pale cheeks, came hurrying in. She brushed by me, unconscious of my presence, burst into the room where Harold's body lay, and with a heart-broken cry, staggered forward and fell upon it. She quivered and crouched down by its side, and stretched her arms convulsively over it; and laid her cheek upon his; and moaned; and rained bitter tears upon his brow.

I softly withdrew, and going into another room, flung myself in a chair, and covered my face with my hands.

dark shadows gathered in the corners, and behind the
furniture. The stillness in the house seemed to grow
more profound than ever. My very breathing disturbed
it. A rustle that I made in stirring, fell upon my ear
with startling loudness. Suddenly, a movement at the
door caused me to turn quickly towards it. The door
was open, and the light in the hall was greater than in
the room. Drawn against the light in the doorway, stood
the figure of Grace. Her face was in perfect shadow.
"Mark," said she, in a low, tremulous voice, come
with me."

I rose in great agitation and surprise, but without replying. She turned, and walked toward the room where Harold was lying. I followed her, mechanically, but with vague expectation. The room was lit from the west, and a mellow tinge was diffused through it from the sunset sky. It fell upon the uncovered face of Harold, strangely—like a halo. Grace went up to his head, knelt down and kissed his brow, and sobbed with deep anguish.

I have not the power to describe all the emotions I experienced sitting there. I was not jealous at this exhibition of grief on the part of Grace. How could I be jealous in the face of this calamity-this widespread woe--how let such selfish passions rise in the still, awful atmosphere of death! I do myself the justice to say that it was a profounder emotion than jealousy that filled my breast. I felt that the old love was a dream, that I must needs crush it out of my heart-forget it-treat it like a summer blossom dead with the breath of winter-like a boyish delusion built among “the cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces" of many another fond air-built fancy, now every one a I looked on her grief painfully, confused, tremblingly bubble and "unsubstantial pageant." I was not dis--with a strange agitation. Suddenly she started up, posed at that moment to blame any one-not even and while the tears streamed from her eyes, she Grace. Towards Harold my heart melted in tender-stretched her arms towards me, and cried, in thrilling ness. If his throbbing, wild, heavily-laden heart had found consolation, peace, or moments of pleasure in Grace, could I envy, to such a life as his, a few glimpses of happiness? Could I deprive him, even in thought, of the little fruit that had flourished upon his bald, lasted life?

"Harold! Harold !" exclaimed she between her sobs, "Oh, can it be?"

tones:

"Mark, Mark, he was my brother!"

I stood as one struck by a bolt from Heaven. I could not speak. The intelligence, so startling and incredible, seemed to rise up like a huge wave, and hurl itself upon me stunning, bewildering, overwhelming every sense and feeling.

Sitting there, with past and present both before me, subdued by the awful calamity which had fallen upon Grace stood with her arms outstretched towards me us, it seemed to me that my lost love was a dispensation-pale, with quivering lips-weeping, and trembling. of Heaven-a part of the grief which surrounded us, to be borne as other griefs are, humbly, silently, prayerfully-wherein there is no human blame or mortal responsibility-nothing but fate!

"Mark," said a voice at my elbow. I looked up. It was Frank Bloomer.

"How is Imy, now, Frank?"

"Much better, but a little wild at turns. She will not suffer seriously; so they all assure me. Oh, Mark, you saved her! What would I not have given to have been in your place? But, how fortunate—and so bravely, so admirably managed. You are a hero, Mark.”

"Oh, thank you, Frank."

"You don't know all, do you—that it is all settledthat we are to be married next summer? I am almost ashamed to speak of my happiness, with poor Harold lying dead there; but my heart is full of thankfulness." Frank stayed a little longer to repeat what he owed me-what a hero I was-how much he loved Imyhow when he saw her in my arms in the stream, and apparently dead, he wanted to die, too; and then he shook hands with me, with tears in his eyes; and hemmed and hawed, evidently wanting to say something about Grace, but couldn't; and, at last, went away. Reverie came again with the silence. An hour past. Night came on. The room grew dusky, and

"Grace! Grace !" I succeeded in uttering.
"Mark," she repeated, in the same thrilling way.

I felt it all, then-the wonderful truth, the bitter, unutterable shame.

Down, down, kneeling, crouching, cowering, burying my face upon his heart, hiding remorse, and shame, and penitential tears upon his breast-down, with reproaches so intense, and upbraidings so like sharp blades and hot coals, that I clutched at them as if to drag them from my heart-down, humbled into the dust, contrite and subdued, I fell by Harold's side, and at Grace's feet.

I wished to hide myself for ever; to shrink from the sight of the world; to fly where all this shame could not follow me. My crime seemed measureless and nonstrous then, in that awful presence, and at that strange moment. Jealous of Harold, the saddest heart in the world, and her brother-jealous of Grace-I could have torn myself!

A figure knelt down by me, a hand rested upon my shoulder; the locks that had brushed my cheeks so often, fell upon them now; a hand stole into mine, and clasped it; tears were commingled-our hearts beat together—there, kneeling by Harold's side, against his dead heart, in that solemn presence-love came back again, and bound us one.

Darkness came upon us, and still we knelt-with -whatever would seem to divert, animate his son, keep heads upraised now, and looking tearfully in Harold's back the stealthy shadow, which still slowly and surely white face-set in its marble mould-and glimmering came on, and on! How at last, while trying the air dimly through the enclosing shadows. of the South, he learned of the ripening graces and beauty of his daughter; how, then, upbraiding himself for his long neglect of one child for another, and conceiving a new hope that woman's love and sympathy might obtain that power over Harold, which nothing now could long retain, he hastened to bring brother and sister together; and how, finding that Mr. Harlow was so near a neighbor of his daughter, he came to him for his aid.

Thus brokenly and disjointedly did I learn the story. Grace had found a father and brother, to lose them, alas, how soon!

When the story was finished, I wound my arm around her waist, and led her from the room.

At last, I drew the covering over it, and led Grace away to a seat; and there, between tears and gushes of grief, I learned it all: how her mother had died very young, and her father had married again—a brilliant, fashionable woman, who drew him into a round of travel and pleasure, leaving his infant child in the charge of others; how her father's new wife, soon after marriage, gave evidences of insanity, and in a little while became utterly and hopelessly mad—an inherited frensy, which had existed in her family for generations; how scarcely had the asylum doors closed upon her for ever, when it became too evident that the child born unto them, must experience the same terrible destiny; how then Mr. Clarefield put away from him his sane, healthful child, and gave all his thought, time, and being, to the forlorn hope of restoring his son to sanity; how Harold became linked and bound unto his heart by such deep sympathy and passionate love, such a surrendering up of every thought and feeling, that for his lit-ping to the river Harold loved so well. May its music fall ripplingly upon his ear for ever! tle Grace, thrown upon strangers' sympathies, he appeared to have little heed; but how, unwilling to have her grow up with such a shadow across her path, such a sorrow lying upon her young heart, he had given instruction that the knowledge of himself and her brother should, for a time, be withheld from her; how he had travelled far and wide-to Europe to consult medical eminence-to new scenes, and new objects

"Go, and rest now, dear Grace," said I, kissing her hand; "and remember this, it is better, a thousand times better for Harold, as it is.”

We buried father and son together, upon a bank slo

I have been married to Grace four years. I did not go to town again; neither to literature nor to law-but followed Frank's example and advice (he and Imy were married the summer following the incidents of this story), and settled down as a sturdy, steady, country worker-curious in stock and grain-a frequenter of Agricultural shows-wise in weather and crops.

ABOUT fifteen years ago the plague raged intensely in Mortality, the Angel of Death seems at the time in the Levant. Among other places, the city of Smyrna question to have passed in a more merciful mood over suffered much from this scourge, which is known to the the meandering banks of the Meles than along the Nile natives of Anadoli by the name of the Youmourjak. in the south, or the Golden Horn in the north. Yet, as But heavy as the visitation undoubtedly was, Smyrna we have already declared, Smyrna suffered much, very may still be considered as, perhaps, somewhat favored much. by Destiny, since, looking to certain Consular Bills of

The wild and extensive flat, and low open ground-

and the frequent loss of many familiar faces in every public haunt and favorite resort, there was still no panic, save, as we have already said, among the

Franks.

situate to the eastward of Windmill Point-and scarcely | vocation; yet, notwithstanding these speaking signs, indeed above the level of the waters of the little bay, which here, in military phrase, "turns the flank" of the north and extreme end of the sea-front of the city, became very soon after the first outburst of "La Peste studded with the tattered and unhappy tents of the "compromised ;" and, moreover, the city hospitals, especially that of St. Roque, rapidly filled to overflowing.

|

To use a common English phrase, no one, looking merely at the conduct of the Turks, would have dreamt that the plague was at work within the city of Smyrna. Dreamt, do we say?

Aye; we are dreamers all in some sense; still few have yet dreamt as Selim of Smyrna is recorded to have done at this sad period of the plague. Listen! Bismillah! Selim, the slipper-seller, tenanted a shop or dukian in the Papoudj Bazaar, and possessed a private residence in Turk Town, at the top of the steep hill in the vicinity of the Jews' cemetery.

When seated one morning in the bazaar, with his tempting wares around him, his immediate neighbor, Murad, observed that his friend's countenance was, contrary to its usual appearance for years past, excessively sad, and his heart evidently contracted. He remem

The Franks, ever strict believers, as a body, in the efficacy of Quarantine, shut up their trembling families in Bujah and Bournabat, and even hurriedly formed a cordon sanitaire round the former of those villages; while within the town of Smyrna itself, in its widespread network of narrow streets, almost every Europear. merchant donned for his daily rounds an anti-contagious oilskin overcoat; and bore also in his hand a trusty and persuasive iron-shod bludgeon, to “fend off” therewith not only the dangerous approach of the reckless loose-robed Sons of the Turban, but, by St. George, to keep even the tight Sons of the Hat, even the dearest kinsmen and friends and acquaintance, at the very res-bered, also, at the same moment, that for some days pectful distance of arm's length. "Touch me not" was the charitable order of the day; and "the plague is contagious," a phrase in all Christian mouths, except, perhaps, the medicos, who were of course most widely divided in their professional opinions on the subject. Dr. Bulard, a gallant Frenchman, carried the doctrine of non-contagion to such an extent as bravely to immure himself altogether with the patients in one of the Plague Hospitals, many of whom he had the ineffable satisfaction of rescuing from the very jaws of death. In Smyrna, he for some time dauntlessly stood his ground unharmed, and subsequently, on receiving pra-nance and uncombed beard of Selim. tique, proceeded with a like benevolent purpose to Constantinople-the city of the Sultan-where we unfortunately lost sight of him.

There is one quarter of Smyrna that is tolerably well 'known to travellers in the East, by the name of TURK TOWN. Here the contradictory systems and medicinal precautions of the Franks and their Hekims were, at the period of our story, openly held in contempt and disregarded. Here everything seemed left unreservedly to Fate, to Takdir or to Kismet. Here the Muslims, even in the Rag Bazaar, bought and sold, and ate and drank, and prayed and slept, and then prayed and bought and sold again, day after day and week after week, as if the plague were altogether a fiction, and Death had no dominion over mortal man. If any of the shops in the tcharshees became vacant, from their tenant being, as predestined, taken away by the terminator of delights and the separator of companions, some Alee or Omar resignedly and at once took to the very carpet, or, to be more correct perhaps, stepped into the very shoes of the dead Mustapha or Mehemet; and thus, till all trades were more than decimated, business of any kind was scarcely for a single day interrupted. Numerous fresh graves were, meanwhile, constantly being dug in the cypress-shaded cemeteries, and the hired reciters of the Koran seemed, to most observers, more than usually active, as well as hoarse and husky in their

Selim had been frequently absent from his dukian, and had, before going away, unaccountably neglected more than once to throw the protective net over his unwatched goods. And his stock of red, white, yellow, blue, and black papoudjes was by no means the least valuable in the bazaar, one indeed offering great temptation to the dishonest. So, shifting his own position & little more to the front, and there comfortably recrossing his legs, Murad slowly turned his turbaned head far enough to bring his single grey eye-for Murad had lost the other by ophthalmia-to bear full upon the counte

"Bana-bak! look here," cried Murad; upon which Selim raised his head, and ceased counting the beads of the tesbih or rosary he happened at the moment to be passing through his feverish fingers.

“Trade is bad this morning, O Selim; these unsainted Franks are becoming either poor or miserly. They buy not slippers as they were wont to do. May the soles of their feet be blistered, and—”

"Yavash, yavash!" interrupted Selim. "Be mild, O Murad! The sons of the Franks are not misers; they are at times good customers, but now their livers are all dried up with fear, as mine own is with sorrow."

"Allah Kerim! God is compassionate!" cried Murad. "Why should the infidels fear?"

"Fear you not God? Allahden Korkmazmizen? Yes, yes, Murad, I know you fear Allah. And the Franks”

เ

"The Franks," said Murad, "fear death. They desert our bazaars. They fly to their villages. They say leather is susceptible.' Can the plague, then, be hid in a slipper? Bosh! What foolish word is this now so often on their tongues-' Oulashma, oulashma.' Contagion, contagion.' Allah Kerim! God is compassionate. And the Franks, I repeat, are becoming either cowardly or miserly."

Selim shook his head, for he had many friends among the Franks.

Here, notwithstanding that resignation to the decree of Providence, for which the Osmanlees are, with justice, so celebrated, a few burning tears coursed down แ No;" continued Selim, mournfully, "the dream is the cheeks of Selim. At this moment, Aziz, winding already almost literally fulfilled. Six, six, have already up a few hearty curses with the insulting word “Pezabeen taken by the Plague. I am the seventh !" venk," drove away the Arab from his mastabah, as one Murad's face lengthened with astonishment, and great of his well-known customers, a portly Bin-bashee, was his anxiety for his friend. or infantry colonel, was pompously approaching, appa

"I related my dream this morning to Aziz, our oppo-rently to make a purchase; and then Murad, after site neighbor, who is now angrily addressing that ill-throwing a casual glance at the retreating, yawning son looking Arab, seemingly half asleep on the mastabah of Ishmael, spake the following words of comfort before the shop, and obstructing the approach of cus- to Selim: tomers. I have now told you, O Murad, and "”