then tremble at their roaring. We pile up impediments, and then die at the base of the barrier. The Titan but touched the earth because he would scale heaven-we bury ourselves beneath it, and then mourn because heaven is hid from our vision." I think of Bertha, and instinctively I rise from my chair, and walk the room as at a sense of the divine within me. I am braver, nobler-I know not what I am. I think of Julia, and dream spell-bound in my chair for hours, listening to invisible melodies and far off harmonies. I am a man full of human thoughts and human sympathies, and I cry : "Oh that the desert were my dwelling place, With one fair spirit for my minister, That I might all forget the human race, And, hating no one, love but only her." Ah! thus I think, thus I dream, and in the meanwhile my life wears on, and I lose sight of the great aims to which hitherto all my thoughts have tended. I go through the routine of duty in a cold, spiritless manner, and I grow paler than even my wont, and sit by my desk scribbling unmeaning characters-sketching, now a dog, now a sign-board, and now Julia's face, and writing her name and mine side by side, and trying even how Julia Helfenstein would look on a card. Imbecile that I am. Pains dart through my head; my step is languid. I wish there were a race of giants, to take me in their arms and dandle me like a sick baby. I am weak, and do not desire to be strong. I long “to be minis I am the Esau, tered unto, not to minister." I try to pray, but prayer is "Shine home upon thy creature, and inspire The first degree to do is only to desire." CHAPTER XXIV. A poor sequestered stag, That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt, Did come to languish. SHAKSPEARE. THE winter is yet intensely cold. I find poor Tiger is abroad, eluding all pursuit with wonderful speed and dexterity. He will not come openly to the house, but in the morning when the night is cold, we find, by the heaps of coals upon the hearth, that he has made his lodgment by the kit chen fire. I have carried various articles to the church, and I find that he instinctively conceals them amid the rubbish under the stairs. Gossip is much alive in Beech Glen, but on the whole, affairs are tolerably quiet for a country village. I was congratulating myself upon this order of things, when a new event roused our good people from their lethargy, and set every man, woman, and child, into a praiseworthy alertness. I am happy to say, that no one was disposed to dodge his responsibility, but each shouldered his burthen of gossip with a patience and pertinacity worthy of John Bunyan's Pilgrim. Beech Glen also has a people with lively imaginations and good inventive capacities, and the scandal concocted by them would do justice to any village in Christendom. I am not in the least what may be called a vain man, or I might have been flattered at the prominence given to me in these matters. I even remonstrated with the elders of the church, at the "bad eminence" I was likely to attain through the diligent tongues of these busy-bodies. Whereat Deacon Hopkins told me, in his most solemn and urgent manner, that I must marry. The truth is this, Parson; you being a likely looking man, and marriageable, all the young women naturally turn their eyes that way, and our young men, seeing the lay of the land, as naturally abuse you because the girls play shilly-shally, now off and now on, in a sort of expectation. There never was so much finery worn in our church as there is now, and fathers get tired of the expense, and mothers bake up pies and cakes, and call together private prayermeetings, and hold sewing-circles, and eat for you and drink for you, till 'tis past enduring. I'm thankful I've got no darters to dispose of. Gals are a terrible bother in a family." Here was a new aspect, and I inwardly resolved I would sacrifice myself for the good of Beech Glen. I will marry Julia, I said, silently, and with as much conceit as can well lie under a white cravat, and fully equal, though in a different style, to that of any Broadway dandy. But I must go more into detail. One evening-it was a cold, snowy evening-we were all seated about the fire-Julia in a large easy chair, and exquisitely dressed in white muslin, with a loose embroidered robe of rose-colored cashmere over this, slightly drawn about the waist with cord and tassel. One white-slippered foot rested upon an otto man, and her hair thrown back from her forehead, exposed to full view her exquisitely moulded features. She held a wrought screen in one hand, from the arm of which fell back lace and embroidery, and showed the round, beautiful arm, with its bracelets and pretty knot of amulets. I have a natural fondness for elegant attire, and love to see a beautiful woman appropriately dressed; and as I looked upon Julia, in her lace and embroidery, suiting so well her indo lent, voluptuous attitude, I could not refrain from stooping to kiss her hand, and telling her she was lovely as a dream. "Ah, dear Ernest," she said, "you are poetry; your admiration makes a woman long for superadded charms to justify your homage." I am a good reader, my voice is clear and flexible, and regarding this as an accomplishment all essential in a family, I have cultivated my powers with some considerable care. I had been reading "Coleridge ;" the book was lying upon my lap while we each made our comments. Lily stood leaning her head upon my bosom, and her little heart keeping time to every cadence. When I closed she said: "Crystabel was not good." We all stared, and asked why. "Because, had she been all good, she would have felt in her soul, the badness of the strange lady, and then she couldn't have slept in her arms." At this moment we were all startled by the wailing cry of an infant, apparently at the door. Lily was the first to open it, followed by Willy. A loud cry from the children |