rable. He had dreamed of her all night, and was beginning to feel his want of the daily friendship they had hitherto exchanged. He saw Dora toiling there, as was her constant habit; but her face was bright as though illumined with some hidden joy, so great that it could not be concealed; and though he exchanged hardly a word with her, he felt happier for having seen her; and he said to himself that at night he would go over and ask her to come to his mother's house, and they together would give her a concert like that they gave the stranger.

After Lollard had gone off again, upheld by a doubter's foundationless, yet still very pleasant dream, Dora worked on, performing all the tasks enjoined upon her, till at last, after the noon meal was partaken, and not a household duty was left unperformed, the girl went off to the scene of the last night's display, there to practise her voice, and to meditate upon the thought which was growing up in full proportions in her brain, spreading the perfume of peace within her heart.

Certainly she had not an idea of meeting the huntsman there that day-she thought to never meet him there again. But behold, when she had reached the place where she had first seen him-there he was!

Impelled by an inward impulse, she would have retreated, but he saw her, and called out,

"I have been writing a song for you, and waiting a long time to know if you'll give it a tune before I go."

Without reply, she went up to him, and took the paper on which he had written, but he said,

"Sit down,-I will read the words for you. The music will thus appear for you more readily?"

She remained standing, however; and he, looking fixedly upon her, and observing her determination, began to read, smiling with satisfaction, as he did so.

"Does that please you?" he asked, as he folded the paper, bowed deferentially, and gave it to

her.

"But why don't you tell me something about it?" she said, impatiently.

"I'll tell you about myself," he said; and he knew her attention was secured. "I am a poet,” he continued; "men call me so, and some people like my songs. That is very pleasant, but I have no fame." He hesitated.

"You want that?" she quickly interpreted.

"I would like to be understood and appreciated. Besides, then I could mend my fortunes; as it is, I am a poor devil."

"You're not understood, then?" she asked, bluntly.

"I was, by one person, a woman." "Didn't that satisfy you? I should think it enough to be understood by one person." "Yes, if you are loved after you are understood, it's a great thing."

66

You were not, then, perhaps." "Yes, I was; but she died."

A prolonged "Oh!" with the saddest intonation, was the reply.

"She was my wife. She was a poet, too. She died last year. I've not been worth much since. You see, life was stripped of every beantiful thing; it turned into a desert when she was gone."

Dora made no reply at all to this, and the huntsman resumed: "You would have loved my wife. She would have been delighted with yon. Every one loved her. Her whole life was poetry. All she did and said was poetry." "How you must have loved her! And she was beautiful, too?"

"Very fair; fair as a lily. Her eyes were a soft brown; so was her hair. She looked just like a lily of the valley. She had a light heart, like a bird. She was all I had; and God took her."

Again he paused, and another unbroken silence followed his words. Finally, he said,

"I never spoke of this to any one before. No one ever dared to speak to me of it. You. I believe, have a heart; you are very unlike any of the women we have in the world."

"Are you going back there? How can you bear it?"

"I have work to do there, which fact I discovered since I came up here.”

"Do it well, with a strong hand," she urged.

"Do you think we can command a strong heart at our will. For instance, can you be strong-hearted when you choose?"

"Yes; or I should not be so to-day;—there is nothing to make me.”

"You have known something of trials here, then? Yet you are young, and must have lived in quiet."

Do you think I was made for that? I'll go to the world! I can but starve there; and I had rather starve than live as I have here."

Poor child! you are unhappy," he said, with pity and sympathy; "but I dare not take you." "Then show me the way. I would as soon go alone. I only ask of you what I would of any other traveller: tell me the way to the nearest city." "And what will you do there?"

"Sing in the streets, if I can do nothing better." "When can you be ready to go?" "This moment!" she cried, cagerly starting forward.

"Are there none whom you would see first? This would be a flight, and disgraceful. You ought to ask consent of some one; you must have friends who should know of your going."

For a second, the thought of Lollard Graame rose in her mind as a reproach and an entreaty, but she said, "I am my own mistress. I will ask no consent, and say no parting words. I am a slave no longer, whether I go with you or not.' "Come, then," he said, rising, filled with an unpremeditated but resolute purpose. And she arose, and followed him.

The poet had spoken to the purpose, and with truth. He was poor; and he knew, when he guided the mountain girl down from her wilderness-home into the world, that he was leading her to inevitable hardships, perhaps to suffering and want; and this, as they went on their way, he tried to impress upon her mind. He set before her the career which she was adventuring, and, as they slowly went along, during the first hour of the journey, presented in the clearest possible light every discouraging feature of this new and great movement. He did this with honest earnestness, so that the opportunity might be hers, if she would embrace it, of retracing her steps. But to all his arguments and expositions her valiant reply still was, "Even that is better than to bear what I have borne;" and, with her face resolutely turned towards the east, she went on, rejoicing.

Never once did she turn to look back upon the familiar mountain-scenery. It was not her feet that lagged by the way, nor her heart that regretfully bore the separation. Yet I might write it often as a fact, that while the distance of the Future continued its enchantment as she journeyed from the Past, the Past also did not live in her memory without an attraction, magnetic and powerful,-in short, of the heart. Bravely she went her way; but she would have gone with triumphant gladness, had her old teacher and companion been with her in the journey. The future was all dimness-what she should meet in it, besides what the poet-guide had told her, she neither knew nor cared. When she was not thinking of Graame, the wrongs and griefs of the Past loomed up amidst clouds and darkness; and it was no wonder that the indefiniteness of the Future lured her on. Thus strangely was her going forth into the world made at last,-thus boldly and proudly,—thus with the very spirit which would insure a conqueror's pilgrimage.

There are lives,-long lives, too, if measured by years, whose sum total might be written in one brief paragraph. There are other lives, short, ended before the noonday of existence, to whose career volumes scarcely do justice. This much

might be said with truth of the life, the career, of Dora Dorchimer.

A portion of the record would be after this fashion. There would be chapters given to the details of struggling, of bewildering disappointment, of home-sickness, ay, of more than mortifying failures. There would be passages for making mention of regrets, of loneliness, of brightening hopes; and grand words would be admitted, standing far apart and alone,—the manifestations of high success. There would be the audible throbbings of a high and brave and dauntless heart; there would be a development of inner life, unfolding of capacities, and passions, and principles, which long years in the mountainwilderness would never have developed; there would have been an outer life to speak of,-a life in whose daily events the tragedy and the comedy of existence strikingly portrayed themselves; there would be a marriage to tell of, that was consummated in the midst of bitter need; then an after career of verse-writing and balladsinging,-of singing through the city streets, just as she had dreamed. Records of energetic strivings with real want would need to be made; -of a deep and mighty human sympathy and appreciation, which bound two children of genius together in their hard strife with social, mental, and physical elements. And with all this detail of experience, as I have said, there would be brightening and magnificent days to speak of,days of recognition and reward; but through them all, through the days of darkness and of brightness, a sad connecting thread would run, telling of the dying out, the gradual and perceptible dying, of the lamp of the poet's life; so that, in the midst of the record of triumph, the tale of his departure would be told.

A word of that departure.

When once she trusted herself to him, anticipating and looking for his guidance, the poet, whom she also had newly aroused, encouraged, and inspired, felt as though a new cause and purpose had been thrown by herself as well as by her words, into his life. He received her reverently and prayerfully under his guardianship, as a trust from God, and married her, that he might defend her, though in that marriage, true and loyal as they were to each other, the thoughts of the bridegroom were with his buried bride, and the thoughts of the new wife with the shepherd of the mountain. Through such strugglings and strivings as the poor and the gifted have to encounter, he saw to it that a high artistic cultivation of her powers was carried on. Not directly, for that was impossible, but by snatches at time and opportunity, she was educated in the Fashion of Art, which he, a Godendowed poet, should have known is the knowledge that must pass away.

He did know it, blessed and uncommon truth, before it was too late. When he had done all, and saw that he must resign his wife, and child, and pupil,-for he was to her husband, and father, and master, and poet,—a thought came to him, even on his deathbed, which startled and troubled him. It came upon him like an inspiration or an illumination; and, calling her to his side, he said,

"My teaching has been all wrong. Go back to your old ways; sing as you used to do. Let it be by Nature, and not by Art, that you appeal to

the people. You will be sure to touch their hearts so. Dora, you can accomplish thus-in no other way-the great end and idea of music." What was her answer? The high, pure truth his words presented swept through her heart like a flash of light. The spirit of the Distant and the Past was, in a moment, reigning over her again. With a glance in which he read all the promise that he asked, all the understanding that he hoped, she sang the old and long-forgotten strain, the wild, and touching, and inspiring melody of Lolly Graame,-the song which the poet had first heard from her lips,-which since that day he had heard in the streets where she and he sought a living. The same it was, yet how different, since the glorious voice had been enriched and cultured! And while she sang, beautifully, even in the hour of grief, did the voice bear forth from the depths of Dora's soul her thought and high determination; and the notes, as they rang through the chamber of death, bore up the soul of the dying man, as it seemed, on a pinion of glory.

Now," he exclaimed, almost with a shout of triumph, "I am satisfied! This was what we wanted: how blind we were! This-the power you had when we first met-is what we have been labouring for so long. Don't stoop again to the fashion of trickery which the world, and even the artists, have. Be true to Nature, Dora, and you will accomplish the grandest possibility of Art." And, saying this, he died. And Theodora never sang that song again.

Many months went by after that event before the widowed beauty and queen of song appeared again in public. Then, what remained for her to prove she proved; the grandeur of that revelation made of the "divinity of Art," in an earnest, sincere, and beautiful unfolding of the spirit of Nature. Well did she labour, and gloriously she achieved; and it could not well have been otherwise than so, since, through all the ranks and stages of this world, there is one answering of heart to heart, of humanity to humanity, for ever!

Her career ended before the noonday of life had come. True to the teaching of the dying poet, she laboured, and in the labour exhausted herself. One of her great aims, was the establishment of a free school, expressly for the training of poor artists, according to a nobler style and a grander aspiration than was at that day understood, or foreseen as a possibility. Theodora lived to do this great work, and to carry forward what she had so nobly accomplished, and yet, as she thought, only begun. She left the institution in the charge of one who had a heart as large and hopeful as her own, and a purpose as generous. He was an artist, renowned and glorious, who was actuated with the same impulse as she had known, singing in a distant portion of the world when she, with the conscious authority of a prophetess, called to him for aid,—a call which he obeyed as gladly and immediately as if glory and riches were the sure result of obedience, instead of merely good to others.

Once after his arrival, they sang together, at a grand concert; once they spoke together, and but once

they were words of mutual congratulation, and expressions of inspiriting hopes, and proud, yet sacred convictions, that were uttered. In that conversation, no word of which ever

passed out of his memory, she said much to him that was singularly memorable, much that he thought betrayed a recognition, which her manner and tone, however, told nothing of. When, as they separated for the night, she said, "I shall not appear again. I now resign my best work, and leave it in your hands. I can teach you nothing. Truth to Nature and the human heart, these are the highest lessons for the true artist's contemplation," it was on his lip to say, What of Love, Theodora ?-the love which leads one on, for love's sake merely, to conquer obstacles apparently insurmountable, and to toil through every difficulty with a high heart? Is not that also a part of the artist's life?" But she looked so wearied and so ill, that he forbore, saying to himself, merely, "There is time enough for that hereafter. She has not forgotten me."

They had sung together on this night for the last time, not the first. It was on this night that Theodora died.

She sat, in utter weariness and uncomplaining pain, in the simple house where many a bizn and lofty thought had been conceived, and many a plan for its outbreathing formed. While lost in this apparent musing mood, the maid in attendance-herself a skilful musician-took up the guitar, as was her nightly custom, and played some simple melodies-those with which she had many times lulled her mistress to sleep when she was disturbed and weary. As she played, a sudden recollection flashed upon her; and, tuning the instrument again, she commenced a wild, strange, glorious melody;-one that she had heard a wandering minstrel woman sing through the streets of her native village, far away. How was it that Theodora slept through the sounding of THAT strain, so dear to the memory of love, so sacred to the vows of death? Because she, to the ear of sense, had forgotten the strain for ever!

As suddenly as she had hit upon the melody, the maid ceased playing it; for, on the soft and fragrant summer air, a shrill, clear, lovely sound broke forth. Some artist had come to compliment her mistress on the triumph of the night. And, lo! he chose the very air, the singular, strange tune, the maid herself was playing but now! He had chosen it, how, and why? Because he knew that no other arrangement of sound could convey so much of meaning, pride, and thought, and hope, and love, from the heart of the mountain shepherd to the heart of the mountain-born.

Softly the woman moved to the window, for she knew now that her mistress slept; and below, on the pavement, without any visible instrument, stood one in the fantastic and pictu resque garb of a mountaineer, and from his lips issued that marvellous music. She was never to awaken, or Theodora would have wakened in an ecstasy of joy to that reunion. Her eyes were to gaze with knowledge nevermore on earth. or she would have looked then, and beheld, in the aid she besought, in the successor she appointed. in the famous stranger-artist, LOLLARD GRAAME.

For her, the magnetic and inspiring influence which folded that strain was indeed forgotten, lost. She had done, striving child, noble woman, with the trials, the hopes, and the triumphs, of Time. Her work was over; she had gone to tune a worthier harp,-to sing a nobler strain. whose prelude only her human teacher taught.

worl 3 a

Ariofreni

A HORRID Country, I admit it must be, where one is tracked from morning till night, by that faithful shadow, a government spy, nor yet released by sunset, from the unceasing watch of something more faithful than a shadow. Beside, it is the fashion to rail at Austria; and those old ladies whose blue yarn stockings lost many a stitch, as, with needles in a state of suspended animation, they sat open-mouthed to hear the tale of some dear young man devoured in prison by foreign fleas; who regarded my cousin, Tom Fanshaw, as a profane youth, because he suggested that Hungarian Fugitive" was but a travesty of hungry flea :" these ancient dames would consign me to a like region in the moral universe for daring to insinuate that there are spies, and spying, in our free and equal land, quite as-persevering? as the paid officials of despotism. And republican, democratic espionage, is quite another thing, carried on con amore, justified by that pithy wisdom, "A cat may look upon a king," and reported with all those pleasing garnishes of the imagination that would never be admitted by any Bureau de Police, from its agents.

66

Uniontown is the quietest village that ever won a sigh from any world-weary stranger passing through. There my ancestors on the female

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.

side lived, died, and are buried; there vegetates my mother's cousin, Miss Sally Fanshaw, whose virtues I have elsewhere chronicled; and the town is peopled by the most invisible inhabitants.

White wooden houses, of one model, with green blinds that never swung back on their rusty hinges, overshadowed by patriarchal elms, line the single street; and yet, this pattern of peace and prosperity, is only a translated Austria, and the "Chef de Police" is Mrs. Samuel Stickney, a "widder" of uncertain years.

One bright June morning, my sister Mally, and I were landed from the crazy steps of the stage, at Cousin Sally's door. We were to make her a long-promised visit, and took advantage of the month that brought her old-fashioned white rosetree into its fullest glory. There it was, clambering to the south bed-room window, and after we had been duly squeezed and kissed, my first step was out into the green yard, to admire the myriads of spotless blossoms, with a faint glow in the hearts of those half-opened, and the graceful buds that clung to its blue-green foliage. I forgot bonnet, parasol, and scarf, in my ecstacy, and stood drinking in the beauty of the blossoms, when I was suddenly seized by the arm and hauled, if I may use the term, through the door..

"My gracious!" exclaimed my breathless host, ess; "no bonnet on your head, and Mrs. Stickney's front blinds are turned straight. I know she saw you just as plain!"

Mally's eyes looked a wondering interrogation, but I had known the place and people of old, so I laughed a little, and seated myself to hear the host of questions I knew were lying in ambush for me.

After dinner, oppressed with the quiet of that dreamy old house, where the very spiders were languid, and the few surviving flies seemed to be perpetually etherized, I threw on my shawl and bonnet, escaping by the back door, lest Cousin Sally should be roused from her nap by my exit, and sauntered down street-literally nowhere; yet as I passed Deacon Ebenezer Fanshaw's I saw a blue sun-bonnet vanish into the shed door: I heard the "click" of Dr. Smith's blinds; and a treacherous breeze blowing down from its sunny exposure, Mrs. Stickney's wooden churn, startled me into turning just in time to see the bought ringlets of that worthy dame, catch and dangle on a nail outside the kitchen window, as she drew in her head. When I came back, Mally was yawning on the sofa, and to relieve her "drowsihed," I gave her a little insight into the practices of the place. Her blue eyes flashed with fun and indignation.

"How I should like to bother them!" said she, zealously; then a shade of thought darkened her smiling lips, and she said, with all the resolution of a general, "I'll tell you!"

But as she went to tell me, Miss Sally twinkled into the room, and the tale was nipped in the bud. Over the tea-table, Cousin Sally was full of conjectures as to who would call on us, and I told her of my walk.

"How far did you go?"

"Oh, not far! just past the church." "Then Uncle Eben's folks must have seen you, and Mrs. Stickney, and Sarah Smith; they wouldn't know your shawl, but I told them I expected you, and I guess they'll come pretty soon."

Hardly had twilight gathered, before a smart rap at the door prologued Mrs. Stickney; eyes of the smallest available size, a peculiar and inquisitive nose, and a mouth, for ever restless and eager, were her distinctive features. As soon as

she was "settled," in her own phrase, she began to ask how we came, when we were going, and what we knew, in terms, I own, not quite so abrupt, but to that purpose.

"I thought it must be Miss Peters," said she, turning to Cousin Sally, "for black Dinah came into our house after she went past, and said there was a real slim foot-track on the path, she knew didn't belong to your folks, but came out of your gate, and when I went over to the Deacon's, Miss Fanshaw said she saw a shawl she didn't know, goin' down the street, so we laid our heads together and guessed you out."

I did not look at Mally! Next came in Sarah Smith; she, a sallow, "timid-spoken," elderly young lady, revealed, by shy answers, to the widow's persevering questions, that she had "peeped" over the blinds, and seeing a stranger, had gone down by the minister's house, to see if I was a guest there, but I turned too soon, and frustrated the plans of her inquiring mind.

Then entered Prudence Olcott, an-ah! dare I say it? myself shivering on the brink,-an old

maid, and our opposite neighbour; one of those dull, curious souls, that are a sort of moral fungus, peculiar to country towns, on whose wide face and never-closing mouth, dwelt a perpetual stare. She surveyed us both from head to foot, and then began a most diligent rocking, interrupted with frequent exclamations of "Dew tell!" "Now you don't!" "Well, if I ever did!" and so on.

I was very tired, and after a cross-questioning from Mrs. Deacon Fanshaw (who came close upon Miss Olcott's steps) about some Pembroke gossip that she wanted to "sift to the bottom," as she said, I pleaded a real headache, and creeping to my quiet pillow, was fast asleep when Maily came up stairs.

little interest, and ask my kind readers to jump What occupied us for a few days, I omit as of with me "into the middle of next week,” when I was beguiled into taking a twilight stroll with Cousin Tom, a rattling but good-hearted youth, spending his senior vacation at home. Down one green lane that seemed to have no turning, and

across fields odorous with strawberries and vernal grass, over fences, and through briers, we had strolled a good hour, when Tom discovered a bunch of wild roses in a near field, and eager to get them for me, reached too far, and tore the sleeve of his linen coat entirely off above the elbow. Laugh as we might, and did, it would never do for a deacon's nephew to traverse the street of Uniontown in that array, so I dispatched him to the nearest house for a thread and needle, and seated myself on a stone under the very clump of elder and wild rose-bushes that had caused the disaster, to wait for him. He had hardly gone, when I heard the sound of eager voices coming nearer and nearer, till a group ga

thered in the corner of the fence behind me, and from the shrill voice of the "moderator," I dis covered that our ramble had brought us to the palings of Mrs. Stickney's garden, and this conclave was the feminine police of this enlightened village. I could not stir, for to be seen then and there, would make me the ready prey of an alldevouring tongue, so I sat still, and presently heard my own surname, and turning my head, caught a full view of the group. There was the widow, herself, with open mouth, and lifted hands; Mrs. Deacon Fanshaw, with puckered lips, and eyes of eager amazement; Sarah Smith's straw hat, peering over Mrs. Stickney's shoulder; Prudence Olcott's bread, curious visage, opposite; and in front,-oh! scandal! sublimest democrat

this was thy triumph! in front, Irish Betsy, hind her raised hand, the stream of talk. from the parsonage kitchen, augmenting from be

"Well!" interposed the widow, "I never did like Malviny Peters, she is so stuck up. I'll fix it now. Her mother's dreadful afraid of her havin' beaux, and so sure as my name's Adeline Stickney, her mother'l hear on't. Where did you see 'em, Sary Smith?"

"Oh, Miss Stickney! if you won't never repeat it from me."

"Law, get along, child!" broke in Mrs. Fanshaw, "I'd as lief tell as not. I saw that Peter's gal, and a young feller, come out of Sally Fan