The French officer conducted his guest inte a garden, and presented him to his wife; an engaging and beautiful woman, sitting with Mrs. Taunton in a whimsical old-fashioned pavilion. His daughter, her fair young face beaming with joy, came running to embrace him; and there was a boy-baby to tumble down among the orange-trees on the broad steps, in making for his father's legs. A multitude of children-visitors were dancing to sprightly music; and all the servants and peasants about the chateau were dancing too. It was a scene of innocent happiness that might have been invented for the climax of the scenes of peace which had soothed the Captain's journey.

He looked on, greatly troubled in his mind, until a resounding bell rang, and the French officer begged to show him his rooms. They went up stairs into the gallery from which the officer had looked down; and Monsieur le Capitaine Richard Doubledick was cordially welcomed to a grand outer chamber, and a smaller one within, all clocks and draperies, and hearths, and brazen dogs, and tiles, and cool devices, and elegance, and

vastness.

"You were at Waterloo," said the French officer.

"I was," said Captain Richard Doubledick. "And at Badajos."

Left alone with the sound of his own stern voice in his ears, he sat down to consider. What shall I do, and how shall I tell him? At that time, unhappily, many deplorable duels had been fought between English and French officers, arising out of the recent war; and these duels, and how to avoid this officer's hospitality were the uppermost thought in Captain Richard Doubledick's mind.

He was thinking and letting the time run out in which he should have dressed for dinner, when Mrs. Taunton spoke to him outside the door, asking if he could give her the letter he had brought from Mary. "His mother, above all," the Captain thought, "How shall I tell her?"

"You will form a friendship with your host, I hope," said Mrs. Taunton, whom he hurriedly admitted, "that will last for life. He is so true-hearted and so generous, Richard, that you can hardly fail to esteem one another. If he had been spared," she kissed (not without tears) the locket in which she wore his hair, "he would have appreciated him with his own magnanimity, and would have been truly happy that the evil days were past, which made such a man his enemy."

She left the room; and the Captain walked first to one win

dow, whence he could see the dancing in the garden, then to another window, whence he could see the smiling prospect and the peaceful vineyards.

"Spirit of my departed friend," said he, "is it through thee, these better thoughts are rising in my mind! Is it thou who hast shown me, all the way I have been drawn to meet this man, the blessings of the altered time! Is it thou who hast sent thy stricken mother to me, to stay my angry hand! Is it from thee the whisper comes, that this man did his duty as thou didst and as I did, through thy guidance, which has wholly saved me, here on earth-and that he did no more!"

He sat down, with his head buried in his hands, and, when he rose up, made the second strong resolution of his life: That neither to the French officer, nor to the mother of his departed friend, nor to any soul while either of the two was living, would he breathe what only he knew. And when he touched that French officer's glass with his own, that day at dinner, he secretly forgave him in the name of the Divine Forgiver of injuries.

TO A SKYLARK-PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

Hail to thee, blithe spirit!

Bird thou never wert,

That from heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher

From the earth thou springest

Like a cloud of fire;

The blue deep thou wingest,

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning

Of the sunken sun,

O'er which clouds are brightening,

Thou dost float and run;

Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even

Melts around thy flight;

Like a star of heaven

In the broad daylight

Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.

Keen as are the arrows

Of that silver sphere,
Whose intense lamp narrows

In the white dawn clear,

Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

All the earth and air

With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud

The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflow'à

What thou art we know not;

What is most like thee?

From rainbow clouds there flow not

Drops so bright to see,

As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

Like a poet hidden

In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought

To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

Like a high-born maiden

In a palace tower,
Soothing her love-laden

Soul in secret hour

With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower;

Like a glow-worm golden

In a dell of dew,

Scattering unbeholden

Its aerial hue

Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:

Like a rose embower'd

In its own green leaves,

By warm winds deflower'd

Till the scent it gives

Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy winged thieves.

Sound of vernal showers

On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awaken'd flowers,

All that ever was

Joyous, and clear and fresh, thy music doth surpass.

Teach us, sprite or bird,

What sweet thoughts are thine;

I have never heard

Praise of love or wine

That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus Hymeneal,

Or triumphal chant,

Match'd with thine would be all

But an empty vaunt

A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

What objects are the fountains

Of thy happy strain?

What fields, or waves, or mountains?

What shapes of sky or plain?

What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?

With thy clear keen joyance

Languor cannot be;
Shadow of annoyance

Never came near thee:

Thou lovest; but never knew love's sad satiety.

Waking or asleep,

Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep

Than we mortals dream,

Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

We look before and after,

And pine for what is not:

Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught;

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Yet if we could scorn

Hate, and pride, and fear;

If we were things born

Not to shed a tear,

I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

ALICE RAY.-MRS. SARAH J. HALE.

The birds their love-notes warble
Among the blossomed trees;

The flowers are sighing forth their sweets
To wooing honeybees;

The glad brook o'er a pebbly floor

Goes dancing on its way

But not a thing is so like spring

As happy Alice Ray.

An only child was Alice,
And, like the blest above,

The gentle maid had ever breathed
An atmosphere of love;

Her father's smile like sunshine came,
Like dew her mother's kiss;

Their love and goodness made her home,
Like heaven, the place of bliss.

Beneath such tender training

The joyous child had sprung,

Like one bright flower, in wild-wood bower, And gladness round her flung;

And all who met her blessed her,

And turned again to pray,

That grief and care might ever spare

The happy Alice Ray.

The gift that made her charming

Was not from Venus caught;

Nor was it, Pallas-like, derived
From majesty of thought:

Her healthful cheek was tinged with brown,
Her hair without a curl-

But then her eyes were love-lit stars,
Her teeth as pure as pearl.

And when in merry laughter

Her sweet, clear voice was heard,

It welled from out her happy heart
Like carol of a bird:

And all who heard were moved to smiles,

As at some mirthful lay,

And, to the stranger's look, replied,
"'Tis that dear Alice Ray."

And so she came, like sunbeams
That bring the April green-

As type of nature's royalty,

They called her "Woodburn's queen!" A sweet, heart-lifting cheerfulness,

Like springtime of the year, Seemed ever on her steps to waitNo wonder she was dear.

Her world was ever joyous-
She thought of grief and pain

As giants of the olden time,

That ne'er would come again; The seasons all had charms for her, She welcomed each with joyThe charm that in her spirit lived No changes could destroy.