lasting silence, 'There goes one of the doctor's patients to his long home.' Verily, there are thorns among the roses that blossom on the wayside of our existence."

It is probable the reflections of Doctor Manning would not have assumed the character they did, had he indulged any sanguine hopes of the recovery of his patient. Days, even weeks passed away, and all his skill and kindness availed not. Poor Cora's doom was sealed. Mrs. Bellamy had recovered the use of her hands, and assisted in nursing the dying mulatto. So great and protracted had been her sufferings, that even King was willing that she should die, rather than live longer in hopeless anguish. At first Cora clung to life with strong, convulsive grasp, and would entreat the doctor, with pitying accents, "Not to let her die," but gradually the convulsive grasp relaxed, the wild glance of despair melted into the softness of tears, and she begged her mistress to pray that she might be made willing to die. Holy were the prayers that went up by her bedside for the boon of Christian resignation, and they were not breathed in vain. The same gentle hand that had embraced the flames for her rescue led her, a trembling, but accepted penitent, to the feet of her Saviour.

It seemed as if the blazing element that had consumed the springs of her existence was touched by the beauty of her face. No defacing mark was there, but her cheek remained as smooth and transparent as when it blushed beneath the bridal kiss. Just before she died, she turned her eyes in all their languishing brightness towards her mistress, who bent over her to catch her faint, low accents.

"Let me kiss once more the dear hands that suffered for me," said the expiring mulatto; and her weeping mistress softly pressed her hand on the cold lips, once red and bright as the coral of the ocean.

There is a plain white slab in a green enclosure on Hickory Hill, sacred to the memory of Cora. There are sweet flowers and shrubs blooming around it. The mourning bridegroom of an hour planted a weeping-willow by its side, and many a

night, when the moon was shining on her grave, the tall, dark form of Hannibal would wander to the spot, certain that he met there the spirit of Cora, and that she looked kindly upon him. Indeed, all the negroes on the plantation saw her ghost, and it was always dressed like a bride, in white muslin, white roses, and white kid gloves.

One incident connected with the history of the doomed bride should not be omitted here.

A short time after her death, Hannibal fell sick, and Doctor Manning was summoned to his bedside. He had attended him the previous year during his illness, and Hannibal had a grateful remembrance of his kindness and an unbounded admiration for his skill.

One night, when the General's fever was unusually high, and he began to have some fears for his own safety, he requested to be left entirely alone with the doctor.

"Doctor," said he, "do you think I going to die this time?"

"I hope not, General; you don't look like a dying man yet." "But I may die for all that, and I wants to tell you something, if you please, Doctor, 'cause I knows I ought to confess it. 'Spose a man wants to kill a man, and don't do it, taint murder; is it, doctor?"

"If he would do it if he could, he commits murder in his heart, General.”

"O Lord," cried Hannibal, rolling his hot head from side to side on the bolster. "O Lord, I would a killed King, if ] could, 'fore poor Cora got burned to cinders; I didn't think of nothing else, Doctor."

"But you have repented since," said the doctor, trying to soothe the excited conscience of his patient; "you would not do it now."

"O Lord, no; I so sorry for him; I wouldn't hurt his little finger for him. I repented ever since; I keep repenting long I live."

"Then I doubt not you are forgiven by Him you have

offended. But keep quiet, General, or I never shall be able to cure you."

"I quiet now, I confess it, I make clean breast this time," said the negro, submitting to the will of his medical adviser, whom he had invested for the time with sacerdotal power.

Hannibal recovered, and became the devoted friend of the widowed King.

"The youth

CHAPTER VI.

Proceeds the paths of science to explore,
And now, expanded to the beams of truth,
New energies and charms unknown before,
His mind discloses."
BEATTIE.

"She had hair as deeply black

As the cloud of thunder;
She had brows so beautiful

And dark eyes flashing under.
Bright and witty Southern girl!
Beside a mountain's water,

I found her, whom a king himself
Would proudly call his daughter."
MARY HOWITT.

THE life of a youth in college is full of monotony. One day is an epitome of the year. If he be ardent and ambitious; if his lip thirst for the dews of Castaly, and his spirit for the groves of Academus, he may, like Marcus, forget the realities of his condition, in the classic life of his mind. Such was his thirst for knowledge, and the rapture with which he imbibed it, that it was a perennial spring flowing inward and giving perpetual freshness and greenness to the intellectual and moral region. He loved to embosom himself in the thick oaken wood that surrounded the university; and while he felt the verdure of its eternal youth in his own soul, he drank in the almost divine philosophy of Plato, and wandered with him in shades deep and luxuriant as his own.

If in his rambles

he met some bubbling spring, he found inspiration in its waters, by associating them with the fountains of Parnassus and the virgin Castalidas, who drank of their waves.

Had Marcus isolated himself from his fellow-students during their hours of recreation, they might have envied his superiority; but he mingled in their sports with such hearty good-will, that he soon exercised over them the same rare personal influence he had done on others. Though his fellowship with all was kind and courteous, there was only one with whom he had intimate and unreserved communion. This was a youth, by the name of George Delaval, who, after Marcus had been in college a few weeks, evidently sought him out by that principle of elective affinity by which things entirely different are attracted towards each other. Delaval was a gay, dashing, don't-care-for-any-thing kind of young man, generous to prodigality, proud, and sometimes overbearing, but with a flow of animal spirits that made him exceedingly popular as a social companion. That he was very wealthy there was no doubt, for he spilled his money like grains of sand, regardless where it fell. Knowing his reputed riches and proud though reckless character, Marcus would never have manifested a desire for his acquaintance; but when Delaval showed him the flattering distinction of seeking his society on many occasions, Marcus, with the natural frankness and geniality of youth, opened his heart to his advances, and soon conceived for him a warm attachment. He had never forgot the brunette of the fountain, and in a moment of confidence he described the meeting to Delaval, and his extreme desire to ascertain the name of the dark little enchantress. Delaval seemed excessively amused by the description and the impression she had made on the imagination of Marcus.

"I dare say she is some bold little vixen, that would flirt her riding-whip over your shoulders with as much grace as she splashed about the water, if she had a chance," said Delaval. "I don't think I should like her at all. I have no taste for these dark beauties; give me one of your fair, blue-eyed, gentle lassies, that steal upon you as insensibly as the dawning light. I have no idea of ever being taken by storm.” Marcus could not help thinking of his gentle, violet-eyed

Katy, while listening to the description of Delaval, whose flashing black eyes mocked the lustre and the hue of jet. He frequently regretted afterward that he had mentioned the young incognita to his friend, for Mademoiselle Lightning became his standing jest, and Marcus felt as if he had wronged her, by exposing her to such light ridicule. He might never see her again—indeed he feared he should not; but her image was traced on his memory, in characters as vivid and thrilling as the lightning, whose name she had sportively assumed.

One evening, as he sat in the recitation-room, waiting for his turn to be called up by the learned professor, and was carelessly turning over the leaves of a book he had carried with him, a letter dropped to the floor. He took it up, supposing it one from his sister that he had accidentally left there, for he perceived that the direction was in a fair, feminine hand; but upon nearer inspection he saw that a stranger must have traced it, and the paper was of a most delicate, transparent tissue, scented with the attar of roses. He looked at the seal, whose device was a kneeling figure, with lightning darting from a cloud into its breast; the motto, La Lampeggia degli occhi. With kindling curiosity he opened the envelope, and glancing at the signature, beheld the single word, "Lightning." With a burning blush he folded it hastily, and concealed it again within the leaves of his book, reserving its perusal for the solitude of the thicket. Delaval, who had observed the fallen note, the deep blush, and hurried concealment of the paper, rallied him the moment he had left the recitation room, and insisted upon seeing the mysterious envelope.

"Acknowledge, Delaval," said he, "that it is a practical joke of your own, and I will forgive you. You must have written this yourself to impose on my credulity, though I acknowledge you are a greater master of penmanship than I ever imagined you." Marcus here exhibited the beautiful and fairy-like superscription of the letter, and again repeated to Delaval his awakened suspicion.

"No, Warland," replied Delaval, in a more serious tone than