523 mously, but for the disarrangement in the affairs of his publishers, Messrs. Constable and Co., involving in the exposure of their accountbooks the disclosure of Scott's humorously guarded secret. It is pleasant to be able to claim Jeanie Deans as one of ourselves-to know that the truest charm in the "Heart of Mid-Lothian" was drawn from the life. Mannering," once verily live among the Cheviot is being constantly demonstrated, that fact gen- His excuse for not rewarding the and with other pleasant things of this world, inhigh-souled Rebecca with the love of Ivanhoe, stead of lavishing such good fortune wholly upon Rowena, is twofold and adroit, exhibitive of Scott's tact. The grave of Helen Walker, the original of from the strictly Scottish interest and character Jeanie Deans, lies in the "church-yard of Iron-in romance. gray, about six miles from Dumfries." had a sister condemned to death for infanticide, She and actually refused to tell the lie by which that dear young sister's life might be saved; but, the fatal verdict given, Helen made haste to the queen, traveling wearily on foot, armed only with a clumsy petition, received the grace she craved, and returned just in sufficient season. trine to teach young persons-the most common He says, "It is a dangerous and fatal docIt is this incident that is wrought so effect- and of principle is either naturally allied with, readers of romance-that rectitude of conduct ively in the "Heart of Mid-Lothian." The dark or adequately rewarded by, the attainment of climax of the "Bride of Lammermoor" is also our wishes ;" and to the universal sympathy for founded upon tragic events that really happen- Rebecca replies, "The internal consciousness ed in a Scottish family of rank. Meg Merrilies, the very weird salience of "Guy | her "a more adequate recompense in the form So also did of high-minded discharge of duty" produced for of that peace which the world can not give or take away." Full of suggestion as is the life of Scott-essentially the life of a man as well as the career of an author-it perhaps contains nothing more valuable than its lessons of honesty and sturdy industry. In some particulars of these qualities it is scarcely equaled, and one noble instance of both is worthy special citation. In the distressing commercial crisis of 182526 it was found that, including the Constable engagements, Scott, under the commercial denomination of James Ballantyne and Co., owed £117,000! He acknowledged or assumed the whole responsibility of this enormous debt, asked only for time, and in four years had realized for his creditors, from his literary efforts, £75,000! Never before or since was such a sum so earned. It was a stalwart honesty: and this the while calamity upon calamity broke over him in continuous waves. In his own words-brave words and sad-"the plow was nearing the end of the furrow." Of this time Bulwer, less rugged than Carlyle, movingly writes: "His own health gave way, and ominous signs and warnings of its predestined ruin came to terrify the giant intellect that did not in effect long survive the fortunes of which it had been the Titan piler. The state and pomp of Abbotsford vanished. He who had so dieted on the admiration became the pity of the world. His wife died; death darkened round his hearth." Yet he did the work, even while the groping came upon him. Such victorious integrity hides in its own glory the sad physical suffering and total mental decline of his last days. His life was literally spent. There was, therefore, a grandeur even in such a close. So lived and wrought and passed away a thorough, honest gentleman. HARP OF THE NORTH. Wrought on the bosom of a captive beam. Her heavenly dream upon enchanted air, The vision changed; the scene remained the same, In lambent colors, seemed to flow and quiver. The floating gossamer of earthly vales, THE MINSTREL'S LAY. Love is the loveliest thing in heaven; And win me to its festal hour. My nation's fond remembrance tells. Scarce did I think the simple song Mine earthly pilgrimage again; More weak my hold of heav'n is growing; Still running fast by Cambusmore, To plunge in pearls 'neath Bracklinn's bridge. The laughters of a hundred rills The Ettrick than its "Shepherd's" song. O bonny Scotland! cliff and glen Or left, lang syne, the toilsome desk Still does the mirth of Scottish bell And my brief hour with thee is o'er. The distant ripples of the Tweed- As if the latest breath the minstrel drew With music had inspired its quiv'ring frame, Melodious shudderings shook the harp-strings through, And softly gave the spirit-minstrel's name. Then shining Harp and landscape spreading bright, Slow-fading dream of beauty, slid from view, And but a cloud of softest golden light Rode far and lightly in the northern blue. IT THE ANGEL OF THE HOUSE. T was drawing toward the early close of a pleasant winter's day when, at the high garret window of a small but respectable-looking tenement-house in an obscure portion of one of our great cities, a fair young girl sat diligently reading. The window at which she sat commanded but a very limited view, and that mostly of blank brick walls or slated roofs, where swallows and pigeons were the only wayfarers; but yet, as the red beams of the rapidly descending sun crept high and higher up the naked walls which bounded the prospect, the child looked up eagerly from time to time, as if questioning hungrily how much more of daylight was still accorded to her studies; and then, edging closer and closer to the dim, patched casement, devoted herself still more earnestly to the wellworn book which lay reposing upon her lap; or, occasionally lost in seeming reverie, resting her cheek upon her hand, and gazing with unseeing eyes across the clean but very humble apartment, she seemed striving to fix the sense of what she read firmly upon her memory, or to fix in her mind the impression which she had received; and then, again resuming her studies, she seemed to give her whole concentrated attention to them. I have, almost unconsciously, called my little heroine a child; but she was, in fact, a girl of sixteen or seventeen years. But there was something so child-like and innocent in the seraphic purity of her face, such a look of Edenlike freshness and spirituality about her, that the mistake was often made; and even by those who had known her from early youth she was often and usually spoken of as "the child.” With a slight, girlish figure, graceful and natural in all its motions as is the young gazelle; a face whose every feature, faultless and pure, had the statue-like perfection of marble, yet warmed and made softly human by a faint rosy tinge of life and health; with large, calmly smiling eyes that were fearless in their very unconsciousness of evil; with a mouth whose tender, perfect sweetness was to a smile what the unfolding rose-bud is to the rose-there was linked an indefinable something that awed while it won, and made the gazer doubt if it was love, admiration, or reverence that her look called forth. It was softly pensive, yet not sad; questioning, yet intelligent. You will know what I mean, for you have seen that look, O ye sorrowing but enviable earthly mothers of glorified angels!-ye who, "Fearfully striving with Heaven in vain," have seen the fairest lamb of all your flock borne away in the arms of the "Good Shepherd," and have folded your own in desolate emptiness above your aching hearts. You know that look, for you have seen the rapt, earnest, far-away, wistful gaze, as if the dear one at your side or upon your knee was looking, like Stephen, "straight up into heaven, and beheld the glory of the Lord." You have seen that look come and go, with its mysterious, fearful, solemn beauty, even before fatal sickness had marked out its glorious victims; and have felt, with trembling awe, that the young spirit of your child was holding communion with pure intelligences, akin to them, that you could not reach; that an invisible, impalpable veil was dropped suddenly between your darlings and you; that their purer vision saw heavenly glories, their finer hearing caught celestial harmonies, which your duller material senses failed to comprehend. These are they of whom mothers are wont to say, tearfully, "They were too good, too pure, for earth-too beautiful to live!" Commonplace words, perhaps, they may be; and hackneyed, perhaps, to the ear of the unsympathizing listener; yet only commonplace and hackneyed because they are the most adequate expression of a sentiment which maternity can give utterance to in no better language. Even as the last beams of the red sunset faded from the room the door was suddenly flung open, and a beautiful boy of possibly six years of age burst headlong into the room, all flushed and breathless, and bounded to the girl's side. It was evident that the two children were own brother and sister, for they were wonderfully alike; and yet they were as strangely unlike. And while there was, in every feature, a which, if gained and followed up, would have given him an ample living. But Clement, with the not uncommon vanity of those who have never earned a dollar, wholly overrated his own abilities, and rejected all his father-in-law's overtures as quite beneath the acceptance of a man of his talents. likeness which at once puzzled and perplexed | est procured for Clement offers of employment, the observer's eye, it was strange to notice how adventitious circumstances had so moulded the original type in which the two faces had been cast that their dissimilarity was almost as noticeable as their resemblance; for while they were equally beautiful, the girl was all spiritual -"of the heavens, heavenly ;" and the boy, though beautiful as the infant Cupid, was all of earth, earthly-a creature sparkling with life and fun and action, with restless radiant eyes, and rosy dimpling cheeks, and crisp bright curls, and fresh red lips, bubbling over with laugh and song and prattle. "I am worth more than that, Elise," he would say to his anxious but trusting wife; "talent should command its price; and when I can obtain a fair equivalent for my services, I am willing to give them; but I will not stoop to receive such a miserable pittance as that." At last, wearied by the supervision and im Possibly something in the earlier family history may serve to give a clew to these peculiar-portunity of M. De Morelle, the bright idea ities. Let us go back a little. The mother of the two children, Elise de Morelle, a young and beautiful French girl, the only child of a retired French officer of good family but limited income, had been attracted by a young American of pleasing exterior, whose business in France beyond the amusement of his leisure hours and the expenditure of a rapidly diminishing patrimony did not transpire. dawned upon Clement of returning to his own country; he could, he said, of course, do better in America, where he was more known, and his own family connections were bound to put him in the way to succeed. M. De Morelle expostulated and reasoned and pleaded in vain; Clement was obstinate, as weak-minded persons generally are; and proud, moreover, of his entire authority over his helpless wife and child; and, gathering what little property he still held together, he came to America. But it is needless to say that his expectations (if, indeed, he ever really had any) were not fulfilled. He found no more congenial employment here than had offered in France; and as the steps from doing nothing to doing worse are very short and easy ones, Clement soon became habitually intemperate, thus adding to their expenses, and at the same time throwing all the burden of their maintenance upon the poor overtasked wife, who still loved him, partly from force of habit, and partly because he had never fallen so low as to cease to treat her with respect and tenderness, always addressing her in the language of the most romantic love and devotion, which rung hollow to all other ears than hers, when pitifully contrasted with the heavy burdens he was daily suffering her to bear unaided. The father of Elise did not favor the attachment of his child, but was too weakly indulgent to oppose it, as his own better judgment warned him to do. Love is said to be blind; but in this case he saw too much; for under his spell the inexperienced and ardent girl saw in her lover qualities which did not exist, and, deaf to all reasoning and remonstrance, wrung from her father an unwilling consent to the marriage. It took place; and as Clement, who was constitutionally too indolent to assume any thing he did not feel, really loved the woman he had married, while his narrowing means still sufficed for their simple household expenses there was a year or two of love and happiness. It was during this short halcyon period that their first child, Angeline, was born; and it seemed as if in her person and character were expressed and intensified all the poetry and romance of her mother's glowing and enthusiastic nature. She was the beautiful living type of the calm It was at this period of their early life in fullness of content and beatitude in which for America that their second child, the little Rothat too short period her mother's life flowed on. dolph, was born; "Young America" in every But there came an awakening from this sweet nerve of his quick, impressible being; buoyant dream-a change to the fair picture of life; not in spirit, quick in comprehension, wide awake, a harsh and sudden transition; but as the too clear-sighted, warm-hearted, but hasty in temfreely spent patrimony dwindled away, and ex-per, loving his mother and sister with all his ertion became a necessity, it was evident, even warm little heart, but fraternizing far more to the young wife's love-lighted eyes, that with the boys in the streets. Clement was an idler by nature and habit. He had no gross faults; no heinous offenses shocked the morality of the father-in-law who watched, or offended the purity of the wife who loved him; but he was simply a cipher in existence, one of nature's butterflies! There was no rousing him up to action; but he was ever looking for some wonderful turn of fortune which should make action unnecessary. M. De Morelle came to the rescue, again and again, for his child's sake, and by his inter From the time of their arrival in this country the little family had sunk gradually in social position; yet still the patient wife toiled on, and strove to conceal from her father her worst causes of anxiety, until increasing difficulties made it imperative to write to him for aid. Then he came to her at once, and his presence had at least the power to check, in some degree, Clement's daily excesses. But even his utmost assistance, though freely given, could not avail to keep the little family |