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(**or the Sunny South.) ter months of silence and suspense, a brief let- ! ish fort—the Bomb-Proof, he called it—whose dead-pale face. She passed without speaking, ter came telling of a tedious illness, of a longiDg fallen walls were a mere mass of brick and stone, ! only inclining her head, and not lifting the to return, a yearning to be clasped “to your overgrown with grass and vines. heavy lids of her eyes, true heart, my sister ”—a letter in which there | At the wharf, the scene was somewhat livelier, ; “ Who is she ?” Marian asked, was an evident struggle against a weary despon- A schooner and three or four fishing boats were i “Madame Floris, Alice’s music-teacher. She dency, that burst forth in one instance in the at the landing, and a crowd of ragged negroes is going out for the solitary walk she takes every words: were rolling the barrels from their decks upon 1 evening at this hour.” “It is Spring again, and the breeze is astir in ! the wharf and into the warehouse with much “Is she foreign?” the ash tree by my window. I remember the ; shouting and singing. The Spray was also at “I think so. I detect a foreign accent, but wind-murmurs in the old oak over mother’s ! the landing with steam up, ready to take freight she is so silent and reserved, I have never asked, grave, that we used to think were the whispers . or passengers to the waiting steamer anchored ' She never speaks except when addressed, and ( If APTFP T IT of the an g e * s - How still and calm that burial outside, in the deep waters of the Spanish Hole, 1 comes among ns only at meals.” .HAfihti dL place seems in my memory ! How sweet, if I j for the town was situated on the river a few miles i “ Does she always wear that black cap, hood, The first letters that came from Adrienne were could lie there by my mother at rest forever ! j from its mouth, which formed a wide hut rather ! or whatever it is ?” asked Dr. Norris, reassuring, although they contained none of Marian, pray for me, that I may be able to bear shallow harbor. Just outside the river mouth, : “ Always—and the gray cape. I half believe the raptures usual to young brides, a fact-which this burden of life—for it is heavy, heavy.” i in a curved indentation of the Gulf-shore, was j she is a nun,” answered Alice, did not seem strange to the elder sister, for Marian mused painfully over this outburst of Cedar Bay, where Captain Head lived, when he “Yet if you catch, as I did once, a flash of the Adrienne had never been effusive; her emotions passionate despair. It was the last but one she was not on board his beloved lighter, and where | eyes, hidden under their heavy lids so persist- of joy or grief were expressed in the changes of was to see from Adrienne’s pen. Her letters re- Adriennb’s home was situated. i ently, it will banish all idea of the convent. The THE MYSTERY —of— CEDAR BAY. BY .MARY E. BRYAN. her face, in the movements and postures of her sumed their former graceful descriptive style, flexile body, rather than in words. Bat the though something in their tone told of restraint spirit of tranquility breathed through these let- ; and self-repression. There was no more men- ters, and her allusions to her hnsband were in tion of Aubrey De Vere, though Marian wrote the tone of admiring respect. Knowing Mari- inquiring about him. an's passion for pictures, she sketched the scenes 1 Months passed. Italy and Spain were visited; and people that came within her observation; then there was a short time spent in the gay the rivers, shadowed by castle-crowned cliff's; French capital; and at last a letter came without the mountains, the ruins, tha gorgeous churches, the foreign postmark. They had returned—had the pictures, the statues—marble shapes of settled down at the Florida home of the De beauty that had haunted Marian’s imagination; Forests—a lonely spot on the Gulf coast, on the the life in the busy foreign streets, in its quaint, ; shore of an inlet that was known as Cedar Bay. picturesque or ludicrous aspects; these Adrienne j Alice was with them, and Adrienne entreated | see any sign of ’em here.” outlined with vivid touches to amuse the lonely her sister to come and live with her also. But j Marian had not expected any one. girl at Kent Farm, and so cleverly were they j Marian read the letter beside the chair of her sketched that only Marian’s eye would have j helpless aunt, still lingering in the death in life missed anything in these pleasant letters. Only j of paralysis, and whose sunken eyes followed her love-sharpened senses would have noticed | her movements jealously and tilled with ehild- the change that gradually crept into them—the j ish tears if she went out of her sight, absence of special personal allusion; of any! Miss Rachel’s mind had failed more and more. “ ‘ Castle Dismal,’ we folks call it,” said Cap- I eyes are not nun-like, whatever their dropped tain Head, “for it’s the biggest house hereabout, | lids may be.” and it’s the lonesomest and the ghostliest-look- j “ Did you know nothing of her before she ing. I wouldn't live in it for all the gold Cap- I came among you?” Marian asked, tain Kidd ever buried, although my little camp’s : Adrienne did not answer immediately; and it almost in sight of it,where my old woman lives, ! was Alice who said: and where I’m going to carry this young one j “No, ire did not. Mr. De Forest engaged her. right now. If you won’t mind taking a seat with j He knew her well, I think.” us in the carryall, miss, behind the gentlest! “ And he told you nothing about her ?” This creetur that ever stretched a trace, I’ll take you ! time, Marian looked pointedly at Adrienne, right to your sister’s home in no time. That is, j “ I did not ask. .She was quiet and unobtru- if your friends haven’t come for yon, and I don t ! sive, and a fine musician. Her eccentricity does : not detract from her excellence as a teacher. She had I Will you go up to your room, Marian ? I will written soon after her aunt’s funeral, that she i order your baggage sent for early in the morn ing. When Marian was alone with her sister in the glimpse into the heart of the writer. Marian lelt tnis change with vague uneasiness that in creased w’hen she discovered, in subsequent letters, a tone of bitterness, ringing out sud denly and shortly, like a chord that had been unwittingly touched. More than once, this bitterness was intensified into a cynicism, a misanthropy so at variance with Adrienne’s char acter, that Marian was startled, as though she had seen a serpent suddenly rear its head from the calla lily blooming in her window. Something was wrong. What could it be? Was it connected with her husband ? Her refer ence to him had ben less and less frequent, un til he was only’ mentioned incidentally in the course of narration. Weariness and restless ness alternated in the letters; interest in art and in natural objects gave place to languid indif ference. About only one thing did she write with any enthusiasm—the beauty and nobleness of one man’s character—that man, Aubrey De Forest, her husband’s uncle, whom she met in Paris, and who traveled with them afterwards through Switzerland. She wrote thus of their first meeting: “I had gone early to the Flower Market, ac companied by Abbe DBoulogny, the brother of the Mother Superior at our Alma Mater Convent, who had sent a letter to him by me. While I was watching the picturesque figures, and list ening to the shrill, pleasant chatter of women and girls, I saw a man stop and bend down to an old woman, tired and dusty-looking, who was sitting on the ground with some bouquets of pretty, common flowers spread out on her was so worn as to be almost ill, and tbat there were certain matters of business which her aunt had greatly desired should he settled, and room that she was to call hers, she turned to which sho could not conscientiously leave un- , Adrienne, placed her hands upon hershoulders attended to. She had been fortunate in getting ! and looked long into her face. She saw there She had grown more peevish, exacting and nn- ! these arranged more easily than she had ex-! the shadow she had feared to see. Lovely as the reasonable. She rewarded Ylarian’s tireless care ! pected, and leasing the farm to the honest man J face was, it had changed. The childlike open- with complaints and abuse. Often, in a sudden paroxysm of pain or nervous irritability, she would strike the girl as she knelt to rub her limbs or lifted and dressed her as she would a baby. It was worse than a slave's service; it wore out soul and body; it was continuous, monotonous, thankless; but Marian kept its worst features to herself, tihe wrote little about it to her sisters. One day her trials had been harder than usual, and she was glad to see the slow evening shad- who had been her aunt's tenant so many years, she started at once for her sister’s home. They had passed fields of sea-island cotton, rice and sugar cane, and a group of cabins that Captair Head had pointed out as Mr. De For est’s plantation and negro “quarter;” and the sun was dropping near the horizon, when the Captain turned on his seat, say in; ness, the calm brightness were gone from it. The eyes were clouded as with hidden grief, the lips looked as though they had often curled in bitterness. “Adrienne, you are changed? What has come over you ?” Marian asked in tones of an guish. She turned from the lamp and answered ows creeping over the pine woods visible from level prospect, bounded by the silvery sea-line, the window. Her heart gave a joyful throb a ! but not low like the little town she had left, Here’s Cedar Bay, and yonder among them ; lightly: oaks is Castle Dismal.” I “Changed! Certainly I am changed. Did Marian saw before her another open, almost j you expect me always to keep that baby face ? I ' should be sorry if these two eventful years had little later, when Sandy, the tenant’s son, tapped lightly at the door, and thrust in his sturdy, brown list, holding a letter he had just brought from town. She dared not open it yet, for her aunt was awake and nervous; and these letters were especially irritating to her. Sue was jeal ous of them and angry at the attention they took from her, and at the effect they had upon Marian—the longing apparent in the girl’s sad face. “ What are yon making that noise for?” she said querulously, as she caught a slight rustle of the envelope. “ You don't care how much you worry me; you are on your head now; you’ve got another of those letters from folks that don’t care a snap for you, and only write their tine letters here to crow over you and make you envy their good fortune. And you’re just ninny enough to -want to run after them to tie their shoes and make yourself their humble servant. and diversified by taller pines, tree palmettoes, gnarled old cedars, and masses of gray lime stone rock, embedded in the sandy ground, and covered with patches of gray, bristly moss. At the highest point of the prospeot rose the dark, weather-stained building, hardly distinguish able from the immense moss-hung live-oaks that stood about it. Gloomy it looked against the background of gray sky and dusky, far-off' pines; and Marian wondered why Mr. De For est should have chosen io bring his young bride to this desolato place. left no trace, so that my face would be like Viola’s history, ‘a blank, my lord, a blank.’ They have not passed over you without record. I see the stamp of patient endurance on your brow, my Marian. Your face is like a flower the sun has never shone upon, and I almost fear to find silver threads in this dark hair.” As she spoke, she unbound the rich mass of hair, and stood combing and arranging it with skillful fingers. Then she led Marian to the window, saying: “ Come and see the moon rise over the bay.” The great globe had just lifted itself from the lap. lie spoke kindly to her and bought all her ! More fool you !” flowers, which he gathered up in a great bunch in his hand, and divided between a pale, sickly girl—aiseamstress, most likely—who had been wistfully’ eyeing a bunch of pansies—and a group of children, who received them with shouts of joy. The man’s face attracted me. It is strong, it is sweet, it is sad, I said to myself, and there is a look in it of isolation, as of one ent off from his kind in fate but not in sympa thy. A Promethean face, Marian. I spoke of it to the Abbe, and he said the man was known to him; that he had seen him first, one night in Florence, where he saved a woman from the waters of the Arno; and afterwards, -when the pestilence raged in Rome, so that all tied who could, and there was lack of nurses, until a lew noble spirits volunteered their services. Among them came this man. He was most efficient, calm, fearless of death, yet sympathizing deeply with suffering, careless of his ease, patient, de voted. ‘I never saw one like him.’ said the Abbe. ‘ I will bring him to speak to you if you wish. He is of your husband’s name, if 1 do not mistake the pronunciation.’ “Marian, he was my husband’s uncle—the Aubrey De Forest I wrote you we were to meet in Europe—but I did not then know—I have only lately learned (by accident)—that he was also my husband’s benefactor, father, guardian. It is strange Mr. De Forest should have spoken to me so little about his uncle. He had not ex pected to meet him until he reached Rome.” Afterwards, while in Rome, Adrienne wrote: “ We went to-day to visit the studio of Clarence Lynn, the young English artist who is dying ot consumption. At the threshold, we were sur prised to see Aubrey De Forest’s St. Bernard dog, and still more astonished, on going in, to see the dog's master sitting before the easel fin ishing Lynn’s picture of ‘David Repenting’—a great work, which the artist has grown too fee ble to complete, as he is anxious to do for the sake of his fame, and the help the sale of it will be to his wife and child. But he says his friend is finishing it for him more carefully than he could do, following and improving upon his thought. So I learn that Aubrey De Forest is un artist, as I have already found out that he is u poet. Yet his is the most child-like nature I ever knew—reverent and trusting, lull of genu ine simplicity and truthfulness, with a humor ous quaintness that makes him infinitely inter esting. I fancy his spirit was one of child-like Marian's stifled sigh was full of weary sadness, but she made Miss Rachel's tea, and read her the World newspaper until her heavy breathing told she was asleep. Then she softly opened her letter. A bank check fell from it, and tak ing in rapidly the few lines it contained, she saw that it was a passionate appeal for her to come at once. “ I can no longer keep back the cry that comes from my soul. I need you, Marian. Circum stances forbid me to go to you; come to me; I need you m.ire than lean tell. Come, I beseech you.” It was the cry of a spirit no longer able to en dure the repression imposed upon it; every fibre of Marian’s being responded to the appeal. Go she must—and yet . She looked at the figure of her aunt, propped up in the cushioned chair; a feeling of resentment rose within her; and, struggling to repress it, she went noiselessly out into the early, dewy night, and walked rap idly up to the brow of the hill, where the pines whispered in the starlight, and where, so long ago, she had watched the carriage that bore her sisters away. Absorbed in thought, she stood there longer than she had meant, and suddenly remembering her charge, she walked hurriedly back and crept into the room. All was still. Her aunt sat perfectly quiet in the old oak chair— even her usual heavy breathing was now inau dible. The dim candle-light fell over the old, furrowed face, and as Marian looked at it with remorse for her impatience, she saw that the gray head had dropped from the cushion and hung in a painful position. She stooped to lift it back to its place. As she touched the wrin kled cheek, its coldness made her start. She lifted the head into the light; the glazed, half open eyes, the slightly-distorted features, told a tale which could not be mistaken. Miss Ra chel’s sufferings were ended at last. CHAPTER YI. “Well, you are near your journey’s end now. You can srneJl the salt marsli,” said the quaint old man with the rugged face, frosty beard and twinkling hazel eye, who had, since the evening before, been Marian’s fellow-traveler on the train, and who, having found out her destina tion, had informed her that he too was going to Cedar Bay; that he lived there, and was captain of the “lighter” Spray, a “spry little craft," whose business it was to lighten the loads of gayetv before the shadow fell over it that has j vessels too large to come into the port, and that steeped it in melancholy; what this shadow j he was now returning from the next State, where may be, I have often wondered.” he had been to get his little grand-daughter, ’ whose mother had died a year before, and whose It was at another time, after a period which she acknowledged to beone of depressed spirits, that she wrote: “I know Aubrey De Forest’s secret; I no longer wonder that, with his profoundly sensi tive and conscientious nature, it should have isolated him from his fellow beings. I do not wonder tbat there are times when he cannot bear the presence even of his friends, but must shut himself up in solitude and wrestle with the memories of a strange and fateful past. The darkness of those hours are for him alone. He comes out from this struggle worn but calm, and kinder than ever to everything around him.” Such was Adrienne's sketch of her husband s uncle. In her letters at this time there was fre quent mention of him- sometimes a word to ac knowledge to whom she was indebted for her feeling oi the more subtle beauty of a picture, a statue, a landscape, or a musical composition. “ I see it through the eyes of our poet,” she would say. Sometimes it was mention of some brother had been with him and his g®od wife ever since he was a “ chap knee high.” “ Look out, Miss. You can see the river and the town, though there’s not much of that; and yonder’s the chimney of my little craft. It’s a mercy they aint blowed her np, or run her aground, or something. YTrang heads are mighty rash, and the Spray’s gettin’a bit tender in her timbers,though she’ll weather it for many a day yet. Don’t you lean out so far, Rosa.” For the child’s curly head was thrust out in eager curiosity. Marian, too, looked out eagerly at the an nouncement that she was nearing her journey’s end. She saw a dreary prospect of flat, marshy country, over which were scattered scrubby pines, patches of gallberry bushes, and clumps of palmetto: in the distance, a row of dingy houses, and further on the gleam of water, the At this moment her eye caught sight of three j sea; a long track of light quivered across the figures outlined against the horizon, as they j rippled surface, and tbe mysterious radiance stood upou the beach where the tide was coining | fell over the wide landscape and mixed with the in, and the white gulls and prairie fowls were j shadows of the pines and cedars, flying off to their roosts. Two of the figures; “It-is weird. 1 like the desolate grandeur of were females; one, the smaller and lower, stood I this spot; but it docs not suit you, Adrienne, near her male companion, and seemed looking i Why did you choose to live in such a lonely up at him and listening to his talk; while the ! place—-you, who are so fitted for society ?” other, a slender, willowy shape, stood apart in a ‘‘I fitted for society ? Y'ou are mistaken. I I could not bear it, am not fitted for society now.” “Adrienne, you cannot deceive, me; you are not happy !” Marian cried, impulsively. “Happy!” The look, the keen, bitter irony of the tone were involuntary. Marian pierced musing, abstracted attitude, gazing out upon the sea. “It is Adrienne,” thought the sister, “the other is Alice, and the man is Adrienne’s hus band.” Telling Capt. Head she would join her sisters,’ she thanked him for his krttdness, promised the ! their meaning on the instant. She knew then curly haired grand-child to come to see her soon, | that her forebodings were true—that this sister and alighting from the rt-eliicle walked down j she loved so, this high-souled, rarely beautiful toward the beach. As she approached, Alice 1 woman, was captive in her life, shipwrecked in and her companion turr/'d a 3d looked at her. j her affections. Eagerly Marian scanned the man’s features,] “Adrienne,” she groaned, “what has hap- noted the calm open brow, the restful, kindly ! nened ? What is the secret of this chancre V" eyes, the firm, proud, gentle mouth, and with a feeling of relief, thought: “Surely the shadow that has fallen upon Adrienne cannot have come from him." As she came nearer, Alice started toward her with a cry of recognition, but stopped, as Adri enne turning swittly, the blood rushing into her pale face, stretched out her arms and was clasped to her sister’s breast. For more than a minute she remained with her face hid in Marian’s bosom, her frame quiv ering with tearless sobs. Then she raised her head and averted it, when again her face was turned to Marian, it was shaded by the light silk scarf she had thrown over her head. Questions and explanations followed, as to Marian’s coming sooner than expected and re grets that there had been no one to meet her. “And now, I must know your husband, Adrienne. I am sure by his face that I shall like him,” the elder sister said, looking towards the gentleman, who, with true delicacy, had walked off a little way, but had watched the sis ters’ meeting with sympathy shining in his eyes. A deep wave of color flowed into Adrienne’s When the Creator saw the perplexity of their thoughts, he called the angels around him and explained to them hi- intention in h - creation and the future destiny of man after his death, isaid he : “ I have made him a little lower than your selves. though a brute he seems to be, having a material body made from earth: I have at the 1 same time implanted within him my own divin ity and immortality. His body tbat I took from the earth will go buck to it. but his soul, or the immortal part of him. will live throughout eter nity, and be a partaker with you in the joys of my heavenly Kingdom.” “But,” asked tile angels, “where is that soul of hi- ? We see it not, nor can we associate with it. How, then, can he be an equal with us ? As a creature of earth he is no companion for us, for our tastes, joys and knowledge is far beyond I his earthy comprehension ?” | “ Y’ou shall know and see the mystery of his | creation, and shall be to him a teacher and in- ! structor in things spiritual, when he takes on his spiritual nature. For know ye, ye hosts of ! heaven, I shall be to bim a God and a Father, a Savior and a Redeemer. Death has been decreed I him, and die he must, but I have given to hjm two natures; one ot flesh and the other of spirit. ! To you I have given but one nature like unto 1 myself, immortal and immaterial. Ye know i nothing of death, time or space; he shall know all and taste of all. io him, life shall be a pro- : bation, a school, wherein his spiritual man shall ] grow' better or worse as lie uses bis body. With I him there will be passions, propensities, and j temptations; and as he resists the evil and chooses the good, he will but prepare himself for an as- ! sociation with yourselves. For I have given ! him, with his dual nature, also a knowledge of ! good and evil, while you only know good.” j After the death of his body yon will see his j spirit, and 1 shall reward him as he has lived, j His spiritual life will differ from yours in the I fact that he will be conscious of having had two j lives, and will enjoy his spiritual life by corn- | parison with that of his temporal or earthly life. ” j “But,” asked the angels, “will you love him more thaD you do us? For you have wonder fully made him, with a vast capacity for happi ness ?” “ I will not love the less, but I will love the creature man, for the trials that will be his lot and the manner in which he endures them. My spirit will go out to him; my mercy will be great towards him; my forgiveness and forbearanoe will be long-suffering; but my anger, fierce and consuming if he willfully persists in evil and in sin. With him, he must inherit heaven as a gift, not that he deserves it, but —by putting his faith in me, and giving to me that worship which his divine nature tbat I have implanted in him de mands. It shall be acoouted in him merit, and that merit will open to him the bright mansions of my city, wherein he will greet the joyful for ever. Look not then upon the perishable and earthy body of man, but upon his divine nature, for, as I have created him above the beasts, which perish, and only a little lower than yourselves, so he shall ever be an object of my care and a child of heaven, when he shall be born to a new life through the womb of the grave, which will give him up at my command. “How poor, how rich, how abject, how angnst, How complicate how wonderful is man ! How passing wonder He who made him such i Who centered in our make such strange extremes. An heir of glory ! A frail child of dust! Helpless ! Immortal! Insect infinite I A worm ! A God! pened ? What is the secret of this change ? “Do not ask me; I can never tell you. It is nothing you can remedy, and to know it would throw a cloud over you that would chill your very brightest moments.” “If I knew, could I not help you ?” “No, it is a burden I must bear alone; it is right that I should bear it alone. But you can help me in other ways. I want your sustaining affection; I want the sight of your true, good face. I want you to teach me your secret of calm endurance—teach me how to bear life.” Her voice broke. Quickly she rallied and took a lighter tone. “Forgive me, Marian. It is selfish in me to throw my cloud over you. You have had far too much of clouds in your life. I did not mean it. Your eyes, your questions probed me too keenly. Do not think I am without hope. I have the hope of making life here endurable to you, to Alice, and even to me. We will have books and music; we will have rides and rambles, and rows upon the water. Alice has learned to be a good, oars- woman, and she loves the woods like a gipsy. We will have the society of Dr. Norris and his stately mother -lady Washington redivivus— and a few others. In the summer, there will be face, ebbed quickly, and left it whiter than be- | visitors at the springs, and we will have gay fore, as she said, quietly: “Y’ou are mistaken. That is not my husband. He is Dr. Norris, a friend of ours, who lives in Newport, a little town two miles beyond St. Marks, and quite a summer resort because of its mineral water. We came to know him through his attendance upou Alice during a dangerous spell of fever. His mother, also, was exceed ingly kind. Dr. Norris’ face does not contra dict his character. He is a devoted son, a faith ful friend, a good and true man. I am glad that you will know him, Marian; he has heard of you often. Let us join him now.” As his eye and his hand met Marian’s in the introduction that followed, a nearer look con firmed her first impression. He looked a man in whom men would rely, women would trust and children would confide. As they walked slowly towards the house, Marian again men tioned Mr. De Forest. “Is he at home?” she asked. “ He is out in his boat on the bay, I think. It may be late before he returns.” Again that chill, calm tone. It repelled the farther questions concerning Mr. De Forest that rose to Marian’s lips. They stood before the house. With her hand upon the iron gate set ip the low wall of piled limestone rocks, matted together with moss and creeping vines, Adrienne said: “I am sorry you could not have seen this place first in the full light of the sun. It is gloomy enough at best.” Gloomy it certainly looked, with those great live oaks shrouded in moss, standing one on either side and flinging their vast shadows over the walls. Built in the shape of a Greek Cross, flutter of sails, and the sight of the rusty iron pipe which Captain Head had pointed out as j the lower story of brick and gray plaster, the the chimney of his spry cratt, the Spray. The upper cf wood, the outer walls were so discol- gracefuTlittle surprise he had provided—a rus- j wheezy tram with its shabby cars steamed up to j ored by time, so covered with ivy and crusted tic banquet come upon suddenly midway or at i the wharf, to which it was due three times a i with moss and mould (less from age than be- the foot*of some mountain, spread on the rocks | week Gor this was only a short branch railway) and served by broad-hatted peasant girls. Such ! to get what Ireight and passengers might be a fete was described in a letter that was the last i brought in by schooners, fishing smacks, and Marian received from her sister for a long and | the occasional large steamers that touched at the anxious interval. This letter, written from j once busy,’but now little used port. CLamouni, at the foot of the monarch moun tain, ended in this way: “To-morrow we make the grand ascent. I leave my letter unfinished, that I may append an account of our adventures and hair-breadth 'scapes, and enclose you a blossom ot the yen A row of small shops, shanties and eating- | houses straggled along the railroai on either j side, headed by a bain-like, wooden hotel, in i the piazza of which a draggled woman was j promenading. Indeed, everything about the j place had a draggled, amphibious look, and tiana- nivalis, plucked blue and dazzling from the puddles of water appeared in the yards, the brink of a precipice or a cleft in some desolate j walks and beds of which were bordered with • • ” r j conch-shells and pieces ot white coral. A few y h u t u0 sketch of the excursion was added— ! larger buildings, in a state oi mi .pidation, were nothina but Adrienne's initials, traced in a | scane ed around, and Captain Head pointed out trembling hand, at the bottom of the page. At- j near the waters edge, the rums of an old Spau- cause of the moist, warm climate) that the origi- company if we like. Above all, you will have rest and ease, and to see you at last possessed of these, will be my best happiness. Come, now, let me take off this dusty traveling-dress and put something cool and fresh upon you. It is fortunate we are nearly the same size; my dresses will fit you, and you will not mind being without your trunk till to-morrow.” While she helped Marian with her toilet, she talked gaily, as if trying to make her sister lose sight of the gloomy confession that had escaped her lips. But though Marian spoke of it no more her mind was filled with the thought— * ‘what is the secret of this unhappiness—this despair ?” That it was connected with Mr. DeForest, she could not doubt, and her anxiety to see him in creased. But when they went below, into the lighted and richly but sombrely furnished par lor, only Alice and Doctor Norris were there. TO BE CONTINUED. For the Sunny South. Debate Upon Man’s Creation. BY It. M. O. When the angels, says tradition, saw the crea ture man, as he came from the hands of the Cre ator, they were struck with his resemblance to themselves in figure and form, and as man looks upon tfle Orang-outang, Chimpanzee, Gorilla or Gibbon, a brute in man’s form, walking upon two legs, but still a brute without language or a soul, so looked the angels upon man. They commented upon the caricature as a source of angelic curiosity or study, but that he could or would be an associate with them, and be capa ble of enjoying heavenly delights never entered i their celestial minds. Man, they said, was a creature of earth, made gatkerii nat materials of the structure could hardly be j from it; a creature of time,place and habit, and, guessed. j being a material creature, it was with him labor As Marian stepped within the shadow cast by ] and effort to go from place to place, while they, this gloomy house a strong shudder seized her. j being immaterial, moved with the celerity of Again the mist swam before her; again as she i thought from sphere to sphere among the looked at Adrienne, who walked before, she saw j countless stars. He was an animal a few grades higiier than the others, but nevertheless an ani mal. Such were their consultations and talk among themselves. But what was their surprise, not to say an gelic jealousy, to behold the Great Creator hold converse witn the creature man, and to see that he comprehended and worshipped his creator. No brute had ever done that, and was an eartfily the dim images of pain and death about her sister’s figure. The vision lasted nardiy a second, yet it left a shuddering feeling of dread. Was it a pre sentiment ? and was it an ill omen -that strange figure which met her just beyond the threshold ? the figure of a woman, tall and statue-like, wrapped in a drapery of gray serge and with a black, hood-like covering drawn over her head j creature to be made an equal and a sharer with so as to hide ali trace of hair and shade her ! them in the blessings and delights of heaven? The Poets, Personally. William Cullen Bryant recently celebrated his eighty-second birthday, having been born Novem ber 3, 1794, >n Comington, Mass. He looks little three-score-and-ten, having still an erect figure and elastic step. He shows his vigor and fond ness for exercise by walking, as be quaintly puts it, “ every morning down to his Evening Post.” The poet’s head and face are covered with a liberal supply of silvery locks, and he rather takes a pride in seeing his classic and venerable self as others see him, for there is scarcely a photographer in town who has not a fine portrait of Bryant. At public dinners he may often be seen, and at speech- making lie is not at all backward. Althoguh he is frequently to be met in thestreetsof the city, he rarely attends the opera or theatre. Mr. Bryait writes so little poetry he may be said to have laid down the lyre; but of general literary and journal istic labor he still perforins a great deal of work. Mr. Tennyson, now sixty-six years old, is still in the prime of thought and capacity for work. The only ill he is heir to is an annual hay fever- He is six feet high, broad shouldered and large boned, but not stout. His hands and feet are large. His face is long, and somewhat resembles that of Dante, save that it has not the rigid mould and expression of the great Florentine, and the nose is not so aquiline. His hair is long and black, his complexion olive. Once upon a time, in speaking of Mr. Tennyson’s personal appearance, Buchanan Read called him “ a dilapidated Jupiter”—a piece of description at once picturesque, acute and hu morous. Whittier is sixty-eight years old and a most quaint, kindly, and refined person, using habitual ly the Quaker 11 thee ” and “ thou.” Henry W. Longfellow is a year older, and wears well the dignity of the gentleman and the poei. Lowell is fifty seven, and has the look of the crit ic rather than the poet. Stoddard is tiffty-six years old, about five feet nine inches high, and wears a full iron gray beard. This author looks every inch a poet, and in conver sation is bright and witty. For fifteen years he “ fed at the public crib” in the custom service; but now his whole time is occupied in contributing to the magazines and newspapers. The right hand being paralyzed, Mr. Stoddard has learned to write with his left. Stoddard’s wife is a writer of no mean ability, and has made a reputation for her self in the literary world. Thomas Bailey Aldrich, just forty years of age, was born in New Hampshiie; laid the foundation for his reputation in New Y’ork; wrote “ Babie Belle ” while he was in his teens, and dow resides in Boston. Aldrich’s reputation as a poet and novelist is increasing and improving, foreign crit ics of high authority placing him among the first American writers He has had some experience as an editor and literary critic, having commenced his career in the office of the Home Journal. Al drich has a wife and several children. William Morris, the poet, lives in a charming house in London, brightened by the presence of a beautiful wife and three pretty children. H'«e study is reached by three flights of stairs , and dii a bare room, hung with lumps of tobacco, aiteu having for writing purposes a curious hacked ta-* 8 ble and an aucieut inkhorn. Herein the “ Earth ly Paradise” was written. The shaggy-haired, kind-faced poet never looks handsomer than when his little ones are dancing about him aud climb ing over him. Truth is immortal : the sword cannot pierce it, fire cannot consume it, prisons cannot incarcerate it, famine cannot starve it. Behavior is a mirror in which every one shows his own image. There is a politeness of the heart akin to love, from which springs the easiest polite ness of outward behavior. Beauty, like the flowering blossoms, soon fa but the divine excellence of the mind, like medical virtues of the plant, remains ia it all those charms are withered. jjgTlNCT print