eye

which a wild grape gadded luxuriantly, and with an incoherent sense of what she saw she lingered before the little cluster, seeming to survey that which, though it seemed to fix her eye, yet failed to fill her thought. Her mind wandered, her soul was far away, and the objects in her vision were far other than those which occupied her imagination. Things grew indistinct beneath her eye. The rather slept than saw. The musing spirit The musing spirit had given holiday to the ordinary senses and took no heed of the forms that rose and floated or glided away before them. In this way the leaf detached made no impression upon the sight that was yet bent upon it; she saw not the bird, though it whirled, untroubled by a fear, in wanton circles around her head, and the black snake with the rapidity of an arrow darted over her path without arousing a single terror in the form that otherwise would have shivered at its mere appearance. And yet, though thus indistinct were all things around her to the musing mind of the maiden, her eye was yet singularly fixed-fastened, as it were-to a single spot, gathered and controlled by a single object, and glazed, apparently, beneath a curious fascination.

Before the maiden rose a little clump of bushes, bright tangled leaves flaunting wide in glossiest green, with vines trailing over them, thickly decked with blue and crimson flowers. Her eye communed vacantly with these, fastened by a starlike, shining glance, a subtle ray, that shot out from the circle of green leaves, seeming to be their very eye, and sending out a fluid lustre that seemed to stream across the space between and find its way into her own eyes. Very piercing and beautiful was that subtle brightness, of the

sweetest, strangest power. And now the leaves quivered and seemed to float away, only to return, and the vines waved and swung around in fantastic mazes, unfolding ever-changing varieties of form and color to her gaze; but the starlike eye was ever steadfast, bright and gorgeous, gleaming in their midst, and still fastened with strange fondness upon her own. How beautiful with wondrous intensity did it gleam and dilate, growing larger and more lustrous with every ray which it sent forth! And her own glance became intense, fixed, also, but with a dreaming sense that conjured up the wildest fancies, terribly beautiful, that took her soul away from her and wrapped it about as with a spell. She would have fled, she would have flown, but she had not power to move. The will was wanting to her flight. She felt that she could have bent forward to pluck the gemlike thing from the bosom of the leaf in which it seemed to grow, and which it irradiated with its bright white gleam; but ever, as she aimed to stretch forth her hand and bend forward, she heard a rush of wings and a shrill scream from the tree above hersuch a scream as the mock-bird makes when angrily it raises its dusky crest and flaps its wings furiously against its slender sides. Such a scream seemed like a warning, and, though yet unawakened to full consciousness, it startled her and forbade her effort. More than once, in her survey of this strange object, had she heard that shrill note, and still had it carried to her ear the same note of warning and to her mind the same vague consciousness of an evil presence. But the starlike eye was yet upon her own-a small, bright eye, quick like that of a bird, now steady in its place and observant seemingly

distended mouth and curving neck, would it | dart forward its long form toward her, its fatal teeth, unfolding on either side of its upper jaw, seeming to threaten her with instantaneous death, while its powerful eye shot forth glances of that fatal power of fascination, malignantly bright, which by paralyzing with a novel form of terror and of beauty may readily account for the spell it possesses of binding the feet of the timid and denying to fear even the privilege of flight. Could she have fled! She felt the necessity, but the power of her limbs was gone; and there still it lay, coiling and uncoiling, its arching neck glittering like a ring of brazed copper, bright and lurid, and the dreadful beauty of its eye still fastened, eagerly contemplating the victim, while the pendulous rattle still rang the death-note, as if to prepare the conscious mind for the fate which is momently approaching to the blow.

Meanwhile, the stillness became deathlike with all surrounding objects. The bird had gone with its scream and rush. The breeze was silent. The vines ceased to wave. The leaves faintly quivered on their stems. The serpent once more lay still, but the eye was never once turned away from the victim. Its corded muscles are all in coil. They have but to unclasp suddenly, and the dreadful folds will be upon her, its full length, and the fatal teeth will strike, and the deadly venom which they secrete will mingle with the life-blood in her veins.

The terrified damsel, her full consciousness restored, but not her strength, feels all the danger. She sees that the sport of the terrible reptile is at an end. She cannot now mistake the horrid expression of its eye. She strives to

scream, but the voice dies away, a feeble gurgling in her throat. Her tongue is paralyzed; her lips are sealed. Once more she strives for flight, but her limbs refuse their office. She has nothing left of life but its fearful consciousness. It is in her despair that—a last effort-she succeeds to scream, a single wild cry forced from her by the accumulated agony; she sinks down upon the grass before

her

enemy, her eyes, however, still open, and still looking upon those which he directs for ever upon them. She sees him approach, now advancing, now receding, now swelling in every part with something of anger, while his neck is arched beautifully like that of a wild horse under the curb, until, at length, tired as it were of play, like the cat with its victim, she sees the neck growing larger, and becoming completely bronzed as about to strike, the huge jaws unclosing almost directly above her, the long tubulated fang charged with venom protruding from the cavernous mouth. And she sees no more : insensibility came to her aid, and she lay almost lifeless under the very folds of the monster.

In that moment the copse parted, and an arrow, piercing the monster through and through the neck, bore his head forward to the ground, alongside of the maiden, while his spiral extremities, now unfolding in Lis own agony, were actually in part writhing upon her person. The arrow came from the fugitive Occonestoga, who had fortunately reached the spot in season on his way to the blockhouse. He rushed from the copse as the snake fell, and with a stick fearlessly approached him where he lay tossing in agony upon the grass. Seeing him advance, the courageous reptile

made an effort to regain his coil, shaking the fearful rattle violently at every evolution which he took for that purpose; but the arrow, completely passing through his neck, opposed an unyielding obstacle to the endeavor, and finding it hopeless, and seeing the new enemy about to assault him, with something of the spirit of the white man under like circumstances he turned desperately round, and, striking his charged fangs, so that they were riveted in the wound they made, into a susceptible part of his own body, he threw himself over with a single convulsion, and a moment after lay dead beside the utterly unconscious maiden.

WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS.

"LINE FOR LINE, SIR, LIKE THAT!" N the mean time, the conversation went on, and, the count having been naturally drawn by the observation of some other person to pay Pelisson a compliment upon his graceful style, the abbé replied,

"Oh, my style is nothing, Monsieur le Comte, though you are good enough to praise it; and besides, after all, it is but style. I had a brother once-poor fellow!" he added-" who might, indeed, have claimed your praise; for in addition to a good style, which he possessed in an infinitely higher degree than myself, he had a peculiar art of speaking briefly, which, Heaven knows, I have not, and of leaving nothing unsaid that could be said upon the subject he treated. When he was only nineteen years of age, he was admitted to the academy of Castres; but upon his admission they made this singular and flattering condition with him-namely, that he

should never speak upon any subject till everybody else had spoken; for,' said the academicians, when he speaks first, he never leaves anybody else anything to say upon the subject; and when he speaks last, he finds a thousand things to say that nobody else has said.' Besides all this," he continued, "my brother had another great and inestimable advantage over me. me." "Pray, what was that?" demanded the count.

"He was not hideous," replied Pelisson.

"Oh, I do not think that such an advantage," said the chevalier. "It is the duty of a woman to be handsome, but I think men have a right to be ugly if they like.

"So say I," replied Pelisson, "but Mademoiselle de Scudery says that I abuse the privilege; and, upon my word, I think so, for just before I came from Paris something happened which is worth telling. I was walking along," he continued, "quite soberly and thoughtfully down the Rue de Beauvoisis-you know that little street that leads up by the convent of St. Mary—when, coming opposite to a large house nearly at the corner, I was suddenly met by as beautiful a creature as ever I saw, with her soubrette by her side and her loup in her hand, so that I could quite could quite see her face. see her face. She was extremely well dressed, and, in fact, altogether fit to be the goddess of an idyl. not know her, I was passing quietly on, when suddenly she stopped, took me by the hand, and said in an earnest voice, 'Do me the pleasure, sir, of accompanying me for one moment.' On my word, gentlemen, I did not know what was going to happen, but I was a great deal too gallant, of course, to refuse her, when, without another word, she

However, as I did