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k . ‘ „ _ umvtKblir Os GEORGIA LIBRARY • -- •
fUfje eoft]i a Jv cm jimi tic e VLrn&iuSer.
JOHN H. SEALS, Editor and Proprietor.
Jafcb’ Department.
MARY E. BEYAy,
CONTRIBUTORS.
We have received a number of contributions
which we have had as yet no time to examine.
There are others on file for publication, which
wilhappear as soon as we can find room.
A WELCOME GIFT. _ .
The lady who sent us the beautiful boquet of
wall flowers, sweet violets and hyacinths,
nov* filling our study with their lragrance, will
accept our thanks for the welcome gift. It was a
fit accompaniament for the spring sunshine, and
blue skies of last Tuesday morning,-and brought
visions of our own beautiful home, with its wealth
of flowers and fragrance.
We have never Seen the face of the donor, but
we love her, for the delicate kindness that prompted
her to send these sweet messengers to cheer us
with their pleasant prophecies of coming Spring.
■Jjfr
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‘'THE COLLEGE MISCELLANY.”
We received last week, a large packet, con
taining the back numbers of this neat and admi
rable paper, published by the two literary socie
ties of the Masonic Female College in Covington.
We take pleasure in confessing, that we were re
ally surprised at the literary excellence displayed
in4he articles it contained —nearly all of which,
were written by the young students of the Col
lege.
The “ Miscellany ’” is entitled to the most gen
erou*encouragement of the public, and it is only
one dollar per annum. Os course, all Mason’s
will exert their inflifence in its behalf. Asa me
dium for the improvement of pupils in the im
portant art of composition, the advantage of the
paper must be apparent to all. Success to you
girls. *
THE NEW MAP OF GEORGIA.
The large new map ot this State, just comple
ted by Jas. R. Butts, of Macon, is the most per
fect an 4 elegant compilation of the kind we have
ever seen. If viewed, merely as a work of art,
apart from its usefulness, it is beautiful, from
th& brilliancy and artistic arrangement of its col
ors, and the admirable engravings, which embel
lish its margins. There are eight of these —the
State Capitol, the Executive Mansion, the Acad
emy for the Blind, the Lunatic Asylum, Wesley
an Female College, Franklin College, Stone
Mountain and Toccoah Falls. All of these are
very beautiful and taken from fine points ofview,
especially the engraving of the “Falls,’’ which
was taken from a sketch made by Mr. Butts him
s?lf.
But the accuracy, the largeness of the scale,
and the minuteness of this map are what so par
ticularly commend it to the public. Every place
in the State of any note whatever—post offices,
mills, public road3, academies and conspicuous
localities of every kind, are to be found accurate
ly marked out, upon this map, and all the new
counties and the little villages, that have sprung
upjeverywhere with mushroom rapidity, are laid
down with minute exactness.
Every home, not only in Georgia, but in the
South, should have its walls graced by one of
, these elegant and useful maps.
* Mr, Louis Clark is agent for the map in this
city, and orders from the country will be receiv
ed and promptly attended to, by J. J. Richards &,
Cos. *
“THE BOOK WILL KILL THE BUILDING.”
* Victor Hugo, in one of his most brilliant ro
mances, makes Claude, archdeacon of Notre
Dame, utter this cabalistic sentence, while ad
dressing the disguised King Louis and pointing,
with his thin finger from the small printed vol
ume at his side, to the magnificent church ofNo
tre Dame in the distance.
4 The King shrugged his shoulders contemptu
ously, and thought that much learning had turned
the brain of the enthusiast; but with a little
thought, the meaning of these mysterious words
becomes apparent.
It was a prophecy, respecting the influence,
which printing would have upon architecture.
The perfection to which the art of printing has
arrived, and the consequent general dissemina
tion of literature, has, without doubt, contribu
ted to elevate the present race intellectually, far
above their ancestors, to whom such facilities for
imparting and obtaining knowledge were un
known.
But the art of printing, with its train of bene
fits, has also a few attendant disadvantages. It
has opened new paths to truth, beauty and know
ledge, but it has closed orobstructed others. We
cannot but acknowledge that the Nineteenth Cen
tury, overlooking the past, as it does, from its
proud pre-eminence, and boastful of its attain
ments in physical and psychical sciences, must
yet yield the palm of superiority in the Fine Arts
to less enlightened ages. We cannot deny that
the painters, architects and sculptors of the pres
ent and the preceding century are not what they
were in in the days ofZeuxis, Phidias and Prax
itiles, in the days that witnessed the building of
ThebeßittjfThe Carnac, the Eklinga and the Coli
seum.
The reason is obvious. Every age of the world 1
has had its men who were poets in the full mean
ing of the word —creators—men who were pos
sessed with great, beautiful or sublime thoughts,
which would not be confined to their own breasts,
but strove so incessantly for utterance, -that
their possessors were compelled to give ‘hem ex
pression—not in fleeting words —not in books
‘ which were then but little known ; but in gran
ite, in immortal marble, in breathing colors upon
the canvas. The poets of the Past painted and
chiselled their grandest poems. The genius-born
ideas which poets of the present day of writing
and printing facilities would dribble away through
the periodical press, were concentrated, intensi
fied, perfected, and then they were expressed—
hewn in stone, chiselled in marble, gloriously
shadowed forth by the skillful pencil.
Poems thus expressed were too difficult and
too vast to be numerous. All the divine dreams
and conceptions of beauty, grandeur or sublimi
ty, that haunted the souls ofthe originators, were
combined, modified and perfected by critical
taste and patient care to form the few cliefd'ou
vres that it required a lifetime to complete.
And what majestic monuments were thus be
queathed to the world ! The richness and the
strength ot the Roman intellect, the stern sim
plicity of the Greek, the dreamy, fanciful char
acteristics of the isolated Hindoo, the grand,
gloomy and massive genius of ancient Egypt,
may all be read in the stone epics they have left
behind them ; in their temples, pagodas and pyr
amids. There was no “carving upon cherry
stones” then; the “Colossus was hewn from the
rock,” and stood forth an epic ntre grandly
beautiful than ever Homer sung,
i The tools, by whose aid genius now embodies
its rare thoughts and conceptions, are contained
in the printer’s case of type, and so easy is this
mode of communication, requiring so little care
and precision, in comparison with the stone-wri
ting ol past ages, that the former modes of ex
pression—the sublime arts of architecture, paint
ng and sculpture—have fallen into disuse. Men
no longer devote their lives to the study of how
they may give, through these arts, the fullest de
lineation of the images of beauty and grandeur
tjkat fill their souls. We have many pretenders
to sculpture, to painting and even to architecture,
ut they do not make it the earneat business of
their lives; they are content to be imitators.
We have among us few creators, few bold origi
nators, and but little true enthusiasm in regard
to those arts which were the glory of other ages..
Men can express their thoughts, through the me
dium of pen and paper, far more easily than they
can paint or hew them. Had this not been so,
we might have had original painters and sculp
tors among us; for thought must find utterance ;
genius is volcanic and will burst through all en
crustings of restraint.
But men are naturally indolent, and writing
and printing are now such easy modes of expres
sion, that they have superceded all others; else
Tennyson might have been a Claude, Aldrich a
Guido, John Neal a Michael Angelo, Longfellow
a Raphael. Coleridge might have emnodied his
ideal, “Genevieve,” in marble, instead of verse,
Bryant hewn his “Thanatopsis” into a sepul
chre ; Poe painted his “Haunted Castle” in col
ors, instead of words.
This is the interpretation of the .Sybilline pro
phecy, “the book will kill the building.” It
means that printing will destroy architecture —
that the boon of stone will give place to the book
of paper. And this prophecy of the learned arch
deacon has been fulfilled. The book has indeed
killed the building; printing has almost super
ceded the fine arts of architecture, painting and
sculpture. *
LADY MAY.
BY MARY E. BRYAN.
Fair Lady May, whither away,
With your milk-white steeds and your Phaeton
gay,
Under the light of the moon so white
Through the deep hush of the solemn night—
Whither away,
Bright Lady May.
Fair as a dream, lady you seem,
As your snowy robes in the moonlight gleam,
And the white pearls rest on your whiter breast,
And circle the arms on your bosom pressed.
I fear go in a fruitless quest,
For joy that flies
From your eager eyes
Where through the dance bright figures glance,
And wine and music the soul entrance,
Where love-tones dear shall thrill on her ear,
And she’ll move the queen of the proudest there.
Thither away
Goes the Lady May.
What solemn sound breaks the hush around—
Deep as the earthquake’s voice under ground ?
’Tis the chapel bell tolling a knell
For a soul that has shaken off life’s brief spell—
Hark ! to and fro.
The bell swings slow.
Ftom your carriage lean, fair festal queen,
See, a dark line on the hill’s white sheen,
Where solemn and slow, black figures go,
In a gloomy file, to the chapel doot.
And the bier and the coffin go on before,
And on the gale
Comes the chanted wail.
A gloomy sight on so fair a night
Is this black blot on the sweet moonlight;
But why, Lady May. do you blanch so white?
No spectres they, in that dark array ;
Then why do you shudder and shrink away
From those faces pale
And that mournful wail ?
And why, I pray, do your palfreys gay
Stop at the door of this chapel gray,
Where mass is said o’er the shrouded dead,
Ere ’tis borne away to its narrow bed ?
Why stop they still
On this churchyard hill ?
Os their own accord, without check or word,
They stop at the door, where the chant is heard ;
She would urge them on, but her lips so wan
Tremble in silence ; there speech is gone,
An-1 strange fear lies
In her midnight eyes.
Shrinking she stands with beseeching hands,
What viewless power her will commands!
Has some spectral shade* a strong hand laid
On her courser’s rein, and their swift flight
stayed ?
Does this cold, firm grasp now hold the maid
And urge her away
t To the chapel gray ?
Out on'the night, from yon mansion bright,
Streams the rich glory of colored light,
Soft and clear, through the stilly air,
Gay music floats to the list’ner’s ear,
And lady fair,
They wait thee there,
Through the dim aisle of the gloomy pile,
With her viewless guide she glides the while,
And the torches glare on her jewels rare,
And the silken sheen of her garments fair —
Strange place and scene
For a ball-room queen !
The mass is said, the prayers are read,
Hushed are the chant and the bell o’er head,
And now they uncover the coffined dead,
And all draw near to the sable bier,
To gaze on the silent figure there,
And the lady obeys, with shrinking fear,
The stern command
Os the spectral hand.
Good God! how wh'te, in the ghostly light,
Grow her cheek and lip at the unveiled sight!
Is the sac of the dead such a thing of dread,
That horror freezes life’s current red
At sight of the face
In its last, low place?
What charm is there to a lady fair,
In that pale form on its lowly bier?
Ah ! well may she gaze in a mute despair,
For the marble brow she looks on now,
Flushed once ’neath the kiss that sealed her vow—
Her promise spoken
And lightly broken.
The curls that lie on those temples high,
Her fingers have threaded, in days gone by.
The heart now cold ’neath the shroud’s white
fold,
Was worth far more than titles or gold—
Ah ! woe that Pride spurned its wealth untold,
And bid it break
For its own love’s sake.
The clasped hands rest on the silent breast,
To which so oft has her cheek been press’d,
When the passionate boy, in his new found joy,
Deemed that his bliss would know no alloy,
And Love's brief gleam
Brightened life’s dream.
A heart so true, to be crushed by you !
Ah! well have you learned the hour to rue,
When you turned lroin a love so tried and pure.
Now, your tears hot rain, and your bitter pain
Will never unclose those blue eyes again,
Or warm the blood in the frozen vein
Os his temples white.
Where the curls lie light.
Part them away, pale Lady May,
And your own cold lips to that forehead lay—
Oh! would lie could know of those tears’ wild
flow,
Or feel that the face he longed for so.
Was fondly laid to his cheek of snow
Ah! vain remorse
O’er a lifeless corse.
Whithet away, fair Lady May ?
The moon has shrouded her midnight ray,
But music and dancers are wildly gay,
And the revel will last till break of day.
There is time, I ween, to seek the scene,
Where they wait for thee, their Festal Queen,
Then haste thee away
To the revel gay.
Onthrough thegloom, asthough tracked by doom,
Fly steeds and driver, mistress and groom,
Now dark clouds roll from the angry pole,
Darker the night in the Lady’s soul.
Pale Lady May,
Go home and pray. >
Mount Vernon.— Miss Ann Pamela Cunning
ham announces in behalf of the Mount
Vernon Ladies’ Association, ot which she is re
i gent, that the sum of $117,000 has been raised to
r wards the purchase of Mount Vernon.
r A little boy upon whom his mother was inflict
j ing personal chastisement, said, “Give me two or
, three licks more, mother, I don’t think I can be
s have well yet.”
FOR THE CULTURE OF TRUTH, MORALITY AND LITERARY EXCELLENCE.
PAUL DESMOND.
A STORY OF SOUTHERN LIFE.
BY MARY E. BRYAN.
(Continued from last week.)
Passing along the carpeted gallery, I came un
heard to the door opening upon the verandah.
Captain Mayfield and Mrs. Allingham stood in
the moonlight, he speaking low and earnestly,
and she listening with eyes cast dowm upon the
rose she was tearing to pieces. As I paused, he
actually sank upon his knees, passionately grasp
ing the little white hand, whose jewels glittered
in the moonbeams. She drew it quickly away.
“You bungled that delicate piece of acting,”
she said, with a light, contemptuous laugh.
“ You should hare dropped down gracefully upon
the left knee, and not taken my hand before you
were fairly down. You must practice it before
the mirror.”
Then perceiving me, she continued, not in the
slightest degree disconcerted. “My dear Doc
tor, this gentleman you see is treating me to a
private rehearsal of some theatricals. lam glad
you have come to assist me in criticising the per
formance.”
“ Oh you cruel, cruel 1” muttered the enraged
Captain, rising from his humiliating posture, and
turning away.
“ How well he sings Polly Hopkins!” she cried,
in a tone of careless irony, her eyes sparkling
with merriment. “Dr. Desmond, will you take a
seat, or shall we return to the drawing-room ? I
believe the performances are over for the night.”
“This is carrying your trifling too far, Mrs.
Allingham,” I said, gravely. “ I should have
thought that your womanly delicacy, if not your
sense of right, would have prevented you from
wantonly sporting in this way with the honest
feelings of another.”
“ ‘ Sweet youth, 1 pray you chide a year together;
I’d rather hear you chide than this man woo,’ ”
she exclaimed, quoting the words of Phoebe to
the disguised Rosalind, in “As you like it.” She
changed her tone when she saw the grave ex
pression of my countenance.
“A brainless fop,” she said —a silly, self-wor
shipping coxcomb! how could yon reproach me
so seriously for having wounded the vanity of
such a creature?”
“Say, rather, for having gratified your own
vanity at the expense of another. The brainless
coxcomb, of whom you now speak with such
contempt, you have used all your arts to ensnare,
merely for the paltry triumph of witnessing his
enslavement. Oh 1 Mrs. Allingham, it is not a
light offence. You have given unnecessary pain
to a fellow-being, and it is tbe mission of your
gentle sex to place roses—not thorns—in the
paths of others. And then, how unworthy of a
true woman, are the deception, the heartlessness,
the indelicacy which are necessary attendants
upon what you term innocent flirtation! It re
ally seems to me that a woman sacrifices a great
deal on the altar of hei vanity, when she ‘ stoops
to conquer’ in this way. Now you are growing
angry at my bluntness, after praying me to ‘ chide
a year together.’”
“And you have certainly taken me at my word,
and kindled a great fire out of the smallest possi
ble matter. If I had been guilty of the seven
deadly sins, you could not have preached me a
more lugubrious homily. One would fancy, to
bear you, that I had bee* doing something really
criminal.”
“And have you not? Is deception a virtue?
And besides, what assurance have yon that you
have not overshadowed the brightness of two
lives forever ? Nettie was in tears when I came.
You knew of her long engagement to Mayfield.”
“Nettie!” she repeated, scornfully; “audthat,
I suppose, is the secret of all this virtuous indig
nation. I might have known there was a dis
tressed damsel in the case. Y'ou certainly de
serve to be dubbed with the title of Quixote Se
cond. First, the knight errant of Myra, and now
you have thrown down the gauntlet, as little Net
tie’s champion. Yon have an evident partiality
for bread-and-butter misses. But,” she contin
ued, compressing her lips as though in an effort
to drive back tbe rising passion, “ I apprehend
there is nothing to fear for Nettie and her recre
ant suitor, beyond a commonplace lover’s quar
rel, which will vary the monotony of their en
gagement, and end, of course, in kisses, tears and
fresh promises. Neither of them have sense or
spirit enough for any thing else.”
“You do Nettie, at least, injustice. She is a
gentle, clinging child, but she is not wanting in
womanly pride, and, if I am not deceived, she
will immediately release Captain Mayfield from
his engagement; but it will cause her young
heart a sharp pang to tear from it a love that has
so long had root in its pure soil. And all this,
that Mrs. Allingham might beguile an idle hour
or two; that her never-sated vanity might have
another oblation 1”
She turned to me now, with her black eyes
fairly glittering. “ Sir,” she began, but I laid
my hand upon hers.
“ Let me get through what I wish to say to
you first, and then, if you please, you may give
utterance to all those naughty words that are
trembling on your red lips now. How angry you
are with me, only because I have told you the
truth—what you know to be the truth! Truth is
a necessary tonic sometimes. You hear nothing
but flatteries and praises of your ‘sweet disposi
tion,’ your beauty and accomplishments, from
your dear five hundred friends and admirers,
but it is not good for either the mental or phys
ical constitution, to feed entirely on sweet thing3.
We require some of the sour and bitter, as a cor
rective and a flavoring. You would think your
glass of lemonade rather insipid without the acid,
would’nt you?”
She did not reply, but curled her lip and was
turning away, when I detained her.
“Not yet,” I said, playfully, but with an au
thoritative manner, that I knew galled her pride.
“You must not go till you have said that you
have forgiven qie, if I was too plain in my fault
finding. It is a disagreeable habit I have. You
told me once that you liked candor; that it was
refreshing to find it amid so ranch fashionable
insincerity; and now, when I try to please you,
by an exhibition of the frankness yon admire,
you grow angry and your eyes flash like an in
sulted queen’s. Are you offended still?”
She looked up with softened eyes.
“ Paul Desmond,” she said, “ if auy one else
had talked to me as you have chosen to do to
night, I should have ordered them from my pres
ence, and never forgiven them—never.”
“ Which means, I suppose, that I and my opin
ions are too insignificant to notice. Well, be it
so. But a truce to quarreling. I came here to
night, not to read you a lecture, but to bid you
farewell. I leave New Orleans to-morrow morn
ing.”
“Leave New Orleans? for what purpose?
where are you going?”
“To Havanna. lam going, hoping that the
climate will restore Petranello’s health, and that
I will obtain a better practice.”
“And you will really leave your friends, who
love you, for strangers?” she said, softly, with
her eyes fixed upon my face.
Atlanta, Georgia, March 4, 1859.
“My friends,” I replied, smiling, “ will not be
disconsolate, I fancy, and I leave no ladylove to
grieve at my absence.”
“And no one whom yon will regret to leave?”
“Oh yes ! several; yourself, first among the
number. And go where I will, Mrs. Allingham,
this lovely home of yours will be the Mecca of
my heart. There will dear memories nestle
around it forever—memories that it would be
better, perhaps, if I could crush, for they are
hopeless, melancholy one3.”
I was thinking of Myra, and was hardly con
scious of speaking aloud. Mrs. Allingham did
not reply. Her face was turned from me, and as
she leaned forward, it was nearly hidden by the
large vine leaves.
“ The moonlight has wakened a mocking
bird,” I sa'’., *3 one trilled out from a clump of
syringas. “Listen! be is telling his dreams.”
Still no response, and presently a warm tear fell
upon my hand that rested on the balustrade. I
started and thrilled, for there is nothing on earth
more electrical to the hot blood of youth than a
tear, falling from the laslies of a beautiful woman.
I was so near her that I could plainly hear the
beating of her heart and see the heaving of her
bosom under its covering of lace.
“ Dear Mrs. Allingham,” I said, “ I see I have
not only •ffended, but deeply wounded you by
my bluntness to-nigbt. I had no right to cen
sure you. I beg that you will think of it no
more.”
“It is not that, it is not that,” she murmured.
“But you are weeping. Your eyes are brim
ming over now with tears, and the moisture is
ready to drop from their lashes, although you are
trying to smile.”
“ And if I am weeping,” she said, “ what do
you care for my tears? I deserve to weep. I
am not good and gentle like Nettie, or calm and
correct like your other paragon, Myra Allingham.
lam vain and heartless and frivolous; you said
so yourself just now.”
“And if I did^—”
“Nay; you said rightly, but before you *on
demned me so harshly, you should have heard
my defence—you should have heard how I came
to be what I am. Six years ago, I was as truth
ful and trusting as Nettie Griswold is now. Lis
ten, and you shall know how the change was
wrought: I was the only and idolized child of
wealthy patents, and was betrothed to one I
loved with the devotion of a young and ardent
nature. Two weeks before the time appointed
for our marriage, my father died and his estate
was found to be insolvent. Every thing was
swept away, for we had no relatives; friends, of
coarse, stood aloof, and creditors were remorse
less. Leading my invalid mother, I turned away
from our beautiful home, and met only cold and
careless looks from former friends as we traversed
the streets that led to our remote and obscure
lodgings. Still, I had a hope that did not desert
me. I had heard nothing of my betrothed, but
I reasoned that he was probably absent, and
knew nothing of our sudden misfortunes; he
would fly to me when he returned, and shelter
me with his own strong love and protection. It
was two weeks before he came. Overcome with
suffering, weak from grief and long watching, I
threw myself in Ifi3 arms, sobbing like a little
child. Paul, he coolly suffered the embrace and
then put me and my broken heart from him, and
told me in a calm, busincss-lik* manner, that he
could not marry me; that the engagement must
be broken oflj and then lie offered me money, as
though he thought that must he an all-potent
salve.
I remember dashing the purse in his face, and
bidding him begone. I remember the blank,
tearless hopelessness in my mother’s eyes, as the
door closed upon him, but the days and weeks
that followed are like an opium dream. Wher
ever we turned, cold and starvation stared us in
the face. At last, my mother bethought herself
of writing to Mr. Allingham. He had been my
father’s old friend and schoolmate, and was a dis
tant relative, I believe. He came; but it was too
late. My motherlay dead on her straw pallet. She
had died for want of proper food and attendance
—died almost of starvation, Paul. Coming from
her burial, I met the bridal procession of him
who was once my affianced husband. He leaned
from the splendid carriage, and his eyes met
mine. I returned their look with one of such
malignant scorn and defiance, that he shrank
back behind the silken curtains. I had not shed
a tear since my mother’s death. It seemed that
my whole nature had undergone some fearful
revolution. Grief was drowned in the tumult of
passions that swept over me. E vil spirts seemed
to have driven out all good angels from any
heart, and a bitter resentment, a fierce desire for
revenge and a spirit of -eckless defiance possessed
me. In this mood, I accepted the offer of Mr.
Allingham’s hand and fortune ; hearts were not
spoken of in the compact. His wealth would
give me power to sting where I had been tram
pled upon ; to triumph where I had been scorned.
I married him and have been since a reckless
and dissatisfied woman.
Not caring to be alone with a husband I
scarcely endured, or a conscience that tortured
me, I went out constantly into society, resolved
to drain every drop of pleasure I could from the
cup Fate had ordained for me. There I learned
my power and learned to use it well. I found I
could shine, attract—charm the moths that hov
ered around to bask in my smiles, and that I
could scorch their wings with the flame of my
3Com, when they were fairly attracted. I made
conquests, for the pleasure of witnessing the
pain and mortified self-love of the sex from whom
I had suffered such bitter wrong. I loved to watch
them writhe under my cool contempt, after I led
them to make fools of themselves. It was a drop
given to quench the thirst of my revenge. All
the paltry aches of their pigmy hearts could not
compare with the anguish that had shriveled
mine when I found myself deceived.
You blame me greatly, Paul; I see it in your
grave eyes; but you are a man, and to your sex
are open paths of escape, that are closed to ours.
If you find thorns in one track, you can turn to
another. We have but one beaten course, and
you can know nothing of the recklessness that
comes over a woman, when she finds herself
thwarted in her natural destiny; when the home,
that is her sphere, is hateful to her because no
love hallows it. Pleasure! pleasure 1 is then her
only resource 1 But I weary you, lam sure.”
“ No, no ; go on.”
“ I thought, meantime, that I had stifled my
woman’s heart. I thought that the love I had
once strangled and spurned would never stir
again, but—shall I still go on, Paul ?”
“ If you wish to.”
“I was mistaken ; my heart was not dead ; it
only slept; and it wakened at last, as ev’ ry wo
man’s does, sooner or later. In society, I met
one who piqued and attracted me at first by his
indifference, and then made me love him because
of his noble heart aad strong intellect.”
“ Well.”
“ But it was not well; I was not free ; I had
no right to love or to be loved, and 1 chafed un
der his quiet, friendly manner, and almost learned
! to hate an innocent girl whom I thought stood
• between me and the love I craved. At last—
but I will tell you no more. Your own imagina
tion shall add the rest. What have you to say
now, Paul ?”
“ That I pity you from my heart, madam.”
“Pity 1 and is that all? Yet, it is something
of a novelty. Admiration and envy lam accus
tomed to, but not to pity.”
“I pity you ; because, beautiful, admired and
talented as you are, you have lost respect for
yourself. You have fallen so far below your
standard of womanly perfection ; so far below
what you know yourself capable of. You look
back upon your wasted life, and forward to a
future that promises to be little better than the
past. And you are conscious that you might
have done better than this; that you might have
lived a truer and a nobler life, if you had called
your will into exercise; if you had not yielded to
circumstances. This is the vulture that preys
upon your heart-strings; but it is’in your power
to drive it away. You can yet retrace your
steps.”
“ If,” she said, softly and slowly, “ I had a
hand to lead me back—the hand of him of whom
I have just spoken. There is but one thing on
earth that can redeem me, and if that great bless
ing is denied me. I must remain where I am ; if
that hand is not extended to raise me, I cannot
hope to rise—to attempt to become what I feel I
have within me the strength to be. He is good
and true; He could make me so too. Even the
stained web, whitening in the sun,
‘ Grows pure by being purely shone upon.’
His love would be my redemption.”
I could not feign to misunderstand her any
longer. The tears in her voice ; the humidness
of her eyes ; the flush on her cheek; the trem
bling of her lip—could these really be tokens of
a sincere feeling? Did the beautiful woman be
side me indeed love me—me, who had taken no
pains to win her love; who had thwarted and
teased and vexed her on all occasions, until I
feared that she really disliked me?
Did you ever look by the light of a summer
moon, down into the depths of a woman’s eye,
when it was soft with tenderness and liquid with
tears ? Did you ever watch the quiver of a red
lip which had just spoken words, whose mean
ing the blushing cheek was quick to interpret?
I was growing bewildered; I was forgetting
every thing, with gazing into those dangerous
eyes. Happily, a voice broke the spell.
“Here all alone!” cried Nettie, bounding out,
gay and bird-like, as was her wont. “ Pray ex
cuse me for interrupting such a sentimental tete
a tete. I came out to see if you were looking at
the beautiful eclipse of the moon, that is just
coming on ; but I daresay you have seen neither
moon nor stars, nor any other lights, except each
others eyes.”
I could have kissed the little fairy for her timely
interruption. “ Have you finished your lecture?”
she whispered, as she passed near me.
“ Yes,” I said, and smiled to myself, to think
what a queer termination the “lecture” had had.
“ Oh ! you can not seethe eclipsehere,” exclaimed
Nettie, who had been leaning over the balustrade.
“ Let us go up to the observatory and have a fine
view of it there.”
We went, but I think none of us were very
deeply interested in the eclipse. Nettie watched
Captain Mayfield, whom we could see, walking
to and fro with folded arms among the dark
shrubbery below. He had not, as I had sup
posed, left after the scornful rejection he received.
I thought I could conjecture why he remained.
Mrs. Allingham was silent and moody. She beat
an energetic tattoo upon the floor with her foot,
and taking a ring from her finger, stood bending
it until it snapped and the pieces fell to the floor.
I would have picked them up, but with the tip of
her little gaiter, she pushed them through the
railing and they rolled away down the sloping
roof.
“ Come,” she said ; “ the night air is chill. I
am going down to the drawing-room,” and she
led the way.
Captain Mayfield had come in from his solitary
promenade. He was there, reclining upon the
sofa, pretending to be deeply absorbed in a book.
He did not look up as we entered, but presently
I saw him glance furtively at Nettie. Ido not
think he found much to satisfy him in that face,
whose quiet, demure expression I was, myself, at
a loss how to interpret.
Mrs. Allingham seated herself at the piano, and
played as I never heard her play before. The
keys fairly spoke, as her fingers swept over them,
and wailed and sobbed, and thundered and whis
pered, as she pleased. She played brilliantly and
recklessly, scarcely speaking all the whjle.
At last, Captain Mayfield arose, and approach
ing Nettie, asked her in a low tone to grant him
a few moment’s private conversation.
“ Presently,” she replied, with the utmost com
posure, and then, coming near to me and bend
ing down as though to take a tube-rose from the
vase at my elbow, she whispered:
“ What is the matter with Captain Mayfield ?
Has cousin Mabel rejected him ?”
I hesitated.
“ Pray do not conceal the truth from me,” she
said, earnestly.
“She has ; he has offered himself, and she has
refused him, with the utmost contempt.”
“And so will I,” she said, with a determined
expression settling around her mouth. Then she
took the proffered arm of Captain Mayfield, and
was accompanying him from the room, when,
dismayed at the prospect of another tete. a tete
with Mrs. Allingham, I rose also to take my
leave.
“Not so soon,” pleaded Nettie. “It is early
yet, I am sure.”
Yes, but remember by sunrise to-morrow,
‘ My bark must be upon the sea.’ ”
Mrs. Allingham said nothing, but her burning
eyes followed me wherever I turned. They had
a reproachful, inquiring expression that made me
restless and uneasy, and anxious to get away from
their basalisk influence.
“Nettie,” I asked, as I pressed her hand at
parting, “what must I bring you from the Queen
of the Antilles when I return?”
“ Oh! a Spanish Cavalier, of course, dark, tall
and bewhiskered, but with a little more brains
than moustache, if you can find such a rara
avis,” and she glanced at her companion with a
smile of quiet scorn.
“ Very well; keep your heart sound and whole
for him, remember.”
“Oh never fear for that 1 Ice is a good pre
servative, and contempt, you know, is the ice of
the heart.”
I understood her and smiled approval, as she
passed out.
Mrs. Allingham had risen, and was carelessly
playing with the leaves of a music book when I
turned to her. She bade me good-bye quietly,
aud without a trace of emotion ; but at the door
I chanced to turn back, and saw her leaning
against the wall, pale as the white dress she wore.
I stopped irresolute for a second, went back and
pressed my lips twice to the little hand that
Old Series, Volume XXV. —New Series, Volume IV. No. 10
drooped listlessly at her side. Then I hurried
away, heaving a sigh of relief as I rushed out
into the open air, and feeling very much as we
fancy Ulysses and his sailors must have felt when
they were fairly out of hearing of the dangerous
Syrens.
CHAPTER VII.
The next night I watched a glorious moonrise,
with Petranello, from the upper deck of an ocean
steamer, and a few days afterwards, we saw a
red and golden sunset throw its enchantment
over the loveliest island in the Southern seas—
crowning with its splendor the beautiful city of
Havanna, and laying a radiant hand even upon
the frowning brow of the Moro. It was just after
sunset when we arrived, and the streets were
thronged with gay promenaders, whom the heat
of the day had obliged to keep within doors.
The dark-eyed Spanish beauties had emerged
from their siestas and now fluttered out, with
their great painted fans and floating veils, look
ing like so many brilliant evening moths. Hand
some, indolent looking men with jetty moustache
and languid black eyes, were lounging about,
smoking and watching the ankles and pretty feet
of the Senoras who passed.. A crowd of them
stood criticising the movements of two girls who
were dancing to the music of castanets in the
piazza of a fruit shop.
All these I saw in panoramic views, as we
were jolted along the street in the wretched vehi
cle that conveyed us and our baggage from the
vessel. Suddenly I caught sight of a form which
seemed familiar, and, telling the driver to stop,
I leaned from the carriage to look more closely
at the figure, which, notwithstanding the Spanish
dress and sombrero, I thought I had seen before.
He was standing with a group of others around
a coffee house near the corner of the 3treet, watch
ing a graceful little Senora who was approach
ing, enveloped in one of those tantalizing man
tillas in which the Spanish ladies conceal their
pretty faces, leaving
“ Only their bright eyes free
To do their best at witchery.”
As our carriage stopped, the young Caballero
slipped just around the corner of the street, and
stood waiting there until the skirt of the lady’s
dress appeared. Then he rushed forward as
though hurrying to cross the street, oblivious of
a female’s existence. Os course a collision was
the consequence; the veil was disarranged and
drawn quite to one side, disclosing a pretty, piq
uant face, covered with blushes, eyes of sparkling
jet and lips like half open pomegranate blossoms.
“ Pray pardon my carelessness, Senora!” ex
claimed the deprecating voice of Harry Roysdan,
in Spanish, but with a strong English accent.
He looked so sincere and so miserable on ac
count of his “carelessness,” that one would never
have suspected the collision was not accidental.
The lady’ smiled and bowed; perhaps she un
derstood the stratagem, and was not displeased
at the compliment it implied.
“Allow me to assist you,” said Harry, gal
lantly, taking the rebozo in his thumb and finger,
as though it had been a cobweb, and folding it
carefully around the smiling dace.
“Now, if you belonged to the harem of a
Pacha, your jealous lord could find no fault with
that veil, lam sure. I can see uotliing but the
sparkle of your eyes, like stars, through the rent
of a summer cloud.”
“ Gracias Senor,” said the gratified little lady,
bowing low and gracefully, and moving away.
“Ah Harry!” I called out; “at your old
tricks yet, I see. Is this the reformation you
wrote me of?”
He looked around in a maze of wonder, and
then seeing me, he darted to the carriage, threw
open the door, sprang in and, seizing my hand,
shook it so vigorously that I begged him to de
sist.
“ Paul Desmond, by all that’s fortunate !” he
cried. “How did you get here? when did you
come ? Just dropped from the clouds, I sup
pose.”
“ No ; just arrived on the steamer Isabel.”
“And why did you not write and let me know
that you were coming, that my bachelor estab
lishment might have been fitted up to receive
such a distinguished guest? And by-the-by,”
he continued, “it is time we were on our way’
there now. These summer twilights are very
short, and my’ Abigail is punctual about supper.
Antoine,” he called to the driver, “ drive to the
‘ Cocoas.’ You know where that is—three miles
out of the city, on the old Romaine road.”
“Si Senor,” said the man, and urged forward
his team.
I introduced Petranello and explained how sud
den had been our conclusion to visit Cuba—at
tributing it all to his eloquent letter.
“Excellent!” he cried, rubbing his hands in
delight. “ That was a resolve you will not re
pent of, I pledge you. You shall both of you
stay with me at the Cocoas, and we shall see if
shooting, strolling and riding on horseback, to
say nothing of the witchery of these Creole girls,
will not bring color into the pale cheeks of your
young friend here. I assure you the beauty of
some of these Spanish women is really marvel
ous.”
“For instance, the one you were so uninten
tionally rude to just now.”
“11a, ha,” laughed he; “that was the only’
way I could think of, to get a glimpse of her face.
I picked up her fan yesterday, and her bright eyes
and sweet voice made me impatient to get a peep
beneath the folds of that stupid veil. By jove,
what a piquant countenance it was! Such eyes
and guch red, ripe, kissable lips—but I forget I
am talking to you , Paul, confirmed stoic, that
you are !”
I denied the impeachment, and he rattled on,
until the carriage suddenly stopped.
“Here we are at the ‘Cocoas!’” he cried,
springing out, “ and here comes Belle and Beau
to welcome us,” as two superb pointers leaped
through the gate and came bounding to us.
“ Come in. Supper, I expect, is waiting. I
I am sole autocrat of this empire, and I choose
to keep up the old-fashioned habit of early’ tea.
But before you go in, just stop a moment and take
a moonlight view of the ‘ Cocoas,’ and then, if
you do not pronounce it beautiful, you may go
back to the pest hole whence you came.”
It was beautiful, indeed! A picturesquely
built, gray cottage, embowered in feathery’ cocoa
trees, whose plumes were trembling in the breeze ■
to the left stretched a grove of orange trees, their
polished leaves flashing like silver in the moon
light ; beyond, lay the broad, billowy fields of
cane, and to the right, a little back from the
house, among the cocoa and plantain trees, was
situated the “ negro quarter,” a cluster of double
roomed, white-washed houses, from which came
sounds of laughter and merriment. Petranello
enjoyed the scene intensely'.
“ What is that dark object looming up behind
the house and almost hidden by the trees?” he
asked.
“ The ruins of an old castle, which stood there
when the estate belonged to some little, old Span
ish Don, with a rapier as long as his body, and a
title longer than either. I let the ruins remain
for the romance of the thing. You shall sketch
them to-morrow, if you like. For the present, we
will betake ourselves to more commonplace and
comfortable lodgings. Will it please your High
nesses to walk into le grande salon?”
It was a coSy, little parlor, with its cool straw
matting, its easy chairs, its books, its inviting
lounges, the green cedar boughs in its broad
chimney place, and the abundance of fresh flow
ers in the glass pitcher on the table and in the
vases on the mantle.
I looked around in surprise. Every thing was
so neat; so unlike what I imagined Harry’s bach
elor establisEment would be, for he had never
been remarkable for prominent development of
the bump of order. ‘
He saw my look as my eyes wandered around
the room, and interpreted it correctly.
“ Not to me is the.credit due,” he said. “Here
comes the soLutiou ot- the problem. Aunt Di,
advance,” as a shining, ebony face, fadiant with
good humor and surmounted by a height of red
and yellow turban, peered into the room.
She came forward, courtesying at every step.
She was a little, dumpy figure, in 6hort petti
coats, witu a wide, immaculately white apron, to
the string of which was attached a very house
wifely bunch of keys.
“ Gentlemen,” said Harry, gravely', “allow me
to present to you Diana the great—not Diana of
the Ephesians, however, but Diana, Prime Min
ister of the Court of Cocoas; General Superinten
dent ; President of the Committee of Domestic
Arrangements ; Directress of the Culinary De
partment, and Autocrat of these, her subjects,”
pointing to a gaping half dozen of little woolly
heads, “ over whom she wields the authority be
coming in one who
* Sits on no precarious throne.’ ”
“Bress de Lord!” ejaculated the bewildered
subject of all this eloquence. “I never, in all
my life, seed master’s match. Young gentle
men, my name aint none of that string of Latin
at all, but jest aunt Di, and nothin’ else. Mas
ter’s allers pokin’ fun at us, cause he aint got any
body else to make merry over. Hope you’ll
’suade him to marry, young sirs. We all wants
a missis bad enough.”
“Hear her, wi.T you?” exclaimed Harry.
“ That’s just the way she winds up every speech
she makes ; and I dare say', if she had a ‘missis’,
they would be at dagger's points in two weeks.
Would you believe that she has locked up every
silver spoon and piece of china in the house and
condemned me to Wedgewood ware and pewter,
until Ido bring a missis ? She won’t let you go
away without showing you the things she has
put away for ‘ marster’s wife.’ Come, let’s ad
journ to the supper room.”
The supper was delicious. Fruits, milk, curds,
native wine, pale amber-colored honey and rolls,
light and creamy as foam, comprised the fare.
Tw o green and gold paroquettes came down
from their perch among the cedar boughs on the
mantle, and alighted one on each of Harry’s
shoulders. He fed them with fruit as he ate, and
bade us notice the jealousy of Beau and Belle.
After tea, we had a long stroll through the
moonlit grounds. Harry had a fine plantation
and was rapidly amassing a fortune. His place
was a little Paradise, but he confessed to us that
he sometimes sighed for an Eve to enliven its
solitude.
“ See what amusements I resort to, to while
away the time,” he said, after our return, and ta
king a violin from the table, he began to improvise
upon it, sometimes playing an accompaniment
to his own masterly voice.
“ Bring in my class,” he said, presently, to a
servant who stood near. While we were wonder
ing what he meant, the door opened and half a
dozen little negroes entered and bowed and curt
seyed to us, displaying rows of ivory in their
irrepressible delight.
Harry, with great dignity, introduced us to his
“ class,” and then giving the signal, they all took
their assigned attitudes, and at the first inspiring
note of their favorite instrument, they began a
fantastic dance. It was a striking picture, and I
saw that my artist brother appreciated it as such.
The wee, dark forms, with their grotesque faces,
their handkerchiefs of scarlet and orange pinned
around their shoulders, or twined around their
heads, and every limb of their body, feet, hand*,
arms and even heads, keeping time to the music, re
minded.me of a field of poppies in a high wind.
Harry played yet more rapidly; his bow flew
across the strings with lightning swiftness, and
the row of dark little puppets accelerated their
movements in proportion. Even Belle and Beau
sprang into the circle and leaped gaily around.
Suddenly, at a wave of the bow in Harry’s
hand, they all stopped, bowed simultaneously and
disappeared as though by magic.
“ He waved his hand.
Down sunk the disappearing band,”
quoted Harry, and throwing down the violin, he
took up a cigar and wheeled an arm chair to the
window.
“You see,” he said, “ the prominent charac
teristic of the singular Ethiopian race. The love
of music and dancing is born with them. They
are all natural musicians, and as for dancing,
even when children, they cannot hear a tattoo
beat upon a brass kettle without their limbs
twitching and their feet patting time. They carry
this propensity with them into their religion.
Nearly every negro on this plantation, when I
brought them from Louisiana, were Baptists or
Methodists, and conducted their worship in the
orthodox manner, I suppose, for they had had
missionaries to teach them. But no sooner were
they left to themselves, than their fruitful imagi
nations began to graft fanciful ceremonies—
real heathenish ones, too —on the regular reli
gious forms that had been taught them. Pass
ing one Sunday evening by their ‘meetinghouse,’
as they call that small building yonder, I heard
a strange, shuffling sound, mingled with their
singing, and going to the door, I watched them
unperceived. They were ‘doing’ the Shaker in
fine style, though where they got the idea, Heaven
only knows. They had all joined hands, and
were shuffling around in a circle with a peculiar
step, which was not without a certain stately
grace, and singing a low monotone that broke out
into an echoing chorus, when the one in the cen
tre, who turned slowly as the others went round,
began to shout and spin around like a top.
When this one was exhausted, he was told that
he had enough of the blessing, and ordered back
into the ring, while another took his place and
went through the same movements.
Their preliminary ceremony of ‘ shewing the
Devil up the chimney” is decidedly the strangest
and wildest thing I ever saw. In spite of your
self, you will be affected by their weird panto
mine and their solemn chant. They are having
something of the kind to-night. Listen, and you
will hear their voices. Your poet friend here
might fancy it the wailing Banshee of the old
Castle yonder.”
I approached, and leaning from the window,
listened to the chorus of wild melody that floated
up from the negro quarter. I had heard H**’
chant of their powerful voices before, but
had any thing of the kind ™ e 80
deeply. There was something ,n
the strange scene, the moonlight,
the dusky shadows of tropfcal trees, and that
weird, elfin-like mush> now coming full and
strong, now dying *way like the sough of the
wind through a leafless forest.
[To be continued.]