“The wounds that pained—the wounds that murdered me, This only marks my body for the grave.* Oh my fair star, I shall be shortly with thee. Oh thou, my love, my wife, Death that hath sucked the honey of thy breath, Soft you, a word or two before you go- Nor set down aught in malice-then must you speak Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away Richer than all his tribe-of one whose subdued eyes, Albeit unused to the melting mood, Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees Their medicinal gum."§ He fell to the floor. The rest is silence! || "Very well acted, Mr. Merrick," said the house-surgeons as we caught his hands; "having played out your part, you had better go to bed now. Bless me, he is asleep already!" Yes," said I, "he sleeps well after life's fitful fever.-He is dead !" THE BARNABYS IN AMERICA. BY MRS. TROLLOPE. CHAP. XXXI. No sooner were John Williams and his loving wife left to themselves by the departure of Mrs. Allen Barnaby, after one of the longest and most confidential tea-drinkings ever indulged in, than they exchanged looks full of pleasant meaning; and while the gentle woman sat silent from habitual reverence to her husband, the thoughtful man sat silent too for some short space, feeling half afraid of committing a folly by expressing how very greatly he was pleased by the adventure which had befallen them. At length, however, the smiling silence was broken by his saying, "Tell me, Rachel, without fear or favour, what dost thee think of our new acquaintance?" Thus encouraged Rachel Williams meekly replied, "I rejoice because I see thee rejoice, John Williams, at finding that one has come among us who takes to heart the cause of the oppressed negro; but the joy of my own heart would be more full, and my confidence in the promised good more firm, if this help and aid came not in so gaudy a clothing. Besides, I think not that it is quite seemly, John Williams, to see a woman of such ripened age with ringlets and love-locks fluttering with every breeze that blows. But if thee dost tell me that this is prejudice, John Williams, it shall go hard with me but I will amend it, and for the future see only the woman's purpose, and not the wo man." "No, Rachel, no," replied the worthy quaker; "I should be loath that thy dutiful submission to thy husband's word should be put to so hard a trial, or that thy faithful love should cost thee thy honest judgment. I like not the aged Englishwoman's love-locks better than thee dost, my good Rachel; but shall we quarrel with the help that the Lord hath sent us, because it comes in a shape that is not comely to our eyes? What need is there that this foreign woman-writer should be as goodly and as gracious in my sight as thee art, Rachel? With her looks we have little to do; but trust me, if she knows how to write, she comes amongst us armed with a power which we who have a battle to fight would do wrong to treat lightly. This power she frankly offers to range on our side, and in my judgment it would be folly to reject it. How it comes to pass I know not, Rachel," continued John Williams, after pausing a minute or two in meditation, "but certain it is, that notwithstanding all the abuse and belittling which the Union from Georgia to Maine pours forth without ceasing against the old country, notwithstanding all this, there is not an English goose-quill that can be wagged about us, right or wrong, witty or dull, powerful in wisdom, or mawkish in folly, but every man Jonathan in the States is rampant as a hungry wolf that seeks his food till he gets hold of it, and straightway it is devoured as if his life depended upon his swallowing the whole mess, let him find it as nauseous as he may. Such being the case, Rachel, it behoves those who like us have undertaken to fight the good fight in the cause of an oppressed race, to welcome with joy and gladness the aid of every English pen likely to be bold enough to set down the truth in this matter. If the best written treatise that ever was penned were to come forth to-morrow in favour of universal. emancipation by John Williams of Philadelphia, thee dost know right well, Rachel, that it would only go to line trunks and wrap candles. But if this curlywigged fat lady, verily and indeed sets to work and prints a volume or two about the enormities she has seen in the Slave States and the Christian good sense she will be able to listen to in the Free ones, we know, at any rate, that the books will be read, and that is something, Rachel." Yes, truly is it," replied his faithful wife," and woe betide the folly that would stop so godly a work, because its agent came from a foreign land, where old women wear unseemly head-gear. It shall not be thy wife, John Williams, that shall show any such untimely attention to outward apparel." "Thee speaks even as I expected to hear thee, Rachel, after the first effect of this large lady's finery was passed off; and now, dear wife, we will go on, hand in hand together, in helping and urging forward the good work." Such being the state in which Mrs. Allen Barnaby had left the minds of her quaker friends, it scarcely need be doubted that with her penetrating powers of observation, she took her leave of them, extremely well satisfied with the result of her first Philadelphian expe riment. It was not, however, without a pretty considerable degree of fatigue that she had reached the point at which she had aimed. It is a wearying, and in truth a very exhausting occupation to go on through a whole evening labouring to appear precisely what you are not, and so perseveringly had Mrs. Allen Barnaby done this during the hours she had passed with the good quakers, that when she reached her own room she could not resist the temptation of going immediately to bed and to sleep, although the major was not yet returned from his search after sporting men and a billiard-table, and although she felt not a little impatient to report progress to him. But nature would have her way, and for that night Major Allen Barnaby heard nothing from the lips of his admirable wife but her snoring. Less silent and less sleepy were the pair that occupied the chamber on the opposite side of the corridor. It is quite time that the conversation which demonstrated the consequences of their evening at the theatre should now be recorded, as the results which followed upon it came so quickly, that I may otherwise be reduced to the necessity of narrating effects first and their causes after. "And if you will do just exactly what you have said, my own beautiful darling," exclaimed Madame Tornorino, as soon as the door of their sleeping apartment was closed, "I will love and dote upon you as long as ever I live. And won't we have fun, Don? and won't we make the old ones stare? And, I say, Tornorino, won't we enjoy eating, and drinking, and waking, and sleeping, without being obliged to care a cent for any body, and with money of our very own, own, own, without saying thankye for it, to any mortal living? Won't it be fun, Torni?" "I no contradict you, ma belle," returned Tornorino. "It would be fun, if fun means bien beau, to do what we like, sans contredit from nobody. But we must tink, my beautiful Pati, vraiment we must tink considerable before we give up the papa and the mamma and all that they have got to make us pardon quelques disagrémens." "Don't be an idiot, Don," replied his animated wife. "Upon my life and soul, Tornorino, if you do turn out a coward and a fool, I will run away from you as sure as my name's Patty. Do you think I don't know the papa and the mamma, as you call them, better than you do? And do you think I want to creep about half-starved as you used to do in London, my fine Don? Not a bit of it, I promise ye. What the old ones have got, I shall have, you may depend upon that, let me do what I will to affront them—and I won't be kept in leadingstrings any longer, I tell you. So just choose between living with me or without me. I WILL go on the stage, Tornorino, that's the long and the short of it, in one word. If you choose to stand by me, good; that is what I shall like best, because, as you know, I dote upon you so; but if you plague me the least bit in the world by way of making me give up the scheme, I'll run away from you before you can say Jack Robinson." "No, no, no, my Pati beauty," replied her husband, with a very tender caress, "I shot myself directly if you run away your beauty from me, I will indeed." "And will you let me go upon the stage without trying to coax me out of it?" said Patty, shaking her head expressively. "Yes, my angel, I will; only I would not have no pleasure at all, if we were only to get on just as I did once before by myself when I tried in the orchestra of Drury Lane. I was very much near starving, my Pati!" said poor Tornorino, mournfully. "Stuff and nonsense, darling," replied his wife; "you in the orchestra of Drury Lane was one thing, and I on the stage at Philadelphia shall be another. Besides, I tell you, Don, that pap would no more bear to see me want any thing than he would bear to want it himself. Mamma likes me well enough, I believe, and is as proud of me as a peacock is of his tail; but pap is my sheet-anchor, and as I must know him rather better than you, Mr. Don, I'll just beg you not to trouble me any more by talking of starvation and such like agreeable conversation, for it's what I most abominate; and I'll just trouble you to remember that if you please, and never let me hear such a word again as long as you live." The amiable Tornorino did but mutter one little word or two under his breath, which would have signified, if interpreted, that he thought he knew Major Allen Barnaby as well as most people, and then he pledged the honour of an hidalgo that his charming Patty should never again be tormented by any vulgar doubts or fears on the subject of daily bread and then they proceeded to discuss in the most animated and agreeable manner what sort of dress would best become the fair débutante, and this most important question decided, that of character followed after;-in short half the night was passed in arranging the preliminaries of Madame Tornorino's appearance upon the Philadel phian stage, which she felt confident would terminate her tiresome dependance upon "Pa and Ma,” and make both her fortune and fashion for ever." "Pa and Ma," meanwhile, were on their parts as meritoriously intent upon turning their talents to account as their enterprising daughter, and the early dawn found them in very animated discussion upon the best mode of effecting this. The major had returned from his search after "some opening in his own way" in very ill-humour with the noble city of Philadelphia, declaring that since he was born he had never seen such a collection of broad-brimmed quizzes; and as to billiards, they know no more about it than so many children. "Then you should be the more rejoiced, my dear, that I am likely to make a good thing of it," replied his wife, after very attentively listening to this melancholy account. "If they don't know much about billiards, they do about books; and the broad-brims have their eyes open wide enough, I promise you, on the enormous importance of securing on their side a person who is master of the pen, or mistress either, my dear, if you like the phrase better." "That is all vastly well, Mrs. Allen Barnaby," replied the major, giving way to the rather strong feeling of ill-humour which his own abortive attempts had generated. "It is vastly well for you to strut and crow because you find a parcel of idiots ready to be gulled by all the rhodomontade nonsense you are pleased to talk to them; but will that enable us all to go on living in the style we have lately been used to ?" "I never talk to you when you are in a passion, my dear," returned Mrs. Allen Barnaby, composedly," for I know it does not answer." "God knows, my dear, I don't want you to talk," was the conjugal reply; "what I do want is that you should understand that I mean to be off, and the sooner the better, for the place seems to be about equally dull, costly, and unprofitable-so you may set about packing as soon as you will. I shall be ready to start to-morrow at the very latest." Mrs. Allen Barnaby remained silent for a minute or two, but the pause was not altogether occasioned by obedience to her husband's hint; she was balancing in her able mind, during the interval, the comparative advantages of trusting to a good breakfast to ameliorate his ill-humour, or of disregarding his uncourteous wish for silence, and pouring forth upon him at once the brilliant history of her last night's success. Being a little afraid of him when he was in a passion (which to do him justice did not often happen), it is most likely that she would have chosen the former course, had he not suddenly said when preparing to leave the room, "There is no good in mincing the matter, I shall go at once and tell Mrs. Simcoe that we don't much like the place, and mean to be off to-morrow." 66 Nay, then, I can keep silent no longer, Donny!" exclaimed my heroine, in the most Siddonian tone imaginable. "You know not what you say, major-you know not what you are about to do! Alas! how weak and wilful is the mind of man! How short, how very short a time ago was it, that you vowed you never would decide on any thing, with |