quire after the new comer. It was, indeed, Count Alaric. By the silent despair written in his countenance, I saw that he knew all. "Have you met the Countess Augusta?" I asked quickly.

He nodded his head assentingly. "I know all," said he; he looked at me with an expression of indescribable anguish; his pale lips stammered: "Adelaide ?

"She lives!" I said, but I could not restrain my tears while I spoke.

He raised his eyes to heaven with a look of ardent gratitude; he took my hand "Lead me, lead me to her feet!" he exclaimed.

I acquainted him now with Adelaide's extremely feeble condition, represented to him that he must be patient and careful, and must avoid, above all, any thing which would excite her. I was soon interrupted by a messenger from her, who came to call me

in.

Adelaide was sitting up in the bed, her eyes full of tenderness and impatience. "Why does he not come?" asked she, "why does he delay? Will he not see his Adelaide? Does he know that she calls him, that she wishes to die upon his heart?

The physician wished to prevent his coming this evening, because the patient might be too much excited by it for her night's

rest.

It is a glorious thing, and those who truly love know well how glorious it is, after moments of misunderstanding, even of reciprocal transgression, to rest again, heart to heart, and to feel, deeply feel, that there is a certainty in the world, in spite of all the powers of hell, a certainty, which is heaven upon earth, that they love each other, that they belong to each other, that nothing, nothing in the world shall separate them, who have found each other again in true, in perfect love. O! this is a certainty, the most beautiful that there is on earth, - a certainty, which is the foundation and security for every other. He felt it truly, the man, who, when about to leave the stage of life, laid his hands upon his heart and said: "I love, therefore I am immortal!"*

Immortal mortals! Well for you, if you have experienced this illumination of life, true love! Well for you, if God has permitted these golden threads to be interwoven in the dark web of this earthly life!

"Would you have me die of impatience and desire to see him?" asked Adelaide. "You must not be obstinate, for then I shall be disobedient. Forgive me!" she continued, weeping, "I know you mean well, but you do not know what is good for me. Let me, O! let me but see him. I promise you to be quiet then; before this I cannot be so." Another messenger came in from Count Alaric. He insisted on coming in to Adelaide. It was of no use any longer to attempt to prevent the meeting of these lovers. I led Alaric in. Adelaide raised herself a little, uttering a faint cry, and extending her arins towards him; he sprang forward, threw himself on his knees by her bed, and pressed

her to his heart.

GO NOT AWAY!

"Go not away! O leave me not alone!

I yet would see the light within thine eyes,
I yet would hear thy song's sweet silvery tone,
O leave me not! whom most on earth I prize!

"O look upon me! in thine eye's pure light

My spirit rests, my thoughts become more clear,
The tumult of the world grows still and bright,
And peaceful, what was wild and stormy here.

"Speak to me! let me hear that angel voice,
Like that which once on Eden's silence broke,
When man could in a holier love rejoice,
As in God's image he on earth awoke.

These lovers for eternity, these two, who had found each other, who, in spite of every obstacle, must belong to each other, must be one, I saw in Adelaide and Alaric. After they had remained silent some time, heart to heart, life seemed no riddle, they had no questions to ask.

But it is only for a few minutes that one can bear heaven in his heart, on earth. Time goes on its eternal snail's pace, drawing mists over all life's suns; and, besides, cares will spring up in this vain world, and exbetween the tenderest friends. planations and clearings up must take place

"Adelaide, can you forgive me?" were the first words which found their way from Alaric's deeply moved spirit.

*Fritz Stollberg.

"Adelaide, you punish me severely!" said Alaric, covering his eyes with his hands; large drops fell down upon Adelaide's arms. "No! take away your hands! No! look at me, Alaric! My dear Alaric, look at me. I have suffered so much,- my mind has become weak; answer me, so that I may fully understand it, do you love me?"

Alaric looked at her with all the fulness of love, and said, with deep seriousness: "God is my witness, Adelaide, that I never loved any one but thee. Thou alone wert the wisdom and the folly of my heart, my only, my first, my latest love!"

With a cry of joy, hands raised in thankfulness, and an expression of blessedness, which spread a wonderful brightness over her face, Adelaide fell back upon her bed. "And now peace be with you! said I smiling, whilst I sought gently to separate the lovers. "Be quiet now, if you would live for each other."

They were silent; they looked at each other; her hand resting in his; words of love and gladness occasionally stealing from their lips.

I sat down, a shadow among shadows, not far from these beautiful images of love, and poured out upon them silent blessings and

tears.

As the night approached, I wished that the lovers should separate, in order that each should have some rest. But, though I uttered my admonitions in very good Swedish, it would seem that the lovers thought I was talking "Tungomal," or that language which the assembled Christians talked and understood in the Apostles' times, to their mutual edification, but which is no longer understood upon the earth.

I really could not make myself heard or

understood, and therefore ceased my exhortations, and Alaric remained the whole night by Adelaide, watching over her, and giving her, with his own hand, the quieting medicines which the doctor had prescribed. In his care of her, there was a tenderness and gentleness, an almost feminine instinct, which I could not have imagined in this powerful man. But the tenderest plant can shoot up from the hardest earth, when the warın breath of love passes over it.

Adelaide slept quietly during the night. She was indescribably beautiful, as she lay there, an image of innocence, goodness, and peace.

By what Count Alaric said, I perceived that he felt certain she would live, and that he could not take any other view of the case. "But if?" said I, anxiously.

"She will not die!" said he, with a certainty, as if he were God himself. O poor men! Shortly after, Adelaide awoke. "I feel very weak," said she, with a faint voice. "Alaric, I must speak to you, for it will soon be too late."

"You will not die!" he exclaimed in a voice of terror, throwing his arms around her. "The angels of heaven shall not take thee away from me!"

"But God, Alaric, but God! We cannot oppose the will of God. Let God's will be done. What he does is good."

"God cannot, God will not, take you away from me!" was his wild, his despairing exclamation.

"O, talk not so, Alaric!" Adelaide begged, with deep tenderness and humility. "Let us not murmur, let us be truly resigned. Why can you not believe that what God does must be right? I shall not leave you, even if I die. I shall be with you as an angel. I will hover around you when you wake, and when you sleep: I will give peace to your heart; I will offer your prayers to God, and come back to you with blessings. -I shall want you, my Alaric, in that blessed land, where there is no more sorrow, no more separation; and in thy last struggle, I will come to thee, I will shed a tear, and take away thy spirit with a kiss. Ah! thou knowest it is beautiful above the clouds, in God's clear heaven; I know it; I have felt it in these last days."

"And you will leave me, Adelaide, for this heaven?

"If God so wills! Willingly would I live for thee upon the earth, O, how willingly! But let the will of God be done, you will soon follow me."

My pen is not powerful enough to describe the scenes that followed. Who indeed could give again, on one side the despairing contest of love with unseen powers, to hold back in life what it loves, and on the other, that angelic peace, that devotion, that inward

at life in separate moments, but, feeling the life of God in its own heart, sees death merely as a transition, a quiet sleep, followed by a new morning, with a clearer sun, and a stronger love.

Adelaide required Alaric to forgive Augusta. He could not, he said, forgive her. "You cannot?" said Adelaide distressed, "O Alaric! how can you pray, 'And forgive us our sins'?"

"Talk not of her now," said Alaric, hastily interrupting her, "I cannot now for Adelaide laid her hand upon his lips and began to weep. He kissed away her tears, he became gentler, and promised to forgive Augusta for her sake.

I saw they were so much excited, that I feared Adelaide would suffer from it. I begged her to be more quiet, and offered to read something aloud to them. They consented readily, and, in order at once to fix their attention and excite in them some good feelings, together with a secret wish of giving the philosopher Alaric a short lesson on the subject of Adelaide, I read to them Paul's beautiful words on love:

"If I spoke with the tongues of men and of angels, and had not love, I should be as a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal.

"And if I could prophesy, and knew all mysteries and all knowledge, and had all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and had not love, I should be nothing."

I laid particular emphasis on these words. "Love suffereth long and is kind. Love envieth not; is not puffed up.

"She seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil.

"Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

"Love never faileth. But whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

"For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.

"But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part shall vanish away. "And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love."

Ala

If thou hast experienced these feelings of trembling love, of remorse, of struggle with heaven itself, then canst thou understand Alaric's condition during several days which he passed watching at Adelaide's bed-side. She lingered in the most critical state. ric did not turn his eyes away from her: he did not speak, but whoever had seen the expression of his face would have said that he was struggling with the angel of death, who had come to take her away. He would not let her die.

When Adelaide, in the course of these days, spoke to Alaric, she sought to prepare him for parting with her, she talked of the joy she should feel in a blessed heaven.

Alaric answered: "No one will love you, as I love you, Adelaide. Can happiness be greater, when the bonds of love are broken? Can any one understand thee as I do? can an angel give thee more felicity than I can? O! Adelaide, have you learned to distrust the strength of my affection?"

She denied this. She smiled upon him through tears. She told him, that he only could make her happy, that they should not long be separated. All that she said was gentle, affectionate, soothing, a healing balsam to his heart.

On the seventh day Adelaide fell into a deep sleep. When she awoke, after a few hours, the physician pronounced her better.

"Better?" repeated Alaric. He went out, and, for the first time since he arrived, his tears flowed freely. He bent his knees, and thanked God.

When he came back to Adelaide, she extended her arms to him. "I shall live for you!" said she.

Is there, in truth, any blessing of heaven, which is more beautiful, more worthy of our warmest gratitude, than the possession of a home, where goodness, kindness, and joy are daily inmates; where the heart and eye may sun themselves in a world of love; where the mind is clear and elevated; where friends, not merely by words but by actions, say to each other: "Thy gladness, thy sorrow, thy hope, thy prayer, are also mine"?

See how, within the good and happy family, all inequalities are smoothed down, so as to form a common element of goodness and beauty, in which each member of the family finds his life, each power its development, each feeling its reception and its return, each pure pleasure its expansion. Behold, how the tears are like heaven's dew, the siniles like the sun's light, which call flowers into life; and love, love is the blessed, the consecrated earth, from which all germs of goodness and joy spring gloriously forth. Behold, how even the body (for that too must be there) grows and flourishes in the harmonious order of home, and has fruits which are not like those of Paradise, forbidden!

Life in a happy family is a perpetual development, a continual spring day.

O, my mother! O, my sweet sisters! You, you have taught me to bless home. to you are dedicated these lines, these grateful tears, which bedew my eyes.

I will speak of families and homes, I will speak of them to the daughters of Sweden,

not to teach them any thing, but to reflect to them in a true mirror the images which the noble among them have permitted me to see, for it is sweet to see a true image of goodness. May this be my happy lot in life!

I have seen homes in cottages upon the sandy heath, as well as in princely castles adorned by the arts, and in the simple and commodious houses of the citizen; and everywhere, where Virtue and Love have bound the family together, where its presiding Genius, the good and careful wife, stood active and watchful, I saw everywhere the same friendly scenes, I heard everywhere the same beautiful harmonies. Riches and poverty made no difference.

Goodness and order, these heavenly messengers to the earth, spread everywhere the same peace, the same blessedness. No bitter root can grow; wherever it would spring forth, a smile or a tear, and at the same time a word of love comes to stifle its growth. Love watches over the cradle of the infant, over the rest of old age, over the well-being and success of each member of the family; in order to be happy, let each one go from the world's life,- home.

The sad heart finds consolation at home, the restless there find rest, the joyous have there their true element of life. Where else will you hear that sportive mirth which only excites curiosity in order to gratify it, where else those glad words of tenderness and commendation, where that hearty laughter, those bursts of heartfelt joy, to which innocence and goodness daily cry "again!" which are struck out by the fire-works of every-day life; where do you perceive all those finer graces which lend to life its highest charm, where, if not in good and happy families?

Pious souls, when they speak of death, call it going "home." Their longing for heaven is to them a home-sickness. Jesus, too, shows us the habitation of eternal felicity under the image of a home, of a "Father's house''

Does not this instruct us that the earthly home should be a true image of the heavenly, a fore-court of this higher home?

And since this is so, I often repeat to myself:

"Whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise," &c.

All this is called out, is developed, in a family home. There life stands, as it were, a verdant tree, constantly rising nearer to the sky.

The North is cold and serious. The arts have not there their home; the time of flowers is short. Would you see their country, visit Italy, visit France; would you see the