submit, but was allowed to go into her own port again, for want of legal authority to detain her. Dale appeared off Tripoli, endeavored to negotiate a little about an exchange of prisoners, and did blockade the port; but his orders fettered him in a way to prevent any serious enterprises. In a word, no circumstances occurred to allow the commodore to show his true character, except as it was manifested in his humanity, prudence and dignity. As a superior, he obtained the profound respect of all under his orders, and to this day his name is mentioned with regard by those who then served under him. It is thought that this squadron did much toward establishing the high discipline of the marine. In one instance only had Dale an opportunity of manifesting his high personal and professional qualities. The President struck a rock in quitting Port Mahon, and for some hours she was thought to be in imminent danger of foundering. Dale assumed the command, and one of his lieutenants, himself subsequently a flag officer of rare seamanship and merit, has often recounted to the writer his admiration of the commodore’s coolness, judgment, and nerve, on so trying an occasion. The ship was carried to Toulon, blowing a gale, and, on examination, it was found that she was only saved from destruction by the skilful manner in which the wood ends had been secured.

The vigilance of Dale was so great, however, and his dispositions so skilful, that the Tripolitans made no captures while he commanded in those seas. In March, 1802, he sailed for home, under his orders, reaching Hampton Roads in April, after a cruise of about ten months. The succeeding autumn, Com. Dale received an order to hold himself in readiness to resume the command from which he had just returned. Ever ready to serve his country, when it could be done with honor, he would cheerfully have made his preparations accordingly, but, by the order itself, he ascertained that he was to be sent out without a captain in his own ship. This, agreeably to the notions he entertained, was a descent in the scale of rank, and he declined serving on such terms. There being no alternative between obedience and resignation, he chose the latter, and quitted the navy. At this time, he was the third captain on the list, and it is no more than justice to say, that he stood second to no other in the public estimation.

Dale never went to sea again. Possessed of an ample fortune, and possessing the esteem of all who knew him, he commanded the respect of those with whom he differed in opinion touching the question which drove him from the navy. With the latter he never quarreled, for, at the proper period, he gave to it his two elder sons. To the last he retained his interest in its success, and his care of mariners, in general, extended far beyond the interests of this life.

Many years previously to his death, Com. Dale entered into full communion with the Protestant Episcopal Church, of which he proved a consistent and pious member. Under the newly awakened feelings which induced this step, he was the originater of a Mariner’s Church, in Philadelphia, attending it in person, every Sunday afternoon, for a long succession of years. He was as free with his purse, too, as with his time; and his charities, though properly concealed, were believed to be large and discriminating. With some it may be deemed a matter of moment, with all it should be a proof of the estimation in which Dale was held by certainly a very respectable part of his fellow citizens, that he was named to be the first president of the Washington Benevolent Society; an association that soon degenerated to serve the ends of party politics, whatever may have been the design that influenced the few with which it originated.

The evening of the life of Dale was singularly peaceful and happy. It was as calm as its morning had been tempestuous. It is true he had to weep for the loss of his first-born son, a noble youth, who died of wounds received in the action between his old ship, the President, and a British squadron; but he had given the young man to his country, and knew how to bear up under the privation. He died, himself, in the seventieth year of his age, in his dwelling at Philadelphia, February 26th, 1826; departing in peace with God and man, as he fondly trusted himself, and as those who survive have every reason to hope.

By his marriage with Miss Crathorne, Com. Dale had several children, five of whom lived to become men and women, viz. three sons and two daughters. Of the former, Richard, the eldest, fell, at an early age, a midshipman on board the President. John Montgomery, the second, is now a commander in the navy, having served with Warrington, in the last English war. This gentleman is married to a lady of the well known family of Willing. Edward Crathorne, the youngest son, is a merchant of Philadelphia. He is married and has children. The eldest daughter, Sarah, married T. M’Kean Pettit, Esq., a judge of the District Court, in Philadelphia, and is dead, leaving issue. Elizabeth, the youngest, is the wife of Com. George Campbell Reed, of the navy, and has no issue.

In considering the character of Dale, we are struck with its simple modesty and frank sincerity, quite as much as with its more brilliant qualities. His courage and constancy were of the highest order, rendering him always equal to the most critical duties, and never wearying in their performance. Such a man is perfectly free from all exaggeration. As he was not afraid to act when his cooler judgment approved, he had no distrusts to overcome ere he could forbear, as prudence dictated. Jones found him a man ready and willing to second all his boldest and most hazardous attempts, so long as reason showed the probabilities of success; but the deed done, none more thoroughly stripped it of all false coloring, or viewed it in a truer light than he who had risked his life in aiding to achieve it.

The person of Dale was in harmony with his moral qualities. It was manly, seaman-like, and of singularly respectable bearing. Simplicity, good faith, truth and courage were imprinted on his countenance, which all who were thrown into his company soon discovered was no more than the mirror of his mind. The navy has had more brilliant intellects, officers of profounder mental attainments, and of higher natural gifts, but it has had few leaders of cooler judgment, sounder discretion, more inflexible justice, or indomitable resolution. He was of a nature, an experience, and a professional skill to command respect and to inspire confidence, tributes that were cheerfully paid by all who served under his orders. The writer of this article has had extensive opportunities of hearing character discussed among the sea-officers of his country; few escape criticism, of some sort or other, for their professional acts, and fewer still, as men; yet he cannot recall a single instance in which he has ever heard a whisper of complaint against the public or private career of Richard Dale. This total exemption from the usual fortunes of the race may, in part, be owing to the shortness of the latter’s service in the present marine, and to the limited acquaintance of his cotemporaries, but it is difficult to believe that it is not chiefly to be ascribed to the thoroughly seaman-like character of the officer, and to the perfect truth and sterling probity of the man.

———

BY THE AUTHOR OF “HENRI QUATRE.”

———

’Twas the eve of Newbury fair, and the time near the close of the long reign of Harry the Eighth, after monasteries were suppressed. Reform stalked through the land—all things were turned topsy-turvy—abbots and monks beggared, that poor lords might thrive—priests permitted marriage, and nuns driven from their pleasant retreats, were forced to spin for a livelihood. But amid the greater marvels, the townspeople of Newbury had often leisure to ask why Mistress Avery remained so long a widow.

Sitting in her embowered porch, watching the cavalcade of merchants, buffoons and jugglers, on their way to the encampment and site of the morrow’s revels, she attracted many a longing eye. The merchant, whose wandering vocation led him from ancient Byzantium to the shores of the Thames, who came to Newbury to exchange rich silks and foreign jewelry for broadcloth, as he rode by the capacious square tenement, with its deep, embayed windows of dark chesnut-wood, and caught a glimpse of the fair owner, sighed when contrasting his own desolate, wandering lot with that of the fortunate wooer of the rich, comely widow. Mistress Avery was relict of the richest clothier of Newbury, who, dying, left her in sole possession of looms, lands, tenements and leases. Handsome, young, brisk, with riches unquestionable, she attracted tender regards from all quarters—even the proud gentry of Berkshire, with genealogical tree rooting from Norman marauder, far back as the conquest, disdained not an alliance garnished with broad manors, woods of a century’s growth, and goodly array of tenements, of which our widow held fee-simple. But when pressed successively by belted knight and worshipful esquire, she courteously declined their offers, alleging she was bent on marrying one of her own class in life, (if she should change condition,) one who could take upon himself, without degradation, the task of superintending the looms. High born swains repulsed, the field was open to gallants of lowlier rank. But these faring no better, and incurring the ridicule of neighbors, suitors became shy and reserved, seeking to extract token of favor ere they avowed themselves. If the curate called, ’twas merely an inquiry after her soul’s health—the inquiry perhaps linked to a request that she would, from her stores of boundless wealth, add a trifle to the contributions of the poor’s box. The lawyer had his ever ready and undeniable excuses for visiting—leases there were to sign, indentures to cancel. Nor was the tailor barred his plea—was there not much broadcloth yearly fashioned into apparel for lusty serving-man, active apprentice?

Behind Mistress Avery, as she sat gazing at the straggling pageantry, there loitered in hall and doorway the apprentices and domestic servants of the household. Distinguished amongst his companions, by superior stature, stood John Winehcomb, chief apprentice. To him the widow oft turned with remark on passing stranger; the soft regard thrown into her address would have excused boldness in one far less favored by nature than the apprentice, but his answers were submissive, modest, even bashful. An acute observer might perhaps have detected a shade of discontent on the widow’s handsome features, perhaps, as fancifully, attributed it to the coyness and reserve of young Winehcomb; and, indeed, as revolving months lengthened the period of widowhood, there had not been wanting whispers, that ’Prentice John stood a fairer chance with his mistress than all the knights or reputable burgher citizens and yeomen of the county. His appearance certainly did not gainsay the rumor—he had completed his twentieth year, health flushed his cheeks, honesty and intelligence stamped his looks—the features were bold and decided, though of modest expression. In character, he was one of those gifted youths, in whom strict attention and unvarying promptitude supply the place of experience, and who acquire the management and conduct of business, in ordinary cases, rarely entrusted to men of mature years. The clothier, when dying, recommended his spouse to confide business affairs to John—she had done so; in the factory and with the workmen ’Prentice John was all and everything—from his word ’twas useless to appeal.

But when young Winehcomb’s credit with Mistress Avery was canvassed, the gossips were at a loss to affix on decisive marks of favor or tenderness. ’Tis true, he accompanied her to church, but so did the other apprentices—walked by her side, sat next his mistress during prayers, his arm was accepted, his hand arranged the cushions—but then, was he not chief apprentice, would it not be slighting to prefer the services of a junior? Look narrowly at his conduct—there were none of the characteristics of a favored swain, no semblance of behavior indicating one presumptuous of the honor, nor could the absence of these tokens be attributed to natural timidity in the presence of the sex, for at country meetings and fairs, where hoydenish romping was the usual diversion of youth, John participated in rustic gallantries. Yet, sooth to say, though the gossips were at fault, they were not wrong in their conjectures; the widow was deeply in love with ’Prentice John, for his sake had dismissed high-born suitors, wealthy citizens, and, we need hardly say, (though scrupulously regardful of reputation,) had given him many hints, which, alas! he was slow to understand. It might be inexperience, want of self-confidence, or innate modesty, which withheld the youth from tracing her encouragement to its real motive; but from whatever cause, Mistress Avery, who had a very high opinion of her own personal attractions, knew he must be perfectly well acquainted with her riches, was greatly perplexed with his diffidence, his want of susceptibility, and concluded the apprentice must be in love elsewhere to withstand such allurements.

One while, racked with jealousy, determined in very spite and vexation to accept the offer of the first suitor, the next hour affection gained the ascendancy, and she resolved to declare her love. But pride took fire and caused a tumult in the heart, of which young Winehcomb, the unconscious origin, was little aware. How provoking the calmness of his replies, the quiet gaze which met her impassioned glance! Oft with difficulty she refrained from bestowing a hearty cuff on the cold youth, object of fond desire—as often, and with greater difficulty, did she refrain from tenderer salute. To-morrow shall put this wilful-headed boy to the test! If his heart be engaged, it is more than likely he has made an assignation, which I will frustrate! So thought Mistress Avery, revolving a scheme to bring young Diffidence on his knees, or to a direct confession that he loved another. Under pretence of making inquiries respecting the description of merchandise then passing the house, borne on a long train of pack-horses, under conduct of merchants of foreign aspect, the widow beckoned the apprentice (who was standing at respectful distance, beneath the threshold, with his fellow apprentices) to approach her chair, placed outside the house under cover of the overarching porch.

“John!” said the dame, fixing her large eyes on the youth, “I warrant there is store enough of trinkets and finery in yon bales to satisfy the wants of every maiden in Newbury. Happy the youth whose wages are unspent, for to-morrow, by ’r Lady! he might buy the love of the most hard-hearted damsel. Certes, no swain need die of love, if he have money in his purse!”

“If the love were bought by those foreign pedlar wares, it would not be much for a Newbury lad to boast of,” replied the young man, blushing—for the gaze of his mistress was keen and ardent.

“Are the lads of Newbury then so disinterested, Master John,” exclaimed the widow. “Well! I will put one, at least, to the proof. I must walk through the fair, if only to chat with my tenants’ wives from Spene and Thatcham, and shall need your protection, for these strange foreigners may be rude, and Cicely is such a coward she would run away.”

Mrs. Avery was rather baffled by the result of her own feint; for, contrary to expectation, she could discover neither chagrin nor disappointment; the apprentice answered cheerfully, he should be proud to attend on his honored mistress, and would not forget a good cudgel, more than a match for any foreigner’s steel—nay, to ensure her from insult, he would bring all his fellow apprentices. This was more than the lady desired. She was again puzzled, and declined, rather pettishly, the extra corps of gallants, volunteered by the apprentice, more especially, as she affirmed that it was contrary to the letter and spirit of their indentures, which guaranteed festival and fair-days to be at their own disposal. But they would gladly abandon the privilege to do her service, rejoined the pertinacious and simple youth, with ill-timed assiduity.

“Fool!” muttered the widow between her teeth, but not so indistinctly as to pass unheard by the apprentice, who immediately drew back abashed.

A bright morrow gladdened the hearts of the good folk of Newbury. The morn was occupied in the sale and purchase of commodities—the staple article of the town was readily exchanged for foreign merchandise, or broad Spanish pieces, as suited the inclination of the parties dealing. These were busy hours for young Winehcomb and his associates, but amply redeemed by the gayety and attractive dissipation of the afternoon. In walking through the fair, Mistress Avery leaned on the youth’s arm, an honor envied the apprentice by many an anxious, would-be suitor. Ere growing tired of the drollery of the jugglers, mountebanks and buffoons, or the more serious spectacle of the scenic moralites, they encountered Master Luke Milner, the attorney, who thought the opportunity should not be thrown away of endeavoring to gain the widow’s good graces. Master Luke believed his chance very fair—he was of good family, on the youthful side of thirty, but exceedingly foppish, after the style of the London gallants, but caricatured—too many ribbons on doublet, too many jewels on beaver, shoes garnished with roses large as sunflowers. “The worshipful attorney will never do for me,” thought Mistress Avery! She had often thought so, and was blind to many courtesies and compliments which the learned man ventured to throw in with his legal opinions. But now she had a part to play, a stratagem to practice on the feelings of young Winehcomb. Love, like hunger, will break through every restraint; she scrupled not making the lawyer’s vanity subservient to her policy, and, accordingly, listened to his flattery with more than ordinary attention, keeping an eye, the while, on ’Prentice John, to observe the effect of the legal gallant’s honeyed speeches. Alas! for poor, love-stricken Mistress Avery—no burning jealousy flushed the cheek of John—lightened in his eye, or trembled through his frame! Hearing the conversation grow each moment more interesting and tender, believing himself one too many, he politely retired to a respectful distance. Was he so cold and insensible, the handsome blockhead? soliloquized Mistress Avery, heedless of the lawyer’s flowing speeches—I will break the indentures—banish him the house! The wretch!

Not cold, not insensible, Mistress Avery, for see! Even whilst he loiters, there approaches a party from the village of Spene, with whom our apprentice is intimate—he laughs, chats with the young men and maidens, and finally, as the mirth grows more uproarious, salutes a very handsome, fresh colored, smart young damsel. The dame, who witnessed the scene, stung with jealousy, believing her suspicions confirmed, broke off abruptly, whilst Master Luke was at the very acme of his tender theme; leaving the astonished gallant, cap in hand, to the derision of acquaintance, who sarcastically advised him to repair the loss by writ of error.

——

CHAPTER II.

Though the widow took no notice of the incident which aroused her jealousy, John was made sensible he had incurred her displeasure. She walked silent, moody, reserved, scarcely replied to his remarks; her large, dark eye flashed anger, but the apprentice, though awed, was struck with its beauty, more struck than he had ever been. It was a new sensation he experienced. He inwardly deprecated the threatened wrath, wondered by what sad mischance he had incurred it, was more tremblingly alive to her resentment, than when oft-times—during the course of apprenticeship—conscious of deserving it. A strange, uneasy feeling began to haunt him—he was sensible of loss of favor, and though, after taxing memory, unconscious of merited disgrace—was surprised, inquieted, by the deep dejection of spirits under which he labored. It seemed as though he had incurred a loss, of which he knew not the extent till now. His arm trembled, and she snappishly rebuked his unsteadiness; he again encountered her glance—it was wild, angry, fierce, yet he felt he could have looked forever.

They were opposite one of those temporary taverns, erected for the accommodation of the higher classes frequenting the fair—tricked out with gaudy splendor, yet affording delicious viands, choice wines to wearied strollers. It so happened that, passing by the open doorway, their progress was arrested by Master Nathaniel Buttress, the wealthy tanner—mean, avaricious, advanced in years, yet ardently longing to add the widow’s possessions to his own accumulated riches. With studied bow, and precise flourish of beaver, he bade Mistress Avery good day, and followed up the salute by invitation to sip a glass of sack, the fashionable beverage of the time. At fair-season, there was not the slightest impropriety, either in the offer, or its acceptation—it was quite in the usual license of these festivals. But ’Prentice John was doubly surprised; in the first place, that the miserly tanner (his niggardliness was proverbial) should have screwed up courage to treat any one with the high-priced nectar—and that his arm, which he gallantly offered, should have been accepted with alacrity by the fair dame, who, our apprentice was aware, had oft made devious circuits, on many occasions, to elude a meeting. Young Winehcomb found himself, lacquey-fashion, following in the rear. He was deeply mortified—such circumstance had never happened before—yet, though vexed, the annoyance was only secondary to extreme surprise at the character of his own feelings. He had valued highly the good will, kind words, and occasional gifts of the lady, as proofs of favor, founded on his honesty, diligence and promptitude, or, at least, without deeply analizing his feelings, believed that in such spirit he received them. But now, smarting under disgrace, it seemed as though lost favor was dear for its own sake—bereft of smiles to which he had been insensible till the present hour, he was unhappy, miserable. ’Prentice John had great difficulty in withholding his cudgel from the tanner’s back, but though he gave him not a beating, he mentally promised one. Master Buttress, elated with good fortune, was more vain-glorious than cautious; unlike prudent lover, uncertain of continuance of sudden favor, dreading loss of vantage ground, snatched by eager rivals, he escorted the dame to a conspicuous seat, whence they could behold the fair, from whence his favored lot was visible to all. The ready drawers, ere ardor called, hastened to place before the guests a tray laden with costly delicacies, crowned with silver flagon full of the favorite potation. Young Winehcomb, who sat apart, though partaking the dainties, was maddened to behold his mistress listen so complacently to the addresses of the veteran suitor. Could she be serious? And if she were—what then? Was she not absolute mistress of herself, her wealth—and was he so specially concerned in her choice? This self-questioning elicited the conviction, startling though true, that he was deeply, personally concerned. He was, then, undeniably in love with his mistress! Was the passion of sudden growth, the birth of the present hour? Alas! no—it had been long smouldering unconsciously—nay, if he doubted, memory flashed innumerable, though till now, unnoticed facts proving its existence—and he had foolishly let slip the golden chance of wooing till too late—till his advantages were the prey of a successful rival!—his own affection only brought to light by the torch of jealousy. Such was the cruel, torturing position of young Winehcomb. ’Twas aggravated in being obliged to listen to the tanner’s flattery, to witness its favorable reception. Nay, worse—he became conscious that Mistress Avery remarked his inquietude, his ill-suppressed hatred of Master Nathaniel, as her eye was often for a moment bent on him. He was convinced she took pleasure in his torments, for on these occasions her manner—though strictly within the rigid limits of propriety—invariably was more marked and tender toward the detested, fulsome niggard. He had heard, alas! such was the custom of the sex. Often was ’Prentice John resolved on leaving the lovers to their own conversation, but restrained anger on reflecting it was his duty to be present with and protect Mistress Avery, till she quitted the fair and returned home. Nor did he relish the notion of leaving the field altogether to the tanner—jealousy united with sense of duty in detaining the youth.

Master Buttress was in rare good humor; he could not deem otherwise but that he was the fortunate, chosen man, and he found leisure in the intervals of fits of gallantry, to conjure flitting visions of broad manor added to broad manor, tenement to tenement, and to picture the future Master—nay, Worshipful Master Nathaniel Buttress, richest gentleman in the county of Berkshire. The only damp on his high spirits was the present outlay; he had been drawn into expenses far beyond usual habits; had never been guilty of similar extravagance; the veriest prodigal of London could not have ordered a more costly board; and that tall, rosy-cheeked lad imbibed the precious sack with the avidity of a sponge, and never looked a tithe the better humored, but sat grinning menaces at him—the donor of the feast! Well! well! all should soon be remedied, and the disagreeable, lanky apprentice turned adrift.

“But who is that now passing the tavern; is it not Master Luke Milner, the attorney? How enviously he looks! he has the reputation of having pressed hard his own suit, but in vain! If I invite him, he will gladly come—drink the widow’s health—and it will save me half the reckoning!” So reasoned the tanner. The lawyer accepted the invitation, though a slight shade of displeasure, he could not wholly dispel, flushed his brow. Master Luke entered, bowing lowly to the widow. Drawing a chair, near as good manners admitted, to the fair dame, he carefully deposited scented gloves and jeweled beaver on adjoining bench, and, in sitting, showed anxiety to display a trim foot, though rather overshadowed by the large roses. The tanner soon perceived that avarice had induced a grievous oversight, for the widow was not quite won. It was both unaccountable and annoying—how perverse these women are! she seemed now disposed to extend as much favor to Master Luke as she had previously exhibited to Master Buttress. ’Prentice John was pleased and distressed at the scene—glad of the tanner’s discomfiture, he was enraged at the other’s success. The elder suitor had shown indifference to the presence of the apprentice, viewed him as a necessary appendage to the widow’s state, or, at worst, a tax on his purse to the extent of sack imbibed; but our lawyer, nearer John’s own age, and gifted with keener eye than his rival, liked not young Winehcomb’s vicinity, his prying, resolute gaze.

“Mistress Avery,” said the lawyer blandly, “our young friend appears uneasy; nor do I wonder, for more than once, in the fair, did I hear red, pouting lips lament the absence of Jack Winehcomb. I pray thee, suffer the lad to stroll where he lists; Master Nathaniel and your unworthy servant, with permission, will zealously protect the pride and boast of Newbury.”

If John had broken any engagement by attendance on her, replied the dame—and a keen smile, part malicious, part searching, lit up the widow’s features as she gazed on the disconcerted youth—let him seek Cicely, who was not far off, to take his place, and he had full permission to absent himself. ’Prentice John, though vexed and out of countenance, said he had no other engagement than duty enjoined, and he was entirely at his mistress’ command.

“Then I must not spoil Cicely’s holiday,” remarked the widow. The apprentice was doubtful whether she spoke in displeasure or not—the tone of voice and expression of countenance were equivocal. A quiet smile, which played for an instant around her mouth, when he declared he had no engagement, presaged returning favor, but the horizon was again clouded. Mistress Avery, turning to the gallants, said the youth should have his own way, that for herself she never found his presence irksome—he was so stupid, she might talk treason in his company without danger—what she was obliged to say was generally misunderstood. Stupid! misunderstood! Were there, in these words, more meant than met the ear? Had he been so blind, so deaf? Meanwhile the situation of the rivals was far from pleasant; the tanner had introduced an enemy within the fortress, whom he could neither dislodge nor compete with; the lawyer was angry that he had not the field to himself; whilst fair Mistress Avery, with impartial justice, hung the scales of favor suspended. Neither could now positively declare he was the chosen swain. Half suppressed taunts, and sarcasm clothed in ceremonious language, threatened more open bickering, when Master Luke, with due regard to a lady’s feelings, besought her to pardon their absence for a few minutes, as he suddenly recollected an affair important to the welfare of his friend, Master Buttress. The dame was condescending, declared she had too much regard for Master Nathaniel to deem their absence a slight, under the circumstances; so the lawyer, affecting to produce a leathern note-case, retired with his rival. The apprentice felt his situation awkward, but he was presently relieved; Mistress Avery bade him follow the gentlemen unperceived, and if they drew weapons, or otherwise exhibited hostilities, immediately interfere to prevent mischief. Concealed by the angle of a canvass booth, he listened, unseen, to the wordy strife. The lawyer was cool, sarcastic, overbearing; the tanner, fiery and threatening. Presuming on youth, good figure, and flowing rhetoric, the former contemned the pretensions of the elder rival, whom he affirmed had nothing to recommend him but wealth not needed; why, therefore, pursue a rivalry, when he could not lay claim to one certain token of affection? And the man of law began enumerating the distinguishing marks of favor which Dame Avery, spite of prudent, cautious, self-restraint, could not avoid exhibiting as soon as he entered the tavern. The tanner’s replication was in the same style. If these be marks of affection, thought the listener, what would they say to my pretensions if I told all? And ’Prentice John, as he listened and commented on what he heard, grew a wiser, more knowing youth.

“If thou wert a younger man, Master Nathaniel,” said the lawyer, “there would be no need for these mutual taunts. We have a readier mode of settling⁠—”

“Curse thy youth, and thee too,” exclaimed the tanner; “ ’cause thou art a vain, braggart fop, with thy galloon and thy large cabbage roses, think’st to brave it over me?—there!—and there!” And so saying, the valiant tanner dealt successive cuffs on Master Luke’s doublet, and drawing weapon, awaited the attack. Their rapiers—for the tanner, though following a handicraft, yet, as owning broad lands, deemed himself entitled to wear a weapon and dub himself gentleman—immediately crossed, but the alert apprentice, with stout cudgel, threw himself between and struck down their guard.

“Good sirs! good sirs! forbear!” cried one hastening to assist young Winehcomb. ’Twas the curate of Spene. The belligerents immediately sheathed their weapons, muttering future vengeance. The holy man requested to know the cause of quarrel, and offered to act as umpire. This, after demur and consideration, was agreed to. Hearing each in turn, he proposed, as more becoming their respective characters than fighting, that the case should be stated to Mistress Avery—the election left to the fair widow. As each deemed himself the favored candidate, and, indeed, with good cause, for our dame had been gracious to both, the curate’s proposal was accepted, and his eloquence solicited to open the pleadings. The party thereupon returned to the tavern, the apprentice not the least interested actor in the drama.

The curate of Spene, though grave and sententious, threw into his speech an under current of humor and bonhommie, which touched off the pretensions of each suitor with dramatic effect and felicity. Neither could question his impartiality, nor had he, as he affirmed, secret preponderance either way; both were esteemed friends, both had received the offices of the church at his hands, both had listened to his Sabbath exhortations. Which of the twain reigned in the lady’s heart, to him he should offer congratulation; to the other he could fairly say, that he merited the honor for which he had unsuccessfully striven.

There was a pause, a deep silence. The blushing widow must now speak, declare herself, decide her own fate, and with it the fortunes of the suitors. How ardently did ’Prentice John long for one of the many opportunities of pleading his passion, oft thrown in his way, so heedlessly neglected! Would she indeed make an election? then, farewell, Newbury! in some far distant land would he hide his disgrace, forget his folly.

Mistress Avery said the gentlemen had certainly given her cause long to remember Newbury Fair; yet they could not expect her mind made up on so momentous a question of a sudden; besides, it was now Wednesday, which had ever been an unlucky day with the Averys, but to-morrow (Thursday) week they should have a decisive answer—her preference made known—provided, and it was the only stipulation besides secrecy, they both refrained pressing their amorous suits in the interim.

So ended the conference, and as the rivals, with the curate, gallantly bade the lady adieu (having promised obedience in every particular) ’Prentice John, in a paroxysm of anger and remorse, made firm resolve that he would challenge to mortal combat the favored suitor, beat him within an inch of life if he refused to fight, upbraid the widow for secretly fomenting a passion which she laughed at, and flee, forever, the town of Newbury.

“You forget, John, I shall need your arm through the press,” exclaimed the dame reproachfully. The apprentice started; he had been leaning against the bench, lost in bitter reverie; he saw not his mistress was waiting. Uttering an indistinct apology, he escorted the lady from the tavern in time to witness that the tanner had been sufficiently adroit to palm off half the expense of the entertainment on his rival. Whether this was omen of higher fortune, the sequel will show.

They scarcely spoke during the remainder of the walk, nor even after reaching home. ’Prentice John was reserved, melancholy, brooding over bitter reflections; the dame, sly, observant, oft casting furtive glances at young Winehcomb, seemingly, as he thought, indulging secret pleasure on beholding his misery. On the morrow they were together in the compting-room; it was his duty to produce entries of the bales of cloth sold during the business-period of the Fair; to account for the same in bullion, or according to the terms of sale.

“These for thyself, John,” said the widow, placing a few gold pieces on the table, whilst she proceeded to place, under triple lock, the remainder. They remained untouched. The third lock of the huge iron chest duly shot, the dame arose, was surprised on beholding the money still lying unappropriated; John looking like man under sentence of death.

“Have I grown niggardly, Master Winehcomb?” exclaimed the widow, “speak, if you would have more.”

John replied by asking if she thought the ten pieces sufficient to equip him, and pay passage to Cadiz, where he heard an expedition was fitting out, in which many Englishmen had volunteered. Mistress Avery, with a calmness which confirmed his despair, replied in the negative, but demanded why he should think of starting for Cadiz, ere, indeed, his indentures were determined. The apprentice declared wildly, if she married either tanner or lawyer, he would depart, even with no more than the ten pieces, and for his reasons—he was not then sufficiently master of himself to detail them!

“But, John,” said the widow, in a tone of expostulation, whilst a smile lurked in the eyes and round the mouth, “what am I to do if I say No? they press me so hard!”

The Newbury apprentice, at his mistress’ feet, taught the answer she should give. On the following Monday, Master John Winehcomb was united in marriage with Mistress Avery—the wedding celebrated by the grandest entertainment ever beheld in the county of Berkshire, the fame whereof spread even as far as the court of bluff Harry. If lacking splendor in any particular, the omission was owing to the short time for preparation, as no expense was spared. The unfortunate suitors, of course, understood the affair from common report, and thought it unnecessary to seek their fate at the widow’s domicil, when they could learn it from every man, woman and child in the town. They were invited to the wedding feast, but wisely declined, as the story of their strange wooing was already abroad.

It was the custom, in those days, for the bridegroom to salute the bride on the cheek, in the church, after the ceremony was performed.

“And you are ready to swear, Master John,” whispered the dame as the bridegroom approached, “that you never saw that damsel before Fair-day, whom you kissed at the Fair?”

“No—nor since!” replied he, believing it a hint for his future conduct.

Master Winehcomb lived happily—his wealth increased so quickly, with the increasing demand for the staple article of Newbury, that when the Earl of Surrey marched against James the Fourth of Scotland, who was then ravaging the borders, the rich clothier accompanied the expedition with a retinue of one hundred servants and artisans, clothed and armed at his own expense. The memory of John Winehcomb and his rich and handsome spouse was long preserved in their native town.

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BY MISS ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

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BY MRS. SEBA SMITH.

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BY ANN S. STEPHENS.

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(Concluded from page 278.)

CHAPTER III.

We had penetrated to the depth of the pine grove, and it was difficult to find our way out through the tangled undergrowth and the unequal hollows; but Malina had become thoughtful for others once more, and though excitement no longer made her own progress easy, she guarded me with double care; lifted me over the hollows and carried me in her arms when the thickets were too intricate or the ground very uneven. She kissed me as we reached a foot-path which led to our cottage, and, pointing to the door, would have left me to go home alone; but when she saw that I was troubled regarding my torn frock, kindness of heart prompted her to come back. She led me to the house, explained my misfortune, and went away. I sat down on the door-sill and watched her till she entered the portico of her mother’s dwelling, and when they remarked on her dejected looks, and questioned me of the cause, I answered that Malina was tired with walking so long in the woods, for it seemed as if the tears which I had seen her shed and the passionate words which she had uttered were a secret which I should do wrong to mention.

In about an hour Phebe Gray and our young minister stopped at the door-yard gate to inquire for Malina. I told them that she had gone home, and when Mr. Mosier lifted me in his arms, and, looking into my face, asked what I had been crying about, I turned my head away to evade his kiss and besought him to set me down. The contrast between his happy face, the deep and almost brilliant expression of joy which lighted it up, and the sorrowful look of poor Malina forced itself even on my childish mind. I felt that which I had no power to comprehend, and from that time never loved our minister nor Phebe Gray as I had loved them. They walked home very slowly, she leaning on his arm with an air of dependence and trustfulness which was full of feeling and feminine delicacy; he would check their progress every few moments to point out some familiar beauty in the landscape, as if they had never looked upon it before. They loitered by the rock spring, and along the river road, tranquil in their happiness, till the dusk almost concealed them as they entered Mrs. Gray’s house.

Almost every evening, for a week, our minister and Phebe Gray took their walk around the pine grove, and always alone. Malina was confined to the house. She had taken cold, Mrs. Gray said, and the night air was bad for her lungs. But often, when her sister was loitering along the river’s bank, happy in the wealth of her newly aroused affections, Malina might be seen at her chamber window, with her cheek languidly supported by a hand which was becoming thinner each day, and gazing earnestly after the two beings dearest to her on earth, but whose happiness she could not witness without emotions that were well nigh killing her. Her mother saw nothing of this. She only knew that Malina was quieter than usual and not very well, that her eyes were heavy and her step languid as she moved around the house. She did not see the heart struggling against itself, the stern principle which grew strong in the contest. She never dreamed of that desolate and lonely sensation which haunted her daughter’s pillow with watchfulness, and made her waking hours a season of trial cruel as the grave. She saw that Malina was strangely affected; true, she smiled still, but it was meekly, sadly, and it seemed as if the music of her laugh was exhausted forever; her eyes grew misty and sorrowful in their expression, and tears would sometimes fill them without apparent cause. Still it was gravely asserted that Malina had only a slight cold, a nervous attack which would go off in a day or two! But there was something in her illness which Phebe could not comprehend; a wish for solitude, and a strange nervous dread of any thing like intimate conversation with herself, which prevented an acknowledgment of her own deep causes of happiness. Her sensitive modesty made her desirous of some encouragement to unburden her heart of its wealth of hope even to her sister, and when she saw that Malina shunned her, that her eyes had a wandering and estranged look whenever they turned upon her face, she felt checked and almost repulsed in her confidence. If any thing could have disturbed the pure happiness which reigned in her bosom, it would have been this extraordinary mood in one who had from childhood shared every thought and wish almost as soon as it was formed. It had a power to disturb, though it could not entirely destroy the tranquillity of her mind.

“I will talk with her about it to-night,” murmured Phebe, as she opened her chamber door one evening, after a long conversation with Mr. Mosier in the portico. “I wish, though, she would ask some question, or even look curious to know what keeps us together so much; I little thought to have kept a secret from Malina so long.”

As these thoughts passed through her mind, Phebe Gray gathered up the bed-drapery, and lying down by her sister, passing an arm caressingly over her waist, laid her blushing cheek against the now pallid face which rested on the pillow. She felt that tears were upon it, and that the snowy linen under her head was wet as if Malina had cried herself to sleep.

“Malina, wake up a minute, I have something to tell you,” murmured the young girl, in a low, half timid whisper.

The moonbeams lay full upon the bed, and Phebe Gray was looking earnestly in the face of the beautiful sleeper. She could see the silken lashes quivering on her cheek, and a tremulous motion of the lips, nay, it seemed to her as if a single tear broke through the lashes and rolled over the pale cheek, and she was certain that something like a faint shudder crept through the form which was half circled by her arm. But Malina gave no answer, and the gentle questioner was too sensitive for another effort to win attention. She quietly laid her head on the pillow and sunk to sleep, but not to indulge in the sweet, unbroken dream of happiness which had shed roses over her couch so many nights. There was sadness at heart, a presentiment of coming ill, and a solicitude regarding her sister which kept her anxious and rendered her slumber broken and unrefreshing. About midnight, when the stillness of her chamber rendered every sound more than usually audible, she was disturbed by the broken and half stifled sobs which arose from her sister’s pillow. Again she stole her arm over the weeping girl, and questioned her regarding the source of her grief. Malina only turned her face away, and sobbed more bitterly than before.

“Why will you not speak to me, Malina? what has come between us of late?—speak to me, sister—you are in sorrow, and I have—oh how much—cause for joy! yet we have all at once learned to conceal thoughts from one another. Tell me what troubles you—for I cannot be entirely happy while you are ill and so sad.”

Malina redoubled her sobs, but amid the tumult of her grief she murmured, “Tell me all, Phebe, all you feel, all you wish; but I have no secrets, no sorrow. There is a little pain in my side, sometimes, and that makes me low spirited. I have always been so healthy, you know, that a little illness frightens me. Do not mind me, but talk of yourself. You are happy, Phebe, very happy! were not those your words? tell me all—I can be glad and rejoice in any thing that gives you pleasure—any thing on earth—if my heart were breaking. So let us talk it all over now, the room is so quiet and dark, and we shall neither of us get sleepy—do you think we shall, sister?—you may, but I have almost forgotten how to sleep,” and, as Malina ceased speaking, she stole an arm around her sister’s neck, and, choking back her sobs, composed herself to listen.

Phebe rose up in the bed, gathered the drapery around them, for the moonbeams were bright enough to reveal her blushes, and, sinking to her pillow, again murmured the story of her love, its return, and all the bright anticipations that made her future so beautiful. Malina nerved herself to listen; she uttered no word of distrust, and checked all manifestations of discontent by a strong effort of self-control, when all was told—when she was made certain that her sister and the only being she had ever regarded with more than a sister’s love, were to be married—that their wedding day was fixed, and, that the mother’s sanction had already been granted—she remained silent for a moment, and strove to gain the mastery over her feelings. When she spoke, her frame shook with the bitter emotions which could not be altogether subdued, but her voice was low and very calm. Mr. Mosier was poor, and Phebe not yet of age. If he were installed in the old meeting-house, they would be compelled to live with Mrs. Gray till something could be saved from his small salary to purchase a dwelling and begin housekeeping. This thought caused some anxiety to the engaged couple. The young clergyman had learned something of Mrs. Gray’s real character, and was reluctant to erect his domestic altar beneath her tyrannical auspices. Phebe, too, longed for a quiet home of her own, a happy, free home, where she might follow her own innocent impulses, unchecked and without fear.

“You shall have that home, my sister,” said Malina Gray, twining her arms around her companion, and kissing her with a gush of true affection; “there is the old parsonage house; you shall have that, and the money which dear minister Brown left to me; all are yours and his. You will be happy there—very happy. I know he loved the old place. Now, good night, Phebe; let us go to sleep!” and with a low gasping sob, which was not the less painful that it gave no sound, Malina turned away her head.

Phebe was too disinterested and high-minded herself, for a thought of refusing Malina’s generosity.

“We shall, indeed, be happy,” she said; “you will come and live with us, and by the time you are married, we shall have saved enough to pay all the money back again. You will live with us?”

Malina thought of the quiet grave-yard, which could be seen from the parsonage window, and answered—

“I shall want no other home.”

Phebe talked on, more cheerfully than usual, and when her sister did not answer, she thought her asleep; but Malina had fainted, and lay senseless upon her pillow.

It was soon rumored through the village that our new minister was engaged to Phebe Gray, and every body was delighted with the match. Phebe was just the creature for a clergyman’s wife, quiet and gentle, with manners that gave dignity to the softness of her disposition. In the general satisfaction which reigned in the village, Malina was quite overlooked. Her change of appearance was imputed to sadness at parting with her sister; and, at times, when the wedding was talked of in her presence, the rich color which burned over her cheeks, the brilliancy of her eyes, and the flashes of wild merriment that sprung to her lips, deceived the unobserving into a belief of her entire happiness. She spent much of her time at the old parsonage, superintending the arrangements of her sister’s home with a degree of taste and energy which surprised all who witnessed her exertions. The rooms were all newly arranged, delicate paper was purchased at New Haven for the walls, new stepping stones were laid at the front door, green blinds gave a look of elegance and seclusion to the windows; the profuse rose bushes and lilac trees were pruned, and a white picket-fence hedged in the little wilderness of flowers which blossomed in the front yard. The cabinet maker, on School Hill, was busy with the furniture, all of a superior kind. The carpet-weaver had borrowed two quill-wheels, and all the spools, for a mile round, in order to expedite the progress of sixty yards of striped carpeting through his cumbrous loom. The house and its adornments were to be comfortable and elegant beyond any thing that had been known in our village for a long time; and all was Malina’s work. Her untiring assiduity created the little paradise which another was to enjoy. Her money purchased the books which filled the little study, whose window opened upon the most verdant corner of the orchard. Her trembling hands placed a new inlaid flute on the little table, and drew the easy chair close by, that the bridegroom might find every thing ready and home-like in his new dwelling.

One afternoon Malina was left alone; the workmen had departed to their suppers, and her task was finished for the day. She had just hung the pet robin in his old place by the dining-room window; he seemed to recognize the room, and flew about his cage, chirping and fluttering his wings, as if to thank her for bringing him home once more. It was the first hour of repose that Malina had known for many weeks, and now, that she had nothing more to perform, painful thoughts and regrets that would no longer be stifled, fell back upon her heart, and she was, oh, how desolate! There, in her blooming youth, she sat hopeless and weary of life—for what is life to a woman without affection? The heart was full of warm and generous feelings, burthened with a wealth of tenderness, and yet she had no future, nothing to hope for, nothing to dread; her destiny seemed consummated there and then. Youth is in itself so hopeful, that we can scarcely imagine a creature in the first bud of life yearning for the grave. But Malina was very sad. She looked through the open door into the orchard; the green old apple trees were heavy with blossoms, and through the garniture of thrifty leaves, and the rosy shower which blushed among them, a corner of the old meeting-house met her gaze—a portion of the grave-yard, and a new tomb-stone, which gleamed out from the young grass which had already started up from our minister’s death place. How green and quiet it looked—and oh, how earnestly Malina Gray longed to lie down in that still spot, and be at rest. Yet Malina was young, and no human being dreamed how wretched she was. The orchard was full of singing birds that day, and there had been a time when the gush of sweet sounds, that rose and swelled amid the foliage, would have made her heart leap, but now it filled her eyes with tears. The sunshine that played and quivered among the leaves—the wind that now and then gushed through the heavy boughs, scattering the grass with rosy flakes, and sighing as it swept off to the open plain—all seemed a mockery.

She was heart sick, and yearned to die. How cruel is that power by which a broken heart draws thoughts of sadness from the sweet and beautiful things of nature. Malina gazed through her tears at the change her own hands had wrought. The unseemly plantains had disappeared from the back door-step, and around the well-curb a bed of valley-lilies were just forming their pearly buds.

“They will be in blossom for Phebe’s hair,” murmured the young girl, “and for mine—for am I not to be bridemaid?”

With a mournful smile gleaming through her tears, Malina arose, and tying on her bonnet, left the house. She met Phebe and Mr. Mosier near the front gate. They were sauntering toward their new dwelling, tranquil and happy; to them, every thing whispered of joy; the fragrant orchard, the birds caroling within its shadows, and all the beautiful landscape were full of pleasant associations. Every hope and thought in their bosoms blossomed in unison with nature.

How true it is that thought and feeling, like the sun, give color to outward things. The heart creates its own sunshine, or the cloud through which nature is revealed to it. Phebe Gray and her betrothed husband felt nothing but the sweet and the beautiful—their hearts were brimful of sunshine. But, alas, for Malina, she looked through the cloud.

Malina walked on. The two contented beings by the gate were happy enough without her. She strove to smile cheerfully as they spoke to her, and in a tone of forced playfulness forbade them entering the house till their wedding day.

Malina had gathered beneath the roof of that old parsonage house many luxuries almost unknown in the neighborhood; every thing calculated to gratify the fine taste of the young divine, or add to the comfort of her sister, had been unsparingly purchased, till her patrimony was almost exhausted. While this duty lasted, and the excitement of action was upon her, Malina sustained the burthen of her sorrows with an aching, but firm heart. She had taken no time for thought—scarcely for tears—but worked on, as if toiling through a feverish dream. Her cheeks were always flushed, and sometimes the music of her laugh rang loud and strangely through the bridal chamber which she was decorating; but the companions who assisted her were often startled by the reckless tone of her laugh; it was too absent and wild for happiness or merriment, entirely deficient in that low, rich melody, which had once made her voice so full of healthy joy. Yet all the neighbors were commenting on her generous conduct, and the brilliancy of her spirits; and it was often remarked that Malina Gray was never so fond of company, so careless in her mirth, or so startling in her wit, as she had been since the engagement of her sister, and since she had recovered from the slight cold which confined her to the house when that engagement was first whispered in the village.

To a heart capable of self-sacrifice, there is no feeling so lonely as that which follows exhausted power. No conviction, so keenly painful, as a knowledge that a beloved being, who has cost us the hopes of a life in resigning, can be happy without our aid—that we have nothing to render up—no aim for exertion—nothing to do but sit down and gaze upon the blank which existence has become. Her task was done. The excitement over, and then came to the heart of Malina Gray the toil and pain of concealed suffering; the aching restlessness which eats into the bud of human life. Once more it was rumored that she was ill, and, but for other and more absorbing subjects, Mrs. Gray might have been alarmed for the safety of her child; but she was so intent on other things, that the poor girl and her sufferings remained unheeded at home, save by the gentle Phebe and her betrothed husband.

When Mrs. Gray invited our young minister to reside at her house, it was probably with some vague expectation of the result which followed; and when her consent was desired to his union with Phebe, it was given promptly, and with evident satisfaction. But the young divine, though a meek and true Christian, had a dignity of character and opinion which sometimes proved at variance with the exactions of an ambitious and arbitrary matron. She had expected that he would continue to reside in her family, after the marriage, and looked forward to an extended dominion in her own household, and increased influence in the church, to be secured by this arrangement. But when he persisted in establishing an independent home, in managing his own salary, and becoming the sole protector of his future wife, whose state of moral servitude he could not witness without pain, Mrs. Gray’s enthusiasm in favor of the match gradually subsided, and when Malina insisted upon surrendering her newly acquired property to the young couple, and giving them the parsonage for a residence, the haughty woman became stern in her opposition, and while she took every means to render her own house an unpleasant residence for the parties, found some excuse to delay the wedding, from week to week, and at last refused to sanction it, till Mr. Mosier should be regularly installed in the pulpit, which he had now filled almost a year. Still Mrs. Gray was not a woman to talk openly of a change in her opinions. She was too calculating and subtle for useless words.

It had been settled in church council, that our young minister should be installed a few weeks after the time appointed for his marriage, and the young couple submitted to the imposed delay without a murmur. During these intervening weeks, and while Malina was occupied in embellishing the parsonage, Mrs. Gray was observed to be absent from home more frequently than usual. There was scarcely an influential church member near the old meeting-house, with whom she had not taken her knitting work, to spend a social afternoon; and several tea-parties were given in a quiet way at her own house, where she presided over the silver tea-urn, and old fashioned china, with more than ordinary condescension and dignity. But these were all impromptu meetings, and invariably took place when Mr. Mosier and Phebe were invited elsewhere.

The parents of our young minister were aged and very respectable farmers, residing in the vicinity of New Haven; but they were far from wealthy, and the farm they cultivated was not their own property. A week before the Sabbath appointed for the installation, Mr. Mosier accompanied his intended bride and her mother on a visit to his parents, where the haughty matron first learned that the man whom her daughter was about to marry had been a charity student. A benevolent society had paid his tuition at Yale College, at least that portion which he had been unable to meet by his own exertions. There had been no concealment of this truth on his part, for he had informed Phebe of the matter, and believed Mrs. Gray already aware of it. But Phebe, in the generous simplicity of her heart, never conceived it possible that the manner of his education could be deemed a cause of reproach, and it had left no impression on her mind; to her upright understanding there was no degradation in the thought that her lover had been a charity student.

Mrs. Gray gave no demonstration of the displeasure which filled her bosom on receiving this intelligence, but she quietly made an excuse for returning home with her daughter the next day, and, with every appearance of disinterested kindness, insisted that Mr. Mosier should not interrupt his visit to accompany them. “She could easily drive home,” she said, “the horse was gentle, and the roads perfectly good; her son-in-law must remain with his family; it would be cruel to force him away so abruptly.” Mrs. Gray said all this in her usual manner, shook hands with the old people, allowed the young divine to assist her into the chaise, and pretended to be very intently occupied in searching for something in her traveling basket, while he placed Phebe in her seat, and, with her slender hand clasped in his own, was whispering his farewell.

“Remember, and be in readiness next Sabbath,” he said, in a low voice, “tell Malina that she must take good care of you. I shall come on Saturday evening.”

Phebe murmured that she would be ready; but as she returned the farewell clasp of his hand, tears started to her eyes. She could not have told the reason, but a strange feeling of melancholy came over her, and it seemed as if the parting were forever. She looked back as the chaise drove away—he was standing on the door step by his parents, and the whole group waved their hands, smiling cheerfully, as they saw her turn for a last glance. But still her heart was heavy.

What passed between Mrs. Gray and her daughter during their drive home, we have no means of recording. But as Malina sat in her chamber window, and saw the chaise toiling up the hill that afternoon, her sister leaned forward, and she caught a glimpse of her face. It was white as marble, and stained with tears. Malina had been ill, but she started up, hastily girded her white morning wrapper to her waist, and went down. Mrs. Gray loitered to give some directions to the “hired man” about her horse, and Phebe was descending from the chaise without assistance. The moment her foot touched the earth, she tottered, and would have fallen but for Malina, who sprang forward, and flinging her arms around her, inquired eagerly and kindly what had befallen her.

Phebe attempted to speak, but the words died on her lips, and the color left them; she lifted her hand as if to grasp at something for support, and fainted in her sister’s arms.

“Mother, what is the matter?—where is Mr. Mosier?—tell me, pray tell me, what has made poor Phebe so ill, and why is she looking so wretched?”

Mrs. Gray turned, and saw that her child was senseless.

“Go and bring some water,” she said to the man, “carry that basket in with you, and make haste. Raise her head a little, you are crushing her bonnet,” she continued, turning to Malina; “there, take it off—she will come to, directly.”

As she spoke, Mrs. Gray calmly untied her daughter’s bonnet, and held it till the man came with water, while Malina stood trembling beneath the weight of the fainting girl, tenderly smoothing back the bright tresses from her forehead, and wildly kissing her pale lips, amid a thousand vague questions, which no one thought of answering.

Mrs. Gray took a pitcher of water from the man, who came panting from the well, and laving her hands in it, laid them on the pale face which Malina was still covering with tears and kisses. There was a faint struggle, a gasping sigh, and after a little Phebe began to murmur upon her sister’s bosom, like one just awaking from a dream. She shrunk from her mother, when that stubborn woman would have assisted her to rise, and clinging to Malina, walked with trembling steps toward the house.

“Oh, not there—up, to our own room, Malina,” said the poor girl, as her sister would have led her into the parlor. She was obliged to sit down more than once in ascending the stairs; and when at length Malina laid her upon the bed in their own dear room, she looked sadly around, and reaching up her arms, clasped the bending neck of her sister, and began to weep.

“I must never see him again—never—never,” she said, while her voice was broken with tears; “oh, Malina, did you think any human being could be so cruel?”

Malina started, and for one instant a flash of pleasure broke into her eyes. It was an unworthy feeling, and the next moment her face was flooded with shame that she had known it; and when she sat down by her sister, and besought her to say what had thus unnerved her, it was with as true sympathy as ever warmed the heart of a noble and self-sacrificing woman.

The cause of her sorrow was soon explained. Phebe had been commanded by her arbitrary mother to give up all thoughts of a union with Mr. Mosier. The gentle girl, for the first time in her life, had ventured to expostulate with her parent. The hope of her young life was at stake, and her heart trembled at the thought of separation from the man whom she had learned to love so devotedly. It was all in vain. Mrs. Gray was resolved, her prejudices were aroused, and to their gratification the happiness of her child was as dust.

Phebe had been educated with almost holy reverence for the authority of a parent, and though her heart broke, she dared not oppose her mother’s command. Her spirit withered beneath it, like a flower trodden to the earth, but she submitted. Not so Malina. Once more she ventured to reason with and oppose her mother, but only to call down resentment on her own head. This was no sudden resolution in Mrs. Gray; she had gone steadily to work, and planned out her own results. She was one of those cold pattern women who never know an impulse—whose virtues are polished, like marble, and as cold. She had paved her way quietly and well. The next morning, while her two children were sorrowing in their room, she was driving from house to house, exerting her influence over better hearts and weaker minds than her own, to the ruin of those who had loved and trusted her. And while Phebe lay upon a sick bed, a vestry council was called at the old meeting-house, and a decision passed by a majority of a single man, which deprived our young minister of the pulpit he was to have taken as his own the following Sabbath. Many good and just men of the congregation protested against this cruel and unjust act; but in churches, as in communities, the good and the merciful do not always constitute a majority.

The decision of this church meeting was forwarded to Mr. Mosier, and with it a letter from Mrs. Gray. The next morning he rode by our cottage on horseback, slowly, and as one in deep and morbid thought. He crossed the old bridge, and, as he did so, looked earnestly toward Mrs. Gray’s dwelling. He paused a moment at the end, and then rode at a brisker pace up the hill.

Phebe had been feverish, and very low, all that morning. Malina was watching by her side, and as she lay with her eyes closed in an imperfect slumber, the sound of a horse coming up the road made her start from the pillow, and while her cheek burned with a more feverish red, she fixed her eyes upon the open sash.

“It is he—I know it!” she said, clasping her hand, and looking into Malina’s face; “I will get up; mother cannot refuse to let me see him this once;” and with a kind of feverish joy the poor girl flung aside the bed clothes, and stepped out on the floor. With trembling and eager hands she gathered up her beautiful tresses, and began to braid them about her head, earnestly beseeching Malina all the time to assist her in getting ready to go down.

The kind hearted sister required no entreaty. She helped to array the invalid, though her own breath came gaspingly, and her hands shook like aspens in performing their duty.

“There, now—there, I am ready. See, do I look very ill, Malina?” said the excited young creature, turning to her sister; “it will make his heart ache to see how red my cheeks are. Do you think he will detect the fever?” and dashing some lavender over her handkerchief with an impetuosity all unlike her usual quiet movements, the half delirious girl took her sister’s arm, and was hurrying from the room. But the sound of a horse, rapidly passing the house, again came to her ear, and, with a faint exclamation, she sprung to the window just in time to catch a glimpse of her lover as he rode by. He lifted his face to the open sash, and she saw that it was very pale. He saw her, checked his horse an instant, half raised his hand, and then turning away with seeming effort, he rode slowly down the hill.

“He is gone,” exclaimed the unhappy girl, “gone without a word, almost without a look!”

And with a wavering step, Phebe Gray moved toward the bed, and amid the confusion of her feverish thoughts, she called on Malina to come and undo the bridal wreath which was girding her forehead so painfully.

But Malina was away. She had caught one glimpse at the pale face uplifted to her window, and with a wild impulse to see the minister once more, she flung a shawl over her head, and left the room. With the speed of an antelope, she darted through the garden, and forcing a passage through the brushwood which lined a hollow beyond, leaped down upon the natural basin of granite, where the rock-spring poured its waves, just as he had dismounted, and was proceeding to dip up the water in his palm, and bathe his forehead with it. He looked care-worn and pale, and the expression of his eyes, as he dropped the water from his hand, and turned them suddenly on the young girl, was that of a strong heart in ruins, and with its energies prostrated. He held forth his hand and tried to smile, but the attempt was a painful one, and died in a faint quiver of the lips.

Malina did not take his hand—she had no power—but stood with her left foot half buried in the damp moss which lined the spring, and the other planted hard against the granite basin; her hands clasped amid the drapery of her shawl, and her eyes lifted to his, glittering with excitement, and yet full of tears. The breath came pantingly through her unquiet lips, and in the struggle of her emotions, the words of greeting which she would have uttered, were broken into sobs.

“This is very kind of you, Miss Gray,” said the young clergyman, in a low voice, which had something of proud constraint in its tones; “I inquired for you at the house, but your mother informed me that you were engaged, and that your sister did not wish to see me.”

“Not wish to see you!” exclaimed Malina, suddenly finding voice; “Phebe—my poor Phebe—not wish to see you! Alas, for her, she cannot see any one; this cruel business has broken her heart. Oh, Mr. Mosier, why is it that such wrong can be done? why submit to it? what right has my mother thus to interfere, to the unhappiness of her child?”

Mr. Mosier did not reply, his thoughts were far away, and, though he gazed earnestly on the enthusiastic face lifted to his, Malina knew that he was not thinking of her. She felt humbled, and turned away her face as one who had been rebuked. So she stood gazing, with a look of patient humility, on the waters sparkling in the basin at her feet, till at last he aroused himself and spoke. But she, who felt every word he uttered as if it were a tone of music, had no share in his speech or his thoughts. Things all too precious for her were rendered to another, and she must endure the pain.

“So she was ill, and could not come. Yet she knew I was there, and sat in the room all the time. I saw her at the window, and she looked—tell me, Malina, my sweet, kind sister,” he added, suddenly, “did she wish to see me?—would she come for a moment here or into the garden?”

The young man looked anxious, and his cheek flushed brilliantly as he spoke, for the moment his well regulated mind had lost its balance, and the passions of earth were strong within him. It was but for a moment; before Malina had time to reply, the flush died from his face.

“No,” he added, with a sorrowful motion of the head, “it is wrong to ask, foolish to desire an interview—comfort her, Malina, say that which I cannot have permission to utter in her presence; say how deeply, how earnestly I have loved her, how weary I am of the world, how lonely my heart is now—say to her—alas! what message have I to send—I, who can scarcely turn my face heavenward, the clouds are so dark that lie heaped before me!”

These words were uttered in a tone of such despondency that Malina once more lifted her eyes, and would have spoken words of encouragement which she was far from feeling, for her own wretchedness seemed completed in that of the beings she most loved; but, while her lips were parted, he made a sudden effort at composure, and saying that all might yet be well, in a broken and hurried voice, he drew Malina toward him and stooped to press his lips to her forehead, without seeming conscious of the act—but she was all too conscious, the blood rushed to her cheeks, and she trembled in his arms like a frightened child. He saw it not, for to his thought she was a sister only, and though his lips had pressed her forehead for the first time, he did not think of it, but mounted his horse and rode away before she had power to utter a word or make a gesture to detain him.

He was gone forever, and she was alone—alone! how often is that word misapplied; the loving and the loved are never alone—but so it was with Malina Gray.

——

CHAPTER IV.

“So, Madam, you refuse—my boy is dying, and he yearns to look once more on the poor girl who would have been his wife in a single week.”

It was but a few days after her interview with Mr. Mosier, that Malina heard these words issue from her mother’s parlor, as she was passing through the hall, from the chamber where she had just left Phebe striving to beguile her weary thoughts with a book. The door was ajar, and there was a power in the words which made her start and listen. It was a deep, manly voice, that of an aged person, but entreaty, tenderness and something almost like resentment, combined to render it startling and pathetic. Malina held her breath, and, drawing a step nearer, looked through the door.

An aged man was standing before her mother, he held a cane without resting on it, and a broad brimmed hat was in his left hand; firm and erect he stood in the quiet room, the gray hair sweeping back from his forehead, and his plain dress giving him the look of a patriarch; his face was agitated, but so full of benevolence that Malina loved the old man before she guessed who he was. Violent passions could seldom have passed over those mild features, still they were disturbed as he spoke, and the good old man was evidently struggling with strong and bitter emotions. There was something in the grasp of his hand on the cane, and in his dignified bearing, which awed the sympathy it excited.

Mrs. Gray was sitting in her easy chair, looking rather earnestly at the old man. She had been engaged in knitting when he entered, but had laid the work on a little round stand by her side, and seemed rather anxious to take it up again; but she was too punctilious for that, and very blandly requested her visitor to resume the seat from which he had risen. “No, I have not time to sit down, every minute is worth years to me now—my only son is dying, and I am absent from his side.” The old man now paused, his chin began to quiver, and turning away his face, he strove to conceal the tears that broke into his eyes from the calm and heartless woman who sat gazing upon him.

“Madam,” he said, but his voice was broken, and his hand shook till the hat fell from his grasp to the floor. “Madam, I beseech you, think better of this! My boy cannot live forty-eight hours; the doctors told me so before I left him. But I came from his bed side, when each lost moment was as a drop of blood wrung from my heart, thinking that you might refuse any messenger but his father. You are a woman and should feel for him, and here I gave up five whole hours of this precious time that he might look on the face of that poor girl before he dies; and his mother—you have had children sleeping against your heart, madam—do you think his mother would not find it a comfort if the soul of her only child could go up to heaven from her bosom where he nestled in his first infancy? Do you think she has no woman’s yearning wish for the last embrace, the last endearing word? She loves the boy better than her own soul, and he is dying before her eyes—but she gave him up. When she saw that he moaned for the presence of one who had become dearer than his own mother, she bade me come hither and bring the girl that her first born might die in the arms he loved best—think, woman, every moment I spend in talking here is wrung from the death bed of a child that was all on earth that two old people had to love and hope for. I must depart, but let her go with me.”

The old man unconsciously clasped his hands as he spoke, and tears fell like rain over his withered cheeks.

Mrs. Gray glanced at him with something of wonder in her face, and extending out her hand, took up the knitting work as if to end the conference.

“And can you still refuse!” exclaimed the old man.

“It would not be proper,” replied Mrs. Gray, quietly unscrewing the top of her silver knitting case, “besides, Phebe is not well enough to ride so far even if she desired it, and the fever may be contagious.”

“If I could talk with the young lady I am sure she would desire it,” said the old man, almost humbly, for his heart grew heavy at the thought of returning to the death bed of his son with his errand unaccomplished. “Leave it to her good feelings, madam, and if they plead against me I will depart and trouble you no more.”

Neither the pleading voice, nor the agony of over-wrought feelings with which the unhappy father spoke, reached the heart of Mrs. Gray. While the old man stood before her, trembling beneath the burden of his grief, she placed her needle in its sheath, twisted the worsted over her finger, and went through the intricacies of a seam stitch before even her eyes were lifted toward him.

“You must recollect, Mr. Mosier,” she said, “Phebe is not at present engaged to your son, and even if she were, I do not think it would be exactly correct for her to visit him. I am sorry for the young gentleman, very; I will see that our new minister mentions his case in prayer next Sabbath; we all feel for him—but he would not be advised. Indeed⁠—”

Here Mrs. Gray dropped a stitch, and paused while it was looped up again. When she raised her eyes, the face of her auditor was stern, and as calm as her own. The tears had dropped from his cheek, his hands were both grasping the head of his cane, and if that pharisaical woman could have shrunk from any thing, the solemn and reproving eyes which dwelt on her face would have kindled the most generous blood of her heart into blushes of shame. But it is hard to wring the die of shame from a self-righteous heart. Mrs. Gray believed herself to be acting in a most Christian-like spirit, in still retaining the heartless civility of her manner toward the poor old man whom her own cruelty had bereaved. Her heart was entombed in the self-conceit of its own sanctity, like dust in the marble of a sarcophagus.

“Woman,” said the old man, and this time his voice was firm, and thrillingly solemn; “you have no heart. You are a mother, and should know how much worse than death it is to see the child whom you have loved and cherished, and woven in your very heart-strings, perishing before your eyes. Oh, how proud we were of that boy! how his poor mother loved him! what a day it was when she and I walked up the broad aisle of that old meeting-house yonder, and saw him standing in the pulpit—a minister of the gospel. We had prayed for that sight—toiled and slaved for it—and were so happy—so very happy. He is on his death bed now. Woman, you have sent him there—you, who were a mother, thought nothing of smiting a sister woman through the heart—you, a professor of religion, can do murder more subtle and cruel than that which cleaves a man through the brain, and look calm and speak softly, nay, smilingly refuse the last dying request of your victim. Woman, I will not curse you—that right rests with the high God of Heaven, who looketh down upon the murder you have done, not as man looketh, not as the law looketh—before him, shall you be arraigned, and that cold heart shall be made to shudder at the depth of its own crime—he will be thine accuser—he, thy victim, who was so gentle, so sweet tempered, that thoughts of revenge never entered his heart. In a few short hours he will stand in the broad light of Heaven, sent there untimely; and even as Abel bear witness against his brother, he shall bear witness against thee! The Almighty may not place his mark upon thy brow—the law may not brand thee—but one who can wring the life from a human being by silent and moral cruelty, is not less a murderer than the man who smites his brother to the heart with a poniard!”

Mrs. Gray was at length moved—for the solemn and stern energy of that pale old man might have startled the dead from their graves—the knitting dropped from her hands, her eyes darkled with terror, and her face turned white as a corpse beneath the snowy lace and the black and false hair that shaded it. She would have spoken, but the pallid lips trembled without uttering a sound, while the hands which rested in her lap began to shiver, as she strove to lift them and motion him away.

The old man left her where she sat, and went into the hall; but his feelings had been too cruelly outraged, and there his strength gave way; he sunk helplessly to a settee, and covering his face with his hands, wept like a child.

Malina had left the hall and stood in her sister’s chamber. Phebe was dressed and seated by the window, pondering over the pages of a book, though she had not turned a leaf that day. She did not raise her eyes when the door opened, but seemed unconscious of a second person.

“Come with me,” said Malina, grasping the hand which lay in her sister’s lap, with fingers that clung to it like ice. “Come!”

There was something in Malina’s face that frightened her companion from the apathy that had for days settled on her spirits. She arose, without a word, and was led down stairs, and into the hall. It was empty. Old Mr. Mosier had departed, and the front door was left open behind him.

“Phebe,” said Malina Gray, in a faint whisper, “he is dying, and has sent for you—his father sat there, but a moment since. Our mother has refused that you should see him. He is pining to die with his head against your heart. Sister, will you go?”

“I will plead with her—kneel to her,” said Phebe Gray, and opening the parlor door, she entered alone.

Malina paused an instant, and turning through a side door, passed across a small clover lot, toward the stables. A horse stood cropping the white blossoms in a corner of the field. She looked around for some one to help her, but the men were all away on the upper farm—so she drew toward the gentle animal, and beckoning with her hand, uttered a few coaxing words, and persuaded him toward the stables. He bent his neck while her trembling hands placed the bit in his mouth, which was yet half full of fragrant grass, and turned his head to watch her, as she girded the saddle to his back. When she tied him to the garden fence, and entered the house again, he followed her with his eyes, and, with a short neigh, fell to tearing with his mouth the honeysuckle vines that crept along the fence.

As Malina entered the hall she saw Phebe gliding up stairs toward their room; she was walking feebly, and held by the bannister as she went. When the sisters stood within the chamber together, Phebe sunk to a chair, while Malina looked earnestly in her face, and uttered a single sentence⁠—

“Will you go?”

“She has forbidden it,” replied Phebe, faintly.

“Will you go?” said Malina, once more.

“I dare not disobey her!” Phebe spoke with difficulty, and clasping both hands over her face, moaned as if in pain, for the struggle within her heart was terrible.

When Phebe became sufficiently composed to look up, her sister was gone. She was glad to be alone, and creeping toward the bed, knelt down and prayed.

Malina had snatched a bonnet and shawl from the bed while her sister’s face was concealed, and gliding down stairs into the open air, she mounted the horse and rode away.

It was sunset as the poor girl came slowly over the old bridge, and rode by our house. I was playing in the front yard, and ran out to meet her—but all at once she drew the bridle tight, and the spirited horse sprung forward on the way before my childish voice could be heard. The gloom of coming night lay heavily amid the pine boughs, as the young girl rode under them, and when she dashed up the road, and disappeared over Fall’s Hill, both horse and rider were for one moment displayed in bold relief against a pile of crimson and golden clouds which lay heaped in the horizon. When she disappeared, it seemed, to my infant fancy, as if the gates of heaven had unfolded to receive her.

The night came on clear, and lighted both by moon and stars, the solitary traveler still kept the road, accompanied only by her spirited animal, and the shadow which seemed gliding along the dewy green-sward by her side, like a silent guardian. It was late in the evening when the horse checked himself at the fence before a red farm-house, with a sloping roof, and two large trees embowering it with foliage.

It seemed like supernatural instinct in the animal, for he had only been there once before, and Malina, in the tumult of her thoughts, scarcely knew where she wished to stop. There was a light twinkling through the thick leaves of a tree bough that dropped over one of the front windows, but it was very faint, and seemed forcing itself through the folds of a window curtain. Malina grasped the horn of her saddle, and dropping feebly down to the green-sward, moved toward the house. There was a foot-path which led to the front door—she followed this, and found herself in a dark entry, with a narrow stream of light falling through the entrance to an inner room. The sound of a faint, wandering voice, and of smothered sobs, stole from the room. Malina breathed heavily as she touched the door, and glided into the room. It was indeed the chamber of death. A solitary candle burned on the table, amid glasses and vials, sending forth just sufficient light to reveal an old fashioned tent bed, with its white drapery sweeping to the floor, and its heavy fringes hanging motionless, as if they had been cut from marble. At the foot of this bed knelt an old man; his hands were clasped beneath his face, and the long gray hair swept thickly over them, as he prayed. A female stood between Malina and the bed; she was bending over the pillows which were heaped high upon it, and though the poor girl could not see her face, she felt that it was his mother. She moved, and the sound of her footstep on the sanded floor made the old lady lift her head, and Malina saw his face once more. Oh, how white and changed it was! The damp, black hair fell heavily over his forehead, shadows lay about the closed eyelids, and there was an expression about the mouth, which was not a smile, and yet seemed deathly and sweet. His head was raised high with pillows, and though he seemed to sleep, the breath came painfully from his lips, and with a struggle that constantly disturbed the linen which lay in waves across his breast.

Malina stood upright in the dim light, motionless as a thing of marble, her eyes fixed on the dying man, and unconscious, in the force of her grief, that to all in the room, save him who saw her not, she was a stranger, and had intruded into the sanctuary of private grief.

It mattered not; Malina’s step had been mistaken for that of a woman from the kitchen, and no one knew that the wretched young creature was there.

There was a motion of the bed clothes, a faint murmur, and the dying man opened his eyes—those large, eloquent eyes that Malina had thought upon so often, and so thrillingly. There was a mist upon them now, but through it broke a soft and strange light, heavenly and beautiful. The old lady bent her ear, and listened to the faint murmur, which seemed dying on his lips.

“My father—when will he come back?—it is late!”

The sound was very faint, but the old man had heard it amid the strong agony of his prayer. He arose, and moving round the bed, bent over his son. A light, almost preternatural, came to the eyes of that dying man, and with a sudden effort he found voice to speak.

“My father,” he said, “thank God—you have returned in time. Where is she?”

“My son,” said the old man, in a voice which he vainly strove to render calm, “in a little time she will meet you in heaven—but she is not here.”

The invalid had turned his head upon the pillow, with a look of touching eagerness; but it fell back—his eyes closed faintly, and after gasping once or twice, he lay motionless, save the lips, which gave forth broken but beautiful fragments of speech, such as came uppermost in his pure, but wandering mind, for he was delirious now. The last vibrations of his soul were disturbed by disappointment in his sole earthly wish. In the broken murmurs that fell from his lips, Malina heard her own name, and it unlocked the ice which seemed closing round her heart. With a sob that broke to her lips amid a gush of tears, she sprung toward the bed, and falling upon her knees, clasped the pale hand which fell over the bed, and pressed her quivering lips repeatedly upon it, while her voice mingled with the choking grief that shook her whole frame.

“Forgive me! oh, let me stay!” she said, lifting her face to the old woman, but still nervously grasping the dying man’s hand; “I loved him better than she did—better than anybody could—better than my own soul! Let me stay, and die with him! No one asked me to come, but I am here. You will not send me away?”

The voice of Malina Gray was soft and low, like that of her sister; and though broken with grief, it is probable that the dying man was bewildered by the sound. He started from the pillow—a glorious lustre broke through the mist which whelmed his eyes, and as Malina sprang to her feet, his face fell upon her shoulder, and his cold cheek lay against hers. It was very strange—Malina knew that he was dying, but a flash of wild joy thrilled through her heart, and for the first time since she had heard of his illness, a faint color broke into the cheek which pressed his. She laid him gently upon the pillow, and parting the damp hair from his forehead, pressed her lips tremblingly upon it, while her sobs filled the chamber. When the dying man felt the touch of her quivering mouth, a smile stole over his face—again the misty eyes were unclosed, and feebly lifting his arm, he wound it over her neck and drew her to his bosom, while the unformed words he would have spoken were lost amid the dying music of his soul. A moment, and his arm fell softly from Malina’s neck. The young creature lifted her face from his bosom, and looking at his mother, murmured⁠—

“He loved her living—but is he not mine in death?—mine, for ever and ever!”

She turned to lay her face near his heart once more, but there was no color in her lips then. She started, and, with a cold shudder, bent her cheek slowly to his bosom—it pressed heavily, and more heavily, on the cold clay—her limbs relaxed, and she sunk across the bed, senseless as the beautiful corpse which cumbered it.

The gloom of death had shadowed that farm-house two days, and now it was desolate. The kind neighbors who had walked in and out, ministering to grief, no longer broke the solemn hush which pervaded the dwelling. The departed was indeed the departed—for they had borne him over his father’s threshold, and laid him down to sleep in the dark earth. Malina followed him to the grave. She was a stranger, but no one asked why she stood among the mourners, and without their sable vestments. When the aged mother bent over the coffin, and looked upon the dead, the young girl drew to her side, and fixed her eyes upon the cold still face which had never met her glance coldly before. The mother wept, but Malina could not shed a tear, although the solemn and hushed grief upon her face awed even village curiosity.

And now they were alone—the parents, and that poor girl. She was upon her knees—her head was bent, and its redundant hair veiled her face, while the broken hearted young creature begged a blessing from his mother before she went away. The sorrowing woman laid her hands upon the bright tresses which flowed over her lap for a moment, then lifting the suppliant to her bosom, wept over her.

Mr. Mosier, when he heard the sobs of his wife, arose, and clasping his hands over Malina’s head, silently besought a blessing on her. She drew back, and he saw that her face was still calm; so taking her hands in his, he began to persuade and reason with her. She listened, and gazed earnestly in his face as he spoke. At last, tears started to her eyes, and when the old man saw this, big drops began to stream down his own cheek, and the clasp of his hand grew tremulous, as he led her from the room.

As the old man placed Malina in her saddle, he glanced in her face, and a misgiving came to his heart. He questioned himself if it was safe to trust her to the road without protection; but when he proposed accompanying her part of the way, at least, she pleaded against it with startling eagerness, and, thinking of his afflicted wife, he allowed her to depart.

Malina had a secret wish at her heart, which caused it to pant for solitude. Her road lay close by the grave-yard where our young minister was buried, and she yearned to stand once more by his death place, and alone. When she reached the sacred place, she looked to the right and left, timidly, as if her errand had been a wrong one. Her nerves were strung to their utmost tension, and she was morbidly fearful of being seen—every thing was solitary and quiet; the long grass bending to the breeze, as it sighed over the graves, and the soft rustling sound which whispered amid the leaves of a clump of weeping willows, that curtained an entire household that had gone down to sleep together, were all the sounds that fell upon her ear. She tied the horse to the fence, and passing forward to his grave, sat upon a pile of sods that had been left by the sexton. She neither wept nor moved—but there she remained in the bright sunshine, gazing hour after hour on a tuft of tiny white blossoms, which sprung up from a sod which they had placed just over his heart. Now and then, she twined her hands together as they reposed in her lap—and as the sunshine went suddenly away, and heavy black clouds rolled over the sky, with the lightning playing amid their ragged folds, she smiled, and drew closer to the grave.

At last, a roar of thunder burst from the clouds, big drops of rain came down upon the graves, and bent the willows more droopingly to the earth.

Malina lifted her eyes upward with a wild and startled look, then turning them on the willows which sheltered that single family, and on the congregation of graves which lay around her, all covered with long grass, she rested them on the mound at her feet, murmuring⁠—

“Have all a covering from the cold rain, but thee?”

As she spoke, Malina took off her shawl, and spreading it over the newly made grave, cast herself upon it, and for the first time since she felt his heart stop beating beneath hers, moaned and sobbed as if her very life were going from her.

In a few moments the garments of our poor mourner were saturated with rain—still she clung closer to the grave, murmuring words of wild endearment to the unconscious inmate, and congratulating herself, with strange earnestness, that she was still able to shield his bosom from the storm.

At last, the clouds rolled away, and though the sun was just going down, his last fires kindled a rainbow amid the water drops that yet filled the air. Malina lifted her head, and gazed upward—a smile parted her lips when she saw the rainbow, and pressing her cheek upon the grave again, she whispered⁠—

“The angels have built thee a bridge, love!”

The sun went down, and Malina arose from the grave, shivering from head to foot. She gazed around, and was turning her eyes with a wistful look on her late resting place, as if she meditated casting herself down again, when a low neigh from the horse which still remained by the fence, aroused her, and leaving the shawl behind, she hurried toward the patient animal, and mounting him, rode away.

Malina must have wandered from the usual road, in the strange abstraction of her mind, for it was midnight when she came opposite the old meeting-house. Prompted, doubtless, by some vague fear of returning home, or perhaps allured to pause by the open gate, the weary and half bewildered girl turned her horse, and riding close to the front door of the parsonage house, dismounted, and allowed him to wander amid the flower beds and rose bushes which filled the yard. Thrusting her hand beneath the door sill, she took out a key, and fitted it to the lock, but with difficulty, for her hands trembled; and though hot flushes every moment darted through her frame, she was shivering with cold. She went up stairs, holding feebly by the balusters, and guided by the moonlight, which fell from a window overhead, she entered a room—that which she had decorated as the bridal chamber of her sister Phebe, and of the departed. A clear moonlight came through the windows, and lay like flags of silver amid the black shadows which filled the apartment. Every thing was still and motionless; not a breath stirred the bridal ribands with which the muslin curtains were looped back. The bed lay with the moonlight sleeping amid its pillows, like a snow drift, when the air is calm; and the atmosphere was impregnated by the dead flowers which had been profusely lavished on the toilet, and now hung crisp and withered in their vases. Malina was very ill, and a fever burned through her veins—her limbs were almost powerless, and her forehead seemed girdled with iron. Still was she sensible of surrounding things, and her heart swelled with the recollections which thronged on her aching brain. She unfastened her damp dress, and with difficulty crept into bed.

“Poor, poor Phebe,” she murmured, gathering the white counterpane over her shivering form, “how little she thinks I am here—how she would pity me, so ill, and all alone. Alas, how sad a thing this trouble is—I have not thought of Phebe these many long days—I wonder if she is ill as I am—if her head is so hot, and her limbs chilled, till they shake so. This is a cold bed—very, very cold—but his is colder still. Oh, my God! he is dead—and I have seen his grave. I—but it was not me—no—he loved my sister. But I had his dying kiss! It was the last throb of his heart that beat against mine, and chilled me so. That was it—that was it!”

With such fragments of speech, and moans of pain, Malina verged into the delirium of a raging fever. At times she would weep, and call for her sister, in tones of yearning tenderness—then notes of music would break from her lips, and ring through every corner of the solitary house, as if a prisoned angel were pleading for release there. When the fever came on, fierce and strong, she began to ask for water—to weep, and wring her hands, while she entreated some visionary being to leave her in the grave-yard where he was; where showers were continually falling and weaving rainbows around those who thirsted for rest or drink; and so her voice of suffering rose and swelled through the lone building all night. When the day dawned, she was still awake and delirious; tears stood on her crimson cheeks, and entreaties for water still rose to her parched lips.

It came at last—she knew not how it was, but a pale, sweet face bent over her, a soft voice was speaking comfort, and a glass of water cooler and more refreshing than she had ever tasted before was held to her lips. She was just conscious enough to think that it was Phebe who ministered to her wants, or some good seraph that looked as sweetly sad and kind. Then she sunk to sleep, and it was many weeks before she awoke from the dream that followed.

It was Phebe Gray who stood by the sick bed of the sufferer. A villager had seen Mrs. Gray’s horse that morning, bridled and with his saddle on, trampling among the flower beds and feasting upon the choice rose bushes which grew in the parsonage yard—he went in to secure the animal and was terrified by the voice of suffering which issued from the house. He went up stairs, saw the delirious young creature who occupied the bridal chamber, and hastened to inform Mrs. Gray—but Phebe had struggled with her own sufferings and stood over Malina’s sick bed many hours before the mother had arranged her dress and prepared herself to pass through the village with that degree of propriety which she considered due to her character.

Malina lay many weeks before the fever left her; then a cough set in and a hectic spot settled and burned into her thin cheeks. The poor girl smiled a sad quiet smile, when she heard them say each evening, that a little over exertion had excited her, that she had taken a slight cold which in the turn of her disease was felt more than usual. Still the cough deepened, the crimson spot burned on, and she knew that the life which kindled would soon be exhausted. And so it was, that autumn when the woods were all flushed with those dyes which an early frost brings to the foliage, when the nuts were ripe and the brown leaves fell in showers over the crisp moss, Malina Gray was extended beneath the snowy drapery which her own hands had gathered above the bridal bed. White ribands were still knotted amid the folds which seemed brooding over her like a cloud, and a few crimson fall flowers lay scattered upon the pillow, some of them so close to the marble cheek that a faint tinge was coldly reflected there. For two whole nights Phebe watched the beautiful clay reposing in the dim light upon her own bridal bed, but scarcely more changed than her own sweet self. Malina was the happiest, her heart had broken amid the struggle of its suffering, but that of the watcher lay crushed and withering in her young bosom. She felt that life was yet strong within her; but hope, love, every thing that makes life pleasant to a woman, had departed. She was still good, still pure almost as an angel, but the sad smile which settled on her lips never deepened to a laugh again, and no human being ever saw a tear in her changeless and sorrowful eyes.

They laid Malina Gray down to sleep beside old minister Brown—in the very spot she had yearned to repose in. A large circle of neighbors gathered around the grave, some in tears, and all very sorrowful. Mrs. Gray stood by the coffin; her mourning was arranged with great care, and a veil of new crape, deeply hemmed, fell decorously over her face, and the white handkerchief, with which she concealed those maternal tears proper for a mother, whose duty it was to be resigned under any dispensation. But Phebe stood silent and motionless; no handkerchief was lifted to her eyes, and the face which gleamed beneath the crape veil, was profoundly calm, almost as that of the corpse.

We had a new minister, on trial, of Mrs. Gray’s choosing, who performed the funeral service, and when all was over, returned home with the mourners; when they knelt in the little parlor that night, he prayed earnestly, and with genuine tears, for the bereaved mother; he besought the Lord to visit, with consolation, one who was a mother in Israel, a bright and shining ornament in the Christian church; a woman who had brought up her children in the fear and admonition of the Lord; whose path was growing brighter and brighter to the perfect day when she would reap a rich reward in heaven.

Amid a few natural sobs which awoke in the widow’s heart, she murmured, “Amen,” satisfied that her life had been one of perfect rectitude, and that in all things she had been a pattern mother, and an ornament to the church, which ought to be her consolation under any bereavement.

The new minister was a very conscientious man, but practical in all his ideas; he was honest in the high opinion which he entertained of Mrs. Gray, and not sufficiently sensitive to shrink from offering his hand to Phebe, when that lady delicately gave him to understand that the step would be satisfactory to herself. The old parsonage house was still empty, and Phebe’s inheritance. He was an installed pastor, and Miss Gray’s engagement to his predecessor never entered his mind as an objection.

Phebe betrayed no emotion when the proposal was made. She simply declined it, without giving a reason; and when he married another person, and would have rented the parsonage, she said with decision—“It must remain as my sister left it!”

And when Mrs. Gray would have remonstrated, she answered, still with firmness⁠—

“I am of age, mother, but still will obey you in all things else. Act as you like regarding the other property—but no stranger shall ever live in the parsonage. Poor Malina furnished it for him, and for me. She died there, and so will I!”

It may be so, for the old house is still uninhabited. Every thing remains as Malina left it; the bridal chamber, the easy chair, and the flute upon the table; time has made little change in those silent apartments, for every week Phebe, who has become a calm and sorrowful old maid, goes up to the house alone, and remains there for many hours; sometimes seated at the study table, and gazing at a grave which may be seen through the trees. Once, a child gathering valley lilies, beneath the window, saw her standing at the open sash, with her sad eyes turned toward the grave-yard. She was talking to herself—the child dropped his flowers and listened, for there was something so mournful in her voice, that his little heart thrilled to the sound.

“They tell me that he wearied himself, and died of fever,” she said; “and that thou, my sister, perished naturally, and as we all must. Alas, if I could but think so. Why not have told me how he was beloved before it was too late? I would have given him up—and while you were happy, this heart had not become so palsied and feelingless. Alas, it was well that thy heart could break, my poor, poor Malina!”

———

BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

———

———

BY MRS. FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD.

———

CHAPTER I.

A MOTHER’S INFLUENCE.

“Mother! mother!” exclaimed a sweet, eager voice, and the speaker, a child of thirteen years, burst into the room, where Mrs. Carlton sat at work, “don’t you think there is to be a prize given on exhibition day for the best composition! And I mean to try for it—sha’nt I?”

She was a little, harum-scarum looking imp! I suppose she had run all the way home from school, for her straw bonnet hung on her neck instead of her head, and a profusion of soft dark hair was streaming in such disorder about her glowing face, that you could not tell if she were pretty or not; but you could see a pair of brilliant, gray or blue or black eyes—they certainly changed their color with every new emotion; but I think they were really gray—full of laughter, and love beaming through the truant tresses, and all eloquent with the beauty of a fresh, warm soul. This change in the child’s eyes is no freak of a foolish fancy; for every one noticed it; and her school-crony, Kate Sumner, used to declare, that when Harriet was angry they were black; gray when she was thoughtful; violet when sad; and when happy and loving, they changed to the tenderest blue.

Mrs. Carlton drew the little girl toward her, and smoothed back the rebellious curls, at the same time exclaiming, with a long drawn sigh, “My dear Harriet! how you do look!”

“Oh, mother! it’s not the least matter how I look! If I were only a beauty, now, like Angelina Burton, I would keep my hair as smooth as—as any thing; but I wouldn’t rub my cheeks though, as she does always, just before she goes into a room where there’s company—would you, mother?”

The mother gazed at her child’s expressive face, as she spoke, with its irregular, yet lovely features, the strange, bright eyes, the changing cheek, the full and sweet, but spirited mouth, and said to herself, “Whatever you may think, my darling, I would not change your simple, innocent, childlike unconsciousness, for all Angelina’s beauty, spoiled as it is by vanity and affectation.”

“But, mother, do give me a subject for composition, for I want to write it now, this minute!”

“Harriet,” said Mrs. Carlton quietly, “go and brush your hair, change your shoes, and mend that rent in your dress as neatly as you can.”

Harriet half pouted; but she met her mother’s tranquil eye; the pout changed to a good-humored smile, and kissing her affectionately, she bounded off to do her bidding.

While she is gone, you would like—would you not, dear reader?—to ask a few questions about her. I can guess what they are, and will answer them, to the best of my knowledge.

Mrs. Carlton is a widow, with a moderate fortune, and a handsome house in Tremont street, Boston. She has been a star in fashionable life, but since the loss of her husband, whom she tenderly loved, she has retired from the gay world, and devoted herself to her child—a wild, frank, happy, generous and impetuous creature, with half a dozen glaring faults, and one rare virtue which nobly redeemed them all. That virtue, patient reader, you must find out for yourself. Perhaps you will catch a glimpse of it in

——

CHAPTER II.

AUNT ELOISE.

Harriet was busy with her composition, when her aunt, who was on a visit to Mrs. Carlton, entered the room. Aunt Eloise was a weak minded and weak hearted lady of a very uncertain age—unhappily gifted with more sensibility than sense. She really had a deal of feeling—for herself—and an almost inexhaustible shower of tears, varied occasionally by hysterics and fainting-fits, whenever any pressing exigency in the fate of her friends demanded self-possession, energy, or immediate assistance. If, too, there happened, as there will sometimes, in all households, to be an urgent necessity for instant exertion by any member of the family, such as sewing, watching with an invalid, shopping with a country cousin, poor Aunt Eloise was invariably and most unfortunately seized with a sudden toothache, headache, pain in the side, strange feelings, dreadful nervousness, or some trouble of the kind, which quite precluded the propriety of asking her aid.

Every morning at breakfast Aunt Eloise edified the family with a wonderful dream, which the breakfast-bell had interrupted, and every evening she grew sentimental over the reminiscences which the twilight hour awakened. It was then that innumerable shades of former admirers arose. Some doubted if they had ever been more than shades; but Aunt Eloise certainly knew best about that, and who had a right to deny, that Mr. Smith had knelt to her for pity; that Colonel Green had vowed eternal adoration; and that Lawyer Lynx had laid his heart, his hand, and his fees, which were not quite a fortune, at her feet?

Aunt Eloise had been—at least she hinted so—a beauty and a blue, in her day; and, to maintain both characters, she rouged, wore false ringlets, and scribbled love-verses, which she had a bad habit of leaving, by accident, between the leaves of books in every frequented room of the house.

She thought and avowed herself extravagantly fond of her niece, during her early childhood, and imagined that she displayed a graceful enthusiasm in exclaiming, every now and then, in her presence, and in that of others, “Oh! you angel child! I do think she is the sweetest creature! Come here and kiss me, you beauty!” &c. &c. But no one ever saw Aunt Eloise taking care of the child, attending to its little wants, or doing any thing for its benefit. The only tangible proof of her affection for her niece, was in the shape of bonbons and candy, which she was in the habit of bringing home from her frequent walks in Tremont street. Harriet regularly handed these forbidden luxuries to her mother, and Mrs. Carlton as regularly threw them in the fire.

“Isn’t it a pity to waste such nice things, mother? Why not give them to some poor child in the street?” asked the little girl one day, as she watched, with longing eyes, a paper full of the tempting poison, which her mother was quietly emptying into the grate.

Mrs. Carlton did not disdain to reason with her child—

“That would be worse than wasted, dear. It would be cruel to give to another what I refuse to you on account of its unwholesomeness.”

But Harriet had now been for a long time out of the spinster’s books—as the saying is—and this misfortune occurred as follows—

One morning, when she was about six years old, the child came into her mother’s room from her aunt’s, where she had been alternately pelted, scolded, and teased, till she was weary, and, seating herself in a corner, remained for some time absorbed in thought. She had been reading to her mother that morning, and one sentence, of which she had asked an explanation, had made a deep impression upon her. It was this—“God sends us trials and troubles to strengthen and purify our hearts.” She now sat in her corner, without speaking or stirring, until her mother’s voice startled her from her reverie.

“Of what are you now thinking, Harriet?”

“Mother, did God send Aunt Eloise to strengthen and purify my heart?”

“What do you mean, my child?”

“Why, the book says he sends trials for that, and she is the greatest trial I have, you know.”

The indignant maiden was just entering the room as this dialogue began, and hearing her own name, she had stopped, unseen, to listen. Speechless with rage, she returned to her chamber, and was never heard to call Harriet an angel child again.

But we have wasted more words on the fair Eloise’s follies than they deserve. Let us return to Harriet’s all-important composition.

The maiden-lady, selfish and indolent as she was, took it into her head sometimes to be exceedingly inquisitive; and officious too, particularly where she thought her literary talents could come into play. She walked up to Harriet and looked over her shoulder.

“What’s this, hey? oh! a story! That’s right, Harriet, I am glad to see you taking to literary pursuits. Come, child! give me the pen and I will improve that sentence for you.”

“Thank you, aunt! but I don’t want it improved.”

“Not want it improved! There’s vanity!”

“Indeed, aunt, I am not vain about it, and I would like you to help me, if it were not to be shown as mine. It wouldn’t be fair, you know, to pass off another’s as my own. I am writing for a prize.”

“For a prize! So much the more reason that you should be assisted. There, dear, run away to your play and I will write it all for you. You’ll be sure to win the prize.”

With every word thus uttered, Harriet’s eyes had grown larger and darker, and at the close, she turned them, full of astonishment, from her aunt’s face to her mother’s. Reassured by the expression of the latter, she replied,

“But, Aunt Eloise, that would be a falsehood, you know.”

“A falsehood, miss!” cried the maiden, sharply, “It is a very common thing, I assure you!”

“But not the less false for being common, Eloise,” said Mrs. Carlton; “pray let Harriet have her own way about it. It would be far better to lose the prize, than to gain it thus dishonestly.”

Aunt Eloise, as usual, secretly determined to have her own way; but she said no more then, and Harriet pursued her employment without further interruption.

——

CHAPTER III.

THE PRIZE.

The exhibition day had arrived. Harriet had finished her story several days before, and read it to her mother. It was a simple, graceful, childlike effusion, with less of pretension and ornament, and more of spirit and originality than the compositions of most children of the same age contain.

Mrs. Carlton seemed much pleased; but Aunt Eloise had criticised it without mercy. At the same time she was observed to smile frequently with a cunning, sly, triumphant expression, peculiar to herself—an expression which she always wore when she had a secret, and secrets she had, in abundance—a new one almost every day—trivial, petty secrets, which no one cared about but herself; but which she guarded as jealously as if they had been apples of gold.

The exhibition day had arrived.

“Good bye, mother; good bye, aunty,” said Harriet, glancing for a moment into the breakfast-room.

She was looking very pretty in a simple, tasteful dress, made for the occasion. She held the story in her hand, neatly enclosed in an envelope, and her eyes were full of hope—the cloudless hope of childhood.

“Don’t be surprised, Harriet,” said her aunt, “at any thing that may happen to-day. Only be thankful if the prize is yours, that’s all.”

“If Kate Sumner don’t win it, I do hope I shall!” replied the eager child, and away she tripped to school.

At twelve o’clock Mrs. Carlton and her sister took their seats among the audience, in the exhibition room. The usual exercises were completed, and it only remained for the compositions to be read aloud by the teacher.

The first was a sentimental essay upon Friendship. Mr. Wentworth, the teacher, looked first surprised, then amused, then vexed as he read, while a gaily and fashionably dressed lady, who occupied a conspicuous place in the assembly, was observed to toss her head and fan herself with a very complacent air, while she met, with a nod, the conscious eyes of a fair and beautiful, but haughty looking girl of fifteen seated among the pupils.

“By Angelina Burton,” said the teacher, as he concluded, and laying it aside without further comment, he took up the next—“Lines to a Favorite Tree,” by Catherine Sumner.

It was short and simple, and ran as follows⁠—

The next was a story, and Harriet Carlton’s eyes and cheeks changed color as she listened. It was the same, yet not the same! The incidents were hers, the sentiment more novel-like, and many a flowery and highly wrought sentence had been introduced, which she had never heard before.

She sat speechless with wonder, indignation, and dismay, and though several other inferior compositions were read, she was so absorbed in reverie, that she heard no more until she was startled by Mr. Wentworth’s voice calling her by name. She looked up. In his hand was the prize—a richly chased, golden pencil-case, suspended to a chain of the same material. The sound, the sight recalled her bewildered faculties, and ere she reached the desk, she had formed a resolution, which, however, it required all her native strength of soul to put in practice.

“Miss Carlton, the prize is yours!” and the teacher leaned forward to throw the chain around her neck. The child drew back⁠—

“No, sir,” she said in a low, but firm and distinct voice, looking up bravely in his face, “I did not write the story you have read.”

“Not write it!” exclaimed Mr. Wentworth, “Why, then, does it bear your name? Am I to understand, Miss Carlton, that you have asked another’s assistance in your composition, and that you now repent the deception?”

Poor Harriet! this was too much! Her dark eyes first flashed, and then filled with tears; her lip trembled with emotion, and she paused a moment, as if disdaining a reply to this unmerited charge.

A slight and sneering laugh from the beauty aroused her, and she answered, respectfully but firmly,

“The story, I did write, was in that envelope yesterday. Some one has changed it without my knowledge. It was not so good as that you have read; so I must not take the prize.”

There was a murmur of applause through the assembly, and the teacher bent upon the blushing girl a look of approval, which amply repaid her for all the embarrassment she had suffered.

Aunt Eloise took advantage of the momentary excitement to steal unobserved from the room. Harriet took her seat, and Miss Angelina Burton was next called up. The portly matron leaned smilingly forward; and the graceful, little beauty, already affecting the airs of a fine lady, sauntered up to the desk and languidly reached out her hand for the prize.

“I cannot say much for your taste in selection, Miss Burton. I do not admire your author’s sentiments. The next time you wish to make an extract, you must allow me to choose for you. There are better things than this, even in the trashy magazine from which you have copied it.”

And with this severe, but justly merited reproof of the imposition that had been practiced, he handed the young lady, not the prize, which she expected, but the MS. essay on Friendship, which she had copied, word for word, from an old magazine.

The portly lady turned very red, and the beauty, bursting into tears of anger and mortification, returned to her seat discomfited.

“Miss Catherine Sumner,” resumed the teacher, with a benign smile, to a plain, yet noble-looking girl, who came forward as he spoke, “I believe there can be no mistake about your little effusion. I feel great pleasure in presenting you the reward, due, not only to your mental cultivation, but to the goodness of your heart. What! do you, too, hesitate?”

“Will you be kind enough, sir,” said the generous Kate, taking a paper from her pocket, “to read Harriet’s story before you decide. I asked her for a copy several days ago, and here it is.”

“You shall read it to the audience yourself, my dear; I am sure they will listen patiently to so kind a pleader in her friend’s behalf.”

The listeners looked pleased and eager to hear the story; and Kate Sumner, with a modest self-possession, which well became her, and with her fine eyes lighting up as she read, did full justice to the pretty and touching story, of which Harriet had been so cruelly robbed.

“It is well worth reading,” said Mr. Wentworth, when she had finished; “your friend has won the prize, my dear young lady; and, as she owes it to your generosity, you shall have the pleasure of bestowing it, yourself.”

Kate’s face glowed with emotion as she hung the chain around Harriet’s neck; and Harriet could not restrain her tears, while she whispered,

“I will take it, not as a prize, but as a gift from you, dear Kate!”

“And now, Miss Sumner,” said Mr. Wentworth, in conclusion, “let me beg your acceptance of these volumes, as a token of your teacher’s respect and esteem,” and presenting her a beautifully bound edition of Milton’s works, he bowed his adieu to the retiring audience.

“Will you lend me your prize-pencil this morning, Harriet?” said Mrs. Carlton the next day. She was dressed for a walk, and Harriet wondered why she should want the pencil to take out with her; but she immediately unclasped the chain from her neck, and handed it to her mother without asking any questions.

She was rewarded at dinner by finding it lying at the side of her plate, with the single word, “Truth” engraved upon its seal.

E. T. Parris.           Engraved by Rawdon, Wright, Hatch, & Smillie.

True Affection.

Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine.

ILLUSTRATION OF A PICTURE.

———

BY CHARLES J. PETERSON.

———

The last days of November are at hand, and the melancholy woods, shorn of their foliage, stand skeleton-like against the cold, lowering sky; or toss their branches to and fro, with a low moaning sound, in the fitful tempest. Hark! how the gale swells out with the deep voice of a cathedral organ, or dies plaintively away like the cry of a lost child in the forest. The sky is covered with cloud-rifts of a deep, leaden color, only a spot of blue sky being here and there visible; but occasionally the sun, bursting, like a god, from the darkness that encircles him, covers the brown hills with an effulgent glory, while the opposite firmament is lit up with a dull, fiery glow, that has something almost spectral in its aspect. The streams are swollen and discolored, and roll their turbid waters hoarsely onward. Along the fields the brown grass whistles in the wind, and the bare flower-stalks rattle, with a melancholy tone, in the garden. Now and then, drops of rain plash heavily to the ground. The wind comes with a sudden chill to the nerves—the bay is crisped into foam by the fitful gusts—and along the bleak coast the now mountain waves roll in with a hoarse, sullen roar, forewarning us of shipwreck and death. Sad thoughts insensibly possess the mind, and tales of sorrow, that had long been forgot, come up to our memories. One such is even now heavy on our heart—listen! and we will rehearse it.

It was on just such a morning as this, many a long year ago, and far away from our own happy land, that a little congregation was gathered together in the hills to worship God. The time was in those sore and evil days when the decree of a tyrannical king had gone forth, that no man should worship, except as a corrupt hierarchy and lascivious court might ordain—and when, all over Scotland, those who would not give up the free birthright of their fathers, were driven to meet in mountain glens, and on lonely moors, whither their pastors—the holy men who had baptized them in infancy, and united them to the dear objects of their love—had already been hunted. And often, in solitary places, where hitherto only the cry of the eagle had been heard, the Sabbath hymn rose sweetly up from tender maidens and tearful wives, while their brothers and husbands listened with weapons in their hands, or watched from some neighboring eminence, lest the fiery dragoons of Claverhouse should be in sight. And when these God-defying troopers, with hands red with the blood of the saints, burst into the little flock, woful was the tale, and loud the wailing that went through all the vales around. Every new Sabbath brought its tale of slaughter, until the land smoked with blood, and the incense thereof went up from a hundred hills, crying for vengeance to the Most High.

And such a congregation had now met in the hollow of three hills, far away from the usual track of the persecutors. A simple rock served the hoary headed pastor for a pulpit; while hard by, a rivulet, brawling over its pebbly bed, and then for a moment expanding into a mimic lake, bottomed with silvery sands, formed the holy font for baptism. Around was gathered the little flock—aged sires and young striplings, staid matrons and meek-eyed maidens, young children and stalwart men—all gazing upward into the pastor’s face, a sacred throng. But there was one other there, who seemed equally with him an object of anxious interest, and on whom every eye was occasionally turned—a bright, beautiful being, with far more of heaven than earth in her deep, azure eyes. Oh! lovely was that fair-haired girl, even as we may have dreamed a seraph to be, all glorious with golden wings, under the throne of God. And now there sat in those soft blue eyes an expression of meek sorrow, tempered with high and holy faith, for many and sore had been the trials of Helen Græme; but grace had been given her to endure them all, and even to rise above them, with a courage which had made her dear unto every heart among these wandering and persecuted ones.

The father of Helen was the last son of a family which had been decaying for centuries, and which, of all its once mighty possessions, retained only the comparatively small estate of Craigburnie, in one of the southern counties of Scotland. To rebuild the fortunes of his house had been the darling wish of her father. For this purpose he had entered the army of the Covenanters, during the wars of the great revolution, and served with some distinction, though without permanent advantage, in consequence of the return of the king. On the happening of this event, Mr. Græme retired to his estate, soured and disappointed. Here he would have been far more discontented than he was, but for his wife, a lady of the meekest piety, and whose single minded charity was known throughout all her native hills, for Mrs. Græme was the daughter of one of the holiest ministers of the kirk, and inherited not only his piety, but the fervent admiration with which he was regarded by his parishioners. She early instilled into her child the pure precepts of our holy religion, and often might the little girl be seen seated at her mother’s knee, lisping the word of God, which the parent taught her thus early to peruse. And, on the Sabbath, who listened more attentively to the venerable pastor, or joined with sweeter voice in the anthem of praise? Nurtured thus, what wonder that at seventeen she seemed the counterpart of the mother, and was regarded by the poorer folk around the Brae—her mother’s birthplace, and where she spent several months each year—almost with veneration, for had not many of them, in times of sore trial, been sustained by the bounty, and cheered by the smiles of the heavenly girl?

But at length her mother fell sick, and for many a weary month Helen watched by the sufferer’s bed-side, a ministering angel. During this illness she noticed that, at times, her father would seem lost in thought, as if something weighed heavily on his mind; but Helen regarded it little, attributing it to his suspense at her mother’s danger, for he loved both her and his child with an intensity seemingly in contradiction to his hard, unbending character, but which, in truth, was the result of his total seclusion from the world; for the sympathies thus shut out from others lavished themselves wholly on his wife and daughter. At length, Mrs. Græme died, and for many days it seemed as if that strong man’s heart would break, while Helen wept in silence, though not less uncontrollably. Her father was now sterner than ever, though not to her. He was more alone, often indulged in fits of musing, and was absent at Edinburgh for some days—an unusual occurrence—and when he came back it was as Sir Roland Græme, a title which men said he had purchased by selling himself to the Court. Helen heard these rumors—which, however, came to her ears in whispers, and which at first she could not believe—with sorrow and despair of heart; but no word of reproof broke from her lips. Her sufferings were endured silently; but so deep was her grief, that she pined away, seeming to all eyes a being lent awhile to earth, and gradually exhaling to heaven. Her father, thinking her sorrow sprung wholly from her mother’s death, and wishing, perhaps, that she should be from home when he should first act for the government, sent her to her mother’s native vale, alleging, and doubtless hoping, that change of air would restore her to health. It were doing him no more than justice to say, that his paternal love was fully aroused to Helen’s danger, and that he took the only possible means to keep at his side this dear bud of her who was now in heaven. He forgot how much the little family at the Brae leaned toward the persecuted sect—he forgot the disaffected character of the district into which Helen went—he forgot the danger lest her own feelings should become enlisted in behalf of those against whom he was so soon to draw his sword; remembering only—for was he not a father?—that his child’s health was in danger, and that a residence in the mountain district where she had been born, and where she had spent so many happy years, was the sole chance of saving her life.

And now Helen was once more amid the scenes where her childhood had been spent, and every old counsel and prayer of her mother, recalled to mind by the spots where they had been first heard, rose up before her, and softened her heart; and often, at Sabbath eve, or in the still watches of the night, it seemed to her as if the spirit of that sainted mother hovered over her, whispering her heavenward, and bidding her never to forget or forsake her God. All the sympathies which now surrounded her, drew her to the persecuted sect; for her cousin and aunt were both among the non-conformists; and though the little kirk, standing all alone in the hills, a cool well in a parched desert, was now closed, and he who had formerly ministered there an outcast, yet the sight and recognition of him, at more than one stolen meeting, recalled to Helen’s mind the time when he blessed her, nestling bird-like to her mother’s bosom, she looking the while half affrightedly, yet oh, how reverentially, up into the face of the mild old man! And was not her heart softened, even to tears, when the patriarch, well remembering her—for none did he ever forget—sought her among the crowd, and, laying his hands on her head, blessed her, hoping that God still kept her in the way her mother had trod? From that hour Helen became a changed being. The light heartedness of youth was gone. She wept often, and prayed in solitary places by herself; for lo! the struggle in her bosom, between duty to her parent, and a higher duty to God, waxed stronger and stronger; but daily she yearned more and more to the oppressed remnant, until finally it was whispered in the scattered congregation that the persecutor’s daughter—that child of many prayers—was to become a professed member of the flock. And old men and nursing mothers in the church blessed God as they heard it.

On this Sabbath morning, Helen had, for the first time, openly attended a meeting in the hills. At first, she had come with fear and trembling, but when she saw the looks of kindly sympathy with which all regarded her, she became more composed, and could enter on the holy duties of the day in a fitting mood. And when the aged pastor gave out the hymn, and the congregation joined in the sacred anthem, what voice sang of redeeming love so sweetly as that of Helen?

Lo! the vision of light has passed from our souls, and in place of that seraphic countenance, we behold the face of a stern warrior, in every feature of which we read of cruelty and blood. Even now he is hot in pursuit of the suffering remnant, and with his troop of fiery dragoons interrupts the Sabbath quiet of the vales and glens, with the jingling of broad swords and the ribald jests of scoffers; and many a dark-browed peasant scowls on the persecutor as he passes, and prays that God will yet avenge his slaughtered saints. Nor, if the popular rumor is to be believed, is that vengeance altogether withheld; for men say that Sir Roland Græme, having sold his religion for the paltry honors of earth, has been already cursed from on high, and that, sleeping or waking, he finds no rest from the stingings of remorse; yet, like one who has committed the unpardonable sin, he cannot draw back from his career of blood, but is impelled onward, as if by some irresistible power, to still darker crimes. Look upon his face again, and tell us if there is not something there which you shudder to behold—something of untold horror in that stern, God-defying brow, as if the arch-enemy had already been suffered to affix his seal upon it.

And whither was that man of blood going? Far, far over hill and dale, to the slaughter of the saints. He had heard, through some traitor, of the assemblage to be held that morning in the hills, and with the first dawn of day he and his troopers had been in the saddle, thirsting to participate in the bloody sacrament. For the last half hour he had seemed lost in thought, and now he suddenly drew in his rein, and turned to his lieutenant.

“Lennox,” he said, “I believe I will not lead these brave fellows to-day, but surrender the command to you. I see, over yonder hill, the blue summit that looks down on the Brae, where my daughter is visiting. I have not seen her for months, nor is it probable I shall be in this district for many months more. The country here is widely disaffected, and therefore an unbecoming residence for a child of mine. It has just struck me that I might cross the hills, and bring her home with me this afternoon. And yet something whispers to me that I ought rather to pursue these traitors and schismatics,” he continued, as if to himself; “however, I can trust to you, and it is imperative that my daughter leave this district. We will meet here by four o’clock. Your road lies down yonder glen. All I have to say is, ‘spare none!’ ”

“I understand,” said the subordinate; “neither age nor sex.”

“Neither age nor sex, nor even those of rank, if such there be,” sternly said Sir Roland; “when the poison has sunk deep, nothing but the cautery will cure. And hark ye! on the faithful execution of your commands depends your hope of preferment. I would not spare my own child, if I found her among these spawn of Satan!”

And, with these memorable words, he ordered a detachment of his company to follow him, and rode off, though at first reluctantly, in the direction of the Brae.

The route was passed in silence, for Sir Roland was buried in thought. There was indeed cause for it. One or two things in the last letter he had received from his daughter—and that missive had now been written a month—made him feel uneasy, lest she looked more favorably on the persecuted sect than became a daughter of his; and it was this fear, all at once recalled to mind by the business on which he had set forth this morning, that determined him so suddenly to leave the dispersion of the conventicle to his lieutenant, while he should ride over to the Brae, and bring his daughter home. Other thoughts, too, were busy within him. The long coveted rank had brought little alleviation to his soured and disappointed mind, for his fortune was now more than ever inadequate to his condition, and all the peculiarly sensitive feelings of a proud man were stung to the quick by the indignities to which, in consequence, he was often exposed. Moreover, he was aware of the light in which he was held, since his change of politics, not only by the common people, but by large portions of the gentry; so that, on every hand, he was soured and irritated, and longed to wreak on the Covenanters the hate which he felt toward all men.

And yet, as he approached the Brae, and saw at a distance the low roof of the mansion from which he had taken his bride, gentler feelings stole into his bosom. He thought of her whom he had once loved with all the fervor of a first passion—he remembered the happy years they had spent together—and when he recollected that she was now no more, and that the last time he had beheld these roofs he had been in her company, a tear almost gathered into his eye. Then he thought of his daughter. As her image rose up before him, his heart was fully melted. With all the sternness of his character he loved that daughter as few fathers loved—ay! loved her doubly since her mother’s death, for she was now the only object in the whole wide world on which he could bestow aught of affection. And now, joy at the prospect of meeting her gave to his spirits the glad exhilaration of boyhood, and quickening his pace, he galloped gaily across the hills, nor drew his rein until he reached the door of the old mansion.

The Brae was an antique and partially dilapidated residence, at present inhabited by the aunt of Helen, and a daughter about the age of Miss Græme. At all times it wore a sombre, deserted look, but on this morning it seemed peculiarly desolate, for the whole front of the house was closed, and all the outhouses shut up. A strange fear came over the father, as he beheld the absence of these signs of life, and he hastily ordered one of the dragoons to dismount and knock at the door. The man obeyed, but for a time knocked in vain. The sound of the hilt of his heavy sword, striking on the door, echoed through the long hall of the house; but no signs of life within were visible. The usual frown on the face of Sir Roland grew darker, and he cried angrily—

“Blow off the lock with a pistol, and search the house!”

At this instant, however, and just as the trooper was proceeding to execute this order, the face of an old woman was protruded from one of the upper windows, while she demanded who was below.

“Sir Roland Græme,” replied the leader; “where are the family? where is Miss Græme? Is any one sick?”

“They are all well, but out!” briefly said the woman.

“Out—out!” exclaimed the persecutor, “and on Sunday, when there is no church within miles. By G—,” he continued, striving to drown his fears in rage, “is this a time to be out? Where have they gone? Answer truly, on your life!”

“May it please your honor,” said one of the dragoons, touching his cap, “may they not have gone to this conventicle, and taken your daughter with them?”

Quick as lightning, Sir Roland wheeled round on the unthinking speaker, and while the indentation on his brow became deeper than ever, and his eye flashed with rage, he said—

“My daughter consorting with traitors and schismatics! Breathe but the word again, and by the God of heaven I will cleave you to the chine!” and his fingers played nervously with the hilt of his sword; but, seeing the deprecating look of the trooper, he recovered himself, and added, “tush! man, you are innocent, but take care how even innocently you rouse the tiger.”

“Tiger,” shrieked the old woman, who had known Sir Roland in former days, and who now seemed impelled by some sudden gust of passion to speak out, “it is well said; ay! one whose fangs have been in the hearts of the persecuted remnant—but God will avenge his people. Know, false persecutor, that your daughter has gone forth to-day to become one of the chosen few against whom, oh! man of sin, you have so often ridden with steel and war horse, holding the commission of your master, the Evil One. Go to, Roland Græme, I mind ye when ye were a boy, and little did I think ye would ever become the Judas you are now.”

It is probable that if her hearer had comprehended the whole of this harangue, a bullet would have been the speaker’s reward; but the first words of the old woman, when taken in connection with the desertion of the house, and his own misgivings from Helen’s late letter, assured him that his daughter had indeed attended the conventicle. The conviction fell on his heart with agonizing force. Remembering the injunctions of indiscriminate butchery he had laid on his subordinate, and well knowing that the command would be fulfilled to the very letter, he staggered back in his saddle, with a face whiter than ashes, and was fain to grasp the pommel for support, while he exclaimed in tones wrung from him by the keenest anguish—

“My child!—my child!—I have murdered my child!”

“What is that ye say?” screamed the old hag, leaning eagerly forward; “have ye sent out your reiving dragoons against the Lord’s anointed? and ye fear that they will slay your ain bairn. Oh! man of blood, the judgment of God has come upon ye—the judgment has come upon ye!”

But to the voice of the speaker, as well as to the astonished looks of the dragoons, the father was insensible. He still remained clutching the saddle, every feature of his face working with intense agony, and his eyes glaring vacantly on the air. Those who looked on him shrunk back aghast at the horror of his aspect; which, fearful as it was, only faintly shadowed forth the torture of the soul within. The peril of his only child stupefied him for a time. Then a succession of wild images rose up to his mind. He saw his daughter flying before the ruthless dragoons—he heard her cries for mercy, and the bitter sneer of disbelief on the part of her pursuers—he beheld her lying a corpse on the bare heath, her bosom gashed with brutal wounds, and her long fair hair dabbled with blood. In that moment the memory of every one whom he had slain came up before him—the mothers who had clung to his knees, the babes who had looked innocently in his face as they died, the daughters whose aged parents he had slain before their eyes. He thought of the silvery headed patriarch whom he had shot for refusing the test, and the prophetic warning of the victim that he, even he, the proud persecutor, should curse the day he ever drew his sword against the saints, came up to his memory. He groaned in anguish. For a time none dared to intrude on his misery. One of his men, a trusty body adherent, at length ventured to speak, by asking him if they had not better ride with all haste after Lennox, in the hope that they might yet come up in time. Starting, as if a shot had struck him, the father plunged his rowels into the side of his steed, until the blood gushed forth, and wheeling his horse sharp around, looked back sternly on his followers, as he led the way at a fearful pace up the hill. Well did he know the country around, and necessary, indeed, was that knowledge, for his frantic gallop required the most intimate acquaintance with every turn and inequality of the road. Over hill and dale, through glen and moor he dashed, reckless of danger, for how could he think of aught but his daughter? Oh! what would he not have given to be assured that he should once more look into her soft blue eyes, that he should again press her to his bosom. What now to him was rank or wealth? Perhaps he thought that Helen would be able to reveal her name ere she fell a victim—but no! for even if she spoke, would his subordinate believe her story? Once, the very suspicion that she favored the Covenanters had angered him, but now he would forgive every thing, only to be assured of her safety. The contending emotions—hope and fear, love and anger, suspense and despair—that agitated his bosom, made that hour’s ride an hour of agony, such as he had never before thought a human being could endure, and live. He felt that the curse of God was on him—that all the agonies he had inflicted on others were now concentrated on himself—that he was bound to the wheel of fire. His punishment had already begun. He had rushed against the thick bosses of the Almighty’s buckler, and found, like him of old, that man could not contend against the Most High.

We remember, when a boy, waking from a dream of horror, to find our mother smiling over our sleep. Oh! never shall we forget the heavenly radiance of that loved face, for radiant with heaven it seemed to us, after the terrors of that midnight vision. Even so we feel when turning from contemplating the tortures of the persecutor, to gaze on his sainted child. The hour was now approaching noon, and Helen, in the presence of the silent flock, had taken upon her those vows she could never put off. Tears fell from many an eye as the worshipers beheld her thus in their midst; and the old pastor was so affected that he could scarcely speak.

“God will reward you, my daughter, and give you strength,” he said; “I bless His holy name that thou art delivered from the dominion of Baal. It is hard, I know, to disobey a parent; but saith not the Scripture, that we must leave father and mother, if required, and take up our cross and follow Christ? Only persevere, and God will make your way plain to you, guiding you, even as he led the children of Israel, with a pillar of cloud by day, and of fire by night. Trials, and sore ones, we must all have in this world—and I boast not, but only speak to cheer you, when I say that mine have been many and hard, but God has given me grace to endure all, even as He will give it unto you. But my race is nearly run; the golden urn will soon be broken at the fountain. I only pray to die like the martyrs of old, with my armor on, and my sword girt to my thigh. Come, oh! Lord, most mighty,” he continued, raising his hands and eyes rapturously above, “come, oh! Lord most gracious, and come quickly!”

A deep silence followed the conclusion of this prayer, while the tears of many fell fast and thick. Every eye was fixed on the holy man, or turned to Helen, for the countenances of both already seemed to glow, as those of angels. None dared to draw a breath, lest they should dispel the hushed stillness that so well accorded with the solemnity of the moment. But suddenly a cry was heard, clear, loud and startling—“The dragoons—the dragoons are here!” and had a voice come from the dead, it would not have produced a more sudden change in the hearers. Every one started up, and all eyes were turned toward the point whence the cry had proceeded. There, on a gentle eminence, stood a shepherd waving his plaid, and making gestures for the congregation to fly up the glen. In an instant all was confusion. Mothers clasped their infants to their bosoms, and looked up tremblingly, with faces whiter than ashes—maidens clung to their lovers, and gazed around with dilated eyes and looks of terror—and fathers and brothers, gathering around these dear ones, hurried them on foot and horseback, in the direction indicated by the sentinel. The escort of Helen and her aunt had been several armed retainers, and these now rallied to the side of their mistress and the pastor, prepared to make good their retreat, or defend themselves to the last. Hoping to escape the notice of the pursuers, they dashed off in a different direction from that pursued by the others of the congregation; but just as they turned the angle of the hill, the pennons of the troopers came into sight, and by the immediate diversion of a party in pursuit of them, the fugitives knew they were detected. Pricking their horses, they now hurried rapidly onward, and for several hundred yards lost sight of their pursuers. At length, the little party reached the brow of a slight acclivity.

“Faster—faster,” said one who had looked back, “they gain on us—press on.”

Every eye was turned in the direction of the pursuers, and there, not half the distance they had been before, were the dragoons, thundering along with fiery haste. The sight gave new energy to the fugitives, who urged on their steeds with redoubled vigor. For a while now the result seemed doubtful. During this interval of suspense the feelings of the fugitives were of the most conflicting character—the instinctive love of life alternating with a holy resignation to whatever fate might be assigned them. Now, as they gained on the troopers, the former prevailed, and now, as they saw their pursuers drawing nigher, the latter won the mastery. The emotions of each, meanwhile, were different. The old pastor, with eyes uplifted, seemed rapturously awaiting martyrdom—the aunt and cousin of Helen were pale and red by turns as their fear or faith rose triumphant, while the serving men frowned darkly as they looked behind, and appeared to wish for a chance to exchange passes with their steel-clad oppressors. But the feelings of Helen were most difficult to analyze, though perhaps they had less of earth in them than those of any except the pastor. Subdued by the day’s sacrifice of herself, and all glowing with divine faith and energy, what had she to fear from death? Yet, even with this perfect resignation, she could not avoid looking back on their pursuers, while her heart heat quicker as the distance increased between the troopers and themselves.

“We gain—we gain—press on, we shall escape,” shouted the leader of the little party, “the Lord will yet deliver us from our enemies.”

“Nay, nay,” said the pastor suddenly, “the hour has come—see ye not that we are cut off in front, lo! the horses and the men-of-war.”

A cry—almost a shriek—broke from Helen’s two female companions as they looked ahead, and saw, emerging from a narrow ravine, another party of dragoons, led by a tall, dark man far in advance of the rest, and all riding with tumultuous haste. Helen spoke not, but only raised her eyes to heaven, for escape was now impossible. The ravine ahead was the only feasible outlet in that direction, from the glen up which the fugitives had fled, and to turn back would be to fall on the swords of their pursuers. The serving men looked aghast, and drew in their reins, which example the rest of the party immediately followed. For a minute there was a profound silence. At length the leader again spoke.

“Why stand we here? Escape is impossible, unless we can cut our way through. Let us charge the party behind, for that is the smaller. Form a circle around the women—wheel—trot.”

There was no time for consultation, and the proposal seemed to point out the only feasible plan. With the words they wheeled their horses, and dashed to the desperate attack. The dragoons seemed for an instant astonished by the movement, but did not slacken their pace. Their leader waved his sword, and turning to his men, led the onset in person, shouting “God save the king and bishops,” while the Covenanters, unsheathing their blades, raised the cry of “The sword of the Lord and Gideon.” And thus, borne in the midst of those armed men as in the embrace of a whirlwind, Helen was hurried toward the dragoons. And as they galloped along, the heavenly girl, with heart uplifted, prayed, while her countenance shone with a glory as of the cherubim.

And who was it that dashed so frantically up the glen, as if fearful that he might not arrive to whet his blade in the blood of the fugitives? Who, but Sir Roland Græme, flying to save his daughter, and even now almost maddened with the thought that he had come too late, for the instant that he emerged from the ravine he recognized his child, and now, when he saw her turned back to the pursuers, and his practiced eye told him that he could not reach her until the two parties should be engaged in deadly combat, the same sickening sensation of horror which had attacked him at the Brae came over him again. With a sharp cry of agony he ploughed his spurs into the already bloody sides of his horse, and sprang forward at a pace even more frantic than that which he had before led; but swift as was his progress it seemed to him only that of a snail. On—on—he urged his gallant beast, and nearer and nearer the fugitives and their first pursuers drew to each other. What though he gained on the group!—he saw that the hostile parties would meet while he would yet be far away. Oh! what were his feelings as this conviction forced itself on him. If only another mile, in which to overtake them, had been given him, he might perhaps have succeeded; but now hope was in vain! Cold drops of sweat stood on his brow, while his heart throbbed almost to bursting against his corselet. Did none recognize him, and could they not understand his frantic signs? He shouted—again—again—again. The dead might as well be expected to hear. He waved his plumed hat on high, but, at that instant, with the shock of an earthquake, the opponents met. A dizziness came over his eyes, but with a mighty effort he rallied his reeling faculties, and looked at the fight. Was his child yet alive? He saw the gleam of the broadswords, the blaze of firearms, and all the tumult of the conflict, but his daughter was not visible. Suddenly a sharp, quick, female shriek, rising shrill over the uproar, met his ear. God of heaven, had his Helen fallen! Another leap of his frantic steed, and he was near enough to hear the shouts of the combatants and distinguish particular persons. He trembled with eagerness, but lo! his daughter was still unharmed, girt around as with a wall of steel, by the broadswords of her defenders. He rose in his stirrups at the sight, and waving his hat around his head, shouted with the voice of a Titan. Joy—joy! they recognize him, and his child extends her arms toward him. She is saved. But no! for at this very instant, when at length they understood by their leader’s gestures that they were to desist, one of the dragoons, availing himself of the confusion of the moment and thirsting for vengeance for a wound he had received, aimed a pistol at the pastor’s bosom, and though a fellow soldier struck aside his arm, it was only to wing the deadly ball to another heart, even that of Helen, who all along had been nestled by the side of the holy man. She fell back into his arms, the blood gushing from her bosom, and for an instant they thought her gone. But when the pastor called on her name she faintly opened her eyes, pressed his hand, smiled sweetly, and murmuring of heaven, sank away apparently into a slumber.

One wild cry of horror had risen, at her fall, from those immediately around her, telling the tale of her murder; but the father needed not this confirmation of his worst fears, for he had seen the shot and beheld her fall. Galloping wildly forward, with a few gigantic leaps he reached the offender, whom he smote to the earth with a single blow of his broadsword. The next instant he was by his daughter’s side, the group opening awe-struck to let him pass. He spoke not, but oh! the terrible agony of his countenance. Putting them aside with arms extended, he approached and gazed down into the face of his child—gazed as Sapphira did when the apostle told her doom, and she saw the bearers returning from her husband’s burial. And for a minute of profound silence he continued gazing thus, into that fair sweet face, on which, though now stilled as in death, there yet lingered a smile of heavenly joy. He shuddered as he looked, and his countenance became livid as that of a corpse. He essayed to speak, but though his lips moved, no sound proceeded from them. At length slowly, almost reluctantly, he stooped down and took her hand.

“Helen—Helen,” he said, in a choking voice, “you are not dead. Say so—tell me I am not your murderer. Oh! speak, and forgive me.”

The dying girl faintly opened her eyes, and gazed vacantly into her father’s face. Her senses were fast deserting her. She did not recognize him.

“Oh God! my child is dying,” groaned the father. “Helen, Helen,” he continued, raising his voice, “do you not know me? I am your father—your murderer. Do not look on me with such strange eyes! Helen, Helen dear, say, if only by a smile, that you forgive me. Oh! Lord God of heaven,” he exclaimed, lifting his eyes agonizingly above, “have mercy on me—suffer her to live to forgive me—crush not the bruised reed,” and hot tears gushed from his eyes and trickled in his daughter’s face.

“Who weeps?” faintly said the dying sufferer, “weep not for me. Tell my father how I love him, and die blessing him⁠—”

“Thank thee, Almighty Father, I thank thee,” gasped the penitent. “Helen, here is your father—I am he.”

For the first time, now, the dying girl seemed fully to comprehend her situation. She looked a minute around the group, and then, with a sweet smile, her eyes rested on her father’s face. She faintly pressed his hand. Tears gushed from his eyes like rain, and though he strove to speak he could not for his sobs. She murmured of him, of her mother, of heaven, and then they knew she was dead. The father looked on her a moment, and with a groan—which none there ever forgot—sunk helpless to her side. They raised him, but he was a corpse. “Vengeance is mine,” saith the Lord, “and I will repay.”

———

BY MR. SEBA SMITH.

———

Hardly any event creates a stronger sensation in a thinly settled New England village, especially among the young folks, than the arrival of a fresh and blooming miss, who comes to make her abode in the neighborhood. When, therefore, Squire Johnson, the only lawyer in the place, and a very respectable man of course, told Farmer Jones one afternoon that his wife’s sister, a smart girl of eighteen, was coming in a few days to reside in his family, the news flew like wildfire through Pond village, and was the principal topic of conversation for a week. Pond village is situated upon the margin of one of those numerous and beautiful sheets of water that gem the whole surface of New England, like the bright stars in an evening sky, and received its appellation to distinguish it from two or three other villages in the same town, which could not boast of a similar location. When Farmer Jones came in to his supper about sunset that afternoon, and took his seat at the table, the eyes of the whole family were upon him, for there was a peculiar working about his mouth and a knowing glance of his eye, that always told them when he had something of interest to communicate. But Farmer Jones’ secretiveness was large, and his temperament not the most active, and he would probably have rolled the important secret as a sweet morsel under his tongue for a long time, had not Mrs. Jones, who was of rather an impatient and prying turn of mind, contrived to draw it from him.

“Now, Mr. Jones,” said she, as she handed him his cup of tea, “what is it you are going to say? Do out with it; for you’ve been chawing something or other over in your mind ever since you came into the house.”

“It’s my tobacher, I s’pose,” said Mr. Jones, with another knowing glance of his eye.

“Now, father, what is the use?” said Susan; “we all know you’ve got something or other you want to say, and why can’t you tell us what ’tis?”

“La, who cares what ’tis?” said Mrs. Jones; “if it was any thing worth telling, we shouldn’t have to wait for it, I dare say.”

Hereupon Mrs. Jones assumed an air of the most perfect indifference, as the surest way of conquering what she was pleased to call Mr. Jones’ obstinacy, which by the way was a very improper term to apply in the case; for it was purely the working of secretiveness without the least particle of obstinacy attached to it.

There was a pause for two or three minutes in the conversation, till Mr. Jones passed his cup to be filled a second time, when with a couple of preparatory hems he began to let out the secret.

“We are to have a new neighbor here in a few days,” said Mr. Jones, stopping short when he had uttered thus much, and sipping his tea and filling his mouth with food.

Mrs. Jones, who was perfect in her tactics, said not a word, but attended to the affairs of the table, as though she had not noticed what was said. The farmer’s secretiveness had at last worked itself out, and he began again.

“Squire Johnson’s wife’s sister is coming here in a few days, and is going to live with ’em.”

The news being thus fairly divulged, it left free scope for conversation.

“Well, I wonder if she is a proud, stuck up piece,” said Mrs. Jones.

“I shouldn’t think she would be,” said Susan, “for there aint a more sociabler woman in the neighborhood than Miss Johnson. So if she’s at all like her sister I think we shall like her.”

“I wonder how old she is,” said Stephen, who was just verging toward the close of his twenty-first year.

“The squire called her eighteen,” said Mr. Jones, giving a wink to his wife, as much as to say, that’s about the right age for Stephen.

“I wonder if she is handsome,” said Susan, who was somewhat vain of her own looks, and having been a sort of reigning belle in Pond village for some time, felt a little alarm at the idea of a rival.

“I dare be bound she’s handsome,” said Mrs. Jones, “if she’s sister to Miss Johnson; for where’ll you find a handsomer woman than Miss Johnson, go the town through?”

After supper, Stephen went down to Mr. Robinson’s store, and told the news to young Charles Robinson and all the young fellows who were gathered there for a game at quoits and a ring at wrestling. And Susan went directly over to Mr. Bean’s and told Patty, and Patty went round to the Widow Davis’ and told Sally, and before nine o’clock the matter was pretty well understood in about every house in the village.

At the close of the fourth day, a little before sunset, a chaise was seen to drive up to Squire Johnson’s door. Of course the eyes of the whole village were turned in that direction. Sally Davis, who was just coming in from milking, set her pail down on the grass by the side of the road as soon as the chaise came in sight, and watched it till it reached the squire’s door, and the gentleman and lady had got out and gone into the house. Patty Bean was doing up the ironing that afternoon, and she had just taken a hot iron from the fire as the chaise passed the door, and she ran with it in her hand and stood on the door steps till the whole ceremony of alighting, greeting, and entering the house, was over. Old Mrs. Bean stood with her head out of the window, her iron-bowed spectacles resting upon the top of her forehead, her shriveled hand placed across her eyebrows to defend her red eyes from the rays of the setting sun, and her skinny chin protruding about three inches in advance of a couple of stubs of teeth, which her open mouth exposed fairly to view.

“Seems to me they are dreadful loving,” said old Mrs. Bean, as she saw Mrs. Johnson descend the steps and welcome her sister with a kiss.

“La me, if there isn’t the squire kissing of her tu,” said Patty; “well, I declare, I would a waited till I got into the house, I’ll die if I wouldn’t. It looks so vulgar to be kissing afore folks, and out doors tu; I should think Squire Johnson would be ashamed of himself.”

“Well, I shouldn’t,” said young John Bean, who came up at that moment, and who had passed the chaise just as the young lady alighted from it. “I shouldn’t be ashamed to kiss sich a pretty gal as that any how; I’d kiss her wherever I could ketch her, if it was in the meetin-house.”

“Why, is she handsome, Jack?” said Patty.

“Yes, she’s got the prettiest little puckery kind of a mouth I’ve seen this six months. Her cheeks are red, and her eyes shine like new buttons.”

“Well,” replied Patty, “if she’ll only take the shine off of Susan Jones when she goes to meetin, Sunday, I sha’n’t care.”

While these observations were going on at old Mr. Bean’s, Charles Robinson and a group of young fellows with him were standing in front of Robinson’s store, a little farther down the road, and watching the scene that was passing at Squire Johnson’s. They witnessed the whole with becoming decorum, now and then making a remark about the fine horse and the handsome chaise, till they saw the tall squire bend his head down and give the young lady a kiss, when they all burst out into a loud laugh. In a moment, being conscious that their laugh must be heard and noticed at the squire’s, they, in order to do away the impression it must necessarily make, at once turned their heads the other way, and Charles Robinson, who was quick at an expedient, knocked off the hat of the lad who was standing next to him, and then they all laughed louder than before.

“Here comes Jack Bean,” said Charles, “now we shall hear something about her, for Jack was coming by the squire’s when she got out of the chaise. How does she look, Jack?”

“Handsome as a picter,” said Jack. “I haint seen a prettier gal since last Thanksgiving Day, when Jane Ford was here to visit Susan Jones.”

“Black eyes or blue?” said Charles.

“Blue,” said Jack, “but all-fired bright.”

“Tall or short?” said Stephen Jones, who was rather short himself, and therefore felt a particular interest on that point.

“Rather short,” said Jack, “but straight and round as our young colt.”

“Do you know what her name is?” said Charles.

“They called her Lucy when she got out of the chaise,” said Jack, “and as Miss Johnson’s name was Brown before she was married, I s’pose her name must be Lucy Brown.”

“Just such a name as I like,” said Charles Robinson; “Lucy Brown sounds well. Now suppose, in order to get acquainted with her, we all hands take a sail to-morrow night, about this time, on the pond, and invite her to go with us.”

“Agreed,” said Stephen Jones. “Agreed,” said Jack Bean. “Agreed,” said all hands.

The question then arose, who should carry the invitation to her; and the young men being rather bashful on that score, it was finally settled that Susan Jones should bear the invitation, and accompany her to the boat, where they should all be in waiting to receive her. The next day was a very long day, at least to most of the young men of Pond village; and promptly, an hour before sunset, most of them were assembled, with half a score of their sisters and female cousins, by a little stone wharf on the margin of the pond, for the proposed sail. All the girls in the village, of a suitable age, were there, except Patty Bean. She had undergone a good deal of fidgeting and fussing during the day, to prepare for the sail, but had been disappointed. Her new bonnet was not done; and as for wearing her old flap-sided bonnet, she declared she would not, if she never went. Presently Susan Jones and Miss Lucy Brown were seen coming down the road. In a moment all were quiet, the laugh and the joke were hushed, and each one put on his best looks. When they arrived, Susan went through the ceremony of introducing Miss Brown to each of the ladies and gentlemen present.

“But how in the world are you going to sail?” said Miss Brown, “for there isn’t a breath of wind; and I don’t see any sail-boat, neither.”

“Oh, the less wind we have, the better, when we sail here,” said Charles Robinson; “and there is our sail-boat,” pointing to a flat-bottomed scow-boat, some twenty feet long by ten wide.

“We don’t use no sails,” said Jack Bean; “sometimes, when the wind is fair, we put up a bush to help pull along a little, and when ’tisn’t, we row.”

The party were soon embarked on board the scow, and a couple of oars were set in motion, and they glided slowly and pleasantly over as lovely a sheet of water as ever glowed in the sunsetting ray. In one hour’s time, the whole party felt perfectly acquainted with Miss Lucy Brown. She had talked in the most lively and fascinating manner; she had told stories and sung songs. Among others, she had given Moore’s boat song, with the sweetest possible effect; and by the time they returned to the landing, it would hardly be too much to say that half the young men in the party were decidedly in love with her.

A stern regard to truth requires a remark to be made here, not altogether favorable to Susan Jones, which is the more to be regretted, as she was in the main an excellent hearted girl, and highly esteemed by the whole village. It was observed that as the company grew more and more pleased with Miss Lucy Brown, Susan Jones was less and less animated, till at last she became quite reserved, and apparently sad. She, however, on landing, treated Miss Brown with respectful attention, accompanied her home to Squire Johnson’s door, and cordially bade her good night.

The casual glimpses which the young men of Pond village had of Miss Brown during the remainder of the week, as she occasionally stood at the door, or looked out at the window, or once or twice when she walked out with Susan Jones, and the fair view they all had of her at meeting on the Sabbath, served but to increase their admiration, and to render her more and more an object of attraction. She was regarded by all as a prize, and several of them were already planning what steps it was best to take in order to win her. The two most prominent candidates, however, for Miss Brown’s favor, were Charles Robinson and Stephen Jones. Their position and standing among the young men of the village seemed to put all others in the back ground. Charles, whose father was wealthy, had every advantage which money could procure. But Stephen, though poor, had decidedly the advantage over Charles in personal recommendations. He had more talent, was more sprightly and intelligent, and more pleasing in his address. From the evening of the sail on the pond, they had both watched every movement of Miss Brown with the most intense interest; and, as nothing can deceive a lover, each had, with an interest no less intense, watched every movement of the other. They had ceased to speak to each other about her, and if her name was mentioned in their presence, both were always observed to color.

The second week after her arrival, through the influence of Squire Johnson, the district school was offered to Miss Brown on the other side of the pond, which offer was accepted, and she went immediately to take charge of it. This announcement at first threw something of a damper upon the spirits of the young people of Pond village. But when it was understood the school would continue but a few weeks, and being but a mile and a half distant, Miss Brown would come home every Saturday afternoon, and spend the Sabbath, it was not very difficult to be reconciled to the temporary arrangement. The week wore away heavily, especially to Charles Robinson and Stephen Jones. They counted the days impatiently till Saturday, and on Saturday they counted the long and lagging hours till noon. They had both made up their minds that it would be dangerous to wait longer, and they had both resolved not to let another Sabbath pass without making direct proposals to Miss Brown.

Stephen Jones was too early a riser for Charles Robinson, and, in any enterprise where both were concerned, was pretty sure to take the lead, except where money could carry the palm, and then, of course, it was always borne away by Charles. As Miss Lucy had been absent most of the week, and was to be at home that afternoon, Charles Robinson had made an arrangement with his mother and sisters to have a little tea party in the evening, for the purpose of inviting Miss Brown; and then, of course, he should walk home with her in the evening; and then, of course, would be a good opportunity to break the ice, and make known to her his feelings and wishes. Stephen Jones, however, was more prompt in his movements. He had got wind of the proposed tea party, although himself and sister, for obvious reasons, had not been invited, and he resolved not to risk the arrival of Miss Brown and her visit to Mr. Robinson’s, before he should see her. She would dismiss her school at noon, and come the distance of a mile and a half round the pond home. His mind was at once made up. He would go round and meet her at the school-house, and accompany her on her walk. There, in that winding road around those delightful waters, with the tall and shady trees over head, and the wild grape-vines twining round their trunks, and climbing to the branches, while the wild birds were singing through the woods, and the wild ducks playing in the coves along the shore, surely there, if any where in the world, could a man bring his mind up to the point of speaking of love.

Accordingly, a little before noon, Stephen washed and brushed himself up, and put on his Sunday clothes, and started on his expedition. In order to avoid observation, he took a back route across the field, intending to come into the road by the pond, a little out of the village. As ill luck would have it, Charles Robinson had been out in the same direction, and was returning with an armful of green boughs and wild flowers, to ornament the parlor for the evening. He saw Stephen, and noticed his dress, and the direction he was going, and he at once smoked the whole business. His first impulse was to rush upon him and collar him, and demand that he should return back. But then he recollected that in the last scratch he had with Stephen, two or three years before, he had a little the worst of it, and he instinctively stood still while Stephen passed on without seeing him. It flashed upon his mind at once that the question must now be reduced to a game of speed. If he could by any means gain the school-house first, and engage Miss Lucy to walk home with him, he should consider himself safe. But if Stephen should reach the school-house first, he should feel a good deal of uneasiness for the consequences. Stephen was walking very leisurely, and unconscious that he was in any danger of a competitor on the course, and it was important that his suspicions should not be awakened. Charles, therefore, remained perfectly quiet till Stephen had got a little out of hearing, and then he threw down his bushes and flowers, and ran to the wharf below the store with his utmost speed. He had one advantage over Stephen. He was ready at a moment’s warning to start on an expedition of this kind, for Sunday clothes were an every-day affair with him. There was a light canoe, belonging to his father, lying at the wharf, and a couple of stout boys were there fishing. Charles hailed them, and told them if they would row him across the pond as quick as they possibly could, he would give them a quarter of a dollar a piece. This, in their view, was a splendid offer for their services, and they jumped on board with alacrity and manned the oars. Charles took a paddle, and stood in the stern to steer the boat, and help propel her ahead. The distance by water was a little less than by land, and although Stephen had considerably the start of him, he believed he should be able to reach the school-house first, especially if Stephen should not see him and quicken his pace. In one minute after he arrived at the wharf, the boat was under full way. The boys laid down to the oars with right good will, and Charles put out all his strength upon the paddle. They were shooting over the water twice as fast as a man could walk, and Charles already felt sure of the victory. But when they had gone about half a mile, they came in the range of a little opening in the trees on the shore, where the road was exposed to view, and there, at that critical moment, was Stephen pursuing his easy walk. Charles’ heart was in his mouth. Still it was possible Stephen might not see them, for he had not yet looked round. Lest the sound of the oars might attract his attention, Charles had instantly, on coming in sight, ordered the boys to stop rowing, and he grasped his paddle with breathless anxiety, and waited for Stephen again to disappear. But just as he was upon the point of passing behind some trees, where the boat would be out of his sight, Stephen turned his head and looked round. He stopped short, turned square round, and stood for the space of a minute looking steadily at the boat. Then lifting his hand, and shaking his fist resolutely at Charles, as much as to say I understand you, he started into a quick run.

“Now, boys,” said Charles, “buckle to your oars for your lives, and if you get to the shore so I can reach the school-house before Stephen does, I’ll give you half a dollar a piece.”

This of course added new life to the boys and increased speed to the boat. Their little canoe flew over the water almost like a bird, carrying a white bone in her mouth, and leaving a long ripple on the glassy wave behind her. Charles’ hands trembled, but still he did good execution with his paddle. Although Stephen upon the run was a very different thing from Stephen at a slow walk, Charles still had strong hopes of winning the race and gaining his point. He several times caught glimpses of Stephen through the trees, and, as well as he could judge, the boat had a little the best of it. But when they came out into the last opening, where for a little way they had a fair view of each other, Charles thought Stephen ran faster than ever; and although he was now considerably nearer the school-house than Stephen was, he still trembled for the result. They were now within fifty rods of the shore, and Charles appealed again to the boys’ love of money.

“Now,” said he, “we have not a minute to spare. If we gain the point, I’ll give you a dollar apiece.”

The boys strained every nerve, and Charles’ paddle made the water fly like the tail of a wounded shark. When within half a dozen rods of the shore, Charles urged them again to spring with all their might, and one of the boys making a desperate plunge upon his oar, snapped it in two. The first pull of the other oar headed the boat from land. Charles saw at once that the delay must be fatal, if he depended on the boat to carry him ashore. The water was but three feet deep, and the bottom was sandy. He sprung from the boat, and rushed toward the shore as fast as he was able to press through the water. He flew up the bank, and along the road, till he reached the school-house. The door was open, but he could see no one within. Several children were at play round the door, who, having seen Charles approach with such haste, stood with mouths and eyes wide open, looking at him.

“Where’s the schoolma’m?” said Charles, hastily, to one of the largest boys.

“Why?” said the boy, opening his eyes still wider, “is any of the folks dead?”

“You little rascal, I say, where’s the schoolma’m?”

“She jest went down that road,” said the boy, “two or three minutes ago.”

“Was she alone?” said Charles.

“She started alone,” said the boy, “and a man met her out there a little ways, and turned about and went with her.”

Charles felt that his cake was all dough again, and that he might as well give it up for a bad job, and go home. Stephen Jones and Lucy Brown walked very leisurely home through the woods, and Charles and the boys went very leisurely in the boat across the pond. They even stopped by the way, and caught a mess of fish, since the boys had thrown their lines into the boat when they started. And when they reached the wharf, Charles, in order to show that he had been a fishing, took a large string of the fish in his hand, and carried them up to the house. Miss Lucy Brown, on her way home through the woods, had undoubtedly been informed of the proposed tea-party for the evening, to which she was to be invited, and to which Stephen Jones and Susan Jones were not invited; and when Miss Lucy’s invitation came, she sent word back, that she was engaged.

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BY THE AUTHOR OF “CRUISING IN THE LAST WAR,” “THE REEFER OF ’76,” ETC.

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CONCLUSION.

I was now alone in the world; I had neither ship, nor home; and she I had loved was wedded to another. It is strange how misanthropical a man becomes, after disappointment has soured his disposition, and destroyed, one after another, the beautiful dreams of his youth. When I sat down and thought of the hopes of my earlier years, now gone forever; when I speculated upon my future prospects; when I recalled to mind how few of the friends I had begun life with remained, an indescribable sadness came over me, and, had it not been for my manhood, I would have found a relief in tears. My zest for society was gone. I cared little for the ordinary business of life. I only longed for a fitting opportunity to re-enter the service, and distinguish myself by some gallant deed, which I did not care to survive, for even fame had become hateful to me, since it reminded me how insufficient it was to win or retain the love of woman. In a word, I had become a misanthrope, and was fast losing all the energy of my character in sickly regrets over the past.

Of the St. Clairs I had not inquired since my return, and their names, from motives of delicacy perhaps, were never mentioned in my presence. Yet they occupied a large portion of my thoughts, and often would I start, and my heart flutter, when, in the streets, I fancied, for a moment, that I recognized the form of Annette. But a nearer approach made evident my mistake, and dissipated my embarrassment. Much, however, as I thought of her, I had never inquired to whom she had been married; yet my curiosity on this point continually gained strength; and when I had been a fortnight in Newport without hearing any allusion to her, I began to wish that some one would break the ominous silence which seemed to hang around her and her family. Still I dared not trust myself to broach the subject. I continued, therefore, ignorant of their present situation, and of all that concerned them.

There is, not far from the town, and situated in one of the most beautiful portions of the island, a favorite resort which has long been known by the familiar and characteristic name of “The Glen.” The spot is one where the deity of romance might sit enshrined. Here, on a still summer night, we might, without much stretch of fancy, look for fairies to come forth and gambol, or listen to the light music of airy spirits hovering above us. The whole place reminds you of an enchanted bower, and dull must be his heart who does not feel the stirrings of the divinity within him as he gazes on the lovely scenery around. He who can listen here unmoved to the low gurgle of the brook, or the light rustle of the leaves in the summer wind, must be formed of the coarsest clods of clay, nor boast one spark of our immortal nature.

The glen was my favorite resort, and thither would I go and spend whole afternoons, listening to the laughing prattle of the little river, or striving to catch, in pauses of the breeze, the murmur of the neighboring sea. A rude bench had been constructed under some trees, in a partially open glade, at the lower extremity of the ravine, and here I usually sat, indulging in those dreamy, half-sick reveries which are characteristic of youth. The stream, which brawled down the ravine, in a succession of rapids and cascades, here glided smoothly along on a level bottom, its banks fringed with long grass interspersed with wild roses, and its bed strewed with pebbles, round and silvery, that glistened in the sunbeams, which, here and there, struggled through the trees, and shimmered on the stream. Faint and low came to the ear the sound of the mill, situated at the upper end of the ravine; while occasionally a bird whistled on the stillness, or a leaf floated lazily down into the river, and went on its way, a tiny bark. The seclusion of my favorite retreat was often enlivened by the appearance of strangers, but as they generally remained only a few minutes, I had the spot, for most of the time, to myself. Here I dreamed away the long summer afternoons, often lingering until the moon had risen, to make the scene seem even more beautiful, under her silvery light. I had no pleasure in any other spot. Perhaps it was because I had once been here with Annette, when we were both younger, and I, at least, happier; and I could remember plucking a flower for her from a time-worn bush that still grew on the margin of the stream. God knows how we love to haunt the spot made dear to us by old and tender recollections!

I was sitting, one afternoon, on the rude bench I have spoken of, listlessly casting pebbles into the river, when I heard the sound of approaching voices, but I was so accustomed to the visits of strangers, that I did not pause to look up. Directly the voices came nearer, and suddenly a word was spoken that thrilled through every nerve of my system. It was only a single word, but that voice!—surely it could be none other than Annette’s. My sensations, at that moment, I will not pretend to analyze. I longed to look up, and yet I dared not. My heart fluttered wildly, and I could feel the blood rushing in torrents to my face; but, if I had been called on at that instant to speak, I could not have complied for worlds. Luckily the tree, under whose shadow I sat, concealed me from the approaching visitors, and I had thus time to rally my spirits ere the strangers came up. As they drew near I recognized the voice of Mr. St. Clair, and then that of Annette’s cousin Isabel, while there were one or two other speakers who were strangers to me. Doubtless one of them was Annette’s husband, and, as this thought flashed across me, I looked up, impelled by an irresistible impulse. The party were now within almost twenty yards, coming gaily down the glen. Foremost in the group walked Isabel, leaning on the arm of a tall, gentlemanly looking individual, and turning ever and anon around to Annette, who followed immediately behind, at the side of her father. Another lady, attended by a gentleman, made up the rest of the company. Where could Annette’s husband be? was the question that occurred to me—and who was the distinguished looking gentleman on whose arm Isabel was so familiarly leaning? But my thoughts were cut short by a conversation which now began, and of which, during a minute, I was an unknown auditor—for my position still concealed me from the party, and my surprise at first, and afterwards delicacy, prevented me from appearing.

“Ah! Annette,” said Isabel, archly, turning around to her cousin, “do you know this spot, but especially that rose-bush yonder?—here, right beyond that old tree—you seem wonderfully ignorant all at once! I wonder where the donor of that aforesaid rose-bud is now. I would lay a guinea that it is yet in your possession, preserved in some favorite book, pressed out between the leaves. Come, answer frankly, is it not so, my sweet coz?”

I could hear no reply, if one was made, and immediately another voice spoke. It was that of Isabel’s companion, coming to the aid of Annette.

“You are too much given to believe that Annette follows your example, Isabel—now do you turn penitent, and let me be father confessor—how many rose-buds, ay! and for that matter, even leaves, have you in your collection, presented to you by your humble servant, before we had pity on each other, and were married? I found a flower, last week, in a copy of Spenser, and, if I remember aright, I was the donor of the trifle.”

“Oh! you betray yourself,” gaily retorted Isabel, “but men are foolish—and of all foolish men I ever met with, a certain Albert Marston was, before his marriage, the most foolish. I take credit to myself,” she continued, in the same playful strain, “for having worked such a reformation in him since that event. But this is not what we were talking of—you wish to divert me from my purpose by this light Cossack warfare—but it won’t do,” she continued, and I fancied she stamped her foot prettily, as she was wont to do at Clairville Hall, when she was disposed to have her way; “no—no—Annette must be the one to turn penitent, and I will play father confessor. Say, now, fair coz, was it not a certain fancy to see this same rose-bush, that induced you to insist on coming here?”

During this conversation the parties had remained nearly stationary at some distance from me. Strange suspicions began to flash through my mind, as soon as Isabel commenced her banter; and these suspicions had now been changed into a certainty. Annette was still unmarried, and it was Isabel’s wedding at which I had come so near being present, at Clairville Hall. Nor was this all. I was still loved. Oh! the wild, the rapturous feelings of that moment. I could with difficulty restrain myself from rising and rushing toward them; but motives of delicacy forbade me thus to reveal that the conversation had been overheard. And yet should I remain in my present position, and play the listener still further? I knew not what to do. All these considerations flashed through my mind in the space of less than a minute, during which the party had been silent, apparently enjoying Annette’s confusion.

“Come, not ready to answer yet?” began Isabel; “well, if you will not, you shan’t have the rose from that bush, for which you’ve come. Let us go back,” she said, playfully.

The whole party seemed to enter into the jest, and laughingly retraced their steps. This afforded me the opportunity for which I longed. Hastily rising from my seat, I glided unnoticed from tree to tree, until I reached a copse on the left of the glen, and advancing up the ravine, under cover of this screen, I re-entered the path at a bend some distance above the St. Clairs. Here I listened for a moment, and caught the sound of their approaching voices. Determining no longer to be a listener to their conversation, I proceeded down the glen, and, as I turned the corner, a few paces in advance, I came full in sight of the approaching group. In an instant the gay laughing of the party ceased, and I saw Annette shrink blushing behind her father. Isabel was the first to speak. Darting forward, with that frankness and gaiety which always characterized her, she grasped my hand, and said⁠—

“You don’t know how happy we all are to see you. Where could you have come from?—and how could you have made such a mistake as to congratulate Annette, instead of me, on being married? But come, I must surrender you to the others—I see they are dying to speak to you. Uncle, Annette—how lucky it was that we came here to-day!”

“My dear boy,” said Mr. St. Clair, warmly pressing my hand, “I cannot tell how rejoiced I am to see you. We heard a rumor that you were lost, and we all wept—Isabel for the first time for years. It was but a few days since that we heard you were at Newport, and, as we were coming hither, I hastened my journey, determined to search you out. We are on our way there now, and only stopped here a few minutes to relieve ourselves after a long ride. This day shall be marked with a white stone. But here I have been keeping you from speaking to Annette—we old men, you know, are apt to be garrulous.”

My eyes, indeed, had been seeking Annette, who, still covered with blushes, and unable to control her embarrassment, sought to conceal them by keeping in the back ground. As for me, I had become wonderfully self-possessed. I now advanced and took her hand. It trembled in my own, and when I spoke, though she replied faintly, she did not dare to look into my face, except for a moment, after which her eyes again sought the ground in beautiful embarrassment. My unexpected appearance, combined with her cousin’s late raillery, covered her face with blushes, and, for some time, she could not rally herself sufficient to participate in the conversation.

What more have I to tell? I was now happy, and for my misanthropy, it died with the cause that produced it. Mr. St. Clair said that the wedding need not be delayed, and in less than a month I led Annette to the altar. Years have flown since then, but I still enjoy unalloyed felicity, and Annette seems to my eyes more beautiful than ever. It only remains for me to bid my readers FAREWELL!

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BY HENRY MORFORD.

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BY W. A. JONES.

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That admirable manual of “les petites morales,” and even of higher matters occasionally, the Spectator, contains a paper which we hesitate not to accept as a just specimen of cotemporary satire on female education; we refer to the catalogue of a Ladies’ Library. This heterogeneous collection embraces heroical romances and romancing histories, the ranting tragedies of the day, with the libertine comedies of the same period. In a word, it leads us to infer pretty plainly the insignificant pretensions the gentle women of Queen Anne’s day could lay to any thing like refinement of education, or even a correct propriety in dress and demeanor. Tell me your company, and I will disclose your own character; speak that I may know you, are trite maxims; but give me a list of your favorite authors is by no means so common, though at least as true, a test. The literary and indirectly the moral depravity of taste exhibited by the women of that age, is easily accounted for, when we once learn the fashionable authors and the indifferent countenance given to any authors but those of the most frivolous description. The queen herself was an illiterate woman, and we are told never once had the curiosity to look into the classic productions of Pope. King William, the preceding sovereign, was so ignorant of books and the literary character, as to offer Swift, with whom he had been agreeably prepossessed, the place of captain of a regiment of horse.

Indulging ourselves in a rapid transition, we pass from this era to the epoch of Johnson and Burke, and Goldsmith and Sheridan, we come to the reign of George III. Here we find the scene altered. From the gay saloon we are dropped, as if by magic, into the library or conversation room. We read not of balls, but of literary dinners and æsthetic teas, and we meet for company, not thoughtless, dressy dames of fashion and minions of the goddess of pleasure, but grave, precise professors in petticoats, women who had exchanged a world of anxiety for the turn of a head-dress, or the shape of a flounce for an equally wise anxiety about the philosophy of education, the success of their sonnets and tragedies, and moral tales for the young. The pedantry of authorship and dogmatic conversation superseded the more harmless pedantry of dress. Then we read of the stupidest company in the world, which arrogated to itself the claim of being the best. A race of learned ladies arose; bas bleus, the Montagues, the Mores, the Sewards, the Chapones, patronized by such prosing old formalists as Doctors Gregory and Aiken, and even by one man of vigorous talent, Johnson, and one man of real genius, Richardson. The last two endured much, because they were flattered much.

When we speak thus contemptuously of learned ladies, we intend to express a disgust at the pretensions of those who pass under that name. Genuine learning can never be despised, whoever may be its possessor; but of genuine learning it is not harsh to suspect a considerable deficiency where there is so much of display and anxious rivalry. Even where the learning is exact and solid, it is to be remembered that many departments are utterly unsuited to the female mind; where, at best, little can be accomplished and that of a harsh repulsive nature. We want no Daciers, no Somervilles, no Marcets, but give us as you will as many Inchbalds, Burneys, Edgeworths, Misses Barrett, as can be had for love or money.

From the ladies we seek literature, not learning, in its old scholastic sense. They certainly have received pleasure from books, and are bound to return the gratification in a similar way by delighting us. And this they can do in their legitimate attempts. It shall be a prominent object of the present general introduction to a short series of critical sketches, to attempt a definition of the limits which should bound those attempts, and also to endeavor at suggesting the proper studies for ladies, and the authors that ought to rank as favorites with the fair. In a list of the latter, female writers should bear a considerable proportion, and will assuredly not be forgotten.

We believe the question as to the relative sexual distinctions of intellectual character, is now generally considered as settled. There is allowed to be a species of genius essentially feminine. Equality is no more arrogated than superiority of ability, and it would be as wisely arrogated. The most limited observation of life and the most superficial acquaintance with books, must effectually demonstrate the superior capacity of man for the great works of life and speculation. It is true, great geniuses are rare and seldom needed, and the generality of women rank on a par with the generality of men. In many cases, women of talent surpass men of an equal calibre of mere talent, through other and constitutional causes—a greater facility of receiving and transmitting impressions, greater instinctive subtlety of apprehension, and a livelier sympathy. We cordially admit the female intellect, in the ordinary concerns of life and the current passages of society, has often the advantage of the masculine understanding. Cleverness outshines solid ability, and a smart woman is much more showy than a profound man. In certain walks of authorship, too, women are pre-eminently successful; in cases narrative of real or fictitious events, (in the last implying a strain of ready invention,) in lively descriptions of natural beauty or artificial manners; in the development of the milder sentiments, especially the sentiment of love; in airy, comic ridicule. On the other hand, the highest attempts of women in poetry have uniformly failed. We have read of no female epic of even a respectable rank: those who have written tragedies, have written moral lectures (of an inferior sort) like Hannah More; or anatomies of the passions, direct and formal, like Joanna Baillie; or an historical sketch, as Rienzi. We are apt to suspect that the personal charms of Sappho proved too much for the admirers of her poetic rhapsodies, otherwise Longinus has done her foul injustice; for the fragment he quotes is to be praised and censured solely for its obscurity. This would have been a great merit in Lycophron.

In the volume of British Poetesses, edited by Mr. Dyce, it is astonishing to find how little real poetry he has been able to collect out of the writings of near a century of authors, scattered over the surface of five or six centuries. It must be allowed that some of the finest shortest pieces by female writers have appeared since the publication of that selection. In the volume referred to, much sensible verse and some sprightly copies of verses occur; a fair share of pure reflective sentiment, delivered in pleasing language rarely rising above correctness; of high genius there is not a particle,—no pretensions to sublimity or fervor. The best piece and the finest poem, we think, ever composed by woman, is the charming ballad of Auld Robin Gray. That is a genuine bit of true poesy, and perfect in the highest department of the female imagination in the pathos of domestic tragedy. In the present century we have Mrs. Howitt and Mrs. Southey, but chief of all, Miss Barrett.^[6] The finest attempts of the most pleasing writer of this class, do not rise so high as the delightful ballad above named. They are sweet, plaintive, moral strains, the melodious notes of a lute, tuned by taper fingers in a romantic bower, not the deep, majestic, awful tones of the great organ, or the spirited and stirring blasts of the trumpet. The ancient bard struck wild and mournful, or hearty and vigorous, notes from his harp—perchance placed “on a rock whose frowning brow,” &c. and striving with the rough symphonies of the tempest; but the sybil of modern days plays elegant and pretty, or soft and tender airs upon her flageolet or accordion, in the boudoir or saloon.

A poet is, from the laws both of physiology and philology,—masculine. His vocation is manly, or rather divine. And we have never heard any traits of feminine character attributed to the great poet, (in the Greek sense,) the Creator of the universe. The muses are represented as females, but then they are the inspirers, never the composers, of verse. So should be the poet’s muse, as she is often the poet’s theme. There are higher themes, but of an abstract nature, in general: ethical, religious, metaphysical. Let female beauty then sit for her portrait instead of being the painter. Let poets chant her charms, but let her not spoil a fair ideal image by writing bad verses. If all were rightly viewed, a happy home would seem preferable to a seat on Parnassus, and the Fountain of Content would furnish more palatable draughts than the Font of Helicon. The quiet home is not always the muses’ bower; though we trust the muses’ bower is placed in no turbulent society.

Women write for women. They may entertain, but cannot, from the nature of the case, become instructors to men. They know far less of life, their circle of experience is confined. They are unfitted for many paths of active exertion, and consequently are rendered incapable of forming just opinions on many matters. We do not include a natural incapacity for many studies, and as natural a dislike for many more. Many kinds of learning, and many actual necessary pursuits and practices, it is deemed improper for a refined woman to know. How, then, can a female author become a teacher of men?

Literature would miss many pleasant associations if the names of the best female writers were expunged from a list of classic authors, and the world would lose many delightful works—the novel of sentiment and the novel of manners, letter writing, moral tales for children, books of travels, gossiping memoirs—Mrs. Inchbald, Madame D’Arblay, Miss Edgeworth, Lady M. W. Montague, Miss Martineau, and Miss Sedgwick, with a host besides. Women have sprightliness, cleverness, smartness, though but little wit. There is a body and substance in true wit, with a reflectiveness rarely found apart from a masculine intellect. In all English comedy, we recollect but two female writers of sterling value, Mrs. Conley and Mrs. Guthrie, and their plays are formed on the Spanish model, and made up of incident and intrigue, much more than of fine repartees or brilliant dialogue. We know of no one writer of the other sex, that has a high character for humor—no Rabelais, no Sterne, no Swift, no Goldsmith, no Dickens, no Irving. The female character does not admit of it.

Women cannot write history. It requires too great solidity, and too minute research for their quick intellects. They write, instead, delightful memoirs. Who, but an antiquary or historical commentator, had not rather read Lucy Hutchinson’s Life of her Husband, than any of the professed histories of the Commonwealth—and exchange Lady Fanshawe for the other royalist biographers.

Neither are women to turn politicians or orators. We hope never to hear of a female Burke; she would be an overbearing termagant. A spice of a talent for scolding, is the highest form of eloquence we can conscientiously allow the ladies.

Criticism is for men; when women assume it, they write scandal. The current notion of criticism with most, is that of libelous abuse. From all such, Heaven defend us.

Women feel more than they think, and (sometimes) say more than do. They are consequently better adapted to describe sentiments, than to speculate on causes and effects. They are more at home in their letters, than in tracts of political economy.

The proper faculties in women to cultivate most assiduously are, the taste and the religious sentiment; the first, as the leading trait of the intellectual; and the last, as the governing power of the moral constitution. Give a woman a pure taste and high principles, and she is safe from the arts of the wiliest libertine. Let her have all other gifts but these, and she is comparatively defenceless. Taste purifies the heart as well as the head, and religion strengthens both. The strongest propensities to pleasure are not so often the means of disgrace and ruin, as the carelessness of ignorant virtue, and an unenlightened moral sense. This makes all the difference in the world, between the daughter of a poor countryman, and the child of an educated gentleman. Both have the same desires, but how differently directed and controlled. Yet we find nineteen lapses from virtue in the one case, where we find one in the other.

Believing that what does not interest, does not benefit the mind, we would avoid all pedantic lectures to women, on all subjects to which they discover any aversion. Study should be made a pleasure, and reading pure recreation. In a general sense, we would say the best works for female readers are those that tend to form the highest domestic character. Works of the highest imagination, as being above that condition, and scientific authors, who address a different class of faculties, are both unsuitable. An admirable wife may not relish the sublimity of Milton or Hamlet; and a charming companion be ignorant of the existence of such a science as Algebra. A superficial acquaintance with the elements of the physical sciences, is worse than total unacquaintance with them.

Religion should be taught as a sentiment, not as an abstract principle, or in doctrinal positions, a sentiment of love and grateful obedience; morality, impressed as the practical exercise of self-denial and active benevolence. In courses of reading, too much is laid down of a dry nature. Girls are disgusted with tedious accounts of battles and negotiations, dates and names. The moral should be educed best filled for the female heart, and apart from the romantic periods, and the reigns of female sovereigns, or epochs when the women held a very prominent place in the state, or in public regard. We would have women affectionate wives, obedient daughters, agreeable companions, skilful economists, judicious friends; but we must confess it does not fall within our scheme to make them legislators or lawyers, diplomatists or politicians. We therefore think nine tenths of all history is absolutely useless for women. Too many really good biographies of great and good men and women can hardly be read, and will be read to much greater advantage than histories, as they leave a definite and individual impression. The reading good books of travels, is, next to going over the ground in person, the best method of studying geography. Grammar and rhetoric,^[7] (after a clear statement of the elements and chief rules,) are best learnt in the perusal of classic authors, the essayists, &c.; and, in the same way, the theory of taste and the arts. The most important of accomplishments is not systematically treated in any system—conversation. But a father and mother of education, can teach this better than any professor. Expensive schools turn out half-trained pupils. Eight years at home, well employed, and two at a good but not fashionable school, are better than ten years spent in the most popular female seminary, conducted in the ordinary style. Such is a meagre outline of our idea of female education, into which we have digressed unawares.

Female authors should constitute a fair proportion of a lady’s library—and those masculine writers who have something of the tenderness and purity of the feminine character in their works. The subjects and authors we propose for occasional consideration, will embrace specimens of each, in prose and poetry, fiction and reality, satire and sentiment. We think we may promise a less erudite paper for the second number, though to some readers all that is not very lively is proportionably dull.

A. L. Dick

The Pastor’s Visit

ILLUSTRATION OF A PICTURE.

A SKETCH FROM REAL LIFE.

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BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE BRIDAL.”

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How few “look before they leap,” even in an affair of so much moment as matrimony. We fear the fault is in our system. We educate our daughters superficially—for display rather than usefulness—to catch the eye rather than win the heart. Our girls are taught in early life, either directly or indirectly, that marriage is the great object of woman’s ambition, and in endeavoring to secure that object, and to surpass in the race of conquest their companions and rivals, they sometimes wed rashly and to the sacrifice of happiness. Difficult, we are aware, is the task of discrimination with the young and inexperienced. Pure and artless themselves, they are apt to imagine the possession of like virtues by all others, and to conceive it impossible for a fine form and a handsome face to be associated with a false heart. Alas! how often are they disappointed! How frequently do the sudden attachments of early life prove hollow and unsubstantial! How often is it discovered that the first dream of love, which has been so extravagantly eulogized by poets and romancers, was a mere delusion that would not bear the test of time and of reason! With what bitterness of disappointment have many started from this dream! Stripped of the rainbow coloring with which the fancy is apt to paint an object of idolatry, how prominent appear the darkness and the deformity! How broad the contrast between the just view of truth and the rapid and prejudiced survey of passion! How often do we see beings standing before the altar, pledging themselves to each other for weal and for wo, who, comparatively speaking, were strangers but yesterday! Knowing little of each other’s lives and dispositions, merits or demerits, they are willing to risk peace of mind for long years, and to identify destinies for time, perhaps for eternity! Can we wonder that strife sometimes mars the domestic circle—that wives are left lonely and deserted—that the agency of man should so often be invoked to part beings who have been joined together by an ordinance of God!

A happy union is indeed a scene upon which, without irreverence, we may suppose the angels in Heaven gaze from their bright places of abode with delight and approval. An unnatural or a discordant marriage, on the other hand, must form a source of delight to the arch enemy of mankind, for in it he can recognize the soul of evil. That the young should seek for and cling to a kindred spirit is natural. The undivided possession of a pure heart is perhaps the very acme of human felicity. “One home, one wife, and one God,” is the sentiment of one of the wisest of his race, and it is only when man is on the shady side of fifty that he begins to appreciate the truth of this philosophy in all its solemnity and force. Then his pleasures of life are derived as much from the past as the future, and the associations of that past, if mingled with virtue, fidelity, patriotism and religion, are indeed blissful.

We pity the lonely and the desolate—the loveless and the unloved—the being without a wife or a friend—without one trusting and confiding spirit, to whom the heart may turn in its hour of sorrow and pour out its inmost and saddest thoughts. The cold and selfish mortal who passes year after year without experiencing the delightful concord of sentiment to be found in a kindred soul, is indeed the most miserable of his species. Even his joys are robbed of half their delight, because unshared by another, by one to whom he is allied by love and friendship. Wretched indeed is the isolated individual who, mingling with the multitude, can single out no destiny identified with his—no faithful and devoted heart, the breath of whose existence seems bound up with his. Nature has denied to such a being the holiest impulses that warm and agitate the human breast. Even the birds are mated, and without a ministering angel “a sweet companion,” the first born was lonely and desolate in the garden of Eden. So it must ever be with the frail and feeble things of mortal existence. If Paradise could not be appreciated and enjoyed alone, how can man reconcile loneliness to his fallen condition? The desire of the heart is for sweet companionship—the inward craving of the spirit is for a being to love. Can we wonder then that in this country, where early marriage is taught to be desirable, so many should choose rashly?

We remember Annette Delisle as a being of yesterday. She sang well—she danced well—and in many respects she was a beauty. Not one of our beauties at the time, for her form was too slight and sylph-like,—her joy was too gushing—her spirits too redundant. She dressed from early childhood with taste and elegance, and wore her dark hair in long ringlets over her shoulders. She had many friends, and even at sixteen her admirers were liberal in number and profuse in flattery. Her mother, a weak and vain woman, was proud of her daughter—proud of the attention that daughter received, and eager to display her on every occasion. Thus she not only frequently accompanied her to public balls, which were then more fashionable and somewhat more select than at present, but she permitted her to accept of numerous invitations to parties, and to mingle almost nightly during the winter season in the gay scenes of our metropolis. The father, good-natured man, was a manufacturer, and was so wedded to business, that he could not spare time even for the proper care of his favorite child. Alas! this good nature in fathers! It sometimes degenerates into a sad vice, and is the source of much misery in after life. The man who lacks the energy to control his own household,—who is either too negligent, or too weak to point out the true path and to direct the footsteps of his offspring therein, is guilty of much that is unpardonable.

But such a father was Mr. Delisle, while the mother, worse if possible, gave the reins almost wholly into the hands of her daughter, and was but too fond of the hollow and unmeaning admiration which the practiced in art and in compliment among the sterner sex are so apt to bestow upon the vain and empty, whether old or young.

The result of this course upon Annette Delisle may well be imagined. While she sparkled in the ball room, and glittered in the giddy throng, her heart, her mind, and her morals were neglected. The mazes of the world, its quicksands and its hypocrisy were unknown to her. She flirted, laughed and trifled with the many, caught one hour by a fine form, another by a rich voice, and a third by a dashing exterior. And yet, in the depths of that young girl’s breast, were rich and true affections. Properly trained, she would have graced any circle. Her mind was good by nature—her spirit was benevolent and cheerful—and many of the lights of beauty flashed and brightened around her. Despite her artificial manner, and her air of coquetry, her feelings were deep and strong. Her being was one of impulse, and her attachments, even to her school companions, were animated by truth and fidelity. Thus it was when Annette discovered that the society of Howard Leroy possessed an unusual charm for her—that she saw him approach with pleasure—that she listened with more than her wonted attention to his remarks—that she felt the blood mount to her cheek at his compliments—that she found her eyes following as he wandered through the ball room—that she lisped his name even in her dreams.

Never can I forget the dashing Leroy. He was what is usually denominated “a handsome fellow”—one of the butterflies of society—a ladies’ man, in the general acceptation, and a favorite also with his own sex. He rode well, talked well, and sang an excellent song. This latter qualification was in some respects a fatal gift, for it introduced him into many a gay circle from which he otherwise would have been excluded—made him sought for, and vain of his voice, and thus won him away from the more useful pursuits of life. Leroy, moreover, was fond of poetry—was able to quote glowing passages, and had, withal, a touch of romance in his character, which served not a little to enhance him in the estimation of some of his female acquaintance. He assumed a remarkable degree of independence—was rather bold and reckless in his manner and language, and possessed the faculty of talking for hours in relation to the prominent beauties of Moore, Byron and Bulwer. These were the traits of character which won upon the mind and heart of Annette Delisle. Her education and mode of life had fitted her for the arts of such a man. She fancied him something superior to the ordinary fop—to the mere merchant or shopkeeper. Leroy became her ardent and enthusiastic admirer. The fact soon reached the ears of her father. He roused himself for the moment, and proceeded to investigate the realities of the case. Leroy he ascertained to be an idle, dissolute pretender, and dependent, he feared, upon the gaming-table for his means of subsistence. He was of good family, and had received a fair education. But he had gone astray from the path of rectitude in early life, and now contrived to appear on the principal promenades as a fashionable lounger—but the world wondered how!

The manufacturer was terrified at the prospect for his daughter, whom he really loved, but it was too late. Leroy saw the storm coming, and prevailed upon Annette, by falsehood and misrepresentation, to consent to a secret marriage. Fondly and long she clung to the delusion that her husband had been slandered—that one who could talk so well, and profess so much, could not be a villain. He was not one, perhaps, in the usual interpretation; but we can conceive of no more heartless wretch than the man who deliberately deceives and betrays a fond and confiding woman. Leroy never loved Annette with a true and exalted affection. He felt himself bankrupt in fortune, and nearly so in character, and he was base enough to become the husband of an unsuspecting girl, in the hope of a dependency upon the bounty of her father. Deceived in this, for the old manufacturer would have nothing to do with him, he soon threw off the mask. At first cold and indifferent, he speedily grew harsh and unkind. True, there were moments when his better nature prevailed, and he would endeavor, by apparent contrition and well turned promises, to atone for his conduct. But, they were few and far between, and diminished in number as time rolled on. Strange, despite the giddy character of Annette—despite the little care which had been bestowed upon her principles, she clung to him with the true fidelity of woman. She loved him with her whole soul, and while the pride of her woman nature repelled the idea of any public exposure of her situation, and while she even concealed from her parents much of the unworthy conduct of Leroy, she still cherished a belief of his ultimate reform. Night after night she sat in her quiet chamber, or gazed earnestly from the window, in the hope that the form of her husband might appear before the midnight hour. Who may paint the agony of her mind at such moments—the jealous fears that shot like daggers through her breast, as to his haunts and his society—the apprehension of danger and of death—the terrible fancies which mingled him in some dreadful scene at the gaming table—and, worse than all, the oft repelled, but still returning conviction, that the wine cup was too familiar with his lips!

God, in pity look down upon and impart moral courage to the lonely wives of the world—the dejected ones to whom home is desolate, whose hearts are breaking slowly, secretly, string by string—who live only for their little ones, and because they know it wrong to plunge unbidden into eternity! Beings who have ventured their all of earthly happiness, and have lost all—who have been deceived, betrayed, and are now deserted! Pity and console them, Great Creator, for the misery of unrequited love, of wounded pride, of crushed affection, of hopeless despair throughout this life, can only be soothed and softened by a heavenly influence!

Poor Annette! Step by step her husband plunged on in the downward path. Ray after ray departed from the light of her beauty. Wider and wider became the gulf between the manufacturer and his son-in-law. But, horror of horrors! the crisis soon came! The resource of gambling failed at last with Leroy, and then—he resorted to forgery!—ay! he forged the name of George Delisle, the father of his wife, and fled the country in order to escape the penalty of his crime!

But a few days have gone by since we saw Annette. Only five years have elapsed since her marriage. What a change! The lily has supplanted the rose—the eye has lost its fire—the step its buoyancy—the form its grace. She is a doomed and broken hearted woman. Disease has “marked her for his own.” Loss of sleep—mental anxiety—the disgrace—the shame—the ignominy of her husband’s career, are hurrying her rapidly to a premature grave!

Mothers, be warned! Virtue, Integrity and Religion are the only safe companions for your budding and beautiful daughters!

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BY THE AUTHOR OF “TECUMSEH.”

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We are among those who believe that, as characterizing the present age, the cultivation of purely mechanical and natural science has been carried much too far, or rather, has been made too exclusive and absorbing. It is not the highest science—for it concerns only that which is around us—which is altogether outward. Man is always greater than the world of nature in which he lives, and just as clearly must the science of man, the philosophy of his moral and intellectual being, rank far above that of the soulless creation which was made to minister to his wants. When, therefore, this lower science so draws to itself the life of any age, as to disparage and shut out the higher, it works a positive injury to the well-being of that age. Still it is only thus in comparison with a nobler and more lofty study that we would venture to cast the faintest reproach upon that natural science which in no slight degree absorbs the intellectual effort of the present generation. Regarded as related to, and a part of, a complete system of education, it becomes most important and necessary; and its cultivation, even to apparent excess, a cause of rejoicing and a source of the highest hope.

We need scarcely say, then, that we look upon the explorations which have been made “by authority” into the Geology and general Natural History of several of the most important States in the Union, as among the proudest achievements of the present day. Most of them, it is true, grew out of designs not the highest on the part of those by whom they were originated. The development of resources, the discovery of mineral wealth, or other elements of power, formed in most cases the principal aim of those at whose instance these surveys were undertaken. But this is of little importance. The results are, on this account, none the less valuable to the cause of natural science, nor is our joy at their successful prosecution the less ardent or sincere. In all the States in which they have been undertaken, they have been fruitful of the best results; and the facts thus brought together will be found of priceless value to students and inquirers for ages to come.

The State of New York has just completed her survey, which has been conducted on a scale commensurate with her wealth and enterprise. The different departments of the survey were, in 1836, assigned to eight gentlemen well qualified for the task, and from that time until their completion, the explorations were conducted with energy and enthusiasm. The reports are to be published in ten magnificent quarto volumes, of which the first is now before us. A more splendid monument of intelligent enterprise in the cause of science, has seldom been erected by any State. The first volume contains only a portion of the first report on Zoology, by Mr. James E. DeKay, to whom this department was committed. Governor Seward has written an introduction to the work, which occupies nearly two hundred pages. It is valuable as a historical record of the progress of the arts, the sciences, and the various branches of enterprise and industry in the State, though as a literary performance it can claim no especial merit. It is, indeed, little more than a compendium of the history of the State, and of its general statistics, of which the different portions have been contributed by different persons. The portion of the Zoological Report which this volume contains—relating merely to the Mammalia of the State—is highly valuable, and, to the naturalist, exceedingly interesting. Previous to this survey, no complete Zoology of the State had been attempted. In 1813, Samuel L. Mitchell commenced an account of the fishes of New York, which was the first work on the subject ever undertaken; and the impulse given to the science by his labors in fact laid the foundation for whatever has been effected in the same department since. Several other branches of Zoology had received some slight attention before the commencement of the State survey. Bachman, a well known naturalist of South Carolina, had made interesting discoveries in the families of smaller quadrupeds, and much valuable information concerning the ornithology of the State had been collected by Wilson, Audubon, Cooper, Bonaparte and DeKay. Barnes had classified the Unionidæ of the lakes and rivers, and the Mollusca of the sea coast had been well studied by Dr. Gay, of New York city. But the report of Mr. DeKay in this department presents by far a more full and comprehensive account of the Zoology of New York than had ever before been made. The State was divided into four Zoological districts: first, the western district, embracing all the western portion of the State, as far east as the sources of the Mohawk; second, the northern, comprising all that portion of the State lying north of the Mohawk valley; third, the valley of the Hudson, including all the counties watered by that river and its tributaries; and fourth, the Atlantic district, embracing Long Island. In regard to its natural history, the northern district is by far the most important. Strange as it may seem to those who are accustomed to hear only of the wealth, the refinement, and the advanced civilization of the “Empire State,” there is embraced in this northern district a great tract of a thousand square miles, lying in loneliness, fresh as it came from the hand of God, untouched, and almost unvisited by man. It is clad with forests of great and majestic beauty, echoing only the sigh of the tempest, the screams of the untamed dwellers in its wilds, and now and then the rifle of the hunter, who there finds game, such as in long gone times the red men loved to chase. It is thickly overspread with lakes, embosomed in mountains, now lying calmly and smilingly beneath the sun, and the next hour lashed into frowns, when

Travelers who would wander through it, must provide themselves with guides, and trust to hunting and chance for food and lodging. No one lives there—the whole is one vast, solitary wilderness, untouched by man—lying in its own majesty—unconscious even that the foot of the adventurous Genoese has been set upon the continent.

This vast wild region is inhabited by many animals that are rarely found in any other portion of the State. The bear, the moose, the panther, the deer, and most fur-bearing animals, make their homes among its mountains. Arctic birds, too, that are never known farther south, are seen in abundance. The whole district covers an area of about six thousand square miles. The western district is eminent for its fertility and beauty, and has also a high degree of zoological interest.

The number of quadrupeds enumerated in the report, as found within the State, is something more than one hundred. Each of these is scientifically and fully described. Included in the volume are a great number of illustrations, taken with the greatest care from the living animals or the best specimens that could be found. The real colors are preserved, and in every case the relative size is indicated. The outlines, for the purpose of accuracy, were always taken with a camera lucida, and the illustrations, drawn by Hill, were lithographed by Endicott.

The whole style of the work is eminently worthy the enterprise, results of which it contains, and the State which undertook its fulfilment. We look for the forthcoming volumes with no little interest. The botanical department has been under the charge of John Toney; the mineralogical and chemical were assigned to Lewis C. Beck; the geological to W. W. Mather, Ebenezer Emmons, James Hall, and Leonard Vanuxem, and the palæontological to Timothy A. Conrad. Beside these reports, the results of the survey appear in eight several collections of specimens of the animals, plants, soils, minerals, rocks and fossils, found within the State—one of which collections constitutes a museum of natural history at the capital of the State, and the others are distributed among collegiate institutions. We rejoice at the completion of this great survey, and hope soon to see a similar exploration effected in every State of the Union. The cause of science will receive from it an aid of which scientific men alone can rightly estimate the value.

The celebrated Dr. Owen was occasionally one of the hearers of Bunyan, when he preached in London; and being asked by Charles the Second how a learned man, like him, could listen to the prating of an illiterate tinker, he is said to have replied, “May it please your Majesty, could I possess that tinker’s abilities for preaching, I would gladly relinquish all my scholarship.” His genius as an author was even greater than he exhibited in the pulpit. Southey, Macauley, and other eminent critics, regard him as one of the “immortal authors of England.” The Pilgrim’s Progress has been the most popular of his sixty or seventy works. Probably no book by an uninspired writer has been more universally read. The Holy War was written ten years after the appearance of that beautiful creation, and if not equal to it in all respects, is certainly one of the most ingenious allegories in the language, as well as one of the most useful exhibitions of practical Christianity. The edition before us is superior to any other printed in America, in its typography and illustrations.

Mr. Colman, of New York, in the autumn of every year, publishes numerous miniature gift books for children, with fine engravings, instructive tales and poems, etc., of which the above are specimens.

This beautifully printed and illustrated volume resembles very much, in its appearance, the elegant edition of Gray’s “Elegy,” published several years since in London. We can say no more in praise of its typography and embellishments. The poem itself possesses considerable merit. Doctor Palmer was attached to the Exploring Expedition which returned to this country last summer from the southern seas, and “Thulia” is founded on incidents which occurred on the war-ship Peacock, and the schooner Flying Fish, while in the Antarctic ocean. The verse is free and melodious, and the ideas and illustrations generally appropriate and poetical. We quote a lyric that will convey to the reader a just idea of the poet’s style.

The notes appended to the poem contain the most interesting account of the expedition that has yet been given to the public.

This work is founded on, or rather is a free translation of, the “Scènes Evangéliques” of Napoleon Roussel, published a year or two since in Paris. It contains an account of the principal incidents in the lives of the Savior and of the great apostle of the Gentiles, written with singular simplicity and perspicuity, and illustrated with numerous etchings by a clever French artist. It is published, we believe, as a juvenile gift book for the holiday season.

The Ladies’ Annual Register is a neat little annuary, edited for several years by Mrs. Gilman, of Charleston. It embraces, beside the usual contents of the almanacs, many useful recipes for the housewife, with anecdotes, poems, etc.

Professor Bush is one of the most profound and ingenious scholars and critics of the present age, and we perceive with pleasure that he is rapidly multiplying the fruits of his industrious pen. To all the lovers of sound biblical exposition it must be gratifying to know that the Hebrew Scriptures are in a fair way to develop their riches to the English reader more fully than ever before. Professor Bush’s commentaries on the Old Testament, now extending to six volumes, embrace all the works of the Pentateuch but the last two, and these, we learn, he proposes shortly to enter upon. His careful study, his scrupulous fidelity in eliciting the exact meaning of the original, and his peculiar tact in explaining it, have made his Notes everywhere popular, so that before the completion of the series, the first volume has reached a sixth edition, the second a fifth, etc. In all of them will be found discussions on the most important points of biblical science, extending far beyond the ordinary dimensions of expository notes, and amounting in fact to elaborate dissertations of great value. Among the subjects thus extensively treated are, in Genesis, the temptation and the fall, the dispersion from Babel, the prophecies of Noah, the character of Melchizedec, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the history of Joseph, and the prophetical benedictions of Jacob; in Exodus, the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, the miracles of the magicians, the pillar of cloud as the seat of the Shekinah, the decalogue, the Hebrew theocracy, the tabernacle, the cherubim, the candle-stick, the shew bread, the altar, &c.; in Leviticus, a clear and minute specification of the different sacrifices, the law of marriage, including the case of marriage with a deceased wife’s sister, very largely considered, and a full account of the Jewish festivals. The sixth volume, including Joshua and Judges, contains an ample and erudite exposition of the Song of Deborah, and an extended discussion on the subject of Jeptha’s vow, with a view to determine whether the Jewish warrior really sacrificed his daughter. The Professor gives an array of very strong reasons in favor of the negative.

In his celebrated “Treatise on the Millennium,” which merely as a literary performance has received the highest commendations of the critics, our author has assumed the position that the millennium, strictly so called, is past. But by the millennium he does not understand the golden age of the church, which he, in common with nearly all good men, regards as a future era. He contends that as the memorable period of the thousand years of the apocalypse is distinguished mainly by the binding of the symbolical dragon, we must first determine by the legitimate canons of interpretation what is shadowed forth by this mystic personage, before we can assure ourselves of the true character of the millennial age. But the dragon, he supposes, is the grand hieroglyphic of Paganism—the “binding of the dragon,” but a figurative phrase for the suppression of Paganism within the limits of the Roman empire, a fulfilment which he contends commenced in the reign of Constantine, and was consummated in that of Theodosius, his successor. Professor Bush draws largely on the pages of Gibbon in support of his theory, assuming all along the great foundation principle that the apocalypse of John is but a series of pictured emblems, shadowing forth the ecclesiastical and civil history of the world. From a cursory examination of his Treatise, we are inclined to adopt the opinion of one of the first theologians of our country, that if his premises be admitted, his conclusion is irresistible; and that he did not know how to gainsay the premises.

In the Hierophant, a monthly publication of which he is editor, he enters elaborately into the nature of the prophetic symbols, and in the last number brings out some grand results as to the physical destiny of the globe. He assumes that a fair construction of the language of the prophets is far from countenancing the idle dreams of Miller and his school respecting the literal conflagration of the heavens and the earth, and does not even teach that such a catastrophe is ever to take place. He denies not that this may possibly be the finale which awaits our planet and the solar system, but if so, it is to be gathered rather from astronomy than revelation—from the apocalypse of Newton, Laplace and Herschell, than from that of John.

In general literature, in science and in art, America has furnished some of the best names in the world of letters; but it is in theology and religious philosophy that our countrymen have made the greatest advances. We need but allude to Edwards, Dwight, Emmons, Marsh, Beecher, Alexander, Stuart, McIlvaine, and Bush in proof of this. Perhaps we may add to the list Orestes Brownson, who, however erratic and peculiar, is a man of singular genius and sincerity. In our endeavors to keep the readers of this magazine advised of the condition of our literature, we should fail of our intent if at times we did not notice books and authors of a grave character. The useful and the true is in every thing the national aim. The writings of which we have spoken particularly in this brief notice, are distinguished for remarkable directness of language and logical clearness, as much as for profound scholarship, and they are among the most original works of their class brought out in our times.

Mr. McCarty is a bookseller, of the long established house of McCarty & Davis, in Market street. He is an antiquary also, and has in his chambers one of the best collections of books relating to our history and antiquities to be found in this country. Several years ago he “formed the plan of gathering together our national songs and ballads, deeming the task, however humble,” he says, “one of which the result would be acceptable to his countrymen.” He has since gleaned from all the files of magazines, newspapers and other periodicals, in the public libraries and in his own possession, published since Braddock’s defeat at DuQuesne, every scrap of verse, “good, bad, or indifferent,” relating to men, manners and events in America, and had them printed in three neat volumes, the first of which contains the “patriotic,” the second the “military,” and the third the “naval.” It is certainly a very curious collection. Some of the pieces, indeed, were written by foreigners, and have as little relation to any thing in America as to the quackeries of Græfenberg; and others are not decidedly poetical; but by far the greater number belong to one or another of the divisions in which the compiler has placed them, and, as he well remarks, “the present and future generations of Americans will hardly disdain those strains, however homely, which cheered and animated our citizen soldiers and seamen, ‘in the times that tried men’s souls,’ at the camp-fire or on the forecastle.” We perceive that Mr. McCarty has copied from our Magazine for October most of the pieces included in the article on “The Minstrelsy of the Revolution.” We have many others not embraced in his volumes, of which we intend to present a few additional specimens to our readers, in connection, perhaps, with some of the most curious verses in the books he has given us.

We received this novel too recently to be able to do it justice in our present number. It is a story of the sea, and from a cursory examination we are inclined to believe it equal to Mr. Cooper’s most celebrated naval romances. The scene is in the Mediterranean, in the memorable years 1798 and 1799. Le Feu-Follet is a French privateer, commanded by Raoul Yvard, a skilful, bold and chivalrous sailor, and the interest of the tale turns principally upon the manœuvres by which he preserves her from capture by the English frigate Prosperine. The character second in importance on board the republican privateer is Ithule Bolt, a shrewd Yankee, who, impressed into the British navy, had shared in the dangers of Nelson’s victory, and now added to a patriotic hatred of the English, some slight ill will created by what he deemed unjustifiable appliances of the lash during his service on board the Prosperine. Blended with the main narrative is a history of the loves of the commander of Le Feu-Follet and a beautiful Italian girl, Ghita Giuntotardi, one of our author’s most admirably drawn heroines. Those who would know more of the plot we refer to the book itself, or to the Yankee lieutenant, who in due time returned to the United Slates, married a widow, and “settled in life” somewhere in the Granite State. He is said at the present moment to be an active abolitionist, a patron of the temperance cause, and a terror to evil doers, under the appellation of Deacon Bolt. We are pleased to learn that the publishers have fixed the price of Wing-and-Wing at half a dollar—lower by fifty per cent. at least than an American novel was ever sold for before. For this reason, as well as on account of its remarkable merit, we predict for it a sale equal to that of “The Spy,” or “The Red Rover.”

Messrs. Carey & Hart have just issued a new edition of this work, with beautiful illustrations from paintings by Leslie, Inman, Creswick, Sully, Thompson, Verbryck, Hoyt, and Harding, engraved by Cheney, Cushman, Dodson, and Forrest. We believe that no other book of so expensive a character has passed to a second edition in the United States during the year. The fact that this has reached a third edition in six months seems to indicate that our poetical literature is properly appreciated, in our own country, at least. The price of the third edition has very properly been reduced to two dollars and a half.

The stories in these little volumes are written with taste and simplicity. Though Mrs. Hale’s incidents are generally pleasing, we do not in all cases approve their tendency. With deference for her better judgment, we think the boy who, in “The Way to Save,” bought the glass box, was much wiser than he who bought the draught board.

Two very beautiful and interesting annuals, of the character of which the titles are sufficiently descriptive.

“J. Cypress, jr.” was the late William P. Hawes, of the city of New York; and “Frank Forester” is the name by which one of the finest scholars, critics, and writers, whose productions have ever given a charm to our periodical literature—Henry William Herbert, the author of “Cromwell,” and numerous tales and other compositions in this Magazine—is known in the “sporting world.” Mr. Hawes was educated for the bar; his writings were generally on political or sporting topics, in the daily gazettes, or the magazines. The admirable series of papers, entitled “Fire Island Ana,” was written for the American Monthly, while that work was under Mr. Herbert; and most of his later compositions appeared in the “Turf Register.” We have not room to do them justice. They have never been excelled in this country, in richness of humor, freshness, or originality. Mr. Hawes had the modesty of genius. He lived in the quiet enjoyment of the life and the scenes he so felicitously delineated, and was unknown as a writer beyond the limited circle of his intimate friends until they and the world were deprived of his presence.

Among the poets who have written in the English language on religious themes, Cowper unquestionably ranks next to Milton in genius, and before him as a teacher. The Presbyterian poet is admired for his sublime conceptions and his unequaled mastery of language and the intricacies of rhythm; but the bard of Olney is loved by the good and the true as a friend. The new edition of the Task is one of the most beautiful specimens of typography produced in this country, and the etchings, by Cheney, which illustrate it, are of course admirably executed.

Among the many very excellent works published by the American Sunday School Union, we know of none written with more ability, or calculated to do more good than this admirable treatise. The plenary inspiration of the Scriptures, the great practical doctrines they teach, and the influence which these doctrines should exert upon the heart and life, are set forth by the learned author with candor, simplicity and eloquence.

The eight volumes, of which we have given the titles above, are bound in a uniform style, and constitute a very neat and excellent library for juvenile readers. We know of no books that can be more appropriately presented to the young in the approaching holidays than those of Archdeacon Wilberforce, John Angell James, and Charlotte Elizabeth.

Miss Barrett.—In this number will be found a series of sonnets by Miss Elizabeth B. Barrett, among the first of her contributions to any American periodical. They were originally intended for “Arcturus,” to which magazine they were sent; but arriving after the discontinuance of that periodical, its editors placed them at our disposal, “thinking the good company into which they would be introduced in ‘Graham,’ would be every way agreeable to the fair authoress.”

Miss Barrett’s productions are unique in this age of lady authors. They have the “touch of nature” in common with the best; they have, too, sentiment, passion and fancy in the highest degree, without reminding us of Mrs. Hemans, Mrs. Norton, or L. E. L. Her excellence is her own; her mind is colored by what it feeds on; the fine tissue of her flowing style comes to us from the loom of Grecian thought. She is the learned poetess of the day, familiar with Homer and Æschylus and Sophocles, and to the musings of Tempe she has added the inspiration of Christianity, “above all Greek, all Roman fame.” She has translated the Prometheus to the delight of scholars, and has lately contributed a series of very remarkable prose papers to the London Athenæum. Her reading Greek recalls to us Roger Ascham’s anecdote of Lady Jane Grey; but Lady Jane Grey has left us no such verses.

A striking characteristic of Miss Barrett’s prose, is its prevailing seriousness, approaching to solemnity—a garb borrowed from the “sceptred pale” of her favorite Greek drama of fate. She loses much with the general reader by a dim mysticism; but many of her later poems are free from any such defect. The great writers whom she loves will teach her the plain, simple, universal language of poetry.

Her dreams and abstractions, though “caviare to the generale,” have their admirers, who will ever find in pure and elevated philosophy expressed in the words of enthusiasm the living presence of poetry. On Parnassus there are many groves: far from the dust of the highway, embosomed in twilight woods that seem to symbol Reverence and Faith trusting on the unseen, we may hear in the whispering of the trees, the wavering breath of insect life, the accompaniment of our poet’s strain. Despise not dreams and reveries. With Cowley, Miss Barrett vindicates herself. “The father of poets tells us, even dreams, too, are from God.”

We cannot here do justice to Miss Barrett’s volume of the Seraphim, or to her other poems. We cannot here illustrate as we would the lofty tone of her conceptions, which in grandeur and human interest belong to the highest and most enduring of lyrical strains. She has thrown aside sentimentality, the fluency without thought, the cheap eloquence that marks a certain school of lady poets, for the genuine language of emotion, the fire-new currency of speech forged in the secret chambers of the heart. From two volumes of her poetry before us, (unfamiliar as yet to American readers—they cannot be so long,) we quote one poem, perhaps not the most brilliant of all, but inferior to none of the rest in the pathos, the tenderness, the deep Christian sympathy with human life, which dwell in the soul of this rare poetess.

Stars that Have Set in MDCCCXLII.—Among the dead of the year now drawing to a close, America laments her Marsh and Channing, and Europe, Sismondi and some less brilliant luminaries.

The Rev. James Marsh, D.D. was, at the time of his death, the third day of July, Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy in the University of Vermont. He was a calm, chaste scholar, an earnest and profound thinker, and a powerful and eloquent advocate of the highest principles of religion and philosophy, with the perfect simplicity and grandeur of whose life were blended the rarest virtues that adorn humanity. His principal published writings, excepting a few articles in the leading reviews, and some translations from the German, are devoted to those high and spiritual principles of philosophy, of which Coleridge and Kant were the most celebrated European exponents. We are pleased to learn that Professor Torrey, one of the dearest friends of the departed, is now superintending the publication of a complete edition of his works.

The name of William Ellery Channing has been long familiar to the readers of America and Great Britain. He was equally popular in both countries, and in both was regarded as one of the greatest authors of the age. The first edition of his collected writings we believe was published some five or six years since in Glasgow, and the last, in six octavo volumes, in Boston, in the winter of 1840. We presume his later productions, unprinted sermons, etc.—sufficient to fill several additional volumes—will soon be published, with his memoirs. Doctor Channing was for a long period the leading divine of the Unitarian belief, and though an ardent controvertist, was regarded by all men with love and reverence. The purity of his life, his high aims, his candor, and the dignity and beauty of his diction, won for him a reputation that will endure when most of the names now prominent in the world of letters are forgotten. He died in Bennington, in Vermont, on his return way from an excursion among the Green Mountains in search of health, on the second day of October.

John Charles Leonard de Sismondi was one of the most celebrated historical, political and æsthetical writers of the time. He died near Geneva, on the twenty-fifth of June, in his sixty-ninth year. He was the author of New Principles of Political Economy, A History of the Italian Republics, A History of the Literature of Southern Europe, A History of France, Julia Severn, a romance, and several other works, making in the aggregate about one hundred and fifty volumes, in the French editions. As a historian he has rarely been surpassed, and in every department of letters he exercised a powerful influence for nearly half a century.

Mr. James Grahame, author of the excellent History of the United Slates which bears his name; Sir Robert Kerr Porter, the traveler; Theodore E. Hook, the novelist, biographer, and dramatic writer; and Robert Mudie, author of several works on natural history, etc. were better known in this country than any of the other literary characters who have died in Europe during the present year.

New Books.—We received several new works too late to be noticed properly in our present number, of which we have space to mention particularly only Mr. Norman’s “Rambles in Yucatan,” and Mr. Lester’s observations on “The Condition and Fate of England,” both from the press of Messrs. Langley, of New York. The first is an exceedingly interesting work, and the last quite as good as the same author’s “Glory and Shame of England.” We shall endeavor to do them full justice in our Magazine for January.

The End of the Year.—With the present number we bring to a close another year of the publication of Graham’s Magazine. The many improvements which since our last anniversary have been effected in the work, and the extraordinary accessions to our subscription list—between twenty and thirty thousand in twelve months!—impart to us a satisfaction which we trust is shared in some degree by our million readers.

Since the commencement of the present year, Rufus W. Griswold has become associated with the proprietor in the editorship of the Magazine; and to our corps of contributors have been added William C. Bryant and Richard H. Dana, the first American poets, and the equals of any now living in the world; James Fenimore Cooper, the greatest of living novelists; Charles F. Hoffman, one of the most admired poets and prose writers of our country; Elizabeth B. Barrett, the truest female poet who has written in the English language; J. H. Mancur, the author of “Henri Quatre;” George H. Colton, the author of “Tecumseh;” H. T. Tuckerman, the author of “Isabelle, or Sicily,” etc.; the author of “A New Home” and “Forest Life,” who, under the name of “Mary Clavers,” has won a reputation second to that of none of the writers of her sex in America; Mrs. E. F. Ellet, the well known author of “The Characters of Schiller,” etc.; Mrs. Seba Smith, whose elegant and truthful compositions are as universally admired as they are read; and several others, whom we have not now space to mention. All these, with our favorite old writers, Professor Longfellow, George Hill, Edgar A. Poe, Mrs. Embury, Mrs. Stephens, and others, we shall retain for our succeeding volumes.

We shall likewise receive regular contributions during the ensuing year, from N. P. Willis, whose many admirable qualities as a writer have made his name familiar wherever English literature is read; T. C. Grattan, the popular author of “Highways and Byways,” “The Heiress of Bruges,” etc.; “Maria del Occidente,” the author of “Zophiel,” and many others, whose names will from month to month grace our pages.

Let our Past speak for our Future. The improvements made in Graham’s Magazine, in 1842, will be surpassed by those that we shall introduce in 1843. In all the departments of our work we shall remain in advance of every other candidate for the public favor.

The Author of the Sketch Book.—In a notice of the Miscellanies of Sir Walter Scott, in the number of this Magazine for September, we made allusion to reviews of various publications of Mr. Washington Irving, which we had good reason for believing were written by that gentleman himself. We learn with pleasure, from one who speaks on the subject by authority, that Mr. Irving is guiltless of the imputed self laudation. He did indeed write the article in the London Quarterly on his “Chronicles of Grenada,” and received for it the sum we mentioned; but, like so many of the modern “reviews,” it had very little relation to the work which gave it a title, or to its author.

H. Hastings Weld.—We notice that this talented and agreeable writer, formerly editor of the Brother Jonathan, has taken the editorial charge of the United States Saturday Post, a family newspaper of the largest class and circulation. We feel assured that the humor and vivacity of Mr. Weld’s pen will tend to make the paper still more popular, and to add greatly to the already enormous subscription list. This paper already circulates more copies weekly than any other family newspaper in the Union.

Transcriber’s Notes:

Table of Contents has been added for reader convenience. Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Obvious punctuation and typesetting errors have been corrected without note.

In the story Malina Gray, this concluding installment had two parts titled Chapter III. The second Chapter III has been corrected to Chapter IV.

[End of Graham’s Magazine, Vol. XXI, No. 6, December 1842, George R. Graham, Editor]