tions: What was my age? what animal I loved best? and what was my favorite flower?' I shall never forget the impression conveyed by that deep voice as she spoke, in low, whispering words, rapid and monotonous, the decrees of fate which stood revealed in the painted pictures she fingered with such marvelous dexterity. Spare me, gentle reader, the task of unveiling here what that wondrous sibyl did then and there unfold touching my future destinies; it can but little boot thee. Yet it was a cunning web, woven by no unskillful brain, no hesitating tongue-the usual checkered ways of light and shadow. Much has already come to pass."

We shall not trouble the reader with any more about Mademoiselle le Normand. He has now got a tolerably full sketch of this famous devineresse, whose boast it was that emperors and empresses, kings, queens, and high-born nobles, had stood trembling before her, and had listened with believing awe to her Delphic revelations. She ever professed to place implicit faith in her own power of reading the decrees of fate, and may really, as Scott describes Meg Merrilies to have done, have come in the end to impose upon herself; but the contrary is more probable. The writer quoted spoke to her of the grand jeu, the cards for which "were ragged and worn by frequent use, until some of the figures were well-nigh obliterated. She told me with much mildness, and with a degree of conviction which, if not real, was certainly admirably counterfeited that this was the pack from which was drawn the measure of men's lives; but added, it was a fearful search-that she never pressed it, but the 'consultants' were ever eager to solve that one dread problem, either for themselves or for others near and dear. She said she advised me not to try; they had already been shaken but a short time since, and told me that the extra charge was fifty francs."

[For the National Magazine.] READING FOR THE YOUNG.

ANOTHER LEAF FROM MY LIFE.

IX years had passed since Nettie died,

were in the garden, and in the new one lay my mother. How well I remember with what a feeling of loneliness I turned away from the spot while the earth was being thrown into this new addition to our garden graveyard.

When she first became sick I was away at school. They sent for me, and I arrived just in time to see her die. When I went into the room where she was, she raised herself in bed, and put her arms about me. Gradually her embrace became relaxed, and some one whispered in my ear, "Come away, Nat." I disengaged myself from her arms, and as I did so, she sank slowly back upon the pillows. I heard my father sob, and then there ensued a painful stillness. I looked into my mother's face, and I saw that her eyes were glassy, and a tear rested upon each cheek. She was dead.

That night I slept in the room that used to be Nettie's and mine. How changed it was in appearance. It looked as though no one had slept there for years. The same beds were there, the same chairs and carpet, and the same little table where the flower-vase used to stand; but the beds looked as though they were not to be slept upon, and the chairs seemed to stand so stiff and formally, that I would rather have put myself to any inconvenience than have moved one of them out of its place. I was half afraid of—I knew not what; and felt really glad when I was once covered head and ears in one of the dreary-looking beds. The moon shone in at the window, and silvered the tops of the cedar-trees outside. I soon fell asleep.

Out on the bluff there was an old, rough seat-a plank between two of the cedartrees. While Nettie lived, mother used to take us out there in the evenings, and I remember how we all admired the long line of shimmering moonlight upon the river, and mother told us that some one had called it "the angels' pathway." I did not exactly understand what was meant by heaven and angels then; but when I had become a little older I did, and I thought that the man who called that moonlight on the water "the angels' pathway," must

have been a boy once, and have had a sister like Nettie, and a mother like mine.

When, on the night after my mother's death, I had fallen asleep, I dreamed that I was sitting upon the old bench under the cedar-trees; but Nettie and mother were not with me. The moon was shining, and "the angels' pathway" was glistening upon the bosom of the river for miles in length. I thought that I was thinking of the evenings which Nettie, and mother, and I, spent there years ago. It seemed a great many years ago. I could just remember it. And then I wondered if mother and Nettie were together, and if they saw me sitting there alone. I was sure that they had become angels-might they not walk upon that golden pathway? I'll wait and see, thought I in my dream. I did wait; and I gazed more steadily along the line of light. Presently I saw figures moving a long way off upon the water, and they seemed to come toward me. They glided along, not as though they walked, but as though they flew. Nearer and nearer they came, and I recognized them. They were Nettie and my mother. They held out their arms to me; I sprang to meet them-I awoke. The moon had gone down, and all was dark. A wind had sprung up, and the old cedars were moaning a mournful song. It seemed a funeral song. I fell asleep again, and slept until the bright sun was shining in at the window around me. The next afternoon they buried my mother in the garden beside Nettie.

That evening, when it began to grow dark, and when nearly all the strange people had left the house, I went out and sat upon the porch. I watched the stars as they came out one by one, and the moon as it rose up from behind the trees. And then I looked down into the garden, and there I could see Nettie's tombstone. I could not see the small white hand that was carved upon it, but I knew that it was there, and that it was pointing upward still-upward still!

Poor Nettie! while I remained at home nearly all my thoughts were of her. There was so much to remind me of her! If I went up stairs to my room, there everything was almost as it was when we occupied it. If I went out upon the bluff, I remembered how we used to sit there Nettie telling me pleasant childhood stories, and I listening to her. If I went VOL. II, No. 5.—GG

into the garden, there was her grave with the same violets growing upon it that I had planted there. If I clambered down the path among the rocks to the river's edge, I passed half-a-dozen nooks where we once stored pebbles and shells. One of these nooks Nettie used to call "our house." It was a large rugged cleft in the solid rock. She took great pains to make it pretty. She swept it, and planted moss in the cracks of the rock, where it took root and grew. And what a treasure of curiously-shaped pebbles and variegated shells were piled up in the corners and arranged upon the ledges. But now, it was dusty and dirty. Weeds and bushes were growing where formerly dainty rock-moss grew, and when I entered it a bird flew out. It was a small dark gray bird, and one of the kind which I knew built their nests against the bluffs. I looked up to the rugged Gothic arched ceiling, and there, sure enough, was the gray bird's nest. O, thought I, "our house" has a tender tenant still. If I went around to the north side of the old house, and looked up at the peak of the gable where the bird-box was nailed, I thought the same bluebirds were there that had occupied it half-a-dozen years before. Their songs, it seemed, had become a trifle less sweet than they formerly had been, and I wondered if it was because they were getting old, or because Nettie was not there to hear them. I have always thought that the birds sang infinitely sweeter in my fourth and fifth spring-time than they have ever done since. Why is it? Is it because children love bird-music more than men do? Is it because there is more of nature in a child than in a man? I cannot account for it, but birds and children seem to understand each other.

A week after mother's death, my father told me that I must return to school; so I paid the last tribute of tears to the graves in the garden, once more visited

heard the boys, who were all seated at the table, whisper one to another, "Simpson's

"It's a very lonely home, Natty."

had always been my beau-ideal, said, "Poor fellow!" It seemed like true pity, and, coming just at the time it did, I thanked him for it fervently in my heart. After supper I stole out into the play-ground. It was already dark. The stars were out, and the moon was up. I turned my face

We were ascending a hill, from the top of which I knew that I could see the old home for the last time on our journey. We reached the top. I turned, and the tears again filled my eyes as I saw the house with its high-pointed gables standing boldly out from the silvery background formed by the river. As we went on, the hill-top came up like a wall between home and me, and grew higher and higher, until the tallest chimney sunk behind it.

As the sun was setting, we drove up to the little white gate in front of the Pacademy. Mr. B—, the principal, came out in his long gown, and, as he welcomed me back, I thought his pressure of my hand was one of sympathy, and I felt that I feared him less than I had formerly done, but that I respected him more.

Tom and the horse and carriage were now all that was left me of home. I shook Tom's hand, and he said-as every one says to a boy when they leave him at school-" Natty, be a good boy." The horse, I thought, looked a dumb farewell as Tom took the lines and drove toward the village to put up for the night. very rattle of the carriage over the stones seemed like a sound of home.

Mr. B

The

took me by the hand and

led me into the house.

He took my cap off my head and laid it gently, I thought, upon the table. There was a band of crape around it. And then Mrs. B came in, and, as she stooped down and kissed me, she did so with such an air of kindness, that I really thought her cap was not half so stiff as it used to be, and that the spectacles on her nose gave her a dignified, matronly, instead of an owlish look. I used to think, and so did all the boys, that she looked very much like an owl. Afterward, that kind kiss caused me to stand up in her favor, no matter what the other boys said against her. As we went into the supper-room, I

same places above me that they were when I looked at them from the porch at home. I thought it singular then, that, though I had moved a distance of thirty miles, the same stars were above me. My thoughts were drawn up among those stars, and higher still-up to heaven; drawn up in such a way as only a boy's thoughts can be drawn there, without one single doubt to retard them in their flight, or call them back to earth.

A hand was laid upon my shoulder. I turned, and a boy of about my own size and years was standing at my side. He was deformed; but, beneath his protruding breast, beat a kind and gentle heart. He put his hand in mine, and we walked to a favorite bench that stood beneath some trees, and sat down. We put our arms about each other, and, for some moments, neither of us spoke. The longer we sat there the more he seemed like a brother. At length he said,

"Nat, my mother is dead too."

I drew my arm closer about him, and thought that he was still more like a brother, but could not speak.

“And my father, he is dead too," continued he.

"Charley," said I," I pity you; you need my pity more than I need yours. Was your mother good?"

"I think she was. It is a long while since she died, and I can just remember her. I saw her die, and she was not afraid. That's why I think she was good."

"Did you ever have a sister, Charley?" "Yes."

A

THE TWO DUELISTS.

VERY instructive biography, abounding, amid much valuable matter of a religious nature, in interesting anecdotes of departed men and things, has recently been published. We allude to the life of Robert Haldane, of Airthrey, and James Alexander Haldane, his brother-individuals who are honorably distinguished for their efforts at the beginning of this century to revive evangelical religion when at a very low ebb in Scotland. The work is one of great and permanent interest. From amid many passages we select the following, which describes Mr. James Haldane as a duelist, and shows him afterward, when under the transforming influence of the grace of God, as a reprover of the practice to which through false shame he had himself formerly yielded.

"The ship was crowded with passengers; among these there was a cavalry officer, who was returning home-a notorious shot, a successful duelist, and much of a bully. It afterward appeared that he had been forced to leave the king's service, in consequence of his quarrelsome temper and aptitude for such brawls. In the course of the voyage he made himself very disagreeable, and was rather an object of dread. On one occasion some high words occurred between him and Mr. James Haldane, arising out of a proposal to make the latter a party to a paltry trick, designed to provoke an irritable invalid as he lay in his cot with his door open, and was, in fact, actually dying. Mr. J. Haldane's indignant refusal issued in this captain's taking an opportunity deliberately and publicly to insult him at the mess-table, when, in return for a somewhat contemptuous retort, the aggressor threw a glass of wine in Mr. Haldane's face. He little knew the spirit which he evoked. To rise from his seat and dash at the head of the assailant a heavy ship's tumbler was the work of an instant. Providentially the missile was pitched too high, pulverized against the beam of the cabin, and descended in a liquid shower upon the offending dragoon. A challenge ensued, and Mr. J. Haldane consulted with a friend as to the pro

priety of accepting it. That the challenger was under a cloud with his own regiment was

certain, although the particulars were unknown, and it was decided that it was optional to accept or decline the cartel. But, as the matter was then doubtful, it was ruled that, in obedience to the code of honor, it was safer to give the captain the benefit of the doubt; and he was himself the more clear on the point, as the reputation of the challenger as a shot might propably be regarded as having influenced a refusal.

"The preliminaries being arranged, it was Good Hope; but the captain of the ship, susagreed that they should meet at the Cape of pecting mischief, refused leave to land. The meeting was accordingly postponed till they arrived at St. Helena, when they all went ashore, unobserved, very early in the morning. The night before, James Haldane made his will, wrote a letter of farewell to his brother in the event of his death, and then went to bed, and slept so soundly that he did not awake till he was called. It happened that, owing to the apprehension of being observed and detained, the duelists had only one case of pistols, which belonged to Mr. Haldane's second, a naval officer of some distinction, afterward better known, during the war, as Admiral Donald Campbell, who commanded the Portuguese fleet, and also enjoyed a pension for services rendered to Lord St. Vincent and Lord Nelson. The two antagonists were placed at twelve paces distant, and were to fire together by signal. Before the pistol was given into Mr. Haldane's hand, his second, in a low tone, repeated what he had before told him, that this was a case in which he must have no scruple about shooting his challenger; that it was not a common duel, but a case of self-preservation, and that one or the other must fall. The signal was given, and, as Mr. J. Haldane raised his pistol, with strange inconsistency he breathed the secret prayer"Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit;" thus verifying the observation of Tertullian, that in moments of imminent danger men involuntarily call upon God, acknowledging his presence and his providence, even when they seem practically to forget his existence and trample on his laws. With this prayer in his heart, and, as Admiral Campbell testified, with his eye fixed on his antagonist, without a symptom of trepidation, he calmly drew the trigger, when his pistol burst, the contents flying upward, and a fragment of the barrel inflicting a wound on his face. The other pistol missed fire, and the challenger immediately intimated, through his second, that he was so well satisfied with the honorable conduct of Mr. Haldane, that he was willing the affair should terminate. This message was accepted as sufficient. Bowing to each other, they parted with civility, but, as might be anticipated, without reconciliation. To such matters he scarcely ever alluded, but the facts were known to his brother, and by him repeated not long before his death."

A great change, however, passed over Mr. Haldane-that which Scripture has declared to be necessary for all who would enter the kingdom of heaven. He was