SUNDAY.

"I think we are too ready with complaintIn this fair world of God's;"

and like her, I would utter to all the exhortation,

"Let us leave the shame and sinOf taking vainly, in a plaintive mood,The holy name of Grief!—holy herein,That, by the grief of One, came all our good."

But cheerfulness, so far from being incompatible with, seems to me inseparable from that true worship which is the best source of the Sabbath seriousness I am advocating.

The remarks of the preacher were quite in unison with these thoughts, and pleased me so much that, were it admissible, I should be delighted to dignify my pages with them. By a few vivid touches, in language simple, yet beautiful, he sketched for us the first Sabbath amidst the living springs and fadeless bloom and verdant shades of Paradise, when sinless man communed with his Maker and his Father, not through the poor symbols of a ceremonial worship, but face to face, as a man talketh with his friend. But all I would say of the Sabbath has been said a thousand times better than I could say it, by good George Herbert, whose words I am sure I need not apologize for introducing here.

O day most calm, most bright!The fruit of this, the next world's bud;Th' indorsement of supreme delight,Writ by a Friend, and with His blood;The couch of time; care's balm and bay:—The week were dark, but for thy light;Thy torch doth show the way.The other days and thouMake up one man; whose facethouart,Knocking at heaven with thy brow;The worky days are the back-part;The burden of the week lies there,Making the whole to stoop and bow,Till thy release appear.Man hath straight forward goneTo endless death. But thou dost pullAnd turn us round, to look on One,Whom, if we were not very dull,We could not choose but look on still;Since there is no place so alone,The which He doth not fill.Sundays the pillars areOn which heaven's palace arched lies:The other days fill up the spareAnd hollow room with vanities.They are the fruitful bed and borders,In God's rich garden; that is bare,Which parts their ranks and orders.The Sundays of man's life,Threaded together on time's string,Make bracelets to adorn the wifeOf the eternal, glorious King.On Sunday, heaven's gate stands ope;Blessings are plentiful and rife!More plentiful than hope.This day my Saviour rose,And did inclose this light for His:That, as each beast his manger knows,Man might not of his fodder miss.Christ hath took in this piece of ground,And made a garden there, for thoseWho want herbs for their wound.The Rest of our creation,Our great Redeemer did remove,With the same shake which, at his passion,Did th' earth, and all things with it, move.As Samson bore the doors away,Christ's hand's, though nailed, wrought our salvation,And did unhinge that day.The brightness of that dayWe sullied, by our foul offence;Wherefore that robe we cast away,Having a new at His expense,Whose drops of blood paid the full priceThat was required, to make us gay,And fit for paradise.Thou art a day of mirth:And, where the week-days trail on ground,Thy flight is higher, as thy birth.Oh, let me take thee at the bound,Leaping with thee from seven to seven;Till that we both, being toss'd from earth,Fly hand in hand to Heaven!

The other days and thouMake up one man; whose facethouart,Knocking at heaven with thy brow;The worky days are the back-part;The burden of the week lies there,Making the whole to stoop and bow,Till thy release appear.

Man hath straight forward goneTo endless death. But thou dost pullAnd turn us round, to look on One,Whom, if we were not very dull,We could not choose but look on still;Since there is no place so alone,The which He doth not fill.

Sundays the pillars areOn which heaven's palace arched lies:The other days fill up the spareAnd hollow room with vanities.They are the fruitful bed and borders,In God's rich garden; that is bare,Which parts their ranks and orders.

The Sundays of man's life,Threaded together on time's string,Make bracelets to adorn the wifeOf the eternal, glorious King.On Sunday, heaven's gate stands ope;Blessings are plentiful and rife!More plentiful than hope.

This day my Saviour rose,And did inclose this light for His:That, as each beast his manger knows,Man might not of his fodder miss.Christ hath took in this piece of ground,And made a garden there, for thoseWho want herbs for their wound.

The Rest of our creation,Our great Redeemer did remove,With the same shake which, at his passion,Did th' earth, and all things with it, move.As Samson bore the doors away,Christ's hand's, though nailed, wrought our salvation,And did unhinge that day.

The brightness of that dayWe sullied, by our foul offence;Wherefore that robe we cast away,Having a new at His expense,Whose drops of blood paid the full priceThat was required, to make us gay,And fit for paradise.

Thou art a day of mirth:And, where the week-days trail on ground,Thy flight is higher, as thy birth.Oh, let me take thee at the bound,Leaping with thee from seven to seven;Till that we both, being toss'd from earth,Fly hand in hand to Heaven!

It is the custom at Donaldson Manor to close the Sabbath evening with sacred music. Annie, at her father's request, played while we all sang his favorite evening hymn, which I here transcribe.

Father! by Thy love and power,Comes again the evening hour;Light hath vanish'd, labors cease,Weary creatures rest, in peace.Those, whose genial dews distilOn the lowliest weed that growsFather! guard our couch from ill,Lull thy creatures to repose.We to Thee ourselves resign,Let our latest thoughts be Thine.Saviour! to thy Father bearThis our feeble evening prayer;Thou hast seen how oft to-dayWe, like sheep, have gone astray;Worldly thoughts and thoughts of pride,Wishes to Thy cross untrue,Secret faults and undescriedMeet Thy spirit-piercing view.Blessed Saviour! yet, through Thee,Pray that these may pardon'd be.Holy Spirit! Breath of Balm!Breathe on us in evening's calm.Yet awhile before we sleep,We with Thee will vigils keep.Lead us on our sins to muse,Give us truest penitence,Then the love of God infuse,Kindling humblest confidence.Melt our spirits, mould our will,Soften, strengthen, comfort, still.Blessed Trinity! be nearThrough the hours of darkness drear.When the help of man is farYe more clearly present are.Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!Watch o'er our defenceless heads,Let your angels' guardian hostKeep all evil from our beds,Till the flood of morning raysWake as to a song of praise.[1]

Saviour! to thy Father bearThis our feeble evening prayer;Thou hast seen how oft to-dayWe, like sheep, have gone astray;Worldly thoughts and thoughts of pride,Wishes to Thy cross untrue,Secret faults and undescriedMeet Thy spirit-piercing view.Blessed Saviour! yet, through Thee,Pray that these may pardon'd be.

Holy Spirit! Breath of Balm!Breathe on us in evening's calm.Yet awhile before we sleep,We with Thee will vigils keep.Lead us on our sins to muse,Give us truest penitence,Then the love of God infuse,Kindling humblest confidence.Melt our spirits, mould our will,Soften, strengthen, comfort, still.

Blessed Trinity! be nearThrough the hours of darkness drear.When the help of man is farYe more clearly present are.Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!Watch o'er our defenceless heads,Let your angels' guardian hostKeep all evil from our beds,Till the flood of morning raysWake as to a song of praise.[1]

Mr. Arlington is a gem of the first water. He reveals every day some new trait of interest or agreeableness. I saw immediately that he was a man of fine taste; I have since learned to respect him as a man of enlarged intellect and earnest feeling; and now I am just beginning to discover that he is master of all thoseagrémenswhich constitute the charm of general society, and that he might become the "glass of fashion," if he had not a mind elevated too far above such a petty ambition. This last observation has been called forth by mere trifles, yet trifles so prettily shown, with such ease and grace, as to justify the conclusion. He is apt at illustration and application, and has a fine memory, stored brimfull of entertaining anecdotes, snatches of poetry, and those thousand nothings which tell for so much in society, and which it is so pleasant to find combined with much else that is valuable. A few evenings since, he kept Annie and me in the library, with his agreeable chat, till so late an hour, that Col. Donaldson, who is the least bit of a martinet in his own family, gave some very intelligible hints to us the next morning, at breakfast, on the value of early hours. With a readiness and grace which I never saw surpassed, Mr. Arlington turned to us with the exquisite apology of the poet for a like fault,

"I stay'd too late; forgive the crime;Unheeded flew the hours.Unnoted falls the foot of time,Which only treads on flowers."

This evening again, as he placed a candle-screen before Annie, who, having a headache, found the light oppressive, he said with a graceful mixture of play and earnest, impossible to describe,

"Ah, lady! if that taper's blazeRequires a screen to blunt its rays,What screen, not form'd by art divine,Shall shield us from those orbs of thine?"But oh! let nothing interveneOur hearts and those bright suns between;'Tis bliss, like the bewilder'd flyTo flutter round, though sure to die."

"Ah, lady! if that taper's blazeRequires a screen to blunt its rays,What screen, not form'd by art divine,Shall shield us from those orbs of thine?

"But oh! let nothing interveneOur hearts and those bright suns between;'Tis bliss, like the bewilder'd flyTo flutter round, though sure to die."

As the others were engaged in very earnest conversation at the time, and I was reading, he probably expected to be heard only by her to whom he addressed himself; but a little romance, such as that of Annie and Mr. Arlington, acted before me, interests me far more than any book, and I brought a bright blush to Annie's cheek and a conscious smile to his lip, by asking, "Where did you find those very apposite lines? I do not remember to have seen them."

"Probably not, as they have never been published. They were addressed by Anthony Bleecker, of New-York, to a belle of his day, and the lady for whose sake, it is whispered, he lived and died a bachelor."

Our colloquy was here interrupted by Robert Dudley, who wanted to know if we were to have no story this evening. Robert was a great lover of stories. "Ask Mr. Arlington, Robert," said I, "I have given three stories to his one already."

"Aunt Nancy," said Mr. Arlington, who had already begun to give me the affectionate cognomen by which I was always addressed at Donaldson Manor, "Aunt Nancy has stories without number, written and ready for demand, but my portfolio furnishes only rude pencilings, or at best a crayon sketch."

"Will you show them to us, Mr. Arlington?" asked the persevering Robert, who stood beside him, portfolio in hand. "May I draw one out, as Aunt Annie did the other evening; and will you tell us about it?"

Mr. Arlington, with good-humored playfulness, consented, and Robert drew from the portfolio one of his drawings, representing a fisherman's family.

"That man," said I, as I looked at the honest face of the rude, weather-beaten fisherman, "looks as though he had passed through adventurous scenes, and might have many a history to tell."

"He did not tell his histories to me," said Mr. Arlington. "I know nothing more of them than that paper reveals. It seemed to me that the woman and child were visiting, for the first time, the ocean, whose booming sound was to the fisherman as the voice of home. He was probably introducing them to its wonders—revealing to them the mysteries which awaken the superstition of the vulgar and the poetry of the cultivated imagination. He has given her, you may observe, a sea-shell, and she is listening for the first time to its low, strange music."

"And is that all?" asked Robert, when Mr. Arlington ceased speaking.

"All I know, Robert," he answered, with a smile at the boy's earnestness.

"But did you never go fishing yourself, Mr. Arlington?"

"Not often, Robert; I like more active sports better—hunting—"

"Ah! do tell us about your hunting, Mr. Arlington; youmust have had some adventures in hunting in those great Western forests I have heard you speak of."

"The greatest adventure I ever had, Robert," said Mr. Arlington, "was in anEasternforest, and when I was thehunted, not thehunter."

"Indians, Mr. Arlington—were they Indians that hunted you?"

"No, Robert; my hunters were wolves."

"Oh! pray tell us about it, Mr. Arlington, will you not?"

"Certainly, with the ladies' permission."

The ladies' permission was soon obtained, and our little party listened with the deepest interest to the thrilling recital which I have called

During the winter of 1844, being engaged in the northern part of Maine, I had much leisure to devote to the wild sports of a new country. To none of these was I more passionately addicted than to skating. The deep and sequestered lakes of this State, frozen by the intense cold of a northern winter, present a wide field to the lovers of this pastime. Often would I bind on my skates, and glide away up the glittering river, and wind each mazy streamlet that flowed beneath its fetters on towards the parent ocean, forgetting all the while time and distance in the luxurious sense of the gliding motion—thinking of nothing in the easy flight, but rather dreaming, as I looked through the transparent ice at the long weeds and cresses that nodded in the current beneath, and seemed wrestling with the waves to let them go; or I would follow on the track of somefox or otter, and run my skate along the mark he had left with his dragging tail until the trail would enter the woods. Sometimes these excursions were made by moonlight, and it was on one of these occasions that I had a rencontre, which even now, with kind faces around me, I cannot recall without a nervous looking-over-my-shoulder feeling.

I had left my friend's house one evening just before dusk, with the intention of skating a short distance up the noble Kennebec, which glided directly before the door. The night was beautifully clear. A peerless moon rode through an occasional fleecy cloud, and stars twinkled from the sky and from every frost-covered tree in millions. Your mind would wonder at the light that came glinting from ice, and snow-wreath, and incrusted branches, as the eye followed for miles the broad gleam of the Kennebec, that like a jewelled zone swept between the mighty forests on its banks. And yet all was still. The cold seemed to have frozen tree, and air, and water, and every living thing that moved. Even the ringing of my skates on the ice echoed back from the Moccason Hill with a startling clearness, and the crackle of the ice as I passed over it in my course seemed to follow the tide of the river with lightning speed.

I had gone up the river nearly two miles when, coming to a little stream which empties into the larger, I turned in to explore its course. Fir and hemlock of a century's growth met overhead, and formed an archway radiant with frost-work. All was dark within, but I was young and fearless, and as I peered into an unbroken forest that reared itself on the borders of the stream, I laughed with very joyousness: my wild hurrah rang through the silent woods, and I stood listening to the echo that reverberated again and again, until all was hushed. I thought how often the Indian hunter had concealed himself behind these very trees—how often his arrow had pierced the deer by this very stream, and his wild halloo had here rung for his victory.And then, turning from fancy to reality, I watched a couple of white owls, that sat in their hooded state, with ruffled pantalettes and long ear-tabs, debating in silent conclave the affairs of their frozen realm, and was wondering if they, "for all their feathers, were a-cold," when suddenly a sound arose—it seemed to me to come from beneath the ice; it sounded low and tremulous at first, until it ended in one wild yell. I was appalled. Never before had such a noise met my ears. I thought it more than mortal—so fierce, and amidst such an unbroken solitude, it seemed as though a fiend had blown a blast from an infernal trumpet. Presently I heard the twigs on shore snap, as though from the tread of some brute animal, and the blood rushed back to my forehead with a bound that made my skin burn, and I felt relieved that I had to contend with things earthly, and not of spiritual nature—my energies returned, and I looked around me for some means of escape. The moon shone through the opening at the mouth of the creek by which I had entered the forest, and considering this the best channel of escape, I darted towards it like an arrow. 'Twas scarcely a hundred yards distant, and the swallow could hardly excel my desperate flight; yet, as I turned my head to the shore, I could see two dark objects dashing through the underbrush at a pace nearly double in speed to my own. By this rapidity, and the short yells which they occasionally gave, I knew at once that these were the much dreaded gray wolf.

I had never met with these animals, but from the description given of them I had very little pleasure in making their acquaintance. Their untameable fierceness, and the untiring strength which seems part of their nature, render them objects of dread to every benighted traveller.

"With their long gallop, which can tireThe deer-hound's haste, the hunter's fire,"

they pursue their prey—never straying from the track of their victim—and as the wearied hunter thinks he has at last outstripped them, he finds that they but waited for the evening to seize their prey, and falls a prize to the tireless pursuers.

The bushes that skirted the shore flew past with the velocity of lightning as I dashed on in my flight to pass the narrow opening. The outlet was nearly gained; one second more and I should be comparatively safe, when the fierce brutes appeared on the bank directly above me, which here rose to the height of ten feet. There was no time for thought, so I bent my head and dashed madly forward. The wolves sprang, but miscalculating my speed, sprang behind, while their intended prey glided out upon the river.

Nature turned me towards home. The light flakes of snow spun from the iron of my skates, and I was some distance from my pursuers, when their fierce howl told me I was still their fugitive. I did not look back, I did not feel afraid, or sorry, or glad; one thought of home, of the bright faces awaiting my return, of their tears if they never should see me, and then every energy of body and mind was exerted for escape. I was perfectly at home on the ice. Many were the days that I had spent on my good skates, never thinking that at one time they would be my only means of safety. Every half minute an alternate yelp from my ferocious followers made me only too certain that they were in close pursuit. Nearer and nearer they came; I heard their feet pattering on the ice nearer still, until I could feel their breath and hear their snuffing scent. Every nerve and muscle in my frame were stretched to the utmost tension.

The trees along the shore seemed to dance in the uncertain light, and my brain turned with my own breathless speed, yet still they seemed to hiss forth their breath with a sound truly horrible, when an involuntary motion on my part turned me outof my course. The wolves close behind, unable to stop, and as unable to turn on the smooth ice, slipped and fell, still going on far ahead; their tongues were lolling out, their white tusks glaring from their bloody mouths, their dark, shaggy breasts were fleeced with foam, and as they passed me their eyes glared, and they howled with fury. The thought flashed on my mind, that by this means I could avoid them, viz., by turning aside whenever they came too near; for they, by the formation of their feet, are unable to run on ice except on a straight line.

I immediately acted upon this plan. The wolves, having regained their feet, sprang directly towards me. The race was renewed for twenty yards up the stream; they were already close on my back, when I glided round and dashed directly past my pursuers. A wild yell greeted my evolution, and the wolves, slipping upon their haunches, sailed onward, presenting a perfect picture of helplessness and baffled rage. Thus I gained nearly a hundred yards at each turning. This was repeated two or three times, every moment the animals getting more excited and baffled.

At one time, by delaying my turning too long, my sanguinary antagonists came so near, that they threw the white foam over my dress as they sprang to seize me, and their teeth clashed together, like the spring of a fox-trap. Had my skates failed for one instant, had I tripped on a stick, or caught my foot in a fissure in the ice, the story I am now telling would never have been told. I thought all the chances over; I knew where they would first take hold of me if I fell; I thought how long it would be before I died, and then there would be a search for the body that would already have its tomb;—for oh! how fast man's mind traces out all the dread colors of Death's picture, only those who have been near the grim original can tell.

But soon I came opposite the house, and my hounds—I knew their deep voices—roused by the noise, bayed furiously from the kennels. I heard their chains rattle; how I wished they would break them! and then I should have protectors that would be peers to the fiercest denizens of the forest. The wolves, taking the hint conveyed by the dogs, stopped in their mad career, and after a moment's consideration, turned and fled. I watched them until their dusky forms disappeared over a neighboring hill. Then, taking off my skates, wended my way to the house, with feelings which may be better imagined than described.

But even yet, I never see a broad sheet of ice in the moonshine, without thinking of that snuffling breath and those fearful things that followed me so closely down the frozen Kennebec.

"What a noble forest!" cried Annie, as she gazed with rapturous admiration on a noble specimen of the engraver's art—so noble, indeed, that the absence of color seemed hardly to be felt. It was a richly-wooded scene, with interesting figures forming a procession in the centre and foreground of the landscape. The original might have been painted by Ruysdaël. "Those old oaks," she exclaimed, "with their gnarled and crooked branches, look as though they might have formed part of the Druidical groves whose solemn mysteries inspired even the arrogant Roman with awe. This picture, however, belongs to a later period—that of the Crusades, perhaps, for here is a procession in which appear figures in the long robe of the monk, and I think I can discern a cross on that banner borne at their head. But what, dear Aunt Nancy, could you possibly find in our land of yesterday, to associate with such a scene?"

"Our people may be of yesterday, Annie, but our land bears no marks of recent origin. The most arrogant boaster of the Old World may feel himself humbled as he stands within the shadow of our forests, and looks up to trees which we might almost fancy to have waved over the heads of 'the patriarchs of an infant world?'"

"And you have seen some such forests, and on the branches of these old trees 'hangs a tale' which you will tell us. Is it not so, Aunt Nancy?"

"I have seen such a forest, and I have a sketch of certain events occurring within its circle. The narrative was given me by my friend, Mrs. H., who was acquainted with the parties. You will find it in her handwriting in the compartment of my desk from which you took the engraving."

Annie found the paper, and I saw a quiet smile pass around as she read aloud its title. Mr. Arlington, at my request, took the reader's place, and we spent our evening in listening to

It is an almost universal belief among those who have faith in man's immortality, that when his spiritual nature has been divested of its present veil—the bodily organization by which it at pleasure reveals or conceals itself—it shall be manifested to all at a glance in the unsullied beauty of holiness, or the dark deformity of vice. Shall our vision extend further? Shall we read the soul's past history? Shall we know the struggles which have given strength to its powers? The fears which have shadowed, and the hopes which have lighted, its earthly path? Shall we learn the unspoken sacrifices which have been laid on the altar of its affections or its duty? Shall we see how a single generous impulse has shaped the whole course of its being, and been as a heavenly flame, to which every selfish desire and feeling have been committed in noiseless devotion? If this be so, how many such records shall be furnished by the life of woman? How often shall it be found, that from such a flame has risen the light with which she has brightened the existence of others!

Meeta Werner was the daughter of industrious, honest Germans, who had emigrated to the western part of Pennsylvania when she was a child of only seven years old. Only a quarter of a mile from the spot on which Carl Werner had fixed hisresidence lived a brother German, Franz Rainer. Franz was a widower, with one child, a son, named Ernest. He was a hard, stern man, and the first smiles which had lighted the existence of the young Ernest were caught from the sprightly Meeta and her kind-hearted mother. The children became playfellows and friends. It was a wild country in which they lived. A very short walk from their own doors brought them into a forest which seemed to their young imaginations endless; where gigantic trees interlaced their branches, and with their green foliage shut out the sun in summer, or in winter reflected it in dazzling brightness, and a thousand gorgeous colors, from the icicles which cased their leafless branches and pendent twigs. There was not a footpath, a sunny hill or flowery dell, for miles around their homes, which had not been trodden together by Meeta Werner and Ernest Rainer before their acquaintance was a year old. Now they would come home laden with wood-flowers, and now they might be seen treading wearily back from some distant spot, with baskets filled with blackberries, or with the dark-blue whortleberries. There were no schools in the neighborhood, but they had been taught by their fathers to read and write their own language, and Ernest afterwards acquired some knowledge of English from the good pastor who had accompanied the emigrants from Germany, and who acted as their interpreter when they required one. Having access to few books, they seemed likely to grow up with little more learning than might be gathered from their own observation of the world around them; but when Ernest was eighteen and Meeta fifteen years of age, circumstances occurred which gave an entirely new coloring to their lives.

Franz Rainer had not always been so stern and hard as he now seemed. He had married imprudently, in the world's acceptation of that term; that is, he had made a portionless but lovely girl his wife, and in doing so had incurred his father's lasting displeasure. He had been banished from a home ofplenty with a small sum, "to keep him from starving," he was told. With that sum and a young delicate wife he sailed for America, and found a home for himself and his boy, and a grave for his wife, in the forests of Pennsylvania. Too proud to seek a reconciliation with those who had cast him off, he had held no communication with his own family after leaving Germany; and it was not till Ernest was, as we have said, eighteen, that the silence of his home was broken by what seemed a voice from the past. After many hindrances and delays, and passing through many hands for which it had not been intended, a letter reached him from a merchant in Philadelphia, who had been requested to institute a search for Franz by his only brother. The old Rainer was dead, and the family estate had descended to this brother, a scholar and a man of solitary habits. Finding himself growing old in a lonely home, and retaining some kindly memory of the brother in whose companionship his childhood had been passed, he wished him to return to Germany, and again dwell with them in the house of their fathers. To this Franz would by no means consent. His nature was cast in too stern a mould to re-knit at a word the ties which had been so violently sundered. He consented, however, after some correspondence with his brother, to send Ernest to Germany, to be educated there; at least, to receive such an education as could be gained in four years; for he insisted that at the end of that time he should return to America, and remain there while his father lived. "After my death, if he choose to return to the home from which his father was banished, he may," wrote the still resentful Franz.

And how was this change in all the prospects of his life received by the young Ernest and his companion Meeta? By him with mingled feelings; regret, joy, fear, hope, by turns ruled his soul. The regret was all for Meeta and her mother; they were the sources of all his pleasant memories; and as he gazedupon Meeta's hitherto bright face, now clouded with sorrow, and kissed from her cheek the first tears he had ever known her to shed for herself, he was ready to give up all his fair prospects abroad and live with her for ever. Meeta herself, however, gave a new direction to his thoughts, by generously turning from the subject of her grief in parting, to dwell on the idea of the delight with which they would meet again, and especially on her peculiar pleasure in seeing Ernest come back "riding in a grand coach, with servants following him on horseback, as she remembered to have seen in Germany, and knowing enough to teach Parson Schmidt himself!" After listening to such prophecies, Ernest no longer expressed any desire to remain with Meeta; he contented himself, instead, with promising to return as soon as he could, and with winning from her a promise that, come when he might, she would be his wife. This was not a new thought or a new word to either. They could scarcely tell themselves when the idea had first arisen in their minds that they would one day live together, and be what Carl Werner and his wife were to each other. They had even chosen a site for their house; and Ernest had more than once of late expressed the opinion that they were old enough to inform their parents of their intentions; but the more timid Meeta objected. Now, however, she could refuse Ernest nothing, and before the day of parting came they had made aconfidanteof Meeta's mother, and from her the two fathers had learned the desires of their children. Carl Werner heard the story with a smile; but a denser shadow gathered on the dark brow of Franz. For a moment something of his father's pride was in his heart; but his own blighted life arose before him, and he said, "The boy may do as he pleases. No man has a right to control another on such a subject."

The sun had not yet risen, though its rays were gilding the few light clouds that flecked the eastern sky, when Meeta andErnest stood together beneath an old oak which had long been their favorite "trysting-tree," to say those words and give and receive those last looks which are among life's most sacred treasures. Smiles and blushes mingled with tears on Meeta's cheek as Ernest pressed her to his bosom, kissed her again and again, and promised that his first letter from Germany should be addressed to her, and that in exactly four years from that date he would be again beneath that tree, to claim her promise to be his for ever. The voice of Carl Werner, who was to accompany Ernest the first stage of his journey, startled them in the midst of their adieus; and bursting from the arms of her companion, Meeta plunged deeper into the woods to escape her father's eye. When Carl returned in the evening he handed her a small parcel, saying, "There's some foolery that Ernest bought for you, Meeta. Silly boy! I hope they'll teach him in Germany to take better care of his money!"

The parcel contained a very plain locket, with one of Ernest's dark curls inclosed in it. Plain as it was, it seemed to Meeta, as it probably had seemed to Ernest, a magnificent present; yet she valued more the few simple words written on the paper which enveloped it: "For Meeta, my promised wife." Four months passed away before Meeta heard again of her lover. Then there came a letter to her, which was full of the great cities through which Ernest had passed, the home to which he had come, and the new life which was opening to him there. In his descriptions his uncle seemed a very grand gentleman, and his uncle's housekeeper almost as grand a lady. He told of the new wardrobe which had been provided for him, the acquaintances to whom he had been introduced, and the studies he had commenced. And in all this Meeta saw but the first step towards that grandeur which she had predicted for him, and she rejoiced.

Four or five such letters were received by Meeta, each fullof her lover himself; but they came at lengthening intervals, and during the third year she received from him only messages sent through his father, though every message still conveyed a promise to write soon. The letters of Ernest showed that he had made great advances in scholarship during his residence in Germany, and to all but Meeta herself, and perhaps her mother, they gave equal evidence that his heart was not with the home or the friends he had left in America. But no shadow ever passed over the transparent face of Meeta. Ernest was to her still the frank, ardent, simple-hearted boy whom she had loved so long and so truly. She was still his promised wife. Her quick sensibility to all which touched him made her feel that there was a change in the tone with which her father named him, and an expression, half of anger, half of pity, on his face when she alluded to him. It was an expression which gave her pain, though she did not understand its meaning; and she ceased to speak of Ernest, lest she should call it up; but his locket lay next her heart, his letters were well-nigh worn away with frequent reading, and no day passed in which she did not visit the oak beneath which they had parted, and beneath which she fondly believed they were to meet again.

During the fourth year of Ernest's absence his letters to his father became more frequent, and sometimes inclosed a few lines to Meeta. To both he expressed a strong desire to stay one more year abroad, alleging that to interrupt his studies now would be to render all his past labors unavailing. There was hardly a struggle in Meeta's mind in yielding her almost matured hopes to what seemed so reasonable a wish of Ernest; but the elder Rainer was not so easily won to compliance. Urgent representations from his brother as well as Ernest, did at length, however, induce him to consent to the absence of his son for another year.

This was an important year to Meeta. It brought her anacquaintance through whom her dormant intellect was aroused, and her manners fitted for something more than the rude life by which she had been hitherto surrounded. This was Mrs. Schwartz, the wife of a young pastor, who had come to assist Mr. Schmidt in those duties to which his advancing years rendered him unequal. Mrs. Schwartz was a woman of no ordinary stamp. Highly educated, with an intense enjoyment of every form of beauty and grace, she saw something of them embellishing the homeliest employments and most common life with which a sentiment of duty was connected. Severe illness had confined her to her bed for many weeks soon after her arrival, and before she had been able to establish that perfect domestic economy, which renders the daily and hourly inspection and interference of the mistress of a mansion needless to the comfort of its inmates. During this period, Meeta, whose sympathies had been deeply interested in the stranger, nursed her, and planned for her, and worked for her, until she made herself a place in her heart among her life-friends. As Mrs. Schwartz saw her moving around her with such busy kindness, the thought often arose in her mind, "What can I do for her?" This is a question we seldom ask ourselves of any one sincerely without finding an answer to it.

We have said that Meeta had access to few books in early life; we might have added that she had little opportunity of hearing the conversation of persons more cultivated than herself. Thus were the two great sources of intellectual development sealed to her. She had a thoughtful, earnest mind. She loved the beautiful world around her, and theGreat Beingwho made and sustained that world. But if the contemplation of these things awakened thoughts of a higher character than the daily baking and brewing, milking and scrubbing in her father's house, she had no language in which to clothe them, and vague and undefined, they fleeted away like the morning mists, leavingno impress of their presence. Her acquaintance with Mrs. Schwartz, and the conversation she sometimes heard between her and her husband, gave to these shadows substance and form, and awakened a new want in Meeta's soul—the want of knowledge. As in all else, Ernest was present in this. He would doubtless be intelligent, wise, like Mr. Schwartz, and how could she be his companion? Something of these new experiences in Meeta was divined by Mrs. Schwartz, and with a true womanly tact she became her teacher without wounding her self-love. The road to knowledge once opened to Meeta, her advance on it was rapid. How could it be otherwise, when every step was bringing her nearer to Earnest! The elevation and refinement of mind which Meeta thus acquired impressed themselves on her agreeable features. Her dark eyes became bright with the soul's light, and her whole aspect so attractive, that her old friends exclaimed, as they looked upon her, "How handsome Meeta Werner grows, she who used to be so plain!"

After a time these superficial observers thought they had found the cause of this change in Meeta's change of costume, for a new sense of beauty had been awakened in her, under whose guidance her dark hair was brought in soft silken braids upon her cheeks, wound gracefully around her well-shaped head, and sometimes ornamented with a ribbon or a cluster of wild flowers: while her dresses where remodelled so as to resemble less the fashion which her mother and her sister emigrants had imported thirteen years before from Germany, and to give a more natural air to her really fine figure.

"How wonderfully Meeta has improved," said Mr. Schwartz, one evening to his wife, as he looked after the retreating form of her friend.

"Yes, and I am truly rejoiced that she has so improved before her lover returns to claim her."

"I wish he could have taken away with him such an impression as our handsome and intelligent Meeta would now make. He would have been much more likely to remain constant to her. There must be a painful contrast between the cultivated and graceful women he has known in Germany, and his memory of his early love."

"Love is a great embellisher," said Mrs. Schwartz, with a gay smile, and the conversation passed to more general topics.

The fifth year of Ernest's absence was gone, and still he came not; but he was coming soon, at least so his father said, though he did not show Meeta the letters on which he founded his assertion. It was the first time he had withheld them; a circumstance the more remarkable, because of late he seemed to regard Meeta with greater affection and confidence than he had ever done before. He now sought her society, and seemed pleased and even proud of the connection to which he had at first consented with some reluctance. It was very soon after the reception of the letter from Ernest to which we have alluded, that Franz Rainer's health began to fail, and that so rapidly, that Meeta feared Ernest could not arrive in time to see him. She was to the old man an angel of consolation, and he clung to her as to his last hope. In pity to his lonely condition, her own parents were willing to spare her for a time, and Meeta, that she might take care of him by night as well as by day, had removed to his house a week before Ernest's arrival. He came not wholly unwarned of the sorrow that awaited him, for he had found a letter from Meeta at the house of the merchant in Philadelphia through whom he had corresponded with his father, tenderly yet plainly revealing her fears, and urging him to hurry homeward without delay. He travelled with little rest or refreshment for two days and nights, and arrived late on the third day at his father's house. It was a still summer evening, and while the old man slept, Meeta sat near him in the only parlor the house afforded, reading by a shaded night lamp.She heard the sound of carriage wheels, and paused to listen; the sound ceased; a shadow darkened the moonlight which had been streaming through an open window, and then Ernest, the playfellow of her childhood, the lover of her youth, stood before her; but how changed, how gloriously changed thought Meeta, even in that hour of hurry and agitation. They gazed on each other in silence for a moment, and then Meeta with a bright smile, yet in a whisper, for even then she forgot not the dying man, asked:

"Do you not know me, Ernest?"

"Meeta!" he ejaculated, as he took the hand she extended to him, but dropping it almost immediately, he said anxiously: "My father! he lives, Meeta?"

"He does, Ernest, and may live, I thinkwilllive, for many days yet."

"ThankGod! then I shall see him again!"

The conversation had till now been in whispers, but Ernest uttered his ejaculation of thankfulness aloud. There was a movement in the old man's room, a sound, and Meeta glided to his side.

"Who were you talking with, my daughter?" he murmured feebly. For many days Franz Rainer had called Meeta daughter, as though he found pleasure in recalling the tie between them.

"With one who tells me Ernest has arrived, and will see you soon," said Meeta.

"It is Ernest himself. I knew his voice: Ernest, my son!" And the old man's tones were loud and strong, as Meeta had heard them for days. In another moment, Ernest was bending over his father, and they were gazing on each other with a tenderness whose very existence they had not before suspected. Tears were rolling down the face of the once stern old man, as he pressed his son's hand again and again,and murmured blessings on him, and thanks toGodfor his safe return; and Ernest, as he marked the death-shadow on his father's brow, felt that a tie was tearing away which had been woven more intimately than he had supposed with his heart's fibres. The weeping Meeta composed herself that she might soothe them.

"Ernest, I cannot let you stay longer here; I am your father's nurse."

"My nurse, my daughter, my all, Ernest; your gift to me, my son, which, thankGod! you have come in time to receive again from my hands. Take her to you, Ernest."

The old man held Meeta's hand clasped in his own towards his son, and Ernest touched it, but so slightly and with a hand so cold, that Meeta looked up in alarm. There was a beseeching expression in the eyes that met hers; a look which she did not understand, and yet on which she acted.

"Ernest," she said, "you are fatigued to death, and your father has been too much agitated already. Go, I pray you, for the present; I cannot leave your father, but you will find coffee and biscuits by the kitchen fire, and there is a bed prepared in your own room. Good-night; we shall meet again to-morrow," she added with a smile to the old man.

Ernest gave her a more cordial glance and pressure of the hand than she had yet received from him; told his father that he would only snatch an hour's sleep and be with him again, and left the room.

"Go with him, Meeta; you must have much to say."

"Nothing that we cannot say as well to-morrow. And now you must take another sleeping draught, for I see Ernest has carried off all the effect of your last."

Meeta spoke cheerfully, yet her heart was sad, she scarcely knew why. She would not think Ernest unkind, yet how different had been their meeting from that which fancy had so often sketched for her!

Franz Rainer fell asleep, and again Meeta returned to the parlor. A lamp was still burning there, and by its dim light she saw the form of Ernest extended on a settee with his cloak and valise for his bed and pillow. At first she drew timidly back into the chamber, but as the slight noise she had made before perceiving him, had failed to disturb him, she felt assured that he slept soundly, and an irresistible desire arose in her heart to draw near him, and look at him more closely than she had yet ventured to do. She stood beside him; her heart bounded against the locket, his gift, which lay in its accustomed place, as she marked with a quick eye how the handsome but uncouth stripling had expanded into the man of noble proportions, whose features had, like her own, acquired a new character under the refining touch of intellect. Meeta looked on him till her eyes grew dim with tears pressed from a heart full of emotion, compounded of happy memories and glad hopes, shadowed by disappointment and saddened by doubt. Above all other feelings, however, rose the undying love which had "grown with her growth, and strengthened with her strength." Suddenly, by an irrepressible impulse, she laid her hand softly on the dark locks of waving hair which clustered over his broad brow, and breathed in low, tender accents, "My Ernest!"

On leaving his father's room, Ernest had thrown himself on his hard couch, not to sleep, but to rest; and when slumber overpowered him, he had yielded to it unwillingly, and with the determination to be on the alert and ready to arise on the first summons. Sleep that comes thus, howsoever it may continue through other disturbing causes, rarely resists a touch, or the sound of our own name, and light as was Meeta's touch, and low as were her tones, Ernest was partially aroused by them. He stirred, and she would have retreated noiselessly from his side, but as his eyes unclosed, they fell upon her withan expression of such rapturous love as she had never seen in them before, and in an instant he had encircled her form with his arm, and drawn her to his bosom. In glad surprise she rested there a moment; it was but a moment.

"Sophie—my Sophie!" were the murmured words that met her ear, and gave her strength to burst from his embraces and glide rapidly, noiselessly back into the darkened chamber. There, sheltered by the darkness, she could see Ernest raise himself slowly up from his couch, look almost wildly around him, and then seemingly satisfied that he had only dreamed, sink back again to rest.

A dream it had indeed been to him; a shadow of the night; to Meeta a dark cloud, in whose gloom she was henceforth to walk for ever. Hours of conversation could not so fully have revealed the truth to Meeta as those simple words: "Sophie—my Sophie!" uttered by Ernest in such a tone of heart-worship. Ernest loved with all the fond idolatry which she had thought of late belonged not to man's affections; but he loved another. Jealousy; the bitter consciousness of her own slighted love; the memory of his vows; the crushing thought that she was nothing to him now; that while he had been the life of her life, another had filled his thoughts and ruled his being, created a wild tempest in her soul. All was still around her. The sick man, the tired Ernest slept; and without, not even the rustling of a leaf disturbed the repose of Nature. She seemed to herself the only living thing in the universe; and to her, life was torture. An hour passed in this still concentrated agony, and she could endure it no longer; she must be up and doing; she would wake Ernest; she would tell him the revelation she had made; upbraid him with her blighted life, and leave him. Let him send for his Sophie; what did she, the outcast, the rejected, there in his house?—why should she nurse his father? She arose and approachedagain the couch of Ernest; she was about to call to him, but she was arrested by the expression of agony in his face. His brow was contracted, and as she continued to gaze, low moans issued from his quivering lips. Ernest too was a sufferer; how that thought softened the hard, cold, icy crust that had been gathering around her heart! The bitterness of pride and jealousy gave place to tenderer emotions. Tears gathered in her eyes, and stealing softly back to her sheltered seat, she wept long and silently.

"In sorrow the angels are near;" and Meeta's heart was now full of sorrow, not of anger. Sad must her life ever be, but what of that, if Ernest could be happy? Perhaps he suffered for her; the good, true Ernest. It might be that only in dreams he had told his love to Sophie, bound to silence, painful silence, by his vows to her. She then could make him happy, and was not that her first desire? If it were not, her love was a low, selfish, unworthy love, and she would pray that it might be purified. She did pray, not as she would have done an hour before, to be taken out of the world, but that she might be made meet to do the will of herFatherwhile in the world. She prayed for herself, for Ernest; and sweet peace stole into her heart, and before the morning light came, she had resolved not to leave the old man who loved her, during his few remaining days, yet not to keep Ernest in doubt of his own freedom. She was impatient that he should awake, and fell asleep imagining various modes of making her communication to him. Exhausted by mental agitation even more than by watching, she slept long and heavily. When she awoke, Ernest was shading the window at her side, through which the sun was shining brightly into the room. As she moved he looked at her kindly, and said:

"I am afraid I awoke you, Meeta, when I meant only to prolong your sleep by shutting out this light."

"I have slept long enough," was all that Meeta could say. The old Rainer was awake, and dreading above all things some allusions from him to the supposed relations of Ernest and herself, she hastened from the room and busied herself in the preparation of breakfast. Having seen that meal placed upon the table, she returned to the sick room and begged that Ernest would pour out his own coffee, while she did some things that were essential to his father's comfort. She lingered till Ernest came to see whether he could take her place, and then, as the old man slept peacefully, and she could make no further excuse, she accompanied him back to the table. The breakfast, a mere form to Meeta at least, proceeded in silence, or with only a casual remark from Ernest, scarcely heard by her, on the weather, the rapidity with which he had travelled, or his father's condition. Suddenly Meeta seemed to arouse herself as from a deep reverie:

"Why do you not talk to me of Sophie?" she said, attempting to speak gayly, though one less embarrassed than Ernest could not have failed to note the tremulousness of her voice, and the quivering of the pallid lip which vainly strove to smile.

But Meeta's agitation was as nothing to that of Ernest. For a moment he gazed upon her as though spell-bound, then dropping his face into his clasped hands, sat actually shivering before her. It was plain that Ernest had not lightly estimated his obligations to her. If he had sinned against them he had not despised them, and this conviction gave new strength to Meeta. She rose for the hour superior to every selfish emotion. Laying her hand upon his arm, she said, gently:

"Be not so agitated, Ernest; can you not regard me as your friend, and talk to me as you did in old days of all that disturbs you; and why should you be disturbed at my speaking of—of your Sophie? You do not suppose that—you know that—in short, Ernest, we cannot be expected to feel now as we did five years ago; but surely that need not prevent our being friends."

Meeta had been herself too much confused of late, to remark her companion. When she now ventured with great effort to meet his eyes, she found them fixed upon her with an expression of lively admiration and grateful joy.

"Meeta, dear Meeta!" he exclaimed, seizing her hand and kissing it. "You give me new life. I have been a miserable man for weeks past, torn by conflicting claims upon my heart and my honor. You had claims on both, Meeta; sacred claims, which I could never have asked you to forego; and so had Sophie, for though I resisted long, there came a moment of mad passion, of madder forgetfulness, in which, abandoning myself to the present, I sought and obtained an avowal of her love. It was scarcely over ere I felt the wrong I had done. I revealed that wrong to her; pity me, Meeta! I told her all—your claims, your worth. To you I resolved to be equally frank, and my only hope was in your generosity. But my father had never suffered me to doubt that your heart was still mine, and though I was assured that you would enable me to fulfil my obligations to Sophie, I feared, I mean, I could not hope, that it would be without any sacrifice; I mean without any regrets on your part."

Ernest paused in some embarrassment; but Meeta could not speak, and he resumed:

"You have made me perfectly happy, Meeta, which even Sophie could not have done, had I been compelled in devoting myself to her to relinquish the friend and sister of my childhood."

"Always regard me thus, Ernest, as your friend and sister, and I shall be satisfied."

Meeta had risen to return to the sick room, but Ernest caught her hand and held her back, while he said:

"But you must see my Sophie, Meeta; you must know her and then you will love her too. She will be here soon with her sister, Mrs. Schwartz."

"Mrs. Schwartz her sister? Then my last doubt is removed Ernest. She is worthy of you."

"Worthy of me!" And Ernest would have run into all a lover's rhapsodies on this text, but Meeta had escaped from him.

Hitherto Meeta's life had been one of quietness, of inaction, and now in a few short weeks ages of active existence seemed crowded. One object she had set before her as the great aim of her life; it was to secure Ernest's happiness and preserve his honor. She understood now the coldness with which her father had of late named him. It was essential to her peace that this coldness should not deepen into anger. Not even in her own family then must she have rest from the strife between her inner and her outer life. Sympathy she must not have, since sympathy with her was almost inseparably connected with reproach of Ernest. Time had another lesson to teach, and Meeta soon learned it; that in a combat such as she had to sustain, no half-way measures would suffice, that she must not drive her griefs down to the depths of her heart, shutting them there from every human eye, but she must drive them out of her heart. We talk of feigning cheerfulness, of wearing a mask for the world and throwing it off in solitude, and we may do this for a week, a month, a year, but those who have a life-grief to sustain, from whose hearts hope has died out, know that there are only two paths open to them in the universe; to lie down in their despair and breathe out their souls in murmurs against theirGod, and lamentations over their destiny; or, humbly kissing the rod which has smitten them, to go forth out of themselves, where all is darkness and woe, and find a new and happier life in living for and in others. And thus did Meeta.

We may not linger over the details of the next few weeks of her existence. The old Rainer died; died blessing his children, Ernest and Meeta, and praying for their happiness. Often would Ernest have told him all; but Meeta kept back a disclosure which would have given him pain. "Do not disturb him now, Ernest," she said; "he will know all soon, and bless your Sophie from heaven, where there is no sorrow."

Meeta returned home, and exhaustion won for her a few days rest; rest even from her mental struggles; but when the funeral was over, and things returned to their usual routine, she felt that she must prepare her father and mother to receive Ernest in the character in which they were henceforth to regard him. She found strength for this in her lofty purpose and her simple dependence upon Heaven, and her voice did not falter nor her color change as she said to her mother:—

"Do you not think Ernest is much altered?"

"Yes, he is greatly improved."

"Improved! Well, he may be so to the eyes of others, but—"

"Is he not as tender to you, my daughter?" asked the sensitive mother.

"That is not it," said Meeta, coloring for the first time: "we neither of us feel as we once did; it was a childish folly to suppose that we should. I have told Ernest that I could not fulfil our engagement, and he is satisfied."

Madame Werner looked long at her daughter, but Meeta met the glance firmly.

"And is this all, Meeta?"

"All! What more would you have, dear mother?"

"And are you happy, Meeta?"

"Happier than I should be in marrying Ernest now, dear mother."

Madame Werner explained all this to her husband, at herdaughter's request. He was not grieved at it. "Ernest," he said, "had never valued Meeta as she deserved. He was glad she had shown so much spirit."

Meeta had a more difficult task to perform. Mrs. Schwartz's sister has come at last. She came from Germany at the same time with Ernest, but stopped to make a visit to another sister in Philadelphia, and arrived here only last night. "I will go and see her," said Meeta one morning to Madame Werner. She went. As she approached the house, there came through the open windows the sound of an organ, accompanied by a rich and highly cultivated voice. Meeta would not pause for a moment, lest she should grow nervous. It was essential to Ernest's happiness that Sophie should be friendly with her; and the difficulties were of a nature which, if not overcome at once, would not be overcome at all. Meeta entered the small parlor without knocking, and found herselftête-à-têtewith the musician; a young, fair girl, delicately formed, with beautiful hands and arms, and pleasing, pretty face. As she saw the visitor, her song ceased. Meeta smiled on her, and extending her hand, said: "You are Sophie—Ernest's Sophie?"

"And you," said the fair girl, with wondering eyes, "are—"

"Meeta."

This was an introduction which admitted no formality, and when Mrs. Schwartz entered half an hour later, she was surprised to find those so lately strangers conversing in the low and earnest tones which betoken confidence, while the lofty expression on the countenance of the one, and the moist eyes and flushed cheeks of the other, showed that their topic was one of no ordinary interest.

Six months passed rapidly away, and then Ernest felt that he might, without disrespect to his father's memory, bring home his bride. Their engagement had been known for some time, and had excited no little surprise; though perhaps lessthan the continued and close friendship between them and Meeta. Many improvements in Sophie's future home had been suggested by Meeta's taste, and Ernest had acquired such a habit of consulting her, that no day passed without an interview between them. At length the evening preceding the bridal-day had arrived, and Ernest and Sophie had gone to secure Meeta's promise to officiate as bridesmaid in the simple ceremony of the morrow. They were to be married at the parsonage, in the presence of a few witnesses only, and were immediately to set out on an excursion which would occupy several weeks. They had urged Meeta to accompany them, but she had declined. "But she cannot refuse to stand up with me—do you think she can?" said Sophie to her sister, as she prepared to accompany Ernest to Carl Werner's.

"I do not think shewillrefuse," Mrs. Schwartz replied.

"You do not think she will!" repeated Mr. Schwartz, in an accent of surprise, to his wife, when Ernest and Sophie had left them. "How does that consist with your idea of Meeta's love for Ernest?"

"It perfectly consists with a love like Meeta's; a love without any alloy of selfishness. Dear Meeta! how little is her nobleness appreciated! Even I dare not let her see that she is understood by me, lest I should wound her delicate and generous nature."

There was a pause, and then Mr. Schwartz said, hesitatingly, "If it be as you think, Meeta is a noble being; but——"

"If it be!" interrupted Mrs. Schwartz, with warmth. "Can you doubt it? Have you not seen the loftier character which her generous purpose has impressed upon her whole aspect? the elevation—I had almost said the inspiration, which beams from her face when Ernest and Sophia are present? Sophie is my sister, and I love her truly; yet I declare to you, at such times I have looked from her to Meeta, and wondered at what seemed to me Ernest's infatuation."

"Sophie is fair, and delicate, and accomplished, the very personification of refinement, natural and acquired, and the antipodes of all which Ernest, ere he saw her, had begun to dread in the untaught Meeta of his memory. I am not surprised at all at his loving Sophie, but I cannot at all understand how the simple and single-hearted Meeta can feign so long and so well, as on your supposition she has done."

"Feign! Meeta feign! I never said or thought such a thing. A course of action lofty as Meeta's must have its foundation deep in the heart, in principles enduring as life itself. Had Meeta's been the commonplace feigned satisfaction with Ernest's conduct to which pride might have given birth, she would have been fitful in her moods; alternately gay or gloomy; generous and kind, or petulant and exacting. The serenity, the composure of countenance and manner which distinguish our Meeta, spring from a higher, purer source. It is the sweet submission of a chastened, loving spirit, which can say to itsFatherin Heaven:—

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