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was well known how wasteful you were in housekeeping, and how extravagantly you dressed. Mrs. Jenkins was by, and said, 'Yes; poor Dr. Stone goes actually seedy, and they never can afford to subscribe to any charity. No wonder! I took it up for you, of course, and told them if Dr. Stone liked to wear an old coat in his study, it was no more than my husband did in his office; and, as for your housekeeping, you were a little young thing, and couldn't be expected to be as saving as us. It does provoke me to hear people talk about their neighbors!"

Mrs. Stone's face flushed deeper and deeper. She was mortified, indignant. She did not know what answer to make. Mrs. Campbell ran on.

"I shouldn't have minded that so much, only Miss Little always has something to say, when your name's mentioned, about your finding no time to do good, and going to parties, and dancing, and all that. As to the dancing, I always said I didn't believe you did; not that I see any hurt in it; but, you know, it would make talk, and I think it's best to avoid even the appearance of evil. And, if Sidney Howell does choose to visit you, and escort you about, I can't see any harm in it. I believe Angelica Tuttle has been making love to him herself, and I as much as told her so."

"Sidney Howell! I dance! Why, Mrs. Campbell, I do not understand this!"

"I never would mind it in the least, my dear; I wouldn't let it trouble me an instant. But I supposed you knew people said you danced the polka with Sidney Howell, and that he was at your house quite too often! I always take your part, and always will."

A great consolation, certainly, to a wounded spirit! Who wishes to know that their defence is ever needed? Such sympathy blisters rather than heals. Mrs. Stone moved mechanically for the rest of the evening; the tumult of shame and bitter feeling was scarcely typed by her cold exterior. Should she tell her husband, and beg to "go home" like a weary child? Should she meet her accusers face to face, and challenge them to substantiate their charges? or was it best to suffer silently, "bearing all things, enduring all things?"

"I am troubled, Mary," the rector said, as she entered the study, after a visit to the nursery. He had not taken off his overcoat, and stood leaning against the mantel. "There was a meeting of the vestry this afternoon; I could not tell you about it before we went out; but they do not seem pleased with my measures, or satisfied with the present success of the church. Mr. Tuttle says there is a great falling off of pew-holders this year, and Mr. Skimpton remarked the quarterly collections were much less than formerly, and no formal account had yet been rendered of their appropriation. I meant to have carried it in this afternoon; and it pained me a little. Not so much the words as the tone and

manner.

Perhaps I am too sensitive. But lately I grow more and more disheartened in trying to please my vestry and do good to my people. I look back with envy at the quiet days of my professorship, when I was accountable only to my conscience and my God. I am almost tempted at times to resign."

"Oh, if that could be!" Mrs. Stone said, involuntarily, clasping her hands in half entreaty. "I have not complained, have I? But I cannot bear it any longer. I would not mind it, if I could do right; but to be censured when I don't deserve it, to be bringing slander on the church and on you! Oh, if it was right to resign!"

Great was the wonder excited everywhere when Dr. Stone gave up the charge of St. John's Parish! Now that he had done so, he began to find that his efforts had not been all unavailing; many there were whom he had comforted, and who sorrowed that he would come no more among them. Defenders, unlike Mrs. Campbell, took up the cause of his long-suffering wife. Mrs. Lovel conquered her disinclination to general visiting, and went everywhere reducing the mountain of charges to its proper molehill level. Judith confessed that Mrs. Skimpton always wanted to know how things went on, and, when Mrs. Stone had reproved her for any fault, she had always thrown the blame on her mistress. Miss Little, with the air of an injured woman, shut her mouth as closely as the steel clasp of her reticule, and contented herself with an ominous shake of the head, when the matter of the dancing was explained to her; and Angelica Tuttle said, "How was she to know Mrs. Lovel had sent Mrs. Stone the collar from Levy's, when purchasing one for her daughter?"

There was a meeting of the parish called, which refused to accept the resignation, and resolutions were passed commending the account which Dr. Stone had rendered, at the same time, of his labors among them. But the late rector was firm; his inexperience in parish matters generally, his wife's health wasting, in the routine of city life daily, decided him to resume the more congenial duties of his professorship. He read that they who provided not for their own households had "denied the faith," and he could not see the "light of home" dying from its once steady radiance. Not that he shrank timorously from trial and responsibility, but there were other laborers in the harvest-field better fitted, by longer experience, to "bear the burden and heat of the day."

St. John's was crowded when his farewell sermon was given; but it breathed only of love and peace; and when, at its conclusion, he read most fervently a collect for his successor, many a heart inwardly promised he should tread a pleasanter path among them than Dr. Stone had ever known.

THE PHANTASCOPE.

PROFESSOR LOCKE, of the National Observatory, Washington, has invented an instrument to which he has given the above name, which illustrates very prettily and with simplicity many of the phenomena of binocular vision. It consists of a flat board base, about nine by eleven inches, with two upright rods, one at each end, a horizontal strip connecting the upper ends of the uprights, and a screen or diaphragm, nearly as large as the base, interposed between the top strip and the tabular base, this screen being adjustable to any intermediate height. The top strip has a slit one-fourth of an inch wide, and about three inches long from left to right. The observer places his eyes over this slit, looking downward. The movable screen has also a slit of the same length, but about an inch wide. A few experiments, which we will describe, will illustrate its use. First. Let there be two identical pictures of the same flower, say a rose, about one inch in diameter, placed the one to the left and the other to the right of the centre of the tabular base, or board, forming the support, and about two and a half or three inches apart from centre to centre. A flower-pot or vase

is painted on the upper screen, at the centre of it as regards right and left, and with its top even with the lower edge of the open slit.

Experiment 1.-Look downward through the upper slit, and direct both eyes steadily to a mark, a quasi stem, in the flower-pot, or vase; instantly, a flower similar to one of those on the lower screen, but of half the size, will appear growing out of the vase, and in the open slit of the movable screen. On directing the attention through the upper screen to the base, this phantom flower disappears, and only the two pictures on each side of the place of the phantom remain. The phantom itself consists of the two images painted on the base optically superimposed on each other. If one of these images be red and the other blue, the phantom will be purple. It is not unfrequently that people see single objects double; but it is only since the establishment of temperance institutions that it has been discovered that two objects can be seen as one, which is the fact in the phantascope.

Experiment 2.-Let part of a flower be painted at the left, and the supplementary part to the right, on the lower screen; then proceed as in experiment first, and a whole flower will appear as a phantom.

Experiment 3.-Let a horizontal line be marked on one side of the lower screen, and a perpendicular one on the other; then proceeding as in experiment first, a cross will appear in the opening of the upper screen as the phantom. This might be called the "experimentum crucis."

Experiment 4.-If two identical figures of persons be placed at the proper positions on the lower screen, and the upper screen be gradually slid up from its lowest point, the eye being directed to the index, each image will at first be doubled, and will gradually recede, there being of course four in view until the two contiguous ones coincide, when three only are seen. This is the proper point where the middle or doubled image is the phantom seen in the air. If the screen be raised higher, then the middle images pass by each other, and again four are seen receding more and more as the screen is raised.

As all this is the effect of crossing the axes of the eyes, it follows that a person with only one perfect eye cannot make the experiments. They depend on binocular vision.

All these effects depend on the principle that one of the two primitive pictures is seen by one eye, and the other by the other eye, and that the axes are so converged by looking at the index or mark on the upper screen that those separate images fall on the points in the eye which produce single vision. To a person who has perfect voluntary control over the axes of his eyes, the upper screen and index are unnecessary. Such an observer can at any time look two contiguous persons into one, or superimpose the image of one upon the image of the other.

This apparatus will illustrate many important points in cptics, and especially the physiological point of "single vision by two eyes." It shows also that we do not see an object in itself, but the mind contemplates an image on the retina, and always associates an object of such a figure, altitude, distance, and color, as will produce that image by rectilinear pencils of light. If this image on the retina can be produced without the object, as in the Phantascope, then there is a perfect optical illusion, and an object is seen where it is not. Nay, more, the mind does not contemplate a mere luminous image, but that image produces an unknown physiological impression on the brain.

A similar and superior instrument to this has been long known to the public and artists-the Stereoscope of Professor Wheatstone. But so many beautiful experiments may be made with this simple contrivance of Professor Locke's, that we are certain this description will be acceptable to our readers.

THE MAIDEN WOOED AND WON.

BY T. BIBE BRADLEY.

A MAIDEN sat at eventide

Beside a flowing stream

Majestic stream, with flowery banks,

And waves of golden gleam: The maiden sure is in a dream, Her hazle eyes so pensive beam!

So young, so fair, why sits she there

With melancholy mien!

So motionless, her shadow still

Within the waves is seen:

The dusky twilight soon will come

The maiden then should seek her home.

The maiden dreameth on; and sad
The waves' low music-swells
Upon the ambient atmosphere
With softest cadence dwells:
Just sad enough the waves' refrain

To link her thoughts' harmonious chain.

The maiden dreameth on; and lo!
Upon the river rides

A boat of gorgeous golden prow-
How noiselessly it glides!

See! through the twilight's dark'ning fold,
How gleams that burnished prow of gold!

Hark! loud above the waves' refrain,

In right commanding tone, Full tender, yet as proud as if

Demanding but its own,

A lordly voice the maiden hears

And these the words that reach her ears:

"Thou maiden fair, of raven hair,

Of melancholy mien !

Within my dreams thine eyes' soft beams

Have long ago been seen:

I vowed it then to leave my home,
In quest of thee o'er earth to roam.

"I've kept my vow, roamed o'er the land,
And sailed upon the stream;
My cynosure the hazle-beam

Years since I gazed on in a dream: Oh! sail with me towards the sea, Where wealth and honor wait for thee

"Where broad baronial lands extend

Beneath a peaceful sky,

My palace rears its marble walls

In grand serenity:

Within the hall my slaves await

Thee, maiden, thee to share my state.

"Wilt come? If thou wilt be my bride,
Upon my turrets gray

The earliest sun will shine, and e'er
The softest moonbeams lay:
A word, a sign, will e'er command
All that thy slightest wants demand."

"It may not be," the maiden said;

"Sail on unto the main!

Not wealth, not power, I crave for dower,
But heart for heart again.

Float, golden boat, unto the sea:

And leave me portionless, but free!"

The maiden dreameth on; again
Mute, motionless is she;

Again the waves' low music swells,

And soothes her reverie: Upon her ear sweet accents fellHer guardian-angel murmured "Well!" The maiden dreameth on; and lo

Upon the river rides

A boat, whose keel the waters kiss-
How gracefully it glides!

Although it boasts not prow of gold,
Its course how stately doth it hold!
Hark! chiming with the waves' refrain,
A voice, as low and sweet

As music's tone, steals gently on,
For ear of maiden meet:
Those wooing words of softest spell
Her heart within will ever dwell.
"Thou maiden fair, of raven hair,

Of melancholy mien!

Canst tell me why the des'late swan,

On lake of sil'vry sheen,
Though limpid waters lave his breast,
Will lowly droop his pensive crest?
"Thou maiden fair, of raven hair,

Of melancholy mien!

Canst tell me why the dove doth mourn
In mead of brightest green?
Why plaintive song, the woods among,
The lonely bird doth e'er prolong?

"List, maid! the mystery I solve

By art that love believes:
The dove, upon the withered bough,
For absent loved one grieves.
Apart they mourn in lonesome grove-
Together live, together love.

"The swan upon the silver lake

His wand'ring mate doth moan;

His shadow is no company

His shadow makes him lone.
Shall I, while gliding down this stream,
Behold a single shadow gleam?

"See! one by one bright stars appear
T'attest my solemn vow:

I swear alway to cherish pure
The love I offer now:

Oh! sail with me towards the sea-
A loving heart awaits but thee.
"Our souls will yield us sigh for sigh,
While sailing to the sea!
Our shadows, floating on with us,
Shall keep fond company:

In storm or calm, our hope is love-
Our trust is in our God above."

The boat glides down the stream of Life, Soft downward to the main;

The waves' low music swells aloud

In tuneful nuptial strain.

Two souls there love, two shadow: gleam: God guide the boat safe down the stream!

PIONEER LIFE IN OHIO.

BY A WESTERN CONTRIBUTOR.

ELIZABETH HARPER.*

ELIZABETH BARTHOLOMEW, one of the pioneer band who made the earliest settlement in northeastern Ohio, was born in Bethlehem, Hunterdon County, New Jersey, February 13, 1749. She was the sixteenth child of her parents, and had still a younger sister. She was descended, on the maternal side, from the Huguenots of France, and her ancestors were persons of wealth and respectable rank, firmly attached to the principles they professed, and willing to surrender all, and yield themselves unto death, rather than give up their religious faith. They removed to Germany, after the revocation of the edict of Nantz; and there is a family tradition that the grandmother of the subject of this notice, then a child, was brought from Paris concealed in a chest. She married in Germany, and in old age emigrated to America.

In 1771, Elizabeth was married to Alexander Harper, one of several brothers who had settled in Harpersfield, Delaware County, New York. At the outbreak of the revolutionary war, these brothers immediately quitted their peaceful occupations to enter into the continental service, Alexander receiving a commission to act as captain of a company of rangers. The exposed situation of that part of the country, and the frequent visits of Indians and tories, made it necessary for the whig families to seek the protection of Fort Schoharie. Mrs. Harper repaired thither with her family, including the aged parents of her husband. In time of comparative security, she lived at the distance of about a mile from the fort. Here, when there was a sudden alarm, she would herself harness her horses to the wagon, and, placing in it her children and the old people, would drive with all speed to the fort, remaining within its walls until the danger was over, and then returning to her occupations on the farm. As peril became more frequent or imminent, the old people were removed to a place of greater security, while Mrs. Harper, with her four children, and a lad they had taken to bring up, remained at home. One night they were startled by the sound of the alarmgun. The mother took the youngest child in her arms, another on her back, and, bidding the two elder hold fast to her clothes, set off to escape to the fort; the lad running closely behind her, and calling to her in great terror not to leave him. The fugitives reached the fort in safety; and for the present, Mrs. Harper concluded to take up her abode

Written for Mrs. Ellet's "Pioneer Women of the West."

there. She would not, however, consent to live in idleness, supported by the labor of others; but undertook, as her special charge, the bread-baking for the whole garrison, which she did for six months.

During her stay, the fort sustained a siege from a party of tories and Indians, commanded by British officers. Messengers were dispatched to the nearest forts for relief; but while this was slow in arriving, the commanding officer, in opposition to the wishes of all his men, determined on a capitulation, and ordered a flag of truce to be hoisted for that purpose. The announcement of his intention created a dissatisfaction which soon amounted almost to rebellion. The women, among whom Mrs. Harper was a leading spirit, had on that day been busily occupied from early dawn in making cartridges, preparing ammunition, and serving rations to the wearied soldiers, and they heartily sympathized in the determination expressed, not to surrender without another effort to repel the besiegers.

One of the men declared his willingness to fire upon the flag which had been ordered to be hoisted, provided the women would conceal him. This they readily agreed to do; and, as often as the flag was run up, it was fired at, while the commander was unable to discover the author of this expression of contempt for his authority. The delay consequent on this act of insubordination and the displeasure of the soldiers, prevented the capitulation being carried into effect, till the arrival of reinforcements caused the enemy to retreat.

In the spring of 1780, Captain Harper availed himself of an interval in active service to look after his property in Harpersfield. While there, with several of his friends, they were surprised by a party of Indians and tories under Brandt, and taken prisoner, an invalid brother-in-law being killed. Harper and Brandt had been schoolfellows in boyhood, and the chief did not fail to show a remembrance of the days thus spent together. The Indian captor of Harper treated him with great kindness, taking him, however, to Canada. Here his exchange was effected soon afterwards; but he was not released until peace was concluded, being offered, meanwhile, large rewards by the British if he would enter into service on their side. Mrs. Harper remained in ignorance of his fate during the time of his absence; and supposing him killed, mourned for him, while she did not suffer grief to paralyze her efforts for the protection and support of her family. All her characteristic energy was devoted to keep them together, and do what she could towards improving their shattered fortunes.

In 1797, a company was formed in Harpersfield to purchase lands in the country then called "the far West." Besides Alexander and Joseph Harper, the company consisted of William McFarland, Aaron Wheeler, and Roswell Hotchkiss; others joining afterwards. In June of that year, these individuals entered into a contract with Oliver Phelps and Gideon Granger, members of the Connecticut Land Company, for six townships of land in what was then called New Connecticut, in the Northwestern Territory. Three of these townships were to lie east, and three west, of the Cuyahoga River. The Connecticut Land Company drew their lands in the same year, and the township now known as Harpersfield, in Ashtabula County, was one of those which fell to the company formed at the town of that name in New York. In September, commissioners were sent out by them to explore the country. They were much pleased with the locality called Harpersfield, and selected it as the township most eligibly situated for the commencement of a settlement. On the 7th of March, 1798, Alexander Harper, William McFarland, and Ezra Gregory, set out with their families on their journey to this land of promise. As the winter's snow was upon the ground, the emigrants came in sleighs as far as Rome, where they found further progress impracticable, and were obliged to take up their quarters till the first of May. They then made another start in boats, and proceeded to Oswego, where they found a vessel, which conveyed them to Queenstown. Thence they pursued their journey on the Canada side to Fort Erie, being obliged to take this circuitous route on account of there being no roads west of Gennessee River, nor any inhabitants, except three families living at Buffalo, while a garrison was stationed at Erie, in Pennsylvania. At Fort Erie they found a small vessel, which had been used for transporting military stores to the troops stationed at the West, and which was then ready to proceed up the lake with her usual lading of stores. This vessel was the only one owned on the American side, and the voyagers lost no time in securing passage in her for themselves and their families, as far as the peninsula opposite Erie. As the boat, however, was small, and already heavily laden, they were able to take with them but a slender stock of provisions.

Having landed on the peninsula, the party was obliged to stop for a week, until they could procure boats in which to coast up the lake, at that time bordered by the primeval forest. After having spent nearly four months in performing a journey which now occupies but two or three days, they landed, on the 28th June, at the mouth of Cunningham's Creek. The cattle belonging to the pioneers had been sent through the wilderness, meeting them at the peninsula, whence they came up along the lake shore to the mouth of the stream. Here the men prepared sleds to transport the goods they had brought with them, the whole party encamping that

night on the beach The next morning, Colonel Harper, who was the oldest of the emigrants, and was then about fifty-five, set out on foot, accompanied by the women, comprising Mrs. Harper and two of her daughters, twelve and fourteen years of age, Mrs. Gregory and two daughters, Mrs. McFarland, the colonel's sister, and a girl whom she had brought up, named Parthena Mingus. Their new home was about four miles distant, and they followed up the boundary line of the township from the lake, each carrying articles of provisions or table furniture. Mrs. Harper carried a small copper teakettle, which she filled with water on the way to the place of destination. Their course lay through a forest unbroken except by the surveyor's lines, and the men who followed them were obliged to cut their way through for the passage of the sleds. About three o'clock in the afternoon they came to the corner of the township line, about half a mile north of the present site of Unionville, Ohio, where they were glad to halt, as they saw indications of a coming storm. The women busied themselves in striking a fire and putting the tea-kettle over, while Colonel Harper cut some forked poles and drove them in the ground, and then felled a large chestnut tree, from which he stripped the bark, and helped the women to stretch it across the poles, so as to form a shelter, which they had just time to gather under when the storm burst upon them. It was not, however, of long continuance; and, when the rest of the men arrived, they enlarged and inclosed the lodge, in which the whole company, consisting of twenty-five persons, great and small, were obliged to take up their quarters. Their tea-table was then constructed in the same primitive manner, and we may suppose that the first meal was partaken of with excellent appetite, after the wanderings and labors of the day.

The lodge thus prepared was the common dwelling for three weeks, during which time some of the trees had been cut down, and a space cleared for a garden. The Fourth of July was celebrated in the new Harpersfield by the planting of beans, corn. and potatoes. The next thing was to build logcabins for the accommodation of the different families; and when this was done, the company separated. The location chosen by Colonel Harper was where he first pitched his tent, while his brother-inlaw took a piece of land about half a mile east of Unionville, near the spot now occupied by the Episcopal Church, and Mr. Gregory put up his dwelling close to the river, where Clyde Furnace was afterwards built.

The settlers suffered from the sickness peculiar to a new country, when the season came. A hired man in Harper's service was taken ill in August, and soon after the colonel himself was seized with the fever, of which he died on the 10th of September. They had been able to procure no medical aid, and a coffin was made by digging out the trunk of a

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