XXVII.

Back he fell while she spoke. She rose to her feet with a

spring,

"That was a Piedmontese! and this is the Court of the

King."

Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

OUR LITTLE BOY.

I SAW him in his play, as in dreams I see him now,
The rose was on his cheek and the lily on his brow;
His lips were full of love and his laugh was full of joy,
And the sparkle of his eye told the merry-hearted boy.

I stood by his couch, where in suffering he lay,
And struggled in disease till he breathed his last away;
No rose was on his cheek and no sparkle in his
eye,
Oh, how it broke my heart that the darling boy should die!

I saw him robed in white, as they decked him for his tomb,
And laid upon his breast a sweet blossom in its bloom.
A smile of beauty lingered upon his face so fair,
It seemed as if an angel were sweetly slumbering there.

I saw him once again, in the vision of the night,
He seemed a little cherub in his robes of snowy white;
A harp was in his hand and a garland on his brow—
Forevermore an angel-oh, such I see him now.

GHOSTS.

We never met but one ghost in all our life. It was a very dark night, and we were seven years of age. There was a German cooper, who, on the outskirts of the village, had a shop. It was an interesting spot, and we frequented it. There was a congregation of barrels, kegs, casks and

firkins that excited our boyish admiration. There the old man stood, day after day, hammering away at his trade. He was fond of talk, and had his head full of all that was weird, mysterious, and tragic. During the course of his life he had seen almost as many ghosts as firkins; had seen them in Germany, on the ocean, and in America.

One summer afternoon, perhaps having made an unusually lucrative bargain in hoop-poles, the tide of his discourse bore everything before it. We hung on his lips entranced. We noticed not that the shadows of the evening were gathering, nor remembered that we were a mile from home. He had wrought up our boyish imagination to the tip-top pitch. He had told us how doors opened when there was no hand on the latch, and the eyes of a face in a picture winked one windy night; and how intangible objects in white would glide across the room, and headless trunks rode past on phantom horses; and how boys, on the way home at night, were met by a sheeted form that picked them up and carried them off, so that they never were heard off, their mother going around as discousolate as the woman in the "Lost Heir," crying, "Where's Billy?"

This last story roused us up to our whereabouts, and we felt we must go home. Our hair, that usually stood on end, took the strictly perpendicular. Our flesh crept with horror of the expedition homeward. Our faith in everything solid had been shaken. We believed only in the subtile and intangible. What could a boy of seven years old depend upon if one of these headless horsemen might any moment ride him down, or one of these sheeted creatures pick him up?

We started up the road. the road. We were barefoot. We were not impeded by any useless apparel. It took us no time to get under way. We felt that if we must perish, it would be well to get as near the doorsill of home as pos

sible. We vowed that if we were only spared this once to get home, we would never again allow the night to catch us at the cooper's. The ground flew under our feet. No headless horseman could have kept up. Not a star was out. It was the blackness of darkness. We had made half the distance, and were in "the hollow" - the most lonely and dangerous part of the way-and felt that in a minute more we might abate our speed and take fuller breath. But, alas! no such good fortune awaited us. Suddenly our feet struck a monster, whether beastly, human, infernal, or supernal, witch, ghost, demon, or headless horseman, we could not immediately tell. We fell prostrate, our hands passing over a hairy creature; and, as our head struck the ground, the monster rose up, throwing our feet into the air. To this day it would have been a mystery, had not a fearful bellow revealed it as a cow, which had lain down to peaceful slumber in the road, not anticipating the terrible collision. She wasted no time, but started up the road. We joined her in the We knew not but that it was the first installment of disasters. And, therefore, away we went, cow and boy; but the cow beat. She came into town a hundred yards ahead. I have not got over it yet that I let that cow beat.

race.

We

That was the first and last ghost we ever met. made up our minds for all time to come that the obstacles in life do not walk on the wind, but have either two legs or four. The only ghosts that glide across the room are those of the murdered hours of the past. When the door swings open without any hand, we send for the locksmith to put on a better latch. Sheeting has been so high since the war that apparitions will never wear it again. Friday is an unlucky day only when on it we behave ill. If a salt-cellar upset, it means no misfortune unless you have not paid for the salt. Spirits of the departed have enough

employment in the next world to keep them from cutting up monkey-shines in this. Better look out for cows than for spooks. T. De Witt Talmage.

DE SOTO.

THERE, in that lonely hut, lay the proudest spirit, the bravest heart, the mightiest intellect, the favorite comrade of Pizarro, the joint-conqueror of Peru! There lay Hernan de Soto; his fiery energies, even more than the hot fever, wearing away his mortal frame; his massive brow clogged with the black sweat of death; his eye, that had flashed the more brilliantly the deadlier was the peril, dim and filmy; his heart sick; his hopes of conquest, fame, dominion, gone like the leaves of autumn! There he lay, miserably perishing by inches, the discoverer of a world.

Beside his pallet-bed was assembled a group of men, the least renowned of whom might well have led a royal army to do battle for a crown; but their frames were gaunt and emaciated; their cheeks furrowed with the lines of care and agony, both of the mind and body; their eyes wet with the tears of bitterness. The dark-cowled priests had ministered the last rites of religion to the dying warrior, and now watched in breathless silence the parting of his spirit; an Indian girl, of rare symmetry, and loveliness that would have been deemed exquisite in the brightest halls of Old Castile, leaned over his pillow, wiping the cold dew from the conqueror's brow with her long jetty locks, and fanning off the myriads of insects that thronged the tainted air! There was not a sound in the crowded chamber, save the heavy soblike breathings of the dying man, and the occasional whinings of a tall hound, which sat erect, gazing with almost human intelligence upon the pallid features of his lord.

Suddenly a light draught of air was perceptible, the silken veil fluttered inwards, and a heavy rustling sound was audible from without, as the huge folds of the banner swayed in the rising breeze. A sensible coolness pervaded the heated chamber and reached the languid brow of De Soto, who had lain for the last half hour in seeming lethargy. Wearily, and with a painful expression, he raised himself upon his elbow.

"Moscoso," he said, "Moscoso, art thou near me? my eyes wax dim, and it will soon be over. Art thou there, for I would speak with thee?"

"Noble De Soto, I am beside thee," he replied. "Say on; I hear and mark thee!"

66

"Give me thy hand!" Then, as he received it, he raised it slowly on high, and continued in clear and unfaltering tones, though evidently with an effort, True friend and follower, by this right hand, that has so often fought beside my own - by this right hand, I do adjure thee to observe and to obey these my last mandates!"

"Shall I swear it?" cried the stern warrior whom he addressed, in a tone and voice rendered thick and husky by the violence of his excitement; "shall I swear it?"

"Swear not, Moscoso! leave oaths to paltry burghers and to cringing vassals, but pledge me the unblemished honor of a Castilian noble-so shall I die in peace!"

"By the unblemished honor of a Castilian noble, as I am a born hidalgo, and a belted knight, I promise thee, in spirit and in truth, in deed and word and thought, to do thy bidding!"

66

Then, by this token," and he drew a massive ring from his own wasted hand, and placed it on the finger of Moscoso, "then, by this token, do I name thee my successor, thee, the leader of the host, and captain-general of Spain! Sound trumpets; heralds make proclamation!" A moment or two elapsed, and the wild flourish of the