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Doctor,' said he, in a tremulous voice, 'could my death save her, most willingly would I die this moment. But what can I, a miserable old man, do upon the earth? An object of horror and affright, without family, without friends, without children! She was all these to me; she was my joy, my happiness, my treasure. why was she not my daughter? Perhaps she then would have loved me!'

Ah!

'But of what use are regrets, when the evil is past remedy?' 'Past remedy! I know of one, but it requires a courage which I no longer possess; for old age has weakened my spirit, and leaves it only the strength to suffer. Do you believe me, doctor? I have never been a coward; but now-I dare not kill myself. Think not that it is religion that restrains me; it is fear. I have the desire for suicide, but not the courage. He had it. He! young and beloved- he knew how to die. And I, so near the tomb that I have but to raise the stone to descend into it, I hesitate, and tremble! Weakness and cowardice - these are man's last companions!'

Monsieur Gorsay seemed to forget the presence of the physician, and re-descended to his apartment with slow and painful steps. He there passed the remainder of the evening motionless in his arm-chair, with head sunk upon his breast, eyes fixed, and draining drop by drop the inexhaustible sadness in which for many months his heart had been steeped. At eleven o'clock a domestic entering the room, he arose and permitted himself to be undressed with the passiveness of a machine: then, after swallowing a narcotic draught, which his sleeplessness had rendered necessary, he got

into bed.

The most profound silence reigned throughout the house; the domestics had long since retired to their apartments. The lethargic sleep of Lucia still continued; and despite the occurrence of the preceding night, the nurse, according to her custom, was slumbering in the arm-chair. At length Monsieur Gorsay fell asleep. Suddenly the old man was aroused by the sound of the window-blind turning upon itself. Opening his eyes, he perceived with amazement, mingled with terror, a large band of silver which the moon projected through the shutters of the Venetian blinds upon the carpet. In a moment this was obscured by the figure of a man, who leaped into the room, and proceeded directly toward the bed. with the rapid and stealthy tread of a tiger. Monsieur Gorsay endeavored to rise, but before he could utter a cry, or seize the bellrope, he was assailed and thrown down by the robber, who with one hand grasped him by the throat, and with the other brandished a long knife, which he had carried open between his teeth.

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Mercy!

Bonnemain!' murmured the old man, who by the light of the moon had just recognized the murderer.

Not a word! or I strike!' replied the galley-slave, in a low voice. 'Listen to me: you must get up, open the secretary, and give me the money. If you hold your tongue I will do you no harm; but if you attempt to speak a single word, I will let out your blood like that of a fowl! Do you understand me?'

He

Frozen with terror, Monsieur Gorsay made a sign of assent. then arose, with the assistance of Bonnemain, who by way of precaution kept fast hold of his arm, took a key from the pocket of his riding-coat, opened the secretary and drew from the secret cavity the casket filled with gold, upon which, for the last five months, the galley-slave, by night and by day, had not ceased thinking.

Is this the whole?' said he, as his eyes gloated over the prey. It is all that I have here,' replied Monsieur Gorsay, in a half articulate voice; 'but I have some silver in the library; must I go and bring it?'

'Thank you; you might alarm the servants, which would not be so pleasant. Too much appetite is hurtful. I must be content with the rouleaus.'

'Take them then; I give them to you; and I swear never to betray you.'

'I believe you; before an hour the beaks will be on my haunches, as the other time; not such a fool!'

With these words, the galley-slave, by a movement as rapid as unforeseen, passed behind Monsieur Gorsay, grasped him tightly, closed his mouth with his left hand, while with the other he stabbed him in the side with anatomical precision. Stricken to the heart, the old man bit convulsively the fingers of the assassin, uttered a stifled groan, and expired. Bonnemain laid him upon the floor in silence, and assured himself that no pulse beat any longer. Certain then of never being denounced by his victim, he arose and plunged his hand into the casket which stood upon the secretary. At this instant, the noise of a door opening sent an icy chill through his veins. He turned in confusion, and by the light of the moon, which alone illuminated the scene of murder, he discerned at the entrance of the chamber a figure in white, which to a superstitious mind might have seemed the avenging spirit of the murdered man. This apparition moved directly up to the assassin, who in his fright dropped both the dagger and the rouleaus of gold. Crawling on his hands and knees, he succeeded in regaining the window, through which he sprung with a desperate effort. He traversed the garden, scaled the wall of the inclosure, and fled across the country, bearing on his hands, as on the former occasion, blood but no gold.

Two hours after this, the attendant of Madame Gorsay awoke, and perceived that the bed of her charge was empty. Alarmed, she ran to the window but found it closed; she then saw that the door was partly open. Lighting a taper, she followed from chamber to chamber the tracks of the somnambulist, who in her progress had not closed any of the doors behind her. She at length came to the threshold of the chamber of Monsieur Gorsay, where she suddenly stopped, uttering a shriek of horror, which aroused and terrified the whole household.

In the full moonlight which illuminated part of the room, Lucia, with dishevelled hair and closed eyes, was sitting by the dead body of her husband. The childish amusement in which she seemed to be seriously engaged told that the wanderings of madness were

joined to those of somnambulism. She held the casket on her knees, turned out the rouleaus, one after the other, and scattered the pieces of gold upon the carpet, arranging them in symmetrical figures. The blood which flowed profusely from the old man's wound was mingled with this sport, and the fingers of the smiling idiot were dabbled in the purple gore.

The

Lucia, dragged from the fatal chamber, awoke only to fall into terrible convulsions, during which the last rays of reason seemed to be extinguished. The scene which had been enacted five months before on this spot was now repeated in a more fatal manner. judicial inquest established in a positive manner that Madame Gorsay, in a fit of somnambulism, had assassinated her husband, against whom, since the death of Arthur d'Aubian, she had cherished an implacable hatred. It also appeared clearly demonstrated that she had only perpetrated during sleep a murder which had been long contemplated during her waking hours. Among the parties who held the inquest there were more than one who thought that even sleep was not a sufficient excuse for the deed, and that the matter ought to be brought before a jury; but the insanity of the accused having been legally proven, took away all pretext for a criminal procedure. Instead, therefore, of being incarcerated in a prison, the wretched widow was placed in a lunatic asylum; a step which to many seemed too lenient.

ONE day in the year 1838, among the persons whom curiosity had brought to the Institution at Charenton, might be seen a citizen of some fifty years of age, fat, well-conditioned, ruddy, and with clothes very well brushed. He gave his arm to a buxom female bedecked in full suit of holiday attire, and a finger to a child of about four years of age, whom maternal vanity had equipped in the martial uniform of an artillery officer. This group, a type of city felicity, the last reflex of patriarchal manners, was one which might have brought a smile of malice to the lip of an artist, or have furnished food for more serious reflection to a philosopher.

The head of this interesting family, who was about taking his son in his arms to give him a better view of the inmates of the establishment, suddenly stopped at sight of a female patient, still young and beautiful, who, without paying attention to any one, was walking up and down the small inclosure, repeating in a plaintive tone the name of 'Arthur.'

What on earth ails you, Monsieur Bonnemain?' said the tawdry lady to her spouse. 'Why, you are as white as a sheet, and are all

in a tremble!'

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'It is from hunger then,' replied the old galley slave, as he recovered his sang froid, who, thanks to the dowry of his wife, had become the head of a flourishing commercial establishment; 'let us go to dinner. Achille is sleepy. These fools amuse me no longer. We have had enough of this stuff!'

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THIS BEAUTIFUL REPLY WAS MADE DURING THE RECENT DEBATES CONCERNING THE REGENCY OF FRANCE.

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SKETCHES OF EAST FLORIDA.

NUMBER ONE.

OFFICER OF THE NIGHT.'

I HAVE few antipathies, but there are some that I do battle with at sight or smell. Whether persons or things, I appreciate them at once; as some persons of keen perceptions will tell immediately when a cat is near them. You will hear people talk of what they call a 'presentiment of evil.' This is all humbug. If they would look about them, they would find, each one, his respective cat; or, to speak magnetically, his opposite pole.'

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Corporal F was my antipathy, my opposite pole,' my cat; and for that matter, a Tom-cat, and a very saucy one. We had never spoken, and knew nothing of each other; our eyes had never met, but we had stolen glances, each way, giving strong confirmation of what the mere presence of each sufficiently indicated; to wit, a decided hostility. I had felt uncomfortable some mornings before, and knew perfectly well that I had a cat to find; but I did not know, till afterward, that Corporal F had reached town that very day. It was a common fancy with me, subsequently, that I knew what part of the town he was in at any given time; and this may have been fancy only, or it may have been a fact magnetical.

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Our first meeting was in East Florida. I had been in that warm-bath of a climate just long enough to get well soaked through, and was beginning to act out that dreamy languor of body and soul that fits one so exactly for the cigar-life - - the lounging, easy nonchalance of that sunny land; in short, without that excess of high spirits which is an irritation, I was superlatively happy — till I met Corporal F. He was to me immediately a large spot on the sun; and although I could n't always see the spot, I knew it was there, and keeping off so much sunshine. His arrival, as I viewed it, was impertinent, and not at all in aid of the object I had in coming a thousand miles to that delicious climate. With a generous ingenuity, I thought at first of proposing to him to draw cuts, to decide which of us should leave town. He had not the look of being cared for, and I could not imagine his absence would be missed at all, except by me; while as to myself, to say nothing of the party I was with, I rather thought that the girls who had taken so much pains to teach me their waltzes and Spanish dances But that's no matter. The risk to me would be an unrighteous one, and the project was abandoned.

We were a party of half a dozen, who had left New-York as the severe winter of '35 and '36 was setting in, and reached way of Picolata, making the last safe passage over that road.

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