was gladly accepted in conducting the seminary of which she had been a pupil. Opportunities of visiting her were frequently availed of by M. Hilaire, and his addresses assumed a more serious cast. His worth Isabel perceived and acknowledged; and as neither his face nor his person were unattractive, by degrees she began to regard him with wakening affection. She felt that he possessed, from the tenor of his deportment, his unostentatious kindness, and the protection she had received whilst under his care, a certain claim on her gratitude; and in process of time that reflection became not unwelcome.

M. Hilaire at length made formal proposals of marriage. The connection being deemed eligible, and receiving the cordial approbation of Isabel's friends, she accepted the offer of his hand, and, not long after, their nuptials were solemnized. Another legacy, not unexpected, devolved upon M. Hilaire, and he was happy in the ability of thereby placing his beloved partner in still easier independence. The friends, who had kindly aided her in the Brazils, were not forgotten, and suitable returns were made both to them and others, for the obligations, which their benevolence had conferred.

Isabel, now Madame Hilaire, was blest in her bridal connection. Her husband's attentions marked uniformly a fervent warmth of attachment; and often would she blush as his beaming looks of affectionate and manly pride were dropped upon her. A lovely little olive-plant was the fruit of their tender union, repaying their parental culture, and sharing equally their parental fondness. Annette had continued to reside with her sister. She was arrived at a blooming maidenly age; and, if report spoke true, was shortly to be conducted a happy bride to the hymeneal temple. No important changes were understood to have happened in the distant family of the amiable Vasquez. A voyage of visit thither, which filial piety and affection had led the fair sisters long to hope, was now in prospect of being realized, under the auspices of the wontedly inseparable attendance of M. Hilaire.

Is it asked, Did Isabel find complete happiness in her new situation? As much so, perhaps, as the mixed experience of any human lot can offer. If her heart was not as gay, nor her features as sunny with smiles, as in the sweet spring-tide of her earlier days, it was owing to the gentling influence of intermediate adversity. But if a sigh ever escaped her, it was heaved at the involuntary remembrance of past misplaced affection, but never in regret for the loss of the unworthy Montfort, A. B.

FABLE.

FROM THE GERMAN OF LESSING.

THE SHEPHERD AND THE NIGHTINGALE.

Dost thou tremble, favorite of the Muses, before the loud multitude, who crowd around Parnassus? O hear from me what the nightingale once heard.

"Do sing, dear nightingale!" cried a shepherd to the silent bird of song, on a lovely spring evening.

"Alas!" said the nightingale, "the frogs make so loud a noise, that I lose all desire to sing. Do you not hear them?"

"Yes," replied the shepherd; "but it is your fault; it is your silence which makes me hear them."

NEW-ENGLAND SUPERSTITIONS.

"T is a history,

Handed from ages down; a nurse's tale

Which children, open-eyed and mouthed, devour;
We learn it, and believe. THALABA.

AN elegant writer, in a late number of the New-England Magazine, has given us an interesting and philosophical essay upon popular superstitions; and made particular allusion to those which may be considered peculiar to, or prevalent in, New-England. I cannot but wish, that some of our writers, (and I know of no one better qualified to perform the task than the gentleman I have alluded to) could be induced to embody and illustrate such passages of superstition, as may be considered in any degree peculiar to the New World. Our fathers had a theory of their own in relation to the invisible world-in which they had united, by a most natural process, the wild and extravagant mysteries of their savage neighbors, with the old and common superstitions of their native land; and that stern, gloomy, indefinite awe of an agency of evil, which their peculiar interpretations of the sacred volume had inspired; a theory, which mingled with and had a practical effect upon their habits and dispositions,-which threw a veil of mystery over the plainest passages of the great laws of the universe,— which gave a constraint and an awe to their intercourse with one another, agitating the whole community with signs and wonders, and dark marvels,-poisoning the fountains of education,-and constituting a part of their religion.

The principal relics of these ancient superstitions, which still linger with us, may be classed under the following heads :

I. Haunted houses. By which is not always understood the actual appearance of a spirit from the dead; but, not unfrequently, a supernatural disturbance-noises in the deep midnight-the reveling of evil demons, &c.

I have heard but little of haunted houses in this vicinity for some time past. Our Yankee thrift, in truth, does not often allow us to keep houses merely for the accommodation of such ghostly tenants as never pay for their lodgings. One of my neighbors formerly complained a good deal of the disturbing revels which ghosts or witches nightly got up under his roof. All night long he could hear a dance moving lightly to the time of some infernal melody :

Where hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys and reels

Put life and mettle in the heels

of the unseen revelers. Latterly, however, I learn that his tormentors have given him a respite.

II. Ghosts. The appearance of a departed friend or enemy; a visible similitude of the dead, revealed to the living only upon some extraordinary contingency; to publish like that of "buried Denmark," some foul and most unnatural murder," or injury; to settle without fee disputes between the heirs of the dead man's property; and for various other "wicked or charitable purposes."

III. Witches-including male and female, under the same general This class of worthies is getting very much out of repute. In

term.

the county of Essex, which was formerly their head-quarters, there is
not a single surviver, worthy of the name; although we have many
most devout believers in their potency. Kingston, New-Hampshire,
has been somewhat celebrated for a family of witches.
Two elderly
sisters used, a few years since, to be seen wending their way to market,
with a few small baskets of their own manufacture, mounted on horses
as lean as their skeleton riders, the objects of great terror to all the
urchins of the street. They were evil, malicious, malignant, and their
appearance involuntarily reminded one of Otway's famous description
in his "Orphan" :-

"I spied a withered hag, with age grown double,
Picking dry sticks, and mumbling to herself;
Her eyes with scalding rheum were galled and red,
Cold palsy shook her head, her hands seemed withered,
And on her crooked shoulders, had she wrapped
The tattered remnants of an old striped hanging,
Which served to keep her carcass from the cold."

They are now, I believe, both dead. A person who attended the funeral of one of them, told me, with great gravity, that the coffin of her, who, when living, was seemingly as unsubstantial as the ghosts of Ossian, through which the stars were visible, was at first so heavy that eight stout men could not raise it; but, that after waiting for the spell to be removed, it could be easily taken up by a single man.

IV. Fortune-Telling. This is still considerably practised; not so much, however, by the professed disciples of astrology and palmistry, as by the younger classes of our inland community. It is usually called "trying projects," very much like those described by Burns, in his inimitable Halloween.

V. Warnings of Death or Disaster. This species of superstition is completely inwrought. It has most successfully resisted the operations of science and philosophy.

A very honest and intelligent neighbor of mine, once told me that at the precise moment when his brother was drowned in the Merrimac, many miles distant, he felt a sudden and painful sensation,—a death-like chill upon his heart, such as he had never before experienced. I have heard many similar relations. Those who have read Walton's life of Donne, will recollect the theory of that quaint and excellent old author on this subject; that there is a sympathy of soul,an electric chain of mental affinity-upon which the emotions of one spirit thrill and tremble even to another.

VI. Spectres. I use this term in the sense in which it was made to apply, during the memorable era of 1692, to the appearance or phantom of a living person, who, at the time of its visitation, is known to be absent. Such appearances are supposed to denote the speedy death. of the person whom they represent.

A widow lady, residing in an adjoining town, is clearly convinced that she saw the spectre of her daughter a little time before her death, yet when she was in perfect health. It crossed the room within a few feet of the mother, and in broad day-light. She spoke; but no answer was returned; the countenance of the apparition was fixed and sorrowful. The daughter was at the time absent on a visit to a friend.

VII. Supposed preternatural Appearances, unconnected with any circumstances peculiar to those who witness them; lights dancing in lonely places and grave-yards, meteors, &c. &c. These are usually denominated "sights."

I have listened, hour after hour, of a winter's evening, to minute descriptions of these appearances. A much-lamented friend of mine,a sober and intelligent farmer,-once informed me, that, while engaged in sledding rails for his spring fence, many years since, his team suddenly stood still, apparently unable to proceed. It was a night of cold, clear moonshine; the path was smooth and slippery as glass; and the pause was made about midway in the descent of a hill. He examined the runners on all sides, but no obstruction was apparent. He lifted up the runners in front, and urged forward his oxen at the same time; the cattle exerted their whole strength-the very bows of their yoke cracked with the effort; but the sled remained immovable, as if bedded in a solid rock. After repeated trials had been made, and the farmer was on the point of leaving his sled for the night, a sharp report like that of a pistol was heard a strong blaze of fire enveloped the whole team; and the sled instantly glided down the declivity, with a speed which greatly embarrassed the oxen, which but a moment before had in vain endeavored to move it.

The farmer had never probably read Coleridge's poetical description of a somewhat similar detention of the ship of the "Ancient Marinere," which, held by the demon, in the teeth of the wind, kept swaying and struggling

"Backwards and forwards, half her length,

With a short, uneasy motion;"

and which, when released at last,

"Like a pawing horse set free,

Sprang forth with sudden bound;"

yet the experimentum crucis, whereby he attempted to ascertain the cause of such an extraordinary circumstance, led him to ascribe it to witchcraft, or some other supernatural agency. There were facts to be explained, which, in his opinion, could only refer themselves to such

a cause.

A pond in my vicinity has been somewhat celebrated for its "sights and marvels." A middle-aged lady, of good intelligence, residing near it, states, that one summer evening, between daylight and dark, while standing by the side of the highway, leading along the margin of the pond, she was startled by the appearance of a horse, attached to an old-fashioned cart, and driven by an elderly man, plunging at full speed down the hill which rises abruptly from the water, and over a rough pasture where it would seem impossible for a vehicle to be conveyed. It passed swiftly and noiselessly over the high wall bounding the pasture, without displacing a stone, and crossed the street within a few yards of the astonished looker-on. Behind the cart, and bound to it by a strong rope, fastened to her wrists, a woman of gigantic stature was dragged furiously onward, writhing like Laocoon in the clasp of the serpent. Her feet, head, and arms were naked; and grey locks of wild hair streamed back from temples corrugated and darkened.

The horrible cavalcade swept by, and disappeared in the thick swamp which touches the western extremity of the pond.

I could mention half a dozen other places within a few miles of my residence, equally celebrated for the "unco' sights" and sounds which have been seen or heard near them. The Devil's Den, in Chester, N. H. is among the most prominent in this respect. How his satanic majesty came in possession of it, I have never been able to ascertain; but that it is a favorite resort of his, is incontestibly proved by the fact, that he always keeps a smooth foot-track to its entrance, whether in summer or winter. The following rhymes, if they answer no other purpose, will serve to show that the place and its legend are enjoying as comfortable a chance of immortality as Yankee poetry can give them.

"The moon is bright on the rocky hill,
But its dwarfish pines rise gloomily still,-
Fixed, motionless forms in the silent air,
The moonlight is on them, but darkness is there.
The drowsy flap of the owlet's wing,

And the stream's low gush from its hidden spring,
And the passing breeze, in its flight betrayed
By the timid shiver of leaf and blade,

Half like a sigh and half a moan,

The ear of the listener catches alone.

"A dim cave yawns in the rude hill-side

Like the jaws of a monster opened wide,
Where a few wild bushes of thorn and fern
Their leaves from the breath of the night-air turn;
And half with twining foliage cover

The mouth of that shadowy cavern over :-
Above it, the rock hangs gloomy and high,
Like a rent in the blue of the beautiful sky,
Which seems, as it opens on either hand,
Like some bright sea leaving a desolate land.

"Below it, a stream on its bed of stone
From a rift in the rock comes hurrying down,
Telling forever the same wild tale

Of its loftier home to the lowly vale:
And over its waters an oak is bending,
Its boughs like a skeleton's arms extending,-
A naked tree, by the lightning shorn,
With its trunk all bare and its branches torn;
And the rocks beneath it, blackened and rent,
Tell where the bolt of the thunder went.

"T is said that this cave is an evil place-
The chosen haunt of the fallen race-
That the midnight traveler oft hath seen
A red flame tremble its jaws between,
And lighten and quiver the boughs among,
Like the fiery play of a serpent's tongue;
That sounds of fear from its chambers swell-

The ghostly gibber,-the fiendish yell;
That bodiless hands at its entrance wave,-

And hence they have named it THE DEMON'S CAVE!

"The fears of man to this place have lent

A terror which Nature never meant ;-
For who hath wandered, with curious eye
This dim and shadowy cavern by,