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we can do for it is to save the waste of time, the chances of all professions dependent on in blundering into needless toils. health will permit, present independence, and, The master had thus first employed his with foresight and economy, the prospects of neophyte in arranging and compiling mate-future confidence were secured. rials for a great critical work in which Nor- And, indeed," said Leonard, concluding reys himself was engaged. In this stage of a longer but a simpler narrative than is here scholastic preparation, Leonard was necessa- told "indeed, there is some chance that I rily led to the acquisition of languages, for may obtain at once a sum that will leave me which he had great aptitude-the foundations free for the rest of my life to select my own of a large and comprehensive erudition were subjects and write without care for remunersolidly constructed. He traced by the plough-ation. This is what I call the true (and, pershare the walls of the destined city. Habits haps, alas! the rare) independence of him of accuracy and of generalization became who devotes himself to letters. Norreys, formed insensibly; and that precious faculty which seizes, amidst accumulated materials, those that serve the object for which they are explored, (that faculty which quadruples all force, by concentrating it on one point) once roused into action, gave purpose to every toil and quickness to each perception. But Norreys did not confine his pupil solely to the mute world of a library; he introduced him to some of the first minds in arts, science, and letters and active life. "These," said he, "are the living ideas of the present, out of which books for the future will be written: study them; and here, as in the volumes of the past, diligently amass and deliberately compile."

By degrees Norreys led on that young ardent mind from the selection of ideas to their æsthetic analysis-from compilation to criticism; but criticism severe, close, and logicala reason for each word of praise or of blame. Led in this stage of his career to examine into the laws of beauty, a new light broke upon his mind; from amidst the masses of marble he had piled around him, rose the vision of the statue.

And so, suddenly one day Norreys said to him, "I need a compiler no longer maintain yourself, by your own creations." And Leonard wrote, and a work flowered up from the seed deep buried, and the soil well cleared to the rays of the sun and the healthful influence of expanded air.

That first work did not penetrate to a very wide circle of readers, not from any perceptible fault of its own-there is luck in these things; the first anonymous work of an original genius is rarely at once eminently successful. But the more experienced recognized the promise of the book. Publishers who have an instinct in the discovery of available talent, which often forestalls the appreciation of the public, volunteered liberal offers. "Be fully successful this time," said Norreys; "think not of models nor of style. Strike at once at the common human heart -throw away the corks-swim out boldly. One word more never write a page till you have walked from your room to Temple Bar, and, mingling with men, and reading the human face, learn why great poets have mostly passed their lives in cities."

Thus Leonard wrote again, and woke one morning to find himself famous. So far as

having seen my boyish plan for the improvement of certain machinery in the steam-engine, insisted on my giving much time to mechanics. The study that once pleased me so greatly, now seemed dull; but I went into it with a good heart; and the result is, that I have improved so far on my original idea, that my scheme has met the approbation of one of our most scientific engineers; and I am assured that the patent for it will be purchased of me upon terms which I am ashamed to name to you, so disproportioned do they seem to the value of so simple a discovery. Meanwhile, I am already rich enough to have realized the two dreams of my heart to make a home in the cottage where I had last seen you and Helen-I mean Miss Digby; and to invite to that home her who had sheltered my infancy."

"Your mother, where is she? Let me see her."

Leonard ran out to call the widow, but to his surprise and vexation, learned that she had quitted the house before L'Estrange arrived.

He came back perplexed how to explain what seemed ungracious and ungrateful, and spoke with hesitating lip and flushed cheek of the widow's natural timidity and sense of her own homely station. "And so overpowered is she," added Leonard, “by the recollection of all that we owe to you, that she never hears your name without agitation or tears, and trembled like a leaf at the thought of seeing you."

"Ha!" said Harley, with visible emotion. "Is it so?" and he bent down, shading his face with his hand. "And," he renewed, after a pause, but not looking up-" and you ascribe this fear of seeing me, this agitation at my name, solely to an exaggerated sense of-of the circumstances attending my ac quaintance with yourself?"

"And, perhaps, to a sort of shame that the mother of one you have made her proud of is a peasant."

"That is all," said Harley, earnestly, now looking up and fixing eyes in which stood tears, upon Leonard's ingenuous brow.

"Oh, my dear lord, what else can it bel Do not judge her harshly."

L'Estrange rose abruptly, pressed Leonard's hand, muttered something not audible, and then drawing his young friend's arm in his,

led him into the garden, and turned the con- | hill, but he was gone. My suspicions were versation back to its former topics. so strong that I caused inquiry to be made at the different shops scattered about, and learned that a family, consisting of a gentleman, his wife, and daughter, had lately come to live in a house that you must have passed in your way hither, standing a little back from the road, surrounded by high walls; and though they were said to be English, yet from the description given to me of the gentleman's person by one who had noticed it, by the fact of a foreign servant in their em

"Certainly," said Harley, in a tone of surprise. "How can you doubt it? And I re-ploy, and by the very name 'Richmouth,' serve to you the pleasure of saying that you are renowned. You blush; well, I will say that for you. But you shall give her your books."

"My dear lord," said Leonard, "I think that you may spare yourself so long a journey. I have reason to suspect that Signor Riccabocca is my nearest neighbor. Two days ago I was in the garden, when suddenly lifting my eyes to yon hillock I perceived the So, somehow or other," continued the form of a man seated amongst the bushwood; young author, falteringly, "I wished that if and, though I could not see his features, ever I won to a poet's fame, it might be, to there was something in the very outline of my own heart, at least, associated with this his figure and his peculiar position, that irre- name of Nora-with her whom death had sistibly reminded me of Riccabocca. I has-robbed of the fame that she might othertened out of the garden and ascended the wise have won-with her who-"

He paused, greatly agitated. Harley was no less so. But as if by a sudden impulse, the soldier bent down his manly head, and kissed the poet's brow; then he hastened to the gate, flung himself on his horse, and rode away.

CHAPTER XVII.

you, and I have heard her pray to the holy Madonna to bless you, and in a voice so sweet-"

“Stay, I will present myself to her. Go into the house, and we will wait without for the Padrone. Nay, I need the air, my friend." Harley, as he said this, broke from Giacomo, and approached Violante.

The poor child, in her solitary walk in the obscurer parts of the dull garden, had escaped the eye of Giacomo when he had gone forth to answer the bell; and she, unconscious of the fears of which she was the object, had felt something of youthful curiosity at the summons at the gate, and the sight of a stran ger in close and friendly conference with the unsocial Giacomo.

As Harley now neared her with that singular grace of movement which belonged to him, a thrill shot through her heart-she knew not why. She did not recognize his likeness to the sketch taken by her father, from his recollections of Harley's early youth. She did not guess who he was; and yet she felt herself color, and, naturally fearless though she was, turned away with a vague alarm.

LORD L'ESTRANGE did not proceed at once to Riccabocca's house. He was under the influence of a remembrance too deep and too strong to yield easily to the lukewarm claim of friendship. He rode fast and far; and impossible it would be to define the feelings that passed through a mind so acutely sensitive, and so rootedly tenacious of all affections. When he once more, recalling his duty to the Italian, retraced his road to Norwood, the slow pace of his horse was significant of his own exhausted spirits; a deep dejection had succeeded to feverish excitement. "Vain task," he murmured, "to wean myself from the dead! Yet I am now betrothed to another; and she, with all her virtues, is not the one to-" He stopped short in generous selfrebuke. "Too late to think of that! Now, all that should remain to me is to insure the happiness of the life to which I have pledged my own. But-" He sighed as he so murmured. On reaching the vicinity of Riccabocca's house, he put up his horse at a little inn, and proceeded on foot across the heath-so intelligent and so innocent-eyes full of land towards the dull square building, which Leonard's description had sufficed to indicate as the exile's new home. It was long before any one answered his summons at the gate. Not till he had thrice rung did he hear a heavy step on the gravel walk within; then the wicket within the gate was partially drawn aside, a dark eye gleamed out, and a voice in imperfect English asked who was there.

"Lord L'Estrange; and if I am right as to the person I seek, that name will at once admit me.'

"Pardon my want of ceremony, Signorina," said Harley, in Italian; "but I am so old a friend of your father's that I cannot feel as a stranger to yourself."

Then Violante lifted to him her dark eyes,

surprise, but not displeased surprise. And Harley himself stood amazed, and almost abashed, by the rich and marvellous beauty that beamed upon him. "My father's friend," she said hesitatingly, "and I never to have seen you!"

"Ah, Signorina," said Harley (and something of his native humor, half arch, half sad, played round his lip,) "you are mistaken there; you have seen me before, and you received me much more kindly then-"

Signor!" said Violante, more and more surprised, and with a yet richer color on her

The door flew open as did that of the mys-cheeks. tic cavern at the sound of "Open Sesame;" Harley, who had now recovered from the and Giacomo, almost weeping with joyous first effect of her beauty, and who regarded emotion, exclaimed in Italian, "The good her as men of his years and character are Lord! Holy San Giacomo! thou hast heard apt to regard ladies in their teens, as more me at last! We are safe now." And drop-child than woman, suffered himself to be ping the blunderbuss with which he had taken the precaution to arm himself, he lifted Harley's hand to his lips, in the affectionate greeting familiar to his countrymen.

"And the Padrone?" asked Harley, as he entered the jealous precincts.

Oh, he is just gone out; but he will not be long. You will wait for him?"

Certainly. What lady is that I see at the far end of the garden?"

"Bless her, it is our Signorina. I will run and tell her that you are come."

"That I am come; but she cannot know me even by name."

"Ah, Excellency, can you think so? Many and many a time has she talked to me of

แ

amused by her perplexity; for it was in his nature, that the graver and more mournful he felt at heart, the more he sought to give play and whim to his spirits.

"Indeed Signorina," said he demurely, you insisted then on placing one of those fair hands in mine; the other (forgive me the fidelity of my recollections) was affectionately thrown around my neck."

66

Signor!" again exclaimed Violante; but this time there was anger in her voice as well as surprise, and nothing could be more charming than her look of pride and resent

ment.

Harley smiled again, but with so much kindly sweetness, that the anger vanished at

once, or rather Violante felt angry with herself that she was no longer angry with him. But she had looked so beautiful in her anger, that Harley wished, perhaps, to see her

angry again. So, composing his lips from

their propitiatory smile he resumed, gravely
"Your flatterers will tell you, Signorina,
that you are much improved since then, but
I liked you better as you were; not but
what I hope to return some day what you
then so generously pressed upon me."

"Pressed upon you!-I? Signor, you are under some strange mistake."

"Alas! no; but the female heart is so capricious and fickle! You pressed it upon me, I assure you. I own that I was not loth to accept it.

"Pressed it? Pressed what?"

"Your kiss, my child," said Harley; and then added with a serious tenderness, "And I again say that I hope to return it some day -when I see you, by the side of father and of husband, in your native land-the fairest bride on whom the skies of Italy ever smiled! And now, pardon a hermit and a soldier for his rude jests, and give your hand, in token of that pardon, to-Harley L'Estrange."

Violante, who at the first words of this address had recoiled, with a vague belief that the stranger was out of his mind, sprang forward as it closed, and in all the vivid enthusiasm of her nature, pressed the hand held out to her, with both her own. Harley L'Estrange-the preserver of my father's life!" she cried, and her eyes were fixed on his with such evident gratitude and reverence, that Harley felt at once confused and delighted. She did not think at that instant of the hero of her dreams-she thought but of him who had saved her father. But, as his eyes sank before her own, and his head, uncovered, bowed over the hand he held, she recognized the likeness to the features on which she had so often gazed. The first bloom of youth was gone, but enough of youth still remained to soften the lapse of years, and to leave to manhood the attractions which charm the eye. Instinctively she withdrew her hands from his clasp, and, in her turn looked down.

In this pause of embarrassment to both, Riccabocca let himself into the garden by his own latch-key, and, startled to see a man by the side of Volante, sprang forward with an abrupt and angry cry. Harley heard and turned,

As if restored to courage and self-possession by the sense of her father's presence, Violante again took the hand of the visitor. "Father," she said simply, "it is he-he is come at last." And then, retiring a few steps, she contemplated them both; and her face was radiant with happiness-as if something, long silently missed and looked for, was as silently found, and life had no more a want, nor the heart a void.

THE WHITE LAMB.

A STORY FOR THE YOUNG FOLKS.
BY R. H. STODDARD.

ONCE in a far country, for which you might

search all the geographies of the world in vain, there lived a poor woman who had a little daughter named Agnes. That she was poor, and had a child, was by no means wonderful; for poor people are common in all parts of the earth; and so for the matter of that, are children too; for which the good God cannot be enough thanked.

But this poor woman and child were not altogether like the thousands who surrounded them, as I shall show you in the course of my little story. For the mother was exceeding goodly, and the child was exceeding fair; and goodly too, so far as a child could be. Not that children cannot be as good, aye, and better than most grown people; but in that country they were very bad and ignorant.

It is true that there were schools and academies there, and great colleges time-honored and world-renowned; but somehow or other the people were no better, but on the contrary rather worse for all these blessings. Whether they neglected good, or good neglected them, is not for us to inquire now; but certain it is that the greater part of them grew up in ignorance and vice. Now they need not have grown up in vice unless they had preferred it to virtue; though they could hardly have escaped a life of ignorance. There were many priests there to teach them the folly of sin in this world, and its eternal punishment in the next. They were very energetic in picturing the misery of sinners; but in spite of all they could say, and do, they preached to thin and careless congregations: in consequence of which many of their salaries were unpaid from one year's end to another.

Most of the men spent their Sabbaths in bull-baiting and dog-fighting; most of the women in gadding from house to house with budgets of scandal; while the children ran off to the woods to snare birds and gather berries, and oftentimes to fight out a match made up the day before. Black eyes were by no means uncommon, with plenty more in perspective when those were healed.

This was the life of the mass of people, thongh I am happy to say there were many exceptions, in men, women, and children, who went to the chapel, as all good Christians should; and lived up to the precepts of the Good Book, as all good Christians do; among whom was the mother and child that I began to tell you about.

And not only did the good woman go to church on the Sabbath, and on all the appointed holidays and feasts, but she endeavored to make her life a perpetual sabbath unto the Lord. But the child, because she was of a tender age, could not always accompany her, nor understand why she must always clasp her hands, and kneel down in the

pew, when the vicar did the same in his little pulpit. But she was a good child for all that, as the story will show, and loved her mother with an exceeding love.

When she was about three years of age, her mother died. Her death, however, was by no means unexpected. The only wonder was that she had lived so long, she was so thin and sickly. Her husband had been dead a little over a year. He left her nothing but his child and poverty; a common legacy among the poorer sort of people in that country. After his death she toiled late and early to maintain herself and babe. Many a dawn she rose before the sun, and the sun rose there very early. Many a night she saw the moon set, and it sets very late at certain seasons of the year; but her labors were never done. The labors of the poor never are until death comes. When death came to her, she rested from her work, and her work followed her.

It was a fine day in spring when they buried her. The fresh green earth was full of dew, the soft blue sky without a cloud. It was a day to make one certain of immortality. Few and unconcerned were those who bore her to the grave; they would rather have gone to a merry-making; mere neighbors and nothing more: the dead woman left no friends, or relatives; only her child.

When they reached the churchyard, they found the old sexton beside the grave, leaning on his spade, ready to fill it again at the shortest notice. The vicar put on his bands, and read the funeral service. "Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, but the spirit to God who gave it." The coffin was lowered into its narrow house and the earth thrown upon it, while the minister of Christ exhorted the people around.

Little Agnes being left to herself by those who had charge of her, strayed down the winding paths, and was soon hidden among the grave-stones, which were very thick; for the dead of ages were buried in that little churchyard. At first she wondered why she had been brought there; but the sky was so blue above her, and the earth so beautiful around, that she soon forgot it. The shadow of Death, which falls heavily on the hearts of men, passes like a light mist over the soul of a child.

Large butterflies with crimson and golden wings were flying to and fro in the air, and the wild bee pursued its honey-making in the buttercups. She sat down in the long grass, and began to weave the blue violets, as she had seen the basket-maker weave his rushes. Not a month before, a little girl of her own age was laid with many tears in the mound at her feet; but the dew hung there as brightly as in the deep meadows, and the sunshine filled the place, like the smile of God. Nature mourns not like man for the dead whom she has gathered to her bosom in peace:

By and by little Agnes began to grow drowsy, and in spite of all she could do to keep awake, she found her eyes closing and her head nodding on her breast; so she repeated the prayer that her good mother had taught her to say before going to bed, and committed herself to the care of her Heavenly Father, and in a moment was fast asleep, and walking in a dream with the Angels.

In the mean time the good vicar, having finished his exhortation, and the people hav ing departed, began to wonder at her absence, and searched for her down the path which he remembered to have seen her take. Looking right and left among the grave-stones, and calling "Agnes," with a sweet, low voice, he came to the spot where she had fallen asleep. She was sleeping still, and beside her stood a little lamb, innocent and beautiful. Its fleece was whiter than the driven snow, and glistened in the sunlight like gold. There was a golden collar around its neck, with an inscription in an unknown tongue; and its eyes were exceeding tender and beautiful. There were no folds in that country, and how it could have come there was a mystery which the vicar could not explain; nor could the child when she awoke. She only remembered to have seen it in her dream, following a Shepherd in the pastures of Paradise.

As the vicar stood lost in amazement, it drew near him, and looked up in his face with its tender and beautiful eyes, and then at the child, and then in his face again, as much as to say-Here is a poor motherless one; she has no friends in the wide world; who will take care of her, if you do not? Indeed, he fancied that it did say so; and that a voice softer than silence whispered to him, "Feed my Lambs." His heart was touched with pity, and he lifted her up in his arms and bore her to the vicarage.

of

It was not long before the news spread through the neighboring towns, and many their dwellers came to see the White Lamb and the young child, who grew daily more beautiful and good. The pious seemed to grow better the moment they beheld the loving pair; and the wicked, who had sat for years under the droppings of the sanctuary, or mocked at the goodness of Heaven afar off, grew thoughtful and penitent, and were soon numbered among the people of God.

The lamb and child were seldom separated. Little Agnes was very unhappy when parted from it, and it seemed equally unhap py in its turn when parted from her. Sometimes they used to sit for hours toge ther; she poring over the vicar's antique missal, which by this time she had learned to read, and the lamb at her feet, looking up in her face with its tender and beautiful eyes. Sometimes in the warm summer days they went off together to the woods and lanes;