white with an infant in her arms, gliding noiselessly over the graves and tombstones. But he looked more stedfastly-and it was nothing. He knew it was nothing; but he was terrified; and he turned his face away from the church-yard. The old servant advanced towards him and he feared to look him in the face, lest he should know that his wife was a corpse. "Life or death?" at length he found power to utter. "My honoured lady lives, but her son breathed only a few gasps-no heir, no heir. I was sent to tell you to come quickly to my lady's chamber." In a moment the old man was alone, for, recovering from the torpidity of fear, his master had flown off like an arrow, and now with soft footsteps was stealing along the corridor towards the door of his wife's apartment. But as he stood within a few steps of it, composing his countenance and strengthening his heart, to behold his beloved Anna lying exhausted, and too probably ill,-ill indeed, his own mother, like a shadow, came out of the room, and not knowing that she was seen, clasped her hands together upon her breast, and lifted up her eyes with an expression of despair, exclaimed, as in a petition to God, "Oh! my poor son!-my poor son! what will become of him!" She looked forward, and there was her son before her, with a face like ashes, tottering and speechless. She embraced and supported him—the old and feeble supported the young and the strong. “I am blind, and must feel my way; but help me to the bedside that I may sit down and kiss my dead wife. I ought to have been there, surely, when she died." The lady was dying, but not dead. It was thought that she was insensible, but when her husband said, "Auna-Anna!" she fixed her hitherto unnoticing eyes upon his face, and moved her lips as if speaking, but no words were heard. He stooped down and kissed her forehead, and then there was a smile over all her face, and one word, "Farewell!" At that faint and loving voice he touched her lips with his, and he must then have felt her parting breath; for when he again looked on her face, the smile upon it was more deep, placid, stedfast, than any living smile, and a mortal silence was on her bosom that was to move no more. They sat together, he and his mother, looking on the young, fair, and beautiful dead. Sometimes he was distracted, and paced the room raving, and with a black and gloomy aspect. Then he sat down perfectly composed, and looked alternately on the countenance of his young wife, bright, blooming, and smiling in death; and on that of his old mother, pale, withered, and solemn in life. As yet he had no thoughts distinct of himself. Overwhelming pity for one so young, so good, so beautiful and so happy, taken suddenly away, possessed his disconsolate soul; and he would have wept with joy to see her restored to life, even although he were to live with her no more, though she were utterly to forget him; for what would that be to him, so that she were but alive! He felt that he could have borne to be separated from her by seas, or by a dungeon's walls; for in the strength of his love he would have been happy, knowing that she was a living being beneath heaven's sunshine. But in a few days is she to be buried!-And then was he forced to think upon himself, and his utter desolation, changed in a few hours from a too perfect happiness, into a wretch whose existence was an anguish and a curse. At last he could not sustain the sweet, sad, beautiful sight of that which was now lying stretched upon his marriage-bed; and he found himself passing along the silent passages, with faint and distant lamentations meeting his ear, but scarcely recognized by his mind, until he felt the fresh air, and saw the grey dawn of morning. Slowly and unconsciously he passed on into the woods, and walked on and on, without aim or object, through the solitude of awakening nature. He heard or heeded not the wide ringing songs of all the happy birds; he saw not the wild flowers beneath his feet, nor the dew diamonds that glittered on every leaf of the motionless trees. The ruins of a lonely hut on the hill-side were close to him, and he sat down in stupefaction, as if he had been an exile in some foreign country. He lifted up his eyes, and the sun was rising, so that all the eastern heaven was tinged with the beautifulness of joy. The turrets of his own ancestral mansion were visible among the dark unbrage of its ancient grove; fair were the lawns and fields that stretched away from it towards the orient light, and one bright bend of the river kindled up the dim scenery through which it rolled. His own family estate was before his eyes, and as the thought rose within his heart," all that I see is mine," yet felt he that the poorest beggar was richer far than he, and that in one night he had lost all that was worth possessing. He saw the church tower, and thought upon the place of graves. "There will she be buried, there will she be buried," he repeated with a low voice, while a groan of mortal misery startled the little moss-wren from a crevice in the ruin. He rose up and the thought of suicide entered into his sick heart. He gazed on the river, and murmuring aloud in bis hopeless wretchedness, said, "Why should 1 not sink into a pool and be drowned? But oh! Anna, thou who wert so meek and pure on earth, and who art now bright and glorious in heaven, what would thy sainted and angelic spirit feel if I were to appear thus lost and wicked at the judgement-seat?" A low voice reached his ear, and, looking round, be beheld his old, faithful, white-headed servant on his knees,-him who had been his father's foster-brother, and who, in the privilege of age and fidelity and love to all belonging to that house, had followed him unregarded,had watched him as be wrung his hands, and had been praying for him to God while he continued sitting in that dismal trance upon that mouldering mass of ruins. "Oh! my young master pardon me from being here-I wished not to overhear your words; but to me you have ever been kind, even as a son to his father-Come, then, with the old man, back into the hall, and forsake not your mother who is sore afraid." They returned, without speaking, down the glens, and through the old woods, and the door was shut upon them. Days and nights passed on, and then a bell tolled; and the church-yard, that had sounded to many feet, was again silent. The woods around the hall were loaded with their summer glories; the river flowed on in its brightness; the smoke rose up to heaven from the quiet cottages; and nature continued the same,-bright, fragrant, beautiful, and happy. But the hall stood uninhabited; the rich furniture now felt the dust; and there were none to gaze on the pictures that graced the walls. He who had been thus bereaved went across seas to distant countries, from which his tenantry, for three springs, expected his return; but their expectations were never realized, for he died abroad. His remains were brought home to Scotland, according to a request in his will, to be laid by those of his wife; and now they rest together, beside the same simple monument. THE DIORAMA. Dost thou love pictures? we will fetch thee straight And Cytherea all in sedges hid; Which seem to move and wanton with her breath, 22 Shakespeare. We never intended to devote the pages of our little collection to the passing events of the day, nor do we profess ourselves connoisseurs of painting, but, as lovers of the fine arts, we are not able to refrain from expressing the pleasure we derived on paying a visit last week to the Diorama, Regent's Park, to view the Ruins of Holyrood Chapel, and Chartres Cathedral. The artist of Holyrood Chapel has imparted to his great work, a character of" solemnity, and a melancholy interest, which at once exalt and refine the feelings of the beholder, and make him even in a crowd, companionless and lonely. Suddenly introduced to this scene from the busy world outside, we feel, in the devotion of the moment, as though our nature had undergone a perfect change, and that no place could be so consonant to our newly-awakened affections as that where the ruined pile, beautiful in decay, stands like an edifice for spirits to inhabit, or seenis a melancholy, yet touching medium between the darkness of the grave and the feverishness of life. We never beheld any exhibition more strongly calculated to awaken all the emotions of placid contemplation and poetic imaginings;-the mind, surrendered to the genius of the scene, is now scaling the broken arches, grasping the moss-covered fragments, or poring intently over the stony records of buried humanity, to discover whether royal dust, or a more vulgar compound, lies beneath. Mute but determined admiration is universally awakened by the artist, and the critic dies in the enthusiast, or becomes wholly spell-bound under the influence of the grey skies, twinkling stars, and the moon flinging its light across the ruins that Buttress and buttress alternately; There is also a female figure represented in meditation over a shrine, and so exquisitely is she pourtrayed-her fine form, contemplate eye, and placid cheek, that we almost become assured of the reality, and yet feel it would be impiety to attempt to disturb her in order to "shake or make" our own belief. M. Daguerre is the fortunate artist of this beautiful creation-his efforts are most triumphant; and we envy not their stoicism who can behold unmoved the Ruins of Holyrood Chapel. Sir Walter Scott's description of Melrose Abbey involuntarily presented itself to our memory; and as the poet counsels his readers to behold Melrose, so do we earnestly advise ours to visit Holyrood, little doubting that they will fully enter into our admirationAnd home returning, soothly swear, Never was sight so sad and fair.' DUTCH SUBLIME. IN the seventeenth century, among other paintings that adorned the great church at Haerlem, was one of "Abraham offering up his son Isaac," which in every respect but the design exceeded all the rest; but that was of true Dutch invention,for Abraham was represented as shooting Isaac with a pocket pistol, when just as it was about to be discharged, a little Cherub descends and makes water in the pan. THE FIRST-BORN. NEVER did music sink into my soul So "silver sweet," as when thy first weak wail |