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' ne summer, sad to me the same, A lover to my sister came, And asked to make his own, her name, A wife was soon, but still I claim, " Sally and I." I rundn, July 4, 18GB. .M _ . . DREAM-HAUNTED. I HAD taken a lease of Gledhills of my ■ •end Mi. Lomond. The latter, before he • v 'Ub! consider the business settled, insist ; upon my sleeping one night at Gledhills. hhsou and his wife, who have charge of e house, will find you a tolerable dinner, and make you up a comfortable bed. I will walk over iu the morning at ten and we you ; and then, if you are still iu the vuue mind that you are iu now, I will have tin- agreement drawn up at once, and you van enter upon your occupancy the follow ing day.'' lhe autumu day was drawing to a close when I found myself walking up the av ' iiue toward the old mansion at Gledhills. in old man answered my summons at the lie bowed respectfully at sight of iv, and informed me that Mr. Lomond had ■ fit word that I was about to dine and •■•-Tp at Gledhills, and that everything ■'•AS prepared for my reception. As 1 'js.sed the threshold the great door closed ; nd me with a dull, heavy crash, that '•Luted through every corner of the house, - : awoke a foreboding echo in my heart. •D eded by my ancient guide, whom age rheumatism had bent almost double, I 'SH'd the desolate-looking entrance-hall, up the grand staircase, and so "gh a pair of folding doors into the -iwing-room, beyond which was a suit of •mailer rooms, of which two had now been apart for my service. How chill and ' '•rli-83 every thing looked in the cold o'it ol the dying day ! Now that the amour of sunshine rested no longer on 'J' 1 nee, my fancy refused to invest any • those bare, desolate rooms with the asant attributes of home ; and already, v secret mind, I half repented my fa •'" eagerness in being so willing to ac "PL without further experience, this worm 't n old mansion, tenanted, doubtless, by " ghosts of a hundred dead-and-gone Ks . as a shelter for my household gods, me for all that I held dear 011 earth. iiie two rooms set aside for me I found He comfortably furnished, in a neat but a pensive style ; but when I understood in the old man that ever since the death the last tenant, three years before, they id been furnished and set aside, ready for reception of any chance visitors, like ••'-•If, who, either by their own wish or •it "f Mr. Lomond, might decide to pass 1 night at Gledhills, and that three or four w Mild-he occupants before me had so slept ■i re a night each, and had gone on their vend ways next morning, never to be "ii under that roof again, 1 began to •i'k that there mighjt perhaps be some <'g more in Mr. Lomond's stipulation in was visible on the surface. Having dined, and done ample justice to Lomond's claret, and being possessed . M 'iue measure by the demon of unrest, k 1113- cigar and strolled along the cor ri,K aad so came into the great Qipty drawing-room, in which the moon " "us were now pla\ r ing a ghostly game ude-and-seek. It was uucarpeted and -titute of furniture, and its oaken floor Aed and groaned beneath my tread, as "gh it were burdened with some dread ■•'Tret which it would fain reveal, but not. Outside each of the three loug, fit? V w " l^ows with which the room was a'ted was a small balcony, below which E. O. GOODRICH, Publisher. VOLUME XXVII. stretched a velvety expanse of lawn, set here and there with a gay basket of flow ers, the whole being shut iu by a clump of sombre firs. I have said that the room was destitute of furniture, but I found after a time that it still contained one relic of its more prosperous days, in the shape of a lamily portrait, which still hung over the mantle-piece, as it had hung for half a cen tury or more. When I became aware of this fact I fetched one of the caudles out of my sitting-room, in order that I might examine the picture more closely. It was a full-length portrait of a man in the mili tary costume that was in vogue toward the end of last century. The face was very handsome, with a proud, resolute beauty of its own, that would have been very attrac tive but for a vague, repellent something —a hint of something tiger-like and cruel lurking under the surface of that artificial smile, which the artist had caught with rare fidelity, and had fixed on the canvass forever. It must have been something in the better traits of the countenance that taught me to see a likeness to Mr. Lomond; and I could only conclude that the portrait before me was that of some notable ances tor of the present master of Gledhills. The fatigues of the day and the solitude to which I was condemned drove me to bed at an early hour ; but there was some thing about the novelty of my position that precluded sleep for a long time after I had put out my light, and I remember heading some clock strike twelve while I was still desperately wide awake, but that is the last thing I do remember, and I sup pose that I must have slid iff to sleep a few minutes later, while still in the act of asseverating to myself that to sleep there was for me an impossibility. Whether I had slept for hours or for minutes only, when I woke up in the weird laud of dreams is a point on which I can offer no opinion. I awoke to that consciousness which is possessed by dreamers, and which, in many cases, is quite as vivid as the conscious ness of real life ; but throughout the strange, wild drama that followed I was without any individuality of my own ; I had all the consciousness of a spectator without the responsibility of one. I was nothing ; I had no existence in my own dream ; I was merely the witness of cer tain imaginary occurrences, which took place without any reference to me, and which I was powerless to prevent or influ ence in the slightest degree. Before me was the drawing-room at Gled hills—l recognized it at once by the por trait of the soldier over the fire-place. The walls, painted of a delicate sea-green, were hung with numerous pictures and engrav ings j# rich frames A thick Aubusson carpet covered the floor, and in the huge fire-place a wood fire, that had nearly burn ed itself down to was slowly expir ing. The furniture was chintz-covered, and curtains" of chintz draped the three high narrow windows. Standing in one corner, between the quaintly-carved legs of a mahogany chiffonier, was a tall Man darin jar, with an open-work lid, from which was exhaled a faint indescribable perfume, as of the bruised sweetness of a hundred flowers ; in the opposite corner stood a harp ; books richly bound were scattered about the room, which was light ed by a number of wax-candles fixed in lustres over the mantel-piece. Seated at a little fancy-table was a girl, eighteen or twenty 3'eurs old, making-be lieve to be busj' with her embroidery, but with a mind evidently preoccupied by some more important subject. She had on a short-waisted white dress, after the fashion of those days, from which her long narrow skirts fell away in sedate folds, utterly guiltless.of all modern modes of extension of circumference. Her face was beautiful, aud she had the air of a person quite con scious of that fact ; but underlying this charm of regular features there was some thing resolute and proud, that carried the mind back, as by an instinct, to the por trait over the fire-place. She had loosened the thick masses of her chestnut hair, and they now fell low down over her shoulders, confined only by a narrow baud of blue velvet. Round her neck was a thin chain of gold, from which hung a locket, which she drew every now and then from the bo som of her dress, and pressed with fever ish eagerness to her lips. The same impa tience was visible in the way in which she would put a few quick stitches into her em broidery, and then pause, with the needle in her fingers, to listen intently, and so lapse into a dreamy, absent mood, out of which she would wake up in a minute or two with a start, and begin to ply her needle again as restlessly as before. That something for which she was so im patiently waiting came at last—a low, clear, peculiar whistle, heard by me so dis tinctly through the midst of my dream, aud remembered so well when I awoke that I could afterward reproduce it exactly. The young lady started to her feet the moment the signal fell on her ear. Her eyes flash ed with a newer radiance : her soft lips pouted into a smile ; while from her bosom upward a lovely flush spread swiftly, as though Eros had touched her that instant with his torch, and already the celestial flame were coursing through her veins. A brief minute she stood thus, like a lovely statue of Expectancy ; then she hurried to one of the windows, and drawing aside the long chintz curtain, she placed a lighted candle close to the window as an answer ing signal. Then, having withdrawn the candle and replaced the curtain, so that the window from the outside would seem quite dark again, she left the room, to return presently with a ladder of thin rope, to which were affixed two hooks of steel.— | Her next proceeding was to lock the three ! doors which opened into the drawing-room, | and having thus secured herself from in | trtision, she passed oat of sight behind one ! of the curtains ; and then I heard the faint sound of a window being cautiously lifted, and I knew, as well as though the whole scene was visible to me, that she was fix ing the rope-ladder to the balcony by means of its hooks, and that presently her lover would be with her. And so it fell out. A little while, and the curtain was lifted ; the lady came back into the room ; and following close upon her steps came a tall stranger, dark aud handsome, like a true hero of romance. " My darling Lenore !" " My dearest V arrel 1" He took her in his arms, and stooped, and kissed her fondly ; and then he drew her to the light, aud gazed down into her eyes, in which nothing but love for him was then visible, and then he stooped again and kissed her not less tenderly than be fore. His roquelaure and hat had fallen to the ground, and he now stood revealed a man if fashion of the period. As before stated, he was eminently good-looking, with languishing black eyes, and a pensive smile such as one usually endows Romeo with in imagination. He wore his hair without parting of any kind, in a profusion of short, black, glossy curls, in which there was no trace of the elaboration of art, and he was clean-shaven, except for a short whisker that terminated half-way down his | cheek. He wore a blue coat with gilt but tons, swallow-tailed, short in the waist, and high-collared. His waistcoat was bright yellow us to color, cross d with a small black stripe ; a huge seal depended from the fob of his black small-clothes ; and the Hessian boots in which his lower extremities were encased were polished to a marvelous degree of brilliancy. His cravat, white and unstarched, and tied with a large bow, was made of hue, soft muslin; and the frilled bosom of his shirt had been carefully crimped by conscientious feminine fingers. In this frill he wore a small clus ter of brilliants ; while a large signet ring, a genuine antique, decorated the first finger of his right hand. Such was the appearance of Sir Derwent Varrel; and absurd as a costume like his would now seem on the classic fhrgs of Bond Street or St. James's, it yet became the baronet admirably, while he iu return lent it a grace and distinction which made it seem the only attire proper for a gentle man. " Why did you not come last night ?" said Lenore. " Hour after hour I waited for you in vain." " 'Twas not my fault, dearest, that I did not ; of that rest well assured," answered Varrel. " Business that brooked not de- ' lay kept me from your side. 1 was hugely chagrined." " That weary, weary business 1" sighed Lenore. " 'Tis ever men's excuse. But ! now that you are here, I will not be inel- i ancholy. Ah, that I could be forever by your side !" She nestled her head shyly on his bosom i He stroked her chestnut hair softly with i his white hand, and looked down 011 her I with a crafty and sinister smile—such a smile as might light up the face of a fowl- i er when he see the fluttering innocent j which he has been doing his best to entice ! begin to turn longingly toward the snare. | " Little simpleton !" he replied, pulling | her ear. " You speak as if what you long j for were impossible of attainment : where- I as one word from you would make it a bliss ful certainty, and render two loving hearts happy forever." " I can not, Varrel—l cannot say that J word. Ah, why does my father dislike you so much ?" "My faith ! how should I know ? But i not the word, little one. You should ask, why does he hate me so intensely ? There are those who gladly calumniate me, and for such he has ever a ready ear ; for I am j unfortunate enough to have many enemies, | and doubtless twice as many faults." " No, no, I will not hear such language,' exclaimed Lenore. "In time my father will relent, and then—" " Never, girl !" said Varrel, fiercely.— " Colonel Lomond is not made of melting stuff. His hatred of me he will carry with him to the grave. Never look for change in him. Sweet one," he added, changing his tone in a moment to one of low-breath ing, imploring tenderness—" sweet one, as I have told thee before, both thy fate and mine are dependent on a single word from those rosy lips. Be mine, in spite of every one ! lam rich and can supply thy every want. We will go abroad ; and in some lovely Italian valley, or fair isle of the eastern seas, we will forget our by-goue troubles, and watch the happy days glide softly past, while rounding our lives to that perfect love which alone can bring back Eden to this weary earth. Oh, Lo nore, dearest and best-loved, flee with me at once and forever !" She was standing by the little table, smiling, trembling, and yet with tears half starting from her lids, while he kneeling on one knee, was covering her hand with pas sionate kisses. " Oh, Varrel, you try me almost beyond my strength j" she murmared. " But I can not, I dare not do as you wish. You know not my father as well as I do. He would seek me out and kill me—and you too, and you too, Derwent ! wherever we might be. His vengeance would be terri ble and pitiless." " Timid little puss !" he said, half scorn fully, as he rose and encircled her waist with his arm. "Am I not competent to protect thee against the world ? Fear noth ''4- For this house of bondage, for this stagnation of heart and soul, 1 will give thee life and light aud love. Thou shalt exchange this—" " Hush !" exclaimed Lenore, suddenly, with a smothered shriek. " I hear my fath er's footfall on the stairs. To the window, Varrel, or you are lost !" One hasty kiss, and then Varrel dashed aside the chintz curtain, and sprang to the window, only to fall back next moment in to the room like a man stricken in the dark " A thousand devils ! I have been betray ed !" he exclaimed. " The rope-ladder is gone, and I see the figures of men moving about the lawn. Lenore, you must hide me 1" " Too late—too late I" she sobbed. They both stood for a moment as though changed to stone, while the footsteps came with a heavy tramp along the echoing cor ridor, aud halted outside the door. The eyes of Lenore and Varrel turned instinc tively to the door-handle, and they saw it move as it was tried from the other side, but the door was still locked. " Open, Lenore—it is I !" said a stern voice from without; aud the summons was emphasized by a heavy blow on the panel of the door. " Oh, Varrel, I dare not disobey 1" said Lenore, in an agonized whisper. " Hide yourself behind the curtains ; perhaps he may not of your presence here ; and when he shall have gone to his own room we must plan your escape. Hush ! not a word. Hide ! bide !" " Why this foolery of locked doors ?" said he who now came in. "Amlto be barred out of my own rooms by a child like you ?' " The night was so dark, and—and I felt so lonely, and—and—" REGARDLESS OF DENUNCIATION FROM ANY QUARTER. TOWANDA, BRADFORD COUNTY, PA., JULY 10, 1866. " And- -and 3*oll did not expect your fath er back so soon ?" he said, mimicking her tone with a sneer. " Is it not so, 3*oll white faced jade ?" " Indeed, papa, I—" pleaded the trem bling Lenore. " llon't prevaricate, girl !" he said, with a savage stamp of' the foot. " Come, now, you will tell me next that you have had 110 visitors—eh ?" " Indeed, 110, papa," said Lenore, with painful cageruess. " Been quite alone ever since I left home j this afternoon ?" "Quite aloue, papa." A faint dash of color was coming hack into her cheeks Il3' this time ; she began, perhaps, to hope that after all this ques tioning his suspicions would be allayed, and he would go to his own room. If such were the cast; his next words must have undeceived her terribl3 r . " Y'ou lie, girl—you lie !" he said, in a voice whose sternness was not without a tremble in it ; and as he spoke he touched Varrel's hat contemptuously with his foot which up to that moment had lain unheed ed 011 the floor. Oh, that child of mine should ever live to deceive me thus !" His clasped hands and upturned face seemed to appeal to Heaven against the falsehood that had just been told him : but uext in stant the look of anguish died from off his face, and his features settled back into more than their former harshness as he strode across the floor and flung back the curtain, behind whose folds Varrel was concealed. " Behold the proof !" he cried. " Behold the damning proof ! Oh, Lenore !' For a moment the two men stood eying each other in silence. Lenore, with a piti ful cry, fell at her father's feet, but he heed ed her 110 more than if she had been a stone. In the father of Lenore I beheld the orig inal of the picture over the drawing-room mantle-piece ; 01113- he seemed older and more grizzled, and his features more deep- I 3' marked with the carving of Time's chisel than in his portrait. He had on a sort of military undress suit, with a pair of heavy riding-boots and spurs, and a short heav3 r whip in his haifd. " This, Sir Derwent Vcrrel, is an unex pected honor," said Colonel Lomond, in a tone of unconcealed irony, as he made the baronet a sweeping and ceremonious bow. " Pray—pray let me beg of 3 t OU to emerge from an obscurity so uncongenial to one of 3 T our enterprising disposition. That is bet ter, Lenore, child ; let us have a little more light on the scene—it is a pleasure to look 011 the face of an honest man--and we may, perchance, need it all before we have done. More light, girl, do .3'ou hear ! And now, perhaps, Sir Derwent Varrel will favor us with some explanation—an 3', the most sim ple, will, of course, do for me—of how lie came to he hidden, like a common thief, be hind the curtains of m 3' drawing-room " Varrel's pule olive cheek flushed decpl3' ; at this little speech, and a dangerous light began to glitter in his eyes as he stepped out of his hiding-place, and advanced into the room. " Colonel Lomond shall have an explana tion as simple as lie desires," he said. Then he stopped to refresh his nerves witli a pinch of snuff. " Y'ou are aware, Sir," he resumed, "that 1 love your daughter ; that several months ago 1 would fain have made her ni3' wife ; j aud that your consent alone was wanting j to such a union." " Precisely so," said Colonel Lomond in i the iciest of tones, as he balanced the handle of his riding-whip between his thumb and finger. " You might prevent our marriage, Sir, hut 3'ou could not keep us from loving one another," said Sir Derwent, proudly. " In other words, my daughter had still sufficient respect left for me to refuse to wed 3*ou without 013* consent ; butyou had j not sufficient respect for her to refrain from j using your influence over her weak girl's i will to induce her to deceive her father, j and consent to nocturnal assignations with a, libertine like yourself. Love ! The word i is sullied iu coming from sucli lips as 3'ours. j You aud I, Sir Derwent Varrel, had high j words together six months ago, and I told j you then that I would rather see my daugh- j ter lying in her coflin than wedded to such j a one as you ; and those words I repeat! again to-night. Come hither, girl," he ad- i ded, seizing Lenore roughty by the wrist, " come hither, and choose at once and for ever between me anil this man, who has taught thee to lie to thy father. What do I say ? Nay, there cau be uo choice be tween such as this man and me. I tell thee, girl, that tfjy ignorance can not fath om the depths of such iniquity as his. A gambler so deepl3' tainted that in 110 socie t> r of gentlemen is he allowed to pla3 r ; a libertine so vile, that to couple a woman's name with his is a passport to dishonor ; a sharper and blackleg, who has been twice hooted off the Newmarket course ; a bank rupt so involved that onl3* by a wealthy marriage—with such a one, for example, as the heiress of Gledhills-acau he hope even partially to retrieve his for tunes. Bah ! what can thy country-bred ignorance know of these things ?" " Hard words, Colonel Lomond, very hard words," said Sir Derwent, " but, I am happy to think, utterly incapa ble of proof." " Hard words ! ay, hard euough to have moved an innocent man to righteous anger, but not, as it seems, to flutter thy slow beating pulses ever so because thou knowest them to be true.— Here's one out of a dozen. Who lured sweet Mary Doris from her home in ynnder valley, and her away in London past the finding of her friends ? Who held the sim ple village beaut 3' lightly for a month or two, and then discarded her to starve or die as she might think best ? Who but you, Sir Derwent Vearel, unless this letter also lies—a letter signed with 3'our name, aud found in the poor child's pocket when she la3 r with white staring face and dripping hair in the dead-house by the river. And now it is my daughter thou seekest to en trap !" As Colonel Lomond drew from his pocket the letter of which he had been speaking, Lenore, with a low cry of anguish, sank fainting to the floor ; and the horror-strick en Varrel reeled backward like one suddeu ly stabbed. " Reptile ! it is time the score between us were settled," said Colonel Lomond, with a venomous ferocity of tone. " Only one of us two must leave this room alive." " I can not—l dare not fight with you," murmured Varrel. " Oh ho ! do not think to escape me thus. You refuse to fight. Then take the punish ment of cowards." And with that the heavy thong ol Colonel Lomond's riding whip whistled through the air, and came down on Varrel's neck and shoulders twice, twisting round his face on the second occa sion, and leaving a thin livid wale across his cheek where it had cut into the flesh.— Varrel's first impulse was to shrink hack ward with a mingled cry of rage and pain; but the next instant he closed with the Col onel, and wresting the whip from his hands, flung it to the other end of the room. " Give me a sword—a pistol—a weapon of any kind 1" he cried, hoarsely. " This vile treatment absolves me from all conse quences Colonel Lomond, your blood be upon your own head !" The Colonel smiled sweetly on him.— " Well spoken," he said, " onty that you express yourself somewhat after the Furi oso fashion. Your cry to arms is worth of all praise, and I hasten to comply with it. In this cabinet, Sir, are a couple of as pret ty pla3'thing6 as ever gladdened the eyes of a gentleman. Voila ! they are both alike in every particular. The choice is yours." Varrel's fingers closed over the hilt of one of the rapiers thus presented to him ; and while he tried its edge and temper, by running his finger and thumb appreciative ly along its length, and by bending its point hack nearly to the hilt, Colonel Lo mond disembarrassed himself of the cum brous over-coat in which he was enveloped; aud the next minute the two men fronted each other. " Gardez-vous, Monsieur !" cried Colonel Lomond as he made the first pass. It was thoroughly understood by both of them that they were fighting for dear life —that neither of them must look for mercy from the other. Both of them were excel lent swordsmen, hut Sir Derwent had the advantages of youth and ag-ility on his side, and he pressed the Colonel hardty, who, while keeping up his defense warily, yet felt himself compelled to retreat step by step before the desperate lunges of his antagonist. The clash of the swords seemed to rouse Lenore from the stupor into which she had fallen. With her hands pressed to her temples, and with glaring eyeballs, that followed every movement of the comba tants, she staggered to her feet. Her lips moved, but no sound came from them. Perhaps she was asking herself whether it were not all a hideous nightmare, which the first breath of reality would dissipate forever. With the same mingled look of horror and unbelief on her face she watched the two men coming slowly down the room again, for Colonel Lomond was still slight ly overborne by his more youthful antago nist. The rapiers clashed together ; bright sparks Hew from their polished blue-black surface, as they struck each other, and bent and quivered like things of life in the grasp of the sinewy hands that held them. The combatants were just opposite the spot where the half-demented Lenore was standing like one incapable of motion, when suddenly, at a movement in tierce, the point of Colonel Lomond's rapier snap ped off; an advantage which Varrel in stantly followed up with a dexterous stroke, which sent the Colouol's broken weapon flying across the room. Lenore, with the quick instinct of love, divined her father's danger ; and the same moment that the ra pier was twisted out of his hand she sprang forward with a wild inarticulate cry to shield him with her bod - from what she knew must follow, and the sword of Varrel, aimed at her father's heart with all the strength which hate and the desire of ven geauce could lend to such a thrust, passed instead |through the body of the hapless girl. Her father's arms caught her as she was falling. "Papa—kiss—forgive," she murmured in his ear ; then a stream of blood burst from her lips, she shuddered and was dead. Colonel Lomond pressed his quivering lips tenderl3 T on her forehead ; then lifting her in his arms, he carried her to a couch. "Lie there for a little while, sweet, foolish darling," he said. " Perhaps I may join thee on thy journey before long." Varrel, who was like a man half-crazed, would have rung for help,but Colonel Lo mond, a gesture, forbade him to do so. " You and I, Sir," said the Colonel, "have still our little business to arrange." " Great Heaven ! what would you more ?" exclaimed Sir Derwent. " Revenge my daughter's death !" said Lomond. " Her death was a pure accident." " Granted. She died to save my life, anil that life I now devote to avenging her memory. What I said before I say again —only one of us two shall quit this room alive. Here are two pistols : one of them is loaded, the other is unloaded. Choose one of them. In three minutes that clock on the chimney-picce will strike the hour. At the first stroke we will fire across this table ; and may Heaven have mercy on the soul of one of us !" " It would be murder 1" said Varrel, in a low voice, whil ■ a cold sweat broke out on his ashen face. "Callitb3 r what name you will," said Lomond ; " but as I h.ve said, so it shall be. Dare to refuse, and by the great Fiend of Darkness, whose true son you are, I will thrash you with yonder whip within an inch of your life, and send you forth in to the world branded forever as a coward and a rogue !" Sir Derwent wiped the prespiration off his forehead with his lace-bordered hand ; kerchief, and his dry lips moved in faint i protest. His courage was beginning to • waver. The slow, patient ferocity of his | enemy was not without its effect upon him. " Choose 1" said Colonel Lomond, as he laid a brace of pistols on the table. Varrel hesitated for an instant which to pick, aud Lomond smiled, grimly. No fresh arrange ment of position was necessiuy, the 3' being on opposite sides of the table, on which poor Lenore's embroidery was still lying, as she had cast it aside in the first flutter of hearing her lover's signal. " Colonel Lomond, I must make a last protest agaiut the blood - business," said j Varrel. Again the Colonel smiled. "Iu ten sec onds," he said, "the clock will strike. Be ready." There was a great contrast betwen the two men as they stood thus, fronting what for one of them must be inevitable death. #3 per Annum, in Advance. Colonel Lomond's bronzed cheek looked even darker than usual, and his eyes seem ed to burn with intense hate as he stood gazing at his antagonist from under his lowering brows ; but his extended arm was firm as a bar of steel. Varrel was ev idently nervous. Ilis lips had faded to a dull bluish white ; he pressed one'hand to his chest occasionally, as if to still the throbbing of the heart beneath ; while the other, which held the pistol, trembled slightly in spite of him. Four seconds—three seconds—two sec onds. The deathly brooding stillness that pervaded the room was something awful. One second. The silvery bell of the little French clock had not completed its first stroke before the two triggers were pulled. A flash, a report, aud gush ,of smoke from one of the weapons, and Sir Derwent Var rel, shot through the heart, fell back dead. "So perishes a thorough scoundrel!" said Colonel Lomond as he gazed into the face of his dead enemy. Suddenly a door opened, and showed a very old lady, with white hair, and clad in a white dressing-robe, standing in the en trance. From the movements of her hands you understood at once that she was blind, or nearly so. " Henry ! Henry ! where are you ?" she j cried. "Some one fired a pistol just now. Oh, tell me that you are not hurt !" and she advanced a step or two into the room. A spasm of anguish passed over the face of Colonel Lomond. "I am here and well, mother," he said. "Pray, return to your 0u n room. lam sorry to have disturbed you." "And Lenore," said the old lady, plain tively, "why has not Lenore been to kiss [ me, and say goodnight ? Has the child gone to bed ?" " Lenore is asleep, mother," said the Colonel, in a whisper. "We must not dis-1 turb her. She shall come to you in the morning." " Strange—strange," murmured the old lady ; "she never forgot me before and with that she turned and went slowly away, groping with her hands before her : j anp the Colonel, falling on his knees, bur- j ied his face in the white dress of his dead j daughter. At which point the whole ma chinery of my dream dissolved away, and 1 awoke. There was 110 more sleep for me that night. So lifelike and vivid was my ex traordinary dream, so much did it seem like a part of my own personal experience, that the eflect left by it on my mind was not lightly to be shaked off. Lenore's wild cry as she flung herself into her father's j arms, the voices of Varrel and Lomond in angry dispute, seemed still to echo in my brain ; and 1 felt that every miuute inci dent of that terrible tragedy must hence-1 forth be, as it were, a part of my own life. I Impelled by some vague feeling wliick I could not resist, I quitted my bedroom, | and wandered, half-dressed, into the great ; desolate drawing-room, the scenej of all j the strange incidents of my dream. The i ghostly splendor of the moonlight filled it , no longer; it was as cold, dark, and silent, j as some vast tomb. As I stood in the | doorway, longing, and yet afraid to enter, a gust of ni..ht-wiud sweeping up the val ley rattled the windows of the old mansion; I and what seemed like a low, responsive j sigh, came to me out of the gloom, a sigh i so unutterably sad, that, with a shudder, I 1 stepped backward and shut the door. I was very glad when ten o'clock came, and brought Mr. Lomond, punctual to the minute. "It is only what 1 expected," he said, when I had given him an outline of my singular dream ; "and I may now tell you, Sir, that precisely the same dream which impressed you so strongly last night 1 is dreamed by every one, no matter w T ho ! they may be, the first time they sleep at Gledhills, and never afterward ; and this Curse—for I may truly call it by that name j -—has hung over the house from the night on which the tragedy, which you witnessed only in imagination, was worked out in all j its dismal realitj' within these walls. You will now understand why I requested you , to sleep one night at Gledhills before final-' ly deciding that you would take the house; and it remains for you to consider whether j you wife, whose health you say is delicate, j could undergo such an ordeal as she would assuredly have to pass through the first j night of her sojourn under this roof." 1 decided that she could not endure the 1 trial, and gave up Gledhills. THE BF.6T RECOMMENDATION.— A youth seeking employment came to New York city, and on inquiring at a certain count ing-room if they wished a clerk, was told they did not. On mentioning the recom mendations that he had, one of which was from a highly respected citizen, the mer chant desired to see them. In turning over his carpet-bag to find his letters, a book rolled out on the floor. " What book is that ?" said the mer chant. " It is the Bible, sir," was the reply. " And what are you going to do with j that book in New York ?" The lad looked seriously into the mer- j chant's face, and replied, " I promised my i mother I would read it every day, and I shall do it." The merchant immediately engaged his j services, and in due time he became a part- ; ner iu the firm—one of the most respecta- ! ble in the city. m There must be something (says Pr. | Livingstone) in the appearance of white men frightfully repulsive to the unsophis ticated natives of Africa : for on entering villages previously unvisited by Europeans j if we met a child coming quietly and un- j suspectingly toward us, the moment he ! raised his eyes and saw the men in ' bags,' j he would take to his heels in an agony of terror, such as we might feel if we met a live Egyptian mummy at the door of the British Museum. Alarmed by the child's wild out-cries, the mother rushes out of her hut,but darts back again at the first glimpse of the same fearful apparition. Dogs turn tail, and scour (off in dismay ; hens aban don their chickeus aud fly screaming to the tops of the houses. The so late peaceful village becomes a scene of confusion and hubbub until calmed by the laughing as surance of our men that white people do not eat black folks ; a joke having oftentimes greater effect in Africa than assertions. Some of our young swells, on entering an African village, might expect a collapse of self-inflation, at the sight of all the pretty girls fleeing from them as from hideous can nibals, or by witnessing, as we have done, the conversion of themselves into public hobgoblins, the maininas holding naughty children away from them, and sayiug, " Be good, or I shall call the white man to bite you." TAKEN AT IIIS WORD. —A few years ago, says the Schenectady Sun, when it was the custom of large girls and larger boys to attend district schools, an incident took place in a neighboring town which is worth recording. One of the fairest and plump est girls oi the school happeued to violate one of the teacher's rules. The master, a prompt, energetic fellow of twenty-five, summoned her into the middle of the floor. After interrogating the girl for a few mo ments, he thundered out:—"Will you give me your hand ?" "Yes, sir ; and my heart, too," promptly responded the girl, at tlie same time Btretching forth her nand to the master, and eying hirn with a cunning look A death-like silence reigned for a moment in the school ; a tear was seen to glisten in the master's eye ; the ruler was laid up on the desk, and the blushing girl was re quested to take her seat, but to remain af ter the school was dismissed. In three weeks after the school was finished, the teacher and girl were married. A REMINISCENCE. —In the month of Feb ruary, 1861, says the Johnstown Tribune, when the mutterings of the coming civil strife were borne to the North upon every Southern breeze, and two months before the bursting of the war cloud at Sumptcr, the writer of this met John W. Geary, then a farmer of Westmoreland county, at Ebeusburg, and had the pleasure of spend ing an evening in his room. In the course of a long conversation the approaching war was mentioned. We shall never for get the earnestness with which Colonei Geary, then a Douglas Democrat, spoke ol that most anxious and exciting subject, jHe said that Abraham Lincoln had been fairly elected to the highest office in the gift of the people ; that the South had no cause for attempting to dissolve the Union; and that, if all efforts at conciliation should fail, he would take his boy and enter the military service of his country, in defence of the Union, the Constitution and laws. How well he kept his word all his country men know. His brave boy fell in the j Southwest, pierced by a rebel bullet, ami t John W. Geary himself bears upon his per son to-day the scars of a severe wound re ceived on one of the hardest fought battle fields of Virginia. How much his example aided in rallying the Democratic party ol 1801 around the old flag needs not to be told. The country can never honor too J much those prominent leaders of the old Democratic party —the Butlers, the Logans, the Gearys—who, iu the darkest hour ol our country's history, threw the weight of their example and their influence into the scale iu behalf of the noblest cause that ever enlisted the hearts and valor of men. A GENTLEMAN, once upon a time, entered a small shop in which vegetables were kept for sale, and inquired of the proprie tor if he had any onions. " Onions, onions," repeated the puzzled vegetable dealer, " on ions !—no, sir, 1 believe not !" After the gentleman had left, the perplexed vegeta ble man scratched his head for a moment, and then, as if struck with a sudden solu tion of the mystery, he exclaimed—" Won der if the darned ignorant fool didn't mean ingions ?" FUN, FACTS AND FAOETLE, THE lawyer's motto—be brief. The doc tor's motto —be patient. The potter's—be ware The type-setter's—be composed. AN English paper observes : "If some of the speeches of our statesmen do not reach down to posterity it will not he because they are not long enough." The same remark is applicable here. A Portland steamer was found to be go ing astray, on a recent trip from Boston, owing to deviations of her compass. The deviation, it was also found, was caused by the steel hoop skirt of a young lady who wa; in the pilot house, and on her retiring the compass resumed its proper posi tion. WHEN the brave Corporal Uathines was asked, after the battle of Waterloo, if he was not afraid, he replied, "Afraid! why I was in a'the battles of the Peninsula !" And having it explain ed that the question related to a fear of losing the day ; "Na, na ; 1 did na fear that. I was only afraid we should be a' killed before we had time to win it." A story is told of the revenge taken by a Nantucket ship-master against a United .States Consul, who was very rarely found in his office, although upon his sign were these words, "In from ten to one." the indignant captain, after try ing to find the consul several days without suc cess, took a paint brush and altered the official's sign, so that it read, 'Ten to one that he is not in.' A VERY volatile young lord, whose faults were numberless, at last married. "Now, my lord, said his wife, " I hope you'll mend." "Mad am," said he, "this is my last folly." "1 tliiuk I have seen you before, sir,— are you not Owen Smith?" "Oh, yes : I am owin' •Jones, and owin. Brown, and owin' everybody.' WHAT does a telegraph operator do when he receives the heads oi important news ? Waits for de tails of course. "Ah, Mr. Simpkins, we have not chairs enough for company," said a gay wife to her fru gal husband. "Plenty of chairs, my dear, but a little too much company," said he. "WHICH, my dear lady, do you think the merriest place in the world ?" "That immediately- above the atmosphere that surrounds the earth, I should think. " ' 'And why so ?" "Because I am told that there all bodies lose their gravity. THE following definition of the rights of women, is given in a Vermont paper : "To love her lord with all her heart, and her baby as her self—and to make good bread A Western paper strikes the name of two subscribers from its list because they were recently hung. The publisher says he was compelled to be severe, because he did not know their present address. A countryman who was charged with ten gallons of whisky, which a grocer put iu a tight gallon keg. said he "didn't mind the money over charged, so much as he did the strain on the keg." JUDY Bralegau, having been requested to open some oysters, after knocking them about for some time, exclaimed : "Upon my conscience, tut they are mighty peel!" "IF I want a statute of myself,why should I be so foolish to present a sculptor with the mar ble for the work V Because if 1 did, he would be sure to ehizel me out of it'" A subscriber writes to a western editor : "I don't want your paper any longer." To which the editor replies : "I would not make it any lon j ger if you did : its present length suits me very well." A French writer, in describing the tra ding powers of the genuine Yankee, said r "If he was cast away on a desolate island, he'd get up the next morning and go around selling maps to the inhabitants." AN ingenious housekeepor that we have heard of, used to sweep her chimney by letting a rope down, which was fastened round the legs ot a goose, and then pulling the goose after it. A fashionable but ignorant lady,desirous of purchasing a watch, was shown a very beautiful one, the shopkeeper remarked that it went thirty six hours, ''What, iu one day ?" she asked. NUMBER 8.