sparkled, and how she seemed to shed a glow all round about her; and when driven into a corner, she positively glistened like a star! It was a frosty kind of brightness, too, like that of an icicle in the moonlight. The wife thought it strange that good Mr. Lindsey should see nothing remarkable in the snow-child's appearance. ,,Come, you odd little thing!" cried the honest man, seizing her by the hand,,,I have caught you at last, and will make you comfortable in spite of yourself. We will put a nice warm pair of worsted stockings on your frozen little feet, and you shall have a good thick shawl to wrap yourself in. Your poor white nose, I am afraid, is actually frost-bitten. But we will make it all right. Come along in!" And so, with a most benevolent smile on his sagacious visage, all purple as it was with the cold, this very wellmeaning gentleman took the snow-child by the hand and led her towards the house. She followed him, droopingly and reluctant; for all the glow and sparkle was gone out of her figure; and whereas just before she had resembled a bright, frosty, star-gemmed evening, with a crimson gleam on the cold horizon, she now looked as dull and languid as a thaw. As kind Mr. Lindsey led her up the steps of the door, Violet and Peony looked into his face, their eyes full of tears, which froze before they could run down their cheeks, and again entreated him not to bring their snowimage into the house. ,,Not bring her in!" exclaimed the kindhearted man. ,, Why, you are crazy, my little Violet! quite crazy, my small Peony! She is so cold, already, that her hand has almost frozen mine, in spite of my thick gloves. Would you have her freeze to death!" His wife, as he came up the steps, had been taking another long, earnest, almost awe-stricken gaze at the little white stranger. She hardly knew whether it was a dream or no; but she could not help fancying that she saw the delicate print of Violet's fingers on the child's neck. It looked just as if, while Violet was shaping out the image, she had given it a gentle pat with her hand, and had neglected to smooth the impression quite away. ,,After all, husband," said the mother, recurring to her idea that the angels would be as much delighted to play with Violet and Peony as she herself was,,,after all, she does look strangely like a snow-image! I do believe she is made of snow!" A puff of the west wind blew against the snow-child, and again she sparkled like a star. ,, Snow!" repeated good Mr. Lindsey, drawing the reluctant guest over his hospitable threshold. „No wonder she looks like snow. She is half frozen, poor little thing! But a good fire will put everything to rights." Without further talk, and always with the same best intentions, this highly benevolent and common-sensible individual led the little white damsel drooping, drooping, drooping more and more — out of the frosty air, and into his comfortable parlour. A Heidelberg stove, filled to the brim with intensely burning anthracite, was sending a bright gleam through the isinglass of its iron door, and causing the vase of water on its top to fume and bubble with excitement. A warm, sultry smell was diffused throughout the room. A thermometer on the wall furthest from the stove stood at eighty degrees. The parlour was hung with red curtains, and covered with a red carpet, and looked just as warm as it felt. The difference betwixt the atmosphere here and the cold wintry twilight out of doors, was like steeping at once from Nova Zembla to the hottest part of India, or from the North Pole into an oven. Oh, this was a fine place for the little white stranger! The common-sensible man placed the snow-child on the hearth-rug, right in front of the hissing and fuming stove. ,,Now she will be comfortable!" cried Mr. Lindsey, rubbing his hands and looking about him, with the pleasantest smile you ever saw. Make yourself at home, my child." Sad, sad and drooping, looked the little white maiden, as she stood on the hearthrug, with the hot blast of the stove striking through her like a pestilence. Once she threw a glance wistfully toward the windows, and caught a glimpse, through its red curtains, of the snow-covered roofs, and the stars glimmering frostily, and all the delicious intensity of a cold night. The bleak wind rattled the window-panes, as if it were summoning her to come forth. But there stood the snow-child, drooping before the hot stove! But the common-sensible man saw nothing amiss. „Come. wife," said he, „let her have a pair of thick stockings and a woollen shawl or blanket directly; and tell Dora to give her some warm supper as soon as the milk boils. You, Violet and Peony, amuse your little friend. She is out of spirits, you see, at finding herself in a strange place. For my part, I will go around among the neighbours, and find out where she belongs." The mother, meanwhile, had gone in search of the shawl and stockings; for her own view of the matter, however subtle and delicate, had given way, as it always did, to the stubborn materialism of her husband. Without heeding the remonstrances of his two children, who still kept murmuring that their little snow-sister did not love the warmth, good Mr. Lindsey took his departure, shutting the parlour door carefully behind him. Turning up the collar of his sack over his ears, he emerged from the house, and had barely reached the street gate, when he was recalled by the screams of Violet and Peony, and the rapping of a thimbled finger against the parlour window. ,,Husband! husband!" cried his wife, showing her horror-striken face through the window-panes.,,There is no need of going for the child's parents!" And their own sweet little faces were already dissolved in tears; so that their father, seeing what strange things occasionally happen in this every-day world, felt not a little anxious lest his children might be going to thaw too! In the utmost perplexity, he demanded an explanation of his wife. She could only reply, that, being summoned to the parlour by the cries of Violet and Peony, she found no trace of the little white maiden, unless it were the remains of a heap, of snow, which, while she was gazing at it, melted quite away upon the hearth-rug. ,,And there you see all that is left of it!" added she, pointing to a pool of water in front of the stove. And the Heidelberg stove, through the isinglass of its door, seemed to glare at good Mr. Lindsey, like a red-eyed demon, triumphing in the mischief which it had done! This, you will observe, was one of those rare cases, which yet will occasionally happen, where common-sense finds itself at fault. The remarkable story of the snow-image, though to that sagacious class of people to whom good Mr. Lindsey belongs it may seem but a childish affair, is, nevertheless, capable of being moralized in various methods, greatly for their edification. One of its lessons, for instance, might be, that it behoves men, and specially men of benevolence, to consider well what they are about, and, before acting on their philanthropic purposes, to be quite sure that they comprehend the nature and all the relations of the business in hand. What has been established as an element of good to one being may prove absolute mischief to another; even warmth of the parlour was proper enough for children of flesh and blood, like Violet and Peony, though by no means very wholesome, even for them, but involved nothing short of annihilation to the unfortunate snow-image. - as the But, after all, there is no teaching anything to wise men of good Mr. Lindsey's stamp. They know everything oh, to be sure! everything that has been, and everything that is, and everything that, by any future possibility, can be. And should some phenomenon of nature or providence transcend their system, they will not recognize it, even if it come to pass under their very noses. ,Wife," said Mr. Lindsey, after a fit of silence,,,see what a quantity on snow the children have brought in of their feet! It has made quite a puddle here before the stove. Pray tell Dora to bring some towels ,,Yes, father," said Violet, looking reproach- and sop it up!" CATHERINE M. SEDGWICK. MAGNETISM AMONG THE SHAKERS. tied up a parcel of sugar plums and peppermints. B accepted them most affably, and without any apparent recoiling, shifted them from the old man's handkerchief to an empty plate beside her. ,Half of them," he said, -- are for —. You both played and sung to me last summer I don't forget it. She is a likely woman, and makes the music sound almost as good as when I was young!" ONE of the brethren from a Shaker settlement in our neighbourhood, called on us the other day. I was staying with a friend, in whose atmosphere there is a moral power,,,remember, Banalogous to some chemical test, which elicits from every form of humanity whatever of sweet and genial is in it. Our visitor was an old acquaintance, and an old member of his order, having joined it more than forty years ago with his wife and two children. I have known marked individuals among these people, and yet it surprises me when I see an original stamp of character, surviving the extinguishing monotony of life, or rather suspended animation among them. What God has impressed man cannot efface. To a child's eye, each leaf of a tree is like the other; to a philosopher's each has its distinctive mark. Our friend W.'s individuality might have struck a careless observer. He has nothing of the angular, crusty, silent aspect of most of his yea and nay brethren, who have a perfect conviction that they have dived to the bottom of the well and found the pearl truth, while all the rest of the world look upon them as at the bottom of a well indeed; but without the pearl, and with only so much light as may come in through the little aperture that communicates with the outward world. Neither are quite right; the Shaker has no monopoly of truth or holiness, but we believe he has enough of both to light a dusky path to heaven. Friend Wilcox is a man of no pretension whatever; but content in conscious mediocrity. We were at dinner when he came in; but friend Wilcox is too childlike or too simple, to be disturbed by any observances of conventional politeness. He declined an invitation to dine, saying he had eaten and was not hungry, and seated himself in the corner, after depositing some apples on the table, of rare size and beauty. I have brought some notions, too," he said,,,for you, B-," and he took from his ample pocket his handkerchief, in which he had This was enthusiasm in the old Shaker; but to us it sounded strangely, who knew that she who had so kindly condescended to call back brother Wilcox's youth, had held crowds entranced by her genius. Brother Wilcox is a genial old man, and fifty years of abstinence from the world's pleasures has not made him forget or contemn them. He resembles the jolly friars in conventual life, who never resist, and are therefore allowed to go without bits or reins, and in a very easy harness. There is no galling in restraint where there is no desire for freedom. It is the,,immortal longings" that make the friction in life. After dinner, B—, at brother Wilcox's request, sate down to the piano, and played for him the various tunes that were the favourites in rustic inland life forty years ago. First the Highland reel, then ,Money Musk." ,,I remember who I danced that with," he said, „Sophy Drury. The ball was held in the school room at Feeding fields. She is tight built, and cheeks as red as a rose (past and present were confounded in brother Wilcox's imagination). I went home with Sophy it was as light as day, and near upon day them was pleasant times!" concluded the old man, but without one sigh of regret and with a gleam of light from his twinkling gray eye. There have been no such pleasant times since, brother Wilcox, has there?" asked B-, with assumed or real sympathy. ,,I can't say that, it has been all along pleasant. I have had what others call crosses, but I don't look at them that way what's the use?" The old man's philosophy struck me. There was no record of a cross in his round jolly face.,, Were you married," I asked, ,,when you joined the Shakers?" ,,Oh, yes; I married at twenty it's never too soon nor too late to do right, you know, and it was right for me to marry according to the light I had then. May be you think it was a cross to part from my wife all men don't take it so but I own I should; I liked Eunice. She is a peaceable woman, and we lived in unity, but it was rather hard times, and we felt a call to join the brethren, and so we walked out of the world together, and took our two children with us. In the society she was the first woman handy in all cases." ,, And she is still with you?" not let me." Perhaps the old Shaker's imagination wandered for a moment from the very straight path of the brotherhood, but it was but a moment. His face reverted to its placid passiveness, and he said,,,I am perfectly content. I have enough to eat and drink everything good after its kind, too good clothes to wear, a warm bed to sleep in, and just as much work as I like, and no more." "All this, and heaven too," of which the old man felt perfectly sure was quite enough to fill the measure of a Shaker's desires. ,,Now," said he,,,you think so much of your dances, I wish you could see one of our young sisters dance, when we go up to Mount Holy. She has the whirling gift; she will spin round like a top, on one foot, for half an hour, all the while seeing visions, and receiving revelations." This whirling is a recent gift of the Shakers. The few ,,world's folk" who have been permitted to see its exhibition, compare its subjects to the whirling Dervishes. „Have you any other new inspiration?" I asked. No. Our girl took a notion and went off, and got married, and my wife went after her that's natural for mothers, you know. I went after Eunice, and tried to persuade her to come back, and she felt so; but it's hard rooting out mother-love; it's planted deep, and spreads wide; so I left her to nature, and troubled myself no more about it, for what was the use? My son, too, took a liking to a young English girl that was one of our sisters may be you have seen her?" We had all seen her and admired her fresh English beauty, and deplored her fate. ,Well, she was a picture, and speaking after the manner of men, as good as she was handsome. They went off together; I could not much blame them, and I,,They see things that the natural eye can't took no steps after them for what was the use? But come, strike up again; play ,,Haste to the wedding." ,,Gifts, you mean? Oh, yes; we have visionists. It's a wonderful mystery to me. I never was much for looking into mysteries they rather scare me!" Naturally enough, poor childlike old man! ,,What, brother Wilcox," I asked,,,do you mean by a visionist?" - ,,I can't exactly explain," he replied. see, and hear, and touch, and taste, with inward senses. As for me, I never had any kind of gifts, but a contented mind, and submission to those in authority, and I don't see at all into this new mystery. It makes me of a tremble when I think of it. I'll tell you how it acts. Last summer I was among our brethren in York State, and when I was coming away, I went down into the ,praise him in the garden to take leave of a young brother there. B- obeyed, and our old friend sang or chanted a low accompaniment; in which the dancing tune and the Shaker nasal chant were ludicrously mingled. B-played all his favourite airs, and then said, You do love dancing, brother Wilcox?" ,,Yes, to be sure cymbals and dances !'" ,,Oh, but I mean such dances as we have here. Would not you like, brother Wilcox, to come over and see us dance?" ,,Why, may be I should." ,,And would not you like to dance with one of our pretty young ladies, brother Wilcox ?" ,,May be I should;" the old man's face lit up joyously but he smiled and shook his head,,,they would not let me, they would He asked me if I would carry something for him to Vesta. Vesta is a young sister, famous for her spiritual gifts, whirling, &c." I could have added, for I had seen Vesta for other less questionable gifts in the world's estimation a light graceful figure, graceful even in the Shaker straight jacket, and a face like a young Sibyl's. „Well,“ continued brother Wilcox,,,he put his hand in his pocket, as if to take out something, and then stretching it to me, he said,,,I want you to give this white pear to Vesta." I felt to take something, though I saw nothing, and a sort of strickling heat ran through me; and even now, when I think of it, I have the same feeling, fainter, but the same. When I got home, I asked Vesta if she knew that young brother. ,,Yea," she said. I put my hand in my pocket and took it out again, to all earthly seeming as empty as it went in, and stretched it out to her. ,,Oh, a white pear!" she said. ,,As I hope for salvation, every word that I tell you is true," concluded the old man. It was evident he believed every word of it to be true. The incredulous may imagine that there was some clandestine intercourse between the ,,young brother" and ,,young sister," and that simple old brother Wilcox was merely made the medium of a fact or sentiment, symbolized by the white pear. However that may be, it is certain that animal magnetism has penetrated into the cold and dark recesses of the Shakers. THE COUNTRY COUSIN. Christian, friend, and benefactress, no fiery revolutionist ever so well illustrated the generous doctrine of equality; for hers was the perfect standard of rectitude, and every one who needed the tender charities of life from her, was,,her brother and her sister." Forgive her then, gentle reader, a slight contempt of republican manners, and a little pride in her titled ancestry and noble English relatives. Like most old people, Mrs. Tudor talked always of the past, and the friends of her youth. Her grandfather, whose pet she had been sixty years since, was her favourite topic. Her stories began with ,,My dear grandfather, Lord Moreland" ,,Lord Moreland" was the invariable sequence. But this was an innocent vanity, and should not cast a shade over my honoured friend's memory. The only evil attending this foible, so ill adapted to our country, was that it had infected her granddaughter, my friend Isabel Williamson. Isabel, at the period of which I write, was a beautiful girl of eighteen, an only child, and as such cherished and caressed, but not spoiled by her parents and grandmother. Nothing could spoil so frank and generous a disposition, so nobleminded a creature. But Isabel was touched with the family taint of pride. She had a feeling very closely bordering on contempt for every thing American, and, though born in the city of New York, though her mother and her maternal ancestors were American, she always called herself English, preferred all English usages, however ill suited to our state of society, had some pretty affectations of Angl ican phraseology, imported her dresses, hats, shoes, from England, employed English teachers, and preferred English men and admirers. SOMEWHERE between twenty and thirty years ago there is, alas! a period when accurate dates become a sort of memento mori, we, or rather I - for, like a late popular writer, we detest that reviewer in the abstract, the,,cold, and critical," and pompous we I was on a visit to a friend of my parents who resided in New York, Mrs. Reginald Tudor. She was an English woman by birth, but had long been a resident in this country, and, though of a noble family, and educated with aristocratic preju- At the time I was with her, her parents dices, she was, in all acts of kindness, con- were away from home on a long absence, descension, and humanity, a Christian; and and during my visit her cousin Lucy Atwell is not Christianity the foundation, the essence arrived in town from ,the West." ,, The of republicanism? Her instincts were aristo- West," a designation that has removed with cratic, or those principles of conduct that our emigrants to Missouri, then meant one are so early inculcated and acted on that of the middle district counties of the state they become as impulsive and powerful as of New York. Lucy came, consigned for instincts; but when a deed of kindness was life, to Isabel's parents. She was a meek, to be done, she obeyed the levelling law of timid, country girl, of about seventeen, made the religion of universal equality. As Mrs. an orphan by sudden bereavement, and by Reginald Tudor, the lady of polite society, an accumulation of misfortunes left pennyshe was versed and strict in all artificial less. This was an irresistible appeal to Isadistinctions and nice observances; but as a bel's heart. ,Grandmamma," she said to |