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its paltry wants, its petty humiliations-then will be the real trial."

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But," said I, "now that you have got over the severest task, that of breaking it to her, the sooner you let the world into the secret the better. The disclosure may be mortifying; but then it is a single misery, and soon over : whereas, you otherwise suffer it, in anticipation, every hour in the day. It is not poverty so much as pretence that harasses a ruined manthe struggle between a proud mind and an empty purse-the keeping up a hollow show that must soon come to an end. Have the courage to appear poor, and you disarm poverty of its sharpest sting." On this point I found Leslie perfectly prepared. He had no false pride himself, and as to his wife, she was only anxious to conform to their altered fortunes.

Some days afterward, he called upon me in the evening. He had disposed of his dwelling-house, and taken a small cottage in the country, a few miles from town. He had been busied all day in sending out furniture. The new establishment required few articles, and those of the simplest kind. All the splendid furniture of his late residence had been sold, excepting his wife's harp. That, he said, was too closely associated with the idea of herself; it belonged to the little story of their loves for some of the sweetest moments of their courtship were those when he had leaned over that instrument, and listened to the melting tones of her voice. I could not but smile at this instance of romantic gallantry in a doting husband.

He was now going out to the cottage where his wife had been all day superintending its arrangement. My feelings had become strongly interested in the progress of this family story, and, as it was a fine evening, I offered to accompany him.

He was wearied with the fatigues of the day, and, as we walked out, fell into a fit of gloomy musing.

"Poor Mary!" at length broke with a heavy sigh from his lips.

"And what of her?" asked I: "has any thing happened to her?"

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'What," said he, darting an impatient glance, "is it nothing to be reduced to this paltry situation-to be caged in a miserable cottage-to be obliged to toil almost in the menial concerns of her wretched habitation ?"

"Has she then repined at the change?"

"Repined! she has been nothing but sweetness and good humor. Indeed, she seems in better spirits than I have ever

known her; she has been to me all love, and tenderness, and comfort!"

"Admirable girl!" exclaimed I. "You call yourself poor, my friend; you never were so rich-you never knew the boundless treasure of excellence you possessed in that woman.

"Oh! but my friend, if this first meeting at the cottage were over, I think I could then be comfortab.e. But this is her first day of real experience; she has been introduced into an humble dwelling-she has been employed a. day in arranging its miserable equipments-she has, for the first time, known the fatigues of domestic employment-she has, for the first time, looked round her on a home destitute of every thing elegant, almost of every thing convenient; and may now be sitting down, exhausted and spiritless, brooding over a prospect of future poverty."

There was a degree of probability in this picture that I could not gainsay, so we walked on in silence.

After turning from the main road up a narrow lane, so thickly shaded with forest trees as to give it a complete air of seclusion, we came in sight of the cottage. It was humble enough in its appearance for the most pastoral poet; and yet it had a pleasing rural look. A wild vine had overrun one end with a profusion of foliage; a few trees threw their branches gracefully over it; and I observed several pots of flowers tastefully disposed about the door and on the grass-plat in front. A small wicket gate opened upon a footpath that wound through some shrubbery at the door. Just as we approached, we heard the sound of music--Leslie grasped my arm; we paused and listened. It was Mary's voice, singing, in a style of the most touching simplicity, a little air of which her husband was peculiarly fond.

I felt Leslie's hand tremble on my arm. He stepped forward to hear more distinctly. His step made a noise on the gravel walk. A bright, beautiful face glanced out at the window and vanished a light footstep was heard-and Mary came tripping forth to meet us; she was in a pretty rural dress of white; a few wild flowers were twisted in her fine hair; a fresh bloom was on her cheek; her whole countenance beamed with smiles -I had never seen her look so lovely.

"My dear George," cried she, "I am so glad you are come! I have been watching and watching for you, and running down the lane and looking out for you. I've set out a table under a beautiful tree behind the cottage; and I've been gathering some

of the most delicious strawberries, for I know you are fond of them and we have such excellent cream-and we have every thing so sweet and still here. Oh!" said she, putting her arm within his and looking up brightly in his face, "oh, we shall be so happy!"

Poor Leslie was overcome. He caught her to his bosomhe folded his arms round her-he kissed her again and again— he could not speak, but the tears gushed into his eyes; and he has often assured me that though the world has since gone prosperously with him, and his life has indeed been a happy one, yet never has he experienced a moment of more exquisite felicity.

MONUMENT MOUNTAIN-WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

Thou who wouldst see the lovely and the wild

Mingled in harmony on Nature's face,

Ascend our rocky mountains. Let thy foot
Fail not with weariness, for on their tops

The beauty and the majesty of earth,

Spread wide beneath, shall make thee to forget

The steep and toilsome way. There, as thou stand'st,
The haunts of men below thee, and around

The mountain summits, thy expanding heart
Shall feel a kindred with that loftier world

To which thou art translated, and partake

The enlargement of thy vision. Thou shalt look
Upon the green and rolling forest tops,

And down into the secrets of the glens,

And streams, that with their bordering thickets strive
To hide their windings. Thou shalt gaze, at once,

Here on white villages, and tilth, and herds,
And swarming roads, and there on solitudes
That only hear the torrent, and the wind,

And eagle's shriek. There is a precipice
That seems a fragment of some mighty wall,
Built by the hand that fashioned the old world,

To separate its nations, and thrown down

When the flood drowned them. To the north, a path
Conducts you up the narrow battlement.
Steep is the western side, shaggy and wild
With mossy trees, and pinnacles of flint,
And many a hanging crag. But, to the east,

Sheer to the vale go down the bare old cliffs,—
Huge pillars, that in middle heaven upbear
Their weather-beaten capitals, here dark

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With the thick moss of centuries, and there
Of chalky whiteness, where the thunderbolt
Has splintered them. It is a fearful thing
To stand upon the beetling verge, and see
Where storm and lightning, from that huge gray wall,
Have tumbled down vast blocks, and at the base
Dashed them in fragments, and to lay thine ear
Over the dizzy depth, and hear the sound

Of winds, that struggle with the woods below,
Come up like ocean murmurs. But the scene
Is lovely round; a beautiful river there
Wanders amid the fresh and fertile meads,
The paradise he made unto himself,
Mining the soil for ages. On each side
The fields swell upward to the hills; beyond,
Above the hills, in the blue distance, rise

The mighty columns with which earth props heaven.
There is a tale about these gray old rocks,

A sad tradition of unhappy love,

And sorrows borne and ended, long ago,

When over these fair vales the savage sought

His game in the thick woods. There was a maid,
The fairest of the Indian maids, bright-eyed,
With wealth of raven tresses, a light form,
And a gay heart. About her cabin door
The wide old woods resounded with her song
And fairy laughter all the summer day.
She loved her cousin; such a love was deemed,
By the morality of those stern tribes,

Too near of kin, and she struggled hard and long
Against her love, and reasoned with her heart,
As simple Indian maiden might. In vain.
Then her eye lost its lustre, and her step
Its lightness, and the gray old men that passed
Her dwelling, wondered that they heard no more
The accustomed song and laugh of her, whose looks
Were like the cheerful smile of Spring, they said
Upon the Winter of their age. She went
To weep where no eye saw, and was not found
When all the merry girls were met to dance,
And all the hunters of the tribe were out;
Nor when they gathered from the rustling husk
The shining ear; nor when, by the river's side,
They pulled the grape and startled the wild shades
With sounds of mirth. The keen-eyed Indian dames
Would whisper to each other as they saw

Her wasting form, and say, the girl will die.
One day into the bosom of a friend,

A playmate of her young and innocent years,

She poured her griefs. Thou know'st, and thou alone,
She said, for I have told thee, all my love,

And guilt, and sorrow. I am sick of life.
All night I weep in darkness, and the morn

Glares on me as upon a thing accursed,
That has no business on the earth. I hate
The pastimes and the pleasant toils that once
I loved; the cheerful voices of my friends
Have an unnatural horror in mine ear.
In dreams my mother, from the land of souls,
Calls me and chides me. All that look on me
Do seem to know my shame; I cannot bear
Their eyes; I cannot from my heart root out
The love that wrings it so, and I must die.

It was a Summer morning, and they went
To this old precipice. About the cliffs
Lay garlands, ears of maize and shaggy skins
Of wolf and bear, the offerings of the tribe
Here made to the Great Spirit, for they deemed,
Like worshipers of the elder time, that God
Doth walk on the high places, and affect
The earth-o'erlooking mountains. She had on
The ornaments with which her father loved
To deck the beauty of his bright-eyed girl,
And bade her wear when stranger warriors came
To be his guests. Here the friends sat them down
And sang, all day, old songs of love and death,
And decked the poor wan victim's hair with flowers,
And prayed that safe and swift might be her way
To the calm world of sunshine, where no grief
Makes the heart heavy and the eyelids red.
Beautiful lay the region of her tribe
Below her-waters resting in the embrace
Of the wide forest, and maize-planted glades
Opening amid the leafy wilderness.

She gazed upon it long, and at the sight

Of her own village peeping through the trees,
And her own dwelling, and the cabin roof
Of him she loved with an unlawful love,
And came to die for, a warm gush of tears

Ran from her eyes. But when the sun grew low

And the hill shadows long, she threw herself

From the steep rock and perished. There was scooped, Upon the mountain's southern slope, a grave;

And there they laid her, in the very garb

With which the maiden decked herself for death,
With the same withering wild flowers in her hair.
And o'er the mould that covered her, the tribe

Built up a single monument, a cone

Of small, loose stones. Thenceforward, all who passed,
Hunter, and dame, and virgin, laid a stone
In silence on the pile. It stands there yet.
And Indians from the distant West, who come
To visit where their fathers' bones are laid,
Yet tell the sorrowful tale, and to this day
The mountain where the hapless maiden died
Is called the Mountain of the Monument.

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