66 Have

was approaching me also, as steadily, I sprang up, raised her on her pilif not so nearly; and, after her exam- lows, and called him instantly. ple, my thoughts took such a fore- She stretched out her hand to him, taste of that anodyne that, as I sat and and gasped, “ O Doctor, I can't gazed on her unconscious, placid face, breathe! Can't you do anything to all terrors left me, and I was strength. help me ?” ened to pray, and to determine to He felt her pulse quickly, looking at look to the morrow with only so much her, and said, very tenderly, thought as should enable me to bring some ether, Fanny. I will run and up all my resources of body and mind bring it.” Throwing wider open every to meet it as I ought, and to leave the re- window that he passed, he hurried sult, unquestioned, quite in God's hand down to the office and back with the

The result was an entire relief to ether. her last earthly care. The appointed Eagerly, though with difficulty, she day came. The matter took wind. inhaled it; and it relieved her. I sat None of our townspeople appeared, to and watched her, silent, with her hand bid against my guardian; but enough in mine. of them were on the spot “to see fair Presently the door behind me opened play," or, in other words, to advance softly, as if somebody was looking in. for him whatever sum he might stand “My dear,” said the Doctor, turning in need of; and the house was knocked his head, and speaking very earnestly, down to him at price even below its though in a low voice, “I would n't market value. He paid the mortgagee

come here.

You can do no good.” and George their due by the next mail, But presently his wife came in, in her but left my title and Fanny's as it was, dressing-gown, very pale, and sat by not to be settled till I came of age. me and held the hand that was not

These details would only have wor- holding Fanny's. ried and wearied her; but the auction- And next I knew they thought she eer's loud voice had hardly died away, would not wake; and then the short or the gathered footsteps scattered from breath stopped. And now it was my the door, when the Doctor came to her turn to stretch out my hands to him chamber, fushed with triumph, to tell for help; but, looking at me, he burst us that "

Nobody now could turn us into tears, as he had not when he looked out; and everything was arranged for at Fanny; and I knew there was no us to stay.” Fanny looked brightly up breath more for her, nor any ether for to him, and answered : “ Now I shall I did not want to go to sleep, scarcely know what more to pray for, because I should have to wake again ; but God's reward for you.” And most but his wife was sobbing aloud. I of all I thank Him for that news, be knew how dreadful such excitement cause her last day on this earth was was for her ; and so I had to do just such a happy one.

as they wished me to, and let them The next morning, just at dawn, she lead me out and lock the door, and waked me, saying, “O Katy, tell the lay down on a bed and shut my Doctor I can't breathe!"

eyes.

me.

PROTONEIRON.

DECEMBER 9, 1864.

"And in that sleep of death what dreams may come.”

TH 'HE unresting lines, where oceans end,

Are traced by shifting surf and sand; As pallid, moonlit fingers blend The dreamlight of the ghostly land.

No eye can tell where Love's last ray
Fades to the sky of colder light;
No ear, when sounds that vexed the day
Cease mingling with the holier night.

As bells, which long have failed to swing
In lonely towers of crumbling stone,
Through far eternal spaces ring,
With semblance of their ancient tone.

The lightning, quivering through the cloud,
Weaves warp and woof from sky to earth,
In mist that seems a mortal's shroud,
In light that hails an angel's birth.

Thought vainly strives, with life's dull load,
To mount through ether rare and thin;
Fond eyes pursue the spirit's road
To heaven, and dimly gaze therein.

In battle's travail-hour, a host
Writhes in the throes of deadly strife.
One flash! One groan! A startled ghost
Is born into the eternal life.

Dear wife and children ! Now I fly
Forth from my soldier camp to you !
Blue ridge and river hurry by
My weary eyes, in quick review.

Long have I waited. How and when
My furlough came is mystery.
I dreamed of charging with my men,
A dream of glorious history!

To you I fly on Love's strong wing ;
My courser needs no armed heel :
And yet anew the bugles ring,
And wake me to the crash of steel.

In fiercer rush of hosts again
My dripping sabre seeks the front.
Spur your mad horses ! Forward, men !
Meet with your hearts the battle's brunt.

Tricolor, flaunt! And trumpet-blare,
Scream louder than the bursting shell,
And thundering hoofs, that shake the air,
Trembling above that surging hell !

In carbine smoke and cannon flash,
Like avalanches twain, we meet ;
One gasp! we spur; one stab! we crash
And trample with the iron feet.

I dream! My tiercepoint smote them through,
My sabre buried to my hand !
And yet unchecked those horsemen flew,
And still I grasp my phantom brand !

Our chargers, which like whirlwinds bore
Us onward, lie all stiff and stark !
Black Midnight's feet wait on the shore,
To bear me where? Where all is dark.

And still I hear the faint recall !
My senses, — have they dropped asleep?
I see a soldier's funeral pall,
And there my wife and children weep !

Sobs break the air, below the cloud;
And one pure soul, of love and truth,
Is folding in a mortal shroud
Her quivering wings of Hope and Youth.

Ye of the sacred red right hand,
Who count, around our camp-fire light,
Dear names within the shadowy land,
Why do ye whisper mine to-night?

Where am I? Am I? Trumpet notes
Still mingle with a dreamy doubt
Of Where? and Whither? Music floats,
As when camp-lights are going out.

Like saintly eyes resigned to Death,
Like spirit whispers from afar,
The sighing bugle yields its breath,
As if it wooed a dying star.

Draped in dark shadows, widowed Night
Weeps, on new graves, with chilly tears ;
Beyond strange mountain-tops, the light
Is breaking from the immortal years.

A rhythm, from the unfathomed deep
Of God's eternal stillness, sings
My wondering, trembling soul to sleep,
While angels lift it on their wings.

THE PROGRESS OF PRUSSIA.

THI 'HE changes that have taken place ing carnage, Waterloo," was considered

in Europe in the last twenty years her work; and, as the most decisive batare of a most comprehensive character, tle since Philippi, it gave to the victor and as strange as comprehensive ; and in it an amount of consideration that their consequences are likely to be as was equal to that which Napoleon himremarkable as the changes themselves. self had possessed in 1812. But this In 1846 Russia was the first power of consideration rapidly passed away, as Europe, and at a great distance ahead England did nothing to maintain her of all other members of the Pentar- influence on the Continent, while Ruschy. She retained the hegemony sia was constantly busy there, and which she had acquired by the events really governed it down to the French of 1812 – 1814, and by the great display Revolution of 1830; and her power of military force she had made in 1815, was not much weakened even by the when 160,000 of her troops were re- fall of the elder Bourbons, with whom viewed near Paris by the sovereigns the Czar had entered into a treaty that and other leaders of the Grand Alliance had for one of its ends the cession to there assembled after the second and France of those very Rhenish provinces final fall of the first Napoleon. Had of which so much has been said in the Alexander I. reigned long, it is prob- course of the present year. Russia able that his eccentricities - to call was victorious in her conflicts with the them by no harder name - would have Persians and the Turks, and the battle operated to deprive Russia of her su- of Navarino really had been fought in premacy; but Nicholas, though he might her interest, — blindly by the English, never have raised his country so high but intelligently by the French, who as it was carried by his brother, was were willing that she should plant the exactly the man to keep the power he double - headed eagle on the Bospohad inherited, — and to keep it in the rus, provided the lilies should be plantonly way in which it was to be kept, ed on the Rhine. If the fall of the namely, by increasing it. This he had Bourbons in France, and the fall of the done, and great success had waited on Tories in England, weakened Russia's most of his undertakings, while in none influence in Western Europe, those had he encountered failure calculated events had the effect of drawing Austo attract the world's attention. Eng- tria and Prussia nearer to her, and of land had in some sense shared men's reviving something of the spirit of the notice with Russia immediately after Holy Alliance, which had lost much the settlement of Europe. The “crown- of its strength from the early death of Alexander. Russia had her own way land, it is very probable he would have in almost every respect; and in 1846 accomplished his purpose. But he deNicholas was almost as powerful a tested Napoleon III., and he was at no ruler as Napoleon had been a genera- pains to conceal his sentiments. This tion earlier, with the additional advan- was the one great error of his life. tage of being a legitimate sovereign, The French Emperor had two great who could not be destroyed through ends in view: first, to get into respectthe efforts of any coalition. Three able company; and, secondly, to make years later he saved Austria from de- himself powerful at home, by obtaining struction by his invasion of Hungary, power and influence for France abroad. -- an act of hard insolence, which quite Unaided, he could accomplish neither reconciles one to the humiliation that end; and Nicholas and Victoria were overtook him five years later. He was the only two sovereigns who could be then so powerful that the reactionists of much use to him in accomplishing of the West cried for Russian cannon, one or both. Had Nicholas been grato be used against the Reds. There cious to him, had he, in particular, was no nation to dispute the palm with made overtures to him, he might Russia. England was supposed to be have had the Emperor almost on his devoted to the conversion of cotton own terms; for the French disliked into calico, and to be ruled in the the English, and they did not dislike spirit of the Manchester school. She the Russians. Everything pointed to had retired into her shell, and could renewal of that “cordial understandnot be got out of it. Austria was ing” between Russia and France which thinking chiefly of Italy, and of be- had existed twenty-five years earlier, coming a naval power by incorporat- when Charles X. was king of France, ing that Peninsula into her empire. and which, had there been no RevoPrussia was looked upon as nothing lution of July, would have given to but a Russian outpost to the west, and Russia possession of Constantinople, waiting only to be used by her mas- and to the French that roc's egg of ter. France had not recovered from theirs, the left bank of the Rhine. But her humiliation of 1814-15, and never prosperity had been fatal to the Czar. would recover from it so long as she He could not see what was palpable to warred only at barricades or in Bar- everybody else. He allowed his feelbary. Russia was supreme, and most ings to get the better of his judgment. men thought that supreme she would He treated Napoleon III. with less remain.

consideration than he treated the TurkThus stood matters down to 1853. ish Sultan; and Napoleon actually was Early in that year the Czar entered on forced to teach him that a French his last quarrel with the Turks, whose ruler was a powerful personage, and cause was espoused by England, partly that the days of Louis Philippe were for the reason that Russian aggrandize- over forever. If not good enough to ment in the East would be dangerous help Russia spoil Turkey, the Czar to her interests, but more on the ground must be taught he was good enough that she had become weary of submis- to help England prevent the spoliating sion to that arrogant sovereign who scheme. France and England united was in the habit of giving law to the their forces to those of Turkey, and Old World. Russia's ascendency, were joined by Sardinia. Russia was though chiefly the work of England, beaten in the war, on almost all its was more distasteful to the English scenes, The world ascribed the result than it was to any other European peo- to Napoleon III. France carried off ple, more than it was to the French, the honors of the war, and of spoil there at whose expense it had been founded ;

The Peace of Paris, which and had Nicholas made overtures to the terminated the contest, was the work latter, instead of making them to Eng- of Napoleon. He dictated its terms,

was none.