But Sophie walked up close to the princess, and looked so boldly in her face with her black eyes that I was quite pleased at it, since matters had gone so far, for the princess could not support her glance, however much she forced herself to do so.

Sophie was pale as marble, and remained so during her whole life from that hour; her lips quivered and trembled as she said:

"Too much is too much! How dare the princess upbraid me, when she herself

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"Impudent creature!" the princess exclaimed in her anger, "you would insult my husband!"

"Your husband who hates you-your husband who loves me," Sophie said, almost in a whisper; but contempt spoke in her every feature. Trample on me, torture him, and then I swear to you your husband will become mine!"

66

The girl rushed out, and the princess sank without a word into the chair upon which her rival had so lately been sitting.

When we at length brought the princess to her senses, and the convulsions ceased, we carried her in a half dying state to her carriage. I blessed God that she was, at least, gone, apologised to my guests, who stood stupidly around, and could not understand it at all, and after saddling my best horse, galloped at full speed to Prince Leopold in the Residence.

I found him still dressed in travelling costume, and perfectly furious that his wife had gone out secretly this morning, not to be found to greet him on his return. Still he listened to me calmly, when I told him all, how it happened from the commencement, first with Sophie and then with the princess.

He then gave me directions to bring the girl that same evening, as soon as I reached home, with great secrecy to the house of his physician in ordinary at the Residence, where he would have everything prepared in the mean while. He then dismissed me very kindly :

"Adieu, Dietrich; you are an honest fellow, and no one shall do you any harm. But I fear, greatly, that Sophie is in the right; she will become my wife. I will not be condemned to unhappiness all my life merely because I am a prince. Remember me to my angel, and console her till I can do so myself."

I was happy as a prince when I had delivered the girl that same evening to Dr. Klein, for she was entirely altered since the terrible scene. If ever I believed in an evil spirit, it was during this night's drive, for Sophie said nothing but, "She or I-she or I! If I knew a spell by which to kill her, I would utter it with joy!"

From this point I do not know the rest of the story so exactly, for I even avoided inquiring about it.

The separation, however, could not be effected so easily. The reigning duke, who alone could grant permission, was very angry about the scandal, and because he was disturbed in his own comfort and forced to marry, that he might have an heir to the throne.

We cannot, either, blame the princess, because she did not make room for the parson's daughter, or let herself be condemned in her youthful days to perpetual widowhood, for a princess is to be pitied in such a case; in the first place she is often married against her will, and even if she

separates from her husband afterwards, that does not give her her liberty again as it does other women.

An accident is the best thing to solve such a difficulty. Thus, very fortunately, the princess expired within a year, and, soon afterwards, the prince was united to Sophie with the left hand, by permission of Duke Maximilian, who had, in the mean while, been blessed with a son.

The married couple lived quietly and happily, as everybody said, but nearly always in foreign parts, until Duke Maximilian himself died, and Prince Leopold was compelled to undertake the regency.

Though at court and in town, the imperial Countess von Geierstein, as Sophie was now called, was not beloved, however much good she did, and however little she interfered in matters which did not concern a woman. The common people never saw her smile, and at court all was as quiet as in a monastery, or in a house where some one had lately died. The blame was also attached to her, that the prince regent took away so much money from the country, to spend it in his eternal travels through Europe.

From these reasons folks were also disposed to say evil of Sophie, and the story was long current, that she had never been cheerful since the cook to the former princess confessed on his dying bed, "that he had given the princess something to render the countess well disposed towards him."

Even at the present day I can form no clear idea on the subject, and it is a difficult task to do so. For whenever any one who is in the way dies suddenly at court, people cry "Poison!" directly, though it may have been the most ordinary disease.

However, a true blessing and real joy never rested, most certainly, on this branch of the family.

A VOICE TO THE SAD.

BY G. W. THORNBURY.

THERE's always sunshine somewhere in the world,
For when 'tis night with us 'tis well nigh day
Where Tamerlane his flame-dyed flag unfurled,
Casting a shade o'er Indus ages past,

Leaving the deserts thrilling with his blast.
The cloud that's dark to us hath silver lining

That tips with azure frost our neighbour's roof;

'Tis often but a thousand dyes combining

That woven from the tempest's dusky woof.

And when we fear it's heaven-molten fire
Will fuse our city to one common pyre,

It bursteth like the seed-pod of a flower,

And 'stead of death comes down the balmy shower-
Our long-expected wish, and our desire.

FURTHER EXTRACTS FROM THE COMMONPLACE-BOOK OF A LATELY DECEASED AUTHOR.

SHADOWS ON CHURCH WALLS.

THE Rev. Robert Conglomery snatches up the last trumpet with irreverent hand, and plays upon it the most fashionable hymn-tunes, with the richest roulades and the newest variations, and all to tickle the ears of his hearers and to fill his pews. Then there's the Rev. Curius W, that ecclesiastical son of Anak, whose sermons are almost as long as himself, and embrace as many subjects as yesterday's Times. He speaks as if each word was accompanied by a blow; his wh's whistle like a sword cutting the air, his sentences conclude with an emphatic compression, like the last twist of a thumb-screw, and he mounts the pulpit-stairs as if he was mounting a Papist scaffold. Add to these the Rev. C——— of Cheltenham, the apostle of Pump-rooms, to whom the ladies erected a pyramid of worked slippers in the city of waters, where they discuss the Pope between the tea and the muffins; and last comes Dr. C-——— who one month writes a book to expound the Apocalypse, and next month writes another to refute his own arguments.

THE PERFECT MEN.

In the middle ages, great men united a dozen different sciences, and excelled in all. Now we're puny, and talent is subdivided. Michael Angelo was sculptor, architect, painter, and poet. Now, we have the education of parts: the harper's finger, the jockey's knee, the engraver's eye, the dancer's foot. We prune a tree back to one branch to get any fruit at all, and when it comes 'tis stunted.

SOBRIQUETS.

The English poor, in spite of their dulness, are often happy in their nicknames. I remember an old commodore at Dover who was called by the sailors "Admiral Wholebones," because he always escaped danger by never running into it; and during a very severe engagement with two French frigates, off Cherbourg, unfortunately could not find his slippers till just as the enemy sheered off. A usurer's house in Gloucestershire was known as "Pinchpoor Castle;" and I have heard of a doctor famous for decimating the infant population, who got the name of "Herod" from his constant 66 massacre of the Innocents."

WATERING-PLACES.

A facetious friend of mine, while spending a season at Ems, proposed, and actually carried into operation, a plan of classifying the company at the daily table d'hôte according to the rank of their disease. Thus: A severe liver complaint sat at the head of the table and earved, while his vis-à-vis was a disordered spleen; St. Vitus's Dance opened the ball, and a very respectable palsy presided at the tea-table. When I last heard. from him he was trying to obtain a patent for a new sort of waistcoat for aldermen, with an india-rubber back, adapted for civic dinners, warranted to expand to any size, but to burst at a safe distance from

apoplexy, as a safety signal to the wearer. My friend is a man who rides several hobbies at once, like your clown at the circus-he is mathematical, hydrostatical, everything but practical-his house is lumbered up with disordered air-pumps and broken Leyden phials. The other day he invented a fire-engine on an entirely new principle. You were to pull a wire, which released a spring, which set a wheel going, which turned a tap, which let out gas, which put out the fire. The old engine was sold as antiquated, and the new favourite solemnly installed in its place. Two days after a dreadful fire broke out in the old family house. The wonder of science was hauled forth. Nothing could work better than spring, wheel, wire, and tap; but, unfortunately, by the time the whole machinery was fairly set a-going, the house was entirely burnt to the ground.

SEA-SICKNESS.

There is an amusing old legend I have read in some mouldy chronicle, of an island that long remained unconquered, from a rumour that gained ground amongst the people of the mainland that it was surrounded by an enchanted sea; for whenever their canoes put forth to reach its coast, the crews were instantly seized with uncontrollable vomiting, yea, almost unto death, loathing their food, and calling on those round them to slay them with knives or spears; and believing this the effect of some sea god's vengeance, they always put back, and so, for two centuries, the island remained free. To me it seems clear that this is sea-sickness.

THE PRODIGAL HEIR.

There's young Post-obit-I won't mention names-whose ears are filled, day and night, with no sounds but three, and those musical, but bad-the gurgling of wine, the rattling of dice, and the susurrus of an opera-dancer's whisper. Isn't his coffin already growing in the family elms? Isn't there a niche for him in the family vault-an empty place for his leaden coffin on the shelf under his great grandfather, who was run through the body in Will's Coffee-house, in Dryden's time, by a Tityre Tu, and over his grandfather, who died of dropsy? Isn't there a vacancy for him in the family portrait-gallery, where his hollow eyes and sensual lip will soon figure among the ruffs, and falling bands, and cuirasses, with Sir Marmaduke who fell at Naseby, and old Admiral

who boarded Van Tromp's ship; and, above all, isn't there, sirrah, three inches of marble slab left for his degenerate name on the old flat alabaster monument, where a lady prays eternally in stone opposite to the cross-legged knight who died at Joppa? Were bodies transparent, he might see that it is a skeleton who draws his Champagne cork, who whirls the roulette, who bets him two to one on the favourite, who lips him, and asks for a set of diamonds; who befools him; who drags him swift down, down, down to hell.

MODERN POETRY.

It's all landscape painting; all the seventh heaven; like Shelley, with no sympathy for earth; or all versified newspaper, like Tupper's rhymed didactics, with our five senses forgotten. Poetry is written now for the images, not images for the poetry. They are separate thoughts welded together and showing the join.

THE TRUTHS OF OLD MYTHOLOGY.

I once began a work with this title, intending to review all creeds, past and present, and to show the universal existence of primitive postdiluvian tradition; the Hindoo, the Grecian, and the Scandinavian Trinities; the Deluge, remembered in Mexico and Hindostan; even to the dove and the number saved. I should have reviewed the degraded worship of the race of Ham; cannibalism, as a religious rite; devil homage, and serpent adoration, which still exists in India and Africa, and was visible in Greece, in the emblems of deities, as Mercury and Æsculapius. But I felt my health going; and one day in autumn-it was about six o'clock, and sunset beginning-I bound up my MSS., and threw them into an old chest I have in my study, closing it again as one would a coffin-lid on a beloved face, leaving the shaped stones to be formed (perhaps) into a palace by other hands. I couldn't go on writing when I saw Death's bony finger following my pen, and obliterating as I

wrote.

COMPENSATION.

It does not relieve me to know it was a golden knife that amputated my arm; if you must have a wooden leg, it's all one whether it be of deal or mahogany.

ANCESTRY.

Our fathers' diseases are hereditary; their virtues die with them.

THE SEXES.

"I've a sort of feeling," says the woman. "I begin to think," says Female vanity finds a mirror even in the clasps of her prayer

the man.

book.

EVERYTHING HAS A BEGINNING.

Newton was once a child, and often got whipped; Alexander ran in leading-strings; and Cæsar was thrashed for stealing a top.

HAYDON.

Haydon was one of those men who always talked as if there was a fiery chariot waiting to take him up at the next cab-stand.

THE JEWS.

It is a singular thing that for forty years in the wilderness their clothing waxed not old, nor knew they such a thing as cast-off raiment; and now for hundreds of years they have lived by trading on the sloughs of civilised Europe.

CASUISTRY.

It is rather a Jesuit's question, whether flinging a crown at a bald beggar, and cutting his head open with it, is charity.

A BULLY.

Bullies go through society with the impunity that a sweep or a brimming dung-cart passes along the streets.