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Rh as one who claps the hands, and heard it as one who roars with laughter in the thunder. Not even the Archdeacon can remember such a storm. All Harcourt's seedlings were ruined, and the tiles flew off his gables right and left. He came to me presently with a white, drawn face, saying: "Inskip, can I trust you?"

"You can, indeed."

"I have long suspected it; she has eloped with Ford."

"But how" I gasped.

"The carriage is ready—we'll talk as we drive." Then, against the rain he shouted: "No gate in the fence, I know, but what about a ladder? While I blunder, she's over the fence, and he"

"But you were so close. There was not the time."

"There is time for anything," he said venomously, "where a treacherous woman is concerned. I found her no better than a savage, I trained her, I educated her. But I'll break them both. I can do that; I'll break them soul and body."

No one can break Ford now. The task is impossible. But I trembled for Miss Beaumont.


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 Updates from the East Palestine Train Derailment Emergency Response

EAST PALESTINE, Ohio (November 9, 2023)

 * On November 9, EPA released its initial report to the White House pursuant to Executive Order 14108, “Ensuring the People of East Palestine Are Protected Now and in the Future.” The report provides an overview of the response to date and explains the status of air, soil, surface water, groundwater, and drinking water sampling and monitoring. The agency will submit updated reports to the President every 60 days until all cleanup, assessment, and monitoring work required by EPA’s order has been completed.

 * EPA’s number one priority has been — and continues to be — the health and safety of the community. Since the disaster, EPA has collected more than 115 million air monitoring data points and more than 35,000 samples (air, water and soil) in and around the community. This data collection continues, and ongoing science-based reviews show that residents of East Palestine are not being exposed to from contaminated drinking water, soil, or air from the derailment.

 * Since February, there has been tremendous progress towards removing contamination resulting from the derailment from the community — excavating and disposing of more than 174,000 tons of contaminated soil and shipping more than 37 million gallons of wastewater off-site. The contaminated soil and gravel beneath the train tracks at the derailment location have been excavated and transported off-site for disposal. Excavation of contaminated soil from affected areas near the tracks is complete, and site-wide confirmation sampling is underway to double-check that all contamination resulting from the derailment has been removed.

 * EPA’s Welcome Center will be closed for Veteran’s Day and will be open by appointment only starting Monday, November 13th. To make an appointment, please call EPA’s information line (330-775-6517). Questions may also be sent to [mailto:r5_eastpalestine@epa.gov r5_eastpalestine@epa.gov].

 * The new location of the Pennsylvania Department of Health is 3582 Brodhead Road, Suite 108, Monaca and there are services that the Pennsylvania Department of Health will have available at the state health center. The state health centers are open 8 a.m. – 4 p.m., Monday through Friday.

 * The small storage tanks off Taggart Street that have held both wastewater and treated wastewater will begin to be removed from the derailment site. This will both reduce the footprint of the response and help continue the closure of the tank farm operations.

 * Norfolk Southern has started winterizing equipment at the water treatment center. More details will follow in next week's newsletter and JIC Media Update.

 * South Ditch is being backfilled with clean soil and then it will be tested again as a double check to ensure that the soil does not contain VOCs from the derailment.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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 over the remains of a fashionable actor and his wife, while their stone was put in place of his. Future disinterment would make things rather awkward for the old vicar, although the actor, as Hardy remarked, would probably enjoy the situation, having been a comedian.

Continuing in a more serious vein, Hardy declared: "Unhappily it was oftenest the headstones of the poorer inhabitants—purchased and erected in many cases out of scanty means—that suffered the most in these ravages. It is scarcely necessary to particularize among the innumerable instances in which headstones have been removed from their positions, the churchyard levelled, and the stones used for paving the churchyard walks, with the result that the inscriptions have been trodden out in a few years."

The poet's emotional reaction to the same situation was dramatically expressed through a lyric included in Poems of the Past and the Present. It is called The Levelled Churchyard:


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 taking the right hand in both yours, turning it palm upwards, bending your head low over it, and saying with great energy and a violent propulsion of the breath, Ibata.

Idols are comparatively rare in Congo Français, but where they are used the people have the same idea about them as the true negroes have, namely, that they are things which spirits reside in, or haunt, but not in their corporeal nature adorable. The resident spirit in them and in the charms and plants, which are also regarded as residences of spirits, has to be placated with offerings of food and other sacrifices. You will see in the Fetish huts above mentioned dishes of plantain and fish left till they rot. Dr. Nassau says the life or essence of the food only is eaten by the spirit, the form of the vegetable or flesh being left to be removed when its life is gone out. The Calabar negroes told me that the spirits often take the forms of lizards—which abound in this country—and come and eat the food, and they always seem to doubt whether the offered food has reached its proper destination unless some animal has eaten it. But for one thing, as I have said before, the true Negro is more definite in his ideas, and his gods and spirits very practical individuals, whereas the Bantu are vaguer, and moreover there are not so many lizards in Congo Français, so perhaps the native metaphysician is forced to be more spiritual in his ideas about his sacrifice.

In cases of emergency a fowl with its blood is laid at the door of the Fetish hut, or when pestilence is expected, or an attack by enemies, or a great man or woman is very ill, goats and sheep are sacrificed and the blood put in the Fetish hut as well as on the gateways of the village. These sacrifices among the Fan are made with a very peculiar-shaped knife, a fine specimen of which I secured by the kindness of Captain Davies; it is shaped like the head of a hornbill and is quite unlike the knives in common use among the tribes, which are either long, leaf-shaped blades sharpened along both edges, or broad, trowel-shaped, almost triangular daggers. All Fan knives are fine weapons, superior to the knives of all other Coast tribes I have met with, but the sacrifice knife is distinctly peculiar. Du Chaillu figures one in his book, calling it a tomahawk. Other people besides him speak of it


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Rh We missed the train. Young couples had gone by it, several young couples, and we heard of more young couples in London, as if all the world were mocking Harcourt's solitude. In desperation we sought the squalid suburb that is now Ford's home. We swept past the dirty maid and the terrified aunt, swept upstairs, to catch him if we could red-handed. He was seated at the table, reading the Œdipus Coloneus of Sophocles.

"That won't take in me!" shouted Harcourt. "You've got Miss Beaumont with you, and I know it."

"No such luck," said Ford.

He stammered with rage. "Inskip—you hear that? 'No such luck'! Quote the evidence against him. I can't speak."

So I quoted her song. "'Oh Ford! Oh Ford, among all these Worters, I am coming through you to my Kingdom! Oh Ford, my lover while I was a woman, I will never forget you, never, as long as I have branches to shade you from the sun.' Soon after that, we lost her."

"And—and on another occasion she sent a message of similar effect. Inskip, bear witness. He was to 'guess' something."

"I have guessed it," said Ford.


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 * Leslie and Sulphur Runs are both being visually inspected for sheen in sediment over nearly five miles of the creeks. So far, 4,900 feet of Sulphur Run have been inspected from the confluence of Sulphur Run and Leslie Run to where Sulphur Run meets the North Ditch. The remaining sections that need to be inspected represent the upstream areas and will be completed after Leslie Run is finished. Samples of sheen and sediment may be collected based upon visual sheen inspection results.

Response by the Numbers (as of November 8)

 * 174,838 tons (estimated) of solid waste shipped
 * 37,706,684 gallons (estimated) of wastewater shipped
 * 74 structures have been cleaned

What to Expect Next Week

At the derailment site:

 * Tank removals that will help reduce the footprint at the derailment site
 * Continued surface and at-depth soil sampling
 * Continued confirmation sampling
 * Continued wastewater treatment

In the greater community:

 * Continued creek visual stream assessment
 * Continued confirmation sampling
 * Surface water sampling will continue in Leslie and Sulphur Run


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Hardy learned to scorn the "heathen apathy" of the parsons and parishioners alike with regard to these wilful and stupid deletions of the artistic and associative treasures under their care. He derived small comfort from the reflection that some had been unwittingly preserved through the "happy accident of indifferentism in these worthies."

Here is the manner in which the novelist received the hint for his memorable scene of Jude’s gilding of the Ten Commandments: "I remember once going into the stonemason's shed of a builder's yard, where, on looking around, I started to see the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, staring emphatically from the sides of the shed. 'Oh, yes,' said the builder, a highly respectable man, 'I took 'em as old material under my contract when I gutted St.-Michael-and-All-Angels,


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 and call it a throwing knife. I believe it is entirely used for sacrificing. I do not believe you could throw it, as its curve and heavy weight at the back bring it round when you attempt to, and it is quite unlike the multi-bladed, real throwing knives of some middle Congo tribes. But it is perfectly adapted for killing animals by a blow behind the head, at the top of the spine, and this is the way I have seen it used, and if I remember right, Du Chaillu does not say that he himself saw it thrown. I have never seen any knife like it except in an illustration to Junker's Reiser im Afrika (1891, vol. iii. p. 122), where one very similar is figured among the knives of the Mungabatu.

There are several other implements of this cannibal tribe figured by Junker that have a great resemblance to the Fan things used for similar purposes, and I am much tempted to think that these two tribes are, if not identical, at least very nearly related. The same dwarf people, the pygmies, are in the Mungabatu region, and are fairly frequent in the forest among the Fans, and the north-east and east limitations of the Fans are not yet known.

I found to my great interest the same superstition in Congo Français that I met with first in the Oil Rivers. Its meaning I am unable to fully account for, but I believe it to be a form of sacrifice. In Calabar each individual has a certain forbidden thing or things. These things are either forms of food, or the method of eating. In Calabar this prohibition is called Ibet, and when, in consequence of the influence of white culture, a man gives up his Ibet, he is regarded by good sound ju-juists as leading an irregular and dissipated life, and even the unintentional breaking of the Ibet is regarded as very dangerous. For example, in buying a slave the purchaser always inquires what is the slave's Ibet, because if the slave were given his Ibet to eat, he would get ill; again, once when staying with my esteemed friend Miss Mary Slessor at Okyon, there arrived among her crowd of patients a small boy with a very "sick foot." On being asked from what it had arisen, instead of getting the usual answer, "picked up medicine on the road," the boy said he had broken his Ibet. Miss Slessor told me that shortly after


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 tation as a model of the employment of the painter's eye by the artificer of words:

They entered the Belvedere. In the lower part it was formed of close woodwork nailed crosswise, and had openings in the upper by way of windows.

The scratch of a striking light was heard, and a bright glow radiated from the interior of the building. The light gave birth to dancing leaf-shadows, stem-shadows, lustrous streaks, dots, sparkles, and threads of silver sheen of all imaginable variety and transcience. It awakened gnats, which flew towards it, revealed shiny gossamer threads, disturbed earthworms. Stephen gave but little attention to these phenomena, and less time. He saw in the summer-house a strongly-illuminated picture.

First, the face of his friend and preceptor, Henry Knight, between whom and himself an estrangement had arisen, not from any definite causes beyond those of absence, increasing age, and diverging sympathies.

Next, his bright particular star, Elfride. The face of Elfride was more womanly than when she had called herself his, but as clear and healthy as ever. Her plenteous twines of beautiful hair were looking much as usual, with the exception of a slight modification in their arrangement in deference to changing fashion.

Their two foreheads were close together, almost touching, and both were looking down. Elfride was holding her watch, Knight was holding the light with one hand, his left arm being round her waist. Part of the scene reached Stephen's eyes through the horizontal bars of woodwork, which crossed their forms like the ribs of a skeleton.

Knight's arm stole still further round the waist of Elfride.

"It is half-past eight," she said in a low voice, which had a peculiar music in it, seemingly born of a thrill of pleasure at the new proof that she was beloved.

The flame dwindled down, died away, and all was wrapped in a darkness to which the gloom before the illumination bore no


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 a child is born some of the elderly female relatives meet together and find out, by their magic, what the child's Ibet during life is to be. When they have done so, it is made known and he has to keep to it.

Special days are set apart by each individual; on these days he eats only the smallest quantity and plainest quality of food. No one must eat with him, nor any dog, fowl, &c., feed off the crumbs, nor any one watch him while eating. I suspect on this day the Ibet is eaten, but I have not verified this, only getting, from an untrustworthy source, a statement that supported it.

Dr. Nassau told me that among Congo Français tribes certain rites are performed for children during infancy or youth, in which a prohibition is laid upon the child as regards the eating of some particular article of food, or the doing of certain acts. "It is difficult," he said, "to get the exact object of the 'Orunda.' Certainly the prohibited article is not in itself evil, for others but the inhibited individual may eat or do with it as they please. Most of the natives blindly follow the custom of their ancestors without being able to give any raison d'être, but again, from those best able to give a reason, you learn the prohibited article is a sacrifice ordained for the child by its parents and the magic doctor as a gift to the governing spirit of its life. The thing prohibited becomes removed from the child's common use, and is made sacred to the spirit. Any use of it by the child or man would therefore be a sin, which would bring down the spirit's wrath in the form of sickness or other evil, which can be atoned for only by expensive ceremonies or gifts to the magic doctor who intercedes for the offender."

Anything may be an Orunda provided only that it is connected with food; I have been able to find no definite ground for the selection of it. The Doctor said, for example, that "once when on a boat journey, and camped in the forest for the noon-day meal, the crew of four had no meat. They needed it. I had a chicken but ate only a portion, and gave the rest to the crew. Three men ate it with their manioc meal, the fourth would not touch it. It was his Orunda." "On another journey," said the Doctor, "instead of all my crew leaving me


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 comparison in apparent density. Stephen, shattered in spirit and sick to his heart's centre, turned away.

Hardy's use of pictorial and plastic art in his literary work is a subject that can hardly be exhausted in a short study. Any reader will be able to find almost innumerable evidences of the artist's mind behind the pencil of the story-teller and poet. For our present purpose it will suffice finally to mention two of the more striking of these instances that appear in his later work. In The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid the life of the Baron is described as "a vignette, of which the central strokes only were drawn with any distinctness, the environment shading away to a blank." And art-terminology skilfully applied to natural changes appears in this excerpt from The Woodlanders:

To Grace these well-known peculiarities were as an old painting restored.

Now could be beheld that change from the handsome to the curious which the features of a wood undergo at the ingress of the winter months. Angles were taking the places of curves, and reticulations of surfaces—a change constituting a sudden lapse from the ornate to the primitive on Nature's canvas, and comparable to a retrogressive step from the art of an advanced school of painting to that of the Pacific Islander.

It is not very generally known that Hardy actually loved to dabble in drawing and painting, merely for his own amusement. Ideas which were later clothed in verse or prose frequently presented themselves to him at first


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. than the first. Its arms were extended, and it was about to bound upon him and his companion ! To make a jump backward, to seize the carbine of his comrade, who had not yet fired, and to fire at the heart of the new assailant, and lay him at his feet, was but the work of a second ! Most fortunate presence of mind ! It preserved our intrepid hunter from a certain death ; for had there been, on his part, the least hesitation , or the slightest terror, he must have been devoured by the bear. It was the male, who had come to the aid of the female.

Pareur, who was not able to fire because his master was right between himself and the animal, felt his knees bend under him from emotion. As to M. de Malatour , a livid paleness covered his features, his hairs stood straight on his head, and a convulsive shaking of his limbs, gave testimony to the dreadful struggle of his soul.

"Take your gun, Sir," said the young nobleman hurriedly, restoring the carbine to his trembling hands, “ here are our friends, let them not see you disarmed. As to you, Pareur, silence ! I know you can be relied upon." The whole troop at this moment appeared, and he continued, " You see, gentlemen , there are the two monstrous beasts killed-it is one for each of us ; and now, Mr. de Malatour, I am, as I said on a former occasion, at your command, and ready to give you that satisfaction you seemed to require.”

The only answer that his confused adversary was able to give, was to stretch out to him his hand in silence. It was grasped affectionately and cordially. That same evening, a grand banquet was given in the Castle, in honor of the double victory. Toward the close of the repast, a toast was proposed "to the conquerors," and it was received with acclamation. At the moment d'Argentre stood up, with glass in hand, M. de Malatour stopped him, and rising in his place, thus

61

THE LADY BEATRICE. * BY MRS. MARY. V. SPENCER. CHAPTER II. WE left the lady Beatrice alone in the apartment whither her uncle had conducted her on their arrival in Venice, brooding over his parting words "that she should only leave the chamber to become the bride of his nephew." The agony of her feelings it would be impossible to pourtray. Again and again she went to the window, but the distance from it to the canal beneath precluded all hope of an escape. More than once she repeated her efforts at the door, but it was securely fastened. At length, after a fourth fruitless attempt at the lock, she burst into a flood of tears, and throwing herself on a couch, covered her face with her hands, and wept uncontrollably. She was still sobbing violently when a hand was laid on her, and starting up with sudden surprise she saw an aged female domestic of the upper class standing before her. "Oh ! is it you, nurse ?" she said, " I thought I had not one friend in the world left, and perhaps," she continued, recoiling back a moment, " even you have deserted me. But no it cannot, cannot be. You are still my own nurse-you have hushed me in infancy, soothed me in sickness, guided me with your counsel in my later years, and now-now when I am alone and beset with dangers you will not surely betray me ?" and Beatrice clasped her hands and gazed up into the eyes of her visitor, with a look so eloquent in its pleading that even a harder heart than that of the aged domestic would have been melted. "No, my dear child," answered the nurse, while the tears stood in her eyes, "I will not betray you, not for all the gold and promises the duke can make. Cheer up sweet lady, you are not wholly without friends. Dry your tears now and listen to me. There that is spoke :"To the only, the single conqueror of the day ! to our right. Now wait till I have secured the door lest some worthy host ; for he it was who killed the two bears. If one might intrude- and now we will go to the embraI have until this moment permitted his generous inven- sure of the window farthest from the entrance in order tion, so completely unfounded in truth, to pass in silence, to baffle an eaves-dropper if one should happen to be it is because I have been desirous that my apology to outside. him should be as public as the affront I offered him. I You know, my child," continued the nurse, " that wished that every reparation in my power should to so for nearly two years I have been in the Bormatic family, great and so good a man, be solemn, open, undisguised, but this morning I received a message from your uncle, without equivocation ; I then declare the Lord of Ville- that if I would once more join his family he would take triton is the bravest among the brave, and this I am ready it as a favor. I always loved you and left you only to sustain before all and against all." from necessity, and you may judge how glad I was to "This time, certainly," said M. de Argentre , " I do accept his offer. When I came here, your uncle told not mean to take up your glove." me that he had accepted a suitor for you in the person "What a noble, brave young man !" murmured of his nephew ; but that, as you seemed averse to the Pareur, as he wiped away a tear. " It convinces me, union, he depended on my influence with you to perthat a little practice would make him as calm in the suade you to listen to so advantageous a proposal. He presence of a bear, as he is, it is said, in the face of the enemy."
 * Continued from page 6.


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all my life, even to its secrets. I need not hesitate to tell you then that the Lady Beatrice, after having resisted ‘every persuasion on my part to induce her to elope, has at length deen driven to this alternative by the tyranny of her uncle. She has sent her nurse to tell me that if I will have @ gondola near the Duke's palace toward midnight, she will be ready there with her companion to fy. On you, therefore, I depend, Wemust move with great caution, else our plot will be discovered, for thia place is full of spies. I have chosen this public spat to conyerse with you as less likely to awaken suspicion. Be ready with a gondola to take me up neur the Rialto abulf hour before midnight. We will then hasten to the Vivaldo palace, receive our fair eharge, and skim over the lagunes to the main land. If we can once getout of the Venetian territory all will be safe. I have been to the main land and provided horses there for our party. You will not fail ie. Wait at tho Rialto for me.”

‘The man bowed in acknowledgment, muffied himself up carelessly, and then sauntereil out among the gay groups on the promenade. In a few minutes he was lost to sight, when the Signor moved in en opposite di- rection.

‘At that very hour two men were busily engaged in conversation in the Vivaldo palace. One of them is al- ready known to the reader in the person of Beatrice’s guardian—the other was a harsh, sinister looking young man of about eight-and-twenty. ‘This latter individual was the nephew of the Duke. He was speaking at the time,

“You say well, uncle, sharp measures must be used, if we cannot prevail otherwise. ‘I'he girl I am deter- mined to possess, even though Sathanus and all his Iegions should come up against me. Nor should we ‘hesitate to punish the lover for his presumption. I have Wonght hither a good bravo, who is even now waiting without—he has done one or two jobs for me before, I saw the Signor myself to-day, and the story goes that he ie about to join the army of the emperor. He hud a quarrel luckily to-day, as I have learnt by the spies I set to wateh him the instant I knew he wosin Venice. Now this gives us the game.”

“ How ?” said the uncle, pretending not to understand his nephew.

“Thus, uncle mine,” said the speaker, with a sardo- nic grin, “I will set my bravo bere on him. He will be stabbed to-night, wherever he can be found, or, if not to- night, tomorrow. The blow will be attributed to his ‘antagonist in this quarrel, and so the Signor will be got out of the way without suspicion attaching tous. We aball gain two things beside, by thie—we shall punish the presumption of the fellow, and leave the road for my- ‘self into Beatrice’s affections open.” ~ ‘The Duke made no verbal reply, but he smiled at the speaker with @ peculiar meaning. The younger man

63 waited no longer, but withdrew for a few minutes. When he returned he said nothing, but gave a significant nod. The Duke knew by the gesture that the fate of the Signor was sealed,

The last chime of the eleventh hour bad been struck when a stealthy figure might have been scon creeping afier the Signor as be took his way from the front of the Ducal palace toward the Rialto, The lover suuntered leisurely along, for it wanted yet a full half hour to the time when he bad appointed to meet his servant. Ashe passed the colonnade of St. Mark, whose masty pillars still eltest the magnificence of their builders, he paused a minute to took hack an the scene be was leaving. ‘The hum of many tongues still rose up from the crowded thoroughfare, although the groups were rapidly thinning away. Qur hero looked at the motley assembly # mo- ment, and then raised his eyes to the moon which was sailing peacefully across the firmament. The stealthy figure which we have pointed out ecized the opportunity to draw noisclessly near to the Signor, who, unconscious that any one dogged his footsteps, continued gazing at the placid mistress of night in rept delight. Several minutes thus passed during which the bravo~for the figure wee his—approached nearer and nearer to the lover, At length the bravo stood directly behind his victim, Quick as lightning he plucked = dagger from ita hiding place in his bosam, raised it aloft until it flashed in the cold moonshine, and then drove it swiftly and unertingly into the back of our hero. The Signor gave a groan and fell as if dead to the eurth. A group hurd by heard the fall and rushed hastily toward. hia; but ere they had reached the prostrate man the bravo had disappeared behind the neighboring pillars and escaped undetected into the crowd on the promensde.

“Is he dead 1” said ono of those who had come up, as the body of the wounded man was lifted up.

“He breathes yet—but the blood is flowing fast,—I fear it is a mortal wound; docs any one know him?” was the reply. :

“A leech—~a leech—make way for the lecch,” shouted a voice outside the group, for, by this time, a crowd, Tunning from all quarters, had gathered around the wounded man.

The leech jostled his way through the erowd, ap- proached the patient, and stooping dewn bent over him.

“Does any one know him?” he said, looking around the crowd.

“None, I believe,” said the man who hai sakod that question previously, “but here is a purse of good ducats which rolled from his pocket in his fall.”

will be a friend to the poor youth, He is badly woun- ded, I see; it may be even unto death. But we will do I that mortal can do for him—for, saith not Hippocrates ‘Tend ye the sick and suffering, though they be strun-
 * Ab!” said the leech, extending his hand for it, “I

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 respectfully alone in the canoe to have my lunch and going ashore to have theirs, one of them stayed behind in the canoe, and I found his Orunda was only to eat over water when on a journey by water." "At another place, a chief at whose village we once anchored in a small steamer when a glass of rum was given him, had a piece of cloth held up before his mouth that the people might not see him drink, which was his Orunda."

I know some ethnologists will think this last case should be classed under another head, but I think the Doctor is right. He is well aware of the existence of the other class of prohibitions regarding chiefs and I have seen plenty of chiefs myself up the Rembwé who have no objection to take their drinks coram publico, and I have no doubt this was only an individual Orunda of this particular Rembwé chief.

Great care is requisite in these matters, because a man may do or abstain from doing one and the same thing for divers reasons.

The word Orunda means prohibition, the Doctor says. In Effik I found the word Ibet meant a command—a law—an abstinence.


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THE HALF-SISTERS. By the Author of " 2 vols. cloth, 18s.

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No. 3.

FASHIONS FOR MARCH:

‘Tax fashions are now at that point when the winter costume is giving place to the spring costume, and when each prevails in turn according to the weather, Winter dresses sve appropriate tor one day, lighter styles will be more fitting for another, During the whole of March the costumes of the last two months may occasionally be followed; but there are still new styles which may, and will, no doubt, be adopted by many of our fair readers. ‘Three of these stylea have been engraved for ue, and will be found, with appropriate head-dresscs, on the opposite page.

Fig. 1. An evening or opera dress, eumposed of a rich blue striped groe de Tours tenique, trimmed all round with « douillonnée trimming of white crépe, attached at distances with a small blue narrow strap, the front of the dress being composed of a series of broad guagings, edged at the Lottom with a narrow volant of the same ; the body low, and formed @ point, round the top of which is worn a double eape, rounded at the back ut crossing in the front, fastened by @ single neud; short sloeves, formed by a double bouillon of crépe, in the same atylo as that round the funique; dress hat of a rather close shape, of white erépe, the exterior froncer decorated tastefully with white lace, and Tow on the cats; a small bouquet of roses without leaves, the inside of the brim ornamented with roses, tout mig- nonne, and lace.

Fig. 2 A tich evening drese in an entirely different style from the foregoing, composed of a dress of pale Pink satin @'Orient, the skirt d traine, round the bottom of the skizt is a rich, broad, white lace, put on perfectly plain; a robing of lace is placed down the front of the jupe, and in the centre of which are volante of the same placed sluntways, finished on each aide with Toseates of the same material aa the dresa, Low body d Point; short tight sleeves, the body and sleeves being ornamented with Jacc and roseatcz to match those on the skirt; turban of greom velvet; on the left side it hes a

Tich falling of white blonde, falling rather tower than the velvet, and on the right it is decorated with two small, drooping, white feathers. Gloves ornamented with a neud of silk cord and tassels,

Fig. 3. A walking dress. Thia dress is peculiarly suitable for the month of March as it exists in our cli- mute, Nothing indced ia more reprehensible than the premature assumption of light spring costumes. Rarely, in our climate, should spring fashions as such, be adopted until April, Dress is matter to which every lady onght to attend, but her taste should be regulated in a measure. by the climate. This dress, apart from its seasonable- ness, is one of unusual elegance. It is composed of a. myrtle shade of green satin, having robings of black lace down the front, the centre being ornamented with lace butions in a serpentine form; mantle in black velvet, edgeil with a rich black fringe, and fastened over the chest with Brandenbourg trimmings; smalt square fal- ling collar, edged with a narrow fringe; ermine muff; bonnet of pale pink, the form of the brim rather open, the edge being slightly turned backward; low at the ears, and trimmed on the exterior with lace, and two neige feathers shaded pale filac.

There are other varieties of fashion for this month, some of which we quote ftom authentic sources.

Borszrts.—It is impossible to describe ali the differ- ent kinds, with their various shades and colors. One ‘very pretty style is in satin, trimmed round the inside of the brim with blonde riches. Another is in green clair de lune, rather deep at the ends, and having very little trimming at the ears; trimmed with e garland of roses: ‘Phd; upon the frovt are emall mancinis, composed of sprigs of geranium rosé.

Cars—A pretty style of morning cap is now being made fout siiplement, in lace, trimmed with a lace posée, plain over the forehead and slightly fulled at the ears, ornamented with branches of the misletoe, inter- mixed with the lace. The niost favorite material for morning caps is muslin, trimmed with papillions in point de Paris, the plain piece in the front being divided,

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is exceedingly interesting to compare the ideas of the Negroes with those of the Bantu. At present I have a more definite knowledge of the former, but I have gained sufficient knowledge of the West Coast Bantu to be able to commence a regular comparative study of these two analogous, but by no means identical, sets of ideas.

I fancy you find the earliest forms, both of religion and witchcraft, among the negroes, and I hope in some future sojourn on the Bantu border-line to work up the subject more thoroughly, for it is one of great interest to the student of mental evolution.

The mental condition of the lower forms of both races seems very near the other great border-line that separates man from the anthropoid apes, and I believe that if we had the material, or rather if we could understand it, we should find little or no gap existing in mental evolution in this old, undisturbed continent of Africa.

There is one point in evolution, and one only, on which I am a little heterodox, and that is the dogma that all human beings came in the beginning from a single pair, appearing somewhere in Asia, and that their descendants then migrated about the earth accustoming themselves, their religion, their cooking, and their culture to new environments, turning the while all sorts of colours, and developing peculiarities of no


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THE GIPSY GIRL.

BY PERCIE H. SElton.

It was a summer evening. The scene was a rural lane in old England, overshadowed by hoary trees, which might have dated back to the time of the conqueror. As the soft mellow light of sunset streamed betwixt the moss-grown trunks of the trees, a young man, attired in a shooting jacket, and mounted on a sturdy pony, might have been seen slowly pacing down the lane. But although there was nothing peculiar in his attire, it was not so with his face and air, both of which were obviously above the common order. His features, indeed, were singularly handsome. A dark eye, a broad forehead, and a fine contour of face were united to a frank, good-humored expression of countenance that prepossessed the gazer at once in his favor. He jogged on for some time listlessly, when suddenly his eye caught the glare of a gipsy fire through the woods.

"Ha," he said, " are these pilferers again about ? I will have them driven off this very night. The villains ! Our house has suffered enough by them." "Shall I tell your fortune, good sir ?" said a clear, silvery voice, suddenly interrupting the muttered soliloquy of the speaker. The young man had by this time reached a rustic gate, opening out on a glade in the woods, and, as the voice which he knew to be that of a female addressed him, he looked up in some surprise. "Kind sir, will you have your fortune told ?" said the same silvery voice again, and, as the eye of the young man fell on the speaker, she blushed until the clear blood shone through her dark Andalusian skin. The young baronet, for such was the rank of the rider, gazed on her in surprise, and as he marked the beauty of the speaker his maledictions against her race faded from his thoughts. The gipsy girl was indeed a splendid creature. Those only who have looked on the divine sibyl in the Vatican can form an idea of the wild and overpowering beauty of the young Hungarian. She was at that period of life when the girl has just budded into the woman, and when every charm has mellowed down into its most voluptuous beauty. Her dark lustrous eye, the Grecian mouth and chin, and the long silken hair flowing picturesquely down from her head dress, formed a picture, which, when viewed in the approaching twilight, had a beauty almost supernatural. The young man gazed on her for a moment, completely overpowered by her bewildering beauty, and then, scarce conscious of what he did, extended her his hand. She took it, looked at it a moment, and burst into tears. Still more surprised at this conduct, he gazed at her enquiringly a moment, and as he gazed he felt a strange interest in the gipsy girl. What could be her motive ?

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Was her agitation real or affected ? He was still doubtful to which to ascribe it when the girl raised her eyes still wet with tears, and controlling her emotion by a violent effort, said, " Pardon me, but I am not what I seem-this life is * hateful to me-I cannot tell your fortune. You are young and happy, may you never be otherwise, go, and God's blessing go with you." The girl spoke almost incoherently. If his interest had been awakened before, it was now tenfold increased. But the fear that all this was a well acted part, induced him to reply in a severer strain than his feelings dictated. "Why are you not what you seem ?" he said, " and why, if you hate the life you lead, did you waylay me here to tell my fortune ?" The gipsy looked proudly up at this, and her dark eye flashed as she replied, " To save your property, perhaps your life," and looking cautiously around as if to see whether the very leaves did not wait to listen, she laid her hand on his arm, and whispered, "There is a plot to waylay you, and to-night it is to be executed. Do not pursue your way through the wood as you had intended , but return at once to the Hall. Believe me, oh ! believe me," she continued, becoming more earnest in her language , although her cheek grew red, and her voice quivered with emotion-" you may think me unworthy of credit because I come of a hated race, but, as I said before, I am not of them, though alas ! I know not who I am. Do not think that I am an agent to lead you into danger ," she continued, as she saw a look of incredulity on the young man's face, " as there is a God above us, I warn you aright. I know not why I have ventured thus boldly to accost you, unless it is that something in these old woods, in this flowery lane reminds me of happy days I once enjoyed when I was a child, in some country retreat not unlike this. I heard the plot formed to waylay you, and as you had passed here last night, and as I understood you would pass here again this evening on your way to the village, I determined to wait for you and fore-warn you of your danger . I cannot say more, for it might lead them to suspect me. Keep on till the next turning and then strike back to the Hall. Oh! do not- do not neglect this, adieu." During this hurried and agitated speech the young man had been deprived of the power of utterance by the variety of emotions that had filled his bosom. The manner of the girl was that of one speaking the truth, but yet there was a lurking distrust of her in his mind. He would have spoken, however, when she ceased, and endeavored to have elicited something more from her which would convince him or not of her truth, but, as she finished the last word, she turned hastily away and disappeared in the woods, leaving her auditor undecided what course to take. Nor, after more than a minute's


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 mortal use, and half the time of no ornament, in the matter of hair.

I know, of course, that the South-West Coast tribes have all migrated from a region in the north-east that seems to be perpetually throwing off tribe after tribe, which all come west, and die out in the swamp-lands of the West Coast; but at the same time we know, and have known for hundreds of years, quite enough of the regions beyond those from which the South-West Coast tribes—Duallas, M'pongwe, Benga, and Fan—have come during modern times, to be certain that these interesting and striking-looking hosts of human beings have not come trapesing across from Asia. I am not planting an African garden of Eden to rival the Asiatic one. I am only saying I agree with the French ethnologists and fancy there have been several points of origin of the human race.

Let, however, these things be as they may, one thing about Negro and Bantu races is very certain, and that is that their lives are dominated by a profound belief in witchcraft and its effects.

Among both alike the rule is that death is regarded as a direct consequence of the witchcraft of some malevolent human being, acting by means of spirits, over which he has, by some means or another, obtained control.

To all rules there are exceptions. Among the Calabar negroes, who are definite in their opinions, I found two classes of exceptions. The first arises from their belief in a bush-soul. They believe every man has four souls: a, the soul that survives death; b, the shadow on the path; c, the dream-soul; d, the bush-soul.

This bush-soul is always in the form of an animal in the forest—never of a plant. Sometimes when a man sickens it is because his bush-soul is angry at being neglected, and a witch-doctor is called in, who, having diagnosed this as being the cause of the complaint, advises the administration of some kind of offering to the offended one. When you wander about in the forests of the Calabar region, you will frequently see little dwarf huts with these offerings in them. You must not confuse these huts with those of similar construction you are continually seeing in plantations, or near roads, which


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 chester, and which I endeavoured to represent in this tale (completed above a year ago), has received some confirmation from the events which have so recently occurred among a similar class on the Continent.


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 should have so loved to nurse her; and I did try, until I found I did more harm than good. Oh! grandfather; if I could but see!"

She sobbed a little; and they let her give that ease to her heart. Then she went on—

"No! I—went round by Mrs. Davenport's, and she were hard at work; but, the minute I told my errand, she were ready and willing to go to Jane Wilson, and stop up all night with Alice."

"And what does the doctor say?" asked Mary.

"Oh! much what all doctors say: he puts a fence on this side, and a fence on that, for fear he should be caught tripping in his judgment. One moment he does not think there's much hope—but while there is life there is hope; th' next he says he should think she might recover partial, but her age is again her. He's ordered her leeches to her head."

Margaret, having told her tale, leant back with weariness, both of body and mind. Mary hastened to make her a cup of tea; while Job, lately so talkative, sat quiet and mournfully silent.

"I'll go first thing to-morrow morning, and learn how she is; and I'll bring word back before I go to work," said Mary.

"It's a bad job Will's gone," said Job.

"Jane does not think she knows any one," replied Margaret. "It's perhaps as well he shouldn’t see her now, for they say her face is sadly drawn. He'll remember her with her own face better, if he does not see her again."


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 refer to quite other affairs. These offerings, in the little huts in the forest, are placed where your bush-soul was last seen. Unfortunately, you are compelled to call in a doctor, which is an expense, but you cannot see your own bush-soul, unless you are an Ebumtup, a sort of second-sighter.

Ebumtupism is rare, and if you do happen to possess this gift, it is discovered by the presiding elders during your initiation to the secret society of your tribe. When it is discovered the presiding elders strongly advise that you should enter the medical profession and become a witch doctor, as this profession is a paying one, although the training for it is dreadfully expensive to your parents, for it has to be carried on by the established witch-doctor. Your parents, if you are discovered to be an Ebumtup, usually make sacrifices after the way of parents, black or white, and you proceed with your studies.

But to return to the bush-soul of an ordinary person. If the offering in the hut works well on the bush-soul, the patient recovers, but if it does not he dies. Diseases arising from derangements in the temper of the bush-soul however, even when treated by the most eminent practitioners, are very apt to be intractable, because it never realises that by injuring you it endangers its own existence. For when its human owner dies, the bush-soul can no longer find a good place, and goes mad, rushing to and fro—if it sees a fire it rushes into it; if it sees a lot of people it rushes among them, until it is killed, and when it is killed it is "finish" for it, as M. Pichault would say, for it is not an immortal soul.

The bush-souls of a family are usually the same for a man and for his sons, for a mother and for her daughters. Sometimes, however, I am told all the children take the mother's, sometimes all take the father's. They may be almost any kind of animal, sometimes they are leopards, sometimes fish, or tortoises, and so on.

There is another peculiarity about the bush-soul, and that is that it is on its account that old people are held in such esteem among the Calabar tribes. For, however bad these old people's personal record may have been, the fact of their longevity demonstrates the possession of powerful and astute


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 bush-souls. On the other hand, a man may be a quiet, respectable citizen, devoted to peace and a whole skin, and yet he may have a sadly flighty disreputable bush-soul which will get itself killed or damaged and cause him death or continual ill-health.

There is another way by which a man dies apart from the action of bush-souls or witchcraft; he may have had a bad illness from some cause in his previous life and, when reincarnated, part of this disease may get reincarnated with him and then he will ultimately die of it. There is no medicine of any avail against these reincarnated diseases.

The idea of reincarnation is very strong in the Niger Delta tribes. It exists, as far as I have been able to find out, throughout all Africa, but usually only in scattered cases, as it were; but in the Delta, most—I think I may say all—human souls of the "surviving soul" class are regarded as returning to the earth again, and undergoing a reincarnation shortly after the due burial of the soul.

These two exceptions from the rule of all deaths and sickness being caused by witchcraft are, however, of minor importance, for infinitely the larger proportion of death and sickness is held to arise from witchcraft itself, more particularly among the Bantu.

Witchcraft acts in two ways, namely, witching something out of a man, or witching something into him. The former method is used by both Negro and Bantu, but is decidedly more common among the Negroes, where the witches are continually setting traps to catch the soul that wanders from the body when a man is sleeping; and when they have caught this soul, they tie it up over the canoe fire and its owner sickens as the soul shrivels.

This is merely a regular line of business, and not an affair of individual hate or revenge. The witch does not care whose dream-soul gets into the trap, and will restore it on payment. Also witch-doctors, men of unblemished professional reputation, will keep asylums for lost souls, i.e., souls who have been out wandering and found on their return to their body that their place has been filled up by a Sisa, a low class soul I will speak of later. These doctors keep


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. power. They were already inflamed by his resistance, | and two of them were bloody with contusions, received from his loaded whip, so that he knew he should obtain no mercy from his conquerors. But he resolved to sell his life as dearly as possible. Circling his heavy whip once more around his head, he aimed a last blow at the foremost of his assailants, which brought the gipsy reeling to the earth, but, as Stanhope was recovering himself after the blow, the robber from behind, leaped on him, and pinioning the young man's arms in his own, secured their prey. At the same instant another of the gipsies rushed on the now defenceless Stanhope, and drawing a knife, raised it as if to plunge it in his bosom. "Drive it into him," growled the one who had acted as the leader, " dead men tell no tales !" "Hold ! on your life," said a voice ; and, at the moment, a hand pushed back the weapon, and the gipsy girl interposed betwixt Stanhope and his assailant. "Perdition take the girl," said the first speaker, with a curse, " give her the cold steel for her interferencethis is none of her business." The man whose murderous intentions had been for a moment baffled by the daring of the girl, jerked back his arm at these words, and raising his knife once more, aimed it at her bosom. Stanhope saw the attempt, and, by a sudden effort, loosed an arm, so as partially to ward off the stroke; but the attempt was not wholly successful, for the keen blade, although diverted from her heart, was buried in her shoulder. The warm blood gushed over her swelling bosom. "By all that is holy you shall suffer for this, villains -murderers !" shouted the infuriated Stanhope, as he saw the brutal wound given, and gaining, in the excitement of the moment, the strength of a dozen men, he shook off his assailants, and springing before the fainting girl, interposed his arm just in time to save her from a second and more deadly blow. But the contest was too unequal. Pausing only to recover themselves from the repulse, the gipsies again dashed on the defenceless Stanhope, and a surer and more unerring blow than had yet been made, was aimed at his heart ; but at that instant, the sharp report of a gun echoed across the twilight, and the assailant, leaping up, fell dead at the feet of Stanhope, who stood unharmed. Simultaneously another shot rang on the air, and the leader of the robbers fell also wounded ; while the two game-keepers rushed out from the wood, and hastened to their master's side. The whole scene passed with the rapidity of thought, and for a while Stanhope thought it was all a dream. A moment before, the blade of the assassin had been aimed at his bosom, and now the robber lay at his feet in the silence of death.

Lifting her gently up, he endeavored to staunch the blood from her wound, and in doing so he noticed, to his surprise, a ribbon, to which was suspended a miniature in a gold case. Wondering that such an ornament should be in her possession, he could not avoid looking at it. The first glance at the picture increased his astonishment. It was an old painting, and somewhat defaced, but the features were identical with those of a portrait of the late lady of the manor, the wife of his uncle, whose heir he had been. As he glanced, in curious surprise, from the miniature to the features of the inanimate girl, he saw with astonishment a counterpart of the picture, and the reason why the face of the beautiful gipsy had seemed to him not unknown, flashed on him at once. A wild thought shot through his mind -could it be ? -yet no ! -his reason was bewildered. He turned involuntarily to the wounded leader of the gipsies, whom the game-keepers were securing, and detected the man regarding him with a smile of meaning scorn. "What know you of this mystery ? In God's name speak ! She said she was no gipsy-who is she ?" The man smiled as before, but made no answer. " Answer me, and you shall go free-is she, as I suspect, my cousin ?" The game-keepers looked at each other, as if they thought their master's senses were wandering, but still the gipsy made no reply except by that meaning smile. " I conjure you-I implore you, man, brute, devil, or whatever you are, satisfy my curiosity ! I give you my honor you shall not be harmed, ask any thing else and I will give it to you." .. " Ah ! that is more like it," said the gipsy, with a brutal laugh, " why could you not have come at once to the point ? I know, as you suspect, much. But I am cursedly wounded,-let me be taken care of- sign me a deed, giving me an annuity of fifty pounds a year, and then I will tell what you wish to know. But until that is done I will say nothing." Stanhope saw that it would be useless to urge the gipsy further, and besides his attention was again engrossed by the wounded girl beside him, who now began to show signs of life. The strange interest which he had felt in this lovely being at first, was now exchanged for a deeper and warmer sentiment, and as he gazed on her face and thought how she had risked her life for him, the idea that she might be his long-lost cousin, made his heart thrill with delicious emotion. With more than a brother's care he lifted her on his horse, and staunching the blood as he best might, proceeded to the nearest cottage, where further aid was secured. Meanwhile the wounded gipsy, in furtherance Stanhope's first thought was of the gipsy girl, whose of Stanhope's bargain, was secretly conveyed to the Hall. A month had passed. In the deep embrasure of the unlooked for interposition had saved his life. She had fainted, and was now lying senseless on the ground. great window of the dining-room of the old Hall, looking


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 souls and administer them to patients who are short of the article.

But there are other witches, either wicked on their own account, or hired by people who are moved by some hatred to individuals, and then the trap is carefully set and baited for the soul of the particular man they wish to injure, and concealed in the bait at the bottom of the pot are knives and sharp hooks which tear and damage the soul, either killing it outright, or mauling it so that it causes its owner sickness on its return to him. I knew the case of a Kruman who for several nights had smelt in his dreams the savoury smell of smoked crawfish seasoned with red peppers. He became anxious, and the headman decided some witch had set a trap baited with this dainty for his dream-soul, with intent to do him grievous bodily harm, and great trouble was taken for the next few nights to prevent this soul of his from straying abroad.

My attention was drawn to the case by snorts, snores, and flumps on the Kruman's part of even more than usual violence, and I went to see what was up with the man, mentally deciding that what he wanted was a dose of my pet pill. I found him under a blanket and his nose and mouth tied over with a handkerchief. It was a sweltering hot night and the man was as wet with sweat as if he had been dragged through a river, so I suggested his muzzle should be removed and then being informed of the state of affairs regarding his soul, I of course did not interfere.

The witching of things into a man is far the most frequent method among the Bantu, hence the prevalence among them of the post-mortem examination,—a practice I never found among the Negroes.

The idea of the majority of deaths arising from witchcraft is, I believe, quite true if you will read witchcraft as poison. In a dull sort of way sometimes the black man understands it so too, as is shown by his very generally regarding the best remedy for witching as being a brisk purgative and emetic, accompanied of course with suitable ceremonies.

The belief in witchcraft is the cause of more African deaths


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THE DRUNKARD'S WIFE. AN OWRE TRUE TALE. THE grey morning was already dawning when a miserable wretch turned into a dirty alley, and entering a low, ruinous door, groped through a narrow entry, and paused at the entrance of a room within. That degraded being had once been a wealthy man, respected by his neighbors, surrounded by friends. But alas ! the social glass had first lured him to indulgence, and then to inebriety, until he was now a common drunkard.

The noise of his footsteps had been heard within, for the creaking door was timidly opened, and a pale emaciated boy, about nine years old, stepped out on the landing, and asked in mingled anxiety and dread,

"Is that you, father ?"

Yes, wet to the skin,-curse it," said the man"why ain't you abed and sleep, you brat?"

The little fellow shrunk back at this coarse salutation, but still, though shaking with fear, he did not quit his station before the door.

"What are you standing there, gaping for ?" said the wretch,-" It's bad enough to hear a sick wife grumbling all day, without having you kept up at night to chime in in the morning,-get to bed, you imp,-do you hear ?" The little fellow did not answer ; fear seemed to have deprived him of speech ; but still holding on to the doorlatch, with an imploring look, he stood right in the way by which his parent would have to enter the room. "Ain't you going to mind ?" said the man with an oath, breaking into a fury, " give me the lamp and go to bed, or I'll break every bone in your body." "Oh ! father don't talk so loud," said the little fellow bursting into tears-" you'll wake mother, she's been worse all day, and hasn't had any sleep till now,"-and as the man made an effort to snatch the candle, the boy, losing all personal fears in anxiety for his sick mother, stood firmly across the drunkard's path and said, " you mustn't, you mustn't go in." "What does the brat mean ?" broke out the inebriate angrily "this comes of leaving you to wait on your mother till you learn to be as obstinate as a mule-will you disobey me ?-take that, and that, you imp," and raising his hand he struck the little sickly being to the floor, kicked aside his body, and strode into the dilapidated room. It was truly a fitting place for the home of such a vagabond as he. The walls were low, covered with smoke, and seamed with a hundred cracks. The chimney-piece had once been white, but was now of the greasy lead color of age. The ceiling had lost most of the plaster, and the rain soaking through, dripped with a monotonous tick upon the floor. A few broken chairs, a cracked looking glass, and a three-legged table, on which was a rimless cup, were in different parts of the room. But the most striking spectacle was directly before the gambler. On a ricketty bed lay the wife of his bosom, the once rich and beautiful Emily Languerre, who, through poverty, shame, and sickness, had still clung to the lover of her youth. Oh ! woman, thy constancy the world cannot shake, nor shame nor misery subdue. Friend after friend had deserted that ruined man ; indignity after indignity had been heaped upon him, and deservedly ; year by year he had fallen lower and lower in the sink of infamy ; and yet still through every mishap that sainted woman had clung to him,for he was the father of her boy, and the husband of her youth. It was a hard task for her to perform ; but it was her duty, and when all the world deserted him should she too leave him ? She had borne much, but alas ! nature could endure no more. Health had fled from her cheeks, and her eyes were dim and sunken. She was in the last stage of consumption, but it was not that which was killing her,—she was dying ofa broken heart. The noise made by her husband awoke her from her troubled sleep, and she half started up in bed, the hectic fire streaming along her cheek, and a wild, fitful light shooting into her sunken eyes. There was a faint, shadowy smile lighting up her face, but it was as cold as moonlight upon snow. The sight might have moved a felon's bosom, but what can penetrate the seared and hardened heart of drunkenness ? The man besides was in a passion. "Blast it, woman," said the wretch, as he reeled into the room-" is this the way you receive me after being out all day in the rain to get something for your brat and you ? Come, don't go to whining, I say"--but as his wife uttered a faint cry at his brutality, and fell back senseless on the bed, he seemed to awaken to a partial sense of his condition, he reeled a step or two forward, put his hand up to his forehead, stared wildly around, and then gazing almost vacantly upon her, continued, "but- why--what's the matter ?" His poor wife lay like a corpse before him, but a low voice from the other side of the bed answered, and its tones quivered as they spoke. " Oh !-mother's dead !" It was the voice of his son who had stolen in, and was now sobbing violently as he tried to raise her head in his little arms. He had been for weeks her only nurse, and had long since learned to act for himself. He bathed her temples, he chafed her limbs, he invoked her wildly to awake. "Dead !" said the man, and he was sobered at once"dead, dead," he continued in a tone of horror that chilled the blood, and advancing to the bedside, with eyes starting from their sockets, he laid his hand upon her marble brow, " then, oh, my God ! I have murdered her ! Emily, Emily, you are not dead, --say so--oh !


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MARRYING AN HEIRESS ;

OR, THE FAMILY OF THE DOBBS.

BY B. B. THOM.

It was one of the few fine days in the month of last July, that a splendid cab, drawn by a noble grey horse, was seen passing down one of those sweet rural lanes that are to be found in the neighborhood of one of our chief commercial cities. It stopped in front of a twostoried, small, red-colored house, which displayed between the outside garden door and the porch a number of orange lilies, from the centre of which rose a plaisterof-Paris image of Apollo. Two young gentlemen, dressed in the first style of fashion, dismounted from the cab, and, stopping in the garden to contemplate with astonishment this extraordinary ornament, they rapped at the door, and, upon its being opened, asked if Mr. Egremont was at home.

Egremont !" said the gardener, who on this occasion evidently acted as the valet ; " Egremont ! gentlemen, you are under a mistake ; there is no such person living here. This is Mr. Dobbs'."

"Oh ! now I think, I do recollect that the name of the father-in-law of our friend Alfred is Dobbs. We are under no mistake ; we wish to see the son-in-law of Mr. Dobbs." "Ah ! yes, yes, the son-in-law ; that is the husband of our young mistress. Aye, aye ; all right ; I'll go and tell him. You can in the mean time walk in the garden." "Let him know that there are two of his friends here -Gustavus Mandeville and William Creed. The gardener disappeared. "I expected to find a handsome villa," said Mandeville to his companion, " and I find nothing but a shocking vulgar-looking cottage." “Yes ; but you see here," said William Creed, pointing to the garden at the rear of the house, " that this is a very large one, and, as it appears to me, kept in excellent order ; although a little too well stocked with vegetables for my taste. But what matters the outside appearance of a house, if the interior is comfortable ? Besides, I am quite sure that Egremont's father-in-law is rich." "So much the better ; for Egremont required some secure and snug post after his sad shipwreck ; and then I am quite sure, with his ideas of elegance, and his luxurious tastes, that every thing must be put sur un bon pied." "That I calculate upon. The dashing Ergemont, no doubt, employs in a profuse style the fortune made by the thrifty Mr. Dobbs." "Where are they ? where are my dear friends ?" said a third person, who ran from under a shady grove of trees. It was Alfred Ergemont ! a fattish, red-faced young man, dressed in a fustian shooting jacket, with white | VOL. I.- 10

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grey canvass trousers that did not come down to his ancles, and having on his feet thick hob-nailed shoes ; while on his head was a skimping straw hat, and round his neck an old colored cotton handkerchief. His two friends looked at him for an instant, without being able to recognize him ; but he said laughingly to them, and shaking their hands— 66 You find me a little changed, perhaps. The air of the fields, and the peace of a happy home, have produced these good results. I, who was so thin and so pale, am now stout and blooming. The country has given me a complexion, and happiness has thickened my waist ; then I have shaved away my whiskers, because my wife does not like them ; and I have cropped my head until it looks like that of a recruit, instead of wearing my hair like a German, because my beloved mother-in-law could not endure the sight of it. Besides I have given up all notion of fashion. It is very well in the city, or when one is unmarried ; but when we live in the country, and only wish to please ourselves, and to be perfectly at our ease, why then one dresses as they like-as I do. So, you see, the metamorphosis is perfect." And so in fact it was. There was a time, when the most elegantly dressed man, with the handsomest turn out, with the finest house, and the most excellent winecellar in the city, was Alfred Egremont ; but then, one morning-it was a lovely morning, and followed that on which a great race was won-Alfred Egremont was completely, utterly, irretrievably ruined. But, in the midst of all his misfortunes, one plank of safety presented itself, and, clinging to that, he might reach the shore in safety. The brilliant position and shining attractions of the young exquisite had made a deep impression upon the heart of Tabitha Dobbs, the daughter of the richest green-grocer in the city. Mr. and Mrs. Dobbs were pains-taking, saving, griping, calculating shopkeepers, who had an utter abomination for fashion and all its luxuries ; and they, therefore, at first, declared their decided objection to a union between Mr. Alfred Egremont and their beloved daughter, Tabitha. The young lady was, however, their only child ; and they yielded at length to her wishes. Besides, Alfred promised to reform, and they were resolved he should keep his word. He determined to give up his house, and to live altogether in the country, with his father-in-law. From the time of his marriage Alfred appeared no more in the city ; and it was remarked, that not one of his intimate friends had been invited to his nuptials. People only knew of the happiness he was enjoying by report. He had, however, written several times to his friends, Mandeville and Creed, and requested them to come and see him. They at length determined upon paying him a visit ; they did so one day when ennui had awakened in their hearts the remembrance of their old friend, and the desire for some new amusement.


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she has good teeth. There is thought in her eyes, and a grace in her smile. And then she is so accomplished ; so full of talent ; there it is that she shines. But you shall hear her sing."

Mr. Dobbs reproached his son-in-law on the impropriety and vulgarity of " whispering in company," and then the conversation became general. The old greengrocer railed against the fashionable world, and he told the company what had been the price of the six-percents. every week for the three preceding years.

"These things are his hobby," said Alfred ; " you must pardon him his sarcastic humor and his conversation. It is that of an old shopkeeper, who has gone upon ' change, and acquired an immense fortune, with great honor to himself." Mrs. Dobbs echoed all the observations of her husband, and Mrs. Egremont threw out several piquant observations, which seemed to be particularly intended for the benefit of all spend-thrift dandies. As to the mother-inlaw, she glared upon Alfred like a wild cat, when she said"Have you done what I desired you this morning ?" "Yes, my dear mother," replied Alfred with extreme meekness. "Whydon't you answer me ?" said Mrs. Dobbs ; "but it is your usual careless way." " Pardon me, I was speaking to those gentlemen," replied Alfred, happy in being able to think he had so good an excuse. "What shall we do until dinner is dressed ?" observed Mr. Dobbs. "Well, well," chimed in Tabitha, " I never did see such a man. You never have a word to throw to a dog. You sit there like a fool. It is for you to answer papa's question. You ought to know the taste of these gentlemen-of your friends.” "Pardon me, my dearest angel, I was just thinking-I believe we shall take a walk in the neighborhood." "In the neighborhood, indeed !" said Mr. Dobbs. "Only just listen ! as if my grounds were not large enough for him. We will go first to the piggery, and then into the kitchen-garden, and then we shall look at my pond, where there are some fine eels, and fifteen golden fish, and then we will take a walk into the orchard- " "And then into the paddock," said Alfred. "Well, if I ever heard the like ! The paddock he calls it. Would the word park burn your tongue, my hopeful son-in-law." "Yes, you are right ; I ought to have said park," humbly replied Alfred. They set out for their promenade. "Alfred, shut all the windows, and close the door after us," said Mr. Dobbs. " Alfred, run and fetch Juno," said the mother-in-law.

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" Alfred, bring me my parasol, my scarf, and my reticule," said Tabitha." Alfred executed all these commissions with the quickness of a man who was well accustomed to them. " These are very good people,” said he to his old acquaintances ; " very good people indeed. I do for them just as they do for me. They overwhelm me with their little cares, and I good naturedly bear them." During the walk Alfred was frequently called upon to do something for his wife or her family. On their return they had dinner, which was at the same time shabby, and yet aping what is fashionable. It was half cold, and half burnt. Alfred was two or three times invited to stand up and change the plates, or fill the glasses. Mr. Dobbs, from the moment that soup was placed before him, until the dessert was removed, never stopped talking. " I think I shall smoke a cigar in the garden," said Creed to his friend Alfred. "Smoke ! Oh, don't think of it, my dear fellow ; the cigar is a thing proscribed in this abode." "Well, then, a little farther off-in the park, as Mr. Dobbs calls it ?" "No, no ; for if there was the slightest smell of it, my wife or my mother-in-law would nose it out. Besides, we expect company ; neighbors, who are coming to pass the evening with us; and we shall have a great deal of amusement ; for my wife is going to play on the piano. Listen !" There was no doubt that there was playing on the piano ; for the instrument groaned under the heavy fingers of Tabitha, who played in an inexplicable manner some most difficult pieces. Then, yielding to the request of her mother, Mrs. Egremont sung three of the most favorite airs of Grisi, and gave them with the most astonishing quavers, and almost incredible flourishes. Every time she stopped, Alfred was the first to applaud. The visitors arrived during the concert ; and at its conclusion Mr. Dobbs proposed they should play loo at a halfpenny a fish. "It is quite impossible," answered in the one breath Creed and Mandeville ; " for we must now leave you. It will be some time advanced in the night before we can reach the city." "What !" cried Alfred, " don't you intend to sleep here ? Only think that—” But a look, like that of a basilisk, from Mrs. Dobbs, fascinated Alfred in the midst of his burst of hospitality and friendship. He stopped, and assisted his friends into the vehicle that had conveyed them from town. 66 You have," said he, "been the eye-witnesses of my domestic happiness ; and may you profit by my example !" "Oh, yes," they replied, " it is an excellent lesson for us." The cab started off at a gallop.


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passed freely in the market. Mr. Longfellow’s poems wore read with interest, if not with avidity. Their high tocrit secured them an instant reputation. Their surcess was unexampled. Men, who had seen other excellent poets left in obscurity, wondered at this, and cried out that the days of the miracles had returned. But they did not compchend the causes which led to this sudden popularity. The merit of these poems will not alone explain their success, ‘They had several qualitice~apart from their poetic worth—-which recommended them to the public taste. They were strongly imbued with the romantic spirit. They were comfortably short. They wero condensed. They had an occasional conceit amounting almost to quaintness, which stimulated dull folks and auited people who were rummaging for novele ties, These things pleased the taste of the day, and secured the popularity of the poems, But they had nothing to do with the real merit of the poetry.

They commended it to this generation, but will they commend it to all time? We think not, ‘The august simplicity which ia occasionally seen in Longfellow, will indeed always command applause; but the affectation, involution and strained metaphor which as often appear in his poctry will find little favor with posterity, Ho has written too much after a school to continne to enjoy a reputation as great as that which he now enjoys, That which commends him to this generation will detract frora his merit in the next, His extravagance, which, from its novelty, adds to his popularity, will share the same fate as the quirks of the poets who wrote for the palled courtiera of Charles the Second. A purer taste ‘will arise, and these mneretricious ornaments will be dis- carded as worthless. But he will still be immortal. His extravagance is only occasional. He has written many fine poems. His productions, moreover, increase in merit as he grows older.

The second volume of Longfellow is eupetior to his first, inasmuch as it has less of these merctricious adorn ments, The original poems which it contains are supe- rior to thoae in “The Voices of the Night,” displaying « progressive excellence which justifies our opinion of the high genius of Mr. Longfellow. Let us he understood. We find fault with much of what Mr. Longfellow has written, for we regard him as capable of better things; and in all his works we see glimpses rather of what he might be, than of what ho i We look on the divinity but we do not hear his voice. Yet we believe Mr. Longfellow to be as conscious of his faulle as we are ourselves; and wo happen to know that he will listen fasorably to honest criticise,

Our limite will not allow us to go into a detailed examination of the poems which have appeared in Mr. Longfellow’s two volumes. Nor is it necessary that we should. The public is already familiar with his finest pieces, and it would be a work of supererogation to

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quote largely from the volumos on our table. We shall content ourselves, therefore, with a single apecimen from the volume first published, But of the contenta of its successor we shall avail oursclves more frecly, The poem we shall sclect from “The Voices of the Night” is one which has already been extensively quoted; but we insert it here because it is, porhaps, the best specimen of the peculiat merits and demerits which we commented on as characterising Longfellow’ enrlier pocms. «The Hymn to the Night” may be taken os a type of the earlier volume,

er rable skirts all From the celestial

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T felt hot prosenco, by its spell of Night Stoop o'er ine from above;

The calm, majestic presence of the Night, As of the one T love.

T heard th

iines iambers of the Night thy:

From the cool cisterns of the midnight air ‘My spirit drank reposn;

The funtain of perpetual perce fows there— From those deep cisterns flows,

© holy Night! from thee I learn to bear ‘What man hax borne before!

‘Thou Invest thy finger on the lips of care, And they complain no snore.

Peace! Prace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer! Descend with broad winged fizht,.

The weleome, the thrice prayed for, the most fair, "The best-loved Night.

‘The opening of this poom is inexpressihly grand, and comes actoss the sou! like a strain of solemn music heard unexpectedly in a “dim cathedral aisle,” ‘There is « son- sation of aweawakened in the mind hy the twa first verscs, which clings to us throughout the whole poem,

From the other volume on our table we shall quote mote largely, both because the poems are better, and because they are less generally known, Before, how- ever, we proceed to those which are our expecial favore ites, wo have a wonl or two to say on some of the metaphors of Mr. Longfellow. For instance in a fine poem to the River Charles wo have the following :

“More than thie;—thy name reminds me ‘Of three friends, all true and tried ;

And that name, tike mazie binds me Clover, closer to thy side.

Friends my son! with jay remembers! Hoo like quivering flames they start, When J fan the living embers On the hearth-stone of my heart!”

Now these three lines which we have italicised have been beld up, by moro than one critic, as the finest in the pocm, and the metaphor contained in them has been the theme of much applause. To all this we enter our caveat. There is too much of conceit in the inetaphor �


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With thy rude ploughshare, Death, turn up the sod, And spread the furrow for the seed we sow ; This is the field and Acre of our God, This is the place where human harvests grow !"

Here we close our quotations from the volumes before us. It would not be doing justice to Mr. Longfellow if we were to encroach further on his copy-right, and we have only made these few quotations in order to give the public some idea of his best qualities. The stanzas on the Skeleton in Armor, the lines on a village Blacksmith, a little piece called the " Rainy Day," and two poems of a superior order, one entitled " The Goblet of Life," and the other addressed " To the river Charles," are our favorites in this collection.

We leave Mr. Longfellow with a single remark- he is in danger of idling away his years. He has a cozy professorship, he is endowed with a scholarly taste, his bent is toward the epicurean creed, " enjoy life easily." He has genius, high genius ; but then he loves "to take his ease in his inn.” The incentive to prolonged, incessant, arduous exertion, which goads so many to immortality, is wanting to Longfellow. He is playing the part of Gray, and, like Gray, verily he will have his reward. Posterity will despise his indolence, while they admire his poems. Enjoying the applause of a circle of friends, he is content with their approbation, or, if he aspires after a more extended fame, he wants the energy to struggle for it. He seems to write for his clique, and then coolly to take his chance with the public, reasoning much as Sancho Panza did, " but let them say of me what they list, I neither lose nor win, and so my name be but in print, and go about the world from hand to hand, I care not a fig." Now this may be the true philosophy for a man who loves the ease of his study before the honors of the world; but it is not the creed which, if acted out, will make a poet immortal.

ARABIAN SONG.

BY THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD. MEET me at even, my own true love, Meet me at even, my honey, my dove, While the mountain revealing The cool fountain stealing, Away and away Through flow'rets so gay, Singing its silver roundelay. Love is the fountain of life and bliss, Love is the valley of joyfulness ; A garden of roses, Where rapture reposes,A temple of light All heavenly bright ; Oh, virtuous love is the soul's delight!

ΝΟΙΝΑ.

A TALE OF WYOMING. WHEN we admire a spot for its beauty, or love it for the associations of the past which cluster around it, we are prone to shed over even its trivial incidents a glory borrowed from the intensity of our own feelings ; and are hence surprised that others gaze, with coldness or contempt, upon the objects of our deep enthusiasm. It may be thus perchance with this little tale, that has come whispering downward on the breezes of tradition, like the first echo of some far-off melody. We must go backward far-years before even the Genoese had dreamed of that new world, which was to immortalize his name, and man's ingratitude, ""Twas summer in Wyoming ;"

but, then were there no golden seas of grain, rolling in mimic waves beneath the breezes that swept down from her mountains- no broad belts of green pasture land stretching, as now, far away into the dense forest, like civilization pressing with swift foot upon barbarism. All was one continuous waste of trees upon the mountain, and trees upon the plain ; save where the silvery Susquehanna wound, gleaming in the sunlight, and sending back a free, broad smile to the Day God's wooing. The valley, even then, in its pristine wildness, presented a landscape of no ordinary character, with its graceful regularity of form, as if chiselled out with exquisite skill from the mountains that sweep around it- its universal green, relieved, and brilliantly adorned by the clear stream, that sparkled onward in its serpentine course through the very centre, receiving at times a brawling tributary that dashed down from the hills to meet her, and at times parting her waters to encircle some fairy islet, that gleamed like an emerald in its rich setting. It was when the wild hunter still roamed, the tenant of nature, over this lovely spot, in the brightest season of the year, that a bold young chieftain erected his wigwam, and led to it in triumph, the lovely Noinathe flower of the valley-his Indian bride. She was the admiration of the whole tribe of the Shawnees, and the enamored bridegroom, as he first gazed upon her in her new home, her dark eyes sparkling with happiness, felt a joy such as only those who have felt such emotions can describe. The happy pair chose, for their future abode, a lone romantic spot, near where the river first breaks into the valley, and far above the villages of their tribe, as if they wanted to fly from the gross sensuality that reigned there ; and find a holier society in nature, and their own pure hearts. They dwelt upon a narrow strip of lowland, between the mountains and the stream ; across the latter, directly opposite their wigwam, rose bold, and broad, and high, a perpendicular ledge of rocks,


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 than anything else. It has killed and still kills more men and women than the slave-trade. Its only rival is perhaps the smallpox, the Grand Kraw-Kraw, as the Krumen graphically call it.

At almost every death a suspicion of witchcraft arises. The witch-doctor is called in, and proceeds to find out the guilty person. Then woe to the unpopular men, the weak women, and the slaves; for on some of them will fall the accusation that means ordeal by poison, or fire, followed, if these point to guilt, as from their nature they usually do, by a terrible death: slow roasting alive—mutilation by degrees before the throat is mercifully cut—tying to stakes at low tide that the high tide may come and drown—and any other death human ingenuity and hate can devise.

The terror in which witchcraft is held is interesting in spite of all its horror. I have seen mild, gentle men and women turned by it, in a moment, to incarnate fiends, ready to rend and destroy those who a second before were nearest and dearest to them. Terrible is the fear that falls like a spell upon a village when a big man, or big woman is just known to be dead. The very men catch their breaths, and grow grey round the lips, and then every one, particularly those belonging to the household of the deceased, goes in for the most demonstrative exhibition of grief. Long, low howls creep up out of the first silence—those blood-curdling, infinitely melancholy, wailing howls—once heard, never to be forgotten.

The men tear off their clothes and wear only the most filthy rags; women, particularly the widows, take off ornaments and almost all dress; their faces are painted white with chalk, their heads are shaven, and they sit crouched on the earth in the house, in the attitude of abasement, the hands resting on the shoulders, palm downwards, not crossed across the breast, unless they are going into the street.

Meanwhile the witch-doctor has been sent for, if he is not already present, and he sets to work in different ways to find out who are the persons guilty of causing the death.

Whether the methods vary with the tribe, or with the individual witch-doctor, I cannot absolutely say, but I think largely with the latter.


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THE BLIND BARONET.

- BY H. SYMMES.

"Mr good Saunders," said Miss Sarah King, at the moment of mounting her carriage, " I recommend your master particularly to your care ; and during my short absence, I confide him to your long-tried devotion and affection. I ask from you, for him, care that will be ever attentive, delicate, patient, enduring, full of thought -in short, the care as if of a woman. Always remember that Sir Richard Elrington is deprived of sight, and that our eyes ought to obey his thoughts, as his own eyes formerly did."

"My dear Sarah," said Sir Richard, pressing with affection the hands of his young lady, " Saunders will endeavor to imitate the example you have given him, and he will show himself, you may rest assured of it, the most attentive as well as faithful of guardians during your absence. Go, then, and go without inquietude." "I must depart, Richard ; but to part from you without inquietude, that is impossible, for you know not all that " " I know," resumed Sir Richard, interrupting her, " that you are an angel of goodness and patience. I know that you are young, rich, and full of intellect, have come to bury yourself in a solitude ; and that you have wished to pass the prime of your life in the society of a blind man, that his infirmity makes sullen and morose. All this I know perfectly well ; but, then, I do not know how to pay the deep debt of gratitude that I owe you. Gratitude is but a cold feeling ; and love it is impossible. Why do you disdain the love of a blind man ?" "Reflect on that which it is becoming in me to do," replied the lady. " Do you wish to force me to repeat to you the fact that I am ugly." " I cannot and will not believe it, my dear Sarah. I am certain that you slander yourself. It is the feelings of the heart that cast a light upon the countenance, and therefore you must be most beautiful." “ And you are blind who say this, dear Richard. Ah ! if it were possible, that in your single glance you could embrace the entire universe, and that I alone, like an invisible fairy, might love you ; but a truce to this, it grows late, and I must be on my journey. Adieu ! then, I shall be back in less than eight days. Meanwhile, give me the benefit of your infirmity, and do not see me in your imagination as being too ugly. Again, and again, adieu ! Saunders, as to you, do not forget." The horses started off at a gallop, and when the rolling of the wheels was no longer heard, Sir Richard grasped the arm of Saunders with a vivacity and emotion that made the old servant tremble. 66 Run, Saunders," said he, "run for the Doctor. He is prepared, and only waits to be sent for." VOL. I.- 11

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Saunders quitted the house in haste, and in a quarter of an hour he returned with the Doctor. "I am ready to undergo the operation of which you have already spoken to me, sir," said the patient, " and you will therefore be so good as to begin it at once." " There may," answered the Doctor, "be two means adopted for the purpose of restoring you to your sight. The first consists in an operation that is very simple, and of the success of which, I entertain the strongest confidence. In the event that my expectation should be foiled, then there is another mode of treatment to be adopted : it is more tedious, more difficult, more dangerous, perhaps, but the ultimate cure, in such cases as yours, is beyond a doubt." "Try, then, your first method, Doctor, and all I hope is, that it may be as successful as you wish it." The Doctor took his instruments, and at the end of ten minutes the operation was over. The Doctor said that he had the best hopes, and that he should return at the end of three days, to remove the dressing. In grasping his hand, the baronet placed in it a hundred pound note, and then sat himself down to pass over these three days of expectation as patiently as he possibly could. But when the moment arrived at which his fate was to be decided, his anxiety increased to such a degree, as to be no longer endurable. At one moment the patient fancied he could see the pale reflection of a ray of light, that was obscured by the superincumbent bandages ; and at another that there was only before his eyes those mote-filled glares that are the incessant illusions of a gaze that is lost in profound obscurity. In vain he sought, he struggled to be calm. His hand agitated by a convulsive movement, applied itself to the dressing. Scon reason was overcome the knot was untied- the bandages fell to the earth. Alas ! profound night covered with its dark and dismal veil the sight of the blind man ! He leant his head upon his breast. He closed his eye-lids, a useless protection given by Nature to such as he, and then the tears coursed each other continuously, but slowly down his cheeks. But soon he felt ashamed of his womanly weakness. He slowly raised his head and the lids opened, when oh ! inexpressible happiness ! -an ardent, strongly-colored ray of light, penetrated even to his very brain. It was a ray of the blessed light from a glorious sun of June, that had crept through the crevices of the double blinds, that reached his sight. He stood up greatly agitated ; and in the dim obscurity of the apartment he was able to recognise many objects well-known to his touch. At first he saw them but confusedly ; and afterward in a more distinct manner. At the same instant the noise of a carriage told him of the approach of his preserver. He rushed forward to meet him, and exclaimed with enthusiastic joy, " I see, Doctor, I see !" The folding doors were quickly opened ; it was Sarah