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Insulted, baron?" repeated the young man, somewhat haughtily; "I have said nothing to call for such a phrase at your lips, unless, indeed, my poverty insults you. The richest man in this land could do no more than love your daughter, and were she a queen, the homage of the poorest would not disgrace her. Explain yourself, I beg."

"Permit me first to ask you one question. What brings you to Ems ?""

The young man hesitated, and the baron smiled ironically.

"I came, sir," he said at length, "in search of I will confess it-in search of peace, of forgetfulness, of consolation. I was not happy, sir-I-"

His voice broke: he looked down, and remained silent.

The baron laughed aloud—a harsh mocking laugh that caused Albert to raise his head with a movement of sudden indignation. "I have not deserved this treatment at your hands, Baron Hohendorf," he said, turning away towards the window. "Your position as the father of one whom I dearly love protects you from the satisfaction I might demand; but I trust the time will come when you will recognize and acknowledge your injustice to me."

"What effrontery! You forget, then, that it is in my power to confront you with the proof of your vice; nay, at this instant to confound and convict you. What gold is this?"

And the old gentleman, whose eyes had already detected the glimmer of the coin beneath the coat, extended his hand, and lifted the garment away upon the end of his walking-stick. The lover turned pale, and could not speak.

"Der teufel! For a poor man you have, it seems, a well-filled purse for travelling! Ah! you never gamble?"

Never, sir."

"Indeed! Pray, then, if your gold be

not the fruit of the gaming-table, whence comes it ?"

am

"I know not. You will not believe me, I aware, but I swear that I speak the truth. This gold comes here, I know not how. This is the fourth time I have found it upon my table. I can discover nothing of the source whence it arrives. I know not why it is here, who brings it, or how it is brought. By my honor as a gentleman and a soldier,-by all my hopes of happiness in this life or the next, I am utterly ignorant of every thing about it."

"This is too much!" cried the baron furiously. "Do you take me for an idiot or a dotard? Good morning to you, sir, and I hope I may never see your face again!"

And he slammed the door violently behind him, and went away down the stairs, leaving poor Von Steinberg utterly overwhelmed and broken-hearted. "Cursed gold!" he exclaimed, dashing it upon the floor in his anger, "what brought thee here, and why dost thou torment me!" Then the poor fellow thought of Emma, and of how his last chance was wrecked, and he was so miserable, that he actually threw himself upon his bed, and wept bitterly. All at once he remembered that the baron had a sister at Langeuschwalbach; she perhaps, would believe him, would intercede for him! He started up, resolved to go thither at once; hastily gathered together the scattered pieces of money; locked them up in the drawer with the rest; ran down straight to the neighboring carriage-stand; hired a vehicle to convey him to the railway station, and in less than half an hour he was on his way. In about three hours he arrived. He passed nearly the whole day in trying to discover the lady's address, and, when he had found it, was told that she had been for the last two months at Vienna. It was a foolish journey, with disappointment at the end of it! He came back quite late in the evening to Ems, and entered his own room, utterly broken down by anxiety and fatigue.

In the meantime, the baron, crimson with rage, had returned to his hotel, and told all the circumstances to his daughter. She could not believe in the guilt of her lover. "He a gambler!" she exclaimed. “It is impossible!"

"But I saw the gold upon his table." "He says he knows nothing of it, and he never told an untruth in his life. It will all be explained by-and-by."

"But I saw him playing at the tables."

"It was some other who resembles him." “Will you believe it if you see him your self?"

"I will, my father, and I will renounce him for ever; but not till then."

"Then you shall be convinced this evening."

The evening came, and the rooms were more than usually crowded. There was a ball in the salon de danse; refreshments in the ante-room; gaming, as usual, in the third apartment. The Baron von Hohendorf was there with his daughter and some friends. They made their way to the tables, but he whom they sought was not there. Eager faces enough were there around the board; faces of old women, cunning and avaricious; faces of pale dissipated boys, scarce old enough, one would have thought, to care for any games but those of the school-ground; faces of hardened, cool, determined gamblers; faces of girls young and beautiful, and of men old and feeble. Strange table, around which youth, and beauty, and age, and deformity, and vice, should congregate together, and meet on equal ground!

up the gold was stiff and mechanical as that of the commandant in Don Giovanni.

The baron could contain his indignation no longer. Leaving his daughter to the care of her friends, he made his way round the tables, and approached the young man's chair. He extended his hand to touch the player's arm, when his own was forcibly seized and held back. He turned, and saw one of the most celebrated physicians of Germany standing beside him.

"Stop!" he exclaimed, "do not speak to that young man, it might injure him!" "That is exactly what I wish. I will disturb his calculations, the hypocrite.' "You will kill him."

"Pshaw! you are jesting with me." "I am perfectly serious. Look at him," continued the physician, pointing to his pale face and set gaze; "look at him! He sleeps! A sudden shock might be his death. You can not see this, but I can. I have studied this thing narrowly, and I never beheld a more remarkable case of somnambulism."

The physician continued for some time conversing with the baron in an under tone. Presently the bank gave the signal; the players rose; the tables closed for that even

A cry of agony breaks from the pale lips of a young girl at the other end of the room, as she clings to the arm of an elderly gentleman beside her, and leans wildly forward to be sure that it is really he. Alas! it is no error-it is Albert! He neither hears nor heeds any thing around him. He does not even look towards where she stands. He seats himself very quietly, as a matter of course, takes some rouleaux of gold and a packet of notes from his pocket, stakes a large sum, and begins to play with all the cool audacity of one whose faith in his own luck is unshakeable, and who is perfect master of the game. Besides this, he carried his self-command to that point which is only to be attained by years of practice. It was splendid to see him so impassive. His features were fixed and inexpressive as those of a statue; the steady earnestness of his gaze was almost terrible; his very movements were scarcely those of a man liable to human frailties and human emotions; and the right hand with which he staked and swept

up his enormous winnings, pushed back his chair and left the rooms, passing close before the baron without seeing him. They followed him down the street to his own door; he entered by means of his latch-key, and closed it behind him without a sound. There was no light in his window-no one in the house was awake-none but those two had seen him enter.

The next morning, when he awoke, he found a larger pile of gold than ever on his table. He was stupefied with amazement. He counted it, and he told over 44,000 florins.

Again there came a knock at his chamberdoor. This time he did not even attempt to conceal the money; and when the baron and the physician entered he was too much troubled even to feel surprised at the sight of a stranger.

"You have come again to tell me that I am a gambler!" he exclaimed, despairingly, as he pointed to the gold, and leaned his head listlessly upon his hands.

"I say it, my young friend, because I saw it," replied the baron; "but at the same time I come to entreat your pardon for having accused you of it. You have played without knowing it; you have gambled, and yet you are no gambler."

"Yes," interrupted the physician; "for somnambulists often perform the very actions which they detest. But it is with you a mere functional derangement-not a settled habit and I can easily cure you. But, perhaps," he added, smiling, "you do not wish to lose so profitable a malady. You may become a millionaire."

"Ah, doctor!" cried the count, "I place myself in your hands; cure me, I entreat you!"

"Well, well, there is time enough for that," said the baron; "first of all, shake hands, and let us be friends."

"I have a horror of play," replied the involuntary gambler, "and I shall instantly restore to the bank all that I have won. See, here is, altogether, 130,000 florins!"

"Take my advice, Albert," said the baron, "and do no such thing. Suppose that in your sleep you had lost 130,000 florins, do

you think the bank would have restored it to you? No, no; entertain no such seruples. Your father lost more than thrice that sum at those very tables,-it is but a restitution in part. Keep your florins, and return with me to my hotel, where Emma is waiting to receive your visit. You have 130,000 there, I will excuse the other 70,000 upon which I formerly insisted, and you can make it up in love. Are you content; or must you restore the money to the bank?"

History has not recorded the lover's reply; at all events, he quitted Ems that same day in company with the Baron von Hohendorf and his pretty daughter. The prescriptions of the learned physician have, it is said, already effected a cure, and the Frankford Journal of last week announces the approaching marrriage of Mdmlle. Von Hohendorf with Albert, Count of Steinberg.

THE conception of this work is extremely, happy. Its object, as the title intimates, is to show that chemistry is deeply concerned in some of the commonest transactions of life. It is intended also to prove that many of the most prosaic operations we perform are fraught with romance when surveyed by the light which science affords. It is a work that brings meaning out of things where little or no meaning was supposed to exist before. Thoroughly practical in its character, it furnishes a fine illustration of the tendency which we would hope is daily increasing in strength-namely, to ransack the humblest departments of inquiry, and the most beaten walks of life, in search of the beautiful and the marvellous. How different were

•The Chemistry of Common Life. By JAMES F. W. JOHNSTON, M.A., F.R.S., L. & E., &c., Author of "Lectures on Agricultural Chemistry and Geology," "A Catechism of Agricultural Chemistry and Geology," &c. 2 vols. William Black wood and Sons, Edinburgh and London, 1854.

the uses to which chemistry was originally applied! The laboratory was once a place where men tried experiments with "powders of projection," and sought to conjure pewter into gold. It was a place where desperate efforts were made to brew a liquid of sufficient potency to dissolve all substances, from a lump of salt to a block of granite. It was a place where lifetimes were wasted in the attempt to distil elixirs which would prevent the insidious approaches of decay, or restore battered old gentlemen to the vigor and elasticity of youth. Chemistry indeed was then a species of black art, and its professors took rank in the same class with people who pretended to raise spirits or foretel destinies from the appearance of the stars. Busied with such magnificent schemes, it could scarcely disgrace itself by stooping to inquiries which affected the "common life" of mankind. We might as well have expected the early Spanish adventurers to relinquish their researches after the Land of Gold

which, though little studied, are constantly influencing the health and happiness of man. It puts on its apron and goes to work to analyze the water we drink, the bread we eat, the beef we cook, the liquors we ferment. It tells us what sweets to extract, and what poisons to avoid. It explains the constitution of the narcotics in which so many indulge, and does not think its dignity impaired by discussing the smells we dislike. The result is singularly instructive. So far from leaving the regions of romance by following its steps into the kitchen, the parlor, or the brewery, wonders seem to spring up before us with a prodigality which is surprising. Some of the commonest facts are stripped in a moment of their plebeian look, and presented under an aspect of great scientific beauty and importance. The author is continually picking up what appear to be worthless or insignificant things, but when the rust is rubbed from their surface, they prove to be coins of great value and consummate finish. This circumstance alone would impart a peculiar fascination to the book. But when a man like Professor Johnston, whose works have acquired an European reputation, brings his acute intellect and his varied knowledge to bear upon matters which have rarely been submitted to philosophical treatment, the result cannot fail to be eminently satisfactory. From some of his conclusions, it is possible that readers may occasionally dissent. All, however, will concur in admiring the profound thought which has ennobled so many familiar things, and has even tinged the commonest processes of household life with the hues of novelty and surprise. The work deserves to be universally read. Written in an easy, animated style, and illustrated with facts which could only have been acquired by rifling innumerable volumes of travel and research, it is just one of those productions which best show that science may be rendered popular with out becoming superficial, and that, in order to write like a philosopher, it is not necessary to inflict any damage upon a reader by compelling him to yawn incessantly, or by driving him to the last new novel to escape a state of suspended animation.

a correct idea of the marvellous purposes to which our provender is applied. Let it be remembered that, to take food, is to make man. Eating is the process by which the noblest of terrestial fabrics is constantly repaired. All our limbs and organs have been picked up from our plates. We have been served up at table many times over. Every individual is literally a mass of vivified viands; he is an epitome of innumerable meals; he has dined upon himself, supped upon himself, and in fact, paradoxical as it may appear, has again and again leaped down his own throat.

There are few greater marvels, indeed, than the changes which are perpetually transpiring in the human body. It is constantly undergoing dissolution; parts of it are dying every instant. The whole fabric is probably dissipated in the course of a few weekscertainly in the course of a few years. In the range of a long lifetime each individual wears out several suits of bodies, as he does several suits of clothes. The successive structures we have occupied may bear the same name, and exhibit the same external aspect, but, anatomically considered, our present frames are no more identical with the frames of our early youth than we are with our progenitors, who came over (as most people's ancestors are supposed to have done) with William the Conqueror. By what subtle mechanism our food is so dexterously deposited upon a certain inward and invisible form (if we may so speak,) that it shall constantly reproduce a given individuality, with all its original peculiarities, is a mystery which sci

*Liebig states that an adult pig weighing 120 pounds will consume 5,110 pounds of potatoes in the course of a year, and yet at the expiration of that period its weight may not have increased a victuals! Had the whole been assimilated, the ansingle ounce. What has become of all this mass of imal would have been renewed more than forty times over, that is, we should have had in effect forty pigs in the lapse of a twelvemonth, if the disinte gration of its body had been perfectly uniform. Much, however, of the material imbibed is unappropriated in its passage through the frame, and much is respired or otherwise employed; but after making whatever deductions may be requisite on these accounts, it will be seen that a balance

remains sufficiently large to compose a little herd ure under the shape of one apparently unchanging of swine within the year, though these may all fig

ence, perhaps, will never fathom. The houses we inhabit are pulled down, stone by stone, and yet rebuilt as fast as they are destroyed; all their furniture and fixtures are severally removed, particle by particle. The whole of each edifice is reconstructed in the course, we will say, of a single year, and yet no eye can follow the process, or detect any organic change in the architecture of the pile. Though the vital artificers are constantly at work, their operations are wholly unfelt; we are never conscious of the separation of particles, or the substitution of others. The masons and carpenters are never off our premises for an hour, and yet the chink of their chisels, or the grating of their saws, is entirely unheard. And still more striking is the fact, that the very organs which are kept in constant activity are themselves silently renewed without interrupting their functions for an instant. The heart is reproduced out of our food without losing a single beat, and without spilling a solitary drop of blood. The eye is taken to pieces, time after time, and the windows of vision reglazed, without disturbing our sight for a day; and new stomachs are repeatedly inserted in our bodies without our ever being compelled to close up the mouth of the alimentary canal, and abstain from digestion, until the apparatus can be properly replaced. That house after house should thus be rebuilt on the same site, in the same form, and with the same furniture, is surely as strange as if Saint Paul's Cathedral were renewed from top to bottom, year by year, without attracting observation; and its organ, its clock, and bells, could all be remodelled whilst kept in unremitting play.

But as the body is composed of a certain set of elements, united in certain proportions, the food we consume must contain the precise ingredients required. Here is another marvellous arrangement to be observed. How comes it that men who have been dining for thousands of years in ignorance of their own chemical constitution, as well as of the exact composition of their viands, should yet have hit upon substances which comprehend all the raw material needed for the restoration of the frame? Solomon, with all his sagacity, knew nothing of fibrin, albumen, or casein; nor was Apicius, with all his recherché experience in cookery, aware that his fine dishes must resolve themselves into certain undistinguished elements, if they were to prove in the slightest degree nutritious. It is only a small part of creation that the stomach will digest. A Frenchman, of the

name of Mercier, expressed an opinion that chemistry would one day be able to extract a nutritive principle from all bodies, and that then it would be as easy for people to obtain food as it is now to draw water from rivers. Dr. Armstrong, in his Art of Preserving Health, says, "Nothing so foreign but the athletic hind can labor into blood." But this is poetry. In prose, our bill of fare is confined to comparatively few out of the fifty or sixty terrestrial elements with which we are acquainted; and it would be just as idle to attempt to feast on the others as it was for Midas to sit down to a banquet of gold. The difficulty of the question is also enhanced by various circumstances, of which we need only mention that the ingredients required for our frames are not supplied in a separate and uncombined condition-that is to say, as so much carbon, so much lime, so much oxygen, &c.; but they are presented in our victuals in such a disguised and complicated form, that neither cook nor chemist, reasoning à priori, could predict what would be their destiny when subjected to analysis by the stomach, or brought under the influence of the organs of assimilation. Practically considered, therefore, the repair of the bodily house seems to be the most random work imaginable. We take pains to procure a dinner daily, but nobody ever asks whether it contains (as it were) bricks for the walls, timber for the floor, glass for the windows, metal for the grate, or marble for the mantelpiece. We must, in some way or other, contrive to procure iron for the blood, sulphur for the hair, and phosphorus for the brain; but at no table in the kingdom do we ever find these indispensable articles appearing in the salt-cellars or cruet-stands.

How then explain the fact that so many millions of human bodies have been repaired without difficulty and without mistake, though errors might so easily have been committed, and though men appear to have been perpetually banqueting in the dark? only ascribe this remarkable result to a kindly Providence, which has not merely spread a spendid table for man "in the wilderness," and furnished it with a varied array of viands, but has also implanted a subtle instinct in the human system which, when it is discreetly indulged, attracts us to what is chemically congenial, but repels us from what is useless or injurious.

In order, however, to exhibit this happy adaptation of food to the feeder, let us glance for awhile at the "bread we eat." It is the staff of life. It is also a key to the compo