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The birdlings slumber in their neste,
Secure;
Lily and rose have veiled their breasts,
Demure.
They hear the lore-impassioned West's
Swift footsteps on the mountain crests.
A spirit through the woodland creeps
And sighs;
A spirit from the distant steeps
Replies;
Only where wa.ch the willow keeps
O’er graves, disturbless Silence sleeps.
The river and the meadow floods
Sing low.
With light, in lake and crinkling chutes,
Aglow;
Save where the forest's shield protrudes.
Gigantic, and broad Darkness broods.
Through waste of wavering mist and cloud,
The town.
Wrapped in the moonlight’s shim'ring shroud,
Looks down.
From the far hills, its lights and spires
Circling the sky with golden fires.
The stars, In blending wreaths and rows,
Burn bright;
More still, more pure and holy, grows
The'night.
God holdcth safe, with loving hands.
The resting seas, and dreaming lands.
BEAUTIFUL COUNTESS;
Or,
A Horrible Mystery,
I approached her softly and beir low to lo)k at her face.
A Startling and Exciting Story
BY SHERIDAN LE FANUE.
CHAPTER L
In Styria, we, though by no means magnifi
cent people, inhabit a castle, or schloss. A
small income in that part of the world, goes a
great way. Eight or nine hundred a year does
wonders. Scantily enough ours would have
answered among wealthy people at home. My
father is English, and I bear an English name,
although I never saw England. But here, in
this lonely and primitive place, where every
thing is so marvellously cheap, I really don’t
see how ever so much more money would at all
materially add to our comforts, or even luxu
ries.
My father was in the Austrian service, and
retired upon a pension and his patrimony, and
purchased this feudal reeidence, and the small
estate on which it stands, a bargain.
Nothing can be more picturesque or solitary.
It stands on a slight eminence in a forest. The
road, very old and narrow, passes in front of
its drawbridge, never raised in my time, and its
oat, stocked with perch, and sailed over by
k. ny swans, and boating on its serface white
fleets of water-lilies.
Over all this the schloss shows its many-win
dowed front; its towers and its Gothic chapel.
TLe forest opens in an irregular and very pic
turesque glade before its gate, and at the’right
a steep Gothic bridge carries the road over a
stream that winds in deep shadow through the
wood.
1 have said that this is a very lonely place.
Judge whether I say truth. Looking from the
hall door towards the road, the forest in which
our castle stands extends filteen miles to the
left. The nearest muanited village is about
seven of your English miles to the left. The
ne*"est inhabited schloss of any historic asso
ciations is that of old General Spielsdorf, near
ly twer j miles away to the right.
1 u 'e jaid the “nearest inhabited village,” be-
caus there is, only three miles westward, that
is to say in the direction of General Spielsdorf's
schloss, a ruined village, with its quaint little
church, now roofless, in the aisle of which are
the mouldering tombs of the proud family of
Karnstein, now extinct, who once owned the
equally desolate chateau which, in the thick of
the forest, overlooks the silent ruins of the
town.
Respecting the cause of the desertion of this
striking and melancholy spot, there is a legend
which I shall relate to you another time.
I must tell you now, bow very small is the
party who constitute the inhabitants of our cas
tle. I don't include servants or those depen
dents who occupy rooms in the buildings attach
ed to the schloss. Listen, and wonder! My
father, who is the kindest man on earth, but
growing old; and I, at the date of my story, on
ly nineteen. Eight years have passed since
then. I and my father constitute the family at
the schloss. My mother, a Styrian lady, died
in my infancy, but I had a good-natured gov
erness, who had been w,th me finm, I might al
most say, my infancy. I could not remember
the time when her fat, benignant face was not a
familiar picture in my memory. This was Mad
ame Perrodon, a native of Berne, whose care
and good nature in part supplied to me the loss
of my mother, whom I do not even remember,
so early I lost her. She made a third at our
dinner party. Tbero was a fourth, Mademoi
selle de Lafontaine, a lady such as you term, I
believe, a “finishing governess.” She spoke
French and German, Madame Perrodon, French
and broken English, which partly to prevent
its becoming a lost language among m, and
partly irorn patriotic motives, we spoke every
day. The consequence was a Babel, at which
strangers used to laugh, and which 1 shall make
no attempt to reproduce in this narrative. And
there were two or three young lady friends be
sides, pretty neariy of my own age, who were
occasional visitors, for longer or shorter terms;
and these visits I sometimes returned.
These were our regular social resources; but
of course there were chance visits from neigh
bors of ouly five or six leagues distance. My
life was notwithstanding a solitary one, I can
assure you.
My governantes hid lust so much control over
me as you might conjecture such sage persons
would have in the base of a rather spoiled girl,
whose only parent allowed her pretty nearly
her own way in everything.
The first occurrence in my existence, which
produced a terrible impression upon my mind,
which in fact, never has been effaced, was one
of the very earliest incidents of my life which I
can recollect. Some people will think it so
trifling that it should not be recorded here. You
will see, however, by-and-bye, why I mention
it. The nursery as it was called, though I La 1 it
all to myself, was a large room in the upper sto
ry of the castle, with a steep oak roof. I can’t
have been more than six years old, whon one
night I awoke and looking around the room from
my bed, failed to see the nursery-maid. Neither
was my nurse there; and I thought myself alone.
I was not frightened, for I was ODe of thos >
happy children who are studiously kept in ig
norance of ghost stories, of fairy tales, and of
all such lore as make us cover up our heads
when the door creaks suddenly, or the flicker
of an expiring candle makes the shadow of a
bed-post dance upon the wall, nearer to our
faces. I was vexed and insulted at finding
myself, as I conceived, neglected, and I be ^an
to whimper, preparatory to a hearty bout of
roaring; when to my surprise, I saw a solemn,
but very pretty face looking at me from the side
of the bed. It was that of a young lady who was
kneeling with her hands under the coverlet. I
looked at her with a kind of pleased wonder,
and ceased whimpering. She caressed me with
her hands, and lay down beside me on the bed,
and drew me towards her, smiling. I felt imme
diately soothed, and fell asleep again. I was
wakened by a sensafion as if two needles ran in
to my breast very deep at the same moment,
and I cried loudly. The lady started back, with
her eyes fixed on me, and then slipped down
upon the floor, and, as I thought, hid herself
under the bed.
I was now for the first time frightened, and I
yelled with all my might and main. Nurse,
nursery-maid, housekeeper, all came running
in, and hearing my story, they made light of it,
soothing me all they could meanwhile. But,
child as I was, I could perceive that their faces
were pale with an unwonted look of anxiety,
and I saw them look under the bed, and about
the room, and peep under tables and pluck
open cup boards; and the housekeeper whis
pered to the nurse;
“Lay your hand along that hollow in the bed;
some one did lie there, so sure as you did not;
the place is still warm.”
I remember the nursery-maid petting me, and
all three examining my chest, where I told them
I felt the puncture, and pronouncing that there
was no sign visible that any such thing had
happened to me.
The housekeeper and the two other servants
who were in charge of the nursery, remained
sitting up all night; and from all that time a
servant al #ays sat up in the nursery until I was
about fourteen.
The morning after I saw this apparition I was
in a state of terror, and could not bear to be left
alone, daylight though it was, for a moment.
I remember my father coming up and stand-
at the bedside, and talking cheerfully, and ask
ing the nurse a number of questions, and laugh
ing very heartily atone of tUe answers; and pat
ting me on the shoulder, and kissing me, and
t lling me not to be frightened, that it was noth
ing but a dream aDd could not hurt me.
But I was not comforted, fori knew the visit
of the strange woman was not a dream; and I
was awfully tightened.
I was a Utile consoled by the nursery-maid’s
assuring me that it was she who had come and
looked at me, and lain down beside me in the
bed, and that I must have been half-dreaming
not to have known her face. But this, though
supported by the nurse, did not quite satisfy me.
1 remember, in the course of that day, a ven
erable old man, in a black cassock, coming into
the room with the nurse and houskeeper, and
talking a little to them, and very kindly to
! me; his face was very sweet ,<s gentle, and he
; told me they were going to pi:^ and joined my
: hands together, and desired to say, softly,
\ while they were praying, ‘ 7 or i hear all good
prayers for us. for Jesus’ 0 ’f~,, r T think these
vwere.thf j£ur^.vor<if ., r p.rr\i,nM'ce*
to myself, and my nurse used ”’,»r years to make
me say them in my prayers.
I remember so well t ie thoughtful sweet face
of that white-haired old man, in his black cas
sock, as he stood in that rude, lofty, brown
room, with the clumsy furniture of a fashion
three hundred years old, about him, and the
scanty light entering its atmosphere through the
small lattice. He kneeled, nnd the three women
with him, and he prayed aloud with an earnest
quavering voice for, what appeared to me, a
long time.
I forget all my life preceding that event, and
for some time alter it is all obscure also, but the
1 scenes I have just deserbed stand out vivid as
the isolated pictures of the phantasmagoria sur
rounded by darkness.
CHAPTER II.
I am now going to tell you something so
strange that it will require all your faith in my
veracity to believe my story. It is not only true,
nevertheless, but truth of which I have been an
eye-witness,
It was a sweet summer evening, and my father
asked me, as he sometimes did, to take a little
ramble with him along that be'antiful forest vista
which I have mentioned as lying in front of the
schloss.
“General Spielsdorf cannot come to ns as soon
as I had hoped,” said my father, as we pursued
our walk.
He was to have paid ns a visit of some weeks,
and we had expected his arrival next day. He
was to have brought with him a young lady, his
niece and ward, MademoiselleRheinfeldt, whom
I had never seen, but whom I had heard describ
ed as a very charming girl, and in whose society
I had promised myself many happy days. I
was more disappointed than a young lady living
in a town, or a bustling neighborhood can pos
sibly imagine. The visit, and the new acquaint
ance it promised, had furnished my day dream
for many weeks.
“And how soon does he come? ” I asked.
“Not till autumn. Not for two months, I dare
say,” he answerd,
“And I am very glad now, dear, that'yon never
knew Mademoiselle Rheinfeldt.”
“And why?” I asked, both mortified and
curious. '■
“ Because the poor young lady is dead,” he
replied. “ I quite forgot I had not told you,
but you were not in the room when I received
the General’s letter this evening.”
I was very much shocked, General Spiels
dorf had mentioned in his first letter, six or
seven weeks before, that she was not so well as
he would wish her, but there was nothing to
suggest the remotest suspicion of danger.
“ Here is the General’s letter,” he said, hand
ing it to me. “ I am afraid he is in great afflic
tion; the letter appears to me to have been writ
ten very nearly in distraction.”
We sat down on a rude bench, under a group
of magnificent lyne-trees. The sun was setting
with all its melancholy splendor behind the
sylvan horizon, and the stream that flows beside
our home, and passes under the steep old bridge
I have mentioned, wound through many a group
of noble trees, almost at onr feet, reflecting in
its current the fading crimson of the sky. Gen
eral Spielsdorfs letter was so extraordinary, so
vehement, and in some places so self-contradic
tory, that I read it twice over—the second time
aloud to my father—and was still unable to ac
count for it, except by supposing that grief had
unsettled his mind.
It said“ I have lost my darling daughter—for
as such I loved her. During the last days of
dear Bertha’s illness I was not able to write to
you. Before then I had no idea of her danger.
I have lost her, and now learn all, too late. She
died in the peace of innocence, and in the glori
ous hope of a blessed futurity. The fiend who
betrayed car infatuated hospitality has done it
all. I thought I was receiving into my house
innocence, gaiety, a charming companion for my
lost Bertha. Heavens! what a fool have I been!
I thank God my child died without a suspicion
of the canse of her sufferings. She is gone with
out so much as conjecturing the nature of her
illness, and the accursed passion of the agent of
. all this misery. I devote my remaining days to
* caC cuis.,«, l -m
■ told I may hope to accomplish ihj- righteous and
j merciful purpose. At present there is scarcely
I a gleam of light to guide me. I curse my con-
j ceited incredulity, my despicable affectation of
superiority, my blindness, my obstinac —all —
too late. I cannot write or talk collectedly now.
I am distracted. So soon as I shall have a little
recovered, I mean to devote myself for a time to
enquiry, which may possibly lead me as far as
Vienna. Some time in the autumn, two months
hence, or earlier if I live, I will see you—that is,
if you permit me; I will then tell you all that I
scarce dare put upon paper ao.v. Farewell Pray
for me, dear friend.”
In these terms ended this strange letter.
Tdough I had never seen Bertha Rheinfeldt my
eyes tilled with tears at the sudden intelligence;
I was startled, as well as profoundly disap
pointed.
The snn had now set, and it was twilight by
the time I had returned the general’s letter to
my father.
It was a soft „clear evening, and we loitered,
speculating upon the possible meanings of the
violent and incoherent sentences which I had
just been reading. We had nearly a mile to
walk before reaching the road that passes the
schloss in front, and by that time the moon was
shining brilliantly. At the drawbridge we met
Madame Perrodon and Mademoiselle De Lafont-
aine, who had come out, without their bonnets,
to enjoy the exquisite moonlight.
We heard their voices gabbling in animated
dialogue as we approached. We joined them at
the drawbridge, and turned about to admire
with them the beautiful seme.
The glade through which we had just walked
lay before us. At our left the n rrow road
wound away under clumps of lordly trees, and
was lost to sight amid the thickening forest.
At the right the same road crosses the steep and
picturesque bridge, near which stands a ruined
tower which once guarded that pass; and beyond
the bridge an abrupt eminence rises, covered
with trees, and showing in the shadows some
grey ivy-clnstered rocks.
Over the sward and low grounds a thin film
of mist was stealing, like smoke, marking the
distances with a transj ar nt veil; and here and
there we could see the river faintly flashing in
the moonlight.
No softer, sweeter scene could be imagined;
The news I had just heard made it melancholy,
but nothing could disturb its character of pro
found serenity, and the enchanted glory and
vagueness of the prospect.
My father, who enjoyed the picturesque, and
I, stood looking in silence over the expanse
beneath ns. Ttie two good governesses, stand
ing a little way behind us, discoursed upon the
scene, and were eloquent upon the moon.
Madame Perrodon was fat, middle-aged and
romantic, and talked and sighed poetically.
Mademoiselle De Lafontaine—in right of her
father, who was a German, assumed to be psy-
cological, metaphysical, and something of a
mystic—now declared that when the moon shone
with a light so intense it was well known that it
indicated a special spiritual activity. The effect
of the full moon in such a state of brilliancy was
manifold. It acted on dreams, it acted on lun
acy, it acted on nervous people; it had marvel
lous physical influences connected with life.
Mademoiselle related that her cousin, who was
mate of a merchant ship, having taken a nap on
deck on snch a night, lying on his back, with
his face full in the light of the moon, had wak
ened, after a dream of an old woman clawing
him by the cheek, with his features horribly
drawn to one side; and his countenance had
never quite recovered its equilibrium.
“The moon this night,” she said, “is full of
odylic and magnetic influence—and see, when
yon look behind you at the front of the schloss,
how all its windows flash and twinkle with that
silvery splendor, as if unseen hands had lighted
up the rooms to receive fairy guests.”
There are indolent states of the spirits in
which, indisposed to talk ourselves, the talk of
others is pleasant to onr listless ears; and I
gazed on; pleased with the tinkle of the ladies
conversation.
“ I have got in one of my moping moodB to
night,” said my father, after a silence, and
quoting Shakespeare, whom, by way of keeping
up our English, he used to read aloud, he said:
“ < In truth 1 know not wby I am so sad:
It wearies mo; yon say it wearies you;
But how J got it-tame by it.’
“I forget the rest. But I feel as if some great
misfortune were hanging over ns. I suppose
the poor general’s afflicted letter has had some
thing to do with it.”
At this moment the unwonted sonnd of car
riage wheels and many hoofs upon the road,
arrested our attention.
They seemed to be approaching from the high
ground overlooking the bridge, and very soon
the equipage emerged from that point Two
horsemen first crossed the bridge, then came a
carriage drawn by four horses, and two men
rode behind.
It seemed to be the travelling carriage of a
person of rank; and we were all immediately
absorbed in watching that very unnsual spec
tacle. It became in a few moments greatly more
interesting, for just as the carriage had passed
the summit of the steep bridge, one of the lead
ers taking fright communicated his panic to the
rest, and after a plunge or two the whole team
broke into a wild gallop together, and dashing
between the two horsemen who rode in front,
came thundering along the road towards us with
the speed of a hurricane.
The excitemt n . of the scene was made more
paiuful by the clear, long-drawn screams of a
female voice from the carriage window.
We all advanced in curiosity and horror; my
father in silence, the rest with various ejacula
tions of terror.
Our suspense did not last long. Just before
you reach the castle drawbridge, on the route
they were coming, there stands by the roadside
a magnificent lime-tree, on the other stands an
ancient stone cross, at sight of which the horses,
now going at a pace that was perfectly fright
ful, swerved so as to bring the wheel over the
projecting roots of the tree.
I knew what was coming. I covered my eyes,
unable to see it out, and turned my head away;
al llie w.e moment I heacd aery from my lady-
I friends, who had gone on (a little.
Curiosity opened my eyes, and I saw .* scene
| of utter confusion. Two of the horses were on
! the ground, the carriage lay upon its side with
| two wheels in the air; the men were busy re-
. moving the traces, and a lady, with a command-
j ing air and figure, had got out, and stood with
i clasped hands, raising the handkerchief that
• was in them every now and tjren to her eyes.
| Through the carriage door was now lifted a
i young lady, who appeared to be lifeless. My
1 dear old father was already beside the elder
| lady, with his hat in his hand, evidently ten-
I dering his aid and the resources of his schloss.
1 The lady did not appear to hear him, or to have
| eyes for anything but the slender girl who was
1 being placed against the slope of the bank.
I approached; the young lady was apparently
j stunned, but she was certainly not dead. My
; father, who piqued nimself on being something
of a physician, had just had his fingers to her
wrist and assured the lady, who declared her
self her mother, that her pulse, though faint
and irregular, was undoubtedly still distin
guishable. The lady clasped her hands and
looked upward, as if in a momentary transport
of gratitude; but immediately she broke out
again in that theatrical way which is, I believe,
natural to some people.
She was what is called a tine looking woman
for her time of life, and must have been hand
some; she was tall, but not thin, and dressed in
black velvet, and looked rather pale, but with a
p oud and commanding countenance, though
uov agitated strangely.
“Was ever being so born to calamity?” I
heard her say, with clasped hands, as icame up.
“Here am I, on a journey of life and death, in
prosecuting which to lose an hour is, possibly
to lose all. My child will not have recovered
sufficiently to resume her route for who can say
how long. I must leave her; I cannot, dare
not, delay. How far on, sir, can you tell me, is
the nearest village? I must leave her there; and
shall not see my darling, or even hear of her,
till my return, three mouths hence.”
I plucked my father by the coat, and whis
pered earnestly in his ear: “Oh! papa, pray ask
her to let her stay with us—it would be so de
lightful. Do, pray.”
“If madume will entrust her child to the care
of my daughter, and of her good gouvernante,
Madame l’errodon, and permit her to remain as
our guest, under my charge, until her return,
it will confer a distinction and an obligation
upon us, and we shall treat her with all the care
and devotion which so sacred a trust deserves.”
“I cannot do that, sir, it would be to task
your kindness and chivalry too cruelly,” said
the lady, distractedly.
“It would, on the contrary, be to confer on
us a very great kindness at the moment when
we most need it. My daughter has just been
disappointed by a cruel mistortuue, in a visit
from which she had long anticipated a great
deal of happiness. If you confide this young
lady to our care it will be her best consolation.
The nearest village on your route is distant, and
affords no such inn as you could think of
placing your daughter at; you cannot allow her
to continue her journey for any considerable
distance without danger. If, as you say, you
cannot suspend your journey, you must pri,
with her to-night, and uowhere could you do so
with more honest assurances of care and tender
ness than here.”
There was something in this lady’s air and
appearance so distinguished, and even impo
sing, and in her manner so engaging, as to im
press one, quite apart from the dignity of her
equipage, with a conviction that she was a per
son of some cons quence.
By this time the carriage was replaced in its
upright position, and the horses, quite tract
able, in the traces again.
The lady threw on her daughter a glance
which I fancied was not qnite so affectionate as
one might have anticipated from the beginning
of the scene; then she beckoned slightly to my 1
