baby; I never let him take it in his arms. Jed at me with a severely scrutinizing expresThe first time it smiled brightly at him, and sion in his gray eyes, as he sat down close with its little hands clutched at the dark hair by, fronting me. He waited for a moment, of his bent head, acute pain shot through my as if he expected I should say more, then anheart. Do what I could, I was not able to pre-swered: vent the child from knowing and loving its fa- "You have taught us to think you so I had ther. Soon, very soon, I had the agonizing, almost said to wish to think you so. Madness though self-induced, torture to bear, of seeing was a very gentle name to give your malait turn from my fierce love, to hold out its tiny dy; it was conferred in all kindness, in all hands-appealingly, it seemed to me -to my charity." husband. It lisped Papa before ever it had once said Mamma. Harold's manner to his children reminded me of what it had been to me in the days of our courtship. There was the same protecting, beautifully sweet, yet manly tenderness. Sometimes I longed to be a child, to share the caresses my boy and girl received. My husband had left off almost all demonstrations of affection for me, but only because I had often manifestly shrunk from them; why, I cannot tell. I loved him, I never ceased loving him. "Poor mamma is ill," Harold said sometimes, when I closed my eyes, and my brow contracted with the pain that so often throbbed there now. "Go, little one, and kiss her very quietly." "Must I, papa!" the little girl would ask. "I don't want to get down." A few words in a loud voice, and then a little soft mouth would be pressed up to my face. Sometimes I pretended to have fallen asleep, and not to feel the touch that thrilled my whole being through; then the play would cease, and my husband would draw the children into another room. My husband was much at home during that miserable time. I thought it was to keep watch over his children, and I resented this bitterly Could he not trust them with me, their mother? Of what was he afraid? "Kindness" I echoed. "You have taught my husband so to mistrust me that he fears to leave my own children in my charge; and you talk of kindness!" "Mrs. Warden, reflect! Do you remember when I was last sent for to attend you? Do you mean to confess that that humiliating wildness of passion was voluntarily indulged? I felt the blood rush across my face, but I answered as steadily as he asked: "Certainly. At the beginning I could have checked and controlled myself. To do so would have given me terrible pain. It was not worth while; it is a miserable relief to me to give way. After the storm comes a calm. In the weakness that follows after my violence, my head is cooler and clearer, and my heart quieter. Life is fainter, its pain more endurable." "You speak calmly enough now," Dr. Ryton said. "Can you not see the selfishness and wickedness of all this? Can you not see that, if indeed you are a responsible person-and in that light you wish me to consider you-you are sinning most heinously: destroying the peace of a home: wrecking the happiness of your nobly good husband; alienating your children's affections from you; ruining your own soul! By Heaven! madam, you had better wish yourself the maddest poor soul in Bedlam than the voluntary abusSometimes the indulgent, pitying, curious er and destroyer you wish me to pronounce tenderness with which my husband began you!" I paused and thought; he sitting there, again to treat me, soothed me, and I could lie for hours in child-like quiet, with my head resting on his bosom. But this was not the love and sympathy for which I thirsted, and often my spirit rose up in arms, repelling this condescending affection, which mocked the love I craved. It was through the carelessness or maliciousness of a servant that I first heard how my husband was pitied as the poor gentleman who had a mad wife. stooping forward, bent his cold eyes on me "I see you can control yourself, Mrs. War- Nature! yes, you are right there," I re plied. "A nature, madam, which you have sinfully neglected to control, all the faults of which you have cherished: You are a proud woman; you shrink from the humiliation of being thought mad, but you are blind to the far worse humiliation of allowing the devil within you to rule you." "I believe you are miserable, madam! I "As you like," he answered, indifferently and wearily; "I am going out don't you remember I told you they wanted you, but you would not come? It is the party at Gower's mother's." "Going out again to-night-and there?" I asked, pausing at the door. Harold turned to the window. Is it any wonder?" he asked recklessly. "No! it is no wonder that you should leave your home so often," I replied quietly, while a burning recollection of half-heeded scandal came to my mind. I went up to my room, but did not pass the hours as I had intendedthe poison of a malicious sentence rankled in "I will think of what you say," I answered. my heart. I paced gloomily about; a throng "You think I have sinned-sinned-sinned! of strange thoughts pressed for recognition, one. You do not heed that I have suffered." "But it has been pain and suffering and I but a demon-hand, torture strong, held the entrance against them, and possessed me against my desire, spite of my endeavors. "He loves you no longer! no longer!" a mocking voice cried. I laughed scornfully to myself-I did not believe it; and yet the words came again and again, each time louder than before. I would not doubt-I would know-I thought. The wintry afternoon (it was a bleak March day) had long blackened into night, my fire was almost out, and my room dark and cold, when little feet came pattering up to my closed door, and my children's voices called "Indeed, madam, before you sent for me, I bad begun to understand your case otherwise.me. You are not mad. God forgive you." 66 Say that again." "You are not mad." "You are to tell my husband so-but stay, I hear his step-here he comes, repeat it to him, Dr. Ryton." They were come to say "good-night." I opened my door, but that room was too dim and chill, and peopled with too unholy and unhappy thoughts for them; so, with my little girl in my arms, and my boy's hand in mine, I went down into the empty drawing My poor Harold came in, he looked won-room, where the fire blazed cheerily and the deringly and anxiously at me. "Have you been ill again?" he asked. "I have never been ill in the way you have been taught to suppose; Dr. Ryton, repeat to my husband what you said to me." "Your wife, Mr. Warden, wishes me to tell you that I have reason to change the opinion I expressed to you some time since." "Speak more plainly, if you please, sir," I interrupted; you spoke plainly enough just now." "In short," Dr. Ryton continued, only pausing while I spoke, not turning towards me, but looking at my husband steadily and compassionately; "she is no more mad than you or I?" "What is it, then ?" Harold asked. "That Mrs. Warden herself must inform you," he answered. He went, and Harold attended him to the door. I sat down to think. It was some minutes before Harold came back, and I did not look up to see the expression of lamps burnt brightly. "Papa is gone out," Harold said, glancing round the room disconsolately. "Papa is gone," Lily echoed sadly. But I sat down by the fire, Lily still in my arms, and bade Harold bring the great book which was his delight, and would tell him all about the pictures. It was brought and rested on my knee, the boy lying on the ground beside it. I leaned my cheek against my little darling's soft hair as her fair head rested quietly on my bosom, and I told wonderful stories to my boy with his upraised, wondering eyes. I was very gentle, and we were very happy. When nurse came there was a great outcry, and so I sent her away again. The children sat up an hour later than usual: my Lily fell asleep upon my bosom, and I carried her up-stairs, and put her to bed myself. "You are a dear, dear mamma to-night," Harold said, when I bent over him and kissed I was at the window, and had opened the curtains and shutters just in time to see my husband riding away. Whither? his face after he had laid down. Tears stream-noise of horses' hoofs ringing loud and clear ed from my eyes-very sweet tears-I went on the frost-bound road. down to the empty drawing-room, and sat by the fire, crying quietly a long while. Then I wiped my eyes and thought. "If he loves me still, if there is yet time," I said, and in my mind I turned over a fair white page of life, and I essayed to lift my heart penitently to God; but I sickened when I thought of all my past, and said "There is no hope-there is no hope!" It was past midnight when Harold came home; I was still sitting by the fire. "You up still?" he said, as he came into the room. I did not answer; there was a great struggle within me, I longed to throw myself on his bosom, or at his feet, and to weep out my strange new thoughts, and hopes, and resolves there; but I knew I should startle him, and that I had taught him to dread and to hate my tears. Besides, the idle tale I had heard forced itself on my recollection-my pride bade me know if that were true or false, before I humbled myself to one who might no longer care for me. "Are you not going to bed now?" my husband asked, throwing himself into a chair opposite me. 66 Presently," I answered, and stole a look at his face. I could read nothing there; his eyes were fixed on the fire. How should I begin? Harold! I have something to ask you!" Something in my voice attracted his attention; his eyes were on me immediately. The struggle to keep calm and speak quietly, made my voice sound strange and hard, even to myself. Yet I tried to speak gayly to tell him what I had heard, as a false thing I did not believe; knew I should hear him contradict; repeated only for his amusement, for the sake of hearing that contradiction. But when he had heard me, he turned back to his fire-gazing, silently with a moody brow. I urged him to speak. I grew afraid. Then he rose, and turned a stern face upon me. I had never seen him look like that before. "Wife!" he began I cannot even how, write the words he said. They sounded cruel, but were only truth. He did not answer my charge against him did not notice it; he only reminded me of what I had made his home. His words smote me, how heavily. I threw myself down before him. I clasped his knees. I laid my head upon his feet. "I cannot bear it to-night. Perhaps I have been harsh. I cannot be patient longer," he said. Gently but firmly he put me by, and then he went away. I lay where he left me for some minutes, half-stunned. But I heard his voice, and the I did not go to bed that night. I lay on the ground by the window, where I had thrown myself, not unconscious for a minute. I remember what I thought about as I lay; how I should destroy myself. But my energy was deadened, my brain numb; and I did not rise to seek the means. I watched the stars, so bright in the brightblue heaven. I watched them blankly then; now I can recal exactly how they looked, and how they paled before the ghastly dawn. Ours was always a late household. No one was stirring yet, when there came a heavy trampling of feet on the carriage-drive before the house, and then a knocking at the door. Every sound seemed muffled to me, for I was half dead with cold and pain. I rose with difficulty, vaguely wondering, and crept down stairs. The knocking grew louder, but my hands were almost useless, and trembled long enough at the door. Long enough! The door was open all too soon. Without, waited my husband, patientlyay, very patiently! He waited, but he made no noise. I know all that followed that dread sight. I cannot write it. One picture you shall have that will be vividly present to me ever. Harold, my husband-white, cold, bloodstained-laid upon a couch, lying there blind, and deaf, and dumb. His wife as surely-so I thought straightway-bis murderess as if she had stabbed him to the heart (God knows she had !), stretched beside him, pushing the defiled, dust-soiled, blood-stained hair from his disfigured brow, and pressing there her vain kisses; dyeing her livid cheek red, laying it against his; putting her hot, livid lips to his cold, rigid ones, and crying to him wildly, ceaselessly, "Harold! husband!" They took me away by force. No one pitied me much. Then, I really went mad. God was only too merciful to me-I went mad. My husband, riding in reckless misery, he knew not where, had been thrown, and dragged along the ground, his dark hair trailing in the dust. I believe he had been driven out by resentment at an unjust accusation, mingling with despair at the thought that his last chance of peace and quiet at home had fled, now that jealousy had taken form and substance in my mind. I do not believe his heart had ever for a moment wandered from his home; finding no rest on his wife's, it had learnt to love his children with something more than a father's tenderness. He had suffered. O! how he had suffered ! From the Literary Gazette. [ries) all female beings bear twins; the golden Volksmärchen der Serben, etc. Popular Tales eating of the bird's heart; the abduction of the clucking-hen with her chickens; the broiling and of the Servians, collected and edited by king's daughter in the ship with the costly wares Wuk Stephanowitsch Karadschitsch, and exposed to view (as in the Russian tale of the translated into German by his daughter Wil-Seven Simeons); and more such common prohelmine. With a Preface by Jacob Grimm, and a Supplement containing more than a thousand Servian Proverbs. Berlin: Reimer, 1854. perty of all legends, generally, however, intro duced by novel and beautiful turns (wendungen), or differently connected and wrought in. And To this list we may add the Water of Life THE late Emile Souvestre, in one of his and the Dragon sleeping upon treasure. King books on Brittany, tells us that there, on the Midas is here represented by a certain "Embirth of a child, the innocent young Breton peror Troyan with the goat's ears." mothers hasten, in kindly rivalry to give their some of the incidents in Whittington and his breasts to the babe, the latest arrival among Cat, Cinderella (Pepelyuga in Servian), and them from heaven, and whose lips are looked Hop o' my Thumb, are easily recognizable in on as sanctifying the bosom to which they are their Slavonic forms. The incidents in popufirst applied. It is in a somewhat similar spir-lar fiction appear almost as limited in number it, but with more reason, that perennially as the notes in popular music. The former, youthful and unsophisticated minds will al- however, seem as capable as the latter of exways welcome a work like the present, the most hibiting an infinite variety of arrangement, carecent offspring of the spirit of Servian liter-dence, and feeling. rent. ature; vague and irregular in its movements;| The following tale, for example, is, as Jacob B "Whilst one sinks in the mire, another rises." The consort of the all-wise Solomon loved nian stem. In perusing these cosmopolitan another emperor, and she determined to leave tales, we have frequently been struck with her husband; it was not, however, easy for her surprise at the neglect hitherto manifested by she arranged with the other emperor, and he sent to escape, for Solomon watched her closely; so orthodox ethnologists for the strong argument her a potion, which she drank, whereupon she in favor of the original unity of mankind de- lay apparently dead. When she had thus derivable from the identity of the legends of ceased, Solomon cut off her little finger, to convarious nations, differing apparently in kind, vince himself that she actually was dead; and as they vary in color, manners, religion, and seeing that his wife had felt nothing, and was relanguage. A passage from the observations ally dead, he had her buried. The other empewhich Jacob Grimm, the greatest living mas- ror, however, bade his people go forth and unter of legendary lore, has prefixed to this col- tomb the lady, and bring her to him. He knew lection, may be quoted in illustration of these a means of restoring her to life; whereupon he took her for his consort, and lived with her. remarks:: When Solomon the Wise heard what had come to pass with his wife, he prepared to seck her, It will naturally be anticipated that all, or taking many weaponed warriors along with him. nearly all, the springs (triebfedern) that actuates And when he drew nigh to the abode of the emGerman legends, are found here also: the three peror who had taken his wife, he left his men bebrethren of whom the youngest is the best and hind in a forest with orders, so soon as they most fortunate; the two brothers so like that should hear the blast of a trumpet to follow the even the wife of one can discover no difference sound, and hasten to his help, each man bearing a between them, a sword being therefore laid be- leafy branch before him. Then Solomon went tween her and the brother who is not her hus-alone into the emperor's castle. There he found band; lucky or baleful stars; the casting the his wife alone with her servants, for the emperor serpent's skin or the bear's hide (by enchanted had just gone forth to hunt. When the lady princes); the watching of the apple-tree; the saw her first husband, she was stricken with fear; hewing of hands and healing them again; the she contrived, however, again to deceive him, wicked stepmother, of all subjects the one most and to beguile him into a chamber, and there to frequently treated, and which excites in the hear-lock him up. When the emperor came home ers the painfullest sensation; the fish cut in from hunting, his wife told him that Solomon the pieces, on tasting which (as in the Swedish sto- Wise had come, and was locked up in such-and such a room. "Go thither," she said, "go and | unlucky scholar let himself be deceived, and went cut him in pieces straightway; but venture not and grasped the staff; but as soon as he touched to atter a word to him, for so sure as thou lettest it, one finger remained cleaving to it fast. Seehim say a single word, he will outwit thee." ing, then, his ruin before his eyes, he began to With his naked sabre in his hands, the emperor leap in a circle to and fro round the giant, so opened the door of the chamber, and went in un- that the latter might not seize him Suddenly to Solomon the Wise, in order to cut his head he remembered his clasp-knife which he wore, off. But Solomon sat still and fearlessly on a so he drew it forth, and cut off the finger that cushion, and when he saw him coming up with was cleaving to the staff, and thus escaped hapthe naked sabre, he began to laugh. When the pily. Now did he mock the giant and deride emperor saw this, he could not refrain from ask- him, whilst driving the flocks away before him. ing Solomon at what he was laughing. Where- The giant, although blind, pursued him, and so upon Solomon answered that he could not but they came to a great water. Then did the schollaugh at one emperor being about, to execute ar straightway perceive that he might drown the another upon a woman's pillow. "Since I am giant in the water; so he began to whistle around now in thy hands, fetter me, and bring me forth him, and to jeer him. By little and little the from the city, out on the field, and execute me giant drew nearer, and thought to catch the scholpublicly. Let the trumpet sound thrice, so that ar, when he came just to the edge of the water; every one may hear, and whoever will may come the scholar then ran against him from behind, and see. Then will the forest itself hasten hither and pushed him in, and the giant was drowned. to behold one emperor executing another." The Then the scholar drove away the flock in peace, emperor was anxious to try whether it was true and home he came, in good plight, though withthat the forest would come to see one emperor out the priest. slaying another. So he fettered Solomon, and placed him in a common cart, and, with the servants and the people of the castle, brought him out to the field for execution. As they were going along, Solomon beheld the fore-wheels of the cart, and suddenly burst into laughter. The emperor, who was riding near him, asked him at what he was laughing. He replied, "I cannot but laugh when I behold how one felloe of the wheel sinks into the mire, whilst the other rises She inhabits the loftiest mountains and rocks, thereout." Then the emperor turned away, and we quote the translator,] loves the neighbor said, "Now thanks be to God! people call him hood of waters, and is described as ever young, Solomon the All-wise, and he is a fool. Mean- fair of face, clad in a white airy garment, and while they reached the place where Solomon was with long hair floating about her bosom and to be executed; the emperor then ordered the shoulders. She does no one harm without cause, but once excited or injured, she avenges herself trumpet to be sounded once. When Solomon's warriors heard the trumpet they broke up; at fiercely and in divers ways, wounding her enethe second trumpet-sound they moved on; yet my either in the hands or feet. No mortal can none could see them, but only the green boughs be healed of such wounds, for his whole life he which they bare before them like a moving forest. languishes; or else, piercing his heart, she inThe emperor beholding the forest really coming, was astonished, and convinced of the truth of what Solomon had said; and he ordered the trumpet to sound a third time. That moment Solomon's warriors reached the place, and freed their lord. But the emperor, with all his servants and courtiers, was seized and hewn down. The singular originality to which we alluded as characteristic of some of the legends in this collection, is chiefly to be met with in those that treat of the Vila, a Servian spirit nearly corresponding with the German Wald frau : flicts on him immediate death. A popular song We shall now quote the first of these Vila tales. The idea of making the descent of the Vilas imparts a curative capability to the water, was possibly derived from the account of the Bethesda pool in St. John's Gospel, chap. v. Righteousness and Unrighteousness. A king had two sons, of whom one was cunning and unrighteous, while the other was good and righteous. After their father's death the unrighteous son said to the righteous, "Go forth from me; we can live together no longer. Here thou hast 300 pieces of gold and a horse; that is thy share of the inheritance. Expect no more." So the second son took the 300 pieces of gold and the horse, and set out on his journey, saying, "Now, thanks be to God that so much of all the kingdom hath fallen to my share." After sometime the brothers met one another as they were I 0 た |