New York Weekly, Vol. 15, No. 42

No 42.
Vol. XV.
[WRITTEN FOR THE NEW YORK WEEKLY.]
WESTWARD.
BY W. F. WOOD.
GALENIC, THE GLADIATOR;
HE WAS ABOUT TO RUSH AT THE ENTRANCE DOOR, WHEN SUDDENLY IT OPENED, AND UPON THE THRESHOLD STOOD, NOT HELEN, BUT LYRA, THE SORCERESS. ■
Entered according to Act of Congress, by Street & Smith, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.
Forge no strong fetters for my free born soul! Nature and all things beautiful are mine.”
J. Hal. Elliott.
Clasping a lily to my breast,
Whose heart was desolate, I journeyed to the golden West, And passed the outer gate.
I journeyed tow’rd the setting sun, Where pathless forests are:
And ere the silent day was done, Was free from pain and care.
I clasped a lily to my heart, Whose soul was filled with joy;
Which never more I'd see depart— No slanderer could destroy.
Ijourneyed to the golden West, And was a man once more;
Clasping a lily to my breast— A lily I adore.
Ho! slaves of masters steeped la sial
Hol millions yet unborn!
The mighty West bids you come iu,
Ye naked and forlorn
A few privations we endure—
A few things sometimes miss;
But if a spot of earth is pure, That spot, 0 freeman, ’s this!”
W LE 0 fiJ
By STREET & SMITH.
No. 22 Beekman Street.

OR,
THE ROMAN MAIDEN’S LOVE.
BY FRANCIS S. SMITH. ,
Author of •• Maggie, the Child of Charity,” “AzaelI^ain, or, The Fortunes of a Foundling “ Lilian the Wanderer/’ “Florence O'Neil or, The Rebel’s Daughter,” “ Eveleen Wilson,” etc., etc.,, etc.
[Bach Numbers of ” Galenus, The Gladiator,” can be obtained from every News Agent throughout the United States.]
CHAPTER XL—(Continued.)
While Pontus was trying to frame in his mind
a reply calculated to somewhat mitigate wrath of Nero, Neda stepped forward, a casting a glance upward at the sea of wo faces which looked down upon her, she fix
gaze steadily and fearlessly upon the Emp
the first
g
and said, in an unfaltering and musically sw$ voice,
“Thou merciless and fearful man, thy victim hath escaped thee. Galenus is free. He who is above all earthly potentates, and who will one day assuredly call thee to a dread account, hath made me the humble instrument of His will, and enabled me to set the captive at liberty. Blame not yon trembling wretch that thou art denied the horrid privilege of seeing the Gaul suffer, for the deception which blinded him would have led even thyself astray. Let, therefore, thy vengeance fall upon me. I am ready to meet it.”
At the first sound of Neda’s voice, Aquila, who had stood in earnest prayer, with his chin drooping upon his breast, and regardless of everything which was transpiring around him, raised his head and fixed his eyes upon the speaker. He recognized her at once, and as she finished speaking, he pronounced her name aloud. Instantly she looked toward him, their eyes met, and with a bound she rushed to his embrace.
“Oh, Aquila—father, tutor, friend—they have thee, too, in their toils! Would, oh, would that by the sacrifice of my worthless life I could save thee also! But, I cannot—oh, I cannot! They have doomed thee to death, .and we must both suffer!—and, such a death! Oh, it is too horrible 1” And losing, for a moment, all command of herself, the maiden wept freely.
She was recalled to herself by Aquila, who, fixing upon her a look of mild rebuke, said, in a tone of mingled reproach and exhortation,
“ For shame, daughter, for shame! Dry thy tears, and let not the stoicism of the Pagan doomed to death seem of more value than the faith of the Christian! What 1 art thou, indeed, Neda ? Art thou she whose faith was so strong, whose hope so great, and whose love for our Divine Master so intense? Courage, Neda—courage, daughter. If we cannot welcome death for Christ’s sake, come it in what form it may, we are lacking in the faith. Can we suffer more for Him than He suffered for us ?”
The maiden was calm in a moment. Her sobbing ceased, her face became wondrously tranquil, and a look of serene joy lighted up her eyes as she answered,
“ I thank thee, father, for cabling me to myself. It was but a moment of mortal weakness, and now Iam sfrong again. The lion’s teeth are not □ sharper than the spears which pierced our Sa-B v iour’s side—the lion’s roar is not more terrible
NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 13, 1860.
TWO DOLLARS A YEAR, riably in Advance.
than the execrations which ’assailed our Saviour’s I ears—therefore I am ready to be offered up.”
face as she raised it toward Nero in anticipation of her sentence, and at the same time Dracos whispered into the ear of the Emperor,
“ By Hades, it is that cunning slave Neda, the mime, the Gladiator’s sister. She hath effected her brother’s release, and I wonder not thereat, for her subtle scheming would circumvent the gods themselves.”
“That I can well believe, oh, Dracos,” replied Nero, in a tone which showed plainly enough his contempt for even the Pagan religion; “for, to say the truth, I have but little faith in the cunning of the gods. We will see, however, if she can circumvent a hungry tiger. But not here. I will reserve that treat for my garden sports. For yon slave, Pontus, I will make a torch of his body to-night!” Then raising his voice, be continued, addressing the officers of the arena, “Replace yon woman in the cell from whence she was taken, and lead Pontus to the cell in which the murderer Aquila was confined. See that both are firmly secured,[or your lives shall answer it.”
Some of the officers approached Neda, while others seized upon^gontus.
“Farewell,, fath she once morete “Thy fate is eg not, but this 1 comes I will nei
I aimed the maiden, as ffi)l(^ tutor and friend, jt'mine will be I know when the dread hour
r nW fear.
thee there!” and pairing upward, and was led away by the pffiqgrs.
I will meet she turned
“Accursed witc^ 1” hissed gonjus, as they passed through the d^rk passage leading to the cells. “Thou hast de^twyod^e^ ai^I may Pluto apportion thee the darkest cofn^r?d Tartarus!”
“ Wretched man !’^ rejoined Neda, “ from my soul I pity thee, and deeply do I regret that my action hath placed thee in difficulty. But I will pray for thee!”
“ Bah, thou sick-brained idiot!” growled Pontus, savagely, “ will Nero heed thy prayers ? Oh, that I had thee in my gripe, and, by the gods, thou wouldst never pray more!”
Having safely secured their prisoners the officers returned to the arena, and Nero having signalled the Edile, that officer exclaimed,
“ Give the Nazarine a sword. The noble Nero hath decreed that if he can vanquish both the lion and the tiger be shall not die to-day!”
One of the officers approached and offered to Aquila a Roman short sword.
“ Nero is disposed to be magnanimous!” exclaimed Aquila, with calm irony and without offering to take the weapon—“ he requireth only that with my single arm I shall slay two ferocious beasts, either of whom is a match for a score of gladiators, and as an inducement he stipulateth that I shall not die to-day. If it be God’s will, the Nazarine will die, but he will not furnish sport for the brutal populace of Rome. Take back thy sword, and let the lion come. I am prepared.”
“Thou art ungrateful, Nazarine!” sneered Nero, “ it is said that many of the promulgators of thy religion have, ere now, received power from thy boasted God to perform miracles. I was willing to give thee a fair opportunity to prove
that thy God is a God of pow^
dost refuse it, with scorn! W<
spring upon his prey!:
iow^nd, lo, thou | was let lot \VoJ| j it as thou Luto a del; fhrmpr. nn.
loose upon the Nazarine. Without going
tailed account of the latter struggle, it
- ..J it emM did the
former, ana at its conclusion, Nero gave orders
Suddenly a strange light beamed in the eyes of the Nazarine, and a look of resolution settled upon his face, as he muttered,
“ 1 feel the spirit of the true God nerving my arm to do battle, and whispering me to take the sword I” Then he continued, aloud, “ Give me the sword, and if it be God’s will that I shall conquer, a thousand lions cannot slay me I”
He seized the sword as he spoke, and instantly at a sign from the Edile the trap was sprung, and with a roar a gaunt and half starved lion of the largest size, bounded into the arena, and taking a position some twenty paces from the Nazarine, began to tear up the sand with itsfeet and to lash its tail wildly about.
The Nazarine, who, with the exception of a woollen garment about his loins, was entirely naked, threw himself into position, end in an instant seemed to pass from tame old age into eager youth. With his body curved and his head bent slightly forward, his left hand resting on his hip and his right firmly grasping his sword, the point of which was aimed at his terrible adversary, he awaited the spring. The wrinkles of age seemed obliterated from his brow, the fire of youth burned in his eyes, his wasted limbs seemed to assume the roundness of youth, his muscles swelled, his face flushed with eagerness, and his lips moved, as though in earnest prayer. ’ By degrees the lion settled for a spring. Crouching to the earth, he gradually approached the Nazarine, till having got within distance, the violent lashing of his tail ceased—the tip thereof only vibrated gently, and presently, with the suddenness of thought, he dashed forward like a thunderbolt.
In the meantime, Aquila had never, for a moment, taken his eyes from the huge brute. With painful intensity he had watched every movement, and when the attack came, he held his sword-arm stiff, and with fatal aim buried his weapon to the hilt in the bosom of the shaggy monster, pulling it forth again as they both rolled over on the ground together. The beast had received his death wound, but it rendered him, for a time, only the more dangerous. Returning to the attack, he with distended jaws and eyes glowing like red-hot coals, pounced upon Aquila, who, with admirable precision and astonishing nerve, avoided the dangerous talons of the lion, and, fixing a firm grasp with his left hand upon the monster’s under lips, plunged his sword again to the heart, and “ churned” away with the rapidity of lightning, till the lion, vomiting blood, rolled over upon the sand, dead, while Aquila, with the exception of a slight scratch was unharmed.
“By Hercules, a wonderful Nazarine!” exclaimed Nero—“ who would have thought so old a carcase contained so young a spirit! He will afford us abundance of sport, my Dracos ’ If he doth slay the tiger as easily as he hath slain the lion, I will have him well cared for, keep him in proper condition, and he shall fight me two lions at a time.”
Again Nero gave the signal, and the tiger—a more formidable beast, if possible, than the lion—
that Aquila, Neda and Pontus should be transported ' to dungeons constructed in his gardens, and the vast assemblage dispersed.
CHAPTER XII.
LYRA, THE SORCERESS—THE CONFLAGRATION.
In the trinclinium, or principal dining-room of the house of Demetrius, the Senator, situated on the street of the Carinae, the grandest of all the streets of Rome, sat, or rather reclined, four persons, viz., Demetrius, the wealthy host, his daughter Helen, Dracos, and Claudius, the Edile.
They were discussing supper, the chief meal of the Romans. The table before which they reclined on luxurious couches, was of the style called sigma, (the Roman g). It was made of rare wood, beautifully ornamented, and in shape was something like a half-moon—the slaves in waiting stationing themselves within the hollow left by the curve. They had finished the three courses usual with them—the first consisting of sausages, eggs, mulberries and lettuces; the second—the main portion of the supper—of Umbrian boar and other solid meats ; the third of figs, grapes, apples and other fruits; and now the choicest wines sparkled on the table.
“By Jupiter, Claudius!” exclaimed Demetrius, as he drained a cup of Caecuban wine, “wjjat thou hast revealed doth somewhat surprise me. Our Nero is growing extravagant; and much do I fear his growing desire for grand sights will, in the end, prove his destruction. Could he not content himself with burning a fat malefactor occasionally? Where will he stop if his taste for gazing upon fire continues to gain strength ?”
“ He will have his way, regardless of consequences,” returned Claudius; and, I doubt not, hath already completed his arrangements for the grand conflagration.”
“But what put this wild idea in his head?” asked Demetrius. “ Is it a sudden freak or hath he long contemplated it ?”
“ It was the thought of an instant,” answered the Edile, “We were discussing the scige of Troy, and, incidentally, the burning of that city was mentioned, whereupon the eyes of Nero suddenly sparkled with delight, and he exclaimed, ‘By Hercules, it would rejoice me to witness such a sight. Woulds’t thou not like it, my Claudius ?’ I replied, in substance, that it must have been a brilliant spectacle, and one well worth witnessing : He was silent awhile, and then he asked if I thought it probable such a scene would ever be Witnessed in Rome? To which I made answer that Rome might blaze after his death. ‘ Nay,’ he replied, significantly, ‘it shall blaze while I am living, my Claudius. The oracle hath predicted that the Nazarines will fire it; aud so they will, my Claudius, so they will!’ He then directed that you and I should meet him on the summit of the Esquiline, at the sixth hour, to-night. He did not say for what purpose, but certain I am that he wishes us to view the conflagration.”
“ But what if the fire should sweep over this portion of the city ?” exclaimed Demetrius, with a show of alarm.
‘ Nay, there is no dangerTof that!” returned the Edile, “ Nero will not destroy Patricia^ residences when there are tens of thousands of plebeian houses which will burn more rapidly and with a brighter light.” \
The face of Demetrius assumed its wonted sto- \ lidity as he listened to this assurance, and the countenance of his daughter Helen lighted up with pleasureable excitement as she exclaimed,
“ By the gods, it will be a glorious sight, and I shall much enjoy it. Nor can I blame Nero for thus indulging himself. For my own part, I regard the act with favor, and think it a merciful as well as a brilliant one. Why should the miserable Roman rabble, in their squalor and misery, desire to live ? We can spare some thousands of them, and burning is an easy death—far easier than perishing by disease.”
At this moment a step was heard in the fauces, a passage leading to the dining room, and the next moment the door opened and a pair of most singular-looking companions—a woman and a wolf-presented themselves. The first was a wierd-look-ing creature, apparently very old, but tall, straight aud vigorous, notwithstanding. Her face was frightfully wrinkled, her skin sallow, and her eyes pietcingly black, small, restless, and deep-sunken in their sockets. Her thin, unkempt hair, strag gled about her cheeks and scrawny neck and her toothless jaws were set so closely together as to make her mouth seem of huge dimensions. Her clothes hung npon her in tatters, and she grasped in her hand a staff around the upper portion of which a snake was coiled, his head resting upon the top, his forked tongue playing restlessly in and out, and his small, bead-like eyes, glistening like burning coals. The wolf, which sat erect on his haunches at her side, seemed a fitting companion for the woman. He was huge, gaunt and hungry-looking—his eyes Mood-shot and devilish iu expression, and yawning he displayed two frightful rows of teeth. They were a truly fof-midable-looking pair, and those into whose company they had thus unceremoniously thrust them-were, for a moment stricken with awe and amazement as they gazed upon them.
Demetrius, the host, was the first to shake off the fear which had suddenly taken possession . of all present. Rising from the couch 4^pon which he bad been stretched at ease,«and fixing a stern look upon the woman, he said angrily,
“ Vile beast, how didst thou gain admittance. here, and how darest thou thus rudely break in upon a Senator of Rome ?”
A grim smile passed over the corpse-like face of the hag, as she replied, in a voice discordant as the screech of an owl,
“ Lyra heedeth neither bolts nor bars, nor the stalwart slaves of brave Senators. She is like the wind—terrible in her wrath, and free to come and go whithersoever she listeth. Is it not so, mylrax?” And stooping, she laid her vulturelike claws upon the head of her frightful companion, who, as he licked |he hand which caressed him, growled a seeming assent.
“ To what end art thou here ?” demanded Demetrius, angrily, “ speak, and quickly, or I will have thee torn piecemeal!”
“ Hush,” cautioned the hag, “ talk not of tearing, or thou wilt anger Irax, and my pet Malice!” She pointed, as she spoke, to the snake, which had raised its head from the top of the staff, and was hissing spitefully, and then continued, “ Although they speak not, they can hear and distinguish between discord and harmony. They are fond of strife, and, when angered, are dangerous. Irax is as swift as the lightning, and as powerful as the full grown lion, while Malice is rapid and far-reaching, and his fangs distil a poison whose slightest touch is certain death. Be prudent, therefore—be prudent—be prudent I”
“ Tush I” returned the haughty Senator, with assumed indifference, “Thou and thy vicious companions, formidable though thou mayst seem, were but a poor match for a score of willing and bloodthirsty slaves. Cease, therefore, thy silly attempts to awaken within us a feeling of awe, and straightway make known thy business, or I will e’en venture to measure strength with thee.” But even as be spoke, his voice was irresolute, and he endeavored in vain .to meet the gaze of the keen, glittering eyes, which seemed to throw their malicious rays through and through his brain.
“ Fool!” hissed the hag, derisively, “ seek not to hide thy true feelings in the presence of Lyra, whose vision can pierce thy bosom, and who can read thy trembling heart as she could read a plainly written scroll beneath the blaze of the bright sun. But I have no desire to torture thee, and I will therefore make known the object of my visit. I come to ask thee to intercede with Nero for the life of Neda, the Mime—sister to Galenus, the Gladiator!”
“Filth that thou arti” exclaimed the haughty Helen, who now for the first time spoke, and who really felt less dread of the sorceress than any one present, “ if thy spells were so potent that thou could’st raze old Rome with a motion of
—(What do you want i seated, he took down a horn, which hung from
one of the rafters, and with a few blasts sum-
quieres, senores sirs?)
thy[staff thou sbould’st not frighten Helen! Neda l>atb been false to her mistress; she hath also aided in the escape of a felon condemned to death, and though that felon was her brother, she shall die !”
The sorceress fixed a burning gaze upon Jie face of the haughty Roman beauty. The latter met the fixed stare, unquailingly, however, and when they had looked defiance at each other for a brief moment, Lyra said, significantly, while a grim smile passed over her features,
“ Thou art a brave girl, and it is a pity that thou must die young. But thou art doomed. Ere the sun again throws his broad light over earth and sky, those bright eyes which now proudly look defiance upon Lyra, will be lustreless and fixed in the glassy s‘tarc of death, and those rich lips which now babble so bravely, will be colorless and mute. Even now the son of Erebus waits to ferry thee across the dark and silent waters of Acheron, and soon wilt thou dwell with Hades. But while thou hast life let me tell thee that I, too, assisted in the escape of Galenus. Nay, more—that I will, if I can, set free his sister, aud Lucinus, whom thou hatest with a deadly hatred, and who is doomed to burn for the amusement of Nero. It may be that when at liberty they will wed, and how strange will such a union seem! The slave of the Patrician beauty mated to the noble youth whom that beauty could not secure! It will be a rare match!”
The’face of the passionate Helen glowed like a furnace as she listened to the tantalizing language of the witch, and jumping to her feet she exclaimed, while her eyes flashed fire
“ Out upon thee, carrion! If those noo.e Senators of Rome are so frightened at thy senseless chatter that they dare not summon their slaves and have thee flayed alive, I will assume the task myself!” Then stamping her foot impatiently upon the floor, she shrieked aloud, “ What ho, without there! Slaves of Demetrius, attend, and bear this babbling fool away to torture!” '
Instantly the sound of hurrying feet was heard without, but before a slave could enter, the sorceress threw the door open, and with a laugh of derision which echoed through tho fauces, disappeared as she had entered, followed closely by the wolf.
a By Hercules, but she is a frightful creature!” exclaimed Demetrius, with a shudder, when they were once more alone.
“ By all the fiends in Tartarus!” replied Helen, angrily, “ but thou art women instead and not men! Thou dost allow a gibbering idiot to beard thee at thy feast, and instead of having her burnt for thy pastime, thou dost allow her to escape unscathed, and heave a sigh of relief when she is gone I Reptiles I” she continued, as a crowd of slaves camo thronging about the door, in obedience to her call, “ how is it that thou dost not keep a better watch about thy master’s house ? I will enquire into this anon, and he that is proved neglectful of his trust shall suffer for it! Meanwhile, pursue yon flying wretch, and if thou dost
taele, but the Christians will have to pay dearly for it!”
The buildings were highly ftmbustible, and rapidly the destroying element leaped from one to another, as though guided by the demon of wrath, impatient for his prey. As if to hasten the frightful catastrophe, the wind freshened to a gale, and mingling its howl with the roaring of the mad flames, it rushed forward, tearing blazing fragments from the flame-enveloped buildings, and bearing them far away to ignite those at a distance. And so the flames spread in a circle, and burned toward the centre till the very earth seemed on fire, and the sky was one vast furnace, glowing with fervent heat.
“ Great Jupiter!” exclaimed Demetrius, suddenly shaking off the lethargy which had fallen upon him, “ the fire hath invested the neighborhood of my dwelling! My daughter Helen! She will perish! I will fly to her assistance!”
“ Tush ! tush!” exclaimed Nero, with a show of impatience. “Hast thou not slaves and clients enough to care for her ? Stay thou, and feast thine eyes on this most gorgeous sight! Thou wilt never have a like opportunity!”
“ Nay, most noble Nero,” returned Demetrius,
as his fears grew upoi it doth seem to me above the fury of tnc
mst hence, for If Helen riseth filing upon me
not capture her, alive or dead, I will have thee all thrown headlong into tbo fishpond! Away!”
The slaves hastened to obey her, and when they were gone, Demetrius said,
“ Thou hast sent them forth on a fruitless errand, Helen. They will never capture her! As well mightest thou strive to stop the thunderbolt nits course! But, come, friends, it is near the sixth hour, and Nero awaits us.”
Tho enraged beauty cast a look of contempt upon her superstitious sire, but replied not, and leaving her, the three patricians took their way into the street.
A somewhat lengthy walk brought them to the summit of the Esquiline, where they found Nero already in waiting. The moon was up, and threw a flood of silvery light upon the great city, which lay tranquilly beneath, and as Nero and his companions gazed down upon the quiet spectacle, Demetrius could not help exclaiming,
“ By all the Gods, a grand scene! and well worth the walk we have taken to look upon it!”
“And yet, my Demetrius,” returned Nero, quietly, “ it is tame now compared with what it will be an hour hence, or my oracle is sadly at fault. Thou shalt witness an illumination which will put to shame the moon’s light, my friond!”
“And toward what quarter may we look for it, most noble l^ero ?” asked the Senator.
“ From fifty quarters at once,” was the reply, “ but, perhaps, it may be first discerned arising from the patribian residences which skirt the Palatine, immediately below us.”
" The Patriciati residences!” exclaimed Demetrius, aghast; “ I thought not that they would be attacked!”
“And wherefore not?” asked Nero, with well affected surprise. “Thinkest thou, Demetrius, that the Christians have any affection for rank ? Never believe it. They will do their work thoroughly, or my oracle lies! There, by great Jupiter !” he continued, excitedly, as he grasped the Senator's shoulder and pointed toward a row of noble edifices which skirted the city wall, near the Palatine, “the oracle is truthful! See! see!”
Looking in the direction indicated, the party perceived a tongue of flame issuing from the lower portion of the dwellings and hungrily licking its way upward. Almost simultaneously with this discovery, a similar tongue of fire broke from each of the surrounding buildings, and soon at least a score of them were ablaze. A few moments later, and while the two Senators and the Edile stood aghast gazing upon the doomed buildings, and listening, with pallid ihees and bloodless lips, to the terrific roar of the flames as they increased in volume, Nero electrified them all, as he exclaimed, with fiendish joy,
“The Oracle is as truthful as the sun! For look there, and there, and there, and all over!”
Throwing a hurried glance around, they perceived that the fire was. breaking out in every direction; Like men spell-bound, they gazed upon the horrid spectacle, while the flames leaped higher and higher, till Rome seemed one vast sea of flame.
“ Aha, my friends!” exclaimed Nero, with animation, “is not that a fair representation of burning Troy9 By the gods, it is a grand spec-
for help! ValeP\> % y a
And leaving his coni anions, helped hastily away, and was soon fora ng a passage through the struggling mass of people in the valley below. Onward be flew, as though suddenly endowed with the vigor of youth, toward his own dwelling, and yet his progress was necessarily slow, for the impediments which beset him were many. Here the flames, meeting quite across the street, stopped his way—there the crowd was a compact mass, to get by which it would have been necessary to walk over the heads of the people—at another place the falling debris blocked his path. And terrible were the sights which met his g^ze as he fought his way onward, and awful were the sounds which fell upon his ears. The great amphitheatre was on fire, aud within he could hear the fearful roaring of the caged beasts, mingled with the despairing cries of the poor wretches who were to have been their victims. He passed the great prison of Rome, and at the barred casements, lighted up by the lurid glare, he beheld its unhappy inmates—some shrieking frantically for aid, and others, in their wild .frenzy, attempting to beat their brains out against the bars. On, on he went, passing through groups of maddened people, some laughing wildly in their devilish glee, some cursing the gods, some crying piteously for assistance. Lost children seeking their parents, were trampled ruthlessly under foot, and distracted mothers searching for their little ones were jostled rudely aside
At length be reached his own dwelling to find it in flames, and deserted by both slaves and clients. His blood grew chilly with apprehension, and a feeling of sickness crept over him as he viewed the burning pile, and the thought came over him that Helen—his cherished, his only daughter^—had not escaped, but was stil| within, perbapa, In her calling vtpon bha 1
ing the example of Demetrius, had sought their respective homes, and the remorseless Nero alone continued to feast his eyes upon the deplorable scene aronnd him. With the groans of a sorrow-crazed populace ringing in his ears, and the light of a proud city’s conflagration glaring upon him, he could stand there and smile, and rub his hands with inward satisfaction for hours. At length, however, his eyes grew heavy, and a sigh of regret escaped him as he turned to seek his couch.
“The world never witnessed a sight so glorious !” he ejaculated, as he walked away; and then he added significantly, while a cruel smile played around the cornel’s of his thin lips, “ but the Christians will rue it—aye, the Christians will rue it!”
A loud, wild laugh broke his revery, and looking up, he saw, directly in his path, the figures of Lyra, the sorceress, and her brute attendant. The golden light reflected from the blood-red clouds, bathed the wierd couple with a spectral sheen, giving them a most unnatural appearance, and, as Nero looked apprehensively upon them, he exclaimed :
“ What monster art thou that darest thus rudely block the path of Nero?”
“We are not Christians—Irax and I—oh, most noble Nero,” returned the sorceress, sarcastically, “ but the humblest of thy slaves, and we come to ask a boon at thy hands.”
“ Out, filth!” returned the imperial monster, petulantly, “ what hath Nero to do with such as thou ?”
“ Nothing, at present, perhaps,” answered the sorceress, “ and yet Nero bath had occasion to call upon Lyra and may again need her assistance. Lyra hath furnished Nero with many a deadly poison, swift and sure in its effects.”
“ And hath not Nero paid thee for it ?” asked the Emperor, in a tone of irony. “ What more wouldst thou ?”
“ A human life,” rejoined the sorceress. “ I have assisted thee to destroy many, and now I ask thee to save one! Set me free the girl Neda, oh, most noble, and thou shalt command my services forever!”
“ Peace, beast!” exclaimed the tyrant, angrily; “ dost thou think Nero would stop to make terms with thee ? Get thee gone, or I will have thee scourged till the flesh falls from thy bones!”
Again the sorceress laughed defiantly as she exclaimed:
“ Nero doth assume a boldness which he doth not feel. He cannot hide his thoughts from Lyra. It would delight him to destroy both Lyra and her servant Irax, but well doth he know that should he raise his voice for assistance, the wolf would drink his blood. Nero is in the power of Lyra, and she might slay him if she chose, but she will not, although she knows he will not grant her prayer for Neda’s life. Lyra would rather that Nero should meet the fate which awaits him, aud she leaves him unscathed. His myrmidons will seek the sorceress long and eagerly to destroy her, but they will not find her, nor will Nero see her again till the sun which shall set upon his
death againsj
for aid. He was about to rush at the entrance door, when suddenly it opened, and upon the threshold stood, not Helen, but Lyra, the sorceress. For a moment she gazed upon him with fiendish glee, as the surrounding flames lighted up her unearthly face, and then suddenly she cried, exultingly,
“Ila! ha. most nob. e Demetrius! wouldst thou clasp thy dainty daughter to thy bosom ? Thou wilt find her in her room, but her cheeks wear not the hue of the roses now, though all else around her is red enough. Nor does her tongue run as glibly as it did. Thou wilt hardly believe it, but the fastidious, proud, exquisite Helen, who would have given me to the torture, did on her knees implore me, to assist her as her delicate flesh crisped under the potent touch of the scaring flames! Nay more, she did swear to free Neda and to become my slave forever! Dost thou hear? It is true, by the Gods! This imperious, fearless Helen, begged for mercy from the witch to secure whom she sent her slaves forth into the street, while tho witch was hiding in the fauces! Ha! ha! it was a merry idea 1 When the slaves returned, and would have rescued their mistress from the flames there was no one to admit them, for Helen was barred in her room, and the despised witch had possession of the bouse! Tbou wilt find her in her chamber, thou noble Senator, and so farewell!” and before Demetrius could recover from the stupor into which her abrupt appearance had thrown him, she fled past him, followed by her wolf companion, and in an instant was lost to view in the crowd.
With a groan of horror, Demetrius dashed through the entrance, and fought his way through the flames which disputed his onward progress. At every step the way became more hazardous, for the fire had eaten its destructive way throughout the entire interior, and he found it almost impossible to make head against the suffocating smoke and red-hot cinders which fell like rain around him. Enveloping his face in his toga, he bent his head, and with desperate determination pushed forward till he reached the staircase leading to his daughter’s chamber. Unmindful of the Hilling beams mid the red-hot coals which burnt into his flesh, he urged his way ilpward till he gained the door, against which he threw himself with a force which burst it open, and entered. He found Helen lying upon her face amid the flames, and raising her in his arms, he placed his hand over her heart, and found, to his great joy? that it was still beating with a strong pulsation.
“Jupiter, I thank thee!” exclaimed the Patrician, “ I shall save her yet1”
The sound of his voice seemed to restore the senses of Helen, for her arms feebly pressed his neck, and with a great effort she murmured,
“ The gods be praised ! I shall live to see the sorceress tortured! Oh, joy I joy!”
It was her last exclamation on earth, for even as she spoke, the roof fdll in with a crasi, and father and daughter were hurled headlong into the surging flames below, and were completely buried beneath the falling debris.
In the meantime Dracos and the Edile, follow-
^en the people clamor Rte de^rteth bliu, and !^hen wm Lyra look in
upon him, and till then she biddeth him farewell !”
A terror, which he could neither understand nor master, seized upon Nero, as he ’listened to the words of the sorceress, and large drops of perspiration stood out upon his brow, as the conviction forced itself upon him that her language was prophetic I
“ Stay, demon that thou art!” he exclaimed, as the sorceress and her companion disappeared in a grove of ilex trees, “and answer mo further! I would know more!” •
A wild laugh was the only response which met his ears, and in a sadly troubled frame of mind, the tyrant sought his couch, to dream of blazing Rome, and trouble in the future.
(To bo Continued.)
LWRITTEX FOR THE NEW YORK WEEKLY. J
THE ALCALDE OF SAN’CRISTOBAL;
OR,
HOW THE RANGERS OBTAINED *THEIR SUPPER.
BY S. CGMPTON SMITH, M. D.
We had been several days on a scout for guerillas, who, of late, had proved excessively annoying to our trainsand express riders.
We had fallen in with a party of them, and after a little skirmish, in which a number of them bad been put beyond further chances of molesting us, were, on our return to camp, with a score or two of the choicest horses of the enemy; when night overtaking us near the little pueblo of San Cristobal, on the San Juan, we determined to encamp in the place till the following morning.
We were a party of Rangers, accompanied by a few mounted infantry ; and all of us were for the time under the command of an infantry Major, to whom the command had been given, to gratify his desire for a scout into the chapperal, with Texans, and to witness our mode of bush-fighting.
As we approached the village, we heard the firing of great guns, and on entering the capacious plaza, with which every Mexican town, be it ever so insignificant is provided, we found it deserted. In fact, our approach had been detected by the lookouts, and the cowardly population had betaken themselves to the cover of the neighboring chapperal.
At one side of the plaza, we found a large, picketed enclosure—a corral; and taking possession of it, we dismounted, and secured our horses within it, and made our usual arrangements for camping for the night. -
This completed, tho major and myself were about to start out on a reconnoisance of the pueblo, in search for the means of a supper for the party, and provender for our animals. But, at this moment, our attention was attracted by the appearance of a solitary figure, that came strutting across the square, with an assumption of extraordinary dignity. His hands were crossed over his back, under the long skirts of an old-fashioned swallow-tailed, black coat, which doubtless bad been aired only on official occasions for several generations, which, with an air of very great importance, he wore a bright oil-skiu sombrero, cocked comically over his dexter ear.
This individual, without condescending to notice any one else, stepped defiantly up to the major, whose uniform pointed him out as the leader of the party, and in a tone of arrogance, demanded:
Being the only person in the party that spoke Spanish, I had, during the scout, volunteered as interpreter, and I now replied to this unconrteous salutation, by laconically informing him that we wished to see the Alcade of the village.
“Por que?” was the cool, and as I thought impertinent rejoinder.
We began to think the little man was coming the dignity rather too strong to suit our appreciation of Mexican character, so addressing him with an improvement on his own supercilious manner, I ordered him to conduct me forthwith to the house of the Alcade, and inforced the command by laying my hand rather heavily upon his shoulder, and greatly to the surprise of the Mexican, and evidently to the great injury of his self respect, turned him suddenly to tho “face about.”
“ March,” said I—“ addante !”
The Mexican made a few hasty strides in the direction in which I had impelled him, and turning toward me with an expression of outraged dignity, exclaimed,
“Io mismo soy el Alcalde!”—(I myself am the Alcade.)
“The devil you are!” I replied, “I mistook your impertinence forthat of a saucy priest. And now, Senior, as you are the Alcade of this place, we want you to supply us with a fat ox for our men, and corn for our horses, for which, to convince you that we arc not like your own throatcutting guerillas, we are willing to pay you a fair compensation.”
“ No hai, Senores!—no hai came!—no hai maiz !” —(there is neither meat or corn,) replied the fellow, with the usual Mexican way of the fore-finger in close proximity to his ugly phiz.
“ Now look here, old chap!” said I, “ we want none of your lies. You have abundance of all we require, and now despatch some of your skulking greasers after them, or you will experience the consequences of a non-compliance.”
“Digof repeated the Mexican—“ no hai carne— ni maiz, ni siquiera hombres! Todos son afuera—to-dos /”—(I tell you there is neither corn—nor meat —nor even men ! They are all gone—all.)
“ Where are your men ? Who fired that gun as we approached your place ?” I demanded.
“ Quien sabe P' (who knows!)
We were now losing all patience with the obstinate Mexican, when one of the men, detaching a long hair lariat from the pomel of his saddle, approached us with the rope in hand and addressed the Major—
“ I reckon, Sir, if you wiL ret me try the Texan p’an. upon this fellow, we’ll bring him to his milk. We know the natur of the brute, sir, and know just exactly how to manage ’em.”
“ How will you do it ?” inquired the officer. “ The old chap is as stubborn as the Corkonian’s pig I”
“ I’d choke him a little with this ’here hair collar, sir,” said the man, as he approached, and significantly shook the lariat in the face of the Alcalde.
“ What!” exclaimed the major, as if shocked at the thought,—“ you wouldn’t hang the Mexican, would you ?”
“ No! no! sir, we wouldn’t exactly uang him, we’d choke him a little, sir, that’s all.”
I assured the officer I had seen the experimen frequently performed, and always with the happiest results.
“ Well, then, Turner, you may proceed; but don’t push the choking to extreme. Give him air enough to cry peccavi, when he’s got enough!”
“ Never fear, Major,” was the reply. “ I’ll do it up brown ; but we’ll get the rations, and yet leave breath enough in his carcass, to stand another choking, the next time, we chance to honor his place with a visit.”
Mat Turner, now qnDroaAlnAl the Mexican, and with mock politeness, requested him to remove his broad brimmed sombrero. But this the Alcalde objected to, and it was removed for him, by one of the boys, who were now crowding about to witness this novel trial by lariat.
The rope, prepared with a running noose, was placed over the Alcalde’s head, and drawn down lightly upon his throat; then gathering up about two-thirds of the free portion of it, the Ranger led his victim to the gate of the corral, over the top of which was stretched a cross-piece of timber as a brace. Throwing the end of the rope over this, he called to some of the boys to catch it, and drawing it taught, to wait for the word to hoist.
Up to this moment, the little Alcalde seemed to look upon the whole affair as a good-natured joke. But when Mat gave the work,
“ Heave away, boys!” and his assistants, with a cheery “Yo, heave, oh!” began to stretch on the lariat,' his obstinacy and dignity suddenly deserted him ; and eagerly clutching at the rope with both hands, and stretching himself to his greatest height, to release the strain upon his throat, he exclaimed :
“Oh! senores! por el amor de Dios ! Misericor-dia ! Si! tengo came! Nai bastante—bastante !” (Oh! for the love of God!—mercy! Yes! I have meat!—a plenty—plenty!)
“Say maiz, too, you black divil. oj^up you go!” cried his merciless exec
“Li! y maiz tambien—bast too .’—plenty!)
Let him down, boys—le lents—we’ve cured him!” sbii and turning to the Mexican,
torn
e re-_.ner; Alcai-
de, are you sure we can have the corn and meat ?” -.
The Alcalde, thus address^! in good English, was at a loss, for a moment, what answer to make, but, at length, comprehending at a venture, hastened to reply : % J x *
“Si! senores! Si, con much# qustoP1 (1 es, gen-tlemen—yes, with much pleasure.)
“But when?—quanda P1 demanded Turner.
“Aprisa, aprisa,!—immediatamente, senores P’ — (Quickly, quickly—immediately, gentlemen!)
By this time the plaza began to assume the appearance of life, and women were gathering from all parts of the town to intercede for their little magistrate.
I assured them that we intended him no real harm, but were only forcing him to sell some supper to some hungry, but harmless Americanos, who had honored their village with a passing visit. We only wanted meat for ourselves, and corn for our horses, and the privilege of sleeping in their plaza; and promised that we would leave them in the morning unharmed.
The women at once expressed themselves satisfied ; and admitting that our demands were just and reasonable, declared that those articles could be had, and that we should have them too.
Mat Turner now whispered in my ear, “Doctor, negotiate with the good souls for a bushel or two of hot tortillas.”
“ Well suggested, Mat,” I replied, and turning to the now vanquished Alcalde, I asked that dignified personage, loud enough to be heard by the senoras, if he could also conclude in his contract a couple of hundred or so of these hunger-appeasing flap-jacks,
“ Si! si! si /^at once exclaimed a score of musical voices; ami the women scattering in all directions to their kitchens, commenced the labors of the metate, and soon theclappingof busy hands, as they formed the thin cakes, announced that the process of preparing them had already began.
The Alcalde suddenly became one of the most accommodating and complaisant of hosts, now invited the Major and a number of others to his house, which was on one side of the plaza. On entering the porch, and seeing us comfortably
moned from their hiding-places a number of stout rancheros. These he despatched to bring into the plaza the requisite supplies.
One by one his family returned to the house, and gathered about us to have a nearer view of Los Americanos. To them we were a rare show. We were the veritable, man-eating barbarians of whom their priests had told them so much!
Our gentlemanly host now called to his wife-a pleasant, good-natured looking little body, and directed her to bring a bottle of Parras brandy and some glasses; and when the senora returned with the liquor, he poured out a glass to himself first, and passing the bottle to his guests proposed our health, “hoping that the next time he should have the honor of our company, it might be under more pleasant circumstances.”
“But the fact is, gentlemen,” said he, “I re ceived you according to special instruction from El General in Gefe— Governor Canales. I dared not do otherwise; but you have forced me to your own terms, as I can prove,” continued he, smilingly, and making a significant motion to his throat; therefore I hope to escape unharmed.”
While this agreeable interview was passing, the rancheros had returned with a fine bullock, which they immediately butchered in our presence ; and by the time the men had started their cooking, the tortillas, piping hot from the pans, were brought from the different houses, neatly enveloped in snowy napkins.
In spite of the unpromising appearance of mat ters on our arrival, we succeeded in getting a good supper, as well as the means for an ample breakfast; and on leaving the worthy Alcalde in the morning, the Major gave him an order on our quartermaster in Monterey, for the full amount of all we had obtained from him, besides adding to the amount a small bonus, by way of compensation for the unceremonious liberties we had taken with his person.
[WRITTEN FOR THE NEW YORK WEEKLY.]
THE OBDURATE FATHER;
OR, THE DEATH OF THE DISOWNED
BY BELLA F.
It is a lovely summer morning. The sun has not arisen yet, but the red clouds, tinged with gold, in the east, warn me df its approach. The fresh air wafts the perfume of the flowers in at my window, and just above my bead, from a stately oak, a lark warbles her song. The morning is very beautiful, yet I am sad. I miss a familiar face that I have been accustomed to see among the shrubs and flowers, in front of the little vine-covered cottage, over the way, every morning for years ; and I know Ibat I shall see Mary B------’s sweet, pale face among them no more—that she will not bring the sweetest flowers of spring for my hair, nor call me her poet sister again, as she has been wont to do, for her blue eyes are closed, and her slender form is robed for the grave. This is why I am sad.
Oh, Mary! outcast as you were from your father’s house, and scorned by those who should have been your dearest friends, I feel that even now, angels are welcoming you to their blest abode, and that that dear one for whom you gave up all on earth, is praising God for your deliver-ence.
“ She was a disobedient, undeserving girl,” the world says. But, alas, the world did not know her!
“ She was undeserving and. disobedient” because she scorned the wealthy, conceited fop that her father wished her to marry, and gave her band to one whose only inheritance was a soul that did not stoop to wrong, and a pair of willing hands with which to support his bride.
She lived very happily with her husband over two years,when an accident rendered him a helpless cripple, with death staring him in the face at all times.
It was then Mary showed the true nobleness of her mind, by working night and day, and eating only the coarsest food herself, that she might be able to provide luxuries for him.
He had passed a year of acute suffering, when the Angel Azreal looked down in pity ; freed the weary soul Dob its loathsome prison ; and bore it to sunny wires on high.
It was a bitter blow for Mary, but she bore up
bravely, and resolved to spend the few days which were alloted her, in doing good. And nobly did she keep that resolve.
To the sick and the erring, the poor and afflicted, her gentle presence ever brought a ray of sunshine. Truly she was doing God’s work. About a year before her death, an erring, but repentant brother, whose sands of life were almost run, sought his sister’s cot to die. He had been discared by his father in early manhood, for a crime he had committed that cast a blight upon his fair fame. Long years he wandered abroad, leading a miserable life of exile, then he returned weary and dying, to his childhood’s home, and was spurned from his father’s door.
Disappointed and grieved, he sought his sister : one glance of whose pale, spiritual face, convinced him that she was traveling the same road with himself, which must terminate in a few months, at the grave. She received him very kindly, and attended him while he lived, with a care worthy of such a sister. I would often look at them, and wonder which would go first. It seemed to me that both must totter into the grave at the same time, yet Mary never complained—never gave up, until her brother’s death, which happened on a beautiful day in June. The last rays of the setting sun threw a soft, mellow light in at the window, that reflected its radiance on the dying man’s face.
“ Mary” he said in a tone so much lower and sweeter than it was wont to be, that it startled me, “ I am almost home.”
“ I am glad,” she said, “ for I shall soon follow you.
“ My brother, if you meet my Edward in the spirit land, tell him I am coming soon.”
“ I will. Kiss me sister—God bless you—farewell.”
She bent her head, and covered his brow with kisses, and when she raised it again, I saw that he was dead. t
Mary did »ot mourn—did not even shed a tear, but she failed steadily, until last night, when she died.
A few hours previous to her death, she sent for her father, but he refused to grant her dying request, and thus embittered her latest moments.
Yet she sleepeth very sweetly, For she hath no sorrow now ;
And of sin, I see no shadow, On her pale, but lovely brow.
Still, no sister’s lips shall press her, Nor, her father shed a tear ;
And no group of lonely mourners, • Shall attend her sable bier.
By all those, who should have loved her, She will surely be forgot;
And a stranger’s bands shall lay her, In some wild, and lonely spot.
There the long grass grows above her, And the flowers untrained, and wild ;
While our Christian parents point her, As a warning to each child.
But, when God shall claim his treasures, On that awful, judgement dayWill He take the wealthy father, Or the daughter, o’er the way ?

[WRITTEN FOR TRE NEW TORE WEEKLY.]
TO-MORROW.
BY J. L P
3
3
i
Fleet are the years that are gliding: “To-morrow” bath the poet well said;
And our memery listens in sadness To the knell of the years that have fled.
Years fraught with hopes and intentions, That have gone unfulfilled to the Past, Whence they look back reproachfully on us, And point to the Future o’crcast.
Yet there dwells in that Future of sadness A phantom of promise and light,
Which allures us away from the present And tell us its treasures to slight.
Entranced by the voice of that syren, We dwell on the glories she sings, And expectantly wait for each morrow, While that morrow such glories ne’er brings.
No longer I’ll be thus deluded;
Hence mockeries unreal and vain;
The visions of hope are but phantoms, That shall never deceive me again.
PLEASANT PARAGRAPHS,
BY « PEN AND SCISSORS.”
— Our old friend, “ Ike Hyler, the Retired Oysterman,” is on hand again this week. His good wife, who is a sort of Florence Nightingale in her way, met with an adventure recently, the particulars of which Ike has dished up and sent us. It shows
HOW THE CENSUS TAKER CAME NEAR MISSING ONE.
Mister Editor: Deer Sur—Sense I rit to you last, a very funny little incident has happined, which I’m goin’ to relate for the benerfit of the readers of Pleasant Paragrafs. My wife, Nancy Hyler, although I say it, is as kind-hearted a critter as ever drew the breth of life. She was called onto the other day to attend a poor Irish woman named Mrs. Burke,who, f®r a long time past, had did our washin’, which the said Mrs. Burke, whose husband’s Christchen name is Patrick, was.a fttffferin’ from a sickness wich is very prevalent with nipped Irish wimen wich has to work hard." The famerly was in a peck o’ trouble, for besides the sickness and no bread in the house, the landlord had threatened to send a constable to turn ’em out for not payin’ their rent. Well, while Mrs, Hyler was a try-in’ to comfort the sick woman, who lives in a basement, there come a knock at the basement door, and Nancy went out to see wot was wantin’, and there stood a hard-lookin’ feller, with a big book under his arm ahd a pen behind his ear. “Madam,” seshe, in a free and easy way, “I’ve come to take tbe senses; and you’ll please to answer my questions.” “You’re a cruel man,” ses Nancy, “to go for to joke on sich a subject. You come for to take Mrs. Burke’s furnitur’, and you think that doin’ that’ll deprive her of her souses wich very likely it would. But allow me for to tell yqu, sir, that Mrs. Burke is sick, and that any excitement might cause her deth; and you don’t pass over this ’ere threshold unless you does it over my dead body, that’s flat I” “My dear, blessed good woman,” ses tho man, “I don’t want to bother Mrs. Burke, nor anybody else, but I must do my dooty.” “And so must I do mine,” ses Nance, as she seized a broomstick and flourished it over his head. “Lor or no lor j you ain’t a goin’ to take a inventory of anything in this house, and you might as well shut that book up agin!” “I don’t want to take no inventory,” ses the man, kind o’ expostulatin’, all I want to take is the senses!” “I’ll bet you a cookey,” ses Nance, turnin’ very red in the face, strikin’ a persishin’ in front of tbe man, and takin’ a firm hold onto the broom-handle, “that if you attempt to come in here, it’ll be me that’M take the senses, purvidin’ you’ve got any, wich I don’t believel” “My good woman,” again ses the man, soothingly, “you’re laborin’ under a mistake. I don’t want to injure Mrs. Burke. I’m appinted by the lor to take tho senses. That is, the name, the ages, and birthplaces ofiamilies, and all that sort of thing.” “Oh, is that all ?” seS\Nance, as a good-humored smile spread over her kind face. “Why didn’t you say so before? I took you for thoconstable.” Well, the difficulty bein’ settled,Nance went to work and guv him all the informashin’ he wanted, and he departed very well satisfied, but he hadn’t more’n got up the steps, and out onto tbe side-walk, when Nance heard the feeble wail of a baby proceedin’ from tho room in which she had left Mrs. Burke. “Here, you Mr. Senses-man,”she sungout, “come back here, right away. There’s one o’ the Burke famerly you ain’t got. It’s a miuit old; don’t own anything in the wild world, ’ceptin’ a poor mother’s love—not even a stitch o’clothes. If it’s a boy its name is Isaac Hyler Patrick Burke, and if it’s a gal it’s name is Nancy, for that was settled long ago 1” I ain’t got anything further to say, mister editur, except that Mrs. Burke and little Pat—for it was a boy—is doin’ well, ‘Yures till'deth, Ike Hyler.
— Before taking leave of the subject, here is another census anecdote concerning
A YOUNG MOTHER.
A widow, having four children, was called upon to give the names and ages of her children, as well as her own age, and in answering the following scene'6nsued; Censustaker—“Now, madam, I have your namejSBease tell me your age.” Lady—“I am 35 years of age/’itCensus-taker —“What is the age of your oldest daughter?” Lady— “She is 28 years old.” Census-taker—“How old were you when she was born?” Lady, very crustly—“I was 22 years old.” Census-taker—“Then, madame, that will make you 50 years old.” Lady—“I don’t care, I am only 35.” And to this she stuck, although the fact was pointed out to her that if her story was true she could only have been seven yqars of age when her daughter was born, at the same time telling the census-taker that he “had no right to ask such impertinent questions.”
— Our census-takers meet with queer custom- •
ers sometimes.
“ Reklaw,” an old contrib-
tor, sends us the following, which goes to show
HOW WILLIAM CIRCUMVENTED THE 11 GOVERNOR.”
A gentleman named
residing in Brooklyn, had
tried various means to induce his son, a youth of sixteen, to abandon the habit of smoking, but without success. Floggings and threats had equally failed. One day he brought into his father’s presence a handful of segars and began to smoke. “ William,” said the old gent, “I will make you an offer, though you deserve to be flogged for disobeying my commands. I will give you ten dollars on the spot, if, after you have smoked those segars, you will use the weed no more until you become of ago.” “Done,” said William, and tbe money was placed iu his hands by his too confiding parent. Some weeks after this William brought a box of segars to his father and asked him to try one. “You have broken your promise,” said the old geiit. “Not at all, sir,” replied the sharp youngster. “I promised to use the weed no more after I had smoked that handful, and instead of smoking them I gave them away and bought these,” displaying the box. The old gent had to acknowledge that “the children of this generation are wiser than their parents,” and gave up in despair the idea of getting the better of Young America.
— This is a progressive age! But what will not “ Young America” be able to accomplish two hundred years hence ? Listen to what a seer of tbe Andrew Jackson Davis persuasion, says, concerning
. “ modern” improvements in 2060.
This is an age of progress. (The seer is supposed to be writing at the date above mentioned.)t Everybody says so, and it is an old maxim that what everybody says is generally true. Many and great improvements have been made in everything in the last fifty or a hundred years, and many more will probably be made during the" next century. One hundred and fifty years ago, it would have taken from eight to sixteen months to go around the world: in 1960, it was accomplished in three weeks , but now, a traveler, by taking the ‘Lightning-driven Flying-Machine,’ can sleep at Detroit, and, by starting at sunrise, can breakfast at New York, dine at Jeddo, sap at San Francisco, and be at Datroit again by bed-time. Thirty thousand sheets were once thought to constitute a good hour’s work for any printiagWess : now two hundred thousand sheets an hour is ‘ slow working,’ the type being set and the press being driven by electricity. School-boys no longer write, compositions, each one having a miniature printing-press of his own, working by electricity, by which he can print his coaipositions as fast as he can think them. There are no more oceans and but few mountains now-a-days the mountains having been levelled, and the oceans pa'rti’ally filled in with them, leaving nothing but large inland seas where were once the Atlantic and Pacific, thus greatly increasing the land-area. Winter is no longer the cold season it was in the olden time, even at the North Pole. Immense furnaces have been built under-ground, and the fire being let into them from the centre of the earth, the heat is conveyed in every direction by largo pipes, making winter nearly as warm as summer. Safety-valves have been put in every volcano, and they can do no more damage. It was lately announced that a Japanese philosopher, whose name is unspellable,has discovered a means to prevent earthquakes, which he will soon make public. The universe, in the night-time, is now lighted by gas, procured from vast natural reservoirs, a few miles below the surface of the earth. The whole world, in short, is now one vast republic, of which Detroit is tbe capital, and a. Sandwich Islander the President. Slavery was abolished
when Africa was annexed, and everybody is now free. ‘ Woman’s rights’ have had their day. The cause lost all its male adherents when it was found that the Treazuress who had been elected had appropriated four millions of the Public’s dollars to keep herself in ball-dresses. All these improvements, however, aro nothing to what are expected to be made in a few years. We are looking forward to the day when the circuit of the earth can bo performed in four hours ; when the press can strike off one million sheets an hour ; when grain and vegetables can be manufactured instead of grown ; and, above all, when we can annex Mars, Venus, and Mercury, which we are ‘bound to do.’
— Let the despondent no longer doubt that there is “ a good time coming,” although it is
OUR KNOWLEDGE BOX
A FEW PARAGRAPHS WORTH REMEMBERING.
some distance off.
Some first-rate judge of
human nature discourses as follows on the value of nonsense.
He who never plays tho fool Is a serious, solemn, jogging, worrying, lackadaisical fool all the days of his heavy life ■ He lets the machinery of his system go clapping and clattaring and crashing to pieces before its time, because he is ashamed to be seen oiling it by his neighbors. He prevents some of the best purposes of his being, and spoils many of his finest faculties by refusing to obey the impulses of his nature, and allow his lighter qualities ju dicious exercise. He offers himself a sacrifice on tho altar of the most abominable of bugbears, false dignity. His hard, hollow shell serves as a portable tombstone, whereupon we read inscribed, “ Here lie interred Humor, Wit, Mirth, Fun, Frolic, creatures whom God sent Into the world, but whom I, deeming them unworthy, put to death and buried.” Deliver us from such locomotive mummies! Wo lovo to see a man sensible and sober in season, and in season not afraid to indulge in jovial nonsense. Ho enjoys the blessings given him. Ho unbends the bow, and uses the string as a whipcord for his child’s top; and, our word for it, the next arrow that springs from the tense nerve will fly tho further and with surer aim. Strange that men will be so inconsistent in their various courses! We are fully aware of the jading, harrassing influence of monotony; yet we often require it in the conduct ef those with whom we deal. • We hear an infinite quantity of exhortation abeut the serious business of life, the brevity of time, and its too great preciousness to bo wasted in trifling pursuits And amusements, our duties ol diligence and gravity, and that comfortless sort of cant; but it is all uncomfortable, and worse still, unthankful doctrine. Our mental harmony demands playfulness and hilarity as interludes to the grander tones of existence; and if this demand be unsatisfied, painful exhaustion and premature debility soon must follow.
— That is “as true as preaching.” There is something radically wrong about tbe man who neverdaughs, and so there is about the man who is always laughing. In these two characters ex-
[We have received numerous communications from persons who are desirous to contribute to “Our Knowledge Box,” providing they are paid for their trouble, and we here desire to say to all such that we opened this department for the benefit of the readers of the Weekly at large, and aro always supplied. gratis, with matter enough to make it interesting. We shall be thankful to all who will furnish us valuable receipts, etc., and in doing so, they will be benefitting themselves as well as us, because for any one item which they may furnish they will receive half a-dozen in return. 1
Questions Answered and Information Wanted.—j. 2)***—We know of no preparation which will remove moles. They may be removed by cauterization, but the scar left will be more unsightly than tho mole. Warts may bo removed by paring the dry surface, and touching them with acetic acid, taking care" that the acid does not touch the surrounding skin. This practice must bo persevered in some days before tho warts will actually disap-
Remedy for Insect Bites.—Take equal parts of carbonate of ammonia and crude soda; dissolve these in twice their weight or bulk of water, and apply the same to the sting produced from the bite of bee, bug, wasp, gnat, or mosquito. This mixture will keep any time in any climate, and is a useful traveling appendage. The sting of an insect is an acid fluid, which is neutralised by the alkaline
solution above.
G. W. S. P.
pear.
Frank IT.—Equal parts of spirits of turpentine
and essence of lemon, mixed, will remove blackberry or cherry stains from cotton or linen fabrics. The essence must be newly made or it will leave a circle around the
spot.
, A Constant Reader.—The composition used iu
tremes meet. Both lack brains.
Soipe of
our Pleasant Paragraphists, we doubt not, will weep over the following ‘‘pome,” wbich’so touchingly recounts the fate of
the suicide.
Timotheus Jeems Augustus Brown Took cold into his head,
And sneezed from morn till night, until He wished that he was dead.
“I’ll take my worthless life,” said he, And took his razor down;
But then he changed his mind, and thought ’Twould easier be to drown.
He walked unto the water’s edge, Loud sneezing as he went;
But stayed to say his prayers, until His courage all was spent.
And then ho thought of other plans To cut his thread of life;
And Wondered which least painful was, The halter or the knife.
At length, in sheer despair, ho strolled To where Sue Jenkins dwelt, And, sneezing his apologies, Before her face he knelt.
He told her he was tired of life, And knew not what to do, If she would uot consent to be His dearly-loved—a-tchoo 1
She did consent, though modestly, And soon became hiabride;
Yet still he swears that he will end His life by Suey’s side ?
— A wise resolution ! That is the kind of sui-
cidc we believe in.
An “ out West ” corres-
pendent relates. Bid. iollowin«, concerning LIGHTNING VS. HOOPS.
An amusing incident occurred during the storm at one of our boarding-houses in which reside quite a number of ladies. When the storm came up, and the heavy reverberations of the thunder were heard, a gentleman of the house remarked that it betokened a severe storm, the lightning would be very vivid, and no person should handle or have steel about their persons, during its continuance, for fear of accident. The ladies of the house suddenly made a simultaneous rush for their rooms, and soon thereafter appeared, vastly reduced in rotundity. The gentleman, of course, said nothing more and looked innocent.
— What a falling off was there !...........Here is
A STRONG ARGUMENT AGAINST STRONG BUTTER.
“ Why is it,my son, that w’ben you drop your bread and butter it is always the butter side down ?” “ I don't know, It hadn’t orter, had it ? The strongest side ought to be up, and this is the-strongest butter I ever seed.” “ Hush up: it’s some of your aunt’s churning.” “ Did she churn it? the great lazy thing 1” “ What! your aunt ? “ No, this here butter. To make that poor old woman churn it, when it is strong enough to churn itself I” “ Hush, Zeb, I’ve ate a great deal worse iu the most aristocratic houses.” “ Well, people of rank ought to eat it.” “ Why people of rank?” “’Cause it’s rank butter I” “ You varmint you! what makes you talk so smart?’’ “ -’Cause the butter has taken the skin off my tongue, mother.” “ Zeb, don’t lie I I can’t throw away the butter.” “ I tell you, ma. what I’d do with it. Keep it'to draw blisters. You ought to see the flies keel over as soon as they touch it.” “ Zeb,dou’t exaggerate ; but here is a quarter : go to the store and buy a pound of fresh.”
—Won’t this fling at strong butter put some unfortunate bachelors, who are “ boarding around,” in mind of something they “ don’t want to think
making friction matches is made as follows: Tako phosphorous, four parts; nitre, ten; fine glue, six: rod ochre, or red lead, five; and smalt, two. Convert the glue, with a little water, by a gentle heat, into a smooth jelly; put it into a slightly warm porcelain mortar to liquify ; rub tbe phosphorus down through this gelative at a temperature of 140 or 150 deg. Fahr.: add the nitre, then the red powder, and lastly the smelt, till tbo whole forms a uniform paste....J. T. P —India rubber is said to bo soluble in ether, hot napha, the fixed oils,such as linseed, and in the oils of lavender and sasafras, but wo do not know tho process to bo pursued. Perhaps some of our friends can tell you......C. D. A.—Wo know of nothing which will prevent the hair from turning grey, although there aro a number of recipes for dying it, but the following is an excellent preparation to keep the hair healthy and glossy ; Take of extract of yellow Peruvian bark, fifteen grains, extract of rhatany root, eight grains • extract of burdoch root, and oil of nutmegs (fixed,) of each, two drachms ; camphor dissolved with spirits of wine, fifteen grains; beef marrow, two ounces ; best olive oil, ono ounce ; citron juice, half a drachm ; aromatic essential oil, as much as sufficient to render it fragrant; mix, and make it into an ointment.« Two drachms of bergamot, and a few drops of otto of roses, would suffice. This is to bo used every morning......A Reader oftheWeddy.—To go through tho whole process of gilding would take up too much of our space, and would be of but little benefit to our readers generally, for tbe reason that not ono in ten thousand would have occasion to profit by it---.Octagon.—Sheets of paper
brushed over with boiled linseed oil and suspended on a line until dry, will become water-proof, although they may be a little sticky. Wo do not know how the latter is to bo avoided. Gum arabic and rain water make as good and as adhesive a mucilage as anything wo know of...... .Skep-mouse—Your nails may be kept from spreading by scraping them in the middle and paring the tops in the centre without touching tbe edges, so that they will describe tho shape of a crescent. For the agrarium the following cement will probably answer your purpose: A mixture of a solution of eight ounces of strong glue and three-quarters of an ounce of Venice turpentine, to be boiled together, agitating all the time until the mixture becomes as intimate as possible.....“Singer”—We have published tho receipt for
strengthening and clearing the voice till wo aro tired of it. It is only three weeks since we published it the last time. You must keep a closer watch of tho “ Knowledge Box.” .......An Old Subscribe)' wishes a receipt for making a good healthy porter.
How to Wash Silks, Satins, etc.—The article should be laid upon a clean, smooth table. A flannel should be well soaped, being made just wet with lukewarm water, and the surface of the silk rubbed ono way, being careful that this rubbing is quite even. When the dirt has disappeared, tbo soap must be washed off with a sponge and plenty of cold water, of which the sponge must bo made to imbibe as much as possible, when the washing is done. As soon as one side is finished, the other must bo washed precisely In the same manner. Let it be understood that iiot more of either surface must be done at a time, than can be spread perfectly flat upon tho table, and the hand can conveniently reach , likewise the soap must be quite sponged off ono portion before tho soaped flannel is applied to another portion The silks, when thus washed, should always be dried in the shade, on a linen horse and alone. If black or dark blue, they will be improved if, when dry, they are placed on a table and well sponged with gin or whisky, and again dried. Either of these spirits alone, laid on with a sponge, will remove, without washing, the dirt and grease from a black stock or silk handkerchief of tho same color, which will be so renovated by the application as to appear almost new Satin ibbons , both white and colored, and even satin dresses, may be cleansed with good effect by this process, which is likewise very effective in renovating all kinds of silk ribbons and trimmings i
How to Preserve the IIands Soft and White.
How to Mount Drawings—To mount watercolor or pencil-drawings, take pure white starch, mixed with cold water, and boil it until it becomes as thick as cream; then choose your mount-boards, and. having damped the drawing at the back, apply the starch carefully to tho back of the drawing, and press it on to tho board with a sheet of white blotting-paper
How to make Fanny’s Crisp Gingerbread.— Take two cups of molasses, two cups of butter, one cup of sugar, one teaspoonful of soda dissolved in four tablespoonsful of milk, and two table-spoonsful of ginger ; mix well together, and add flour enough to make it stiff, and roll out thin on buttered tin sheets, and make it in squares, and bake in a quick oven.—C. D. N.
Mahogany Varnish—Litharge, and powdered dried sugar of lead, of each, a quarter of a pound; clarified oil, three gallons; sorted gum anime, eight pounds: boil till tho mixture strings well, then cool it a little. It should bo thinned with five gallons and a half of oil of turpentine, and then strained.
Recipe for Fish Bait.—Dig your worms in the morning and put them in sweet milk for about three minutes, and then take them out and put them in some moss, which may be obtained from around trees, and they will clean themselves, and look red, and fish will bite them immediately.—F. M. C.
Ginger-beer Powders.—Powdered white sugar, two drachms ; powdered ginger, five grains ; carbonate of soda, twenty-six grains. Mix, and wrap in blue paper. Tartaric acic^birty grains ; wrap In white paper. Dissolve each sepajJWy in half rl glass of spring water ; mix, and drink whwin a state ofWervescence.
How to Color Gun Barrels.—To give your gun barrel a brown color, rub it over with aquafortis or spirit of salts elicited with water, and then lay it by for a week or more, till a complete coat of rust is formed. Then apply a little oil, and, having rubbed the surface dry, polish it with a hard brush and a little beeswax.
Rose Pearls—Beat tbe petals of the red rose in an iron mortar for some hours, until they form a thick paste, which is to be rolled into beads, and dried. They are very hard, susceptible of a fine polish, and retain all tho fragrance of the flowers.
Paste for Meat Pies—Rub together two pounds of flour and three-quarters of a pound or more of good salt butter; beat up one or two eggs and mix with it; add water to make a proper paste, and roll out thin, as before directed
How to Remove Grease, Paints, Oils, &c.— Take four table-spoonsful of spirits of hartshorn, four table-spoonsfuls of alcohol, one of salt: apply with a sponge.— Octagon.
Rancid Butter.—This may be restored by melting it in a water bath, with some coarsely powdered animal charcoal (which has been thoroughly sifted from dust), and straining through flannel.
To Clean Steel and Iron.—One ounce of soft soap, two ounces of emery, made into a paste; then rub tho article for cleaning with wash-leather, and it will give a brilliant polish.
of as much as possible?”
Speaking of
bachelors^the^ are some hard cases among them. What; will our warm-hearted working girls think of Horace Hamilton, who sends us the following on
LOVE AND LUCRE.
“ Your beauty’s a flower i’ the morning that blows, And withers the faster the faster it grows.
*
*
*
But the sweet yellow darlings wi’ Geordie imprest, The lauger ye hao them the mair they’re carest ”
Burns.
0! give me the lass who has wealth in her coffers, Whose purse knows no bottom, whose riches no end;
At gold, let the fools all so silly be scoffers, What’s the chief end of life but to get it and spend?
Be she ugly or wrinkled, a mask is her “shiners;’’
Be she blind, halt, or stupid, gold makes her look sensible :
Your poor little angels (I) of life undermine us, To marry of those is a course indefensible.
Yes! give me the love that the “yellow boys” clinches— That is fresh throughout life when the cause is so plenty.
Who cares if the maid be six feet or six inches ?
Or whether sho’s fifty, or just turned of twenty?
She provides us with gold—fountain head of all pleasure, That a mau conscientiously e’er can desire.
What she lacks of affection she supplies with a treasure;
And her beauty’s a beauty to feel and admire.
Resign, sighing youths, those sick dolls you are fooling.
Before such you wed take some fatal narcotic.
What is worth all your boasted experience, schooling.
If you make life a blank by such act idiotic ?
Once wjth wealth mi your hands, ah! then life appears healthy;
No more sighs, or repining, but all’s bright with blisses; With a wife in your arms, if not beauteous, quite wealthy, What matters if gold or if love brings the kisses.
Give up your fond fallacies of wishing to struggle
Thro’ life with a feminine cheering you on;
Thus ’tis nonsense to argue— 'tis a transparent juggle—
When you’ve got wealth you want, why! your life’s about gone;
For, as gold is the lever that sbts the worid moving, Secure, if you can, what good sense ne’er should “shy* at;
Take an “old fool’s’- advice, tho' very fine all this loving, Il will hardly suffice for a life’s steady diet
Then give me the maid who has wealth in each coffer;
Whoso smile beams an “eagle,’ whose heart is a “mint.”
What substantial regard can “ love’s faithfulness” offer ?
They’re but words used by “ poets,” that look well in print.
Let me know the esteem that is caused by hard dollars;
Let the “soft heads” who wish to live on scant fare and love-rhymes:
He who marries for wealth is tbe wisest of scholars, For the maid with the “ dimes” is the ono for the “times.’'
— Ob, Horace! Horace! How could you ?
—In order to preserve the bands soft and white, they • should always be washed in warm water, with fine soap, and carefully dried with a moderately coarse towel, being well rubbed every time to insure a brisk circulation, than i which nothing can be more effectual in promoting a trans-• parent and soft surface If engaged in any accidental ' pursuit which may hurt the color of the hands, or if they , have been exposed to tho sun, a little lemon juice will re store their whiteness for the time, and Windsor soap fs proper to wash them with Almond paste is of essential service in preserving tbe delicacy of the hands It is made Ibus’: Blanch and beat up four ounces of bitter al-; monds; add to them three ounces of lemon juice, three ounces of almond oil, and a little weak spirits of wino. Tho following is a serviceable pomade for rubbing the hands on retiring to rest: Take one ounce of sweet almonds, beat with three drachms of white wax, and throe drachms of spermaceti, put up carefully in rose water.
How to Remove Ink, Oil and Grease Stains from Books.—The follow,ing will take out stains of ink, oil, and grease from books. Oxymuriatic acid removes perfectly stains of ink; and should the paper roquire bleaching, the operation will answer both ends at the same time. Nearly all the acids remove spots of ink from paper; but it is important to use such as do not attack its texture. Spirits of salt, diluted in five or six times the quantity oi water, may bo applied witli success upon the spot, and, after a minute or two, washing it off with clean water A solution of oxalic acid, citric acid, and tartaric acid, is at tcuded with tho least risk, and may bo applied upon the paper and plates, without fear of damage. These acids, taking out writing ink, and not touching the printing ?an be used for restoring books where the margins have been written upon, without attacking the text.
Lemon Juice in Rheumatism.—This remedy has lately been extensively employed, and with considerable success, by tbe pathologist, Ijebert, formerly professor at Zurich. Lemon juice is stated to have been given with excellent results, especially in cases where several joints were affected. Patients improved toward the third and fourth day, and convalescence was fully established toward the tenth or twelfth day. M. Lebert’ thinks lemon juice, tho use of which was introduced by English and American physicians, of great efficacy in rheumatism. Ho begins with four ounces a day, and gradually rises to eight, given by table-spoonfuls. Citric acid was also tried, but did not answer as well, and did not agree with the patients.
A Truthful and Cheap Barometer—Take a clean glass bottle, and put in it a small quantity of finely pulverised alum. Then till tho bottle with spirits of wine. The alum will bo perfectly dissolved by the alcohol, and in clear weather the liquid will bo as transparent as the purest water. On the approach of rain or cloudy weather the alum will be visible in a flaky spiral cloud in the centre of the fluid, reaching from the bottom to tho surface. This is a cheap, simple, and beautiful barometer, and is placed within the reach of all who wish to possess one. For simplicity of construction this is altogether superior to tbe frog barometer in general use in Germany.
Pomade Divine for Bruises and Sprains — This is an old and simple remedy. To prepare it, take six ounces of well-washed marrow, or clarified lard; one ounce each gum galbanum and benzoin; a quarter of an ounce each of cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg; and ono fluid ounce of turpentine, Put the whole into a jar, and set it into a small saucepan of boiling water, where let it digest for three hours, stirring it well every ten minutes Then take the jar from the fire, and let it stand to settle the contents till almost cold; next pour off tbe upper stratum, and strain through fine muslin, when quite set it is fit for use, but should be preserved in well-corked bottles It is applied by rubbing it into the bruise, or sprain, with new flannel. G. W. S. P.
How to make India Carrie.—Tbo following receipt for genuine India carrie is from an old English resident of Calcutta twelve parts coriander seed . one part Cayenne (African), three parts cumin, fhm parts tumerie, a few^cloves, a little lumaader, half a ntiineg ; all to be finely powdered and kept in a closely stopped botCie. When used"add an onion. In India they make a sauce of it with melted, clarified butter, and in tropica) countries they substitute the soft, unripe, pulp of the young Caeva nut, which is better than the butter—S. C. S.
Making Cake Without Butter—A New Eng- . land la<ly,who is quite a famois housekeeper, recommends an economical plan for making cake without butter, which may be useful to our readers. Tako a piece of salt pork, i fat, and melt it down, and strain it through a piece of coarse, thin muslin. Set it aside until cool, It is then । white and firm, and may be used like butter in any kind । of cake. In pound cake, she assifres us, it is delicious. She ; says that after one trial, she never used butter again. i
How to Transfer Engravings to White Pa- ' per.—Place the engravings for a few seconds over tho vapor of iodine. Dip a slip ef white paper in a weak solution of starch, an^, when dry, in a weak solution of oil ofvit- , rial. When dry, lay a slip upon the engraving, and place them for a few minutes under the press. Tho engraving will thus be re-produced in all its delicacy and finish. The iodine has the property of fixing tho black parts of flie ink upon tbe engraving, and not on the white. ;
ITEMS FOR FARMERS AND GARDENERS.
Hints to Amateur Florists.—Many are the disadvantages under which tho cultivators of plants m dwelling-houses labor when they have nd out-of-door garden A plant requires changing every now and then from one pot to another of larger size, and fresh soil to surround that which it has been growing in. This must bo met by having pots of various sizes, and a heap of proper compost always at hand; both of which cap bo kept,without inconvenience, in any out-door place, however small, but cannot well be kept in the house. However, some people keep the pots that plants have died in, and sow seed or stick other plants in, without thinking of tho consequences; but they may as well turn a horse into an empty manger as put plants into exhausted soil. If there Is no convenience to keep proper compost, get some at a nursery when you want it; and if you have all tho room and facilities you require for keeping and mixing tho various soils, attend to two or three points. Vegetable mould is decayed leaves fairly rotted into mould, and is of itself very fertile, requiring nothing to induce growth, and therefore is the most valuable manure, because it docs no harm if used in excess.
Fall Plowing.—According to tbe opinion of an experienced farmer, all clayey and all hard, wet soils, are benefitted by fall-plowing, but all loose,slaty or gravelly soils are, more or less, injured by the same. All hard soils aro boneiltted in sovorul particulars, viz: first, by plowing in the fall, soils that have a tendency to plow up lumpy and hard are exposed to tho action of the frost and become fine and mellow by spring. Secondly; tho land is more free from weeds and grass tho next season, consequently, it is loss labor to cultivate it if planted to hoed crops Thirdly, tho land can be worked in the spring, al tho proper time, without danger of its baking down bard, which injures the land and crop both , whereas, if it bo plowed in time to put in spring crops, it is so hard by tho middle of summer that it is impossible for anything to grow, except weeds, which will grow anywhere.
Method of Setting Posts for Fencing.— Halve each post at tho bottom four inches up, making :t dovetailed, and take a piece of scantling two feet long, cut to fit the post, and drive it in, forming a sortol foot. These set about two feet deep, with stone laid on the crosspiece, and fill up with gravel. Tho timber should be well seasoned, and hot tar applied at the foot of the post This will not pull up with the frost nor lift with tho wind
How to Destroy Millers or Bee Moths.—Put, every night, a white plate, containing a mixture of molasses and vinegar, on a level with the bottom of the hive and near to it, and in the morning you will find that you'have trapped a number of tho moths. This you may continue till you have exterminated tho posts
How to Prevent Skippers in Hams.—Keep your smoke-house dark, and tho motli that deposits the egg will never enter it. Hams may bo kept sweet and perfect for years by simply taking this precaution Green hickory should be used in smoking, as it preserves the full flavor of the ham.
Soot as a Manure.—Soot mixed with water, in tbo proportions of twelve quarts of soot to a hogshead cf water makes a valuable liquid manure, and is especial, ly applicable to peas, asparagus strawberries raspberries and tbo like It is good, however, for nearly all growing crops
Cure for Colic in Horses—Pour cold water on tlie back of the animal for fifteen or twenty minutes Pour the water on from the withers to tho loins, so as lo run profusely over the sides and stomach It is asserted that this treatment will give almost entire relief in one hour
Smut in Wheat.—It is said that seed washed with water, in which blue vitriol has been dissolved, w'li grow finely, and show but 1 ittlo or no indications of smut
SCIENTIFIC NOTES.
Connection of Phenomenon.—A paper recently read before the Association of French Engineers sug gests an interesting subject of scientific inquiry It asserts that tho phenomena of sound, light, and boat are due to th same agency—£. e , electricity : their various manifestations and action^ on the sense being consequences of the differently accelerated vibrations of the same universal ether In case of sound, for instance, air. or solid bodies, would be only the vehicles of the motion which elicits tho electric energy, and ultimately acts upon the' s use by alternate dilations and relaxations of the nerves of hearing, or by that change of temperature consequent thereon Now, in support of this novel theory, it may be observed, that however determinate may bo tho natural forces which pervade tho universe, yet their action is never uniform. It intermits, as though llio inertia of matter could only bo vanquished by repeated efforts. No single impulse imparted to air or ether can give to us the consciousness of light or sound. Motion is always propagated by pulsations, in equal trmes. Whatever the vo-hfclo of impressions, its vibrations must be frequent and periodical to produce an effect. Neither air nor water, for instance, flow from an orifice in an unbroken stream. The friction of its Bides is broken, as it were, by starts, a jet of water issues by pulsations, and is formed of distinct drops, an appreciable interval of time occurring between the descent of each—though, from the persistence of light, and blending together of successive impressions, the distinction between the drops can only bo made apparent to tho sense by looking at falling water on tbo occurrence of a flash of lightning in a dark night, when tho seemingly continuous stream will, hi thiM vivid glimpse, bo resolved into a succession of drops, like pearls strung upon a thread. Tuus, a vibrating musical string receives an apparent increase in size : and any rapidly revolving object gives tho impression of a luminous circle. Flame burns with the same intermittent action. When a lighted candle is passed quickly through the air, its flame will break into a beaded line, with short intervals of darkness between the light; aid so regular are its pulsations that its musical pitch can bo thereby distiaguishad. Flame burnt in glass tubes emits a musical note, corresponding to its size and intensity, which are determined partly by the size of the orifice. In tho same manner tho electric force overcomes the resistance t« its emission from the surface of electrodes, escaping thence in tremors, and becoming visible t« tbo eye intermittently; the radiating light being broken up into strata and separate flashes, as a liquid stream is broken into drops, or a sound into pulsations.
The Magnesian Light.—Magnesium, the mc-talicbaseof tho well-known earth so useful in medicine, is lighter than aluminium, like that of a silvery white color, and not subject to rust. It may bo hammered, tiled, and
ORIGINAL AND SELECTED.
drawn out into threads; it ignites at tho temperature at which glass melts, and burns with a steady and vivid flame, the ash resulting being magnesia; while it has been found experimentally that a very fine magnesian thread emits a light equal to that given by seveniy-four stearine candles of five to tho jiound. These peculiar properties have suggested tho possibility of using it for illuminating purposes. To effect this, it is only necessary io devise some mechanical means of spinning the metal into thread; when this is attained, we shall have a light more simple and efficient than any yet used, whether electric or Lime. The illuminating power may be increased to any extent by adding to the size of the wick, the only requisites to light being the magnesian thread, a clockwork arrangement to supply ft continuously as used, and a spirit lamp. Costly as magnesium is, more economical modes of prod’ucing it will doubtless be suggested by tho demand for it. It seems
also that the magnesian light w411 bo specialty valuable in photography, since, according to Bunsen, tbe sun has only thirty-four times its photo-chemical power.
A Valuable Discovery.—The yellow-home POPPY (Chelldonium glaucium, Linn., tbe French Pavot cornu and Glaucio) forms the subject of an elaborate paper in the Annqles de Chimie by M. 8. Cloez, who strongly recommends its extensive cultivation on the unproductive lands on the seashore, especially of the departmeats of the Gironde, Landes, and Pyrenees. He gives a description of the plant, full details of the mode of cultivation, and chemical analysis of tho products. The oil extracted from the ripe grain, by pressure when cold, is inodorous and insipid, and of a clear yellow color ; its density being 0-913. After standing for some time a orystallisablo matter is separated, which presents all tho characters of margarine (tho crystalline constituent of fats). This oil may be employed in domestic economy—with food, and as a source of light; in the arts it may bo used in the manufacture of soap and the mixing of colors for painting. M. Cloez also enters into tho commercial view of the subject, which appears to be very satisfactory.
A New and Valuable Sedative.—The Journal de Chimie Medicale, published at Paris, gives an account of tho discovery of a powerful sedative. Il is nitrate of oxydo of glyeile, a substance obtained by treating glycerine at a low temperature with sulphuric acid. Oue drop mixed with 99 drops of spirits of wino constitutes tho first dilution. After various trials on animals, Dr. Field (the discoverer) at length resolved to test this new remedy on patients. Ho did so first on a lady sixty-eighttyears of age, who had long boon suffering from neuralgia, which returned at intervals of three hours, and bad resisted every remedy know, such as ammonia, assofootida, chloroform, &c. Tho fourth part of a drop of the above solution being administered, sho was al once relieved, hut some disagreeable symptoms being felt by her sho discontinued the remedy, but her sufferings soon obliged her to have recourse to it again, and she was completely cured. It has since been tried in cases of headache and dental neuralgia with equal success.
New Motive.—It is stated by the French scientific papers that M. Lenoir has conceived a now means of propulsion, of such efficacy that a speed of from twelve to fourteen knots an hour will be attainable, at no greater expenditure of material than would bo required for a ship’s galley-fire. It consists In the ignition of a mixture of from two to five per cent, of hydrogen gas with atmospheric air by tho electric spark. The expansion of the gas resulting gives motion to tho piston. Tho Emperor has commanded tho test of this discovery by qpmpctent scientific persons.
Oxygen as an Antidote to Chlobofobm has been employed by M. Ozanam, his experiments having been made upon animals so much under the influence or chlorqform that respiration had become very feeble, the boating of tho heart almost imperceptible, and death imminent. When they were submitted to the action of oxygen they speedily recovered. Ho therefore strongly recommends that a sufficient quantity of oxygen should bo placed at the disposal of tho surgeon whenever ho employs chloroform or oilier aamthetics.
A Veteban in the Field of Science.—M. Jean Baptiste Biot, now eighty-six years of age (born in 1774), and tho oldest member of the French Academy of Sciences (elected 1803), is still devoted to his favorite pursuits, having contributed to the Annates de Chimie an “ Introduction'' to “ Researches in Mechanical Chemistry,” in which polarised light is employed as a reagent by way of auxih iary. Ho experimented upon solutions of various tartrates, and on boric acid, &c., and gives tables of results.
Indigo in Perspiration—M. Bizio, a chemist of Vienna, asserts that ho has determined by analysis the presence of indigo in tho perspiration of a young man, who for eleven years had suffered much by violent pains in the body, accompanied by tremulous and muscular contractions. Eventually a bluish moisture appeared on one part of tho body, the rest remaining colorless. Tbo method of analysis is given in tho Repertoire de Chimie.
MIRTHFUL MORSELS
Out West, a competitive examination was lately held for tbe purpose of appointing til persons to some of thoStale offices. One of tho candidates inadvertently spelt tho word Venice with two n’s, thus, Vennice. Tbe examiner, a clever man, but not always a correct speaker, sternly inquired, “Do you not know, sir, that there is but one hen in Venice?” “Then eggs must be very scarce there,” was tbe ready reply. The candidate passed.
Little Alice A----------, dressed and prepared for a walk, was skipping back and forth through the entry, waiting for her motper to got ready to go out. Her little cousin said ho was going out too. “No,” said Alice, “you can’t go—you aro not dressed up.” II«r undo laughingly remarked, “That tho pride stuck out quite early.” “No,” answered Alice, “it isu’t my pride, it’s my new moreen skirt that sticks out so.”
An eccentric wealthy gentleman stuck up a board in a field upon his estato, upon which was painted tbe following: “ I will give this field to any man whois conteutod.” He soon had an applicant. “Well, sir, are yon a contented man ?” “Yes, sir, very.” “ Thon what do you want with my field?” The applicant did not stop to reply.
Mr. Theophilus Popp, of Poppville, Popp county, fancying himself to bo very popular with his lady love, “popped the question” to her under Ihe poplar tree, when she referred him to her poppy, who, when asked for Lis consent, laboring under tbo influence of ginger pop, popped him outol the door to tho tune of “ Pop goes tho weasel I”
John Smith, tbe busybody, espying a man who was digging in a large pit. and being disposed to rally him, asked him what )ie was digging. “A big hole,” was tho reply “And what aro you going to do with such a big hole?” said John “Going to make it into small holos, and retail them to you fellers to sot fence posts in.”
Said Bill to Ben, “Pray lend to mo £5; or, what is better. Just make it ten, am! I will bo eternally your debtor.” “I know you would,” said Bon, “and—ain’t it funny ?— Just for that reason you can’t have tho money.”
“ The weather has been all-fired hot out this way,” says a Southern correspondent. “ We saw a woman do her ironing with no other fuel than tbe sunshine. When we camo away sho was hanging thoketllo out of tho window to got her tea ready.”
A COMMERCIAL traveler, passing through Weston, near Bridgewater, seeing a sign over the door with this one word, “ Agorsqrdere,” ho called to tho woman to inquire what sho sold, when she said she did not sell anything, but that “Agues wore cured here.”
The following is an alarming evidence of tbe progress of the photographic art: A lady last week hail nor likeness taken by a photographist: mid he executed it so well that her husband prefers it to tho original.
A young man advertises bis desire for a wife— “pretty, and entirely ignorant of Iho factl” Evidently bo wants a fool. Any smart, pretty woman know’s ^le’s pretty—wouldn’t be smart if she didn’t.
The following is a speech by a successful competitor for tho prize at a foot-race. “ Gentlemen, I have won this cup by tho use of my logs; I trust I may never lose my legs by tho use of this cup.”
“ O, Jacob I” said a master to his apprentioe-boy. “ ft is wonderful to seo what a quantify you can eat.” * Yes, master.” replied tho boy, “ I have been practicing since 1 was a clMd.”
If you were obliged to swallow a man, whom
would you prefer to swallow ? A little Ixmdon porter.
“ You don’t pass here,” as the counter said to
the bud shilling.
“ I blush for you!” as the rouge pot said to tbe
old maid.
Human doctrines cannot cure a wound in the conscience. Tbe remedy is too weak for the disease. Conscience, like the vulture of Prometheus, will still lie gnawing, notwithstanding all that such doctrines can do.
There are some persons in the world who never permit us to love them except when they are absent, as, when they are present, they dull our affection by showing a want of appreciation of it.
Of that time which we call the present, there is not an appreciable part but belongs either to a past which has fled, or to a future which is still on the wing; it has perished, or it is not born; it was, or it is not.
W® TOM WSSKW.
NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 13, I860-
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ANOTHER GREAT STORY
Will be Commenced NEXT WEEK, BY the popular author
HARRY HAZEL,
ENTITLED
The Female Maniac Spy; The Female Maniac Spy; The Female Maniac Spy; The Female Maniac Spy; The Female Maniac Spy;
OR,
THE HEROINE OF THE BARRICADE.
A TALE OF SICILY AND THE SICILIANS,
Founded on Facts, and introducing Characters now living.
OUR NEXT NEW STORY—“THE FEMALE
MANIAC SPY.”
As will be seen by an announcement elsewhere, we next week commence the publication of a new story by the famous Harry Hazel, and we take this occasion to say that, in our estimation, it is by far the finest thing that gentleman has ever written. Apart from its merit as a literary composition, it possesses certain features which must render it immensely popular with the great mass of American readers. It is, as its title implies a tale of Sicily and the Sicilians, and it is not the Sicily of a past age, of which it treats, bat the Sicily of to-day. The characters introduced are the leading spirits, for both good and evil, who figure in the terrible scenes which are now transpiring in down-trodden, tyranny-cursed, groaning Sicily. The secrets of Bomba’s awful inquisitorial horrors are laid bare, and the transactions which have taken place in the gloomy chamber of suffering, where 'men have been subjected to the most ingenious tortures for no other crime than loving liberty, are described with a truthfulness which causes the flesh to creep. But the darker shades of the story are relieved by the more ennobling traits of humanity. The noble aspiration for freedom which neither chains nor tortures can smother—the holy, unselfish love, which rises superior to all earthly obstacles —the magnanimous acts of daring heroism—and all those qualities which make human nature lovely, are displayed in the varied and exciting scenes as the story progresses, and from the start to the finish the reader is kept in a constant state of excitement. The plot is intricate and well Worked out, and from the first line to the last the
story keeps up its interest, In “The Female Maniac Spy^ Harry Hazel well sustains his well earned reputation of the leading romancer of Ame-
rica.
TO OUR COUNTRY FRIENDS.
The circulation of the New York Weekly has now reached a figure second only to one other literary paper published in the United States, but there are doubtless tens of thousands of persons, in out of the way places, in different parts of the Union, who have never been induced to read it. Will not our country subscribers do us the favor to send us the names of such of their friends as do not subscribe for the New York Weekly, so that we may send them specimen copies. We have the most substantial proof that once seen our journal will be subscribed for, inasmuch as nine-tenths of the specimen copies which we send away secure to us permanent patrons.
TO CORRESPONDENTS.
News Agent, Jr.—Mr. Arthur’s Story, “The Mystery in the Corner House,” was written expressly for the New York Weekly, and was never before published in any shape whatever.
Mephistophiles.—The Arabian Nights Entertainments is supposed to have been written somewhere about the Eleventh Century, and its author is unknown
T. M. T.—The first American cent was issued in the year 1793
A. D. Boggs.—A belt was promised Heenan, but he has never received it.
To Whom it may Concern.—The following are received and accepted; “Angel Music”—“Dots by the Wayside”— “An Authentic Bear Story,” Poem—“So Fair the Night and Soft the Wind”—“A Saturday Night Rev ery”—“In a Country Church”—“It is Well”—“The Dying Maid’s Request”—“I’ll Hope”—“A Fragment; ’ Song—“You Say that You Love Me”—“Netty Noville” “Despair”—“Horrible Tragedy ”...,..The following are respectfully declined. “To Miss A E, T “Remembrance’’— “Time’s Changes.”
MUSCLE.
The Yankee Giant, Dr. Winship, has given to the world his system of gymnastics for the development of muscular power and the corresponding promotion of health. His rules are simply those that commend themselves to common sense. He insists on sufficient rest—not less than eight hours in twenty-four. You are not to rise early, unless you are to have had the required amount of sleep. Your diet must be mixed, such as the appetite craves, and in satisfactory quantity— never rising until your hunger is assuaged fully. Neither health nor muscular power, which are closely allied, can be long maintained on a purely vegetable diet. No ardent spirits must be used. Your exercise must be in moderation—that is, of short duration—and of a varied character. You should not indulge in gymnastic exercises more than half an hour at a time—fifteen or twenty minutes are enough. Several feats, each once performed, are much, better than one performed several times. He considers lifting the best of all exercises, but it should not be indulged in violently, and the weight should be gradually increased. The next best exercise is with the dumbbells. Your sleeping apartments should be well ventilated, and the sun should be allowed to shine into them freely. As with the body, so with the mind—it must not be over-tasked. Its exercise may be vigorous, but should not be too long continued. A sense of uprightness, and a clear conscience, are essential. With health and strength, consequent upon the equal exercise and development of the whole system, there is less liability to injuries from strains and wrenches; and the skin becomes smooth, with greatly diminished exertions—this operation being performed more by the viscera.- Bathing should not be resorted to more than twice a week in summer, and once in winter—then in the morning. All drafts of air should be avoided. The neck should be accustomed to bareness, and the dress should be warm but not excessive. In short, all the faculties should be exercised and all the natural appetites should be indulged temperately, and never to excess. -------------------------------------
A WORD WITH COUNTRY SUBSCRIBERS.
As a genc/ajl thing our country friends are a careful pains-taking class of people, but there are some of them who, in the hurry of business, are apt to leave things at loose ends. For instance, we sometimes receive letters -containing money for subscriptions, but no direction as to where the paper shall be sent. It is only a few days since we received $2 in a letter, with a request that we should send the paper to a certain town in Connecticut, but the writer neglected to send his name. Now, we are no clairvoyants, and if we were we should object to placing ourselves 11 under the influence to ascertain a subscriber’s whereabouts,” when it is so much easier for our patrons to send us the proper directions. Will our kind friends please see to it that their names, and the State, and the Post Office to which they wish the paper sent are legibly written ?
JO" We are often requested by correspondents to answer them by letter. This we should be very happy to do in all cases, if we could find the time, but as we have but very little leisure, we can hardly undertake so onerous a task.
Plowman.—Different theories have been projected by different philosophers concerning the spots on the sun, but the view of the matter taken by the eminent Sir William Herschel, is supposed to be nearest correct. Herschel’s idea is that the luminous strata of the atmosphere is sustained far above the level of the solid body by a transparent elastic medium, carrying on its upper surface (or, rather, at some considerably lower level within its depth) a cloudy stratum, which, being strongly illuminated from above, reflects a considerable portion of the light to our eyes and forms a penumbra, while the solid body shaded by the clouds reflects none The temporary removal of both the strata, but more of the upper than the lower, he supposes effected by powerful upward currents of the atmosphere, arising, perhaps, from spiracles in the body or from local agitations.....Volcanoes have, without doubt, existed in every age of the world, and probably always will exist........If we take the Bible account of the deluge as literally true, the entire earth was covered by water for a period of 150 days, but various opinions have been held concerning the matter.. That a great deluge did occur, there can be no doubt, for a marked feature in the traditions of more than,one natiAus a story nearly resembling that of Noah, and thewtemner in which he with his family escaped the flood. It has been held by many writers, however, that the deluge was merely local, extending only over the them inhabited portion of the earth. For our own part we are just “wooden-headed’’ enough to accept as truthful the Bible version of the story.
Theodore Felix.—Having never tested the merits of any of our teachers of book-keeping and writing, we are unable to say which of them you had better consult ......The difference between Douglas and Breckinridge is, that Douglas advocates the principle that the people of the territories shall be left to decide for themselves whether slavery shall be an institution among them or not, while Breckinridge holds to the principle that the government should protect slavery in the territories........The Free Academy is situated on the corner of Twenty-third street and Lexington avenue. The higher branches of a thorough English education are taught there: and it is free to all males who bavegjaduated from our public schools, and have successfully passed an examination........Your writing is not exactly what might be termed a good business hand, but might, by practice, be made so,..,... We should advise any one who contemplates settling in Iowa, to take a trip there before purchasing land. This would be the only safe method.. ...’.“The World” claims a daily circulation of 35,000.
George.—This correspondent states that at the age of fourteen he fell desperately in love with a young lady, (precocious George !) that he afterward proposed, and was accepted by her, that he is older now, and having met with another young lady who has taken his fancy, he is anxious to give his first love the cold shoulder. He states, however, that he is certain the object of his baby love will commit suicide if he deserts her, and he wishes to know what course to pursue under the circumstances. You have got yourself in a bad scrape, George, and we don’t well see how you are going to get successfully out of it. You surely would do very wrong to marry the second lady at once, when you know how fatal the consequences would be to the first one. The only advice we can give you is, to absent yourself from the city for a year or two, iu the course of which time the young lady may forget you.
J. Hodgkison.—Pekin, the celebrated capital of a great empire, stands almost in a corner of it, only forty miles from the great wall. It consists of two very distinct parts, the Chinese and the Tartar cities, of which the former is the most elegant and populous, but the latter is adorned by the imperial palace and gardens. The united city is about twelve miles in circumference, surrounded by walls, like every other in China, but those of Pekin are peculiarly lofty, and completely hide the city from those who are without. The population has been a subject of controversy. The English Embassy calculated it at 3,000,000. The Russian Embassy judged itonly double the size of Moscow, and as containing nearly as much unoccupied ground; which would infer only 600,000 or 700,000
Cathoucus.—Tertullian says that our Saviour was crucified on the 25th of March. Lactantius gives the same day. St Augustin asserts the same in at least three places. St. John Chrysostom says the same in his sermon on the nativity of St. John the Baptist, and St. Gregory of Tours the same; and Bede the same. St Thomas of Aquin, St. Antoninus, Platina, and Usuard are quoted for the same opinion by Suarez, who agrees with them. The Church seems to favor this opinion in her Martyrology, by appointing March 25th for the feast of the good thief, called St. Dismas.
“ Dandy Jim”—This correspondent propounds the following queries: “ If a lady living at a distance sends a boquet to a gentleman, should he acknowledge the receipt thereof by letter or should he wait tiL he meets her ? If a gentleman wishes to exchange cards with a lady, is he at liberty to propose it f Is it etiquette for a gentleman to send a paper to a lady without first asking her permission r When walking with two ladies is it necessary that a gentleman should walk in the middle?” We answer, 1—Unless the gentleman contemplates visiting the lady immediately, he should, in common courtesy acknowledge the receipt of the boquet by mail. 2—If the gentleman is sufficiently well acquainted with the lady, there would be no impropriety in an offer to exchange cards. 3—If they are friends, of course the gentleman may send the lady a proper paper without first consulting her 4—a gentleman, when accompanied by two ladies, should always walk between them.
L. P. C.—There is an ordinance regulating the blasting of rocks Contractors are required, under penalty of a heavy fine, to see to it that all blasts are prepared so as to not endanger life or property. If the proper precautions are not taken in your case, your proper course is to apply to the nearest magistrate and make oath to that effect, when the offending parties will be compelled to attend and undergo an examination. If they are proved culpable they will be fined under the ordinance, and you can besides sue them in a civil suitfor damages......L. T C. also sends us the following: “I can answer the inquiry of H. C. P. in the last number of the N. Y. Weekly. He can obtain a copy of Tenyson’s Poems, containing the charge of tie six hundred at Balaclava, at Appleton’s. It is published by Ticknor & Fields, Boston, and costs 75cts...P. D. E. writing in the same paper, can procure coins of all denominations of I. K. Curtis, numismatist, at 83 Bleeker st.”
Bomb Shell —The precise date when the first cannon-shot was fired in France is' still an historical problem. The learned Ducagne, in the 17th century, and M. Lacabahe, in the present one, had placed the period in 1338 and 1339. The latter afterward published documents taken from the archives of Florence in which, under date of 1326, metal cannon were spoken of, but an article published by M. Loredan Larchey restores to France the priority. From an examination of a manuscript chronicle in the library at Epinal, this last-named gentleman has established that in 1324 the inhabitants of Metz, in a sortie made by them, employed two cannon with great success in the field,
Civilis—This correspondent writes us as follows: “In yours of May 31st. No. 27, Veritas asks for the translation of the Latin phrase, Sator arepo tenet opera rotas. Will you be so kind as to give the following multiple acrostic and translation, a place in your next.
SATOR AREPO TENET OPERA ■ ROTAS
Translated, The plowman Arepo guides his plow with care.”
A Regular Subscriber.—The subscription price of the New York Weekly is $2 per year, in advance, but, for this year only, we will send both the New York Weekly and the Phunny Phellow to one address for $2. When single sets of any particular story are ordered, the charge is four cents per number. We can furnish no stories previously to “ Maggie, the Child of Charity.” We began the system of elecrotyping our forms with that story.
LIBERAL FEELING IN ENGLAND.
One of the most significant manifestations of popular feeling, that we have lately heard of, took place in London, at the banquet given by the American citizens in celebrating the Anniversary of American Independence. Republican and Royal flags and portraits were mingled together in the most loving social intimacy, and speeches and toasts complimentary to two nations were freely exchanged, much to the gratification of the vanity of both sides, when Mr. Dallas incidentally made mention of the name of Garibaldi. At this point, says Charles Mackay’s paper, the London Review,11 the pent-up enthusiasm of the meeting feund vent and was led on to convivial rebellion by one of the party. The chairman was overridden, the stout, perspiring toast-master, with his roll of paper, was dethroned, the whole of the company started upon their legs, many leaped upon chairs, glasses were waved about over heads, the experienced and not easily excited waiters looked on in amazement, ^nd the very vigorous brass band in attendance was out done for once, as three deafening cheers, with ‘ three times three,’ and ‘one additional,’ were given for a great patriot. The meeting, from this point, became almost devoted to Garibaldi and his doings.” There is no mistake but what the hearts of the people of England beat in unison with the idea of liberal institutions.
------------------------ “ THE EMPIRE IS PEACE ”
Napoleon III. has written for public use, a confidential letter to his Minister, Persigny, on the European questions of the day, with especial reference to quieting the apprehensions of England. He talks like a book or a bird—with a tongue as honeyed and persuasive as that of a syren. To use a homely phrase, “ butter wwldn’t melt in his mouth.” He means peace, and he never meant anything but peace, even when engaged on the battle-field ; and especially did he mean peace by annexing Savoy, which is essentially French territory. But, above all would he have England believe that he wishes to live on the most amicable terms with her. He denies that either his army or navy are unusually large. He says they are not as large as those of Louis Philippe’s reign, nor so large that they ought to cause apprehension. Lord Palmerston, he thinks, knows him so well that he will believe what he says; and what Lord Palmerston believes, of course the English people ought to believe. But. will they ? Unfortunately for England, she remembers the first Napoleon, and she has read of the third Napoleon’s oath to sustain the Republic, which he didn’t do. They know, too, a little of his dreams of universal empire ; and we are afraid they will still continue apprehensive.
MRS. HOLMES’ NEW STORY.
Again is Mrs. Holmes ready with one of her inimitable stories for the New York Weekly. She is one of the most industrious and indefatigable writers of the day, as well as one of the most charming. Ever active are her brain and heart in giving pleasant form to sweet thoughts and wholesome truths. As one of the teachers of the age, she chooses the popular serial as the medium of instruction—and a very wide and useful field does it comprehend—one that is daily widening and growing more beautiful and inviting. Her new story will soon appear in our columns, where it cannot fail of commanding very general interest and a circulation much larger than - an^of her former efforts.
A fortune won in a day is lost in a day; a fortune won slowly, and slowly compacted, seems to acquire from the hand that won it the property of endurance.
THE FALSE AND THE TRUE.
An illustration of the difference with which the world regards virtue and title may be seen in the reception of two distinguished English citizens by the American people. The Prince of Wales, simply because he is a prince, is received with pomp and pageant, by old and young, and newspaper reporters are sent on hie track'to record every word and movement that can be turned in his favor. Lady Franklin, whose has shown a devotedness and constancy worthy to be imitated by every wife in the land, comes among us, and nobody seems conscious of her presence. A short newspaper announcement of her arrival, scarcely noticed by any one, is all the evidence of approbation or respect that comes before the public. But she does not need, nor do we believe she would be willing to receive, one of those empty ovations. She knows that the heart s of all the good and the true throb in unison with her own, and that is sufficient for her. She wants to be made the subject of no hollow formalities, which of themselves are nothing, but are sometimes made to stand for what those who indulge in them are conscious of lacking. Blessed are they who are overlooked by the pharisees and hypocrites, for they have the substance which giveth joy and life everlasting.
GOVERNMENT MONOPOLY.
Private letter-cariiers have stepped quietly aside, in this city, and left all the business to Uncle Sam. But there is no denying that it takes letters longer to reach their destination now than it did before. In Philadelphia, the question is to be legally contested. It is the opinion of good lawyers that a man has a right to carry on any honest business, whether it interferes with Uncle Sam or not. He is no more entitled to a monopoly than anybody else ; and if he can’t do the letter-carrying as satisfactorily as private individuals, then he should clear the tracks. That is our opinion, and we believe it will ultimately be sustained by the people.
GONE.
The Great Eastern has gone. Her visit to America must be recorded as a total and most melancholly failure, which we belive is mainly attributable to mismanagement. Disappointment and dissatisfaction are written on every movement she made. If those having charge of her desired to ruin her, they seem to have pursued the best possible course to do it. It would have been easy to have carried popular enthusiasm in her favor. As it is, she is as morally dead as her worst enemy could wish.
KNOWLEDGE NOT NECESSARILY POWER,
That knowledge is not wisdom is abundantly demonstrated every day of our lives. Were knowledge is venturesome and hair-brained, where wisdom is cautious and reserved, knowledge is not always power—it is often a weakness that ends in destruction, where wisdom harmonizes £nd preserves, and, if not absolutely strength, supplies the place and attains the results of strength. He is strong who knows his own weakness and has the wisdom to not unnecessarily expose himself; whereas he who is conscious of strength and though lack of wisdom runs dangerous hazards, is in effect really weak, and not un-frequently perishes through his weakness. Not long since, four persons were drowned in one day along the Jersey, coast while bathing, and they were all good swimmers. Presuming on that fact, they made hazardous ventures, and were lost. Their knowledges of the art of swimming was the weakness that cost them their lives. We have no doubt that the records of death by drowning would show that nine-tenths of the victims were good swimmers. Most of calamities of life result fron similar presumptions and unnecessary exposurefc,
------------------------- THE PLACE.
W -a Ash to call the attention of all who are in n> of paper of any kind, to the paper ware-hou^e of John Priestley, at No. 120 Nassau street, this city. His stock is large, varied and select, and his prices and terms are reasonable. The location, too, is convenient, not only for the New I* yds newspaper, book and job printers, but for th A from other sections of the Union, who are visiting the city. It is near the down-town hotels, and in the vicinity of all the type-foundries —in fact, in as handy a place as it could be for the accommodation of those doing business in the printing line generally. Further, all will find Mr. Priestley affable, gentlemanly and accommodating-one of those men with whom it is pleasant to do business. Those who give him a call, will find it to their gain ; those who do not, will lose what they would much regret, if they knew it
LETTER FROM MRS. MARY J. HOLMES.
Union Hall, Saratoga,. Aug. 15,1860.
Editors of the New Ytrk Weekly :
Dear Sies—
If my memory serves me correctly I promised you in my letter from the Mountain House to write again from this place, provided I found any thing worth mentioning, consequently these few lines, sketched hastily, and at stolen intervals, will prove to you that I have found something. Of course I have, for does not Saratoga at this season represent the entire world, or at least that pertion of it known as the United States ?
Every body is here, and one week ago I came also. It was with feelings of genuine regret, however, that I left the Mountain House, and even now I frequently find my thoughts turning backward to that spot as the one of all other's where I could be perfectly happy. At Catskill we took the boat “Armenia” to Albany, but I did not enjoy the ride much, as it was uncomfortably warm in the cabin, while sitting upon the deck made me sick, and I was glad to exchange the boat for the cars, even if we did take the wrong train. One of our party made a mistake in delivering up our checks, and instead of going to East Troy as was our intention, we suddenly found ourselves landed in the.middle of the street in West Troy, our baggage scattered about promiscuously, and ourselves looking forlorn and woebegone. At last a little good natured looking boy came, or rather fifty cents brought him to our aid, and as fast as his bare feet could take him, he started in quest of carriages to transport ourselves, our goods and chattels, to the Troy House on the opposite side of the river. After what seemed to us (nervous women) an age, he returned with a singlebuggy, as the result of his efforts 1 Just think of it. One buggy for twelve individuals and eighteen trunhs. No wond er that Dick groaned, while Harris began in a melancholy way to hum the air of “Home, Sweet home.”
Walking was the only alternative, and with the crestfallen boy for a guide, we took up our line of march for the ferry boat, and then, when safely landed on the other side,—not of Jordan, but or the Hudson,—we pursued our weary way through street after street as fagged and jaded a set as ever started for Saratoga. As we passed the sign of Blank, Blank & Co,, wholesale dealers in dry goods, I involuntarily drew my vail closer over my face, mentally hoping Charlie wouldn’t spy us until my hands were washed, my hair combed, and myself in a better humor, but Brockport on our trunks betrayed us, and in dismay I heard my name just as I was stepping inside the hotel. He, however, smoothed my ruffled spirits by saying that he was attracted to the door “by the sight of so many good looking ladies, ’’ &c. A few words of pleasant greeting, and passed on to the parlor, whither the rest of the party had preceded me.
The next day found us at Union Hall, snugly stowed away up three flights of stairs, with a look out upon sundry barns, out-buildings, and a garden, overgrown with weeds. Ourrooms are much larger and far more comfortable than I had expected to find them. Indeed, I can turn round twice, besides keeping my thing scattered all over the floor in delightful confusion, my usual style. Added to this we have the best natured chambermaid in the world, and should your wives or your readers’ wives contemplate a few days sojourn at Union Hall, tell them to ask for “Mary, fourth floor, Ainsworth Block,” and they will be sure of good attention. Never had my whims humored so entirely as she humors them, in my life; and though I have occupied three different rooms, moving from a back to a front one day, and from a front to a back the next, she says never a word, but laughingly gathers up books, papers, dresses, shawls, flats, umbrellas, curling stick and fans, and arranges them in their new quarters with the consolatory remark, “When you move again to-morrow, I’d go lower down the hall, where the air is purer!” Isn’t she a jewel ?
You see I am discussing firstly the things which add to one’s comfort, and next in order to rooms and chamber maid comes the dining-hall, or rather the eatables contained therein. Before we arrived here, we heard that the bill of fare was doubtful. but either we are blessed with splendid appetites, or else rumor for once spake unadvisedly, for certainly there is an abundance' of good things to be had for the asking. The waiters, too, are attentive, and the one I claim as myown exclusive property, particularly so. He is a fine specimen of an African, even if he did let me sit down in a buttered chair)
By the way, I must tell you of an amusing adventure which occurred when I had been here a day or so. The dining-hall, as you perhaps know, is 200feet in length, and as my seat then was at the upper end, it required nd little self possession, I assure you, t j brave the criticising glances of nearly 1000 pair of eyes. How well I acquitted myself at first I cannot tell, but there came a time when I began to feel somewhat at home, and with a kind of don't-care air I sailed up the room, spread ■ out my white morning gown to its widest extent, and gat down notin my chair, mind you—hut on the floor I
Wasn’t I indignant, and didn’t I try with one look to annihilate the careless darky, who, asking a thousand pardons, preserved the utmost gravity until he- passed into an adjoining room, where even above the clatter of knives and forks, I know I heard his loud guffaw as he related my mishap to his delighted audience. I don’t sit up there now, and I manage my own chair, too.
Saratoga is full, and .the hotels a perfectjam. ’Fla said that a thousand people left yesterday, while six hundred fresh ones took their place, but not one of the four hundred went from Union Hall, I am sure, or if they did, we do not miss them. I was never so crowded in my life. It is like attending a dinner party every day, and a full-dress party every night. On the whole I like it, though—like to watch the different expressions on people’s faces—like to hear what they say—like to catch a word or two of some domestic jar, and see the same pair an hour later, when they have made up. Everybody is here—the true, the false—the refined, the unrefined ; the rich, the poor; the snob, the vulgar, the would le's If they could, and the could-be' 8 if they would; and such a gossippy place! I never saw anything like it. Just imagine five hundred ladies congregated together on a rainy day in two parlors, and you will have some faint idea of the amount of “talking about each other,” which they can do. Nobody pretends to believe what they hear, but it answers quite as well for repetition to y our nearest neighbor.- One man is reported to be the President of some railroad. Another is amazed to hear that he is a millionaire, or has parted from his wife, or wants to, or something equally bad. One woman keeps a fancy store In New York, and is passing herself off for somebody. Another isn’t what she pre -tends to be at all—for instance, one good old soul declares that I arn “not Mary J. Holmes, who wrote the “English Waiters,” I am Miss -—-, who visits her daughter. Needn’t tell her— guesses she knows.”
Poor old lady, I tried to be gracious to her once, but she wouldn’t let me, because I was sailing under false colors.
The great attraction of this house, for a few days past, has been Mademoiselle Patti and her mustached troupe. Fortunately her room was near mine so that I had the benefit of her rehearsal, and was not obliged to attend her concert. Howl pitied her that shockingly hot afternoon, warbling and trilling with the August sun pouring in at her window. She has a bright, happy face, and during her stay created quite a sensation among the young gentlemen.
Millard Fillmore is stopping at the States; also Madam Le Vert Both were present at the ball given in this house last evening. For further particulars of said ball see New York Illustrated News, which I believe is to contain an illustrated account ot the whole affair. I have no idea that either myself or my party will be represented, but should you by chance spy a group consisting of one gentleman with half a dozen ladies, each striving frantically for an arm, you may know it is a part of the * Brockport party, as they looked when “ enjoying them-selv«Si’ at midnight in Saratoga. You see, my husband don’t believe in dancing, never having taken lessons in that accomplishment, save once, some years ago, when some of his school companions tried to initiate him into its mysteries by teaching him the ten steps out in a barn, so he spent the eveningin reading “ Nemesis,” and when at ®ne o’clock, A.M., I climbed the three weary flights of stairs and rather disconsolately lighted my tallow candle, I feund him fast asleep. Sensible man, wasn't he ?
Oh, how tired I am this morning, and how I wish I could steal away to some quiet nook where I should feel that I was all alone; but it is impossible to shut out the busy hum, and sympathizing with a lady here who declares she won’t pay two and one half dollarsa day and then not see the fun, I miagle in the crowd and gather occasionally an idea which may hereafter be of service to me.
I never saw so many titled gentlemen. Indeed, it seems as if every third man is, or has been, er wants to be, either Governor, Senator, Congressman, or Judge, and there are so many of them spinning around in my brain that I am positively light-headed, and begin at times to believe the old lady right when she says I am somebody else !
I have managed to read “ Rutledge” since I came here, and although rather late in the day, have commenced “Buelah.” “ Rutledge” I like much. It is well written, and has running through it a vein of quiet humor which always adds to the life and interest of a story. It is certainly original in one respect, the name of the heroine is not given from beginning to end. Of “Beulah” I am not yet prepared to give an opinion, neither would it matter, for the world, I believe, has generally decided in its favor.
Saxe was here a few days after my arrival. I did not make his acquaintance, however^ neither had I any desire so to do, after hearing how contemptuously he spoke of lady writers, saying, as I was told, that Miss Bronte was the only woman who had ever written a live book. Possibly, though, he was not more than half in earnest. He certainly does not look as if he were addicted to saying harsh things of the ladies.
On Saturday we leave here for Now England, and my next letter will bring with it an odor of Brookfield’s shady woodland’s, grassy hillsides, pleasant valleys and running brooks.
Until that time, adieu, M. J. Holmes.
Never Neglect Your Fire-Places;—Much of the cheerfulness of life depends upon the fireplace. What makes a fire so pleasant is, that it is a live thing in a dead room.
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[written for the new tore weekly.]
A VISION
BY D. C.
know, from your face, that it has given you, as I said it would, the heart ache.

While sitting alone by my window, Oue h ioht in the fall of the year-One night when the branches were sere—
And thinking, as oftentimes men do, When wishing some dear.one were near;
The stars, in their myriad splendor, Were spreading soft lustre around Heaven’s brow to its uttermost bound;
And a halo, liquescent and tender,.
Encircled with beauty profound The earth, and a crystaline light
Illumed the realms of night.
The'day and its labors were ended;
Its turmoil and troubles were o’er—
Its struggles and trials were o’er—
And a nebulous quiet extended From the present away to the shore
Of the Past, and on pinions of fancy
I soared thro’ vast regions of air-Through regions exquisitely fair-Produced oy the mind’s necromancy, When weary of heart-searing care;
When the memory, weary at last, Of the present flies back to the past.
I stood on the bank of a river
That peacefully flowed on its way— That sparkled and flowed on its way-Through a valley of roses, where never
A cloud came to darken the day.
A vale, where the spirit of gladness
Was wafted op every breeze
That roamed thro’ the whispering trees; Where the soft breathing echoes of sadness
Ne’er pause as they pass on the breeze; Where the stillness, so deeply profound, Knew not even the pulse of a sound!
While I stood by the river, a form Appeared on the opposite shore, And beckoned my soul to come o’er.
’’’hen my heart-pulse beat eager and warm, But the river flowed on as before.
And I said, “She’s more lovely than Venus: See! she beckons my soul to quit this Dull place for a region of bliss!”
But the river still flowed on between us, And the coquetting beams stooped to kiss
Its waves,,as if mocking my soul;
Yes, mocking and taunting my soul!
Then over the waters come stealing
A soft strain, transportingly sweet— To my sad sense deliciously sweet;
Such as seraphic choristers, kneeling, Pour forth at the Throne of the Great.
Its cadences floated around me;
Like incense it filled all the air—
Its echoes were borne on the air;
Like a wand of enchantment it bound me In ravishing ecstacy there.
E’en the roses that flowered the plain, Op’d their petals to drink in the strain.
While I thus stood enraptured, the vision, Enveloped in raiments of light.
Like a meteor fled from my sight;
And the stars twinkled down in derision, As I woke and gazed out on the night.
The tremulous moonbeams were streaming O’er valley, and river,and hill, And the air was as balmy and still
As it was e’er my beauty-gem’d dreaming Transported my languishing will!
Thus I sat in the moon’s quiv’ring beam, But no vestige remained of my dream.
Then, my wandering senses returning, I pondered on what I had seen—
On the beautiful vision I’d seen;
And I knew, by my spirit’s sad yearning, And the throbbing that coursed thro’ my brain, That ’twas Alice! my sweet sainted Alice!
The golden-haired maiden of yore;
The pure-hearted beauty, before
Whose shrine I oft knelt ere the chalice
Of bitterness seared my heart’s core.
Yes! I knew ’twas the Alice of truth, Who died in her love and her youth!
[WRITTEN FOR THE NEW YORK WEEKLY.]
LOVE
THE
AND PRIDE
OR, WHITE DOMINO.

BY
MAUD IRVING.
“ Are you going to the masquerade to-morrow evening ?” inquired Bell Harriss of May Winters, as the two young girls sat by the open window of the boudoir of the latter.
“ I do not know. I hardly like the idea of covering my face with a mask, and enveloping my figure in the anything but graceful figure of a domino, subjecting myself to the ordeal of dancing or conversing with one whose features are hid from view—perhaps a perfect stranger,” replied May.
“ Oh, you must attend ; Mrs. Gray has decorated her parlors elegantly for the occasion, and is determined that this shall be one of the most brilliant affairs ever given in this quiet little village. A number of guests from the city are invited, among them a young gentleman lately returned from Europe, a Mr. Manley, and you must not fail to be present. I think a masquerade is charming; the mystery that seems to hover around the partner of the dance is so romantic.” So earnest was Bell, that she did not notice how May started, and suddenly turned pale as she mentioned the name of Mr. Manley—it was well she did not, and May’s voice was slightly tremulous as she replied,
“ It may be charming to one unaccustomed to such affairs, but you must remember, dear Bell, that the winter I spent in Washington led me to become disgusted with all these frivolities of fashionable life, and it was to escape from them that I came to pass a year at this secluded village, hoping to find here the quiet and rest I sought; but it seems the gaieties I would have eluded, have followed me to this spot. Besides, I fear my guardian would be displeased if I were to attend such a gathering; he is very particular, and considers masquerades rather too promiscuous a gathering for me to attend.”
“ Oh, he won’t know it, unless you tell him: and if he does be won’t care, just this once, and Mrs. Gray is so anxious to be honored by the attendance of Miss Winters, the heiress and Washington belle, that it would be a shame to disappoint her. Now do promise me that you will go,” and the impulsive girl threw her arms around the neck of May Winters, and imprinted’ a kiss upon her fair brow.
“I cannot promise, but if I conclude to attend you will know me, dear Bell, for I shall wear a white domino and mask.”
“ What a strange girl you are, May; who ever heard of such a thing as wearing a white domino. It seems to mo as if you tried to be as unlike other people as possible, I shall hide myself beneath a mask and domino of brilliant scarlet- but it js nearly twilight, and I must hasten home ” with a kiss and fond embrace the young girls partg After the departure of Bell, May sat for a long
time wrapt in dreamy meditation, at length she said:
“ Guests from the city, and Howard among the number invited, he may attend; yes, I will go, and the meeting I have long wished for, may at last take place. I would I could, forever, banish his image from my heart, for it may be he has learned to despise me; and it is no more than I deserve,” with these words she left the apartment, and descended to the parlor below.
A few words relative to the past life of May Winters may not, at this time, be considered out of place.
Years ago, when May was a little girl, and her parents lived in luxury and elegance in the gay metropolis, her father took to his home a poor orphan boy, Howard Manley, and educated him as his own son. *
Howard and May soon learned to love one another as brother and sister, and were almost continually together ; but when May reached her fifteenth year she was sent away from home, to a distant boarding-school, here she was taught all the hollow sophistry of the world, and ere two years had passed away, she was suddenly summoned home to attend the funeral of her father and mother, who had fallen victims to an epidemic that, at that time, raged in the city.
When May and Howard met after a seperation of nearly two years, both were changed—the youth of nineteen had grown to be a handsome, well developed man ; but he retained all the good qualities of his youth, and May, the artless child of fifteen, was now the proud and overbearing coquette of seventeen.
An uncle was appointed the guardian of May, and for two years she lived a secluded life in his elegant dwelling. He was a widower, and childless. During these two years of seclusion, Howard bad been absent on a European tour, but returned in time to attend the grand reception at the residence of Mr. Winters, on the evening May was ushered into society.
He soon realized that the beautiful Miss Winters was little like the simple, trusting May of former days, still he loved her—not with the brotherly affection of his youth, but with a deep, ’ a true devotion.
May was not slow to discover ‘his secret, for he told his love in his every look and action, and she spurned him from her. How could she, the high-born, flattered child of wealth be expected to encourage the attentions of one who owed his present position to the bounty of her father. But Howard Manley was the possessor of a superior mind, and he sought not to thrust his attentions upon one who deemed him unworthy of her notice. He left her side, and sought in foreign lands to forget that he ever loved one so unworthy of his slightest thought.
May Winters was by no means heartless—she was the possessor of a warm and trusting heart— but Pride, that cruel monster, governed her every action. Her heart was his ! but she dared not confess the fact, even to herself; and, for a long time endeavored to convince herself that she felt no interest in Howard, but all in vain.
Deeper and deeper May Winter plunged into the whirlpool of fashionable dissipation, seeking to crush out from her heart the love she felt for Howard. In every gay, festive scene May Win-' ter was the most brilliant of all. The admired and courted ball-room belle, a circle of brainless fops, fortune hunters, and dashing libertines ever surrounded her, and filled her ears with silly compliments and disgusting flattery ; but was she happy 1 Ob, gentle reader, that is a question! No, no ! May Winters was not happy. She felt the inferiority of those who surrounded her; she was disgusted with the hollowness and frivolity of the fashionable world, and longed to be free from the chains society bound around her, she longed for the love of one she deemed forever lost
to hcq
At length she determined to leave those scenes
of gaiety, and seek rest and retirement in some quiet village. Hence we find her at the little village of T----, on the noble Hudson.
After mature deliberatiop, May concluded to attend the masquerade. She hoped to meet Howard there; she longed to convince him, by her altered conduct, that she despised him not; that she regretted the folly of, her past conduct; and to win back the love she bad once so cruelly spurned from her.
Never did May Winters look more bewitching than on the evening of the masquerade, as she stood before her mirror, attired in full evening costume.
A blush colored satin enveloped her graceful figure, over which floated a beautiful white lace over-dress, looped up at the side with bunches of pale pink rose buds; a cluster of the same drooped from her bosom, and a few were tastefully arranged amid the braids of her hair. She wore no jewels, Eave a diamond ring upon the middle finger of her right band. Taking her domino, which was thrown over the back of a chair, she entirely concealed her dress beneath its ample folds of rich white satin—a mask of the same material she tied over her face, concealing it entirely from view, and when the hood attached to the domino was properly adjusted, her most intimate friends would have failed to recognize her.
When she arrived at the residence of Mrs. Gray, the parlors were already well filled. During the early part of the evening, as she moved with grace among the dancers, many eyes followed her, wondering who she was, but no one, save Bell Harris knew.
After dancing until she became wearied and heated, she sought the conservatory, and seating herself upon a rustic bench, she watched the dancers through the glass doors that seperated the two rooms. She leaned forward for a moment to catch a glimpse of a form she thought she recognized, and doing so she dropped her kerchief, which was immediately picked up by a gentleman in red mask and black domino. ‘
“ Lady, pardon me, but you dropped your kerchief,” be said, handing it to her with a low and graceful inclination of his head.
She started, and with trembling voice murmured her thanks. She recognized the voice of the speaker—it was Howard. He seemed not inclined to leave the spot, aud continued—
“ In an assemblage of this kind, where one is unable to distinguish friend from s!ranger, I believe it is customary to address whosoever we please, independent of the formality of an introduction.”
“I believe that is the privilege of the gentlemen, but I attend masquerades seldom, and am but little versed in the rules. I dislike such gatherings very much.”
“ So do I, and was induced to attend this evening, by the earnest solicitations of a friend, but a few moments since I stood watching the dancers, and I thought you seemed to enjoy the scene amazingly.” .
“ You should never judge by appearances— they often deceive. I did not enjoy the dance this evening. I dislike the frivolities that are attendant upon fashionable life. I came to this quiet village a few months since to escape from society ; to seek that quiet and rest, that I could not obtain in the city ; to-night is the first time for many months that I have mingled in a scene of this kind.”
“ Indeed! but pardon me, your voice reminds me of one that was once dear to me, may I inquire your name ?”
“ Howard,” and she tore the mask from her face, and turned her eyes, filled with tears pleadingly upon him, he comprehended all—at a glance—and said, in a gentle, almost loving tone,
“ May, dear May, you seem now like the May of long ago,” and be folded her unresisting form to his beating heart. For a long time they remained together conversing of the past, aud—yes, gentle reader—of the future. May confessed her folly, and also told him how truly she had loved him.
That night May Winters returned to her home a happy woman. She bad confessed her folly and had been forgiven; she bad promised to become the wife of him she lov^d. .
A few weeks glided swiftly by, and Howard and May were married. In yonder stately mansion they now live, surrounded by every elegance and comfort that love and wealth can furnish.
Maidens, beware bow you let pride overrule the dictates of your heart, or you may fill your life-sky with clouds, where sunbeams might otherwise play.
Entered according to Act of Congress by Street & Smith, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York
IN THE
CORNER HOUSE
B Y T. S. ARTHUR.
[Back Numbers of “ The Mystery in the Comer House” can be obtained from every News Agent throughout the United States.]
■ CHAPTER XX.
mrs. oongreve’s story concluded.
I knew nothing of what immediately followed. When thought took up the thread of conciousness again, I was in a strange room, lying upon a bed. I believed myself alone, at first; but, in the dim light of the chamber, soon saw Aunt Mary sitting by a table engaged in writing. I observed her for some minutes in silence ; and then made a slight noise to attract attention. She left the table at once and came to the bed-side.
“Can I get anything for you?” she asked. I did not observe any surprise in her manner at seeing me awake. The impression on my mind was that of a person just aroused from sleep.
“ Nothing,” I answered. I now saw that she began to look at me a little more curiously.
Again I surveyed the room, trying to make out some familiar article ; but was unsuccessful.
“ Where am I, Aunt Mary ?” I arose and leaned on my arm.
She put her band on nje quickly, and showed some excitement of manner.
“ Lie down; dear. You have been ill, and are very weak.”
It needed not her words to signify that I was but a child in strength, for the slight effort of rising up caused a faintness to come over me, and I sank back on the pillow. After lying, with closed eyes, for a few moments, still retaining clear co"-sciousness, I repeated my question,
“ Where am I, Aunt Mary ?”
“ You must not press that question now, dear. When you are stronger, I will answer.”
I was not, of course, satisfied with this reply. But I felt too weak to press the matter; and closing my eyes again, tried to think back to the last incidents that were impressed on my memory. It was not long before that never-io-be-forgotten appearance of Edgar Holman, was recalled in all its startling particulars. His arraignment of my busband, and distinct recitation of circumstances by which bis own innocence was attested, and the guilty complicity of my husband affirmed, were all before me. I remembered every em-
of returning consciousness, 1 lifted my heart, and thanked God that it was sc.
“ We are not in M----------?” s dd I.
My voice was calmer than my feelings.
“ No dear; but you must not talk now.” Aunt Mary laid her fingers on my lips ; but I pressed them gently aside, and put the question,
“ Where is Mr. Congreve ?”
“ Here,” was answered.
“ And Edgar ?”
“I do not know, Edith.” Her countenance began to grow anxious and troubled.
“ What happened, Aunt Mary, after—after—?” I could not say what was in my thoughts but she understood me.
“ You must wait until another time—until you are stronger, Edith.”
I still questioned, but she would not answer explicitly. While we yet talked, the door opened, and Mr. Congreve came in. I gave a short cry of repulsion, and covered my face with the bed clothes. The very sight of him filled me with fear and hatred. He came to the bedside, and after saying a few words, that I did not bear, to Aunt Mary, went out.
“ Has he gone ?” I asked, uncovering my face.
“ Yes,” she replied.
“ Don’t let him come in here again, I can’t bear it.” My manner was disturbed.
Aunt Mary only sighed. I continued.
“ Tell him, will you, that I hate him.”
She laid her fingers over my mouth, but I pushed them off. I was growing more and more excited every instant.
“I bate and loathe him!” I flung out the words with all the emphasis my weak state permitted. “ He is not my husband ; but a fiend who thrust himself in between me and the man to whom my heart was, is, and will be forever married.”
I had risen up, in the wild passion of the moment ; but the strong fire burnt itself out quickly, like flame in a gauzy scarf, and I fell back again into unconsciousness.
I did not ask, when thought and feeling returned, how long I had remained in happy oblivion. I was in the same apartment, with Aunt Mary. Florry sat on the floor, playing with some toy's, and singing to herself in a sweet, low voice, that came pleasantly to my ears. She looked strangely matured; and I could hardly credit my eyes, when she got up from the floor, and v alking firmly across the room Io Aunt Mary, asked her a question in a voice that articulated each word distinctly. At this moment, the door was quietly opened, and before I saw who bad come in, Florry clapped her little hands and uttered the word “ Papa!” Mr. Congreve then stepped into full view. It seemed as if a horrid demon had come into my presence; and as he reached out his hands to take my child, I gave a shriek of involuntary terror. Mr. Congreve started, and putting Florry down hastily, came toward the bed ; but I lifted my bands and cried out—
“ Keep off? Don’t touch me!” In such a mad way, that he stopped at some paces distant, turned about, and left the room.
I was trembling all over when Aunt Mary reached me. She drew her arm around my neck, and bent over me with a band on my cheek, which she moved in the caressing way that a grieving child is sometimes quieted. Florry, who had been frightened by my sudden scream, now came clambering on to the bed, and nestling close against me. How her little hands, as they touched my neck and bosom, sent electric thrills to my heart!
“ Is this Florry ?” I said, as her lips came sealing themselves upon mine, and her golden curls covered my face.
“Yes, ma’am, I’m your Florry!”
What did all this mean ? I thought, for I bad
never beard that voice, in clearly spoken words, before ; I could not make it out.
Exhausted by the wild passion into which I had been thrown, I found myself so weak that I could only lie still, with shut eyes, and think feebly. Florry’s head was close beside mine on the same pillow, and her hands in my bosom. Aunt Mary tried to remove her, but I drew my arm and held her to her place.
As 1 lay there, all the desolate heart-ach’ng past came out of the darkness, and spread itself ♦before me, even to that maddening revelation which fell from the lips of Edgar Holman. From that period, though many months had passed, all was a blank.
I did not, then, say anything to Aunt Mary, thought a few questions were revolving in my thoughts and restless for solution. I resolved to wait for a little while—to try and be calm, until more strength was received. I kept this resolution for an hour, perhaps, when I could no longer repress a single query.
“ You must give me a direct answer to one question,” I said.
“What is it?” Aunt Mary raised a finger to her lips as she spoke.
“ Has any harm come to Edgar ?”
The answer was unequivocal—“No.”
That was a great relief. I closed and lay for some minutes.
“ Where is he ?” was my next inquiry.
“ I do not know.”
“ Have you seen him since that day ?”
“No.”
“ Nor beard of him ?”
She put her finger on my lips and said,
“ You asked for one direct answer, and I have given you three. I must keep you to your own stipulation; or, rather, from exceeding it any farther.
I shut my eyes again with a sense of relief. No harm had come to Edgar. “ Thank God !” I said in my heart, fervently. There was hope in the world yet; I would live for him.
“Aunt Mary, one thing more.”
She shook her bead.
“ If you desire for me life and reason keep that man away from my presence. The sight of him fills me with anguish and hatred. If I bad the strength I would flee from him to the uttermost parts of the earth.”
Aunt Mary regarded me with a sad countenance, but made no repiy. She left me alone with Florry, a little while afterward, and remained away from the room for nearly a quarter of an hour. I heard, now and then, the murmur of voices in a distant room, and guessed that Aunt Mary was using her influence with Mr. Congreve, to keep him, at least for a time, away from my presence. She was successful. I did not see him again while I remained in that room.
Gradually, strength began to return. In a week, I was able to sit up in a chair for half an hour at a time, once or twice during the day. Then I was able to get to the window and look out—a thing I bad greatly desired. Aunt Mary bad informed me that we were in Pittsburgh, whither we had come on our way eastward. I bad no recollection of the journey.
In three or four weeks, I was strong enough to ride out. I felt desirous to recover my strength, and willingly accepted the means that were offered. There was a new and precious hope in my heart—it is there still, an undying thing—the hope of meeting Edgar ; of meeting him and being united. For this, I consented to live. Without it, I would have died long ago.
“I think,” said Aunt Mary one day, “that you are now well enough to resume the journey your illness required me to suspend.”
I made no objection. The only concern I had was the fear of meeting Mr. Congreve during the journey, or on its termination. That be was not
tar distant I had many evidence. I did not see
him, however, during the long ride to thfs cfty. •'Can he not remove her byfbrce ?”
The house at the corner, to which we were
brought, had been furnished, and there were servants ready to receive us. It was, I understood, to be our future home. A day or two passed without the appearance of Mr. Congreve, when, as I stood at the windows, looking into the street, I saw a carriage stop at the door. He had arrived 1 I ran up stairs to my room, and locked myself in, all trembling with excitement. After awhile, Aunt Mary came and asked to be admitted. She brought a message from Mr. Congreve, who desired to see me ; but I refused him in the most positive manner.
“Remember,” she said, in her remonstrance, “that this is your husband’s house.”
“He is not my husband!” I cried back, half madly. “ I reject the relation ’. That marriage was a fraud!”
“Don’t speak in this way, my child,” replied Aunt Mary. “It is sinful.”
“The sin rests with him, not me,” I answered, resolutely.
“You must see him, Edith. He is in earnest, and will- take no denial.”
“I will not see him !” My heart was growing strong within me. “Tell him that I hate him ; and that if he approach me, I will flee from him as from my worst enemy.”
Aunt Mary might as well have talked to me as to the wind.
All day I remained in my room alone with Florry. She asked, many times, that I would let her go and see her papa. But, I would not consent. Twice, during the afternoon, he came to the door, and demanded that I should open it. But, only the room’s dead silence echoed his demands. I did not let even a whisper escape my lips; while, with a raised finger and look of authority, I kept my child voiceless, though tears ran over her scared face.
At last, he made an attempt to force the door, and succeeded. But as he entered, I, losing all thought but that of escaping his detested presence, caught Florry in my arms, and made for the open window. He seized my garments in time to prevent me from throwing myself and child headlong to the pavement. You saw my little one in convulsions that evening, and now know the cause!
Since that time Mr. Congreve has steadily persisted in attempts to bend mo to his will; but he might as well attempt to bend an iron girder. He has cursed my life, and that of one who is dearer to me than life. Have I not reason to loath him, and to hate him? I have; and I do so loath and hate him, that his presence either suffocates or maddens me.
He is hiding himself here at the East from the sure retribution that is on his track. The plea of business is only a subterfuge. Edgar, if living, will never give up the pursuit. How long his coming is delayed! The wonder to me is that Mr. Congreve has not already been arrested for the crime that blackens his soul. I fear that he has compassed, in some way, the death of Edgar Holman. Sometimos this idea gets possession of me so strongly that I lose myself. I could not live, if I were certain that he were dead. If I knew where he was, I would go to him. I have said so to Aunt Mary ever and over again, and I will keep my word if ever that knowledge comes.
Mr. Congreve came back yesterday, after a longer absence than usunl. I had begun to hope that he would never return. When he came under the roof that covered me, I passed from beneath its shelter, and I will not go under it again while he is there. Do not fear, my kind friend, that I mean long to tresspass on you. This I have no right to do. But let me hide myself here for a little while. If he stays long I will find another place of refuge from his presence.
And so you have my wretched story; and I
CHAPTER XXI.
Sc much of the mystery was explained ; but it brought us, as it were, into the very heart of an unfinished drama, or tragedy it might prove, with the action still in progress. And it was impossible to bold the position of mere spectators— to sit quietly in the boxes and look on. We must take our places on the stage and become actors in at least some of the scenes that were to follow.
“What are we to do in this matter?” My wife put the question with a sober face. Mrs. Congreve bad positively refused to return home while her busband was there.
“I think,” was my answer, “ that our duty is a plain one. Mrs. Congreve’s story has given us facts that alter bur relation entirely. On Edgar’s account we have a personal interest in her, and for his sake, as well as for humanity’s sake, we must do all in our power to save her from the mental ruin toward which she is now tending. We must let her stay here as long as she will, and make her feel that she is fully welcome.”
“If she knew our personal interest in Edgar,” said my wife, “ it would give us more influence with her.”
“ For the present,” I replied, “ we must keep our knowledge of him a secret. She is the wedded wife of Mr. Congreve, and, as such, cannot, innocently—cannot, I mean, if in a sane mind— entertain the feelings and purposes which she avows in connexion with Edgar. The shock she has received, and the extraordinary trials which she has endured, have weakened her mind. Feeling has been intensified, while reason and judgment have been enfeebled. She must be guarded and guided in the perilous way her wavering steps are treading, and to you and I, providentially, has been assigned the duty of helping her to walk in safety along the Valley and the Shadow of Death, through which her soul is passing.”
“Poor Edgar! I cannot think of him and the past five or six years of his life without shuddering. I wonder where be can be, and why he has not written to us ?”
“ One thought, probably, absorbs him,” I answered—“the thought of retribution. He is, I do not question, in the pursuit of this man, who has managed so far to elude him.”
“ But this cannot long continue. He must find him out.”
“ Yes, and speedily. If alive, he may appear on the stage at any moment. We may look for him daily.”
“ He may not be living,” said my wife. “ Do you think a man like Mr. Congreve would stop at murder when so much was involved ?”
“In murder all Is jeopardized. It is a fearful stake, and the worst and most daring may well hesitate before casting it down. I hardly think that extremity has been reached in this case.”
“Then it is strange that Edgar has been so long in discovering their residence here. They could not have left tbeir home in the West so secretly, that no one knew of tbeir departure or the direction. It would seem to be an easy thing to trace them as far as Pittsburgh and thence to this city.”
“It is probably,” said I, “that Pittsburgh was reached by a very indirect way. Mr. Congreve may have taken, at first, a different direction ; and Edgar may now be hundreds or thousands of miles distant, in a vain pursuit. But, no matter what the cause of his absence, Mr. Congreve cannot escape him in the end. This great sin will not go unpunished. I feel sure of that.”
“What if Mr. Congreve should come here and demand bis wife ?” ,
“I should still leave her free to go or stay,”
was my answer. “So long as she desires an asylum here she can have it.”
“No. She is as free, personally,* in the eye of the law as he is.’7
“I mean,” said my wife, “on the allegation ’of insanity.”
“He will scarcely take that step,” was my answer.
I was mistaken here. I was informed that a gentleman bad called to see me. No name was given. But, on going down into the parlor, I recognised Mr. Congreve. He mentioned his name, and said.
“I am your neighbor at the corner.”
I bowed, and requested him to resume the seat from which be had risen on my entrance. He looked very serious, and bis manner was that of a man laboring under considerable mental excitement.
“My wife is here.” He spoke abruptly, and' with a resoluteness of manner that I saw was meant to impress me with the idea that he was a man not to be trifled with—at least, not in the present case.
“She is.” I tried to speak in a voice that would show firmness, but not indicate antagonism.
“Will you say to her that I wish to see her?”
Now this was bringing on the issue, at once. I knew that she would not see him ; and I knew, still further, that to take this message would be to excite her mind in a way dangerous to its rational balance. I could have gone from the room under pretence of carrying his request to Mrs. Congreve, and brought back to him words that she had spoken in the most emphatic way to my wife; but this involved subterfuge, and I would not consent to that.
“I think,” said I, “that you had better not disturb her this evening.”
“ And why not, pray ?” He was very imperative.
“ Perhaps,” said I, assuming a rather more decided manner, “your own thoughts will suggest a reason.”
His brows drew down suddenly, and his eyes gave a quick flash, as he returned,
“You speak in a riddle, sir.”
“No,” I answered calmly, “not in a riddle. But, if obscurely to your thought, I can be more explicitly. I hardly think it required, however.”
I fixed my eyes bo steadily upon his face, that bis half insolent gaze was turned aside.
“ This is very extraordinary!” he said. “ I can’t understand it.”
I made no response to these ejaculations.
“ Then you will not even say to my wife that I wish to see her ?”
“ I only suggested that it were better not to disturb her,” said I. “ If you insist on having, your desire communicated ; I cannot, of course, refuse.”
“ Then, I do insist upon it.”
I left the room and saw my wife, After a hurried consultation, she went to Mrs. Congreve, who, on learning that her husband bad called, and wished to see her, became very much excited, refusing, of course, to meet him.
“ Tell him,” was her reply, “ that, if I can prevent it, he shall never look into my face again.”
I did not change, in a syllable, this message.
“ It is well,” he said, showing less disturbance than I had expected.
He then added,
“ Of course you have not failed to see that her reason is disturbed ?”
I assented, unwittingly.
“ In other words, and speaking in direct language ; she is an insane woman. I bad faith, if I could have gained an interview, in my ability to pursuade her to return home. Failing in this, 1 must place her under constraint. It is the last resort ; and I would delay it still longer, if possible.

> But this step, and your evident concurrance therein,”— ho put an emphasis on the last words—“ makes my duty clear. If she will not remain under her husband’s protection, she must be cared for in another way. An insane woman cannot be permitted to go at large.”
He arose, and stood, for a few moments, with something irresolute in his manner.
“ I must caution you,” he said, “ against putting too implicit faith in any statements she may, in her confusion of thought, be led to make. She has taken up some extraordinary hallucin-tions.
“ I can and will make all allowance for the unhappy state of mind from which she is suffering,” I replied.
He stood silent again for some moments, and then said,
“ I cannot help expressing surprise, sir, that you, as an entire stranger to me and my family, should be so ready to take the responsibility of interference in a matter about which you are wholly ignorant. I am not used to having my path crossed in this way ; and do not find it in the least agreeable.”
“ There has been no interference on my part, sir,” I answered. “ Your wife came here in a most unhappy state of mind; and we have done all in our power to calm her excitement, and restore the mental equipoise that has been sadly disturbed. We gave her quiet and seclusion. No neighbor, that we are aware of, knows of her presence in our family. If she had been our own sister, we could not have treated her more kindly, or with greater consideration. Have you, then, a right to complain of us ? I think not, sir! Passion and force are not the means of restoration in a case like this. There must be a course of wise reconciliation. And you must pardon me for saying, that if I am to judge from your temper tonight, you have not always pursued this course toward the woman who has fled from under your roof. I speak plainly, sir, for I think it best, in the outset, that we should understand each other.”
“ In the outset of what ?” demanded my visiter.
“ Of an intercourse which does not promise to begin and end to-night,” I replied.
He looked at me sharply.
“ You are a bold man 1” he said.
“ I am a resolute man,” was my simple answer.
“ I am puzzled to know what interest you can possibly have in this affair,” he remarked after awhile.
“ I have an interest in it, notwithstanding.” I replied.
“You! What interest pray?” His manner was a little startled.
“ Enough to make me oppose any attempt to remove Mrs. Congreve, against her will, from under my roof. And I suggest, now, that you give up at once, all thought of placing her in an Asylum, as I infer you have intended doing.”
He grew pale at this remark.
“ So long as she is content to remain here, you had better permit her to remain,” I added.
“Most extraordinary!” exclaimed Mr. Congreve, in a perplexed, half angry voice. “ I can hardly believe my own ears. It seems, that you, an entire stranger, have constituted yourself an umpire in my affairs, and now stand ready to enforce your decisions. I cannot accept your interference, sir, and I will not”
“ You state the case too strongly, Mr. Congreve,” said I. “This thing has been thrust upon me. Providentially I have been drawn into a relation with your wife, which makes a certain care for her a common duty. And when I see a duty clearly, I am in the habit of compelling myself to go forward in its performance, in the face of all consequences. And I wish you to understand, that there will be no holding back iu the present case. My advice to you is, to treat me as a friend, and not as an enemy. You will ac-
complish far more by acting iu concert than in opposition. Consider my house an asylum, if you will, and your wife in durance here. I will hold myself accountable to tbe last particular for her safety.”
Mr. Congreve turned from me abruptly, and walked tbe full length of the parlor two or three times.
“ More extraordinary still!” he ejaculated, stopping before me at last. “ I cannot make it out. What possible interest can you or yours have in Mrs. Congreve?”
“ There is tbe interest of common humanity,” I replied.
“ I don’t believe in it! Wouldn’t give that for it!” and he snapped his finger and thumb contemptuously. “All talk. There is more beyond.”
He threw the short sentences out impulsively.
“ Perhaps there is,” said I, thinking it well to warn him.
He started a little, and again I saw a paler hue on his face.
“ I see,” he said, “ that nothing is to bo accomplished to-aight,” and he made a movement to retire. “ You have assumed a serious responsibility, sir; and one that may bring you into trouble. I am not a man used to having my path crossed ; nor one apt to forgive. If I am not always a warm friend, I pride myself on being a bitter enemy. You have put yourself in antagonism with the wrong man, and I warn you to re-adjust your position, and that right speedily I”
He stood regarding me for a few moments with a malignant gleam in his dark, evil eyes, and then went out hastily. I do not think be saw any sign of fear or wavering in my face.
“Ah, that is the difficult question. If he is of the same purpose now as when he gained that first interview with Mrs. Congreve, there will be a state of things hard to keep in a right moral adjustment. But the way, I trust, will be made plain for all of us.”
“ When a wrong path is entered,” said my wife, “what human foresight is able to reach the possible termination. Such paths never lead to happiness.”
“ Never,” I replied, “ and yet, the world takes them with a blind folly that is inconceivable. The father of Mrs. Congreve was, we may suppose, a • man of ordinary intelligence in the common af-1 fairs of life—had, in most things, a discriminating mind ; yet, what fool could have acted with . a madder insanity ? Did he love himself or his child most? Ah, it was his self-love that blinded ; him to her good ; that made him fill the cup of her life with gall. He knew from reason, observation, and written life-histories, that the most wretched of all women are those unhappily married ; and yet, he literally forced his child into marriage with a man who was, as he had every reason, loathed in her heart. Could such seed produce anything but a harvest of misery ? And was there any guarantee that himself would not be one of the reapers ? The misery came, too surely ; and he had to gather his garners full.
“And Mr. Congreve. How the law of cause and result, with the quality of the cause active in the result, has been proved in his case. He sowed the wind, and verily is he reeping the whirlwind! To gain, by unfair means, or through wicked devices, is not really to possess. What looked like gold in the distance^ turns, in all such cases, to some worthless substance in the hand, that wounds and poisons it, mayhap. Mr. Congreve has fully illustrated that old fable of the physician king. Tantalus-like, he is a thirst, with cool water below and around him; an hungered, with fair fruit bending in luscious sweetness from full boughs overhead ; yet, when he stoops to drink, the waters recede from bis lips—when he stretches forth his hands, the full laden branches lift themselves beyond bis grasp.”
“ If, in his folly and wickedness, he had caused no heart but his own,” said my wife in some “bitterness of spirit,” we might think of his suffering without regret. We might even feel glad in his pain.”
“No,” I remarked, “not glad, but sorrowful. Pain of any kink, bodily or mental, is a thing to excite our pity, not our joy.”
“ I spoke from indignation, and that is oftener cruel than merciful,” was answered. “ But, we are only human, and the heart will rebel.”
“Think and feel as we may,” I said, “pity those who suffer the consequences of their evil ways, or rejoice in the sure retribution that has found them, the law that makes pain the certain accompaniament of wrong done from a bad end, will ever act with unerring certainty. The bad man’s enemy, pain, will surely find him out.”
“And the good man’s friend, delight, find him out, also.”
“ Just as surely,” I replied. “ The law works, in either case, without variableness or shadow of turning.”
“ Do you think,” said my wife, “ that Mr. Congreve will make any serious attempt to get his wife into an asylum. The thought every now and then flits through my mind, and trouble me. He has reason enough for wishing to remove her from all intercourse With persons in the neighborhood.”
“ There is no way that he can do this that I can imagine. If she were in the habit of riding out with him, or with any friend in his confidence and willing to act with him, it might be an easy thing to drive her to an Asylum and leave her there. But, as she never goes out riding with any one, the difficulties in the way are almost insurmountable.”
My wife’s mind seemed rather more at ease on this subject, after we bad talked it over, and looked at it from all points of view.
One evening, it was the third or fourth from that on which I had received a visit from Mr. Congreve, Aunt Mary came in. It was between nine and ten o’clock. She bad, evidently, from the expression of her face, a purpose beyond a mere call; and both myself and wife waited in expectation of some request, or communication of interest. Nearly five minutes passed, in ordinary conversation, when Aunt Mary said,
“ You wished to see me?”
“ No, no.” Aunt Mary’s countenance changed, and she spoke quickly. “ You sent word for me to call in.”
“ Who by?”
“ I don’t know. Somebody came to our door, and said that you wished to see me.”
“I sent no such word,” replied my wife. 1 “It’s strange.” Aunt Mary had risen, and her ’ face was looking slightly alarmed. “ You are
know it was from our house.” Her eyes were not lifted from the floor as she answered me.
We now went to the sitting room. As I entered, I noticed that the smell of ether was stronger here than in the passage. There was no doubt on my mind as to what it means. The truth had flashed on me the instant I perceived the peculiar odor mentioned. Mr. Congreve, or some one employed by him, had entered the house soon after Aunt Jdary left, and my means of ether, produced unconsciousness in Mrs. Congreve, and then removed her, noiselessly, to the carriage! The truth, I saw, had now reached the thought of Aunt Mary; for she sat down in a feeble way, and looked into my face despairingly.
“ Do you think he has done this ?” she asked, in a choking voice.
“ There is no doubt of it,” I replied.
“ For what purpose ?”
I did not answer.
“ Where is Florry ?” Aunt Mary started up suddenly.
“ She’s all right, ma’am! She’s in her bed!” said the servant in a positive way.
“ How do you know ?”
“ O, I’m sure of it, ma’am.”
But no assurance, except that of her own eyes, could satisfy Aunt Mary. She ran over into the chamber where the child slept, and found her there.
I noticed this positive manner in the servant, and yet she had not been in Florry’s chamber since she came down stairs. How did she know that the child had not been taken away with the mother ? 1 felt suspicion against her increasing in my mind.
What was to be done ? Our case seemed, for that night at least, helpless and hopeless. Edith had been spirited away in the darkness, and there was no sign as to the direction which had been taken. Parsuit, for the time being, therefore, would be a vain effort, and was not attempted. In my own thought, there was no question as to the agency at work and the purpose in view. Mrs. Congreve would be removed to an Insane Asylum, in order to prevent communication with my family, or with any other persons to whom she might be led to speak of things that were likely to involve her husband in serious consequences. My greatest anxiety was for the effect on Mrs. Congreve, when she awakened from insensibility. I feared this shock would complete the ruin of an already disturbed intellect, which, under right influence, might have been restored to its normal condition.
Nothing could be done for that night. My wife remained with Aunt Mary, and I lay awake in perplexed thought pondering tho uncertain work, and doubtful result, that were before me on the next day.
GERMAN WITHOUT A MASTER,
CLEARLY TAUGHT AND QUICKLY LEARNT
[Back numbers of the New York Weekly, coataining these German Lessons, can be obtained of every News Agent.
Some German adverbs have more than one signification. Sonst means “formerly,” “ otherwise,” or “else” according to the sense in which it is used.
Erst may mean “first,” or “sot before,” or “no more than,” or “only.” If “only” is used in the signification of no more than,” you must render it in German by nur and bloss.
Schon means “already,”and “not later than.” Schonis also used with a numerical adjective, to give it additional weight: Er hat schon ein gauzes Brod gegessen, “He has eaten one whole loaf.” . •
Noch signifies “yet” and “still;” it is also used for the expression, “neither before nor later.”
Observe that the preposition followed by the definite article contracted forms but one word. Ex.— Am for au dem; Beim for bei dem; Im for in dem; Dorn for von dem; Zum lor zu dem; Zur for zu der, &c.
The following prepositions require the dative case after them
PREPOSITIONS THAT GOVERNS THE DATIVE.
Slug, out of, from au^er, besides bet, on, near, with, at,
up by btnnen, within entgegen, towards,
gainst
nebp, together with felt, since
Ven, of, off, from, by
PREPOSiriONS THAT through, by
a-
gemd^, conformable gegenitber, over against mil, with
nad), after, to, according to
ndd)|l, next
§u, to.
jufolge, in obedience jmviber, against
GOVERN THE ACCUSATIVE, djue, without um, about, round, at
fur, for
gegen, towards, to, a- Wiber, against
gainst
PREPOSITIONS THAT GOVERN THE DATIVE OR ACCUSATIVE.
Um, on, to, by auf, on, upon Winter, behind in, in, into neben, at the side of
uber, over, above, at, concerning
unter, under, amongst, amid, during
before, ago between
(To be Continued )
[WRITTEN FOR THE NEW YORK WEEKLY.]
MYRTLE REVERIE.
FAMILIAR
Does this road lead to Vienna?
Go straight on.
Turn to the right.
How far is it ?
It is a league.
It is ■ hi ee English miles, will take you three-quarters o’ an hour to get there.
It s going to rain.
I have no umbrella.
Let us go into this inn.
BY MOLLY MYRTLE.
CHAPTER XXII.
I did not think it well to alarm my
wife by re-
peating all the threatening intimations of Mr. Congreve. It would only create uneasiness of mind, without doing any good.
Mrs. Congreve did not show any strong interest in the fact of her husband’s visit. He was so hateful to her, that she did not care to speak of him.
“You needn’t tell me,” she said, “if he comes again. I wish to be as one dead to him. I am only sorry that he has annoyed you—that his breath has polluted the air of your home ; but, I will not trouble you long.”
In the morniHg Aunt Mary came in with little Florry. She mentioned that Mr. Congreve had gone away soon after breakfast, saying tbat he would not return for a ween. This information caused Mrs. Congreve to go back to her own house.
When I learned this fact I was relieved in mind. I took it as an indication that Mr. Congreve had been influenced by my resolute manner, and would fur the present, at leagt, refrain * from all compulsory measures in regard to his wife. During the short period that she was with us, she remained in a tolerably tranquil state. My wife, even in this time, found her heart going out toward her with an unusual tenderness; and Mrs. Congreve was already leaning upon her and
confiding in her with something of filial confidence.
“It is very clear,” said my wife, “that for some good end, we have been brought into this close and confidential relation to Mrs. Congreve. I feel it more and more sensibly every day. She needs a friendly interest such as we have begun to feel; and counsellors, such, as I trust, God will give us the wisdom to be.”
“Great prudence n^ist be exercised on our part. Edgar will find her out, and then---------” I
“What then?” ashed my wife.

DIALOGUE.
Su^rt biefer 2Beg SBten?
nad)
certain you did not send for me ?”
“ Positive.”
“I can’t understand it. What can it mean ?” Our visitor stood with a perplexed manner for a little while, and then added, “ I must run home again. Edith was asleep on the sofa when I left.
I took up my hat to accompany her ^ome. She objected, saying that it was ouL^^p, and she would not trouble me. Bull felt a vague suspicion that something was wrong, and I went with her.
“ What does that mean I” she exclaimed, as we reached the pavement.
I turned my eyes toward the corner. There was a carriage at the door, and I saw, indistinctly, a man enter it. Then the carriage started, the horses moving with a sudden spring, and whirling away, passed out of sight in the darkness before we reached the spot on which it had been standing. The door of the house stood wide open. As we entered, I detected the smell of ether. Aunt Mary ran up stairs swiftly ; and I heard her, a moment afterward, calling, in an alarmed voice for the servant. The girl answered from one of the rooms in the third story.
“ Where is Mrs. Congreve V’ asked Aunt Mary, as the servant came down stairs.
“ She’s lying on the sofa,” replied the girl.
“ No, she’s not in the room where I left her.”
“ Maybe she’s gone to bed,” said the girl.
“ No, she’s not in her chamber. Who came in that carriage ?”
I had gone up stairs, and now stood in the passage on the second floor. The servant lodked be-wMdred at these questions, and in a hurried, alarmed voice, said,
“ I didn’t see any carriage, ma’am,” she replied. “ Nobody’s been here.”
“ Somebody has been here! I saw a carriage drive away, and found the front dcor open. Edith!” Aunt Mary called the name in a quick, eager manner. But there came no reply.
“ What strange odor is that?” She turned her ashen face upon me.
I did not reply that it was ether. She was alarmed enough already.
“When did you go up stairs?” Aunt Mary spoke to the servant.
“Just after you went out,” she replied.
“ Was Mrs. Congreve asleep on the sofa, then ?” “Yes, ma’am.”
“ Who told you that I had been sent for?”
“ A girl came to the door ma’am, and said you were wanted in there for a little while.”
I looked narrowly at the servant as she answered these questions. Something in her manner did not satisfy me.
“ I don’t think trouble would ever make me go insane.”
No, you oyster shell creature, with about as much emotion as a clam, I don’t think any thing could make you insane! What difference do harsh words and rude neglect make with you ? With your thick skull and dull brain you can hardly comprehend the meaning of the words.
Yom 11 go insane!” Of course you couldn’t do it any more than a turtle could write poetry. How could yew understand the passionate agonizing yearnings that a sensitive nature sends forth for love and sympathy ? How could you understand the timid shrinking that delicate, high strung natures feel when brought in contact with such “cheaply organised ,}- ooncema as yourself?
Oliver W. Holmes says, “ Stupidity often saves a person from going mad.” You are safe! Insanity can never trouble you while that impenetrable armor of stupidity surrounds you.
Enough to eat and drink—a place to sleep and something to wear; and life is all happiness to you. No, not happiness either—you no more com-premend that, than you do insanity. You enjoy a kind of stupid content if your animal wants are satisfied—but that thrilling rapture that sensitive minds experience you know nothing about. You have no bright fame dreams looming up in the dim distance! You cherish no glorious hopes of future greatness—so, of course, you never felt any pain at seeing your “ dearest hopes decay.” You never felt the agonizing pain of heart-strings forced rudely from their twining clasp round a loved one. Emotionally speaking, you posses no such article as a heart, and of course you experience no suffering from it.
“ But my m!nd is too strong to give way at trouble.”
Do you see that huge, unsightly rock that is merely an encumbrance on yon green sward? Well—you may hurl your cane at it with all your strength, and does it move or tumble ? But hurl with half the force, your cane at that exquisitely moulded vase, and it is shattered iu a thousnd
pieces.
Happy creaturo! You’ll never go
Neither will an oyster 5
[WRITTEN FOR THE NEW YORK WEEKLY.]
BY NED JACKSON
insane.
“You heard a carriage drive away just now?” said I.
Hast thou ever visited the falls of Niagara ? Didst thou watch the dark, and angry waters as they madly leap onward in wild and frantic speed until at last they plunge down that fearful vortex, and ofter tossing and leaping about in snow-white foam, they calmly and peacefully flow on to meet the waters of the distant ocean ? Didst thou behold above that dark and fearful watery abyss a brilliant rainbow dance and quiver in the beams of the golden sun, until at length as the shining spray caught other rays, another, and even another glorious arch was seen spanning that mighty waterfall ?
Thus is it with the life of man.
Like the waters onward roaming, Like the billows madly foaming, ’Til they gather dark and keep. Plunge mid take the fearful leap.
Yet though trials crowd around, Though no earthly help be found, He who guides us through tke gloom, Will our darkened hearts illume He str i bids us look above.
See the rainbow of His love,
Often are we called to pass through scenes of anxiety and care, when the dark waves of affliction are rolling around us ahd our trials seem as a raging torrent, bearing us onward with a force we cannot resist, until at length we are plunged into the gulf of a greater and a mightier sorrow than we have ever before experienced.
Yet though trials surround us on every side, and our pathway seems dark and drear, we know that the waters of affliction are spanned by the rainbow of His love, and when the light of the Son of Righteousness illumines our darkened hearts we see the fulfillment of His promise, who saith, “ It shall come to pass when I bring a cloud over the earth, that Jfy bow shall be seen in the clouds.”
said I.
I li 1 heard
a carriage,” she replied, 11 but didn’t
Love has no age, as it is always renewing itself.
What o’clock is it?
1 think it is three o’clock.
Are you thirsty ?
5 am very thirsty.
7 ake something to drink.
Drink a glass of water.
®eben ©ie gerabe au^. Sfflenben ©te ft^> lin^. SBie mit ifles von^ier? @6 ift etne ©hmbe» ift brer fflleiten.
braudjen brer 33ter= tel|lunben, urn ge^en.
tvtrb regnen.
3$ teinen Otegen*
Saffen (Sie in jenes geben.
SB te Diet ijl es ?
3$ glaube e£ ift brei
(Sie ?
3$ babe gr^en Crimen (Sie (£tw. ^rinfen @ie ein
Jaffer.
should preTer a cup of Sd) Wifrbe etne Xaffe j coffee. fee vorjie^en.
[WRITTEN FOR THE NEW YORK WEEKLY. ]
THREADS FROM THE SPOOL OF LIFE,
NUMBER TWO.
BY MAUD IRVING.
now is rr?
“ Have not people a mortal horror of a sad face and a pitiful story?”
Certainly they have—did you ever see a man that would lay aside his pen while engaged in writing a business letter, to listen to the story of a poor widow, who may have entered his store for the purpose of enlisting the sympathy and aid of the man of wealth. No, no—tisa sight that seldom greets one’s eyes. He will look up from his writing, and the moment he sees sadness depicted upon the face of the one before him, he says in a hurried, business-like manner, “No time to-day madam—great hurry—call againand he applies bimself to his task with redoubled energy, never giving another thought to the poor creature who turns from him with tears trickling down her wrinkled cheek. That man when Sabbath comes, sits in his softly carpeted pew, and from his velvet bound prayer book, reads—
“From all blindness of heart; from pride, vain glory, and hypocracy; from envy, hatred, and malice, and all unchantableness, Good Lord, deliver us/’
Truly the human race are depraved and desperately wicked.
You may outlaw the friend of truth, but truth remains; you may humble the poet, the artist, and the Christian, but you cannot debase poetry, or art, or Christianity.
JMedinnuds
FACTS.
FI THIS PAPER we present to the public unimpeachable testimony establishing the facts that RADWAY’S READY RELIEF, REGULATING PILLS, and RENOVATING RESOLVENT, are not only positive curatives of the sick afflicted with disease, but that they have in many cases proved to be infallible., and have restored the dying patient to robust health after all other means of medication failed.
SIXTEENTH WITNESS.
CROUP.—John Hogg. Esq., Collingwood C W , testifier .
(A child of mine? eight weeks old, was seized with croup of the worst form The best medical practitioners of the town were called in. but after doing everything in their power to relieve her but all in vain. gave hn' up as dead- I then took her in hand, rubbed her back, chest, and throat with Radway’s Ready Relief, and gave large doses of syrup of squills, when, in the course of a few hours, she was well again, and is now as well and hearty a child as can be.’’
Sold by all druggists and store-keepers everywhere. RADWAY & CO’S Principal Office,
It
No 23 John street, New York.
MEADE BROTHERS’
GREAT DOWN TOWN GALLERIES REOPENED 233 Broadway, opposite Hie Park.
refitted at a cost of several thousand dollars. Photographs, Daguerreotypes, &c , taken daily.
Established 1841.
10 Medals Awarded.
Galleries free to the public, containing thousands of pictures of distinguished personages.
Meade Brothers attend personally to their visitors assisted by a corps of talented artists
Old pictures of any size copied and enlarged.
2m.
STEINWAY & SONS GOLD jSeDAL’
PATENT OVERSTRUNG GRAND AND SQUARE PIANOS
Arenowconsidered the bestPiaaios manufactured, and are warranted for five years.
Warerooms Nos. 82 and 84 Walker street, near Broadway.
SANDS’ SARSAPARILLA
Muy be safely taken at all times—it will secure to Ladies a regular periodic habit—and is the very best mqdicinethey can take when arrived at the period called “turn of life.”
Ask for Sands' Sarsaparilla t and take no other.
Articles of Every-day Use
B. T. BABBITT’S
PURE MEDICINAL YEAST.
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Manufactured from Common Salt and Pure Cream Tartar. When used in Bread, Cake, or Biscuit, it turns to gas (like that from a bottle of Soda Water) and remains dormant in the dough until it is set in the oven, when the beat causes the gas to escape through the dough while baking. The Breads Cake, or Biscuit is not only very light, but perfectly wholesome. Where this Yeast is used you will require about one-quarter the amount of shortning used with ordinary. Yeast. It may also be used for Buckwheat Cakes, Johnny Cakes, and all kinds of Pastry. This Yeast is put up only in one-pound cans, with checkered label. Bed, While, and Blue—no other is genuine—beware of imitations.
B. T. BABBITT’S PURE CONCENTRATED POTASH.
Warranted double the strength of Common Potash, and superior to any Saponifier ia market: put up in cans of 1 lb., 2 lbs. ,3 lbs. 6 lbs. and 12 lbs., with full directions for making Hard and Soft Soap. One pound will make fifteen gallons of Soft Soap. No lime is required. Consumers will find this the cheapest Potash in market.
B. T. BABBITT’S MEDICINAL SALBRA-TUS.
A perfectly pure and wholesome article, free from*all deleterious matter, so prepared that, as the circular accompanying the Saleratus will show, nothing remains in the bread when baked but common Salt Water and Flour. Put up neatly in papers, 11b., X lb. and X lb.
Three Gallons Handsome Soft Soap made in five minutes, by simply dissolving ono pound of
B. T. Babbitt’s Concentrated Soft Soap in one gallon of boiling water and adding two gallons of warm water.
0= No grease is required.
N. B.—Put up in packages to suit orders. B. T. BABBITT’S CONCENTRATED SAL SODA.
A new article exclusively for the South. Sal Soda or Washing Soda cannot be sent South during warm weather, as it deliquesces or melts. I dry out the water and put up tire Sal Soda in one lb. papers, “ warranted to stand the warmest climate.” One pound is equal to four pounds of ordinary Sal Sodaor Washing Sofia—consequently it is much cheaper—the dealer saves 65 per^cenL on the freight, as he does not have to pay freight on water.
Ask your storekeeper for B. T. Babbitt’s Concentrated Sal Soda In 1 lb. papers.
B.T. BABBITT’S SOAP FOR FAMILY USE.
One pound of tl)is Soap is equal to three pounds of ordinary Family Soap. One lb. will make 3 gallons of handsome Soft Soap. It will remove paint, grease, tar and stains of all kinds. It will not injure the fabric, on the contrary, it preserves it. It will wash in hard or salt water. But little labor is required where this is used. Machiniirts and Printers will find this Soap superior to anything in market. If your storekeeper does not keep the above goods, send $5 by mail and I will send a package of either article, or an assorted box containing a part of each article, as you may direct. Send the name of your Post office, also the Stale and County in which you reside, with directions for: shipping. Address
B. T. BABBITT, 64, 66, 68, 70, 72 & 74 Washington St. N.Y. . A liberal discount to Storekeepers.
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The Mammoth Monthly
Will be published on the First of November.
THE MAMMOTH MONTHLY,
The Largest, Cheapest andt most compute Family Newspaper ever pubihhed*
It will contain fifty-six large columns of solid reading matter. Consisting of first class Stories, Tales, Poems, General Miscellany, and a complete ’digest of the News of the WORLD, gleaned from over two thousand exchange papers, and furnished by correspondents in different sections of the WORLD
It will be published at tho unprecedented low price of
TWEKTY-FIVE (JESTS PER YEAR, which will barely cover the cost of the white paper upon which it is printed.
To Postmasters and others great inducements will be offered for the formation of Clubs, as the Publishers desire, for purposes of their own, to run the circulation of the
MAMMOTH MONTHLY
up to One Hundred Thousand copies,
Short of that would not pay them for their trouble.
CLUB RATES.
1 copy one year ., 5 copies one year
12 copies one year 18 copies one year 25 copies one year 32 copies one year
.. 25 cts. 1,00 ,2,00 .3,00 .4,00 .5,00
Any pereon sending one dollar for 5 subscriptions one year shall receive a twenty-five cent book, or for three dollars, fifty cents worth of books, and five dollars, shall receive one dollar’s worth of books.
All letters should be addressed to
STREET & SMITH,
MAMMOTH MONTHLY OFFICE, 22 Beekman street, Kcw York.
HOW TO PRESERVE THE TEETH.
Rub them clean every morning with a stiff brush and a little soap, rinse the mouth thoroughly with water, then rub them with a dry towel, and Instead ef eating bread, biscuit, or cake,5made with common saleratus or soda, get James Pyle’s Dietetic Saleratus, the only article of the kind in use harmless to the teeth. See that you are not deceived by some worthless imitation in red papers. Shun all that do not bear the name of James Pyle No. 345 Washington street, New York.
(Ed A A DAY GAN BE MADE-AGENTS WANTED
CIV JHE BEST
UNITED STATES BAILROADMAP EVER OFFERED TO THE AMERICAN PUBLIC, FIVE FEET SQUARE, AND SELLS AT $1 50. The usual price of such a map is $10; but by a new pro cess, entirely unknown to any other pereon , I am enabled to print, color, and mount tuis map on etrong linen, with rollers, and retail it at $1 50.
LLOYD’S
AMERICAN RAILROAD MAP
OF THE
UNITED STATES AND THE CANADAS, shows every foot of the country every railroad in actual operation up to the first day of June, 1860, is represented, with every station, town, and city marked down plainly, and the distances between each station: also, the name of each railroad is marked down. Every rivei’, and the towns on the river, are marked down.
A MAP OF ALL THE STATES EAST OF NEW YORK,
on a scale three times as large as the main map, is also inserted in the blank space of tbe Atlantic Ocean, south, and is the most full map of the Eastern Stales ever engraved. Alone worth the price of bhc map,
A TIME DIAL is also engraved on the map, showing at a glance the dif ference in time between Washington City and the princi pal cities in America and the Old World.
EVERY FARMER WILL BUY IT.
EVERY MERCHANT WILL BUY IT, and
EVERY BUSINESS MAN WILL BUY IT. AGENTS CAN SEEL TEN COPIES A DAY.
Sole rights to canvass counties given,
Sample copies, in sheets, colored nicely, sent by mail On receipt of 50 cents. Those wishing to canvass for the Map must have a mounted copy, which will be sent to any agent, by express, on receipt of $1.
Seven new subscriptions books now ready. Send for circulars, terms, etc. JAS. T. LLOYD, Agent,
2t Publisher, No. 164 Broadway, N. Y.
TAO YOU WANT LUXURIANT WHISKERS OR J MUSTACHES?—My Onguent will force them to grow icavily in six weeks ^upon the smoothest face) wuthout stain or injury to the skin. Price $1—sent by mail, post free, to any address, on receipt of an order.
R. G. GRAHAM, No. 100 Nassau street, N. Y.
(PIOAA A YEAR made by any one with A. J.'TUL-LAM’S Patent $10 Outfit of Stencil Tools, with tock enough included to retail for over $100. Silver medal awarded. Samples free. Address, AG93t.e.o.w. A. J. FULLAM, No. 212 Broadway, N.Y.
’NGERSOLL’S CELEBRATED CHEAP HAND POWER . PRESSES for bailing hay, cotton, rags, &c. For catalogue with full information, and prices. Address Inger,&11 & Dougherty, Green Point, Kings county, N. Y, Im
BY ANONYMOUS.
[WRITTEN FOR THE NEW YORK WEEKLY.] supplTcItion.


4
|?Ioly Savioar, guard, defend us;
3ay by day thy spirit send us, As we tread this vale of tears.
We are weak—Thou knowest our failing. %imb'y come we with our ailings, Ari our doubts and fears.
As we at thy footstool kneeling, ^hou in goodness joys revealing. Greater than of earth,
Soothing gently all our sorrow, Giving hope for each to morrow, Sealing second birth.
And at last, when death is shading, And the lights of life are fading /
From our earthly home, , Guide us to^hy happy land;
Welcome us on Jordan’s strand, Never more to roam.
[AVRIiTEN FOR THE NEW YORK WEEKLY;].
MY BROTHER JACK,
AND
HIS RICH WIFE
BV MRS. E> G. LEWIS.
“Harry,” said my mother, “there must be always one gentleman in a family. I have remarked it—some one to keep up its dignity and transmit their name to posterity. You, though my eldest son, are rough by nature; Peter is too plain; but John, my pretty boy,” said my mother, patting his curly head, “you shall go to college, and be a gentleman.’’
Now my good mother was the relict of a grocer, who, dying, left her “well to do in the world and having worn for three long years ^weeds of the deepest hue,” she wiped the last tear from her cheek, and unpinning the crape collar from her neck, laid it by, feeling, in her inmost heart, that she had fulfilled her duty to the utmost—and had been afflicted beyond most mortals. It was the morning of her emancipation from these symbols of woe, that we were called around her (as I have' stated above) in order to portion out our several destinies.
I, as the eldest of the family, ventured to say : And Susie, mother; what will she be—a
husband’s relations, South ; but, my dear Sampson, our walks in life were so different that my wife could not tolerate their circle of acquaintances, particularly after her ungrateful behavior. Nor would it have done to have drawn her and her family from their obscurity, making their poverty but the more glaring. Would you believe it, my wife procured an extremely eligible situation for Mrs. Cleland’s eldest daughter, as nursery governess to a family going abroad, and I offered her eighty dollars a year for the maintenance of herself and child, but both our offers were rejected with scorn. I washed my hands of her and her affairs. But let us talk of pleasanter things,” continued he.
I felt like kicking him out of his luxuriant arm-chair, and fearful that my temper should get the better of me, with the best grace I could assume I left the room, and did not breath freely until in the open air, when I vented my feelings in sundry ejaculations, which drew the attention of the passers-by. Some one touched me on the arm; it was the black fellow, who had opened the door for me.
“ Sir,” he said, “ Airs. Cleland lives in Spring street, two doors from the Bowery—a tenement house.”
“ Thank you, my good fellow,” said I, giving him some money, and I turned toward the Bowery, and soon found the house where he said my sister dwelt.
Tears started into my eyes as I thought over the past, and my poor mother’s pride in her little Susan. I brushed them hastily away, and knocked at the door. A little girl, the image of my sister, opened it.
“ Does Mrs. Cleland live here ?” I asked.
“ Yes, sir.”
“ Can I see her ?”
“ Yes, sir, please walk in.” And she opened the door of a small room near the entrance. It was scrupulously clean, but uncarpeted, a pine table, a few chairs, a stove and small looking-glass, comprised the furniture, with the exception of a few books on a shelf between the windows.
My sudden entrance startled a female, who, with her back turned to the door, was washing some fine laces. Her confusion was momentary. With the grace of a well-bred lady, she requested, me to be seated, and looked to her little daughter for information.
“ A gentleman, to see you, mother.”
“From your brother Harry, Madam,” said I.
The blood started to her forehead, and as suddenly retreated, leaving her deadly pale, as she gasped out—
“ Oh! is he living ?
to say, that I had determined to settle in New York—had already taken a house, and would issue (under her patronage) cards on the fourteenth, for a large ball and supper. She consented, very graceously to invite the elite. So ended my visit.
The slave of the “Magic Lamp” is money. The evening of the ball arrived—my sister wore a La’ma dress, woven in with golden violets, a Bird of Paradise plume, gracefully arrayed in her soft, fair hair. An aigrette of diamonds fastened it firmly—that, I attached to the plume with my own hands. Though over forty years of age, she was still a lovely woman. But Ellen was a perfect gem, so graceful and self possessed, in her simple white dress and oriental pearls. And little fairy Mary, dancing about with delight. I was a happy man, not the less so, that I had the power to humble the pride of that hard woman.
The room began to fill. Soon the arrival of Mr. and Airs. Chandler was announced. My sister and Ellen were standing at the upper end of the room. I advanced toward my brother and his wife, and leading them forward, said,
“Allow me to introduce you to my sister—Airs. Cleland—and my adopted daughter Ellen, and at the same time to drop my false cognomen, and introduce myself as your brother Harry.”
I leave you to imagine the result—my ink pales —my paper flutters—farewell.
[WRITTEN FOR THE NEW YORK WEEKLY.]
CRAZY BILL:
OR, THE CALL ALOW AND THE CALL ALOFT.
A TALE OF THE SEA.
BY ROGER STARBUCK.
lauy ?”
“Nonsense, Harry,” rejoined my mother. “She is a mere child yet; but what hinders her from being the President's lady ? stranger things ha^e happened.”
“Well, mother, make Jack what you please. I shall be a sailor ; and when Susie’s husband is President, 1’11 come back and live with her.”
To China I went, not as a sailor, but as captain’s clerk. On my arrival there, I left the vessel, and was so lucky as to get a situation in a mercantile bouse. My boss took a fancy to me, and, after a few years, I became his principal clerk, and from that arose to be a junior partner in the firm. I beard from home occasionally, but finally the correspondence dropped off. Now and then a letter from my mother reached me ; and the last one announced my brother Jack’s marriage to an heiress, and sister Susie’s engage-mant to a Southern planter.
Then years elapsed, and I heard no more. My letters remained unanswered; and becoming vexed at the apparent indifference of my family, I determined to write no more. I had now amassed an enormous fortune, but had paid the penalty of a life of luxury, with a diseased liver. Not having formed any ties to bind me here, a yearning for home created such a restlessness of mind and body, that it amounted almost to a mona-mania.
So transmitting the bulk of my property to the United States, I took passage in the ship Dolphin, and after a pleasant voyage of five months, (our vessel being a slow sailer,) arrived in New York, and trod the streets of my native city, as a stranger. I left home a boy of seventeen—I returned a man of fifty years. How I longed to see sister Susie and my aged mother, and my brothers. While eating my solitary breakfast at the hotel, I indulged in a thousand fancies as to their appearance. In John, I was to see a man of polished manners; of a fine, portly bearing, and pleasant countenance. Peter—good, plain Peter; he, I was sure, could not alter; and pretty Susie was to be every thing lovely, with that fascinating “ Dolce far hentef so fascinating in a Southern woman’s manners. A sudden whim seized me to visit them under a fiictitious name. Acting on the spur of the moment, I called for a Directory and found my brother Jack was the resident of a modern palace, in what was formerly the suburbs of the city, now the nucleus of all that was fashionable and wealthy. The name of my sister’s husband I never knew, and Peter must have left New York, for 1 could not find his name in the Directory, nor my mothers. Satisfied that I should get all necessary information from Jack, I determined to go to his house immediately, and preparing myself with $ letter of introduction— written by myself— stating that Mr. Sampson, an agent for a merchantile bouse in Canton, was about visiting New York. I begged my brother to pay him every attention. It is hardly necessary to say, that Sampson was my “ nom de guerre.” The latter finished I folded it in due form, and putting it in my pocket, started for the upper part of the city. I found Jack’s house-over the stone work of the door was carved the “ coat of arms ” of the gentleman of the family. The crest—a dove fierced by a falcon—had my good father been living,- it would have been a cheese supported by two red herring.
I coughed down a hearty laugh and rang the bell; a black fellow opened the door. On asking if M». Chandler was at home, an answer was given in the affirmative, and I was ushered through a suite of rooms into a well famished Library, where, reclining in a luxurian; arm chair, I found Jack—handsome Jack no longer—but a lean, withered, and premature old man, with all the foppish airs of boyhood clinging to him.
He arose at my entrance, and glancing over my letter, assured me of his desire to make my visit to New York an agreeable one; asking many particulars as to his brother Harry, health and prospects, &c., all of which I answered in the most satisfactory manner.
A smile of relief passed over his countenance ; evidently he had dreaded the subject. I abruptly said,
“I was requested to inquire of the welfare of Air. Chandler’s mother, sister, and brother Peter.”
A cold, hard look settled on his face.
“ Has Harry not heard of my mother’s death ten years ago?” said he.
Scarcely able to restrain my emotion, I stammered out, “No—no!”
“ Nor the widowhood of Airs Cleland?” •
“ My heavens! no, sir!” I exclaimed, hurt and angry at his hard, cold manner in speaking of those so dear to me. He looked surprised, but I went on—“And Air. Peter Chandler?”
“Oh, well—quite well! Really a worthy man —no incumbrance to his family. True, I seldom see him—tied to his Ledger—a capital book-keeper, and still a bachelor. Your sister, I presume, resides with you ?”
“No, sir,” was the curt answer.
“ Mrs. Clelands place of residence is unknown to me. I heard a rumor of her having joined her
“Living! yes, yes,” said I, “but very poor. He is coming on, but his reception will be rather cool from his rich brother, I am thinking.”
“ Oh! why am I poor ?” said she, bursting into tears. “ But I can give him a home—and I will be so happy. I can work, and we will live together.”’
I jumped up and caught her hand, and sobbed like a baby.
“ You have a kind heart, Sir, and I thank you for your sympathy.”
Just then her daughter came home.
“ It is Ellen,” said Susan, “ my eldest child. She is working in a straw factory, and gets good wages.”
The hull of the old Betsey Sparkler was not long since split up for firewood ; and I have no doubt that the withered crones living on the bleak Nantucket shore thanked God for the circumstance, as they warmed their shriveled bands by the shattered beams that blazed in their respective fire-places; for the owners of the ship had kindly allowed them to take possession of the wood-work of the condemned bark, which when cut up into its thousands of fragments, afforded each one fuel enough to last for six months, at the least calculation.
And let us believe that the smoke from these blazing timbers rose like sweet incense to the angels in heaven, while it choked and blinded the devil, who would most probably have kept the wood from burning had it been in his power to do so.
“Steady!—there—steady!”
Just five years ago to-day that cry rang upon my ears as I stood at the helm of the old Betsey Sparkler, steering her through the ice-bergs of the gloomy Arctic Ocean. The twilight was be-
those words suddenly rose up amid the bowlings of the gale, and I knew that they came from the lips of Crazy Bill. Then the sound of approaching footsteps saluted my ears.
“ He’s coming—he’s coming!” cried the voice of the lunatic, and the next moment, by the light of the binnacle lamp, I beheld a sight which filled me with horror. Close at my side stood crazy Bill, holding in his arms the form of one of my shipmates ; as the light fell full upon the face of this figure I recognised it as that of my chum, Jack Ringbolt. But the features were white and livid, the eyes stareing and vacant, while the tongue protruded some inches from the mouth. There was no mistaking the expression of that distorted countenance. It was the hue of death!
“ There?” exclaimed Bill with a horrid leer as he placed the corpse in a standing position against the helm. “ See what a pretty steersman I’ve brought you! He’ll steer the ship well I Oh, yes—Ha! ha! ha!”
The exclamation of surprise and horror which I then uttered, was loud enough to wake my shipmates, who, with the exception of the man on the lookout, were fast asleep in the potato bin, and many of them now came rushing to the spot— among whom was the third mate,
For a few moments the fearful sight which they beheld seemed to paralyze them; but soon re-gaimng their self-possession, they all made an instantaneous rush toward the lunatic with the intention of securing him. But with one long, wild, unearthly shriek, the last that ever passed his lips, he broke away from them, and laying his hand upon the lee rail, vaulted over it into the boiling, hissing waves of the dark sea.
Looking over the rail we caught a glimpse of a hand raised for an instant above the waters, ere they closed over the unfortunate man as he sank to rise no more. We now proceeded to take a closer examination of Jack Ringbolt.
That crazy Bill was the person who had murdered him, we had no doubt, for the marks of his huge fingers were upon the dead man’s throat. A piece of sea biscuit was clutched tightly in one of his hands, and from this we surmised that he had met bis death in the forehold, where he had probably ventured to procure a cake from the cask in which the bread was kept.
The lunatic must have attacked him in a sudden and unexpected manner, and effected his work stealthily, and without noise, since not the slightest sound of a struggle had been heard by the watch below, the greater part of whom, had been previously awakened by the shouting and yelling of the crazy seaman.
Alas! Poor Ringbolt. Best and blithest of chums—gayest of the Sparkler's crew,—never shall thy fearful fate be obliterated from my memory. Would that thou couldst lower a rope to me from thy bright home above; and then thou should’st see how soon thine old friend Starbuck would join thee!
[WRITTEN FOR THE NEW YORK WEEKLY.]
“ But, I fear Ellen you are fatigued to-day ?”
“ Oh, no, mother!” And she bowed courteously to me. “Only a little hungry.”
The little one, that opened the door for me, jumped up immediately and spread a clean cloth on the table.
Susan requested me to stay and partake of their humble dinner, to which I assented. A plate of mealy potatoes, bread and tea, was all; but to me it was better than the most luxurious dinner, for I eat it in company with those I loved.
Ellen wasaslight, dark eyed girl, not beautiful, but intelligent and pleasing, and I was delighted with my intended heiress.
An hour soon passed. Ellen had returned to the factory, and drawing my chair closer to my sister, I took both her hands in mine, and looking steadily in her face, said: “Susie, why did you not marry the President ?” (For you see I could not keep the cat in the bag any longer.)
Her first impulse had been to rise up in anger. She looked me steadily in the face, and grew deadly pale. I feared she would faint, and cried —“ Oh! Susie, don’t, it is your brother Harry.” It was useless, there she lay in my arms, helpless as a child, and little Mary crying,
“ Oh! mother, mother! You’ve killed my mother.”
“ No such thing ” said' I, as I dashed a cup of cold water in her face. By and bye all was right again. Susan was satisfied that I was her brother. I told of my whim of wishing to remain unknown to Jack and his wife, whom I had not yet seen ; and told Sue to get ready to move—asked where I should find Peter. She told me he was a porter-managing to exist, and that was all—one of those unfortunate stepsons of fortune with whom nothing prospers, but honest and respectable withal. Of course, John dropped him. His wife could scarcely tolerate her own husband, and would have died with mortification, if Peter, in his coarse suit of clothes, had dared to accost her as sister.
I was sick of these fol de rol airs—this apeing of aristocracy; and being more anxious than ever to put a damper on their conceit, I wished Susan good bye for awhile, and went toward the business part of the city. Who should brush against me but the identical man I was seeking. I recognized him at once—called out,
“Halloo, Peter! Stop, can’t you, old boy ?”
I laughed until the tears ran down my cheeks at his look of astonishment. At last he slowly ejaculated,
“Are you Harry, or are you not ?”
“The veritable one,” said I.
Why it was pleasant this meeting. Peter’s heart was in the right place. We went into a porter-house, and had a good talk together—settled all our plans—then separated: Peter to give warning to bis employer, and I in search of a dwelling. That was soon found, and an upholsterer dispatched with unlimited orders to furnish it. My next step was to procure an equipage and horses. A week sufficed to put my establishment in complete order, and then sending for my sister and nieces, I installed Susan as mistress of the mansion.
It was time now to call on Jack. He was not at home, but his wife was. She received me very ceremoniously, and motioned me to a chair. Heiress was written on every muscle of her countenance. One look at those cold eyes and rigid mouth was enough for me to know what my poor sister must have suffered from her arrogance. She grew quite affable, however, when I presented her with a fan made from the teeth of the elephant, and inlaid (on the handle) with rubies and turquoise.
Wishing to probe her heart a little, I asked if Mrs. Cleland was living in New York?
Drawing herself up, she said, “ I cannot inform you where the person you speak of lives. In marrying Mr. Chandler, I did not marry his relations. Those, I could not raise to my level.”
“But is she not very poor?” I persisted in saying.
“Sir, I am not acquainted with the state of her circumstances.”
“Ah, Aladam,” I playfully rejoined, “ you will not confess your good acts* I am sure she is indebted to you for every comfort. ’
“ Oblige me, Mr. Sampson, by dropping the conversation.”
I Begged a thousand pardons, and then went on
ginning to deepen upon the waters, shrouding the ice in obscurity, and as the wind was blowing almost a gale the navigation was rendered extremely dangerous. Crash upon crash resounded through the vessel as the floating masses dashed against her sides, causing every timber to tremble, and subjecting the wheel to such violent jerks that I was obliged to use great exertion to keep myself from being thrown from my position.
“Steady—there—steady!”
“Aye, aye, sir! Steady she goes!”
“Bang! Whir-r-r-ash!” and the old Betsey lay over almost upon her beam-ends as a huge drift struck her amidships.
“Luff! luff!” screamed the mate.
“Luff it is!” I responded, putting the wheel down.
“ Cr-r-r-ash 1” on the larboard bow this time.
“ Keep off—keep off!-’7 cried the mate in, a voice between a howl and a yell.
“Aye, aye, sir I” and I raised my wheel.
“ That’s he—steady !” and obedient to the helm the old craft shot ahead in a straight line, if we except the fact that “she rolled from the weather to the lee” with a violence I had never seen eqalled in any other vessel.
The darkness of night soon gathered around us. Luckily, however, we had now succeeded in clearing the field of ice, which had given us so much trouble, although the many detached masses still floating in our vicinity rendered it necessary for the lookout to keep a sharp eye about him. The deep gloom resting upon the face of the sea was occasionally relieved by fitful gleam-ings from the cold moon, as she now and then made her appearance from between the jagged edges of the drifting clouds. I still held my post at the helm; but the mate had gone below, and the ship was in charge of the third officer.
Suddenly I felt a hand laid upon my arm. and turning, beheld my chum, Jack Ringbolt.
“ Bill has broken loose again !” said he, “ and he makes so much noise that I can’t sleep.”
“ Better tell the third mate to get him tied up again,” said I.
“ He’s asleep,” said Jack, “and I don’t like to disturb the boys below, who are all snoring in their bunks. Besides, you know it is the captain’s express command that no one shall interfere with Bill without having previously consulted some one of the officers!” and so saying, my chum turned and walked forward again.
The person to whom he had alluded was a seaman, whose mental faculties had become deranged a few weeks previously, owing to an accidental blow on the head, from a heavy block which having become unhooked, had fallen from aloft, while Bill was directly under it coiling up a rope.
From that moment he had conducted himself in so wild and violent a manner, that it had been found necessary to keep him confined in the hold and fastened to one of the beams by a rope.
The rope, however, had been adjusted in a manner which caused him no pain ; while his quarters had been made as comfortable as possible. Notwithstanding he would rave, jump about and howl in the most frightful manner, often keeping his weary shipmatesawage through the whole of their watch below. It was hardly safe for any of us to go near him, as he would double up his fists and strike at us in the most determined manner. To avoid trouble, therefore, his food was lowered to him at mealtimes, through the fore bold by means of a rope. Twice since his confinement had he continued to free himself from the cord which held him, by gnawing at it with his teeth, and now according to my chum’s statement he had again succeeded—this making the third time. At such periods it was extremely difficult to secure him ; for he was a man of prodigious strength— almost a giant in size—and would struggle with so much desperation, that it required the united efforts of five men to hold him.
The knowledge that he was at large now filled me with a sensation such as I bad never experienced before; and when, not long afterward, I rang the bell for my relief, a strange and involuntary shudder ran through my frame.
The wind was howling dismally through the rigging, the tall masts creaked, and every timber groaned as the old Betsey pitched and struggled among the heavy seas. It was my chum’s turn to take the helm; but though I waited a long time he did not make his appearance.
Thinking that the bell had not been heard above the din of the storm, I struck it again.
“ Ha! ha I ha! hear the knell of the dead man! Don’t you hear bow it rolls and tolls in the storm wind! Ho! ho! he’s coming, he’s
BETRAYED BY A TORY.
From the Reminiscences of a Revolutionary Soldier.
BY WILLIAM EARLE BINDER
coming!”
The time of our present sketch is again the troublous period of the Revolution—the hero once more that brave Continental officer, Lieutenant Creamer.
The authenticity of these sketches, or, at least, the greater proportion of them ; and they have never before, to our knowledge, been made public property—cannot be questioned, the incidents having verbally descended down to us from our great grandfather, Henry Seybert, who was personally cognizant of, and in many cases actually participated in, the interesting, and frequently thrilling episodes.
We tell the stories as we heard them, to the best of our ability, and we honestly believe, that in the main, we are entirely correct, though some little of the matter, rather uncertain, we have been compelled to make up from attending circumstances.
With this slight explanation we will proceed.
The British occupied New York, and the American army was quartered in close proximity —quite near enough to maintain a pretty strict watch on the royalists.
Scouting parties were continually patrolling the country, and, as might well be expected, collisions were of no unfrequent occurrence. Sometimes one—sometimes the other, suffered most in these encounters, and not a few really thrilling adventures, from time to time, marked the inevitable meetings.
One day Creamer, who was just the man for such a service, was ordered to head a detachment detailed for patrol duty, and our respected grandparent, then quite a young man, formed one of the party.
Some considerable distance from the camp, on the top of a hill, near a comfortable farm-house, Creamer and his followers encountered another American patrol, which was under the command of a Virginia lieutenant, whose name has been forgotten, and whom we will take the liberty of styling Ormsby.
The men speedily mixed together, and the officers entered into a conversation.
“ Who lives here, Ormsby ?” inquired Creamer, pointing toward the farm house.
“A man by the name of Jonathan Perry,” was the reply. “ A gdod fellow, and a staunch patriot he is too. He has been very obliging to us; in fact it really seems as if he could not do enough for our comfort.”
“Indeed!”
“Just as I say,” responded Ormsby. “We were pretty well worn out when we reached here —having encounted several English patrols in rapid succession—and finding things so comfortable I concluded to halt and rest for awhile. In fact, the farmer seemed so anxious to do something for us, that I couldn’t refuse his kind and earnest invitation.”
“ I don’t like to see people too kind,” responded Creamer, doubtingly. “ Are yta sure he isn’t cheating you ?”
“ 0, certain of it, Creamer, certain of it I” was the confident reply.
“ Fawning tories abound everywhere, Ormsby, and it don’t do to trust a smooth-tongued stranger too readily—at least I think so.”
“Perry’s a true man if there’s one in America, you may take my word for that!”
“ Well, I hope so ; but I’d really like to see the fellow.”
“Your wish can be gratified at once, for here be comes now,” responded Ormsby, pointing to a middle aged man, of not very prepossessing appearance, who was approaching them from across the fields.
The farmer came up all smiles and bows. Meantime Creamej* was keenly scrutinizing him.
“ I hope you find everything to youY satisfaction, Lieut. Ormsby,” said Perry, in tones far too servile to be very honest.
“ Couldn’t be better suited, my good friend!” responded the credulous Virginian.
Ormsby then introduced Ferry and Creamer. The farmer was overjoyed—bowed down by the honor, and sincerely hoped that Lieut. Creamer would also accept of his hospitality, and much more of the same description.
Creamer briefly returned thanks, but made no
“ The fellow talks smooth enough, but I don’t like him!” said Creamer to the Virginian, as soon as they were alone. “ I have a deep impression that his hard face does not belie his heart. I wouldn’t trust him out of my sight, certain I”
“ You’re too suspicious, Creamer!” responded Ormsby ; “ and to prove that you are so, I’ll stay here and give him every chance to do his worst, if he’s so inclined, which I don’t believe. You and your squad will also remain and bivouac here. 1 believe I am the senior officer, and in virtue of that fact have the right to command under such circumstances.”
“Just so,” responded Creamer; “though it’s hardly fair to run us into danger, because you are so unbelieving as to expose yourself. For my part, if I had my way, I’d give that feMow and ; his house a wide birth.”
“ Well, we shall see who’s right!” rejoined , Ormsby, unmoved by his companion.
“We shall, I think,” quietly responded Creamer.
At that moment the farmer was again seen approaching the lieutenants. He looked anxious, and moved forward rapidly.
“ Gentleman, I have missed one of my finest cows!” said he, as he came up, “ Pray excuse me while I go hunt for the animal. Meanwhile, make yourselves properly at home. All I have is entirely at your command.”
“ Thank you, my friend,” responded Ormsby. “ We fully appreciate your generous kindness.”
Creamer said nothing, and the farmer, after another display of words, hastened away to search for his lost cow.
About an hour or so afterward, Perry returned, but without any cow, which he declared he could not find high or low, and which he supposed the rascally British must have gotten possession of. He was terribly indignant at the loss, and berated the royalists in no set terms.
Finally the farmer brought out another lot of edibles for “ his good friends, the patriots,” and then disappeared, and was no more seen or heard of.
At the bottom of the hill on which the farm house was situated, quite a large creek wound it devious way, and at that time the stream was considerably swollen and increased in size. Not long after Perry returned from his unsuccessful search for the cow, some of the men descended to wash themselves, but they had hardly reached the bed of the stream, when they turned upon their heels, and with desperate energy began to clamber back up the hill, at the same time wildly shouting,
“ The British! the British!—a surprise ; a surprise I”
A general alarm and confusion instantly followed.
At the same time a large and overwhelming body of English dragoons suddenly burst into sight. The royalists completely surrounded the hill, and in a few moments reached the top and were swarming in among the Americans, slashing right and left, wounding some, but, fortunately, not killing any, so adroitly did the latter dodge away from the blows.
At the first signal, Creamer was up, and in arms. At a glance he saw that flight alone, if anything, could save himself and his countrymen, and in ringing tones he cried out,
“Fly, men, fly! everyman for himself! The Tory has done his work!”
In a moment the Americans were scattering in all directions, seeking safety in the fleetness and strength of their limbs.
Creamer himself dashed down the hill, which was of gentle descent, toward the stream of water, followed by three or four dragoons,who had been pressing upon him for some moments, and who appeared to be bent on cutting him down or capturing him. The lieutenant, however, passed over the ground as swiftly as a hunted stag, and, having somewhat of the advantage in the start, reached the bottom of the hill considerably in advance of his pursuers.
Go further forward now he could not—the stream being far too wide to leap—while any attempt to turn to either side, or retrace his steps, would be certain capture. Some artifice alone could save him, and, in a moment, his eagle eye, took in the whole bearings of the spot. With a bound he sprang into the water, which, at that point, appeared to be tolerable deep, and disappeared beneath the surface. A little beyond the bank was pretty well lined with bushes, and the foliage drooped over the water quite thickly. This was all the chance that seemed to offer, and thitherward Creamer at once waded, still keeping himself out of sight beneath the surface. As soon as he gained the desired spot, however—and that was only a few feet from where he entered— he cautiously poked his head out, and, though he could distinctly hear the dragoons hunting for him, he could not see anything of them. That his owii person was iust as completely hidden from his pursuers he had no reason to doubt; still, however, to make the matter quite sure, he only just kept his nose out of water to allow himself a
imingr e conversation, ano
Like the weird, wild shout ,of an evil spirit,’ farmer left them.
conversation, and a few moments afterward the
chance to breathe.
Suddenly Creamer’s bushy covering was violently agitated, and, quick as lightning, the lieutenant jerked his head entirely beneath the surface of the water. The next moment the dragoons forced their way into the covert, beating around in all directions with their heavy sabres.
“ By St. George! the fellow’s not here!” exclaimed one, at length.
“ Where the devil can he have got to, then ?” added another.
“Ecod I I guess we’d find him at the bottom of the stream if we’d take the trouble to look!” cried a third.
“ Which I guess we shan’t do to find nothing but the carcase of a dead rebel!” added a fourth.
Finally the dragoons gave up the hunt, and at length Creamer ventured to poke his nose out once more.
“ They’re gone I” he exclaimed, mentally, “and I’m not sorry for it, for it’s anything but comfortable or pleasant to keep under the water in that manner. A few minutes longer and I positively believe I should hpve been a dead man.”
Some time afterward, when Creamer felt pretty well assured that no one was lurking about, he ventured forth from his place of concealment, and, after carefully reconnoitering his surroundings, bent his staps toward the American headquarters, where he soon arrived, none the worse for the adventure at the farm house.
With very few exceptions all the rest of the patriots were made prisoners, Ormsby and our respected grandfather being among the number. The captives were at once carried into New York, and for six weeks, during which time they were fed almost wholly on the poorest kind of horse meat, were confined in the old Sugar House. Finally, they were exchanged, and with joyful hearts once more rejoined their friends and countrymen.
What became of Jonathan Perry after this exploit we never heard, but if ever a villain deserved the jibbet that man was he. That the rascal betrayed the Americans, and that his story about the lost cow was but an excuse to conceal his real design of communicating with the royalists, is just as certain as that two and two make four.
Subsequently Ormsby acknowledged to Creamer that he was nover before so egregiously taken in.
“And if I only had the villain here!” he fiercely concluded, “I’d roast him alivq, or cut him limb from limb!”
But they never found the traitor, though a most vigilant search was subsequently made for him.
IWK1TTEN EOK THE HEW YORK WEEKLY.]
a
ESTRANGED.
BY CORA MAY.
He said, “ We will walk life’s path together-^ Thou and I, my sweet bride,
And life will always be bright and pleasant With thee, dear love, by my^sido.”
A very small cloud passed oyer
The sky of our life, and cast
A strange, dark shadow upon us;
I thought it would soon be past.
But my lover is proud and haughty, And I am as proud as he;
So neither will draw away the vei
That would the other see..
How the aching heart is yeaning
To bo reconciled again;
But he is proud, and I am proud—
Ah, yes—it is all in vain.
For the shadow between us grows deeper, And we live and walk apart,
While thorns spring up and cover
The grave of love in my heart.
[WRITTEN FOR THE NEW YORK WEEKLY.]
THE FERRY AND THE FERRYMAN.
A PERILOUS ADVENTURE.
BY ROGER DE CLEVERLY.
. “ I can set you over,” said the woman, with an Irish accent. “ The men are all gone to the races, but 1 can handle the poles as well as any of them.” ' •
“ Thank you, ma’am,” said I. “ But I must tell you beforehand that I shall be obliged to depend ou you to change a bill for me. I expected to-procure change of Mr. Ball, the contractor at the Aqueduct, but neither he nor any other human being was to be found at the Fork. They are probably gone to the races, too.”
“ Yes, he aud all his hands. We take nothing but specie at the Ferry.”
“ Then, ma’am, I must ask you to trust me until my return from F----, this afternoon, when I require to be set back again on this side of the river, and will pay you for both trips, and something besides as a douceur.”
The womau made no reply, but turned back to her washtub under the tree, and resumed her work.
“Madam,” said I, “I feel I may have confidence in you, if you can have none in me. Take this five dollar bill, on the Bank of Pittsburgh— money with which you must be familiar—aud I will redeem it before uight, and leave an extra sum—enough to satisfy you fully—in your hands for the favor.”
Rub, rub, rub ’ She was again hard at her work, and deigned me no response. She did not even as much as incline her eye in the direction where I stood, or show by any sign whatever, a consciousness that I had addressed her.
“ Or, shall I leave in pledge with you,” continued I, “ some loose article about my person ? Here is my pocket-knife, pocket-handkerchief, gold pencil-case—take one or all of them. Your ferry charge is but ’leeg, you say, and either one of these will secure you against loss.”
Still she was unmoved.
Here indeed was a dilemma; and the well grounded confidence I entertained of my ability to work my own way through the narrow passages of life, in defiance of all obstacles, especially where one of the softer sex was to be dealt with, was in danger of securing a disastrous shock. I therefore changed my tactics and method of approach.
“My good woman,” said I, very seriously, “I am Mr-------, connected with the public works some ten miles from here, up the Kiskeminstas. I have come down from there this morning, on foot, of cource and have business below. I cannot swim this wide river, but I must cross it. Here you have three boats anchored to the shore, and are accustomed to play the ferryman yourself. Unfortunately, inexcusably, perhaps, I am without change, but I have bills and valuables, and have offered you every thing that is fair. Can I not induce you from kindness or hope of reward, to set me over on the opposite side ? If not, still I must go.
But all this failed to touch her. She made me no answer, but kept rubbing away as unconcernedly as though by some stroke of enchantment she had been suddenly transformed into an au toraaton washerwoman, of the most industrious qualities, but without the capacity of feeling or of speech. I became vexed and indignant.
“ Remember,” said I, “ that we are in a vast wilderness here; that aside from yourself and your boats, there are probably no means of crossing the Alleghany within many miles. You cannot blame me if, under the circumstances, I insist upon borrowing one of your boats, which, however, shall be safely returned to you within a few hours, with a handsome reward for its use. So take your choice, good woman—you may ferry me over, or I will ferry rayself.”
This moved her as little as all the rest I had said. She made no response, and gave no sign of either consent or refusal. Turning away, I walked down the bank a few rods to the boats, and selecting a medium sized dugout, or canoe, with both paddles and setting poles lying on its bottom, shoved it gently into the water aud stepped on board.
While engaged in these preliminaries, I had kept ray immaleable washerwoman stealthily in my eye; and was not surprised, at last, though her back was toward me and she did not seem to pay the least attention to my movements, to see her lift her hands from the suds, shake off the water, wipe them dry'on her apron, and turn her face riverward. This she did with the utmost deliberation ; and with the same ' omposure, without uttering a word, or discompassing a muscle of her face, or hurrying her steps, she approached me.
Of course I waited to receive her on board— what gentleman could have done otherwise ? I even took pains to bring the stern of the craft ia proximity to the dry pebbles, that she might not dampen her delicate feet. She stepped lightly and gracefully on board, and taking up one of the long setting poles, pointed with iron like a pike, placed it in the sand as though to push “her light shallop from the shore.”
Not doubting that she was thoroughly at home on the water, with a comfortable feeling of satisfaction at the victory I had achieved over her si lent stubbornness, I laid aside the pole I held in my hand,- and retiring to the bow of the ooat, which extended out into the deep water seated myself preparatory to a survey of the charming river prospect which surrounded me
No sooner were my eyes turned for an instant in another direction, than I became aware of a lively movement on board our craft A dense object seemed flying toward me, and turning my head I was just in season to see the silent woman come down, as it were, out of the air, and land directly in front of me, with her glittering pike raised aloft and aimed at my breast. The considerable distance between us she seemed to have cleared at a leap. Her face, before so placid, was now that of the tiger. Her eyes shot lurid fire; and altogether she presented a striking
representation of an enraged and conquering Am- of the two rivers, was already approaching its ntz.nn 1 Anmnlofinn A linn nf err not- rnnnrl cfnnn ninra
azon.
Knocking the spear aside with some difficulty, when it was within a few inches of my throat. I sprung upon my feet.
“Peccavi! bold huntress,” said I, “ I surrender. Were it your husband, or a grown-up son—if you have one—the case might be different, but as it is I am forced to retreat. Give way and let me pass!”
Then it was that the lips of this dumb creature became unsealed, and she poured out ou me a torrent of profane invective, such as only a degraded woman was ever known to utter. It will not bear repeating. Oath followed oath, until wind and water turned blue. Mixed with this profanity were an abundance of complimentary epithets and notices of myself, and my ilk. “ D-----d Yankee,” “ c-----d city fop,” “ bloody imp of h—11,” were among the gentler of her expressions.
“ Let me pass,” I repeated ; but she was •bliv-i®us to everything but the dreadful improvisations of her own fury. The floodgates of her speech once opened, nothing could shut them; and her ears, meanwhile, were closed. With my arm extended as a sort of shield to protect my body against her upraised weapon, I made a slight movement in advance. Quick as a flash of light, she gave the toppling canoe a lurch with her foot, which would have sent me sprawling into the water, had I not sunk instantly on my hands and knees, in the bottom of the boat.
I was now wholly at her mercy; and to this day it is a wonder to me that, in ner rage, she did not pin me through and through with her terrible harpoon ; for at that time, there was no law in that wild region but that of the pistol and the knife. But she forebore. Her more merciful intention, it appeared, was to graduate me through the canoe—to compel me to debark from the end opposite to that by which I bad entered, and to make my exit by water instead of my land.
To this arrangement I had serious objections. True, I swam well, but in aquiatic exercises, I had always fancied making choice of time and place for myself. I doubted if I should be able to swim at all on compulsion, and so resolved most resolutely to resist this part of her programme.
“Get out of the boat,” shouted the virago, pressing me home with her spear.
I defended myself as well as I could in my humble posture, warding off her blows and feints with my naked hand—for it is not in nature to lie quiet when a deadly weapon is flashing about one’s eyes, though it may be in the hands of a woman or a child. She handled the heavy instrument most dexterously, and foiled one or two attempts I made to seize it, giving my exposed arm, meantime, a severe prick. A pang shot up to my shoulder; and the blood trickled from a slight puncture ia my wrist, off at the ends of my fingers.
This would never do. My gallantry as yet had never failed me, but I must sink it now for the once, as priests are sometimes compelled to do by their cloth. So gathering all my force of nerve and muscle to my aid, at the risk of being impaled, I made a grand, flying leap in the direction of my tormenter, with no worse design, however, than to clear a passage for my exit. The effort was successful. She was overturned, and fell with her face down in the bottom of the boat. Placing one foot as lightly as possible on her persnn—the narrowness of the craft made the sacrilege unavoidable—I sprang on shore.
But though down, my heroine was not vanquished. Certainly on reaching the land, under all the circumstances, it was not to be expected that I should run. I did not, and came near losing ray life in consequence. Stooping down by the water’s edge, a rod or more from the boat, I spent a minute or two in bathing my bloody hand, and observed, meanwhile, with satisfaction, that my woman of the Bpear had regained her feet, come ashore, and was busy in making fast her craft. But the next instant as I arose to my feet, a pike, which in heft would have been a weapon for a Hercules, whistled by my head, and struck a tree by my side, driving its way quite through the bark and into the solid wood.
“ God of Heaven!” I exclaimed, “ am 1 yet to be slain by this she wildcat, whose ferosity is only to be equalled by that of the malicious copperhead which burrows in these rocks, and springs out ou the unsuspecting wayfarer as he picks his way along the bridle-paths of this roadless, bridgeless, houseless land ?” I am not ashamed to own it. I hung out the white feather, and fled.
It was now high noon. Three hours of futile effort had been wasted in various attempts to find some means of crossing the Alleghany, here a broad, deep river, capable of floating steamers like those which plow the Hudson. Somewhat crestfallen at the result of my last adventure, but thankful for my escape, and etill compelled to laugh at the ridiculous termination of my attempt to force a passage of the friendless current, I bent my anxious steps up stream. All below, to where the Kiskeminitas united its volume to that of the Alleghany, just beyond the half-built aqueduct, cutting off ray way in that direction, I had already explored. Suddenly as 1 gazed out over the dark expanded sheet of water, I became sensible of an increasing stir and hum, almost approaching a roar, in its restless flow, The river was rising. The heavy rains of the previous day and night were just beginning to make themselves felt in their power, as the mountains of the north poured down their accumulated floods. The perils of the day were not yet ended. A danger more terrible than any I bad yet encountered, was to be met, before ray feet could press the opposite shore, toward which my anxious vision was so constantly directed.
A walk of a little more than a mile brought me to a small cave bordered by a grassy nook,where I was too happy to discover an enormous canoe, with its heavy load, anchored to the shore, and three men, evidently the crew belonging to the craft, gathered about a little fire on the beach, boiling their coffee for dinner They received me with a freedom and cordiality known only among wayfarers in new countries, iuvited me to share their refreshments with them; and when they knew of my dilemma, as they were bound down the river, offered me a free passage on board their boat to the little settlement of F--------, whither my way tended.
I accepted their offers as freely as they were made ; and as we dined together on the grass, related to them, much to their gratification and amusement, my adventures of the morning. Dinner ended, we at once got under way.
The craft in which I was now embarked, was without seam, or nail, or pin. She was a single piece of wood, some eighty feet long, light and graceful in shape, carved out of the body of a magnificent pine. Among her lading were numerous barrels set on end, containing, probably, pork or whisky, and she was bound for the city oi Pittsburgh, or ports beyond. But notwithstanding her heavy freight, which sunk her deeply in the water, in the skillful hands of her crew she seemed entirely manageable, and shot out into the current like a bird. I soon became aware, by noticing objects on shore, that we were coursing over the shining blue with race-horse speed, and was informed bv the captain that the river was at “high fresh,” with her “ best harness on ”
At this period, the State of Pennsylvania was jost opening up the great wilderness lying along the Alleghany and its Kiskeminitas branch, by a canal from Pittsburgh to the mountains. The aqueduct across the Alleghany, at the junction
completion. A line of great, round stone piers,
each one as big as a bouse, stretched across the river, flanked at either end by massive abutments. Surmounting these was the wooden trunk for the water-course, extending from the Kiskeminitas side, already in its place for two-thirds of the distance across the river, supported in position until all its fastenings could be secured, by a latticework of timbers below, woven together and resting for support on the rocky bed of the stream. The spaces between the last two piers and the abutment outlie opposite bank, were alone unobstructed, having been left open for purposes of navigation. With this exception the breadth of the river was closed.
Of the existence of this barricade, our captain and crew were ignorant, and I was too little of a waterman, or too much occupied with other subjects to have given it attention. We were first startled by a distant ominous roar, before this portion of the river came in view, which would have done no discredit to Niagara. Our boatmen ceased the gentle motion of tbeir oars and listened. Soon, however, on farther rounding the curve down which we were gliding, the cause of the tumult became obvious. The aqueduct was before us, at the distance, perhaps, of half a mile; and against its great solid piers the raging waters were piled, winding around them in white sheets; and among the timbers the black and white surge was leaping, foaming, hissing, roaring, with a force and fury which seemed likely to tear the entire structure from its foundations. . I perceived that a few hours had made a vast difference in the volume of water which the river carried, and also with the velocity and energy of its motion. The whole wide channel seemed but an inclined plane, discharging its contents down the valley of its course, like the spiteful shoot at the tail of some mill.
Our boatmen sprung to their oars. Our tall captain straightened himself erect in the stern of the boat with a delicate scull in his hand, and scanned with the glance of an eagle, the length and breadth of our chances and our dangers. These last were potent enough. To run across the current in its rapid course, so as to pass the aqueduct by one of the open spaces near the opposite shore, in the short intervening distance, and thus escape being dashed in pieces against the interlaced timbers or frowning piers, indeed, seemed hopeless. Yet our men did not blanch or quail. They bent their sinews to the waves, and for a breathless minute, with a nicely calculated divergence from the course of the rushing tide— for more than this would have swamped us instantly—we flew diagonally across the water. The next moment our captain shouted,
“ Drop your oars I Down, down, all of you, in the bottom of the boat !”
We threw ourselves down as commanded, and left all further management of the craft and our lives in his skillful hands.
I have said our captain was a tall man. He was also spare, rough-featured and muscular— the very beau-ideal of a backwoodsman, or water king, to command a raft or boat craft on one of our wild, inconstant rivers—and as I gazed up at him, standing erect and calm in the bottom of the boat, facing the danger before us, and working the taper scull in his hand behind him, which appeared little better than a feather or a fairy’s wand, hd seemed endowed with more than mortal height, and more than mortal power. To my eye be assumed the form of a wizard, or a god, to command the waves and make them obedient to bis will.
Cautiously raising my head, for I could not wholly restrain my nervous anxiety in the midst of so much peril, I discovered that we were now on a line with the nearest pier, having an open passage beyond it, with the bow of our boat headed directly against its center Around that massive column the water raged and foamed, raising itself in the shape of a hollow cone, to the height of many feet; and after expending its strength and fury in vain against the solid structure, passed with a whirl, lashing, shrieking and roaring, ou its tumultuous way.
On, on, sped our long frail bark, like a monster spear, or arrow shot from a giant’s bow, and aimed directly into the frothing jaws of the danger before us. Still our Captain made no effort to alter her direction. Indeed, it was clear that he purposely held her to that course. His eyes were fastened on the granite pile, as though he would blast it with a look. There was no fear in him, no doubt; and held to this one track, as though by the spell of an enchanter, we flew over the intervening space, apparently to an inevitable doom. Fifty feet—twenty—ten ; and the bow of our boat struck the foaming hillock, and rose upon it. Then it was that the consummate skill, hidden in the cunning hand of our Captain and his plan for deliverance, were developed. With a single turn of his scull, he changed the direction of our craft, giving her head a slight impulse to the right. We were lifted upon the pile of water— our craft balanced herself like a rope-danca, in the air for a moment among the foam, and then shot, like a javelin, down among the whirling waves below. We were safe ; and in the course of the next hour or two, I was safely landed at F-----, according to promise.
and the waving plume of her riding hat flutters very gracefully in the breeze ; and the white face nestles lovingly on the summer grass. A tall, aristocratic bachelor, that lives in the finest house about here. I beg pardon, I ought to have said a modern Apollo comes along, of course, the little curly head is pillowed on his bosom, and he bathes the pale face in the dancing streamlet until the rose tints steal back to the dimpled cheek. What other man in the world than Claude Barrington could have helped proposing on the spot ?” and Alice paused breathlessly as girlish laughter rang out merrily at her harangue, and Effie’s blushes as she murmured, “ nonsense?’
‘I think it was nonsense,” said Alice, “and any body else would think so except the heartless masculine to whom 1 have alluded.
“ Come girls it’s getting late, let’s gu,” said Emma Melson, rising.
“ Wait,” said Fanny Wilson, “'we haven’t got it all fixed about trying our fortunes yet—now listen while I go once more over the plan, and if I am wrong correct me. Well, to-night at exactly ten minutes to twelve we are all to meet in our garden just below the lilac bushes—and although ’twill be moonlight I’ll bring a candle, matches, &c. I’ll bring father’s watch, so as to be at the old cellar exactly at twelve.” .
“ Ob, girls let’s don’t do it—I am afraid!” pleaded Effie Nelston.
“ You little Goose! What can hurt you ? just go backward down four or five steps with a candle and a looking-glass in your hand, and your future husband will most certainly look over your shoulder,” said Emma Melson, in playful scorn.
“Come, girls, the sun has gone down—of course Effie’ll go with us,” said Alice Severson, rising from the ground.
“ Will you, Effie ?” And the girls gathered around until they won from her a reluctant consent.
“ Now, the question is, who will go first?” said Fanny Wilson.
“Let’s draw lots,” proposed Alice Severson.
“Well, come, put your hands together, and let the number be sixteen,” said Emma Melson. Down went the hands on Emma’s lap. “Now, girls, do you each one agree that if the number sixteen is spoken just as you draw your hand from the pile of hands that you’ll brave the old cellar first?” asked Emma.
“Yes, yes,” they replied, and Alice Severson said laughingly, as she put her hands on 'he others laid down .
“Yes, if it comes to me to go first, I’ll brave rocks, rats, cobwebs, and if necessary the future husbands of forty girls!”
There- were soft hands drawn out hastily, and crimson lips counted until the magical sixteen was pronounced just as Effie Nelston’s hand went on the pile of pink fingers and fairy dimples on Emma’s lap.
A look of dismay crept over Effie’s face as smiles played around the lips of the other girls, who were each glad that they had escaped.
“No backing out, Effie,” they exclaimed, in a breath, as they started up hastily to go home.
As their dresses fluttered out of sight the woods echoed to the merry peals of laughter that rung out from the lips of Claude Barrington who, hidden by the neighboring trees, had heard every word of their conversation.
“By Jove I” he murmured, “ that Effie Nelston is a little beauty! Alice Severson was right—no other man except Claude Barrington could have resisted the temptation to make a romance of it. I’ve dreamed of the little witch ever since ; but my Barrington blood is so proud I could never bear to be refused by a woman—but how she blushed when they talked of me this evening,” he said musingly. Then as a sudden thought swept over his brain he started up hastily and muttered:
“By the shades of Magi, I’ll do it!”
“ Good evening Miss Effie.”
“ Good evening,” she replied, and was about to pass on, when he said,
“ Do not let me drive you from this beautiful, secluded spot.”
Effie paused a moment as he continued,
“ I was passing by here yesterday evening, and I suppose I must have found a lost treasure,” and he handed Effie a small perfume bottle.
I cannot repeat their conversation verbatim, suffice it to say, it proved very interesting to both parties. After that there were walks, and rides, and sails, and vows uttered by moonlight. Finally the gossips said that Barrington mansion would soon have a mistress, for carpenters and masons were very busy there.
For once the gossips spoke truthfully. They were married, and of course enjoyed supreme felicity, as all married persons do.
ITEMS QF INTEREST.
On the day that Garibaldi entered Palermo, a young and beautiful nun, named Ignacia Riso, whose father and brother had been killed by the ruling power, without a trial, left the convent, and amidst a shower of balls and grapashot, a cross in one hand and a poignard in the other, placed herself at the head of Gari, baldi’s column, crying, “Down with the Bourbons! Death to the tyrant! Vengeance!” She kept her place as long as the fighting lasted, and her courageous attitude electrified the volunteers. Ever since that day the name of Ig-naciaRiso has been held sacred. When she passes in the street the soldiers bow low and bless her with the most profound respect. Garibaldi himself pays her great attention, and loves her as if she were his own daughter.
71^ Messrs. Young, of Leith, sent out in some of their vessels engaged in the Greenland whale fishery, harpoons poisoned with prussic acid. This was so arranged that as the line was drawn tight the poison was injected into the wound made by the harpoon. One ship so provided met with a fine whale. The harpoon was skillfully and deeply buried in its body ; the leviathan immediately “sounded” or dived perpendicularly downwards, but in a very short time the^rope relaxed, and the whale rose to the surface quite dead; but the men were so appalled by the terrific effect of the poisoned harpoon that they declined to use any more of them.
John Hull, Esq., now residing in Detroit, gives the outline history of his very interesting family thus: He lived East, married young and went West. He and his wife were small, he weighing 140 and she about 80 pounds. They settled in Detroit and went into the beef business. They now weigh respectively as follows: He 240 and she 210 pounds. They have sixteen bouncing boys, from one to twenty-five years old.
Oak trees, in the French forests, have been attacked this year by a strange disease. They are covered from the top branchesuto the roots with caterpillars, which form a coatingsome inches thick. In some lo calties the municipal authorities have published a notice forbidding children to enter the woods. These insects, at the approach of a human being, cover the face, neck and body. The sting has, in many instances, produced fever.
John S. Gilman, Esq., of Ashland, Ky., who has been taking the census in the upper part of Aroostook County, reports one family of twenty-seven children, and several more containing from fifteen to twenty children. In one family he found sixteen children, all of whom were living at home, and the mother was only forty years of age. Just the kind of people to commence a settlement with.
Three of the choir of young girls who, dressed in white, greeted Washington as he entered Tren ton in 1789, on his way to assume the Presidency, and strewed his pathway with flowers, still survive. One yet lives in Trenton; one is the mother of Senator Chesnut, of , South Carolina, and one, Mrs. Sarah Hand, resides in Cape ‘ May County, N. J.
Recently, some workmen who were excavating near the old fort in Toronto, disinterred the remains of fifteen British and American soldiers who fell in the war of 1812. Several buttons were found. One button has the initials of Pennsylvania Rangers on it; another is marked U. S.; another 8th British Grenadiers. A few American coins were also found.
It is said that John Wood, the present Governor of Illinois, arrived, thirty-two yearsago, at the city of Quincy, in that State, with only twenty-five cents in his pocket. Now Quincy contains 20,000 inhabitants, and Mr. Wood lives in and owns a residence there which cost him $160,000. So much for becoming a sucker in good time I
As he passed over the spot where the girls bad so_ ward, lately sat, he saw, lying on the grass, a small CX- oiEast
There is among the inhabitants of one
[WRITTEN FOR TnE NEW-YORK WEEKLY.]
EFFIE NELSTON’S FORTUNE.
BY MOLLY MYRTLE
’Twas a pleasant picture on which the evening sunlight streamed, in the old woods close to the little village of B---. The birdlings flut-tured wearily round their downy nests that had been deserted all day for tinkling brooks and wild-wood flowers.
The breezes fanned gently the brows of the quarto of gay young creatures seated on the summer grass, talking of such things as girls will talk of some times. *
Any one could have {old that something of importance engrossed tbeir attention, from the eager parted lips, flushed cheeks, and bright eyes of brown, blue, and black, that flashed out from under tbeir school-girl looking sun-bonnets.
“ I think we’re old enough to try our fortunes. Don’t you, girls?” spoke Emma Melson, straightening up.
“I was sixteen yesterday,” said Fannie Wilson, a lively little brunette.
“I was sixteen three months ago,” said Emma, half contemptuously, and then she added, “ You are seventeen, Alice Severson—and how old are you Effie Nelston?”
“I shall be seventeen next month,” replied Effie, who was a slight, fairy-like creature, with violet hued eyes, and dark brown silken curls, that floated, a beautiful frame-work, round her pure face. .
“ I was never more disappointed in my life, Effie Nelston, that no romance grew out of that most romantic affair of yours, that happened more than two months ago,” said Alice Severson.
The girls bent eagerly forward as if trying to understand her allusion. After looking in their faces a few moments to enjoy their wonderment, she continued,
“Just to think how romantic it was—a fairy little violet eyed creature, with a blue riding habit on that sett off her figure and complexion to the best advantage, mounted on a prancing steed of midnight blackness, riding along through the green woods. Pony gets frightened—little fairy is dashed to the ground—her brown curls
quisitely cut bottle, that he had seen. Effie toying with that evening. He piched it up aud actually kissed it before he put it in the pocket nearest his heart.
That night, about ten o’clock, Claude Barrington commenced a most elaborate toilet. The last touch was given to the black whiskers and graceful moustache—the last touch given to the dark locks clustering round the white temples—the last self-satisfied look given in the large mirror, and Claude Barrington passed out of the house just as the hands of his watch pointed to half-past eleven. Almost nervously he walked over the green winding paths until he reached an old cellar, to which the girls had made allusion.
There were plenty of old boxes and barrels there and Claude Barrington concealed himself to await the coming of the daring destiny seekers. He had not waited long before be heard them coming with hurried footsteps and suppressed whispers, as if afraid to “ break the spell that lingered near.”
They seated themselves on the topmost step and Claude heard Effie say:
“ Girls it wants five minutes of twelve, suppose we light the candle and all go down together and search the cellar before twelve.”
How Claude Barrington shook in his boots at the proposal; but he felt as if he could never experience half enough gratitude to Alice Severson when she seplied:
“Nonsense Effie—there’s no one down there unless it is the spirit faces of our future husbands. See here, be sure and don’t let any look over your shoulder but the right one.”
Her playfulness disarmed the girls of their fears and Effie took the candle and mirror and prepared to descend. A moment the night breeze toyed with her curls—a moment her bright face, half mirthful, half frightened, was visible, then she disappeared.
The girls listened eagerly. A shrill shriek burst, with frightful sound, on their appalled ears ; then they heard the mirror shivered on the rocks, and all was darkness and silence in the gloomy cellar.
Shriek after shriek burst from the white lips of the girls as they fled like frightened fawns. In a few moments a dozen or more from the residence of Mr. Wilson came thronging to the scene. As they neared the cellar they saw Effie lying at the head of the steps. She was insensible, and as they bore her to the house the weeping girls followed remorsefully as they remembered the reluctance of Effie to join them. There was a mystery. How did she get out of the cellar ? They all met next day to solve it; but in vain they questioned Effie. She knew nothing about it. *
“What did you see Effie?” they enquired breathlessly.
Effie turned slightly pale as she replied, “ I saw a man’s head and shoulders.”
“ What—what did he look like ?” they asked all at once, as they started eagerly forward. Effie blushed and said, “ He looked like—like—I wont tell you.”
“ Looked like I wont tell you ? Funny looking man! It wasn’t ray husband you saw, i know,” said Alice, playfully. ’Twas in vain that the girls entreated Effie to tell them whom the spirit face resembled, but she well knew that where the organ of “ secretiveness ” ought to be on feminine heads there is a decided vacum—so she firmly refused to disclose her secret whereupon they all became disgusted, and left her alone under the same tree where they had sat the evening before. Effie had not been there long when she was startled by hearing a footstep near, and looking up she saw Claude Barrington.' She rose hastily to her feet as he said,
in Philadelnhia. a man 75 years oid,who is a native _____it Bohum, Persia, and who is a believer in the Mohammedan religion. He is familiar with all the Oriental
aud European languages. He is now engaged in making mathematical instruments. There is nothing strange about that. We have thousands cf musclevnen in this city.
M. Renan, a member of the French Institute, has been commissioned by Napoleon to undertake the discovery of the sites of Tyre and Sidon. The locale of these scriptural cities is, as yet, hidden in mystery. Tbeir discovery will shed new light on the significant coincidences of the Old Testament.
An acre of land contains 4 roods (or quarters) each containing 40 poles, or perches, or rods; 160 rods’ 16)£ feet each way; 4,840 square rods of 9 feet each; 43,560 square feet, of 144 inches each; 184,540 squares of six inches each, each containing 36 inches 6,272,640 inches, or squares of one inch each.
Locusts are committing such ravages in Jassy, France, that it has been found necessary to take extraordinary measures, and raise the peasants en masse to destroy them. To abate this scourge the Chamber has given the Government discretionary powers and an unlimited credit.
In England, recently, a boy ten years old, who could not swim, fell into deep water. He remembered having seen his father floating on his back for amusement, and had the presence of mi nd. to imitate that action. He floated for some distance, when* he was rescued by a gentleman who heard his cries for assistance.
The census-taker in Jonesville, Michigan, put down a man’s age at 300 years instead of 300 acres of land which was intended. He was beaten,however,'by the census man in the town of Alleghany, who put down a man as having 160 children, instead of 160 acres of land.
An Eastern religious journal says that in twenty years there will not be a single Quaker in the world. Perhaps the journal in question thinks that they will be all married. What will our Shaker friends say to this?
It is said that Chang and Eng, the Siamese twins, are divided at last, (in opinion). Both are veteran Democrats, but Chang is now for Breckinridge, and Eng for Douglas. They had better be chosen electors by their respective factions.
In Scotland, recently, a hedge sparrow built her nest in a juniper bush, which lay nearly even with the ground, and laid five eggs therein. The bush was afterwards transplanted, without the nest being removed, but the swallow followed it up and hatched her brood.
Numerous suicideshaving lately occurred among the French soldiers, Marshal Magnan has issued an order of the day, repeating an opinion of Napoleon L, who compared the soldier who took his own life to a man deserting his post( on the day of battle.
The gallant veteran, Commodore Stewart, who is now in his eighty-third year, has been in the service of his country 63 years, and participated in forty actions. He still discharges the duties of commandant of the Navy Yard.
A turtle, four feet ten inches long, three feet in width, and weighing upward of 400 pounds, was caught by the members of the Olympic Club, in the waters of South Bay. I,ong Island, recently. The Club will need somesoupernumery aid in demolishing that fellow.
In a village in France, recently, a cat which was in the habit of attacking the nests of swallows beneath the cornice of a house, was set upon by the birds, while sunning herself, and forced to beat a retreat.
In the public parks in London, bands of music perform on Sunday *while a little distance from them open-air preaching takes place, thus giving Sabbatarians and anti-Sabbatarians the largest liberty.
A market gardener in Southern Indiana, has a patch containing 1,700 acres, planted in watermelons. His markets are Cincinnati, LouisvilleNew Albany and Chicago.
In ten years the population of Newark has increased from 38,000 to 75,000 It may truly be called a City of Churches, for this year, 1860, it contains 67 places of worship.
As the St. John steamer Eastern City was on her passage from Boston to Portland, recently, she encountered a school of whales, and ran upon one of them, knocking off her forefoot and causing a slight leak.
Prince Frederic William of Prussia has become Grand Master of the German Free Masonic Lodge, on the occasion of the death of General Seiasinsky.
The age of the New Hampshire Gazette, at Portsmouth, is 104 years—the oldest journal in New England, and perhaps in the country.
Ex-Gov. John H. Steele was the first man who ever wove cotton cloth in New Hampshire with a power from. This he did in 1817.