and rang the ell. I remember as I stood there the smell of the new grass was int xicating in the court, and the flowers of the spring beginning to burst their petals, filled the air with a fragrance by no means assafœtida. But just like a poor Country Doctor, when he is a little entertained with these things and begins to moralize, the door opens on the chamber of sickness-it may be of death. I entered a broad h 11, and my feet being clogged with mud, I asked the servant for a mat; she told me to walk through the hall to the backdoor, where I would find one. I did so and in passing observed a young lady who resides with the family, standing in a little recess near the door. I nodded to her and while scraping my feet, heard her and the servant girl talking together; but did not listen to what they said. As I came back to go up stairs, the servant girl said to her as I was passing: I turned to her and said, 'Good morning, Miss M ———,' and she replied: Good morning, Doctor.' I then passed immediately up stairs, hurried to my patient's chamber, and opened the door. On looking into the room I experienced a shock which almost threw me back against the wall. Was I deceived? Could I credit my senses? For there sat at the extremity of the room, bolt upright in a high-backed chair, as if nothing had happened, so help me Heaven, the identical lady whom I had that instant addressed below stairs. Herself and the patient both noted the extremity of my surprise, and with one voice inquired the matter. 'What!' said I, 'going up and taking her hand, to find out if it were real flesh and blood instead of a mere shadow like that at Belshazzar's feast, are you here!' Why, what do you mean?' she said, with unaffected astonishment. I have been here all the morning. I have not left the room for two hours?' 'Nay,' I replied, but I left you this instant below stairs. I said good morning to you, and you said the same to me.' 'Oh!' says she, it was not I; it was somebody else.' 'But,' said 1, more and more puzzled, you are passing a joke You have flown up by a private staircase.' upon me. Upon my honor, I am not. There is no such thing in the house.' 'Well then,' said I, supposing that I might have been deceived by some person who resembled the lady, and about to dismiss the matter from my mind, you must be about to double yourself in matrimony.' Just here the door of the chamber was opened, and the servantgirl whom I had seen below entered, for I began to think that it might have been a sister of this one. She certainly wore a countenance which was honest, serious, and free from guile. Therewith I interrogated her on the spot. Mary, you observed when I entered just now the hall door?' 'I did' To whom were you speaking, as I passed you in that recess by the back-door?' Certainly; there can be no doubt.' 'But might you not be deceived?' (Laughing) Sure, did n't I see her with my own eyes?' How did he appear: as usual?' 'I thought, Sir, she had a strange look about her.' But, Mary, she avers solemnly that she has not been out of this room in two hours.' 'Come, come, cheer up. I have heard of worse cases than this, and no evil came of them after all. Is there another servant in the house?' 6 Yes, my sister is in the kitchen.' Certainly.' will permit her to be called.' In a moment the summons was obeyed. The other entered, and surprised, agitated, and frightened out of her wits, said that she was in the kitchen at the time, and had not left it during the morning. She certainly bore no resemblance to Miss M. • Was there any one in that house who did?' I answer, there was not. How then is this to be explained?' I do aver positively that I could not be deceived in any one so familiar to me as that young woman, whom I knew and had seen there in all my visits. I say that I saw her at twelve, M., in the recess, and heard her talking; and in three seconds after, beheld her calmly seated up stairs! I have knocked about the country a good deal, clambered up into cock-lofts and fell through trap doors, and seen queer things by night and by day, with the high and low, and this is the queerest thing that ever happened to me. What complicates the matter is, that this eidolon, or whatever it was, appeared to two of us, between whom there could have been no collusion; and furthermore, the subject of it was greatly distressed. Moreover, who ever heard of a spirit speaking audibly to our ears? Why, their articulations are soft as breath breathed upon a window-pane; they may try to talk, but their whispers must be understood by their own crew, whose food is nectar and ambrosia. They may add a note to the impalpable delicacy of a celestial harmony. It appears to me that Virgil speaks of ghosts evanishing into thin air;' but they could no more speak than the possessor of the body who stalked with all his flesh and bones into their domains; the very effort was preposterous. Vox funcibus hæsit. Now this would be our natural reasoning on the matter; and yet I tell you what, Horatio, the time is coming when even on this side the grave we shall step athwart the veil which par titions off the flesh, and comprehend that man is a SPIRIT. As it is, the gross, the carnal, over-burdens, over balances the fine, the spiritual; but sometimes the soul, as if impatient in waiting for the silver cord to be loosed and for the golden bowl to be broken, steps out all covered with chains to vindicate her nature. If the body is momentarily stunned or dead, she wanders off a little distance, sparkling and flashing, until dragged back again; if Bacchus kills the body, so that the limbs falter, or sleep occasions their paralysis, or even reverie makes one forget the contact of the world, then she is .elsewhere, clothed with a body which she may wear hereafter, and which may be seen, although it is just as much finer in its materiality than the present body as gases are than air, as air is than water, or water than earth; in other words, as a woman's body is finer than man's, so the angelic is a step, and only a step, beyond woman's. But this will lead me to wander off-confound my weakness! There is one thing farther to be said. I think we may set it down to superstition that such occurrences as the above are sometimes considered the precursors of immediate death, as I have heard and read of many where it did not follow; or if so, we might account for it in this way that the mind was in consequence so wrought upon as to induce dangerous symptoms and then death; for we may imagine we die, and die imagining. I have heard of a criminal who chose to bleed to death, as die he must, and so he conceived that he might die softly. The surgeon bandaged his eyes, made as if to puncture his arm, and set water a-dripping. He waxed fainter and fainter, and died with all his blood in his veins—the more fool he! But you may wish to know the result in this case. It shall be given truly, solemnly, whether it have an effect on the superstitious or not, as I would absolve my own mind, and in so curious a matter present philosophy only with the truth. It was not without misgivings impossible to conceal (we all have our feelings of this kind, call it weakness, if you will, call it superstition,) that I found myself early on the next day about to visit the place where I had witnessed this day-spectre. A peculiar silence seemed to reign about the house, of which the windows in front were closed. I ran up the steps and pulled hard at the bell. No one answered. I entered the hall and listened for a foot-step, or for some signs of life. With a palpitating heart I then hurried up stairs, flung open the chamber-door, and looked within. There, stretched upon a pallet and ghastly pale, lay violently ill with a nervous head-ache! Miss M A GOOD MOTHER: ΑΝ EXTRACT. WOMAN is the heart of the family, If man the head.' Good families would make Let these their destiny fulfil, and spread As spreads the air; then at the Rio Grande On one bank CHARLES should dwell; across the stream His neighbor CARLOS live; and Oregon Would share the virtues and the wealth of Maine, THE first stanza of this attempt is taken from a beautiful poem in Blackwood's Magazine, in which family portraits make the address. JOHN WATERS. TRUSTING. My soul dwells on Thee, and is satisfied! JOHN WATERO. |