The flagged causeway and pared street thronged with the commercial crowd, and reflecting the noon-day blaze of the summer sun, seared her eyeballs with their bright and monotonous glare, and contrasted strangely with the sombre dreariness of her own squalid garret. Gentle and timid as was her nature, she declared to me, on her dying day, with a shudder which even approaching death could not prevent, that often she had been on the point of throwing herself from her window into the street, to end at once her existence and her

sorrows.

But maternal feelings proved stronger even than despair, and she lived on in her misery for the sake of the unborn infant whose features she longed "with all the longing of a mother" to gaze upon, before she might close her eyes in death. Let me hasten over this period of wretchedness. In pain of body and mental anguish, a child was born to the unhappy Ellen Rainals, and she, who had been nursed in luxury, and whose slightest wish had been obeyed with alacrity, was now indebted to the unwilling charity of a decrepit old woman for assistance in this critical period.

It is well known to medical men, that diseases which have taken deep root in the constitution, frequently lie dormant during pregnancy, and break out afterwards with redoubled violence. The misery which this poor girl had suffered, from anguish of mind and priva tions of every kind, had already laid the foundation of consumption in her delicate frame, and it was dreadful to behold the rapidity of the disease which developed itself after her accouchement.

By the representations of her fellow-lodger to Dr. A—, a man who does honour to his profession and to mankind,-she was instantly removed to the Hospital, accommodated with a private room, and supplied with every thing that could conduce to her comfort. She could not be prevailed on to part with her infant; it was now the only link that bound her to existence, and gradually sinking to death herself, she continued to watch the feeble form of her child,-as the closing evening still seems to linger until the flowers of the valley have folded up their leaves in rest.

Yet there were times when the disease seemed to become stationary, and sometimes I have heard her in an evening, as I passed the door of her room, singing to her child some sweet low melody-breathing of hope and remembered happiness. But her infant would utter a feeble cry, and her song would cease; and then you might hear the deep long sobs bursting from her bosom, as if the force of her sorrow would rend her delicate frame to pieces. At other times I have heard her speak enthusiastically and even cheerfully of her father-land, dwell with fond minuteness upon the beauty of Lewistadt, and remind me of incidents which occurred during my short stay near her dwelling. I would fain have had her removed from the Hospital, but " she was very well where she was," she said,—and she would gaze upon her infant for a minute, and then turn her blue eyes glowing through her tears, in the unnatural brilliancy of consumption, upon me, with a glance of such deep and sorrowful meaning, that I gave up the point. It was plain she knew that both her child and herself were dying, and though the natural clinging to life and to her offspring gave a melancholy to her anticipations of this event, it was clear also that she

looked forward to it as the end of her sorrows; and as she marked the fading eye of her infant, a calm resignation mingled with her natural grief; and she was willing that herself and her infant should die, for the hope was strong in her that they would meet in the land where "the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary be at rest." It was a sight to touch the hardest heart, to see the young creature, herself supported with pillows, attempting to suckle her dying child; vainly trying to yield a little more natural nourishment to the infant into whose veins she had already poured the poison which was fast destroying her own life; and to see her long, pale transparent fingers steal, like a moon-beam, over its wan, shrunken features, as if struggling till the last to possess herself of the consciousness of its existence, by feeling for the movement of the lip unseen to her dimmed eye, and trying to discover the warmth of the breath which to her anxiously listening ear seemed gone for ever.

It was on a lovely summer evening, that I received a message from Ellen Rainals desiring to see me as soon as possible. I went immediately, and found her sitting up in her bed ;-as I entered, she held out her hand cheerfully towards me, and beckoned me to sit down. There was a strange unearthly fixedness in her eye, which had always, in the last stages of her illness, been restless and brilliant, or flitting and lustreless. I had never for many weeks seen the child out of her arms; it was now laid by her side, as if asleep. She saw me looking towards it " Ellen is dead," she said, "she died an hour ago."-I attempted to utter a few words of comfort-" Hush!" she said, "it is well with her,—and I feel that in my heart, which tells me I will never again see the light of the sun which is now streaming over the sweet valley of my own Lewistadt! Oh! how beautiful and sacred that sun-set seems to me!"-She stopped for a moment, gazing at the beams as they played upon the distant river, and then said suddenly My poor husband! it is well he does not witness this; may the Father of Mercy blot out his errors as fully as I forgive him the suffering he has caused me and my poor baby!"-She took the dead body of her child into her arms, and kissed it repeatedly-then laid it upon the coverlet upon her knee, raised its head upon a pillow, and smiled sadly as she looked at the little arrangement. The sun threw a broad light upon the bed ;-I offered to close the blind-"Oh! let me gaze on it to the last," said she; "for see! how beautifully it gleams on Ellen's cheek." I retired and sat down at a distance from the bed. "Ellen and I will be laid in the same grave?" said she enquiringly— "I promised it." She then turned again towards her child. thought I saw her head fall slightly back upon her pillow, but her cheek glowed in the sun-light with such a beautiful and life-like tinge that I could not think she was dead. I walked to the bed-side, and was about to speak,-the sun dropped that instant out of sight,—and the sudden paleness, which overspread the features of the Danish girl and her child, showed that their griefs were gone for ever.

DANIEL MERSHAUM.

I

THE HERMIT OF THE MOUNTAIN.

BY JOHN MACKAY WILSON.

INTRUDER, thou shalt hear my tale,-the solitary said,
While far adown beneath our feet, the fiery levin play'd,
The thunder clouds our carpet were-we gaz'd upon the storm,
Which swept along the mountain sides, in many a fearful form.
I sate beside the lonely man, on Snowden's cloudless height;
Above our heads was glory, but beneath more glorious night,
For the sun was shining over us, but lightnings flashed below,
Like the felt and fiery darkness of unutterable woe.

"I love in such a place as this," the desolate began,
"To gaze upon the tempests wild that separate me from man,
To muse upon the passing things that agitate the world,
View myself as by a whirlwind to hopeless ruin hurled.

My heart was avaricious once, like yours the slave of feeling-
Perish such hearts-vile caves of crime! Man's selfishness concealing,
For self! damned self's creation's lord,-man's idol, and his god,
'Twas torn from me, a blasted, bruised, a cast off, worthless load.

Some say there's wildness in my eyes, and others deem me crazed,
They trembling turn and shun my path, for which let Heaven be
They say my breath is blasphemy-they marvel at my fate [praised.
While 'tis my happiness to know, they pity not but hate.

My father fell from peace and wealth the day that I was born,
My mother died, and he became his fellow-gamblers' scorn,
I know not where he lived or died-I never heard his name,
An orphan in a workhouse-I was thought a child of shame.

Some friend by blood had lodged me there, and bought my keeper too,
Who pledged his oath he would conceal what of my tale he knew;
Death came to him, he called on me the secret to unfold,
But died while he was uttering the little I have told.

My soul was proud nor brooked restraint, was proud and I was young,
And with an eager joyancy I heard his faultering tongue
Proclaim me not of beggars born, yea as he speaking died,
I—greedy-mad to know the rest,-stood cursing by his side.

I looked upon the homely garb that told my dwelling place-
It hung upon me heavily-a token of disgrace!

I fled the house, I went to sea-was by a villain prest,
But the stamp of his brutality was printed on my breast.

Like vilest slave he fettered me, my flesh the irons tore

Scourged--mocked, and worse than buried me upon a lifeless shore,
Where human foot had never trode, upon a barren rock,
Whose caves ne'er echoed to a sound, save billows as they broke.

the sea

"Twas midnight-but the morning came. I looked upon
And a melancholy wilderness its waters were to me;
The heavens were black as yonder cloud that rolls beneath our feet,
But neither land nor living thing my eager eyes could meet.

2 s

VOL. I.

I naked sate upon the rock-I trembled, strove to pray—
Thrice did I see a distant sail and thrice it bore away.

My brain with hunger maddening, as the steed the battle braves,
I plunged me headlong from the rock and buffetted the waves.

Methought I saw a vessel near, and bitter were my screams,
But they died within me echoeless, as the voices of our dreams;
For the winds were howling round me, and the suffocating gush,
Of briny horrors rioted-the cry of death to crush !

My senses fled. I lifelessly upon the ocean slept,

And when to consciousness I woke, a form before me wept-
Her face was beautiful as light, but by her side there stood,
A group whose savage glances were more dismal than the flood.

They stood around exultingly--they snatch'd me from the wave,
Stole me from death-to torture me-to sell me as a slave-
She who stood o'er me weeping was a partner of my chains,

We

e were sold, and separation bled my heart with deeper pains.

I knew not what her birth had been, but loved her with a love,
Which nor our tyrants' insolence nor mockery could move,
I saw her offered to a Moor-another purchased me!

But Heavens! my arms once fetterless! ere midnight I was free.

Memory with eager eye had marked her master's hated door-
I grasped a sabre-reached the house and slew the opposing Moor-
I bore her rapidly away,—a boat was on the beach,

We put to sea, saw morning dawn, beyond our tyrant's reach.

I gazed upon her silently-I saw her sink to sleep,
As darkness gathered over us upon the cheerless deep-
I saw her in her slumber start, unconsciously she spoke—

O death! she called upon his name who left me on the rock.

Then there was madness in my breast and fury in my brain—
She never heard that name from me,-yet uttered it again!

I started forth and grasped her hand, Are we pursued,' she cried,
I trembled in my agony, and speechless o'er her sighed.

I ventured not to speak of love in such an awful hour-
For hunger glistened in our eyes, and grated to devour
The very rags that covered us-its pangs I cannot tell
But in that little hour I tore Eternity from hell!

For the transport of its tortures did in that hour surround,
Two spirits on the bosom of a shoreless ocean found,
As we gazed upon each other with a dismal longing look,
While jealousy, but not from love, our tortured bosoms shook-

I need but add that we were saved, and by a vessel borne,
Again toward our native land to be asunder torn,—
The maiden of my love was rich, was rich-and I was poor,
A soulless menial shut on me her wealthy guardian's door,

She knew it not, nor would I tell,-tell! by the host of heaven, My tongue became the sepulchre of sound!-my heart was rivenI fled society and hope-the prison of my mind

A world of inexpressible and guilty thoughts confined.

I brooded on my miseries, ambition fired my soul,

Sweeping round me like a fury, while the beacon and the goal,
Of my sleepless ever turbulent desire was to have

The hand that mine had rescued from the fetters of a slave.

At length blind fortune favoured me,-my breast to joy awoke,
And then the wretch who left me on the isolated rock

I met within a distant land, nor need I farther tell
But, that we met as equals there, and my antagonist fell.
Awhile I brooded on his death, and gloomily it brought,
A desolateness round me stamping guilt on every thought;
I trembling found how bloodily my vengeance was appeased,
At what vile price my bosom was of jealousy released-

For still the breathing of his name by her I loved had rung,
In remembrance like the latest sound that falleth from the tongue,
Of those best loved and cherished when upon the bed of death,
They bequeath to us their injuries to visit in our wrath.

But soon those griefs evanished, like a passing summer storm,
And a gush of hope like sunshine flashed around me to deform
The image of repentance, while the shadows of remorse
Retreated from its presence with a blacker gathering curse.

I hurried home in eagerness-the leaden moments fled—
My burning tale of love was told-was told, and we were wed-
A tumult of delightfulness had rapt my soul in flame,
But on that day-my wedding day-a mourning letter came,-
Joy died on every countenance-she trembling broke the seal,
Screamed, glanced on me and lifeless fell, unable to reveal
The horrid tale of death that told her new made husband's guilt,
The hand that she that day had wed, her brother's blood had spilt-

That brother in his mother's right another name did bear,
"Twas him I slew-all shrank from me in horror and in fear-
They seiz'd me in my bridal dress-my bride still senseless lay,
I spoke not while they pinioned me and hurried me away.

They lodged me in a criminal cell by iron gratings barred—
And there the third day heavily a funeral bell I heard.

A sable crowd my prison past-they gaz'd on it with gloom-
It was my bride, my beautiful, they followed to the tomb!

I was acquitted-but what more had I with life to do

I cursed my fate-my heart--the world, and from its creatures flew !
Intruder thou hast heard my tale of misery and of guilt,
Go-mingle with a viler world, and tell it if thou wilt."