Chapter 12

"Harry," said Mrs. Castleton, in her prettiest and most winning manner, "I am going to call on your friend, Miss Dawson, and invite her for Thursday evening."

Harry looked up very much astonished, hardly knowing whether to be pleased or not, and said,

"What put that in your head?"

"I want to know her," continued Mrs. Castleton. "They tell me you admire her, Harry; and if she is to be my future sister, as people say--"

"People say a great deal more than they know," said Harry, hastily.

"Well," rejoined his sister, playfully, "be that as it may, Harry, I should like to see the young lady; and beside, I want as many pretty girls as I can get, they always make a party brilliant--and you say she is pretty, don't you, Harry?"

"Beautiful," he replied, with an earnestness that startled Mrs. Castleton. "You'll have no prettier girl here, I promise you that, Laura," he added, presently, more quietly. "But what will Emma say," he continued, bitterly. "She'll never give her consent, depend upon it, to your calling."

"It's not necessary that she should," said Mrs. Castleton, good humoredly; "so perhaps I had better not ask her."

"Emma gives herself airs," continued Harry, angrily. "She thinks that all the world are just confined to her one little _clique_; that there's neither beauty, nor sense, nor any thing else out of her particular set. Now I can tell her that there's more beauty among those who don't give themselves half the airs, and who she looks down upon, than there is to be found among her 'fashionables.' But Emma is perfectly ridiculous with her 'exclusive' nonsense," he continued, with much feeling, evidently showing how deeply he resented his sister's reflections upon the style and stamp of his present admiration, Miss Dawson.

"Oh," said Mrs. Castleton, soothingly, "it's a mistake all very young girls make, Harry. They know nothing out of one circle. Of course, they disparage all others."

But Harry was not to be quieted so easily. He was not satisfied until he had poured forth all his complaints against Emma; and Mrs. Castleton found it best not to take her part, but trust to the result of her experiment of the next week with putting him in good humor with her again.

"Will you call with me?" she continued, presently. "I have ordered the carriage at one."

He looked pleased, and said he would. But after a little while he seemed to grow nervous and fidgetty--walked about the room--asked a good many questions, without seeming to attend much to the answers, and at last said, hurriedly,

"Well, Laura, it's rather late, and I have an engagement down town--do you care about my calling with you? You know it's only necessary for you to leave your card. You need not go in even, if you don't care about it."

"Oh, certainly," she replied. "No, don't wait for me."

And he took his hat and darted off like light, as if he had made an escape from he hardly knew what.

Mrs. Castleton could not but laugh as she heard him shut the hall-door, almost before she was aware he had left the room, well pleased with this indication of susceptibility on his part, which she took as a good omen of the future, fully believing that "future events cast their shadows before." "If Harry were nervous already, what would he be on Thursday evening."

The call was made. Miss Dawson was out. A card was left, with an invitation, which, in due time, was accepted.

"Are you going to ask the Hazletons," inquired Emma.

"No," said Mrs. Castleton; "I don't want to have too large a party. I want just enough to fill my rooms prettily, so that you can see everybody, and how they are dressed--just one of those small, select, pretty parties, where everybody is noticed. I have hardly asked a person--I don't know one--who is not in some way distinguished for either dress, manner, air, or beauty. I have taken pains to cull the most choice of my acquaintance. The rooms will be beautifully lighted--and I expect it to be a brilliant affair."

"If it were not for that Miss Dawson to spoil all," said Emma, dejectedly--for she had never liked the scheme, though she did not oppose it. "I declare, Laura, I wonder at your moral courage in having her. I don't think _I_ could introduce her among such a set, even to be sure of breaking it off. You will be terribly ashamed of her. You don't know, I think, what you have undertaken."

Mrs. Castleton could not but laugh at the earnestness, not to say solemnity, of Emma's manner.

"Not I, Emma--why should I be ashamed of her. If she were Harry's wife, or if even he were engaged to her, the case would be different--I should blush for her then, if she is vulgar. But merely as a guest, how can her dress or manners affect _me_. My position is not to be altered by my happening to visit a girl who dresses vilely, and flirts _à discretion_."

But still Emma looked very dubious, and only said, "Well, don't introduce me."

"Don't be alarmed," replied her sister. "I don't mean to. Come, come, Emma," she continued, laughing, "I see you are nervous about it, but I think you may trust me for carrying it off well," to which her sister replied,

"Well, Laura, if any one _can_ get out of such a scrape gracefully, you will."

Mrs. Castleton laughed, and the subject dropped.

What Emma had said was true. There was an airy grace, a high-bred ease about Mrs. Castlelon, that could carry her through any thing she chose to undertake.

Thursday evening arrived at last. Mrs. Castleton's rooms were lighted to perfection, and she herself dressed with exquisite taste, looking the fitting priestess of the elegant shrine over which she presided. Emma, with her brothers, came early--and one glance satisfied Mrs. Castleton. The simplicity and elegance of Emma's _toilette_ were not to be out-done even by her own. Tom looked at them both with great pride; and, certainly, two prettier or more elegant specimens of humanity are not often to be met with.

He made some playful observation to his sister, expressive of his admiration of her taste, and looking about, said,

"Your rooms are very well lighted. There's nothing like wax, after all."

"They are too hot," said Harry, pettishly.

"Bless you, man," replied Tom, "how can you say so. I am downright chilly; but as there is to be dancing, it is better it should be so."

"If you find this room warm, Harry," said Mrs. Castleton, "you had better go in the dancing-room--there is not a spark of fire there."

Harry walked off, and Emma said,

"I don't know what is the matter with him--he's so cross. He has been so irritable all day that I have hardly dared to speak to him."

Tom only laughed.

Mrs. Castleton gave him a quick look of intelligence, but before she had time to speak, she was called upon to receive her guests, who began to come.

At every fresh arrival Harry's face was to be seen peeping in anxiously from the dancing-room, and it wore something of a look of relief as he turned off each time to resume his restless wanderings in the still empty apartment.

Miss Dawson, meaning to be very fashionable, came late. The bride for whom the party was ostensibly given had arrived; and Mrs. Castleton was about giving orders to have the dancing-room thrown open, and just at the pause that frequently precedes such a movement in a small party, the door was thrown open, and Miss Dawson entered, leaning on the arm of a gentleman whom she introduced as Mr. Hardwicks. Now this Mr. Hardwicks was something more than Mrs. Castleton had bargained for; and Harry hastened forward with a look of some embarrassment and vexation as he perceived the mistake his fair friend had made in taking such a liberty with his high-bred sister. Miss Dawson had often taken _him_ to parties with her, and somehow it had not struck him then as strange. Perhaps it was because he saw it was the style among those around him. But these were not the "customs of Branksome Hall;" and Harry was evidently annoyed. Moreover, this Mr. Hardwicks was a forward, under-bred looking individual, with a quantity of black whisker, and brass buttons to his claret-colored coat, altogether a very different looking person from the black-coated, gentlemanly-looking set that Mrs. Castleton had invited. She received him with a graceful but distant bow, somewhat annoyed, it is true; but as she never allowed trifles to disturb her, she turned calmly away, and never gave him a second thought during the evening.

Miss Dawson she received with _empressement_. She was dressed to her heart's delight, with a profusion of mock pearl and tinsel; her hair in a shower of long curls in front, with any quantity of bows and braids behind, and a wreath!--that required all Mrs. Castleton's self-possession to look at without laughing. Her entrance excited no little sensation--for she was a striking-looking girl, being tall, and full formed, with a very brilliant complexion. Simply and quietly dressed, and she would have been decidedly handsome; but as it was, she was intensely _showy_ and vulgar.

"Harry, the music is just beginning; you will find a place for Miss Dawson in the dancing-room," and so, whether he would or no, he had to ask her to dance. Probably he would have done so if his sister had let him alone; but as it was, he felt as if he _had_ to.

She danced very badly. Harry had not been aware of it before; but she jumped up and down--and if the truth must be told, with an air and spirit of enjoyment not just then the fashionable style.

"How in earnest your fair friend dances," said a young man, with a smile, to Harry, as they passed in the dance.

Harry colored.

"Who on earth have you there, Harry?" asked another, with rather a quizzical look. "Introduce me, wont you?" But Harry affected not to hear the request.

"Who is the young lady your brother is dancing with, Mrs. Castleton?" he heard asked several times; to which his sister answered in her sweetest and most winning manner, "Miss Dawson--a friend of Harry's;" and to some of her brother's particular friends, he heard her say, "Oh, that's Harry's _belle_. Don't you know Miss Dawson--let me introduce you."

Harry felt quite provoked, he did not know why, at hearing his sister couple _him_ always with Miss Dawson; and if he thought the room hot at the beginning of the dance, he did not feel it any cooler before it was over.

Mrs. Castleton introduced a gentleman just as the dance finished, who asked her for the next, when Harry said quickly,

"You are fatigued, are you not? Perhaps you had better go with me and get an ice."

"Do you go and bring Miss Dawson one," said his sister. "I hope," she continued, "you are not fatigued already?"

"Oh, no," replied the young lady, with an animation and energy that proclaimed she had a dancing power within not to be readily exhausted. "Oh, no, indeed; I could dance all night."

"I am glad to hear it," said Mrs. Castleton, graciously, as if she felt her dancing a personal compliment. And before the dance was over she had introduced half a dozen young men to her.

Feeling herself a decided belle, Miss Dawson was in high spirits (that trying test to an unrefined woman.) She considered Mrs. Castleton's visit and invitation as a marked compliment, (as she had every right to do,) and her attentions now, and the admiration she received, excited her to even more than her ordinary animation, which was always, to say the least of it, sufficient. She laughed, and she talked, and shook her long curls about, and flirted in a style that made the ladies look, and the gentlemen smile. Moreover, Mr. Hardwicks, who knew no one else, (for Mrs. Castleton had no idea of forcing _him_ on any of her friends,) never left her side; and the easy manner in which he spoke to her, and took her fan from her hand while she was talking, and even touched her sleeve to call her attention when her head was turned away, all of which she seemed to think quite natural, made Harry color, and bite his lip more than once with mortification and vexation.

"You are not going to waltz?" he said, justly distrusting the waltzing of a lady who danced so.

"Yes," she said, "with Mr. Hardwicks;" and in a moment they were whirling round in a style quite peculiar, and altogether new to the accomplished waltzers then and there assembled.

People looked, and some smiled--and then couple after couple paused in the dance to gaze on the strangers who had just taken the floor--and soon they had it all to themselves, and on they whirled like mad ones. Harry could not stand it--he left the room.

Presently some of his young friends followed him, who seemed excessively amused, and one of them exclaimed,

"Harry, where on earth did you pick up those extraordinary waltzers. Mrs. Castleton tells me they are friends of yours?"

Harry muttered something, and said,

"Hardwicks should not ask any woman to waltz. He did not know how; no man should, if he could not waltz himself."

"Are you dancing, Francis?" asked another, of a fashionable looking young man standing near.

"No," he replied, languidly, "I am exhausted. I danced with Harry's fair friend the last dance, and it requires no small degree of physical power to keep pace with her efforts."

Harry was excessively annoyed. He heartily wished he had never seen her; and was quite angry with Mrs. Castleton for having invited her. And just then, irritated and cross as he was, Mrs. Castleton met him with,

"Harry, Miss Dawson says you have carried off her bouquet."

"I have not got her bouquet," he answered, angrily.

"Well, go and make your own apology," and before he had time to know what she was about, she had her arm in his, and had taken him up to Miss Dawson, saying,

"Here is the culprit, Miss Dawson--but he pleads not guilty;" whereupon the young lady tapped him with her fan, and declared he was a "sad fellow," and shook her curls back, and looked up in his face, and flirted, as she thought, bewitchingly, while he with pleasure could have boxed her ears.

"Your carriage is at the door," Mrs. Castlelon heard him say soon after.

"Why, Harry!" exclaimed his sister, looking almost shocked at his evident desire to hurry away her guest. "You surely don't think of going yet. Miss Dawson?" said she, in her most persuasive manner. "You will dance this polka."

A polka! Harry was in despair. He would have preferred dancing on hot ploughshares himself.

"The scheme works to admiration," said Mrs. Castleton to Emma, as they met for a moment in the crowd.

"But it has spoiled your party," replied the other.

"Not at all," she answered, laughing, "what it has withdrawn in elegance, it has made up in spirit. The joke seems to take wonderfully."

But Emma did not like such "jokes." Mrs. Castleton's _hauteur_ was of a more flexible kind. To spoil a match she was willing to spoil her party.

"Was I right?" she said to Tom, toward the close of the evening.

He nodded and laughed, and said, "I congratulate you."

Harry had in vain attempted to persuade Miss Dawson that she was heated and tired, and had better not polka; but the young lady thought him over-careful, and chose to dance.

"A willful thing!" muttered Harry, as he turned off. "Trifles show the temper--preserve me from an unamiable woman."

Now Miss Dawson was not unamiable, but Harry was cross. If he were ashamed of her, she was hardly to be expected to know that. At any rate he walked off and left her to take care of herself. Mr. Hardwicks took her home as he had brought her--and Harry hardly looked at her again.

He was thoroughly out of humor. Mrs. Castleton had discretion enough not to follow up her victory. She saw she was successful, and so left things to their own course.

Never was a "dissolving view" more perfect. Harry had really imagined Miss Dawson not only very beautiful, but thought she would grace any drawing-room in Europe. He now saw her hoydenish, flirty, and ungraceful, with beauty of a very unrefined style--in fact, a different person. Such is the power of contrast, and the effect of a "new light."

The spell was broken--for when a lover is mortified, ashamed of his choice, the danger is over.

Fortunately, his honor was no deeper pledged than his heart. Miss Dawson had not flirted more with him than with two or three others; and though she would have preferred him, one of the others would do.

* * * * *

"What did Harry say of my party last night?" asked Mrs. Castleton of her sister.

"He merely said 'it was a great bore, this going out,' and seemed quite cross, and took his light and walked off to his room immediately; and, in fact, it seemed such a delicate point with him, that I did not dare to make any allusion to it this morning."

"Poor fellow! I don't wonder," said Mrs. Castleton, laughing. "How she did look beside the Claverings and Lesters."

"Like a peony among moss rose-buds," said Emma.

* * * * *

"Laura," said Harry, a few days after, "I am going to New Orleans for the rest of the winter."

"Are you?" she said, in surprise.

"Yes. My father is anxious about that business of his, and I am going for him."

"I thought you had declined, and that he was going to send Tom," she said.

"I've changed my mind," he replied. "In fact it is very dull here, and as Tom don't want to go, I think I shall like the trip."

"I've no doubt you will find it very pleasant," she said, cheerfully, amused at his proposing himself the very thing they had all been so anxious to have him do, and which he had negatived so decidedly some weeks back.

* * * * *

"Ah, Tom," said Mrs. Castleton, laughing, "that was a bright idea of yours. There's nothing like a new light for bringing out new colors. I think that party of mine finished Miss Dawson."

"You need not crow too much, Laura," replied Tom, "for, in all probability, if you had left Harry alone in the beginning, the party never would have been required. You women never learn not to thwart and oppose a man until it is too late. _Then_, you'll move heaven and earth to undo your own work. If you would only govern that 'unruly member' in the beginning, you would have required no 'dissolving views, in the end."

THE VOICE OF THE FIRE.

BY J. BAYARD TAYLOR.

They sat by the hearth-stone, broad and bright, Whose burning brands threw a cheerful light On the frosty calm of the winter's night.

Her radiant features wore the gleam Which childhood learns from an angel-dream, And her bright hair stirred in the flickering beam.

Those tresses soft to his lips were pressed, Her head was leaned on his happy breast, And the throb of the bosom his soul expressed;

And ever a gentle murmur came From the clear, bright heart of the wavering flame, Like the faltering thrill of a worshiped name.

He kissed her on the warm, white brow, And told her in fonder words, the vow He whispered under the moonlit bough;

And o'er them a steady radiance came From the shining heart of the mounting flame, Like a love that burns through life the same.

The maiden smiled through her joy-dimmed eyes, As he led her spirit to sunnier skies, Whose cloudless light on the future lies--

And a moment paused the laughing flame, And it listened awhile, and then there came A cheery burst from its sparkling frame.

He visioned a home by pure love blest, Clasping their souls in a calmer rest, Like woodland birds in their leafy nest.

There slept, foreshadowed, the bliss to be, When a tenderer life that home should see, In the wingless cherub that climbed his knee.

And the flame went on with its flickering song, And beckoned and laughed to the lovers long, Who sat in its radiance, red and strong.

Then broke and fell a glimmering brand To the cold, dead ashes it fed and fanned, And its last gleam leaped like an infant's hand.

A sudden dread to the maiden stole, For the gloom of a sorrow seemed to roll O'er the sunny landscape within her soul.

But, hovering over its smouldering bed, Its ruddy pinions the flame outspread, And again through the chamber its glory shed;

And ever its chorus seemed to be The mingled voices of household glee, Like a gush of winds in a mountain tree.

The night went on in its silent flow, While through the waving and wreathèd glow They watched the years of the Future go.

Their happy spirits learned the chime Of its laughing voice and murmured rhyme-- A joyous music for aftertime.

They felt a flame as glorious start, Where, side by side, they dwelt apart, In the quiet homestead of the heart.

MARGINALIA.

BY EDGAR A. POE.

One of the happiest examples, in a small way, of the carrying-one's-self-in-a-hand-basket logic, is to be found in a London weekly paper called "The Popular Record of Modern Science; a Journal of Philosophy and General Information." This work has a vast circulation, and is respected by eminent men. Sometime in November, 1845, it copied from the "Columbian Magazine" of New York, a rather adventurous article of mine, called "Mesmeric Revelation." It had the impudence, also, to spoil the title by improving it to "The Last Conversation of a Somnambule"--a phrase that is nothing at all to the purpose, since the person who "converses" is _not_ a somnambule. He is a sleep-waker--_not_ a sleep-walker; but I presume that "The Record" thought it was only the difference of an _l_. What I chiefly complain of, however, is that the London editor prefaced my paper with these words:--"The following is an article communicated to the Columbian Magazine, a journal of respectability and influence in the United States, by Mr. Edgar A. Poe. _It bears internal evidence of authenticity._"!

There is no subject under heaven about which funnier ideas are, in general, entertained than about this subject of internal evidence. It is by "internal evidence," observe, that we decide upon the mind.

But to "The Record:"--On the issue of my "Valdemar Case," this journal copies it, as a matter of course, and (also as a matter of course) improves the title, as in the previous instance. But the editorial comments may as well be called profound. Here they are:

"The following narrative appears in a recent number of _The American Magazine_, a respectable periodical in the United States. It comes, it will be observed, from the narrator of the 'Last Conversation of a Somnambule,' published in The Record of the 29th of November. In extracting this case the _Morning Post_ of Monday last, takes what it considers the safe side, by remarking--'For our own parts we do not believe it; and there are several statements made, more especially with regard to the disease of which the patient died, which at once prove the case to be either a fabrication, or the work of one little acquainted with consumption. The story, however, is wonderful, and we therefore give it.' The editor, however, does not point out the especial statements which are inconsistent with what we know of the progress of consumption, and as few scientific persons would be willing to take their pathology any more than their logic from the _Morning Post_, his caution, it is to be feared, will not have much weight. The reason assigned by the Post for publishing the account is quaint, and would apply equally to an adventure from Baron Munchausen:--'it is wonderful and we therefore give it.'...The above case is obviously one that cannot be received except on the strongest testimony, and it is equally clear that the testimony by which it is at present accompanied, is not of that character. The most favorable circumstances in support of it, consist in the fact that credence is understood to be given to it at New York, within a few miles of which city the affair took place, and where consequently the most ready means must be found for its authentication or disproval. The initials of the medical men and of the young medical student must be sufficient in the immediate locality, to establish their identity, especially as M. Valdemar was well known, and had been so long ill as to render it out of the question that there should be any difficulty in ascertaining the names of the physicians by whom he had been attended. In the same way the nurses and servants under whose cognizance the case must have come during the seven months which it occupied, are of course accessible to all sorts of inquiries. It will, therefore, appear that there must have been too many parties concerned to render prolonged deception practicable. The angry excitement and various rumors which have at length rendered a public statement necessary, are also sufficient to show that _something_ extraordinary must have taken place. On the other hand there is no strong point for disbelief. The circumstances are, as the Post says, 'wonderful;' but so are all circumstances that come to our knowledge for the first time--and in Mesmerism every thing is new. An objection may be made that the article has rather a Magazinish air; Mr. Poe having evidently written with a view to effect, and so as to excite rather than to subdue the vague appetite for the mysterious and the horrible which such a case, under any circumstances, is sure to awaken--but apart from this there is nothing to deter a philosophic mind from further inquiries regarding it. It is a matter entirely for testimony. [So it is.] Under this view we shall take steps to procure from some of the most intelligent and influential citizens of New York all the evidence that can be had upon the subject. No steamer will leave England for America till the 3d of February, but within a few weeks of that time we doubt not it will be possible to lay before the readers of the _Record_ information which will enable them to come to a pretty accurate conclusion."

Yes; and no doubt they came to one accurate enough, in the end. But all this rigmarole is what people call testing a thing by "internal evidence." The _Record_ insists upon the truth of the story because of certain facts--because "the initials of the young men _must_ be sufficient to establish their identity"--because "the nurses _must_ be accessible to all sorts of inquiries"--and because the "angry excitement and various rumors which at length rendered a public statement necessary, are sufficient to show that _something_ extraordinary _must_ have taken place."

To be sure! The story is proved by these facts--the facts about the students, the nurses, the excitement, the credence given the tale at New York. And now all we have to do is to prove these facts. Ah!--_they_ are proved _by the story_.

As for the _Morning Post_, it evinces more weakness in its disbelief than the _Record_ in its credulity. What the former says about doubting on account of inaccuracy in the detail of the phthisical symptoms, is a mere _fetch_, as the Cockneys have it, in order to make a very few little children believe that it, the Post, is not quite so stupid as a post proverbially is. It knows nearly as much about pathology as it does about English grammar--and I really hope it will not feel called upon to blush at the compliment. I represented the symptoms of M. Valdemar as "severe," to be sure. I put an extreme case; for it was necessary that I should leave on the reader's mind no doubt as to the certainty of death without the aid of the Mesmerist--but such symptoms _might_ have appeared--the identical symptoms _have appeared_, and will be presented again and again. Had the Post been only half as honest as ignorant, it would have owned that it disbelieved for no reason more profound than that which influences all dunces in disbelieving--it would have owned that it doubted the thing merely because the thing was a "wonderful" thing, and had never yet been printed in a book.

LETHE.

BY HENRY B. HIRST.

_Agressi sunt mare tenebrarum id in eo exploraturi esset._ NUBIAN GEOGRAPHER.

_Looking like Lethe, see! the lake_ A conscious slumber seems to take, And would not for the world awake. "_The Sleepers_." POE.

There is a lake whose lilies lie Like maidens in the lap of death, So pale, so cold, so motionless Its Stygian breast they press; They breathe, and toward the purple sky The pallid perfumes of their breath Ascend in spiral shapes, for there No wind disturbs the voiceless air-- No murmur breaks the oblivious mood Of that tenebrean solitude-- No Djinn, no Ghoul, no Afrit laves His giant limbs within its waves Beneath the wan Saturnian light That swoons in the omnipresent night; But only funeral forms arise, With arms uplifted to the skies, And gaze, with blank, cavernous eyes In whose dull glare no Future lies,-- The shadows of the dead--the Dead Of whom no mortal soul hath read, No record come, in prose or rhyme, Down from the dim Primeval Time! A moment gazing--they are gone-- Without a sob--without a groan-- Without a sigh--without a moan-- And the lake again is left alone-- Left to that undisturbed repose Which in an ebon vapor flows Among the cypresses that stand A stone-cast from the sombre strand-- Among the trees whose shadows wake, But not to life, within the lake, That stand, like statues of the Past, And will, while that ebony lake shall last.

But when the more than Stygian night Descends with slow and owl-like flight, Silent as Death (who comes--we know-- Unheard, unknown of all below;) Above that dark and desolate wave, The reflex of the eternal grave-- Gigantic birds with flaming eyes Sweep upward, onward through the skies, Or stalk, without a wish to fly, Where the reposing lilies lie; While, stirring neither twig nor grass, Among the trees, in silence, pass Titanic animals whose race Existed, but has left no trace Of name, or size, or shape, or hue-- Whom ancient Adam never knew.

At midnight, still without a sound, Approaching through the black Profound, Shadows, in shrouds of pallid hue, Come slowly, slowly, two by two, In double line, with funeral march, Through groves of cypress, yew and larch, Descending in those waves that part, Then close, above each silent heart; While, in the distance, far ahead, The shadows of the Earlier Dead Arise, with speculating eyes, Forgetful of their destinies, And gaze, and gaze, and gaze again Upon the long funereal train, Undreaming their Descendants come To make that ebony lake their home-- To vanish, and become at last A parcel of the awful Past-- The hideous, unremembered Past Which Time, in utter scorn, has cast Behind him, as with unblenched eye, He travels toward Eternity-- That Lethe, in whose sunless wave Even he, himself, must find a grave!

EPITAPH ON A RESTLESS LADY.

The gates were unbarred--the home of the blest Freely opened to welcome Miss C----; But hearing the chorus that "Heaven is Rest," She turned from the angels to flee, Saying, "Rest is no Heaven to me!"

MY LADY-HELP.

OR AUNT LINA'S VISIT.

BY ENNA DUVAL.

"You are in want of an efficient person to assist you in taking charge of your domestic affairs, Enna," said a maiden aunt of mine to me one evening. I pulled my little sewing-table toward me with a slight degree of impatience, and began very earnestly to examine the contents of my work-box, that I might not express aloud my weariness of my aunt's favorite subject. I had been in want of just such an article as an "efficient person" ever since I had taken charge of my father's _ménage_; and after undergoing almost martyrdom with slip-shod, thriftless, good-for-nothing "_help_," as we Americans, with such delicate consideration, term our serving maids, I had come to the conclusion that indifferent "_help_" was an unavoidable evil, and that the best must be made of the poor, miserable instruments of assistance vouchsafed unto the race of tried, vexed housekeepers.

"I have just thought," continued my aunt, "of a very excellent person that will suit you in every way. Lizzie Hall, the one I was thinking of, has never been accustomed to living out. Her father is a farmer in our place, but having made a second marriage, and with a young family coming up around him, Lizzie very properly wishes to do something for herself. I remember having heard her express such a desire; and I have no doubt I could persuade her to come to you. She is not very young--about eight-and-twenty, or thereabouts."

I listened to my Aunt Lina's talk with, it must be confessed, indifference, mingled with a little sullenness, and quieted my impatience by inward ejaculations--a vast deal of good do those inward conversations produce, such mollifiers of the temper are they. "So, so," said I to myself, "my Aunt Lina's paragon is a '_lady-help_.' Of all kinds 'of help' the very one I have endeavored most to avoid; it is such a nondescript kind of creature that lady-help;" and as I soliloquized, recollections of specimens of the kind I had been afflicted with, came in sad array before my memory--maids with slip-shod French kid slippers, that had never been large enough for their feet--love-locks on either side of their cheeks, twirled up during the day in brown curl-papers--faded lawn dresses, with dangling flounces and tattered edging; then such sentimental entreaties that I should not make them answer the door-bell if Ike, the black boy, might happen to be away on some errand, or expose them to the rude gaze of the multitude in the market-house; and I groaned in spirit as I thought what a troublesome creature the "lady-help" was to manage. During this sympathizing colloquy with myself, my aunt went on expatiating most eloquently on the merits of her _protégé_, Lizzie Hall. Some pause occurring--for want of breath, I really believe, on my aunt's side--good-breeding seemed to require a remark from me, and I faltered out some objection as to the accommodations a city household afforded for a person of Lizzie Hall's condition.

"Of course," said my aunt, "she will not wish to sit at the same table with the black servants you may happen to have; but Lizzie will not cause you any trouble on the score of accommodations, I'll answer for it, Enna; she is too sensible a person not to fully understand the difference between town and country habits--and if you say so, I will engage her for you when I return to Rockland."

My father, who had been dozing over his paper, gradually aroused himself as this conversation progressed, and as my aunt made the last proposition, he entered into it most cordially, and begged she would endeavor to procure the young woman, and send her by the earliest opportunity. I remained quiet--for I could not say any thing heartily, seeing nothing but vexation and annoyance in the whole affair for me. The young woman was evidently a favorite with my Aunt Lina; and should she not prove a very useful or agreeable maid to me, I would receive but little sympathy from my immediate family. My father is as ignorant as a child of what we poor housekeepers require in a domestic; and my Aunt Lina, though kind-hearted and well-wishing, is in equally as blissful a state. A very indifferent servant, who happened to please her fancy, she would magnify into a very excellent one; then, being rather opinionative and "_set_," as maiden ladies are apt to be when they pass the fatal threshold of forty, I despaired of ever convincing her to the contrary. "However," said I to myself, "I will not anticipate trouble."

I had just recovered from a dangerous fit of illness, through which my kind, well-meaning aunt had patiently nursed me. At the first news of my sickness she had, unsummoned, left her comfortable home in Rockland, in mid-winter, and had crossed the mountains to watch beside the feverish pillow of her motherless niece. Careful and kind was her nursing; and even the physicians owned that to her patient watchfulness I owed my life. How grateful was I; and with what looks of love did I gaze on her trim, spinster figure, as she moved earnestly and pains-taking around my chamber; but, alas! the kitchen told a different story when I was well enough to make my appearance there. Biddy, a raw, bewildered-looking Irish girl, with huge red arms and stamping feet, had quite lost her confused, stupid expression of countenance, and was most eloquent in telling me, with all the volubility of our sex, of the "quare ways of the ould maid."

"Sure, and if the ould sowl could only have had a husband and a parcel of childthers to mind, she wouldn't have been half so stiff and concated," exclaimed Biddy.

Even poor little roguish Ike, with mischief enough in his composition to derange a dozen well-ordered houses, looked wise and quiet when my prim, demure aunt came in sight. Complaints met me on all sides, however, for my Aunt Lina was quite as dissatisfied as the rest.

"I found them all wrong, my dear," she said, "no order, no regulation, every thing at sixes and sevens; and as for the woman Biddy, she is quite, quite incorrigible. I showed her a new way of preparing her clothes for the wash, by which she could save a deal of labor; but all in vain, she persisted most obstinately to follow the old troublesome way. Then she confuses her work altogether in such a manner that I never can tell at which stage of labor she has arrived; and when I put them all _en traine_, and leave them a few instants, I find on my return every thing as tangled as ever. Method is the soul of housekeeping, Enna. You will never succeed without order. I fear you are too easy and indulgent; although I have never kept a house, I know exactly how it should be done. A place for every thing--every thing in its place, as your grandpapa used to say. If you insist upon your servants doing every thing at a certain hour, and in a certain way, your affairs will go on like clock-work."

I could not but assent to all these truisms--for I felt conscience-stricken. I knew I had always depended in all my housekeeping emergencies too much on my "talent for improvising," as Kate Wilson merrily entitles my readiness in a domestic tangle and stand-still. I had been in the habit of letting things go on as easily as possible, scrupulously avoiding domestic tempests, because they deranged my nervous system; and if I found a servant would not do a thing in my way, I would let her accomplish it in her own manner, and at her own time--so that it was done, that was all I required. I felt almost disheartened as the remarks of my precise aunt proved to me how remiss I had been, and resolved in a very humble mood to reform. Bat when Aunt Lina continued her conversations about the mismanagement before my father, then I felt the "old Adam" stir within me. There she surely was wrong. I could not bear he should have his eyes opened; he had always fancied me a little queen in my domestic arrangements--why should he think differently--what good did it do? If he found his dinner nicely cooked and served, his tea and toast snugly arranged in the library, in the evening, when he returned wearied from his office, with his dressing-gown and slippers most temptingly spread out; then awakened in the morning in a clean, well-ordered bed-room, with Ike at his elbow to wait his orders, and a warm, cozy breakfast to strengthen him ere he started out on his daily labors--if all this was carefully and quietly provided for him, what need of his knowing how it was done, or what straits I might be driven to sometimes, from my own thoughtlessness or forgetfulness to accomplish these comforts for him. I had always scrupulously avoided talking of my household affairs before him; but when Aunt Lina discoursed so eloquently and learnedly in his presence, slipping in once in a while such high-sounding words as "domestic economy," "well-ordered household," "proper distribution of time and labor," &c., &c., he began to prick up his ears, and fancy his thrifty little daughter Enna was not quite so excellent in her management as he had blindly dreamed. Poor man! his former ignorance had surely been bliss, for his unfortunate knowledge only made him look vexed and full of care whenever he entered the house. He even noted the door-handles, as to their brightness, rated poor Ike about the table appointments, and pointed out when and how work should be done--told how he managed in his business, and how we should manage in ours. I was almost distraught with annoyance; and, kind as my aunt had been, I wished for the time of her departure silently, but as earnestly as did my servants. Heaven pardon me for my inhospitality and ingratitude.

"Now, Lina," said my father, the morning she left, "don't forget the woman you were speaking of. Enna needs some experienced person to keep things in order. We shall have to break up housekeeping if affairs go on in this disordered state. I do not know how we have stood it thus long."

I opened my eyes but said not a word. Three months before and my father had been the happiest, free-from-care man in the city; now the little insight he had gained into domestic affairs--the peep behind the curtain given him by my mistaken maiden aunt, had served to embitter his existence, surrounding his path with those nettles of life, household trifles, vulgar cares and petty annoyances. I almost echoed Biddy's ejaculation as the carriage drove from the door with my aunt and her numberless boxes, each one arranged on a new, orderly, time-saving plan.

"Sure, and it's glad I am, that the ould craythur is fairly off--for divil a bit of comfort did she give the laste of us with her time-saving orderly ways. And it's not an owld maid ye must ever be, darlint Miss Enna, or ye'll favor the troublesome aunty with her tabby notions."

Ike shouted with glee, and turned somersets all the way through the hall into the back entry, regardless of all I could say; and the merriment and light heartedness that pervaded the whole house was most cheering. Biddy stamped and put her work in a greater confusion than ever; and Ike dusted the blinds from the top to the bottom in a "wholesale way," as he called it, and cleaned the knives on the wrong side of the Bath-brick to his heart's content. Every one, even the dumb animals, seemed conscious of Aunt Lina's departure. My little pet kitten, Norah, resumed her place by the side of the heater in the library, starting once in a while in her dreams and springing up as though she heard the rustle of Aunt Lina's gown, or the sharp, clear notes of her voice--but coiled herself down with a consoling "pur," as she saw only "little me" laughing at her fears--and my little darling spaniel Flirt laid in my lap, nestled on the foot of my bed, and romped all over the house to his perfect satisfaction. I should have been as happy as the rest also, if it had not been for the anticipation that weighed down on me, of the expected pattern-card--my lady-help.

Soon after my aunt's return home I received a letter from her, announcing with great gratification her success. The letter was filled with a long _preachment_ on household management, which my father read very seriously, pronouncing his sister Lina a most excellent, sensible woman, possessing more mind and judgment than did most of her sex. My aunt wound up her letter, saying--

"But you will have little order and regulation about your house so long as you keep that thriftless Biddy in it. Take my advice and tramp her off bag and baggage before Lizzie comes, for, from my account of her, Lizzie is not very favorably disposed toward her."

Here was a pretty state of affairs to be sure, not very agreeable to a young housekeeper who had hitherto been her own mistress--my new maid was to dictate to me even my own domestic arrangements. My father was earnest in wishing to dispose of Biddy--but on that point, though quiet, I was resolute in opposition. Poor warm-hearted Biddy, with all her stupid thriftless ways, I could not find in my heart to turn away, and as my chambermaid wanted to go to her relations in the "back states," as she called the great West, I proposed to Biddy to take her place, so soon as the new woman should make her appearance.

"If she's like the aunty of ye," said Biddy when we concluded this arrangement and were talking of the expected new comer, "I'll wish her all the bad luck in the world, for it's hot wather she'll kape us in all the time with her painstakings."

Not in a very pleasant frame of mind I awaited the arrival of my new domestic. Poor girl, there was no one to welcome her when she at last came, and she stepped into the kitchen without one kind feeling advancing to greet her. Biddy's warm Irish heart was completely closed against her, and Ike, the saucy rogue, pursed up his thick lips in a most comical manner when she appeared. But how my heart smote me when I first looked at the pale, care-worn, sad-looking creature. She was not pretty--her face bore the marks of early care and trial. She might have been well-favored in girlhood, but if so, those good looks had completely vanished. Her eyes were dim, her cheek hollow, and her brow was marked with lines stamped by endurance; her whole person thin and spare, with hard, toil-worn hands, and large feet, showed that labor and sorrow had been her constant companions. And how unjust had been our hasty judgment of her--for so far from proving to be the troublesome, fault-finding, airs-taking, lady-help I had fearfully anticipated, I found her amiable, yielding and patiently industrious. She had no regular set ways about her, but worked unceasingly from morning till night in every department in the house. Not a week passed before I heard Biddy, with her Irish enthusiasm, calling on Heaven to bless the "darlint." She was always ready to excuse Biddy's thriftlessness and Ike's mischief, helping them on in their duties constantly. Good Lizzie Hall! every one in the house loved her. Yes, indeed, my dear housekeeping reader, all doubtful as you look, I had at last obtained that paragon, so seldom met with--a good, efficient servant. Lizzie lived with me many years, and when I parted with her, as I had to at last, I felt certain, I had had my share of good "help"--that her place would never be supplied.

Lizzie grew very fond of me, and ere she had lived with us many months told me her whole history. Poor girl, without beauty, without mental attractions, of an humble station, and slender abilities, her life-woof had in it the glittering thread of romance--humble romance, but romance still it was. Lizzie's father was a farmer, owning a small farm in the part of the country where my Aunt Lina resided. His first wife, Lizzie's mother, was an heiress according to her station, bringing her husband on her marriage some hundreds of dollars, which enabled him to purchase his little farm, and stock it. They labored morning, noon, and night, unceasingly. Lizzie's mother was a thrifty, careful body; but, unfortunately, she had more industry than constitution; and when Lizzie was seventeen, her mother was fast sinking into the grave, a worn-out creature, borne down by hard labor and sickness. Nine children had she, and of them Lizzie was the eldest and only girl. What sorrow for a dying mother! Before her mother's last sickness, Lizzie was "wooed and won" by the best match in the place. James Foster, her lover, was a young farmer, an orphan, but well off in life. He owned a handsome, well-stocked farm, and was a good-looking, excellent young man. Both father and mother cheerfully gave their consent, but insisted that their engagement should last a year or so, until Lizzie might be older. As Mrs. Hall felt death approaching, she looked around on the little family she was to leave motherless behind her; and with moving, heart-rending entreaties, besought of Lizzie not to leave them.

"Stay with your father, my child," she urged; "James, if he loves you, will wait for you. Don't marry until the boys are all old enough to be out of trouble. Think, Lizzie, of the misery a step-mother might cause with your brother Jack's impetuous temper, and Sam's hopeless, despairing disposition--each one would be hard for a step-mother to guide. Be a mother to them, my girl; down on your knees, and to make your mother's heart easy, promise before God that you will guide them, and watch over them as long as you are needed. Stay with your father, and Heaven will bless you, as does your dying mother."

Willingly did the almost heart-broken girl give the required promise--and James Foster loved her all the better for it. She wept bitter, heart-aching tears over her dear mother's grave, but turned steadily to the hard path traced out before her; but she was young and beloved, and a bright star beamed before her--the star of love--to gild her toilsome path; and a mother's smile seemed blended with its bright rays. A year or two rolled around--years of hard labor, which made Lizzie, who toiled untiringly, as her mother had done, old before her time. She was noted, however, all over the village for a thrifty, industrious, excellent girl. James Foster was a pattern for lovers; every spare moment he gave to her. What few amusements she had time to enjoy he procured for her; and as the village people said, they went as steadily together as old married people.

Lizzie's father was a narrow-minded, selfish man, caring very little for any one's comfort but his own, and at times was exceedingly cross and testy. Unfortunately, he took great interest in politics, and was quite an oracle in the village bar-room. He was bigoted and "set" in his opinions, considering all who differed from him as enemies to their country, and called them rascals and hypocrites freely. His wife had been dead about two years, when a presidential election came on. James Foster, unluckily, had been brought up with different political opinions from Mr. Hall; but, being very quiet and retiring in his disposition, he never had rendered himself obnoxious. Of course, Mr. Hall took great interest in the approaching election. He became very ambitious of his township giving a large vote on the side to which he belonged--and he used every means to obtain votes. Elated with fancied success, he swore one day in the tavern bar-room, that he would make James Foster abandon his party, and vote to please him. Some, who knew Foster's quiet but resolute disposition, bantered and teased Hall, which wrought him to such a pitch of excitement that, on meeting James Foster a little while after in front of the tavern, he made the demand of him. Foster at first treated it as a jest; then, when he found Hall was in earnest, decidedly, but civilly, refused; and in such a manner as to put at rest all further conversation. Enraged, Hall instantly turned, swearing to the laughing politicians that surrounded the tavern steps, and who had witnessed his discomfiture, that he would punish Foster's impudent obstinacy. Accordingly, full of ill, revengeful feelings, he returned home, and forbade his daughter ever permitting Foster to step over the threshold of the door--commanding her instantly to break the engagement. She used every entreaty, expostulated, temporized--all was of no avail; indeed, her entreaties seemed but to heighten her father's anger; and at last, with a fearful oath, he declared, if she did not break the engagement with the purse-proud, hypocritical rascal, she should leave his house instantly. She looked on the terrified children, the youngest only five years old, and who clung weeping to her knees, as her father threatened to turn her out of doors, never to see them again; and she thought of her mother's last words--her decision was made; and with a heavy heart she performed the self-sacrifice.

"Don't say you will never marry me, Lizzie," urged her lover; "I can wait ten years for you, darling."

But Lizzie was conscientious; her father had expressly stipulated there should be no "half-way work--no putting off;" all hope must be given up, she never could be his--and forever she bid him farewell. James tried to argue with and persuade her father; but the selfish, obstinate old man would listen to nothing from him. Poor James, finding both immovable, at last sold off his farm, and all his property, and moved away into a distant state; he could not, he said, live near Lizzie, and feel that she never would be his wife. Men are so soon despairing in love affairs, while women hope on, even to death. Poor Lizzie, how her heart sunk when the sight of her lover was denied to her; and she felt even more wretched than she did at the moment of her mother's death. Nothing now remained to her in life but the performance of stern, rigid duty. Two or three years passed by, and one by one her charges departed from her. One brother was placed with a farmer, and the others were apprenticed to good trades. The little white-headed Willie, who at his mother's death was a tiny, roly-poly prattler, only two years old, was becoming a slender, tall youth. Lizzie felt proud as she looked at her crowd of tall boys, when once or twice a year they would assemble at home; and on a Sunday's afternoon, at twilight, on her way to the evening meeting, she would steal down into the quiet church-yard, and kneeling beside her mother's grave, ask, with streaming eyes, if she had not done well. Such moments were fraught with bitter anguish; but a heavenly peace would descend on her, and she said her trials, after the agony was over, seemed lighter to bear.

"But I was blessed in one thing, dear Miss Enna," she would exclaim, "not one of those darling boys was taken from me, and all bid fair to turn out well. God surely smiled on the motherless, and gave me strength to perform my labor of love."

At last there moved to the village a woman of the name of Pierce; she opened a little milliner's shop, and soon made herself busy with the affairs of others, as well as her own, becoming quite a considerable person amongst the villagers. She was a widow with two or three children--a girl or two, and a boy--little things. She was a stout, healthy, good-looking woman, "rising forty," with a clear, shrill voice, and good, bright black eyes in her head. She soon steadied these bonnie eyes at the widower, Lizzie's father, and not in vain; for after hailing him industriously, as he passed the door of her shop, with questions about the weather, or the crops, he at last managed to stop without the hailing; and after a short courtship brought her and her children to his own home. How Lizzie rejoiced that her brothers were now all out of the way. Her last pet, Willie, had, a few months previous to the new marriage, been sent to a printer in the neighboring city. She never thought of herself, but commenced with redoubled industry to assist in taking care of the new family. But her constant industry and thrifty habits were a silent reproach to the step-mother, I fancy, for she left no stone unturned to rid herself of the troublesome grown up daughter. She tried every means, threw out hints, until at last Lizzie perceived her drift. Even her father seemed restrained and annoyed by her presence; and when she proposed to him that she should do something now for herself, in the way of support, he made no opposition; on the contrary, seemed relieved, saying the times were hard, and he had always had an expensive family. At this time my dear Aunt Lina obtained her for me. Blessed Aunt Lina! how we all loved her for this good act; even Biddy said,

"Well, the owld toad wasn't so bad, afther all. She had some good in her, for she sent the angel to our door--good luck to her forever."

And what parted Lizzie from us? Ah, there is the romance of my story--the darling little bit of sentiment so dear to my woman's heart. Lizzie lived with me five years. In the meantime her father had died; the thriftless wife had broken his heart by her extravagant habits, and Lizzie and her brothers never received a penny of their mother's little fortune. One evening, my father, on handing me the letters and papers, said, "Amongst those, Enna, you will find a letter for Lizzie, which has come from the far West, clear beyond St. Louis--what relations has she there?"

I could not tell him, but gave the letter to Ike, now grown into quite a dandy waiter, to take to her. I did not feel much curiosity about the letter, thinking it might be from some cousin of hers; but when I retired to bed that evening, she came into my room, and throwing herself down on the soft rug beside my bed, by the dim light of my night-lamp, told me all her happiness. The letter was from James Foster--he still loved her as dearly as ever. He had heard by chance of her father's death, and her situation, and said if she was ready to marry him, he was still waiting. He wrote of his handsome farm he had cleared with his own hands, and the beautiful wild country he lived in, telling her he hoped her future life would be free from all care. All this, and even more, dear reader, he told her--in plain, homely words, it is true; but love's language is always sweet, be it in courtly tongue or homely phrase.

And James Foster came for her; and in our house was she married. My father presented the soft mull dress to the bride, which Kate Wilson and I made, and assisted in dressing her, and stood as her bride-maids. Aunt Lina, Biddy, the stamping, good-hearted Biddy, and dandy Ike, were all there, rejoicing in her happiness. Her husband was a stout, strong, hard-featured, but kind-hearted man, and looked upon his poor, care-worn, slender Lizzie as if she were an angel. We all liked him; and her whole troop of brothers, who were present at the ceremony, greeted him with hearty words of friendship. Three he persuaded to accompany them out to the "new home"--the farmer, the shoemaker, and the little white-headed Willie, Lizzie's pet--declaring all the time that his house and heart, like the wide western valley where he lived, was large enough to hold them all. They all went out one after another; and when I last heard from Lizzie, she was very happy, surrounded by all her brothers; and she told me of a little darling girl, whom she had named after her dear Miss Enna. My father and I often talk during the winter evenings, when sitting very cozily together in the warm library, of taking a summer's jaunt to Lizzie's western home. I wish we could, that I might see my lady-help as mistress of her own household; and what is still better, a happy wife, mother, and sister.

LINES

_Addressed to a friend who asked "How would you be remembered when you die?"_

How would I be remembered?--not forever, As those of yore. Not as the warrior, whose bright glories quiver O'er fields of gore; Nor e'en as they whose song down life's dark river Is heard no more.

No! in my veins a gentler stream is flowing In silent bliss. No! in my breast a woman's heart is glowing, It asks not this. I would not, as down life's dark vale I'm going My true path miss.

I do not hope to lay a wreath undying On glory's shrine, Where coronets from mighty brows are lying In dazzling shine: Only let love, among the tomb-stones sighing, Weep over mine.

Oh! when the green grass softly waves above me In some low glen, Say, will the hearts that now so truly love me Think of me then; And, with fond tones that never more can move me, Call me again?

Say, when the fond smiles in our happy home Their soft light shed, When round the hearth at quiet eve they come, And mine has fled, Will any gentle voice then ask for room-- _Room for the dead?_

Oh! will they say, as rosy day is dying, And shadows fall, "Come, let us speak of her now lowly lying, She loved us all!" And will a gentle tear-drop, then replying, From some eye fall?

Give me, oh! give me not the echo ringing From trump of fame; Be mine, be mine the pearls from fond eyes springing, _This_, would I claim. Oh! may I think such memories _will_ be clinging Around my name. GRETTA.

GAME-BIRDS OF AMERICA.--NO. IX.

This bird, the marvel of the whole Pigeon race, is beautiful in its colors, graceful in its form, and far more a child of wild nature than any other of the pigeons. The chief wonder, however, is in its multitudes; multitudes which no man can number; and when Alexander Wilson lays the mighty wand of the enchanter upon the Valley of the Mississippi, and conjures it up to the understanding and the feeling of the reader, with far more certain and more concentrated and striking effect than if it were painted on canvas, or modeled in wax, these pigeons form a feature in it which no one who knows can by possibility forget. It is probable that the multitudes may not be more numerous than those of the petrels in Bass's Strait, of which Captain Flinders--who also was a kind of Wilson in his way--gives a graphic description. But vast as the multitude of these was, it was only as a passing cloud to the captain; he was unable to follow it up; and even though he had, the flight of birds over the surface of the sea is tame and storyless, as compared with the movements of the unnumbered myriads of these pigeons in the great central valley of our continent. None of the names which have been bestowed upon this species are sufficiently, or at all, descriptive of it. Passenger, the English expression, and _Migratoria_, the Latin name, fall equally short, inasmuch as every known pigeon is to a greater or less extent migratory as well as this one. The "swarm" pigeon, the "flood" pigeon, or even the "deluge" pigeon would be a more appropriate appellation; for the weight of their numbers breaks down the forest with scarcely less havoc than if the stream of the Mississippi were poured upon it.

Birds so numerous demand both a wide pasture and powerful means of migration, and the Passengers are not stinted in either of those respects. In latitude, their pasture extends from the thirtieth to the sixtieth degree, which is upward of two thousand miles; and the extensive breadth in longitude cannot be estimated at less than fifteen hundred. Three millions of square miles is thus the extent of territory of which the Passenger pigeon has command; and that territory has its dimensions so situated as that the largest one is the line upon which the birds migrate.

In Canada their numbers are so great, and the ravages which they commit upon the cultivated ground so extensive, that instances are recorded in which the bishop has been seriously and earnestly implored to exorcise them "by bell, book, and candle"--to cast them out of the land by the same means used in days of yore against spirits troublesome to other individuals, men and women. But as the Passengers were material and not spiritual, the bishop had the good sense not to try the experiment upon them. At least, La Houton, who records the matter, is perfectly silent as to the success or failure of the proposition.

Both sexes are beautiful birds; but their value, in an economical point of view, is not, however, in any way equal to their numbers or their beauty. The flesh of the old ones is dark, dry, hard and unpalatable, as is very generally the case with birds which are much on the wing; but the young, or _squabs_, as they are called, are remarkably fat; and as in the places where the birds congregate, they may be obtained without much difficulty, this fat is obtained by melting them, and is used instead of lard. As they nestle in vast multitudes at the same place, their resting-places have many attractions for the birds of prey, which indiscriminately seize upon both the old and the young. The eggs, like those of most of the pigeon tribe, are usually two in number; but the number of birds at one nesting-place is so great that the young, when they begin to branch and feed, literally drive along the woods like a torrent. They feed upon the fruits which at this time they procure at the middle heights of the forests, and do not venture upon the open grounds. The nests are far more closely packed together than in any rookery, and are built one above another, from the height of twenty feet to the top of the tallest trees.

Wilson says that as soon as the young were fully grown, and before they left the nests, numerous parties of the inhabitants from all parts of the adjacent country came with wagons, axes, beds, cooking utensils, many of them accompanied by the greater part of their families, and encamped for several days at this immense nursery, near Shelbyville, Kentucky, forty miles long, and several miles in breadth. The noise in the woods was so great as to terrify their horses, and it was difficult for one person to hear another speak without bawling in his ear. The ground was strewed with broken limbs of trees, eggs, and young squab pigeons, which had been precipitated from above, and on which herds of hogs were fattening. Hawks, buzzards and eagles were sailing about in great numbers, and seizing the squabs from their nests at pleasure, while from twenty feet upward to the tops of the trees, the view through the woods presented a perpetual tumult of crowding and fluttering multitudes of pigeons, their wings roaring like thunder, mingled with the frequent crash of falling timber, for now the axe-men were at work cutting down those trees which seemed to be most crowded with nests, and seemed to fell them in such a manner that, in their descent, they might bring down several others, by which means the falling of one large tree sometimes produced two hundred squabs, little inferior in size to the old ones, and almost one mass of fat. On some single trees upward of one hundred nests were found. It was dangerous to walk under these flying and fluttering millions, from the frequent fall of large branches, broken down by the weight of the multitudes above, and which in their descent often destroyed numbers of the birds themselves. This is a scene to which we are aware of no parallel in the nesting-places of the feathered tribes. In the select places where the birds only roost for the night, the congregating, though not permanent, is often as great and destructive to the forest. The native Indians rejoice in a breeding or a roosting-place of the migratory pigeon, as one which shall supply them with an unbounded quantity of provisions, in the quality of which they are not particularly chary. Nor are these roosting-places attractive to the Indians only, for the settlers near them also pay them nocturnal visits. They come with guns, clubs, pots of suffocating materials, and every other means of destruction that can well be imagined to be within their command, and procure immense quantities of the birds in a very short time. These they stuff into sacks and carry home on their horses.

The flocks being less abundant in the Atlantic States, the gun, decoy and net are brought into operation against them, and very considerable numbers of them are taken. In some seasons they may be purchased in our markets for one dollar a hundred, and flocks have been known to occupy two hours in passing, in New Jersey and the adjoining States. Many thousands are drowned on the edges of the ponds to which they descend to drink while on their aerial passage; those in the rear alighting on the backs of those who touched the ground first, in the same manner as the domestic pigeon, and pressing them beneath the surface of the water. Nuttall estimates the rapidity of their flight at about a mile a minute, and states among other data for this result, that there have been wild pigeons shot near New York, whose crops were filled with rice that must have been collected in the plantations of Georgia, and to digest which would not require more than twelve hours.

Usually fat, much esteemed as food, and not uncommon in our markets, this beautiful bird may be seen in different seasons ranging from Hudson's Bay to Mexico, and from New England to the Rocky Mountains. They arrive in the Northern and Middle States late in the fall, and many remain through-out the winter. As the weather grows colder in the north, however, they become quite common in South Carolina and Georgia, frequenting the plains, commons and dry ground, keeping constantly upon the ground, and roving about in families under the guidance of the old birds, whose patriarchal care extends over all, to warn them by a plaintive call of the approach of danger, and instruct them by example how to avoid it. They roost somewhat in the same manner as partridges, in a close ring or circle, keeping each other warm, and abiding with indifference the frost and the storm. They migrate only when driven by want of food; this appears to consist of small round compressed black seeds, oats, buckwheat, &c., with a large proportion of gravel. Shore Lark and Sky Lark are the names by which they are usually known. They are said to sing well, rising in the air and warbling as they ascend, after the manner of the sky-lark of Europe.

TRIUMPHS OF PEACE.

BY WILLIAM H. C. HOSMER.

From palace, cot and cave Streamed forth a nation, in the olden time, To crown with flowers the brave, Flushed with the conquest of some far-off clime, And, louder than the roar of meeting seas, Applauding thunder rolled upon the breeze. Memorial columns rose Decked with the spoils of conquered foes, And bards of high renown their stormy pæans sung, While Sculpture touched the marble white, And, woke by his transforming might, To life the statue sprung. The vassal to his task was chained-- The coffers of the state were drained In rearing arches, bright with wasted gold, That after generations might be told A thing of dust once reigned.

Tombs, hallowed by long years of toil, Were built to shrine heroic clay, Too proud to rest in vulgar soil, And moulder silently way; Though treasure lavished on the dead The wretched might have clothed and fed-- Dragged merit from obscuring shade, And debts of gratitude have paid; From want relieved neglected sage, Or veteran in battle tried; Smoothed the rough path of weary age, And the sad tears of orphanage have dried.

Though green the laurel round the brow Of wasting and triumphant War, Peace, with her sacred olive bough, Can boast of conquests nobler far: Beneath her gentle sway Earth blossoms like a rose-- The wide old woods recede away, Through realms, unknown but yesterday, The tide of Empire flows. Woke by her voice rise battlement and tower, Art builds a home, and Learning finds a bower-- Triumphant Labor for the conflict girds, Speaks in great works instead of empty words; Bends stubborn matter to his iron will, Drains the foul marsh, and rends in twain the hill-- A hanging bridge across the torrent flings, And gives the car of fire resistless wings. Light kindles up the forest to its heart, And happy thousands throng the new-born mart; Fleet ships of steam, deriding tide and blast, On the blue bounding waters hurry past; Adventure, eager for the task, explores Primeval wilds, and lone, sequestered shores-- Braves every peril, and a beacon lights To guide the nations on untrodden heights.

EXPECTATION.

BY LOUISA M. GREEN.

[SEE ENGRAVING.]

Why comes he not? He should have come ere this: The promised hour is past: he is not here! I love him--yes, my maiden heart is his; I sigh--I languish when he is not near. The truant! Wherefore tarries he? His love, Were it like mine, would woo him to my side-- Or does he--dares he--merely seek to prove The doubted passion of his promised bride? Do I not love him? But does he love me? He swore so yester-eve, when last we met Down in the dell by our old trysting-tree: Can he be false? If so, my sun is set! No; he will come--I feel--I know he will; And he shall never dream that once I sighed; I hear his step--behold his form: be still, Warm heart; he comes--to clasp his bride.

WOMAN'S LOVE.

POETRY BY ANON.

MUSIC BY MATHIAS KELLER.

COPYRIGHTED BY J. C. SMITH, NO. 215 CHESNUT STREET, PHILADELPHIA.

[Music/Illustration:

Allegretto.

Fine.

A Wo-man's love, deep in the heart, Is like the vio-let

flow'r, That lifts its mo-dest head a-part, In

some se-ques-ter'd bow'r. And blest is he who

Ritardando. A tempo.

finds that bloom, Who sips its gen-tle sweets; He

heeds not life's op-pres-sive gloom, Nor all the care he meets

D. C.]

SECOND VERSE.

A woman's love is like the spring Amid the wild alone; A burning wild o'er which the wing Of cloud is seldom thrown; And blest is he who meets that fount, Beneath the sultry day; How gladly should his spirit mount, How pleasant be his way.

THIRD VERSE.

A woman's love is like the rock, That every tempest braves, And stands secure amid the shock Of ocean's wildest waves; And blest is he to whom repose Within its shade is given-- The world, with all its cares and woes, Seems less like earth than heaven.

YEARS AGO.--A BALLAD.

WRITTEN EXPRESSLY FOR MRS. C. E. HORN.

BY GEORGE P. MORRIS.

On the banks of that sweet river Where the water-lilies grow, Breathed the fairest flower that ever Bloomed and faded years ago.

How we met and loved and parted, None on earth can ever know, Nor how pure and gentle-hearted Beamed the mourned one years ago.

Like the stream with lilies laden, Will life's future current flow, Till in heaven I meet the maiden Fondly cherished years ago.

Hearts that truly love forget not-- They're the same in weal or wo-- And that star of memory set not In the grave of years ago.

TO MY WIFE.

BY ROBT. T. CONRAD.

When that chaste blush suffused thy cheek and brow, Whitened anon with a pale maiden fear, Thou shrank'st in uttering what I burned to hear: And yet I loved thee, love, not then as now. Years and their snows have come and gone, and graves, Of thine and mine, have opened; and the sod Is thick above the wealth we gave to God: Over my brightest hopes the nightshade waves; And wrongs and wrestlings with a wretched world, Gray hairs, and saddened hours, and thoughts of gloom, Troop upon troop, dark-browed, have been my doom; And to the earth each hope-reared turret hurled! And yet that blush, suffusing cheek and brow, 'Twas dear, how dear! then--but 'tis dearer now.

ISOLA.

BY JOHN TOMLIN.

I dreamed that thou a lily wast, Within a lowly valley blest; A wingèd cherub flying past, Plucked thee, and placed within his breast, And there by guardian angel nurst, Thou took'st a shape of human grace, Until, a lowly flower at first, Thou grew'st the first of mortal race. Alas! if I who still was blessed When thou wast but a lowly flower-- To pluck thy image from my breast, Though thus thou will'st it, have no power; Thou still to me, though lifted high In hope and heart above the glen, Where first thou won my idol eye, Must spell my worship just as then.

CONTEMPLATION.

BY JANE R. DANA.

[ILLUSTRATING AN ENGRAVING.]

Strange! that a tear-drop should o'erfill the eye Of loveliness that looks on all it loves! Yet are there moods, when the soul's wells are high With crystal waters which a strange fear moves, To doubt if what it joys in, be a joy; Fear not, thou fond and gentle one! though life Be but a checkered scene, where wrong and right, Struggle forever; there is not a strife Can reach thy bower: the future, purely bright, Is round about thee, like a summer sky. And there are those, brave hearts and true, to guard Thy walks forever; and to make each hour Of coming time, by fond and faithful ward, Happy as happiest known within thy bridal bower.

REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.

_Practical Physiology: for the use of Schools and Families. By Edward Jarvis. Philadelphia: Thomas, Cowperthwaite & Co._

The popular and practical study of physiology is too much neglected in this country, and we rejoice to see this effort to commend its important truths to public attention. Perhaps no people existing are in greater need of a heedful regard to the lessons of this work than the over-fed, over-worked, and over-anxious people of the United States. The pursuit of wealth, honor, and power, the absorbing and health-sacrificing devotion to advancement, impels our people from the moment they first enter the school-house until they are snatched from the scene of their over-wrought strugglings. At the school, the child is treated as a man. The fresh air, the blue sky, the bright and happy hilarity of boyhood are too often proscribed indulgences. And this is called, not murder, but education. Those who survive it, having been taught that an American youth should never be satisfied with the present, that _excelsior_ should be the only motto, and that all pleasure should be denied, health sacrificed, and time unremittingly devoted to win the eminence struggled for, rush into the business of life before their time. They win wrinkles before they attain manhood, and graves before the wild ambition thus kindled and inflamed can receive its first chaplet. All our literature teaches this unquiet and discontented spirit as to the present, and this rash and impatient determination to achieve immediate success. Now, this is a peculiarity of our country, the land of all others which should cherish a disposition to be gratefully contented with the unequaled blessings with which it is endowed. There is no necessity for this forcing system to expand properly and in due time the real energies of our people. The truly great in every walk of science and literature have been generally patient students, and have lived, in tranquillity, to a good old age. The impatient ambition which scourges our people on to the farthest stretch of their energies in any adopted pursuit, is inconsistent with the permanent and healthful character of a race. It made Rome great; but it left her people, as a race, so physically exhausted that the weakest tribes of the North dictated to her the terms of her degradation. The physical character of a nation moulds its intellectual nature, and shapes its destinies. The study of health is therefore the great study, and it will be found in all things accordant with those loftier truths taught by the Great Physician. Strangers of intelligence often remark that, with unbounded means of happiness, affluence for every reasonable want, security against every danger, and the high prerogatives of conscious and elevated freedom, we are still the most unhappy of the sons of Adam. They assert that we grow old before our time; are restless, excitable, and ever worrying for an attainment, in reference to some ruling passion beyond our reach. Comfort, health, calmness, and content, are sacrificed to grasp at something more. Our cheeks grow pale, our brows wrinkled, our hearts clouded, from a settled, taught, established habit of discontent with any position that is not the highest. There is much of truth in all this, as every one who treads our crowded marts and finds each man, however prosperous, cankered with the thought that he is not prosperous enough, will admit. All this constitutes American energy; all this renders our country great in the world's eye; but does it constitute happiness? It may be gravely doubted. The study of health is essentially the study of happiness. Life is with our people, as a general rule, a thing of little value. Those who think, in a better spirit, and remember its duties and its ends, will come to a different conclusion, and regard the conservation of the even and steady physical energies of the body as superior in importance to any result to be gained by the forced and unnatural efforts from which more is attained than nature sanctions.

A work like the one before us is calculated to be of great service, and especially so if it be placed in the hands of children. It claims, and certainly deserves, no praise as an original work of science; but it has this merit--no ordinary one--that it communicates the most important truths of physiology in language which any intelligent child can understand; and does so in a manner that every moralist will commend.

_The Fruits and Fruit Trees of America. By A. J. Downing. Published by Wiley & Putnam, New York._

This work has been known to every scientific horticulturist and pomologist for many years. Its author has devoted a vigorous and enlightened intellect to this purest and noblest of pursuits; and has won a reputation of which this work will form the coronal wreath. The past editions of this work, and they have been many, have elicited the strongest praise here and abroad. The classic poets of every land have valued the praise which rewarded their dedication of the first triumphs of the muse to subjects connected with the cultivation of the soil, to the arts that rendered the breast of our common mother lovely, and wedded the labors which sustain life with the arts that render it happy. The work before us has an established reputation. It is written by one whose labors upon this subject are known as well abroad as here, and who has won the applause of all who regard pomology as worthy of an earnest support. He is the Prose Virgil of our country. This work contains eighty-four colored engravings of apples, pears, cherries, apricots, peaches, plums, raspberries, and strawberries. These plates have been, at great expense, executed at Paris, and are worthy of all commendation. Among those that seem to us worthy of especial commendation are, in the plums, the Columbia, the Coe's Golden Drop, and the Jefferson; among the pears, the Bartlett, the Bosc, the Flemish Beauty, the Frederick of Wurtemburg; among the apples, the Gravenstein, the Yellow Belle Fleur, the Dutch Mignonne, Ladies' Sweet, and Red Astrochan. All the plates are, however, good; and the work is, to all who love nature, invaluable.

The leading horticultural societies of this country have recently endeavored to counteract the confusion which has heretofore prevailed in pomological nomenclature, by adopting this work as the American standard; and we learn that it has been so recognized and adopted, in reference to this country, in London. Horticulture is greatly indebted for the advances it has made within the last few years to the author of this work. He is well known to all those who cherish the science of the soil, as the popular editor of the Horticulturist, and as one of the ablest, most scientific and enthusiastic horticulturists and pomologists in the country.

_Tristram Shandy._--Original or not, Sterne gave to the literature of this language that which must last and should last. This edition, published by Grigg, Elliott & Co., is cheap, and should be cheap, for it is got up for universal distribution. It is well illustrated by Darley.

_The Medical Companion, or Family Physician, Treating of the Diseases of the United States, &c. By James Ewell._

This is a work long and well known to the nation; and the edition before us, being the tenth, is an enlargement and improvement on those which have heretofore appeared. Dr. Chapman has pronounced it to be indisputably the most useful popular treatise on medicine with which he is acquainted; and a large number of the most celebrated professors of the country, as Caldwell, Shippen, Barton, Woodhouse, and others, have very emphatically commended it to the confidence of the public. The edition before us is a great improvement upon those which have preceded it, having, in addition to corrections resulting from the advance of the science, a treatise on Hydropathy, Homoepathy, and the Chronothermal system. It is published by Thomas, Cowperthwaite & Co., Philadelphia, and does, in general appearance and character, great credit to those enterprizing publishers.

_General Scott and his Staff. Comprising Memoirs of Generals Twiggs, Smith, Quitman, Shields, Pillow, Lane, Cadwallader, Patterson, and Pierce, and Colonels Childs, Riley, Harney and Butler, and Other Distinguished Officers Attached to General Scott's Army; Together with Notices of Gen. Kearney, Col. Doniphan, Fremont, and Others. Philadelphia: Grigg, Elliot & Co._

This work embodies the floating intelligence which has reached us in relation to the present Mexican war, and is illustrated by wood-cuts worthy of the text. We can say no more. This book is not inferior to others which the curiosity of the community has invited, and will doubtless sell, as they have sold, well.

_General Taylor and his Staff. Comprising Memoirs of Generals Taylor, Worth, Wool, and Butler, Cols. May, Cross, Clay, Hardin, Yell, Hays, and Other Distinguished Officers Attached to Gen. Taylor's Army. Philadelphia: Grigg, Elliot & Co._

This volume seems to be as picturesque and as veritable as other works of a like character, and is as well written and as well printed as the best. Perhaps this is not saying much; but can we say more?

_Lectures on the Physical Phenomena of Living Beings. By Carlo Matteuci, Professor in the University of Pisa. Translated by Jonathan Pereira, M. D., F. R. S. Phila.: Lea & Blanchard._

This work has passed through two editions in Italy, and one in France. A hasty examination of the volume has excited a degree of curiosity and admiration which a more careful perusal than we can now give it will enable us hereafter to do justice to.

_Three Hours, or the Vigil of Love, and Other Poems. By Mrs. S. J. Hale. Carey & Hart, Philadelphia._

This beautiful volume is dedicated to the readers of the Lady's Book, (why not to its amiable proprietor?) of which she has long been an able and successful editor. We have not found time to examine the volume page by page--that is a happiness reserved to us, and we feel, in so much, the richer in our capital of future enjoyment; but we know that Mrs. Hale is one of the purest, most powerful, truthful, and tasteful of our writers; and we are certain that the volume before us is worthy of more than praise.

_Evangeline._--This beautiful poem has been beautifully complimented by an artist-poet whose contributions enrich our pages, Thomas Buchanan Read, or, as he has been aptly characterized by a contemporary, "the Doric Read." The painting is worthy the subject, the artist, and the poet; and is one of the richest productions of American art.

_A Campaign in Mexico, or a Glimpse at Life in Camp. By one who has seen the Elephant. Phila.: Grigg & Elliott._

This work, though, perhaps, beneath the dignity of a formal review, is still good reading, and we have gone through its pages with pleasure.

_Principles of Physics and Meteorology. By J. Müller. First American edition, Revised and Illustrated with 538 engravings on wood, and two colored plates. Phila.: Lea & Blanchard._

This treatise on Physics, by Professor Müller, is the first of a series of works, on the different branches of science, now passing through the press of Bailliére, in London. The American editor has made many additions and improvements; and the work, as presented to the public, is worthy of all praise and all patronage.

_The Primary School Reader--Parts First, Second, and Third. By Wm. D. Swan, Principal of the Mayhew Grammar School, Boston. Philadelphia: Thomas, Cowperthwaite & Co._

These volumes have been prepared to supply the want of a system for teaching reading in Primary Schools. The task has been well performed, and the series will be found of value both to the teacher and the taught.

_Greene's Analysis. A Treatise on the Structure of the English Language, or the Analysis and Classification of Sentences and their Component Parts. With Illustrations and Exercises adapted to the use of schools. By Samuel J. Greene, A. M., Principal of the Phillip's Grammar School, Boston. Published by Thomas, Cowperthwaite & Co._

The title of this volume sufficiently indicates its purposes and character. It is a work calculated to contribute, in a considerable degree, to improve the methods of teaching the English language.

_The Grammar School Reader, consisting of Selections in Prose and Poetry, with Exercises in Articulation. By William D. Swan. Thomas, Cowperthwaite & Co., Philadelphia._

This work is well designed to correct prevailing vices of articulation. There is much room for reform in this branch of education, even our best public speakers being guilty of provincial errors, and faulty enunciation. The rules are lucidly explained, and the selections made with taste.

_Swan's District School Reader. Same Publishers._

This is a more advanced and more valuable branch of the same series of class books, and is designed for the highest classes of public and private schools.

THE HOME JOURNAL.--This admirable periodical maintains and advances its enviable reputation. With Morris & Willis as its editors, it needs no endorsement from its contemporaries. It must be, with such genius, tact and experience, all that a weekly periodical can be. We invite attention to the advertisement upon the cover of this number of the Magazine. Those who know the Journal will complain that the advertisers have not told half its merits.

Transcriber's Note:

1. page 133--corrected typo 'mizzen-rroyal' to 'mizzen-royal'

2. page 135--corrected typo 'them erchant' to 'the merchant'

3. page 137--punctuation mark at end of paragraph '...not gone the voyage.,' corrected to "

4. page 139--period in sentence '...of a Kentucky rifleman. I brought...' corrected to a comma

5. page 139--typo in '...I get acquaiuted with her?' corrected to 'acquainted'

6. page 139--typo in '...I beg you wont get out' corrected to 'won't'

7. page 140--typo in sentence "'Sartainly, sartainly," said he... changed to "'Sartainly, sartainly,' said he...

8. page 140--typos in sentence '...expect you early, gentlemem. Adieu--and with...' corrected to '...expect you early, gentlemen. Adieu'--corrected spelling mistake and added single quote mark

9. page 140--comma at end of sentence '...Is she so handsome, Ben,' changed to period

10. page 140--single quotes added in sentence "Egad! you don't say so!", so resulting sentence reads "'Egad! you don't say so!'"

11. page 140--later same sentence, corrected typo 'thonght' to 'thought'

12. page 142--added missing single quote at start of sentence "Mr. Stewart,' said Don Pedro...

13. page 143--removed extraneous single quote in sentence ...and answer me frankly. 'Do you really love... sentence is part of a continuing quotation

14. page 144--typo '...make love à la modé?...' corrected to 'à la mode...'

15. page 144--typo 'wont' corrected to 'won't'

16. page 145--single quote added at start of sentence "What!' cried Clara...

17. page 145--double quotes changed to single in sentence "'Oh Pedro!" continued his sister...

18. page 146--corrected typo 'an' in sentence '...but to cut an run, and favored...' to 'and'

19. page 148--typo 'Giacoma' corrected to 'Giacomo'

20. page 158--typo 'hour's' in sentence '...only a few hour's drive from...' corrected to 'hours''

21. page 158--colon at end of line 'At the sunny hour of noon:' changed to semi-colon

22. page 162--typo 'interpretaion' corrected to 'interpretation'

23. page 163--typo 'wtth' in sentence '...much, compared wtth its village-like...' corrected to 'with'

24. page 166--typos in sentence '...je sins un pr[=e]tre.' corrected to '...je suis un prêtre.'

25. page 167--typo in sentence '..."How should I know, monsieur?,' corrected to '"How should I know, monsieur?"'

26. page 167, later--double quote added to sentence "Pretty--very pretty lodgers, said I.

27. page 168--extraneous double quote removed from sentence 'I knew from its position...'

28. page 168--missing initial double quote added to sentence Oui, monsieur."

29. page 169--period substituted for comma at end of sentence '...at length, then?" said I,

30. page 169--same error at end of '...black upon his arm,"

31. page 169--extraneous double quote removed from sentence '...before me, dying!" The concierge...'

32. page 170--added missing quote at end of sentence '...cher?--it is a sad story.'

33. page 171--extraneous " removed at end of sentence '...had not found her friend.'

34. page 171--extraneous " removed at end of sentence '...He is dead, too, then?'

35. page 171--changed comma to period at end of line '..enchanted, wander evermore,'

36. page 172--added quote at start of sentence 'Emma will have it that...'

37. page 173--removed extra 's' from 'disinterestednesss'

38. page 175--added missing quote at end of '...flirts à discretion.'

39. page 180--added 't' to word 'eloquenly'