inquiringly; and a sweet smile, such as maidens love to bestow on their favored swains, dwelt, while she spoke, upon her pretty lips, and mantled her cheeks with a scarcely perceptible shade of crimson.

Henri, who had remained silent during this brief colloquy, though always close to his cousin's rein, replied:

Certainly, Gertrude, although I think with brother, that there is a spice of temerity in the attempt. Allow me to dis-'

Allons then, she gaily cried, placing her gloved finger upon her cousin's mouth, and exciting the spirited animal upon which she was mounted to spring forward on to the crumbling verge of the ice.

- with

Achille buried his spurs in the sides of his horse, and, in one bound, was the next moment at the head of her palfrey and dismounted the rein in his grasp.

For God's sake, Gertrude, stop! you must not venture so rashly,' he cried, with energy; do not go, I beg of you!'

'Loose my rein, Achille, and don't be so earnest about a mere trifle,' she said, hastily.

'Nay, cousin,' said Achille, in a softer tone, 'the life of Gertrude

can be

6

'Now don't be sentimental, cousin Achille,' she laughingly interrupted, do be just good enough to free Léon's head. See how impatient he is!'

'Do, cousin, allow me to plead !'

'No, no, you know how I hate pleading; and, without replying farther, she dexterously extricated her bridle from his grasp, touched her impatient horse smartly with the whip, and gaily crying, 'Sauve qui peut,' sprang forward like an arrow.

'Achille! your horse!' exclaimed Henri. Mad girl, she is lost!' he added, and spurring after her, was in an instant galloping by her side. Achille turned on the instant to vault into his saddle, and beheld his horse, which he had left unsecured on dismounting, coursing, with his mane flowing, and the stirrups wildly flying, at full speed on his way homeward.

Holy devil!' ejaculated he, through his clenched teeth, at the same time uttering a malediction upon the flying animal; then turning to look after the rash girl, he scarcely forbore repeating it, as he saw her with his brother at her side, cantering over the brittle and transparent surface of the river.

They were more than half-way to the opposite shore, when a loud report, deadened like the subterranean discharge of cannon, or the first rumbling of an earthquake, struck his ears, accompanied by a white streak flashing like lightning along the surface of the ice, from shore to shore.

'God of heaven!' he exclaimed, uttering a cry of horror, as he saw the vast field of ice shivered along its whole extent. With a loud voice he shouted for them to return for their lives. Yet they heard him not, although now evidently aware of their danger; for they increased the speed of their horses, and made for the opposite shore, to which they were nearest, as the only chance for safety.

Suddenly, sharp reports, in rapid succession, like the near explosion of musketry, reverberated along the ice, which began to swell and heave like the surface of the ocean in a calm. Save the agitation on

the river, all else was still. The skies wore the pure blue of spring, the winds were hushed, the air was close and sultry, and a deep silence, like that of night, reigned over nature.

A wild cry of terror suddenly reached his ears, fearfully breaking the stillness of the morning. His heart echoed the cry, but his arm could bring no aid. The adventurers had diminished their furious speed, and were hovering on the verge of a yawning chasm, which had suddenly opened before them. To advance was destruction; to retrace their way equally threatening. There was a moment's hesitancy, Achille observed from the summit of a pyramid of ice, which had been thrown upon the beach, and then he saw them turn their horses' heads, and, with a rapid flight, seek, over the moving, unsteady surface of the heaving flood, the shore they had left. Onward they flew, like the wind. The laboring ice shivered and groaned in their rear, heaving itself in huge masses of wild and fantastic shapes into the air behind them. Near the shore, toward which they were now directing their fearful course, the ice had yet remained firm. But, as they advanced, it groaned, heaved, and rose in vast piles in their path, while a yawning chasm gaped wide before them. Loudly and despairingly Achille shouted, as he indicated with his riding-whip the surer way of escape from this chasm, which was momently enlarging; otherwise he could render them no assistance.

They saw their danger, but too late. Their impetus was too powerful to be resisted by the slight fingers of the maiden, as she drew in her reins with painful and terrified exertion, and her horse dashed in among the broken and heaving masses of ice, as they were agitated by the swelling current, and hurled, crashing and grinding with a loud noise, against each other. A wild cry pierced the ears of the paralyzed Achille, and horse and rider disappeared beneath the terrific surface.

Henri, who with a stronger arm had reined in his fiery animal, no sooner witnessed the fearful plunge, than, springing from his horse, he flew to the verge from which she had leaped, and for an instant gazed down into the cold, black flood, which had closed like a pall over the lovely girl. The next moment the deep waters received his descending form into their bosom !

A moment of intense suffering, during which Achille's heart distended almost to bursting, passed, and the waters were agitated, and the head of her favorite Léon came to the surface. The affrighted animal glaring around, his dilated eyes intelligent with almost human expression, uttered a loud and terrific scream, and pawing with his fore-feet upon the cakes of ice floating near him, made several violent and ineffectual attempts, with the exercise of extraordinary muscular exertion, to draw himself upon them; while the big veins swelled and started out in bold relief from his glossy hide, his nostrils expanded and gushed forth blood upon the white ice, and audible groans came from his bursting chest.

In vain were the tremendous and sublime efforts of the noble animal; his strength gradually failed, and he could at last retain his hold only with one hoof upon the crumbling verge: that at last fell into the water. The dying steed gave an appalling cry, which the other horse, who stood gazing on him with a look of sympathy, repeated, and the shores caught up and rëechoed from cliff to cliff, till it died away in the dis

tance, like the wailing notes of suffering fiends. Then, rolling his large eyes round in terror and despair, he sunk from the sight of the horror-stricken Achille.

She is lost, lost, lost!' he exclaimed, mentally imprecating his situation, which rendered it impossible for him to assist her.

Vast cakes of ice, between the elevation upon which he stood and the place where they had disappeared, constantly rolled by, tossed and whirled, like egg shells, tumultuously upon the fierce torrent. Conscious of his total inability to afford the least aid, he stood gazing like a riveted statue upon the dark sepulchre which had entombed the only being he loved.

Merciful Providence, I thank thee!' he exclaimed, dropping impulsively upon one knee, with clasped and uplifted hands, as he saw appear above the water, far below the spot where Léon sunk, one after another, the heads of his cousin and brother. She was lifeless in his arms, her luxuriant tresses floating upon the waves, her beautiful head pillowed upon his shoulder!

With a cry of joy he sprang forward to the point toward which he was swimming among the floating ice with his lovely burden. Henri was a bold and experienced swimmer. In boyhood it was the only amusement in which he delighted or fearlessly engaged. Achille stood upon the utmost verge of the ice, and cast his riding cloak out upon the water, retaining the tassel that he might draw them, now almost exhausted, to the shore.

In a

'No, brother,' said Henri faintly, yet firmly. And a triumphant smile lighted his pale cheek as he declined the proffered aid. moment afterward he laid the fair girl upon the bank the preserver of her life!

Achille cursed in his heart the fortune that had blessed his brother. When as he swam with her, he saw her marble cheek reposing against his, his arm encircling her waist.

'Would to God,' he muttered, in the dark chambers of his bosom, 'that she had made the cold waters her tomb, rather than be saved thus ! But no, no, too blessed a death for that proud boy to die. His death shall be less sacred.'

His lip curled bitterly as he spoke, and his blood fired with the dark thoughts his new-born hatred and revenge called up. The passions which had slumbered for years were once more roused within him, hydra-headed and terrible.

Like a superior being, his brother gently laid the breathless form of his cousin upon the bank. Achille gazed upon them both for an instant in silence, and while he gazed, felt his bosom torn with conflicting emotions of love and hatred.

As he bent over the lifeless girl, chafing her slender fingers and snowy arm, he half breathed the wish that she might not return to consciousness to be told that Henri was her preserver. He looked upon his brother as he assisted him in restoring her to animation, and felt that hatred, malice, and revenge burned in the concentrated expression of his glowing dark eyes; but as he encountered the proud glance of his brother, and witnessed the calm dignity of his demeanor, he withdrew his gaze from his face, but hated him the more.

But a few minutes elapsed after she had been laid upon the bank,

when, accompanied by the old gardener and one or two of the servants, their father advanced rapidly toward them, having been alarmed by the appearance of Achille's horse flying riderless to the stables.

The breathless old man, instinctively comprehending the whole scene, kneeled by the side of his beloved niece, and by their united efforts she was soon resuscitated. Then, for the first time, he looked up, and observing the dripping garments of Henri, he smiled upon him with that comprehensive and affectionate smile he wore when he looked upon those he loved. But as he turned upon Achille, there was no glance of affection, no smile of approval - his eye was cold, severe, and passionless.

Gertrude at length unclosed her eyes, gazed intelligently upon those around her, and then resting them for an instant upon the saturated dress of her cousin, slowly dropped the lids again to shade them from the light, while her lips gently parted, and almost inaudibly pro

nounced,

'Henri !'

Achille sprung as though a serpent had stung him, and a fearful imprecation thrilled upon his tongue. His father frowned menacingly, while a smile, just such a one as passed over his face when he rejected the proffered cloak, and which, from its proud and happy, if not exulting expression, entered his bosom like a poisoned barb, re-opening the wound years had not healed, lighted up his brother's features, and the glance accompanying the smile was a glance of conscious victory.

ROME: FROM THE CAPITOLINE MOUNT.

'LET you come upon that hill in what mood you may, the scene will lay hold upon you as with the hand of a giant. Iscarcely know how to describe the impression - but it seemed to me, as if something strong and stately, like the slow and majestic march of a mighty whirlwind, swept around those eternal towers; the storms of time that had prostrated the proudest monuments of the world, seemed to have left their vibrations in the still and solemn air; ages of history passed before me; the mighty procession of nations- kings, consuls, emperors, empires, and generations, had passed over that sublime theatre. The fire, the storm, the earthquake had gone by; but there was yet left the still small voice-like that, at which the prophet' wrapped his face in his mantle.' DEWEY.

I.

'AND this is Rome!' this mighty, leaning wreck -
This columned desolation, wide and lone,
Is Rome, which bowed the nations 'till the neck
Of crouching earth beneath her foot lay prone.
Stern Fate hath spared the giant skeleton
Where once the veins of empire all converged

But silence sits upon the Cæsar's throne.

Man's wrath and Heaven's the queenly one have scourged,
And Time her broken pomp in yon pale ruin merged.

III.

'War, flood, and fire,' the earthquake's yawning mine, Have batter'd, swept, and whelmed thy gorgeous halls; Could all the blood within thee shed, combine,

'T would heave, a crimson deluge, o'er thy walls; Now echo mocks my footstep as it falls,

Lonely, in Grandeur's desolate abodes;

My voice from covert dark the bat appals,
And oxen graze where the dank herbage nods
O'er earth's unsceptred kings, and dust of demi-gods!

IV.

Beneath my feet the weed-grown Forum lies,
Where fell Virginia by a father's blow,

Whence swept the thundering plaudits to the skies
Answering the wingéd words of Cicero ;

There stood his dwelling, where the sunset's glow
With parting kiss salutes the Esquiline;

But who a fragment of its walls shall know?
There Virgil lived, and penned th' immortal line,
And gazed, as now I gaze, on yon dark Appenine.

V.

O'er marble streets, where roll'd the triumph-cars,
With hostages of empires in their train,

Round the vast Circos and the Camp of Mars,

Through whose wide bounds the chariots swept amain,

O'er broad Campagna's now deserted plain,

Shadows are gathering; and uncertain loom

In the dim air, tower, cenotaph, and fane :

Star after star goes up into the gloom,

'Till all Heaven's watch be set, o'er Rome's colossal tomb.

VI.

The moon is up behind the Appenines,

Her lambent light just silvering their brow;
Now her wan disc yon Titan peak defines,

Her crescent car hangs o'er its summit now;

She lights the sea where once great Cæsar's prow

Tow'rd Actium led his turreted triremes.

No more yon wave the swan-like galleys plough,
But the lone fisher's snowy canvass gleams,

Where from old Ostia's port the dwindled Tiber streams.

VII.

Magnificently!-half in shadow sleeps

The enormous Coliseum's rifted shell;

How brightly through a hundred arches leaps
The saffron moonlight down its circling well;

There once, as prone the gladiator fell,

The peopled walls with vocal thunder rang

'Till heaven sent back its replicated swell;

There with strong faith subduing torture's pang,

The Christian martyr smiled beneath the lion's fang.

VIII.

Prodigious ruin! Goth and Saracen

Have thundered through thy vast arena's ring;

Thy fabric-even to its lowest den

Has heaved and quivered 'neath the earthquake's swing; Yet still thy walls their stern defiance fling

Back to the challenge of the baffled storm.

Bards yet unborn shall in thy shadow sing:

What generations have beheld thy form,

That others yet shall see, when this is with the worm!