porch with a smiling promise of return; but the footprints turned inward nevermore; for outside the hills of Rome the grave of one was green and holy, while the other, a gay and reckless spirit, fell in a wild carouse, and was buried, none knew, none questioned where. Her father-oh, she remembered him! He had been a jovial, happy man, and she his darling pride and favorite. A thousand times he had locked her in his arms and said, "My Margaret, I will never leave thee! I will live a hundred years to love and bless thee!" Twenty years now the rain had fallen and the cowslips bloomed upon his grave, showing the futility of earthly promises, and the impotency of human love. Her mother—she was beautiful; but it was a beauty quickly ripening, and garnered all too soon. Here, too, her youth had promised much of love and remembrance, to be belied in after-years by calm indifference, and more recent attachments. But there was another memory; and round this picture now the tide of revelry ebbed and flowed in alternate dread and longing before the quiet features were turned toward the light. It was a noble and a striking face. The grace of mature and perfect manhood sat upon the brow; the hair was long, black, and curling; there was a sweet mingling of firmness and gentleness about the mouth; and none knew so well as she, whose dying eyes were wet with tears, how sweet those lips had smiled, or how complete the spell of love and happiness that had looked from those bright eyes. Oh, she recalled every change in that lost countenance now!— every glance of disapproval, every look of love and forgiveness. She had tried that noble spirit sorely. She was young; he past his youth, but beautiful and attractive. They were wed; and she remembered now how she had laid her cheek to his with breathless fondness, and said: "I will never, never cease to love you; I will lay my heart to yours forever; and when you die, I will go down into the grave with you, and fold you into my arms as close as now." "Will you?" he asked, with a bright smile of incredulity. "Yes, for I will never live without you. I will never breathe the air of this world when I cannot love, and look up, and lean on you as now." Yet she had forgotten all this. Oh, shame, shame! She had tormented, trifled with that generous spirit, till forbearance was no longer in him. "Margaret, you are not a child," he said, with sad, yet quiet firmness; “I will bear with every error except that which can not be borne. Come, be a good girl now, and we will love each other, and—” "Love each other! You love!" she cried, in scornful accents; "if ever you loved, it must have been a weary time ago. You have long outlived such youthful frailties and unselfish emotions!" Poor girl!-oh, poor girl!" she found herself muttering now, as she looked back commiseratingly upon that wretched picture of herself after the bitter words were spoken, kneeling on the floor with clasped hands and eyes streaming. Her husband had gone out. She had not seen his countenance after the first look of astonishment succeeding her scornful outburst, and never more in this world did those kind eyes cast a glance upon her; never did those indulgent lips breathe a word of love or forgiveness. Crossing a common, his horse shied suddenly; the absorbed rider started was thrown forward, and struck upon the centre of his raven head, till the back neckbone bent outward, and the blood gushed from mouth and nostrils. “Poor girl! — oh, poor girl!" she thought again, as she wept once more over that miserable picture of herself, kneeling with her tearless face pressed close against the blood-stained lips of the corpse, and vainly imploring that indulgent husband to "Come back! come back!" Ah, but the inexorable spirit never would come back! She might plead and plead - might promise to love forever— might go down into the grave with the decaying dust - but there never would be peace between them; he never would fold her smiling in his arms again, blaming and forgiving, and reproving and caressing. Six feet deep the mould was over him, and six feet high the marble rose. Fifteen times the summer had been there and gone, yet she had not died of grief; she had not gone down to the grave to him. No, she turned his picture to the wall, and silently she placed that seal upon her memory which coming death had now removed. Misery, oh, misery! Why had she been born? Why had he been born? He was dust-their lives had been a shadow and she was drifting helplessly toward the sea of dust and nothingness. All that she had loved, or known, or valued, passed away. To what end had she lived? Why had she been born? Lifting her head slowly here, she paused and listened. The sun was sinking in a sea of golden light; the Italian boy had shouldered his merry hurdy-gurdy and plodded on his road; and through the chapel-windows came the low and inexpressibly sweet and solemn strains of the vesper chant, “Deus, in adjutorium meum intende,” ("Incline unto my aid, O Lord.") The words were not intelligible, but the song was a wailing prayer for mercy and forgiveness. Gradually it seemed to syllable itself into a language for her ear. They were mourning for her, praying tearfully; weeping over her lost life, and asking God to have mercy on the poor, unthinking soul that was hurrying into his presence without a moment's preparation. What could it mean? What had they to do with her? What kindness had she ever asked of them that they should pray for her? But was it a kindness? Was there really anything to fear? Was there danger in dying in this reckless, defiant kind of way? Oh! if there should be! and oh! more wonderful still, if there should be such a beautiful, blessed place as that transcendent heaven, of which those nuns were always singing, and to which that cross continually pointed! Reasoning now from known facts, she concluded there must at least be grounds for admitting a strong probability; as here were fifty women, earnest, intelligent, thoughtful, who bent unreservedly before the belief, to her one, poor, unwise head, which must needs oppose because it could not understand. Better to sing "Gloria, O gloria!" with the nuns forever, however vainly than miss one chance of heaven, however small. "Laudate laudate Dominum!" the choir continued; and her spirit rose with the solemn voices of the worshippers, and seemed to float in a sea of happiness and calm content, from whence she seemed to look down upon her past life with the gentle commiseration and pitying tenderness we feel for one who has suffered long, but whose sufferings are now well at an end. Was this indeed, then, the only real and imperishable good, life had to offer? — the hope that never could be dimmed? - the love that was immortal, and in which all other loves were immortalized? Perish the delusive hand of happiness that had so long led her feet astray! She raised her eyes toward the skies, and then fixed them upon the highest window of the chapel-tower. Slowly the sash was lifted, and a woman stood in the aperture, with her veil thrown back, and her face turned thoughtfully toward the glowing west. She raised the sleeve of her habit to shield her eyes from the glare of light, and in the sunset her hand shone like gold. The sleeve of her gown waved once, twice, thrice, in the wind, and she seemed to beckon, and to smile; but a cloud came over the vision of the watcher, and when the shower of tears was past and she could see once more, the sash was down and the window deserted; the sun had faded almost entirely from the convent-tower, and the song of the receding nuns grew fainter and fainter as they wound away through the distant galleries. "Gloria, O gloria! was the last sweet solemn sound she heard; and “Gloria, O gloria!” her spirit repeated fervently as she laid her head back upon the pillow, and turned her eyes upon the cross that was glowing yet in the last faint rays of the setting Scorn, shame, and wrong are mortal banes: Nor ear nor heart hath mouldering manes. They plant the laurel where we rot, Men, idly musing starward, fain Would limn the thoughts in yonder sky; They crave to link affection's chain, And bind earth's broken fetters. Why? He craves not chains whose freedom's won: They only rest whose loving's done. THE LETTER. Go, my rosy little billet, And, if wind and tide befriend thee, When thy scented pages fill it, Kiss the hand to which I send thee. Speak, oh! speak in burning blushes, All I have not dared to breathe him, Tell him in thy rosy flushes, And with sighs of fondness wreathe him. Say, oh! say, if thou wert woman, How my jealous heart could hate thee, (For our hearts are only human,) Did such envied bliss await thee. For, when read, will he not hold thee, And (most sweet and rapturous blessing) In his silken vest enfold thee, With his heart thy dumb heart pressing? Go, my rosy little billet, And, if wind and tide befriend thee, With my own deep passion fill it, That dear heart to which I send thee. MRS. JOSEPHINE R. HOSKINS. OW true is it that true worth and genius are like the violet, hiding Ho from public gaze, and only discovered by its perfume, that cannot hide itself always! The subject of this article is like a "violet," as modest and unassuming as talented, and on that account not well known, for true merit goes unrewarded, while glitter mounts high on Parnassus, and sits there for a time. Mrs. Hoskins is by birth a New-Yorker, but has resided in the South for over thirty years, and known and loved "Southland" best of all other lands. Her father was a Frenchman, born of Italian parents; he came to the United States just before the war of 1812, entered the army, and served with some distinction under General Macomb, and after the close of the war was enrolled, by special compliment for services rendered, in the regular army. Her mother was a native of Philadelphia. Mrs. Hoskins's life has been fraught with many lights and shadows, changes and vicissitudes, interspersed with sorrows that fall more frequently to the few. When in her twenty-sixth year, she was obliged to succumb to a disease which she had fought and conquered through mere force of will and natural energy ever since her childhood. By degrees it reduced her to the position of a cripple, confining her to the boundaries of four walls, and giving her a sufficient amount of suffering of various kinds to learn to "possess her soul in patience," as she expresses it. For over twenty years she has been thus afflicted, and during that time she has had trials of a far heavier kind; and yet the true woman remains, kind, gentle, and uncomplaining, pervaded with that peace which passeth human understanding. Mrs. Hoskins first wrote for publication during the last illness of her husband, in 1858; but not knowing the pathway that led to print, and being too timid to ask the way, having no confidence in her own powers, it was not until the publication of the "Southern Monthly," (Memphis,) in 1860, shortly after making New Orleans her home, that she found courage to send her articles to that journal. "Love's Stratagem," a novelette, printed in the December number (1861) and succeeding |