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FLm, w cau-vi J. H. & W B. SEALS. THE 8IIELL SPIRIT'S SONG. BY PEARL ORIOLE. Far benoatb the b’uc billow Where strife is unknown There I have my ijrecn pillow, There ray coralline throne There, far from commotion 1 fashion my slicils— Those flowers of the ocean— And thrill them with spells. For I sineas I mould them, sing, so wildly and sweet Thai tlie blue-eyed joung sea king Kneels down at my feet: Kneels and kisses the tresses That llow at my side Aral his eyes woo me mutely As lover and bride. Ah! would I had never Gave heed to his sighs. Never looked in the depths Of his soft, sea-blue eyes For he left tn -.false hearted Tears rained on my curls, And fell in my shell dowers; To turn into pearls. And wilder and sadder, My melody swells And goes winding and echoing Far down in my shells. Stays lingering and iuurmer- ing Still deep in the ceils Of my beautiful, rose tinted, Flower-lipped shells. That henceforth are haunted With saddest of spoils Till each when 'tis thrown By the billow's wild swells On thelone shore, yet whisperig My sad secret tellsn In tiiemusic that ever, is tilling its cells, As sweet fragrance haunteth The lily's white bells. A t'.anta. TIIE DEPARTURE OF TIIE SWALLOW. And is the swallow gone U Who beheld i;? Which way eaild it ? Farewell bade it none ? No moital saw it gi:— But who doth hear As ;t tliiteh to and fro •? So the freed spirit fl : es 1 From its surrounding clay It steels away Like the swallow from theskies. Whither ? wherefore doth it go? ’Tis all unknown; We feel alone That a void is hf b low A STORY OF FLORIDA. BY MARY E. BliYAN. Before he knew it his arm was round her, his lips pressed hers. Speranza threw op9n the dark weather-stain ed window blind and thrust her fair head out into the fresh morning. The tender, cloudy, shining April morning, full of sweet scents and delicate colors. A mocking bird was singing as if drunk with joy in the great, low-limbed, dew- wet lemon tree to the right. To the left, over the tops of crepe myrtle trees, fringed with crinkled pink blossoms, and through the branches of old moss-hung live-oaks, gleamed the waters of Lone Lake. That gleam was al ways sweet to Speranza. It was like a smile. It had cheered her through all the seasons of her monotonous young life. In winter or summer, in shine or shadow, she loooke-d for that gleam that answered to her for a good morning smile. Hum an smiles were things she had rarely ever seen since her mother faded and was iaid to rest beside the gallant young husband she had never ceased to mourn. Dimly Speranza remembered her lather as a splendid soldier in gray uniform and bright buttons who kissed her many times as he held her in his arms and left a tear on her cheek as he triad to tell her bow soon he was coming back from the war. Come back he did, bnt it was in his eoftio, and her mother’s hearl- broken shriek seemed still to echo id the girl’s ears when she sat alone on autumn nights and heard the owls hoot in the woods that surround ed Lone Lake. After that, it was but a shadow of a smile that the young widow could summon to her pale little face for her child’s sake, but ii was a smile full of love and sweetness neverthe less, and words could not tell howSparanzi missed it when it faded slowly on the dying lips, and the coffin bid it forever. That was four years ago, it seemed forty to Speranza, so long and monotously dragged the days at Lone Hall, as the narrow, dark, time- stained old house was named. The moss swayed funereally in the live-oaks. Hagar, the solemn old mulatto housekeeper,sang her songs of death and judgment as she went about her work, and Speranza’s uncle saw to his cotton, his sheep aad pigs, his orangery and cane field, and cared for nothing beside. Speranza Lai learned to read j from her mother, to write a little sweeping hand ; like her mother’s, to siag and accompany her i sweet old-time ballads on the ancient, upright j piano that stood in a corner of the dim drawing- ( room, facing the tali clock which reached nearly j to the ceiling. One day, in over-hauling a lumber closet, Ha- i gar unearthed a small box of books—old vol- i umes in mouldy leather bindings, with panes ’ yellow with time. Speraazt pounced upon ; them and peered curiously between their lids, j half expecting them to be other volumes of Rol- lin’s Ancient History, Letters to Young Girls, j Zimmerman on Solitude, Y’outh’s Instructor Or Baxter’s Saint’s Rest, these being the only books, beside the Bible that she had ever seen. As she dipped into the box of mouldy vol- j umes, her face grew raliauf, the rose p.nkcune into her oval cheeks, her heart beat nn ler the | high-necked apron that IIagar still made for her, though she was no longer a child. Indee 1. she j needed bnt a revelation to ripen into the sweet- ! ness of maidenhood. And the box of books held j the revelation. The old volumes were po3ms | and romances, thiDgs she had never read before. ] They opened a new world to her—a wonderful j world she had never dreamel of. The evil that ; was in them she did not comprehend., it passed j off from her lily soul as soiled rain drops slide j from a flower's leaf. But the -books developed j unrest. The monotonous life no longer satisfied. Flower, and cloud, and song of birds, and her ; own reflection in the clear Jake stirred other j 1 feelings than those of childlike pleasure—vague feelings that she hardly understood. She was j longing constantly for something to break the sameness of her life. This April morning, such longing sprung up j in her heart more strongly thmevtr. A dream ; had stirred her with its panorama of life and ac- 5 tion and pleasure, so different frarn the stagna- i tion of her existence here. Was it prophetic? I she asked herself. Hagar had told her th it j dreams came true on nights whan the moon was | full. She ran down stairs and ate her breakfast a mile and had reached the point where the beau tiful little sheet of water, fed with perennial springs, narrows into its outlet—the bright, broad stream of Lone River that after ten miles of wandering empties into the sea. Speranza stopped under a magnolia tree, thinking she heard the sound of wheels over the hill. As she stood, she pulled some of the broad leaves from a low bough of the magnolia, and began pin ning them together with pine straws in the shape of a crown. She gathered a festoon of yellow jessamine that fanag down from the treo and made a wreath for her leaf crown, and having adorned it she put it on her head and called on •Jap to do her homage. He stoo 1 looking at her au-d moving his li assy tail as if to express his admiration. ‘Never mind, you shall be dressed up, too,’ she said, p itting his head and se tting herself to the task of making a wreath for Jap’s neck. She was thus occupied when she heard the nearer sound of wheels, and feeling sure she should soon see her uncle turn the road curve around the fence, she kept 011 with her employment, picturing to herself what a nice time she would have reading to-night. Trot, trot came the 1 well-built y horses’ hoofs, and the wheels rumbled close to | handsomer her. The vehicle turned the sharp angle at the corner of the feuce, and she looked up. Be- conntry fare, p'enfy of fresh milk, butter’n eggs an’ vegetables, and them we’ve got. The old gentleman’s out of health, got dyspepsia; that young one’s a book writer and a picture maker, I believe, and the young lady says she’s mighty fond of Nature, that means pickin’ flowers in the woods, I spose. So this placed! suit ’em.’ ‘Is she his sister —that young man’s ?’ ‘No, no kin; just old acquaintances, sweet hearts, I spose, from what the old man said. Come, git in, I must drive on.’ ‘No, go on. I’ll ran across the field and get there before you do.’ ‘I’ll go in by the back wav and they won’t see me. I ahant show myself while they stay here hastily. Then followed by her New Foundland i holo! instead of the spring cart and old Nelus, dog she went into the garden and worked iii-lus- I triously in the beds of fresh young vegetables, 1 cucumbers and green peas, white curled let tuces, and broad, succulent-leaved squashes, ! leaving these every now and then to go and j hover about the borders of sweet pinks and the 1 occasional rose bushes and honeysuckle clusters | that dotted the kitchen garden. But she j worked well nevertheless; the liU'e hands did | most of the cultivating in this green and weed- [ less little spot, whose products put money into j the pocket of her uncle. He had gone to the town—seven miles away—early this morning i with his spring cart filled with vegetables and | baskets of strawberries. He would bring back her uncles white nag, here was a hack with a pair of rather gaunt livery stable horses attach ed and inside two gentleman and a lady. Spe- ranzi was too startled to move. She sat there, the leaf crown on her head, the flowers in her lap and in her hands. ‘Oh! what a pretty tableau,’ cried the ladv, thrusting her head out of the hack. Look Ruth- ren, what a lovely child. I should like to sketch bar a3 she sits with that dog and the tree.’ Child indeed!’ Wall, sitting do wn there, with her short calico frock and bib apron, and that leaf coronet on her tumbled gold-brown hair, shedii not look more than twelve years old. Bnt she recovered the magazine that Speranza had prevailed upon self enough to get to her feet; as she did so,down him to let her take, though he pronounced it all stuff and a waste of money. The girl looked for ward to its coming hungrily. It was a window through which she looked into that world of ac tion, and pleasure and love, which her fancy painted so fair. After dinner, with Jap trottiag at her side she went down to the Lake that lay under the April sky of clouds and sun, girded by the shadows of the great moss-bearded iivg- oaks -in 1 the down sweeping willows. S is car- j ciod with her a book—it was one of Sir Walter's knightly novels—‘The Fair Maid of Perth,’ which she was re-reading for the thir l or fourth j ii.-ne. Down under one of the live oaks she threw k -rself, her seat the great mossy roots, her head bent back against the gnarled trunk. 1 Jap grew tired of lying beside her and went off' on an exploring expedition up the L ike. The shadows lengthened, Speranza had shut her book and gone off into one of her dreams. Pres- : ently, she roused herself as Jap, tired of being ’ neglected thrust his shaggy head agdinst her arm. j tumbled all her curly, flossy hair and she stood blushing and confused. ‘She is a lovely picture, by Jove,’ said the young man under his breath, j But bis companion’s face ha-.l suddenly lost its j real or affected enthusiasm, j ‘Not half as pretty as I thought,’ she said, in j a tone that reached Speranza’s ear. ‘Her hair is j red and her nose turns up. She’3 no child eitfa- I er; just an over-grown girl. What a simpleton ' to be playing here in this childish style.' ‘OhILmra, she heard you.' the young man ! said, as Speranza, reddening like arose, sudden- ! ly remembered her wild head-dress and snatch ed the little leaf crown from her head. The hack started again. As it passed .Speran za, the young man bowed in a respectful, apol- either,’ she thought, as she climbed the fence and took the near path to the house across the green oat pitch and the orchard. The new boarders had just entered the house a few minutes before she came up breathless through the back yard and saw through the shrubbery the slender, stylish figure of the young lady standing in the porch, reaching with a jew eled hand for a cluster of the honey suckles, whose vines made a frame for her and the tail, ung man beside her. They were ,hiin any body little Spera bad ever seen and she mentally compared them to some of the noble and knightly characters in her old i fashioned novels, as she slipped round to the j kitchen to hold a council with tho not over- j pleased Hager. •I'll pick the straw berries; uncle say.s they ■ want straw berries particularly, and then I’ll I come back and beat up a cake for supper. Make some of your nice, light biscuit, aunt Hager,’ Out iu the garden arid down on her kaee3 by I the straw berry bed, she wove romantic fancies | about the handsome strangers under her roof, j while her little fiagers were busy darting in aad out under tho strawberry leaves and securing tho ripe, red treasur s hidden under them. The : shadows lengthened, Spera pushed her sun j bonnet back until it presently fell to the ground. ! Her basket was yet far from full and it was near 1 sun-set. •Dear mo, and they’ll be hungry and want heaps of strawberries,’ she said aloud to herself. ; ‘Aunt Huger will be calling me presently, to set | the table. I wish 1 had 3ome body to heip me pick these.’ ‘Will you let me ?’ Spera statted as if the low pleasant voice had been a pistol report. Her rush of color and ! wide, startled eyes were pretty to sea as she i turned her head with the quick motion of a I frightened bird. Tue handsome stranger bowed j and apologized. ‘Mrs Vale invited me to stroll about the prem- j ises as I pleased,’ he said. ‘I came in here at- i tracte-d by the srneli of the sweet, old-fashioned l pinks I used to love so when a boy. I remem ber my first sweetheart gave me a nosegay of she on the ogiz.ug waj ; but too girl was too embarrassed 1 them when I went off to school, and howl cher- to note the courtesy. Sue stood vexed and half ishe l them as a sacred souvenir for at least six tearful until her uncle jogged up in the spriDg months! You had your back to me when 1 cart and halting, as ho was about to pass her, came iu, and was so busy filling your basket you called cut; ; did not see me; nor did I see you till I came ‘Hello Spery! You'd better git home as fast ! near and heard you wish for help. I seem •Let’s go for a walk; let's go and meet uncle j as vou can aa( j up some thin’ rale nice for ! drawn here providentially, don’t I? My name and get Scribner’s old fellow,’ she said, giving SU p p ^ r- j ve took three mighty fine folks to I is Rutkven Holly, aad you, as I guess, are Mr. his ears a pull and then springing to her feet, board with us. Y r ou saw ’em pass, didn’t you ? j Vile’s niece. He said he had only a niece at Jap wagged his tail iu acq uiescence and the two j ‘Oh! uncle, are they going to stay at our house ?' 1 Lome. friends started down the road that ran along the | .yes for a month or so. Why not? They are ‘Yers.Jie is my uncle, my ^name is Speranza higher bank of the lake. They had walked half! going ’ to pay we ll for it, and they just want J Vale.’ * ,. r . 'Spt-rariza ! what a musical name ?— Spanish f r Hope is it t o! ?' Bat yon are not Spanish with that blond hair, and skin white as any water lily ? 1 y mother w & s Spanish. She came from Cuba. You know the Castiii-r-.us have very fair skins, My mother's hair was lightfr than mine— s'. U a beautiful gol den shade, like the m?.us -t yonder,' Sper ns z . said, speaking qurnaturally, for tn. you •-! stranger’s m .finer bud put her at her ease, lie had got down to the straw herrv b r e d without further permission was picking thef rnii as Gat as fie could. ‘May I eat ote!’ L‘f asked, ‘They took c o tempting un der the haves, and reej not deal ms on; such full measure at supper.’ 'Esi as many as you like,’ she answered laughing, ‘your e u p p e r allowance Vi be stinted.' The picking went merrily, so did talking. Enth- ven’s curiosity w a s stimulated by the grp.ee and artless sweeten si of the g'rl, ,nd he contrived, by adroit questions to obtain glimpses into her past history—to V. ■-. ->• tv- .) 5.; IT 1- nf the father who had won his Cuban bride (superior io himself in station, not ir. merit) by fi.hting gallantly for the free dom of the Ever- Faithful Isle, to which he had gone an adven tnroas young fillibuster, 1 hardly out of his tiers. and ^ r0 .™ ^Eh he had barely escaped with his wife the Indepenoants wereforced to yield .c superior arms. Ho learned something o. the utterly lonely, isolated life the girl had led since her mother’s death, aid there was a word.ortwo that escaped her unwittingly which told kerli3- ( tener that an ardent, eager little heart was here j repressing its natural instincts and forcing lt- | self to a routine o‘' solitary duties. He was so much intererted that he was surprised and j sorry when the basket was pronounced so fufl 11 | could Dot hold another berry, and Speranza rose, shook back her curls and hunted up tier snn- : bonnet. She was about to bury her head in its blue gingham depth-, when a rather sharp voice from the garden gate cried out: ‘Here you are Sir. Nice to leave me by myseff 1 in this lonesome, haunted-looking place the first I evening I get here. I called you a dozen times. ! ‘And I did not hear once, on my honor. I ; was busy helping provide your supper, Launo. j Here's a bouquet of strawberries to plead my I forgiveness. Lst me present you to our hosts niece, Miss Speranza Vale, Miss Laurie Hunter. The handsome brunette gave a little conde- : seen ling nod and said: ‘She has defied her woodland crown. Were you rehearsing Ophelia by the Lake, Miss A ale : She thought to be answered by an embarrassed i stare from the little country girl, who of course had never heard of Shakspeare, but Spera sail-. quieUy: „ , ‘What, with only Jap here lor my Lamlet. Bat he would have proved more faithful than the Dane. He would never have let me drown myself woodland crown and all; he rescued a lit tle negro child from the lake last week.’ I ‘He's a grand fellow,’ Mr. Holly said, while Miss Hunter looked with a half-contemptuous smile at Speranza's hand buried in the black fur of Jap’s shaggy head. This was their introduction. Spera felt the cool, half-disdainful eondecension of Mies Hunt er’s manner, and being very sensitive, renewed her determination to avoid her uncle’s summer boarders, although Mr. Holly was kind and pleasant. Oh ! he was handsome too, and grace ful, and no doubt brave and loving, like William Wallace in the Scottish Chiefs, And Miss Hunt er—whom ha loved, was she like Helen Marr? No, with all her beauty and seeming sweetness Spera could not help feeling repelled from Lau rie, and sorry that she was the destiny of this young man, who was more like the hero of her dream-world than anyone she had ever seen or thought to see. She kept away from them all next day, only pouring out tea and coffee at the table, which was set off with her own inborn grace and neatness. She had artistic instincts and would have greatly enjoyed looking over Mr. Holly’s sketch book, that he took under his arm when he went out with Miss Hunter for a long ramble along the lake. He tried to have some speech with Spera alter the early sunset tea, but Miss Laurie called him to turn her mu sic for her. She played and sang opera pieces, after she had carried her father eff to bed. I- sounded queer to hear modern music on the old piauo. The days went by. The new boarders seemea well pleased. They walked, rowed upon the Lake, gathered May-haws, and brought old Whitey the horse and a shackly rockaway into [Continued on the 8th page.] ATLANTA, GA„ SATURDAY, NOVIJUIER 'Tl, 1878. n lWMf < >*•* LfiH ANN jU.'Io . IN AI) VAN.' •mi