and studied at its university, which was not then quite fallen as in our day. He mingled involuntarily in the great Italian section of the Napoleonic Epos. He was army surgeon to the Italian liberalists. Many curious adventures he had met, and, among others, his wife--a nun of great beauty, turned loose like an uncaged bird, in the treacherous sacking of a convent by a band of desperate ruffians. The Scottish doctor saved her honour, and won her heart: her only home was destroyed-there was no ark of shelter for this poor frightened dove; she sought it in her preserver's bosom. They were married, and loved each other fondly; but the alarm and peril of that dreadful scene so affected the delicate health and timid temperament of the cloistered recluse, that she never was very well after, and ultimately died of consumption. But long ere this Morton had taken advantage of the Bourbon's restoration to repair to Paris, to perfect himself in clinical surgery. There he struck upon the first hints of his great discovery. The moment this grand leading idea formed itself definitely in his mind, he relinquished to it every other consideration. He hastened to London, as the great focus of all practical assistances; studied-experimentedthought and laboured, till at length time brought fruition and death together. In London, Mrs. Morton died-in London, Carola grew up fresh and fragrant on those stony streets, as a flower that shoots its stem through the gaps of a stone wall-in London had I met them; and yet, after all, London was not fated to see the end of Morton's eventful career. I was glad of it, and so was Carola after a time, when grief was so softened that it could soothe itself with gentle fancies. We liked laying that venerated head under the thymy braes of the heather hills, with the sycamores sighing over the sod, and the river Beauly murmuring its eternal requiem, instead of a horrible city burial, festering with crowded corpses, and full of disease and dreary images. I chose his grave, in the churchyard of Beauly; what a lovely spot it is, as Shelley said of Rome's English sleeping-ground-"It would make one in love with death to lie in so sweet a place." When Carola grew better, she too went, and helped me to arrange its flowers and its simple wooden cross. She would have a wooden cross, because there was one over her mother's grave; her mother, the Catholic in the best sense of the word. The Highlanders about Beauly are many of them Catholics. I got one of these to carve the wooden cross for Mr. Morton's grave; but it was not so easy to get permission to set it up. The villagers took fright at such a Popish innovation; and it was long ere we could persuade the old minister to authorize its erection. There was no burial-ground attached to Mr. Anson's Episcopalian chapel in the city of Inverness, or we should have had less trouble. But it did us good-it gave us something to do, something to strive for; and though we regretted the dead no less, we did not disobey his last injunction, to keep the heart pure and the spirit busy. By we, I mean all but Carola: for a long time life was very dreary to her. The bright, manycoloured autumn swept gorgeously over the hills, but the daughter of the enthusiast in philanthropy sat inconsolable in her room. Gradually walking out, in those fine mountain regions where she was not subject to espial; she could feed peacefully on her own sad musings. The dying leaves, the wind-shaken trees, soon began to make response unto her sorrows. Nature, stripping herself of her festive apparel, sat down to mourn with the orphan. The skies clad themselves in murky hues, the gay green fields turned bleak and gloomy, and every sight and sound echoed the wailing of the bereaved oneGone-gone for ever!" Poor Carola! I see her now in memory, the month following her father's death. She complained little; but her expressive face was set, like Niobe's, in a stony grief. She tried to interest herself in surrounding objects and passing events; but how melancholy was that unselfish smile!-how tearful those listening eyes! It was charity to leave her to herself; to take her to some beautiful scene, and abandon her to the gentle soothing of nature. She would sit for hours on the shingles, at the water-side, looking over the blue Frith to the grand masses of Ben Wyvis. "I like," she said one day to me, "to watch that huge mountain shouldering away the clouds. They sweep on him, as if to blot him out of the face of nature; but he blows them off, like webs of gossamer. It reminds me of my father struggling with his adversity. That hill is like an earnest of stability. Those clouds are emblems of passing trials!" So, with graceful images, she would soothe her mournful thought. While she sat musing, I went long walks with the Ansons, or strolled away by myself, devouring the recollections of the past. I learned much from the Ansons, of which my chosen solitude had kept me ignorant for years-I mean the affairs of my own family. Mr. Anson still corresponded with the boys; nay, Effingham, the self-exiled outcast, had found pity and counsel in that wise and generous breast. To him had the erring youth confided his shame and his despair. On his sympathy he had relied when every man's tongue wagged against his disgrace. But for the help of Mr. Anson I verily believe Effingham would have committed "Oh! in a stronger voice than we expected, "Still She resisted me with a look of agony. here?" you are mistaken, indeed; I hear him breathing "Of course, dearest father!" exclaimed Ca--very, very faint, but he is breathing-he must rola, "where else could I be now?" I did not mean you, my child," he said, and was silent for a few moments; then begged to be moved from the bed to the chair. It was done as carefully as possible: he seemed wonderfully revived, asked for a little wine-andwater, which he drank, and then looked kindly at us all, turning his eyes last to his child, and resting them there." We offered to leave him alone with her for a little, but he declined; I think he was afraid to trust himself to the emotion of a parting-our presence was a salutary restraint. have stimulants ;" and she began chafing the cold hands. My heart ached. "Oh! Carola, my beloved, resist not God-He has taken your father to himself." Still she said, "No, no! I hear him breathing;" and then she pressed her lips to his hands, and tried to reanimate them. It sounds foolish that one should not recognize death; but when to believe is misery, how easily is one cheated into hope. I myself have hung over a corpse, thinking I heard the low, low faint breathing which had preceded dissolution. He recurred to his successful discovery. "I I knew not how to get Carola away. I took am so thankful," he said; "I thought when I a small mirror, and held it over the mouth. lay sleeping, that I heard a voice-- Inasmuch" Now, now," said the poor daughter eagerly, as thou hast done it unto the least of them, thou " you will see that he is not dead." But the hast done it unto me.' God accepts my work- clear glass remained unstained-no breath arose feeble, insufficient as it is; he measures not my to dim the reflex of those marble features. failure, but my endeavour. To will is, in his "Alas!" said Menie," it is all over!" This eyes, to do his good pleasure. Carola, my time Carola did not contradict her-she only child, remember this: be not disheartened at heaved one long sigh, that seemed to rend short comings-the Lord looketh on the heart; asunder her delicate frame, and then she fell let thy heart be pure, and thy spirit busy." senseless into the arms which I stretched hastily to catch her. Then after a little silence, he again said, "The Lord looketh on the heart. Laura Studlegh, wilt thou, in all purity and sincerity, be a mother to my orphan ?"" I exclaimed solemnly, "I will." He took his daughter's hand, which lay in his own, and put it into mine, "Take her, love her, protect her-guard her happiness and her innocence as thy precious charge. I will ask at the great day of account how thou hast kept thy pledge." My heart thrilled, but I felt no fear; I was strong in the integrity of my resolves. The dying man sank back-" Lord, now test thou thy servant depart in peace. Anson read the prayer for those about to die." We bore her to her room, and the homely, but skilful doctor (who, foreseeing some peril after her great fatigues, had remained in the house), prescribed instantly an opiate, which I gave her immediately she recovered consciousness, and before she recovered memory. It took instantaneous effect on one little accustomed to this sort of draughts; and ere she awoke from her long sleep and longer stupor, we had arranged everything affecting the interment, &c. In Scotland funerals are affairs of great cerelet-mony-hideous and ghastly festivities-gloomy gatherings of a race. In Italy I am told it is the custom for all the relatives to hurry from the house of death, and leave the corse to the deathmen and the priest. In Scotland, on the contrary, all the relatives flock to the house from every quarter of the kingdom, whether or not they have reason to look for legacies. Mr. Anson began in a voice of emotion that touching prayer in the Episcopalian service for the sick. He had not read far when Mr. Morton turned his head suddenly to Carola; she bent down and kissed him; a smile flashed out of his eyes, something between a sigh and an invocation broke from his lips, and then-the face settled into the immobility of death. Mr. Anson closed his prayer-book, saying, with heartfelt devotion, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his." Carola gave a shrill scream. "Dead! oh, no, no! look how quiet and placid he is, he is only breathing low, just as he did in that long sleep." I thought of Hood's fine lines, here only too applicable "We thought her dying when she slept, And sleeping when she died." I took her quietly by the arm: "Come, dearest, lie down and rest." In Mr. Morton's case there were neither relatives nor legacies: he was the youngest of a large family, who in his boyhood had all emigrated to Canada - this boy alone rebelled against the fiat. He was of a dreamy, classical turn; he had a curiosity to see Italy, and a very great detestation of the unstoried wilds of the West. The day that his brothers and sisters embarked, he contrived to mistake his ship, and boarded a packet for Leghorn. He had secreted a little money, which paid his passage; and during the voyage, rather than be idle, he vo lunteered to mix medicines and pound drugs in the mortar of a young surgeon who was proceeding to the English embassy in Florencefor this was in the time of the Duke Leo. This medicine and drug mixing gave the turn to young Morton's tastes. He went to Bologna, and studied at its university, which was not then quite fallen as in our day. He mingled involuntarily in the great Italian section of the Napoleonic Epos. He was army surgeon to the Italian liberalists. Many curious adventures he had met, and, among others, his wife--a nun of great beauty, turned loose like an uncaged bird, in the treacherous sacking of a convent by a band of desperate ruffians. The Scottish doctor saved her honour, and won her heart: her only home was destroyed-there was no ark of shelter for this poor frightened dove; she sought it in her preserver's bosom. They were married, and loved each other fondly; but the alarm and peril of that dreadful scene so affected the delicate health and timid temperament of the cloistered recluse, that she never was very well after, and ultimately died of consumption. But long ere this Morton had taken advantage of the Bourbon's restoration to repair to Paris, to perfect himself in clinical surgery. There he struck upon the first hints of his great discovery. The moment this grand leading idea formed itself definitely in his mind, he relinquished to it every other consideration. He hastened to London, as the great focus of all practical assistances; studied-experimentedthought and laboured, till at length time brought fruition and death together. In London, Mrs. Morton died-in London, Carola grew up fresh and fragrant on those stony streets, as a flower that shoots its stem through the gaps of a stone wall-in London had I met them; and yet, after all, London was not fated to see the end of Morton's eventful career. I was glad of it, and so was Carola after a time, when grief was so softened that it could soothe itself with gentle fancies. We liked laying that venerated head under the thymy braes of the heather hills, with the sycamores sighing over the sod, and the river Beauly murmuring its eternal requiem, instead of a horrible city burial, festering with crowded corpses, and full of disease and dreary images. I chose his grave, in the churchyard of Beauly; what a lovely spot it is, as Shelley said of Rome's English sleeping-ground-" It would make one in love with death to lie in so sweet a place." When Carola grew better, she too went, and helped me to arrange its flowers and its simple wooden cross. She would have a wooden cross, because there was one over her mother's grave; her mother, the Catholic in the best sense of the word. The Highlanders about Beauly are many of them Catholics. I got one of these to carve the wooden cross for Mr. Morton's grave; but it was not so easy to get permission to set it up. The villagers took fright at such a Popish innovation; and it was long ere we could persuade the old minister to authorize its erection. There was no burial-ground attached to Mr. Anson's Episcopalian chapel in the city of Inverness, or we should have had less trouble. But it did us good—it gave us something to do, something to strive for; and though we regretted the dead no less, we did not disobey his last injunction, to keep the heart pure and the spirit busy. By we, I mean all but Carola: for a long time life was very dreary to her. The bright, manycoloured autumn swept gorgeously over the hills, but the daughter of the enthusiast in philanthropy sat inconsolable in her room. Gradually walking out, in those fine mountain regions where she was not subject to espial; she could feed peacefully on her own sad musings. The dying leaves, the wind-shaken trees, soon began to make response unto her sorrows. Nature, stripping herself of her festive apparel, sat down to mourn with the orphan. The skies clad themselves in murky hues, the gay green fields turned bleak and gloomy, and every sight and sound echoed the wailing of the bereaved one'Gone-gone for ever!” 66 Poor Carola! I see her now in memory, the month following her father's death. She complained little; but her expressive face was set, like Niobe's, in a stony grief. She tried to interest herself in surrounding objects and passing events; but how melancholy was that unselfish smile!-how tearful those listening eyes! It was charity to leave her to herself; to take her to some beautiful scene, and abandon her to the gentle soothing of nature. She would sit for hours on the shingles, at the water-side, looking over the blue Frith to the grand masses of Ben Wyvis. "I like," she said one day to me, "to watch that huge mountain shouldering away the clouds. They sweep on him, as if to blot him out of the face of nature; but he blows them off, like webs of gossamer. It reminds me of my father struggling with his adversity. That hill is like an earnest of stability. Those clouds are emblems of passing trials!" So, with graceful images, she would soothe her mournful thought. While she sat musing, I went long walks with the Ansons, or strolled away by myself, devouring the recollections of the past. I learned much from the Ansons, of which my chosen solitude had kept me ignorant for years-I mean the affairs of my own family. Mr. Anson still corresponded with the boys; nay, Effingham, the self-exiled outcast, had found pity and counsel in that wise and generous breast. To him had the erring youth confided his shame and his despair. On his sympathy he had relied when every man's tongue wagged against his disgrace. But for the help of Mr. Anson I verily believe Effingham would have committed suicide in the first horror of his detection and ruin. You will say, dear reader, we were a suicidal family. Fortunately the unhappy boy had sense enough left to fling himself, frankly and penitently, at the feet of his former tutor. widow my favourite Millicent will make! I suppose she is knee-deep in crape, elbow-deep in weepers, and putting up a veracious marble tablet to the memory of the dear departed. Take my word, other scapegrace of the family (for whom I have And Laura, the she'll not prove inconsolable! I must needs put in a parenthesis to say the doth she hide her inky fingers?-for I think you now a fellow-feeling as a fellow-runaway), where flinging was only metaphorical, for it was done said she was an authoress by trade: almost as low by letter-Effingham's first letter from the shores as a beaver trapper! Decidedly she and I have of the New World. Good Mr. Anson, out of drained off the blackguardism of the family, and his scanty hoard, lent him a few pounds, with left the rest pure. But she was always odd; I was which the runaway managed to get into the only foppish in my beginnings. Tell her, if you south-west provinces of the United States, and ever fall in with her, that she might do worse than established himself as a squatter-a new position come out to me. She shall live in a wigwam of for the dandy of Almack's-the acknowledged bearskins, have a beaver hat fresh from the animal, pattern of the clubs. Of course he failed. He and a dress of furs that would drive Adelicia crazy got in a passion with his free and easy neigh-by their costliness. Dear good friend, I think I am a few shades more respectable than I used to be; bours, boxed a man's ears for borrowing his yes, even in this rude life. One cannot help having only saucepan without saying If you please, serious thoughts wandering alone on these pathless knocked down his "help" for using his ivory-savannahs. I hated going to church in England; handled hair-brush and "Circassian cream," and threatened to shoot a trapper for riding his horse twenty miles sans permission. In return, he was tabooed by the whole settlement, left to die in the swamp-fever, and only got round by the strength of his constitution and the utter absence of drugs. As soon as he recovered he sold his land to a new comer, who had not had time to be inoculated with the dislike of the community for the proud Englishman; and my elegant brother Effingham took to the wild life of a "trapper." It was a strange plunge for a London exclusive; yet he came up, breathless, but surviving: nay, he grew to like it. Always a bold rider, and a "famous shot," the life on horseback, rifle in hand, offered all the excitement demanded by his sated spirit. His impetuosity and rashness availed him in the daring enterprises of the mountain-wilds. His pride might safely be indulged among beavers and prairie-horses. He throve in his new capacity, as I learned from a letter, so characteristic of its penman that I shall fully insert it here: "To Mr. ANSON. "Monterey, New Mexico. "MY DEAR OLD FELLOW,-It is an age since I heard from you. What have you been about? Increasing and multiplying, I suppose, like my tame bears which have just given me such a brave progeny of little scratchers! I mean to take them to Mexico to sell. I have made a splendid season of this. I wish I could show you my skins; they would buy me a rich wife among the Indians if I wanted; but I have no fancy for a Comanche squaw, nor a Yankee rawboned dame, nor Louisiana beauty who turns out to be a slave, and is politely demanded back ten hours after the wedding by her papa-owner. If ever I do marry, I think some of the dark-eyed Spanish girls at Mexico a will do the business. There is a Donna Louisa- I never could fix my thoughts-they always ran away after the pretty girls, with their killing Sunday dresses and demurely composed faces; or I could not but quiz to myself the pompous footmen carrying the silver-clamped bibles and prayer-books, the red-nosed, puffy merchants, and their dedizened spouses going comfortably to sleep in their cushioned pews; and then how ludicrous it was to hear the portly dean discoursing on the vanity of human joys in his plethoric voice, to his luxurious audiences. I could not help being profane in such a place! But here, Anson, in this tremendous solitude, face to face with God, the heart is really touched-religion is a reality; not a Sunday spectacle. I hear finer sermons from the mountains and the forests than ever were delivered within sound of Bow-bells! "And now good-bye. I hope to send your pretty Menie a fur cloak, by a ship which soon leaves Ask her to wear it in memory and in pardon of an outcast. "Ever yours, this. "E. STUDLEGH." I wrote to Effingham, declining his furry offers, but warmly thanking him for his kind wishes. I now heard for the first time of Sir Harriman's declining health. During my stay in the Aird we saw his death in the newspapers. I thought of writing to Millicent; but recalling how much she was ever influenced by Adelicia, and that at this time a renewal of intercourse ought to spring from herself, I desisted from the intention. It had been early arranged that Carola and I should remain a month with the Ansons. Mrs. Crosby was to return at the end of ten days, On opening Mr. Morton's papers, it was found that Carola would possess about fifty pounds a-year. We hoped to gain something now by laying the results of her father's discovery be fore Government, and offering them the benefits for the compensation of a small annuity. I need not go through a detail of all the troubles and annoyances encountered in this undertaking. Mr. Anson and Dr., who had assisted Mr. Morton in obtaining success, conducted the necessary proceedings, which were kept secret from Carola for fear of disappointment; and indeed it was a happy day when we laid the official paper before her and congratulated her on the possession of a life-annuity of £150. But I think the good daughter prided still more in the words which spoke of the genius and merit of the deceased. It was for that the Government paper was folded next her heart, and worn till it fell in shreds from her duteous glowing bosom. Of course our plans required much consideration. I must live in or near London on account of my literary occupations; Carola must live with me, as her dying father had desired. We could not live alone. We disliked the idea of going back to the gloomy townlodgings of Mrs. Crosby: much as we liked her, we hated her home. This suspense and uncertainty was pleasantly ended by the old lady herself. She asked Mrs. Anson, with some hesitation, one day, if she thought we would continue to live with her if she bought herself a pretty cottage in the environs of the metropolis. "You see, my dear lady, I have laid by a little money, and will no longer let lodgings for my livelihood-and I am weary of London smoke and noise; yet far from London I should not like to settle. Somehow, the tea and coffee, the meat and fowls seem better to me there than anywhere else; and I like to know what's going on, who's married and who's dead-who comes out as a poet, and who fails as an historian. | You cannot be level with the tide anywhere but in and near London. I think of Sydenham, Camberwell, or Dulwich. Do you think the young ladies would come and live with me, as a sort of chaperone to them I mean? They want an elderly companion, for prudence' sake; and I should not annoy them, or give them too much of my company. The truth is, I should wish to live and die in sight of Miss Carola. I like Miss Studlegh very much, too; but she is too learned and grave for me to love as I do love that other angel." We were delighted with the plan-it suited us all. We eagerly agreed, and Mrs. Crosby wept with joy and pride at our glad acceptance of her proposal. She went off furnished with all sorts of directions from us both. "Remember, as near the Dulwich Gallery as possible," said I. And O a little garden, if you please," pleaded Carola. "Not far from the high-road, if you can manage it," was another of my suggestions. "And not too noisy, or street-like," begged my gentle comrade. So we were left to the peace and quiet of the Aird, which I suppose my readers may have learned in their Scottish Irving's geography to be the local name of the district skirting the Firth and river of Beauly, as far as the exquisite glen of the "Drhuim," or Dream. There I wandered alone as far as the falls of Kilmorach. The little churchyard above the precipice lay bright in an October sun. Very few graves were added to the green mounds I had counted in my last visit. The dead slept uncomplainingly. I stopped by a low heap of turf, on which the thyme had gathered abundantly. Its fragrant breath spake nought of the noisome corruption below. The worm's prey had given forth sweetness to the air. I said "My hopes are buried here. They have festered and rotted into corruption; but they smell sweet to the passer-by. He guesses not what pangs were suffered in their death. Yes-my hopes ought to be dead." But were they? That very day I had seen a letter from Ernest Marchmont to Mr. Anson, He had heard of my voluntary struggle with adversity. He approved of it. He said he always thought me worthy of better things than those among which he had left me buried. He spoke kindly of menot warmly perhaps; but at any rate he had not forgotten me. Moreover-O joy of joys!-he spoke of returning to England. His mother's health was beginning to fail. He had made some money; he had now good prospects before him in diplomacy and state; he hinted at Parliament. Verily, it had gone well with him! Were my hopes really dead? I told myself so. I reminded my foolish heart that though newspapers sometimes put in false reports of marriages to come, that one like Ernest Marchmont was sure of many hearts, and that his own could not long be vacant. I reasoned with myself that men's ideas of constancy differ much from women's. A man is constant who con. tinues to love a woman who continues to love him. They must have something tangible to feed their flame. Their nature is more sensuous than ours. We can live on moonlight-the borrowed light of memory; they must have the self-existent fire of sunbeams-the present warmth of vision! So I said to myself, and repeated it o'er and o'er again; but while I did so, I was sitting with my eyes fixed on the Linn far below me, on the oposite side of the river where I had stood long years ago with Ernest Marchmont. I looked down on it from the height of the precipice, and so from the height of womanhood my heart looked down on the green shady valley of my early youth. The stream flowed on with its old merry song, but my spirit had forgotten to discourse to me pleasant music. Oh, I stared down on the inscrutable depths of that dark pool, and called on them to restore to me the freshness and the buoyancy of the days that were past. But time gives back nothing save a reflection from its mirror. I sat there, and said to myself, "Woman, thy lover has already let thee fade from his recollection!" But while I counselled thus, that Linn with its rocky banks raised up the very phantom of my lover's face; again his eyes seemed bent on mine-again his expressive features worked with inward emotion, and his rich, low voice poured forth its melody of tone. Oh looks! oh tones; would God I could tear you from my breast-would God I could wash out what is written more indelibly than with blood! What caprice of fate is this, that one should wear as the shirt of Nessus a memory burning into his bones while another shall cast from him the past as the lob |