DEAR EDWARD:—I must go, and at once. I cannot without the loss of self-respect continue to play the master here another day, neither can I live as a dependent within these walls—no, not for an hour. Do not attempt to follow me, for I will not see you. I will write to you as soon as I arrive at my point of destination—I know not yet where that will be. Feel no anxiety about me. I shall take with me a thousand pounds, and will leave an order for Decker to receive from you and hold subject to my draft whatever sum may accrue from the sale, at a fair valuation, of Sir Thomas Maitland's personal property, which he had an undoubted right to will as he pleased, the amount of the mesne rents expended by me during the last three years having been deducted therefrom. Do not attempt to force favors upon me, Edward—I cannot bear them now. Such attempts would only compel me to cut myself loose from you and your affection—the one blessing that earth still holds for me.

My trunks have been packed two days, for my first resolve was to go from this place and from England. I shall take the chariot in which you came down and fresh horses, but I will send them back to you from London.

God bless you, Edward. I dare not speak of my feelings to you now, lest I should lose the strength and self-command I need so much. God bless you.

H. D. MAITLAND.

Stealthily did Sir Horace move through the wide halls and ascend the lofty stairs of this home of his life, feeling at every step the rushing tide of memory conflicting with the sad thought that he was treading them for the last time. Having reached his sleeping apartments, he rang a bell which he knew would summon his own man. Rapidly as the man moved, the time seemed long to him ere the summons was obeyed, and he had given the necessary orders to have the carriage prepared and the trunks brought down as soon as possible, "and as quietly," he added, "as he did not wish to disturb Mr. Edward, who had retired to bed late."

"Will you not take breakfast, sir, before you set out?" asked the man.

"No, John. Let the carriage follow me. I shall walk on. Be quick, and make no noise."

A faint streak of light was just beginning to appear in the east, when the heretofore master of that lordly mansion went out into a world which held for him no other home. ACCIDENT, as short-sighted mortals name events controlled by no human will, decided whither he should direct his course from London. He had called at his lawyer's—the already mentioned "nephew of old Harris"—determined to communicate his discovery to him, perhaps with some faint hope of learning that the entail had been in some way set aside, before Sir Thomas had ventured to make his sister's son his heir. Mr. Decker was not in his rooms, and sitting down to wait for him he took up mechanically the morning paper that lay on his table. The first thing on which his eye rested was the advertisement of a steam packet about to sail from Liverpool for America.

"America; the very place for me. I shall meet no acquaintances there," was the thought which flashed through his mind. Another glance at the paper of the day and hour of the packet's sailing, an examination of his watch, an impatient look from the window up and down the street, and again he mused, "I have not a moment to spare, and if I wait for Decker I may be kept for hours, and so lose the packet; and why should I wait? Have I not seen the deed? This indecision is folly."

The result of these reflections was a note rapidly written to Mr. Decker, stating his discovery of the deed of entail, his consequent surrender of all claim to the property to Edward Maitland, and his determination to quit England immediately. All arrangements respecting the settlement of his claims on the estate, and the claims of the present proprietor upon him, he left to Sir Edward and Mr. Decker, empowering the latter to receive and retain for his use and subject to his order, whatever, on such a settlement, should appertain to him.

This note was left on Mr. Decker's table, and in one hour after leaving his office Horace Maitland was advancing to Liverpool with the rapidity of steam. The packet waited but the arrival of the train in which he was a passenger, to leave the shores of England. With what bitterness he watched those receding shores, while memory wrote upon his bare and bleeding heart the record of joys identified with them, and fading like them for ever from his life, let each imagine for himself, for to such emotions no language can do justice.

A voyage across the Atlantic is now too common an event to stay, even for a moment, the pen of a narrator. From Boston, Horace—no longer Sir Horace—wrote to his cousin as follows—

DEAR EDWARD—Here I am among the republicans, with whom I may flatter myself I have lost nothing by sinking Sir Horace Maitland into plain Mr. Danforth. Such is now my address, assumed not from fear that in this distant quarter of the world I shall meet any to whom the name of Maitland is familiar but because much of which I do not desire to be reminded is associated with that came. I said to you when leaving my home, dear Edward, "Do not fear for me." I can now repeat this with better reason. The first stunning shock of the change to which I was so suddenly subjected has been borne. My past life already seems to me as a dream from which I have been rudely but effectually awakened. I am now first to begin life in reality.

The accident which determined me to seek these shores was a happy one. I cannot well dream here where all around me is active, vigorous life. We are accustomed in England to think of the American shores as the Ultima Thule in a western direction, but when we reach these shores we find that the movement is still west. The daily papers are filled with accounts of persons migrating west, and thither am I going. "The world is all before me where to choose" the theatre of my new life—my life of work—-and I would have it far from the blue sea, out of hearing of the murmur of the waves that lave my island home. I will go where the wide prairies sweep away on every side of the horizon—where every link with other lands will be severed, and America below and Heaven above constitute my universe. "You will find no society at the West," has been said to me. This is another attraction to that region. I would work out my destiny in solitude. I desire to travel without company, and have made my arrangements accordingly. I have purchased three substantial horses for a little more than one hundred pounds, and have engaged a shrewd, active lad as groom, valet, and he seems to think, companion, at about two pounds per month. A very light carriage, sometimes driven by my servant and sometimes by myself, will transport the moderate wardrobe which I shall deem it necessary to take with me to the outermost verge of civilization and good roads, where leaving carriage and wardrobe, or at least all of the latter which may not be borne by a led-horse, I shall penetrate still further into the old forests of this New World. I long to be alone with "Nature's full, free heart"—perchance, there, my own may beat as of yore.

Farewell, dear Edward. You may hear of me next among the Sacs and Foxes;—at present address H. Danforth, care of G—— & D——, Merchants, —— —— street, Boston.

Yours ever, H. DANFORTH.

A new external life had indeed opened upon this child of luxury and conventional refinement. He whose movements had been chronicled as matter of interest to the public, for whose presence the "world" had postponed its fetes, might now travel hundreds of miles without observation or inquiry. He upon whose steps had waited a crowd of obsequious attendants, now found himself with one follower, whose tone of independence hardly permitted him to call him servant. In cities, where he would still have been surrounded by those conventional distinctions of which he had himself been deprived, the sense of a great loss would have been ever present with him, and the contrast with the past would have made the fairest present to which he could now attain, desolate. But there could be no comparison, and therefore no painful contrast, between the wild life of the prairies and the ultra-civilization of English aristocratic society. In the excitement and adventure of the one, he hoped to forget the other. He sought to forget—not to be resigned, to acquiesce. His inner life was unchanged. He had been a dreamer—a pleasure-seeker—and a dreamer and pleasure-seeker he continued, though the dreams and the pleasures must be wrought from new materials. To sketch the progress of such a character through the shifting scenes of his new existence—to observe him in his association with the strong, daring, acute, but uncultivated denizens of our frontier States—to stand with sympathizing heart beside him as he first entered upon those unpeopled solitudes in whose silence God speaks to the soul, is not permitted us at present. This may be the work of another day; but now we must pass at once with him from Boston to a scene within the confines of Iowa. His carriage had been left behind, and for two days he had been riding over a rolling country, whose grassy knolls, dotted here and there with clumps of trees, brought occasionally to his mind the park scenery of his own land. Early in this day he had passed a farm with a comfortable house and substantial out-buildings, but no dwelling of man had since presented itself to him, though the sun was now low in the western sky. Under ordinary circumstances this would have been of little consequence, for he had already spent more than one night in the open air without discomfort; but his attendant had heard a distant muttering of thunder, and John Stacy was not the lad to encounter without murmuring a night of storm unsheltered. John's anxiety made him keen-sighted, and he was the first to perceive and announce the approach of a rider. We use the neutral term rider not without consideration, for he was one in whom a certain ease of manner, and even an air of command, contradicted the testimony of habiliments made and worn after a fashion recognized nowhere as characteristic of the genus gentleman. A courteous inquiry from Horace Danforth respecting the nearest place at which a night's shelter might be obtained, led to a cordial invitation to him to return with him to his own house. It was an invitation not to be disregarded under existing circumstances, and it was accepted with evident pleasure both by master and man.

Mr. Grahame, for so the new-comer had announced himself, led the way back for a short distance over the route just pursued by our travellers, and then striking off to the left, rode briskly forward for several miles. The light gray clouds which had long been gathering in the western sky had deepened into blackness as they proceeded, and flashes of lightning were darting across their path, and large drops of rain were falling upon them when they neared a house constructed of logs, yet bearing some evidence of taste in the grounds around it, as well as in its position, which was on the side of a gently sloping hill, looking out upon a landscape through which wound a clear and rapid, though narrow stream.

"Like good cavaliers, we will see our horses housed first," said Mr. Grahame, riding past the main building to one of the out-houses, built also of logs, which served as a stable. Here Horace Danforth relinquished his tired steed to the care of John Stacy, and Mr. Grahame having himself rubbed down his own beautiful animal, and thrown a bundle of hay before him, with a slight apology to his visitor for the detention, led the way into the house. As they entered the vacant parlor a shade of something like dissatisfaction passed over the master's countenance, and having seen his guest seated by a huge fireplace, whose cheerful blaze of wood a chilly evening made by no means unwelcome, he left him alone. He soon returned, however, with a brighter expression, which was explained by his saying, "I feared, on finding this room empty, that my daughter had been sent for to a sick woman with whom she has lately spent several days and nights, and that I could offer you only the discomforts of a bachelor's establishment; but I find she is at home, and will soon give us supper."

During the absence of his host, our Englishman had looked around with increasing surprise at the contents of the parlor. The furniture was of the most simple description, yet marked by a certain neatness and gracefulness of arrangement, indicative, as he could not but think, of a cultivated taste. The same mingling of even rude simplicity of material and tasteful arrangement prevailed in the chamber to which his host now conducted him, and where the luxury, for such he had learned to regard it, of abundance of clear water and clean napkins awaited him. In a few minutes after his return to the parlor a door was opened, through which he obtained a view of an inner apartment, well lighted, and containing a table so spread as to present no slight temptation to a traveller who had not broken his fast since the morning meal. At the head of this table stood a young woman of graceful form, whom his host introduced to him as his daughter, Miss Grahame.

Mary Grahame's clear complexion, glowing with the hue of health, her large and soft and dark gray eyes, her abundant glossy black hair, might have won from the most fastidious some of that admiration given to personal beauty; but in truth Horace Danforth had grown indifferent as well as fastidious, and it was not until in after days he had seen the complexion glow and the dark eyes kindle with feeling, that he said to himself, "She is beautiful!" To the fascination of a peculiarly graceful, gentle, yet earnest manner, he was, however, more quickly susceptible. During this first evening, the chief emotion excited in his mind was surprise at the style of conversation and manner, the acquaintance with books and with les bien-seances which marked these inhabitants of a log cabin in the western wilds—these denizens of a half-savage life.

A day of hard riding had induced such fatigue, that even the rare and unexpected pleasure of communication with refined and cultivated minds, could not keep Horace Danforth long from his pillow. As he expected to set out in the morning very early, he would have made his adieus in parting for the night, mingling with them courteous expressions of the enjoyment which such society had afforded him after his long abstinence from all intellectual converse.

"Believe me," said Mr. Graham, and the sentiment was corroborated by his daughter's eyes, "the pleasure has been mutual. Society is the great want of our western life. I have been wishing to ask whether your business were too urgent to permit you to afford us more of this coveted good?"

"I am ashamed to confess," said Horace Danforth, with some embarrassment, "that I have no business at present—that I am an idler—I verily believe the only one in your country."

"Then will you not give us the pleasure of your company for a longer time? A little rest will be no disadvantage either to your horses or yourself, and on us you will be conferring a favor which you cannot appreciate till you have lived five hundred miles away from civilization."

The invitation was accepted as cordially as it was given, to the great satisfaction of John Stacy, who had been much pleased with the appearance of land in this neighborhood, and wanted time to look about him preparatory to purchasing.

Horace Danforth awoke early next morning, and throwing open the shutters of the only window in his room, found that a stormy night had been succeeded by an unusually brilliant morning. "To brush the dews from off the upland lawn" had not been a habit of his past life; but the cool fresh air, the spicy perfumes which it wafted to him, and the brightness and verdure of the whole landscape, proved now more inviting than his pillow; and dressing himself hastily, he descended the clean but rude and uncarpeted stairs as gently as possible, lest he should arouse Miss Grahame from her slumbers. He found the front door open, showing that he was not the first of the household to go abroad that day. As he stepped out upon the lawn, he discovered that the parlor windows were also open, and a familiar air, hummed in low, suppressed tones, caused him to look through them as he passed. Could he believe his eyes? Was that neatest and prettiest of all housemaids, who, moving with light and even graceful steps, was yet busied in the very homely task of dusting and arranging the furniture in the parlor—was she indeed the same Miss Grahame who had last evening charmed him by her lady-like deportment and intelligent conversation? Yes, the very same; for though the glossy black braids were covered by a gay colored handkerchief wound around her head a la Turque, there was the same wide forehead and well-defined brows; the same soft dark gray eyes; the same slightly aquiline nose and smiling mouth. Nor was the conversation of last evening more opposed, in his imagination, to her present employment, than the evident taste and feeling with which she was now singing that most beautiful hymn of the Irish poet:—

"O God! Thou art the life and light Of all this wondrous world I see."

Listening and gazing, wondering and comparing, he had well nigh forgotten himself, when the lady of the mansion turning suddenly to the window, raised her head. Their eyes met! The color which rushed quickly to her very temples, recalled him to himself, and bowing with certainly not less embarrassment than she evinced, he walked rapidly on. He had not proceeded far, however, when he saw his host approaching from an opposite direction. As Mr. Grahame had already spent more than an hour in his fields, sharing as well as directing the labors of his men, he expressed no surprise at meeting his guest abroad. After a cordial greeting, and a few general observations on the weather and scenery had been exchanged, Mr. Grahame, glancing up at the sun, which had now risen considerably above a distant wood, said, "I am sorry to interrupt your walk, but my morning's work has made me by no means indifferent to my breakfast, and I think that Mary's coffee and biscuits are about this time done to a turn."

A few minutes brought them back to the house, and into the parlor from which Mary Grahame had disappeared, leaving behind her, in its neat and tasteful arrangement, and in the fresh flowers that adorned the table and mantelpiece, evidence of her early presence. The gentlemen were soon summoned to breakfast.

It may have been that his early rising had given to Horace Danforth an unusual appetite; but certain it is that no breakfast of which he had ever partaken seemed to him half so inviting as this. And yet, in truth, it was simple enough; toast, crisp and brown, warm, light biscuits, fresh eggs, good butter, excellent coffee, and rich cream were all it offered. Mary Grahame presided, and speaking little herself, listened to her father and Horace, while they discussed the different characteristics of English or European and American society, with a pleased and intelligent countenance. Some observations from him drew from Mr. Grahame the following reply:—

"There is one feature of American society upon which I think no foreigner has remarked, or if he have, it has been so cursorily as plainly to show that he was far from appreciating its importance: I mean the fact that here the thinker is also the worker. In England and the European States, the working class is distinct from the consumers, and there must be almost as great a contrast in the intellectual as in the physical condition of the two. All the refinement, the cultivation, must remain with those who have leisure and fortune—as a class, I mean, for individuals will of course be found, who, in spite of all disadvantages, will rise to the highest position. But here, in America, there are no idlers. Here, with few if any exceptions, all must be, in some way, workers, and all may be thinkers. We attain thus to a republic of mind."

"Do you not fear that the result of this will be to check the development of individual greatness; that as you have no king in the State, so you will have no king in literature?"

"Even were this so, it would remain a question whether the great increase of general intelligence would not more than compensate the evil."

"Can many Polloks repay us for one Milton—many Drydens for one Shakspeare?"

"You take extreme cases; besides, I only admitted your supposition to show that I could produce a set-off to the disadvantage. I do not believe that the necessity for labor of some sort will prevent a truly great mind from achieving for itself the highest distinction. I think the history of such minds proves that it will rather serve as a stimulus to their powers."

Horace Danforth was silent, and after a moment's pause, Mr. Grahame resumed.

"In this union of the working and the thinking classes, the refinements of life, those things which adorn, and beautify it, take their true place as consolers and soothers of the care-worn and toil-wearied mind. No Italian opera can give such delight to the sated man of pleasure as the tired laborer feels in listening to the evening song with which some loved one, in his home, sings him to repose.

"You speak con amore" said Horace Danforth, smiling at his host's fervor.

"I do. Had I been excluded from the refinements of social life, I should long since have fainted and grown weary of my toil here. I felt this when compelled to relinquish my daughter's society for two years, that she might have the advantage of instruction in those branches of a womanly education in which I could give her no aid."

"And having spent two years in the more cultivated East, did Miss Grahame return willingly to her home in the wilderness?"

This question was addressed to Mary Grahame herself, and she answered simply, "My father was here."

"You acknowledge, then, that could your father have been with you, you would have preferred remaining at the East?"

"Oh no! I was fifteen when my father sent me from home, and they who have enjoyed the free life of the prairies so long, seldom love cities."

"But the ease, the freedom from labor, which is enjoyed in a more advanced stage of society, the power to devote yourself to pursuits agreeable to your taste—did you not regret these?"

"Permit me to put your question into plainer language," interposed Mr. Grahame. "Mr. Danforth would ask, Mary, whether you would not prefer to live where you would not be compelled to degrade your mind——"

"No, no, I protest against the degradation," exclaimed Mr. Danforth.

"To degrade your mind," pursued Mr. Grahame, answering the interruption only by a smile, "by exercising it on such homely things as brewing coffee and baking cakes, or to soil your fair hands with brooms and dusters."

"For the soil of the hands we have sparkling rills, and for the degradation of the mind, I, like Mr. Danforth, protest against it."

"But how can you make your protest good?"

"You have taught me that there is no degradation in labor, pursued for fair and right ends, and that where the end is noble, the labor becomes ennobling."

"But what noble ends can be alleged for the drudgery of domestic life? I am translating your looks into language," said Mr. Grahame, turning playfully to his guest; "correct me if I do not read them rightly."

"If I say you do, I fear Miss Grahame will think them very impertinent looks."

"I shall not complain of them while I can reply to them so easily," said Mary gayly. "He who knows how much a well-ordered household contributes to the cultivation of domestic virtues and family affections, will not think a woman degraded who sacrifices somewhat of her tastes and pleasures to the deeper happiness of procuring such advantages for those she loves."

"But is not that state of society preferable, in which, without her personal interference, by the employment of those who have no higher tastes, she may accomplish the same object?"

"That question proves that you do not, like my father, desire to see the working and the thinking classes united. You seem to propose that the first shall ever remain our hewers of wood and drawers of water."

"Is it not a fact that there have been, are, and always will be those in the world who are fitted for no other position?"

"That there are and always have been such persons, I acknowledge; but when labor ceases to be degrading, because it is partaken by all, may we not hope that new aspirations will be awakened in the laborer—that he will elevate himself in the scale of being when he feels elevation possible?"

Mary Grahame spoke with generous enthusiasm, yet with a modest gentleness which made Horace Danforth desire to continue the argument.

"Admitting all this," he said, "it does not answer my question, which was, whether you did not prefer that state of society in which you were able to avail yourself of the services of such a class?"

"There are moments, doubtless, when indolence would plead for such self-indulgence; but I should be mortified, indeed, where this the prevailing temper of my mind."

"Pardon me if I say that I do not see how it can be otherwise—how a lady of Miss Grahame's refinement and taste can be pleased with the employments, for instance, to which Mr. Grahame just now referred."

"Not pleased with them in themselves, but she may accept them, may she not, as a necessary part of a great object to which she has devoted herself?"

"And this object?—but, forgive me. The interest you have awakened in the subject, and your kindness in answering my questions, make me an encroacher, I fear," he added, as he marked the heightened color with which Mary glanced at her father as he paused for her answer.

"Not at all; but I speak in presence of my master, and will refer you to him," she replied, with another smiling glance at her father.

"You see," said Mr. Grahame, "that even in these wilds, 'the world's dread laugh' retains its power. Mary, I see, is afraid of being called a female Quixote, and even I find myself disposed to win you to some interest in my object, before I avow it. This I think I can best do by a sketch of the circumstances which led to its adoption. I will give you such a sketch, therefore, if you will promise to acquit me of egotism in doing so."

"That I will readily do. I shall be delighted to hear it."

"You shall have it, but not now; for I see, by certain cabalistic signs, known only to the initiated, that Mary is about to leave us for some of those same degrading employments, and if you will take a ride with me, I will relieve you from all danger of contact with them, and will, at the same time, show you something of our neighborhood."

The proposal was of course accepted. The ride embraced a circuit of ten miles, in which they passed only two houses. The first of these was built with an apparent regard to convenience and comfort, and even some effort at adornment, as manifested in the climbing plants with which the windows were draperied, and the flowers which adorned the little court in front. Mr. Grahame stopped before the gateway of this court, and a woman of coarse, rough exterior, though scrupulously clean, came out to speak to him, and to urge his alighting and entering the house with his friend. This Mr. Grahame declined; he had stopped only to inquire after a sick child, and to express a hope that her husband's hay had turned out well.

"Dreadful fine," was her reply to the last. "I'm sure we be much obleeged to you for the seed, and for tellin' Jim how to plant it He never had sich hay before."

"I'm glad to hear it. Where is Lucy?"

"Oh, she's off to school. Tell Miss Mary she's gittin' to be 'most as grand a reader as she be. And yet the child's willin' enough to work, for all."

As the gentlemen rode on, after this interview, Mr. Grahame said, "That last speech expressed one of the greatest difficulties against which we had to contend in our efforts to induce our neighbors to give to their children some of the advantages of education. They were afraid 'larnin' would make them lazy.' They were of your opinion, that the thinker and the worker must remain of different classes."

"I was much surprised to hear that woman speak of a school. I should not think the teacher could find his situation very profitable."

"He is one who has regard to a higher reward than any earthly one. He is a self-denying Christian missionary, whom I induced to settle in our neighborhood. He preaches on the Sabbath, in a little church about two miles from my house, to a congregation of about twenty adults, and twice that number of children; and during the week, he keeps a school which is well attended in the summer. Some of his earlier pupils are already showing, by their more useful and more happy lives, the importance of the schoolmaster's work in the elevation of a people."

The next dwelling they approached was very small and mean-looking. It seemed to Horace Danforth to contain only one apartment, warmed by an ill-constructed clay chimney, and lighted by one small, square window. That window, however, was not only sashed and glazed, but shaded by a plain muslin curtain.

"Here," said Mr. Grahame, "lives one of those pupils of whom I spoke just now. He has commenced life with nothing but the plot of ground you see, and having a wife to support, he must work hard, yet already he is aiming at something more than the supply of merely physical wants; and I doubt not he will, should he live long enough, become the intelligent and wealthy father of a well-educated family."

They were approaching the house as Mr. Grahame spoke. Near it was a small field, in which a man was hoeing.

"How is your wife, Martin?" asked Mr. Grahame.

"Oh, thank you, sir, she is quite smart. She's been getting better ever since the night Miss Mary sat up with her last. We say she always brings good luck."

"And how are your potatoes?"

"How could they help but be good, sir, with such grand seed as you gave me? Tell Miss Mary, if you please, sir, that the rose-tree is growing finely, and that as soon as I can get time to put up the fence, Sally is to have the flower-garden she talked about."

"I am glad to hear it, Martin; if you are brisk you may have some flowers yet before frost. I will bring you some seeds the next time I come."

"Do you procure your seeds from the East, or is it the result of your superior cultivation, that you are able thus to supply your neighbors?" asked Horace Danforth of Mr. Grahame, as they rode on.

"The potatoes were from my own field, raised from the seed two years ago. The grass and flower seeds were from my agent at the East. These little favors win for my daughter and myself considerable influence over our neighbors, and thus facilitate our attainment of the object for which we have pitched our tent in the wilderness, and accepted those labors which you justly regard as distasteful in themselves."

The return home of Mr. Grahame and his visitor, their dinner and afternoon engagements, offer nothing worthy of our notice. It was not till the labors of the day had been concluded, and the little party were gathered again before a cheerful fire in the parlor, that the subject of the morning's conversation was resumed. As Mary entered from the supper-room, bringing with her a little basket of needle-work, Horace Danforth asked if he might not now hope to receive the promised sketch.

"I will give it you with pleasure when I have had my evening song from Mary," said Mr. Grahame.

Opening the piano for his young hostess, Horace Danforth stood beside her as she sang, but he forgot to turn the leaves of the music before her as he listened once again to a rich and cultivated voice, accompanied by a fine instrument, touched by a skilful hand. As the sweet and well-remembered strains fell on his ear, he closed his eyes and gave the reins to fancy. The loved and lost gathered around him, and it was with a strange, dream-like feeling that, as the sweet sound ceased, and Mary arose from the piano, he opened his eyes and looked upon the rough walls and simple furniture of his present abode.

"It is now nearly nineteen years," began Mr. Grahame, when his daughter and guest had resumed their seats near him, "since, crushed in spirit, I turned from the grave in which I had laid my chief earthly blessing, to wander 'any where, any where out of that world' which had a few weeks before been bright and joyous to me, but which I was now ready to pronounce a desolate waste. The desire to avoid society made me turn westward, and nearly one hundred miles east of our present residence I found myself in the midst of a people without churches, without schools, rude in appearance and in manners. Absorbed in the destruction of my own selfish happiness, I might have passed from among them without knowing that disease was adding its pangs to those inflicted by want, ignorance, and superstition, had not a mother in the agony of parting from her first-born, looking hither and thither for help, turned her eyes entreatingly upon the stranger. I had once studied medicine, though regarding the profession, as our young men too often do, merely as a means of personal aggrandizement, and having received just at the completion of my studies an accession of fortune, which removed all pecuniary necessity to exertion on my part, I had never practised it, nor indeed obtained the diploma necessary to its practice. Now, however, I endeavored to make myself master of the peculiar features of the epidemic under which the child was suffering, and with the aid of a small store of medicines which my good sister had insisted on my taking with me, and a rigid enforcement of some of the simplest rules of diet and regimen, I had the happiness of seeing the child in a few days out of danger, and of receiving the mother's rapturous thanks. That moment, gave me the first gleam of happiness I had known for months, and disposed me to listen to the entreaties of the poor creatures who came from far and near to entreat the aid of the Doctor, as they persisted in calling me, notwithstanding my repeated assurances that I had no right to the title. I spent weeks in that neighborhood, and there I was born to a new life. Till that time I had lived to myself, and when that in which I had centered my earthly joy was snatched from me by death, I had felt that life had nothing left for me; but now I saw that while there were sentient beings in the universe to serve, and a glorious and ever blessed Father presiding over that universe and smiling on such service, life could not be divested of joy. Under the influence of such views my plans for the future were formed, nor have I ever seen reason to change or to regret them. Every where the Christian religion teaches the same precepts, but not every where is it equally easy to see the way in which those precepts may be obeyed; every where it is true, as a distinguished writer of your own land has said, 'Blessed is the man who has found his work—let him seek no other blessedness;' but not every where is it equally easy to see where our work lies. Here, in America, the partition-walls which stand elsewhere as a remnant of the old feudalism, have been broken down; every man is irresistibly pressed into contact with his neighbors—he cannot shut his eyes to their wants—he cannot stop his ears against their cries. In America, too, every man, as I have already said, must be a worker—or, if he live an idler, it must be on that which his father gained by the sweat of his brow, and he leaves his children to enslaving toil, or more enslaving dependence. Here the man of pleasure, the idler of either sex, is a foreign exotic which finds no nourishment in our soil, no shelter from our institutions—which is out of harmony with our social life, and must ever be marked by the innate vulgarity of unsustained pretension. Therefore it is comparatively easy for us to hold out the hand of love to our brethren, sinking and suffering at our very side, and to teach them that there is no natural inalienable connection between labor and coarseness, ignorance and servility; that man, though compelled to win his bread by the sweat of his brow, may still enjoy all those graceful amenities of which woman was the type in Paradise and is the promoter here; that the light of knowledge and the divine light of faith may still cheer him in his pursuits and guide him to his rest. It seems to me that to bring out these principles fairly to the world's perception, is the mission to which America has been especially appointed—is that for which Americans should live; and to this I have accordingly devoted myself. For this I purchased my present property—for this I determined, while allowing myself and my daughter all the comforts of life, to dispense with many of those luxuries to which my fortune might have seemed to entitle us, lest I should separate myself too far from those I would aid. Here I have spent seventeen years of life, happy in my work, and happier in the conviction that it has not been in vain."

As Mr. Grahame paused, Horace Danforth turned to Mary Grahame. Her eyes were fixed upon him. They seemed to challenge his admiration for her father, in whose hand her own was clasped, as though she would thus intimate the perfect accordance of her feelings with his.

"And this, then," he said to her, "is your object?"

"It is."

"An object to which you were devoted by your father in your infancy?"

"And which I have since adopted on my own intelligent conviction," said Mary, earnestly, losing all timidity in a glow of that generous enthusiasm which sits so gracefully on a gentle woman.

There was silence in the little circle—silence with all; with one, thought was rapidly passing down the long vista of the past, and pointing the awakened mind to the fact that elsewhere than in America was there ignorance to be enlightened and want to be relieved—that not here only did Christianity teach that man should live not unto himself alone, and that he should love his neighbor as himself.

The thoughts and feelings aroused on that evening colored the whole future destiny of Horace Danforth. Ere another day had passed, he had confided to his host so much of his history as proved him to be an aimless and almost unconnected wanderer on the earth, with a prospect of a fortune which, unequal to the demands of a man of fashion in England, would give to a worker in America great influence for good or for evil—as the personal property of Sir Thomas Maitland could not, as Horace Danforth was well aware, be valued at less than 50,000 dollars. With that rapid decision which had ever marked his movements, the young Englishman determined to purchase land in the neighborhood of Mr. Grahame, there to rear his future hope, and to devote his life to the like noble purposes. The land was purchased, the site for the house was selected and marked out—but the house was never built—for ere that had been accomplished Horace Danforth discovered that the companionship of a cultivated woman was essential to his views of "Life in America," and that Mary Grahame was exactly the embodiment of that youthful vision which he had sought in vain elsewhere; for she united the delicacy and refined grace, with the intelligent mind, the active affections and energetic will, which were necessary at once to please his fancy and satisfy his heart Mary Grahame could not consent to leave her father to a lonely home, but yet she could not deny that it would be a sad home to her if deprived of the society of him whose intelligent and varied converse and manly tenderness had lately formed the chief charm of her existence. There was only one way of reconciling these conflicting claims. Horace Danforth must live with Mr. Grahame; and so he did, having first obtained that gentleman's permission to enlarge his house, and to furnish it with some of those inventions by which art has so greatly lightened domestic occupation, and which had been made familiar to him by his life abroad.

Six months had been spent in this abode—six months of an existence of joy and love, untroubled as it could be to those who were yet dwellers upon earth—six months in which the fastidious and world-wearied man learned the secret of true peace in a life devoted to useful and benevolent objects—when a most unexpected visitor arrived in the person of Sir Edward Maitland—no, not Sir Edward. He came to announce that to this title he had no right. That he had remained himself, and suffered his cousin to remain so long in ignorance on this point, had been the result of no want of effort to arrive at the truth, still less of any lingering love of the honors forced upon him. He had never assumed the title, nor suffered the secret of his supposed change of circumstances to be known beyond himself and the lawyer to whom his cousin Horace had revealed it. This lawyer, it may be remembered, had lately succeeded in the care of the Maitland estate to an uncle, who had been compelled by the infirmities of advancing age to retire from business. The old man was absent from England when Horace Danforth left it, and it was not till his return that full satisfaction on the subject had been obtained, as it was judged unwise by Mr. Decker to awaken public attention by investigations which his uncle's return would probably render unnecessary. When he did return, and the subject was cautiously unfolded to him, he spent many minutes in pishing and pshawing at the folly and impetuosity of young Baronets, who, knowing nothing of the tenure on which they hold their estates, cannot at least wait till they consult wiser people before they throw them away. The entail of nearly two centuries ago had, it seems, been set aside in little more than one, by an improvident father and son, who had in fact greatly diminished the very fine property so entailed, though most of it had been since recovered by the care of their successors. The intelligence thus conveyed to him who was now once more Sir Horace Danforth Maitland, was of mingled sweet and bitter. He could not be insensible to the joy of returning to the home of his childhood and the people among whom he had grown to manhood, yet neither could he leave, without tender regrets, that in which he had first learned to love, and to live a true, a noble, and a happy life.

When Mary was first saluted as Lady Maitland by Edward, she turned a glance of inquiry upon her husband, and then upon her father, for both were present by previous arrangement; and as she read a confirmation of the fact in their smiling faces, the color faded from hers, and after a moment's vain effort to contend against her painful emotion, she burst into tears.

"Your father has promised to spend his life with us, dearest," said Sir Horace Maitland, as he threw his arm around her and drew her to his side.

"But this dear home," sobbed Mary; "this people, for whom and with whom we have lived so happily."

"All that made this home dear, my daughter, you will take with you to another home."

"And there, too," interposed Sir Horace, "my Mary will find a people to enlighten and to bless, over whom her influence will be unbounded, and to whom she will prove an angel of consolation."

"And can you carry your American life to your English home?" she asked of her husband, smiling through her tears.

"As much of it as is independent of outward circumstances, Mary—its spirit, its aims; for they belong to a Christian life, and that I hope, by God's blessing, to live henceforth, wherever I may be."

"And what will become of all our projected improvements here?" she inquired of her father.

"I shall not leave this place myself, Mary, till I can find some one like-minded, who will take our place and do our work. To such a man I will sell the property on such terms as he can afford, or if he cannot buy, he shall farm it for me."

This last was the arrangement made with one whom Mr. Grahame had known in early life, and who had always been distinguished by true Christian uprightness and benevolence The terms offered by Mr. Grahame to this gentleman were such, that the conscientious and excellent agent became in a few years the proprietor and under his fostering care, all those plans for the intellectual and moral improvement of the neighborhood which had been so happily commenced, were matured and perfected.

It was nearly a year after the departure of his children before Mr. Grahame was able to join them at Maitland Park. With his arrival Mary felt that her cup of joy was full. It had been with a trembling heart that she assumed the brilliant position to which Providence had conducted her; not that she feared the judgment of man: her fear had been lest in the midst of abundance she should forget the hand that fed her—lest amidst the fascinations of an intellectual and polished society, she should forget the thick darkness which covered so many immortal minds around her. But already she had cast aside this unworthy fear, unworthy of Him in whom is the Christian's strength.

The early dream of the Proprietor of Maitland Park is fulfilled. The softening and refining presence of woman diffuses a new charm over its social life, and while his Mary is to his tenantry what he himself predicted, an angel of consolation, she is to him a faithful co-worker in all that may advance the reign of peace and righteousness, of intelligence and joy, throughout the world.



CHAPTER VII.

A Sabbath in the country, with a Sabbath quiet in the air, and a cheerful sunlight beaming like the smile of Heaven on the earth—how beautiful it is! Donaldson Manor is only a short walk from the church whose white spire gleams up amidst the dark grove of pines on our left; at least, it is only a short walk in summer, when we can approach it through the flowery lanes which separate Col. Donaldson's fields from those of his next neighbor, Mr. Manly. Now, however, the walk is impracticable, and all the sleighs were yesterday morning in requisition, to transport the family and their visitors to their place of worship. I was a little afraid that the merry music of the sleigh-bells and the rapid drive through the clear air might make our young people's blood dance too briskly—that they would be unable to preserve that sobriety of manner becoming those who are about professedly to engage in the worship of Him who inhabiteth Eternity. I was gratified, however, to perceive that they all had good feeling or good taste enough to preserve, throughout their drive and the services which followed it, a quiet and reverent demeanor. It may seem strange to some, that I should characterize this as a possible effect of "good taste;" but in my opinion, he who does not pay the tribute at least of outward respect to this holy day, is incapable not only of that high, spiritual communion which brings man near to his Creator, but of that tender sympathy which binds him to his fellow-creatures, or even of that poetic taste which would place his soul in harmony with external nature. Let it not be thought that I would have this day of blessing to the world regarded with a cynical severity, or that the quietness and the reverence of which I speak are at all akin to sadness. Were not cheerfulness, in my opinion, a part of godliness, I should say of it as some one has said of cleanliness, that it is next to godliness. Like my favorite, Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett Browning,

"I think we are too ready with complaint In this fair world of God's;"

and like her, I would utter to all the exhortation,

"Let us leave the shame and sin Of taking vainly, in a plaintive mood, The holy name of Grief!—holy herein, That, by the grief of One, came all our good."

But cheerfulness, so far from being incompatible with, seems to me inseparable from that true worship which is the best source of the Sabbath seriousness I am advocating.

The remarks of the preacher were quite in unison with these thoughts, and pleased me so much that, were it admissible, I should be delighted to dignify my pages with them. By a few vivid touches, in language simple, yet beautiful, he sketched for us the first Sabbath amidst the living springs and fadeless bloom and verdant shades of Paradise, when sinless man communed with his Maker and his Father, not through the poor symbols of a ceremonial worship, but face to face, as a man talketh with his friend. But all I would say of the Sabbath has been said a thousand times better than I could say it, by good George Herbert, whose words I am sure I need not apologize for introducing here.

SUNDAY.

O day most calm, most bright! The fruit of this, the next world's bud; Th' indorsement of supreme delight, Writ by a Friend, and with His blood; The couch of time; care's balm and bay:— The week were dark, but for thy light; Thy torch doth show the way.

The other days and thou Make up one man; whose face thou art, Knocking at heaven with thy brow; The worky days are the back-part; The burden of the week lies there, Making the whole to stoop and bow, Till thy release appear.

Man hath straight forward gone To endless death. But thou dost pull And turn us round, to look on One, Whom, if we were not very dull, We could not choose but look on still; Since there is no place so alone, The which He doth not fill.

Sundays the pillars are On which heaven's palace arched lies: The other days fill up the spare And hollow room with vanities. They are the fruitful bed and borders, In God's rich garden; that is bare, Which parts their ranks and orders.

The Sundays of man's life, Threaded together on time's string, Make bracelets to adorn the wife Of the eternal, glorious King. On Sunday, heaven's gate stands ope; Blessings are plentiful and rife! More plentiful than hope.

This day my Saviour rose, And did inclose this light for His: That, as each beast his manger knows, Man might not of his fodder miss. Christ hath took in this piece of ground, And made a garden there, for those Who want herbs for their wound.

The Rest of our creation, Our great Redeemer did remove, With the same shake which, at his passion, Did th' earth, and all things with it, move. As Samson bore the doors away, Christ's hand's, though nailed, wrought our salvation, And did unhinge that day.

The brightness of that day We sullied, by our foul offence; Wherefore that robe we cast away, Having a new at His expense, Whose drops of blood paid the full price That was required, to make us gay, And fit for paradise.

Thou art a day of mirth: And, where the week-days trail on ground, Thy flight is higher, as thy birth. Oh, let me take thee at the bound, Leaping with thee from seven to seven; Till that we both, being toss'd from earth, Fly hand in hand to Heaven!

It is the custom at Donaldson Manor to close the Sabbath evening with sacred music. Annie, at her father's request, played while we all sang his favorite evening hymn, which I here transcribe.

EVENING HYMN.

Father! by Thy love and power, Comes again the evening hour; Light hath vanish'd, labors cease, Weary creatures rest, in peace. Those, whose genial dews distil On the lowliest weed that grows Father! guard our couch from ill, Lull thy creatures to repose. We to Thee ourselves resign, Let our latest thoughts be Thine.

Saviour! to thy Father bear This our feeble evening prayer; Thou hast seen how oft to-day We, like sheep, have gone astray; Worldly thoughts and thoughts of pride, Wishes to Thy cross untrue, Secret faults and undescried Meet Thy spirit-piercing view. Blessed Saviour! yet, through Thee, Pray that these may pardon'd be.

Holy Spirit! Breath of Balm! Breathe on us in evening's calm. Yet awhile before we sleep, We with Thee will vigils keep. Lead us on our sins to muse, Give us truest penitence, Then the love of God infuse, Kindling humblest confidence. Melt our spirits, mould our will, Soften, strengthen, comfort, still.

Blessed Trinity! be near Through the hours of darkness drear. When the help of man is far Ye more clearly present are. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost! Watch o'er our defenceless heads, Let your angels' guardian host Keep all evil from our beds, Till the flood of morning rays Wake as to a song of praise.[1]



CHAPTER VIII.

Mr. Arlington is a gem of the first water. He reveals every day some new trait of interest or agreeableness. I saw immediately that he was a man of fine taste; I have since learned to respect him as a man of enlarged intellect and earnest feeling; and now I am just beginning to discover that he is master of all those agremens which constitute the charm of general society, and that he might become the "glass of fashion," if he had not a mind elevated too far above such a petty ambition. This last observation has been called forth by mere trifles, yet trifles so prettily shown, with such ease and grace, as to justify the conclusion. He is apt at illustration and application, and has a fine memory, stored brimfull of entertaining anecdotes, snatches of poetry, and those thousand nothings which tell for so much in society, and which it is so pleasant to find combined with much else that is valuable. A few evenings since, he kept Annie and me in the library, with his agreeable chat, till so late an hour, that Col. Donaldson, who is the least bit of a martinet in his own family, gave some very intelligible hints to us the next morning, at breakfast, on the value of early hours. With a readiness and grace which I never saw surpassed, Mr. Arlington turned to us with the exquisite apology of the poet for a like fault,

"I stay'd too late; forgive the crime; Unheeded flew the hours. Unnoted falls the foot of time, Which only treads on flowers."

This evening again, as he placed a candle-screen before Annie, who, having a headache, found the light oppressive, he said with a graceful mixture of play and earnest, impossible to describe,

"Ah, lady! if that taper's blaze Requires a screen to blunt its rays, What screen, not form'd by art divine, Shall shield us from those orbs of thine?

"But oh! let nothing intervene Our hearts and those bright suns between; 'Tis bliss, like the bewilder'd fly To flutter round, though sure to die."

As the others were engaged in very earnest conversation at the time, and I was reading, he probably expected to be heard only by her to whom he addressed himself; but a little romance, such as that of Annie and Mr. Arlington, acted before me, interests me far more than any book, and I brought a bright blush to Annie's cheek and a conscious smile to his lip, by asking, "Where did you find those very apposite lines? I do not remember to have seen them."

"Probably not, as they have never been published. They were addressed by Anthony Bleecker, of New-York, to a belle of his day, and the lady for whose sake, it is whispered, he lived and died a bachelor."

Our colloquy was here interrupted by Robert Dudley, who wanted to know if we were to have no story this evening. Robert was a great lover of stories. "Ask Mr. Arlington, Robert," said I, "I have given three stories to his one already."

"Aunt Nancy," said Mr. Arlington, who had already begun to give me the affectionate cognomen by which I was always addressed at Donaldson Manor, "Aunt Nancy has stories without number, written and ready for demand, but my portfolio furnishes only rude pencilings, or at best a crayon sketch."

"Will you show them to us, Mr. Arlington?" asked the persevering Robert, who stood beside him, portfolio in hand. "May I draw one out, as Aunt Annie did the other evening; and will you tell us about it?"

Mr. Arlington, with good-humored playfulness, consented, and Robert drew from the portfolio one of his drawings, representing a fisherman's family.

"That man," said I, as I looked at the honest face of the rude, weather-beaten fisherman, "looks as though he had passed through adventurous scenes, and might have many a history to tell."

"He did not tell his histories to me," said Mr. Arlington. "I know nothing more of them than that paper reveals. It seemed to me that the woman and child were visiting, for the first time, the ocean, whose booming sound was to the fisherman as the voice of home. He was probably introducing them to its wonders—revealing to them the mysteries which awaken the superstition of the vulgar and the poetry of the cultivated imagination. He has given her, you may observe, a sea-shell, and she is listening for the first time to its low, strange music."

"And is that all?" asked Robert, when Mr. Arlington ceased speaking.

"All I know, Robert," he answered, with a smile at the boy's earnestness.

"But did you never go fishing yourself, Mr. Arlington?"

"Not often, Robert; I like more active sports better—hunting—"

"Ah! do tell us about your hunting, Mr. Arlington; you must have had some adventures in hunting in those great Western forests I have heard you speak of."

"The greatest adventure I ever had, Robert," said Mr. Arlington, "was in an Eastern forest, and when I was the hunted, not the hunter."

"Indians, Mr. Arlington—were they Indians that hunted you?"

"No, Robert; my hunters were wolves."

"Oh! pray tell us about it, Mr. Arlington, will you not?"

"Certainly, with the ladies' permission."

The ladies' permission was soon obtained, and our little party listened with the deepest interest to the thrilling recital which I have called

THE WOLF CHASE.[2]

During the winter of 1844, being engaged in the northern part of Maine, I had much leisure to devote to the wild sports of a new country. To none of these was I more passionately addicted than to skating. The deep and sequestered lakes of this State, frozen by the intense cold of a northern winter, present a wide field to the lovers of this pastime. Often would I bind on my skates, and glide away up the glittering river, and wind each mazy streamlet that flowed beneath its fetters on towards the parent ocean, forgetting all the while time and distance in the luxurious sense of the gliding motion—thinking of nothing in the easy flight, but rather dreaming, as I looked through the transparent ice at the long weeds and cresses that nodded in the current beneath, and seemed wrestling with the waves to let them go; or I would follow on the track of some fox or otter, and run my skate along the mark he had left with his dragging tail until the trail would enter the woods. Sometimes these excursions were made by moonlight, and it was on one of these occasions that I had a rencontre, which even now, with kind faces around me, I cannot recall without a nervous looking-over-my-shoulder feeling.

I had left my friend's house one evening just before dusk, with the intention of skating a short distance up the noble Kennebec, which glided directly before the door. The night was beautifully clear. A peerless moon rode through an occasional fleecy cloud, and stars twinkled from the sky and from every frost-covered tree in millions. Your mind would wonder at the light that came glinting from ice, and snow-wreath, and incrusted branches, as the eye followed for miles the broad gleam of the Kennebec, that like a jewelled zone swept between the mighty forests on its banks. And yet all was still. The cold seemed to have frozen tree, and air, and water, and every living thing that moved. Even the ringing of my skates on the ice echoed back from the Moccason Hill with a startling clearness, and the crackle of the ice as I passed over it in my course seemed to follow the tide of the river with lightning speed.

I had gone up the river nearly two miles when, coming to a little stream which empties into the larger, I turned in to explore its course. Fir and hemlock of a century's growth met overhead, and formed an archway radiant with frost-work. All was dark within, but I was young and fearless, and as I peered into an unbroken forest that reared itself on the borders of the stream, I laughed with very joyousness: my wild hurrah rang through the silent woods, and I stood listening to the echo that reverberated again and again, until all was hushed. I thought how often the Indian hunter had concealed himself behind these very trees—how often his arrow had pierced the deer by this very stream, and his wild halloo had here rung for his victory. And then, turning from fancy to reality, I watched a couple of white owls, that sat in their hooded state, with ruffled pantalettes and long ear-tabs, debating in silent conclave the affairs of their frozen realm, and was wondering if they, "for all their feathers, were a-cold," when suddenly a sound arose—it seemed to me to come from beneath the ice; it sounded low and tremulous at first, until it ended in one wild yell. I was appalled. Never before had such a noise met my ears. I thought it more than mortal—so fierce, and amidst such an unbroken solitude, it seemed as though a fiend had blown a blast from an infernal trumpet. Presently I heard the twigs on shore snap, as though from the tread of some brute animal, and the blood rushed back to my forehead with a bound that made my skin burn, and I felt relieved that I had to contend with things earthly, and not of spiritual nature—my energies returned, and I looked around me for some means of escape. The moon shone through the opening at the mouth of the creek by which I had entered the forest, and considering this the best channel of escape, I darted towards it like an arrow. 'Twas scarcely a hundred yards distant, and the swallow could hardly excel my desperate flight; yet, as I turned my head to the shore, I could see two dark objects dashing through the underbrush at a pace nearly double in speed to my own. By this rapidity, and the short yells which they occasionally gave, I knew at once that these were the much dreaded gray wolf.

I had never met with these animals, but from the description given of them I had very little pleasure in making their acquaintance. Their untameable fierceness, and the untiring strength which seems part of their nature, render them objects of dread to every benighted traveller.

"With their long gallop, which can tire The deer-hound's haste, the hunter's fire,"

they pursue their prey—never straying from the track of their victim—and as the wearied hunter thinks he has at last outstripped them, he finds that they but waited for the evening to seize their prey, and falls a prize to the tireless pursuers.

The bushes that skirted the shore flew past with the velocity of lightning as I dashed on in my flight to pass the narrow opening. The outlet was nearly gained; one second more and I should be comparatively safe, when the fierce brutes appeared on the bank directly above me, which here rose to the height of ten feet. There was no time for thought, so I bent my head and dashed madly forward. The wolves sprang, but miscalculating my speed, sprang behind, while their intended prey glided out upon the river.

Nature turned me towards home. The light flakes of snow spun from the iron of my skates, and I was some distance from my pursuers, when their fierce howl told me I was still their fugitive. I did not look back, I did not feel afraid, or sorry, or glad; one thought of home, of the bright faces awaiting my return, of their tears if they never should see me, and then every energy of body and mind was exerted for escape. I was perfectly at home on the ice. Many were the days that I had spent on my good skates, never thinking that at one time they would be my only means of safety. Every half minute an alternate yelp from my ferocious followers made me only too certain that they were in close pursuit. Nearer and nearer they came; I heard their feet pattering on the ice nearer still, until I could feel their breath and hear their snuffing scent. Every nerve and muscle in my frame were stretched to the utmost tension.

The trees along the shore seemed to dance in the uncertain light, and my brain turned with my own breathless speed, yet still they seemed to hiss forth their breath with a sound truly horrible, when an involuntary motion on my part turned me out of my course. The wolves close behind, unable to stop, and as unable to turn on the smooth ice, slipped and fell, still going on far ahead; their tongues were lolling out, their white tusks glaring from their bloody mouths, their dark, shaggy breasts were fleeced with foam, and as they passed me their eyes glared, and they howled with fury. The thought flashed on my mind, that by this means I could avoid them, viz., by turning aside whenever they came too near; for they, by the formation of their feet, are unable to run on ice except on a straight line.

I immediately acted upon this plan. The wolves, having regained their feet, sprang directly towards me. The race was renewed for twenty yards up the stream; they were already close on my back, when I glided round and dashed directly past my pursuers. A wild yell greeted my evolution, and the wolves, slipping upon their haunches, sailed onward, presenting a perfect picture of helplessness and baffled rage. Thus I gained nearly a hundred yards at each turning. This was repeated two or three times, every moment the animals getting more excited and baffled.

At one time, by delaying my turning too long, my sanguinary antagonists came so near, that they threw the white foam over my dress as they sprang to seize me, and their teeth clashed together, like the spring of a fox-trap. Had my skates failed for one instant, had I tripped on a stick, or caught my foot in a fissure in the ice, the story I am now telling would never have been told. I thought all the chances over; I knew where they would first take hold of me if I fell; I thought how long it would be before I died, and then there would be a search for the body that would already have its tomb;—for oh! how fast man's mind traces out all the dread colors of Death's picture, only those who have been near the grim original can tell.

But soon I came opposite the house, and my hounds—I knew their deep voices—roused by the noise, bayed furiously from the kennels. I heard their chains rattle; how I wished they would break them! and then I should have protectors that would be peers to the fiercest denizens of the forest. The wolves, taking the hint conveyed by the dogs, stopped in their mad career, and after a moment's consideration, turned and fled. I watched them until their dusky forms disappeared over a neighboring hill. Then, taking off my skates, wended my way to the house, with feelings which may be better imagined than described.

But even yet, I never see a broad sheet of ice in the moonshine, without thinking of that snuffling breath and those fearful things that followed me so closely down the frozen Kennebec.



CHAPTER IX.

"What a noble forest!" cried Annie, as she gazed with rapturous admiration on a noble specimen of the engraver's art—so noble, indeed, that the absence of color seemed hardly to be felt. It was a richly-wooded scene, with interesting figures forming a procession in the centre and foreground of the landscape. The original might have been painted by Ruysdael. "Those old oaks," she exclaimed, "with their gnarled and crooked branches, look as though they might have formed part of the Druidical groves whose solemn mysteries inspired even the arrogant Roman with awe. This picture, however, belongs to a later period—that of the Crusades, perhaps, for here is a procession in which appear figures in the long robe of the monk, and I think I can discern a cross on that banner borne at their head. But what, dear Aunt Nancy, could you possibly find in our land of yesterday, to associate with such a scene?"

"Our people may be of yesterday, Annie, but our land bears no marks of recent origin. The most arrogant boaster of the Old World may feel himself humbled as he stands within the shadow of our forests, and looks up to trees which we might almost fancy to have waved over the heads of 'the patriarchs of an infant world?'"

"And you have seen some such forests, and on the branches of these old trees 'hangs a tale' which you will tell us. Is it not so, Aunt Nancy?"

"I have seen such a forest, and I have a sketch of certain events occurring within its circle. The narrative was given me by my friend, Mrs. H., who was acquainted with the parties. You will find it in her handwriting in the compartment of my desk from which you took the engraving."

Annie found the paper, and I saw a quiet smile pass around as she read aloud its title. Mr. Arlington, at my request, took the reader's place, and we spent our evening in listening to

THE HISTORY OF AN OLD MAID.

It is an almost universal belief among those who have faith in man's immortality, that when his spiritual nature has been divested of its present veil—the bodily organization by which it at pleasure reveals or conceals itself—it shall be manifested to all at a glance in the unsullied beauty of holiness, or the dark deformity of vice. Shall our vision extend further? Shall we read the soul's past history? Shall we know the struggles which have given strength to its powers? The fears which have shadowed, and the hopes which have lighted, its earthly path? Shall we learn the unspoken sacrifices which have been laid on the altar of its affections or its duty? Shall we see how a single generous impulse has shaped the whole course of its being, and been as a heavenly flame, to which every selfish desire and feeling have been committed in noiseless devotion? If this be so, how many such records shall be furnished by the life of woman? How often shall it be found, that from such a flame has risen the light with which she has brightened the existence of others!

Meeta Werner was the daughter of industrious, honest Germans, who had emigrated to the western part of Pennsylvania when she was a child of only seven years old. Only a quarter of a mile from the spot on which Carl Werner had fixed his residence lived a brother German, Franz Rainer. Franz was a widower, with one child, a son, named Ernest. He was a hard, stern man, and the first smiles which had lighted the existence of the young Ernest were caught from the sprightly Meeta and her kind-hearted mother. The children became playfellows and friends. It was a wild country in which they lived. A very short walk from their own doors brought them into a forest which seemed to their young imaginations endless; where gigantic trees interlaced their branches, and with their green foliage shut out the sun in summer, or in winter reflected it in dazzling brightness, and a thousand gorgeous colors, from the icicles which cased their leafless branches and pendent twigs. There was not a footpath, a sunny hill or flowery dell, for miles around their homes, which had not been trodden together by Meeta Werner and Ernest Rainer before their acquaintance was a year old. Now they would come home laden with wood-flowers, and now they might be seen treading wearily back from some distant spot, with baskets filled with blackberries, or with the dark-blue whortleberries. There were no schools in the neighborhood, but they had been taught by their fathers to read and write their own language, and Ernest afterwards acquired some knowledge of English from the good pastor who had accompanied the emigrants from Germany, and who acted as their interpreter when they required one. Having access to few books, they seemed likely to grow up with little more learning than might be gathered from their own observation of the world around them; but when Ernest was eighteen and Meeta fifteen years of age, circumstances occurred which gave an entirely new coloring to their lives.

Franz Rainer had not always been so stern and hard as he now seemed. He had married imprudently, in the world's acceptation of that term; that is, he had made a portionless but lovely girl his wife, and in doing so had incurred his father's lasting displeasure. He had been banished from a home of plenty with a small sum, "to keep him from starving," he was told. With that sum and a young delicate wife he sailed for America, and found a home for himself and his boy, and a grave for his wife, in the forests of Pennsylvania. Too proud to seek a reconciliation with those who had cast him off, he had held no communication with his own family after leaving Germany; and it was not till Ernest was, as we have said, eighteen, that the silence of his home was broken by what seemed a voice from the past. After many hindrances and delays, and passing through many hands for which it had not been intended, a letter reached him from a merchant in Philadelphia, who had been requested to institute a search for Franz by his only brother. The old Rainer was dead, and the family estate had descended to this brother, a scholar and a man of solitary habits. Finding himself growing old in a lonely home, and retaining some kindly memory of the brother in whose companionship his childhood had been passed, he wished him to return to Germany, and again dwell with them in the house of their fathers. To this Franz would by no means consent. His nature was cast in too stern a mould to re-knit at a word the ties which had been so violently sundered. He consented, however, after some correspondence with his brother, to send Ernest to Germany, to be educated there; at least, to receive such an education as could be gained in four years; for he insisted that at the end of that time he should return to America, and remain there while his father lived. "After my death, if he choose to return to the home from which his father was banished, he may," wrote the still resentful Franz.

And how was this change in all the prospects of his life received by the young Ernest and his companion Meeta? By him with mingled feelings; regret, joy, fear, hope, by turns ruled his soul. The regret was all for Meeta and her mother; they were the sources of all his pleasant memories; and as he gazed upon Meeta's hitherto bright face, now clouded with sorrow, and kissed from her cheek the first tears he had ever known her to shed for herself, he was ready to give up all his fair prospects abroad and live with her for ever. Meeta herself, however, gave a new direction to his thoughts, by generously turning from the subject of her grief in parting, to dwell on the idea of the delight with which they would meet again, and especially on her peculiar pleasure in seeing Ernest come back "riding in a grand coach, with servants following him on horseback, as she remembered to have seen in Germany, and knowing enough to teach Parson Schmidt himself!" After listening to such prophecies, Ernest no longer expressed any desire to remain with Meeta; he contented himself, instead, with promising to return as soon as he could, and with winning from her a promise that, come when he might, she would be his wife. This was not a new thought or a new word to either. They could scarcely tell themselves when the idea had first arisen in their minds that they would one day live together, and be what Carl Werner and his wife were to each other. They had even chosen a site for their house; and Ernest had more than once of late expressed the opinion that they were old enough to inform their parents of their intentions; but the more timid Meeta objected. Now, however, she could refuse Ernest nothing, and before the day of parting came they had made a confidante of Meeta's mother, and from her the two fathers had learned the desires of their children. Carl Werner heard the story with a smile; but a denser shadow gathered on the dark brow of Franz. For a moment something of his father's pride was in his heart; but his own blighted life arose before him, and he said, "The boy may do as he pleases. No man has a right to control another on such a subject."

The sun had not yet risen, though its rays were gilding the few light clouds that flecked the eastern sky, when Meeta and Ernest stood together beneath an old oak which had long been their favorite "trysting-tree," to say those words and give and receive those last looks which are among life's most sacred treasures. Smiles and blushes mingled with tears on Meeta's cheek as Ernest pressed her to his bosom, kissed her again and again, and promised that his first letter from Germany should be addressed to her, and that in exactly four years from that date he would be again beneath that tree, to claim her promise to be his for ever. The voice of Carl Werner, who was to accompany Ernest the first stage of his journey, startled them in the midst of their adieus; and bursting from the arms of her companion, Meeta plunged deeper into the woods to escape her father's eye. When Carl returned in the evening he handed her a small parcel, saying, "There's some foolery that Ernest bought for you, Meeta. Silly boy! I hope they'll teach him in Germany to take better care of his money!"

The parcel contained a very plain locket, with one of Ernest's dark curls inclosed in it. Plain as it was, it seemed to Meeta, as it probably had seemed to Ernest, a magnificent present; yet she valued more the few simple words written on the paper which enveloped it: "For Meeta, my promised wife." Four months passed away before Meeta heard again of her lover. Then there came a letter to her, which was full of the great cities through which Ernest had passed, the home to which he had come, and the new life which was opening to him there. In his descriptions his uncle seemed a very grand gentleman, and his uncle's housekeeper almost as grand a lady. He told of the new wardrobe which had been provided for him, the acquaintances to whom he had been introduced, and the studies he had commenced. And in all this Meeta saw but the first step towards that grandeur which she had predicted for him, and she rejoiced.

Four or five such letters were received by Meeta, each full of her lover himself; but they came at lengthening intervals, and during the third year she received from him only messages sent through his father, though every message still conveyed a promise to write soon. The letters of Ernest showed that he had made great advances in scholarship during his residence in Germany, and to all but Meeta herself, and perhaps her mother, they gave equal evidence that his heart was not with the home or the friends he had left in America. But no shadow ever passed over the transparent face of Meeta. Ernest was to her still the frank, ardent, simple-hearted boy whom she had loved so long and so truly. She was still his promised wife. Her quick sensibility to all which touched him made her feel that there was a change in the tone with which her father named him, and an expression, half of anger, half of pity, on his face when she alluded to him. It was an expression which gave her pain, though she did not understand its meaning; and she ceased to speak of Ernest, lest she should call it up; but his locket lay next her heart, his letters were well-nigh worn away with frequent reading, and no day passed in which she did not visit the oak beneath which they had parted, and beneath which she fondly believed they were to meet again.

During the fourth year of Ernest's absence his letters to his father became more frequent, and sometimes inclosed a few lines to Meeta. To both he expressed a strong desire to stay one more year abroad, alleging that to interrupt his studies now would be to render all his past labors unavailing. There was hardly a struggle in Meeta's mind in yielding her almost matured hopes to what seemed so reasonable a wish of Ernest; but the elder Rainer was not so easily won to compliance. Urgent representations from his brother as well as Ernest, did at length, however, induce him to consent to the absence of his son for another year.

This was an important year to Meeta. It brought her an acquaintance through whom her dormant intellect was aroused, and her manners fitted for something more than the rude life by which she had been hitherto surrounded. This was Mrs. Schwartz, the wife of a young pastor, who had come to assist Mr. Schmidt in those duties to which his advancing years rendered him unequal. Mrs. Schwartz was a woman of no ordinary stamp. Highly educated, with an intense enjoyment of every form of beauty and grace, she saw something of them embellishing the homeliest employments and most common life with which a sentiment of duty was connected. Severe illness had confined her to her bed for many weeks soon after her arrival, and before she had been able to establish that perfect domestic economy, which renders the daily and hourly inspection and interference of the mistress of a mansion needless to the comfort of its inmates. During this period, Meeta, whose sympathies had been deeply interested in the stranger, nursed her, and planned for her, and worked for her, until she made herself a place in her heart among her life-friends. As Mrs. Schwartz saw her moving around her with such busy kindness, the thought often arose in her mind, "What can I do for her?" This is a question we seldom ask ourselves of any one sincerely without finding an answer to it.

We have said that Meeta had access to few books in early life; we might have added that she had little opportunity of hearing the conversation of persons more cultivated than herself. Thus were the two great sources of intellectual development sealed to her. She had a thoughtful, earnest mind. She loved the beautiful world around her, and the GREAT BEING who made and sustained that world. But if the contemplation of these things awakened thoughts of a higher character than the daily baking and brewing, milking and scrubbing in her father's house, she had no language in which to clothe them, and vague and undefined, they fleeted away like the morning mists, leaving no impress of their presence. Her acquaintance with Mrs. Schwartz, and the conversation she sometimes heard between her and her husband, gave to these shadows substance and form, and awakened a new want in Meeta's soul—the want of knowledge. As in all else, Ernest was present in this. He would doubtless be intelligent, wise, like Mr. Schwartz, and how could she be his companion? Something of these new experiences in Meeta was divined by Mrs. Schwartz, and with a true womanly tact she became her teacher without wounding her self-love. The road to knowledge once opened to Meeta, her advance on it was rapid. How could it be otherwise, when every step was bringing her nearer to Earnest! The elevation and refinement of mind which Meeta thus acquired impressed themselves on her agreeable features. Her dark eyes became bright with the soul's light, and her whole aspect so attractive, that her old friends exclaimed, as they looked upon her, "How handsome Meeta Werner grows, she who used to be so plain!"

After a time these superficial observers thought they had found the cause of this change in Meeta's change of costume, for a new sense of beauty had been awakened in her, under whose guidance her dark hair was brought in soft silken braids upon her cheeks, wound gracefully around her well-shaped head, and sometimes ornamented with a ribbon or a cluster of wild flowers: while her dresses where remodelled so as to resemble less the fashion which her mother and her sister emigrants had imported thirteen years before from Germany, and to give a more natural air to her really fine figure.