when combating with such causes of violence and exasperation, have contributed to form the decision in your favour. But this remember: Had you so far overcome the intimations of your better judgment, as to have moved a finger against your imagined rival, the cup of promise would have eluded your lips forever.

"Are you still in mystery?.... Know then, that your interview on the mountain, your hopes and ecstasies, your disappointment and fury, your midnight wandering to the seabeach, your walk by the river and in the Almadora Ravine, with your fierce indignation at the supposed perfidy of Bertha,—all have been affected by the influence of supernatural power of the whole series of events and adventures, from beginning to end, I have been the spiritual mover and accomplisher.

"I see your wonder, St. Helier, but be patient. One thing at least is no illusion. You have been this night allowed, as in a trance, to gather something of that wisdom of experience, which is formed to promote the perfection of domestic life. Rouse yourself from bewilderment. Is not this your wedding day? Have you not, long since, wooed and won the lady of your heart? Has not your spirit been with her spirit this long winter night? Have you loved her so tenderly, bidden her adieu with such indignant scorn, and yet failed to know her, failed to recognize her twin-sister resemblance? Have you been so dull as not to perceive, that your Italian lady of the mountain, and your betrothed of Palermo, were one and the same?

it away; I know you could not choose.'

This lady is FAITHFUL, I must be allowed to repeat the good word, this lady, notwithstanding your sarcasm upon the female mind, is FAITHFUL, truehearted as truth itself; she has been wholly unconscious of evil; and this day, before you can either of you be unfaithful even in a dream, she is to be all your own. Cherish her lovingly, because you love her; cherish her lovingly for her own worth; O you will lovingly cherish the sister of him, who sat down by the waters of the Almadora, sat down and wept, the beloved sister of your ALBERTO."

I knew, I sprang to embrace, my departed friend, my dear playmate of Ox-Common and Great Pond, WoodHill and Birch Swamp; but he was gone, -the strong eagerness of the heart broke my reveries, . . . . restored me to the realities of day.

Was all a dream? Was it supernatural? Or was it not rather a hovering between the two?

The sun of the new year had already risen, and darted his radiance through the five stars of my window-shutters. Instead of the verdure, the blossoms, the bird-warblings of Spring, appeared the ravages and desolations of Winter. Instead of waves flowing in prismatic glory, the Almadora was solid, and silent, and colourless as crystal. I mused deeply all the morning on the strange shapings of fancy, so I called them, and was sometimes affected even to tears at the remembrance. But for these anomalies of the dreaming mind, these wanderings of imagination, I presume not to account; "whether," to quote the suggestions of a poet,

"Whether that superiour powers,

By wise permission, prompt the midnight dream,
Instructing best the passive faculty;

Or that the soul, escaped its fleshly clog,

Flies free, and soars amid the invisible world,
And all things are that seem.'

With these mysteries of metaphysics I need not, and do not, intermeddle. For my present purpose it will be sufficient to observe, that the reader must suppose the fortunes and fates of the Gherardis to be both real and fresh in remembrance, exactly as I detailed them in my dream; that the arrival of a lady from Palermo a year before, an orphan of the same name, and under many circumstances of affecting interest, although bearing but a shadowy resemblance to those my friend recounted of his sister, had very strongly impressed me; that the preceding May-day, four months. after her coming to this country, she had consented to unite her fortunes with mine on the next anniversary of the new year; and that the dream-lady, and the real lady of my affections, had somehow become strangely blended in my slumber, another and the same.

It is singular enough, that although the names of both were Bertha, and that during the past summer I had fre

quently accompanied the true Bertha to the graves in the mountain valley, and dwelt as often upon the story of the Sicilian strangers, I never once for a moment remembered her in my busy slumber from first to last. But however singular the fact may appear, and however ductile my fancy and affections may be deemed, such disloyalty I believe to be the very perfection of etiquette in the Court of Dreams. At any rate, so far from explaining the inconsistency, I must leave it with the simple assertion of its truth.

More than once, it is true, I have been half disposed to embrace the supernatural view of the subject, and to believe my beloved in very deed the sister of Alberto, -as he said, the dream-lady herself. It is a delightful superstition, if nothing more. But my heart assures me, that it is something more, and that the spirit of the brother had a powerful motive for his kindness. Bertha has repeatedly informed me, that so peculiar were the circumstances of her infancy, she never knew her parents, never could ascertain even who they were. She had been educated by a noble lady of Palermo, who had been to her more than a mother, who had cherished her as a daughter to the close of life, and who, on her removal at the advanced age of eighty-five, bequeathed her almost her whole fortune.

So grateful, therefore, is this revelation of the night to us both, it may be, even "dearer for the mystery," that, visionary as it may seem, we cannot but welcome it as something more than delusion. The topic is almost too serious for pleasantry; and just now, when I smilingly reminded Bertha of her tricksy unfaithfulness, so far from denying the charge, she too with a smile, a grave smile, indeed, bade me keep a sharp look out for my amiable Domdanielite, Roberto, - archly adding, "What has been once, St. Helier, may be again!"

Unable to employ my mind upon any other theme, I occupied the remainder of the forenoon in composing a regular detail of the particulars, before they faded forever from the memory. I then presented the manuscript to the true and only Bertha Gherardi, and this was the last day she was called by that name; for in the evening, as Alberto had promised me, she became

My bright and beauteous bride."

THE FORTIETH HOUR.

CHAPTER I.

WHO SLEEPS WITH A DEMON AT HIS EAR, AND WHO
WAKE HIM,

Do you love the wanderings of the unfettered mind? Or have you, in the bitterness of disappointed hope, distrusted the wisdom of Heaven? Come to the banks of the Almadora: come, speed on wings of wind, to the views and events that await you. And are you come ?

It is the deep of night; the winds are wild; a summer shower beats heavily on the mansion of Muzoil. What form do you behold, standing at the door of his dwelling? Is it a Spirit, viewing the waters, the woods, the dead waste of night, the clouds illumined by lightning? Listen to his voice.

GUARDIAN SPIRIT. How sublime is darkness! What a sweep was there! I love these sights and these sounds. There is something in them unspeakably majestic. I love to look abroad, when to the human eye scarcely an object is distinguishable: I love to pass through this pavilion of the Almighty, and never am I more sensible of his immediate presence.

Nor are softer views undelightful; -the moonlight evenings of summer, the features of nature veiled in partial obscurity, the light fleecy vapour curling along the Almadora, the mingled voices of midnight, the music of my little winged friend that soothes the ear of melancholy,

the fresh breeze among the elm and poplar boughs, the low murmur that comes from the river,

SPIRIT OF THE ALMADORA, (coming up from the water.) And do you, brother Spirit, admire the summer ripplings along my shore, and the low music of my waves? Thanks for the compliment. . . . . Your charge reposes?

GUARDIAN SPIRIT. He slumbers, but the balmy influence of rest will not visit him. His day-dreams he once thought his best enjoyment, but they are now full of anguish; his night-visions were once illumined by light from heaven, but they are now darkened with gloom and disquietude. Sad and weary he retires; he is full of tossing until the day-spring; and he rises unrefreshed. has just closed his eyelids in oblivion.

He

SPIRIT OF THE ALMADORA. What may this mean? Whenever he has bathed in my pure stream, I have perceived by his countenance, that although a shade of pensiveness may be mingled with the colouring of his mind, he is of a temperament not far removed from sober cheerfulness.

GUARDIAN SPIRIT. You judge with your wonted penetration. Tempered mirth appears to be most congenial to his disposition; but so volatile are his spirits, when diverted from their usual calmness, that they immediately rush toward extremes, the extremes of hope or of dejection and despair.

SPIRIT OF THE ALMADORA. That is contrary to the wisdom of God and man, -even bordering on folly. He needs the chastenings of severe experience. The germ of heavenly fortitude must be made to flourish. A few such tempers I have known; and I have remarked, that they are formed to be very happy or very miserable. They seem almost unfitted for the realities of earthly affairs. It is the will of Him, who disposes all things in wisdom.

GUARDIAN SPIRIT. Such a being you now see slumbering before you. You observe his agitation?

SPIRIT OF THE ALMADORA. Assuredly,- on his couch. No wall or curtain, you are sensible, can intercept the vision of spirits. But, my brother, what has tinged his soul with the gall of bitterness? I am much interested in his welfare.