International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1

The post was looked for with anxiety. The newspapers were read anxiously. Vain hope! those of Sweden gave very meager details of the legitimist movement.

At last M. de Vermondans became angry and humiliated at suffering his impatience to become manifest, and forbade Ireneus or La Vendée to be mentioned. He could not, however, stifle thought in his own mind or in Ebba's.

One morning the young girl arose in great distress, and with a feverish agitation which made her look better. She dressed hastily, and went to her father's room. She said she wanted to see her sister.

"Really," said the old man, deceived by this deceitful animation, and quivering with joy at the idea of her recovery. "Do you wish to go? I will go with you."

He hurried to the stable, had his horse harnessed, and in a few minutes, seated in his cabriolet, was crossing the fields. On her way, Ebba, with peculiar tenderness, pointed out various scenes of her childhood and youth, the home of old servants, spots where she had been with Alete, and made memorable by various little incidents.

Suddenly she ceased to speak—looked at the scenery with deep interest glancing at the sea and the sky, and seemed absorbed in a melancholy reminiscence.

Her father had listened to her with pleasure, and turned to ask why she was silent. He was filled with delight. Had he been able, however, to look into her mind, he would have seen a deep sentiment of sadness and resignation, united with resignation and hopelessness.

In the silent meditation of the poor invalid there might be read a last adieu to the blue wave, the green wood, the distant prospects which so often had occupied her reverie. The warm summer breeze, which played in her hair, the clear sky, the whole tapestry of nature she was about to leave, instinct as it was with poetic fancy. By her half open lips, by her wondering eye, she bade adieu to the scenes amid which she had lived, to the flowers which smiled on her as a sister, and where birds sang their matin lays as if she had been one of their kindred.

When he reached the parsonage, her father stopped to chat with the old pastor. Ebba took Alete by the hand, and hurried her into the chamber.

"Dear sister," said she, "I wished to see you again."

"Again, Ebba—I hope you will, and for many a year."

"Yes—yes—but not here, in another world." She grew pale as she spoke.

"What an idea!" said Alete. "I was so agreeably surprised by your visit.

Have you come to distress me?"

As she spoke, Alete covered her face, now suffused with tears, with her hands.

"Excuse me, Alete. I was wrong to give way so. Let us talk of something else."

"Yes, yes," said Alete, smiling amid her tears. "Has anything been heard of Ireneus?"

"Ireneus is—dead!" said Ebba sadly.

"Dead!" exclaimed Alete; "how so?"

"I know he is. I saw him last night."

"Ah, I have sometimes dreamed of a person's death, whom on the next morning I met perfectly well."

"I tell you I saw him struck by a ball in the breast, the blood running from the wound, looking staringly around, and smiling in the agonies of death."

"Madness! my dear Ebba," said Alete, with a burst of strange unnatural laughter, for in spite of herself she was impressed by the words of her sister. "Come, Eric and his father expect us. Let us pass our evening happily together, and shake off all these presentiments, which I pray to God may never be realized."

"Yes, come," and attempting to look gay, she said, "Madness! we will see."

During the next week, a letter from the mother of Ireneus informed them that the young officer had died on the very day of Ebba's dream, of a wound received at the siege of the Castle of Penissiere.

Ebba soon died, pronouncing the names of her father and sister, who wept at her bedside. Her last breath uttered one other name, that of Ireneus.

* * * * *

POEMS BY THE AUTHOR OF LILLIAN

The following pieces by WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED, have never before, we believe, been printed in this country.

THE LEGEND OF THE TEUFEL-HAUS

The way was lone, and the hour was late,
And Sir Rudolph was far from his castle gate.
The night came down, by slow degrees,
On the river stream, and the forest-trees;
And by the heat of the heavy air,
And by the lightning's distant glare,
And by the rustling of the woods,
And by the roaring of the floods,
In half an hour, a man might say,
The Spirit of Storm would ride that way.
But little he cared, that stripling pale,
For the sinking sun, or the rising gale;
For he, as he rode, was dreaming now,
Poor youth, of a woman's broken vow,
Of the cup dashed down, ere the wine was tasted,
Of eloquent speeches sadly wasted,
Of a gallant heart all burnt to ashes.
And the Baron of Katzberg's long mustaches,
So the earth below, and the heaven above,
He saw them not;—those dreams of love,
As some have found, and some will find,
Make men extremely deaf and blind.
At last he opened his great blue eyes,
And looking about in vast surprise,
Found that his hunter had turned his back,
An hour ago on the beaten track,
And now was threading a forest hoar,
Where steed had never stepped before.

"By Caesar's head," Sir Rudolph said,
"It were a sorry joke.
If I to-night should make my bed
On the turf, beneath an oak!
Poor Roland reeks from head to hoof;—
Now, for thy sake, good roan,
I would we were beneath a roof,
Were it the foul fiend's own!"

Ere the tongue could rest, ere the lips could close
The sound of a listener's laughter rose.