I heard you come down stairs, and I came here to find you. But you were lying here so quietly with your eyes open, and so strange a light on your face. And I knew-I knew you were dreaming of him, and that you saw him, for the letter lay beside you. O, father! forgive me, but do hear me ! In the name of this day-it's Christmas day, father-in the name of the time when we must both die-in the name of that time, father, hear me! That poor woman last night-O, father, forgive me, but don't tear that letter into pieces and trample it under foot! You know what I mean-you know-you know. Don't tear it, and tread it under foot!"

She clung to him, sobbing violently, her face buried in his hands.

"Hush, hush! It's all well-it's all well. Here, sit by me. So. I have"His voice failed him, and he paused. Sitting by him-clinging to him-her face hidden in his bosom-she heard the strong beating of his disenchanted heart!

"My child, I know your meaning. I will not tear the letter to pieces and trample it under foot. God forgive me my life's slight to these words. But I learned their value last night, in the house where your blank letter had entered before me."

She started, and looked into his face steadfastly, while a bright scarlet shot into her face, and overspread her neck and bosom.

"I know all, Netty-all. Your secret was well kept, but it is yours and mine, now. It was well done, darling, -well done. O, I have been through strange mysteries of thought and life since that starving woman sat here! Well-thank God!"

The

"O, father!"-She stopped. bright scarlet shot again over her face, and neck, and bosom, but with an April shower of tears, and the rainbow of a smile.

"Listen to me, Netty, and I will tell you, and only you, what I have done." Then, while she mutely listened, sitting by his side, and the dawn of Christmas broadened into Christmas-day, he told her all.

And, when he had told all, he read to his daughter the lesson of the day and of his life, the words of George Feval's letter:- "Farewell-farewell! But,

O! take my counsel into memory on Christmas Day, and forever. Once again, the ancient prophecy of peace and good-will shines on a world of wars and wrongs and woes. Its soft ray shines into the darkness of a land wherein swarm slaves, poor laborers, social pariahs, weeping women, homeless exiles, hunted fugitives, despised aliens, drunkards, convicts, wicked children, and Magdalens unredeemed. These are but the ghastliest figures in that army of humanity which advances, by a dreadful road, to the Golden Age of the poets' dream. These are your sisters and your brothers. Love them all. Beware of wronging one of them by word or deed. O friend! strong in wealth for so much good-take my last counsel. In the name of the Saviour, 1 charge you, be true and tender to all men! Come out from Babylon into manhood, and live and labor for the fallen, the neglected, the suffering, and the poor. Lover of arts, customs, laws, institutions, and forms of society, love these things only as they help mankind! With stern love, overturn them, or help to overturn them, when they become cruel to a single-the humblest-human being. In the world's scale, social position, influence, public power, the applause of majorities, heaps of funded gold, services rendered to creeds, codes, sects, parties, or federations-they weigh weight; but in God's scale-remember!-on the day of hope, remember!—your least service to Humanity, outweighs them all!"

X.

THE HEIGHT OF THE SEASON.

IN the height of the season there

are a hundred arrivals a day at the White Sulphur. Then, when nobody can get accommodations, everybody will insist on being there; for, in the month of August, the most beautiful ladies of Virginia and the South hold their court of love at this fountain; and, their fame going abroad throughout the mountains, the guests of the other springs hasten to this centre of attraction. All the generals and judges of the Southern country, too, then come to drink at these white waters. Nobody is of a lower grade than a colonel; and, to be called esquire, would argue a man of doubtful consideration.

To the northerner, this sounds a little singular; and, if he happens to be a peaceful scholar, for example, who has scarcely pulled a trigger in his life, and knows only so much of arms as is contained in the

"Arma virumque

of the poet, it is not without a certain degree of surprise, and a keen sense of the ludicrous, that he hears himself respectfully dubbed a colonel.

But not even the being addressed by the very highest titles, will, at this part of the season, save a single man the necessity of sleeping-two in a chamber. There are no adequate accommodations for all these fine ladies and gentlemen. At night, the floors of drawingrooms and parlors are strewn with mattresses, and lucky is the guest who can secure one. Trunks are piled up, ceiling high, in the halls and passages; so that, excepting the fortunate inmates of the pretty private cottages, the thousand and one visitors at the White Sulphur are, of all men-by no means the most miserable-but probably the most uncomfortable.

One August morning, as I was standing in the door-way of the office, a well dressed gentleman drove up in a buggy, and, getting out, asked for a room.

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We cannot accommodate you, sir,” said the clerk, looking at the stranger

SPRINGS.

with an air of disinterested uncon

cern.

"But you can give me a mattress, or a sofa?" was the confident rejoinder.

"Impossible! not one left; and the last three chairs in the house taken half an hour ago!"

"Boy," said the rejected, but not disconcerted new-comer, turning his quid from one cheek to the other, at the same time that he turned on his heel towards a servant, "unstrap my trunk."

"It really is of no use, sir," continued the clerk, calmly, "we cannot accommodate you."

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Carry my trunk under that oak tree, yonder," no less quietly added the stranger, and still addressing the black boy.

Now," said he, sitting down on the trunk, which had been deposited under the protection of the branches, "fetch my buffalo robe; and I'll be d―d if I can't sleep here!"

This proof of pluck was an indirect appeal to the generous and hospitable sentiments which no true Virginian could withstand. There was a general clapping of hands on the utterance of this Diogenic resolution to take things as they came, and the luck of the pot with them; and one of the by-standers, immediately stepping forward, politely offered to share his quarters with the tenant of the buffalo robe, who, accordingly, instead of living under an oak, like a Druid, now found himself the fortunate possessor of an apartment in one of the prettiest cottages on the grounds.

In the very height of the season, there is no such thing as dining satisfactorily at some of the springs, however well a person may fare there at all other times. Then, you fee the waiters, and still they bring you nothing. Poor fellows, they have nothing to bring; for the flour has given out; the cows have been milked dry; the mutton has run off into the mountains, and the chief cook has gone distracted! If you can manage to seize upon a bit of beef and a slice of bread, 'tis your main chance, and hold on to it. Do not run any risks in looking about for vegetables, much less for side

dishes, or pepper or salt. For, while you are vainly endeavoring to accomplish impossibilities, some light-fingered waiter, under pretense of changing your plate, will run off with your only chance of a dinner.

The scene presents a most ludicrous struggle for bones and cold potatoes. Or, rather, it is fearful to witness such a desperate handling of the knife; to see so many faces red with rage at getting nothing; and ladies' cheeks pale with waiting; and starving gourmands looking stupefied into the vacuum of the platters before them; and disappointed dyspeptics leaving the table with an expression on their faces of "I'll go hang myself." Add, besides, to what one sees that which he hears-the maledictions heaped liberally upon the heads of cook and provider; the clatter of what knives and forks succeed in getting brought into action; the whistling and roaring of Sambo, and the rattling of his heels; with, finally, an awful crash of chinaware, now and then a slide of plates, an avalanche of whips and custards; for, where there are several dozens of waiters running up and down the hall, like race-horses, there must be occasional collisions; and these, again, lead to fights, at least, once or more in the season, when a couple of strapping black boys knock each other's noses flatter, and make their mutual wool fly.

Truly, the Frenchman who dines on the hair of his moustache, and the end of his tooth-pick, in front of the Cafe de Paris, is a lucky fellow, and has something under his jacket, compared with these boarders at two dollars per diem.

But it is still worse dining, when it rains. The ancient roofs of some of these halls and piazzas are not made of caoutchouc; and you cannot then sit at meat without two black boys at your back-one to keep off the flies, and the other to hold over your head an umbrella. There is a good excuse for the soup being thin on such days. "Tis, in fact, mere rain-water, with, possibly, a fly or two in it.

All the doctors lay down the rule, that the patient must drink mineral waters on an empty stomach; and, by my troth, it is easy following it, during the height of the season, at some of these springs. That organ is rarely so much occupied in its legitimate business as to be in an unfit state to receive

a glass from the fountain. It is said that Chinamen, when hard pushed for other articles of food, can subsist tolerably well on water diet; and, in spending the month of August here, one comes gradually to comprehend how the thing can be done.

"Eat a little milk, a little mush, or a very thin soup," said the mineralwater doctor, at one of the springs, after he had looked at my tongue, and was still gravely holding me by the pulse, "and drink the water ad libi

tum."

"It is well to diet a little, while drinking the spring water," said the landlord to me, soon afterwards, in the course of some conversation with him.

"They both agree in their views," said I to myself; "and what is sworn to by two disinterested witnesses, ought certainly to be true. I'll live on bread and milk for the next fortnight."

Luckily for myself, I did not die in the attempt-though the price of three or four private dinners, which afterwards appeared in my bill, indicated that I must have felt very "far gone" when I ordered them. Indeed, such rules are preposterous, and can only be observed with such a long list of exceptions as completely disproves them. If I were a doctor-peace! ghost of Abernethy-I would say to my patient:

"Drink thy sulphur-water before breakfast, O, man! if thou wilt; but if thou expect ever to derive any benefit from it, have a saddle of mutton, or good fat steaks, and sherris-sack, for dinner!"'

Still, one likes to be at the fashionable springs, when the crowd is greatest. At the others, it is not so. There, he wishes to be well-accommodated-to have a large airy apartment-to be well served at the table-and to enjoy his quiet, and the society of a small circle of friends; but here, he desires to be in the midst of the grand movement. The more colonels, the better. The more pretty ladies, the gayer. He wants to talk upon politics with all the judges; attack or defend Sebastopol with all the generals; dance attendance on all the well-bred dames, and waltz with all their daughters. Half the pleasure is in the excitement which proceeds from the great number of persons collected together. Let the fashionable crowd dwindle down to a

few dozens, and you leave also. Then you can have an entire suite of rooms, and excellent dinners, with a waiter at each elbow. But, no. When you see the trunks brought down, and hear the farewells said, you are as homesick as anybody, and crowd into the ninth place in the coach, rather than run the risk of being the last man to leave the mountains. So unreasonable are we all.

XI.

THE BELLE OF THE WHITE SULPHUR. "Miss," said the maid of the Belle of the White Sulphur-it was not her own, as it happened-" dey say you be de most handsome young lady in de Springs!"

Who says that, Molly?" inquired the beauty, as she stood surveying the slope of her shoulders in the mirror, previously to their being veiled in muslin.

"Dat say de tall gentle'um from de Kentuck State-him wid de black mustachy."

"You're mistaken, Molly."

I

"Can't be, miss; dat be true as Baptist preachin' in de Caroline. stand in de winder, and see miss and dat gentle'um eatin' chicken salad together; and what de gentle'um say, amost make miss choke herself-he, he, he!"

"Nonsense! And what, Molly, do you think of the thin gentleman from the north, with the small, blue eyes?"

"I see him, tu, at de Spring, afore breakfast; and he so stare at miss, over de top of he's tumbler, and sigh so in he's sulph' water, that I know'd de case be done gone with him."

"And the short young man, with reddish whiskers?"

"O, miss! him's nice; him's sweet as 'taters. When he make love, never look back."

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Molly, you are very foolish. There is nobody in love with me."

"Can't be so, miss; for, Jim tell me, dat Tom tell him, dat when miss tuk her steps in de ball-room, last night, all de young gentle'um-and some of de ole gentle'um, tu-look gone distract', and a-sinkin' through de floor."

And well they might; for this young lady was of good height, symmetrically formed, with small hands and feet; and while most persons would say she was slender, others, again, pronounced her plump. There was the faintest pos

sible blush of red in her cheeks, and just enough to relieve the exceedingly delicate, yet rich, brown tint, which southern suns had lent to her complexion. The auburn ringlets fell in graceful profusion, till they swept her shoulders. Her large hazel eye was as soft as that of a fawn in these mountains. In the prevailing expression of her face, delicacy and sweetness, intelligence and affection, were equally blended. Her manners, ordinarily, were so gentle, that they might almost be characterized as languid; and yet, at times, there was a degree of vivacity in look and motion-a sprightly play of emotions about the flexible mouth, and even a dance, a very masquerade and merry-making of wits and fancies in her eyes, which gave to her whole person such an airy, buoyant expression, that the next moment you half expected to see her soar upwards, as easily as a hawk to the clouds.

Surely, the "old families" of Virginia and South Carolina are no fable. One sees in their daughters that highborn air, that easy grace, that feminine delicacy, which shows their blood is gentle; and, like oft-decanted wine, has been refined by being poured through the veins of at least three well-born generations. A native modesty, selfpossessed, and startled only by the advances of rudeness or indelicacy, indicates an education obtained more in the sweet privacy of a rural home, than in the public academies of cities-more in the society of relatives and familiar friends, than in the company to be met with at fashionable hotels, and the world's rendezvous. I have nowhere seen young ladies whose presence was more hedged about with privacy. And yet there is no lack of natural freedom, and the play of native instinct in their manners. The laugh is gay; the word leaps from the heart; the confidence is given without a suspicion of the possibility of betrayal. It is an artlessness guarded by no premeditation. But there is, at the same time, a quick, nice sense of maidenly propriety, which, though never intrusive, still is always putting a gentle restraint upon the action of the impulses, always keeping a rein, fine as gossamer, upon the swift running of the tongue, and always guiding the burning chariot-wheels of nature's passions around all the goals of early life, with grace and safety.