Indians uttered the fearful war whoop, and running forward on the tree, leaped desperately towards their fancied prize. There were six on the tree, and each made the effort. All but their leader fell into the river more or less distant from the ark, as they came, sooner or later, to the leaping-place. The chief, who had taken the dangerous post in advance, having an earlier opportunity than the others, struck the scow just within the stern. The fall proving so much greater than he had anticipated, he was slightly stunned, and for a moment he remained half bent and unconscious of his situation. At this instant Judith rushed from the cabin, her beauty heightened by the excitement that produced the bold act, which flushed her cheek to crimson, and, throwing all her strength into the effort, she pushed the intruder over the edge of the scow, headlong into the river. This decided feat was no sooner accomplished than the woman resumed her sway; Judith looked over the stern to ascertain what had become of the man, and the expression of her eyes softened to concern, next, her cheek crimsoned between shame and surprise, at her own temerity, and then she laughed in her own merry and sweet manner. All this occupied less than a minute, when the arm of Deerslayer was thrown around her waist, and she was dragged swiftly within the protection of the cabin. This retreat was not effected too soon. Scarcely were the two in safety, when the forest was filled with yells, and bullets began to patter against the logs.

The ark being in swift motion all this while, it was beyond the danger of pursuit by the time these little events had occurred; and the savages, as soon as the first burst of their anger had subsided, ceased firing, with the consciousness that they were expending their ammunition in vain. When the scow came up over her grapnel, Hunter tripped the latter, in a way not to impede the motion; and being now beyond the influence of the current, the vessel continued to drift ahead, until fairly in the open lake, though still near enough to the land to render exposure to a rifle-bullet dangerous. Hutter and March got out two small sweeps, and, covered by the cabin, they soon urged the ark far enough from the shore to leave no inducement to their enemies to make any further attempt to injure them.

THE story of Hawthorne's life is a simple one. He was born in Salem, Mass., in 1804, and as a boy was brought up partly in that ancient town, and partly on the shores of Sebago Lake, in Maine, where his uncle, Richard Manning, had an estate. His father, who died of fever in Surinam, when Nathaniel was four years old, was an East India merchant, and captained his own vessel; an uncle, Daniel, had commanded a privateer in the Revolution; an ancestor, John Hathorne (as the name was then spelled), had been a judge in the witch trials; and the first emigrant, William, the elder son of the English family, was a man of note in the Province, and a major in the Indian wars. His mother was a woman of intellect and refinement; but Nathaniel was the first of the Hawthornes to evince literary proclivities.

He was an active, outdoor boy, though fond of reading and with thoughts of his own. As a student he was not distinguished, either before or during his Bowdoin college career; but he graduated well in the class of 1824; Longfellow was a classmate, and Franklin Pierce was in the class ahead of him. After graduating he lived in seclusion at his home in Salem for twelve years, writing, meditating, and occasionally publishing short sketches in Annuals and similar publications, uniformly over a pseudonym. Before 1840 he met, and in 1842 he married Sophia Peabody of Salem, and lived with her in "The Old Manse" at Concord, Mass. He had already tried the Brook Farm community life, and decided it was not suited to his requirements. He obtained an appointment in the Salem Custom House, and supported himself on the salary derived therefrom, and by writing sketches and stories. These were collected

under the title of "Mosses from an Old Manse," and "The Snow Image and Other Stories." He was rotated out of office, and in 1850 wrote "The Scarlet Letter," which brought him fame here and abroad. Removing to Lenox, Mass., he produced "The House of the Seven Gables," "The Blithedale Romance," evolved from his Brook Farm observations, and "The Wonder-Book" and "Tanglewood Tales"-stories for children based on classic mythology. Taking up his residence for the second time in Concord, at "The Wayside," he wrote a campaign biography of his friend Franklin Pierce, and the latter, on his election to the Presidency of the United States, appointed Hawthorne consul at Liverpool, England. Shortly before the end of his term he resigned the office and sojourned for two or three years on the Continent. Returning in 1859 to England, he wrote "The Marble Faun" (published in England under the title of "Transformation"), and came back to America in 1860. The outbreak of the Civil War the following year interrupted his imaginative work; but he published a volume of English studies, "Our Old Home," and the first chapters of a new romance, "The Dolliver Romance," in the Atlantic Monthly. He died suddenly in Plymouth, New Hampshire, on a journey for health undertaken with Franklin Pierce, and was buried in Concord, May 23d, 1864.

The story of Hawthorne's mind and opinions may be gathered from his writings, especially from the shorter pieces contained in "Twice-Told Tales" and "The Mosses." These appear on the surface to be merely imaginative tales, exquisitely wrought; but they embody profound, radical and sometimes revolutionary views on all subjects of society and morals. He probed deeply into the mystery of human sin; the revelations thus evolved cast a tinge of sadness over much that he wrote; but Hawthorne was at heart an optimist, and his most searching analyses result in conclusions the most hopeful. The more he is studied, the more is the student impressed with his truth, justice and sanity. Common sense and the sense of humor existed in him side by side with the keenest insight and the finest imaginative gifts; and all that he wrote is rendered fascinating by the charm of a translucent, nearly perfect literary style. Everything that he produced was in its degree a work of art.

The four romances on which his reputation chiefly rests

belong in a class by themselves. No other writer has succeeded in mastering the principle on which they are composed. There is in them a living spirit which creates its own proper form. They are wrought from within outwards, like the growths of nature. The interest of outward events is in them subordinated to that of the vicissitudes of mind and soul of the characters, which are penetratingly interpreted. There is nothing arbitrary in Hawthorne's treatment; but in the end he has placed clearly before the reader the elements of the problem, and has suggested the solution. We rise from his books knowing more of life and man than when we took them up, and with better hopes of their destiny. The years which have passed since they were written have confirmed and exalted their value; and Hawthorne is now held to be the foremost-instead of, as he once wrote, "the obscurest"-man of letters in America.

Several studies of romances were published posthumously; and also the "Note-Books" which he kept all his life, and which reveal the care with which he studied nature and mankind. Their quality is objective, not subjective.

Personally Hawthorne was just short of six feet in height, broad-shouldered and active and strikingly handsome, with a large, dome-like head, black hair and brows, and dark blue eyes. His disposition, contrary to the general impression of him, was cheerful and full of sunny humor. His nature was social and genial, but he avoided bores, and disliked to figure in promiscuous society. His domestic life was entirely happy, and the flowering of his genius is largely due to the love and appreciation and creative criticism which he received from his wife. His friends were the men of his time most eminent in letters and art; but perhaps the most intimate of all-Franklin Pierce, Horatio Bridge and Albert Pike-were all workers on other than literary lines. They were men whom he loved for their manly and human qualities, and who were faithful to him to the end.

THE AMBITIOUS GUEST.

ONE September night a family had gathered round their hearth, and piled it high with the driftwood of mountain streams, the dry cones of the pine, and the splintered ruins of great trees that had come crashing down the precipice. Up the

chimney roared the fire, and brightened the room with its broad blaze. The faces of the father and mother had a sober gladness; the children laughed; the eldest daughter was the image of Happiness at seventeen; and the aged grandmother, who sat knitting in the warmest place, was the image of Happiness grown old. They had found the "herb, heart's-ease," in the bleakest spot of all New England. This family were situated in the Notch of the White Hills, where the wind was sharp throughout the year, and pitilessly cold in the winter,—giving their cottage all its fresh inclemency before it descended on the valley of the Saco. They dwelt in a cold spot and a dangerous one; for a mountain towered above their heads, so steep, that the stones would often rumble down its sides and startle them at midnight.

The daughter had just uttered some simple jest that filled them all with mirth, when the wind came through the Notch and seemed to pause before their cottage-rattling the door, with a sound of wailing and lamentation, before it passed into the valley. For a moment it saddened them, though there was nothing unusual in the tones. But the family were glad again when they perceived that the latch was lifted by some traveler, whose footsteps had been unheard amid the dreary blast which heralded his approach, and wailed as he was entering, and went moaning away from the door.

Though they dwelt in such a solitude, these people held daily converse with the world. The romantic pass of the Notch is a great artery, through which the life-blood of internal commerce is continually throbbing between Maine, on one side, and the Green Mountains and the shores of the St. Lawrence, on the other. The stage-coach always drew up before the door of the cottage. The wayfarer, with no companion but his staff, paused here to exchange a word, that the sense of loneliness might not utterly overcome him ere he could pass through the cleft of the mountain, or reach the first house in the valley. And here the teamster, on his way to Portland market, would put up for the night; and, if a bachelor, might sit an hour beyond the usual bedtime, and steal a kiss from the mountain maid at parting. It was one of those primitive taverns where the traveler pays only for food and lodging, but meets with a homely kindness beyond all price. When the footsteps were