Dr. D- clasped his hands, and, eyeing Miss P- with intense commisserationexclaimed, "What a fearful bride for him? "Twill drive him mad!" "I dread his coming-I know not what we shall do!-And then, there's her motherpoor old lady! her I have written to, and expect almost hourly!" "Why, what an accumulation of shocks and miseries! it will be upsetting you!" said my friend, seeing me pale and agitated. horrid spell was broken, for she sate up sudden-live!-But the worst is, perhaps, yet to be ly, leaned forward towards me, and her mouth told you: Mr. N- -, her lover, to whom opened as though she were about to speak! she was very soon to have been married, HE "Agnes! Agnes! dear Agnes! Speak, will be here shortly to see her"speak but a word! Say you live!" I exclaimed, rushing forwards, and folding my arms about her. Alas, she heard me not, she saw me not, but fell back in bed in her former state! When the galvanic shock was conveyed to her limbs, it produced the usual effects-dreadful to behold in all cases -but agonizing to me in the case of Miss P—. The last subject on which I had seen the effects of galvanism, previous to the present instance, was the body of an executed malefactor; and the association revived on "Well" he continued-"I cannot now the present occasion were almost too painful stay here longer-your misery is catching; to bear. I begged my friend to desist, for I and, besides, I am most pressingly engaged; saw the attempt was hopeless, and I would but you may rely on my services, if you not allow her tender frame to be agitated to || should require them in any way." no purpose. My mind misgave me for ever making the attempt. What, thought I, if we have fatally disturbed the nervous system, and prostrated the small remains of strength she had left? While I was torturing myself with such fears as these, Dr. Dlaid down the rod, with a melancholy air, exclaiming "Well, what is to be done now? I cannot tell you how sanguine I was about the success of this experiment! * Do you know whether she ever had a fit of epilepsy?" he inquired. "No--not that I am aware of. I never heard of it, if she had." "Had she generally a horror of thunder and lightning?" 66 Oh-quite the contrary! she felt a sort of ecstacy on such occasions, and has written some beautiful verses during their continuance. Such seemed rather her hour of inspiration than otherwise!" "Do you think the lightning has affected her? Do you think her sight is destroyed?" "I have no means of knowing whether the immobility of the pupils arises from blindness, or is only one of the temporary effects of catalepsy." Then she believed the prophecy, you think, of the world's destruction on Tuesday?" "No-I don't think she exactly believed it: but I am sure that day brought with it awful apprehensions—or at least a fearful degree of uncertainty." "Well-between ourselves-there was something very strange in the coincidence, was there not? Nothing in life ever shook my firmness as it was shaken yesterday! I almost fancied the earth was quivering in its sphere!" (To be concluded in our next.) THE WIDOW'S PRAYER. BY MRS. L. H. SIGOURNEY. The youthful maid-the gentle bride- Whose father moulders in the tomb? "It was a dreadful day! One I shall never This bird is peculiar to the New World, | pours out a torrent of song in token of victory. and is most frequently found in those portions-The musical powers of this bird are the of it, where nature has strewn her bounties with the most lavish prodigality. It is in the rich blossoming fields and forests of Louisiana, that you should listen to the wonderful notes of the Mocking Bird. In the beginning of April, and sometimes a fortnight earlier, the Mocking Birds pair, and construct their nest. This is built in a solitary thorn-bush, an orange tree, a red cedar, a holly bush, and not unfrequently within a small distance of a house, in a pear or apple tree, six or seven feet from the ground. It is carelessly constructed of dry twigs, weeds, straw, wool and tow, grasses and wood, and lined with fine fibrous roots disposed in a circular form. While the female is sitting, neither cat, dog, animal, nor man can approach the nest without being attacked. most wonderful in nature. Some naturalists have described the notes of the nightingale as occasionally equal to them; but Audubon having heard both species in confinement, and in the wild state, says that such a comparison is, in his opinion, quite absurd. The Mocking Bird, according to Wilson, loses little of the power and energy of his song by confinement. The variety of his song is incessant, and very capricious. His imitations of the brown thrush are interrupted by the crowing of chickens; and he mingles the warblings of the blue bird with the screamings of swallows and the cacklings of hens. Now you listen to the simple melody of the robin, now to the reiterations of the whippoorwill, and now to the notes of the blue jay, martin, oriole, and twenty others, so like the originals, that you can hardly dream that they come from the single admirable performer before you. Both in the fields and in the cage, he commences his delightful song at the rising of the moon, and continues during the solemn stillness of the night to make the whole neighborhood resound with his inimitable music. Different species of snakes prove very troublesome to these birds. They climb to their nests, and generally suck their eggs or swallow the young. But their most formidable and mortal enemy is the black snake. Whenever this reptile is discovered, the male darts upon it with the rapidity of an arrow, dexterously eluding its bite, and striking it violently and incessantly against the head, He is nine and a half inches long. He where it is very vulnerable. The snake soon has a compressed, straight bill of moderate becomes sensible of its danger and seeks to length, rather a slender neck and body, and escape; but the intrepid bird redoubles his a head of a corresponding size. His plumage exertions, and seizes and lifts it up from the is soft and well blended, with nothing in it ground, beating it with his wings, and when gaudy or brilliant. The upper parts of the the business is completed, he returns to his head, neck and back, are a dark brownish nest, mounts the summit of the bush, and "ash; the under parts are of a brownish white. THE THREE KISSES. MORNING. “Thanks be to Him, who gave me strength! My babe, She said, She pressed, she kissed him! 'twas the first, The mother kissed her first-born! Act the first! NOON. And now the vow is sworn by both; they walk "I have but thee, I need but thee, beloved, NIGHT. The voice of woe, half-stifled sobs break forth And thus the third act ends :-the rest is show! FUNERALS. AN AFFECTING INCIDENT. People have an ominous dread of encountering funerals; now, for our own part, we like to meet a funeral; and what is more, we find a melancholy pleasure in turning round and following it. Touches of genuine nature are to be met with at a funeral. The that he had not the good fortune to have had all. Then there are the mourners, not of hoods, scarfs, and weepers, but of the heart -mourning a loss beyond that of the world's losses-losses no world's wealth can repair. The tender, dutiful wife, the prudent, affectionate husband, the son or daughter of our youth, or of our age. The parent, dropping ripe into the lap of earth, or, deeper grief, cut off in the midst of his hopes, expectations, and pursuits, leaving, perhaps, a young family slenderly provided for, or not at all; the attached and long-esteemed friend, the woman we loved, or could have loved. These are the griefs, various in the expression, that, surrounding the yawning grave, pay the last sad offices to the unconscious dead; then slowly, and with downcast weeping eyes, wend slowly homewards their melancholy way. It was a fine summer Sabbath evening in June, and we were walking about among the tomb-stones, as usual, making our observations upon life and character, when our attention was arrested by a plain coffin, borne upon the shoulders of four men in black, and followed by eight chief mourners, all in decent but humble suits of sables. The chief mourners were eight children; or, to speak more correctly, three boys and three girls, with two little " toddies," mere infants, straggling in the rear. The eldest boy and girl might have been about fourteen and fifteen years respectively; the next, twelve and eleven; the third pair between seven and eight; the youngest, as we have said, between infancy and childhood. The eyes of all spectators were upon the bereaved ones as they stood around the grave, yawning to receive their only parent and provider; and few were the dry eyes of those who beheld the melancholy group-the eldest boy looking fierce and man-like, the rest weeping bitterly, save the youngest pair looking wonderingly around, as if marvelling what all the ceremony might mean. 66 little pursy man in black, who stood near Cutting funeral, that, sir," observed a werry cutting funeral, indeed," repeated the little man, blowing his nose vioiently. us; "Who are they?" we inquired, not without anticipating something like the little domestic history we were favored with by the nose-blowing little man, in black. artificial is thrown aside, the mask we all wear in the business or pleasures of life falls off, and we are able sometimes to catch occasional glimpses of men as they really are, or ought to be. We say sometimes, for there is abundance of hypocrisy at a funeral as any where else, but even this is worth contemplating. There is much matter for conjecture in funerals; we like to imagine that we see reflected in the faces of the mourners what manner of man was the deceased. We try to puzzle out the expression of the disap-ied, sir." pointed legatee, and the more subdued grief of him, who, having been bequeathed much, Yes, sir; she was a 'spectable woman— regrets that he has not got more; or of him, highly 'spectable, indeed-werry virtuous, who, having the lion's share, is yet sorrowful" poor woman, sir-paid rates and taxes in the "Horphans, sir-every one on 'em horphans; that's their mother as is a bein' bur "Indeed!" 66 parish for twenty years. I ought to know it; for I'm one of the overseers-I am." "I should like to hear something of the family." 66 "Should you, sir? Well, you shall hear; but it's a melancholy story-werry melancholy, indeed. You must know, sir, there wasn't a more decenter couple in this parish, than Thomas Mason and his wife, Jane ; they were well to do, and doing well; every body respected them, for they paid their way, and was civil to their customers. Well, Thomas fell in a decline, sir, and died; but he didn't die soon enoughfor his sickness wasted all his substance, and the business was neglected, so the family fell into poverty; but the poor widow struggled on, and the exertions she made to sustain them little ones, was really the wonder of the neighborhood. Mr. Smith," says she to me, when I offered some relief, "I won't trouble this world long, and parish money shall never cross my palm; but when I'm gone, you won't see my desolate orphans want a morsel of bread." So, poor woman, she was right; for she soon sickened, and was bed-ridden for thirteen months; and them children, as you see a standing 'round their mother's grave, worked themselves to an oil to keep her from the hospital-much more the work'us. The girls worked all day; and the boys and girls sat up all night, turn and turn about, with their poor mother -she was sorely afflicted, poor woman. Well, sir, when she died at last, our vicar went and offered his assistance, and told the children, of course, the parish would bury their mother; but that there hobstinate boy -him that's a givin' his orders-wouldn't hear of it, and blowed up the vicar for mentioning such a thing. So the vicar comes to me, and says he, "Mr. Smith, these here young Masons is the oddest babies as ever I see, for they've sold their bed and all their things to bury their mother; let's make up a purse for them, and there's my sovereign to begin with." Says I, "Never mind, I'll bring them right; and the parish shall bury the poor woman, so that'll be so much saved;" and with that I goes off to Poppin's Court, and into the fust floor; there was the poor woman dead, and the room stripped of all the furniture and things. Says that there youth," Mr. Smith," says he, "I'd be very glad to see you another time, but we're in great grief for our mother bein' dead, and we hope you'll excuse us askin' you to sit down." Lord love you, sir, there wasn't the sign of a chair or a table in the room, nothing but the corpse, and a bit of a plank. Says I, "My boy, I'm sorry for your grief, but I hope you won't have any objection to let the parish manage your poor mother's funeral." With that, sir, the boy flares up like any thing, whips up a poker, and says if he catches the parish a comin' to touch his mother, he'll brain the lot of 'em : "Mother lived without the parish," says he, "died without the parish, and she'll be buried without the parish!" With that he opens the door and shows me down stairs, as if he was a young markiss; that's the story on 'em, sir; and they're a riggler hindependent lot as ever I see. God help them, poor things!" And with this the little man blew his nose once more, as the group of motherless children re-formed in their sad order of procession, and with streaming eyes, and many repeated last looks at their mother's grave, departed to their naked home. Written for the Ladies' Garland. On being presented by R. D., Jr., with a box, “From a pear tree, preached under by GEORGE FOX, at Balby Yorkshire, 1660-6." BY SUSAN WILSON. What's hallow'd ground? 'Tis what gives birth Are objects of idolatry; Light, which has been too long obscured And often, as we thus are led Of Friendship, woven long ago,-) The rich, unfaded treasures there, In hearts that hold them valueless, The records traced by Memory there, Can only selfish thoughts express. THE UNCOUTH FRIEND; ledge needs some softening down, to sound OR, THE EXCLUSIVE. "Well," said Ellen North, with a toss of her pretty head, and a contemptuous curl of the lip, as the street door closed behind her father and his friend, "I do think papa is the strangest man that I ever saw!" well in a parlor, and his dress is just what I should expect from the little that I saw of his character, plain, neat, and comfortable." 66 Well, I am sure you can't say but his behavior was clownish; didn't you observe him eating with his knife, drinking from his saucer, and putting his napkin any where and every where but the right place?" "These are but trifles, Ellen, and only con "How so?" inquired her mother, quietly. "How so? why mamma, I shouldn't suppose you would ask. Only think of his bring-firm what we should know without them, that ing that vulgar old codger here to dinner today." "I am very sorry, Ellen, if your father has done any thing to injure your delicate nerves; perhaps you had better retire to your room till you recover from the shock." "You may laugh at me as much as you please, mamma, but I know if Mrs. A., or Mr. C., or Dr. L. had been here, you would || have been ashamed." custom has not made him acquainted with all the minutiae of what we call refined society." "Then, I shouldn't think he would come here, even if papa did invite him." 66 Ellen, my dear child, you don't understand these things. Why should Mr. Selwyn refuse to dine with an old friend, merely because there happens to be a little difference in their respective circumstances? They commenced life together, one chose noise and bustle, the cares and anxieties attendant on a mercantile life, and the other betook himself to his quiet farm; is this difference in tastes a reason why they should ever be estranged?" "Is Mr. Selwyn rich, mamma ?" "I am not disposed to laugh, my child, however ridiculous your notion might appear to others, for this is in reality a serious subject. Neither the presence of the visitors you have named, nor that of any others, would make me ashamed to entertain this Mr. Selwyn, since I understand he is an old "I don't know. Be that as it may, I know friend of your father's. I never saw him by your father's manner to-day, that he before, but his being invited to dinner, is a esteems him highly, and that he was evidentsufficient proof of his respectability, and Ily very much pained by your rude conduct." shall always be pleased to entertain any guest your father introduces." "An old friend! I hope papa is not under any obligations to him." "I know of no pecuniary obligations, but these are not always the deepest, Ellen." "Well, I suppose there is no harm in being rude to rude people, and for the life of me, I couldn't help laughing at his stiff bow, and queer voice." "A lady is a lady every where, Ellen, and I am extremely sorry that you have so forfeited your claim to the title." "I know what you would say, mamma, but there are different classes in society, and "Oh, nonsense, mamma, the old fellow I suppose men belonging to the same class, didn't dream that I was making fun of him, have claims upon each other, but I don't see and without doubt, will tell his daughter, why they should extend their claim to their || that he boasted so much about, how delighted superiors." Mrs. North smiled, and Ellen, he was with the attentions of the charming perceiving that she had been uttering non- Miss Ellen. Only think how condescendsense, attempted to cover her bad argument ingly I played that beautiful waltz, and then by ridiculing the farmer. "But Mr. Selwyn-true, I was a little vexed when, without is such a vulgar appearing man, mamma, why he is as coarse and rough as though he had been accustomed to the stable, or cobbler's stall, all the days of his life. I verily believe he was never in a parlor before; his loud voice almost frightened me, and then his great thick boots-dear me! one would think he was shod with iron." "I perceive that you are somewhat agitated-" giving me a single compliment, he asked for Auld Lang Syne,' as though I was expected to know such old-fashioned things." "Yes, rather too condescendingly, Ellen, and since you seem to be insensible to any claim but that of fashion, let me tell you that I never saw a true lady put on an air of condescension. If Mr. Selwyn had not pitied your vanity and folly, he would have made you feel his disapprobation." "Now, mamma!" "Pity me!" exclaimed Ellen, angrily, "Well, I will not laugh at you-Mr. Sel-"really, mamma, I do not need the pity of wyn's face is certainly somewhat weatherbeaten, and his features, as they should be, not very feminine, but I discovered nothing like vulgarity in his person or manners. His voice is strong and manly, and I will acknow such people, and hope I never shall. Pity, indeed! and I suppose he will bring his great, strapping, red-haired daughter to pity me next, and I shall have to play to a whole tribe of little Selwyns. Pah!" |