rule you." "Go on, if you please," I said, his face. I said in a hard voice, "I want to quietly, as he paused. be alone I will go to my own room-Lily is in the nursery, Harold will be home from school in half-an-hour, you will not want me till they go to bed." "I believe you are miserable, madam! I think you are a servant to whom many talents have been entrusted, and that you have not even only buried them in the earth, but have actively abused them. Your husband is not a man of genius-not even a man of great depth or sensitiveness of feeling; but he has a true heart and a patient soul. He is infinitely your superior. You might well fall at his feet and pray his forgiveness, and let him teach you to ask God's. Have you suffered patiently, as he has done? Have you loved in spite of wrong, as he has done? Have you returned good for evil, as he has done? I know nothing of your history-why he married you. It was a mistake, no doubt; but you, and you alone, have made it a fatal one. Is it any wonder?" he asked recklessly. "No! it is no wonder that you should leave your home so often," I replied quietly, while a burning recollection of half-heeded scandal came to my mind. I went up to my room, but I did not pass the hours as I had intendedthe poison of a malicious sentence rankled in my heart. I paced gloomily about; a throng "I will think of what you say," I answered. "You think I have sinned-sinned-sinned! of strange thoughts pressed for recognition, You do not heed that I have suffered." "Suffered! You will have to suffer much yet, madam, my prayer for you would be, that you might suffer, till at last the proud spirit should lie low, and be crushed out!" "But it has been pain and suffering and ceaseless unrest and longing that have hardened me. Yet I am not hardened-I would my heart were a stone! I sent for you, however, for one purpose. Are you convinced I am not mad? I can hear no more of anything else now." 66 but a demon-hand, torture strong, held the entrance against them, and possessed me against my desire, spite of my endeavors. "He loves you no longer! no longer! a mocking voice cried. I laughed scornfully to myself I did not believe it; and yet the words came again and again, each time louder than before. I would not doubt-I would know-I thought. The wintry afternoon (it was a bleak March day) had long blackened into night, my fire was almost out, and my room dark and cold, when little feet came pattering up to my closed door, and my children's voices called Indeed, madam, before you sent for me, I had begun to understand your case otherwise.me. You are not mad. God forgive you." 66 Say that again." "You are not mad.” "You are to tell my husband so-but stay, I hear his step-here he comes, repeat it to him, Dr. Ryton." My poor Harold came in, he looked wonderingly and anxiously at me. "Have you been ill again?" he asked. "I have never been ill in the way you have been taught to suppose; Dr. Ryton, repeat to my husband what you said to me." "Your wife, Mr. Warden, wishes me to tell you that I have reason to change the opinion I expressed to you some time since." "Speak more plainly, if you please, sir," I interrupted; you spoke plainly enough just now." "In short," Dr. Ryton continued, only pausing while I spoke, not turning towards me, but looking at my husband steadily and compassionately; "she is no more mad than you or I?" "What is it, then ?" Harold asked. "That Mrs. Warden herself must inform you," he answered. He went, and Harold attended him to the door. I sat down to think. It was some minutes before Harold came back, and I did not look up to see the expression of They were come to say “good-night.” I opened my door, but that room was too dim and chill, and peopled with too unholy and unhappy thoughts for them; so, with my little girl in my arms, and my boy's hand in mine, I went down into the empty drawingroom, where the fire blazed cheerily and the lamps burnt brightly. 66 Papa is gone out," Harold said, glancing round the room disconsolately. "Papa is gone," Lily echoed sadly. But I sat down by the fire, Lily still in my arms, and bade Harold bring the great book which was his delight, and would tell him all about the pictures. It was brought and rested on my knee, the boy lying on the ground beside it. I leaned my cheek against my little darling's soft hair as her fair head rested quietly on my bosom, and I told wonderful stories to my boy with his upraised, wondering eyes. I was very gentle, and we were very happy. When nurse came there was a great outery, and so I sent her away again. The children sat up an hour later than usual: my Lily fell asleep upon my bosom, and I carried her up-stairs, and put her to bed myself. "You are a dear, dear mamma to-night," Harold said, when I bent over him and kissed Tears stream-noise of horses' hoofs ringing loud and clear on the frost-bound road. his face after he had laid down. ed from my eyes--very sweet tears-I went down to the empty drawing-room, and sat by the fire, crying quietly a long while. Then I wiped my eyes and thought. "If he loves me still, if there is yet time," I said, and in my mind I turned over a fair white page of life, and I essayed to lift my heart penitently to God; but I sickened when I thought of all my past, and said "There is no hope-there is no hope!" It was past midnight when Harold came home; I was still sitting by the fire. "You up still?" he said, as he came into the room. I did not answer; there was a great struggle within me, I longed to throw myself on his bosom, or at his feet, and to weep out my strange new thoughts, and hopes, and resolves there; but I knew I should startle him, and that I had taught him to dread and to hate my tears. Besides, the idle tale I had heard forced itself on my recollection-my pride bade me know if that were true or false, before I humbled myself to one who might no longer care for me. "Are you not going to bed now?" my husband asked, throwing himself into a chair opposite me. "Presently," I answered, and stole a look at his face. I could read nothing there; his eyes were fixed on the fire. How should I begin? "Harold! I have something to ask you!" Something in my voice attracted his attention; his eyes were on me immediately. The struggle to keep calm and speak quietly, made my voice sound strange and hard, even to myself. Yet I tried to speak gayly to tell him what I had heard, as a false thing I did not believe; knew I should hear him contradict; repeated only for his amusement, for the sake of hearing that contradiction. But when he had heard me, he turned back to his fire-gazing, silently with a moody brow. I urged him to speak. I grew afraid. Then he rose, and turned a stern face upon me. I had never seen him look like that before. "Wife!" he began I cannot even now, write the words he said. They sounded cruel, but were only truth. He did not answer my charge against him- did not notice it; he only reminded me of what I had made his home. His words smote me, how heavily. I threw myself down before him. I clasped his knees. I laid my head upon his feet. I was at the window, and had opened the curtains and shutters just in time to see my husband riding away. Whither? I did not go to bed that night. I lay on the ground by the window, where I had thrown myself, not unconscious for a minute. I remember what I thought about as I lay; how I should destroy myself. But my energy was deadened, my brain numb; and I did not rise to seek the means. I watched the stars, so bright in the brightblue heaven. I watched them blankly then; now I can recal exactly how they looked, and how they paled before the ghastly dawn. Ours was always a late household. No one was stirring yet, when there came a heavy trampling of feet on the carriage-drive before the house, and then a knocking at the door. Every sound seemed muffled to me, for I was half dead with cold and pain. I rose with difficulty, vaguely wondering, and crept down stairs. The knocking grew louder, but my hands were almost useless, and trembled long enough at the door. Long enough! The door was open all too soon. Without, waited my husband, patientlyay, very patiently! He waited, but he made no noise. I know all that followed that dread sight. I cannot write it. One picture you shall have that will be vividly present to me ever. Harold, my husband-white, cold, bloodstained-laid upon a couch, lying there blind, and deaf, and dumb. His wife as surely-so I thought straightway-his murderess as if she had stabbed him to the heart (God knows she had!), stretched beside him, pushing the defiled, dust-soiled, blood-stained hair from his disfigured brow, and pressing there her vain kisses; dyeing her livid cheek red, laying it against his; putting her hot, livid lips to his cold, rigid ones, and crying to him wildly, ceaselessly, "Harold! husband!" No one They took me away by force. pitied me much. Then, I really went mad. God was only too merciful to me— -I went mad. My husband, riding in reckless misery, he knew not where, had been thrown, and dragged along the ground, his dark hair trailing in the dust. I believe he had been driven out by resentment at an unjust accusation, mingling with despair at the thought that his last chance of peace and quiet at home had fled, now that jealousy had taken form and substance in my mind. I do not believe his heart had ever for a moment wandered from his home; finding no rest on his wife's, it had learnt to love his children with something more than a father's I lay where he left me for some minutes, tenderness. He had suffered. O! how he half-stunned. But I heard his voice, and the had suffered ! "I cannot bear it to-night. Perhaps I have been harsh. I cannot be patient longer," he said. Gently but firmly he put me by, and then he went away. From the Literary Gazette. Volksmärchen der Serben, etc. Popular Tales of the Servians, collected and edited by Wuk Stephanowitsch Karadschitsch, and translated into German by his daughter Wilhelmine. With a Preface by Jacob Grimm, and a Supplement containing more than a thousand Servian Proverbs. Berlin: Reimer, 1854. ries) all female beings bear twins; the golden clucking-hen with her chickens; the broiling and king's daughter in the ship with the costly wares eating of the bird's heart; the abduction of the exposed to view (as in the Russian tale of the Seven Simeons); and more such common property of all legends, generally, however, introduced by novel and beautiful turns (wendungen), or differently connected and wrought in. To this list we may add the Water of Life THE late Emile Souvestre, in one of his and the Dragon sleeping upon treasure. King books on Brittany, tells us that there, on the Midas is here represented by a certain "Embirth of a child, the innocent young Breton peror Troyan with the goat's ears." And mothers hasten, in kindly rivalry to give their some of the incidents in Whittington and his breasts to the babe, the latest arrival among Cat, Cinderella (Pepelyuga in Servian), and them from heaven, and whose lips are looked Hop o' my Thumb, are easily recognizable in on as sanctifying the bosom to which they are their Slavonic forms. The incidents in popufirst applied. It is in a somewhat similar spir-lar fiction appear almost as limited in number it, but with more reason, that perennially as the notes in popular music. The former, youthful and unsophisticated minds will al- however, seem as capable as the latter of exways welcome a work like the present, the most hibiting an infinite variety of arrangement, carecent offspring of the spirit of Servian liter- dence, and feeling. ature; vague and irregular in its movements; inarticulate occasionally in its utterance; but pure and vigorous, fresh from the heart of Nature, and bearing reliable witness to the strength and nobleness of its first-named pa rent. The following tale, for example, is, as Jacob Grimm points out, strikingly similar to the old German lay of " Morolt und Salomon:" it also contains parallels to the captive king's wellknown reply to Cyrus-that he was thinking of the spokes of the chariot wheels and the The present collection (like the Neapolitan mutability of life-wç Ta KATW AνW YIVOVTAI Kα, "Pentamerone of Signor Basile) contains ra av karo as well as to the accident in Macnot less than fifty stories; some of the wildest beth of Birnam wood coming to Dusinane :— originality, but many bearing close analogies to the Greek, Scandinavian, and Teutonic legends, and also, as might be expected, to those of the more northern branches of the Slavo "Whilst one sinks in the mire, another rises." The consort of the all-wise Solomon loved nian stem. In perusing these cosmopolitan her husband; it was not, however, easy for her another emperor, and she determined to leave tales, we have frequently been struck with surprise at the neglect hitherto manifested by she arranged with the other emperor, and he sent to escape, for Solomon watched her closely; so orthodox ethnologists for the strong argument her a potion, which she drank, whereupon she in favor of the original unity of mankind de- lay apparently dead. When she had thus derivable from the identity of the legends of ceased, Solomon cut off her little finger, to convarious nations, differing apparently in kind, vince himself that she actually was dead; and as they vary in color, manners, religion, and seeing that his wife had felt nothing, and was relanguage. A passage from the observations ally dead, he had her buried. The other empewhich Jacob Grimm, the greatest living mas-ror, however, bade his people go forth and unter of legendary lore, has prefixed to this col- tomb the lady, and bring her to him. He knew lection, may be quoted in illustration of these took her for his consort, and lived with her. a means of restoring her to life; whereupon he remarks:- When Solomon the Wise heard what had come to pass with his wife, he prepared to seek her, It will naturally be anticipated that all, or taking many weaponed warriors along with him. nearly all, the springs (triebfedern) that actuates And when he drew nigh to the abode of the emGerman legends, are found here also: the three peror who had taken his wife, he left his men bebrethren of whom the youngest is the best and hind in a forest with orders, so soon as they most fortunate; the two brothers so like that should hear the blast of a trumpet to follow the even the wife of one can discover no difference sound, and hasten to his help, each man bearing a between them, a sword being therefore laid be- leafy branch before him. Then Solomon went tween her and the brother who is not her hus-alone into the emperor's castle. There he found band; lucky or baleful stars; the casting the his wife alone with her servants, for the emperor serpent's skin or the bear's hide (by enchanted had just gone forth to hunt. When the lady princes); the watching of the apple-tree; the saw her first husband, she was stricken with fear; hewing of hands and healing them again; the she contrived, however, again to deceive him, wicked stepmother, of all subjects the one most and to beguile him into a chamber, and there to frequently treated, and which excites in the hear-lock him up. When the emperor came home ers the painfullest sensation; the fish cut in from hunting, his wife told him that Solomon the pieces, on tasting which (as in the Swedish sto- Wise had come, and was locked up in such-and such a room. "Go thither," she said, "go and cut him in pieces straightway; but venture not to utter a word to him, for so sure as thou lettest him say a single word, he will outwit thee." With his naked sabre in his hands, the emperor opened the door of the chamber, and went in unto Solomon the Wise, in order to cut his head off. But Solomon sat still and fearlessly on a cushion, and when he saw him coming up with the naked sabre, he began to laugh. When the emperor saw this, he could not refrain from asking Solomon at what he was laughing. Whereupon Solomon answered that he could not but laugh at one emperor being about to execute another upon a woman's pillow. "Since I am now in thy hands, fetter me, and bring me forth from the city, out on the field, and execute me publicly. Let the trumpet sound thrice, so that every one may hear, and whoever will may come and see. Then will the forest itself hasten hither to behold one emperor executing another." The emperor was anxious to try whether it was true that the forest would come to see one emperor slaying another. So he fettered Solomon, and placed him in a common cart, and, with the servants and the people of the castle, brought him out to the field for execution. As they were go ing along, Solomon beheld the fore-wheels of the cart, and suddenly burst into laughter. The emperor, who was riding near him, asked him at what he was laughing. He replied, "I cannot but laugh when I behold how one felloe of the wheel sinks into the mire, whilst the other rises thereout." Then the emperor turned away, and said, "Now thanks be to God! people call him Solomon the All-wise, and he is a fool. Meanwhile they reached the place where Solomon was to be executed; the emperor then ordered the trumpet to be sounded once. When Solomon's warriors heard the trumpet they broke up; at the second trumpet-sound they moved on; yet none could see them, but only the green boughs which they bare before them like a moving forest. The emperor beholding the forest really coming, was astonished, and convinced of the truth of what Solomon had said; and he ordered the trumpet to sound a third time. That moment Solomon's warriors reached the place, and freed their lord. But the emperor, with all his servants and courtiers, was seized and hewn down. unlucky scholar let himself be deceived, and went and grasped the staff; but as soon as he touched it, one finger remained cleaving to it fast. Seeing, then, his ruin before his eyes, he began to leap in a circle to and fro round the giant, so that the latter might not seize him Suddenly he remembered his clasp-knife which he wore, so he drew it forth, and cut off the finger that was cleaving to the staff, and thus escaped happily. Now did he mock the giant and deride him, whilst driving the flocks away before him. The giant, although blind, pursued him, and so they came to a great water. Then did the scholar straightway perceive that he might drown the giant in the water; so he began to whistle around him, and to jeer him. By little and little the giant drew nearer, and thought to catch the scholar, when he came just to the edge of the water; the scholar then ran against him from behind, and pushed him in, and the giant was drowned. Then the scholar drove away the flock in peace, and home he came, in good plight, though without the priest. The singular originality to which we alluded as characteristic of some of the legends in this collection, is chiefly to be met with in those that treat of the Vila, a Servian spirit nearly corresponding with the German Waldfrau : She inhabits the loftiest mountains and rocks, [we quote the translator,] loves the neighborhood of waters, and is described as ever young, fair of face, clad in a white airy garment, and with long hair floating about her bosom and shoulders. She does no one harm without cause, but once excited or injured, she avenges herself fiercely and in divers ways, wounding her enemy either in the hands or feet. No mortal can be healed of such wounds, for his whole life he languishes; or else, piercing his heart, she inflicts on him immediate death. A popular song makes her give the following account of her origin:-The mountain bore me and swathed me in green leafage; the morning dew suckled me; forest breezes rocked me and were my nurses. We shall now quote the first of these Vila tales. The idea of making the descent of the Vilas imparts a curative capability to the water, was possibly derived from the account of the Bethesda pool in St. John's Gospel, chap. v. Righteousness and Unrighteousness. Again, that capital operation in ophthalmic surgery which Ulysses performed on Polyphemus, and Sinbad on the one-eyed giant, is to be found fully detailed in this collection, Ulysses or Sinbad being represented by a scholar, and the masticated comrades by an unlucky A king had two sons, of whom one was cunpriest. The Servian version, however, con-ning and unrighteous, while the other was good tains some further particulars which may in- and righteous. After their father's death the terest comparative mythologists and others: unrighteous son said to the righteous, "Go forth from me; we can live together no longer. Here thou hast 300 pieces of gold and a horse; that is thy share of the inheritance. Expect no more." So the second son took the 300 pieces of gold and the horse, and set out on his journey, saying, When the giant saw that the scholar had escaped him, he bethought him what he should do; so he opened the entrance of the cavern, and reached the scholar a staff, with these words: "Since thou hast escaped me, take the staff that thou mayest drive the flock; for without it thou wilt not get a single sheep to stir." The Now, thanks be to God that so much of all the kingdom hath fallen to my share." After sometime the brothers met one another as they were and came under the fir-tree, and discovered him who had come to seek his fortune, and had previously always said that unrighteousness was better, than righteousness. Then they seized him, and tore him asunder, into four pieces. And so did unrighteousness assist the accursed." "Of the Maiden that is Nimbler than the Horse." There was once a maiden that had not been engendered of father and mother, but the Vilas had formed her out of snow which they had drawn up in midsummer, on St. Elias's day, out of a bottomless defile. The wind had quickened her, and the dews had nurtured her; the wood had clothed her with its leaves, and the meadow had adorned her with its fairest flowers. She was whiter than snow, rosier than the rosebuds, more radiant than the sun; so beautiful, that no maiden like her hath ever come into the world, nor will one like her ever be born upon it. riding along a road. The righteous brother im- All this was soon known throughout the king mediately called out to the unrighteous. "God dom, and it came also to the ears of the brother, help thee, my brother!" But the other answer- who had said that unrighteousness was better ed," God give thee nought but sorrow! Why than righteousness. He now thought, "My art thou ever making mention of God? Un-brother must have found his luck under the firrighteousness is worth more than righteousness." tree." So he went off to seek it for himself. Then answered the good brother: "Come, I will First of all he took water in a vessel, then he wager that unrighteousness is not better than went under the fir-tree, and there he drew forth a righteousness." And they staked 100 pieces of knife and put out his eyes. When it was night gold, and agreed that the first man they met and the appointed hour, the Vilas came again to should decide the wager. And as they went on bathe, and they talked of the healing of the printhe Devil met them; he was on horseback, and cess. "Some one," they said, "must have overhad changed himself into a monk. So they ask- heard us saying that she might be cured by this ed him which was the best, righteousness or un-water. Some one, mayhap, is even now listening righteousness? The Devil said, "Unrighteous-to us: come and see." So they searched around, ness," and the good brother lost a hundred pieces of gold. Then they bet a second hundred, and also a third, and according to the decision of the devil, who met them under different forms, the good brother lost the whole of his 300 pieces of gold, and his horse besides. Then he said, "Praise be to God! though I have no more pieces of gold, I still have my eyes, and these The novelty of the next tale is so great, that I will stake against thee." So he wagered his notwithstanding its fragmentary appearance eyes that righteousness was better than unright- and unsatisfactory conclusion, we shall quote it eousness. Then did his brother, seeking a judge unabridged no longer, draw forth a knife, and therewith he put out both the other's eyes; and said, "Now thou art eyeless, may righteousness help thee." The pitiable one, however, praised God notwithstanding, and said, "For God's righteousness have I given mine eyes; and now, my brother, I only pray thee to give me a little water in a vessel, that I may moisten my lips and wash my wounds, and then to lead me on, and leave me by the well near to the fir-tree." His brother hearkened unto him, and gave him water in a vessel, and led him on, and left him by the well near to the fir-tree. And as the unhappy one was standing there, suddenly he heard, one night at a certain hour, the Vilas coming to the Spring and bathing themselves, while they said to one This damsel now caused proclamation to be another, Know ye, companions, that the king's made throughout the world, that on such and daughter is languishing in leprosy? And though such a day, at such and such a place, a race the king hath summoned all the leeches, not one should be run, and that she would belong to of them can heal her. If only some one knew whatsoever youth should overtake her on horseit, and took of this water immediately after we back in the running. In a few days these tidings leave it and caused the king's daughter to bathe were noised abroad over the whole world, and therein, in four-and-twenty hours she would be thousands of wooers straightway came together, whole, even as any one who is dumb, blind, or all riding horses so splendid that you could never lame, will be cured by this water." Then the have said that one was better than another. The cock crowed, and the Vilas vanished. Then did emperor's son himself came upon the race-course. the unhappy one drag himself forward, creeping The wooers now stationed themselves on horseon all fours, down from the fir-tree even to the back, one after another, in due order: the damwater, and he washed his eyes with it, and heal-sel, however, took her place in the midst, upon ed his face instantly. Then he filled the vessel her own feet, without a horse, and then she said with the water, and hastened to the king whose to them-"There, at the winning post, I have daughter lay sick in leprosy, and said to him, "I have come to heal the daughter; if she admits me, she shall be whole in four-and-twenty hours." So as soon as the king heard this, the new leech was brought into the maiden's cham-carth." ber, and he directed her to be bathed in the water. And when a day and a night had passed away, the maiden was whole, and pure of all leprosy. So the king was greatly rejoiced thereat, and gave him half his kingdom and his daughter to wife; and so he became the king's son-in-law, and, next to the king, the first in the country. fixed a golden apple; whichever of you getteth there first and taketh it, to him will I belong; but if I reach the goal before you, and take the apple, know that ye shall all fall dead upon the The riders, however, were as if dazzled, each of them hoping in his heart to win the maiden; and they said to one another-" We are well assured beforehand, that the maiden on foot can never outrun any of us, but one from among us, he in sooth to whom God and fortune wish well to-day, shall take her home as his bride." Then the maiden clapped her hands, and they all sprang |