dream — the garish day could unfold you no such vision — of a beautiful island of a square mile or so, covered with deep foliage, fringed down toward the lake-edge with stately poplars. Magnificent mountain summits rise up on every side, mingling with gorgeously tinted clouds. At the moment when our party first looked down upon the scene the setting sun had touched the waters of the lake to gold and amethyst, and they looked longingly upon the emerald island which seemed a home for their way worn spirits. To it they descended; and on the first day which they spent there it was resolved to take the old chateau, the same in which Rousseau had dwelt, and remain there until their reports were ready for transmission to Paris. But when these reports were ready to leave, the Friends were not. Four years together in the brave life with nature, cast utterly upon each other, provoking the finest qualities of each and all, they could not but find some interweavings of heart and brain nerves which ached at the idea of separation. And, indeed, so pleasant was their association, so genial the sky, so full of beauty and variety the island and lake, that they lingered on in a scientific phalanstere from year to year, and were known throughout the canton of Bern as the Saint-Pierre Friends. As I have said, the leading spirit among them was Vercanier. The day before visiting Neufchatel, which is just ten English miles due west from this lake, I spent a day with these Friends, whom I found very hospitable; and I was particularly struck with the native nobility and the exquisite genius of their young President. He had taken Astronomy as his specialty, and had swung a powerful glass in the room which had once been occupied by the celebrated sentimentalist of whom I have spoken. His room bore evidence of the great pride with which his companions took care of their genius and all that related to him. And I remember well the large old Gothic chair, which they had united to purchase for him, and which, alas! But I must not anticipate. When Leverrier made his announcement of the perturbations, Marcel was at once seized with an absorbing zeal for discovery, which made him, I am told, neglect his food and sleep. His friend Vernet declares that the astronomer told him, early in January, that he had come to an absolute certainty, so far as his own mind was concerned, that he had the degrees of the planet's inclination to the ecliptic, that he had its period of revolution round the sun (19 d. 17 h.), but that he was determined not to make any announcement until he could make sure proof, and offer perfect calculations. At this time one Pilzer, who has been for some years assistant superintendent of the Geneva Observatory, went over to visit the Saint-Pierre Friends in company with Du Sor, whom he joined at Neufchatel. Introduced by such a distinguished and admirable a naturalist, the Genevan was heartily welcomed; and when Du Sor returned the other had accepted an invitation to explore the island, and did not return with him. He remained three days, then left, accompanied by the good wishes of most of the club. The next morning Marcel Vercanier was found seated in an upright position in the old Gothic chair, stiff, cold, dead! His hand grasped a pen, or rather clutched it, as if under a sharp pang. A white sheet of paper lay before him, with three words on it: "I have discovered" The Friends were wild with excitement; Vernet was seized with a fever, and soon raved. No clue to the awful mystery was afforded. Dr. Buch, who lived across the lake, was sent for, and brought with him Dr. Stein, of Besançon, who happened to be at his house. These able men made a post-mortem examination, and unhesitatingly declared that the digestive functions were sound and without foreign substance, and that they had not a doubt that Vercanier had by over-work brought on some singular and sudden affection of the brain. But, on the second day after the death, as they were preparing the body for burial, one of the students observed on the naked body, just between the shoulders, a singular little appearance, as of the calyx and petals of a pink flower. Attention having been called to it, one of the Friends, who had been trained especially in the department of Toxicology, at Paris, examined it closely; then went to the large arm-chair in which Marcel was in the habit of sitting, and in which he had been found dead, pressed with both hands on the velvet, and forth there started a horrible instrument known in the dens of Paris and London as the fang." It is a long awl-like point, modeled within on the principle of a serpent's tooth-the poison vessel being in a small cylinder at the base, and pressed out by any pressure on the point. Against this horrid thing, concealed under the velvet, the gifted Vercanier had leaned back, and the flower of death had blown upon him. But now the fang had been found, the serpent was to be sought for. Du Sor had introduced Pilzer; so it seemed about as natural to suspect one as the other. But one morning, about a week after the burial of Marcel Vercanier, Vernet read in the Geneva Presse the following paragraph : 'WHO DISCOVERED THE PLANET ? We are authorized to state that, in a few days, M. Pilzer will exhibit to the public evidence that he had, previously to Dr. Lascarbault, discovered and made perfect calculations of the new planet, its bearings and relations; and that, if it had not been for the telegraph which flashed the news from Paris preceding his announcement by a few hours, his calculations, successfully carried on during nearly a year past, would have been laid before the Genevan public. Should this prove true, it will give to the assistant superintendent of our Observatory an enviable position in the world of astronomic science, although the honor of the discovery and naming of the new planet may not be technically conceded to him." As he read this, a dark suspicion started up in Vernet's mind. He rushed up to his dead friend's study, broke open his desk, examined every paper in the drawer, escritoir, room. The calculations to which he knew Vercanier's last year and last moment had been devoted could nowhere be found. He saw, by a terrible vision, that these papers had been laid out on the table, that their summing up had begun in the words "I have discovered." He saw the eager, envious hand which had paralyzed the noble Marcel, and harvested for his ambition the magnificent results! On the wings of the wind the Friends sped to Geneva; but they were too furious to be cautious: they went in a body to the Observatory. Of course, when they entered, Pilzer could not be found; for it is likely that his telescope had lately watched the gates of the Observatory Park more than the revolutions of the new planet. Every one had seen M. Pilzer a moment before, but no one could find him now. M. Pilzer's claims as discoverer of the new planet have not been verified to the Genevan public through the Presse: M. Pilzer himself is not so discoverable as the planet. Nothing further of the horrid affair has transpired, so far as I know, except that the Saint-Pierre Friends have banded themselves into a posse of detectives, and are likely to reëxplore the Jura for a brute hitherto unknown to its fauna. Ꭰ . DR. EIN BOHRER AND HIS PUPILS. CHAPTER I.- PERSONAL, MERELY. - DR. JECOVAS EINBOHRER was led into the New World by an aspiration; that aspiration was for Peace. It was thus: Just after he had retired from the University of Frankfort-on-theMayne, where he had been for seven weeks Professor of Comparative Anatomy, he had taken up his residence near a secluded village, where he thought to pursue his speculations and researches without interruption. But the Eumenides are averse to Science. The very next year came on the wars of Schleswig-Holstein, and the Doctor found himself unhappily near them. This wise man was generally so abstracted that he might never have discovered that any conflict was going on had it not been for the following untoward circumstances: Dr. E. had been engaged for a month on an essay concerning the probable results of Volta's galvanic experiments. Such essays of his were never written: the best things can not be written. This wonderful man sat when composing, composed; motionless; gazing into his fire the only sign of life being an ever-ascending column of smoke from his pipe. The form which this cloudy pillar assumed on such occasions was symbolic of the inner emotion of the man in respect of quickness, force, height, and volume. At this time Einbohrer had risen by the stairway of beautiful reasons to a New World of Hope. He had so pressed probabilities that, instead of seeing the Voltaic pile merely causing supple-jack motions in a frog or an executed malefactor, he saw it blessing those who were neither frogs nor malefactors; he saw a day when "some poor fellow who had died," so he beautifully said, “from accidental drowning or loss of breath, should be restored to his af flicted friends, not alone kicking which was all Volta had yet made frogs and malefactors do- but verily alive and kicking!" He was just questioning whether it might not have been the action of some such force amongst the ancients that had accomplished sundry things transmitted as miraculous; whether it was not this which restored the widow's son on whom Elijah stretched himself (a powerful battery), until he came again to life. From this he had gone on to imagine the happiness of widows, generally, should such powers be discovered-not omitting the suspicion that many would be very unhappy amongst both widows and widowers should such restorations become fashionable. Thus, I say, his speculations had been evolved in fine curls and convolutions out of that profound meerschaum-brain of his, when bang! went the gun of an insurgent, beneath his window, who had awaited in ambush of that peacefulest spot the expected passage of an aristocrat, whom he had been appointed to shoot. Whether he slew the man hath not transpired our business is with Einbohrer. In a moment fancies, smoke-castles, spiritualized Voltaic piles perished, as Alcastar's China-ware perished by the motion of his foot in spurning his anticipated wife. A mild despair settled on the good Doctor's face. He did not rise from his seat, but, with emphasis, knocked the ashes from his meerschaum, which was as significant of what was in him as the eruption of ashes from nature's meerschaums, Vesuvius or Etna, testify seething inner commotions. Frau Einbohrer heard this knock from the room adjacent, and knowing what fearful emotions could alone bring Einbohrer to knock the ashes from his meerschaum before dinner-time at which time she was accustomed to clean it herself— came in with deep anxiety on every line of her excellent face. "My wife," he said, solemnly, "the creations of a most favored hour have thus been shot down. You see what experience (erfahrung) and reason (vernunft) certify, that in such a social state as this nothing can be expected for that Specialty which wears no epaulettes. Look at me, madam," he continued, so severely that the dear Frau shed two tears, "am I a soldier; madam, do I look like one? If I am not, why am I to be disturbed by these shooting bipeds? I see that in this land it must be for some months years, perhaps lustra - the odious gunpowder-smoke of unreason and unrest, and not the pure meerschaum-smoke of philosophy and the imagination. Know then that to-morrow we set out for America. I want peace; and I hear their Congress passes Peace-measures every year: Mistress Einbohrer! I will smoke the pipe of peace, though it be with the Indian on the remotest peak of the Rocky Mountains!" Thus divinely did Dr. Jecovas Einbohrer deliver himself, and an additional tap of the meerschaum on the chimney showed it decisive. Thus was it that this dove, as one might say, flew over the great waters in search of the olive branch. It would appear, |