which she often carried over the rough us we saw the pale pink light from a chalk places, or setting out our afternoon's lunch cliff, against which the ray of the sun, from my wallet. Often she would sit near which was now quite low in the sky, was me and ask what was the name of this and shining. However, just such a gutter' as I that stone, and why this and that flower have been describing, went from the spot would only grow in the shade. Thus, in where. we were standing to the cliff. I the course of time, what was at first only was a little frightened and looked round courtesy toward me, became her pleasure for my.companion; but she seemed to be and delight-indeed she became stronger. quite rejoiced at the discovery of this confor as the sun ripens the flowers, berries nection, and we went about to examine and fruits of the forest, so it was also with whether the gutter was in good condition, her, until her lips and cheeks glowed like and could bear two persons. That it bad a child's, and she could follow me with been but recently used we could see from the heavy alpine shoes, which I had had the plain traces of wood which had been made for her, on the high mountain up to felled and carried off, (at the point where the margin of the ice, and could look down it was fastened to the rock); for the trough in transport upon the regions where hu had been recently rubbed, and the blocks man beings earry on their occupations, of and poles were still lying about, with which which no sign could reach our eyes. the logs are usually rolled along, and the highly delighted, and so was she. very foot prints which had enticed us no doubt fated to be so, in order that all down into the bed of the rubble, seemed to proceed from the same cause. Just at might be fulfilled. Do you know what is the moment, while we were considering called among the high mountains a woods. the matter, we heard a noise from a side canal? You can hardly know what it is, ditch, the existence of which we had not because it is not used here where there previously observed, a crackling and breakare only broad, gentle slopes. It is a guting, as of footsteps-and sure enough, after made of trees, in which the wood ter a few seconds, a man came forth, whom which has been felled is carried down our first glance recognized as one of those sometimes with water, sometimes without. wood-cutters, who carry on their laborious Sometimes they are fastened to the ground, occupation in the mountains. He carried and so run down the mountains, sometimes hand he had his climbing irons, which he a leather bag and a cooking dish; in his had taken off, and his mountain staff, which has a long shaft and at the top of it an iron point with a barb. He was frighten

I was

It was

they are extended like bridges over valley and defiles, and they can be filled at pleasure with snow water, so that the logs may be pushed on. One very fine September day, my wife begged me to take her with me to the mountains again; for she had at last borne me a child, a little daughter, and had remained with her three years at home. I granted her wish joyfully; she got ready, and the same day we had been so high up that she could pluck a few sprigs of edelweis and stick them in her bonnet. On our return home, we went

ed when he saw us, because he did not
But I

expect to find human beings here.
told him that we had lost our way, and
that we should like very much to know
whether the gutter was passable and could
serve two persons as a bridge. 'Of course
it will do,' he answered; 'a moment ago
all my comrades, five in number, passed

some distance astray, for the similarity of over; I was forced to turn back, because I had forgotten the dish at our fire. They are waiting on the cliff for me. You will hear them immediately.' After these words he gave a cry in the high tone of the mountain halloo, and they answered from the other side, so that the echoes rang again. The effect was almost beautiful, especially as the evening was gathering around us. I now proposed that we should go all three

the cliffs and the defiles misled us. We descended into the rubble of a sand-bed, which was entirely strange to us, and we did not know whether it would lead us into the valley or stop short at a precipice, and leave us there. The latter was really the case; for as we were turning round a rock, we saw suddenly an atmosphere blue before us; the path stopped, and opposite

of us together over the channel. He consented and said that we had better put the lady in the middle. He then placed the alpine staff, so that I held it before and he behind, and my wife held on to it, as if to a railing. She insisted on carrying the little dog herself. So we went upon the bridge which looked in the evening twilight like a mere line. I heard, as we were walking on the logs, only his steps with his hobnailed shoes; her's I did not hear. When we were still a short distance from the end of the gutter, the wood-cutter said, in a low voice, sit down,' at the same moment I felt that the staff became lighter in my hand-I looked suddenly around and think of it! I saw him alone. A horrible thought came to my mind, but I knew nothing more, my feet ceased that moment to feel the ground. The firs vibrated up and down like the lights in a chandelier and then I knew nothing

more."

Here the colonel stopped speaking and kept silent awhile. I thought at first that he only wished to compose himself, but when I looked at him more closely, I saw in the dim light, that tears were coursing over his white beard, and that he kept very quiet, so that I could not observe it. My heart was full, and I too could not say a word, but now I knew why he had let down the curtains. I would not disturb the modesty of the old man, and did not look at him. After awhile he passed his coat sleeve over his face and beard, and then continued his narrative calmly.

from my swoon, I demanded, passionately, to descend into the abyss; for I could not imagine that she was dead, and thought, who knows-perhaps her consciousness has returned, and she is just beginning to die.' But meanwhile night had come on, I found myself lying by a large fire, and several wood-cutters were standing and sitting round me. By my entreaties and my promises, still more, however, by my commencing to clamber down in the dark, they were moved to make the attempt to pass down over the cliff. Wood-cutters from other places had come up, for this was a sort of rendezvous, and they sat by the fire, warming themselves and listening to what had taken place. One recollected this way, another that by which it must be possible to get down, but it was still impossible, and the whole night was spent in fruitless endeavours. At last, after I had looked a thousand times to the hea vens, the trembling stars grew pale, and the faint grey of morning was in the air. Now that we could see better, we really succeeded, by the aid of ropes and poles, in getting down to the bottom. But we did not find the spot at first, and it was not until the sun was shining almost straight down into the valley, that we discovered her. There lay a heap of white garments near a juniper bush, and under them were the mangled limbs. It was impossible: from such a height no human being can fall and retain even a breath of life. The gutter hovered above us as thin We came nearer,

"She lay below crushed. Silently sac- as a straw to our view. rificing herself, as was her wont, without and just think, the little dog was sitting one sound, lest she might bring me into upon the clothes, alive and almost unindanger; she had plunged downwards. jured. My wife had probably held it up Not even the wood-cutter had guessed her during her fall and thus saved it. But it situation, until she let go the railing and must have become mad during the night, commenced to clutch at the air with her for it looked around with terror in its eyes, hand. Then he called to her to sit down, and bit at me when I approached the but it was too late. Something like a clothes. I suffered one of the wood-cutwhite cloth, he said, had passed before histers to shoot it, because I was forced to eyes, and then he saw me alone. I, too, leave my wife soon, although I wished to tottered before his eyes, and should like- save the little animal. He held the gun wise have fallen, had he not given me a obliquely, so that he might not touch the push by which I was thrown the few re- corpse, and the little dog fell with scarce maining steps forward, and so fell at the a motion of a paw. I now stooped down end of the gutter, among the wood which and tore off the white boddice, she had on, lay there, and which had been brought but her shoulder was already cold, and over during the day. When I awoke again her breast was as cold as ice. O sir, you,

cannot measure that-no! You do not yet) in the sky, and the only light which enknow what it is, when the body which has tered the room was a soft rose-light; and been so long your heart's own, still has on the clothes which you handed to it in the morning, and is now dead, and can do no more than beg you innocently to bury it." Here the Colonel paused again, and then

continued:

"And so we did. Through the place where the brook had its narrow issue, I bad her brought out of the valley, and ar rive towards noon at my house. Rumor had already spread abroad the mishap. Severa: persons were standing on the street where I lived, and good friends tried to put me in a carriage and bring me away, until all was over. But I thought that that was contrary to wedded troth, and I remained by her. It was not until the women came to wash and shroud her, I left the body and passed by the servants' hall into the room towards the garden where my child was. I took the little girl by the land, led her by the back way into the street, put her in a carriage, which my friends had ordered up, and had her carried to an acquaintance at a distance; that the child might not see what was taking place, and recall the scene at some future day. When they called me, I went back into the room where the people were

collected, and took a seat. She lay in her white dress upon her bed, and the carpenter folded up his black rule and went out.

Towards evening the coffin came, which, singular to say, had been found readymade of the right measure, and they laid her in her long and narrow resting place. When, by degrees, the curious had depart ed with the rest, and I was almost alone, I went up to her, folded her hands differently from the way in which the women had done it, and laid some of her pet flowers, which were still standing there, around her pure, motionless head, Then I sat down, and kept my seat. Hours and hours passed by. I thought of the old nation of the Egyptians, how they em balmed their dead, and why they did it. I did not have any wax tapers lighted in her room, and no black hangings put up, but the windows were open, and fresh air poured in. On the first evening there was a multitude of beautiful lamb-like clouds

VOL. XXXVIII-19

at night, when the lamp was burning, there were white roses on her furniture and her clothes, and when those in the side chamber beyond kept quiet and prayed, because they were afrald of the corpse, I settled her pillow,because her face began to fall towards one side. The second morning she was buried. The bearers came, and I went with them. A crowd was standing in the church-yard, and the her in the ground, and threw clods upon parson addressed them. They then put her. When everything was over, and a strange vacuous atmosphere rolled over the old woods behind the houses, I tried to go home. On the fields sloping towards the hazel trees they were plowing and sowing the winter grain. I went through the garden where the autumn leaves were falling, into the quiet, quiet house. In the room the trestles were standing in the same order in which they bore the coffin, but she was not there. I seated myself in a corner, and remained seated. By the window stood her work-table still, and I did not open the covers of our chests. 'How many spurious, contemptible things,' thought I, the world will present to my eyes only her, only her no more.' And as it continued quiet so long, so very long,

and the servants, from respect to me, talked in low whispers without, the door was opened awkwardly, and my little daughter came in, who had returned an

hour before, and had not ventured to leave her chamber. The bud of the rose which had just been buried was upon her mouth, and the eyes of her mother were in her head. And as she came forward timidly, and saw me sitting there so, she asked, Where is mother?' I said her mother had gone that morning early to her father, and would not return for a right long, long time. When she tried to control herself at my bidding, as she had been accustomed to do, and yet the faint lines of weeping would draw together on her little face, I snatched her to me and wept myself nearly to death. Then the sun shone as it does every day, and the grain that they had tilled in the autumn, grew; the brooks ran through the valleys-only she alone was gone. And as I contended

during that season with God, I found nothing left me except to make the firm determination to become as good as she was, and to act as she would act, were she still alive. Look ye, Doctor, I imagined at that time that God needed an angel in heaven, and a good man on earth-and hence it was ordained that she must die.

WATCHING AND WISHING.

BY CHARLOTTE BRONTE.

Oh! would I were the golden light
That shines around thee now,
As slumber shades the spotless white
Of that unclouded brow!

It

watches through each changeful dream
Thy features' varied play;

It meets thy waking eyes' soft gleam
By dawn-by op'ning day."

Above thy couch of snow,

To dye that cheek so soft, so pale,

I had a white block of marble placed on
her grave, on which stood her name, the
place of her birth, and her age. Then I
remained a long time in that region, but
the mountains and I were no longer in
sympathy, and the paths about the mea-Oh! would I were the crimson veil
dow hights were so bare that I took my
child and went away with her into the
world. I went to various places, and at
each one I tried to make my little daugh-
ter learn by degrees what would be good
for her. I forgot to tell you that my bro
ther had written to me before, that I must
come to him, because he was so sick that
be could not undertake the journey to me,
and that he had to speak to me about very
necessary and important matters." I went
to him, when I gave up my house, and for!
the first time since our father's death 1I
saw the hights about the castle, and the
willows by the brook. He acknowledged A flower, a bird, for sympathy,

to me that he had defrauded me, and said
he would now willingly make it good with
that which was left. I did not avenge
myself. He stood in the hall before me-
a man touched by the finger of death. I
did not reproach him, but took from the
ruins of the property, the accounts of
which he showed me, the smallest portion
that my duty towards my daughter al-
lowed, so that I might not withdraw it]
from his poor son, whom his wife, who
still resided in the castle, had borne him.
And then I drove away with my daughter,
in a peasants' car, over the bridge of the

castle-moat, and heard for the last time

the clock of the tower as it struck four in the afternoon. No other event marks the rest of my life. After some time, I came into this valley, which pleased me very 'much, and I remained here because there is such a beautiful primitive forest here, in which much can be done and much regulated, and because a nature which 'can be bridled and tamed into friendliness is the most beautiful thing on earth.

With my reflected glow!
Oh! would I were the cord of gold
Whose tassel, set with pearls,
Just meets the silken cov'ring's fold,
And rests upon thy curls,

Dishevell'd in thy rosy sleep,

And shading soft thy dreams:
Across their bright and raven sweep
The golden tassel gleams!
would be anything for thee,
My love-my radiant love-

A watchful star above.

From All the Year Round.

A HORRIBLE REFLEXION.

I did not at all like the face of that grinning Italian boy, who came up to the omnibus door, and sold me this cheap

looking-glass, a foolish gimcrackery sort of article, which, when it is shut up, looks like a broad, flat, tin watch, and which, when it is open, is to stand on the table, and reflect my chin to me during the pro cess of shaving. Why did I buy the trum pery! I'm sure I don't know. I have plenty of mirrors in my own house, and I do not at present contemplate any emer gency that would cause me to shave with my glass upon the table. Indeed, I never shave myself at all, but invariably employ a barber.

Some purchases are only made under the influence of a certain mania for dis .7

bursement, which may be reckoned in my possession than in that of the illamong the most essential qualities of hu- favored Italian. man nature. Who in the world ever I became dozy under these reflections, dreams of using a knife, with a handle which, goodness knows, are dull enough upwards of an inch thick, and half a to justify any amount of sleepiness, when dozen blades, including a corkscrew? No I am suddenly wakened up by a most exone yet such articles are constantly traordinary circumstance-yes, by somebought, or they would not be constantly thing really harrowing.

manufactured. Machines for damping Idly glancing at the trumpery glass post-office stamps, for depriving eigars of which I held in my hand, I perceived that their curly tails, for curiously igniting ta- the face it reflects is not my own! A pers, are invented every year, and are man may fairly set a just value on his own bought by persons who are thoroughly

aware that nature has provided man with the simplest and most efficient means for wetting stamps and nipping cigars, and that no instrument devised for the purpose of speedy ignition is superior to the common Incifer, or the more delicate Vesta. They know the old plans, and in the depths of their hearts intend to abide by them, yet they wantonly patronize innovations that are no improvement."

merits, without incurring the suspicion of vanity. Goethe once declared, that if on the one hand he considered himself far inferior to Shakspeare, he deemed himself, on the other hand, better than Ludwig Tieck. In a similar spirit I affirm that,

if I am a trifle less handsome than Hube t than the face which is reflected in the Binsdale, I am infinitely better looking cheap glass.

Have I bought a picture instead of a glass? No! I screw up my delicatelychiselled nose, and make a grimace at it; with its tough-hewn proboscis, it returns the compliment. I wink at it with, I am sure, the most refined insinuation of shrewdness; it returns the wink with a repulsively knowing air, as if it invited me to take part in a burglary. Ugly, incorrect, abominable as it is, the face is still no pictured physiognomy, but really and truly a reflexion of my own.

Children, with the exception of a few precocious, inisers, are habitually under the influence of the disbursing mania. According to a proverbial expression, their money "burns a hole in their pockets," a phrase doubtless invented by some closefisted philosopher, who, regarding avarice as essential to humanity, attributed the rapid separation of children and their money, not to a prodigal instinct in the opulent juvenile, but to a disposition in the coin itself to escape from the narrow Ah, there are articles called cylindrical pocket-a disposition perfectly consistent looking glasses, which, like the inside of a with its character as a circulating medium. tablespoon, confer, ridiculous length or When I look at the rubbish in my hand, breadth on the countenance they reflect. which it would be flattery to call a bauble, I recollect that on one occasion, when I but which is too useless to be called any was at a public dinner, extremely angry thing else, I am inclined to think that the and discomposed at the tardy appearance doctrine implied by the close-fisted phi- of the viands, I saw my own face in the losopher was not altogether absurd. It opposite tablespoon, grinning with idiotic cost me sixpence, and most assuredly six-delight. Cylindrical looking-glasses propence could not have been so expended as duce these distortions much more effito have procured à smaller amount of en-ciently than tablespoons; but they don't joyment than this wretched machine will change the color of the hair, the eyes, the afford. Shall I say, then, that I bought it, complexion, like this thing in my hand. not because I wanted it (which I certainly Decidedly it is not a cylindrical lookingdid not), but because the sixpence longed glass. poly to get out of my pocket, and seized on the The omnibus stops at New Fangle Vil first available means of escape? I don't la, where I am to dine. I slip the hateful know; I feel humiliated when I fancy commodity into my pocket, pay my fare, that the coin would less willingly remain and, after the usual preliminaries, enter

!