CHAPTER XLV.

Mrs. Hazleton found the inconvenience of having a dear friend. It was in vain that she tried to get rid of her visitor. The visitor would not be got rid of. She was deaf to hints; she paid no attention to any kind of inuendoes; and she looked so knowing, so full of important secrets, so quietly mischievous, that Mrs. Hazleton was cowed by that most unnerving of all things, the consciousness of meditated crime. She could not help thinking that the fair widow saw into her thoughts and purposes--she could not help doubting the impenetrability of the veil behind which hypocrisy hides the hideous features of unruly passion--she could not help thinking that the keen-sighted and astute must perceive some of the movements at least of the rude movers of the painted puppets of the face--the smile, the gay looks, the sparkling eyes, the calm placid brow, the dignified serenity, which act their part in the glittering scene of the world, too often worked by the most harsh, foul, and brutal of all the motives of the human heart. But she was irritated too, as well as fearful; and there was a sort of combat went on between impatience and apprehension. Had she given way to inclination she would have ordered one of her servants to take the intruder by the shoulders and put her out of doors; but for more than an hour after the time she had fixed for setting out, vague fears--however groundless and absurd--were sufficiently powerful to restrain her temper. She was not of a character, however, to be long cowed by any thing. She had great confidence in herself--in her own resources--in her own conduct and good fortune likewise. That confidence might have been a little shaken indeed by events which had lately occurred; but anger soon rallied it, and brought it back to her aid. She asked herself if she were a fool to dread that woman--what it was she had discovered--what it was that she could testify. She had merely seen her doing what almost every lady did a hundred times in the year in those day--preparing some simples in the still-room; and gradually as she found that gentle hints proved unsuccessful, she resumed her natural dignity of demeanor. That again gave way to a chilling silence, and then to a somewhat irritable imperiousness, and rising from her chair, she begged her visitor to excuse her, alledging that she had business of importance to transact which would occupy her during the whole day.

Not one of all the variation of conduct--not one sign, however slight, of impatience, doubt, or anger--escaped the keen eye that was fixed upon her. Mrs. Hazleton, under the influence of conscience, did not exactly betray the dark secrets of her own heart, but she raised into importance, an act in itself the most trifling, which would have passed without any notice had she not been anxious to conceal it.

As soon as her visitor, taking a hint that could not be mistaken, had quitted the room and the house, with an air of pique and ill-humor, Mrs. Hazleton returned to the still-room and recommenced her operations there; but she found her hand shaking and her whole frame agitated.

"Am I a fool," she asked herself, "to be thus moved by an empty gossip like that? I must conquer this, or I shall be unfit for my task."

She sat down at a table, leaned her head upon her hand, gazed forth out of the little window, forced her mind away from the present, thought of birds and flowers, and pictures and statues, and of the two sunshiny worlds of art and nature--of every thing in short but the dark, dark cares of her own passions. It was a trick she had learned to play with herself--one of those pieces of internal policy by which she had contrived so often and so long, to rule and master with despotic sway the frequent rebellions of the body against the tyranny of the mind.

She had not sat there two minutes, however, ere there was a tap at the door, and she started with a quick and jarring thrill, as if that knock had been a summons of fate. The next instant she looked quickly around, however, and was satisfied that whoever entered could find no cause for suspicion. She was there seated quietly at the table. The vial was out of sight, the fatal powder hidden in the palm of her hand, and she said aloud, "Come in."

The butler entered, bowing profoundly and saying, "The carriage is at the door, madam, and Wilson has just come back from the house of Mr. Shanks, but he could not find him."

The man hesitated a little as if he wished to add something more, and Mrs. Hazleton replied in a somewhat sharp tone, "I told you when I sent it away just now that I would tell you when I was ready. I shall not be so for half an hour; but let it wait, and do not admit any one. Mr. Shanks must be found, and informed that I want to see him early to-morrow, as I shall go to London on the following day."

"I am sorry to say, madam," replied the butler, "that if the talk of the town is true, he will not be able to come. They say he has been apprehended on a charge of perjury and forgery in regard to that business of Sir Philip Hastings, and has been sent off to the county jail."

Mrs. Hazleton looked certainly a little aghast, and merely saying "Indeed!" she waved her hand for the man to withdraw.

She then sat silent and motionless for at least five minutes. What passed within her I cannot tell; but when she rose, though pale as marble, she was firm, calm, and self-possessed as ever. She turned the key in the lock; she drew a curtain which covered the lower half of the window, farther across, so that no eye from without, except the eye of God, could see what she was doing there within. She then drew forth the vial from its nook, opened out the small packet of powder, and poured part of it into a glass. She seemed as if she were going to pour the whole, but she paused in doing so, and folded up the rest again, saying, "That must be fully enough; I will keep the rest; it may be serviceable, and I can get no more."

She gazed down upon the ground near her feet with a look of cold, stern, but awful resolution, as if there had been an open grave before her; and then she placed the packet in her glove, poured a little distilled water into the glass, shook it, and held the mixture up to the light. The powder had in great part dissolved, but not entirely, and she added a small quantity more of the distilled water, and poured the whole into the vial, which was already about one-third full of a dark colored liquid.

"Now I will go," she said, concealing the bottle. But when she reached the door, and had her hand upon the lock, she paused and remained in very deep thought for an instant, with her brow slightly contracted and her lip quivering. Heaven knows what she thought of then,--whether it was doubt, or fear, or pity, or remorse--but she said in a low tone, "Down, fool! it shall be done," and she passed out of the room.

She paused suddenly in the little passage which led to the still-room, by a pair of double doors, into the principal part of the house, perceiving with some degree of consternation that she had been unconsciously carrying the vial with its dark colored contents in her hand, exposed to the view of all observers. Her eye ran round the passage with a quick and eager glance; but there was no one in sight, and she felt reassured. Even at that moment she could smile at her own heedlessness, and she did smile as she placed the bottle in her pocket, saying to herself, "How foolish! I must not suffer such fits of absence to come upon me, or I shall spoil all."

She then walked quietly to her dressing-room, arranged her dress for the little journey before her, and descended again to the hall, where the servants were waiting for her coming. After she had entered the carriage, however, she again fell into a fit of deep thought, closed her eyes, and remained as if half asleep for nearly an hour. Perhaps it would be too much to scrutinize the state or changes of her feelings during that long, painful lapse of thought. That there was a struggle--a terrible struggle--can hardly be doubted--that opportunity was given her for repentance, for desistance, between the purpose and the deed, we know; and there can be little doubt that the small, still voice--which is ever the voice of God--spoke to her from the spirit-depth within, and warned her to forbear. But she was of an unconquerable nature; nothing could turn her; nothing could overpower her, when she had once resolved on any act. There was no persuasion had effect; no remonstrance was powerful. Reason, conscience, habit itself, were but dust in the balance in the face of one of her determinations.

She roused herself suddenly from her fit of moody abstraction, when the carriage was still more than a mile from the house of Sir Philip Hastings. She looked at the watch which hung by her side, and gazed at the sky; and then she said to herself, "That woman's impertinent intrusion was intolerable. However, I shall get there an hour before the twenty-four hours have passed, and doubtless she will have kept her word and refrained from speaking till she has seen me; but I am afraid I shall find her woke up from her mid-day doze, and that may make the matter somewhat difficult. Difficult! why I have seen jugglers do tricks a thousand times to which this is a mere trifle. My sleight of hand will not fail me, I think;" and then she set her mind to work to plan out every step of her proceedings.

All was clearly and definitely arranged by the time she arrived at the door of Sir Philip Hastings' house. Her face was cleared of every cloud, her whole demeanor under perfect control. She was the Mrs. Hazleton, the calm, dignified, graceful Mrs. Hazleton, which the world knew; and when she descended from the carriage with a slow but easy step, and spoke to the coachman about one of the springs which had creaked and made a noise on the way, not one of Sir Philip Hastings' servants could have believed that her mind was occupied with any thing more grave than the idle frivolous thoughts of an every-day society.

* * * * *

The shrewdest and most successful of politicians has given us the secret of his policy in the words, Follow the public so closely that you shall seem to lead it.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Continued from page 201

MUSIC.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE

BY H. W. PARKER.

The singing spheres Entranced the very time they measured out; And memory drew me back to one sweet year, When, born anew to thought and love, the earth Was new, and music--fancy's dancing light Till then--became a dazzling revelation. 'Twas in a city, midway from the hymns Of Trenton and Niagra. 'Twas an eve When a whole nation sighed, as hour by hour, The news electric ran that he was dying, The Palo Alto hero. Then and there, I hear the orchestra that once had winged The festal hours when first the hero stood, A nation's chief. To me, the hall, the crowd, Were not; I watched a window-square of sky Deepen from tender blue to night profound; And, as it deepened, heard the voice of Time, All Time, all joy and sorrow, madness, woe, And saw a thousand forms of light and gloom, From music born. Distorted faces glared; Long lines of star-browed angels circled down, And ages dead were summoned back to earth. The horn rang out the joy of happy souls; The viol screamed and laughed in scorn, and groans Rose dread and deep from under gulfs of night. The past, the future life of self, of all. Before me crowded, wailed, entreated, warned, Battled, triumphed, or struggled wildly past, A long procession. Good for me the hour When music, erst a sylph or monster form, Assumed the glory that immortals wear, And sang to me the messages of Heaven. It nerved me newly for the war of life, Of truth, humanity. Now, a naked soul, I dwelt within the central court of space-- No globe immense, but the aye changing point, Where centred, hangs the whole creation's weight, Light as a snow-flake, on the hand of God. The trill of myriad stars, the heavy boom Of giant suns that slowly came and went, The whistlings, sweet and clear, of lesser orbs, And the low thunder of more distant deeps, Ever commingling, grew to eloquence No earthly brain may bear. The universe Had found a voice: the countless souls that fill The countless earths, were calling each to each, In tones as high as heaven, as deep as hell, And many as the many words. I felt What is existence, what the vast extent, The mystery, and the far result....

THE COUNT MONTE-LEONE:

OR, THE SPY IN SOCIETY.[10]

TRANSLATED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE FROM THE FRENCH OF H. DE ST. GEORGES.

III. THE DUEL

It was a morning of December, but one of those fitful days when, the sun shining and the sky cloudless, the weather might lead one to suppose it to be spring, were the temperature not so cold and sharp, or if the flowers would only open, and the sun were as warm as it was bright. The young Marquise de Maulear sat over her painting, with Scorpione at her feet, when the Count Monte-Leone was announced.

"Show him in," said Aminta.

The Count entered. He was very pale, and there was a secret emotion on his countenance which Aminta discovered at once.

"What is the matter?" said she; "why have you come so early to see me? I do not reproach you for this; but if you intend by what you do now to stay away this evening, I object to it. I protest against this, Monsieur."

"How beautiful you are!" said Monte-Leone, "and how I love to hear you thus calculate your moments of happiness."

"Ah, Monsieur, I am very exacting, I have already told you. I will, however, grant you one hour, especially as time passes so rapidly in your company." Then she said, sadly, "Life is so short!"

"Yes, very short," said the Count; "especially when the career you promise me is pleasant--enough so to make one wish it would never end."

"I should so wish it, but you, perhaps, would think it tedious."

"It should be eternal," said Monte-Leone, "and eternity itself would not suffice for me to prove my tenderness. Besides, my purgatory here has been long enough. Have I not suffered all the tortures of hell since the day I renounced you? Ah!" said he, passionately, "you will never know how I loved, and how I now love you."

"Yes, yes," said Aminta, with a smile, "a heart like yours, I think, can love but once. I speak seriously--do you hear, sir? This word means much--so much that I tremble to think of it. You love me, and always will. I have faith in you."

"The future," said the Count, with an expression of sorrow which he could not conquer, "is your own--at least, if such is God's will, for mine is in your hands."

"What mean you?" said the Marquise, fearfully, and looking again with anxiety at the Count. "What trouble now menaces you? Would you leave Paris and myself? Well, that is a small affair. The country you dwell in shall be my country--the climate you select shall be mine. I will love the climate you love, even if it be as sombre and icy as our Italy is warm and glorious. The true country is where we find happiness."

"Dear Aminta," said the Count, with a delight he could not repress, "it would be terrible to die now."

Scorpione drew near the Count, and looked at him with a strange expression. One might have fancied that like the idiots of northern lands, who, we are assured, have a strange prescience of the future, this poor being was seized on by an unfortunate presentiment.

The words she had heard echoed sadly in Aminta's heart. "My friend," said she "for some time I have seen that you suffered. You are no longer happy in my presence. For pity's sake conceal nothing from me. Something terrible and unknown exists in your heart. To whom else but me would you confide it? Who would you permit to share my torments? Who should suffer with you? Tell me, I beseech you, for doubt is worse even than misery."

The Count felt his very soul expand as he heard this expression of Aminta's interest. He was about to speak to her. Could he, however, reveal to a young and tender woman the fate which menaced him--the duel which as was said was to be merciless? Could he tell her of the prospect of death in the midst of his dreams of happiness. All this was barbarous and impossible, and the Count sought to lull the storm he had excited, to soften her fears, and to efface her suspicions.

"My noble and dear Aminta, no violent and arbitrary power forces me to leave you. Perhaps, however, I am about to undertake a journey--a long journey," he said, with feelings he sought in vain to repress. "An important and imperious duty forces me to do so, and you see that I am sad on account of the farewell I am about to bid you."

"Farewell!" said Aminta, growing pale; "a journey, a departure! Wait but a few months, and we will go together."

This thought, so full of love, seemed sad to the Count, and at once he said,

"No, no; I must make this journey alone. But," said he, "I will return, and thenceforth leave you no more. This will be my last separation and absence." The Count pronounced these words with such earnestness that a smile of joy flitted across Aminta's countenance.

"Well," said she, "at least I know what danger menaces. I know now the secret of your distress, and the cause of the melancholy which I could not before penetrate. Count," continued she, "you have sometimes seen me brave and courageous. Judge then of my affection by the tears which I cannot repress."

Monte-Leone took the young woman's hand, and covered it with kisses. In the interim, leaning against a wall, and with his features contracted by grief, the idiot shed tears, because he saw Aminta do so. A servant appeared, and told the Count that Taddeo Rovero asked to see him. Monte-Leone looked up, and glancing at the clock, thought it was one. Aminta stopped him as he was about to go. "Shall I see you again?" said she.

"Yes, yes," said the Count--"to-night--to-morrow."

"One word more," said she; "travel has its danger, and now I know you will take care of yourself; for henceforth your life does not belong to you alone. Every day I will pray for you. I should not, however, be an Italian woman if my heart had no tender superstition. Yours, my brother has told me, is not exempt from this feeling. You have one family superstition in particular," said she. "This is an heir-loom. Take it again," said she, and she placed on the Count's finger the ring of Benvenuto, which Monte-Leone long before had sent her through Taddeo. "They tell me it has always brought you good fortune. Do not part with it again, for my sake, as I once received it for yours."

"Aminta," said the Count, "again you restore confidence to me. I expected to leave you full of love--but you can yet once more make me happy."

"How so?" said she.

"Let this be our wedding-ring."

"So be it," said Aminta.

"Countess di Monte-Leone," said the Count, regaining his energy, and speaking with a transport of joy. "We will meet again--I swear we will."

He left, and the idiot followed the Count. Monte-Leone's brow became bright. He had made up his mind, and regained his firmness.

The countless indistinct voices of nature alone interrupted the silence of this solitude, the echoes of which had so often resounded with the cry of grief, or the last sighs of a dying man. It was two o'clock when Monte-Leone and his companions appeared at the _rendezvous_. The place was as yet solitary, but in the course of a few minutes the distant sound of wheels reached their ears, and informed them that ere long their adversaries would be present. The latter, in fact, descended as they had themselves done at the round point which led to the ruins, and before many minutes had passed the two parties had met. Two officers, one of the navy and the other of the general's regiment, accompanied the Lieutenant. The Count and the Lieutenant stood aside. The witnesses approached each other. "Gentlemen," said Von Apsberg, "the Count Monte-Leone, as well as ourselves, is ignorant what could have given rise to the atrocious insult your friend has uttered, the latter having refused to explain it. Perhaps you will think it your duty to do so."

The naval officer said, "Monsieur, we are sorrow to say, that we know nothing more of the matter than you do. Lieutenant A---- is one of the most gallant officers of the royal navy. He has requested us to attend him here to-day, swearing that his cause was just and honorable, but that he would unfold its cause only _in articulo mortis_, or in case his adversary fell. We have such confidence in our comrade's honor and prudence, that we determined to do as he wished us."

"You, as well as we, gentlemen," said the other second, "have read the letter sent by Lieutenant A---- to Count Monte-Leone, and are aware that it was placed out of the power of the latter to refuse the challenge, even if he thought he had as yet received insufficient provocation."

"This is enough, Messieurs," said Von Apsberg. "I have made an appeal to you, and I see with sorrow that you disagree with me. I have hitherto considered the seconds in a duel as being charged with the soul of their friend. Without however pronouncing on the reasons which seem to have influenced Lieutenant A---- in his bearing towards such a man as Monte-Leone, we agree with you that he has given more than sufficient provocation for bloodshed. Let us therefore cut short this conversation, and proceed. We claim the choice of arms."

"Very well," said the officers.

"We select pistols," said Taddeo, "and rigorously using all our rights, claim the first fire; or that his adversary object by maintaining that he has received the first insult."

"Lieutenant A---- will maintain no such thing," said the naval officer.

"Then, gentlemen," said Von Apsberg, "we will not hesitate to take advantage of the benefit allowed us by the laws of duelling."

The seconds of A---- consented, and the weapons were loaded. When the terms were explained to Monte-Leone he said, "I wish that in this unfortunate and mysterious affair the right may be on my side. I insist, therefore, that the terms be equal, and that this gentleman and myself fire together, or when we please, advancing from a distance of twenty paces on each side. I take particular care, also, to say, not from bravado merely, but because I think proper to do so, that I am an extremely good shot."

"Were I not resolved to kill you," said the Lieutenant, "I would refuse this insolent generosity. I think I have such rights over your life, and my vengeance is of so sacred character, that I accept it without hesitation."

All then were silent--the ground measured and the pistols loaded. All this passed beneath a wall of the old monastery of Longchamps. The two enemies were placed opposite. The signal was given, and each lifted his arm. Without advancing towards his enemy, who walked rapidly towards him, Count Monte-Leone fired and his ball took effect on the body of the Lieutenant, who sank on the ground before him. He did not utter a complaint, did not close his eyes, but supporting himself on his elbow he fired on Monte-Leone. The ball would have struck the Count in the breast had not a man rushed rapidly as lightning from the thicket, and covering the Count with his body, received the ball in his own heart.

Four persons cried out at once. The seconds rushed towards the victim, who was Scorpione. The poor idiot thus died for Aminta, for he rescued one she loved. When they lifted up the unfortunate lad he was dead. It was afterwards learned from the people of the house that when he saw Taddeo with the pistol case, he had gotten into a hackney coach and followed the three friends. He beyond doubt remembered the box which he had seen in the hands of the Count at the time of the difficulty with the Marquis de Maulear. He had gone thus to the rendezvous and sprang from his concealment only to receive the mortal wound.

While Von Apsberg, Monte-Leone, and Taddeo sought to reanimate Tonio, the seconds of A---- supported him, and made useless efforts to staunch the blood which poured from his wound. Von Apsberg being satisfied that Scorpione was dead, offered his services to the Lieutenant. He, however, had fainted. Von Apsberg took out his case and cut two long straps of adhesive plaster for the purpose of healing the wound. He soon saw that his efforts would be useless. He said the ball is in the pylorus, and that noble organ being injured, death, unless a miracle ensue, must supervene. The seconds looked on with amazement. Just then the sound of the feet of several horses was heard, one of the officers said, "It is the forest keepers."

"Hurry away," said Von Apsberg to Monte-Leone, who yet held the hand of Scorpione and looked at him with great pity. "Hurry away. They will arrest you as the murderer of this man and what then will become of the association?"

The Count yet hesitated, for this sudden flight might seem injurious to his character. He was unwilling to shake off the responsibility of any act of his life.

"For Aminta's sake," said Taddeo, in a low voice; and the Count, rushing into the thicket, disappeared.

A few minutes passed and they waited for the horsemen, whose uniforms were seen in the distance. This was idle, for they passed within a few paces of the dead body without noticing it.

And another, too, in spite of all Von Apsberg's efforts, was dying. A convulsive whistle began to escape from the breast of the Lieutenant, his eyes rolled in his head, and his sight began to grow dim. The blood ceased to flow, and only a few black drops escaped from time to time. Suddenly the body which had become contracted, expanded, and by a last effort the eyes of the dying man began to expand and glittered strangely.

"Listen all," said he sharply and distinctly; "do not loose one word I say. These are the last words I shall ever pronounce. May God grant me power to unmask a traitor and prevent him from making new victims." All drew near, and paid attention to the words of one about to appear before his Creator. The respirations of the three auditors were distinct. "I said that I would reveal my secret only _in articulo mortis_, or in case my adversary fell, I will keep my promise. I did not tell you," and he turned with pain towards his seconds, "why I insulted this man who has killed me. The reason was that if I had spoken you would not have suffered me to meet him as being unworthy of the arm of an honest man. I wished to kill him first and unmask him afterwards. This brilliant Count Monte-Leone is a miserable hanger-on of the police. The people call such things _eaves-droppers_, but men of higher rank give them another name: Monte-Leone is a SPY IN SOCIETY."

"Horror! it is a slander," said Von Apsberg and Taddeo.

"By all that is dearest to me," said the Lieutenant, whose voice became every moment weaker and weaker, "by my father's life, by my own soul, this is true. Monte-Leone denounced the General, and my father himself gave me evidence of the fact, which is beyond a doubt. He will also satisfy you--men do not lie at the hour of death, and I am dying with these words on my lips."

He closed his eyes and died.

IV--THE ANONYMOUS NOTE.

Nothing could describe the stupefaction of the four seconds of the duel at what A----said. Von Apsberg was the first to divest himself of the mute terror which seemed to have taken possession of all. "Gentlemen," said he, "I appeal to your honor. The truth of a dying man's assertions cannot be suspected. I am sure he was convinced of the truth of his assertion. This alone can palliate his statements. M. A---- would have soon recovered from his unfortunate impression in relation to the count, and it is a pity that he did not sooner impart it to us. We are able to furnish such evidence of Monte Leone's truth that he would have himself confessed that he was wrong. We will see at all risks the unfortunate young man's father and will attempt to discover the origin of this strange imputation. We will ask one favor of you, such as may be between people of honor, to suspend your judgments in relation to Monte-Leone until we are able to satisfy you this originated in some terrible mistake."

The naval officer then said: "We have no reason to be hostile to Count Monte-Leone, and his conduct in relation to the preliminaries of the duel rather inspire us with respect. We will, then, await your communications and say nothing of the circumstances."

"I thank you, sirs--all here has occurred as should between men of honor and courage. Let us now take care of the victims. Each take care of his own friend," pointing to the son of the General and to Scorpione.

A quarter of an hour afterwards there remained only a few drops of dried-up blood on the withered leaves and on the moss. When Taddeo returned with the body of Tonio, Monte-Leone was already with the Marquise. When the latter saw him, she thought in obedience to his promise he had come to bid her adieu. Then the Count told her what had happened, and the circumstances of Scorpione's death. Aminta wept.

All the self-denial of the poor lad appeared before her; his torture and suffering which began and ended his life. The arrival of Taddeo, therefore, distressed her. The Count, however, was there, and she had discovered the direction of his pretended voyage. The Count, perhaps, regretted Tonio's death as much as she did, for he had been its involuntary cause and could not console himself for it.

A few hours after, Von Apsberg and Taddeo met at the bedside of the Vicomte, who was yet sick. They told him all the incidents of the duel, and they concurred in thinking the statements of the dying Lieutenant most atrocious. They determined not to speak of it to the Count whose anger and exasperation, they feared at such a statement. As Von Apsberg had said to the Lieutenant's seconds, they determined at all hazards to reach the General's cell, and thus explain the mystery. Three days passed in useless efforts to induce the authorities to accede to their request. At last the Procureur du roi relaxed in favor of Doctor Matheus who was introduced into the cell of General A---- whom he found completely overcome by the death of his son. To this grief, which was intense and terrific, was joined the most violent anger against the Count, whom he called the murderer and assassin of his son. "Yes," said the unfortunate father, "he is a villain, and coward, and has denounced the father and killed the son. What have I done to this man? why is he so enraged against me? why against mine?"

"General," said Von Apsberg, "I can understand how bitter a despair like yours must be: it should not, though, make you unjust towards a man of honor who was your associate and is ours." This was said in a low tone. "Count Monte-Leone fought honorably against your son, and but for an unforseen accident would have been killed by him. Resume, then, your coolness. Time is precious, and I beg you to tell me why you have accused Monte-Leone."

"Would to God I had kept that terrible secret to myself! would to God my son had never heard that charge! He would not then have been forced to meet him to avenge me; he would have been living now."

The sobs of the General increased. Von Apsberg suffered his grief to pass away, and asked, "Is this note yours, General?"

"What note?" asked he, and looking through his tears at a piece of paper which the Doctor gave him.

Von Apsberg whispered almost in his ear. "This note was given a few days after your arrest."

The General read it, and said: "Yes, an old servant who accompanied me to the prison, and who was afterwards taken away, was my messenger."

"And you say that you saw in the hands of the Prefect, as the basis of the charge against you, the list of the members of your _vente_ signed by you and given by you to Count Monte-Leone."

"I do."

"Well," said the Doctor, "repel this error, and do justice to the innocent name you have aspersed, for the Count gave me that very list, and here it is." The General took the document and looked minutely at the signature. He then said, "This is not the list I gave Monte-Leone. My signature is forged. Both the list and signatures have been imitated by a forger, skilfully indeed, but the true list, the one which beyond doubt will take me to the scaffold, this list, as I say and as my blood will prove, is in the hands of the Prefect of police."

Von Apsberg grew pale and leaned against the wall. An icy paleness ran through his veins and a cloud stood before his eyes. He shuddered at this distinct statement. The fact was this list must have been taken from his own papers and imitated in his own room which hitherto he had looked on as inviolable, or the Count was a traitor, and the General right. The unfortunate Lieutenant was not mistaken, he had proved all he said, and was correct in all he did. "General," said Von Apsberg, "for the sake of the honor of a man who is dear to me, for the sake of an association the dominant idea of which you have sustained so nobly and for which you now suffer, think well--make an appeal to your memory; let not chagrin lead you astray, I beg you; by your thirty glorious years of service, I ask you if that is not your signature?"

"On my conscience, and by the memory of my son, I vow that list is an imitation, a copy of mine, and that the original was given to Angles on the day of my arrest."

"It is a strange and incredible mystery," said Von Apsberg, who continued to repel with horror the idea of treason in Monte Leone. Some enemy must have taken this paper from the Count and copied it.

"Do not look so far for this traitor. I have pointed him out to you. The man you call your friend has denounced and betrayed me by means of that fatal document. I tell you, Doctor, he is a coward, and has betrayed the father and son." The old soldier wept. They came to tell the Doctor that the time allotted for his visit was past. He was about to leave when the General seized him and said, "Do prompt justice to that man, _or the day of Carbonarism is gone_." Von Apsberg could not restrain an expression of terror when he heard these words and saw the look with which they were accompanied. He clasped the General's hand and followed the turnkey who accompanied him to the outer gate of the conciergerie....

Two days before this scene, MM. Ober and professor C., the two other chiefs of the central _ventes_, who were yet at liberty, placed in the hands of Count Monte-Leone their lists certified to as those of General A----, F----, B----, and the Count de Ch----, had been. Monte-Leone at once took those important papers to Matheus, who shut them up with the others in a secret drawer of the old bureau, a print of the lock of which we saw Mlle. Crepineau's lover take. Von Apsberg, when he returned home, found Taddeo and the Vicompte waiting for him. The latter was much changed, being pale and weak. He was so anxious, however, to learn the result of the Doctor's visit to A---- that he went to his house. Von Apsberg was struck by the agitation of his friends and the desperation of their countenances. Taddeo said: "We are betrayed and lost, and Carbonarism in France is dead. Ober and C---- were last night arrested and taken to prison." Von Apsberg sank on his chair without speaking. He then arose and rushed out of the room. "What is the matter with him?" said both Taddeo and the Vicomte. Von Apsberg went to his laboratory, opened the door and then the secretary. He took out a mass of papers, and descended again with rapidity. He said to the Vicomte, "you know the signature of Ober, having corresponded with him on business," and handed him the letter.

D'Harcourt took it, and went to the window, the curtains of which he threw aside. He looked carefully at the signature; and then, after a minute examination of every letter, said, "It is forged." He then took a letter from his pocket and added, "I can prove it by this." He then laid the letter which was written by Ober side by side with the roll and said, "This is but a coarse imitation."

Von Apsberg beat his breast and exclaimed: "As you said, my friends, _Cabonarism is dead in France_, and one of its sons, or rather its chief, who should have defended it with his body and mind, with his blood and life, has basely slain it."

"Do you mean Monte-Leone?" asked d'Harcourt and Taddeo.

"I mean Monte-Leone," and he told all that had passed between the General and himself.

"No!" said Taddeo. "I do not and can not think so. I will not. I will not think one I have esteemed honorable to a proverb, so debased. No! Count Monte-Leone is neither a spy nor a traitor. No! he shall be slandered by none; not even by you shall such a slander be uttered against a friend, countryman, and brother."

"Why," added he, with great vehemence, "why do you not ask for another version than that which condemns him? why may not these lists have been taken and copied while in his possession? why may they not have been thus treated, so that he gave you but counterfeits when he fancied he gave you originals? Indeed," said the noble-hearted young man, "you forget too easily the qualities of those you love, and are oblivious of years of courage consecrated to the cause we sustain, and for which he has periled his life. Truly your friendship turns now into hatred and contempt."

"Taddeo," said d'Harcourt, "We too, suffer--our hearts also repel what our reason tells us is true. As you do we seek to satisfy ourselves that hate not design had produced our ruin. We, like you, are unwilling to think our friend a villain; and God grant we may not be mistaken."

Von Apsberg added that his faith in Monte-Leone had been revived by Taddeo's energetic defence. Every thing must have a cause, a reason, a motive. Why then should Monte-Leone betray us.

"Well, well, my friends," said Taddeo, clasping their hands, "if you do not suspect you are not sure of what you say; you will soon be satisfied, and in a short time will deplore your unworthy suspicion. But I who repelled it will now fathom what it means. Our safety and a brother's honor depend on our doing so."

"Gentlemen," said Von Apsberg, "we should be guilty if we concealed any longer from Monte-Leone what we intended. Certainly a determined will is required to enable one to inflict such a blow on him. He alone can enable us to trace the traitors and criminals. He can give us light--otherwise we are in darkness."

Taddeo said, "Ask me to brave death, to risk my liberty for our cause, and I will not hesitate. Do not, though, ask me to say to a man whom I think honorable, 'you are accused of having sold your brothers, of having basely denounced their secrets--you are called a traitor and a spy--that I cannot do.'"

D'Harcourt said, like Taddeo, "I feel myself incompetent to make this revelation. My lips would quiver, and in spite of my efforts, my strength would fail when I looked into his lofty brow and frank countenance. On that brow fear and shame have never spread a blush."

"Then I will speak," said Von Apsberg, "I love the Count as well as you do, and accused him just now with deep regret, my heart refuting the imputation which my mouth uttered. I will see him, I will tell him of all, and will in my devotion accomplish the most cruel task ever imposed on me."

Just then several blows were struck on the pannel of the book-case through which we have seen S. Pignana enter, and also Signor Salvatori and M. H----. "This is some important information from Pignana," said Von Apsberg, and he touched the spring. The panel opened, but behind it was Monte-Leone instead of Pignana. All experienced great emotion when they saw him. Von Apsberg was the most agitated, for he was to speak, and had thus the most painful task to perform.

"I am just now come," said Monte-Leone, "but I did not think I should enter Frederick's house openly. Prudence is now more needed than ever. You have heard," said he, "of the arrests of the chiefs of the two other central _ventes?_"

"Yes," said Von Apsberg, "and we were seeking to discover who is our secret enemy."

"This misfortune," said the Count, "is to be attributed rather to our friends than our enemies. One piece of indiscretion may have produced all this."

"Imprudence," said Matheus, "in a conspiracy, is a crime. It endangers all who participate in it."

"My friends," said the Count, "our association is menaced from all quarters. The journals of every day reveal to all Europe the misfortunes of the secret societies of Germany and Italy--the sisters of Carbonarism in France. The latter, attacked in the person of the chiefs of our central _ventes_, mortally wounded by the discouragement of a great number of our brothers, has now but one of two alternatives to take."

"Revolt?" said Von Apsberg.

"Violence?" said Taddeo.

"No, my friend, prudence and inaction."

All looked at him with surprise, and Von Apsberg felt again the strange feeling which the facts we have recounted had produced.

The Count resumed. "What I say, it is evident, astonishes you. Burdened, though, with a heavy responsibility by the _ventes_ of Europe, which await, as a signal for action, only my word, I can give it to this immense secret association, which is beneath the surface of society, only when force and number are aided by opportunity. Opportunity now is wanting; for the uneasy eye of government penetrates our ranks, and the iron hand of despotism decimates us. Force and numbers now are paralysed by fear, and I am sorry to say all our future hope is found in prudence and inactivity."

"This language is indeed strange in the month of Monte-Leone," said d'Harcourt.

"Far different," said Taddeo, "from that you used yesterday."

"Calm and cold," said Von Apsberg, "when we take into consideration the storm which howls around us--the shipwrecks which menace every day our vessels."

"Because the heavens are in a blaze--because the tempests howls around us, I would have you for the time seek a shelter."

"Once, though," said Apsberg, "you advised us to brave danger, to meet it face to face, to parry it with arms in our hands, to conquer or to die."

"Gentlemen," said the Count with dignity, "am I called on to rehearse again the offensive scene which took place at the abbey de San Paolo? Am I, as one in the supreme _vente_ of Naples, the chief of which I was, an object of distrust to my brethren? Have I again lost the confidence of my dearest associates? If such be the case, if the pledges I have given to our cause are now valueless, if forgetfulness and ingratitude go together, say so, plainly and distinctly. I am willing to abandon the office, title, and rank, you have conceded to me. I will write to all the _ventes_ of Europe and will henceforth become the most humble but not the least devoted brother of the association."

The suspicions of the three friends at once passed away when they heard this energetic and loyal discourse. Von Apsberg gave his hand to the Count. "Excuse us," said he, "misfortune embitters even the best men. The misfortunes of our brethen, the mysterious enemy who denounces and seems anxious to effect our ruin, overwhelm and distress us. Look," added he, with the haste with which men often discharge a painful duty, "here are the lists of the six chiefs of the central _ventes_. Are these the papers given you by the imprisoned chiefs A----, Ch----, B----, C----, F----, and Ober? Are these the papers you gave me?"

"They are."

"Are these their signatures?" said Von Apsberg.

"They are."

"You are mistaken," said d'Harcourt, "at least in relation to that of Ober, for here is his true signature to this letter, written the day previous to his arrest. You can yourself see how poor the imitation is."

The Count grew pale, and the other conspirators watched him as if to read his thoughts.

"Do you think the other lists also forgeries?" said the Count.

"We do."

"Then," said the Count, "all is lost."

"All _is_ lost," said Von Apsberg, "and we wish to ascertain from you who had charge of these papers; how is it that they have been copied, and how came the originals in the hands of the police?"

"If such be the case," said Taddeo, who suffered visibly from this species of examination.

"But," said Monte-Leone, who became more and more excited, "you ask me a question I cannot answer--which God alone can explain. All this is a mystery beyond my powers."

"Well," said Von Apsberg, growing every moment more nervous, for he saw the approach of the necessity of this terrible explanation; "well, in the absence of proof, our brethren indulge in conjectures." As he spoke, the words seemed riveted to his lips, and to break from them with difficulty.

"What are those conjectures?" said Monte-Leone, resuming his _sang-froid;_ for the idea that there was a suspicion in relation to his honor, was not within the compass of his thought. He began to seek a remedy almost before he knew what was the evil which menaced him.

"THEY SAY," said Von Apsberg, with hesitation, "that some traitor has insinuated himself among us and betrayed us to the secret police--that he has sold us to our enemies, and that the arrests of our brothers are the fruits of his treason."

"Who is that man?" said Monte-Leone.

"Who is he?" said Von Apsberg, and his very heart grew cold.

"Yes! who? who is he?" said Monte-Leone.

Von Apsberg was about to speak; the bolt was about to fall. His two friends ceased almost to breathe, when the door of the room was rung violently.

"Who can it be at this hour?" said d'Harcourt.

"I cannot tell," said the Doctor, "I expect no one."

The bell was rung again.

"Some patient, perhaps," said Monte-Leone. "Go at once. A doctor should always be prompt to attend such calls."

"But," said d'Harcourt, "what if it be an officer?"

"Then there is an additional reason for answering the bell," said Monte-Leone.

Von Apsberg left the room, closing the door after him and hurrying into the anteroom, saw before him Mlle. Celestine Crepineau. The three friends listened at the door Von Apsberg had closed, to ascertain who called.

"Excuse me, Doctor," said Mlle. Crepineau, "but the matter was so urgent."

"What?"

"This note, which a very pleasant person, fair as you are, but not so handsome, asked me to deliver at once."

"Very well," said the Doctor, who took the note and shut the door in Mlle.'s face.

"Now that is not polite," said she. "After all, though, he may have been engaged in some operation when I rang, and he may have been very much annoyed by the interruption."

Von Apsberg read the letter which had been given him hurriedly and uttered an exclamation of joy. When he rejoined his friends, he said, "God has come to our assistance."

"What is the matter?" asked all of them.

"Nothing that concerns us," said the Doctor, seeking to disguise his trouble; "I have an appointment which is strictly private."

"Tell me, then," said Monte-Leone, "who is accused of having betrayed us."

"I do not know," said Von Apsberg, at once changing his tone. "No one can say who he is."

D'Harcourt and Taddeo looked at him with surprise. The Count said, "I thought our secret enemy, or the person pointed out as such, was known to you."

"He is not," said the Doctor, looking significantly at his friends. "None know who he is."

"Then," said Monte-Leone, "we must seek him out and reach him wherever he is."

"If we discover him," said Von Apsberg, "what shall be his fate."

"Our statutes provide for that case," said Monte-Leone; "he shall share his victim's fate. If our brethren die, so shall he."

"He shall die," said the _Carbonari_.

"Listen," said Monte-Leone, "the signature of Ober is false, but perhaps it is the only one which has been counterfeited. We must ascertain whether the others are. This point must be cleared up, and I will see to it. Gold and influence will open the dungeons of our friends, and I will see them. Besides, the papers were not out of my possession. Ah!" said he, as if he were utterly discouraged, "this is enough to make a man mad. To-morrow I shall have penetrated it, and then you will see me." He went out through the secret pannel.

When it had closed, Apsberg arose and repeating his last words, said, "Yes, my friends, to-morrow you shall know all." Taking from his bosom the letter Mlle. Crepineau had given him, he read as follows:

"TO DOCTOR MATHEUS--If you would ascertain who has denounced your brethren, the miserable spy whose reports have ruined them and given to your enemies the original rolls, be to-night at 11 o'clock, p. m., at the back door of the Prefecture of Police, opening on the _quai des Orfevres_. You will there find the person you need. This is the hour of his _rendezvous_. Stand in the angle of the door, and without being seen, you may recognize the informer.

"A BROTHER _of the third_ CENTRAL VENTE."

V.--A TERRIBLE NIGHT.

The night of January 5th, 1820, was one of the coldest of the winter. The snow fell heavily, and the Seine was covered with large crystallized flakes which, uniting together and lodging on each bank, narrowed the current and caused it to flow more rapidly.

The steps of the patrols, or of the benighted travellers, were unheard. The light of the lamps shone redly but indistinctly amid the snowy cloak which hung around them. They seemed like eyes of fire in the long solitary streets. All was sad and gloomy in this paradise of pleasure and festival. One might have fancied a vast white shroud to be extended over a city without souls.

A man walked rapidly down the port St. Nicholas, before that part of the old Louvre which had once witnessed such joy, love, crime, and splendor. His steps seemed, from their length, to testify great impatience and an anxiety to reach his destination.

"What can they be about?" said he. "All is lost if they do not come. The anonymous note is formal and the terms are precise, "_Eleven o'clock and the quai des Orfevres_." This secret enemy, whose name and features we are about to know, had only to hasten to the Prefecture of Police to deprive us of the only means of unmasking a scoundrel. Yet heaven protects us, for just as I was about to reveal to Monte-Leone the villainy imputed to him, this note closed my lips and veiled the indignation my words could not but have created in his noble soul."

The man stopped. The silence of the _quai_ was broken, and he heard the sound of persons approaching him. Soon two shadows were seen by the light of the lamps which hung from the walls of the Louvre, and a voice was heard. "It is he: it is Matheus. He waits for us in the _chiaro oscuro_ of the door." This was followed by a short dry cough, produced by the intense cold of the evening. The speaker was the Vicomte d'Harcourt, scarcely recovered from his illness. A few seconds passed and d'Harcourt and Taddeo stood by the side of Von Apsberg. The three friends had determined not to consult Monte-Leone, nor to inform him of what had taken place until they knew who had denounced them and who was to be punished.

"I came hither," said Von Apsberg, "alone, because three men together are greater subjects of remark than two; for the same reason two are more subject to comment than one; therefore, let us separate, and walking down the quai meet at the place appointed."

The clock of the Hotel de Ville struck eleven, when the three friends met in rear of the Prefecture of Police. They followed strictly the directions of the anonymous letter. They discovered the back door and stood in its shadow, being concealed by an angle in the wall. They waited there. Carriage after carriage passed, and their hearts beat violently as each approached. The carriages crossed the _quai_ but did not stop. At about a quarter after eleven came a carriage driven rapidly, but which relaxed its speed as it reached the _quai de Orfevres_; it then paused a few feet only from the angle of the wall where the Carbonari were concealed. The steps were let down and the person in the carriage descended and walked rapidly to the back door of the Prefecture. In spite, though, of his haste, the Carbonari could not but remark the stature, tournure, cloak, and bearing of the stranger. The door was opened. The three friends followed and were able to hear him say, "Count Monte-Leone."

"He--he--" said they.

"The scoundrel!" said Von Apsberg.

"The villain!" said D'Harcourt.

Taddeo hurried to the carriage which was on the point of leaving.

"All doubt is gone," said Taddeo. "The carriage is his."

"They are _his_ horses," said d'Harcourt.

"It is his driver," said Von Apsberg. Then speaking to the man who, while surrounded by the three men, began to tremble, "Who is the person who came in the carriage?" said he.

"My master," said the automaton, more dead than alive. "The Count Monte-Leone."

"Whence did your master come hither?"

"How?" said the driver, who did not understand the question.

"I wish to know, did you drive him from his hotel, or some other place?"

"My master was to-night at the Neapolitan embassy. I waited for him in the courtyard which was black as a fair on days when there is no reception. After having remained an hour there he got into the carriage and bade me drive to the _quai des Orfevres, near the Prefecture of Police_. Here I am, Monsieur, and so are you. Good night, then."

Whipping up his horses at the risk of driving over two of the young men who stood at their heads, he went away at a gallop.

Von Apsberg, d'Harcourt, and Rovero, were all as white as the snow, which had again begun to fall with violence, and looked at each other with that sympathy of a thousand sentiments which might have been expected in persons so terribly situated as they were. Terror, shame, and despair were all united in their glance. Then by one of those sudden and sublime emotions, they clasped each other's hands as if to say, that, henceforth they could rely on no others. Von Apsberg and the Vicomte, were about to speak, when Taddeo made them wait, and said, "No complaints, no insults. _If it be he_, contempt and death." As he spoke the last word his voice quivered.

"'_If it be he?_' what doubt can there be?" said Von Apsberg. "Have not our eyes seen? Have not our ears heard? Are we not satisfied?"

"Did you not hear the name?"

"May he not have used the name surreptitiously?"

"Was it not his form, dress, and air?"

"Did you see his face?" asked Taddeo, who was himself struck with the poverty of his reasons, and contended against his convictions.

"But, are not the driver and carriage his?"

"The driver may have been bribed," said Taddeo, who, like many others, became enthusiastic in favor of a bad cause. "I need something more, I must be certain, and will be. In two hours I will see you at Matheus's." He entered a hackney-coach and drove away; bidding the coachman go to the Neapolitan embassy.

"I know his plan," said Von Apsberg, "for if Monte-Leone was not at the embassy, the driver was mistaken, and it was not Monte-Leone we saw."

"What now shall we do?" asked the Vicomte, whose cough became more violent, and more frequent.

"Go home," said Von Apsberg, "for both your body and mind suffer. You remember I am accountable to your father, and to--your sister, for your health."

"But what will you do?" said the Vicomte.

"I will wait."

"Where--here? at this door?"

"Yes; at this door, deserted as it is. I will wait here, for the phantom or the reality. I will wait and tear off the hat which covers his brow, and read with my own eyes the shame there, and thus throw from my soul the last remnant of faith in the honor of my friend."

"But if he resist?"

"So much the better: I will then kill him."

"And if he kill you?"

"His work will be complete; for, like Judas, he will have slain one he said he loved."

"I will stay," said d'Harcourt; and, despite of the entreaties of his friend and the orders of his physician, he wrapped himself more closely in his cloak, leaned against the wall, and waited. Von Apsberg followed his example....

Taddeo went to the embassy. Few persons had been there during the evening, but the rooms were brilliant with light, and contrasted with the darkness of the vast courtyard of which Monte-Leone's driver had spoken. It was almost midnight, but like most Italians the Duchess lived as much by night as day. The hour, too, at which Taddeo came was not unusually late, for at this hour he was in the habit of visiting the Duchess. Therefore, she was not surprised to see him. She lay negligently on an ottoman in that boudoir where we have already seen her receive Count Monte-Leone. There too she had probably received company during the evening, for the chairs were in a kind of ring around the ottoman. She said:

"Ah, Signor Rovero, you are welcome. I have been kept long waiting this evening for you and for one of your best friends, who expected to find you here."

"Who, Signora, is that friend?" asked Taddeo, with deep curiosity.

"Can you not guess?" said the Duchess. "Whom should we call Pylades' friend but Orestes?"

"Is it the Count you mean?"

"Yes."

"Has he been here?"

"Certainly," said La Felina.

"Certainly," repeated Taddeo, "you kept him a long time with you."

"Taddeo," said La Felina, "you are indulging in that villanous habit of jealousy. Ah!" said she, "I am learned in that." She did not give him time to reply. "It is a pity you yet love a poor woman that chagrin and suffering overwhelm, and whose heart is now as withered as her face."

"To me you are what you always were, and what you will ever be," said Taddeo. "Deign, though, to tell me, I beg you, when did the Count go?"

"The Count, again. Did you come hither to speak of him alone?"

"Not so; but an imperious reason forces me to know when he left the hotel."

"About an hour ago," said the Duchess, looking at Taddeo.

Taddeo grew pale and his fingers grasped the back of the ottoman convulsively. His head fell on his bosom, and his eyes became motionless and fixed upon the carpet. He was convinced, and in despair. From this dreary state he was aroused by the pressure of a soft hand.

"Taddeo," said a voice musical as the song of the angels, "you suffer."

"Yes," said the young man.

"I see you do. Can friendship do nothing to soothe you?"

"Nothing!"

"Thus it is with men," said La Felina; "they think of us in their pleasure and happiness, but never in their sorrow."

Taddeo looked towards the Duchess, whose features expressed so much sympathy and devotion that he felt his heart give way, and he was about to give vent to his secret--an innate and noble sentiment of generosity restrained him. It seemed to him that La Felina might fancy he took a base revenge, should he dishonor one she had loved so passionately, and, perhaps, was yet devoted to.

"Signor Rovero," said the ambassadress, after a long silence, "since you think me unworthy to share your secret, let us have done with it. Skilful physicians lull pains they cannot soothe. Let me then do as they do, and divert your mind from such bitter thoughts to present it a more pleasant prospect--that of your sister's happiness."

"What say you?" asked Taddeo, as if he were aroused from a dream.

"You understand me certainly--the approaching marriage of your sister with Count Monte-Leone is everywhere understood to be a fact."

"Never!" said Taddeo, losing his _sang-froid_.

A smile of triumph, which Taddeo did not observe, flitted across La Felina's face. She said, "What say you?--do you oppose the union?"

"It is no longer possible, signora," said Taddeo, giving way to his emotion--"it cannot be. Vice and virtue--the serpent and the dove--heaven and hell--may be mingled, but not Aminta and Monte-Leone. He is unworthy of her."

"Unworthy?" said La Felina--"your heroic friend unworthy of her?"

"My friend! I deny him. He was my friend, as Judas was Christ's. For he has sold his, as the recreant sold our Saviour."

"Taddeo! is it you who speak thus?"

"It is. I, whose soul has been crushed by his cruel deception--I, whose holy faith in his truth has perished--I, who must detest him whom I loved and honored!" Unable any longer to conceal the odious secret within his breast, he opened his bleeding heart to La Felina.

When the Duchess had heard him, she said, "No, it is impossible!--Monte-Leone is not a traitor, a coward, the basest of men."

"Ah! you say so; so did I. I repelled the charge with horror; yet I was forced to yield to reason and evidence."

"It is evident either that you saw or did not see _him_."

"But the departure from your hotel," said Taddeo, "coincides so fatally with his arrival at the prefecture of police--the very answer of the driver proves all."

"All this is presumptive, yet terrible; but if you yield--if your faith in his honor is not great enough to triumph over it, do you believe that a true passion, that a deep love, such as he inspires, will also do so?"

"Ah, signora!" said Taddeo, with pain, "you have been generous long enough; you have had pity or time long enough to allow me at least to remain in doubt about your sentiments. It is cruel to choose such a time as this to own them."

"How know you what I feel?" said La Felina to Taddeo, who was about to go. "Think you the profound passion of which you speak can resist indifference and forgetfulness?--I spoke only of your sister."

"Is it true?" said the young man, forgetting all in his joy at this confession--"of my sister?"

"Yes; and her heart will not suffer her to be convinced as easily as you have been of the baseness of a man whose name and hand she was about to receive. To break the bonds which unite them, to change her love into contempt, the Marquise de Manlear will require evidence beyond dispute of a crime of which, as yet, you have only suspicions, and which my respect for Monte-Leone forces me to repudiate."

As she spoke, the Duchess, who sat on the ottoman yet, reached forth her arm to pick up a paper which lay on the carpet. Taddeo, following her motions, picked up the paper and handed it to her.

"What is that?" said she; "some letter I have dropped or which one of my visitors has lost."

"Count Monte-Leone sat there," and she pointed to a particular chair. She opened it mechanically, but scarcely had she done so than she uttered a cry of grief. Taddeo hurried to La Felina with a bottle of salts. She had let the paper fall, and it met his glance as it lay open. He saw a seal. Moved by a feeling of curiosity, which he could not repress, and hoping to discover the cause of La Felina's emotion, made confident also by the authentic character of the paper, Taddeo took and read it carefully. Scarcely had he done so than his strength gave way and he became pale as death. Sinking back in a chair he was crushed, as it were, by terror. The Duchess had recovered, and their countenances exhibited to each other the terrible feelings which filled their minds.

"Did you read?" said La Felina.

"I did," said Rovero. "Here it is."

"I recognize as an _attache_ of the Police Count Monte-Leone, who acts by my authority."

"This is awful," said she.

"Do you yet doubt?" said Taddeo, quivering with grief.

"What will you do with that paper?" said La Felina, also trembling.

"What people do with a decree which holds a man to public infamy--fasten it to the scaffold, that all may know who is the wretch society expels from its bosom. I will nail it to his brow."

"No, no! you will not do so; you will not be hard-hearted and cruel enough to act thus."

"I will do my duty," said Taddeo, sternly.

"And I," said Signora de la Palma, taking possession of the paper, "will not suffer you to do so." Then, quicker than thought, she crushed the paper in her hands, and threw it in the fire.

"What have you done?" said Taddeo. "You have destroyed the irrefragable proof of his guilt."

"You read it, that is enough _for you_--it is too much for _him_." Then rushing from the room where she was alone, she said aloud--"It is enough, too, for me, for now _she will never marry him_."

VI.--THE ACCUSATION.

What had occurred was a sufficient reason for the Duchess not to return to the room. Taddeo hurried to Von Apsberg's. D'Harcourt and the Doctor did not come until two o'clock. The door they watched did not open, and he they were so anxiously waiting for prudently left by some other egress.

"Well," said the Doctor to Taddeo, "was he at the Duchess's?--did he go out as his driver said?"

"May we yet doubt?" said D'Harcourt.

Taddeo was silent, and seemed not even to have heard them. With his head on his hands, he sat before a table in the centre of the room. His eyes were red with tears and watching, and he had written a few lines rapidly; at last he said:

"Read that, which is my answer."

They did so, and a painful sigh escaped their breasts.

He continued--"I, who defended, accuse him; I do so because I saw the proof of his infamy. I know not its object and motive, which confounds my reason; I cannot, however, doubt it, for I have read the letter, and devote this man to the hatred and vengeance of the brethren he has betrayed." He then told all that had passed.

Von Apsberg took the pen and wrote his name below Taddeo's. D'Harcourt did the same. This act, simple as it was, had a lugubrious and solemn character, for which it was indebted to the physiognomy and emotion of the three men whose hearts beat under the same emotion, and who shed tears together. At last it seemed that they had evidence which lighted up their future path of vengeance.

"My friends," said the Doctor, "Carbonarism in France is dead. The arrests of the chiefs of the central ventes tell you plainly enough what fate is reserved for us. We are free men only because our liberty contributed to the plans of our enemies. We cannot dissemble that we are sold and betrayed by a spy. Our retreats and plans also are revealed, and the dungeon, exile, or death, is the fate of our brethren and ourselves. I propose to you, therefore, no isolated vengeance, but one for all affiliated with us. By the terms of our association, a sentence has been passed on the traitor, and been signed." He pointed to the paper to which they had affixed their names. "Who will execute it? The supreme annual _vente_ will assemble in a few days at the Masonic lodge of the _Friends of Truth_. The supreme vente will decide."

"No, gentlemen," said the Vicomte D'Harcourt, "my mind and education object to nocturnal vengeance. I prefer daylight and the sword to obscurity and the dagger. His sword is not worthy to be crossed with mine, but better thus than murder."

"So be it. But not your sword, but those of all of us will be directed to his heart. To-morrow, like three shadowy avengers, we will tell him of his crime and punish it."

"To-morrow be it," said D'Harcourt and Taddeo. Then, clasping each other's hand with a mingled feeling of anger, sorrow, and despair, they separated.

On the morning of the night after these scenes, Monte-Leone, immersed in reflection, sat in his hotel. It might be about ten o'clock. The snow, which had been falling since the evening before, intercepted the faint light of day, and added to the sadness of the vast room. By means of his anxious research and skilful investigations, Monte-Leone, since the previous evening, had ascertained beyond doubt that the true lists of members of the central _ventes_ were in the hands of the police. Thenceforth all seemed an impenetrable mystery to the Count, which his intelligence and the fertile resources of his mind could not fathom. "How had originals been replaced by copies?--how had the police obtained the originals?" This impenetrable enigma appeared to the Count as a new evidence of his evil genius, which had been for a long time apparently growing darker and darker before him, and seemed to hurry him to ruin and destruction. The defection of the world had become more and more sensible--the coldness every day became more marked and decided. The incredible and brutal challenge of Lieutenant A----, the causeless duel, and the death he had been forced to inflict on one who, for his father's sake, he almost loved, appeared before him. The embarrassment which he saw with sorrow supervene in the intercourse of his friends with him, caused a vague torment in his usually energetic and decided mind. The tenderness of Aminta, the esteem and affection of the Prince, opposed these impressions, but could not dispel them entirely. The Count was thus disturbed by this overwhelming trouble and fatigue, produced by painful and distressing reflection, when Giacomo appeared before him. He entered with such calmness and silence, that the Count did not perceive his intendent until he stood at his side, and said:

"A person is waiting to speak to your excellency in the cabinet."

"I am at home for no one."

"That is bad," said Giacomo, "for I have said you were in, and even bade the person wait in the next room. Really I think it was time to do so, for the poor woman trembled so she could scarcely stand."

"Who is she?" asked the Count.

"That I cannot give your excellency; in the first place, because she did not tell me her name, and, in the second place, because she wears a veil, which her little hand holds fast. This, too, is always the case: ladies never come at this hour to see a bachelor without a veil--this is the uniform of the sex."

"Who can it be?" thought he. The idea occurred to him that it might be the Duchess. The recollection of La Felina's disinterested kindness pleaded in her favor. Monte-Leone bade Giacomo show her in. The intendent left and soon returned, preceded by a veiled lady of an elegant and distinguished air. Scarcely had the old man retired, when the visitor lifted up her veil, and exhibited the features of Aminta. He was rejoiced indeed, and said:

"You here--at my house!" and Monte-Leone fell at her feet. "I never would have dared to ask you to grant me such a favor. I never would have hoped, you would concede such."

"Count," said Aminta, trembling as much, as possible, "I took this step for a reason which is imperious to me. Are we alone?" said she, looking timidly around her.

"We are alone," said the Count. "Speak to me, and tell me to what I am indebted for your presence here?"

"To my sorrow and despair," said the Marquise.

"What then is the matter?" asked the Count with terror.

"I do not know, but some danger menaces us.... The Prince, my second father, who, as you know, always treated me as a daughter--who hitherto always has received you with such kindness, and has acted so that our proposed marriage is no longer a secret, came yesterday to see me. His countenance expressed the greatest trouble, and his eyes sparkled with rage. He said, 'My daughter, I am about to grieve you greatly, and you must arm yourself with all your courage and resolution. Your marriage with Count Monte-Leone is now impossible, and I beg you, in the name of my love of you, to abandon him for ever.'"

"What do I hear?" said Monte-Leone, almost beside himself. "What does this mean?--why this change?--whence did he obtain a right thus to ruin and crush me?"

"He did not pause there, that is but half of my sacrifice. He said, 'You must not again receive Count Monte-Leone's visits. The doors of this house henceforth are closed to him.'"

Monte-Leone said with vehemence, "Is it not enough to separate us?--would he add insult to cruelty? What is my crime? Of what am I accused? Why was I worthy of you yesterday, and am so base to-day?"

"My prayers and tears," said the Marquise, "could not induce the Prince to reveal this strange secret to me. He said, 'The Count has no longer a right to your hand, for he has deceived us. If he insists again on speaking of his passion, say to him, that I know all, and have heard it from one who cannot lie, and whom it is the duty of every Frenchman to have faith in next to God--from the King!'"

The Count stood silent and amazed. It seemed to him that an invisible net surrounded him, and that the iron threads perpetually closed around him. All grew darker and deeper; the mysteries amid which he walked seemed more intense, and his reason began to give way beneath the heavy hand which weighed on his brow. Aminta looked at him with deep distress. The silence of the Count appeared to acknowledge the Prince's words. He seemed stupified by an accusation, of the justice of which he was aware. Aminta trembled at the idea that she had loved a criminal. He, however, at last looked up, and his eyes bore only the expression of deep sadness. He said, "Aminta, by all that is most holy, by our own life, I swear that I know not the meaning of this. From the language, though, that the Prince has used, and from the King's name being, I know not why, involved in my affairs, it is clear that my honor has been doubted by the Prince. This I have hitherto allowed no one to do. However, one has been found bold enough to do this."

"The Prince is almost my father," said Aminta, timidly.

"He is my mortal foe, for he seeks to separate us."

"Listen," continued he, in a more gentle tone, and he sat beside her; "my love is so great, I dread so to bring any cloud across your brow, that hitherto I have concealed my sufferings."

"You have been unhappy and I ignorant of it!"

"I am in that terrible condition in which a man feels that his reason is about to escape from him. I hear my voice--I see my face, and seek to discover in their expression if there be any symptom of folly or not--I am not myself--I am not what I was--I am like the leper in the Bible, for all flee from me--I am repelled everywhere, as if death and disease followed in my train. French society, across which I strode like a king once, now seeks to make me atone for my fleeting triumph. To public esteem and universal consideration have succeeded distrust and coldness. I see hatred and fear in eyes that once shone with admiration and respect; and, when I look into my life, when I examine my most secret acts, I find no cause for this repulsion, and can not but ask myself if my fancy be not diseased, and calls not up the chimeras which distress me."

"No, no," said Aminta, with that womanly pride which always actuated her in relation to him she loved, "your reason and mind are yet the same. Some dark and odious calumny may perhaps have been circulated to your disadvantage."

"Who will tell me what it is?" said the Count; "who will exhibit it to my eyes? who will show me the phantom which robs me of name and fame, and secretly immolates my honor?"

Just then the bell of the hotel rang. The Count hurried to the door to exclude any one. He was, however, too late; for rapid steps were heard in the anteroom.

"Who is it?" said he to Giacomo.

"The three persons to whom these doors are never closed, M. Von Apsberg, d'Harcourt, and Rovero."

The Marquise uttered a cry of terror.

"They will come hither," said he, "in spite of both Giacomo and myself, and this room has no other egress."

The voices of the Carbonari fell on the ears of the Marquise.

"Go in there," said Monte-Leone to the Marquise; and he opened an elegant closet. "In a few moments I will dismiss them."

The young woman did so--and scarcely had the door been closed than the three young men entered the room. Their brows were stern and severe, and bore the impress of their feelings.

"What is the matter now?" asked Monte-Leone.

Not a sound was heard, but six eyes glared at him with disdain and arrogance. Von Apsberg took a paper from his breast, and without speaking, gave it to Monte-Leone.

"What means this?" said he. He read----

"STATUTES OF FRENCH CABONARISM.

"_Article 1._--Whosoever shall denounce or betray his brethren, confesses that he deserves death, and sentences himself for the crime at the time of its commission."

"Well," said the Count, looking at his friends, "I know all that. I signed that article as well as you."

"Go on," said Taddeo. The Count continued:

"We, chiefs of the central ventes, supreme judges of the members of the association, we to whom our brethren have confided the sacred right of life and death, declare, swear, and affirm, that a base traitor and informer is among us. Each of us therefore demands on this man the punishment which he has made himself liable to, which is death."

"His name? his name?" asked Monte-Leone.

"His name," said Von Apsberg, "we hesitated to tell you the other day, but do so no longer. His name is Count Monte-Leone!"

Monte-Leone stood mute at this reply, and cast glances of surprise and terror on his companions. His blood ran as if it would burst the arteries. His eyes became fiery, and the nails of his fingers drew blood from his palms. He was silent. One might have fancied him the animating spirit of a cloud charged with thunder. After the reading of the sentence, the silence was broken by Von Apsberg, who said:

"He who was our chief, who was our dearest friend"--his voice trembled at this sentence--"should not die like a common Carbonaro. We have therefore forgotten our aversion to his crime, and offer to risk our lives against his in strife."

The Count let the Doctor conclude, and then said, "I was right! I saw what I fancied I did. This is no dream--no hallucination. A man has dared to couple my name and the reproach of a denunciator together."

"There are three who dare, and their names are Rovero, D'Harcourt, and Von Apsberg."

"Gentlemen," said he, "sometimes one is forced to condescend to be affronted when dealing with people too low to reach their mark. I, however, cannot condescend to stoop to the gutters where such epithets are gathered up as you throw on me."

"These epithets," said D'Harcourt, "are not addressed merely by three men to Count Monte-Leone. All Paris does so."

"Public rumor," interrupted Von Apsberg, "accuses you of having betrayed A----, Ober, B----, and our other friends."

"Public rumor!" exclaimed the Count, whose eyes seemed ready to spring from his head.

"Public rumor says that Count Monte-Leone, ruined and desperate, obtains the money he now spends, most disgracefully. He has sold his brethren to enable him to continue his luxury."

The Count uttered an exclamation of horror.

"Count Monte-Leone, proscribed two months ago in France, owes the right of remaining in the realm to the fact that he is in communication with the French police, whose agent he is."

"Are you done?" said Monte-Leone, sarcastically.

"Count Monte-Leone has sold the secrets of his brethren in every land, and filled the prisons of France, Spain, and Italy, with his victims."

"Then," said Monte-Leone, with a far different accent from what might have been expected from an injured man or discovered criminal, for his tone was almost joyous, "this is the explanation of the obscurity amid which I have wandered. No, it is impossible! Paris may speak thus, but you do not! You do not think me such a being?"

"On our honor we do," said the three.

The ball which reaches the soldier's heart, the bolt which falls on the traveller, have not a more sudden effect than these words on Monte-Leone.

"They, too!" said he, "they, too!"

"Yes," said Von Apsberg, "we accuse you more distinctly even than the rest of the world. We have horrible proof."

"What is it?"

"General A---- swore on the soul of his son that you betrayed him; and that he saw the list he gave you in the hands of the Prefect of Police." "This one you gave me," said the Doctor, handing the document to him. "Here are the lists of the five other ventes, all of which are false and counterfeit. You alone had these lists, and could give them up."

"Horrible!" said Monte-Leone.

"A man," said D'Harcourt, "went yesterday, at eleven o'clock at night, into the Prefecture of Police. This man got out of a carriage which was your own. The man gave your name to the keeper of the gate. He did not however know that two of his brethren overheard him. Those who overheard him are now before you. Will you deny it?

"The carriage and name mine?" said Monte-Leone, beside himself.

"Finally," said Taddeo, "I saw the disgraceful brevet you received from the police. I saw the name of Monte-Leone linked with the infamous word 'SPY.'"

Taddeo had no sooner finished reading this letter than Monte-Leone hurried towards a press, and took out pistols, one of which he threw at Taddeo's feet.

"Take it," said he, "kill me before I shoot you; for I will not survive this insult one moment, or live with him who has pronounced it."

At that moment, a cry was heard in the next room. The door was thrown open, and the Marquise of Maulear fell between her brother and Count Monte-Leone.

VII.--DESCENT OF THE POLICE.

When the Marquise de Maulear regained consciousness her attention was directed to a woman who knelt before the sofa. This person was the confidential female servant of the Count Monte-Leone, who rendered to the Marquise cares he could not extend himself. Having retired into the next room he anxiously waited for an opportunity to see her again. Doctor Von Apsberg having become satisfied that the young woman had merely fainted, and that there was nothing serious in her condition, joined D'Harcourt in his efforts to hurry Taddeo from the hotel; and Monte-Leone's ideas having been suddenly changed by the apparition of the lady, which had effaced all his sufferings, scarcely perceived their sudden departure. The Marquise, when she recovered, remembered this terrible scene.

"My brother!--Taddeo!--Monte-Leone! where are they? For God's sake hide nothing from me--take me to them--let me terminate that terrible combat, the very idea of which makes me mad."

"Here is the Count, madame," said the woman, pointing to Monte-Leone, who drew near.

"One word--tell me where my brother is."

Count Monte-Leone bade the servant leave him; and when he was alone with her, he said bitterly, "Your brother is gone, madame, with his friends, after having overwhelmed me with insults."

"By your love to me," said Aminta, "falling on her knees, I ask his life."

"But you did not hear this terrible scene," said he.

"I did. Every word fell on my heart as if it would crush it. They were, though, the results of error and anger. The honor of Monte-Leone is above such imputations."

"Aminta," said the Count, "they are only the echoes of the world. My fury cannot reach the thousand mouths which dishonor me. I can speak only through their interpreters. Blood alone can wash out the insults they have subjected me to--ask me, then, for my own life, but not for the life of those who have thus insulted me."

"One of them is my brother,--is your friend."

"My dearest friend," said the Count, "one who knows my very inmost life, and has had a thousand opportunities to judge me. He was bold enough to repeat that odious calumny to me. Ah!" continued he, with sombre vehemence, "that this corrupt world, which knows me not, should have been able thus to heap suspicion on me! The world has judged me by itself; but Taddeo is the very reflection of my own soul. The name of friend seemed too little for him. I loved him as I would have loved my mother's son. He was the object of my second love on earth. Aminta, Taddeo has leagued himself with my enemies, and came hither to affront me mortally. This is too much for my heart and physical endurance." Count Monte-Leone, who in danger was so firm, wept at the idea that his friends had so misconceived him.

"My friend," said the Marquise, sobbing, and pressing the face of Monte-Leone to her bosom, "Taddeo would shed tears of despair and regret could he only see how you grieve. Certainly he is wrong to doubt your honor, but he will repair his wrongs, and expiate all by repentance. He will defend you, will convince and confound your enemies and will again be your friend."

"He has suspected me," said Monte-Leone, sadly, "and cannot be my friend again, even if he confessed his injustice on his knees before me. He is your brother, though, Aminta, and that imposes a sacrifice on me which my love for you alone can inspire. I will either not avenge the insult, or demand satisfaction for it from another. God grant that other may kill me, for then Taddeo will live without being called on to expiate this outrage."

"Ah!" said Aminta, "that misfortune was absent, but now he wishes to die."

"Yes, Aminta," said the Count, "I wish to die rather than drag out a disgraceful life, without the power of effacing from my brow the stigma placed there, rather than read suspicion in every eye, rather than see myself despised. All parts--all Europe--all the world, perhaps, will repeat this awful charge."

"I do not believe it," said the young woman; "I am sure there is no heart on earth more worthy than yours, and that you may challenge the esteem of all. What I know, though, all others must.----In eight days, Count Monte-Leone, you must marry me. I _will_ be Countess Monte-Leone."

"What!" said the Count, to whom that idea gave a glimpse of heaven amid the hell around him, "you Countess Monte-Leone!"

"Who then will dare to say that I married a disgraced man?"

"Aminta," said the Count, falling at the feet of the noble-hearted woman, "God knows my gratitude is equal to your love, but I cannot marry you. You know that I love you, that I would give my life for your hand, but my father's name I cannot confer on you, dishonored as it now is. Hear then my oath," said the Count. Aminta trembled, but he said, "I swear by the sacred soul of my father, not to accept your hand until my enemies are confounded, until the infernal imposture of which I am the victim be recognized as the basest and foulest of calumnies."

"So be it," said Aminta. "We will not wait long for that day, and my prayers will appeal to heaven for it. Let Taddeo's life, though, be sacred to you. I confide him to your love of me...." "No,--no," said she, seeing he was about to reply, and perhaps resist her; "do not speak, but remember that Taddeo is my brother, and that his death will separate us for ever."

A few moments after this scene, a carriage, which was standing at the end of the _quai_, bore the Marquise rapidly to her hotel. We need not say that she was completely overcome by the incidents of the day....

At about ten o'clock the next day, the Duke d'Harcourt, was at the breakfast table with all his family. The eyes of the old man were suddenly struck with the following passage in the _Journal des Debats_, which he was glancing over. He read it aloud:--

"The terrible secret association, on the track of which the police has very long been, has been discovered--even its name is known--the whimsical one of 'Carbonarism!' We are assured that every rank of life has representatives in this vast affiliation. Even young men of the most noble families of France have been found on its rolls, and they have been already pointed out to the attention of the government."

The Viscount d'Harcourt grew visibly pale as he heard his father read, and Marie called the Duke's attention to the fact. She hurried to his side.

"It is nothing," said he, "but a sudden spasm of pain. It will soon pass away, and in a few minutes I shall be better."

The Duke d'Harcourt had finished his paper, and looked sternly on his son. His glance was like that of the judge on the criminal, a mute appeal to conscience, which the young man could not be insensible of. "Rene," said the Duke, in his most penetrating tone, "if I did not know that you have overcome the influence of those political chimeras which produced your expulsion from Italy, the agitation caused by what you have heard read would make me think the cause of those conspirators your own." The Count's trouble increased. The old noble continued to speak in this tone, extolling, also, the advantages of a monarchical government, and pointing out the evils likely to result from the possible realization of the plans of the Carbonari. He, however, heard the sounds of many feet in the anteroom of the saloon, where he sat with his children. The secretary of the Duke, the brave D'Arbel, an old officer of the army of Conde, who had emigrated with the Duke, and never left him, appeared at the door. His features expressed the greatest agitation. He said:--

"The Duke does not know what is going on."

"What _is_ the matter, my dear D'Arbel?" said the Duke, taking a seat in the chair the old man handed to him.

"The door of our hotel has been broken open in the King's name, and is now in possession of the police. The chief has placed all the household under surveillance and is about to come hither."

"What means this?" said the Duke. "Why is my house thus invaded?"

"Ah, my God!" said Marie, trembling, "what do these people want?"

"What do they want?" said the Vicomte, completely beside himself. "They want vengeance on me."

"To arrest you! For heaven's sake, sir, tell me what you have been doing."

"What you censured so violently just now. Father, I have sought to overturn a government of which my opinions do not approve. I am now to experience the penalty of having failed. In such matters success makes great men, and failure criminals."

"Criminal or not, they shall not take away my son. I will defend him."

"Brother, brother," cried Marie, wildly, and embracing the Vicomte.

"Monsieur," said D'Arbel, "a few moments yet remain for you to attempt to enable the Vicomte to escape."

"Whither? how?" said the Duke, who was overcome with terror and distress.

"Through the garden. The gate on _la rue_ Baylonne perhaps is yet practicable."

"D'Arbel is right," said the Duke, "come, come;" and he took his son's hand, and led him to the end of the room where he opened the window fronting on the portico.

"Here," said the secretary, "is a cloak and hat with a broad brim which will somewhat conceal the features of the Vicomte." He placed his own hat and cloak on Rene's head and hurried him towards the outer door.

"Remain here, my daughter," said the Duke to Marie, "to detain them as long as possible, and enable us to escape."

"This way--this way, Duke," said the secretary to M. d'Harcourt and his son. "The principal alley is too much exposed for us to escape unseen." He led them close to the wall where the foliage was very thick, and thence to the gate. The Duke's eyes were so filled with tears, that he stumbled at every step, and his son was forced to guide him to the goal of all their hopes. At last they stood at the gate. The Secretary took a pass-key from his pocket, put it in the lock and opened the door. Here, though, were six officers of police. The Duke uttered a painful cry, and to keep from falling leaned against the wall.

"I am your prisoner," said D'Harcourt to these men. "I am the Vicomte."

"We know you well enough. You have long been pointed out to us, and we have had our eyes on you."

The Duke, when he heard these words, felt as if his heart would break, for a cruel idea occurred to him. His son had long been under surveillance, and had also for a long time deceived his father.

"Come, then," said the Vicomte, "I am ready to accompany you."

"You are acting correctly, M. le Vicomte," said the agent. "You submit without difficulty. Let us go, but not in this direction; if you please, we will go through the garden to the hotel."

"And why?"

"Because such are our orders. The chief intends to examine your papers and draw up the _proces verbal_ in your presence. M. H---- never puts himself out except on great occasions like this."

Without replying, the Vicomte took his father's arm, and followed by the old secretary, and surrounded by the police agents, went to the house. The Duke, during the whole route, did not speak, but sobbed audibly. From time to time, he clasped the arm of his son as if he would have retained possession of him. When they returned home, Marie, who thought her brother safe, uttered a cry of terror, and fainted. The Duke hurried to her side and sent for her women to take care of her. The Vicomte, in the interim, was taken to his room by M. H----, to be present at the examination of his papers. A few minutes after, the door was thrown open, and Count Monte-Leone entered. Faithful to the promise he had made to the Marquise to ask no explanation from Taddeo of the outrage he had received, he had come to obtain satisfaction from Rene. The appearance of the police in the vestibule of the house, the terrified air of the servants, made Monte-Leone apprehend some new disaster. He entered the room without being impeded, for the guards had orders to keep persons from going out, not from entering.

"Ah, Count," said the Duke, when he saw Monte-Leone, "you are come to share our trouble. My son is arrested and lost."

"Arrested?"

"Yes; as an accomplice in one of those awful plots in which you were yourself once involved. What sorrow to my house!"

"Where is he now--has he left the hotel?" asked the Count.

"No, sir," said the secretary, "the police is now examining his papers."

"His papers seized! You were right, sir, in what you said--your son is lost."

The Duke, with an activity and vehemence due entirely to the over-excitement caused by his misfortune, said, "And how, Monsieur, do you know any thing about my son's papers?"

"I know but too well," said the Count in despair; "for I shall doubtless ere long share his fate and captivity, as I have his hopes and anticipations."

"Alas!" said the Duke, "your antecedents, your exalted opinions, a powerful instinct which cannot deceive a father's heart, all tell me that you have led my son astray. You have ruined him."

Before the Count could reply, the Vicomte returned, followed by M. H----, chief of the political police, and his officers.

"My father," said the Vicomte, "I was unwilling to leave the hotel without imploring your pardon for the wrong I have done you." He knelt before the Duke, who could scarcely stand. "I forgive you, my son, for having thus wrung from me the only tears I ever shed on your account. They are bitter, though, indeed, and cannot but shorten my life."

Marie had recovered, and embraced her brother.

What the Duke said to his son, the tender and touching embrace of the young girl, appeared not to be observed by Rene. His glance was fixed, and stern, and full of horror. His features were discomposed by violent rage, and, pointing to Count Monte-Leone, he exclaimed:

"Ah! why look for the informer?--there he is. Father, father, that scoundrel has sold me to the persons who tear me from your arms. There is the man whose name henceforth is Judas."

The Duke and Marie shrank from the Count as from a reptile.

"Rene," said the Count, "thank God that my hand has no dagger to reach your heart for this new insult!"

"Ah! I believe you. One more crime would have cost you nothing. You would then slay the body as you did the soul. A coward is but a coward--a spy is but an assassin."

"A spy!" said Monte-Leone, rushing towards the Vicomte.

He then paused as if he had been seized by a new idea, and, turning towards the chief of police, said, pointing to Rene, "Tell this man that I am not one of your creatures. Tell him that I do not know you. If he needs proof, arrest _me_, for I am far more criminal than he is."

"We have no orders to arrest Count Monte-Leone," said M. H----, with a smile.

"Well," the Count said, "if you have no orders, I will give you reason to do so. Instead of being an agent of police, I am the head of the secret association you seek after. I am the leader of those who seek to ruin you, the soul of the invisible world which conspires against the throne of your king and hated government. Now, far from avoiding, I call on you to act. Earn your rewards, and arrest the most implacable enemy of your master--the chief of Carbonarism--arrest me!"

The Duke, the Vicomte, and the witnesses of this scene, looked with amazement at Monte-Leone, who, as it were, rushed to the block. Rene d'Harcourt felt something of remorse at what he had said. M. H----, piqued at the defiance, as it were, cast in his face, said to Monte-Leone, "Instead of admitting you guilty of the crimes with which you charge yourself, we protest against your statement: were you as guilty as you say, you would not dare thus to speak. Besides, this bravado is useless. We know to what your conduct is to be attributed, and that you have pursued a very different course from what you say. If you suffer, it is because you have forced me thus publicly to make an explanation." The Count was stricken down by this overwhelming statement, and by the attempt to establish complicity between himself and the police. His sight, his very thoughts became dim, and his lips, contracted by fury, gave vent only to indistinct mutterings. Before he recovered his _sang-froid_, before he could repel this disgraceful imputation, Rene, in obedience to a signal from M. H----, disengaged himself from his sister's arm, and, clasping his father to his bosom, went from the room. Pausing at the door, he pointed to H----, and said to Monte-Leone, "the words of this man tear away my last doubt; I maintain all I have said. May an old man and young woman's tears, may my blood rest on your head." The Vicomte left. When the old man saw his son depart, he went to Monte-Leone, and with a gesture of anger and contempt said to him: "Away! you have betrayed my son to the executioner; away, you will also kill me." He then sank in the arms of his servant.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] Continued from page 216.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by Stringer & Townsend, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New-York.

From Fraser's Magazine.

CHAMOIS HUNTING.

I had been staying at Fend (one of the highest inhabited spots in Europe) for some days, existing on a light and wholesome regimen of hard-boiled eggs, harder baked rye bread, and corn brandy, exploring the magnificent scenery round me, and had returned the way I came, to a collection of brown packing-boxes, by courtesy called a village, which rejoiced in the euphonious name of Dumpfen, nestling cozily under the grand belt of pines that feathered the flanks of the mountains, which rose high and clear behind. In front roared, rattled, and grated, a wide glacier torrent, the color of ill-made gruel, and on the opposite side stretched, some quarter of a mile, a flat plain of gravel and worn boulders, here and there gemmed with patches of short sweet turf, till it reached the base of a noble range of cliffs, which rose gray and steep into the clear blue sky, so lofty, that the fringe of world-old pines along their summits could scarcely be distinguished.

On the narrow patch of turf between the village and the torrent I found--it being a fine Sunday afternoon--much mirth and conviviality. The rifle-butts were pitched on the opposite side of the torrent, with a small hut close to them to shelter the marker, a fellow of infinite fun, attired in bright scarlet, and a fantastic cap, who placed marked pegs into the bullet-holes, and pantomimed with insane gestures of admiration, contempt, astonishment, or derision, the good or bad success of the marksmen. And splendid specimens of men they were--firm, proud, yet courteous and gentle, well dressed in their handsome and handy costume, strong as lions, which, in fact, they "needed to be" to support the weight of those young eighteen pounders which they called rifles, with brass enough in the stocks to manufacture faces for a dynasty of railroad kings. Never did I see finer fellows. And the women! How lovely are those Tyrolese damsels, with their dark brown glossy hair braided under the green hat, with a brilliant carnation stuck over their left ear in a pretty coquettish fashion, enough to send an unfortunate bachelor raving. And their complexions! the very flower in their hair paling, looking dull beside their blooming cheeks; and their clear soft hazel eyes, with such a soul of kindness, gentleness and purity peeping through them, as one scarcely sees, even in one and another elsewhere.

The shooting was at last over, the winner crowned with flowers, and, the targets borne in triumph before them, the whole party retired to the wooden hut with a mystic triangle in a circle over the door, to eat, drink, and be merry; and very merry we were, albeit the only tipple strongly resembled very indifferent red ink, both in taste and color. Talk of the _dura messorum ilia!_ what insides those fellows must have had!

We were sitting listening to interminable stories of Berg-geister, and Gemsen Koenige, and rifle practice at French live targets, when two herd lads came in from some of the higher mountain pastures, and reported three chamois, seen that morning low down on the cliffs.

Hereupon up rose a vast clatter among the yaegers as to the fortunate man who was to go after them, for chamois hunting, gentle reader, requires rather less retinue and greater quiet than pheasant shooting in October.

The lot fell upon one Joseph something or another; I never could make out his surname, if he had one--which I rather doubt. He was a fine, handsome, jaunty fellow, with "nut-brown hair" curling round his open forehead, and a moustache for which a guardsman would have given his little finger.

Now, as it fell out, _I_ also got excited; _I_ too thirsted after chamois' blood; but how to get it? How could I, small five foot seven, and rather light in the build, persuade that Hercules to let me accompany him, unless he put me in his pocket, which would have been derogatory? It is true that I, being light myself, was perfectly convinced that weight was rather an incumbrance than otherwise in the mountains; but how could I persuade the "heavy," whose opinions, of course, ran the other way, to agree with me?

However, as the men thinned off, and the place became quieter, I determined to make the attempt, at least, and commenced the attack by "standing" Joseph a chopine of the aforesaid red ink, and then, fearing the consequences, followed it up by an infinity of "gouttes" of infamous corn brandy, all the while raving about the Tyrol, Andreas Hofer, and the Monk, and abusing the French, till I quite won his heart; he, innocent soul, never imagining the trap I had set for him. At last I glided into chamois hunting, the darling theme of a Tyroler, making him tell me all sorts of wild stories, and telling him some in return, (every whit as true, I have no doubt, as his own,) till at last I boldly demanded to be allowed to accompany him the next morning.

Joseph humm'd and ha'ed for some time; but gratitude for the tipple, my admiration for Hofer, and, perhaps, the knowledge that I had been over some of the stiffest bits of the surrounding ranges _solus_, and had been after the gems, though unsuccessfully, before, made him relent, and it was finally settled that I should go. He went home to get comfortably steady for the next morning, and I laid violent hands on every thing eatable to stuff into my knapsack; whilst the others, after vainly trying to persuade me out of my determination, retired, shaking hands with me as if I was ordered for execution at eight precisely the next morning. Whereupon I vanished into the wooden box, which it is _de regle_ to get into in that part of the world when one wants to sleep, and slumbered incontinently.

I had been asleep about five minutes, according to my own computation, though, in fact, it was as many hours, when I suddenly awoke to a full perception of the fact that I was "in for it." Alas, those treacherous fumes of "Slibowitz" no longer deluded me into the idea that I was fully up to any existing mountain in the known world; that jumping a ten-foot crevasse was as easy as taking a hurdle; or that climbing hand over hand up rocks "so perpendicular" that one's nose scraped against their stony bosoms, was rather safer, if any thing, than taking sparrows' nests from the top of a stable ladder! However, the honor of England was at stake. Go I must. So I resigned myself to the certainty of breaking my only neck, and jumped up, thereby nearly dashing in the roof of my brain-pan against the top of my box, adding, most unnecessarily, another headache to the one I already possessed--and turned out.

Unfortunately, there was no one awake to see my magnanimity; and it was too dark to see if there had been; so I groped my way down, with my upper garments on my arm. After "barking" my shins against stools and trestles, and being nearly eaten up by a big dog in the dark, I sallied out, preferring to make my morning ablutions in the clear but cold brunnen that plashed and sparkled on the little green before the door, to dipping the tip of my nose and the ends of my fingers into the pie-dish which had been considerately placed for my private use.

How intensely beautiful that dawn was! with the pine-woods steeped in the deepest purple--here and there a faint, gauzy mist, looking self-luminous, marking the course of some mountain brook through the forest. The gray cliffs stood dark and silent on the opposite side of the stream, and one far-off snow-peak, just catching the faint reflected light of dawn, gleamed ghost-like and faint, like some spirit lingering on the forbidden confines of day.

How intense was that silence!--broken only by the harsh rattle of the torrent and the occasional faint tinkle of a cow-bell in the distance, or now and then by a spirit-like whispering sigh amongst the pines, that scarcely moved their long arms before the cold breath of the dying night.

I had finished my toilet, and was just beginning to hug myself in the idea that I had escaped, and had a very good excuse to slip into bed again, when I heard the clang of a pair of iron-soled shoes advancing down the torrent bed that did duty for a road, and to my unmitigated disgust saw Joseph looming through the darkness, like an own brother to the Erl King, a "shooting-iron" under each arm, and a mighty wallet on his back. There was no escape--I was in for it!

Setting our faces to the mountains, we entered the pine-forest, and toiled up and up through the dark, silent trees, turning neither to the right hand nor to the left, till the day began to break, some three-quarters of an hour after our start, when we stopped with one accord, _of course_ only to look back and see the sunrise, though I doubt if either of us could have kept up that steady tread-mill pace much longer, with any degree of comfort.

Well, we halted to look, perhaps for the last time, at the valley and the village now far below us. We had got to the height of the cliffs on the opposite side, and could look over their summits at the tumbled alp-billows that tossed their white crests for many a league beyond; the sun steeping the snow-peaks in tints of purple, pink, and crimson, and here and there a rock-peak shone with the brightest silver and the reddest gold,--enough to send one "clean wud" with their exquisite beauty. Down below in the valley, the sun had not yet risen, though man had; the little columns of blue smoke wreathed gracefully upwards in the calm morning air, and the lowing of the cows, and the faint tinkle of their bells, as they were being driven to their morning pasture, floated up ever and anon in strangely diminished tones, that seemed to come from some fairy world far down in the Alp-caverns.

Having rested, we turned our faces again to the mountains, and toiled anew through the pine-forest, now no longer dark and gloomy, but fleckered with gleams of yellow morning light, and sparkling with a thousand dew-diamonds.

Up, up! still up! across the little sparkling runlets, tumbling head over heels in their hurry to see what sort of a world the valley below might be;--up! over masses of rock, ankle-deep in rich brown moss, bejewelled with strawberries and cowberries, garlanded with raspberries, twisting and straggling out of their crevices, covered with rich ripe fruit;--up! over bits of open turf, green as emeralds, set in pure white gravel, sparkling like a thousand diamonds;--up! through tangled masses of fallen pines, their bleaching stumps standing out like the masts of great wrecks--terrible marks of the course of the avalanche wind!--up! through one short bit more of pine-wood, over the split fir fence, and into the little mountain meadow, smiling in the level sunlight, with its bright stream tinkling merrily through it, its scattering boulders, and wooden sennhutt, with the cows and goats clustered round it, standing ready to be milked,--one of the latter, by the bye, instantly charges me, and has to be repelled by my alpenstock, bayonet fashion,--while all around, the sweet breath of the cows mingles deliciously with the aromatic fragrance of the pine forest, and the rich scent of the black orchis and wild thyme.

Seat yourself on that wooden milking-stool by the door--(beware! it has but one leg, and is "kittle to guide")--after a hearty shake of the hand from that grey old giant of a herdsman, and enjoy yourself.

"Joseph, what's i' the fardel? Turn out your traps, and let us see what 'provaunt' you have got." A mighty mass of cold boiled mutton, an infinity of little drabs of rye-bread, the size of one's hand, and as hard as flints; and--what is that thou art extracting with such a grin on thy manly countenance, as if thou hadst found the best joke in Europe, tied up in the corner of the bag?

A quart bottle of corn-brandy!--I simper, the grey herdsman simpers, and Joseph simpers most of all, as if he was conscious of having done a monstrous clever thing, but was modest. "Schnaps at six in the morning!--hardly correct," say I.

Joseph thinks that it _is_ apt to make one thirsty (it certainly always appears to have that effect upon him); and the grey herdsman shakes his head, and smacks his lips dubiously, as if he were not quite certain, but would rather like to try.

"Well, just one thimbleful, Joseph, 'just to kill the larvae, ye ken.' Ah! you don't understand, it is a mountain excuse, too. Never mind--hand us the becher."

Here we breakfasted luxuriously, eking out our store with sour milk and crumbly new white cheese from the sennhutt. The grey herdsman eyes me intently, and longs to know what manner of man I am. I take pity on his thirst for knowledge. "Ein Englander?"--I am his friend for life! He has heard of the 30,000_l._ sent over in the French war-time, and his nephew has seen _the_ letter in a glass-case at Innspruck. "And I want to shoot chamois?" He looks almost sorrowfully at me, but I have gone too far to retreat, and am very valiant. "Yes, there are three up about the Wildgrad Koegle." That is enough, Ade Andre! Pack up, Joseph, Forward!

Stop a bit, let us load here; we may stumble on something shootable. I am soon ready; but loading with Joseph is a very solemn affair, not to be undertaken lightly, or finished in a hurry.

First, he takes a dose of stuff out of a cow's horn, which I, in my ignorance, suppose to be very badly made No. 7 shot. A small quantity of this he places in the pan of his rifle, and crushes with the handle of his knife, the rest he pours down the barrel, and I perceive that it is powder; then he looks up and down, round and about--what the deuce _is_ he after? Is he cockney enough to be going to flash off his rifle, and afraid of some one hearing him? No, there he has it--a bunch of grey moss, "baum haar," as he calls it, from that blasted pine. Wonder again; what in the name of goodness is he going to do with that? Use it as a pocket-handkerchief? I do not believe he carries one; at any rate, if he does, he only uses that pattern said by the Fliegende Blaetter to be so popular amongst the Gallician deputies of the Paul's-Kirche Parliament. No,--wrong again; he carefully pulls it to pieces, and making it into a round ball, rams it down upon the powder; and a most excellent dodge it is. Colonel Hawker has only re-discovered an old secret, or, more likely, learnt it on the shores of the Bodensee; then the greased patch and the ball, and all is ready. On we go!

After leaving the meadow, we entered again into the pine forest, which gradually became more open, the trees more stunted and fantastic, and their long straggling arms clothed more and more as we ascended with the ash-grey baumhaar; dead trees and thunder-riven stumps became frequent, rotting in and into the black bog mould, which gives a scanty root-hold to the blushing alpen-rose. Soon we leave the trees behind us altogether; nothing but wild chaotic masses of gravel and stones, tossed and heaped one on the other, by the fierce avalanche--the very rocks grey and crumbling with age; here and there patches of black bog, with little oases of emerald green turf perched in their centre, the black orchis growing thick upon them, and perfuming the air yards around.

Ere long, even these traces of vegetation became more scarce, and the appearance of every thing around us wilder and more steril. Still the brilliant peaks of the Wildgrad Koegle gleamed brightly before us, and beckoned us on.

Our path lay now, steep and rugged, along the edge of a ravine, at the bottom of which we heard the torrent chafing and roaring many a yard below us. There was a precipitous bank of rocks and screes to our right, quite unclimbable, which seemed only to want the will--they certainly had the way--to topple us into the abyss. Just as we were turning an abrupt angle very gingerly, with our eyes fixed on our slippery path, and longing for an elephant's trunk, to try the sound bits from the rotten ones, we suddenly heard a rushing "sough," like the falling of a moist snow avalanche, and a cloud passed across the sun. Glancing hastily upwards, I--yes I, in the body at this present, inditing this faithful description of my chase,--saw, not a hundred paces from me, an enormous vulture! Any thing so fiercely, so terribly grand, as this great bird, saw I never before, and can scarcely hope to see again. He was so near that we could distinctly see the glare of his fierce eye, and the hard bitter grip of his clenched talons. The sweep of his vast wings was enormous--I dare not guess how broad from tip to tip; and their rushing noise, as he beat the air in his first labored strokes, sounded strangely wild and spirit-like in the mountain stillness. A dozen strange strokes, and he took a wild swoop round to our right, and away, like a cloud before the blast, till a neighboring peak hid him from our sight, followed by a wild shout of astonishment from Joseph. I opened not my mouth, or if I did--left it open.

Nothing ever gave me such a feeling of _reality_ as the sight of this vast vulture so near me. Often and often had I seen them, both in Switzerland and the Tyrol, sailing so high that, although well up the mountain flank myself, I almost doubted whether they were realities, or mere _muscae volitantes_, produced by staring up in to the clear bright sky, with one's head thrown back. This fellow there was no doubt of--we saw his very beard! We were really then chamois-hunting--we had penetrated into the very den of the mountain tyrant. No fear of gigs and green parasols _here;_ we were above the world!

Soon after our friend had departed, and we had recovered from the astonishment into which his unexpected visit had thrown us, we reached the end of our _mauvais pas_, and found ourselves at the foot of a wild valley, entirely shut in by ranges of lofty cliffs, with here and there patches of snow lying on the least inclined spots. In front, still far above us, towered the wild rock masses of the Wildgrad Koegle. The Koegle itself ran up into one sharp peak, that seemed from where we were, to terminate in a point. Great part of its base was concealed by a range of precipices, with broad sheets of snow here and there, resting at an extraordinary high angle, as we soon found to our cost, and having their crests notched, and pillared, and serrated in the wildest manner. The floor of the valley was covered with masses of rock and boulder, hurled from the surrounding cliffs, and heaps and sheets of rough gravel, ground and crushed by the avalanches, and fissured by the torrents of melted snow. The silence of the Alp-spirit, as silent as death itself, was in it; only at intervals was heard the whispering 'sough' of some slip of snow, dislodged by the warmth of the mid-day sun.

We advanced stealthily, concealing ourselves behind the boulders, and searched valley and cliff in vain for our prey. Joseph was the proud possessor of a telescope, mysteriously fashioned out of paper and cardboard; a pretty good one, nevertheless, brought from Italy by some travelling pedlar, and an object of great veneration, but one which failed in discovering a single chamois. Our only chance now was that they might be feeding in some of the smaller valleys, between the cliffs at the head of the basin in which we were and the Koegle itself.

"Feeding! what could they be feeding on, when you say yourself that you left all kinds of 'green stuff' behind you long ago."

So _I_ thought, too, doubtless, by this time, most impatient reader; but on the screes at the head of the valley, Joseph showed me, for the first time, the plant on which these extraordinary animals in a great measure live. It has a thick green, trilobate leaf, and a flower so delicate and gauze-like, that one wonders how it can bear for a moment the harsh storms to which it is exposed. Its petals have a most curious crumpled appearance, and are of the softest pink imaginable--almost transparent. As for its class and order, you must go elsewhere for them; I know them not; nor the name either which the Latins would have called it if they had been aware of its existence. Joseph called it "gemsenkraut," or chamois herb, and that was enough for me.

Having finished our botanical investigations, we pushed on to the upper end of the valley, and found that the cliffs, and screes, and snow-patches looked uglier and steeper the nearer we approached them. However, there was no retreat--onward we must go, or be declared "nidding" through the length and breadth of the Tyrol.

Oh! those screes--those screes! lying at an angle of goodness knows how much with the horizon--sharp, slaty, angular pieces of stone, like savage hatchets, slippery as glass, glancing from under our feet, and casting us down sideways on their abominable edges, "sliddering" down by the ton, carrying our unfortunate persons yards below where we wanted to go, crashing and clattering, and then dancing and bounding far down into the valley, like mischievous gnomes, delighted with the bumpings and bruisings they had treated us to! How Joseph did anathematize! For my part, mine was a grief "too deep for swears!"

After crossing, still ascending, two or three beds of screes, we came to the edge of the first snow-field; not very broad, it is true, but lying at a higher angle than I ever thought possible, and frozen as hard as marble on the surface--one sheet of ice, with an agreeable fall of some hundred feet at its lower edge. We were in despair! We had now got excited and confident--our "blood was up;" and here came "the impossible to stop us."

"But what is it that Joseph has picked up from the snow, and is examining so carefully?"

"No matter--'twas not what we sought," but it _was_ something closely connected with it.

"Yes, there is no doubt of it; they have been here, and lately too! See the sharp hoof-prints just above! They must have crossed this morning! Go it, ye cripples (_in prospectu_), we must cross this, come what may."

We got along steadily, without any slides, though with many slips, always sticking our staves convulsively into the snow the moment our heels seemed to have the slightest disposition to assume the altitude of our heads. It was nervous work--one slip, one moment too late in thrusting our staff perpendicularly in the snow, as an anchor, and away we should have shot like a meteor over the glittering surface for a hundred terrible yards, and then with a wild bound have been launched into the abyss below. However, we could not have turned back if we had wished it, and at last, to our intense satisfaction, we grasped the rough rock that bounded the further side of the field. Grasped it!--we embraced it!--we clung to its rough surface as if we had been six months at sea, and had landed in the Hesperides!

At length on the summit of the ridge, we were able to crouch down and look through a crack in the rock into the next valley. Round and about, above and below, we examined every hole and corner; half-a-dozen times some villanous stone made our hearts leap to our mouths. But alas! "it was no go;" there was not a living thing in sight--barrenness, barrenness, and desolation.

Our chance of chamois was utterly over for the day. _N'importe._ Better luck to-morrow. Who can feel out of spirits in that brisk mountain atmosphere? There is the highest peak of the Wildgrad Koegle right before us--and hang him, we'll dine on his head.

The ridge on which we found ourselves was but a few feet broad, and about a hundred and fifty feet above the snow on each side. It was composed of innumerable irregular pillar-like masses of rock, of different heights and distances, impossible to descend at the point where we found ourselves, but as it ran at the same general level, we fancied that we could get on the sloping mass of snow which lay on the side of the peak at some distance on. Jumping from one small table of rock to another--now only saved from "immortal smash" by Joseph's strong arm, and now swaying doubtfully on a _plateau_ the size of a small dumb-waiter top, uncertain whether we should be off or not--we hopped along, wishing we were kangaroos, till we found a crevice which seemed practicable, and down which I went with a run--or rather a slide, much quicker than was agreeable, being only brought up by my feet coming on Joseph's broad shoulders, he taking, as I must confess he generally did, the first place, whereby he always came in for a double allowance of stones and gravel, but about which he seemed utterly indifferent.

On reaching the bottom, we found that, as usual, the snow had melted some distance from the rock, leaving a mighty pretty crack to receive us. However, a lucky jump landed us safely, and for a moment erect, on the snow, and then head over heels, rolling, and bumping, and kicking, we spun over the slippery surface till we managed to bring ourselves up about fifty yards below where we had started. But in spite of tumbles we were in high spirits: there were no gems to frighten, and no more tottering avalanches, ready to fall on our heads if we as much as ventured to use our pocket-handkerchiefs.

We toiled up the terribly steep snow-patch merrily enough, not without retracing our path several times in a manner at once undignified and unexpected--though it certainly was not to be complained of as far as speed went--and reached, at last, utterly blown and sick with exertion, the base of the rock forming the summit of the mountain. Hardly giving ourselves time to recover, we climbed up the last sixty or seventy feet of cliff, and I found myself--first this time, for a wonder--on a small platform, the summit of the Wildgrad Koegle.

The platform was some ten or twelve feet square, and the only approach to it was on the side we had ascended; on every other the cliff ran down in a sheer wall, how deep I know not, for I never could judge of distances from above.

As for describing what we saw from our elevated dining-table, it is clean out of the question; we saw nothing but mountains--or rather the tops of mountains, for we were far above the general level of their crests; one wide sea of rock and snow surged around us; shoreless, no bounding range, no sweet glimpses of broad green valleys and glistening rivers in the distance; no pretty villages nestling cosily under the pine forest--nothing but peak on peak, ridge on ridge; bright pinnacles and clusters of pinnacles shooting up here and there far above the rest into the calm blue sky--deep grooves marking the course of distant valleys, like tide-marks on the sea. But no trace of man or beast, herb or tree; the very wind that whistled past us brought no sound or scent from the valleys it had passed, but sounded harsh, and dry, and dead. Vain, indeed would be the effort to convey the slightest idea of the solemn grandeur of that scene! Manfred? Manfred gives the finest and truest picture ever perhaps painted of _Swiss_ Alpine scenery, as seen looking towards the mountains, or from the cliffs bordering some rich pastoral valley; but we had passed all that long ago--we were in the very heart of the range. Alp was still piled on Alp, but we had reached the summit of the pile. The only valleys _we_ saw were fearful scars in the mountain flank, half filled with eternal snow, and the crumbling skeletons of dead Alps. No sound--no herdsman's joedle--no cowbell's tinkle ever reached to half way up our rocky perch: we were far above the vulture and the chamois. We were alone with the rock, and snow, and sky! It seemed profanity to whisper--and yet there was Joseph, after a glance round, and a short "schoene panorama!" whistling and fishing up the eatables and drinkables from the bottom of his wallet, as coolly as if he was seated in his own smoky, half-lighted cabin. He had been born in it, and was used to it. I doubt whether I myself felt the grandeur of the scene as much then as I have often done since, on recalling it bit by bit to my recollection. The really grand gives one at first a sort of painful feeling that is indescribable. One cannot _think_--one only _feels_ with that strange undescribed sense, that strives, almost to heart-breaking, to bring itself forth, and yet stays voiceless.

We sat long, drinking in alternate draughts of sublimity and Slibowitz (as Joseph called the brandy), till the Berg-geist kindly put an end to our exstasies by drawing a dark gray veil over the whole picture, and pelting us with snow-flakes, as a gentle hint to be off and leave him to his cogitations. It began, indeed, to snow in real earnest, and the weather looked mighty dark and unpromising, so we scrambled hastily down the way we came, and leaning well back on our alpenstocks with our feet stretched out before us, shot down the long sheet of snow, at a considerably quicker rate than we had ascended; and gliding scornfully past our columnar friends, whose fantastic capitals had given us so much trouble in the morning, we reached, with many a tumble and much laughter, the stony ravine at its foot.

Scorning to finish the day without drawing blood from something besides ourselves, we determined to commit slaughter on whatever came across us. We soon heard the shrill signal-whistle of the marmot, and for want of better game, determined to bag at least one of these exceedingly wide-awake gentlemen. Creeping to the top of a neighboring ridge, we peeped cautiously over into a little valley floored with a confused mass of mossy stones and straggling alpen-rosen. Here several of these quaint little beasts, half rat, half rabbit, were frisking in and out of their burrows, cutting all sorts of what Joseph called, 'Burzelbaume,' Anglice, capers; little suspecting that the all-destroying monster, man, had his eye upon them. One fellow, the sentinel, took my particular fancy as he sat up on his nether end on a large stone. There was an expression of unutterable self-conceit and conscious wide-awakefulness about his blunt muzzle and exposed incisors that was perfectly delicious. Him I determined to bring to bag, and cautiously raising my carbine--crack! Over he rolled, I have no doubt, too astonished to feel any pain, his friends tumbling madly head over heels into their burrows, whilst the astonished echoes repeated crack! crack! again and again, in all sorts of tones and modulations, till warned to silence by the harsh rattle of an old mountain a mile off. We bagged our friend, who looked every wit as conceited in death as he did when alive, and recommenced our descent. On our way we shot a brace of "schnee huhner," a species of ptarmigan, a pack of which very _slow_ birds were running stupidly in and out amongst the rocks--and hurried on. It was growing very dark, the snow fell heavily, and the wind began rushing and eddying round us, depositing the largest and coldest of the snow-flakes in our ears and eyes, till we were half-blinded and wholly deaf. Joseph began to look serious, and hunted about for a small torrent he knew of, to serve as a guide, and after some trouble and anxiety, we found it, and stumbled down its rocky banks till we came to a solitary sennhutt, which was to be our resting-place for the night.

After some trouble, we got the door open, and found that the hut was fortunately not entirely filled with hay; a space about six or eight feet broad had been boarded off between it and the outer wall for the use of the wild-hauer. This was to serve us as parlor and kitchen and all, except bed-room, which was to be sought for in the hay-stack itself. Our floor was the bare earth; the logs which formed the wall were badly jointed, and the wind whistled through the gaping cracks in the most uncomfortable manner; one could almost fancy that it was trying to articulate the dreaded word, rheu--matism.

However, the ever-active Joseph, bustling about, found some dry wood, and we made a blazing fire on the floor at the imminent risk of burning our beds, and slightly thawed ourselves; we continued our researches, and found a shallow wooden pail, carefully covered over, holding some two gallons of sour milk, left by the charitable hay-man some fortnight before, for the use of any benighted hunter who might have the luck to stumble on the hut, and one of those abominable one-legged milking-stools, so common in that part of the world, which, having vainly endeavored to sit on, and having tumbled into the fire in consequence, to Joseph's intense amusement, I hurled madly over the hay out into the storm.

As the clatter made amongst the shingles of the roof by its hasty exist subsided, we heard a noise which struck terror into both our hearts, and would doubtless have chilled our very marrow, if it had not been below freezing-point already. Devils! Berg-geister! Fly! out into the black storm! over the precipice! into the torrent! before some fearful mopping and mowing face, too ghastly horrible for human eye-ball to see without bursting, or human brain to conceive without madness, gibber out upon us from that dark corner! Listen: there it is again! And--mew-w-w-w-w! down tumbled between us a miserable, half-grown, gray kitten, nearly dead with cold and starvation, doubtless absent on some poaching expedition when the hut was deserted, and not thought worth the going back for. Oh! the joy of that unfortunate little beast at seeing man and fire once more! How she staggered about with tail erect, vainly trying to mew and purr at the same time! having to be perpetually pulled out of the fire, and "put out," to prevent her playing the part of one of Samson's foxes with our beds, filling the cabin with unspeakable smells of singed hair! And now she would persist in walking up our backs, and tickling us to madness with her scorched tail!

Having disposed of "Catchins," as she was immediately named, as well as we could, by tossing her by the tail to the top of the hay, whenever she descended to thank us, which happened about three times in every two minutes, we "fixed" our suppers, broiling the schnee-huhner over the bright fire, and enjoyed ourselves mightily. After a smoke and a short cross-examination from Joseph as to our friends, family, and expectations, and particular inquiries for the shortest overland route to England, and the number of years required for the journey, we climbed up into the hay, and grubbed and wormed our way for two or three feet below its surface, and, making unto ourselves each a "spiracle" or blow-hole over our respective noses, tried to slumber.

Now, a bed of short, sweet Alpine grass, fragrant with the spirits of a thousand departed flowers, is as warm, cozy, and elastic as a bed can be, but it has one unfortunate drawback,--the small straws and dust falling down the before-mentioned spiracle, tickle and titilate one's unfortunate face and nose in a most distracting manner; and as you utterly destroy the snug economy of your couch, and let in a rush of cold mountain air, as often as you raise your hand to brush away the annoyance, some fastidious persons might possibly prefer a modest mattress, with a fair allowance of sheets and blankets.

At last, however, I was dozing off, tired of hearing Joseph muttering what certainly were not his prayers, rustling fretfully, and sneezing trumpet-like at intervals, as some straw, more inquisitive than usual, made a tour of inspection up his nostril, when I suddenly heard a round Tyrolese oath rapped out with great fervor, and something whirled over my head and plumped against the timbers of the roof. Dreamily supposing that it was the aforesaid cumbrous Tyrolese execration, which Joseph had jerked out with such energy as to send it clean back into oblivion, when something with an evil smell, and making a noise like a miniature stocking-machine, tumbled down my spiracle, plump into my face. Waking fully, I at once perceived that it was the cat, not the oath, I had heard fly over me shortly before, she, in the excess of her gratitude, being determined to stick as closely to us as possible. Following Joseph's example, I seized her by the tail, and whirled her, purring uninterruptedly, as far as I could. Ere many minutes had elapsed, she was again launched forth by the infuriated Joseph, and backwards and forwards she flew at least half-a-dozen times between us, without appearing in the least disconcerted, perhaps, indeed, finding the exercise conducive to the assimilation of the sour milk, till Nature could stand no more, and we fell fast asleep.

Whether she spent the night on our faces, in alternate watches, I know not, but I had ghastly dreams, and when I woke in the morning, I found my hand and arm thrust forth from the hay, reposing on a cool and clean counterpane of snow, which had drifted in during the night, as if I had been repelling her advances even in my sleep.

Feeling very cold and damp, we turned out as soon as we woke, and blowing up the embers of the fire, warmed ourselves as well as we could, and took a peep out into the night. The storm had passed away, leaving everything covered with a veil of snow, that gleamed faintly under the intense black-blue sky. The stars were beginning to assume that peculiar sleepy, twinkling appearance which shows that their night-watch is drawing to a close, and everything lay in still, calm rest around us.

We breakfasted sparingly, as our provisions were beginning to run short, thanks to the keen mountain air and our hard work the day before, and just as the first cold chill of the approaching dawn began to be felt, we left the cabin, shutting up Catchins, and hanging the marmot on a peg out of her reach, till our return.

Our day's route lay more round to the left of the Wildgrad Koegle. The scene was for some time a repetition of that of the day before, but the cliffs were still more precipitous and the ravines narrower and more difficult to traverse. Many a tumble we got for the first hour amongst the boulders covered with treacherous moss and cowberry plants, but before sunrise we had left all vegetation behind us again, and were up amongst the crags and the snow.

As we ascended, we saw a valley to our left, filled to the brim with dense mist, which, as soon as the sun began to tinge the highest peaks, rose in swirling columns, and shut out every thing that was not in our immediate vicinity. This was advantageous, as, although it prevented our _seeing_, it at the same time prevented our being _seen_, from the cliffs before we reached our best ground. We toiled on steadily, crossing vast beds of snow, and occasionally the roots of some glacier, that threw itself into the valleys to our left, climbing, scrambling, and slipping, but still steadily ascending, till we got to where Joseph expected to fall in with chamois, when we called a halt, and sheltering ourselves behind a mass of rock from the keen morning wind, waited for the clearing of the mist.

The Alp-spirit seemed to be amusing himself mightily with this same mist! at one moment, catching it up in huge masses, he piled it on the sharp peaks, as if to make himself a comfortable cushion; and then, sitting suddenly down to try its efficacy, drove it in all directions by his "lubber weight." Enraged, he tossed and tumbled it about for some time, and at last spread it into one broad level plain, with the higher peaks standing out clear and sharp, like rocks from a calm sea. Now and then the mist would disappear entirely for a few moments, leaving everything clear and bright; then a small cloud, "like a man's hand," would form on the side of some distant peak, and spreading out with inconceivable rapidity, would envelope us in its boiling wreaths, while the wind, ever and anon rushing down some unexpected gully, cut a tunnel right through it, giving us glimpses of distant mountains and snow-fields, looking near and strange as if seen through a telescope.

At last the sun began to shine out cheerily and steadily, and the breeze gave a freshness and buoyance to our spirits never to be felt except on high mountains. The heavy atmosphere of the valley squeezes one's soul into its case, and sits on the lid like an incubus. That blessed mountain-spirit is the only power who takes the lid off altogether, and lets the soul out of its larva-case to revel in the strange beauties of his domain without restraint!

After a time, we found ourselves in a region of snow-fields, filling up broad valleys, lying calm and shadowless in the bright sunshine. Here and there, they were marked by delicate blue lines, where the crevasses allowed the substratum of ice to be seen, showing that these apparently eternal and immovable plains of snow were slowly but steadily flowing downwards, to appear as splintered glaciers in the valley far below; and here and there again, dark ridges, standing sharply up from the snow-bed, marked the course of buried mountain ranges, and gave some idea of the vast depth of the deposit.

But wonderfully beautiful as these plains were, and strange and wild as they appeared to an English eye, with a brilliant August sun pouring his whole flood of light and warmth upon them, they were not the great points of interest to us. Those mighty ranges of cliff, rising tier above tier to our right, fretted with a pure white lace-work of fresh fallen snow, with here and there vast beds of screes shot from above, giving promise of gemsenkraut, were the bits we scanned with the greatest eagerness. We had come for chamois, and I am afraid, looked upon the rest as of very secondary importance.

We were advancing along the base of the lowest tier of cliff, which had a sort of step of snow running along it about half-way up for some half-a-mile, bounded at one end by an immense mass of screes and precipice, and at the other by a sudden turn of the rock, when Joseph suddenly dashing off his hat and throwing himself prostrate behind a stone, dragged me down beside him, with a vice-like grasp, that left its mark on my arm for many a day after. Utterly taken aback at the suddenness of my prostration, I lay beside him, wondering at the change that had come over his face; he was as white as marble, his moustache worked with intense excitement, and his eyeballs seemed starting from their sockets as he glared at the cliff. Following his line of sight, I glanced upwards, and my eye was instantly arrested by something--it moved--again--and again! With shaking hand I directed the telescope to the point, and there, at the end of it, hopping fearlessly on the shivered mountain side, scratching its ear with its hind foot, and nibbling daintily the scattered bits of gemsenkraut that spring up between the stones, stood fearless and free--a chamois!

After watching him with intense interest for some moments, we drew back, scarcely daring to breathe, and sheltering ourselves behind a large stone, held a council of war. It was evidently impossible to approach him from where we were: we could not have moved ten steps towards him without the certainty of being discovered; our only chance was to get above him and so cut him off from the higher ranges. Crawling backwards, we managed to place a low range of rock between ourselves and the cliffs, and then making a wide sweep, we reached their base at some distance from where the chamois was feeding.

After examining the precipice for some time, we found that the only mode of access to its summit, here some three or four hundred feet above us, was by a sort of ravine, what would be called in the Swiss Alps, a _cheminee_ a species of fracture in the strata the broken edges of which would give us some foot and hand hold: at its upper termination we could see the end of a small glacier, slightly overhanging the cliff, from which a small stream leapt from ledge to ledge, only alive in the last hour or two of sun-warmth, giving promises, which certainly were faithfully fulfilled, of additional slipperiness and discomfort. But we had no choice; we had already spent nearly an hour in our cautious circuit. Our scramble, wherever it took place, would cost us nearly another before we got above our expected prey, and if we hesitated much longer, he might take a fancy to march off altogether in search of the rest of the herd. So up we went, dragging ourselves and each other up the wet slippery rocks, getting a shivering "swish" of ice-cold water in our faces every now and then, till we got about half-way up, when, just as we were resting for a moment to take breath, we heard a tremendous roar, followed by a splintering crash just above our heads, and had the pleasure of seeing the fragments of some half-a-ton of ice, which had fallen from the glacier above, fly out from the shelf of rock under which we were resting, and spin down the rugged path we had just ascended.

Thinking that this was quite near enough to be pleasant, and "calculating" that by every doctrine of chances the same thing would not happen twice in the same half-hour, we scrambled up as fast as we could before the next instalment became due, and at last reached safely the top of the precipice.

We certainly had not much to boast of as far as walking went, when we got there, for the snow and rocks were tumbled about in a very wild manner. If we slipped off a rock, we tumbled waist-deep into the soft, melting snow-drifts, and when we tumbled on the snow, there was always some lurking rock ready to remind us of his presence by a hearty thump; however, as we were fairly above the chamois, our excitement carried us on. I do not think that Joseph swore once; we found afterwards indeed, to our cost, that in one of his involuntary summersets, he had broken _the_ bottle, and narrowly escaped being bayoneted by the fragments: however, we did not know it then, and so scrambled on in contented ignorance, until we reached the spot on the cliffs to our right, which we had marked as being above our prey. Here, however, we found that it was impossible to get near enough to the edge to look over, as the fresh-fallen snow threatened to part company from the rock and carry us with it, on the slightest indiscretion on our parts. Crouching down in the snow, we listened for some hint of our friend's whereabouts, and had not waited more than a minute, when the faint clatter of a stone far below convinced us that he was on the move: keeping low, we wallowed along till we came to where the crest of the cliff showing a little above the snow, gave us a tolerable shelter; carefully crawling to the edge, we peeped over, and saw, as we expected, that the gems had shifted his quarters, and as luck would have it, was standing on the snow-bed half-way up the cliff, immediately below us.

Trembling, partly with excitement, and partly from the under-waistcoat of half-melted snow we had unconsciously assumed in our serpentine wrigglings, we lay and watched the graceful animal below us. He evidently had a presentiment that there was something "no canny" about the mountain-side; some eddy had perhaps reached his delicate nostrils, laden with the taint of an intruder. With his head high in the air, and his ears pointed forwards, he stood examining--as wiser brutes than he sometimes do--every point of the compass but the right. One foot was advanced; one moment more, and he would have gone; when crack! close to my ear, jut as I was screwing up my nerves for a long shot, went Joseph's heavy rifle. With a sinking heart I saw the brute take a tremendous bound, all four hoofs together, and then, like a rifle-ball glancing over the bosom of a calm lake, bound after bound carried him away and away over the snow-field, and round the corner to our right, before I had recovered my senses sufficiently to take a desperate snap at him.

What we said, or felt, or how we got over the face of that cliff, I know not. A dim recollection of falling stones and dust showering round us--pieces of treacherous rock giving way in our hands and under our feet, bruising slides, and one desperate jump over the chasm between the cliff and the snow,--and there we were both, standing pale and breathless, straining our eyes for some scarcely expected trace of blood to give us hope.

Not a drop tinged the unsullied snow at the place where he had made his first mad bound, nor at the second, nor at the third; but a few paces further on, one ruby-tinged hole showed where the hot blood had sunk through the melting snow.

Too excited to feel any uprising of envy, hatred, or malice against my more fortunate companion, I raced along the white incline, leaving him behind reloading his rifle,--which was always a sort of solemn rite with him,--and following, without difficulty, the deep indentations of the animal's hoofs, I came to where the cliff receded into a sort of small bay, with its patch of snow on the same plane with the one I was on, but separated from it by a rugged promontory of cliff and broken rock. Cautiously I scrambled round the point, removing many a stone that seemed inclined to fall and give the alarm to the watchful chamois, and peeping cautiously round the last mass of rock that separated me from the snow-patch, I saw the poor brute, standing not more than sixty yards from me, his hoofs drawn close together under him, ready for a desperate rush at the cliff at the first sound that reached him; his neck stretched out, and his muzzle nearly touching the snow, straining every sense to catch some inkling of the whereabouts of the mischief he felt was near him.

With my face glowing as if it had been freshly blistered, a dryness and lumping in my throat, as if I had just escaped from an unsuccessful display of Mr. Calcraft's professional powers, and my heart thud-thudding against my ribs at such a rate that I really thought the gems must hear it in the stillness, I raised my carbine. Once, at the neck just behind the ear, I saw the brown hide clear at the end of the barrel, but I dared not risk such a chance; and so, straining my nerves, I shifted my aim to just behind the shoulder,--one touch of the cold trigger, and as the thin gases streamed off, rejoicing at their liberation, I saw the chamois shrink convulsively when the ball struck him, and then fall heavily on the snow, shot right through the heart. With a who-whoop! that might have been heard half-way to Innspruck, I rushed up to him;--one sweep of the knife--the red blood bubbled out on to the snow that shrunk and wasted before its hot touch, as if it felt itself polluted, and there lay stretched out in all its beauty before me the first gems I ever killed--just as Joseph came up, panting, yelling, and joedling, and rejoicing at my success, without a shade of envy in his honest heart.

Now I believe, in all propriety, we ought to have been melancholy, and moralized over the slain. That rich, soft black eye, filming over with the frosty breath of death, and that last convulsive kick of the hind legs, ought perhaps to have made us feel that we had done rather a brutal and selfish thing; but they did not. This is a truthful narrative, and I must confess that our only feeling was one of unmixed rejoicing.

I have occasionally moralized over a trout, flopping about amongst the daisies and buttercups, and dying that horrible suffocation death of my causing; but it was never, if I remember right, the _first_ trout I had killed that day. My feelings always get finer as my pannier gets fuller, particularly if it be a warm afternoon, and I have _lunched_.

But as for the unfortunate gems, we rejoiced over him exceedingly; we shook hands over him; we sat beside him, and on him; we examined him, carefully, minutely, scientifically, from stem to stem. I firmly believe that I could pick him out at this moment from the thousand ghosts that attend the silver-horned Gemsen Koenig, if I had but the good luck to fall in with his majesty and his charmed suite.

Joseph's ball had struck him high up on the neck, but had not inflicted any thing like a severe wound. Had we fired on him from below, he would have scaled the cliffs in a moment, and been no more seen, at least by us; but as he knew that the mischief was above him, he dared not ascend--to descend was impossible; and so, getting to a certain extent pounded, he gave me the rare chance of a second shot.

Long we sat and gazed at the chamois; and the wild scene before us--never shall I forget it!--shut in on three sides by steep and frowning cliffs, in front the precipice, and far, far down, the wild rocky valleys, divided by shivered ridges, rising higher and higher till they mounted up into the calm, pure snow range, set in the frame of the jutting promontories on each side of us--looking the brighter and the "holier" from the comparative shade in which we were. Not a sound but the occasional faint "swish" of the waterfall that drained from the snow-bed,--not a living thing _now_ but our two selves standing side by side on the snow. We had killed the third, and there he lay stiffening between us!

But, hillo! Joseph! we are nearly getting sentimental, after all, over this brute, (that I should say so!) who has all but broken our necks already, and who in all human probability will do so entirely before we have done with him. Fish up the decanter, and let us have a schnaps over our quarry; my throat and lips are burning, as if I had lunched off quicklime. Well, what are you fumbling at? Oh, horror! Joseph's hand returns empty from the bag, with a large cut on one of the fingers--weeping tears of blood! The bottle is smashed!--smashed to atoms! and the unconscious Joseph has had the celestial liquor trickling down his back--how long he know not, and care not; it is "gone, and for ever!"

Like the summer-dried fountain, When our need is the sorest!

But it is of no use blaspheming in that manner, Joseph; not one of those ten hundred and fifty millions of bad spirits you are invoking so freely, will bring us back one drop of our good ones; so we must e'en "girn and bide." But still it is as bad as bad can be,--not a drop of water for hours to come, perhaps.

Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink.

Munching snow only chars one's lips like hot cinders, and the cool "swish" of the waterfall there below us only makes one the more thirsty. Let us be off out of ear-shot of it, at any rate. Take up the gems, and let us dream of cool, bubbling runlets and iced sour milk as we go.

Dream! quotha! we must dream of how we are to go at all, first, and a very nightmarey sort of dream it promises to be; we are regularly pounded; not a vestige of a crack or crevice up which to worm ourselves in the whole face of the semicircular range of cliffs beneath which we stand; and moreover, they are all of that upside down, overhanging style, that precludes all climbing. We must retrace our steps as we best can, and try where we descended.

"Well, Joseph, where did we come down--eh?" Not there! Nonsense!--impossible! Yes! too true; there it was; there are our tracks in the snow, and the dust and stones that were so obliging as to accompany us to the bottom, and be hanged to them! But the cliff has surely grown since then. It looks as high as Gallantry Bower, in dear old North Devon.--I wish I were at the top or bottom either of _that_, instead of where I am! There is not a hundred feet difference between them. Three hundred feet, the cliff is, if an inch! We can never do it! Let us make a cast round by the screes, and see if we cannot get down that way.

We did so, but found that they were quite impassable. What looked like a continuous shoot when seen from below, we found to be divided by two or three ledges of rock, and the angle at which they lay, rendered it impossible for any thing heavier footed than a gems to pass them. We must up the cliff! We had no choice.

Now, to begin, it was no easy thing to get at the cliff at all. That confounded gap between the snow and the rock was bad enough to get across from above; but to jump up from the sloping snow slap against the face of the rock was ten times worse. However, Joseph having uncoiled a few yards of line from his waist, and made it fast to the gems, tightened his belt, and took the crack gallantly, lighting on a narrow ledge, with his nose almost touching the rock, to which he stuck like a limpet for a moment, and then, having steadied himself, turned round and seated himself, with his legs dangling over the chasm. Now came my turn. Having thrown the end of the line to Joseph--after vainly looking for a promising ledge to land on, I yielded to his entreaties, and swung myself right _at_ him. We grasped each other pretty tight, you may be assured, gentle reader; and after swaying for a moment or two over the abyss, I climbed up him, and getting my feet on his shoulders, I managed to draw myself up to a ledge a few feet higher. Now came my turn to turn, and a most unpleasant piece of gymnastics it was. The ledge was not an inch too broad, and the rock below only rough enough to _scratch_ against, not to give any firm foot-hold. However, I at last got my back against the rock pretty firmly; and Joseph, who had dragged the gems up from the snow, threw me the end of the line, which, after one or two unsuccessful grabs, that nearly toppled me over from my "bad eminence," I caught, and with his assistance, got the gems up to me, and rested it across my knees. Joseph now turned his face to the rock, and getting up to me, placed one of his iron-soled shoes on my thigh, and the other on my shoulder, and climbed over and past me. As soon as he was firmly fixed, I threw him up the end of the line, and, felt much relieved of the weight of the chamois, whose rough hide rubbed lovingly over my face as it passed me, and turning round, and standing upon my ledge, laid hold of Joseph by the ankle, and again climbed up him and past him, to be climbed up and over in my turn. Over and over we had to repeat the same manoeuvre, varied occasionally by our being unable to turn or to sit down from the narrowness of the ledges, and then the strain was terrible. If we had not come sometimes to a broader ledge than usual, which allowed us to lie down and get an easier hold of the line, as it dangled like a plummet over the cliff, we, or at least I, could never have reached the top of the cliff _with_ the gems, and I very much doubt whether either of us would have cared much to have done so _without_ it. What was before me I hardly knew. Imitating as well as I could the happy _insouciance_ of a snail "sliming" up the side of the Parthenon, I tried to restrict my range of vision to points immediately near me. I never felt giddy in my life; but I felt that it would be running a terrible risk to look into the immensity that lay stretched out below me, like another world.

However, every thing in this world must have at least one end, even an Alpine cliff. And at last, as I drew myself up, I found myself face to face with the snow. The last step was by no means the easiest or safest; but in a few moments all three of us, Joseph, the chamois, and myself, were lying on the snow-bed, one hardly more alive than the other.

As soon as we had recovered a little, we stumbled back amongst the sloppy snow, and the half-hidden rocks, one of which had doubtless caused the untimely emptying of our spirit bottle, till we arrived at the _cheminee_ up which we had scrambled in the morning. Now scrambling _up_ is one thing, and scrambling _down_ is another--decidedly more difficult, particularly with the addition of a "beastie" twice as large as a well-grown fawn. So we decided to return over the small glacier which had so nearly knocked our brains out in our ascent, not without a lurking hope of finding some water in its delicate green chalices.

The small ice-stream on which we pursued our thirsty search, flowed down from the upper snow-beds through a chasm in the cliffs, and lay right across our path. The crevasses were small and easy to traverse, though had they been ten times the breadth, we should have welcomed them for the prospect of water they held out. We soon discovered what we wanted, and throwing ourselves on the ice, from which the sun had long since melted the last night's snow, leaving nothing but the pure water crystal, revelled in long draughts of ice-cold water, regardless of the consequences.

We lay there resting ourselves, and peering down the crevasses for some time. How deliciously refreshing was that cool green light, filtered through the translucent ice, to our eyes, wearied by the eternal glare of the snow-fields! I have often wondered why no poet had ever chosen one of these same crevasses, with its tinkling stream, and fairy bridges and battlements of pure green ice, bathing in a strange unearthly phosphorescent light, for the home of some glacier Undine. Where could one find a fitter palace for some delicate Ariel than such places as the moulins of the Mer de Glace, the ice-grottoes of the Grindenwald, or the Rhone glacier, or even the commonest crack in the most insignificant sheet of frozen snow. How exquisitely beautiful are those little emerald basins, fit baths for Titania, filled with water so pure and clear that one almost doubts its presence, till its exquisite coolness touches one's parched lips! I never wondered at the excitement of that enthusiastic Frenchman, who being held by the legs to prevent him throwing himself into the arms of the ice-nymph, whom he doubtless saw beckoning to him from below, hurled his hat into the moulin, and then raced down to the source of the Arveiron to see it appear, hoping, doubtless, that it would bring him some tidings of fairyland. But the nymph answered not: perhaps she was cold, and retained the chapeau for her own private wearing. At all events, M. le Baron never got it again, as far as I could learn.

Our labor was now nearly over; we quickly traversed two or three small snow-fields, and after a little trouble in hauling ourselves and the gems up and down the ridges that separated them, we reached a smooth declivity of snow, down which we shot merrily, getting many a roll, it is true, but merely laughing thereat, as every tumble carried us all the faster downwards, and at last reached safe and sound the region of rocks and gravel we had left so long.

How deliciously refreshing to the wearied eye was the first patch of green turf!--how brightly glowed the alpen-rosen amongst the rocks! And--yes! there is actually a honey-bee droning about that orchis, singing his welcome song of home, and fire-sides, and kindly greetings!

Happy as two school-boys, we marched on, carrying our quarry alternately, yodling, and shouting, and playing all sorts of practical jokes on each other, rejoicing at the success of our expedition, caring nothing now for the frowns of the grim old giants around us, caring nothing for the bitter blasts and swirling snow-squalls that swept past us; and at last, as night closed in, we found ourselves once more in the little cabin, that seemed quite home-like to us, and which we had fancied more than once in the course of the day that we should never see again, with Catchins gyrating pound us, "making a tail" at the chamois, and welcoming us as old friends. We did not dawdle long over our supper, which consisted principally of the rat-like marmot, broiled on the embers, and a draught from the neighboring torrent, and turned into our hay beds, wet and wearied enough, with our brains in a whirl from the strange excitements of the day, and slept, too done up to care for tickling straws or feline impertinences.

When I woke in the morning, I lay for some time trying to collect my thoughts, half fearing that all was but a dream, and that we had still our work before us; but on scrambling down, the sight of the gems reassured me, and was an agreeable balm for the intolerable aching I felt from head to heel. Joseph I must say groaned quite as much as myself, and we hobbled about in the dark to find bits of wood for our fire, like a couple of unfortunates just escaped from the rack. The skin of our faces and necks was peeling off, as if we had been washing them in oil of vitriol, and using sand-paper for a towel; but we were used to that, and had been as badly burnt many a time before; but we ached!--ye gods, how we did ache! It took a long warming and some mutually administered friction, to get us at all in walking trim. As soon as we become "lissom" again, having nothing to detain us, and very little to eat, we wended on our way, one bearing Catchins in the now empty bag, and the other with the gems, down towards the pines, covered with last night's snow, and following the course of the torrent, strode on as merrily, or perchance more so, as the first morning we started. The sun soon shone out bright and warm, the snow began to drip from the boughs, and every step we took showed the black mould and the decaying needle leaves of the pines. We heard the rustling of several black-cock, and it being my turn to carry Catchins' light weight, I shot one villanously, as he sat on a pine branch, and stuck his tail in my hat, after the fashion of all true yaegers.

Soon we left the melting snow and dripping woods behind us, and reached the bright meadows glowing beneath an Italian sky. Strange sounded the shrill chirping of the red and green grasshoppers in our ears, kindly each herdsman's yodle and maiden's laugh rang to our hearts, and palace-like seemed the little cabin that received us after our sojourn amongst the ice and snow, now seeming more like uneasy dreams than realities which we had undergone but a day before. Bright smiles greeted us, bright brown eyes laughed a welcome to us, and many a sturdy hand was clasped in ours as we sat resting ourselves on the bench before the door.

But we tarried not long; we burned to show our trophy "at home;" and we sped down the Oetzthal, and reached Dumpfen early in the afternoon, to be cheered and complimented, and welcomed back with all the warmth of the honest Tyrolese heart. The people had been in great distress about us--about me, at least--as they supposed that I must, of necessity, have broken my neck. I suspect, indeed, that they never thought that I would really go, and were rather astonished when they woke, and found me gone. As for Joseph, it was his certain fate--if not now, another time. But they rejoiced in their mistake, and with my hat crowned with flowers by many a rosy finger, and my hands tingling from many a giant squeeze, and perhaps my heart, too, a little, from more than one gentle one, I hung my gems on a nail outside the door for inspection, and seated myself once again in the little chamber, looking out upon the torrent and the cliff.

I cannot linger over the simple pleasures of that evening; as Shallow says, "the heart is all." "Jenkins of the _Post_" may love to record his reminiscences of a ball at Almack's, or an "aesthetic tea" at the Comtesse of Cruche Casse's; but such remembrances always bring as much pain as pleasure to me, making me yearn for those free days spent amongst the mountains, and the torrents, and the happy single-hearted mountaineers, far from the cares, troubles, and tribulations of "our highly civilized society."

And now, most patient reader,--are you there still? Farewell! I have tried to give you some faint description of the indescribable, and have, of course, failed. But take at least my advice, and a knapsack, and a thick pair of shoes, and eschewing hackneyed Switzerland, leave for once the old bellwether, and try one summer in the Norischer Alpen; and if you _are_ disappointed--I can only say, that you richly deserve to be!

From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.

VISIT TO THE ABERDEEN COMBWORKS.

Within our recollection, comb-making was considered one of the most miserable of trades, and as destitute of any thing like an organized _modus operandi_ as that of the perambulating artisans who possessed a certain skill in the fashioning of rams' horns into spoons and rejoiced in the expressive designation of Horners. On a late visit to Aberdeen, however, we found the manufacture of combs carried on there not only to an extent far exceeding our preconceived notions, but flourishing in a state of skilful organisation; and we hastened to visit the comb-works of by far the largest comb-maker in this country or in the world. We have no room to follow the steps by which Aberdeen came to be the seat of this particular branch of industry; but before describing the system of comb-making there, we shall take a short retrospective glance at the general history of the comb, in order to illustrate the various changes it has passed through, and its gradual elevation to a respectable position in the manufactures of the country.

It is impossible to state with any degree of accuracy the time when it first became an indispensable requisite of the toilet; but by what we can glean from the ancient writers it would appear to have been of Egyptian origin. The Greeks and Romans used combs made of boxwood, which they obtained as we do, from the shores of the Euxine Sea, and the mountain-ridge of Cytorus, in Galatia. According to Guasco, a modern Italian author, combs were also formed of silver, iron, bronze, but in no instance do we find the modern material, shell or horn. In addition to the wooden combs found in their tombs, it has been proved that the Egyptians had ivory combs, toothed on one side, which gradually came into use among the Greeks and Romans; but from specimens of the remains found at Pompeii, with representations on the Amyclaean tables, it would seem that the Greeks, who were remarkably studious and careful in arranging their hair, used them, with teeth on both sides, exactly similar to our small-tooth-combs.

The mediaeval progress of the comb exhibits, like that of every thing else of its class, much curious elaboration with but little improvement in utility. In the fifteenth volume of the _Archaeologia_ there is a representation of an ivory comb found in the ruins of Inkleton Nunnery, Cambridgeshire, containing some Anglo-Saxon design exquisitely carved in relief, but with such teeth as a common boor in our day would treat with contempt. We find Chaucer commenting on the many absurd articles of female attire, at a time when both sexes tied up their hair in a "licorous fashion" with ivory pins; and one of the earliest specimens of English combs extant, was dug up in 1764 from beneath the lowest of the three paved streets, which lie--memorials of their several ages--under the present Shiprow Street of Aberdeen; and it was supposed to have lain there ever since Edward III. burned and ruined the city in 1336.

In modern days the comb probably reached its most costly and ornamental state at the court of Louis XIV., where hair-dressing was an art more appreciated and often better paid than the higher efforts of genius. Combs of ivory and of tortoise-shell, richly inlaid with gold and pearl, formed an essential adjunct of the toilet of the court beauties. In Great Britain the fabrication of horn into combs was a very ancient process, chiefly in Yorkshire and the midland counties. But towards the end of the last century the increased demand for combs caused makers to establish themselves all over the country; and in Scotland there were one or two houses of some eminence in the trade at the period--some twenty-five years back--at which we have now arrived. It was, however, one of those trades that, as its artificers were concerned, would not stand investigation. Making combs on nearly the same principles as those pursued by their forefathers--that is, by simply cutting out the interspace between the teeth, with various sorts and sizes of saws--its followers, barely entitled to the name of skilled workmen, were dissipated, unsettled, and irregular in their habits.

We come now to treat of the grand era in the comb trade--of the time when it was destined, like the great staple manufactures of our country, to undergo a revolution. The introduction of machinery and steam-power, with the division of labor, is suggestive of an important stride in the progress of the trade. About the year 1828 Mr. Lynn invented a machine of a singularly ingenious design, having for its principal object that of cutting two combs out of one plate of horn or shell; and two years afterwards Stewart, Rowell & Co. commenced the manufacture in Aberdeen. To the first of these circumstances the trade was indebted for the successful idea of a machine, which affected at the same time a saving of half the material, and an increase of produce almost inconceivable. To the latter it is still more indebted for the first application of steam-power to the machinery; and, what we think of infinitely greater importance, the introduction of those true principles in the philosophy of production contended for by Adam Smith--a philosophy which, in its legitimate application, has the invariable effect of elevating alike the character of the produce and the producers.

We shall most appropriately represent the combined effect of these improvements on the trade by taking the reader along with us in a cursory view of the principal departments of the Aberdeen Combworks. Provided with an intelligent cicerone in the person of one of the clerks of the office, we began our investigations, and as an essential preliminary, were first shown specimens of the various kinds of raw material. In the order of its intrinsic value, this consists of tortoise-shells, horns, and hoofs. Ivory, in our day, is reserved almost exclusively for the manufacture of small-tooth combs, which form a branch of the ivory trade distinct from the one before us. Of the first of these materials, tortoise-shell, that best adapted to manufacturing purposes is the shell, or scales of a horny contexture which inclose the sea-tortoise, _Testudo imbricata_. It is found in all warm latitudes; but the best species are indigenous to Hindostan, the Indian Archipelago, and the shores of the Red Sea. The price we are apt to think excessive. At present it is thirty-five shillings per pound, and ten years ago it was nearly double that price. It forms however a valuable article of importation. There are two chief divisions in horn, buffalo and ox horns, both of which are imported from various parts of the globe. Buffalo horn is for the most part used in the manufacture of knife-handles, and such articles, in the cutlery trade. In comb-making it is chiefly used for dressing-combs, and, generally speaking, all combs of a deep black color are formed of this material. The best buffalo-horns are obtained from the East Indies, and the finest are those of the Indian buffalo from Siam. We were shown a beautiful specimen of Siamese horns, which, on account of their extraordinary dimensions, had been preserved and polished. One of them measured five feet from tip to base, eighteen and a half inches in circumference at the widest part, and weighed fourteen pounds. Some conception may be formed of the size of an animal which can support such a weight on the frontal-bone, if we recollect that an English ox-horn weighs only a single pound.

Ox-horns, the staple of comb-makers, are imported with hides from South America, the Cape of Good Hope, and New South Wales. The imports, however, are chiefly from the enormous herds of South American black-cattle, which have multiplied to such an extent in the Brazilian territories, that they are now slaughtered for the sake of their hides and horns, and their carcasses left to be devoured by the innumerable carnivorous animals which infest the jungles. The ox-horns entered for consumption in Great Britain in 1850 numbered 1,250,000, and the average price is about fifty pounds per ton.

Hoofs are from the German and home markets, and are worth about twelve pounds per ton. They are used generally in the cheapest description of combs, but although the least valuable material, are subject to the most costly and ingenious processes of manufacture.

At the time of our visit the quantity of horns and hoofs in stock amounted to upwards of one hundred tons of each. Enormous piles of different varieties--from the delicate curvature of the small Highland ox to the equally beautiful but enormous _cornu_ of the ferocious buffalo of the Cape; from the Smithfield horns to those of the gigantic buffalo of Thibet and Siam--all lay piled in inextricable confusion.

After a glance at the steam-engine, fifty horse-power, and the largest of the horizontal kind in Scotland, we proceeded to see the first stage of the manufacture, where horns are cut into assorted sizes by a circular saw. A horn is twice cut transversely, and afterwards, if a large one, longitudinally. The tips or extremities here cut off are sent to Sheffield, where they are converted into table-knife and umbrella handles; and for this purpose sixteen thousand horns can be cut up in a week. Instead of being divided in this manner, the hoofs are, after being boiled a certain time, to render the fibre soft, cut into two pieces; or rather the sole is stamped out by vertical punching-machines of the same irregular conformation.

The horns and hoofs thus cut are then brought in pieces into the pressing department. The first thing that strikes the visitor on entering is the peculiar and easily distinguishable odor of burnt horn, which indeed is predominant throughout the works. This arises from the high temperature necessary to the fabrication of horn, which to a greater or less extent effects decomposition of the material, and is invariably accompanied with the disengagement of the peculiar gases which create the odor. Along the floor of this department are thirty-six furnaces of a peculiar construction, and at each of these a man and boy were busily engaged in shaping the cut horns into flat plates, by heating the pieces, and then cutting them to the required shape with knives. They were then inserted between screw-blocks, and pressed flat. If, however, the plates are required for stained combs, as the greater part of them are, a different mode of pressing is pursued. Into a rectangular cast-iron trough about two and a half feet long by twelve inches wide and deep, a number of iron hot-plates are put; they are then oiled on their surface, and the plates of horn inserted between them; a wedge is next driven into the press by the percussion-force of a weight falling eight feet, producing a force of about one hundred and twenty tons. This pressure on the horn in the iron plates has the effect of breaking the fibre to a certain degree, and forcing it to expand in a lateral direction. Whatever may have been the original color of the horn, it is now of a uniform dark green color, and perfectly soft. This treatment renders the tissues more pervious to the action of acids, and will be better understood when we arrive at the operation of staining.

But there are other means of pressure. Around the apartment were arranged one hundred and twenty iron screw-presses--levers of the second order, and differing only from a common vice in pressing under the screw after the manner of nut-crackers. They are fitted with steel dies, with a variety of engraved designs, and in these braid-combs, the outside coverings of pocket-combs and side-combs are pressed. We were shown a new impression on pocket-combs of the Crystal Palace. A man exerting his strength on one of these presses can produce a force of upwards of fifty tons. But however great, the pressure is still insufficient. The enormous demand for the cheap side-combs of hoof led to the application of hydraulic pressure. The two portions of the hoof, after being boiled a second time in a number of little troughs, with a steam-jet in each of them to preserve the necessary temperature, the excrescences still adhering are pared off. They are then transferred to an adjoining room, where sixteen hydraulic presses, are in operation; and here are subjected to a pressure of three hundred tons, with a degree of speed and precision that is astonishing. They come out of the press in the form of small, semi-transparent, rectangular plates, having on each side the rounded projection or beading observable on most side-combs. To illustrate the resistless force of this pressure, we were informed that the very steel dies which give shape to the hoof are soon crushed and worn out; and it was not without some nice calculation and experiment that the application of hydraulic pressure to the purpose was successfully attained. After having received the necessary formation by the various modes of pressing, the plates are laid aside to dry in a room where a high temperature is preserved by means of steam-pipes, and where they are also assorted into different sizes, and the edges squared with circular saws. The number of such plates, of shell, horn, and hoof, in stock at the time of our visit, was somewhere about four millions and a half.

From this they are distributed to the different processes in order--the first of which is cutting the teeth. Certain classes of horn-plates, however, are subjected to a farther process of planing on the surface preliminary to this operation; but in all plates which have been hot-pressed, and are intended to be stained, this is unnecessary, and therefore they are taken when perfectly dry to the cutting department. On entering this department the visitor is sometimes bewildered. The incessant and peculiar clatter of the machinery, the heat of the place, and apparent confusion, produce together a curious effect. A little observation, however, shows that we have arrived at the basis of all the modern improvements in comb-making. On benches around the apartment, in close proximity to each other, were twenty-four "twinning-machines"--the invention, with its subsequent improvements, to which we have referred. Each of these is worked by a man, with an attendant who keeps up a supply of hot plates from the fires arranged for that purpose in the centre of the room. It is impossible without diagrams to explain the principles and construction of this apparatus; but there can be no mistaking its effect. A plate of horn, after being heated, is placed on a small carriage within the cast-iron frame of the machine, which travels by means of a particular arrangement of gearing on parallel slides. Immediately over this are two angular-shaped chisel-like cutters, which, on the application of motive power, descend on the horn with an alternating motion, and an inconceivable degree of rapidity and force. Before we could well see, far less understand, the rationale of the process, we were shown the horn cut in two pieces--_one half literally taken out of the other_, and each presenting the well-defined outline of a comb. In this cutting department resides the perfection of that beautiful mechanism that revolutionized the trade and reduced it to mathematical precision. To appreciate this we have only to look at the increase it has effected in the production. A comb-maker of the old school could not perhaps, with all his skill, cut more than eighty or a hundred combs per day; while with this machinery a man and boy will cut upwards of _two thousand_ of the same kind, and with a consumption of only half the material. The finer dressing-combs, and all small-tooth combs, are still cut by circular saws in the next department. Here, however, a moderately curious visitor will not linger. A dense atmosphere of horn dust fills the large apartment, and gives to every thing within its influence the white appearance that distinguishes a flour-mill, to which indeed at first sight it bears a striking resemblance. From the notes we took, we learn that here there are wheels on the fine self-acting machinery, in connection with the cutting and pointing of combs, that revolve 5000 times in a minute, and saws so delicately fine as to cut forty teeth within the space of an inch.

We inquired as to the effect on the operatives of this animalized atmosphere, and were informed that it was not known to be injurious. On the contrary, it was stated as a singular fact, in connection with the late visitation of cholera in Aberdeen, that not a single comb-maker had been affected by the disease, at least fatally; whence it may be inferred, although we do not pretend to assign the reason, that the fabrication of horn must be attended with considerable anti-miasmatic effects. At all events it is certain that horn-dust cannot exercise that injurious action on the air-passages and the lungs which is experienced in many trades, such as that of the steel-grinders of Sheffield.

Passing over one or two intermediate stages after the combs are thus cut and twinned--such as "thinning" on the outer edge by means of grindstones, and "pointing," by means of peculiarly-shaped bevel-saws--we arrive at the next department, where the finishing is given by the hand. Here we meet with artificers who, with a pertinacious reverence for ancient usages, preserve among themselves the appellation of comb-makers _par excellence_, forgetting that the very boys and girls in their respective departments play as important a part in the aggregate production. And yet, in their province, they are deserving of commendation. The specimens of elaborate and skilful decoration displayed here, especially on ladies' braid-combs, were admirable, and one pattern was shown us wherein there was a species of chain, formed of beautifully stained horn, woven with the head of the comb, which, although we examined it minutely, and knew there must have been a joint in each alternate link, we nevertheless failed to discover. It is in this department that the teeth are smoothed and rounded--an operation technically termed "grailling"--which is effected by different sorts of cutting rasps. So far as the making or formation is concerned, the combs are now finished.

At the opposite side of the buildings we were taken to the department where the staining is carried on. This will be better understood if described as the imitation on the various classes of combs of the natural diversity of tint in tortoise-shell. The horn, whether in plates, as in the side-combs, or after being "twinned," as in dressing-combs, is immersed in diluted nitric acid, which, with its characteristic action on all organized tissues, creates a deep and permanent yellow stain. This resembles the ground color of tortoise-shell; and to produce the variegation, the horns are then treated with a particular composition of red oxide of lead, with certain alkaline compounds, which has the effect of neutralizing the action of the acid, and imprinting a stain of a deep orange color. After being carefully washed, dried, and polished, the surface of the combs presents the beautiful and natural appearance desired. Indeed, the imitation is so perfect in the best classes of stained combs, that a practised observer can only detect it. We were shown, for example, two specimens of braid-combs, one of real tortoise-shell and another of stained horn; and so much alike were they in color and configuration, that we could not tell which was which, and yet the one comb was worth about ten times as much as the other. This operation of staining, which is somewhat artistic, is performed by women.

There are still some minor departments, which we need not describe in detail. "Buffing" consists in smoothing the rough surfaces of the horn by means of wheels covered with walrus skin. Side-combs and braids are bent to their peculiar curve by being first heated and then fastened to wooden blocks--an operation that lasts only a few minutes. Pocket-combs have of course a different and peculiar treatment in some stages; such as the formation of the joint, and the putting together of the handles. And there is a department exclusively devoted to the fabrication of horn-spoons, which becomes chiefly remarkable from the circumstance of there being no modern application of machinery to the manufacture. The last process, however, to which all combs are subjected, is that of polishing, which is effected by wheels, covered with leather of different degrees of softness. After this they are despatched to the warehouse, to be assorted the last time--the side-combs being stitched to cards, or packed in fancy boxes, which affords constant work to about twenty women.

We were finally shown the patterns of the different kinds of combs, many of them exceedingly beautiful; but we can only notice them in regard to number. Of dressing-combs (counting the different sizes of all the patterns), there were 605; ladies' braid-combs, 612; ladies' side-combs, 525; pocket, small-tooth, horse combs, and sundry articles, 186: in all, 1928 different varieties.

The aggregate number produced of all these different sorts averages upwards of 1200 gross weekly, or about 9,000,000 annually. The annual consumption of ox-horns is about 730,000, being considerably more than half the imports of 1850; the consumption of hoofs amounts to 4,000,000; the consumption of tortoise-shell and buffalo-horn, although not so large, is correspondingly valuable: even the waste, composed of horn-shavings and parings of hoof, which, from its nitrogenized composition, becomes valuable in the manufacture of prussiate of potash, amounts to 350 tons in the year; the broken combs in the various stages of manufacture average 50 or 60 gross in a week; and as the crowning illustration of the enormous extent of these comb-works, the very paper for packing costs L.600 a year.

There are so many beautiful instances of the division of labor that the task of selecting is not easy. But let us take the cheapest article in the trade; namely, the side-combs, sold retail at 1d. per pair: in its progress from the hoof to the comb--finished, carded, and labelled "German shell"--it undergoes eleven distinct operations. This comb, which twenty years ago was sold to the trade at 3s. 6d. per dozen, can now be purchased in the same way for _two shillings and sixpence per gross!_ thus effecting a reduction in price of about 1600 per cent. As an illustration of the value of labor, we give the following comparative estimate of the produce of the three materials:----

1 cwt. shell, val. L.200, produces combs, val. 275, inc. 37-1/2 per cent. 1 ton horns, " 56, " " " 150, " 168 " " 1 ton hoofs, " 12, " " " 36, " 200 " "

Regarded in this aspect, in the relation of labor to material, we find that hoofs--intrinsically the least valuable of the materials--become, with the application of labor, the _most valuable_--that is, proportionably: and the converse is true in the case of tortoise-shell.

At the time of our visit there were employed 456 men and boys, and 164 women--in all, 620 persons--exactly four times the number employed in the comb-trade in all Scotland when the house commenced business.

From the National Era.

A REMINISCENCE.

BY ALICE CAREY.

Some four or five years ago, there came to reside in the neighborhood in which I then lived a family consisting of three persons--an old lady, a young man, and a child of some fourteen years. The cottage they took was divided by a little strip of woods from my own home; and I well remember how rejoiced I was on first seeing the blue smoke curling up from the high red chimneys, for the house had been a long time vacant, and the prospect of having near neighbors gave me delight. Perhaps, too, I was not the less pleased that they were new neighbors. We are likely to under-estimate persons and things we have continually about us; but let separation come, and we learn what they were to us. _Apropos_ of this--in the little grove I have spoken of I remember there was an oak tree, taller by a great deal than its fellows; and a thousand times I have felt as though its mates must be oppressed with a painful sense of degradation, and really wished the axe were laid at its root. At last, one day I heard the ringing strokes of that fatal instrument, and, on inquiry, was told that the woodman had received orders no longer to _spare that tree_. Eagerly I listened at first--every stroke was like the song of victory; then the gladness subsided, and I began to marvel how the woods would look with the monarch fallen; then I thought, the glory will have departed, and began to reflect on myself as having sealed its death warrant, so that when the crash, telling that the mighty was fallen, woke the sleeping echoes from the hills, I cannot tell how sad an echo it waked also in my heart. If I could see it standing once more, just once more! but I could not, and till this day I feel a twinge when I think of the tall oak.

But the new neighbors. Some curiosity mingled with my pleasure, I confess, and so, as soon as I thought they were settled, and feeling at home, I made my toilet with unusual care for the first call.

The cottage was somewhat back from the main road, and access to it was had by a narrow grass-grown lane, bordered on one side by a green belt of meadow land, and on the other by the grove, sloping upward and backward to a clayey hill, where, with children and children's children, about them,

"The rude forefathers of the hamlet slept."

A little farther on, but in full view of its stunted cypresses and white headstones, was the cottage. Of burial grounds generally I have no dread, but from this particular one I was accustomed, even from a child, to turn away with something of superstitious horror. I could never forget how Laura Hastings saw a light burning there all one winter night, after the death of John Hine, a wild, roving fellow, who never did any real harm in his life to any one but himself, hastening his own death by foolish excesses. Nevertheless, his ghost had been seen more than once, sitting on the cold clay mound beneath which the soul's expression was fading and crumbling into dust--so, at least, said some of the oldest and most pious inhabitants of our village. There, too, Mary Wildermings, a fair young girl who died, more sinned against than sinning, had been heard to sing sad lullabies under the waning moon sometimes, and at other times had been sitting by her sunken grave, and braiding roses, as for a bridal, in her hair. True, I never saw any of these wonderful things; but a spot more likely to be haunted by the unresting spirits of the bad could not readily be imagined. The woods, thick and full of birds, along the roadside, thinned away toward the desolate ridge, where briers grew over the grave-mounds, and about and through the fallen palings, as they would, with here and there a little clearing among weeds and thistles and high matted grass, for the making of a new bed.

It was the twilight of a beautiful summer day as I walked down the grassy lane and past the lonesome graveyard to make my first call at the cottage, feeling, I scarcely knew why, strangely sad. By an old broken bridge in the hollow between the cottage and the graveyard I remember that I sat down, and for a long time listened to the trickling of the water over the pebbles, and watched the golden patches of sunlight till they quite faded out as "came still evening on, and twilight gray, that in her sober livery all things clad."

So quietly I sat that the mole, beginning its blind work at sunset, loosened and stirred the ground beneath my feet, and the white, thick-winged moths, coming from beneath the dusty weeds, fluttered about me, and lighted in my lap, and the dull, flabby beating of the bat came almost in my face.

The first complaint of the owl sounded along the hollow and died over the next hill, warning me to proceed, when I heard, as it were the echo of my own thought, repeated in a low, melancholy voice, the conclusion of that beautiful stanza of the elegy in reference to that moping bird. I distinctly caught the lines----

"Of such as wandering near her sacred bower, Molest her ancient solitary reign."

Looking up, I saw approaching slowly, with arms folded and eyes upon the ground, a young and seemingly exceeding handsome man. He passed without noticing me at all, and I think without seeing me. As he did not observe me, I had the better opportunity of observing him, though I would fain have foregone that privilege to have won one glance. He interested me, and I felt humiliated that he should pass me as though I were a stick or a stone. His face was pale and very sad, and his forehead shaded with a mass of black, heavy hair, pushed away from one temple, and falling neglectedly over the other.

"Well!" said I, as I watched him ascending the opposite hill, feeling very much as though he had wantonly slighted some claim I had upon him, though I could not possibly have the slightest, and, turning ill-humoredly away, I walked with a quick step toward the cottage.

A golden-haired young girl sat in the window reading, and on my approach arose and received me with easy gracefulness and well-bred courtesy, but during my stay her manner did not once border upon cordiality. She was very beautiful, but her beauty was like that of statuary. The mother I did not see. She was, as I was told, slightly indisposed, and, on begging that she might not be disturbed, the daughter readily acquiesced. Every thing about the place indicated people accustomed to refined and elegant habits, but whence they came, how long they proposed to remain, and what relation the young man sustained to the other members of the family I confess I would gladly have known.

Seeing a flute on the table, I spoke of music, for I conceived it to belong to the absent gentleman. I received no enlightenment, however; and as the twilight was already falling deeply, I felt obliged to take leave, without obtaining even a glimpse of the person whom I had pictured in imagination as young and fair, and of course agreeable.

The sun had been set some time, but the moon had risen full and bright, so that I felt no fear even in passing the graveyard, but walked more slowly than I had done before, till, reaching the gate, I paused to think of the awful mystery of life and death and immortality.

This is not a very desolate spot after all, thought I, as leaning over the gate, something of the quiet of the place infused itself into my spirits. Here, I felt, the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. Here the long train of evils that attach themselves to the best phases of humanity fade to silent dust. Here the thorn-crown of pain is loosened from the brow of sorrow by the white hand of peace, and the hearts that were all their lifetime bowed under the shadow of a great and haply unpitied affliction, never ache any more. And here, oh, best of all, the frailties of the unresisting tempted are folded away beneath the shroud from the humiliating glances of pity--from the cold eyes of pride. We have need to be thankful that when man brought upon his primal nature the mildew of sin, God did not cast us utterly from him, but in the unsearchable riches of his mercy struck open the refuge of the grave. If there were no fountain where our sins of scarlet might be washed as white as wool--if the black night of death were not bordered by the golden shadows of the morning of immortality--if deep in the darkness were not sunken the foundations of the white bastions of peace--it were yet an inestimable privilege to lay aside the burden of life, for life becomes--sooner or later, a burden, an echo among ruins.

In the corner of the burial ground, where the trees are thickest, a little apart from the rest, was the grave of Mary Wildermings, and year after year the blue thistles bloomed and faded in its sunken sod.

The train of my reflections naturally suggested her, and, turning my eyes in the direction of her resting place, I saw, or thought I saw, the outline of a human figure. I remembered the story of her unresting ghost, and at first little doubted that I beheld it, and felt, I own, a tumult of strange feeling on finding myself thus alone so near a questionable shape.

Then, I said, this is some delusion of the senses; and I passed my hand over my eyes, for an uncertain glimmer had followed my intensity of gaze. I looked towards the cottage to reassure myself by the light of a human habitation, but all there was dark--a cloud had passed over the moon, and, without venturing to look towards the haunted grave, I withdrew from the gate, very lightly; nevertheless, it creaked as I did so. Any sound save the beating of my own heart gave me courage; and when I had walked a little way, I turned and looked again, but the dense shadow would have prevented my seeing any thing, if any thing had been there. Certain it is, I saw nothing.

On returning home, I asked the housekeeper, a garrulous person usually, if she remembered Mary Wildermings, and if she was not buried in the graveyard across the wood.

"Yes, I remember her, and she is buried in the corner of the ground on the hill. They come to my house, I know, to get a cup, or something of the sort, with which to dip the water from her grave, for it rained terribly all the day of her funeral. But," she added, "what do you want to talk of the dead and gone for, when there are living folks enough to talk about?"

Truth is, she wanted me to say something of our new neighbors, and was vexed that I did not, though I probably should have done so had they not been quite driven from my thoughts by the more absorbing event of the evening; so, as much vexed and disappointed as herself, I retired. The night was haunted with some troublous dreams, but a day of sunshine succeeded, and my thoughts flowed back to a more cheerful channel.

Days and weeks went by, and we neither saw nor heard anything of our new neighbors, for my call was not returned, nor did I make any further overtures towards an acquaintance.

Often, as I sat under the apple tree by the door, of twilights, I heard the sweet mellow music of the flute.

"Is that at the cottage?" said the housekeeper to me, one night: "it sounds to me as though it were in the corner of the graveyard."

I smiled as she turned her head a little to one side, and, encircling the right ear with her hand, listened for some minutes eagerly, and then proceeded to express her conviction that the music was the result of no mortal agency.

"Did you ever hear of a ghost playing the flute?" said I.

"A flute!" she answered, indignantly, "it's a flute, just as much as you are a flute; and for the sake of enlightening your blind understanding, I'll go to the graveyard, night as it is, if you will go with me."

"Very well," I said. "Come on."

So, under the faint light of the crescent moon, we took our way together. Gradually the notes became lower and sadder, and quite died away. I urged my trembling companion to walk faster, lest the ghost should vanish too; and she acceded to my wish with silent alacrity, that convinced me at once of the sincerity of her expressed belief.

Just as we began to ascend the hill, she stopped suddenly, saying,

"There! did you hear that?"

I answered that I heard a noise, but that it was no unusual thing to hear sounds of the sort in an inhabited neighborhood at so early an hour.

It was the latching of the gate at the graveyard. She answered, solemnly.

"As you value your immortal soul, go no further."

In vain I argued, that a ghost would have no need to unlatch the gate. She positively refused to go farther, and with a courage not very habitual to me, I confess, I walked on alone.

"Do you think I don't know that sound?" she called after me. "I would know if I had forgotten everything else. Oh, stop till I tell you! The night Mary Wildermings died," I heard her say; but I knew the sound of the gate as well as she, and would not wait even for a ghost story. I have since wished I had, for I could never afterwards persuade her to reveal it.

Gaining the summit of the hill, I perceived, a little way before me, a dark figure, receding slowly; but so intent was I on the superhuman, that I paid little attention to the human; though afterward, in recalling the circumstance, the individual previously seen while I sat on the bridge became in some way associated with this.

How hushed and solemn the graveyard seemed! I was half afraid, as I looked in--quite startled, in fact, when latching and unlatching the gate, to determine whether the sound I had heard were that or not, a rabbit, roused from its light sleep, under the fallen grass, sped fleetly across the still mounds to the safer shelter of the woods. I saw nothing else, save that the grass was trampled to a narrow path leading towards Mary's grave.

During the summer, I sometimes saw the young girl in the woods, and I noticed that she neither gathered flowers nor sang with the birds; but would sit for hours in some deep shadow, without moving her position in the least, not even to push away the light curls which the wind blew over her cheeks and forehead, as they would. She seemed to neither love nor seek human companionship. Once only I noticed, and it was the last time she ever walked in the woods, that he whom I supposed to be her brother was with her. She did not sit in the shade, as usual, but walked languidly, and leaning heavily on the arm of her attendant, who several times swept off the curls from her forehead, and bent down, as if kissing her.

A few days afterwards, being slightly indisposed, I called in the village doctor. Our conversation, naturally enough, was of who was sick and who was dead.

"Among my patients," he said, "there is none that interests me so deeply as a little girl at the cottage--indeed, I have scarcely thought of anything else, since I knew that she must die. A strange child," he continued; "she seems to feel neither love of life nor fear of death--nor does she either weep or smile; and though I have been with her much of late, I have never seen her sleep. She suffers no pain--her face wears the same calm expression, but her large, melancholy eyes are wide open all the time."

The second evening after this, though not quite recovered myself, I called at the cottage, in the hope of being of some service to the sick girl. The snowy curtain was dropped over the window of her chamber--the sash partly raised, and all within still--very still. The door was a little open, and, pausing, I heard from within a low, stifled moan, which I could not misunderstand, and pushing open the door, I entered without rapping.

In the white sheet, drawn straight over the head and the feet, I recognised at once the fearful truth--the little girl was dead. By the head of the bed, and still as one stricken into stone, sat the personage I so often wished to see. The room was shadowy, and his face buried in his hands--nevertheless, I knew him--it was he who had passed me on the bridge.

Presently the housekeeper, or one that I took to be she, entered, and whispering to him, he arose and left the room, so that I but imperfectly saw him. When he was gone, the woman folded the covering away from the face, and to my horror I saw that the eyes were still unclosed. Seeing my surprise, she said, as she folded a napkin, and pinned it close over the shut lids----

"It is strange, but the child would never in life close her eyes--her mother, they say, died in watching for one who never came, and the baby was watchful and sleepless from the first."

The next day, and the next, it was dull and rainy--excitement and premature exposure had induced a return of my first indisposition, so that I was not at the funeral. I saw, however, from my window, preparations for the burial--to my surprise, in the lonesome little graveyard by the woods.

In the course of a fortnight, I prepared for a visit of condolence to the cottage, but, on reaching it, found the inhabitants gone--the place still and empty.

On my return, I stopped at the haunted burial ground--close by the grave of Mary Wildermings was that of the stranger child. The briers and thistles had been carefully cut away, there was no slab and no name over either, but the blue and white violets were planted thickly about both. That they slept well, was all I knew.

From Household Words.

THE SHADOW OF MARGERY PASTON.

A suggestive book, "The Paston Letters; Original Letters, written during the reigns of Henry the Sixth, Edward the Fourth, and Richard the Third:" the private history of a family of rank, some four centuries ago. In this collection of ancient memorials of domestic life, we trace the nature of the contests between themselves of a poor, ambitious, and turbulant aristocracy, when the right of the strong arm was paramount over law; we see the growth of that power which was derived from the profitable exercise of industry; and view the middle classes, amidst the partial oppression and general contempt of the high-born, securing for themselves a firm position and a strong hold, whilst the exclusive claims of feudality were crumbling around them. Here we learn how harsh were many of the domestic relations of parent and child--how public oppression had its counterpart in private tyranny. The love passages of the book are singularly interesting. A humble friend of the Paston family has won the affections of one of its daughters. They are betrothed. The mother insults the "Factor." The brothers despise him. The power of the Church is opposed to the union. Yet the ardent girl is constant--and she triumphs. How she finally emerged from her persecutions is not recorded. But the last letter of the angry mother, which describes these struggles, is thus endorsed:--"A letter to Sir John Paston from his mother, touching the good-will between her daughter Margery P. and Ric. Calle, who were after married together."

The shadows of the young lady and her lover arise before us, and we try to piece out their dim history.

* * * * *

Margery Paston is sitting in the accustomed solitude of the Brown chamber in her mother's dowry house at Norwich. Dame Margaret Paston, her mother, has just returned from spending the Easter of 1469 in her son's ruinous castle of Caister. He holds this castle under a disputed will; and the great duke of Norfolk is preparing to dispossess him of it, not by the feeble writs of the King's Court at Westminster, but by gun and scaling ladder. On the return of the lady she receives unwelcome intelligence. Her chaplin, Sir James Gloys, has intercepted a letter addressed to her daughter. The young lady is the object of constant anxiety and suspicion--watched--persecuted. Up to the age of twelve or fourteen she had seen little of her parents, but had been a welcome inmate in the family of Sir John Fastolf, at Caister; who, in his caresses of the fair girl, indulged the strong affection which old men generally feel towards a playful and endearing child. He had no children of his own, and little Margery was, therefore, a real solace to the ancient warrior. There was another child, a few years older than Margery, who was admitted to play, and to learn out of the same book, with the daughter of the Pastons. This was Richard Calle, the only son of an honest and painstaking man, who acted in the capacity of a steward for Sir John Fastolf, and conducted many of the complicated affairs with which the old knight amused himself in the evening of a busy life--his friends complaining of "the yearly great damage he beareth in disbursing his money about shipping and boats, keeping a house up at Yarmouth to his great harm, and receiveth but chaffer and ware for his corns and his wools, and then must abide a long day to make money."[11]

Richard Calle has now grown into manhood. He is reputed to have received a goodly inheritance from his father, which he has increased by provident enterprises in trade. When the Pastons wanted money, he was once always to be applied to. But he has presumed to address his play-fellow Margery with the language of affection; and though Sir John Paston had once said that, for his part, Richard Calle might have his dowerless sister and welcome, for he had always been a warm friend of the Pastons; his mother is indignant that a trader should think of marrying into a gentle family; and John of Gelston, the second son, in an hour when the fortunes of the house seemed in the ascendant, has vowed that Richard Calle "should never have my good-will for to make my sister to sell candles and mustard, at Framlingham."[12]

Margery Paston sits in the Brown chamber, with her bright blue eyes dimmed with tears. She is endeavouring to forget her own sorrows by reading a tale of imaginary griefs, which for four hundred years has never been read with a tearless eye. She is at that passage of "The Clerk's Tale" of Chaucer, where Grisildis has her infant daughter taken from her, under pretence that it is to be put to death:----

"But, at the last, to speaken she began, And meekly she to the serjeant pray'd (So as he was a worthy gentleman) That she might kiss her child ere that it deid [died]; And in her barne [lap] this little child she laid With full sad face, and 'gan the child to bliss, And lulled it, and after 'gan it kiss."

The door of the chamber is hastily opened, and an old servant stands before Margery with a face of affright. All in that household love the gentle maiden; and so the old man, seeing the tear in her eye, bids her be of good cheer, for though his worshipful mistress is now in a somewhat impatient humor, and demands her instant attendance in the Oaken parlor, she is a good lady at heart, and would soon forgive any slight cause of offence.

Dame Paston has called in two allies to constitute, with herself, the tribunal that is about to sit in judgment on Margery Paston. Dame Agnes Paston, the aged mother of the late heir of Caister, sits at the table with her daughter-in-law and the priest.

Margery enters; and, in a moment, is kneeling at the feet of her mother, with the accustomed reverence of child to parent. "Oh, minion," says the mother, "rise, I beseech you; it is not for such as you to kneel to a poor forlorn widow, left with few worldly goods. Mistress Calle has plenteousness all around her, and has nothing to ask of the world's gear. She has her good house at Framlingham, and her full store at Norwich. Mistress, know you the price of salted hams at this present? Are pickled herrings plenteous? We have some wool in loft, which we should not be unwilling to exchange for worsteds. How say you, Mistress Dry-goods; will you deal, will you chaffer?"

"My mother, what mean you?"

"Oh, minion, you know full well my meaning. You are an alien from your family. You are betrothed to a low trader, with no gentle blood in his veins."

"The good Sir William Paston, Knight, and whilom Judge of His Majesty's Court of the Common Pleas, would rise from his grave to save a granddaughter of his from inter-marrying with mustard and candle," quoth the ancient lady. "Faugh! a factor!"

"And one whom I shrewdly suspect to be a heretic," says the priest, looking earnestly at Mistress Margaret Paston.

"Oh, my mother, why am I thus persecuted?"

"Persecuted, foosooth!" responds the elder dame; "I took other rule with my daughters; and well do I remember that when Elizabeth Clere, my niece, tried to intercede with me for her wilful cousin Mary, forasmuch as she had been 'beaten once in the week or twice, and sometimes twice in a day, and had her head broken in several places,'[13] I told her that it was for warning and ensample to all forward maidens who dared to think of love or marriage without their parents' guidance. And with the help of my worthy lord, the good Sir William Paston, Knight, and Judge of His Majesty's Court of the Common Pleas--His Majesty Henry the Sixth gave him two robes and a hundred marks yearly; and may God him preserve upon his throne----"

The priest and Mistress Margaret drown the good old lady's somewhat disloyal gratitude (seeing that the House of York is in the ascendant) by judicious clearings of the voice, as they prepare to read the intercepted letter of Richard Calle, with sundry glosses.

"Minion," says the mother, "know you this superscription?"

"It is a letter from my own Richard," cries the delighted girl; "will you give it me?"

"Assuredly not. It convicts you of being a false liar,--or it lies itself. Did you not, with the fear of close custody, and bread and water, and maybe some healing stripes, before your eyes, affirm that there was no contract between the dry-goodsman and yourself?"

"Mother, I own my sin; I did affirm it, but I was wrong, and I am penitent."

"Vile brethel!" exclaims the mother.

"She mentioned it not, even under the seal of confession," adds the priest.

"Yes, once in the week or twice, and sometimes twice a day, and she made an excellent wife, by reason of the frequent beatings, and brought up her children accordant," soliloquises the old lady.

"Daughter, I conjure you to hear what this vile Richard Calle sayeth to you. Tell me that it is false--tell me that he is a bold liar, when he affirmeth that you are contracted, and you shall at once have all freedom and reasonable pleasure; but if not----"

"Mother, I listen."

"Hear, then, what this abominable bill imports. Sir James, please to read."

"'To Mistress Margery Paston:

"'Mine own lady and mistress, and before God very true wife, I, with heart full, very sorrowfully recommend me unto you, as he that cannot be merry, nor nought shall be, till it be otherwise with us than it is yet; for this life that we lead now is neither pleasure to God nor to the world, considering the great band of matrimony that is made betwixt us, and also the great love that hath been, and as I trust yet is, betwixt us, and as on my part never greater. Wherefore I beseech Almighty God comfort us as soon as it pleaseth Him; for us that ought of very right to be most together, are most asunder. Meseemeth it is a thousand years ago that I spake with you----"

Margery here bursts into a passion of tears; and her mother, almost weeping too, ejaculates, "My poor child!" The priest looks at the lady somewhat spitefully, and proceeds:----

"'I had liever than all the good in the world I might be with you. Alas! alas! good lady full little remember they what they do that keep us thus asunder. Four times in the year are they accursed that let matrimony----'"

"Accursed are they?" exclaims the priest. "Ban and anathema against us, my worshipful lady! But there are others, I wot, that the Church holds accursed; and this base mechanical be one of them, if I mistake not. Did I not once hear him say--for the varlet ever had privilege to speak in this house, when his betters held their peace--did I not hear him once say that his father had told him that he had seen the heretic priest, John Waddon, burnt at Framlingham, and that he (shame that such an unbeliever might presume to speak upon matters of the Church!) thought that the knowledge of the truth was not advanced by such terrors, and that those who lit the fires for the Lollards had no sanction in the Gospel of Christ. For mine own part, I well believe that he has seduced our daughter from her obedience by his false and damnable opinions. Mistress Margery, did he never open in your presence the book of that arch heretic, John Wiclif, which is called, 'The Book of the New Law'--the book which, in the Constitution of Archbishop Arundel, was forbidden to be read, under pain of the greater excommunication?"

The maiden answers not. The priest, looking earnestly at Mistress Margaret Paston, asks her if she did not think that there was a possibility of such a devilish corruption having gone forward; and Mistress Margaret, her cheek coloring a deep red, and then having an ashy paleness, speaks no more for good or evil to her daughter, but quails before the priest. He has her secret. There is a treasured volume in that house, which has been carefully locked up for half a century, to be looked upon in the secret hour, when prying eyes are sleeping, and in the hour of tribulation, when careful eyes are waking. With Richard Calle, Mistress Margaret had often spoken of this book; although even to possess it was to risk a charge of "Lollardie," with all its penalties. The priest sees his triumph; and proceeds to make an end of as much of the letter as he chooses to read:----

"'I understand, lady, ye have had as much sorrow for me as any gentlewoman hath had in the world, as would God all that sorrow that ye have had had rested upon me, and that ye had been discharged of it; for I wis, lady, it is to me a death to hear that ye be entreated otherwise than ye ought to be; this is a painful life that we lead. I cannot live thus without it be a great displeasure to God.'"

"He thought not of God's displeasure when he presumed to speak of love to a daughter of the Pastons," says the priest. "A granddaughter of Sir William Paston, one of his Majesty's Justices," mutters the ancient lady. Sir James continues to read the missive:----

"'I suppose they deem we be not ensured together and if they do so I marvel, for then they are not well advised, remembering the plainness that I brake to my mistress at the beginning, and I suppose by you, both; and ye did as ye ought to do of very right; and if ye have done the contrary, as I have been informed ye have done, ye did neither consciencely, nor to the pleasure of God, without ye did it for fear, and for the time, to please such as were at that time about you; and if ye did it for this cause, it was a reasonable cause, considering the great and importable calling upon ye that ye had; and many an untrue tale was made to you of me, which, God know it, I was never guilty of."[14]

"And now, pretty Mistress Margery," says Sir James, "will you affirm that this man sayeth untruly, when he sayeth that you are ensured together? You have before said that you are not so ensured. Will you cast off your mother and your brothers to be the wife of a low factor, and a companion for idle queans and the wives of fat burgesses, instead of wedding some noble knight, who will give you a castle to dwell in, with all worship and authority? Deny the contract; there is guilt in affirming it even if it had been made in a moment of imprudence."

"Sir James Gloys, and you, my honored mother," answers the maiden, "Richard Calle says truly, that I did not consciencely, nor to the pleasure of God, when I concealed our contract for fear, and for the time. We are betrothed; and I rejoice at the handfasting. No pain, no fear, shall ever again lead me to deny it. He is my true husband, and may I ever be to him a reverent and loving wife. For who can I love as I have loved, and do love, Richard Calle,--the companion of my childhood, the instructor of my girlhood: a true man, as brave as if he were the sturdiest of belted knights--as wise as if he were the clerkliest of learned scholars. He has abundance; he is generous. When did a Paston ask Richard Calle for aid that his hand was not open? We may not want his help just now; but if the time arrive, and assuredly it may be not far off, that hand would be again stretched out for succour. Come Richard Calle of gentle or simple, I heed not; he is my own true man, and to him is my faith plighted, for ever and aye."

"Twice in a day, and had her head broke in several places," grumbles the ancient dame.

"Mistress Margery," responds the priest, "you must take your own course. But this is not now a matter for daughter and mother to settle between them. It must before the Lord Bishop. In the name of Holy Church, I prohibit all intercourse by message or letter between Richard Calle and yourself. You must be in strict durance for a short season; and then a higher than us shall decide, contract or no contract. Heaven forfend that I, or any servant of the altar, should let matrimony."

"My child, go to your chamber," whispers the subdued mother.

We see the shadow of Margery Paston, before she quits the Oaken parlor, kneeling for her mother's blessing.

* * * * *

The Michaelmas of 1469 is nearly come. Margery Paston is still in durance at her mother's house. Every art has been tried to make her deny the betrothal. The priest has worked upon the fears of the mother--the daughter has been studiously kept from her presence. But this state of things cannot abide. Dame Margaret thus writes to Sir John Paston: "I greet you well, and send you God's blessing and mine; letting you weet that on Thursday last was, my mother and I were with my Lord of Norwich, and desired him that he would no more do in the matter touching your sister till that ye, and my brother, and others, that were executors to your father, might be here together, for they had the rule of her as well as I; and he said plainly that he had been required so often to examine her, that he might not, nor would, no longer delay it: and charged me, in pain of cursing, that she should not be deferred, but that she should appear before him the next day. And I said plainly that I would neither bring her nor send her. And then he said that he would send for her himself, and charged that she should be at her liberty to come when he sent for her."

On the next day--it is a Friday--Margery Paston is brought into the Bishop's Court. There, surrounded with the panoply of the Church, sits old Walter Lyhart--he that built the roof of the nave, and the screen, of Norwich Cathedral. The maiden trembles, but her spirit remains unbroken. The bishop puts her in remembrance how she was born,--what kin and friends she has--"And ye shall have more, young lady, if ye will be ruled and guided after them. But if ye will not, what rebuke, and loss, and shame will be yours? They will evermore forsake you, for any good, or help, or comfort that ye shall have of them. Be well advised. I have heard say that ye love one that your friends are not well pleased that ye should love. Be advised--be right well advised."

"I am the betrothed wife of Richard Calle. I must cleave to him for better for worse."

"Rehearse to me what you said to him. Let me understand if it makes matrimony?"

"We have plighted our troth--we are handfasted. How can I repeat the words? Richard said----Oh, my lord! spare me, I am bound in my conscience, whatsoever the words were. If the very words make not sure, make it, I beseech you, surer ere I go hence."

And then the bishop dismisses the maiden with many frowns.

Richard Calle is summoned. He briefly tells the time and place where the vows were exchanged. The bishop is bewildered. He scarcely dare hesitate to confirm the marriage. But the subtle priest is at his side, and he whispers the fearful word of "Lollardie." Then the bishop hastily breaks up the court, and says, "That he supposed there should be found other things against him that might cause the letting the marriage; and therefore he would not be too hasty to give sentence."

Margery Paston stands again upon her mother's threshold. The aged servant is weeping as he opens the door: "Oh, my dear young mistress! I am commanded to shut this gate against you." The figure of Sir James Gloys looms darkly in the hall. "Begone, mistress!" he exclaims. "I will go to my grandmother," sobs out the poor girl. "Your grandmother banishes you for ever from her presence," retorts the churlish priest.

It is night. The pride and the purity of the unhappy Margery forbid her to seek the protection of her Richard. She has been watched. Exhausted and heart-broken, she gladly accepts the shelter which Roger Best offers her. That shelter becomes her prison.

Here closes the record. But what a succession of Shadows is called up by the endorsement of the letter which tells of these sorrows: "_They were after married together._" The contract could not be dissolved.

At one time we see the shadows of Richard and Margery Calle sitting cheerily together in their peaceful home at Framlingham. The intrigues that are carrying on in the Duke of Norfolk's castle, under whose walls they abide, touch them not. They are not called upon to declare either for York or Lancaster.

At another time we fancy John of Gelston, Margery's younger brother, a wandering fugitive after the battle of Barnet, throwing himself upon the despised Factor for refuge and succor. The fortunes of the Pastons are now at the lowest ebb. Norfolk holds Caister. Edward the Fourth has pardoned their revolt--but he will not trust them, or employ them. At length Norfolk dies. Caister is restored to the Pastons--but they are penniless.

We see the shadow of a great feast within those half-ruinous walls. The Factor has procured the means from his friends the Lombards. He now sits upon the dais. Sir John Paston calls him brother. Dame Paston greets him as son. John of Gelston says, "I would that my sister should not sell mustard and candles at Framlingham--and assuredly she shall not. Richard Calle has managed his substance better than we; he can win broad lands enow. Kiss me, sister."

There is one shadow of Margery which rests upon our mind. She sits with her mother in the Oaken parlor at Norwich, reading from a volume, now opened without fear, "Blessed are the peace-makers."

FOOTNOTES:

[11] "Paston Letters;" edited by A. Ramsay.

[12] "Paston Letters."

[13] "Paston Letters."

[14] This and the preceding passages are given literally from Calle's letter in the Paston Collection.

From the London Times.

CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE.

But a few years ago, the imperishable records of the Assyrian empire were discovered amidst the sands of the Euphrates by the intelligence and enterprise of a single English traveller. What is the value of the ruins of Pompeii by the side of these awful records of the genius and power of a mighty nation, which had passed from the earth apparently as a wave passes away on the surface of the sea? The official persons charged with the direction of such matters would, of course, satisfy themselves in the first instance that there was no trickery, no spice of adventure or imposition, about the project of removing the Assyrian marbles to England. When this was done, was it not natural to suppose that they would have clutched at the opportunity of adding yet another trophy to the relics of the Parthenon? The history of Mr. Layard is there to show how weak is the character of that enthusiasm which must work out its effects at a distance--in what driblets any assistance from the public purse is vouchsafed to an enterprise which is not recommended to notice by the untiring zeal of a projector! Consider the money fooled away on the basin at Keyham on the one hand, and the inefficient aid afforded to Mr. Layard for the removal of the Assyrian marbles on the other, and our meaning will be at once evident. We desire to-day to call attention to another public shortcoming of the like nature.

Englishmen who travel from their native country to the British Indian empire, as they pass through Alexandria, take occasion to visit two tall obelisks of red Thebaic granite on the south side of the Great Harbour. These relics of the remotest periods of Egyptian history are covered with inscriptions which possess great interest for the antiquarian, independently of the value which attaches to the shafts or pillars themselves. In our columns yesterday will be found a long and particular account of the traditions which must ennoble these mute interpreters of the past in the eyes of the latest posterity; we do not, therefore, deem it necessary to repeat the tale in this place. One of the two obelisks remains erect in its original site; the other lies prostrate on the sand, with which it is partly covered. A portion of its pedestal has been built into the wall which at that spot constitutes the fortification of the town. The one which yet remains upright on the spot where once stood the temple of the Caesars is the property of the Egyptian Government; the other, which lies neglected on the earth, belongs to the English nation. It is ours by conquest--it is ours by gift. It is a trophy won by our arms when the gallant Abercromby fell at the head of his victorious troops. As though this title were not sufficient, in 1820 Mehemet Ali, then Pasha of Egypt set at rest any doubt which might have existed as to our title to this trophy by its long abandonment on the field of battle. He solemnly presented it to George IV. Nor has a shadow of doubt ever been cast upon our right to this memorial of past times and of our own military glory, save by a modest inuendo of the French consul in 1830, when the French were busy removing the obelisk of Luxor. That worthy and intelligent functionary suggested that, "as the English had so long neglected the Pasha's present, they might be considered to have relinquished it, and therefore it might as well be taken away in the French vessel which had come for the other obelisk." To this modest proposition the English government demurred, and accordingly Cleopatra's Needle has been left upon the sand in the harbour of Alexandria, until it may suit the English to take some efficient steps for its removal. All authoritative reports from the spot inform us that the inscription is partly defaced upon one side, but in no other respect. The sand from the desert has in great measure preserved the monument which has been so long abandoned to its fate. Truth, however, compels us to call attention to the language of our report, which adds, that if the obelisk "be not removed at once, it will doubtless, ere long, become utterly ruined and worthless." This result will not be attributable to the ravages of time, but to the injuries inflicted by idle or mischievous persons on this valuable record and monument of by-gone days.

A correspondent furnishes the _Times_ with the following interesting historical notices of this celebrated monument:

"Travellers who visit Alexandria cannot fail to observe, on the south side of the great harbor, now called the New Port, a beautiful obelisk of red Thebaic granite, or Syenite, covered with hieroglyphics, standing erect where was once the Caesarium, or Temple of Caesar, while near it another similar monument lies prostrate, and partly covered by the sand. To these relics of a remote antiquity the Arabs give the name of Mesellet Faraun, or _Pharaoh's Packing Needle_, a term which is, indeed, applied by them to all obelisks. The traditions of the later periods of the Roman Empire, and of a subsequent time, seem to have attributed many objects at Alexandria to Cleopatra, and the obelisks in question are accordingly best known to Europeans as _Cleopatra's Needles_, a trivial designation, possessing as little historical value as that of "Queen Elizabeth's Pocket Pistol," which is given to the great gun at Dover. The classical term _obelisk_ is, in its origin, not less trivial, if it be true that it is derived from the Latin _obeliscus_, a diminutive of the Greek word [Greek: obelos], which means, literally, a spit, as indicative of the peculiar form of this species of monument.

"As far as the true history of these obelisks is concerned, which is principally to be deduced from the monarchs' names sculptured on them, they appear to have been originally cut at the granite quarries of Syene, at the first cataract in Upper Egypt, 750 miles from their present site, by Thothmosis III. This monarch was one of the most celebrated rulers of that remarkable country. We find remains of him in Nubia, at Samneh, at Premmis, and at Amada, proving that his sway extended even beyond the third cataract. He added also largely to the great temple of Karnak; and on the sculptures in one of its rooms he is represented as presenting offerings to his ancestors or predecessors of eight several dynasties, namely: the kings of Thebes, of Abydos, of Memphis, of Ethiopia, and of four other divisions of Egypt. In one of the tombs near Thebes is a painting of a grand procession of men of the several nations bordering on the Nile, who are bringing their costly gifts in token of homage to this king. Under Thothmosis III., who held Upper and Lower Egypt and Ethiopia, the kingdom of Thebes had reached its full size. Several later kings may have been more wealthy, and more powerful, and their conquests may have extended further, but those conquests were only temporary; and the glories of those later kings never threw the reign of Thothmosis III. into the shade.

"The central inscriptions on the four faces of these obelisks were sculptured by the monarch whom we have just described. The lateral inscriptions were added by a king who was, if possible, even more celebrated, namely, Amunmai Rameses II., commonly known by the name of Sesostris, the monarch under whom Upper Egypt rose to its greatest height in arms, in art, and in wealth. It is unnecessary to do more than allude to the fabled history of this monarch; but confining ourselves to the particulars recorded on imperishable monuments of stone, we find that he finished the palace of the Memnonium or Mamunei at Abydos, and also the temple of Osiris, in the same city; and on one of the walls of the latter he carved that list of his forefathers now in the British Museum, which is known by the name of the Tablet of Abydos. At Thebes, besides adding to the buildings of his predecessors, he erected a new palace, which, like that at Abydos, was by the Greeks called the Memnonium. In the first courtyard was a colossal statue of himself, larger than any other in Egypt, and in the second yard were two smaller ones, from one of which was taken the colossal head now in the British Museum.

"The two obelisks of Alexandria likewise have the names and titles of some Pharaoh of later times, by whom they may probably have been removed to Memphis; but subsequently the Ptolemies, to embellish their Greco-Egyptian capital, transferred them to Alexandria. In the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, when the Alexandrians completed the beautiful temple to his honor named the Sebaste, or Caesar's Temple, which stood by the side of the harbor, and was surrounded by a sacred grove, ornamented with porticoes, and fitted up with libraries, paintings, and statues,--it being the most lofty building in the city,--they set up in front of this temple the two obelisks of Thothmosis and Rameses, which, like the other monuments of the Theban kings, have outlived all the temples and palaces of their Greek and Roman successors.

"These beautiful memorials of two of the most powerful and celebrated rulers of Egypt appear not to have suffered any material injury from the vicissitudes to which the dominions of those kings have during so many ages been subjected.[15] From a very early period one of them has been thrown down from the pedestal on which it stood; but this seeming calamity has probably preserved its sculptures better than if it had remained on its pedestal, for its still erect companion, though well preserved on the sides exposed to the sea, has suffered a good deal from the beating against it of the land-wind, which blows with violence and is charged with sand. With the exception of the four corners of the base, where, like the obelisk in the Hippodrome at Constantinople, it would seem to have formerly been held to its pedestal by four cubes of bronze, the fallen obelisk is perfect, and its sculptures are in comparatively good preservation. Its length is 64 feet, and at its base it is about 8 feet square; its weight being estimated at about 240 tons.[16] The obelisk is of great value from its antiquity, its proportions, and, moreover, as an imperishable memorial of British valor.

"After the English were in possession of Alexandria (as we find it recorded by Dr. Clarke in his _Travels_) a subscription was opened among the officers of the army and navy for the purpose of removing the prostrate obelisk to Great Britain. With the money thus raised they purchased one of the vessels that Menou had sunk in the old port of Alexandria. This they raised, and prepared for its reception. The work went on rapidly, the obelisk was turned, and its lower surface was found to be in a high state of preservation. It was then moved, by means of machinery constructed for the purpose, towards the vessel prepared to receive it. Lord Cavan presided at this undertaking. A naval officer, who was present upon the occasion, brought over to England the plans projected for conveying this splendid trophy of the success of our arms to the metropolis of this country; and there is every reason to believe the design would have been accomplished. Its interruption took place in consequence of an order preventing the sailors from assisting at the work. An eye-witness, who is still living, states that about 5,000L. were subscribed by the army, that 300 Sepoys worked for three or four months in constructing a jetty, whence the obelisk was to have been embarked; but that the General who then commanded at Malta wrote to the military authorities in Egypt, objecting to the employment of the troops in such a work, and ordering them to suspend their operations. This was accordingly done, and the money unexpended was returned to the subscribers.

"Though the obelisk was thus left behind when the British forces quitted Egypt, the idea of bringing it to England was never abandoned; and whatever doubts might have existed as to our right to the possession of a trophy which had been taken, but afterwards (as it were) abandoned on the field of battle, were set at rest by the gift of it made in the year 1820 by the late Mehemet Ali Pasha to King George IV.

"Notwithstanding this gift, the obelisk still remained without any definitive steps being taken for its removal to England.[17] In 1830, when the French sent a vessel to Alexandria to transport to France the obelisk of Luxor, which is now standing in the Place de la Concorde at Paris, and also, as it was talked of at the time, the one of 'Cleopatra's needles' which is yet standing, the French Consul in Egypt is said to have made the modest suggestion that, 'as the English had so long neglected the Pasha's present, they might be considered to have relinquished it, and therefore it might as well be taken away in the French vessel which had come for the other obelisk.'

"This, however, was not allowed to take place. Neither have the English taken any steps to acquire possession of a monument which is the indisputable property of the British nation, and which, if not removed, will doubtless ere long become utterly ruined and worthless. The stones of the pedestal on which it stood have been carried away for building purposes; the obelisk itself has been exposed to many marks inflicted by the curious and idlers of Alexandria, and as a last indignity one end of it has actually been built into the wall surrounding the port, forming part of the new fortifications of the city.

"The subject of the removal of this obelisk has often been before Parliament. On the 2d of June last, in the House of Peers, the Marquis of Westmeath, at the request of several military and naval officers, inquired what steps had been taken for obtaining possession of or for removing it. He stated that the opinion of the late Sir R. Peel, expressed to himself, was, that it was a monument which ought to be brought to London and erected as a memorial of Sir Ralph Abercromby and others who had fought and died in Egypt. The late Sir George Murray had also stated that he joined with all his military and naval friends, who desired that the obelisk should be brought to this country. In reply to Lord Westmeath's inquiry the Earl of Carlisle admitted the importance which attached to the obelisk, not merely as a memorial of the ancient art of Egypt, but also as a monument of British heroism; but said that he apprehended there were some mechanical difficulties. This, however, can hardly be the case, inasmuch as the obelisk would unquestionably have been removed in 1801, had it not been for the reasons already stated.

"As a relic of ancient art, as a memorial of two of the most renowned monarchs of Egypt, and as a trophy of British valor, this obelisk is without price. If allowed to remain in its present state, it will inevitably be destroyed, and there cannot exist the slightest doubt that it was the bounden duty of the British nation to see to its preservation, which can only be secured by carrying out the intention of our valiant troops half-a-century ago--namely, by transplanting it to England. The appropriate site for it might either be the courtyard of the British Museum, where it would form a noble addition to the peerless collection of Egyptian monuments, of which the famed 'Rosetta Stone,' that other trophy of our occupation of Egypt, forms a part; or it might, perhaps, be more appropriately set up in St. James's Park, at the back of the Horse Guards. The expense of its removal could not be great; but, whatever might be its amount, it is certain, when even Mr. Hume has expressed an interest in the subject, that the nation would cheerfully incur it. An offer has indeed been made to Government to bring it to England by contract for a comparatively trifling sum."

FOOTNOTES:

[15] Mr. Gould, in the "Builder" of August 2, says, from certain authorities, it would appear that both were standing at the close of the 12th century.

[16] On the 15th of April, 1832, when a proposition for its removal was made in the House of commons, it was stated that it weighed 284 tons. Captain Smyth, R.N., supposes it to be 230 tons.

[17] In 1822 Captain Smyth, R.N., was prepared, with the consent of Mehemet Ali, to attempt its removal, but could not procure the authority of our Government. The Pasha offered to build a pier for the embarkation of the obelisk, and to render Captain Smyth every assistance for its removal.

From the London Times

HISTORY AND CONDITION OF THE CHEAP POSTAGE SYSTEM.

A traveller sauntering through the Lake districts of England, some years ago, arrived at a small public-house just as the postman stopped to deliver a letter. A young girl came out to receive it. She took it in her hand, turned it over and over, and asked the charge. It was a large sum--no less than a shilling. Sighing heavily she observed that it came from her brother, but that she was too poor to take it in, and she returned it to the postman accordingly. The traveller was a man of kindness as well as of observation; he offered to pay the postage himself, and in spite of more reluctance on the girl's part than he could well understand he did pay it, and gave her the letter. No sooner, however, was the postman's back turned than she confessed that the proceeding had been concerted between her brother and herself, that the letter was empty, that certain signs on the direction conveyed all that she wanted to know, and that as neither of them could afford to pay postage they had devised this method of franking the intelligence desired. The traveller pursued his journey, and as he plodded over the Cumberland fells he mused upon the badness of a system which drove people to such straits for means of correspondence, and defeated its own objects all the time. With most men such musings would have ended before the hour, but this man's name was Rowland Hill, and it was from this incident and these reflections that the whole scheme of penny postage was derived.

The value of this reform is felt in every household throughout the kingdom, but its extent will be well shown by the extraction of some figures from a return which has just been made to the House of Commons. The first general reduction of postage took place on the 5th of December, 1839--a fourpenny rate being interposed for a short time before the universal charge of a penny. At this time the number of letters delivered annually in the united kingdom was about 75 millions, the actual estimate for 1839 being 75,907,572. The gross amount of the tax levied upon this delivery was no less than 2,339,737_l._, of which, as the cost of management was only 687,000_l._, there was 1,652,424_l._ carried to the account of profit. Last year the number of letters delivered in the united kingdom was estimated at upwards of _three hundred and forty-seven millions_, while the penny tax upon the same amounted to no more than 2,264,684_l._, so that while our payments to the Exchequer have been actually lessened, the service rendered to the public has been multiplied fivefold--in other words, we pay less for five letters than we formerly paid for one.

It is worth remark that the correspondence in the three kingdoms has increased almost equally. In 1839 the deliveries were 59,982,520; 8,301,904; and 7,623,148, in England, Ireland, and Scotland, respectively; while last year they were 276,252,642; 35,388,895; and 35,427,534. The rate of increase has been continuous, though not quite constant, ever since the reduction. The first effect of the reform was to double the deliveries at once, and turn the 75 millions into upwards of 160 millions. From that time to this the increase has proceeded at the rate of 10 or 20 millions a year, the smallest augmentation being in the famous year of 1848, when the delivery exceeded only by 6 millions that of 1847; and the largest in the equally famous times of 1845, when railway speculations added 28 millions of epistles to correspondence of the year preceding. The return before us includes, we hardly know with what view, a weekly account taken once a month for 1850, and from this curious table it would seem that during the month in which ladies talk least they write most; at any rate the largest number of letters yet counted was for the week ending February the 21st.

The cost of management has, of course, been swelled considerably under the new system, though by no means in proportion to the increased service, for whereas the deliveries, as we have said, are multiplied fivefold, the expenses are only multiplied about twice and a half, being 1,460,785_l._ in 1850, against 686,768_l._ in 1839. The return does not comprise the items out of which this sum is made up, though it specifies the amounts paid in each year for the conveyance of mails by railway. These amounts fluctuate rather curiously from 12,623_l._ in 1839, to 206,357_l._ in this present year of 1851--not increasing gradually or even constantly, but rising or falling occasionally, though with an ultimate tendency to rise. We should have rather liked to see the expenses of management and conveyance stated separately, and some means of comparison given between the cost of railway carriage and that of the old mail coaches. About 10,000_l._ per annum of the total disbursements is devoted, we are told, to pensions, and must therefore be distinguished from the direct expenses of the Post-office service. All things considered, perhaps, this "non-effective" charge is not heavy; in fact, we believe that Post-office servants are by no means extravagantly paid either for their work or at their retirement.

The Money Order office forms a distinct establishment of itself, and a curious institution it is. The amount of orders issued in 1840, the first year of the system, was 240,063_l_. for England and Wales, 47,295_l._ for Ireland, and 25,765_l._ for Scotland. In the year 1850 these amounts had increased in England to no less a sum than 7,173,622_l._, in Ireland to 623,732_l._, and in Scotland to 697,143_l._ The total sum was 8,494,498_l._, and the number of orders of which it was composed 4,439,713, showing an average of some shillings less than 2_l._ per order. The proportion between the number and the amount of the orders does not vary greatly in the three kingdoms, though the average amount of each order is somewhat larger in Scotland than Ireland, and in England than Scotland.

The Scotch transactions fell off considerably in the year 1849, but the English and Irish offices have steadily increased their business, nor is any effect perceptible in the latter country, either from the famine or the rebellion. The return of "money orders issued" is distinguished from that of "money orders paid," and the difference between these gross amounts is no less than 11,000_l._ in favor of the Post-office for the year ending the 31st of last December. Some of these orders will no doubt have come in for payment during the current year, but we suspect that ignorance, negligence, or accident must be leaving an appreciable balance to accumulate on the side of the office. Country bankers, we believe, used to reckon upon a gain of 5l. per cent. on the score of notes lost, mislaid, hoarded, destroyed, or otherwise not presented for payment. Money orders are doubtless more rigorously exchanged for cash, but there must still, we imagine, be a profit from this source, especially as the Post-office circumscribes the term of its liability, which bankers did not. The total expenses of the Money Order offices, both in London and the country, are returned at 70,577_l._ and the total amount of commission received at 73,813_l._--a fair balance of charge and service.

The actual benefits, however, of this prodigious reform extend far beyond those immediately represented in the figures we have given. It is not the mere saving of 4d. or 5d. on a letter by which the country has so enormously gained. The facilitation of business, the diffusion of information, the correspondence of friends, and the maintenance of family connexions, which in old days were severed for ever, are the real and inestimable advantages of Mr. ROWLAND HILL'S invention. Like most reformers, he had to contend with violent and not always sincere opposition. The system, indeed, was long deprived of a fair trial by the obstinate resistance of those who should have aided him, and it is mainly owing to this concerted hostility that the results are not as favorable to the revenue as they are to the welfare of the country. But the principle is now established, and of all the reductions which a Chancellor of the Exchequer has ever made there has been none attended with such universal relief, convenience, and benefit as this sacrifice of 800,000_l._ for the sake of the letter writers.

OCTOBER.

BY MISS ALICE CAREY.

Not the light of the long blue summer, Nor the flowery huntress, Spring, Nor the chilly and moaning Winter, Doth peace to my bosom bring,

Like the hazy and red October, When the woods stand bare and brown, And into the lap of the south land, The flowers are blowing down;

When all night long, in the moonlight, The boughs of the roof tree chafe, And the wind, like a wandering poet, Is singing a mournful waif;

And all day through the cloud-armies, The sunbeams coquettishly rove-- For then in my path first unfolded The sweet passion-flower of love.

With bosom as pale as the sea-shell, And soft as the flax unspun, And locks like the nut-brown shadows In the light of the sunken sun,

Came the maiden whose wonderful beauty Enchanted my soul from pain, And gladdened my heart, that can never, No, never be happy again.

Far away from life's pain and passion, And our Eden of love, she went, Like a pale star fading softly From the morning's golden tent.

But oft, when the bosom of Autumn Is warm with the summer beams, We meet in the pallid shadows That border the land of dreams,

For seeing my woe through the splendor That hovers about her above, She puts from her forehead the glory, And listens again to my love.

MY NOVEL:

OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.[18]

BY PISISTRATUS CAXTON.