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

all."

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

"Bless you, man," replied Tom, "how can you say so. I am downright

chilly; but as there is to be dancing, it is better it should be so."

"If you find this room warm, Harry," said Mrs. Castleton, "you had

better go in the dancing-room--there is not a spark of fire there."

Harry walked off, and Emma said,

"I don't know what is the matter with him--he's so cross. He has been

so irritable all day that I have hardly dared to speak to him."

Tom only laughed.

Mrs. Castleton gave him a quick look of intelligence, but before she

had time to speak, she was called upon to receive her guests, who

began to come.

At every fresh arrival Harry's face was to be seen peeping in

anxiously from the dancing-room, and it wore something of a look of

relief as he turned off each time to resume his restless wanderings in

the still empty apartment.

Miss Dawson, meaning to be very fashionable, came late. The bride for

whom the party was ostensibly given had arrived; and Mrs. Castleton

was about giving orders to have the dancing-room thrown open, and just

at the pause that frequently precedes such a movement in a small

party, the door was thrown open, and Miss Dawson entered, leaning on

the arm of a gentleman whom she introduced as Mr. Hardwicks. Now this

Mr. Hardwicks was something more than Mrs. Castleton had bargained

for; and Harry hastened forward with a look of some embarrassment and

vexation as he perceived the mistake his fair friend had made in

taking such a liberty with his high-bred sister. Miss Dawson had often

taken _him_ to parties with her, and somehow it had not struck him

then as strange. Perhaps it was because he saw it was the style among

those around him. But these were not the "customs of Branksome Hall;"

and Harry was evidently annoyed. Moreover, this Mr. Hardwicks was a

forward, under-bred looking individual, with a quantity of black

whisker, and brass buttons to his claret-colored coat, altogether a

very different looking person from the black-coated, gentlemanly-looking

set that Mrs. Castleton had invited. She received him with a graceful

but distant bow, somewhat annoyed, it is true; but as she never

allowed trifles to disturb her, she turned calmly away, and never gave

him a second thought during the evening.

Miss Dawson she received with _empressement_. She was dressed to her

heart's delight, with a profusion of mock pearl and tinsel; her hair

in a shower of long curls in front, with any quantity of bows and

braids behind, and a wreath!--that required all Mrs. Castleton's

self-possession to look at without laughing. Her entrance excited no

little sensation--for she was a striking-looking girl, being tall, and

full formed, with a very brilliant complexion. Simply and quietly

dressed, and she would have been decidedly handsome; but as it was,

she was intensely _showy_ and vulgar.

"Harry, the music is just beginning; you will find a place for Miss

Dawson in the dancing-room," and so, whether he would or no, he had to

ask her to dance. Probably he would have done so if his sister had let

him alone; but as it was, he felt as if he _had_ to.

She danced very badly. Harry had not been aware of it before; but she

jumped up and down--and if the truth must be told, with an air and

spirit of enjoyment not just then the fashionable style.

"How in earnest your fair friend dances," said a young man, with a

smile, to Harry, as they passed in the dance.

Harry colored.

"Who on earth have you there, Harry?" asked another, with rather a

quizzical look. "Introduce me, wont you?" But Harry affected not to

hear the request.

"Who is the young lady your brother is dancing with, Mrs. Castleton?"

he heard asked several times; to which his sister answered in her

sweetest and most winning manner, "Miss Dawson--a friend of Harry's;"

and to some of her brother's particular friends, he heard her say,

"Oh, that's Harry's _belle_. Don't you know Miss Dawson--let me

introduce you."

Harry felt quite provoked, he did not know why, at hearing his sister

couple _him_ always with Miss Dawson; and if he thought the room hot

at the beginning of the dance, he did not feel it any cooler before it

was over.

Mrs. Castleton introduced a gentleman just as the dance finished, who

asked her for the next, when Harry said quickly,

"You are fatigued, are you not? Perhaps you had better go with me and

get an ice."

"Do you go and bring Miss Dawson one," said his sister. "I hope," she

continued, "you are not fatigued already?"

"Oh, no," replied the young lady, with an animation and energy that

proclaimed she had a dancing power within not to be readily exhausted.

"Oh, no, indeed; I could dance all night."

"I am glad to hear it," said Mrs. Castleton, graciously, as if she

felt her dancing a personal compliment. And before the dance was over

she had introduced half a dozen young men to her.

Feeling herself a decided belle, Miss Dawson was in high spirits (that

trying test to an unrefined woman.) She considered Mrs. Castleton's

visit and invitation as a marked compliment, (as she had every right

to do,) and her attentions now, and the admiration she received,

excited her to even more than her ordinary animation, which was

always, to say the least of it, sufficient. She laughed, and she

talked, and shook her long curls about, and flirted in a style that

made the ladies look, and the gentlemen smile. Moreover, Mr.

Hardwicks, who knew no one else, (for Mrs. Castleton had no idea of

forcing _him_ on any of her friends,) never left her side; and the

easy manner in which he spoke to her, and took her fan from her hand

while she was talking, and even touched her sleeve to call her

attention when her head was turned away, all of which she seemed to

think quite natural, made Harry color, and bite his lip more than once

with mortification and vexation.

"You are not going to waltz?" he said, justly distrusting the waltzing

of a lady who danced so.

"Yes," she said, "with Mr. Hardwicks;" and in a moment they were

whirling round in a style quite peculiar, and altogether new to the

accomplished waltzers then and there assembled.

People looked, and some smiled--and then couple after couple paused in

the dance to gaze on the strangers who had just taken the floor--and

soon they had it all to themselves, and on they whirled like mad ones.

Harry could not stand it--he left the room.

Presently some of his young friends followed him, who seemed

excessively amused, and one of them exclaimed,

"Harry, where on earth did you pick up those extraordinary waltzers.

Mrs. Castleton tells me they are friends of yours?"

Harry muttered something, and said,

"Hardwicks should not ask any woman to waltz. He did not know how; no

man should, if he could not waltz himself."

"Are you dancing, Francis?" asked another, of a fashionable looking

young man standing near.

"No," he replied, languidly, "I am exhausted. I danced with Harry's

fair friend the last dance, and it requires no small degree of

physical power to keep pace with her efforts."

Harry was excessively annoyed. He heartily wished he had never seen

her; and was quite angry with Mrs. Castleton for having invited her.

And just then, irritated and cross as he was, Mrs. Castleton met him

with,

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

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

"Well, go and make your own apology," and before he had time to know

what she was about, she had her arm in his, and had taken him up to

Miss Dawson, saying,

"Here is the culprit, Miss Dawson--but he pleads not guilty;"

whereupon the young lady tapped him with her fan, and declared he was

a "sad fellow," and shook her curls back, and looked up in his face,

and flirted, as she thought, bewitchingly, while he with pleasure

could have boxed her ears.

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

after.

"Why, Harry!" exclaimed his sister, looking almost shocked at his

evident desire to hurry away her guest. "You surely don't think of

going yet. Miss Dawson?" said she, in her most persuasive manner. "You

will dance this polka."

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

ploughshares himself.

"The scheme works to admiration," said Mrs. Castleton to Emma, as they

met for a moment in the crowd.

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

"Not at all," she answered, laughing, "what it has withdrawn in

elegance, it has made up in spirit. The joke seems to take

wonderfully."

But Emma did not like such "jokes." Mrs. Castleton's _hauteur_ was of

a more flexible kind. To spoil a match she was willing to spoil her

party.

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

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

Harry had in vain attempted to persuade Miss Dawson that she was

heated and tired, and had better not polka; but the young lady thought

him over-careful, and chose to dance.

"A willful thing!" muttered Harry, as he turned off. "Trifles show the

temper--preserve me from an unamiable woman."

Now Miss Dawson was not unamiable, but Harry was cross. If he were

ashamed of her, she was hardly to be expected to know that. At any

rate he walked off and left her to take care of herself. Mr. Hardwicks

took her home as he had brought her--and Harry hardly looked at her

again.

He was thoroughly out of humor. Mrs. Castleton had discretion enough

not to follow up her victory. She saw she was successful, and so left

things to their own course.

Never was a "dissolving view" more perfect. Harry had really imagined

Miss Dawson not only very beautiful, but thought she would grace any

drawing-room in Europe. He now saw her hoydenish, flirty, and

ungraceful, with beauty of a very unrefined style--in fact, a

different person. Such is the power of contrast, and the effect of a

"new light."

The spell was broken--for when a lover is mortified, ashamed of his

choice, the danger is over.

Fortunately, his honor was no deeper pledged than his heart. Miss

Dawson had not flirted more with him than with two or three others;

and though she would have preferred him, one of the others would do.

* * * * *

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

her sister.

"He merely said 'it was a great bore, this going out,' and seemed

quite cross, and took his light and walked off to his room

immediately; and, in fact, it seemed such a delicate point with him,

that I did not dare to make any allusion to it this morning."

"Poor fellow! I don't wonder," said Mrs. Castleton, laughing. "How she

did look beside the Claverings and Lesters."

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

* * * * *

"Laura," said Harry, a few days after, "I am going to New Orleans for

the rest of the winter."

"Are you?" she said, in surprise.

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

for him."

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

said.

"I've changed my mind," he replied. "In fact it is very dull here, and

as Tom don't want to go, I think I shall like the trip."

"I've no doubt you will find it very pleasant," she said, cheerfully,

amused at his proposing himself the very thing they had all been so

anxious to have him do, and which he had negatived so decidedly some

weeks back.

* * * * *

"Ah, Tom," said Mrs. Castleton, laughing, "that was a bright idea of

yours. There's nothing like a new light for bringing out new colors. I

think that party of mine finished Miss Dawson."

"You need not crow too much, Laura," replied Tom, "for, in all

probability, if you had left Harry alone in the beginning, the party

never would have been required. You women never learn not to thwart

and oppose a man until it is too late. _Then_, you'll move heaven and

earth to undo your own work. If you would only govern that 'unruly

member' in the beginning, you would have required no 'dissolving

views, in the end."

THE VOICE OF THE FIRE.

BY J. BAYARD TAYLOR.

They sat by the hearth-stone, broad and bright,

Whose burning brands threw a cheerful light

On the frosty calm of the winter's night.

Her radiant features wore the gleam

Which childhood learns from an angel-dream,

And her bright hair stirred in the flickering beam.

Those tresses soft to his lips were pressed,

Her head was leaned on his happy breast,

And the throb of the bosom his soul expressed;

And ever a gentle murmur came

From the clear, bright heart of the wavering flame,

Like the faltering thrill of a worshiped name.

He kissed her on the warm, white brow,

And told her in fonder words, the vow

He whispered under the moonlit bough;

And o'er them a steady radiance came

From the shining heart of the mounting flame,

Like a love that burns through life the same.

The maiden smiled through her joy-dimmed eyes,

As he led her spirit to sunnier skies,

Whose cloudless light on the future lies--

And a moment paused the laughing flame,

And it listened awhile, and then there came

A cheery burst from its sparkling frame.

He visioned a home by pure love blest,

Clasping their souls in a calmer rest,

Like woodland birds in their leafy nest.

There slept, foreshadowed, the bliss to be,

When a tenderer life that home should see,

In the wingless cherub that climbed his knee.

And the flame went on with its flickering song,

And beckoned and laughed to the lovers long,

Who sat in its radiance, red and strong.

Then broke and fell a glimmering brand

To the cold, dead ashes it fed and fanned,

And its last gleam leaped like an infant's hand.

A sudden dread to the maiden stole,

For the gloom of a sorrow seemed to roll

O'er the sunny landscape within her soul.

But, hovering over its smouldering bed,

Its ruddy pinions the flame outspread,

And again through the chamber its glory shed;

And ever its chorus seemed to be

The mingled voices of household glee,

Like a gush of winds in a mountain tree.

The night went on in its silent flow,

While through the waving and wreathed glow

They watched the years of the Future go.

Their happy spirits learned the chime

Of its laughing voice and murmured rhyme--

A joyous music for aftertime.

They felt a flame as glorious start,

Where, side by side, they dwelt apart,

In the quiet homestead of the heart.

MARGINALIA.

BY EDGAR A. POE.

One of the happiest examples, in a small way, of the

carrying-one's-self-in-a-hand-basket logic, is to be found in a London

weekly paper called "The Popular Record of Modern Science; a Journal

of Philosophy and General Information." This work has a vast

circulation, and is respected by eminent men. Sometime in November,

1845, it copied from the "Columbian Magazine" of New York, a rather

adventurous article of mine, called "Mesmeric Revelation." It had the

impudence, also, to spoil the title by improving it to "The Last

Conversation of a Somnambule"--a phrase that is nothing at all to the

purpose, since the person who "converses" is _not_ a somnambule. He is

a sleep-waker--_not_ a sleep-walker; but I presume that "The Record"

thought it was only the difference of an _l_. What I chiefly complain

of, however, is that the London editor prefaced my paper with these

words:--"The following is an article communicated to the Columbian

Magazine, a journal of respectability and influence in the United

States, by Mr. Edgar A. Poe. _It bears internal evidence of

authenticity._"!

There is no subject under heaven about which funnier ideas are, in

general, entertained than about this subject of internal evidence. It

is by "internal evidence," observe, that we decide upon the mind.

But to "The Record:"--On the issue of my "Valdemar Case," this journal

copies it, as a matter of course, and (also as a matter of course)

improves the title, as in the previous instance. But the editorial

comments may as well be called profound. Here they are:

"The following narrative appears in a recent number of

_The American Magazine_, a respectable periodical in

the United States. It comes, it will be observed, from

the narrator of the 'Last Conversation of a

Somnambule,' published in The Record of the 29th of

November. In extracting this case the _Morning Post_ of

Monday last, takes what it considers the safe side, by

remarking--'For our own parts we do not believe it; and

there are several statements made, more especially with

regard to the disease of which the patient died, which

at once prove the case to be either a fabrication, or

the work of one little acquainted with consumption. The

story, however, is wonderful, and we therefore give

it.' The editor, however, does not point out the

especial statements which are inconsistent with what we

know of the progress of consumption, and as few

scientific persons would be willing to take their

pathology any more than their logic from the _Morning

Post_, his caution, it is to be feared, will not have

much weight. The reason assigned by the Post for

publishing the account is quaint, and would apply

equally to an adventure from Baron Munchausen:--'it is

wonderful and we therefore give it.'...The above case

is obviously one that cannot be received except on the

strongest testimony, and it is equally clear that the

testimony by which it is at present accompanied, is not

of that character. The most favorable circumstances in

support of it, consist in the fact that credence is

understood to be given to it at New York, within a few

miles of which city the affair took place, and where

consequently the most ready means must be found for its

authentication or disproval. The initials of the

medical men and of the young medical student must be

sufficient in the immediate locality, to establish

their identity, especially as M. Valdemar was well

known, and had been so long ill as to render it out of

the question that there should be any difficulty in

ascertaining the names of the physicians by whom he had

been attended. In the same way the nurses and servants

under whose cognizance the case must have come during

the seven months which it occupied, are of course

accessible to all sorts of inquiries. It will,

therefore, appear that there must have been too many

parties concerned to render prolonged deception

practicable. The angry excitement and various rumors

which have at length rendered a public statement

necessary, are also sufficient to show that _something_

extraordinary must have taken place. On the other hand

there is no strong point for disbelief. The

circumstances are, as the Post says, 'wonderful;' but

so are all circumstances that come to our knowledge for

the first time--and in Mesmerism every thing is new. An

objection may be made that the article has rather a

Magazinish air; Mr. Poe having evidently written with a

view to effect, and so as to excite rather than to

subdue the vague appetite for the mysterious and the

horrible which such a case, under any circumstances, is

sure to awaken--but apart from this there is nothing to

deter a philosophic mind from further inquiries

regarding it. It is a matter entirely for testimony.

[So it is.] Under this view we shall take steps to

procure from some of the most intelligent and

influential citizens of New York all the evidence that

can be had upon the subject. No steamer will leave

England for America till the 3d of February, but within

a few weeks of that time we doubt not it will be

possible to lay before the readers of the _Record_

information which will enable them to come to a pretty

accurate conclusion."

Yes; and no doubt they came to one accurate enough, in the end. But

all this rigmarole is what people call testing a thing by "internal

evidence." The _Record_ insists upon the truth of the story because of

certain facts--because "the initials of the young men _must_ be

sufficient to establish their identity"--because "the nurses _must_ be

accessible to all sorts of inquiries"--and because the "angry

excitement and various rumors which at length rendered a public

statement necessary, are sufficient to show that _something_

extraordinary _must_ have taken place."

To be sure! The story is proved by these facts--the facts about the

students, the nurses, the excitement, the credence given the tale at

New York. And now all we have to do is to prove these facts.

Ah!--_they_ are proved _by the story_.

As for the _Morning Post_, it evinces more weakness in its disbelief

than the _Record_ in its credulity. What the former says about

doubting on account of inaccuracy in the detail of the phthisical

symptoms, is a mere _fetch_, as the Cockneys have it, in order to make

a very few little children believe that it, the Post, is not quite so

stupid as a post proverbially is. It knows nearly as much about

pathology as it does about English grammar--and I really hope it will

not feel called upon to blush at the compliment. I represented the

symptoms of M. Valdemar as "severe," to be sure. I put an extreme

case; for it was necessary that I should leave on the reader's mind no

doubt as to the certainty of death without the aid of the

Mesmerist--but such symptoms _might_ have appeared--the identical

symptoms _have appeared_, and will be presented again and again. Had

the Post been only half as honest as ignorant, it would have owned

that it disbelieved for no reason more profound than that which

influences all dunces in disbelieving--it would have owned that it

doubted the thing merely because the thing was a "wonderful" thing,

and had never yet been printed in a book.

LETHE.

BY HENRY B. HIRST.

_Agressi sunt mare tenebrarum id in eo exploraturi esset._

NUBIAN GEOGRAPHER.

_Looking like Lethe, see! the lake_

A conscious slumber seems to take,

And would not for the world awake. "_The Sleepers_." POE.

There is a lake whose lilies lie

Like maidens in the lap of death,

So pale, so cold, so motionless

Its Stygian breast they press;

They breathe, and toward the purple sky

The pallid perfumes of their breath

Ascend in spiral shapes, for there

No wind disturbs the voiceless air--

No murmur breaks the oblivious mood

Of that tenebrean solitude--

No Djinn, no Ghoul, no Afrit laves

His giant limbs within its waves

Beneath the wan Saturnian light

That swoons in the omnipresent night;

But only funeral forms arise,

With arms uplifted to the skies,

And gaze, with blank, cavernous eyes

In whose dull glare no Future lies,--

The shadows of the dead--the Dead

Of whom no mortal soul hath read,

No record come, in prose or rhyme,

Down from the dim Primeval Time!

A moment gazing--they are gone--

Without a sob--without a groan--

Without a sigh--without a moan--

And the lake again is left alone--

Left to that undisturbed repose

Which in an ebon vapor flows

Among the cypresses that stand

A stone-cast from the sombre strand--

Among the trees whose shadows wake,

But not to life, within the lake,

That stand, like statues of the Past,

And will, while that ebony lake shall last.

But when the more than Stygian night

Descends with slow and owl-like flight,

Silent as Death (who comes--we know--

Unheard, unknown of all below;)

Above that dark and desolate wave,

The reflex of the eternal grave--

Gigantic birds with flaming eyes

Sweep upward, onward through the skies,

Or stalk, without a wish to fly,

Where the reposing lilies lie;

While, stirring neither twig nor grass,

Among the trees, in silence, pass

Titanic animals whose race

Existed, but has left no trace

Of name, or size, or shape, or hue--

Whom ancient Adam never knew.

At midnight, still without a sound,

Approaching through the black Profound,

Shadows, in shrouds of pallid hue,

Come slowly, slowly, two by two,

In double line, with funeral march,

Through groves of cypress, yew and larch,

Descending in those waves that part,

Then close, above each silent heart;

While, in the distance, far ahead,

The shadows of the Earlier Dead

Arise, with speculating eyes,

Forgetful of their destinies,

And gaze, and gaze, and gaze again

Upon the long funereal train,

Undreaming their Descendants come

To make that ebony lake their home--

To vanish, and become at last

A parcel of the awful Past--

The hideous, unremembered Past

Which Time, in utter scorn, has cast

Behind him, as with unblenched eye,

He travels toward Eternity--

That Lethe, in whose sunless wave

Even he, himself, must find a grave!

EPITAPH ON A RESTLESS LADY.

The gates were unbarred--the home of the blest

Freely opened to welcome Miss C----;

But hearing the chorus that "Heaven is Rest,"

She turned from the angels to flee,

Saying, "Rest is no Heaven to me!"

MY LADY-HELP.

OR AUNT LINA'S VISIT.

BY ENNA DUVAL.

"You are in want of an efficient person to assist you in taking charge

of your domestic affairs, Enna," said a maiden aunt of mine to me one

evening. I pulled my little sewing-table toward me with a slight

degree of impatience, and began very earnestly to examine the contents

of my work-box, that I might not express aloud my weariness of my

aunt's favorite subject. I had been in want of just such an article as

an "efficient person" ever since I had taken charge of my father's

_menage_; and after undergoing almost martyrdom with slip-shod,

thriftless, good-for-nothing "_help_," as we Americans, with such

delicate consideration, term our serving maids, I had come to the

conclusion that indifferent "_help_" was an unavoidable evil, and that

the best must be made of the poor, miserable instruments of assistance

vouchsafed unto the race of tried, vexed housekeepers.

"I have just thought," continued my aunt, "of a very excellent person

that will suit you in every way. Lizzie Hall, the one I was thinking

of, has never been accustomed to living out. Her father is a farmer in

our place, but having made a second marriage, and with a young family

coming up around him, Lizzie very properly wishes to do something for

herself. I remember having heard her express such a desire; and I have

no doubt I could persuade her to come to you. She is not very

young--about eight-and-twenty, or thereabouts."

I listened to my Aunt Lina's talk with, it must be confessed,

indifference, mingled with a little sullenness, and quieted my

impatience by inward ejaculations--a vast deal of good do those inward

conversations produce, such mollifiers of the temper are they. "So,

so," said I to myself, "my Aunt Lina's paragon is a '_lady-help_.' Of

all kinds 'of help' the very one I have endeavored most to avoid; it

is such a nondescript kind of creature that lady-help;" and as I

soliloquized, recollections of specimens of the kind I had been

afflicted with, came in sad array before my memory--maids with

slip-shod French kid slippers, that had never been large enough for

their feet--love-locks on either side of their cheeks, twirled up

during the day in brown curl-papers--faded lawn dresses, with dangling

flounces and tattered edging; then such sentimental entreaties that I

should not make them answer the door-bell if Ike, the black boy, might

happen to be away on some errand, or expose them to the rude gaze of

the multitude in the market-house; and I groaned in spirit as I

thought what a troublesome creature the "lady-help" was to manage.

During this sympathizing colloquy with myself, my aunt went on

expatiating most eloquently on the merits of her _protege_, Lizzie

Hall. Some pause occurring--for want of breath, I really believe, on

my aunt's side--good-breeding seemed to require a remark from me, and

I faltered out some objection as to the accommodations a city

household afforded for a person of Lizzie Hall's condition.

"Of course," said my aunt, "she will not wish to sit at the same table

with the black servants you may happen to have; but Lizzie will not

cause you any trouble on the score of accommodations, I'll answer for

it, Enna; she is too sensible a person not to fully understand the

difference between town and country habits--and if you say so, I will

engage her for you when I return to Rockland."

My father, who had been dozing over his paper, gradually aroused

himself as this conversation progressed, and as my aunt made the last

proposition, he entered into it most cordially, and begged she would

endeavor to procure the young woman, and send her by the earliest

opportunity. I remained quiet--for I could not say any thing heartily,

seeing nothing but vexation and annoyance in the whole affair for me.

The young woman was evidently a favorite with my Aunt Lina; and should

she not prove a very useful or agreeable maid to me, I would receive

but little sympathy from my immediate family. My father is as ignorant

as a child of what we poor housekeepers require in a domestic; and my

Aunt Lina, though kind-hearted and well-wishing, is in equally as

blissful a state. A very indifferent servant, who happened to please

her fancy, she would magnify into a very excellent one; then, being

rather opinionative and "_set_," as maiden ladies are apt to be when

they pass the fatal threshold of forty, I despaired of ever convincing

her to the contrary. "However," said I to myself, "I will not

anticipate trouble."

I had just recovered from a dangerous fit of illness, through which my

kind, well-meaning aunt had patiently nursed me. At the first news of

my sickness she had, unsummoned, left her comfortable home in

Rockland, in mid-winter, and had crossed the mountains to watch beside

the feverish pillow of her motherless niece. Careful and kind was her

nursing; and even the physicians owned that to her patient

watchfulness I owed my life. How grateful was I; and with what looks

of love did I gaze on her trim, spinster figure, as she moved

earnestly and pains-taking around my chamber; but, alas! the kitchen

told a different story when I was well enough to make my appearance

there. Biddy, a raw, bewildered-looking Irish girl, with huge red arms

and stamping feet, had quite lost her confused, stupid expression of

countenance, and was most eloquent in telling me, with all the

volubility of our sex, of the "quare ways of the ould maid."

"Sure, and if the ould sowl could only have had a husband and a parcel

of childthers to mind, she wouldn't have been half so stiff and

concated," exclaimed Biddy.

Even poor little roguish Ike, with mischief enough in his composition

to derange a dozen well-ordered houses, looked wise and quiet when my

prim, demure aunt came in sight. Complaints met me on all sides,

however, for my Aunt Lina was quite as dissatisfied as the rest.

"I found them all wrong, my dear," she said, "no order, no regulation,

every thing at sixes and sevens; and as for the woman Biddy, she is

quite, quite incorrigible. I showed her a new way of preparing her

clothes for the wash, by which she could save a deal of labor; but all

in vain, she persisted most obstinately to follow the old troublesome

way. Then she confuses her work altogether in such a manner that I

never can tell at which stage of labor she has arrived; and when I put

them all _en traine_, and leave them a few instants, I find on my

return every thing as tangled as ever. Method is the soul of

housekeeping, Enna. You will never succeed without order. I fear you

are too easy and indulgent; although I have never kept a house, I know

exactly how it should be done. A place for every thing--every thing in

its place, as your grandpapa used to say. If you insist upon your

servants doing every thing at a certain hour, and in a certain way,

your affairs will go on like clock-work."

I could not but assent to all these truisms--for I felt

conscience-stricken. I knew I had always depended in all my

housekeeping emergencies too much on my "talent for improvising," as

Kate Wilson merrily entitles my readiness in a domestic tangle and

stand-still. I had been in the habit of letting things go on as easily

as possible, scrupulously avoiding domestic tempests, because they

deranged my nervous system; and if I found a servant would not do a

thing in my way, I would let her accomplish it in her own manner, and

at her own time--so that it was done, that was all I required. I felt

almost disheartened as the remarks of my precise aunt proved to me how

remiss I had been, and resolved in a very humble mood to reform. Bat

when Aunt Lina continued her conversations about the mismanagement

before my father, then I felt the "old Adam" stir within me. There she

surely was wrong. I could not bear he should have his eyes opened; he

had always fancied me a little queen in my domestic arrangements--why

should he think differently--what good did it do? If he found his

dinner nicely cooked and served, his tea and toast snugly arranged in

the library, in the evening, when he returned wearied from his office,

with his dressing-gown and slippers most temptingly spread out; then

awakened in the morning in a clean, well-ordered bed-room, with Ike at

his elbow to wait his orders, and a warm, cozy breakfast to strengthen

him ere he started out on his daily labors--if all this was carefully

and quietly provided for him, what need of his knowing how it was

done, or what straits I might be driven to sometimes, from my own

thoughtlessness or forgetfulness to accomplish these comforts for him.

I had always scrupulously avoided talking of my household affairs

before him; but when Aunt Lina discoursed so eloquently and learnedly

in his presence, slipping in once in a while such high-sounding words

as "domestic economy," "well-ordered household," "proper distribution

of time and labor," &c., &c., he began to prick up his ears, and fancy

his thrifty little daughter Enna was not quite so excellent in her

management as he had blindly dreamed. Poor man! his former ignorance

had surely been bliss, for his unfortunate knowledge only made him

look vexed and full of care whenever he entered the house. He even

noted the door-handles, as to their brightness, rated poor Ike about

the table appointments, and pointed out when and how work should be

done--told how he managed in his business, and how we should manage in

ours. I was almost distraught with annoyance; and, kind as my aunt had

been, I wished for the time of her departure silently, but as

earnestly as did my servants. Heaven pardon me for my inhospitality

and ingratitude.

"Now, Lina," said my father, the morning she left, "don't forget the

woman you were speaking of. Enna needs some experienced person to keep

things in order. We shall have to break up housekeeping if affairs go

on in this disordered state. I do not know how we have stood it thus

long."

I opened my eyes but said not a word. Three months before and my

father had been the happiest, free-from-care man in the city; now the

little insight he had gained into domestic affairs--the peep behind

the curtain given him by my mistaken maiden aunt, had served to

embitter his existence, surrounding his path with those nettles of

life, household trifles, vulgar cares and petty annoyances. I almost

echoed Biddy's ejaculation as the carriage drove from the door with my

aunt and her numberless boxes, each one arranged on a new, orderly,

time-saving plan.

"Sure, and it's glad I am, that the ould craythur is fairly off--for

divil a bit of comfort did she give the laste of us with her

time-saving orderly ways. And it's not an owld maid ye must ever be,

darlint Miss Enna, or ye'll favor the troublesome aunty with her tabby

notions."

Ike shouted with glee, and turned somersets all the way through the

hall into the back entry, regardless of all I could say; and the

merriment and light heartedness that pervaded the whole house was most

cheering. Biddy stamped and put her work in a greater confusion than

ever; and Ike dusted the blinds from the top to the bottom in a

"wholesale way," as he called it, and cleaned the knives on the wrong

side of the Bath-brick to his heart's content. Every one, even the

dumb animals, seemed conscious of Aunt Lina's departure. My little pet

kitten, Norah, resumed her place by the side of the heater in the

library, starting once in a while in her dreams and springing up as

though she heard the rustle of Aunt Lina's gown, or the sharp, clear

notes of her voice--but coiled herself down with a consoling "pur," as

she saw only "little me" laughing at her fears--and my little darling

spaniel Flirt laid in my lap, nestled on the foot of my bed, and

romped all over the house to his perfect satisfaction. I should have

been as happy as the rest also, if it had not been for the

anticipation that weighed down on me, of the expected pattern-card--my

lady-help.

Soon after my aunt's return home I received a letter from her,

announcing with great gratification her success. The letter was filled

with a long _preachment_ on household management, which my father read

very seriously, pronouncing his sister Lina a most excellent, sensible

woman, possessing more mind and judgment than did most of her sex. My

aunt wound up her letter, saying--

"But you will have little order and regulation about your house so

long as you keep that thriftless Biddy in it. Take my advice and tramp

her off bag and baggage before Lizzie comes, for, from my account of

her, Lizzie is not very favorably disposed toward her."

Here was a pretty state of affairs to be sure, not very agreeable to a

young housekeeper who had hitherto been her own mistress--my new maid

was to dictate to me even my own domestic arrangements. My father was

earnest in wishing to dispose of Biddy--but on that point, though

quiet, I was resolute in opposition. Poor warm-hearted Biddy, with all

her stupid thriftless ways, I could not find in my heart to turn away,

and as my chambermaid wanted to go to her relations in the "back

states," as she called the great West, I proposed to Biddy to take her

place, so soon as the new woman should make her appearance.

"If she's like the aunty of ye," said Biddy when we concluded this

arrangement and were talking of the expected new comer, "I'll wish her

all the bad luck in the world, for it's hot wather she'll kape us in

all the time with her painstakings."

Not in a very pleasant frame of mind I awaited the arrival of my new

domestic. Poor girl, there was no one to welcome her when she at last

came, and she stepped into the kitchen without one kind feeling

advancing to greet her. Biddy's warm Irish heart was completely closed

against her, and Ike, the saucy rogue, pursed up his thick lips in a

most comical manner when she appeared. But how my heart smote me when

I first looked at the pale, care-worn, sad-looking creature. She was

not pretty--her face bore the marks of early care and trial. She might

have been well-favored in girlhood, but if so, those good looks had

completely vanished. Her eyes were dim, her cheek hollow, and her brow

was marked with lines stamped by endurance; her whole person thin and

spare, with hard, toil-worn hands, and large feet, showed that labor

and sorrow had been her constant companions. And how unjust had been

our hasty judgment of her--for so far from proving to be the

troublesome, fault-finding, airs-taking, lady-help I had fearfully

anticipated, I found her amiable, yielding and patiently industrious.

She had no regular set ways about her, but worked unceasingly from

morning till night in every department in the house. Not a week passed

before I heard Biddy, with her Irish enthusiasm, calling on Heaven to

bless the "darlint." She was always ready to excuse Biddy's

thriftlessness and Ike's mischief, helping them on in their duties

constantly. Good Lizzie Hall! every one in the house loved her. Yes,

indeed, my dear housekeeping reader, all doubtful as you look, I had

at last obtained that paragon, so seldom met with--a good, efficient

servant. Lizzie lived with me many years, and when I parted with her,

as I had to at last, I felt certain, I had had my share of good

"help"--that her place would never be supplied.

Lizzie grew very fond of me, and ere she had lived with us many months

told me her whole history. Poor girl, without beauty, without mental

attractions, of an humble station, and slender abilities, her

life-woof had in it the glittering thread of romance--humble romance,

but romance still it was. Lizzie's father was a farmer, owning a small

farm in the part of the country where my Aunt Lina resided. His first

wife, Lizzie's mother, was an heiress according to her station,

bringing her husband on her marriage some hundreds of dollars, which

enabled him to purchase his little farm, and stock it. They labored

morning, noon, and night, unceasingly. Lizzie's mother was a thrifty,

careful body; but, unfortunately, she had more industry than

constitution; and when Lizzie was seventeen, her mother was fast

sinking into the grave, a worn-out creature, borne down by hard labor

and sickness. Nine children had she, and of them Lizzie was the eldest

and only girl. What sorrow for a dying mother! Before her mother's

last sickness, Lizzie was "wooed and won" by the best match in the

place. James Foster, her lover, was a young farmer, an orphan, but

well off in life. He owned a handsome, well-stocked farm, and was a

good-looking, excellent young man. Both father and mother cheerfully

gave their consent, but insisted that their engagement should last a

year or so, until Lizzie might be older. As Mrs. Hall felt death

approaching, she looked around on the little family she was to leave

motherless behind her; and with moving, heart-rending entreaties,

besought of Lizzie not to leave them.

"Stay with your father, my child," she urged; "James, if he loves you,

will wait for you. Don't marry until the boys are all old enough to be

out of trouble. Think, Lizzie, of the misery a step-mother might cause

with your brother Jack's impetuous temper, and Sam's hopeless,

despairing disposition--each one would be hard for a step-mother to

guide. Be a mother to them, my girl; down on your knees, and to make

your mother's heart easy, promise before God that you will guide them,

and watch over them as long as you are needed. Stay with your father,

and Heaven will bless you, as does your dying mother."

Willingly did the almost heart-broken girl give the required

promise--and James Foster loved her all the better for it. She wept

bitter, heart-aching tears over her dear mother's grave, but turned

steadily to the hard path traced out before her; but she was young and

beloved, and a bright star beamed before her--the star of love--to

gild her toilsome path; and a mother's smile seemed blended with its

bright rays. A year or two rolled around--years of hard labor, which

made Lizzie, who toiled untiringly, as her mother had done, old before

her time. She was noted, however, all over the village for a thrifty,

industrious, excellent girl. James Foster was a pattern for lovers;

every spare moment he gave to her. What few amusements she had time to

enjoy he procured for her; and as the village people said, they went

as steadily together as old married people.

Lizzie's father was a narrow-minded, selfish man, caring very little

for any one's comfort but his own, and at times was exceedingly cross

and testy. Unfortunately, he took great interest in politics, and was

quite an oracle in the village bar-room. He was bigoted and "set" in

his opinions, considering all who differed from him as enemies to

their country, and called them rascals and hypocrites freely. His wife

had been dead about two years, when a presidential election came on.

James Foster, unluckily, had been brought up with different political

opinions from Mr. Hall; but, being very quiet and retiring in his

disposition, he never had rendered himself obnoxious. Of course, Mr.

Hall took great interest in the approaching election. He became very

ambitious of his township giving a large vote on the side to which he

belonged--and he used every means to obtain votes. Elated with fancied

success, he swore one day in the tavern bar-room, that he would make

James Foster abandon his party, and vote to please him. Some, who knew

Foster's quiet but resolute disposition, bantered and teased Hall,

which wrought him to such a pitch of excitement that, on meeting James

Foster a little while after in front of the tavern, he made the demand

of him. Foster at first treated it as a jest; then, when he found Hall

was in earnest, decidedly, but civilly, refused; and in such a manner

as to put at rest all further conversation. Enraged, Hall instantly

turned, swearing to the laughing politicians that surrounded the

tavern steps, and who had witnessed his discomfiture, that he would

punish Foster's impudent obstinacy. Accordingly, full of ill,

revengeful feelings, he returned home, and forbade his daughter ever

permitting Foster to step over the threshold of the door--commanding

her instantly to break the engagement. She used every entreaty,

expostulated, temporized--all was of no avail; indeed, her entreaties

seemed but to heighten her father's anger; and at last, with a fearful

oath, he declared, if she did not break the engagement with the

purse-proud, hypocritical rascal, she should leave his house

instantly. She looked on the terrified children, the youngest only

five years old, and who clung weeping to her knees, as her father

threatened to turn her out of doors, never to see them again; and she

thought of her mother's last words--her decision was made; and with a

heavy heart she performed the self-sacrifice.

"Don't say you will never marry me, Lizzie," urged her lover; "I can

wait ten years for you, darling."

But Lizzie was conscientious; her father had expressly stipulated

there should be no "half-way work--no putting off;" all hope must be

given up, she never could be his--and forever she bid him farewell.

James tried to argue with and persuade her father; but the selfish,

obstinate old man would listen to nothing from him. Poor James,

finding both immovable, at last sold off his farm, and all his

property, and moved away into a distant state; he could not, he said,

live near Lizzie, and feel that she never would be his wife. Men are

so soon despairing in love affairs, while women hope on, even to

death. Poor Lizzie, how her heart sunk when the sight of her lover was

denied to her; and she felt even more wretched than she did at the

moment of her mother's death. Nothing now remained to her in life but

the performance of stern, rigid duty. Two or three years passed by,

and one by one her charges departed from her. One brother was placed

with a farmer, and the others were apprenticed to good trades. The

little white-headed Willie, who at his mother's death was a tiny,

roly-poly prattler, only two years old, was becoming a slender, tall

youth. Lizzie felt proud as she looked at her crowd of tall boys, when

once or twice a year they would assemble at home; and on a Sunday's

afternoon, at twilight, on her way to the evening meeting, she would

steal down into the quiet church-yard, and kneeling beside her

mother's grave, ask, with streaming eyes, if she had not done well.

Such moments were fraught with bitter anguish; but a heavenly peace

would descend on her, and she said her trials, after the agony was

over, seemed lighter to bear.

"But I was blessed in one thing, dear Miss Enna," she would exclaim,

"not one of those darling boys was taken from me, and all bid fair to

turn out well. God surely smiled on the motherless, and gave me

strength to perform my labor of love."

At last there moved to the village a woman of the name of Pierce; she

opened a little milliner's shop, and soon made herself busy with the

affairs of others, as well as her own, becoming quite a considerable

person amongst the villagers. She was a widow with two or three

children--a girl or two, and a boy--little things. She was a stout,

healthy, good-looking woman, "rising forty," with a clear, shrill

voice, and good, bright black eyes in her head. She soon steadied

these bonnie eyes at the widower, Lizzie's father, and not in vain;

for after hailing him industriously, as he passed the door of her

shop, with questions about the weather, or the crops, he at last

managed to stop without the hailing; and after a short courtship

brought her and her children to his own home. How Lizzie rejoiced that

her brothers were now all out of the way. Her last pet, Willie, had, a

few months previous to the new marriage, been sent to a printer in the

neighboring city. She never thought of herself, but commenced with

redoubled industry to assist in taking care of the new family. But her

constant industry and thrifty habits were a silent reproach to the

step-mother, I fancy, for she left no stone unturned to rid herself

of the troublesome grown up daughter. She tried every means, threw out

hints, until at last Lizzie perceived her drift. Even her father

seemed restrained and annoyed by her presence; and when she proposed

to him that she should do something now for herself, in the way of

support, he made no opposition; on the contrary, seemed relieved,

saying the times were hard, and he had always had an expensive family.

At this time my dear Aunt Lina obtained her for me. Blessed Aunt Lina!

how we all loved her for this good act; even Biddy said,

"Well, the owld toad wasn't so bad, afther all. She had some good in

her, for she sent the angel to our door--good luck to her forever."

And what parted Lizzie from us? Ah, there is the romance of my

story--the darling little bit of sentiment so dear to my woman's

heart. Lizzie lived with me five years. In the meantime her father had

died; the thriftless wife had broken his heart by her extravagant

habits, and Lizzie and her brothers never received a penny of their

mother's little fortune. One evening, my father, on handing me the

letters and papers, said, "Amongst those, Enna, you will find a letter

for Lizzie, which has come from the far West, clear beyond St.

Louis--what relations has she there?"

I could not tell him, but gave the letter to Ike, now grown into quite

a dandy waiter, to take to her. I did not feel much curiosity about

the letter, thinking it might be from some cousin of hers; but when I

retired to bed that evening, she came into my room, and throwing

herself down on the soft rug beside my bed, by the dim light of my

night-lamp, told me all her happiness. The letter was from James

Foster--he still loved her as dearly as ever. He had heard by chance

of her father's death, and her situation, and said if she was ready to

marry him, he was still waiting. He wrote of his handsome farm he had

cleared with his own hands, and the beautiful wild country he lived

in, telling her he hoped her future life would be free from all care.

All this, and even more, dear reader, he told her--in plain, homely

words, it is true; but love's language is always sweet, be it in

courtly tongue or homely phrase.

And James Foster came for her; and in our house was she married. My

father presented the soft mull dress to the bride, which Kate Wilson

and I made, and assisted in dressing her, and stood as her

bride-maids. Aunt Lina, Biddy, the stamping, good-hearted Biddy, and

dandy Ike, were all there, rejoicing in her happiness. Her husband was

a stout, strong, hard-featured, but kind-hearted man, and looked upon

his poor, care-worn, slender Lizzie as if she were an angel. We all

liked him; and her whole troop of brothers, who were present at the

ceremony, greeted him with hearty words of friendship. Three he

persuaded to accompany them out to the "new home"--the farmer, the

shoemaker, and the little white-headed Willie, Lizzie's pet--declaring

all the time that his house and heart, like the wide western valley

where he lived, was large enough to hold them all. They all went out

one after another; and when I last heard from Lizzie, she was very

happy, surrounded by all her brothers; and she told me of a little

darling girl, whom she had named after her dear Miss Enna. My father

and I often talk during the winter evenings, when sitting very cozily

together in the warm library, of taking a summer's jaunt to Lizzie's

western home. I wish we could, that I might see my lady-help as

mistress of her own household; and what is still better, a happy wife,

mother, and sister.

LINES

_Addressed to a friend who asked "How would you be remembered

when you die?"_

How would I be remembered?--not forever,

As those of yore.

Not as the warrior, whose bright glories quiver

O'er fields of gore;

Nor e'en as they whose song down life's dark river

Is heard no more.

No! in my veins a gentler stream is flowing

In silent bliss.

No! in my breast a woman's heart is glowing,

It asks not this.

I would not, as down life's dark vale I'm going

My true path miss.

I do not hope to lay a wreath undying

On glory's shrine,

Where coronets from mighty brows are lying

In dazzling shine:

Only let love, among the tomb-stones sighing,

Weep over mine.

Oh! when the green grass softly waves above me

In some low glen,

Say, will the hearts that now so truly love me

Think of me then;

And, with fond tones that never more can move me,

Call me again?

Say, when the fond smiles in our happy home

Their soft light shed,

When round the hearth at quiet eve they come,

And mine has fled,

Will any gentle voice then ask for room--

_Room for the dead?_

Oh! will they say, as rosy day is dying,

And shadows fall,

"Come, let us speak of her now lowly lying,

She loved us all!"

And will a gentle tear-drop, then replying,

From some eye fall?

Give me, oh! give me not the echo ringing

From trump of fame;

Be mine, be mine the pearls from fond eyes springing,

_This_, would I claim.

Oh! may I think such memories _will_ be clinging

Around my name.

GRETTA.

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

[Illustration: PASSENGER PIGEON.]

This bird, the marvel of the whole Pigeon race, is beautiful in its

colors, graceful in its form, and far more a child of wild nature than

any other of the pigeons. The chief wonder, however, is in its

multitudes; multitudes which no man can number; and when Alexander

Wilson lays the mighty wand of the enchanter upon the Valley of the

Mississippi, and conjures it up to the understanding and the feeling

of the reader, with far more certain and more concentrated and

striking effect than if it were painted on canvas, or modeled in wax,

these pigeons form a feature in it which no one who knows can by

possibility forget. It is probable that the multitudes may not be more

numerous than those of the petrels in Bass's Strait, of which Captain

Flinders--who also was a kind of Wilson in his way--gives a graphic

description. But vast as the multitude of these was, it was only as a

passing cloud to the captain; he was unable to follow it up; and even

though he had, the flight of birds over the surface of the sea is tame

and storyless, as compared with the movements of the unnumbered

myriads of these pigeons in the great central valley of our continent.

None of the names which have been bestowed upon this species are

sufficiently, or at all, descriptive of it. Passenger, the English

expression, and _Migratoria_, the Latin name, fall equally short,

inasmuch as every known pigeon is to a greater or less extent

migratory as well as this one. The "swarm" pigeon, the "flood" pigeon,

or even the "deluge" pigeon would be a more appropriate appellation;

for the weight of their numbers breaks down the forest with scarcely

less havoc than if the stream of the Mississippi were poured upon it.

Birds so numerous demand both a wide pasture and powerful means of

migration, and the Passengers are not stinted in either of those

respects. In latitude, their pasture extends from the thirtieth to the

sixtieth degree, which is upward of two thousand miles; and the

extensive breadth in longitude cannot be estimated at less than

fifteen hundred. Three millions of square miles is thus the extent of

territory of which the Passenger pigeon has command; and that

territory has its dimensions so situated as that the largest one is

the line upon which the birds migrate.

In Canada their numbers are so great, and the ravages which they

commit upon the cultivated ground so extensive, that instances are

recorded in which the bishop has been seriously and earnestly implored

to exorcise them "by bell, book, and candle"--to cast them out of the

land by the same means used in days of yore against spirits

troublesome to other individuals, men and women. But as the Passengers

were material and not spiritual, the bishop had the good sense not to

try the experiment upon them. At least, La Houton, who records the

matter, is perfectly silent as to the success or failure of the

proposition.

Both sexes are beautiful birds; but their value, in an economical

point of view, is not, however, in any way equal to their numbers or

their beauty. The flesh of the old ones is dark, dry, hard and

unpalatable, as is very generally the case with birds which are much

on the wing; but the young, or _squabs_, as they are called, are

remarkably fat; and as in the places where the birds congregate, they

may be obtained without much difficulty, this fat is obtained by

melting them, and is used instead of lard. As they nestle in vast

multitudes at the same place, their resting-places have many

attractions for the birds of prey, which indiscriminately seize upon

both the old and the young. The eggs, like those of most of the

pigeon tribe, are usually two in number; but the number of birds at

one nesting-place is so great that the young, when they begin to

branch and feed, literally drive along the woods like a torrent. They

feed upon the fruits which at this time they procure at the middle

heights of the forests, and do not venture upon the open grounds. The

nests are far more closely packed together than in any rookery, and

are built one above another, from the height of twenty feet to the top

of the tallest trees.

Wilson says that as soon as the young were fully grown, and before

they left the nests, numerous parties of the inhabitants from all

parts of the adjacent country came with wagons, axes, beds, cooking

utensils, many of them accompanied by the greater part of their

families, and encamped for several days at this immense nursery, near

Shelbyville, Kentucky, forty miles long, and several miles in breadth.

The noise in the woods was so great as to terrify their horses, and it

was difficult for one person to hear another speak without bawling in

his ear. The ground was strewed with broken limbs of trees, eggs, and

young squab pigeons, which had been precipitated from above, and on

which herds of hogs were fattening. Hawks, buzzards and eagles were

sailing about in great numbers, and seizing the squabs from their

nests at pleasure, while from twenty feet upward to the tops of the

trees, the view through the woods presented a perpetual tumult of

crowding and fluttering multitudes of pigeons, their wings roaring

like thunder, mingled with the frequent crash of falling timber, for

now the axe-men were at work cutting down those trees which seemed to

be most crowded with nests, and seemed to fell them in such a manner

that, in their descent, they might bring down several others, by which

means the falling of one large tree sometimes produced two hundred

squabs, little inferior in size to the old ones, and almost one mass

of fat. On some single trees upward of one hundred nests were found.

It was dangerous to walk under these flying and fluttering millions,

from the frequent fall of large branches, broken down by the weight of

the multitudes above, and which in their descent often destroyed

numbers of the birds themselves. This is a scene to which we are aware

of no parallel in the nesting-places of the feathered tribes. In the

select places where the birds only roost for the night, the

congregating, though not permanent, is often as great and destructive

to the forest. The native Indians rejoice in a breeding or a

roosting-place of the migratory pigeon, as one which shall supply them

with an unbounded quantity of provisions, in the quality of which they

are not particularly chary. Nor are these roosting-places attractive

to the Indians only, for the settlers near them also pay them

nocturnal visits. They come with guns, clubs, pots of suffocating

materials, and every other means of destruction that can well be

imagined to be within their command, and procure immense quantities of

the birds in a very short time. These they stuff into sacks and carry

home on their horses.

The flocks being less abundant in the Atlantic States, the gun, decoy

and net are brought into operation against them, and very considerable

numbers of them are taken. In some seasons they may be purchased in

our markets for one dollar a hundred, and flocks have been known to

occupy two hours in passing, in New Jersey and the adjoining States.

Many thousands are drowned on the edges of the ponds to which they

descend to drink while on their aerial passage; those in the rear

alighting on the backs of those who touched the ground first, in the

same manner as the domestic pigeon, and pressing them beneath the

surface of the water. Nuttall estimates the rapidity of their flight

at about a mile a minute, and states among other data for this result,

that there have been wild pigeons shot near New York, whose crops were

filled with rice that must have been collected in the plantations of

Georgia, and to digest which would not require more than twelve hours.

[Illustration: SHORE LARK.]

Usually fat, much esteemed as food, and not uncommon in our markets,

this beautiful bird may be seen in different seasons ranging from

Hudson's Bay to Mexico, and from New England to the Rocky Mountains.

They arrive in the Northern and Middle States late in the fall, and

many remain through-out the winter. As the weather grows colder in

the north, however, they become quite common in South Carolina and

Georgia, frequenting the plains, commons and dry ground, keeping

constantly upon the ground, and roving about in families under the

guidance of the old birds, whose patriarchal care extends over all, to

warn them by a plaintive call of the approach of danger, and instruct

them by example how to avoid it. They roost somewhat in the same

manner as partridges, in a close ring or circle, keeping each other

warm, and abiding with indifference the frost and the storm. They

migrate only when driven by want of food; this appears to consist of

small round compressed black seeds, oats, buckwheat, &c., with a large

proportion of gravel. Shore Lark and Sky Lark are the names by which

they are usually known. They are said to sing well, rising in the air

and warbling as they ascend, after the manner of the sky-lark of

Europe.

TRIUMPHS OF PEACE.

BY WILLIAM H. C. HOSMER.

From palace, cot and cave

Streamed forth a nation, in the olden time,

To crown with flowers the brave,

Flushed with the conquest of some far-off clime,

And, louder than the roar of meeting seas,

Applauding thunder rolled upon the breeze.

Memorial columns rose

Decked with the spoils of conquered foes,

And bards of high renown their stormy paeans sung,

While Sculpture touched the marble white,

And, woke by his transforming might,

To life the statue sprung.

The vassal to his task was chained--

The coffers of the state were drained

In rearing arches, bright with wasted gold,

That after generations might be told

A thing of dust once reigned.

Tombs, hallowed by long years of toil,

Were built to shrine heroic clay,

Too proud to rest in vulgar soil,

And moulder silently way;

Though treasure lavished on the dead

The wretched might have clothed and fed--

Dragged merit from obscuring shade,

And debts of gratitude have paid;

From want relieved neglected sage,

Or veteran in battle tried;

Smoothed the rough path of weary age,

And the sad tears of orphanage have dried.

Though green the laurel round the brow

Of wasting and triumphant War,

Peace, with her sacred olive bough,

Can boast of conquests nobler far:

Beneath her gentle sway

Earth blossoms like a rose--

The wide old woods recede away,

Through realms, unknown but yesterday,

The tide of Empire flows.

Woke by her voice rise battlement and tower,

Art builds a home, and Learning finds a bower--

Triumphant Labor for the conflict girds,

Speaks in great works instead of empty words;

Bends stubborn matter to his iron will,

Drains the foul marsh, and rends in twain the hill--

A hanging bridge across the torrent flings,

And gives the car of fire resistless wings.

Light kindles up the forest to its heart,

And happy thousands throng the new-born mart;

Fleet ships of steam, deriding tide and blast,

On the blue bounding waters hurry past;

Adventure, eager for the task, explores

Primeval wilds, and lone, sequestered shores--

Braves every peril, and a beacon lights

To guide the nations on untrodden heights.

[Illustration: EXPECTATION J. Addison

Engraved expressly for Graham's Magazine]

EXPECTATION.

BY LOUISA M. GREEN.

[SEE ENGRAVING.]

Why comes he not? He should have come ere this:

The promised hour is past: he is not here!

I love him--yes, my maiden heart is his;

I sigh--I languish when he is not near.

The truant! Wherefore tarries he? His love,

Were it like mine, would woo him to my side--

Or does he--dares he--merely seek to prove

The doubted passion of his promised bride?

Do I not love him? But does he love me?

He swore so yester-eve, when last we met

Down in the dell by our old trysting-tree:

Can he be false? If so, my sun is set!

No; he will come--I feel--I know he will;

And he shall never dream that once I sighed;

I hear his step--behold his form: be still,

Warm heart; he comes--to clasp his bride.

WOMAN'S LOVE.

POETRY BY ANON.

MUSIC BY MATHIAS KELLER.

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

[Music/Illustration:

Allegretto.

Fine.

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

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

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

Ritardando. A tempo.

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

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

D. C.]

SECOND VERSE.

A woman's love is like the spring

Amid the wild alone;

A burning wild o'er which the wing

Of cloud is seldom thrown;

And blest is he who meets that fount,

Beneath the sultry day;

How gladly should his spirit mount,

How pleasant be his way.

THIRD VERSE.

A woman's love is like the rock,

That every tempest braves,

And stands secure amid the shock

Of ocean's wildest waves;

And blest is he to whom repose

Within its shade is given--

The world, with all its cares and woes,

Seems less like earth than heaven.

YEARS AGO.--A BALLAD.

WRITTEN EXPRESSLY FOR MRS. C. E. HORN.

BY GEORGE P. MORRIS.

On the banks of that sweet river

Where the water-lilies grow,

Breathed the fairest flower that ever

Bloomed and faded years ago.

How we met and loved and parted,

None on earth can ever know,

Nor how pure and gentle-hearted

Beamed the mourned one years ago.

Like the stream with lilies laden,

Will life's future current flow,

Till in heaven I meet the maiden

Fondly cherished years ago.

Hearts that truly love forget not--

They're the same in weal or wo--

And that star of memory set not

In the grave of years ago.

TO MY WIFE.

BY ROBT. T. CONRAD.

When that chaste blush suffused thy cheek and brow,

Whitened anon with a pale maiden fear,

Thou shrank'st in uttering what I burned to hear:

And yet I loved thee, love, not then as now.

Years and their snows have come and gone, and graves,

Of thine and mine, have opened; and the sod

Is thick above the wealth we gave to God:

Over my brightest hopes the nightshade waves;

And wrongs and wrestlings with a wretched world,

Gray hairs, and saddened hours, and thoughts of gloom,

Troop upon troop, dark-browed, have been my doom;

And to the earth each hope-reared turret hurled!

And yet that blush, suffusing cheek and brow,

'Twas dear, how dear! then--but 'tis dearer now.

ISOLA.

BY JOHN TOMLIN.

I dreamed that thou a lily wast,

Within a lowly valley blest;

A winged cherub flying past,

Plucked thee, and placed within his breast,

And there by guardian angel nurst,

Thou took'st a shape of human grace,

Until, a lowly flower at first,

Thou grew'st the first of mortal race.

Alas! if I who still was blessed

When thou wast but a lowly flower--

To pluck thy image from my breast,

Though thus thou will'st it, have no power;

Thou still to me, though lifted high

In hope and heart above the glen,

Where first thou won my idol eye,

Must spell my worship just as then.

CONTEMPLATION.

BY JANE R. DANA.

[ILLUSTRATING AN ENGRAVING.]

Strange! that a tear-drop should o'erfill the eye

Of loveliness that looks on all it loves!

Yet are there moods, when the soul's wells are high

With crystal waters which a strange fear moves,

To doubt if what it joys in, be a joy;

Fear not, thou fond and gentle one! though life

Be but a checkered scene, where wrong and right,

Struggle forever; there is not a strife

Can reach thy bower: the future, purely bright,

Is round about thee, like a summer sky.

And there are those, brave hearts and true, to guard

Thy walks forever; and to make each hour

Of coming time, by fond and faithful ward,

Happy as happiest known within thy bridal bower.

[Illustration: J. W. Wright J. Addison

CONTEMPLATION

Engraved expressly for Graham's Magazine]

REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.

_Practical Physiology: for the use of Schools and

Families. By Edward Jarvis. Philadelphia: Thomas,

Cowperthwaite & Co._

The popular and practical study of physiology is too much neglected in

this country, and we rejoice to see this effort to commend its

important truths to public attention. Perhaps no people existing are

in greater need of a heedful regard to the lessons of this work than

the over-fed, over-worked, and over-anxious people of the United

States. The pursuit of wealth, honor, and power, the absorbing and

health-sacrificing devotion to advancement, impels our people from the

moment they first enter the school-house until they are snatched from

the scene of their over-wrought strugglings. At the school, the child

is treated as a man. The fresh air, the blue sky, the bright and happy

hilarity of boyhood are too often proscribed indulgences. And this is

called, not murder, but education. Those who survive it, having been

taught that an American youth should never be satisfied with the

present, that _excelsior_ should be the only motto, and that all

pleasure should be denied, health sacrificed, and time unremittingly

devoted to win the eminence struggled for, rush into the business of

life before their time. They win wrinkles before they attain manhood,

and graves before the wild ambition thus kindled and inflamed can

receive its first chaplet. All our literature teaches this unquiet and

discontented spirit as to the present, and this rash and impatient

determination to achieve immediate success. Now, this is a peculiarity

of our country, the land of all others which should cherish a

disposition to be gratefully contented with the unequaled blessings

with which it is endowed. There is no necessity for this forcing

system to expand properly and in due time the real energies of our

people. The truly great in every walk of science and literature have

been generally patient students, and have lived, in tranquillity, to a

good old age. The impatient ambition which scourges our people on to

the farthest stretch of their energies in any adopted pursuit, is

inconsistent with the permanent and healthful character of a race. It

made Rome great; but it left her people, as a race, so physically

exhausted that the weakest tribes of the North dictated to her the

terms of her degradation. The physical character of a nation moulds

its intellectual nature, and shapes its destinies. The study of health

is therefore the great study, and it will be found in all things

accordant with those loftier truths taught by the Great Physician.

Strangers of intelligence often remark that, with unbounded means of

happiness, affluence for every reasonable want, security against every

danger, and the high prerogatives of conscious and elevated freedom,

we are still the most unhappy of the sons of Adam. They assert that we

grow old before our time; are restless, excitable, and ever worrying

for an attainment, in reference to some ruling passion beyond our

reach. Comfort, health, calmness, and content, are sacrificed to grasp

at something more. Our cheeks grow pale, our brows wrinkled, our

hearts clouded, from a settled, taught, established habit of

discontent with any position that is not the highest. There is much of

truth in all this, as every one who treads our crowded marts and finds

each man, however prosperous, cankered with the thought that he is not

prosperous enough, will admit. All this constitutes American energy;

all this renders our country great in the world's eye; but does it

constitute happiness? It may be gravely doubted. The study of health

is essentially the study of happiness. Life is with our people, as a

general rule, a thing of little value. Those who think, in a better

spirit, and remember its duties and its ends, will come to a different

conclusion, and regard the conservation of the even and steady

physical energies of the body as superior in importance to any result

to be gained by the forced and unnatural efforts from which more is

attained than nature sanctions.

A work like the one before us is calculated to be of great service,

and especially so if it be placed in the hands of children. It claims,

and certainly deserves, no praise as an original work of science; but

it has this merit--no ordinary one--that it communicates the most

important truths of physiology in language which any intelligent child

can understand; and does so in a manner that every moralist will

commend.

_The Fruits and Fruit Trees of America. By A. J.

Downing. Published by Wiley & Putnam, New York._

This work has been known to every scientific horticulturist and

pomologist for many years. Its author has devoted a vigorous and

enlightened intellect to this purest and noblest of pursuits; and has

won a reputation of which this work will form the coronal wreath. The

past editions of this work, and they have been many, have elicited the

strongest praise here and abroad. The classic poets of every land have

valued the praise which rewarded their dedication of the first

triumphs of the muse to subjects connected with the cultivation of the

soil, to the arts that rendered the breast of our common mother

lovely, and wedded the labors which sustain life with the arts that

render it happy. The work before us has an established reputation. It

is written by one whose labors upon this subject are known as well

abroad as here, and who has won the applause of all who regard

pomology as worthy of an earnest support. He is the Prose Virgil of

our country. This work contains eighty-four colored engravings of

apples, pears, cherries, apricots, peaches, plums, raspberries, and

strawberries. These plates have been, at great expense, executed at

Paris, and are worthy of all commendation. Among those that seem to us

worthy of especial commendation are, in the plums, the Columbia, the

Coe's Golden Drop, and the Jefferson; among the pears, the Bartlett,

the Bosc, the Flemish Beauty, the Frederick of Wurtemburg; among the

apples, the Gravenstein, the Yellow Belle Fleur, the Dutch Mignonne,

Ladies' Sweet, and Red Astrochan. All the plates are, however, good;

and the work is, to all who love nature, invaluable.

The leading horticultural societies of this country have recently

endeavored to counteract the confusion which has heretofore prevailed

in pomological nomenclature, by adopting this work as the American

standard; and we learn that it has been so recognized and adopted, in

reference to this country, in London. Horticulture is greatly indebted

for the advances it has made within the last few years to the author

of this work. He is well known to all those who cherish the science of

the soil, as the popular editor of the Horticulturist, and as one of

the ablest, most scientific and enthusiastic horticulturists and

pomologists in the country.

_Tristram Shandy._--Original or not, Sterne gave to the literature of

this language that which must last and should last. This edition,

published by Grigg, Elliott & Co., is cheap, and should be cheap, for

it is got up for universal distribution. It is well illustrated by

Darley.

_The Medical Companion, or Family Physician, Treating

of the Diseases of the United States, &c. By James

Ewell._

This is a work long and well known to the nation; and the edition

before us, being the tenth, is an enlargement and improvement on those

which have heretofore appeared. Dr. Chapman has pronounced it to be

indisputably the most useful popular treatise on medicine with which

he is acquainted; and a large number of the most celebrated professors

of the country, as Caldwell, Shippen, Barton, Woodhouse, and others,

have very emphatically commended it to the confidence of the public.

The edition before us is a great improvement upon those which have

preceded it, having, in addition to corrections resulting from the

advance of the science, a treatise on Hydropathy, Homoepathy, and the

Chronothermal system. It is published by Thomas, Cowperthwaite & Co.,

Philadelphia, and does, in general appearance and character, great

credit to those enterprizing publishers.

_General Scott and his Staff. Comprising Memoirs of

Generals Twiggs, Smith, Quitman, Shields, Pillow, Lane,

Cadwallader, Patterson, and Pierce, and Colonels

Childs, Riley, Harney and Butler, and Other

Distinguished Officers Attached to General Scott's

Army; Together with Notices of Gen. Kearney, Col.

Doniphan, Fremont, and Others. Philadelphia: Grigg,

Elliot & Co._

This work embodies the floating intelligence which has reached us in

relation to the present Mexican war, and is illustrated by wood-cuts

worthy of the text. We can say no more. This book is not inferior to

others which the curiosity of the community has invited, and will

doubtless sell, as they have sold, well.

_General Taylor and his Staff. Comprising Memoirs of

Generals Taylor, Worth, Wool, and Butler, Cols. May,

Cross, Clay, Hardin, Yell, Hays, and Other

Distinguished Officers Attached to Gen. Taylor's Army.

Philadelphia: Grigg, Elliot & Co._

This volume seems to be as picturesque and as veritable as other works

of a like character, and is as well written and as well printed as the

best. Perhaps this is not saying much; but can we say more?

_Lectures on the Physical Phenomena of Living Beings.

By Carlo Matteuci, Professor in the University of Pisa.

Translated by Jonathan Pereira, M. D., F. R. S. Phila.:

Lea & Blanchard._

This work has passed through two editions in Italy, and one in France.

A hasty examination of the volume has excited a degree of curiosity

and admiration which a more careful perusal than we can now give it

will enable us hereafter to do justice to.

_Three Hours, or the Vigil of Love, and Other Poems. By

Mrs. S. J. Hale. Carey & Hart, Philadelphia._

This beautiful volume is dedicated to the readers of the Lady's Book,

(why not to its amiable proprietor?) of which she has long been an

able and successful editor. We have not found time to examine the

volume page by page--that is a happiness reserved to us, and we feel,

in so much, the richer in our capital of future enjoyment; but we know

that Mrs. Hale is one of the purest, most powerful, truthful, and

tasteful of our writers; and we are certain that the volume before us

is worthy of more than praise.

_Evangeline._--This beautiful poem has been beautifully complimented

by an artist-poet whose contributions enrich our pages, Thomas

Buchanan Read, or, as he has been aptly characterized by a

contemporary, "the Doric Read." The painting is worthy the subject,

the artist, and the poet; and is one of the richest productions of

American art.

_A Campaign in Mexico, or a Glimpse at Life in Camp. By

one who has seen the Elephant. Phila.: Grigg &

Elliott._

This work, though, perhaps, beneath the dignity of a formal review, is

still good reading, and we have gone through its pages with pleasure.

_Principles of Physics and Meteorology. By J. Mueller.

First American edition, Revised and Illustrated with

538 engravings on wood, and two colored plates. Phila.:

Lea & Blanchard._

This treatise on Physics, by Professor Mueller, is the first of a

series of works, on the different branches of science, now passing

through the press of Bailliere, in London. The American editor has

made many additions and improvements; and the work, as presented to

the public, is worthy of all praise and all patronage.

_The Primary School Reader--Parts First, Second, and

Third. By Wm. D. Swan, Principal of the Mayhew Grammar

School, Boston. Philadelphia: Thomas, Cowperthwaite &

Co._

These volumes have been prepared to supply the want of a system for

teaching reading in Primary Schools. The task has been well performed,

and the series will be found of value both to the teacher and the

taught.

_Greene's Analysis. A Treatise on the Structure of the

English Language, or the Analysis and Classification of

Sentences and their Component Parts. With Illustrations

and Exercises adapted to the use of schools. By Samuel

J. Greene, A. M., Principal of the Phillip's Grammar

School, Boston. Published by Thomas, Cowperthwaite &

Co._

The title of this volume sufficiently indicates its purposes and

character. It is a work calculated to contribute, in a considerable

degree, to improve the methods of teaching the English language.

_The Grammar School Reader, consisting of Selections in

Prose and Poetry, with Exercises in Articulation. By

William D. Swan. Thomas, Cowperthwaite & Co.,

Philadelphia._

This work is well designed to correct prevailing vices of

articulation. There is much room for reform in this branch of

education, even our best public speakers being guilty of provincial

errors, and faulty enunciation. The rules are lucidly explained, and

the selections made with taste.

_Swan's District School Reader. Same Publishers._

This is a more advanced and more valuable branch of the same series of

class books, and is designed for the highest classes of public and

private schools.

THE HOME JOURNAL.--This admirable periodical maintains and advances

its enviable reputation. With Morris & Willis as its editors, it needs

no endorsement from its contemporaries. It must be, with such genius,

tact and experience, all that a weekly periodical can be. We invite

attention to the advertisement upon the cover of this number of the

Magazine. Those who know the Journal will complain that the

advertisers have not told half its merits.

Transcriber's Note:

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

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

3. page 137--punctuation mark at end of paragraph '...not gone the

voyage.,' corrected to "

4. page 139--period in sentence '...of a Kentucky rifleman. I

brought...' corrected to a comma

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

'acquainted'

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

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

changed to "'Sartainly, sartainly,' said he...

8. page 140--typos in sentence '...expect you early, gentlemem.

Adieu--and with...' corrected to '...expect you early, gentlemen.

Adieu'--corrected spelling mistake and added single quote mark

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

changed to period

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

so resulting sentence reads "'Egad! you don't say so!'"

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

12. page 142--added missing single quote at start of sentence

"Mr. Stewart,' said Don Pedro...

13. page 143--removed extraneous single quote in sentence ...and answer

me frankly. 'Do you really love... sentence is part of a continuing

quotation

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

mode...'

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

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

Clara...

17. page 145--double quotes changed to single in sentence "'Oh

Pedro!" continued his sister...

18. page 146--corrected typo 'an' in sentence '...but to cut an

run, and favored...' to 'and'

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

20. page 158--typo 'hour's' in sentence '...only a few hour's drive

from...' corrected to 'hours''

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

changed to semi-colon

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

23. page 163--typo 'wtth' in sentence '...much, compared wtth its

village-like...' corrected to 'with'

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

to '...je suis un pretre.'

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

corrected to '"How should I know, monsieur?"'

26. page 167, later--double quote added to sentence "Pretty--very

pretty lodgers, said I.

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

from its position...'

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

monsieur."

29. page 169--period substituted for comma at end of sentence '...at

length, then?" said I,

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

31. page 169--extraneous double quote removed from sentence '...before

me, dying!" The concierge...'

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

a sad story.'

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

her friend.'

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

too, then?'

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

wander evermore,'

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

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

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

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