Volume 2 — Original Poetry. (continued 4)

We will not attempt to paint Miss Charlotte's feelings—that would be a vain endeavor. Rage took possession of her soul; her attire was already complete, all but the head-dress, for which she was waiting. She selected the best turban she had, threw on her cloak and calash, and in a condition of mind bordering upon frenzy, she rushed forth, determined, be the consequences what they might, to claim her turban, and expose Miss Cecilia's dishonorable conduct before the whole company.

By the time she arrived at Mrs. Hanaway's door, owing to the delays that had intervened, it was nearly half-past eight; the company had all arrived; and whilst the butler and footmen were carrying up the refreshments, one of the female servants of the establishment had come into the hall, and was endeavoring to introduce some sort of order and classification amongst the mass of external coverings that had been hastily thrown off by the ladies; so, when Miss Charlotte knocked, she opened the door and let her in, and proceeded to relieve her of her wraps.

"I suppose I'm very late," said Miss Charlotte, dropping into a chair to seize a moment's rest, whilst the woman drew off her boots; for she was out of breath with haste, and heated with fury.

"I believe everybody's come, ma'am," said the woman.

"I should have been here some time since," proceeded Miss Charlotte, "but the most shameful trick has been played me about my—my—Why—I declare—I really believe—" and she bent forward and picked up the turban—the identical turban, which, disturbed by the maid-servant's maneuvers, was lying upon the floor, still attached to the calash by Sukey's unlucky pin.

Was there ever such a triumph? Quick as lightning, the old turban was off and the new one on, the maid with bursting sides assisting in the operation; and then, with a light step and a proud heart, up walked Miss Charlotte, and was ushered into the drawing-room.

As the door opened, the eyes of the rivals met. Miss Cecilia's feelings were those of disappointment and surprise. "Then she has got a turban too! How could she have got it?"—and she was vexed that her triumph was not so complete as she had expected. But Miss Charlotte was in ecstasies. It may be supposed she was not slow to tell the story; it soon flew round the room, and the whole party were thrown into convulsions of laughter. Miss Cecilia alone was not in the secret; and as she was successful at cards, and therefore in good humor, she added to their mirth, by saying that she was glad to see everybody so merry, and by assuring Mrs. Hanaway, when she took her leave, that she had spent a delightful evening, and that her party was the gayest she had ever seen in B——.

"I am really ashamed," said Mrs. Hanaway, "at allowing the poor woman to be the jest of my company; but I was afraid to tell her the cause of our laughter, from the apprehension of what might have followed her discovery of the truth."

"And it must be admitted," said her husband, "that she well deserves the mortification that awaits her when she discovers the truth."

Poor Miss Cecilia did discover the truth, and never was herself again. She parted with her house, and went to live with a relation at Bristol; but her spirit was broken; and, after going through all the stages of a discontented old age, ill-temper, peevishness, and fatuity—she closed her existence, as usual with persons of her class, unloved and unlamented.

SIR NICHOLAS AT MARSTON MOOR.

BY THE AUTHOR OF LILLIAN.

I.

T

O HORSE, to horse, Sir Nicholas; the clarion's note is high;

To horse, to horse, Sir Nicholas; the huge drum makes reply:

Ere this hath Lucas marchéd with his gallant cavaliers,

And the bray of Rupert's trumpets grows fainter on our ears;

To horse, to horse, Sir Nicholas; white Guy is at the door;

And the vulture whets his beak o'er the field of Marston Moor.

Up rose the lady Alice from her brief and broken prayer;

And she brought a silken standard down the narrow turret-stair:

Oh, many were the tears those radiant eyes had shed,

As she worked the bright word "Glory" in the gay and glancing thread;

And mournful was the smile that o'er those beauteous features ran,

As she said: "It is your lady's gift, unfurl it in the van."

"It shall flutter, noble wench, where the best and boldest ride;

Through the steel-clad files of Skippon, and the black dragoons of Pride;

The recreant soul of Fairfax will feel a sicklier qualm,

And the rebel lips of Oliver give out a louder psalm,

When they see my lady's gew-gaw flaunt bravely on their wing,

And hear her loyal soldier's shout, For God and for the king!"

II.

Tis noon; the ranks are broken along the royal line;

They fly, the braggarts of the court, the bullies of the Rhine:

Stout Langley's cheer is heard no more, and Astley's helm is down;

And Rupert sheathes his rapier with a curse and with a frown:

And cold Newcastle mutters, as he follows in the flight,

"The German boar had better far have supped in York to-night."

The knight is all alone, his steel cap cleft in twain,

His good buff jerkin crimsoned o'er with many a gory stain;

But still he waves the standard, and cries amid the rout,

"For church and king, fair gentlemen, spur on, and fight it out!"—

And now he wards a roundhead's pike, and now he hums a stave,

And here he quotes a stage-play, and there he fells a knave.

Good speed to thee, Sir Nicholas! thou hast no thought of fear,

Good speed to thee, Sir Nicholas! but fearful odds are here.

The traitors ring thee round, and with every blow and thrust,

"Down, down," they cry, "with Belial, down with him to the dust!"

"I would," quoth grim old Oliver, "that Belial's trusty sword

This day were doing battle for the saints and for the Lord!"

III.

The lady Alice sits with her maidens in her bower;

The gray-haired warden watches on the castle's highest tower.—

"What news, what news, old Anthony?"—"The field is lost and won;

The ranks of war are melting as the mists beneath the sun;

And a wounded man speeds hither,—I am old and cannot see,

Or sure I am that sturdy step my master's step should be."

"I bring thee back the standard from as rude and red a fray

As e'er was proof of soldier's thews, or theme for minstrel's lay:

Bid Hubert fetch the silver bowl, and liquor quantum suff.;

I'll make a shift to drain it, ere I part with boot and buff;

Though Guy through many a gaping wound is breathing out his life,

And I come to thee a landless man, my fond and faithful wife.

Sweet, we will fill our money-bags, and freight a ship for France,

And mourn in merry Paris for this poor realm's mischance:

Or, if the worst betide me, why better ax or rope,

Than life with Lenthal for a King, and Peters for a Pope!

Alas, alas, my gallant Guy!—out on the crop-eared boor,

That sent me with my standard on foot from Marston Moor."

[From Fraser's Magazine.] LIFE AT A WATERING PLACE. ACCIDENTS WILL HAPPEN.

"HURRAH, old fellow!" shouted Ashburner's host, on the seventh morning of his visit; "here's a letter from Carl. I have been expecting it, and he has been expecting us, some time. So prepare yourself to start to-morrow."

"He can't have been expecting me, you know," suggested the guest, who, though remarkably domesticated for so short a time, hardly felt himself yet entitled to be considered one of the family.

"Oh, us means Clara, and myself, and baby, and any friends we choose to bring,—or, I should say, who will do us the honor to accompany us. We are hospitable people and the more the merrier. I know how much house-room Carl has; there is always a prophet's chamber, as the parsons call it, for such occasions. You must come; there's no two ways about that. You will see two very fine women there,—nice persons, as you would say: my sisters-in-law, Miss Vanderlyn, and Mrs. Carl Benson."

"But at any rate, would it not be better to write first, and apprise him of the additional visitor?"

"We should be there a week before our letter. Ecoutez! There is no post-office near us here, and my note would have to go to the city by a special messenger. Then the offices along the Hudson are perfectly antediluvian and barbarous, and mere mockery and delusion. Observe, I speak of the small local posts; on the main routes letters travel fast enough. You may send to Albany in nine hours; to Carl's place, which is about two-thirds of the distance to Albany, it would take more than half as many days,—if, indeed, it arrived at all. I remember once propounding this problem in the Blunder and Bluster:—'If a letter sent from New York to Hastings, distance 22 miles, never gets there, how long will it take one to go from New York to Red Hook, distance 110 miles?' We are shockingly behind you in our postal arrangements; there I give up the country. 'No, you musn't write, but come yourself,' as Penelope said to Ulysses."

Ashburner made no further opposition, and they were off the next morning accordingly. Before four a cart had started with the baggage, and directions to take up Ashburner's trunks and man-servant on the way. Soon after the coachman and groom departed with the saddle-horses, trotters, and wagon; for Benson, meditating some months' absence, took with him the whole of his stud, except the black colt, who was strongly principled against going on the water, and had nearly succeeded in breaking his master's neck on one occasion, when Harry insisted on his embarking. The long-tailed bays were left harnessed to the Rockaway,—a sort of light omnibus open at the sides, very like a char-à-banc, except that the seats run crosswise, and capable of accommodating from six to nine persons: that morning it held six, including the maid and nurse. Benson took the reins at a quarter-past five, and as the steamboat dock was situated at the very southern extremity of the city, and they had three miles of terrible pavement to traverse, besides nearly twelve of road, he arrived there just seven minutes before seven; at which hour, to the second, the good boat Swallow was to take wing. In a twinkling the horses were unharnessed and embarked; the carriage instantly followed them; and Harry, after assuring himself that all his property, animate and inanimate, was safely shipped, had still time to purchase, for his own and his friend's edification, the Jacobin, the Blunder and Bluster, the Inexpressible, and other popular papers, which an infinity of dirty boys were crying at the top of their not very harmonious voices.

"Our people do business pretty fast," said he, in a somewhat triumphant tone. "How this would astonish them on the Continent! See there!" as a family, still later than his own, arrived with a small mountain of trunks, all of which made their way on board as if they had wings. "When I traveled in Germany two years ago with Mrs. B. and her sister, we had eleven packages, and it used to take half-an-hour at every place to weigh and ticket them beforehand, not withstanding which one or two would get lost every now and then. In my own country I have traveled in all directions with large parties, never have been detained five minutes for baggage, and never lost anything except once—an umbrella. Now we are going."

The mate cried, "All ashore!" the newsboys and apple-venders disappeared; the planks were drawn in; the long, spidery walking-beam began to play; and the Swallow had started with her five hundred passengers.

"Let us stroll around the boat: I want to show you how we get up these things here."

The ladies' cabin on deck and the two general cabins below were magnificently furnished with the most expensive material, and in the last Parisian style, and this display and luxury were the more remarkable as the fare was but twelve shillings for a hundred and sixty miles. Ashburner admitted that the furniture was very elegant, but thought it out of place, and altogether too fine for the purpose.

"So you would say, probably, that the profuse and varied dinner we shall have is thrown away on the majority of the passengers, who bolt it in half-an-hour. But there are some who habitually appreciate the dinner and the furniture: it does them good, and it does the others no harm,—nay, it does them good, too. The wild man from the West, who has but recently learned to walk on his hind legs, is dazzled with these sofas and mirrors, and respects them more than he would more ordinary furniture. At any rate, it's a fault on right side. The furniture of an English hotel is enough to give a traveler a fit of the blues, such an extreme state of fustiness it is sure to be in. Did it ever strike you, by the way, how behindhand your countrymen are in the matter of hotels? When a traveller passes from England into Belgium (putting France out of the question), it is like going from Purgatory into Paradise."

"I don't think I ever stayed at a London hotel."

"Of course not; when your governor was out of town, and you not with him, you had your club. This is exactly what all travelers in England complain of. Everything for the exclusive use of the natives is good—except the water, and of that you don't use much in the way of a beverage; everything particularly tending to the comfort of strangers and sojourners—as the hotels, for instance, is bad, dear, and uncomfortable. I don't think you like to have foreigners among you, for your arrangements are calculated to drive them out of the country as fast as possible!"

"Perhaps we don't, as a general principle," said Ashburner, smiling.

"Well, I won't say that it is not the wisest policy. We have suffered much by being too liberal to foreigners. But then you must not be surprised at what they say about you. However, it is not worth while to lose the view for our discussion. Come up-stairs and take a good look at the river of rivers."

Ashburner felt no disposition to deny the beauty and grandeur of the Hudson. At first, the shore was lined with beetling ramparts of trap-rock. After many miles of this, the clear water spread out into a great lake, with apparently no egress. But on turning a promontory, the river stretched away nearly as wide as before, under wooded cliffs not dissimilar to those of the Rhine. Then came the picturesque Catskill mountains; and near these Harry was to stop, but Ashburner did not stop with him. At West Point the boat had taken up, among other passengers, two young officers of his acquaintance, then quartered in Canada. They were going to take the tour of the lakes, including, of course, Niagara, and offered Ashburner, if he would accompany them on this excursion first, to show him the lions of Canada afterward. On consulting with Benson, he found that the trip would not occupy more than a month or five weeks, and that after that time the watering-place season would be at its height.

"And it will be an excuse for my staying with Carl till August," Harry continued. "The women are half crazy to be at Oldport already. I would rather stay at Ravenswood. We shall expect you there at the end of July. But," and here, for the first time since their acquaintance, Ashburner perceived a slight embarrassment in his manner, "don't bring your friends."

"Oh, dear, no!" said Ashburner, not comprehending what could have put such a thing into the other's head, or what was coming next.

"I don't mean to Ravenswood, but to Oldport; that is, if you can help their coming. To tell you the truth, your university men, and literary men generally, are popular enough here, but your army is in very bad odor. The young fellows who come down among us from Canada behave shockingly. They don't act like gentlemen or Christians."

Ashburner hastened to assure him that Captain Blank and Lieutenant Dash were both gentlemen and Christians, in the ordinary acceptation of the terms, and had never been known to misconduct themselves in any way.

"Doubtless, inasmuch as they are your friends, but the general principle remains the same. So many of your young officers have misconducted themselves that the primâ facie evidence is always against one of them, and he stands a chance of being coolly treated."

Ashburner wanted to know what the young officers had done.

"Everything they could do to go counter to the habits and prejudices of the people among whom they were, and to show their contempt of American society; to act, in short, as if they were among uncivilized people. For instance, it is a custom at these watering-place hotels to dress for the table-d'hôte. Now, I do not think it altogether reasonable that a man should be expected to make his evening toilet by three in the afternoon, and, indeed, I do not strictly conform to the rule myself. But these men came in with flannel shirts and dirty shoes, and altogether in a state unfit for ladies' company. Perhaps, however, we were too fastidious in this. But what do you say to a youngster's seating himself upon a piano in the public parlor, while a lady is playing on it?"

Ashburner allowed that it was rather unceremonious.

"By various similar acts, trivial, perhaps, individually, but forming a very disagreeable aggregate, these young men made themselves so unpopular that one season the ladies, by common consent, refused to dance with any of them. But there is worse behind. These gentlemen, so stupid in a drawing-room, are sharp enough in borrowing money, and altogether oblivious of repaying it."

Ashburner remembered the affair of Ensign Lawless, and made up his mind to undergo another repetition of it.

"I don't speak of my individual case, the thing has happened fifty times. I could tell of a dozen friends who have been victimized in this way during the last three years. In fact, I believe that your jeunes militaires have formed a league to avenge the Mississippi bondholders, and recover their lost money under the form of these nominal loans. You may think it poetic justice, but we New Yorkers have no fancy to pay the Mississippians' debts in this way."

It would be foreign to our present purpose to accompany Ashburner in his Northwestern and Canadian tour. Suffice it to say, that he returned by the first of August, very much pleased, having seen many things well worth seeing, and experienced no particular annoyance, except the one predicted by Benson, that he sometimes had to take care of his servant. Neither shall we say much of his visit to Ravenswood, where, indeed, he only spent a few hours, arriving there in the morning and leaving it in the afternoon of the same day, and had merely time to partake of a capital lunch, and to remark that his entertainer had a beautiful place and a handsome wife, and was something like his younger brother, but more resembling an Englishman than any American he had yet seen.

The party to Oldport was increased by the addition of Miss Vanderlyn, a tall, stylish girl, more striking than her sister, but less delicately beautiful. Though past twenty, she had been out only one season, having been kept back three years by various accidents. But though new to society, she had nothing of the book-muslin timidity about her; nor was she at all abashed by the presence of the titled foreigner. On the contrary, she addressed him with perfect ease of manner, in French, professing, as an apology for conversing in that language, a fear that he might not be able to understand her English,—"Parceque chez vous, on dit que nous autres Americaines, ne parlons pas l'Anglais comme il faut."

As we are not writing a handbook or geographical account of the Northern States, it will not be necessary to mention where the fashionable watering-place of Oldport Springs is situated—not even what State it is in—suffice it to say, that from Carl Benson's place thither was a day's journey, performed partly by steamboat, partly by rail, and the last forty miles by stage-coach, or, as the Americans say, "for shortness," by stage. The water portion of their journey was soon over, nor did Ashburner much regret it, for he had been over this part of the route before on his way to Canada, and the river is not remarkably beautiful above the Catskill range.

On taking the cars, Benson seized the opportunity to enlighten his friend with a quantity of railroad statistics and gossip, such as, that the American trains averaged eighteen miles an hour, including stoppages,—about two miles short of the steamboat average; that they cost about one-fifth of an English road, or a dollar for a pound, which accounted for their deficiency in some respects; that there were more than three thousand miles of rail in the country; that there was no division of first, second, and third class, but that some lines had ladies cars—that is to say, cars for the gentlemen with ladies and the ladies without gentlemen—and some had separate cars for the ladies and gentlemen of color; that there had been some attempts to get up smoking-cars after the German fashion, but the public mind was not yet fully prepared for it; that one of the southern lines had tried the experiment of introducing a restaurant and other conveniences, with tolerable success; and other facts of more or less interest. Ashburner for his part, on examining his ticket, found upon the back of it a list of all the stations on the route, with their times and distances—a very convenient arrangement; and he was also much amused at the odd names of some of the stations—Nineveh, Pompey, Africa, Cologne, and others equally incongruous.

"Don't be afraid of laughing," said Benson, who guessed what he was smiling at. "Whenever I am detained at a country tavern, if there duly happens to be a good-sized map of the United States there, I have enough to amuse me in studying the different styles of names in the different sections of the Union—different in style, but alike in impropriety. In our State, as you know, the fashion is for classical and oriental names. In New England there is a goodly amount of old English appellations, but often sadly misapplied; for instance, an inland town will be called Falmouth, or Oldport, like the place we are going to. The aboriginal names, often very harmonious, had been generally displaced, except in Maine, where they are particularly long, and jaw-breaking, such as Winnipiscoggir and Chargogagog. Still we have some very pretty Indian names left in New York; Ontario, for instance, and Oneida, and Niagara, which you who have been there know is

Pronounced Niágara, To rhyme with staggerer, And not Niagára, To rhyme with starer."

"What does Niagara mean?"

"Broken water, I believe; but one gets so many different meanings for these names, from those who profess to know more or less about the native dialects, that you can never be certain. For instance, a great many will tell you, on Chateaubriand's authority, that Mississippi means Father of the waters. Some years ago one of our Indian scholars stated that this was an error; that the literal meaning of Mississippi was old-big-strong—not quite so poetic an appellation. I asked Albert Gallatin about it at the time—he was considered our best man on such subjects—and he told me that the word, or words, for the name is made up of two, signified the entire river. This is a fair specimen of the answers you get. I never had the same explanation of an Indian name given me by two men who pretended to understand the Indian languages."

"What rule does a gentleman adopt in naming his country-seat when he acquires a new one, or is there any rule?"

"There are two natural and proper expedients, one to take the nearest aboriginal name that is pretty and practicable, the other to adopt the name from some natural feature. Of this latter we have two very neat examples in the residences of our two greatest statesmen, Clay and Webster, which are called Ashland and Marshfield—appellations exactly descriptive of the places. But very often mere fancy names are adopted, and frequently in the worst possible taste, by people too who have great taste in other respects. I wanted my brother to call his place Carlsruhe—that would have been literally appropriate, though sounding oddly at first. But as it belonged originally to his father-in-law, it seemed but fair that his wife should have the naming of it, and she was so fond of the Bride of Lammermoor! Well, I hope Carl will set up a few crows some day, just to give a little color to the name. But, after all, what's in a name? We are to stop at Constantinople; if they give us a good supper and bed there (and they will unless the hotel is much altered for the worse within two years), they may call the town Beelzebub for me."

But Benson reckoned without his host. They were fated to pass the night, not at Constantinople, but at the rising village of Hardscrabble, consisting of a large hotel and a small blacksmith's shop.

The contretemps happened in this wise. The weather was very hot—it always is from the middle of June to the middle of September—but this day had been particularly sultry, and toward evening oppressed nature found relief in a thunder-storm, and such a storm! Ashburner, though anything but a nervous man, was not without some anxiety, and the ladies were in a sad fright; particularly Mrs. Benson, who threatened hysterics, and required a large expenditure of Cologne and caresses to bring her round. At last the train came to a full stop at Hardscrabble, about thirty-six miles on the wrong side of Constantinople. Even before the usual three minutes' halt was over our travelers suspected some accident; their suspicions were confirmed when the three minutes extended to ten, and ultimately the conductor announced that just beyond this station half a mile of the road had been literally washed away, so that further progress was impossible. Fortunately by this time the rain had so far abated that the passengers were able to pass from the shelter of the cars (there was no covered way at the station) to that of the spacious hotel stoop without being very much wetted. Benson recollected that there was a canal at no great distance, which, though comparatively disused since the establishment of the railroad, still had some boats on it, and he thought it probable that they might finish their journey in this way—not a very comfortable or expeditious one, but better than standing still. It appeared however on inquiry that the canal was also put hors de combat by the weather, and nothing was to be done that way. Only two courses remained, either to go back to Clinton, or to remain for the night where they were.

"This hotel ought to be able to accommodate us all," remarked a fellow-passenger near them.

He might well say so. The portico under which they stood (built of the purest white pine, and modeled after that of a Grecian temple with eight columns) fronted at least eighty feet. The house was several stories high, and if the front were anything more than a mere shell, must contain rooms for two hundred persons. How the building came into its present situation was a mystery to Ashburner; it looked as if it had been transported bodily from some large town, and set down alone in the wilderness. The probability is, that some speculators, judging from certain signs that a town was likely to arise there soon, had built the hotel so as to be all ready for it.

There was no need to question the landlord: he had already been diligently assuring every one that he could accommodate all the passengers, who indeed did not exceed a hundred in number.

Logicians tell us, that a great deal of the trouble and misunderstanding which exists in this naughty world, arises from men not defining their terms in the outset. The landlord of Hardscrabble had evidently some peculiar ideas of his own as to the meaning of the term accommodate. The real state of the case was, that he had any quantity of rooms, and a tolerably liberal supply of bedsteads, but his stock of bedding was by no means in proportion; and he was, therefore, compelled to multiply it by process of division, giving the hair mattress to one, the feather bed to another, the straw bed to a third; and so with the pillows and bolsters as far as they would go. This was rather a long process, even with American activity, especially as some of the hands employed were temporarily called off to attend to the supper table.

The meal, which was prepared and eaten with great promptitude, was a mixture of tea and supper. Very good milk, pretty good tea, and pretty bad coffee, represented the drinkables; and for solids, there was a plentiful provision of excellent bread and butter, new cheese, dried beef in very thin slices, or rather chips, gingerbread, dough-nuts, and other varieties of home-made cake, sundry preserves, and some pickles. The waiters were young women—some of them very pretty and lady-like. The Bensons kept up a conversation with each other and Ashburner in French, which he suspected to be a customary practice of "our set" when in public, as indeed it was, and one which tended not a little to make them unpopular. A well-dressed man opposite looked so fiercely at them that the Englishman thought he might have partially comprehended their discourse and taken offense at it, till he was in a measure reassured by seeing him eat poundcake and cheese together,—a singularity of taste about which he could not help making a remark to Benson.

"Oh, that's nothing," said Harry. "Did you never, when you were on the lakes, see them eat ham and molasses? It is said to be a western practice: I never was there; but I'll tell you what I have seen. A man with cake, cheese, smoked-beef, and preserves, all on his plate together, and paying attention to them all indiscriminately. He was not an American either, but a Creole Frenchman of New Orleans, who had traveled enough to know better."

Soon after supper most of the company seemed inclined bedward; but there were no signs of beds for some time. Benson's party, who were more amused than fatigued by their evening's experience, spread the carpet of resignation, and lit the cigar of philosophy. All the passengers did not take it so quietly. One tall, melancholy-faced man, who looked as if he required twice the ordinary amount of sleep, was especially anxious to know "where they were going to put him."

"Don't be afraid, sir," said the landlord, as he shot across the room on some errand; "we'll tell you before you go to bed." With which safe prediction the discontented one was fain to content himself.

At length, about ten or half-past, the rooms began to be in readiness, and their occupants to be marched off to them in squads of six or eight at a time,—the long corridors and tall staircases of the hotel requiring considerable pioneering and guidance. Benson's party came among the last. Having examined the room assigned to the ladies, Harry reported it to contain one bed and half a washstand; from which he and Ashburner had some misgivings as to their own accommodation, but were not exactly prepared for what followed, when a small boy with a tallow candle and face escorted them up three flights of stairs into a room containing two small beds and a large spittoon, and not another single article of furniture.

"I say, boy!" quoth Benson, in much dudgeon, turning to their chamberlain, "suppose we should want to wash in the morning, what are we to do?"

"I don't know, sir," answered the boy; and depositing the candle on the floor, disappeared in the darkness.

"By Jove!" ejaculated the fastidious youth, "there isn't as much as a hook in the wall to hang one's coat on. It's lucky we brought up our carpet-bags with us, else we should have to look out a clean spot on the floor for our clothes."

Ashburner was not very much disconcerted. He had traveled in so many countries, notwithstanding his youth, that he could pass his nights anyhow. In fact, he had never been at a loss for sleep in his life, except on one occasion, when, in Galway, a sofa was assigned to him at one side of a small parlor, on the other side of which three Irish gentlemen were making a night of it.

So they said their prayers, and went to bed, like good boys. But their slumbers were not unbroken. Ashburner dreamed that he was again in Venice, and that the musquitoes of that delightful city, of whose venomousness and assiduity he retained shuddering recollections, were making an onslaught upon him in great numbers; while Benson awoke toward morning with a great outcry; in apology for which he solemnly assured his friend, that two seconds before he was in South Africa, where a lion of remarkable size and ferocity had caught him by the leg. And on rising they discovered some spots of blood on the bed-clothes, showing that their visions had not been altogether without foundation in reality.

The Hardscrabble hotel, grand in its general outlines, had overlooked the trifling details of wash-stands and chamber crockery. Such of these articles as it did possess, were very properly devoted to the use of the ladies; and accordingly Ashburner and Benson, and forty-five more, performed their matutinal ablutions over a tin basin in the bar-room, where Harry astonished the natives by the production of his own particular towel and pocket comb. The weather had cleared up beautifully, the railroad was repaired, and the train ready to start as soon as breakfast was over. After this meal, as miscellaneous as their last night's supper, while the passengers were discharging their reckoning, Ashburner noticed that his friend was unusually fussy and consequential, asked several questions, and made several remarks in a loud tone, and altogether seemed desirous of attracting attention. When it came to his turn to pay, he told out the amount, not in the ordinary dirty bills, but in hard, ringing half-dollars, which had the effect of drawing still further notice upon him.

"Five dollars and a quarter," said Benson, in a measured and audible tone; "and, Landlord, here's a quarter extra."

The landlord looked up in surprise; so did the two or three men standing nearest Harry.

"It's to buy beef with, to feed 'em. Feed 'em well now, don't forget!"

"Feed 'em! feed who?" and the host looked as if he thought his customer crazy.

"Feed who? Why look here!" and bending over the counter, Harry uttered a portentous monosyllable, in a pretended whisper, but really as audible to the bystanders as a stage aside. Three or four of those nearest exploded.

"Yes, feed 'em well before you put anybody into your beds again, or you'll have to answer for the death of a fellow-Christian some day, that's all. Good morning!" And taking his wife under his arm, Benson stalked off to the cars with a patronizing farewell nod, amid a sympathetic roar, leaving the host irresolute whether to throw a decanter after him, or to join in the general laugh.

Hook and one of his friends happened to come to a bridge. "Do you know who built this bridge?" said he to Hook. "No, but if you go over you'll be tolled."

[From the December number of Graham's Magazine.] TO A CELEBRATED SINGER.

BY R.H. STODDARD.

OFT have I dreamed of music rare and fine, The wedded melody of lute and voice, Divinest strains that made my soul rejoice, And woke its inner harmonies divine. And where Sicilia smooths the ruffled seas, And Tempe hallows all its purple vales, Thrice have I heard the noble nightingales, All night entranced beneath the gloomy trees; But music, nightingales, and all that Thought Conceives of song is naught To thy rich voice, which echoes in my brain, And fills my longing heart with a melodious pain!

[From Miss McIntosh's "Christmas Gift."] THE WOLF-CHASE.

BY C. WHITEHEAD.

DURING the winter of 1844, being engaged in the northern part of Maine, I had much leisure to devote to the wild sports of a new country. To none of these was I more passionately addicted than to skating. The deep and sequestered lakes of this State, frozen by the intense cold of a northern winter, present a wide field to the lovers of this pastime. Often would I bind on my skates, and glide away up the glittering river, and wind each mazy streamlet that flowed beneath its fetters on toward the parent ocean, forgetting all the while time and distance in the luxurious sense of the gliding motion—thinking of nothing in the easy flight, but rather dreaming, as I looked through the transparent ice at the long weeds and cresses that nodded in the current beneath, and seemed wrestling with the waves to let them go; or I would follow on the track of some fox or otter, and run my skate along the mark he had left with his dragging tail until the trail would enter the woods. Sometimes these excursions were made by moonlight, and it was on one of these occasions that I had a rencounter, which even now, with kind faces around me, I cannot recall without a nervous looking-over-my-shoulder feeling.

I had left my friend's house one evening just before dusk, with the intention of skating a short distance up the noble Kennebec, which glided directly before the door. The night was beautifully clear. A peerless moon rode through an occasional fleecy cloud, and stars twinkled from the sky and from every frost-covered tree in millions. Your mind would wonder at the light that came glinting from ice, and snow-wreath, and incrusted branches, as the eye followed for miles the broad gleam of the Kennebec, that like a jeweled zone swept between the mighty forests on its banks. And yet all was still. The cold seemed to have frozen tree, and air, and water, and every living thing that moved. Even the ringing of my skates on the ice echoed back from the Moccasin Hill with a startling clearness, and the crackle of the ice as I passed over it in my course seemed to follow the tide of the river with lightning speed.

I had gone up the river nearly two miles when, coming to a little stream which empties into the larger, I turned in to explore its course. Fir and hemlock of a century's growth met overhead, and formed an archway radiant with frost-work. All was dark within, but I was young and fearless, and as I peered into an unbroken forest that reared itself on the borders of the stream, I laughed with very joyousness: my wild hurra rang through the silent woods, and I stood listening to the echo that reverberated again and again, until all was hushed. I thought how often the Indian hunter had concealed himself behind these very trees—how often his arrow had pierced the deer by this very stream, and his wild halloo had here rung for his victory. And then, turning from fancy to reality, I watched a couple of white owls, that sat in their hooded state, with ruffled pantalets and long ear-tabs, debating in silent conclave the affairs of their frozen realm, and wondering if they, "for all their feathers, were a-cold," when suddenly a sound arose—it seemed to me to come from beneath the ice; it sounded low and tremulous at first, until it ended in one wild yell. I was appalled. Never before had such a noise met my ears. I thought it more than mortal—so fierce, and amid such an unbroken solitude, it seemed as if a fiend had blown a blast from an infernal trumpet. Presently I heard the twigs on shore snap, as if from the tread of some animal, and the blood rushed back to my forehead with a bound that made my skin burn, and I felt relieved that I had to contend with things earthly, and not of spiritual nature—my energies returned, and I looked around me for some means of escape. The moon shone through the opening at the mouth of the creek by which I had entered the forest, and considering this the best means of escape, I darted toward it like an arrow. 'Twas hardly a hundred yards distant, and the swallow could scarcely excel my desperate flight; yet, as I turned my head to the shore, I could see two dark objects dashing through the underbrush at a pace nearly double in speed to my own. By this great speed, and the short yells which they occasionally gave, I knew at once that these were the much dreaded gray wolf.

I had never met with these animals, but from the description given of them I had but little pleasure in making their acquaintance. Their untamable fierceness, and the untiring strength which seems part of their nature, render them objects of dread to every benighted traveler.

"With their long gallop, which can tire The deer-hound's hate, the hunter's fire,"

they pursue their prey—never straying from the track of their victim—and as the wearied hunter thinks he has at last outstripped them, he finds that they but waited for the evening to seize their prey, and falls a prize to the tireless animals.

The bushes that skirted the shore flew past with the velocity of lightning as I dashed on in my flight to pass the narrow opening. The outlet was nearly gained; one second more and I would be comparatively safe, when my pursuers appeared on the bank directly above me, which here rose to the height of ten feet. There was no time for thought, so I bent my head and dashed madly forward. The wolves sprang, but miscalculating my speed, sprang behind, while their intended prey glided out upon the river.

Nature turned me toward home. The light flakes of snow spun from the iron of my skates, and I was some distance from my pursuers, when their fierce howl told me I was still their fugitive. I did not look back, I did not feel afraid, or sorry, or glad; one thought of home, of the bright faces awaiting my return, of their tears if they never should see me, and then every energy of body and mind was exerted for escape. I was perfectly at home on the ice. Many were the days that I spent on my good skates, never thinking that at one time they would be my only means of safety. Every half minute an alternate yelp from my fierce attendants made me but too certain that they were in close pursuit. Nearer and nearer they came; I heard their feet pattering on the ice nearer still, until I could feel their breath and hear their snuffing scent. Every nerve and muscle in my frame was stretched to the utmost tension.

The trees along the shore seemed to dance in the uncertain light, and my brain turned with my own breathless speed, yet still they seemed to hiss forth their breath with a sound truly horrible, when an involuntary motion on my part turned me out of my course. The wolves close behind, unable to stop, and as unable to turn on the smooth ice, slipped and fell, still going on far ahead; their tongues were lolling out, their white tusks glaring from their bloody mouths, their dark, shaggy breasts were fleeced with foam, and as they passed me their eyes glared, and they howled with fury. The thought flashed on my mind, that by this means I could avoid them, viz., by turning aside whenever they came too near; for they, by the formation of their feet, are unable to run on ice except on a straight line.

I immediately acted upon this plan. The wolves, having regained their feet, sprang directly toward me. The race was renewed for twenty yards up the stream; they were already close on my back, when I glided round and dashed directly past my pursuers. A fierce yell greeted my evolution, and the wolves, slipping upon their haunches, sailed onward, presenting a perfect picture of helplessness and baffled rage. Thus I gained nearly a hundred yards at each turning. This was repeated two or three times, every moment the animals getting more excited and baffled.

At one time, by delaying my turning too long, my fierce antagonists came so near, that they threw the white foam over my dress as they sprang to seize me, and their teeth clashed together like the spring of a fox-trap. Had my skates failed for one instant, had I tripped on a stick, or caught my foot in a fissure in the ice, the story I am now telling would never have been told. I thought all the chances over; I knew where they would first take hold of me if I fell; I thought how long it would be before I died, and when there would be a search for the body that would already have its tomb; for oh! how fast man's mind traces out all the dead colors of death's picture, only those who have been near the grim original can tell.

But soon I came opposite the house, and my hounds—I knew their deep voices—roused by the noise, bayed furiously from the kennels. I heard their chains rattle; how I wished they would break them, and then I would have protectors that would be peers to the fiercest denizens of the forest. The wolves, taking the hint conveyed by the dogs, stopped in their mad career, and after a moment's consideration, turned and fled. I watched them until their dusky forms disappeared over a neighboring hill. Then, taking off my skates, I wended my way to the house, with feelings which may be better imagined than described.

But even yet, I never see a broad sheet of ice in the moonshine, without thinking of that snuffling breath and those fearful things that followed me so closely down the frozen Kennebec.

[From Recollections and Anecdotes of the Bard of Glamorgan.] STORY OF A POET.

DURING one of his perambulations in Cardiganshire, the Bard found himself, on a dreary winter evening, at too great a distance from the abode of any friend, for him to reach it at a reasonable hour: he was also more than commonly weary, and therefore turned into a roadside public house to take up his night's lodgings. He had been there only a short time, standing before the cheerful fire, when a poor peddler entered with a pack on his back, and evidently suffering from cold and fatigue. He addressed the landlord in humble tone, begging he might lodge there, but frankly avowing he had no money. Trade, he said, had of late been unfavorable to him—no one bought his goods, and he was making the best of his way to a more populous district. There were, however, articles of value in his pack, much more than sufficient to pay for his entertainment, and he tendered any part of them, in payment, or in pledge for the boon of shelter and refreshment. The landlord, however, was one of those sordid beings who regard money as the standard of worth in their fellow-men, and the want of it as a warrant for insult; he, therefore, sternly told the poor wayfarer there was no harbor for him under that roof, unless he had coin to pay for it. Again and again, the weary man, with pallid looks and feeble voice, entreated the heartless wretch, and was as often repulsed in a style of bulldog surliness, till at length he was roughly ordered to leave the house. The bard was not an unmoved witness of this revolting scene; and his heart had been sending forth its current, in rapid and yet more rapid pulsations to his now glowing extremities, as he listened and looked on. He had only one solitary shilling in his pocket, which he had destined to purchase his own accommodations for that wintry night; but its destination was now changed. Here was a needy man requiring it more than himself; and according to his generous views of the social compact, it became his duty to sacrifice his minor necessities to the greater ones of his fellow-creature. Snatching the shilling from its lurking place, he placed it in the hand of the peddler, telling him that would pay for his lodging, and lodging he should have, in spite of the savage who had refused it. Then darting a withering look at the publican, he exclaimed, "Villain! do you call yourself a man? You, who would turn out a poor exhausted traveler from your house on a night like this, under any circumstances! But he has offered you ample payment for his quarters and you refused him. Did you mean to follow him and rob him—perhaps murder him? You have the heart of a murderer; you are a disgrace to humanity, and I will not stay under your roof another minute; but turn out this poor traveler at your peril—you dare not refuse the money he can now offer you." Having thus vented his indignant feeling with his usual heartiness, Iolo seized his staff and walked out into the inclement night, penniless indeed, and supperless too, but with a rich perception of the truth uttered by Him who "had not where to lay his head," though omnipotent as well as universal in his beneficence—"It is more blessed to give than to receive." A walk of many miles lay between him and his friend's house, to which he now directed his steps, and by the time he entered early on the following morning his powers had nearly sunk under cold and exhaustion. A fever was the sequel, keeping him stationary for several weeks.

[From Dickens's Household Words.] HIRAM POWERS'S GREEK SLAVE.

THEY say Ideal Beauty cannot enter The house of anguish. On the threshold stands This alien Image with the shackled hands, Called the Greek Slave: as if the artist meant her, (The passionless perfection which he lent her, Shadowed, not darkened, where the sill expands,) To, so, confront man's crimes in different lands, With man's ideal sense. Pierce to the centre, Art's fiery finger! and break up ere long The serfdom of this world. Appeal, fair stone, From God's pure heights of beauty, against man's wrong! Catch up, in thy divine face, not alone East griefs, but west, and strike and shame the strong, By thunders of white silence, overthrown.

[From Papers for the People.] THE BLACK POCKET-BOOK.

"WHAT do you pay for peeping?" said a baker's boy with a tray on his shoulder to a young man in a drab-colored greatcoat, and with a cockade in his hat, who, on a cold December's night was standing with his face close to the parlor window of a mean house, in a suburb of one of our largest seaport towns in the south of England.

Tracy Walkingham, which was the name of the peeper, might have answered that he paid dear enough; for in proportion as he indulged himself with these surreptitious glances, he found his heart stealing away from him, till he literally had not a corner of it left that he could fairly call his own.

Tracy was a soldier; but being in the service of one of his officers, named D'Arcy, was relieved from wearing his uniform. At sixteen years of age he had run away from a harsh schoolmaster, and enlisted in an infantry regiment; and about three weeks previous to the period at which our story opens, being sent on an early errand to his master's laundress, his attention had been arrested by a young girl, who, coming hastily out of an apothecary's shop with a phial in her hand, was rushing across the street, unmindful of the London coach and its four horses, which were close upon her, and by which she would assuredly have been knocked down, had not Tracy seized her by the arm and snatched her from the danger.

"You'll be killed if you don't look sharper," said he carelessly; but as he spoke, she turned her face toward him. "I hope my roughness has not hurt you?" he continued in a very different tone: "I'm afraid I gripped your arm too hard?"

"I'm very much obliged to you," she said; "you did not hurt me at all. Thank you," she added, looking back to him as she opened the door of the opposite house with a key which she held in her hand.

The door closed, and she was gone ere Tracy could find words to detain her; but if ever there was a case of love at first sight, this was one. Short as had been the interview, she carried his heart with her. For some minutes he stood staring at the house, too much surprised and absorbed in his own feelings to be aware that, as is always the case if a man stops to look at anything in the street, he was beginning to collect a little knot of people about him, who all stared in the same direction too, and were asking each other what was the matter. Warned by this discovery, the young soldier proceeded on his way; but so engrossed and absent was he, that he had strode nearly a quarter of a mile beyond the laundress' cottage before he discovered his error. On his return, he contrived to walk twice past the house; but he saw nothing of the girl. He had a mind to go into the apothecary's and make some inquiry about her; but that consciousness which so often arrests such inquiries arrested his, and he went home, knowing no more than his eyes and ears had told him—namely, that this young damsel had the loveliest face and the sweetest voice that fortune had yet made him acquainted with, and, moreover, that the possessor of these charms was apparently a person in a condition of life not superior to his own. Her dress and the house in which she lived both denoted humble circumstances, if not absolute poverty, although he felt that her countenance and speech indicated a degree of refinement somewhat inconsistent with this last conjecture. She might be a reduced gentlewoman. Tracy hoped not, for if so, poor as she was, she would look down upon him; she might, on the contrary, be one of those natural aristocrats, born Graces, that nature sometimes pleases herself with sending into the world; as in her humorous moments she not unfrequently does the reverse, bestowing on a princess the figure and port of a market-woman. Whichever it was, the desire uppermost in his mind was to see her again; and accordingly, after his master was dressed, and gone to dinner, he directed his steps to the same quarter. It was now evening, and he had an opportunity of more conveniently surveying the house and its neighborhood without exciting observation himself. For this purpose he crossed over to the apothecary's door, and looked around him. It was a mean street, evidently inhabited by poor people, chiefly small retail dealers; almost every house in it being used as a shop, as appeared from the lights and the merchandise in the windows, except the one inhabited by the unknown beauty. They were all low buildings of only two stories; and that particular house was dark from top to bottom, with the exception of a faint stripe of light which gleamed from one of the lower windows, of which there were only two, apparently from a rent or seam in the shutter, which was closed within. On crossing over to take a nearer survey, Tracy perceived that just above a green curtain which guarded the lower half of the window from the intrusions of curiosity, the shutters were divided into upper and lower, and that there was a sufficient separation between them to enable a person who was tall enough to place his eye on a level with the opening, to see into the room. Few people, however, were tall enough to do this, had they thought it worth their while to try; but Tracy, who was not far from six feet high, found he could accomplish the feat quite easily. So, after looking round to make sure nobody was watching him, he ventured on a peep; and there indeed he saw the object of all this interest sitting on one side of a table, whilst a man, apparently old enough to be her father, sat on the other. He was reading, and she was working, with the rich curls of her dark-brown hair tucked carelessly behind her small ears, disclosing the whole of her young and lovely face, which was turned toward the window. The features of the man he could not see, but his head was bald, and his figure lank; and Tracy fancied there was something in his attitude that indicated ill health. Sometimes she looked up and spoke to her companion, but when she did so, it was always with a serious, anxious expression of countenance, which seemed to imply that her communications were on no very cheerful subject. The room was lighted by a single tallow candle, and its whole aspect denoted poverty and privation, while the young girl's quick and eager fingers led the spectator to conclude she was working for her bread.

It must not be supposed that all these discoveries were the result of one enterprise. Tracy could only venture on a peep now and then when nobody was nigh; and many a time he had his walk for nothing. Sometimes, too, his sense of propriety revolted, and he forebore from a consciousness that it was not a delicate proceeding thus to spy into the interior of this poor family at moments when they thought no human eye was upon them: but his impulse was too powerful to be always thus resisted, and fortifying himself with the consideration that his purpose was not evil, he generally rewarded one instance of self-denial by two or three of self-indulgence. And yet the scene that met his view was so little varied, that it might have been supposed to afford but a poor compensation for so much perseverance. The actors and their occupation continued always the same; and the only novelty offered was, that Tracy sometimes caught a glimpse of the man's features, which, though they betrayed evidence of sickness and suffering, bore a strong resemblance to those of the girl.

All this, however, to make the most of it, was but scanty fare for a lover; nor was Tracy at all disposed to content himself with such cold comfort. He tried what walking through the street by day would do, but the door was always closed, and the tall green curtain presented an effectual obstacle to those casual glances on which alone he could venture by sunlight. Once only he had the good fortune again to meet this "bright particular star" out of doors, and that was one morning about eight o'clock, when he had been again sent on an early embassy to the laundress. She appeared to have been out executing her small marketings, for she was hastening home with a basket on her arm. Tracy had formed a hundred different plans for addressing her—one, in short, suited to every possible contingency—whenever the fortunate opportunity should present itself; but, as is usual in similar cases, now that it did come, she flashed upon him so suddenly, that in his surprise and agitation he missed the occasion altogether. The fact was that she stepped out of a shop just as he was passing it; and her attention being directed to some small change which she held in her hand, and which she appeared to be anxiously counting, she never even saw him, and had reentered her own door before he could make up his mind what to do. He learned, however, by this circumstance, that the best hope of success lay in his going to Thomas Street at eight o'clock; but alas! this was the very hour that his services could not be dispensed with at home; and although he made several desperate efforts, he did not succeed in hitting the lucky moment again.

Of course he did not neglect inquiry; but the result of his perquisitions afforded little encouragement to his hopes of obtaining the young girl's acquaintance. All that was known of the family was, that they had lately taken the house, that their name was Lane, that they lived quite alone, and were supposed to be very poor. Where they came from, and what their condition in life might be, nobody knew or seemed desirous to know, since they lived so quietly, that they had hitherto awakened no curiosity in the neighborhood. The Scotsman at the provision shop out of which she had been seen to come, pronounced her a wise-like girl; and the apothecary's lad said that she was uncommon comely and genteel-like, adding that her father was in very bad health. This was the whole amount of information he could obtain, but to the correctness of it, as regarded the bad health and the poverty, his own eyes bore witness.

Nearly three weeks had elapsed since Tracy's first meeting with the girl, when one evening he thought he perceived symptoms of more than ordinary trouble in this humble ménage. Just as he placed his eye to the window, he saw the daughter entering the room with an old blanket, which she wrapped round her father, whilst she threw her arms about his neck, and tenderly caressed him; at the same time he remarked that there was no fire in the grate, and that she frequently applied her apron to her eyes. As these symptoms denoted an unusual extremity of distress, Tracy felt the strongest desire to administer some relief to the sufferers; but by what stratagem to accomplish his purpose it was not easy to discover. He thought of making the apothecary or the grocer his agent, requesting them not to name who had employed them; but he shrank from the attention and curiosity such a proceeding would awaken, and the evil interpretations that might be put upon it. Then he thought of the ribald jests and jeers to which he might subject the object of his admiration, and he resolved to employ no intervention, but to find some means or other of conveying his bounty himself; and having with this view inclosed a sovereign in half a sheet of paper, he set out upon his nightly expedition.

He was rather later than usual, and the neighboring church clock struck nine just as he turned into Thomas Street; he was almost afraid that the light would be extinguished, and the father and daughter retired to their chambers, as had been the case on some previous evenings; but it was not so: the faint gleam showed that they were still there, and after waiting some minutes for a clear coast, Tracy approached the window—but the scene within was strangely changed.

The father was alone—at least except himself there was no living being in the room—but there lay a corpse on the floor; at the table stood the man with a large black notebook in his hand, out of which he was taking what appeared to the spectator, so far as he could discern, to be bank notes. To see this was the work of an instant; to conclude that a crime had been committed was as sudden! and under the impulse of fear and horror that seized him, Tracy turned to fly, but in his haste and confusion, less cautious than usual, he struck the window with his elbow. The sound must have been heard within; and he could not resist the temptation of flinging an instantaneous glance into the room to observe what effect it had produced. It was exactly such as might have been expected; like one interrupted in a crime, the man stood transfixed, his pale face glaring at the window, and his hands, from which the notes had dropped suspended in the attitude in which they had been surprised; with an involuntary exclamation of grief and terror, Tracy turned again and fled. But he had scarcely gone two hundred yards when he met the girl walking calmly along the street with her basket on her arm. She did not observe him, but he recognized her; and urged by love and curiosity, he could not forbear turning back, and following her to the door. On reaching it, she, as usual, put her key into the lock; but it did not open as usual; it was evidently fastened on the inside. She lifted the knocker, and let it fall once, just loud enough to be heard within; there was a little delay, and then the door was opened—no more, however, than was sufficient to allow her to pass in—and immediately closed. Tracy felt an eager desire to pursue this strange drama further, and was standing still, hesitating whether to venture a glance into the room, when the door was again opened, and the girl rushed out, leaving it unclosed, and ran across the street into the apothecary's shop.

"She is fetching a doctor to the murdered man," thought Tracy. And so it appeared, for a minute had scarcely elapsed, when she returned, accompanied by the apothecary and his assistant; they all three entered the house; and upon the impulse of the moment, without pausing to reflect on the impropriety of the intrusion, the young soldier entered with them.

The girl, who walked first with a hasty step, preceded them into that room on the right of the door which, but a few minutes before, Tracy had been surveying through the window. The sensations with which he now entered it formed a singular contrast to his anticipations, and furnished a striking instance of what we have all occasion to remark as we pass through life—namely, that the thing we have most earnestly desired, frequently when it does come, arrives in a guise so different to our hopes, and so distasteful to the sentiments or affections which have given birth to the wish, that what we looked forward to as the summit of bliss, proves, when we reach it, no more than a barren peak strewn with dust and ashes. Fortunate, indeed, may we esteem ourselves if we find nothing worse to greet us. How often had Tracy fancied that if he could only obtain entrance into that room he should be happy! As long as he was excluded from it, it was his summit, for he could see no further, and looked no further, sought no further: it seemed to him that, once there, all that he desired must inevitably follow. Now he was there, but under what different circumstances to those he had counted on! with what different feelings to those his imagination had painted!

"What's the matter?" inquired Mr. Adams the apothecary, as he approached the body, which still lay on the floor.

"I hope it's only a fit!" exclaimed the girl, taking the candle off the table, and holding it in such a manner as to enable the apothecary to examine the features.

"He's dead, I fancy," said the latter, applying his fingers to the wrist. "Unloose his neckcloth, Robert, and raise the head."

This was said to the assistant, who, having done as he was told, and no sign of life appearing, Mr. Adams felt for his lancet, and prepared to bleed the patient. The lancet, however, had been left in the pocket of another coat, and Robert being sent over to fetch it, Tracy stepped forward and took his place at the head of the corpse; the consequence of which was, that, when the boy returned, Mr. Adams bade him go back and mind the shop, as they could do very well without him; and thus Tracy's intrusion was, as it were, legitimized, and all awkwardness removed from it. Not, however, that he had been sensible of any: he was too much absorbed with the interest of the scene to be disturbed by such minor considerations. Neither did anybody else appear discomposed or surprised at his presence: the apothecary did not know but he had a right to be there; the boy, who remembered the inquiries Tracy had made with regard to the girl, concluded they had since formed an acquaintance; the girl herself was apparently too much absorbed in the distressing event that had occurred to have any thoughts to spare on minor interests; and as for the man, he appeared to be scarcely conscious of what was going on around him. Pale as death, and with all the symptoms of extreme sickness and debility, he sat bending somewhat forward in an old arm-chair, with his eyes fixed on the spot where the body lay; but there was "no speculation" in those eyes, and it was evident that what he seemed to be looking at he did not see. To every thoughtful mind the corporeal investiture from which an immortal spirit has lately fled must present a strange and painful interest; but Tracy felt now a more absorbing interest in the mystery of the living than the dead; and as strange questionings arose in his mind with regard to the pale occupant of the old arm-chair as concerning the corpse that was stretched upon the ground. Who was this stranger, and how came he there lying dead on the floor of that poor house? And where was the pocket-book and the notes? Not on the table, not in the room, so far as he could discern. They must have been placed out of sight; and the question occurred to him, was she a party to the concealment? But both his heart and his judgment answered no. Not only her pure and innocent countenance, but her whole demeanor acquitted her of crime. It was evident that her attention was entirely engrossed by the surgeon's efforts to recall life to the inanimate body; there was no arrière pensée, no painful consciousness plucking at her sleeve; her mind was anxious, but not more so than the ostensible cause justified, and there was no expression of mystery or fear about her. How different to the father, who seemed terror-struck! No anxiety for the recovery of the stranger, no grief for his death, appeared in him; and it occurred to Tracy that he looked more like one condemned and waiting for execution than the interested spectator of another's misfortune.

No blood flowed, and the apothecary having pronounced the stranger dead, proposed, with the aid of Tracy, to remove him to a bed; and as there was none below, they had to carry him up stairs, the girl preceding them with a light, and leading the way into a room where a small tent bedstead without curtains, two straw-bottomed chairs, with a rickety table, and cracked looking-glass, formed nearly all the furniture; but some articles of female attire lying about, betrayed to whom the apartment belonged, and lent it an interest for Tracy.

Whilst making these arrangements for the dead but few words were spoken. The girl looked pale and serious, but said little; the young man would have liked to ask a hundred questions, but did not feel himself entitled to ask one; and the apothecary, who seemed a quiet, taciturn person, only observed that the stranger appeared to have died of disease of the heart, and inquired whether he was a relation of the family.

"No," replied the girl; "he's no relation of ours—his name is Aldridge."

"Not Ephraim Aldridge?" said the apothecary.

"Yes; Mr. Ephraim Aldridge," returned she: "my father was one of his clerks formerly."

"You had better send to his house immediately," said Mr. Adams. "I forget whether he has any family?"

"None but his nephew, Mr. Jonas," returned the girl. "I'll go there directly, and tell him."

"Your father seems in bad health?" observed Mr. Adams, as he quitted the room, and proceeded to descend the stairs.

"Yes; he has been ill a long time," she replied, with a sad countenance; "and nobody seems to know what's the matter with him."

"Have you had any advice for him," inquired the apothecary.

"Oh, yes, a great deal, when first he was ill; but nobody did him any good."

By this time they had reached the bottom of the stairs; and Mr. Adams, who now led the van, instead of going out of the street door, turned into the parlor again.

"Well, sir," said he, addressing Lane, "this poor gentleman is dead. I should have called in somebody else had I earlier known who he was; but it would have been useless, life must have been extinct half an hour before I was summoned. Why did you not send for me sooner?"

"I was out," replied the girl, answering the question that had been addressed to her father. "Mr. Aldridge had sent me away for something, and when I returned I found him on the floor, and my father almost fainting. It was a dreadful shock for him, being so ill."

"How did it happen?" inquired Mr. Adams, again addressing Lane.

A convulsion passed over the sick man's face, and his lip quivered as he answered in a low sepulchral tone. "He was sitting on that chair, talking about—about his nephews, when he suddenly stopped speaking, and fell forward. I started up, and placed my hands against his breast to save him, and then he fell backward upon the floor."

"Heart, no doubt. Probably a disease of long standing," said Mr. Adams. "But it has given you a shock: you had better take something, and go to bed."

"What should he take?" inquired the daughter.

"I'll send over a draught," replied the apothecary, moving toward the door; "and you won't neglect to give notice of what has happened—it must be done to-night."

"It is late for you to go out," observed Tracy, speaking almost for the first time since he entered the house. "Couldn't I carry the message for you?"

"Yes: if you will, I shall be much obliged," said she; "for I do not like to leave my father again to-night. The house is No. 4, West Street."

Death is a great leveler, and strong emotions banish formalities. The offer was as frankly accepted as made; and his inquiry whether he could be further useful being answered by "No, thank you—not to-night," the young man took his leave and proceeded on his mission to West Street in a state of mind difficult to describe—pleased and alarmed, happy and distressed. He had not only accomplished his object by making the acquaintance of Mary Lane, but the near view he had had of her, both as regarded her person and behavior, confirmed his admiration and gratified his affection; but, as he might have told the boy who interrupted him, he had paid dear for peeping. He had seen what he would have given the world not to have seen; and whilst he eagerly desired to prosecute his suit to this young woman, and make her his wife, he shrank with horror from the idea of having a thief and assassin for his father-in-law.

Engrossed with these reflections he reached West Street before he was aware of being half-way there, and rang the bell of No. 4. It was now past eleven o'clock, but he had scarcely touched the wire, before he heard a foot in the passage, and the door opened. The person who presented himself had no light, neither was there any in the hall, and Tracy could not distinguish to whom he spoke when he said, "is this the house of Mr. Ephraim Aldridge?"

"It is: what do you want?" answered a man's voice, at the same time that he drew back, and made a movement toward closing the door.

"I have been requested to call here to say that Mr. Aldridge is"—And here the recollection that the intelligence he bore would probably be deeply afflicting to the nephew he had heard mentioned as the deceased man's only relation, and to whom he was now possibly speaking, arrested the words in his throat, and after a slight hesitation he added—"is taken ill."

"Ill!" said the person who held the door in his hand, which he now opened wider. "Where? What's the matter with him? Is he very ill? Is it any thing serious?"

The tone in which these questions were put relieved Tracy from any apprehension of inflicting pain, and he rejoined at once, "I'm afraid he is dead."

"Dead!" reiterated the other, throwing the door wide. "Step in if you please. Dead! how should that be? He was very well this afternoon. Where is he?" And so saying, he closed the street door, and led the young soldier into a small parlor, where a lamp with a shade over it, and several old ledgers, were lying on the table.

"He's at Mr. Lane's in Thomas Street," replied Tracy.

"But are you sure he's dead?" inquired the gentleman, who was indeed no other than Mr. Jonas Aldridge himself. "How did he die? Who says he's dead?"

"I don't know how he died. The apothecary seemed to think it was disease of the heart," replied Tracy; "but he is certainly dead."

At this crisis of the conversation a new thought seemed to strike the mind of Jonas, who, exhibiting no symptoms of affliction, had hitherto appeared only curious and surprised. "My uncle Ephraim dead!" said he. "No, no, I can't believe it. It is impossible—it cannot be! My dear uncle! My only friend! Dead! Impossible!—you must be mistaken."

"You had better go and see yourself," replied Tracy, who did not feel at all disposed to sympathize with this sudden effusion of sentiment. "I happened to be by, by mere chance, and know nothing more than I heard the apothecary say." And with these words he turned toward the door.

"You are an officer's servant, I see?" rejoined Jonas.

"I live with Captain D'Arcy of the 32d," answered Tracy; and wishing Mr. Jonas a good-evening, he walked away with a very unfavorable impression of that gentleman's character.

The door was no sooner closed on Tracy than Mr. Jonas Aldridge returned into the parlor, and lighted a candle which stood on a side-table, by the aid of which he ascended to the second floor, and entered a back-room wherein stood a heavy four-post bed, the curtains of which were closely drawn together. The apartment, which also contained an old-fashioned mahogany set of drawers, and a large arm-chair, was well carpeted, and wore an aspect of considerable comfort. The shutters were closed, and a moreen curtain was let down to keep out the draught from the window.

Mr. Jonas had mounted the stairs three at a time; but no sooner did he enter the room, and his eye fall upon the bed, then he suddenly paused, and stepping on the points of his toes toward it, he gently drew back one of the side curtains, and looked in. It was turned down, and ready for the expected master, but it was tenantless: he who should have lain there lay elsewhere that night. Mr. Jonas folded in his lips, and nodded his head with an expression that seemed to say all's right. And then having drawn the bolt across the door, he took two keys out of his waistcoat pocket; with one he opened a cupboard in the wainscot, and with the other a large tin-box which stood therein, into which he thrust his hand, and brought out a packet of papers, which not proving to be the thing he sought, he made another dive; but this second attempt turned out equally unsuccessful with the first; whereupon he fetched the candle from the table, and held it over the box, in hopes of espying what he wished. But his countenance clouded, and an oath escaped him, on discovering it was not there.

"He has taken it with him!" said he. And having replaced the papers he had disturbed, and closed the box, he hastily descended the stairs. In the hall hung his greatcoat and hat. These he put on, tying a comforter round his throat to defend him from the chill night-air; and then leaving the candle burning in the passage, he put the key of the house-door in his pocket, and went out.

Dead men wait patiently; but the haste with which Mr. Jonas Aldrich strode over the ground seemed rather like one in chase of a fugitive; and yet, fast as he went, the time seemed long to him till he reached Thomas Street.

"Is my uncle here!" said he to Mary, who immediately answered to his knock.

"Yes, sir," replied she.

"And what's the matter? I hope it is nothing serious?" added he.

"He's dead, sir, the doctor says," returned she.

"Then you had a doctor?"

"Oh yes, sir; I fetched Mr. Adams over the way immediately; but he said he was dead the moment he saw him. Will you please to walk up stairs, and see him yourself?"

"Impossible! It cannot be that my uncle is dead!" exclaimed Mr. Jonas, who yet suspected some ruse. "You should have had the best advice—you should have called in Dr. Sykes. Let him be sent for immediately!" he added, speaking at the top of his voice, as he entered the little room above: "no means must be neglected to recover him. Depend on it, it is only a fit."

But the first glance satisfied him that all these ingenious precautions were quite unnecessary. There lay Mr. Ephraim Aldridge dead unmistakably; and while Mary was inquiring where the celebrated Dr. Sykes lived, in order that she might immediately go in search of him, Mr. Jonas was thinking on what pretense he might get her out of the room without sending for anybody at all.

Designing people often give themselves an enormous deal of useless trouble; and after searching his brain in vain for an expedient to get rid of the girl, Mr. Jonas suddenly recollected that the simplest was the best. There was no necessity, in short, for saying anything more than that he wished to be alone; and this he did say, at the same time drawing his handkerchief from his pocket, and applying it to his eyes, a little pantomime that was intended to aid the gentle Mary in putting a kind construction on the wish. She accordingly quitted the room, and descended to the parlor; whereupon Mr. Jonas, finding himself alone, lost no time in addressing himself to his purpose, which was to search the pockets of the deceased, wherein he found a purse containing gold and silver, various keys, and several other articles, but not the article he sought; and as he gradually convinced himself that his search was vain, his brow became overcast, angry ejaculations escaped his lips, and after taking a cursory survey of the room, he snatched up the candle, and hastily descended the stairs.

"When did my uncle come here? What did he come about?" he inquired abruptly as he entered the parlor where Mary, weary and sad, was resting her head upon the table.

"He came this evening, sir; but I don't know what he came about. He said he wanted to have some conversation with my father, and I went into the kitchen to leave them alone."

"Then you were not in the room when the accident happened?"

"What accident, sir?"

"I mean, when he died."

"No, sir; I had gone out to buy something for supper."

"What made you go out so late for that purpose?"

"My father called me in, sir, and Mr. Aldridge gave me some money."

"Then nobody was present but your father?"

"No, sir."

"And where is he now?"

"My father is very ill, sir; and it gave him such a shock, that he was obliged to go to bed."

"Had my uncle nothing with him but what I have found in his pockets?"

"Nothing that I know of, sir."

"No papers?"

"No, sir."

"Go and ask your father if he saw any papers."

"I'm sure he didn't, sir, or else they would be here."

"Well, I'll thank you to go and ask him, however."

Whereupon Mary quitted the room; and stepping up stairs, she opened, and then presently shut again, the door of her own bedroom. "It is no use disturbing my poor father," said she to herself; "I'm sure he knows nothing about any papers; and if I wake him, he will not get to sleep again all night. If he saw them, he'll say so in the morning."

"My father knows nothing of the papers, sir," said she, reentering the room; "and if they're not in the pocket, I'm sure Mr. Aldridge never brought them here."

"Perhaps he did not, after all," thought Jonas; "he has maybe removed it out of the tin-box, and put it into the bureau." A suggestion which made him desire to get home again as fast as he had left it. So, promising to send the undertakers in the morning to remove the body, Mr. Jonas took his leave, and hastened back to West Street, where he immediately set about ransacking every drawer, cupboard, and press, some of which he could only open with the keys he had just extracted from the dead man's pocket. But the morning's dawn found him unsuccessful: it appeared almost certain that the important paper was not in the house; and weary, haggard, and angry, he stretched himself on his bed till the hour admitted of further proceedings. And we will avail ourselves of this interval to explain more particularly the relative position of the parties concerned in our story.

Ephraim Aldridge, a younger member of a large and poor family, had been early in life apprenticed to a hosier; and being one of the most steady, cautious, saving boys that ever found his bread amongst gloves and stockings, had early grown into great favor with his master, who, as soon as he was out of his apprenticeship, elevated him to the post of book-keeper; and in this situation, as he had a liberal salary, and was too prudent to marry, he contrived to save such a sum of money as, together with his good character, enabled him to obtain the reversion of the business when his master retired from it. The prudence which had raised him adhered to him still; his business flourished, and he grew rich; but the more money he got, the fonder he became of it; and the more he had, the less he spent; while the cautious steadiness of the boy shrank into a dry reserve as he grew older, till he became an austere, silent, inaccessible man, for whom the world in general entertained a certain degree of respect, but whom nobody liked, with the exception perhaps of one person, and that was Maurice Lane, who had formerly been his fellow-apprentice, and was now his shopman. And yet a more marked contrast of character could scarcely exist than between these two young men; but, somehow or other, everybody liked Lane; even the frigid heart of Ephraim could not defend itself from the charm of the boy's beautiful countenance and open disposition; and when he placed his former comrade in a situation of responsibility, it was not because he thought him the best or the steadiest servant he could possibly find, but because he wished to have one person about him that he liked, and that liked him. But no sooner did Lane find himself with a salary which would have maintained himself comfortably, than he fell in love with a beautiful girl whom he saw trimming caps and bonnets in an opposite shop-window, and straightway married her. Then came a family, and with it a train of calamities which kept them always steeped in distress, till the wife, worn out with hard work and anxiety, died; the children that survived were then dispersed about the world to earn their bread, and Lane found himself alone with his youngest daughter Mary. Had he retained his health, he might now have done better; but a severe rheumatic fever, after reducing him to the brink of the grave, had left him in such infirm health, that he was no longer able to maintain his situation; so he resigned it, and retired to an obscure lodging, with a few pounds in his pocket, and the affection and industry of his daughter for his only dependence.

During all this succession of calamities, Mr. Aldrich had looked on with a severe eye. Had it been anybody but Lane, he would have dismissed him as soon as he married; as it was, he allowed him to retain his place, and to take the consequences of his folly. He had carved his own destiny, and must accept it; it was not for want of knowing better, for Ephraim had warned him over and over again of the folly of poor men falling in love and marrying. Entertaining this view of the case, he justified his natural parsimony with the reflection, that by encouraging such imprudence he should be doing an injury to other young men. He made use of Lane as a beacon, and left him in his distress, lest assistance should destroy his usefulness. The old house in Thomas Street, however, which belonged to him, happening to fall vacant, he so far relented as to send word to his old clerk that he might inhabit it if he pleased.

Some few years, however, before these latter circumstances, Mr. Aldridge, who had determined against matrimony, had nevertheless been seized with that desire so prevalent in the old especially, to have an heir of his own name and blood for his property. He had but two relations that he remembered, a brother and a sister. The latter, when Ephraim was a boy, had married a handsome sergeant of a marching regiment, and gone away with it; and her family never saw her afterward, though for some years she had kept up an occasional correspondence with her parents, by which they learned that she was happy and prosperous; that her husband had been promoted to an ensigncy for his good conduct; that she had one child; and finally, that they were about to embark for the West Indies.