E

2

in that heavenly light; beauteous eyes beamed their sweet and soft effulgence; and as through a shining veil, angel-wings did seem to play with the sun-light, and toss it to me in very wantonness.

And I beheld a tableau. There were three divisions; and one showed me a sitting figure a woman with a countenance blending gentleness and dignity, and worn with watching. One hand was pressed to her forehead, as if in pain; and with the other she held that of a man, whose head, with the face upward, rested in her lap. She was gazing anxiously on his worn features, and marking the slow and feeble pulsation that told of his waning powers. The features of both were noble, and their postures such as a Grecian sculptor would have conceived. Behind them towered threatening cliffs with their craggy peaks and the surrounding scenery wore a look of gloom, as if in sympathy with the sufferers.

And at a little distance I saw a fuller picture. The position of the two figures had changed somewhat, and there were many accessory ones. The man lay extended on a couch, his head raised upon a pillow, and around him clustered sorrowful-eyed friends. The one who had before appeared at his head was still there; but with face averted and clasped hands, her whole frame revealing the unutterable agony of her soul. Above appeared angel-faces, wondrous in their beauty, some saddened with a sorrowful sympathy, others radiant with loving anticipation. Upon these the eyes of the dying one were fixed earnestly, and his face, in its expression, seemed gradually to put off the earthly and to assume the heavenly, quickened by the touch-stone of a heaven so

near.

Glancing aside for a moment, I beheld a sight which filled me at once with awe and wonder and delight. The woman was alone, and still remained in the attitude last described; but above appeared the glorified form of the man, borne heavenward on angels' wings, and surrounded by a countless escort of shining ones. From a place of glory streamed the golden light upon this wondrous throng, and a ray, in passing, touched softly the brow of the grief-stricken mortal below. Oh! what a picture! As I saw it about to vanish, I mustered a strong inclination and turned away, that the whole might be preserved in my heart of hearts, in undiminished and transcendent beauty. I looked about me hopefully, but alas! earth seemed but cold and uninviting. I could then have died.

With thy permission, kind reader, I will here rest a little. True, I had thought to have given thee, with these, some scenes of a cheerfuller kind; but I have a feeling that some other time will serve me better. In the mean time, then, farewell.

ANOTHER PART.

FANCIES will at times possess me which, from their abruptness and their whimsical nature, I find it impossible to resist. That unfortunate personage who, wandering complacently along the banks of his unruffled simplicity, is the first to laugh at his own intolerable dulness, now comes within the remembrance of the satirical reader. Him,

then, I mean to rival, thanking HEAVEN men were made in various moulds, and that some are not so dull or base as to fail in the detecting or applauding of high merit, even in themselves.

The laughable conceit of a room-full of babies, will strike the unbiased reader as one of those happy thoughts which visit but rarely even the most highly favored among men. I own that for the first few ecstatic moments after this unequalled conception was revealed to me, I had much ado to believe myself human. Fortunately remembering the impropriety of laughter in heaven, Milton even failing to reconcile me to the absurdity of the idea, I came back to earth, and, I fear, laughed; yet with an inward and quiet laughter. You are laughing, friend, as you stand at the glass-door and behold the ridiculous sight. As two suspicious hens do view each the other, with mild and serious yet unquailing_aspect, so gaze that infant pair who have but now approximated. Just when each is about to test the actual presence of the other, the problem is solved by a third, who toddles up, and with the composure natural to his age, visits upon the heads of the combatants the chastisement they so richly merit. This avenger, in retiring a pace or two to view the result of his labors, and perhaps to indulge for a brief while in the self-gratulations which so great and good an act must inspire, falls backward over the 'prone' infant, who is just trailing past. If you have an ear,' listen to the harmony that ensues: note with what delicious 'unexpectedness' the ' parts come in,' and the obstinacy with which they decline going out. While thus pleasing one sense, look around and delight another. What a varied and kaleidoscopic scene! Watch the involutions, the convolutions, and the pulling of hair! The combat deepens. How various and manifold are the

voices of nature!

Know you, good friend, of a better way than this to keep eight infants out of mischief? Eight boxes are made. When the wondering wandering primitives are seated in these boxes, they are just able to hold their chins above the general level, and illustrate the beauties of the natural scale.' Shelled corn having been poured around the confined ones, tends greatly to diminish the freedom of their motions. Why do I say nothing of the appearance of these 'stationary engines?' Ah! already your imagination is feasting itself upon a scene at once so novel and so interesting. How pleasing the thought that these youths are settled so early in life! But hush! hark!

'A deep sound strikes like a rising knell!'

Nell, the matron, rises, strikes a bell, and in a voice deep as the sea, says: 'Feed!' She does not cry' Feed;' for it is a principle with her not to pander to the depraved tastes of her charge. Eight assistants appear in the distance, bearing basins of pap. They approach: they feed. The infants cannot swallow. The corn presses on their little abdomens. The awful truth bursts upon all the attendants at once. With one voice they utter an exclamation of horror, and with one hand overturn the boxes. The astonished infants emerge. A fine turn-out. They have become sadder and wiser beings. Instinctively each one is crying for his pap.

ONE night, having left the light a-burning, I got into bed, and turning my face to the wall, gazed at it steadily, in the hope at last to see slow Somnus stealing through. This is my way. When I feel him coming, I rise, put out the light, and sink easily into his arms. I had stared so steadily, and with such decided ill-success, my eyes began to pain me, and I closed them for relief. Instantly I saw a blue wall, then a yellow wall, then a blue and yellow wall, then a white wall with blue and yellow spots dancing over it; then these blue and yellow spots turned into little trembling worms, which at last stretched across the wall; then many of these fused into one immense serpent, which instantly devoured all that remained, and then, with a good-natured leer at me, formed itself into an oval,' through which I saw a landscape. Suddenly the serpent, with the view it inclosed, parted through the middle, as though the whole were a 'scene' in a theatre, and moving slowly to either hand, disclosed a village green, on which appeared a beautiful maiden. Her form was slight, and on her face there sat a troubled look. Soon an ill-favored, dark-featured man drew near, and with beseeching gesture seemed to accost her. She received him with averted face, and a motion as though she would press him away. Again he approached her, and again was he repulsed. Then turning, with a fearful scowl, he stalked away, his lips moving as though he muttered of vengeance. And when he had gone, like a shadow from the place, every thing looked bright again, and little lambs came gambolling about the beautiful lady, and licked her hand. Then a troop of fairies rose from the ground in a circle, she standing in the midst. Then they danced about her, going round and round, faster and faster, until at last nothing but a circle of white and blue could be seen. Then the blue and white changed to the color of blood, and the scenes' drew together. The serpent now gazed at me with a melancholy expression, moving his head slowly from side to side. Then, seeming to nerve himself for an extraordinary effort, he became rigid: and the scene once more parted. Horror! The lady was clinging to the brink of a rocky precipice, of awful depth, suspended only by her hands, and looking up, with an agony of terror depicted in her countenance, to where stood the man I had seen before, whose scowling expression seemed intensified into that of a fiend, as he endeavored, undeterred by her beseeching and agonized look, to force her fingers from their precarious tenure by means of a large stick, which he shoved with cruel force against them. Slowly they yielded, the nails splintering and starting away, and the blood flowing. At last, finding that from the energy of her deathgrasp, he progressed but slowly, he raised his awful weapon, and as the form of his miserable victim seemed to shrink within itself for very fear, the blow descended. Suddenly the scene drew together, and the murderer stood trembling just beneath the head of the serpent, whose eyes flashed with a newly-awakened and inextinguishable fury. Dropping his head close to that of his wretched prey, he threw back his ponderous jaws, and darting so quickly no eye could have followed him, swept the villain from the face of the earth.

A mist came up, and when it had in a measure passed away, I discovered the serpent passing through a series of the most surprising con

tortions, in company with several others of a like playful nature.
While they were thus frisking about, there descended, from some un-
known quarter, all the varieties of edibles in which snakes do delight.
First they contended for a rabbit, and in their playful eagerness to se-
cure the delicious morsel, appeared ready to swallow one another. At
last the original serpent gobbled it up. Then poultry, in its various
kinds, served a similar purpose, and met a similar fate.
The first ser-
pent was successful in these encounters, getting every thing which was
thrown, and also the infants, which followed. Then young men came
tumbling in, and successively failed to appease his extraordinary appe-
tite. As he was laboring with a large-framed man, old and tough, the
other serpents, grown jealous of his exclusive success, and ravenous at
the nearness of so rich a feast, seized the favorable moment and at-
tacked him in a body. Provoked that their lack of honor should be
greater even than their lack of luxuries, he swelled to ten times his
natural size, easily swallowing the tedious morsel, and after it, all of
his enemies.

Then gambolling playfully, as before, with the aid of his powerful tail, he suddenly sprang high in the air, and, coming down, remained fixed in the shape so admirably represented below.

THE WIGWAM O F KENDEE : AN INDIAN SONG.

BY D. W. O. ROBERTS.

THE fawn that trips the forest glade
Is not more light nor fair than she,
The young, the bright-eyed Indian maid,
Who lights the wigwam of KENDEE.

Not fairer does the violet bloom,

Not comelier does the grape-vine curl,
Than far amid the forest gloom,
Wanders the dark-eyed Indian girl.

She lights the wigwam of her sire,
And bravest warriors humbly woo,
That she may cheer their council-fire,
And light their gloomy wigwam too.

And happiest he of all his tribe,

And bravest of the braves must be,
Whose heart has proved the strongest bribe,
And robbed the wigwam of KENDEE,

་