Tenantless as the room looked, the maniac might be lurking in the shadow. I turned to hurry back to the gallery, and found myself face to face with Mrs. Peters, the nurse, with a small tea-tray in her hands.

"My word, miss," she said, "how you did startle me, to be sure! What are you doing here? and why have you unlocked this door?"'

"To let out Mr. Laurence."

|

than any common sisterhood. Lady Adela died two years after the murder of her son. The Fernwood property (forfeited by the idiot's crime, but afterwards restored by the clemency of the crown) has passed into the hands of the heir-at-law.

Lucy lives with me at the Isle of Wight. She is my protectress, my elder sister, without whom I should be lost, for I am but a poor helpless creature.

It was months after the quiet funeral in Fernwood Church "Mr. Laurence!" she exclaimed, in a terrified voice. before Lucy spoke to me of the wretched being who had been "Yes; he was inside this door. Some one locked him in, I the author of so much misery. suppose; and he told me to open it for him."

"Oh, miss, what have you done! what have you done! Today, above all things, when we've had such an awful time with him! What have you done !"

"The idiocy of my unhappy brother," she said, "was caused by a fall from his nurse's arms, which resulted in a fatal injury to the brain. The two children were infants at the time of the accident, and so much alike that we could only distinguish

What had I done? I thought the woman must be mad her- Laurence from Thomas by the different color of the ribbons with self by the agitation of her manner.

Oh, merciful heaven, the laugh!-the harsh, mocking, exulting, idiotic laugh! This time it rang in loud and discordant peals to the very rafters of the old house.

which the nurse tied the sleeves of the children's little white frocks. My poor father suffered bitterly from his son's affliction; sometimes cherishing hope even in the face of the verdict which medical science pronounced upon the poor child's

“Oh, for pity's sake,” I cried, clinging to the nurse, "what case, sometimes succumbing to utter despair. It was the inis it, what is it?"

She threw me off, and, rushing to the balustrades at the head of the staircase, called loudly, "Andrew-Henry! bring lights."

They came, the two men-servants-old men, who had served in that house for thirty or forty years-they came with candles, and followed the nurse to the billiard-room.

The door of communication between that and Laurence Wendale's study was wide open, and on the threshold, with the light shining upon him from within the room, stood the double of my lover; the living, breathing image of my Laurence, the creature I had seen at the half-glass door, and had mistaken for Laurence himself.

His face was distorted by a ghastly grin, and he was uttering some strange unintelligible sounds as we approached him-guttural and unearthly murmurs horrible to hear. Even in that moment of bewilderment and terror, I could see that the cambric about his right wrist was splashed with blood.

The nurse looked at him severely; he slank away like a frightened child, and crept into a corner of the billiard-room, where he stood grinning and mouthing at the blood-stains upon his wrist.

tense misery which he himself endured that made him resolve on the course which ultimately led to so fatal a catastrophe. He determined on concealing Thomas's affliction from his twinbrother. At a very early age the idiot child was removed to the apartments in which he lived until the day of his brother's murder. James Beck and the nurse, both experienced in the treatment of mental affliction, were engaged to attend him ; and indeed, the strictest precaution seemed necessary, as on the only occasion of the two children meeting, Thomas evinced a determined animosity to his brother, and inflicted a blow with a knife, the traces of which Laurence carried to his grave. The doctors attributed this violent hatred to some morbid feeling respecting the likeness between the two boys. Thomas flew at his brother as some wild animal springs upon its reflection in a glass. With me, in his most violent moments, he was comparatively tractable; but the strictest surveillance was always necessary, and the fatal deed which the wretched but irresponsible creature at last committed might never have been done but for the imprudent absence of James Beck and myself."

THE END.

MEADOW SAFFRON (COLCHICUM).

We rushed into the little study. Oh, horror of horrors! the writing-table was overturned-ink, papers, pens-all scattered and trampled on the floor; and in the midst of the confusion lay Laurence Wendale, the blood slowly ebbing away, Tuts beautiful plant is called Colchicum from Colchis, a prowith a dull gurgling sound, from a hideous gash in his throat. vince on the east side of the Euxine, or Black Sea, where it was A penknife, with which he had been, it is imagined, mend-aid to have grown in great abundance and splendor. It is a ing pens when disturbed by his horrible visitor, lay amongst the trampled papers, crimsoned to the hilt. Laurence Wendale had been murdered by his idiot twinbrother.

There was an inquest. I can recall at any hour, or at any moment, the whole agony of the scene. The dreary room, adjoining that in which the body lay; the dull February sky; the monotonous voice of the coroner, and the medical men; and myself, or some wretched, shuddering white-lipped creature that I could scarcely believe to be myself, giving evidence. Lady Adela was reproved for having kept her idiot son at Fernwood without the knowledge of the murdered man; but every effort was made to hush up the terrible story.

Thomas Wendale was tried at York, and transferred to the county lunatic asylum, there to be detained during her majesty's pleasure. His unhappy brother was quietly buried in the Wendale vault, the chief mausoleum in a damp moss-grown church close to the gates of Fernwood.

It is upwards of ten years since all this happened; but the horror of that February twilight is as fresh in my mind to-day as it was when I lay stricken-not senseless, but stupefied with anguish-on a sofa in the drawing-room at Fernwood, listening to the wailing of the wretched mother and sister.

The misery of that time changed me at once from a young woman to an old one; not by any sudden blanching of my dark hair, but by the blotting out of every girlish feeling in the dull monotony of resignation. This change in my own nature has drawn Lucy Wendale and I together with a link far stronger

perennial, and found in meadows, pastures and woods-indeed wherever there is either moisture or shade. It flowers in September and October. The leaves are a dark green, and are from twelve to fourteen inches long, and about two broad. Each plant supplies several flowers in succession, which rise from the root. Their color is a pale purple. The flower tube varies from five to ten inches in length, and is white towards the inner end. It is a poisonous plant, and dangerous to cattle, who, however, by that rare instinct implanted in the lower order of animals generally avoid it. It is occasionally employed by chemists in their preparations, and is supposed to be the principal ingredient in the gout medicine called Eau Medicinale.

BUCKBEAN (MENYANTHES IN FOLIATA).

THIS common plant derives its name from the Greek words mene, a month, and anthus, a flower, signifying that it continues a month in blossom. It is sometimes called bogbean, on account of its flourishing best in marshy soil; it is a trefoil, and flowers in May and June. It is generally found near rivers and wet ditches. Its colors are pink and yellow. In the north of Europe, where hops are scarce, this plant has been and still is used instead in brewing ale.

By the Laplanders its roots are dried, and powdered, and/ mixed with meal form a kind of bread, which is very unplea sant to all except the natives, on account of its bitter and acrid taste. The Hamburgers sometimes call it the "Flower

of Liberty," and pretend that it grows nowhere else than in
their city. It is very prolific, as one root frequently produces
as many as one hundred and twenty flowers. An English poet
thus celebrates the buckbean:

Oft where the stream meandering glides
Our beauteous menyanthes hides

Her clustering, fringed flowers;
Nor mid the garden's sheltering care
Of famed exotics rich and rare,
Purple or roseate, brown or fair,
A plant more lovely towers.

BEAUTY.

THE thousand different ideas of beauty which nations and individuals entertair, and which differ so essentially one from the other, exist to some extent in the imagination. That which one race of men esteems, another hates. Ideas of general beauty are founded upon utility and convenience. A person, therefore, unacquainted with those purposes of utility and convenience would be unable to judge of the degrees of beauty; hence the idea of beauty is not innate.

age when she ran away with Alexander, or Paris; it must, therefore, have been the reputation of her beauty only that won the seducer's heart.

The beauty of Florinda la Cava ruined Spain, and was the
cause of the admission of the Moors. Agnes Sorel kept Charles
of France in the silken chain of love a long while ere his en-
ergies were aroused to combat for his country. The only being
who had power to soothe Alonzo the Third of Spain was the
once beautiful Isabella, daughter of the Duke of Savoy; and
two Ottoman sultans, emperors as they were, trembled beneath
the sway of Roxalana the Russian, and Baffa the Venetian.
How just are the following lines from the "Bride of
Abydos:"

Who hath not proved how feebly words essay
To fix one spark of Beauty's heavenly ray?
Who doth not feel, until his fading sight
Faints into dimness with its own delight,
His changing cheek, his sinking heart confess
The might-the majesty of loveliness?

This is perfectly true. We are certain that the greatest misanthrope in the world would relax his stern determinations of unexceptional seclusion, when the entreaties, the voice, the What is reckoned a beauty in one thing is thought a blemish appeal of Beauty desired him. Let us see what Moore, our in another. A thin neck is reckoned a beauty in a horse, and a favorite poet, says in "Lalla Rookh." The tale entitled the blemish in a bull, because it denotes tractableness and docility."Light of the Harem" contains the passage to be quoted:

A thick neck is reckoned a beauty in a bull, and a blemish in a horse, because it denotes strength and stubbornness.

The commonest rules of architecture are founded upon convenience. Thus, when a person weakens the building by making a window below, it is necessary he should lighten the weight in that part by making a window over it, which adds as much to the beauty of the structure as to the convenience of it. If a child were shown a picture, the finest that could be painted, and a paper daubed over with different tinsel colors, he would immediately fix his eyes on the lustre of the colors, and possibly pronounce the daubing the more beautiful. All this shows that ideas of beauty are not innate.

With regard to beauty in women, the discrepancy in taste is remarkable. In some parts of the world long hair is considered an ornament. In other regions it is deemed disgusting and

filthy.

There is a tribe on the eastern coast of Africa which totally reverses the fashion prevalent amongst us with regard to the hair. With the members of that tribe the men wear their hair long, and the females crop theirs close. The Moor points out a woman excessively fat and coarse, as a specimen of beauty; the Europeans give the preference to the sylph-like form, and reject that of the overgrown Hebe. The Cherokee Indian sees more loveliness in his squaw than in the finest of America's white daughters; and that squaw would not quit her grimlooking chieftain to become the bride of a fair-haired son of Albion. There are islands in the vast southern seas where the countenances of the women are disfigured with scars made by hot irons; and these are supposed, by the male sex, to enhance

the charms of the female.

There's a Beauty for ever uncbangingly bright,
Like the long sunny lapse of a summer's day's night,
Shiring on-shining on, by no shadow made tender,
Till love falls asleep in its sameness of splendor !
This was not the Beauty-oh! nothing like this,
That to young Nour mahal gave such magic of bliss
But the loveliness ever in motion which plays,
Like the light upon autumn's soft shadowy days,
Now here and now there, giving warmth as it flies
From the lips to the cheeks, from the cheeks to the eyes,
Now melting in mists, and now breaking in gleams,

Like the glimpses a saint has of heav'n in his dreams.

This is a rich and delicious picture, and yet unsatisfactory at the end. It is a general description, and affords no correct notion by detail. We have before spoken of the power of beauty. Is it to be wondered at, then, if Rolando, the woman hater, in the play of the "Honeymoon," uttered these words?

How is her absence irksome?

There is such magic in her graceful form,
Such sweet persuasion on her gentle tongue,
As thaws my firm resolves, and brings me back
To that same soft and pliant thing I was

Ere yet I knew a haughty woman's scorn.

But, alas! the power of mere beauty is insignificant if it be not supported by the charms of wit and eloquence. Indeed, if beauty alone do make a conquest, it is after the manner of those generals who possess themselves of a province by a sudden attack, but who do not know how to retain it. The empire of lovely woman over the heart of man is as much preserved by the attractions of the mind as by the loveliness of The poet of Europe has also his standard of female beauty. form and feature. Beauty and wit are two graces requiring the He admires the regular features, eyes flashing fire, vermilion aid of each other, and capable of mutual good service. The lips, disclosing white teeth, hair clustering in a thousand ring- conversation of many would disgust, did not the charms of the lets-parted over a forehead fair as snow, and broad with in-speaker give a certain brilliancy to the insipid language of her telligence; and then falling down on ivory shoulders- the finely moulded form, the attitude of grace, the air of retiring modesty and virgin bashfulness, the amiability and the look of innocence-all this is attractive indeed; and yet this combination of charms is only the standard of beauty for a certain portion of the population of the world. And even this standard is varied in its details, to suit especial tastes. Some men prefer light hair and blue eyes-others dark hair and black eyes. Thus, one delights in a brunette; and a second in a fair complexion, composed of delicately blended white and red. This

amateur follows in the train of a tall woman; that amateur follows a beauty of short stature. So capricious are the effects of phantasy--so volatile the choice of imagination, that volumes might be filled in detailing the various matters wherein nations or individuals differ.

mouth.

In like manner would the beauties of the exterior frequently fail to delight, unless wit first created an impression. Still, as brilliancy of wit is generally the chief means of retaining conquests, and even occasionally of making them, we may look upon it as the most essential assistant to the support of the throne of beauty. But, after all, if repetition be the best figure in rhetoric, as Napoleon observed at Saint Helena, that figure has never been better nor more frequently employed than in the praise of lovely woman!

PERIODS OF INCUBATION.-A swan sits forty-two days; parrots, forty days; geese, thirty days; ducks, thirty days; hens, twenty-one days; pigeons, ten days; canaries, fourteen days. The temperature of hatching is one hundred and four degrees

In one of the "Arabian Tales" there is a history of a country where age is considered beauty. With us youth is said to be so. It even appears that Helen of Troy was sixty years of | Fahrenheit.

THE CHEESEWRING.

kingdom, it is facetiously said by Cornelius Matthews, is not large enough for the whole.

The River St. John, New Brunswick, is also celebrated for its water scenery, the Lower Falls being especially admired. The Indian name for it is the Long River, or Loosh Tolks. It first flows from the north-east to the junction of the St. Francis, and its entire length is about 470 miles. To the Grand Falls, 225 miles; from the sea, its course is wholly within British territory. Above the Grand Falls the river is navigable for 187 miles, for vessels of 400 tons burthen.

In our last Magazine we gave an illustration of the celebrated Logan Stone in Scotland; we have now to present a still more remarkable instance of Nature's hand in the famous Cheesewring, situated near Liskeard in Cornwall, the westernmost county of England. It consists of five blocks, of which the topmost is far larger than the rest, resembling a strangely-shaped head on four small and distinct stones forming the neck. When the wind is high the whole mass rocks, just like a human head, first nodding, and then shaking from side to side. Those who have watched these stones for years have remarked, that the QUEEN HORTENSE, THE MOTHER OF LOUIS NAPOLEON. edges and square portions have, by the slow process of time, quickened by the operation of the seasons, become rounded, which will in the course of ages topple the heavy top stone to the earth. The total height of this mass is about twenty feet. Liskeard is a small town about eighteen miles from Plymouth. Cornwall has many druidical remains, but the most famous of all is Stonehenge, about eight miles from Salisbury, Wiltshire.

RECENTLY great sensation was excited among American readers by the publication of the life of that great and good woman, the Duchess of Orleans. In our present paper we propose to run through the life history of another very remarkable woman, the mother of the present Emperor of the French, whose memory has been strangely disregarded in this country. Hortense was the daughter of Viscount de Beauharnois, who had married, against the wish of his relatives, Mademoiselle

LOWER FALLS OF RIVER ST. JOHN, NEW BRUNSWICK. Tascher de la Pagerie, of Martinique. The marriage was an un

THE scenery and natural curiosities of America, especially the northern part, are on a scale which throws those of the Old World into the shade. Cataracts, mountains, lakes and rivers may be said to flourish best in the hemisphere discovered by Columbus. In waterfalls our Northern Continent is especially rich, Niagara, of course, receiving the crown. By a strange freak we share this wonder with Great Britain, which latter

happy one, and it was only the fact of two children being born to them that prevented their separation. At last the disputes became so violent that the wife determined to return to her island home, taking her little daughter with her. Ere long, however, the revolution reached Martinique, and Josephine had to fly with Hortense, and with great difficulty escaped on board a merchantman while the maternal house was burning. On her return to Paris, the viscount for a long time refused to see her,

1