LIZABETH TEMPLE and Louise were proceeding along the margin of a precipice, catching occasional glimpses of the placid Otsego,1 or pausing to listen to the rattling of wheels and the sounds of hammers that rose from the valley, when Elizabeth suddenly started, and exclaimed,

"Listen! I hear the cries of a child on this mountain! Is there a clearing near us? or can some little one have strayed from its parents?"

2. "Such things frequently happen," returned Louise. "Let us follow the sounds; it may be a wanderer, starving on the hill." Urged by this consideration, the girls pursued, with quick and impatient steps, the low, mournful sounds that proceeded from the forest.

At last, the ardent Elizabeth was on the point of announcing that she saw the sufferer, when Louise caught her by the arm, and, pointing behind them, cried, "Look at the dog!"

3. When Miss Temple turned, she saw the dog, with his eyes keenly set on some distant object, his head bent near the ground, and his hair actually rising on his body, through fright or anger. It was probably the latter, for

1 Otsego Lake in Otsego County, New York, the source of the Susquehanna

he was growling in a low key, and occasionally showing his teeth in a manner that would have terrified his mistress, had she not so well known his good qualities.

“Brave!” she said, "be quiet, Brave! what do you see, fellow?"

4. At the sound of her voice, the rage of the mastiff, instead of being at all diminished, was very sensibly increased. He stalked in front of the ladies, and seated himself at the feet of his mistress, growling louder than before, and occasionally giving vent to his ire by a short, surly barking.

"What does he see?" said Elizabeth; "some animal must be in sight."

5. Hearing no answer from her companion, Miss Temple turned her head, and beheld Louise, standing with her face whitened to the color of death, and her finger pointing upwards, with a sort of flickering, convulsive motion. The quick eye of Elizabeth glanced in the direction indicated by her friend, where she saw a female panther, with glaring eyes fixed on them, and threatening to leap.

6. "Let us fly!" exclaimed Elizabeth, grasping the arm of Louise, whose form yielded like melting snow.

Elizabeth Temple could not desert a companion in such an extremity. She fell on her knees by the side of the inanimate Louise, tearing from her person, with instinctive readiness, such parts of her dress as might obstruct her respiration, and encouraging, at the same time, their only safeguard, the dog, by the sounds of her voice.

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Courage, Brave!" she cried, her own tones beginning to tremble, " courage, courage, good Brave!"

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7. A quarter-grown cub that had, hitherto, been unseen, now appeared, dropping from the branches of a sapling that grew under the shade of the beech which

hold its dom This ignorent but

proached the dog, imitating the actions and sounds of its parent, but exhibiting a strange mixture of the playfulness of a kitten, with the ferocity of its race. Standing on its hind legs, it would rend the bark of a tree with its fore paws, and play the antics of a cat; and then, by lashing itself with its tail, growling, and scratching the earth, it would attempt the manifestations of anger that rendered its parent so terrific.

. 8. All this time, Brave stood firm and undaunted, his short tail erect, his body drawn backward on its haunches, and his eyes following the movements of both dam and cub. At every gambol played by the latter, it approached nearer to the dog, the growling of the three becoming more horrid at each moment, until the younger beast, overleaping its intended bound, fell directly before the mastiff. There was a moment of fearful cries and struggles, but they ended almost as soon as commenced, by the cub's appearing in the air, hurled from the jaws of Brave with a violence that sent it against a tree so forcibly as to render it completely senseless.

9. Elizabeth witnessed the short struggle, and her blood was warmed with the triumph of the dog, when she saw the form of the old panther in the air, springing twenty feet from the branch of the beech to the back of the mastiff. No words can describe the fury of the conflict that followed. It was a confused struggle on the dry leaves, accompanied by loud and terrific cries. Miss Temple continued on her knees, bending over the form of Louise, her eyes fixed on the animals with an interest so horrid, and yet, so intense, that she almost forgot her own stake in the result.

10. So rapid and vigorous were the bounds of the panther, that her active frame seemed constantly in the air, while the dog nobly faced his foe at each successive leap. When the panther lighted on the shoulders of the mas

مسململهما لمد

"Come Hector, come; 'tis a hard-lived animal, and may jump again."

Natty fearlessly maintained his position in front of the girls, notwithstanding the violent bounds and threatening aspect of the wounded panther, until the rifle was again loaded, when he stepped up to the enraged animal, and, placing the muzzle close to its head, extinguished every spark of its life.-J. Fenimore Cooper.

XXVI. ICHABOD GOES TO A FROLIC.

ON

Na fine autumnal afternoon, Ichabod, in pensive mood, sat enthroned on the lofty stool whence he usually watched all the concerns of his little literary realm. In his hand, he swayed a ferule, that sceptre of despotic power; the birch of justice reposed on three a constant terror to evil-doers; nails behind the throne, while, on the desk before him, might be seen sundry contraband articles and prohibited weapons, detected upon the persons of idle urchins, — such as half-munched apples, popguns, whirligigs, fly-cages, and whole legions of rampant little paper game-cocks.

2. The pupils were all busily intent upon their books, or slyly whispering behind them, with one eye kept upon the master; and a kind of buzzing stillness reigned It was suddenly interthroughout the school-room. rupted by the appearance of a negro, in tow-cloth jacket and trowsers, and a round-crowned fragment of a hat, mounted on the back of a ragged, wild, halfbroken colt, which he managed with a rope by way halter.

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3. He came clattering up to the school door with an invitation to Ichabod to attend a merry-making, or